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Captain Salt in Oz

<h2>CHAPTER 12 Fog</h2> The evening had blown up raw and cold, and after carrying an old tarpaulin down to cover Nikobo, Tandy had come shivering back to the main cabin. Samuel Salt had close reefed his topsails and double reefed his courses, adjusted his mechanical steering gear, and now sat beside the fire examining a heap of the glittering crystals from Alberif's island. "Just sketch Peakenspire Island on the chart, there where I've made the cross," he directed, looking up with an absent smile as the little boy came over to warm himself at the cheerful blaze. "You're such a hand with a brush, even in so small a place you can give a good idea of the City of Bridges." "And a good idea they are," murmured Ato, who was busy mending his fishing nets on the other side of the fireplace. "In every port we learn something new, eh, Mate? All mountains, no matter how high and peaked, could be lived on if they were properly bridged." "True, quite true," agreed Samuel, squinting contentedly through his magnifying glass, while Tandy began sketching in the latest discovery on the sea chart. "I've written it all up in my journal and put down Peakenspire Island as able to accommodate a thousand settlers from Oz and as an especially good place for poets." "Provided they are deaf," put in Ato, looking comically over his specs, "AYE DEE AYE DEE OH! While you fellows were aloft I got to yodeling so fast and furious I blew all the sauce pans off their hooks." "Yes, that is one disadvantage," admitted Samuel, glancing approvingly at Tandy's picture of Alberif's Island, "but never mind, we don't have to live there, and think of the splendid specimens we've brought away, Mates!" Samuel ran his fingers lovingly through the heap of crystals and strands of metal Alberif had given him. "And those fruit and vegetable vines will provision us for the whole voyage." "They're a great comfort to me, I assure you," muttered Ato, holding up his net to the light to see whether there were any more holes. "Now I know Kobo will never starve. I put a vegetable vine in a box on her raft and that leaves two for us, two for Ozma, and maybe Tandy would like to take the other two home with him?" "Home?" Tandy swung round in positive dismay. "Oh—we're not near Ozamaland yet, are we, Captain?" His voice sounded so dismal Samuel Salt threw down his magnifying glass with a roar of merriment. "Shiver my timbers, lad, one would think you did not wish to reach Ozamaland at all," he blustered teasingly. "What's the matter with that country of yours? You wouldn't keep an honest explorer from adding a creeping bird and a flying reptile to his collection, now would ye?" "No! No! Of course not," answered Tandy quickly. "But perhaps it is farther away than you think, Master Salt, and perhaps the Greys have conquered the Whites and then I won't be King any more." <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus70.jpg" width-obs="266" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "What's this? What's this?" Ato lifted his nose like an old hound that has just scented a fox, for he loved a good story even better than he loved a good meal. "Who are the Greys and Whites, my lad? You never told us anything about this." "There's really not much to tell," sighed Tandy, seating himself on a small stool before the fire. "In the first place, I suppose you know that the great continent of Tarara is divided into two large long countries? Ozamaland is on the East Coast and Amaland on the West Coast." "Now I'll just make a note of that," said Samuel Salt, leaning over to pull his journal toward him. "My country," went on Tandy slowly, "is made up largely of desert and jungle, best known for its white elephants and camels and the famous White City of Om, first King and ruler of the Kingdom. The Zamas are fierce and still wild tribesmen living in tents on the desert and in huts in the jungle. Only the thousand Nobles and their families who live in the White City have been taught to read and write and live under roofs. That is why the Kings of Ozamaland are so well guarded and never allowed out of the capital." "Then I'd rather be a tribesman," sniffed Ato, letting his nets drop in a heap around his feet. "But there's no choice," said Tandy thoughtfully. "The nine Ozamandarins who make the laws have decreed that the King shall remain in the White City." "Well, what about these Whites and Greys?" asked Samuel Salt, pulling out his pipe and leaning down close to the fire so Sally could light it for him. "My people, because they dress in white robes and turbans, are known as the Whites, and the Amas, the rough plainsmen who rove the long ranges of Amaland, are the Greys. The Amas care for nothing but their swift grey horses and often charge over the border to make war on my countrymen. Then the Whites, mounted on their white elephants and camels, have all they can do to hold their own." "Aha, that's what I'd call a REAL battle!" exclaimed Ato, his eyes snapping with enthusiasm and interest. Then, noting Samuel's disapproving frown, he pursed up his lips, shook his head and added quickly, "All very wild and disorderly, Tandy, my lad. Seems as if the Whites and Greys should manage their affairs more peaceably." "Yes," said Tandy solemnly, "and I've often thought when I was grown, I'd ride over on my white elephant to visit the Greys and see why they are so unfriendly." "A good idea, and if I were you, I wouldn't wait till I was grown. I'd do it as soon as I got back," advised Samuel Salt, taking a long pull at his pipe. "And very probably get himself cut up and captured," shuddered Ato, shaking his head. "Well, he's been both shut up and captured anyway, hasn't he?" said Samuel mildly. "Now which one of your aunts do you think had you carried off, Matey, and how many aunts do you have anyway?" "Three," Tandy answered, counting them off solemnly on his fingers. "And they were all pretty and pleasant enough; but after the prophecy of the Old Man of the Jungle that I would be carried off by an aunt, they were all locked up in the castle dungeon and I was locked up in the Tower." And, resting his elbows on his knees, Tandy gazed soberly into the fire as if he might discover there the reason for his cruel abduction and imprisonment in the jungle. "If I'd only been awake when I was carried away," he exclaimed impatiently. "They probably gave you a sleeping potion," decided Ato, nodding his head portentously, "but it's such a longish distance, unless this aunt had wings or a flying eagle I'll never understand how she shipped you so far and so fast." "Well, whoever it was did us a real service!" boomed Samuel Salt, twinkling his blue eyes affectionately at Tandy. "Even Peter was no better aboard a ship—eh, Mate?" <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus71.jpg" width-obs="453" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "A real artist and a seaman," agreed Ato, rolling cheerfully to his feet, "and when we reach Ozamaland I'll talk to these aunts like an Octagon uncle, and the Ozamandarins had better hold on to their turbans, too." "But they wear square hats!" roared Tandy, laughing so hard he almost fell off the stool, for he just could not picture the fat King of the Octagon Isle berating the haughty judges of Ozamaland. "What's the joke?" demanded Roger, flying in through the open port and making a straight line for the fire. "Brrr-rah! Wet weather, boys! Wet weather! Oh, what a coldth and dampth and gloomth. Why, I'm moister than an oyster and clammier than a clam. How about a cup of hot chocolate for the Watch, Cook dear? Better see to your sail, Master Salt. Fog's thicker than bean soup out there." "We'll all have some chocolate," said Ato as Samuel hurried out to see how dense the fog really was. Later, sitting by the stove sipping Ato's delicious hot chocolate, Tandy could not help comparing this cozy life aboard the Crescent Moon with his dull and lonely existence in the Royal City of his Fathers. "I wish the Greys would capture the Whites," he thought vindictively, as he followed Roger across the slippery deck. "Then I'd never have to leave this ship." The kind-hearted Read Bird was carrying a pail of hot chocolate down to Nikobo on the raft. She could not get her great snout into the bucket, but she opened her enormous mouth and with one toss Roger poured the whole pail down her throat. "That'll keep her warm till morning," chuckled Roger, flying back to join Tandy, "and now you'd better turn in, little fellow, for you're on morning watch and eight bells will be sounding before you know it!" All through his dreams about the Whites and Greys Tandy heard the raucous voice of the fog horn, and when he rolled sleepily out of his bunk to relieve Ato, the ship seemed to be hardly moving at all. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus72.jpg" width-obs="464" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "Ahoy, Captain! Isn't a fog dangerous?" Tandy's voice seemed more hopeful than worried, and Samuel Salt, peering down at the little boy buttoned to his chin in Peter's old sou'easter, grinned approvingly. "Just about as dangerous as a man-eating tiger," he answered cheerfully. "We're liable to ram a ship, run on the rocks, or scrape our bottom on a hidden reef or sand bar. These waters, as you know, being all unnavigated. But I've brought Sally along to keep my nose warm and throw a bit more light on the subject and we'll have to take our chance—eh, Matey? Just step aft and see if you can make out anything astern, will you, Tandy?" Four o'clock, or rather eight bells, was always pretty dark and one had to depend more or less on the ship's lanterns, but this morning was the darkest Tandy had ever experienced. Clinging to the rail, he moved cautiously to the stern and gazed intently down into the gloom. Nothing an inch beyond his nose was visible and as for the raft and Nikobo, they might just as well not have been there. "Kobo, Kobo, are you all right?" There was no answer to Tandy's call, but presently a huge and resounding snore rolled upward and, greatly comforted, Tandy hurried back to the Captain. Samuel Salt was busy lighting extra lanterns and as he straightened up, a hollow boom, followed by a splintering crash, sent them both sprawling to the deck. Leaping to his feet and unmindful of the glass from the shattered lanterns, Samuel seized an unbroken one and ran furiously to the rail. "Ship ahoy! Heave to! you blasted son of a cuttle-fish lubber! You've rammed us amidships, you blasted Billygoat. Where are your lights? Why didn't ye sound the horn?" His lantern, held far over the rail, made no impression at all on the choking fog. Jumping up and running after Samuel, Tandy strained his eyes for a glimpse of the ship that had hit them, for unmistakably to his ears came the scrape and rasp of wood on wood. Yes, surely it was a ship. But no answer to Samuel's hail came out of the fog, only the swish and murmur of the sea and the rattle of wind in the rigging. But all this creaking could not come from the Crescent Moon alone. There was a ship beyond them in the fog, but where, as Samuel had demanded, were her lights and crew? Wildly Tandy, hardly knowing what to think or do, continued to blink into the maddening darkness. Ato and Roger, wakened by the horrible jolt, now came hurrying out, each waving a lantern. "Let go the anchor, Mates," ordered Samuel in a stern voice, "we're to grips with an enemy ship, so stand by for trouble. Further shortening his sail, Samuel waited tensely for the first move from their invisible foe. "Might be pirates," he whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Tandy, who stood close beside him grasping the scimiter that had once been Peter's. "Jump the first man aboard." "How about a long shot in their general direction?" wheezed Ato, who found the silence and suspense well nigh unbearable. "No, it is not for us to start a fight," stated Samuel grimly. "But hah! Just let them start one! Fetch me my stilts, Roger, and be quick about it, too!" "Stilts?" choked the Read Bird, dropping the blunderbuss with which he had armed, or rather winged, himself. "You'll never be trying those things again—they nearly shivered our timbers last time. Why take another chance?" "My stilts!" repeated Samuel savagely, and Roger, who knew his duty as a sailor, flew without further argument to the hold. When Roger returned with a stilt in each claw, the Captain grasped one and moving silently as a cat over to the port rail, he thrust the long pole experimentally out into the fog. There was an instant thud, and Samuel himself got a severe jolt as the stilt struck against some firm and immovable object beyond. Convinced that it was an enemy ship, Samuel returned to the others and, drawn up in an anxious row, the four shipmates waited for the fog to lift or the first enemy seaman to leap aboard. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus73.jpg" width-obs="471" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "I'll wager it's a derelict, or an abandoned vessel with no crew," breathed Ato, seating himself on a fire bucket to somewhat ease the long wait. The first hour Tandy stood fairly well, but the second seemed interminable. The flickering lanterns, the tense quiet, the choking fog and gentle roll of the ship all made him desperately drowsy, and, much to his later disgust, he must have finally fallen asleep. The next thing he remembered was the shrill squall of the Read Bird and the pleasant feel of the sun on his eyelids. "The ship! The pirates! The fog!" thought Tandy, springing up wildly, but neither ship nor pirates met his astonished gaze. Abaft the beam lay a great whispering deep sea forest, its trees higher than the masts of the ship, springing directly out of the water and stretching their leafy branches to the sky. It was into one of these giant greenwoods the Crescent Moon had crashed in the fog. Samuel was staring at the sea forest with the rapt look of a scientist who has just made an unbelievable discovery, and Ato, with his elbows resting on the rail, was gazing dreamily in the same direction. "'Hoy! Ahoy! Why, I never knew there were forests in the sea," exclaimed Tandy, running over to insinuate himself between the cook and the Captain. "There aren't! It's just plain impossible!" breathed Ato, moving over to make room for Tandy. "But, impossible or not, there she lies. And isn't it pretty?" he mused, resting more than half of his great weight on the rail. "I suppose Sammy'll want to dig up a sea tree and bring it along," he leaned over to whisper mischievously in Tandy's ear. "And anyway, it's better than pirates." "Look, look, there's fish in those trees," screamed Roger, bouncing up and down on Ato's plump shoulder. "How about some flying fish for breakfast, Cook dear?" "Breakfast? Breakfast? Can it really be time for breakfast? Ho, hum! I thought I was still asleep and dreaming," grunted Ato, giving himself a little shake. "Well, forests or no forests, a man must eat, I suppose!" And still gazing delightedly over his shoulder, the ship's cook trod reluctantly toward the galley, while Tandy hurried into the cabin for his paints. <hr class="chap" /> <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus74.jpg" width-obs="475" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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