"Humph!--boomer," the engineer grunted, and there was silence for a moment. When next he spoke, his manner was kindly.
"Those niggers of mine skedaddled 'cause they're lazy and worthless. But the stoke-hole is hell, all right. It ain't no place for a youngster like you. I'll hustle round to the gin-mills an' get hold of a pair of tough guys. But there's something else," he went on, as Zeke's face fell. "If you can make sorghum molasses and moonshine without scorchin' 'em, you'll fill the bill, I reckon. We cruise off the coast for menhaddin--fat backs--for the oil in 'em. We carry steam-jacket kettles. I've got a green man now who's no good. I'll fire him and take you on. Thirty a month and your board--more by-and-by, if you suit."
Zeke, elated at this opportunity, felt, nevertheless, that honesty required of him some further explanation. But the engineer dismissed consideration of the future.
"A month will give you enough for your fare to New York. If you ain't pressed for time, a voyage will do you good. But don't let the captain get a sight of that black bag, or it'll go overboard. Sailors are afeared of 'em," he chuckled. "The Neuse, my old ship, ran into The Blanche off Creek Beacon, in a fog, and sunk her. We rescued officers and crew, but the captain--Smith, his name was--couldn't stop cussin' 'cause he'd allowed a nigger mammy to go aboard as a passenger along with her old black bag, which was the why of the wreck, 'cording to his way of thinking. Took his friends nigh onto a year, to convince him that The Neuse was to blame for the collision. I suspect he'll always have it on his conscience that he did finally collect damages off our owners." The engineer chuckled again. "Stow your bag under your bunk in the fore peak before the captain comes aboard."
The Bonita was a stanchly built and seaworthy craft with a draft of less than twelve feet under full cargo, which made possible her use of the shorter and smoother inland water-way from Norfolk to Beaufort, North Carolina, where was the factory. Zeke, who would remain idle until the first catch of fish, went early to his bunk the first evening aboard, wearied by the long and exciting day. He had, indeed, scarce time to contemplate a guardian vision of Plutina ere his senses were locked in slumber, and his next consciousness was of a dim morning light struggling into the gloom of the stuffy peak, and the jolting rhythm of the engine, which announced that the voyage was begun. When he hurried on deck, he was at first disappointed to learn that the boat was still some distance from the open sea, for which he longed with all an inlander's curiosity over the mystery of endless waters. The Bonita was now working forward slowly through the old Dismal Swamp Canal, to reach the Pasquotank River and Albemarle Sound. Zeke's astonished eyes perceived in every direction only the level, melancholy expanse of the swamp. His sensitive soul found, nevertheless, a strange charm and beauty in the scene. There was space here, even as in the mountains. Yet this calm was not of strength, he felt vaguely, like that he had known, but the tranquillity of nature in another, a weaker, less-wholesome mood, apathetic, futile. The thickly dotting cypresses and junipers, bedecked with streaming draperies of Spanish moss, touched the vistas with a funereal aspect. The languid movement of the festoons under the breeze was like the sighings of desolation made visible. The dense tangle of the undergrowth stretched everywhere, repellent, unrelieved by the vivid color flashes of the mountain blossoms. Stagnant wastes of amber-hued water emphasized the dreariness.