Evening—
The Southern Cross was bright in the sky ere Henry returned to the Musket, having been detained by more islanders seeking to consult “Widow Bryden’s Healer Man” on their rheums, yaws & dropsy. “If potatoes were dollars,” rued my friend, “I should be richer than Nebuchadnezzar!” He was concerned by my (much edited) misadventure on Conical Tor & insisted on examining my injuries. Earlier I had prevailed upon the Indian maid to fill my bath & emerged much recruited. Henry donated a pot of balm for my inflammations & refused to take a cent for it. Fearing this may be my last chance to consult with a gifted physician (Henry intends to refuse Cpt. Molyneux’s proposal), I unburdened my fears vis-à-vis my Ailment. He listened soberly & asked about the frequency & duration of my spells. Henry regretted he lacked the time & apparatus for a compleat diagnosis, but recommended, upon my return to San Francisco, I find a specialist in tropical parasites as a matter of urgency. (I could not bring myself to tell him there are none.)
I slumber not.
Thursday, 14th November—
We make sail with the morning tide. I am once more aboard the Prophetess, but I cannot pretend it is good to be back. My coffin now stores three great coils of hawser, which I must scale to attain my bunk, for not one inch of floor is visible. Mr. D’Arnoq sold half a dozen barrels of sundry provisions to the quartermaster & a bolt of sailcloth (much to Walker’s disgust). He came aboard to supervise their delivery & collect payment himself & bid me Godspeed. In my coffin we were squeezed like two men in a pothole, so we repaired to the deck for it is a pleasant evening. After discussing divers matters we shook hands & he climbed down to his waiting ketch, ably crewed by two young manservants of mongrel race.
Mr. Roderick has little sympathy with my petition to have the offending hawser removed elsewhere, for he is obliged to quit his private cabin (for the reason stated below) & move to the fo’c’sle with the common sailors, whose number has swollen with five Castilians “poached” from the Spaniard at anchor in the Bay. Their captain was the portrait of a Fury, yet short of declaring war on the Prophetess—a battle sure to bloody his nose, for he pilots the leakiest tub—he can do little but thank his stars Cpt. Molyneux required no more deserters. The very words “California Bound” are dusted in gold & beckon all men thitherwards like moths to a lantern. These five replace the two deserters at the Bay of Islands & the hands lost in the tempest, but we are still several men short of a full crew. Finbar tells me the men grumble over the new arrangements, for with Mr. Roderick lodged in their fo’c’sle, they cannot yarn freely over a bottle.
Fate has dealt me a fine compensation. After paying Walker’s usurous bill (nor did I tip that scoundrel a cent), I was packing my jackwood trunk when Henry entered, greeting me thus:—“Good morning, Shipmate!” God has answered my prayers! Henry has accepted the post of Ship’s Doctor & I am no longer friendless in this floating farmyard. So ornery a mule is the common sailor that, instead of gratitude that a doctor shall be on hand to splint their breakages & treat their infections, one o’erhears them moaning, “What are we, to carry a Ship’s Doctor who can’t walk a bowsprit? A Royal Barge?”
I must confess to a touch of pique that Cpt. Molyneux afforded a fare-paying gentleman such as myself only my lamentable berth, when a more commodious cabin lay at his disposal all along. Of far greater consequence, however, is Henry’s promise to turn his formidable talents to a diagnosis of my Ailment as soon as we are at sea. My relief is indescribable.
Friday, 15th November—
We got under weigh at daybreak, notwithstanding Friday is a Jonah amongst sailors. (Cpt. Molyneux growls, “Superstitions, Saints’ Days & other blasted fripperies are fine sport for Popish fishwives but I am in the business of turning a profit!”) Henry & I did not venture on deck, for all hands were busy with rigging & a southerly blows very fresh with a heavy sea; the ship was troublesome last night & is not less so today. We passed half the day arranging Henry’s apothecary. Besides the appurtenances of the modern physician, my friend owns several learned volumes, in English, Latin & German. A case holds “spectra” of powders in stoppered bottles labeled in Greek. These he compounds to make various pills & unguents. We peered through the steerage hatch towards noon & the Chathams were ink stains on the leaden horizon, but the rolling & pitching are unsafe for those whose sea legs have vacationed the week ashore.
Afternoon—
Torgny the Swede knocked on my coffin door. Surprized & intrigued by his furtive manner, I bade him enter. He seated himself upon a “pyramid” of hawser & whispered that he bore a proposal from a ring of shipmates. “Tell us where the best veins are, the secret ones you locals are keeping for yourselves. Me ’n’ my fellows’ll do the pack work. You’ll just sit pretty & we’ll cut you in a tenth share.”
I required a moment to understand that Torgny was referring to the Californian mining fields. So, a widespread desertion is in the offing once the Prophetess reaches her destination & I own, my sympathies are with the seamen! Saying so, I swore to Torgny that I possessed no knowledge of the gold deposits, for I have been absent this twelvemonth, but I would gratis compose a map illustrating the rumored “Eldorados” & gladly. Torgny was agreeable. Tearing a leaf from this journal, I was sketching a schema of Sausalito, Benecia, Stanislaus, Sacramento &c. when a malevolent voice spoke out. “Quite the oracle, no, Mr. Quillcock?”
We had not heard Boerhaave descend the companionway & nudge open my door! Torgny cried in dismay, declaring his guilt in a trice. “What, pray,” continued the first mate, “what business have you with our passenger, Pustule of Stockholm?” Torgny was struck dumb, but I would not be cowed & told the bully I was describing the “sights” of my town, the better for Torgny to enjoy his shore leave.
Boerhaave raised his eyebrows. “You allot shore leave now, do you? New news to my old ears. That paper, Mr. Ewing, if you please.” I did not please. My gift to the seaman was not the Dutchman’s to commandeer. “Oh, begging your pardon, Mr. Ewing. Torgny, take receipt of your gift.” I had no choice but to hand it to the prostrate Swede. Mr. Boerhaave uttered, “Torgny, give me your gift instanter or, by the hinges of hell, you shall regret the day you crawled from your mother’s [my quill curls at recording his profanity].” The mortified Swede complied.
“Most educational,” remarked Boerhaave, eyeing my cartography. “The captain will be delighted to learn of the pains you are taking to better our scabby Jacks, Mr. Ewing. Torgny, you’re on masthead watch for twenty-four hours. Forty-eight if you’re seen taking refreshment. Drink you own p—— if you get a thirst.”