EXTRANEOUS ADVENTURES 297 



schooner — he thought she was the whaling schooner Mary H. 

 Thomas — was coming down on the weather quarter. Going 

 on deck, the captain looked her over as well as the darkness 

 and fog permitted; and fearing she would draw aft, ordered the 

 officer to set a white light as a signal, for he wished to exchange 

 whaling news with her master. 



A little later the officer again came below and called the cap- 

 tain. ''That is not the Mary H. Thomas," he said. ''It is 

 some other schooner, and he wants to speak us." 



Captain Scullun went back on deck and saw that the schooner 

 was sending alongside a boat, in the stern of which was a young 

 man wearing the uniform of a naval officer. 



Coming on board the Cape Horn Pigeon, the young officer, in 

 halting English, demanded Captain Scullun's papers and, after a 

 brief but acrimonious discussion, said that his captain wanted 

 Captain Scullun to come on board. 



It was early in the morning, and Captain Scullun had twice 

 been called on deck: he had every right to a bef ore-breakfast out- 

 look upon life. "Can your captain talk good Enghsh?" he de- 

 manded. 



"Yes." 



"All right!" And with that. Captain Scullun picked up his 

 papers and went on board the schooner. 



With the Russian captain, as with his lieutenant. Captain 

 Scullun's debate was brief. Right or wrong, the Russian 

 announced that he was going to take the barque to Vladivostok. 

 He ordered Captain Scullun to keep his steward and cabin boy 

 on board the barque, but to send his officers and men on board 

 the Marie, and dismissed him in charge of a Russian officer and 

 five armed men. The officers and crew of the barque went on 

 board the schooner, two officers and twelve men from the 

 schooner came on board the barque, and in due time (September 

 19th) both vessels arrived at Vladivostok, where the American 

 sailors were landed, bag and baggage, on a wharf, with no one 

 to receive them and with neither food nor shelter. On the wharf 

 they might have stayed indefinitely had not a kind-hearted 

 Chinaman let them sleep in his storehouse. The captain, after 



