*tKm. 
 
 
 &*i*fiS i ^PS^ 
 

SPUN -YARN 
 
 SEA STORIES. By 
 
 MORGAN ROBERTSON 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1898 
 

 Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 All rights resetted. 
 
2>eDicateD 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 Captain ANDREW ROBERTSON 
 
 A GOOD MAN, AND A STRONG ONE 
 
 THE ABLEST SEAMAN 
 
 I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 SlOtiSG 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Slumber of a Soul : A Tale of a Mate 
 
 and A Cook 
 
 The Survival of the Fittest 
 A Creature of Circumstance 
 
 The Derelict " Neptune " . 
 Honor Among Thieves . . 
 
 i 
 
 44 
 
 82 
 
 136 
 
 178 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "THE NAKED MEN FOLLOWED THE FREN- 
 ZIED CAPTAIN " Frontispiece 
 
 "CAPTAIN MACNAB LOOKED INTO THE BORE 
 
 OF A LONG SIX-SHOOTER" Facing p. gS 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE GENIUS AND THE MAN 
 
 A FEW years ago a certain Man became 
 tired of his trade and sought another. A 
 sailor, he was, and would live on shore. A 
 fierce struggle in a new environment secured 
 him a foothold, and for a time his life was that 
 of a workman in a great city— a life of alter- 
 nate labor and idleness, of ever-present pov- 
 erty and debt. But the new life differed 
 from the old, in that it gave him leisure and 
 an opportunity to read. 
 
 About the time of his change a Genius 
 came out of the East— a singer and teller of 
 tales, who had sung and spoken but to the 
 limited audience of British India, now, from 
 the Metropolis of the World, sang his songs 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and told his tales to the Peoples of the 
 World. They applauded and paid. His 
 struggle was shorter than the struggle of 
 the Man, because, being a Genius, he had 
 fewer competitors. His fame, and some of 
 his words, reached within the narrow hori- 
 zon of the other, who, unable to understand 
 as yet, could only wonder, saying : " He is 
 younger than I." 
 
 Time passed, leaving the Genius with the 
 world at his feet, and the Man — idle, help- 
 less, and despondent — with the World above 
 him, wasted effort behind, hopeless effort 
 ahead, wretchedness his portion. Driven to 
 the wall, at last, desperately asking ''Why?" 
 he received a message from the Genius — a 
 message of hope, and courage, and cheer — 
 addressed to the world but written to him — 
 a story of the sea and of seamanship, of sail- 
 ors and their troubles ; and the Man read, 
 and wondered again, and pondered ; then, 
 from asking "Why?" be began to ask, "Why 
 not?" 
 
 " He is a Genius," he said ; " but I have 
 worked and suffered and seen." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Man wrote a story, putting into it 
 what the message had told him. An editor, 
 knowing nothing of this, paid for and print- 
 ed the tale, and a new field of action — a 
 world of thought, and fancy, and romance, 
 limited only by the bounds of his imagina- 
 tion, opened to the Man. He joyously, 
 recklessly, explored his field, proclaiming 
 what he found, and, untutored, unproven, 
 occasionally overstepped his boundaries and 
 lost himself; but other messages from the 
 Genius, written to him long before he could 
 have understood, brought him back. Again, 
 with tyro conceit, he voluntarily wandered, 
 reading messages not written to him, and 
 humbly returned. 
 
 Then the Man was content to labor within 
 his limitations— in the field found for him by 
 the prior explorations of the Genius — until, 
 one day, without his boundaries, but near 
 them, he discovered what seemed to be new 
 ground, unworked or ignored by even the 
 roving soul of his mentor. And because he 
 is weak and fearful of laughter, and humanly 
 stupid and full of false pride, he prefers the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 scanty findings of this field to the rich- 
 ness and plenty of the one that was given 
 him. 
 
 But the best product of both he submits in 
 this volume. 
 

 SPUN-YARN 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 A TALE OF A MATE AND A COOK 
 
 At the age of twenty- five John Dorsey 
 possessed few attributes of mind or body 
 that would distinguish him from other sea- 
 faring men beyond the deep resonance of 
 his voice and a strong memory for faces, 
 facts, and places — which latter made him a 
 wonderful pilot, his mind retaining a vivid 
 picture of every harbor, island, rock, or shoal 
 that he had once seen. His strong lungs, 
 with his pilotage and a general intelligence, 
 raised him early to the quarter-deck. 
 
 Born at Nassau, in the Bahamas, he had 
 obtained such education as the island schools 
 afforded, had followed " wrecking " until his 
 brain was a comprehensive chart of the 
 whole West India group, and had then made 
 
 A I 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 four long voyages — one in the engine-room. 
 The closing years of the Civil War found 
 him engaged in blockade- running, which 
 had grown to be a prosperous — though risky 
 — and, from his insular standpoint, a legiti- 
 mate business. Long, low, speedy steamers 
 were built, painted slate -color, loaded with 
 munitions of war, and sent to dodge their 
 way past Federal cruisers into Southern 
 ports, to return with cotton. In one of 
 these — the Petrel — he occupied the position 
 of first mate, and stood aft near the taffrail, 
 one dark night, watching the indefinite loom 
 of a pursuing sloop -of -war about a mile 
 astern. 
 
 At intervals a gleam, as of heat lightning, 
 would light up the blackness. Then could 
 be heard the humming and " cheep-cheep " 
 of a ricochetting solid shot, followed by the 
 bark of the gun. They were firing low. 
 
 The chase, commencing with the wind 
 abeam, ended with the wind ahead ; for 
 the quarry, with large engine and small 
 sail power, had edged around in a wide 
 curve until the sails of the pursuer no 
 
 2 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 longer drew. The cruisers of that time were 
 at best but auxiliaries, unfitted to chase to 
 windward, and had not this one, as though 
 to voice her disgust to the night, discharged 
 a broadside as she squared away, the fleeing 
 steamer might have escaped. 
 
 It is this broadside, or, particularly, one 
 round, nine-inch shot of it, that concerns us. 
 The rest of them, with the screaming shells, 
 flew wide or short. This shot, unaimed and 
 unhoped of, struck a sea at a quarter of the 
 distance, another at three-quarters, arose in 
 the air, and crashed through the rudder and 
 stern-posts of the Petrel, forward through 
 the boiler, and then on through the length 
 of the steamer, making holes for itself where 
 necessary, from the last of which — in the 
 port bow — it dropped into the sea. The 
 Petrel was successfully raked and disabled. 
 
 When the shot had entered the stern, an 
 iron belaying -pin, jolted from its place in 
 the taffrail by the impact, had spun high as 
 the cross-trees. Before it came down, and 
 coincident with the roar of escaping steam 
 from the punctured boiler, the mate had 
 
 3 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 noted the damage done in his department, 
 and, to apprize the captain on the bridge, 
 roared out : " Rudder post — " But the de- 
 scending belaying-pin, striking him a glan- 
 cing blow on the head, cut short the sen- 
 tence, and he fell to the deck. 
 
 The escaping steam brought the cruiser 
 back to the chase, and the Petrel was capt- 
 ured, towed to a Northern port, and con- 
 demned. Here John Dorsey, still uncon- 
 scious, though breathing, was placed in the 
 hospital of a military prison. In a week he 
 opened his eyes and smiled — as a baby 
 smiles. Then as a baby looks at its hands, 
 he looked at his, and cooed softly. His 
 skull had not, apparently, been injured, and 
 the lump raised had disappeared ; so he was 
 told to get up and dress. He only smiled, 
 and was then assisted. 
 
 It could hardly have been said that John 
 Dorsey had recovered consciousness. While 
 physically healthy, a negative, non- comba- 
 tive good-humor, indicated by his smile, was 
 the only mental attribute apparent. He 
 even seemed to lack some of the instincts 
 
 4 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 of self-preservation which the human, in 
 common with other animals, inherits from 
 parents. Feeling hunger, he would not eat 
 food placed before him until shown how; 
 and then not with a knife and fork, or even 
 by intelligent use of his fingers, but by low- 
 ering his head in the manner of brutes. 
 Hustled aside by a harsh attendant, he felt 
 pain, and cried out — with no articulation. 
 But he felt no fear at the next meeting ; he 
 could not remember. 
 
 An inner sub-consciousness directed neces- 
 sary physiological functions, and he lived 
 and gained flesh. But, though far below the 
 level of brutes in intellect, he differed from 
 them and idiots in his capacity for improve- 
 ment. For he learned— to dress himself ; to 
 use a knife and fork; to make his bed, 
 sweep, carry water, etc. The first sign of 
 memory he displayed was in his avoidance 
 of the nurse who habitually abused him. 
 He learned the names of things one by one, 
 and, in time, essayed to speak them. But 
 only with the progress of a gurgling infant 
 did he acquire a vocabulary sufficient for 
 
 5 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 his wants; and this he used, not in the 
 breezy, quarter-deck tone of John Dorsey, 
 but in accents soft and low, as became the 
 gentleness of his new nature. 
 
 Not being a prisoner of war, he was dis- 
 charged — cured ; but being useful, and not 
 a stickler for salary, was allowed to remain 
 in the hospital until it was officially abol- 
 ished, six months after the close of the war. 
 Then he was turned adrift — a man in phy- 
 sique but a child in experience ; for his life 
 now dated from the awakening in the hos- 
 pital, and what he knew he had learned 
 since then. Not a glimmer or shadow of 
 memory as to his past remained. It was as 
 though the soul of John Dorsey had gone 
 from him, and in its place had come another 
 — but a limited, a weakling soul ; one that 
 could feel no strong emotions ; that could 
 neither love nor hate nor fear, in a human 
 sense. 
 
 Poorly equipped as he was, he naturally 
 became a beggar, but would work when 
 told to. He wandered, associating with 
 tramps ; and under the tutelage of tramps 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 his mind expanded, but only to the limits 
 of his soul. Some things he could not un- 
 derstand. 
 
 In a measure the embargo on his faculties 
 impressed its stamp on his face; but the 
 features of the intelligent John Dorsey did 
 not at once yield to the new conditions, and 
 while still a fit candidate for an asylum the 
 strange mixture of expression, resembling 
 careworn candor, saved him from commit- 
 ment as weak-minded, though he was often 
 sent to jail as a vagrant. 
 
 For thirty years he was a homeless wan- 
 derer on the face of the earth, at the end of 
 which time he had learned much, consider- 
 ing his limitations. He could talk fairly 
 well in the slang of the road, and in an 
 evenly modulated tone of voice which was 
 somewhat plaintive. He could not read or 
 write; but he could count, though telling 
 the time by the clock marked the limit of 
 his progress in practical mathematics. A 
 time-table map, the chart of his wandering 
 confreres, was an incomprehensible puzzle 
 to him. He knew the use of money and 
 
 7 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 what his day's labor was worth, but his lack 
 of skill at the simplest tasks prevented his 
 holding a job; hence his ever -reactionary- 
 tendency to beggary. Latterly, however, 
 he had worked in a hotel kitchen, and, lik- 
 ing the shelter and warmth, cultivated the 
 industry to the extent of becoming, in spite 
 of himself, a fairly good third-rate cook. 
 
 At the hospital he had been No. 7. 
 Asked his name later, he had given this 
 number, which his tramp companions cor- 
 rupted to "Shiven," and prefixed with 
 "Jack"' — their hall-mark of fellowship. His 
 beard had grown, and, with his hair, was of 
 a soft shade of brown. With no vices to 
 age him, and tormented by no speculations 
 as to his origin or destiny — the impressions 
 of a year back being forgotten unless re- 
 newed by friction — his face, though changed, 
 was even more youthful than the sailor 
 Dorsey's. In repose it was stupid ; but 
 when he was pleased and smiled — with the 
 same infantile smile that marked the birth 
 of his new existence — it lighted up with the 
 ineffable glory of an angel's. It was the 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 mute expression of an innocence of soul 
 which approached the divine — beyond hu- 
 man understanding. And it won him uni- 
 versal good -will, though not always good 
 treatment. 
 
 In the autumn of 1895 he was in New 
 York, penniless; and overhearing from a 
 group of South Street loungers that the 
 Avon, at Pier No. 9, wanted a cook, hurried 
 there and met her captain, stepping over the 
 rail to find one. 
 
 " I heard you had no cook," he began. 
 
 " You a cook?" 
 
 " I kin cook plain grub." 
 
 " Ever been to sea?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Where're your clothes?" 
 
 The applicant looked down at himself. 
 
 "Tramp, aren't you?" said the captain, 
 good-humoredly. 
 
 " Yes, kinder," he answered, and smiled. 
 
 " Come aboard. I'm in a hurry. Thirty 
 dollars a month. Say ' Sir' when you speak 
 to me or the mate." 
 
 The Avon was a two -masted, schooner- 
 
 o 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 rigged, five-hundred-ton, iron screw steamer, 
 with an old - fashioned oscillating engine, 
 which her old-fashioned engineer patted lov- 
 ingly for the wonderful bursts of speed he 
 could induce from it. Against his name on 
 the Avon's articles, the new cook placed his 
 mark for the highest rate of pay he had 
 worked for as Jack Shiven. He was sea- 
 sick the first day out, but recovered, and 
 gave satisfaction. Quiet, good-humored, and 
 obliging, he smiled on all hands and won 
 their hearts. " He's a daft man, but a good 
 'un," said the engineer. 
 
 At Cedar Keys, Florida, Captain Swift 
 brought aboard, one evening, a tall, dark 
 man, with whom he consulted locked in his 
 cabin. As they parted at the rail, he said, 
 in a low tone : " We're speedy enough to 
 get away from any cutter on the coast, and, 
 I think, any cruiser the Spanish have over. 
 This was a blockade dodger in war times, 
 named Petrel. Still, as I said, Doctor, I 
 must consult my crew. It's risky work." 
 
 " Did you own the Avon then — when she 
 was the Petrel?" asked the other, speaking 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 with an accent that stamped him a for- 
 eigner. 
 
 " No," answered the captain ; " I bought 
 her years afterwards. But," he added, proud- 
 ly, " I sailed in her 'fore the mast when she 
 was captured. They jugged us for a while ; 
 then let us go. 'Twas curious about the 
 mate, a fellow named Dorsey. Got a rap 
 on the head somehow, and came to in the 
 hospital, but lost his bearings — didn't know 
 his name, and couldn't understand when 
 told. They let him out 'fore they did us, 
 and we lost all track of him. It's pitiful, 
 the way his old mother sits up on the rocks 
 over at Nassau and watches the channels. 
 She expects her boy back ; says she knows 
 he'll come. I've got so I hate to bring 
 the Avon there; for every time I've done it 
 she's recognized the old Petrel, and waved 
 her shawl from the rocks, and rushed aboard. 
 And I've always had to give her the same 
 old story : ' Haven't heard from him.' It's 
 heart-breaking. But John Dorsey's dead, 
 sure." 
 
 In a couple of days the Avon sailed, with 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the dark stranger below in the empty hold. 
 Two hours later a revenue cutter, primed 
 with information of a purposed breach of 
 the neutrality laws, lifted her anchor and 
 followed, a menacing speck on the horizon 
 astern of the Avon, and an irritation to the 
 quickened nerves of her captain, as he view- 
 ed her through the glass, and wondered and 
 guessed and swore. But next morning the 
 horizon was clear, and the Avon, having 
 doubled the Florida reef in the night, was 
 steaming up the east coast. The following 
 midnight found her well up past Cape Ca- 
 naveral, and here, after answering a rocket 
 from the shore, she cautiously, and with 
 much heaving of the lead and speaking- 
 tube calls to the engine-room, felt her way 
 through a narrow inlet in the outlying reef, 
 or sand -covered barrier, into the enclosed 
 lagoon, where she lay, with steam up and 
 without anchoring, while her crew brought 
 off, with the three boats, numerous boxes, 
 cases, and barrels, which they stowed care- 
 fully in the hold. 
 
 As the largest boat came out, the captain 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 said to the tall stranger: " I'll not have that 
 stuff aboard. We'll tow it astern. It's fine 
 weather and smooth water. Here, you cook, 
 Jack Shiven, watch this boat. Don't let it 
 touch the side, or it '11 blow your old head 
 off. Keep it away with an oar." The boat 
 was fastened to the stern by the painter, and 
 the cook, who had been awakened by the 
 unusual proceedings, obeyed orders. 
 
 Then, leaving the dark man on the bridge 
 to watch the horizon, and a negro fireman 
 in the boiler-room to keep up steam, every 
 other man in the crew from the captain to 
 the mess-boy went ashore in the next boat, 
 for the last and hardest lift of all. A large 
 shell-gun, too heavy for one boat, was to be 
 carried off on a temporary deck covering 
 two. At this work they were engaged when 
 daylight broke; and with its coming ap- 
 peared, outside the barrier and heading for 
 the inlet, the revenue cutter that had fol- 
 lowed them, with ports open, guns showing, 
 and at her gaff-end a string of small flags, 
 which, in the silent Volapiik of the sea, said, 
 " Get under way as fast as you can." 
 13 
 
 41 
 
 ^1 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 A signal-book and a good glass are needed, 
 as a rule, to interpret this language. The 
 captain and mate ashore had neither, and 
 those aboard were not tutored in their use ; 
 so the command was neither answered nor 
 obeyed. "The jig's up," said the captain. 
 " Get this gun ashore again. We'll go 
 aboard and answer, or he may fire. They'll 
 confiscate my boat, but I don't want her 
 sunk." 
 
 But their hurry to unload the gun resulted 
 in the swamping of one boat and the staving 
 of the other; so they were forced to remain 
 — and hope. 
 
 " Run up a white flag," roared the cap- 
 tain; "then scull that boat ashore." 
 
 The cook heard, but could not under- 
 stand. The man on the bridge understood, 
 but could not obey — he could not find the 
 flag locker. However, he impressed on the 
 cook's mind the wisdom of getting the boat 
 ashore. But Jack Shiven only smiled and 
 shook his head. He could not scull a boat. 
 Neither could the Cuban — for such he was 
 — and the fireman conscientiously and em- 
 14 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 phatically refused to leave his work. He 
 had shipped fireman, not sailor. 
 
 The boom of an unshotted gun was heard 
 from seaward — given as a hint, which, of 
 course, was not taken. Then another re- 
 port, louder, came from the cutter, and with 
 it a shot, aimed to cross the stern of the 
 Avon. But years of service in the revenue 
 marine had somewhat demoralized the old 
 man-of-war's man who had charge of the 
 gun. He did not allow for the half-charge 
 of powder and the lateral deflection given 
 the consequently ricochetting shot by choppy 
 w r aves, running at angle with his aim. That 
 shot, barely clearing the reef, made a curve, 
 shorter with each blow of a glancing sea, 
 bounded over the stern of the Avon, and cut 
 through the port main -boom lift (a wire- 
 rope), which fell and struck the wondering, 
 smiling cook on the head — a slight blow, 
 but enough. The shot buried itself in the 
 sand on the beach, having undone the work 
 of that other government shot fired thirty 
 years before — it had wakened the sleeping 
 soul of John Dorsey. He reeled, recovered, 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 and in a cracked falsetto cried out, "car- 
 ried away, sir" finishing the sentence begun 
 in his youth and interrupted by the descend- 
 ing belaying-pin. Clapping his hands to his 
 head, he looked around, bewildered, then 
 bounded forward to the bridge. The Cuban 
 followed. 
 
 " Are you hurt ?" asked the latter. 
 
 "Hurt? Who are you? Get off the 
 bridge! Where's the captain? Who's got 
 the wheel?" His voice was choked and 
 guttural. 
 
 " The captain is on shore with the crew. 
 Do you not see them ?" 
 
 Dorsey reached into the pilot-house, and 
 in the old familiar nook placed his hand on 
 a pair of glasses, with which, after a suspi- 
 cious inspection, he examined the group on 
 the beach. 
 
 " None of our crowd," he muttered. Then 
 he turned the glass on the revenue vessel out- 
 side. 
 
 " Haven't they got enough men-of-war on 
 the coast without trotting out their cut- 
 ters?" he growled. "What's he say? ' M, 
 
 16 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 L, H' — 'get under way.' Say, you," he de- 
 manded of the Cuban, "what's happened? 
 What time is it ? When 'd you join this 
 boat?" 
 
 " On the day before yesterday, at Cedar 
 Keys." 
 
 " You lie !" snarled Dorsey. " We haven't 
 been there in four months ; but — " he felt 
 his head again — " what's happened ? Every- 
 thing looks queer. Where's the ball on the 
 pilot-house ? Two minutes ago it was night- 
 time. What does this mean ? Whose shirt 
 have I got on ?" 
 
 " Two minutes ago you were struck on 
 the head, and have acted strangely since," 
 answered the Cuban, who thought the cook 
 was crazed by the blow. 
 
 " Yes, I know something belted me ; my 
 head's pretty sore. But you weren't aboard, 
 and 'twas up near Hatteras. Now we're 
 down here in Gallino Bay, and it's daylight. 
 I must ha' been knocked silly and stayed so. 
 What day is it? Monday? Three days 
 ago !" Dorsey's mind had solved the prob- 
 lem, though, of course, with no regard to 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the lapse of time. But his mind had not 
 yet regained the command of Jack Shiven's 
 body ; his gestures were clumsy, and his 
 eyes — wide open and alert — though not the 
 eyes of Jack Shiven, were not the eyes of 
 John Dorsey. His voice was a mixture of 
 strange sounds, and he coughed continually. 
 
 " What ails my throat ? And this !" he 
 exclaimed ; he had felt of his beard. " Say, 
 Mister Man, am I dead or alive, or asleep, 
 or crazy? Who am I?" 
 
 " I believe you are the cook of this boat, 
 in a sad condition of mind," said the Cuban, 
 dryly, more interested now in the approach- 
 ing cutter. 
 
 " Cook ! I'm mate, if I'm anything," splut- 
 tered Dorsey, the sailor in him aroused by 
 the affront. Yet the terror in his eyes might 
 have indicated his doubts that he was any- 
 thing. 
 
 The vessel outside had stopped her en- 
 gines at the mouth of the inlet, and now 
 sent another and better -aimed shot across 
 the Avons stern. It aroused Dorsey to 
 fury. 
 
 18 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 " That's your game, is it ?" he growled, 
 hoarsely. "All right. 'Get under way/ 
 you say." He sprang to the deck, saw that 
 the anchors were on the rail ; then, to sat- 
 isfy misgivings thirty years old, ran aft and 
 looked over the stern at the rudder. It was 
 there, intact, and he hurried to the engine- 
 room hatch. 
 
 " Down there, chief?" he called. " Who's 
 below?" 
 
 There was no answer. He reached the 
 fire-room hatch at a bound, and met, emerg- 
 ing, the woolly head of the fireman, who had 
 heard the gun and wanted to know. 
 
 "What steam you got?" demanded Dor- 
 sey, who recognized his craft, though not 
 knowing him. 
 
 "Wha' dat yo' business, Jack Shiven? 
 Yo' g' back t' yo' pots an' pans, an' doan 
 yo' cum foolin' 'roun' dis yere fire-hole. Dis 
 fire too hot F yo'. Yo' git bawned, shua! 
 Yah, yah, yah-ha. Who fire dat cannon, 
 cookie?" 
 
 "What steam you got?" — the words 
 seemed to explode from the throat — " an- 
 19 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 swer me, you black imp, or I'll jam you into 
 that furnace. How many pounds?" 
 
 "Wha' dat?" 
 
 The fireman got no further. Dorsey's 
 fingers gripped his throat, and in a second 
 he was sprawled backward over the hatch- 
 combing. Squeezing hard for a moment, 
 the infuriated questioner again demanded : 
 " What steam you got ?" 
 
 " Fifty pounds, Jack." gurgled the negro ; 
 " le' go ; wha' yo' want ?" 
 
 " Get down there ! Bring it up to sixty, 
 and keep it so. I'm going to start the en- 
 gine. Down with you, quick ! Don't you 
 leave that fire-hold till I tell you." 
 
 The frightened fireman descended, and 
 Dorsey examined the engine. 
 
 " Same scrap-heap," he muttered. " Hasn't 
 changed like me and the boat, and the heav- 
 ens and earth." He ran forward again. In 
 the after-end of the pilot-house he found 
 a chest, which he kicked open, scatter- 
 ing the contents — signal - flags — on the 
 floor. He picked out three, and called the 
 Cuban. 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 " Who are you, anyhow ?" he asked. " Can 
 you run the engine?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Can you steer?" 
 
 11 1 cannot." 
 
 "Then I must do both. Run these three 
 flags up to the truck in the order I name 
 them— K, G, P. Understand? K on top. 
 They're marked. Quick, now!" 
 
 "Why," demanded the other— "what do 
 these flags say?" 
 
 " They say our engine's broken down, if 
 you must know," yelled Dorsey. " I want 
 to stop his fire and draw him into the inlet, 
 then dash by him. It's our only chance. 
 D' you want to end your days in a Yankee 
 prison ? Bear a hand, or you will— that is, 
 unless you want to swim." The Cuban 
 glanced at three dorsal fins alongside tow- 
 ards which Dorsey pointed, and took the 
 flags. He had watched the friction at the 
 hatch with as much amusement as would 
 mingle with his apprehension of arrest. But 
 this masterful, methodical lunatic, who had 
 given such forceful instructions to the fire- 
 
 21 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 man, and who now seemed to have the In- 
 ternational Signal Code in his head, was the 
 same smiling imbecile who could not scull a 
 boat. Suspicions of Spanish espionage dis- 
 turbed him. Yet the other's action might 
 indicate a desire to escape ; and so, reason- 
 ing that whatever the flags might say, his 
 position would be made no worse, he hoisted 
 them, while Dorsey, after giving a tentative 
 turn or two to the engine, watched the effect 
 on the cutter. 
 
 The ruse succeeded. The mendacious 
 message, read aboard the government craft, 
 caused her to reserve her fire and enter the 
 inlet. Then Dorsey threw the throttle wide 
 open, and with a passing objurgation to the 
 victim in the fire-room ran to the wheel. 
 
 " Come up here and give me a hand," he 
 called ; but the Cuban did not answer. He 
 had just seen a dark figure emerge from the 
 fire -room, take a hurried look around, and 
 speed to the stern, where the boat, nearly on 
 end now as the steamer gathered way, was 
 fastened by its painter. Acting on a sudden 
 resolution, he followed, choosing to join the 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 party ashore with the aid of the fireman — 
 who could scull — rather than remain with a 
 man who, if not a maniac, was a most un- 
 pleasant and aggressive companion — pos- 
 sibly a Spanish spy. He slipped down the 
 rope after the negro, and cut the boat clear. 
 
 Dorsey saw them, shook his fist, and 
 steered for the inlet ; but three minutes 
 later, with a muttered curse, he sprang from 
 the pilot-house down to the deck and aft 
 to the engine-room, where he shut off the 
 steam, reversed the engine and turned it on. 
 A bulging turmoil of white froth under the 
 cutter's counter had told him that she was 
 backing out of the inlet — possibly on ac- 
 count of grounding. Anxiously he watched 
 from the engine-room door while the Avon 
 backed to nearly her first position ; then, 
 when he saw the cutter again go ahead, he 
 gave headway to the Avon and took the 
 wheel. 
 
 But, unseen by him, the small boat, after 
 landing the Cuban and the fireman, had again 
 left the beach, this time with a single oc- 
 cupant, who sculled vigorously towards the 
 23 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 Avon, and, unable to gain the steamer's side, 
 sprang to the bow of the boat barely in time 
 to catch an eye-bolt in the rudder. To this 
 he held with both hands, as the painter had 
 been cut too short to be of use. Dorsey, at 
 the wheel, felt the drag on the rudder, but 
 ascribed it to shallow water and an uneven 
 bottom. The two steamers met in the inlet. 
 
 "Where are you going?" bawled a brass- 
 buttoned officer from the cutter's bridge. 
 "Stop your engine or I'll sink you." 
 
 Dorsey reached his head and half his body 
 through the pilot-house window and shouted 
 in reply : " Our engine's running away with 
 us — lever's broken. We'll pull our fires out- 
 side." 
 
 The officer doubted, but hesitated, and 
 the Avon swept by at a fifteen -knot rate. 
 Outside, Dorsey edged up into the cutter's 
 wake, and, by keeping her masts in line, 
 avoided for a while her fire ; for she was a 
 revenue cutter, built to pursue, not to flee ; 
 hence, none of her guns could be trained 
 over the stern. But was ever dignified gov- 
 ernment craft placed in a more undignified 
 24 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 position? She could not safely back out of 
 the inlet now, and by the time she had 
 steamed in, turned around, and started sea- 
 ward the Avon was a mile and a half away, 
 with an increased blackness to her line of 
 belching smoke which indicated anything 
 but an intention to " pull fires." Dorsey, 
 lashing the wheel, had gone down and added 
 fuel, tried the water, talked (after the man- 
 ner of the engine-room) to the oscillating 
 cylinder, wagging away like the stump -tail 
 of an overpleased dog, and returned to the 
 wheel ; while the man in the boat under the 
 stern shouted profanely and vainly for as- 
 sistance, and, crouching low in the bow of 
 the boat, relieved one aching arm by the 
 other. Dorsey could not hear him. 
 
 Shot after shot from the cutter's long- 
 range guns hummed around the Avon, but 
 none of them struck. Though her arma- 
 ment was modern, her engines were old — 
 older than the Avons, and inferior by two 
 knot's speed per hour— and she lost ground 
 steadily. Dorsey steered due east, made pe- 
 riodical trips to the boat's vitals, and in two 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 hours whooped in triumph as he saw the 
 pursuer turn slowly around and start back. 
 An hour later, and about five minutes after 
 the exhausted man in the boat had let go 
 the rudder, Dorsey drew his fires, stopped 
 the engine, and cooked his breakfast, hardly 
 yet recovered from his excitement suffi- 
 ciently to realize to the full his isolation — 
 not of space, but of time. He was still of 
 the past, just escaped from peril a genera- 
 tion gone. 
 
 He finished his meal and wanted a smoke. 
 Going to his old room, he found strange 
 clothing, strange alterations of the fittings, 
 but no pipe. "Queer," he muttered. "Got 
 some one in my place, I suppose." His tone 
 was aggrieved. " Might ha' waited more'n 
 three days. Wonder how long, though, I've 
 been silly. Not long — my head's sore yet. 
 But I've grown a beard. Wonder what hit 
 me? I'll get a pipe down forrard." 
 
 In the forecastle he found one and a 
 strange brand of tobacco which he confis- 
 cated. Returning to the deck, he smoked 
 and reflected, but in a few minutes put the 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 pipe down, nauseated. Jack Shiven had not 
 been a smoker. 
 
 " What '11 1 do ?" he mused. " Go back to 
 the coast and pick up the crew? That 
 wasn't the crew. The boat's changed hands. 
 Has she been taken? Maybe — and I was 
 too dead to move. Wish I knew where that 
 cutter '11 hunt next. Wish I knew what's 
 happened. What ails the boat ? She looks 
 as though she'd been through seven hells." 
 He went to the rail. " Old paint," he 
 exclaimed. "Old woodwork! Old boat! 
 Where's she been to? Wire -rigged, too. 
 I'll see the articles. I'll see if I belong 
 here." 
 
 The captain's room was locked. In no 
 condition of mind to care for nautical eti- 
 quette, he raised his foot, burst in the door, 
 and entered. A large mirror on the bulk- 
 head reflected his image, and he stood trans- 
 fixed by the strange, staring, bearded face— 
 which was not his own. He raised his hand ; 
 the image did the same. He inclined his 
 head to the right and the left, and was ac- 
 companied. 
 
 27 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 " I|'s me," he groaned, " and it isn't me." 
 Approaching the glass, he examined closely 
 the spectre confronting him. There was 
 not a trace of resemblance between the old 
 and the new John Dorsey, unless it was the 
 color of the eyes. Hair, features — even the 
 shape of the nose and thickness of the lips 
 — were changed. The shoulders, too, were 
 more sloping, as though dragged down by 
 weights. John Dorsey had pulled ropes, 
 downward : Jack Shiven had wheeled bar- 
 rows. 
 
 He sank down on a chest in helpless fright, 
 while perspiration oozed from his forehead. 
 In the berth lay a folded and discolored 
 newspaper, which he seized and examined. 
 It was dated January I, 1895. He threw it 
 down. " Can't be," he said, with a doubting, 
 though piteous half-smile. " Seventy- five, 
 eighty-five, ninety-five — thirty years. Non- 
 sense ; where's the log-book." 
 
 He found it in the mate's room — its last 
 
 departure dated October 3, 1895. With 
 
 brain on fire, he returned to the captain's 
 
 room and attacked the boat's library, tear- 
 
 28 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 ing books from their places, examining the 
 publishers' imprints, and throwing them 
 down. They bore dates ranging through 
 the years following the war. He burst the 
 captain's desk apart and found the articles. 
 His name was not there. The last entered 
 
 his 
 
 was "Jack x Shivcn, cook" ', and the articles 
 
 mark 
 
 also were dated thirty years into the future. 
 He crept on deck. He wanted air. 
 
 Not a breath of wind ruffled the glassy 
 surface of the ground-swell, which, sent by 
 some distant gale, had thrown the Avon 
 into its trough, and was rolling her gently 
 as she drifted north with the Gulf Stream. 
 The sun was shining from a cloud -flecked 
 sky, and in the air was all the softness of 
 the Florida winter. But to this human soul, 
 torn from its past, plunged alone and un- 
 guided far into the unknown, there was 
 something unreal, unearthly, in the aspect 
 of sea and sky. There was insufferable heat 
 and dryness to the air he breathed, and a 
 new, metallic ring to the tinkling swash of 
 the water as the boat rolled ; and this sound, 
 29 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 with the hissing of steam from the boiler, 
 seemed but to accentuate the intense silence 
 of the ocean, which bore him down and 
 crushed him. 
 
 " Who am I ?" he thought, rather than 
 uttered. " I'm not John Dorsey. I'm some 
 one else. Who?" 
 
 He backed up against the side of the for- 
 ward-house. Off to the westward was a 
 speck — the revenue cutter. It was a tangi- 
 ble reality, and his dazed faculties seized it. 
 He traced back, painfully, the events of the 
 morning. " She chased me out here," he 
 whispered. "Who was that Dago? He 
 knew me. Who was the nigger, and the 
 crowd on the beach ? They were not the 
 crew — I'm not the mate." He walked aft. 
 " Here I stood this morning — last night — 
 when I was struck," he muttered ; " and 
 then — all at once — it was daylight, and I 
 was here." He moved a few steps. "And 
 nothing is the same." He noticed the bro- 
 ken wire rope on the deck. " What parted 
 the lift? It seems — yes — it must be — that 
 is what hit me. I remember now; I saw it 
 30 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 move on the deck. It must have knocked 
 me senseless, and meanwhile the boat has 
 had trouble. But they haven't mended the 
 lift ; and it was a hemp lift, too, not wire— 
 —and I'm still in her— no, I'm not— I'm not 
 John Dorsey, I'm some one else. Who am 
 I ? I can't make it out. Who in hell am 
 I?" He clung to the taffrail and screamed 
 loudly and hoarsely in an agony of terror. 
 Then he ran forward — aft — and forward 
 again. He burst into the captain's room, 
 examined again the face in the glass— which 
 he loathed— and fled from it. 
 
 On the pilot-house was the boat's name, 
 which he had not noticed on the articles, 
 and saw now for the first time. He sprang 
 to the bow and looked over. There, in 
 block copper letters, where once had been 
 the word Petrel, was the boat's later name. 
 Aft on the stern he read it again — "Avon, of 
 New York." He seated himself on a hatch, 
 strangely enough steadier in mind for the 
 removal of the Petrel from the problem ; and, 
 when a little of the terror had left his face, 
 he noticed an anchor worked in india-ink on 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the back of his hand — the soft, white hand 
 of Jack Shiven, the cook. He looked at it, 
 dubiously, then pulled up his right sleeve. 
 There, close to the elbow, was a wreath, and 
 within it the letters " J. D." He tore open 
 his shirt, and on his breast found a mole. 
 Springing to his feet, he raised his clenched 
 fist, brought it slowly down, and said, calmly 
 and decisively, " I am John Dorsey, and 
 this boat " — he scanned the fabric from 
 trucks to curving deck with the eye of a 
 sailor who loves his craft — " this boat is the 
 Petrel" 
 
 11 On deck, there!" came a hail from over 
 the side. He stepped to the rail. A hat- 
 less, coatless man was wearily sculling a boat 
 up to the steamer. " Give me a line," he 
 called as he approached. Dorsey obliged 
 him. " Why didn't you answer me ?" he 
 said, as he climbed over the rail ; "why didn't 
 you pay out on that painter? You've pulled 
 my arms six inches longer." He peered into 
 Dorsey's puzzled face ; then, as though ap- 
 preciating the humor of the situation, he ad- 
 vanced with twinkling eyes and collared him. 
 32 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 " Soho, my man," he said, " never been 
 to sea, hey? Yet you can steer. Can't scull 
 a boat ashore, but can run an engine and 
 steal a big steamer." He gave Dorsey a 
 gentle shake. The next moment he was 
 seated on the deck a dozen feet away, rub- 
 bing a smarting spot on his chest about as 
 large as Dorsey 's fist — which fist, as unused 
 to such collisions as Dorsey was to a shak- 
 ing, was also being rubbed. In his incom- 
 plete correspondence with his environment, 
 Dorsey was still first mate of the Petrel, 
 dealing with an insolent member of her 
 crew; for time had touched lightly the cap- 
 tain of the Avon, and he recognized him. 
 
 " The nigger was right," muttered the cap- 
 tain as he arose ; "mad as an Irish duke on 
 a tater-hill." He bounded into his room; 
 but Dorsey was after him, and before he 
 could cock the revolver which he seized 
 from his wrecked desk it was twisted from 
 his hand and dropped into Dorsey's pocket ; 
 then he was dragged out on deck and seated 
 — not too gently — on a hatch. 
 
 "Now then, Jim Swift," said the angry 
 
 c 33 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 Dorsey, with his hand on the captain's col- 
 lar, "you sit right there and answer a few 
 questions — answer them civilly. What do 
 you know? What's happened — to me and 
 the boat?" 
 
 " Why, Jack, I really don't know," said 
 the captain, resolved to humor his captor, 
 whose apparent maniacal strength prevented 
 an escape ; but his neck was nearly dislo- 
 cated by the sudden shake he received as 
 Dorsey thundered, " Don't call me Jack — 
 I'm out of the forecastle. That the way you 
 speak to an officer? Answer me." 
 
 " I don't know. You ran off with my 
 boat ; but that's all right — good thing you 
 did. Don't choke me — don't !" Dorsey had 
 shifted his fingers. 
 
 " No nonsense. What's the matter with 
 me? Where's this boat been? Where's the 
 skipper and the rest of the crew? What 
 happened after that broadside ?" 
 
 Captain Swift looked up into the face of 
 the other, doubtful as to what answer to 
 make ; but there was no gleam of insanity 
 in the earnest eyes that were fixed upon 
 
 34 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 him, and he saw it. His answer was unfor- 
 tunate. 
 
 " Now look here, my man," he said ; " better 
 drop this* game, whatever it is. You seem 
 to be some kind of an ash-cat as well as pot- 
 wrastler. Get into the engine-room — I'll 
 take care o' the boat ; or else get into the 
 galley, where you belong." 
 
 It is as unwise in a sailor to call an engi- 
 neer an ash-cat as to call his watch-officer a 
 pot-wrastler. Dorsey swung him to his feet 
 and struck him between the eyes with his 
 clinched fist. 
 
 When Captain Swift recovered his facul- 
 ties and sat up, dazed and disfigured, his 
 wrists were ironed ; for he had lain quiet on 
 the deck long enough for Dorsey to rum- 
 mage the mate's room for handcuffs. 
 
 " Now then, my lad," said his conqueror, 
 sternly, " something's wrong — I don't know 
 what ; but as you won't answer questions 
 here, you might be induced to in the Gov- 
 ernment House. Which '11 you do — help me 
 get this boat back to Nassau and hold your 
 berth and your money, or stay in irons, lose 
 
 35 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 your pay, and be kicked into jail for insub- 
 ordination?" 
 
 " Well," said the subdued captain, pain- 
 fully, " I don't know but Nassau's a good 
 place for this boat just now. What d' you 
 want me to do?" 
 
 " Want you to say ' Sir ' when you speak 
 to me," roared Dorsey. " Do that first." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; what do you want me to do ?" 
 
 " You can't run the engine ?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " All right — you can steer. Will you do 
 as you're told if I unlock you — with no 
 growling?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Dorsey released him, and lifted him to his 
 feet by his collar. " Take the wheel," he 
 said, with an emphasizing shake ; " bring her 
 sou' -sou' -east when I start the machine. 
 And, mind you, if you play any games, over- 
 board you go." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 The captain climbed the bridge steps to 
 the pilot-house. 
 
 " Might ha' known better than to ship a 
 36 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 lunatic in the first place," he muttered. 
 " But he saved the old boat for me, just the 
 same. And he's more than a sailor — he's 
 been an officer: he knows the road to the 
 Providence Channel. Great Scott, what a fist 
 he's got! 'minds me o' the smash I got at 
 school — Jack Dorsey — my God ! — I wonder 
 — Dorsey was an engineer — thinks he's an 
 officer here — thinks I'm 'fore the mast — calls 
 me Jim Swift, and I haven't heard the 
 name for twenty years." He looked aft at 
 Dorsey, leading the small boat to the stern 
 by its improvised painter, and shook his 
 head. "No," he added; " Dorsey was tall- 
 er; yet there's something about him — well, 
 we're going to Nassau ; there's an old wom- 
 an there who'll know, and I'll be at the 
 meeting— if I'm alive." 
 
 All that day and the following night Cap- 
 tain Swift was an obedient and respectful 
 helmsman. Dorsey gravitated from the boiler 
 and engine to the bridge, passing in food to 
 the captain at meal-times, lighting the bin- 
 nacle and side lights as night came on, and 
 giving such indubitable evidence of sanity 
 
 37 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 that Captain Swift once ventured to address 
 him as Mr. Dorsey. It was taken as a mat- 
 ter-of-course, whereat the captain danced a 
 silent jig at the wheel. 
 
 And Dorsey, quiet and masterful — defiant 
 of Fate — too incensed at the other to ask 
 further, forced the mystery from his mind. 
 He would know in the morning, when he 
 met the owners. Through the night, when 
 his engine-room duties permitted, he occa- 
 sionally relieved the fatigued helmsman at 
 the long trick at the wheel, and allowed him 
 to smoke, but not to leave the bridge. 
 
 In the morning, as the languid islanders 
 were waking to their indolent existence, 
 Dorsey, on the bridge, conned the steamer 
 into the west channel of Nassau harbor. On 
 the highest point of the low shore was a fig- 
 ure that waved — something red. He did 
 not see it, though the man in the pilot-house 
 did, and, when Dorsey's back was turned, 
 answered with his hand through the window. 
 Inside the harbor, Dorsey stopped the en- 
 gine while he puzzled over the action of a 
 patent windlass which was new to him. 
 
 33 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 Mastering this, he went on at half -speed. 
 The figure had left the rocks, and, still wav- 
 ing the red cloth, was hastening towards the 
 landing. Close in as he dared go, Dorsey 
 again shut off steam, and, with the captain's 
 help, pried the small anchor off the rail and 
 dropped it ; then, ordering the other to 
 bring the boat alongside, he washed the 
 grime of the fire -hold from his hands and 
 face. 
 
 " Boat alongside, sir," reported the cap- 
 tain, when the toilet was finished ; " shall I 
 take you in, sir?" 
 
 " Yes," said Dorsey, curtly ; " but don't 
 try to jump at the dock, or it '11 be worse 
 for you. I want you up at the owners'." 
 
 Captain Swift almost fell into the boat, so 
 fearful was he of being ordered to remain ; 
 and with Dorsey seated on a midship thwart, 
 wondering at the appearance of the water- 
 front, he sculled to the steps of the nearest 
 public wharf. As they landed, an old wom- 
 an in a red shawl was waiting. 
 
 With some difficulty, Dorsey recognized 
 in the stern face of this decrepit old woman 
 
 39 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the features he had known and loved as his 
 mother's. Not once, in his trouble of mind 
 had the strong man thought of her ; and he 
 approached her now with such emotion as 
 might accrue from a week's absence ; for by 
 his chronology it was but a week since he 
 had kissed her good-bye. 
 
 " Mother," he said, as he reached out his 
 arms, "what is it? What's happened to 
 us? I'm changed; you're changed ; and the 
 town's not the same — everything is old. 
 Tell me, mother." 
 
 " Hush," she answered, harshly ; " don't 
 mock me with that name. Where is my 
 boy, Captain Swift — my Johnny? Have 
 you brought him back ?" Somewhat du- 
 biously, Captain Swift, in the rear, pointed 
 at Dorsey. 
 
 She peered into his face — in which the 
 first terror was again showing — shook her 
 head, folded her shawl tightly about her, 
 and turned her back to him. 
 
 " Mother," he called, despairingly, as she 
 walked away. 
 
 Something in the tone — some inherent, 
 
 40 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 lingering trace of his baby wail — struck to 
 the heart of the old woman. She needed 
 no more. He was tugging desperately at 
 his sleeve to show her the initials on his 
 arm, but she gave him no time for that. 
 She was back to him, with her arms about 
 his neck and her lips to his bearded face, 
 crying and crooning incoherently over him 
 with all the old endearments of her early 
 motherhood. 
 
 "Oh, Johnny," she cried, when she could 
 speak clearly ; " I knew you'd come back ; I 
 always knew it— and in the Petrel!' 
 
 " But it isn't the Petrel, mother ; it's the 
 Avon, of New York. Why I don't know. 
 That's what bothers me." 
 
 "I know — they call her the Avon now; 
 but she's the Petrel to me; she took you 
 away from me. But where 'd you go, my 
 boy ? Why didn't you write ?" 
 
 " Write — where 'd I go ?" said the puzzled 
 Dorsey. " Mother, what year is it ?" 
 
 " Eighteen ninety -five, John; didn't you 
 know that?" 
 
 Captain Swift advanced, seized Dorsey by 
 41 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the hand, and said, gravely, " Thirty years, 
 Mr. Dorsey, you've been gone ; can't you 
 remember? Don't you know that the Petrel 
 was taken and that you went to the hos- 
 pital? Don't you remember shipping cook 
 with me at New York as Jack Shiven?" 
 
 Dorsey only stared blankly at him, and 
 the captain went on, shaking his hand vig- 
 orously : 
 
 "I didn't know you — you're so changed; 
 but I might ha' known you, if I hadn't been 
 an all-round chump, when you dodged the 
 cutter. No man alive could ha' done that 
 but Jack Dorsey. I didn't know you till 
 you gave me the old familiar smash in the 
 eyes. But I kept still and obeyed orders ; 
 I'd ha' given my boat, if necessary, to be at 
 this meeting. Thirty years, Jack, you've 
 been gone, and every day of it she's sat on 
 those rocks waiting for you " — the captain 
 was winking hard — " and we all told her 
 you were dead ; but she knew better. Come 
 out to the boat when you can, Jack. There's 
 only one thing that fits this occasion ; if 
 you'd smashed more furniture, you'd ha' 
 42 
 
THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL 
 
 found it. It was bottled the year you went 
 under." 
 
 " Thirty years," said Dorsey, almost in a 
 whisper, while he looked into the blue sky 
 and around at the harbor and town. "It 
 has passed to me in the instant of time dur- 
 ing which I felt something hard strike my 
 head. Take me home, mother, and take 
 care of me — till I can make it out." 
 
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 He had started life at sixteen on a small 
 farm in Ohio, had won the heart of the farm- 
 er's wife by putting new life and ambition 
 into the disabled old clock during her ab- 
 sence, but had incurred the wrath of the 
 farmer himself by taking apart the thresh- 
 ing-machine, which showed signs of wear 
 and which he had sincere intentions of 
 mending. A sound beating caused a va- 
 cancy on that farm, and rilled a corner of a 
 freight-car with a small boy bound for the 
 West. He never reached that ever-receding 
 section. Hunger brought him out at a small 
 town and compelled him to beg; and find- 
 ing this means of livelihood easier than work- 
 ing, he continued at it, and developed in a 
 few years into as picturesque a " tramp " as 
 ever enlivened rural scenery. 
 
 44 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 He was not vicious, only ignorant and 
 lazy. Sometimes, to relieve ennui, he would 
 work for a few days, but only at labor that 
 brought him into contact with machinery. 
 He was a born mechanic ; but this expresses 
 all. He knew by intuition things that suc- 
 cessful civil and mechanical engineers would 
 be glad to acquire after years of study, at 
 the same time possessing none of the bal- 
 ance of mind that makes us respectable. 
 He had a bulging forehead, with ears set 
 well back on his head. A phrenologist, ex- 
 amining such a head, would have described 
 it as showing large imitation, hope, form, 
 and weight ; abnormally large causality, com- 
 parison, and constructiveness ; but sadly 
 deficient in continuity, combativeness, de- 
 structiveness, firmness, acquisitiveness, and 
 approbativeness. With a little energy he 
 could easily have earned at least the title of 
 " Jack of all trades," but even this was be- 
 yond him. In short, he was a happy-go- 
 lucky vagabond, with an ever-increasing re- 
 pugnance for work, and an ever-decreasing 
 community of interest with his fellow-men. 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 He wandered to New York, and stood 
 with a crowd watching the ascent of a large 
 safe, which men were hoisting by means of 
 a wagon-winch to the upper story of a high 
 building. A man stood on the safe, guiding 
 it. People passed underneath, indifferent to 
 danger, and no one but our " tramp" noticed 
 a slight movement of the rope, just above 
 the wagon, followed by a quick untwisting, 
 as a strand parted. 
 
 "Stop!" he yelled, "the rope's breaking." 
 
 " 'Vast heaving !" roared the foreman ; 
 "Stand from under! Jump for a window, 
 Tom — jump for your life !" 
 
 People scattered to the middle of the 
 street. Among the first were the foreman 
 and his men. The man on the safe franti- 
 cally climbed the tackle to reach a window 
 just above him. The two remaining strands 
 of the rope quivered under the strain, be- 
 coming fuzzy with the ends of yarns that 
 had broken and were forced outward, while 
 the broken strand showed its spiral bulging 
 six feet above the place of fracture. Then 
 the tattered idler on the sidewalk made some 
 46 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 very quick movements. Seizing the end of 
 the rope from the wagon, he pulled about 
 eight feet twice around a near-by lamp-post, 
 over and under itself, thus hitching it. Jump- 
 ing to the wagon with the end, he tied it to 
 the straining rope as high up as he could 
 reach, then sprang to the ground a second 
 before the overworked remaining strands 
 snapped. Down came the heavy safe a 
 foot or so, and the reinforced rope sang 
 under the sudden tension, the man above 
 barely held his grip on the tackle, and the 
 lamp -post was bent and nearly wrenched 
 from the ground. But the hitch did not 
 slip. 
 
 The foreman and his helpers came back 
 with some new ideas. The rope, or rather 
 two ropes knotted together, now led straight 
 to the doubtful lamp-post. Hitching another 
 rope above the first knot, they hove on it, 
 bringing the strain on the winch, and the 
 danger was over. 
 
 "Where is that tramp?" asked the fore- 
 man. " He's a sailor. I've been there, and 
 know the signs. He's passed a clove hitch 
 
 47 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 on the lamp-post and a rolling hitch on the 
 fall. I'll give him a job." 
 
 But the " tramp " had gone. 
 
 At Buffalo he fired a stationary engine, 
 on trial, but displayed so keen an interest 
 in the engineer's own work as to lose the 
 job. Later, inspired perhaps by a fleeting 
 self-respect based on his late usefulness, he 
 secured another, this time as engineer. The 
 employer was suspicious at first of the rag- 
 ged, unlicensed aspirant; but he talked glibly 
 of grate surface, eccentrics, valves, pistons, 
 etc. (words picked up in his last service) ; 
 no other applicant appeared, and the engine 
 must run ; so he was accepted. 
 
 Instinct, mechanical and other, is inherit- 
 ed knowledge, and the fact that a correct 
 estimate of the tensile strength of red-hot 
 boiler iron in contact with cold water did 
 not form a part of this man's genius was due, 
 no doubt, to the antecedent fact that none 
 of his ancestors had experimented in this 
 line. Indeed, few who so experiment live 
 long enough to transmit to descendants, in 
 the form of instinct, this acquired knowledge. 
 
 4 S 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 On the second day he sailed over two fences 
 amid a cloud of hot steam, while the shat- 
 tered boiler went the other way. 
 
 He was picked up scalded, disfigured, and 
 unconscious, and sent to the hospital, from 
 which, in three months, he emerged blind 
 in one eye, minus an ear, and with his whole 
 right side shortened and weakened. On a 
 stormy December morning, hungry and cold, 
 he shipped deck-hand on a steam-barge, the 
 mate taking on the forlorn applicant for the 
 same reason that had influenced his last em- 
 ployer: no other appeared. He scrubbed 
 decks, scoured paint-work, and helped trim 
 sail as the shifts of wind demanded, while 
 the steam -barge dragged herself and two 
 tow -barges up the lake. He soon under- 
 stood the proper angle that sails should 
 bear to the wind and the resultant force ex- 
 erted on the vessel. He helped the second 
 mate splice a rope, and knew how before 
 the job was half done. He had seen the 
 rudder at the dock, and now explained to 
 his fellows the action of the slanting blade 
 on the water. Scrubbing paint on the 
 
 D 49 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 bridge, he heard the captain say to the 
 mate: "Pull up the centre-board; she 
 gripes ;" and being sent to help, asked the 
 good-natured second mate what the centre- 
 board was for, and what griping meant. The 
 second mate explained: the centre-board 
 was a movable blade in the bottom to keep 
 the boat from drifting sideways, and " grip- 
 ing " was the carrying of the rudder to one 
 side from the uneven pressure of the wind. 
 
 By the time he had assimilated this nau- 
 tical lore the boat had reached Point Pelee, 
 near the head of the lake ; and here, as 
 though misfortune were still " camped on 
 his trail," he fell overboard. 
 
 "Man overboard — rouster!" yelled the 
 second mate. 
 
 "Which one?" asked the captain, as he 
 rang the stopping-bells. 
 
 "The blind one — the cripple." 
 
 " Let the tow pick him up," growled the 
 captain, ringing full speed to the engine. 
 But as a salve to his conscience he blew a 
 few short barks of the whistle, to signify to 
 the barges behind to " Look out." 
 50 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 Our hero, fathoms deep as he thought, 
 barely escaped a blow from the propeller as 
 he was sucked under the quarter, and came to 
 the surface half the length of the tow-line 
 behind. Being no swimmer, he gasped once 
 and sank ; then arose, only to be beaten un- 
 der by the bow of the oncoming tow-barge. 
 When next he appeared, it was behind the 
 first tow-barge, and the second, approaching 
 at a seven-knot speed, was almost upon him. 
 
 "Help!" he gurgled. But no one heard 
 or saw him, although a profane but humane 
 second mate was perilling his position and 
 blackening his soul with loud, blasphemous 
 objurgations to the barges, and vows of legal 
 vengeance on his superior, the captain, as he 
 peered aft from the steamer's taffrail. 
 
 Just as his head disappeared, the outer bob- 
 stay of the second barge struck him on the 
 shoulder. He grasped it. Tearing through 
 the water made it hard work to pull himself 
 up; but he got his head out, and rested; 
 then, inch by inch, he dragged his crippled 
 body up the pair of iron chains to the bow- 
 sprit and thence in-board to the deck, on to 
 6i 
 
 A 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 which he tumbled an unconscious heap. He 
 was carried below, stripped, and brought to 
 with much rubbing and copious draughts of 
 whiskey ; but not being used to this stimu- 
 lant lately, he relapsed into a stupor. 
 
 That night it snowed so hard that the 
 men steering the tow-barges could not see 
 the steam-barge ahead, and the captains and 
 mates took turns at standing in the bows, 
 and, guided by the trend of the tow-lines, 
 bellowing " Starboard," " Port," and " Steady" 
 to the helmsmen. The captain of the steam- 
 barge, too sure of his position to anchor, yet 
 not sure enough to go ahead without sound- 
 ing, slowed down, took a cast of the lead, 
 and went on, without being able to see 
 through the snow the position the second 
 of the tow -barges had reached. She had 
 crept up on the first barge, but had given 
 her a wide berth; and now, when the tow- 
 line tautened, it bore at right angles — to 
 port. 
 
 " Hard a-starboard !" sang out the mate of 
 the second barge, as he saw the hawser lift 
 from the water. 
 
 52 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 It was his last speech. The terrific strain 
 broke the iron casting on the bow through 
 which the hawser led, and the mate, stand- 
 ing on the port cat-head, was struck in the 
 legs by the sweeping recoil of the heavy 
 line and swept overboard. He did not rise. 
 Ropes were thrown out, but the relentless 
 power at the other end of the tow-line car- 
 ried them away from the spot ; the loudest 
 pair of lungs could not penetrate that thick 
 snow ; and the mate was given up. 
 
 The old captain, much shaken, took the 
 mate's place at the bow, noting, despite his 
 horror, that the port jib-boom guys were 
 torn from their fastenings by the tow-line, 
 which now bore a little forward of the beam, 
 showing that she was straightening up to her 
 course. The tow-post creaked and groaned 
 with the unfamiliar side-strain, and she came 
 around, slackening the tow-line with the in- 
 creased speed acquired in the wide sweep. 
 Then she swung the other way, the strength 
 of the helmsman, a mere boy, not being suf- 
 ficient to steady her. 
 
 As the tow-line tautened, leading now off 
 
 53 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 to starboard, though the brand-new rope 
 held, the rotten tow -post, weakened by 
 its wrenching, did not. Breaking at the 
 deck, it crashed over the bow with the 
 line, catching and carrying away the port 
 bowsprit - shroud as it went ; and with her 
 momentum and the wheel still to port, the 
 barge swung around, lost headway, and, point- 
 ing her nose to the north shore, drifted to 
 leeward, with all the rigging of the bowsprit 
 and jib-boom gone on the port, or weather, 
 side. 
 
 The much -wrought -up old skipper, who 
 had barely escaped the flying tow -post, 
 sprang to the rail and screamed his curses 
 on the steam -barge. "Think I'm goin' t' 
 anchor, do ye? Anchor in this passage — 
 an' wait for you t' take a night's sleep at 
 th' dock 'fore ye come back? Not much! 
 Ye've carried 'way my head- gear, but I'll 
 find a better place — 'f I run t' Buffalo — 
 How's her head?" This to the wheel. 
 
 " Nor' by east, sir." 
 
 " Bring her east by south, half south, when 
 she'll come. Give her the stay-sail, boys." 
 
 54 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 This sail was loosed, hoisted half up, and 
 lost in the thick maze to leeward as a sudden 
 puff of the increasing gale blew it to pieces. 
 
 With decks awash as the seas boarded the 
 weather rail and spilled out of the lee scup- 
 pers, and in that blinding snow-storm, the 
 flakes of which were attaining a needle-like 
 sharpness, the gray old skipper was more 
 than ever resolved not to anchor in a dan- 
 gerous channel, and his men began rigging 
 preventer guys to the bowsprit, for head 
 sail must be carried to bring her before the 
 wind. The boy was told to drop the wheel 
 and lend a hand. The darky cook was 
 called and sent out on the bowsprit with the 
 rest, as they endeavored to hitch a heavy 
 hawser around the end of the spar. It was 
 icy cold. The waves made hungry licks at 
 their legs as they worked, and their fingers 
 were numb, and the ropes and spar slippery 
 with ice ; but they completed the task, and 
 had started in when one of those vicious 
 Lake Erie seas, the first of the three which 
 travel in company, lifted up to windward, a 
 gray, nearly perpendicular wall. 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 Look out!" cried the captain; "hang 
 
 on !" 
 
 When the sea had passed over and the 
 captain had straightened up, he saw one 
 dark object clinging to the icy gear under 
 the spar, while from the blanket of snow to 
 leeward came gurgling cries. Then, as the 
 next sea crashed over the bows, he heard : 
 " Help, cappen !" as the cook also was swept 
 away. 
 
 Unable to save them, and trembling with 
 horror, the old man crawled aft and went 
 below, where he buried his head in his 
 hands on the cabin table. " Great God !" 
 he groaned, " all gone, every man ; and all 
 in half an hour!" 
 
 He sat there, wet, lonely, and miserable, 
 until daylight shone in on him ; then he re- 
 membered the deck-hand in the forecastle, 
 and started forward to arouse him, if he too 
 had not died in the night. 
 
 It had stopped snowing, but the snow was 
 
 replaced by the drift from the sea, which, 
 
 freezing where it fell, had already encased 
 
 deck, rail, and rigging in a coating of ice. 
 
 56 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 It was slippery walking, or, rather, creeping, 
 for an old man of seventy, with the craft 
 rolling both rails under, and it is no wonder 
 that an incoming sea swept his legs from 
 under him, bringing him down with a thud 
 on the icy corner of the forehatch. 
 
 He groaned with the sharp pain in his 
 back, but could not rise. His legs were use- 
 less ; so he hitched and crawled as best he 
 could, and in time reached the forecastle- 
 hatch, where he called — called until his voice 
 grew weak, then gasped his prayer for help, 
 while the man below slept on, and did not 
 waken even when the masts crashed over 
 the side. 
 
 It was high noon when the sleeper opened 
 his eyes— on strange quarters, with an icy 
 ladder leading up to a square of light, 
 blocked by a gray face fringed with icicles, 
 on which death had stamped the agony of 
 its owner's last moments. He shivered with 
 cold as he turned out. His clothes, nearly 
 dried by the now cold stove, hung on the 
 pawl -post, and he dressed himself, with 
 many upward glances at the grewsome thing 
 
 57 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 above. Then he mounted the slippery lad- 
 der, shutting his eyes as he neared the star- 
 ing face, and not opening them until he had 
 climbed over it and floundered on to the 
 deck beside the body, covered now, like the 
 deck itself, with a frozen mantle. 
 
 He made his way aft, and called down the 
 cabin door: "Any one here?" 
 
 Hearing no sound, he descended, and 
 opened all the stateroom doors, but found 
 no one. His hunger brought him to the 
 galley, where he partook of some food, and 
 then returned to the deck. It was a situa- 
 tion to appal the heart of even an experi- 
 enced sailor. The vessel had once been a 
 fine three-masted schooner, degraded later 
 to a barge by sending down her topmasts. 
 Now she was a dismantled hulk, with ice on 
 deck making a curve from the rails in-board 
 to where it raised in hummocks over the 
 hatches. And on this dismantled, ice-bound 
 hulk, rolling in the trough of the sea, some- 
 where on Lake Erie, he was alone with a 
 dead man. This much he knew. Ahead 
 and astern were two lines of blue, which he 
 58 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 took for land. But no sail appeared to 
 cheer him. As he stood in the companion- 
 way, sheltered from the furious blast, the 
 memory of his fall from the steam-barge, his 
 being swept under by the first tow-barge, 
 and his painful climb up the bobstays of the 
 other came back to him. But he remem- 
 bered nothing more. 
 
 " Somethin' orful's happened," he mut- 
 tered. " S'pose every one got washed off — 
 or, mebbe, they're in the boat; that's gone. 
 Wonder what killed the man forrard ? I've 
 got t' do somethin'." 
 
 He noticed the thumping of the spars 
 alongside, where they lay held by the rig- 
 ging, and concluded to cut them away ; they 
 might knock a hole in her. An axe alone 
 would do it. He looked at the frozen deck. 
 Axes suggest wood -piles, and wood -piles 
 suggest stoves. This inductive reasoning 
 brought him to the galley, where he found 
 a hatchet; and with this he chopped at 
 lanyards and running -gear until the spars 
 drifted away. The jib-boom had snapped 
 at the bowsprit end, but the bowsprit still 
 59 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 stood ; otherwise he would have had to cut 
 through a chain bowsprit- shroud — a thing 
 practically impossible. 
 
 He saved as much of the running-rigging 
 as he could — not that he knew why; he had 
 no use for it as yet ; he obeyed an instinct 
 — the same that impelled him to put the 
 hatchet carefully away in an oval -shaped 
 hole in the after part of the cabin. As it 
 was daytime he felt no nervous fears of the 
 dead man forward, and crawled around the 
 deck, inspecting what was left of her fittings. 
 He examined a hummock of ice amidships, 
 showing a black skeleton of iron. " Centre- 
 board winch," he said. Another pillar of ice 
 enclosed the capstan ; the steam-barge had 
 carried these things. Creeping aft, he looked 
 over the stern and discovered the rudder, 
 ice-covered, but free in its movements, which 
 a sailor would have known by the spinning 
 of the wheel. 
 
 He was now wet with the drift and chilled 
 through. He went below, and in the mate's 
 room found dry clothing, with which he re- 
 placed his wet rags. The captain's room 
 60 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 furnished a good pair of rubber boots and a 
 suit of oil-skins. While here he noticed a 
 bundle of paper rolls, which he examined. 
 " Maps," he said. He found the chart of 
 Lake Erie, and for the first time in his life 
 valued a much - neglected accomplishment: 
 he could read. 
 
 A cursory glance showed him a long, bag- 
 shaped outline of coast, with Buffalo at one 
 end, and other cities, most of which he had 
 visited, marked on the edges. In one cor- 
 ner was a circle, filled with numerous inter- 
 locking stars, which he could not understand. 
 He put the chart away, and, clad in his 
 warm, protective clothing, returned to the 
 deck, where he did an hour's hard thinking 
 and experimenting. 
 
 " She don't lay even in the holler of the 
 waves," he said. " Why?" He thought of 
 the centre-board. " She drifts sideways, an' 
 if the board's down it makes a point, kinder, 
 an' she'd hang on it. If it's forrard o' the 
 centre, it 'ud hold that end to the wind a 
 little. I'll see." 
 
 The rubber boots gave him good sea-legs. 
 
 61 
 
 A 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 He went to the centre-board winch, meas- 
 ured the distance forward and aft with his 
 eye, and returned for the hatchet. As he 
 took it from the hole in the cabin, he saw a 
 curious, whirling disk inside, which, when it 
 had ceased its gyrations, resembled the di- 
 agram on the chart. He had never seen or 
 heard of a compass, but the letters E, S, 
 and W on the edge of the disk, and the fact 
 that it retained a steady position indepen- 
 dent of the yaws of the vessel, were data for 
 later deductions. 
 
 He chopped the ice from the winch, and 
 roughened it under his feet, then, little by 
 little, with his feeble strength, hoisted the 
 centre-board. A man can lift a great weight 
 with a worm - geared winch. Going aft, he 
 proved his reasoning ; she lay plumb in the 
 trough of the sea. 
 
 He chopped the ice from two large, octa- 
 gon-shaped boxes, abaft the stumps of the 
 fore and main masts, and looked in. They 
 contained heavy hawsers, tackles, etc. He 
 noticed the heavy, cross-plank construction 
 of the covers as he replaced them. A barrel 
 62 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 was lashed to the fife-rail around the stump 
 of the foremast. Chopping into it, he found 
 salt, and remarked that where he spilled 
 some on deck the ice crackled and melted 
 to water, which did not freeze again. Then 
 he went aft, and puzzled over the action of 
 the compass, which, not being governed by 
 purely mechanical laws, was beyond his com- 
 prehension. But he divined its scope and 
 utility, and out of his environment of scream- 
 ing wind and heaving water evolved a plan 
 of salvation — apparently so wild, so baseless 
 and hopeless, that no sane seafaring man, 
 hampered by experience, would have con- 
 sidered it for an instant. But this man was 
 not a sailor; he was a mechanic, heaven- 
 born. 
 
 " She's driftin' 'bout as fast as a man kin 
 walk," he mused. " If she'd point with the 
 wind she'd move faster. How kin I make 
 her? More pressure on one end or less on 
 the other; a sail forrard 'ud do." 
 
 The foremast had broken about ten feet 
 from the deck, and the boom and gaff, with 
 the foresail furled to them, lay with the jaws 
 63 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 in place on the stump and the after ends 
 frozen fast to the ice in the scuppers. The 
 main and mizzen masts had snapped at the 
 deck, and everything pertaining to them was 
 overboard except what he had saved of the 
 running-rigging. Forward, from the bowsprit 
 end, descended an immense icicle, the accre- 
 tion of ice to the jib-stay, broken aloft and 
 hanging down, while on the bowsprit lay the 
 furled jib — an elongated cone of ice: a solid 
 mass with the spar. He shrank from at- 
 tempting to chop loose and set this sail to 
 the stump of the mast, and considered the 
 alternative : less pressure aft ; he could rig 
 a drag. 
 
 His ideas were crystallizing. He searched 
 for and found a well- equipped tool -chest, 
 and spent the rest of the afternoon chop- 
 ping from the icy deck the ropes he had 
 pulled in — coiling them, or, rather, crushing 
 them, in the cabin, where he sprinkled them 
 with salt from the barrel. Then, building 
 a fire in the stove, he cooked and ate his 
 supper, first bringing all the ropes'-ends into 
 the galley to dry. 
 
 64 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 By the light of the galley lamp he studied 
 the chart, but could make little of it excep 
 that he was somewhere on a line, midway 
 between the shores, which he creased with 
 his thumb-nail from Buffalo to the head of 
 the lake. If he could get her before the 
 wind and steer, and the wind should shift, 
 he might make one of the ports on either 
 shore ; and in case the wind held as it was, 
 he could not miss Buffalo, for the compass 
 told him the wind was blowing him there. 
 He schemed and planned until sleepy, then 
 " turned in all standing." 
 
 Morning showed more ice on deck and a 
 slight change to the northward in the wind, 
 which had been due west, but no lessening 
 of its velocity or of the bitter cold. After 
 breakfast he went to work. His ropes were 
 now pliable and the ends dry. With an 
 auger he bored four holes in the rim of one 
 of the heavy box-covers, into which he in- 
 serted the ends of ropes, making a bridle 
 such as boys put on their kites. Weighting 
 one side with a heavy piece of iron, he fast- 
 ened the end of a hawser from the box to 
 e 65 
 
S P U N - Y A R N 
 
 the bridle, and pushed the contrivance over 
 the stern, paying out the line as the vessel 
 drifted away from it. When about a hun- 
 dred feet were out, he made it fast to the 
 quarter-bitts (a strong post), and watched the 
 effect as the line tautened. It certainly did 
 bring the stern to the wind, but not enough 
 to give the craft headway. He rigged the 
 other box-cover as a drag on the other quar- 
 ter, and had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 craft pay off and go staggering through the 
 water, and, though yawing right and left, 
 keep a general direction eastward. He hur- 
 rahed his delight, and took the wheel, but 
 found that he could make no improvement 
 in the serpentine wake the barge left behind 
 her. Deeply laden and weighted with ice, 
 she now shipped ever}' sea over the stern, 
 and to escape them he went below, satisfied 
 for the time that she was going somewhere 
 at a fairly good rate. Had he been success- 
 ful at the wheel, he would have cut away the 
 drags to increase her speed, but he feared to. 
 Could he put sail on her, and increase her 
 speed with the drags still out? The sound 
 
 66 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 of the drag-ropes, straining on the bitts, gave 
 him an idea of power that he could use — 
 power beyond the strength of a hundred 
 men. 
 
 Up he came and surveyed the ground, in- 
 specting first the jib. It was covered with 
 six inches of solid ice. It would be too 
 dangerous to climb out there and chop it 
 loose. Besides, when set, it would show 
 little surface, and would only help to keep 
 her before the wind. He needed a mast 
 and a larger sail. So he inventoried his ma- 
 terial. The furled foresail was there, with a 
 good boom and gaff; the boxes were filled 
 with strong hawsers, and on top of the coils 
 were tackles, small line, and deck tools ; he 
 had a cabinful of running-gear, and, counting 
 the pulley-blocks in reach, found himself 
 possessed of four large double and three 
 large single blocks, all shackled to their 
 places. With salt, hatchet, and tools he 
 disconnected these and carried them below. 
 
 The forward hawser-box was in his way, 
 and he emptied it, coiling the lines in the 
 cabin. Disdaining to chop it clear of ice, he 
 67 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 merely scored a rough groove, knotted a 
 heavy rope to the box, and, leading this aft, 
 hitched it to one of the drag-lines — with the 
 same knot he had used in New York — and 
 slacked away. The surrounding ice crac- 
 kled, split, and went to pieces as the heavy 
 box bounded from its bed and rolled about 
 the decks. A friendly sea carried it over- 
 board, and he cut it adrift. He spliced ropes 
 for tackles — and an able seaman could have 
 spliced no better, though, possibly, more 
 quickly; for sailors are made, not born, like 
 poets and mechanics. He chopped ice and 
 manipulated tackles — with the drag for 
 power — and by noon had the heavy boom, 
 sail, and gaff on deck, and two holes sunk in 
 the solid bed of ice abaft the stump to re- 
 ceive the jaws when his mast should arise. 
 Salting his work as he left it, he labored on, 
 perspiring with his efforts, and drenched by 
 the merciless seas which boarded the craft 
 amidships. His clothing stiffened with ice, 
 but he worked with an energy new to him. 
 Was it love of life or love of mechanics that 
 impelled him? 
 
 63 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 Late in the afternoon he first felt hunger, 
 and surveyed his work before going aft to 
 eat. The sail was cut away and lay on deck 
 — a frozen cylinder, lashed to the rail. Not 
 wanting the gaff, he had sped it over the 
 side by clever handling of ropes and drag- 
 lines. The boom lay nearly amidships, with 
 the middle of a brand-new hawser knotted 
 to its after extremity, the ends of which, 
 equally cut to the length of the boom, he 
 had secured to two strong iron rings in the 
 rails, one each side — stout shrouds for his 
 new mast. A strong tackle led from the 
 end of the boom to the jagged head of the 
 mast stump. Another from the same end 
 led to the bows, hooking into the still intact 
 bull's-eye of the broken forestay. The first 
 was to lift his mast until the other could act, 
 which would then complete the work, and, 
 when the mast was up, act as a permanent 
 support from forward — a forestay. A single 
 block, with a long rope pulled through, was 
 secured to the under side of the boom, close 
 to the end. Although he might not have 
 named it, this rope was his halyard — to hoist 
 6 9 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 his sail. His fertile brain had worked in ad- 
 vance of his crippled body; he had lost no 
 time in planning the next step. 
 
 After a hurried lunch he studied his drag- 
 line — his power. Could he lift that mast 
 with one drag? He knew nothing of foot- 
 pounds, horse-power, or mechanical equiva- 
 lents, but " guessed" that he could not. So, 
 knotting the ends of both to his last hawser, 
 he threw them overboard, and soon had both 
 drags straining on one rope — a doubling of 
 power, but an unseamanlike waste of good 
 manilla. He then led the falls, or hauling 
 parts, of his tackles aft, and, hitching the one 
 he was to use first to the drag-line, slacked 
 out until it tautened. But his mast must 
 go up straight as a jack-knife blade from the 
 handle ; it must not swing ; he needed side 
 guys to steady it. These he rigged from 
 the end of the boom through two blocks 
 hooked in the rails, thence aft to where he 
 could slack away from two iron belaying- 
 pins. Then he was ready. 
 
 First, inspecting everything, he payed out 
 carefully, and had the satisfaction of seeing 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 the boom lift amid a shower of crackling ice 
 from the tackle, staggering its way upward, 
 and jerking violently on the guy-ropes as it 
 swayed back and forth. But they soon taut- 
 ened, and, leading the drag-line across the 
 deck, he slackened these guys alternately, 
 paying out on the drags as he moved back 
 and forth, thus keeping the spar compara- 
 tively steady. When the tackle had reached 
 the slippery angle of forty-five degrees, he 
 fastened the fall of the long bow-tackle to 
 the drag -line, and soon got the weight of 
 the boom on this. Then, cutting the other 
 way, he payed out roundly, fearing the guys 
 would part from the merciless tugs they re- 
 ceived as the spar, nearly on end, thrashed 
 from side to side. But they held nobly. 
 Soon the heavy shrouds tautened, and the 
 new mast, describing a few jerky circles 
 against the gray sky, settled itself, a rigid 
 mass with the hull, held by its icy socket at 
 the deck, aft by two hawsers to the rail, and 
 forward by a strong four-part tackle to the 
 bow. But he must secure this forestay, now 
 depending on the uncertain tension of the 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 drag -line. By the time he had done so 
 darkness had almost arrived, and the ghast- 
 ly mound on deck, looking ghastlier in the 
 lessening light, sent him aft for the night. 
 First, however, he salted his halyard, coiled 
 on the fife-rail, and threw the rest of the salt 
 on the frozen cylinder which he was to trans- 
 form to a sail in the morning. Then drop- 
 ping the tackles and deck tools down the 
 stairs, he looked around the shortened hori- 
 zon before following them. 
 
 The aspect had not changed. The same 
 black-and-gray waste of wind-driven cloud 
 and foam-crested sea met his eye ; and yet 
 he fancied the darker line of land to the 
 southward looked larger. He went below, 
 wet, benumbed, and exhausted, but feeling 
 within him the exultation of a victor and 
 the strange stirrings of a newly aroused man- 
 hood. Dry clothes and supper refreshed 
 him a little, and again he studied the chart. 
 Reaching down the cook's rolling-pin and 
 placing the chart on the floor, he knelt on it. 
 
 11 Now, that circle in the corner," he said, 
 " can't mean nothin' but to show the way 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 the lake runs. That line on it marked E an' 
 W means east an' west, an' the one crossin' 
 it with S at the bottom means south, an' 
 t'other end must mean north, o' course. An' 
 that thing in the hole up -stairs is marked 
 just the same an' alius points the same way 
 — wonder why? Now, le's see. 
 
 " In the mornin' I 'spect she'll be pretty 
 close to that shore." He placed the rolling- 
 pin so that by ranging his eye he struck 
 a line from Buffalo nearly parallel to the 
 south shore, and touching it two -thirds of 
 its length from that port. 
 
 " Now, I'll jess guess that in the mornin' 
 I'll be somewhere near this line." He rolled 
 his improvised parallel rule ; it would not 
 reach the compass diagram in the corner, 
 and he supplemented it with the edge of the 
 chopping-board, which he placed on the cen- 
 tre of the circle and flush with the rolling-pin. 
 
 " Ei^ht divisions o' that circle 'tween east 
 an' north," he mused. "This strikes off 
 'bout two an' a half o' them. Two an' a 
 half divisions north o' the east line. I'll re- 
 member." 
 
 73 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 His sleep was troubled. All night he 
 chopped ice and poked frozen ropes through 
 blocks too small for them, tied hitches that 
 slipped, and spliced ropes that broke. Once 
 he was up. The mast was still in place, and 
 the drag still kept her before the wind. He 
 could not see the compass, but the wind 
 and sea were unquestionably milder. So he 
 turned in again, and aroused at daylight to 
 find himself within two miles of the shore, 
 an angry surf showing, and the wind brisk 
 from the north. But the gale was over. 
 
 The barge was heading straight for the 
 nest of breakers, and he must do something 
 quickly. A few moments of dazed thinking 
 and he was awake and himself. With some 
 small dry rope from the cabin he lashed the 
 forward upper corner of the sail to the foot 
 of the mast. He could not haul it snug to 
 its place, but made it secure. Then with 
 the axe he chopped one of the blocks from 
 the rail, where he had left it, secured it to 
 the mast, and, knotting one end of the hal- 
 yard into the after upper corner of the sail, 
 he passed the other through this block, and, 
 
 74 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 leading it aft. fastened it to the drag-line, 
 not by a hitch — both ropes were icy — but 
 by a firm lashing of small line. 
 
 Before paying out to hoist the sail, he 
 took his axe and made mighty dents in 
 the ice which bound it. He chopped, ham- 
 mered, and pried until he dared wait no 
 longer; then he threw off the drag -line 
 turns and chopped again, where most need- 
 ed, as the sail shook itself loose and arose 
 with a thrashing and crackling that was 
 deafening. 
 
 He was driven away by the hurling pieces 
 of ice, and ran to the drag-line. Taking a 
 turn, he dubiously watched the sail ascend 
 as he slacked out, not knowing as yet how 
 he was to secure the lower part, until he no- 
 ticed a ring worked into the edge which was 
 just ready to slip over the side out of his 
 reach. Making fast, he ran below, emerging 
 with some small line and his best tackle, 
 one block of which he hooked to this ring, 
 lashing the hook, and the other to the ring- 
 bolt in the starboard rail left vacant by the 
 single block. Hauling taut, he secured the 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 tackle, then, paying out more drag -line, 
 brought the sail up. 
 
 It set beautifully, a picturesque leg-of- 
 mutton above, but sadly blocked the deck 
 with the unused portion below. It increased 
 the barge's speed towards the shore, and he 
 took the wheel to throw her round. She 
 would not come ; so, lashing the halyard to 
 the bitts, with some misgivings he cut the 
 drag-line. Then she answered her helm, 
 and soon was clawing off that lee -shore 
 as bravely as though carrying a com- 
 plete equipment of spars, sails, and able 
 seamen. 
 
 He found the course he had selected and 
 held her to it, not steering true, but very 
 well for a novice. When hungry, he drop- 
 ped the wheel, rushed to the galley, and, 
 coming back with some bread, found her 
 rounding up to the wind. But she payed 
 off when he put the wheel over, and, munch- 
 ing the bread, he steered on, watching for 
 ports on the south shore. He saw no signs 
 that his judgment approved of, however; 
 the wind was freshening and hauling back 
 76 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 to its old quarter, and he resolved to go on ; 
 
 he could not miss Buffalo. 
 
 As night came on he reasoned out the ne- 
 cessity of light on the compass, and, investi- 
 gating, found two lamps— one burned out, 
 the other full— approachable from the inside 
 of the cabin. He lighted the full one, and, 
 returning to the wheel, found the vessel in 
 the trough of the sea and threatening to roll 
 her mast out. But it held, and he brought 
 her back to the course, resolved not to leave 
 the wheel again. 
 
 Darkness descended, and he steered by 
 compass alone, as the wind freshened to a 
 gale, and by midnight to a hurricane that 
 at times flattened the seas to a level. His 
 lame side ached; his blind eye, inflamed 
 with cold, smarted as though torn with nee- 
 dles ; but he bravely made his course good. 
 The seas poured over and drenched him, 
 and ice formed on his back and shoulders, 
 descending as a curtain from the rim of his 
 sou'wester. Working the wheel made his 
 arms and breast perspire, while his feet 
 smarted, burned, and grew numb as the 
 77 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 water in his boots congealed. All but en- 
 gulfed in a liquid world, he felt the torture 
 of thirst until he bit ice from his sleeve. He 
 talked to and about himself. 
 
 As the night wore on, the frozen dead 
 man left his icy bed and flitted about in the 
 darkness — beckoning. The wailing of the 
 wind in the rigging of his jury-mast became 
 the winter song of the kitchen chimney in 
 his childhood home, where his mother had 
 taught him to read. She came to him at 
 times, during the lulls, when the seas would 
 rise, and the terrible aching fatigue of arms 
 and back would wring from him hoarse 
 groans of agony ; and she would stand be- 
 side him, pointing to the page of his book. 
 But the printing on the page before him 
 was the markings of a brightly illuminated 
 compass-card, and her finger would seem to 
 be a dancing, wavering lubber's point that 
 swung unsteadily — far to the right, far to 
 the left — and would not be still. Then 
 would come a squall of the hurricane, when 
 the seas would flatten to a milky froth, and 
 the chimney song rise to a continuous scream- 
 78 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 ing sound. But during these moments moth- 
 er and dead man would go ; for, braced heav- 
 ily against the nearly immovable wheel, his 
 tortured mind and body obtained momen- 
 tary respite, and sanity came back. 
 
 A bright light flared out away on the port 
 bow and went out. It appeared again and 
 again. What was it? He did not know, 
 but it cheered him. It passed astern, and 
 another appeared to starboard. And so he 
 steered on through the night, on the course 
 he had chosen and remembered : northeast 
 by east, half east. 
 
 A sleepy life-saver, patrolling the beach, 
 saw a curious craft approaching port in the 
 gray of the morning, making wild, zigzag 
 yaws, as though undecided which shore to 
 strike. He awakened his comrades and then 
 the nearest tug-captain, and having nothing 
 better to do and with plenty of time, turned 
 out all the tugs moored on his side of the 
 river. Six puffing, snorting, high -pressure 
 tugs ranged up alongside the shapeless ice- 
 berg floundering into port, their captains 
 roaring out requests for a line to the dishev- 
 
 79 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 elled creature at the wheel. A vacant stare 
 and a backward wave of the arm were the 
 only answer. 
 
 Gayly and noisily the procession passed 
 up Buffalo River, and it was only after the 
 leading craft had torn three vessels from 
 their moorings; after passing the foot of 
 Main Street, black with cheering men, and 
 through the bridge, barely swung in time to 
 save it, that the tugmen managed to get 
 aboard and take lines. The barge was 
 stopped just in time to save a canal- 
 boat that lay in her way from a fatal ram- 
 ming. 
 
 She was moored to the dock, where crowds 
 poured aboard and passed comments. And 
 her helmsman and navigator — where was 
 he? In the galley, lighting a fire; he had 
 earned his breakfast and wanted it. News- 
 paper men sought him and asked questions, 
 which he answered between mouthfuls, main- 
 ly by a simple " Dunno." One brought him 
 a looking-glass, into which he looked, won- 
 deringly ; his lips were shrunken and drawn, 
 his face wrinkled, and his hair, which had 
 80 
 
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 
 
 been dark, was white as the crests of the seas 
 he had conquered. 
 
 The captain of a wind-bound liner ap- 
 peared and interviewed him. " He's not a 
 sailor," he reported, later; "but he has ac- 
 complished the greatest feat of pure sea- 
 manship I ever heard of. I met that craft 
 at the head of the lake three days ago. She 
 must have been dismasted that night in the 
 first of the blow. He told me how he found 
 himself alone, rigged drags for power, put 
 a jury-mast in her, and struck off a course 
 with a rolling-pin, and clawed her off a lee- 
 shore, and sailed her down this lake in the 
 wildest hurricane we've ever had here. Yes, 
 sir, it's wonderful; but it's possible. And 
 it's a salvage job, too; he'll get several 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 But though every reporter on every paper 
 in Buffalo hunted for him high and low, he 
 did not put in a claim for salvage. 
 
 That night a south -bound freight train 
 carried a wrinkled, white-haired, one-eyed 
 "tramp," bound for sunnier climes, where 
 ice and snow were unknown. 
 
 f Si 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 He was Scotch from crown to toe, Scotch 
 in his name, character, and virtues — vices he 
 had none, unless the national acquisitiveness 
 can be so characterized — and Scotch above 
 all in his religion. The Scotch Presbyteri- 
 anism is considerably bluer than the rest of 
 the brand, and of the bluest of the blue was 
 the theology of Angus MacNab. 
 
 As a boy he had won prizes at Sabbath 
 school, walked through youth in the straight 
 and narrow way, and on coming to man- 
 hood — tall, loose-jointed, and solemn — found 
 himself with two definite incentives to fut- 
 ure action : an ambition to acquire wealth 
 and a dream of saving souls. Parsons were 
 poor, and money -making ungodly, and for 
 awhile the two conflicting passions prevent- 
 
 S2 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 ed his choosing a career ; but he learned, in 
 time, of the possibilities in missionary work 
 among the heathen, and with much prayer 
 and pious thought prepared himself and his 
 way towards this calling. 
 
 An outward-bound ship took him, primed 
 with zeal and commissions, as far towards 
 heathendom as the River Plate, where an 
 easterly gale wrecked the ship and drowned 
 half her people. His baggage and creden- 
 tials were lost, and the enforced companion- 
 ship with seamen in the open air until they 
 reached the settlements roughened him and 
 prepared him to work his way as a 'for- 
 mast hand to Buenos Ayres. Here he found 
 no occupation congenial to his creed — the 
 Roman Catholic Church attending to the 
 needs of souls — and he shipped before the 
 mast for the Gold Coast, where, he was told, 
 there were missionaries. This trip deter- 
 mined his life. With his small endowment of 
 spirituality reduced to intolerant dogmatism 
 and his clothing to tarry rags, he presented 
 so unpromising a front to the local mission- 
 aries as to fail him of encouragement, or 
 83 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 even their efforts towards his discharge from 
 the ship, and he finished the voyage, ship- 
 ping again in the same craft, again and again 
 in others — wandering around the world, and 
 drifting with each voyage farther and farther 
 from the calling he aspired to, while he ac- 
 quired money and knowledge in the one 
 forced upon him. 
 
 At thirty he was a competent chief mate 
 and navigator with a master's certificate and 
 a bank account ; at forty, a shrewd, success- 
 ful commander, with three or four bank ac- 
 counts, and a reputation for piety and in- 
 tegrity that attracted to him all that was 
 God-fearing in the seafaring element at the 
 home ports, and repelled the opposite. In- 
 deed, no irreligious sailor would, or could, 
 make the second voyage with him, and at 
 the time this story opens — in the early for- 
 ties — he possessed a following of thirty hard- 
 headed, Sabbath - keeping, money -saving 
 Scots, who had signed with him, and sworn 
 by him — figuratively — for years, and who 
 mustered at his call into an office at Cape 
 Town, where they formed a stock company, 
 84 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 subscribing their savings and services, and 
 electing Captain MacNab, the heaviest sub- 
 scriber, president, and his officers directors— 
 which company bought, for a song, a fast- 
 sailing bark that had lately climbed high 
 and dry on the beach, and been abandoned 
 to the underwriters. 
 
 Hard work and good seamanship floated 
 her, and after a few repairs and internal 
 changes she departed with a new name and 
 empty hold for the Guinea Coast, where she 
 took on an unsavory cargo— the purchase of 
 which used up the last shilling of the com- 
 pany's capital — and sailed for a Brazilian 
 market. 
 
 At daylight of the seventh day out, Cap- 
 tain MacNab squared away to the south- 
 ward, sent up stunsails, and a silent prayer 
 to Heaven that the way of the ungodly 
 might perish, and called his first mate, Sandy 
 Anderson ; for, charging across his stern 
 from east to west was a white brig, yacht- 
 like in her symmetrical beauty, and showing, 
 as she heeled to the fresh northerly breeze, 
 a shining incline of yellow deck, on which 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 were twelve guns and a long-torn, while a 
 mile astern of her was a pursuing topsail- 
 schooner, black, but equally yacht-like, with 
 a long pennant at the main truck, the tri- 
 color at the gaff end, and on her forecastle 
 a vicious bow -chaser, which occasionally 
 spoke. 
 
 " It '11 be ane o' the ten-gun schooners the 
 French ha' sent doon to police the coast, 
 I'm thinkin', Sandy," said Captain MacNab, 
 as he took his glass off the pursuer. " Send 
 that the brig holds him to it till we're oot o' 
 range." 
 
 " Aye," answered the mate as he reached 
 for the glass ; " we can run awa' from any 
 schooner afloat wi' the wind free — e'en a 
 French bottom ; but yon brig '11 be meat for 
 the froggies ; she's makin' but twa feet to 
 the schooner's three — save us, what's that?" 
 
 " A shell, Sandy— a shell, a shell ! Oh, the 
 inhumanity o' man — the inhumanity! To 
 drop a shell on a cargo o' human creatur's." 
 
 An explosion had occurred on the deck of 
 the brig a few seconds after a heavier puff 
 of smoke had left the schooner and coinci- 
 
 86 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 dent with the louder boom of a shell-gun. 
 The brig's main tack and main staysail sheet 
 were evidently cut, for these sails thrashed 
 in the wind and were taken in, while the 
 schooner, which had luffed three points or 
 more to fire this shot from a bow port, 
 payed off to resume the chase, which now 
 gave promise of a speedy end. 
 
 But the brig was observed to luff, though 
 with no backing of yards to indicate sur- 
 render. Around she came, until her weather 
 leaches trembled, and lay steady at about 
 forty- five degrees from her course, while a 
 cluster of men could be seen working at the 
 long-torn amidships. 
 
 "She's hittin' back — hittin' back," mur- 
 mured Sandy, excitedly, as he handed the 
 glass to his superior. " Losh, but it's a 
 hangin' matter. Confiscation 's bad enough, 
 but they'll hang — they'll hang for piracy." 
 
 The brig heeled visibly under the recoil 
 of the gun, and a roar like a clap of thunder 
 came down the wind. " Double- shotted," 
 thought Captain MacNab as he heard it. 
 "Chain-shot!" he exclaimed, as he saw the 
 
 S7 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 jib- topsail, fore-topsail and top-gallantsail, 
 and main gaff-topsail of the schooner sink 
 to leeward in a tangle, while two shattered 
 stumps showed above the cross-trees. The 
 brig payed off, set her main-sail and stay-sail, 
 and sailed on. The race was indeed ended. 
 The schooner's rigging became black with 
 men securing the wreck, and she wore around 
 to an easterly course, while the brig kept on 
 to the westward and the bark to the south- 
 ward. At noon, with his quarrelling neigh- 
 bors reduced to specks on the horizon, Cap- 
 tain MacNab hauled back to his course, and 
 said to his mate: " 'Twas a fair good shot, 
 Sandy, but what is she? Chain-shot is ob- 
 solete, an' all men-o'-war paint black. An' 
 would a war-brig of any country run from a 
 French schooner? France has na quarrel 
 wi' nations. Is she a slaver, Sandy, or ha' 
 the days o' piracy come back?" 
 
 Sandy could not answer, but next morn- 
 ing the question was answered by the brig 
 herself. At midnight, though the weather 
 was fine, the light sails had been furled ; for 
 the coming day was Sunday, sacred to Cap- 
 8S 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 tain MacNab, to be remembered religiously 
 in meditation and prayer, undisturbed by the 
 trimming and shortening of sail. Riding 
 along on a course which nothing but threat- 
 ening disaster was to change before the fol- 
 lowing midnight, the bark found herself, as 
 the gray dawn stole over the sea, a quarter- 
 mile to leeward of a shadowy fabric, which, 
 as the tropic day opened up in all its sudden 
 brightness, resolved itself into the white 
 brig, graceful and menacing, humming down 
 with yards nearly square, ports opened, and 
 guns run out. 
 
 " Save us !" muttered the mate, who had 
 the deck. " Put your wheel up, mon," he 
 said to the helmsman — then, in a roar: 
 " Call all hands, forrard there. Loose royals 
 an' to'gallant-sa'ls, fore and aft." While the 
 men sprang to obey the orders, the mate 
 tapped on the captain's window and hoisted 
 the British ensign. 
 
 As though in defiance of the red emblem of 
 
 maritime supremacy, a bow gun belched forth 
 
 and sent a solid shot ricochetting ahead of 
 
 the bark; then a trumpet voice from the 
 
 89 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 brig called out : " Put your wheel down and 
 back your main-topsail." 
 
 Captain MacNab reached the deck in time 
 to hear this, and growled between his teeth : 
 "We'll see ye further first, ye children o' 
 the de'il. Gi' her the canvas, Sandy. Steady 
 your wheel, there," he added; "dead 'fore 
 the wind keep her. Weather braces, m' 
 laddies. Square in. Lord forgi' yon philis- 
 tines — Lord forgi' 'em 'f they fire on us 
 wi' three hunder misguided an' unprepared 
 creatur's in the hold !" 
 
 But the brig fired no more. She squared 
 in her yards and followed the bark, sending 
 up stunsails with all the quickness and pre- 
 cision of a government craft. Then began 
 a race, which, had the bark been in anything 
 else but Sunday dress, might, other things 
 equal, have resulted in her favor; but it 
 takes a little time, even with a frantic cap- 
 tain shouting, to loose and set top-gallant- 
 sails and royals, and before the first was 
 hoisted the brig had the wind of her quarry 
 and was gaining, half a length a minute. 
 Up she came, "hand-over-hand," showing, 
 9 o 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 as she lifted to the seas, occasional glimpses 
 of bright copper between the white bow and 
 whiter turmoil of water beneath, every sail 
 in the pyramid of canvas standing out in 
 rigid convexity, every rope taut and in place 
 — a beautiful picture to any but anxious 
 Scotchmen. As she drew near, Captain 
 MacXab made out with his glass clusters 
 of men on her forecastle - deck and in her 
 fore-chains — men with red shirts, nondescript 
 caps, black faces, and gleaming teeth and 
 eyeballs. Amidships, a gang worked a fly- 
 wheel pump, and aft near the helmsman 
 stood a slim-built young fellow, black-faced 
 and red-shirted like the rest. 
 
 " Aggers, Sandy, niggers !" groaned the 
 captain. " What d'ye want aboord that 
 brig?" he roared; "keep awa' from me — 
 sheer off." 
 
 There was no answer, though the young 
 fellow near the wheel sang out something 
 in French to the crew as the brig drew 
 up on the bark's starboard quarter. Wild 
 thoughts flitted through Captain MacNab's 
 mind at this juncture — thoughts of putting 
 91 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 his wheel hard-a-port as the white bow lap- 
 ped his stern and carrying away the brig's 
 jib-boom and head -gear with his mizzen- 
 mast, then escaping the crippled pursuer by 
 bracing sharp up on the starboard tack. 
 But he looked at the black guns and long- 
 torn ; he had seen the brig's gunnery — and 
 he hesitated. 
 
 The brig, answering a slight twist of her 
 wheel, drew in, and a scowling negro on the 
 rail reached out and cut the hauling part of 
 Captain MacNab's main brace, which unrove 
 with a whir of sheaves and trailed astern as 
 the yard canted forward. The brig's stun- 
 sails came in like folding wings, men who 
 had sprung aloft rigged in the booms, men 
 on deck braced the yards to port, and the 
 white craft slid forward with lessening head- 
 way — the negro cutting the bark's upper 
 braces as he came to them — and with skil- 
 fully thrown grappling-hooks was checked, 
 stopped, and fastened with her nose abreast 
 of the bark's main-mast, and her fore royal 
 stay lifting the foot -rope of the swinging 
 main yard. Captain MacNab, wrathful but 
 92 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 helpless, gave no orders to his unarmed 
 crew ; the helmsman steered faithfully on 
 before the wind as last directed, and the two 
 crafts, locked together, charged along, while 
 a black horde to the number of forty crowd- 
 ed over the rail, each red waist encircled by 
 a broad belt studded with little brass cylin- 
 ders — each belt supporting, besides a long 
 knife, a brace of heavy pistols, with revolv- 
 ing chambers, curiously contrived and newly 
 invented — Colt revolvers. 
 
 No resistance was offered by the Scotch 
 crew, and no violence, as yet, by the blacks. 
 They clustered amidships while their com- 
 mander, who had leisurely followed them, 
 walked aft and up the quarter-deck steps. 
 
 He was about thirty, armed and dressed 
 like his crew, and with equally gleaming 
 eyes ; but beyond this gleam of the eyes — 
 fighting eyes, they were — and a deep scowl 
 on the forehead, his features were of almost 
 Caucasian regularity and refinement. It was 
 the face of a dreamer — a brooder. Such 
 faces are seen in forlorn hopes, in the sanc- 
 tums of turbulent weeklies, in legislative 
 9? 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 minorities, reform pulpits, lunatic asylums, 
 and political prisons. They and the minds 
 behind are of the Future, and are decidedly 
 incongruous and displeasing in an age of the 
 Present. 
 
 "Which is the captain of this bark?" he 
 asked, in purest English, as his eyes wan- 
 dered from Captain MacNab to his mate and 
 back. 
 
 " Myself, Angus MacNab ; an* this is my 
 mate, Alexander Anderson ; an' this is the 
 bark Dundee, o Cape Town. An' noo will 
 ye tell us wha ye are, an' what's your flag, 
 an' why ye fire on an boord a British craft 
 on the high seas in this arbitrary manner!" 
 
 "All in good time. I doubt, however, 
 that an appeal to your government will avail 
 you. You have slaves aboard." 
 
 " An' how d'ye ken so much ?" 
 
 " I judged of your conscience yesterday 
 when you fled from French powder — to-day, 
 I judge by the odor surrounding your craft. 
 Open those hatches, men," he called to his 
 crew. 
 
 In a trice this was done, the blacks shoul- 
 
 94 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 dering the white men out of their way ; then 
 all, white and black, drew away from the 
 openings to avoid the stench, which, with 
 the sound of groaning, came from the decks 
 beneath. 
 
 The brig captain stepped down, peered 
 into the hold, and called out something in an 
 unknown tongue. After a moment's silence 
 outcries began under the hatch, extending 
 along the 'tween-deck, descending to the hold 
 below, increasing in force and volume as the 
 word was passed along, until the clamor be- 
 came a humming, inarticulate roar. It was 
 a tribute to liberty which all could compre- 
 hend. 
 
 With an additional sparkle to his eyes and 
 a deeper scowl on his forehead the young 
 negro came aft, followed by a few of his 
 men, one of whom went to the wheel, mo- 
 tioning the Scot in charge away with a sig- 
 nificant and effective flourish of his long 
 knife. 
 
 " How many?" demanded the negro cap- 
 tain, tersely. 
 
 " Three hunder." 
 
 95 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 " Shackled in pairs or in gangs ?" 
 
 " In gangs o' ten." 
 
 u A poor plan," said the negro, in a tone 
 of mingled scorn and bitterness ; " they live 
 longer when shackled in pairs. I will thank 
 you for the keys of the shackles." 
 
 " An' will ye loose yon irresponsible hea- 
 then ?" asked Captain MacNab, excitedly. 
 
 " I will, to the last soul, and lock you and 
 your hellish crew in their places. I give 
 you a choice — to hand me the keys and sub- 
 mit quietly, or be tossed overboard in the 
 next five minutes." 
 
 "An' what then— if we submit?" asked 
 Captain MacNab, his solemn face working. 
 
 "Ask that of the people you meant to 
 sell into slavery. They will decide your fate 
 on the Cameroon Coast." 
 
 When you have been forced by unkind 
 fate to stifle for half a lifetime all the in- 
 stincts and spiritual yearnings of your better 
 nature— to limit the soarings of your soul to 
 the fog of a mercenary career ; when, at last, 
 fate has relented, to a degree, and permits a 
 compromise by which devotion to God and 
 9 6 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 Mammon need not conflict ; whereby, in lieu 
 of enlightening the heathen in his darkness, 
 you may take him out of his darkness to the 
 enlightenment of civilized life, and at the 
 same time that you obtain credit in heaven 
 for the saving of his soul, realize a handsome 
 profit on the sale of his body, such a pair of 
 alternatives — instant death and the mercy of 
 liberated slaves — as was offered by this mis- 
 guided obstructionist is, to say the least, dis- 
 couraging. The savings of twenty years and 
 the approval of Captain MacNab's long- 
 accusing conscience (for he was genuinely 
 sincere) were concerned in the success of 
 this voyage. He looked at his anxious crew, 
 from whom he was now separated by the 
 blacks, at his stolid first officer, at a distant 
 rack of handspikes — potent in argument — 
 into the bore of a long six-shooter, and over 
 it at the deadly, gleaming eyes of the black 
 captain ; and, lastly, he looked up to the 
 heavens. 
 
 " Thy will be done, O Lord," he groaned ; 
 "gi' him the keys, Mr. Anderson." The 
 mate nodded, and descending to his room, 
 g 97 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 returned with a bunch of keys, which he 
 handed over. 
 
 "An' if ye ha' na objections, ye maun tell 
 us what flag we surrender to, an' wha ye 
 are," continued the captain, as the pistol 
 was tucked into the other's belt. 
 
 " I have no objections whatever. You 
 surrender to the brig La Guillotine, which 
 sails under no flag. Her captain is Paul 
 Arcand, who owes allegiance to no country, 
 and to no cause but that of liberty. For 
 this cause La Guillotine works, like her name- 
 sake of old, but having no present quarrel 
 with men-of-war, she avoids them, and only 
 strikes in self-defence. Is your position 
 plain to you?" 
 
 " It's plain that we're i' the hands of a 
 bloody-minded pirate," retorted Captain 
 MacNab, in a tone of disgust and aversion. 
 " I take it, ye're ane o' these intriguin' free 
 niggers o' Hayti, educated in France only 
 to be kicked oot o' your ain country." 
 
 " My position depends on the view-point," 
 rejoined Captain Arcand, quietly. " No 
 country on earth is free enough to own me. 
 
 9 S 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 Oblige me by stepping down on the main 
 deck and joining your men." But in spite 
 of this definition of his freedom, the half- 
 drawing of his pistol and the ugly look of 
 his face proved that Captain Arcand was 
 not emancipated past the reach of an insult. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, Captain MacNab 
 and Sandy, fastened near the end of a thirty- 
 foot chain, were watching the shackling on 
 to this and two other chains of the com- 
 plaining crew, while the clean upper deck 
 was filling with successive arrivals from be- 
 low of naked, filthy, emaciated, and half-dead 
 creatures of both sexes. Some were lifted 
 to the deck, others could climb and walk — 
 assisting the weaker ; and all, strong or weak, 
 old or young, cried and rejoiced, and grov- 
 elled persistently at the feet of their red- 
 shirted deliverers, whose pitying eyes only 
 gleamed now as they rested on the white 
 men. 
 
 "We're i' the hands o' the Lord, Sandy," 
 said Captain MacNab, devoutly, as he looked 
 at the rusty bracelet encircling his wrist. 
 "We ma' trust to Him." 
 
 99 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 " We're i' the hands o' robbers an' thieves," 
 rejoined Sandy, irreverently; "what's to be 
 the final disposeetion of us?" 
 
 " Landed wi' the niggers, I judge. To 
 think of it, Sandy — to think of it. Three 
 thoosan' poonds' warth o' niggers ta'en from 
 us — ta'en from us to be cast back i' their ig- 
 norance an' darkness — to be robbed o' the 
 blessed tidings. Oh, the sinfu'ness — the sin- 
 fu'ness of man !" Captain MacNab groaned 
 in anguish of soul. 
 
 When the last miserable wretch was above 
 the deck, and a half-dozen corpses were laid 
 out in the scuppers, the three gangs of pris- 
 oners were conducted to the lower hold, 
 where each chain was stretched out and the 
 ends shackled to stanchions ; then, with the 
 clank of the never-resting fly-wheel pump 
 ringing in their ears through the walls of the 
 two craft, and the unintelligible orders of 
 Captain Arcand and the shouts of the lib- 
 erated blacks mocking them, the hatches 
 were closed, and in darkness and filth they 
 were left to themselves. 
 
 To those unacquainted with the horrors 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 of a slaver's hold it is enough to say — with- 
 out grewsome details — that nearly half the 
 blacks die in transit, and that the profits of 
 the voyage are made on the survivors. This 
 large mortality is due, no doubt, to the im- 
 poverishing treatment endured on the march 
 to the coast and to the initial weak physical 
 endowment of the negro race. The thirty- 
 one strong, hardy Scotchmen immured in 
 the stinking hold did not die — not one of 
 them. They suffered in another way. 
 
 The first day was used up in complainings 
 and criticisms of Captain MacNab's manage- 
 ment, ending at last, towards evening, by the 
 lifting of the hatch and lowering into the 
 hold of three tubs of corn-mush and three 
 buckets of water. Men followed, and plac- 
 ing the buckets at the ends of each line, car- 
 ried the tubs along and dumped out the 
 mush on the filthy ballast-flooring in more 
 or less even piles. 
 
 Those who could eat did so, grabbing the 
 food with disengaged right hand, and by 
 passing the buckets along, all but those at the 
 farther end secured a drink of water. The 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 cheated ones had a grievance and voiced it, 
 though without avail, as the hatch was again 
 closed on them. But next day the buckets 
 were started at the other ends of the lines 
 and the grievance shared. In this manner, 
 as the two vessels sailed eastward, and the 
 closed-up hold became a hot inferno under 
 the tropical sun, they were fed and watered 
 once a day on the leavings of the slaves, 
 who, free to come and go as they pleased, 
 slept and ate in the 'tween-deck above them. 
 On the second day some prayed, some 
 yelled for fresh air, some sang hymns and 
 crooned, others cursed and swore — to the 
 scandal of the patient captain — and a few 
 fought, one-handed, over the chain. Through 
 the third day there was less praying and 
 singing, more profanity and fighting, and a 
 great deal of screaming for fresh air. On 
 the next day there was some laughter — 
 horrid to hear — more singing, very little 
 praying, and less intelligent shouting. And 
 thus, day by day, the symptoms aggravated 
 until two weeks had passed by ; then, shortly 
 after the sounds of shortening sail from the 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 upper deck, and the renewed throbbing of 
 that never-resting pump alongside, the hatch 
 was lifted again, and, guarded and controlled 
 by as many red-shirted men as could clap on 
 to ropes led through the end-rings of the 
 chains, they were dragged up the ladder and 
 fastened to the rail, where the crowding 
 black slaves peered at them and drew away, 
 shuddering. 
 
 Thirty -one strong, healthy, level-headed 
 men had gone into that hold two weeks be- 
 fore. Thirty-one lean, unclean wrecks came 
 out — parodies on manhood — partly covered 
 by shreds of clothing, mottled with black 
 and blue spots, streaked with angry red 
 scratches and tearings of finger-nails, scarred 
 on hands and arms with teeth-marks — all, 
 with one exception, laughing, hissing, chat- 
 tering, red -eyed wild beasts — stark, raving 
 mad. The exception was Captain MacNab. 
 His strong, abiding faith had saved his rea- 
 son, though his hair was as white as the 
 topsides of La Guillotine. 
 
 Cleansing his poisoned lungs with gasping 
 inhalations of the sweet, fresh air, and clos- 
 103 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 ing his eyes against the blinding sunlight, 
 he lifted his haggard face to the heavens. 
 11 O God o' mercy," he sobbed ; " I thank 
 ye for this reprieve. O God o' vengeance, 
 gi' me light, an' strength — a little longer — 
 an' courage." 
 
 The two craft had been grounded, side by 
 side, the brig in-shore, near the left bank of 
 a muddy river. About a hundred yards dis- 
 tant on the marshy beach was high -water 
 mark, from which the water was now reced- 
 ing. Down -stream the ebbing tide split 
 upon the river-bar of a high, cone-shaped 
 island, past which the divided stream rushed 
 to the open sea, visible in blue patches over 
 the undergrowth of the low shores. Inland 
 the marshy river-banks merged into a hum- 
 mocky, wooded slope which stretched up to 
 a distant mountain - range ; and sprinkled 
 here and there among the trees were clus- 
 ters of mud- brown huts, or small villages, 
 from which a population was coming — black 
 and naked, but active, and apparently well- 
 fed. 
 
 Aloft some of the red-shirted crew were 
 104 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 stowing the sails of both vessels, while others 
 coiled up gear below. On the deck of the 
 bark was the horde of released slaves, hud- 
 dled as far from the white men as they could 
 get; aboard the brig, the pump -gang still 
 worked, wearily ; and aft, leaning against the 
 quarter-rail, was Captain Arcand, conversing 
 with one of his men and watching the three 
 lines of chained maniacs. 
 
 With his sunken eyes glowing like smoul- 
 dering coals, Captain MacXab reached out 
 his free arm in his direction and called, 
 hoarsely: "An' are ye satisfied the noo, ye 
 monster o' ineequity?" 
 
 Captain Arcand walked forward, climbed 
 over the rails, and proceeded slowly down 
 the lines, peering into each distorted face- 
 shuddering palpably at the outbreak evoked 
 by his near presence— and stopped in front 
 of Captain MacNab. 
 
 " No," he said, quietly, " I am not satis- 
 fled. This is the result of my mate, who 
 sailed the bark in, misunderstanding my di- 
 rections. I am in favor of a clean, healthy 
 vengeance on slave-traders — but not this." 
 105 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 He looked regretfully at the gibbering 
 Sandy, who was trying to reach him. 
 
 " I had destined you and your men," he 
 went on, " to the same fate that you had 
 arranged for my people. You were to take 
 their places in the hold, receive the same 
 fare and treatment — including daily exercise 
 on deck — and, later, were to become the 
 property of my colony ashore here, every 
 member of which I have rescued from sla- 
 very. Ashore, you were to be killed, worked 
 or whipped to death, or allowed to run, and 
 die in the swamps, as your masters deter- 
 mined. This latter will probably be the fate 
 of your men, as my people, in their native 
 state, will have no dealings with the insane. 
 And, on the whole," he added, his face hard- 
 ening, " their punishment may be lighter 
 than yours." 
 
 "An' your punishment, ye child o' hell, 
 is to come !" growled Captain MacNab, in 
 impotent rage. " It '11 be better, I'm think- 
 in', could ye so balance the account, that ye 
 loose my daft laddies an' let them rend ye 
 limb from limb." 
 
 1 06 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 The other turned away with a shrug of 
 the shoulders and returned to the brig, while 
 Captain MacNab cooled down a little in the 
 endeavor to soothe the agitated Sandy, and 
 in the reflection that in the seven days of the 
 voyage he had not once exercised the slaves. 
 
 Three hours later the pump had ceased 
 its clanking, and the outpourings of the huts 
 had walked on the slant of mud to the brig, 
 welcomed noisily the new recruits, and de- 
 parted with them after a subdued and awe- 
 struck inspection of the white men. Cap- 
 tain Arcand and his crew were over the side 
 examining the hull of the brig, and the pris- 
 oners, under the influence of the fresh air 
 and a bountiful repast of mush — and possi- 
 bly from the absence of the blacks — had 
 quieted down and sunk to the deck, each 
 manacled left wrist raised to the taut-chain. 
 Some were sleeping. Captain MacNab look- 
 ed sorrowfully down the line and muttered : 
 " Sleep, laddies, sleep. I ha' led ye into 
 this. An* what '11 craze a sensitive white 
 man kills a nigger. Did I right ? I meant 
 right. Lord, forgi'e me if I was wrong !" 
 107 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 His terrible ordeal had brought doubts 
 to Captain MacNab's mind as to the civil- 
 izing and humanizing influence of the slave- 
 trade ; but his communings with conscience 
 were soon interrupted by the approach of 
 Captain Arcand and his men. 
 
 " I find," said the negro captain to him, 
 " that my brig is badly damaged by the ex- 
 plosion of a shell down the hatchway. She 
 is old, and slower than the bark ; so, instead 
 of burning your craft, as is my rule with 
 prizes, I shall transship my stores and guns 
 and go to sea in her. And, as it will take 
 the people ashore some time to decide what 
 to do with you and your men, you will, 
 meanwhile, occupy the deck of the brig." 
 
 Outcries and violence began afresh as the 
 madmen were pitilessly hauled over the rails 
 and moored to the inshore bulwarks of the 
 brig ; but, as Captain MacNab noticed, they 
 subsided when the blacks left them. 
 
 The nauseous task of cleaning up the 
 slaver's hold need not be described beyond 
 saying that it required the labor of the en- 
 tire colony ashore in the burning of wood 
 
 ioS 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 and lime-rock in the hills and transporting 
 the wood-ash and lime to the bark, and the 
 labor of the black crew in removing, cleans- 
 ing, and replacing ballast, and scouring and 
 whitewashing the hold for ten days before 
 Captain Arcand decided that the bark was 
 a fit habitation for human beings. Then be- 
 gan the transfer of the stores and dunnage, 
 and the cutting of ports in the bulwarks. 
 The guns were left to the last, because, on 
 account of the increased draught such weights 
 would give the bark, she would need to float 
 before taking them on. During this time 
 the demented crew had eaten, slept, and 
 occasionally raved at the black workers on 
 the deck of the brig ; and Captain MacNab 
 had become soul -weary of the unsettled 
 question of their fate ; for the natives, ap- 
 parently coming to no decision in the mat- 
 ter, avoided the brig's deck as they would 
 a place of contagion, and the others, beyond 
 feeding them, paid them no attention what- 
 ever. 
 
 All at last being done but the transfer of 
 the armament, the bark was kedged off at 
 109 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 high tide, and with spring-lines to the now 
 sunken brig and taut cables to anchors up- 
 stream and down, she was shored at the ends 
 of the fore and main yards, sent down for the 
 purpose, while preventer -lifts were rigged 
 to the main-yard of the bark; seamanlike 
 manoeuvres these, which Captain McNab pro- 
 fessionally commended. Then they hooked 
 a strong tackle from the brig's top -mast- 
 head and another from the bark's mainyard- 
 arm to the heavy long-torn, and were about 
 to heave away, when a man aloft sang out 
 something in the French patois used by the 
 negro crew. Captain Arcand sprang into 
 the rigging with a glass, and from the top- 
 mast cross-trees directed it seaward for a mo- 
 ment ; then, slinging it over his shoulder by 
 its strap, he slid to the deck on the back- 
 stay and called out order after order to his 
 men, while Captain MacNab looked on in 
 wonder and his unfortunate crew in increas- 
 ing excitement at the effect produced. 
 
 The men aboard the brig unhooked the 
 yard-arm tackle and threw the block over- 
 board, then ran along the shores to the 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 bark and joined their hurrying ship-mates 
 as they raced about the deck, out forward 
 and up aloft, loosing and hoisting all the 
 fore-and-aft canvas, slipping first the down- 
 stream, then the up-stream cable, casting off 
 the spar-lashings — allowing the ends of the 
 shores to drop overboard — and finally the 
 spring-lines to the brig. There was a brisk 
 breeze down-stream, and the bark, leaning 
 gently to port, swung around, and under 
 stay-sails, spanker, and jibs, headed for the 
 southern inlet, her square sails dropping as 
 fast as the crew could loose them. 
 
 " Losh, but the scoondrel's a seaman!" 
 muttered Captain MacNab; "not a hitch or 
 a blunder, an' he's awa' in five minutes ; but 
 what's the occasion ?" 
 
 A bullet sang by his head. He barely 
 heard the report above the screeching chat- 
 ter of his fellow-prisoners, but saw, however, 
 a thinning cloud filtering through the bark's 
 mizzen-rigging, while below it was Captain 
 Arcand, resting his long revolver on the quar- 
 ter-rail, about to fire again. A second puff of 
 smoke arose before Captain MacNab could 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 move, and Sandy's crazed laughter ended 
 with the sickening "chug" of the bullet as 
 it sped through his brain. He fell to the 
 deck, and the captain, though he had no 
 doubt that he himself was the target, felt 
 such an increment of horror to his already 
 overshocked and benumbed sensibilities as 
 to make him entirely reckless. 
 
 " Fire awa', ye devil's dog," he roared, 
 standing up to full height and shaking his 
 fist. " Fire awa' an' finish the job, ye killer 
 o' dafties." A fusillade of bullets from the 
 black crew answered this, but all flew wide, 
 and in a few moments they were out of 
 pistol range ; then, in a burst of rage and 
 grief, Captain MacNab apostrophized the 
 dead mate: "Ye were a good man, Sandy," 
 he said, " an' a good friend, an' a good offi- 
 cer ; an' Sandy, though I ha' felt doots o' 
 the integrity of our ain position, I am past 
 doots o' the falsity of his. He is marked 
 for the vengeance o' the Lord ; for I, that 
 ha' seen him, an' suffered by him, ha' been 
 spared my sanity an' memory." 
 
 By the time the bark had entered the 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 head of the channel, the reason of the sud- 
 den antagonism was apparent. An upper 
 corner of a square sail appeared over the 
 northern slope of the island, then the whole 
 sail, with part of another below, and a gaff- 
 topsail behind — all patched with new canvas 
 and mounted on top-masts whose bright 
 straw-color indicated their recent acquaint- 
 ance with carpenters' tools ; and Captain 
 MacNab did not need to see the rest of 
 the fabric — the lower sails and glistening 
 black hull — to recognize the French schooner 
 that had chased the brig. She was beating 
 up the north channel against the young ebb, 
 and the outgoing bark, charging down the 
 other channel with all sail spread, was in a 
 position to avoid observation far some time, 
 as the high cone of the island would hide 
 either craft from the deck of the other. 
 
 If the schooner saw the bark she paid no 
 attention to her, but, with long legs and 
 short ones reached up the river and skimmed 
 over towards the brig on the last tack 
 — her tricolor flying, her crew at quarters, 
 ports open and guns run out, and in each 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 fore-chains men heaving the lead. As she 
 came within hail, an officer on her quarter- 
 deck shrieked out in French, which Captain 
 MacNab did not understand ; but, divining 
 the portent of the hail, he ripped off a frag- 
 ment of his one-time white shirt that had 
 escaped Sandy's clutches, waved it, shook 
 the chain up and down and pointed to the 
 bark, now under stunsails — just disappearing 
 behind the island. The brig lay on her port 
 bilge, and the whole deck, with its manacled 
 occupants, was visible from the schooner. 
 A few orders were given ; she luffed, lost 
 headway, and dropped an anchor about a 
 hundred feet away ; then, as she settled 
 back on the cable, her blue -jacketed crew, 
 without starting halyard, sheet, or brace, low- 
 ered four boats, into which they tumbled, 
 each man armed with cutlass and pistol. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, Captain MacNab 
 was explaining matters to a group of French 
 officers through the medium of one who un- 
 derstood English, while a carpenter's- mate 
 filed at the bolt of his shackle (the keys 
 were in the bark), and his men declaimed 
 114 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 at the line of blue- jackets. The officers 
 were much interested in the account of the 
 colony ashore, and laughed, somewhat un- 
 steadily, at the horrid spectacle lined out 
 on the deck. 
 
 " It is — what you call it ? — ze poetree of 
 justice, is it not," said the interpreter, " zat 
 you take ze place of ze slaves? But it is 
 horeeble — horeeble !" 
 
 Captain MacNab made no response, and 
 after a short conference with the others the 
 officer said: "We haf come for fresh vegetebel 
 — for yams — for anysing. We are long time 
 on ze coast — our men get scurvy. We find 
 no vegetebel where we get our top-mast — 
 we come here. We haf already report zis 
 pirate brig, and get ordare to capture and 
 bring ze crew to St. Louis. We find you. 
 We take you up ze coast to St. Louis, and 
 on ze way, we put you, ze commandare, on 
 parole ; but your men — ah ! your men — " 
 he glanced down the line — " we mus' keep 
 your men prisonare." 
 
 "Aye, mun," answered Captain MacNab, 
 as he shook his wrist out of the divided 
 115 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 shackle ; "we can clear oursel's o' the charge 
 o' piracy, an' slave-tradin' canna be brought 
 home to us. But will ye no pursue yon 
 bark? There's the pirates ye want. Lay 
 her alongside, loose my laddies an' gi' us 
 arms, an' we'll get the de'ils an' our barky." 
 
 What was logical or practical in this prop- 
 osition was ignored by the French officers. 
 They had accomplished something, and per- 
 haps wanted to return to civilization ; but 
 they acknowledged Captain MacNab's claim 
 on the brig in lieu of his bark, and, beyond 
 spiking the guns, did her no harm ; and, to 
 aid him in any future adjudication of his 
 claim, they also good-naturedly gave him 
 the latitude, which he remembered. 
 
 The body of the mate was taken ashore 
 and buried, and the grieving captain offered 
 a hurried but heart-spoken prayer over the 
 grave ; while the others, still chained, were 
 given a washing-down with the deck-hose — 
 which, in their way, they seemed to enjoy — 
 and conducted to the schooner's 'tween- 
 deck ; then, after the return from the land- 
 ing up-shore of a well-laden provision-boat, 
 
 116 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 the anchor was tripped, and they sailed down 
 the channel, making out, as they opened up 
 the broad Atlantic, a small speck on the 
 western horizon, which before dusk was out 
 of sight. 
 
 A long passage it was across the Gulf and 
 up the coast to St. Louis, and before it 
 ended the last shackle was filed from the 
 tranquillized prisoners, who, dressed in the 
 working ducks of the French navy, were 
 allowed to walk the deck, free of restraint 
 and duty, though nominally prisoners ac- 
 cused of piracy. At Captain MacNab's re- 
 quest, the English-speaking of the French 
 crew made no reference in their hearing to 
 the cause of their trouble, or to even the 
 negro race ; and once, after the sudden and 
 violent relapse of three — the only ones 
 awake — early in the morning of a wash-day, 
 which Captain MacNab traced directly to 
 the sight of a line of red under-shirts hung 
 up to dry, the decree was issued from the 
 quarter-deck that red under-shirts were not 
 to be worn or displayed while the prisoners 
 were on board. 
 
 117 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 The three soon recovered ; the physical 
 condition of all became much improved ; 
 and, though not what could be called sane 
 men — lacking even a natural curiosity as 
 to what had happened — they were tract- 
 able, and, with few exceptions, gave no 
 promise of further violence of temper or 
 action. 
 
 They entered the Senegal, sailed up the 
 river, and about nightfall anchored off the 
 island city of St. Louis, where, with French 
 exuberance of spirit, the sea -worn officers 
 and crew went ashore, leaving their pirates 
 in charge of a small anchor- watch. The 
 apathetic Scots lounged about the deck, 
 looking at the lights of the town and the 
 native craft darting to and fro in the half- 
 darkness, and might, in an hour or so, have 
 turned in for the night, had not one of the 
 native craft — a bumboat — dropped along- 
 side, and the occupants climbed aboard. 
 After the manner of bumboat -men they 
 came dressed up — each in a single garment. 
 Two wore soldier coats minus the tails, one 
 a woman's print dress, the rest bandanas, 
 us 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 The color of all was red, and pandemonium 
 broke loose. 
 
 Twenty -nine maniacs, shouting and 
 screeching, charged on the poor blacks, who 
 leaped overboard to save themselves. Cap- 
 tain MacNab, talking to the quarter-master 
 in charge, heard the uproar and sprang for- 
 ward to quiet it, but was helplessly caught 
 in the howling mob and borne forward to 
 the bow, where two French sailors ran out 
 on the jib -boom, and, being hot pressed, 
 dropped and swam. 
 
 Back they came bearing their captain, and 
 on the way gathered up the cook and his 
 mate, and the carpenter and the officers' ser- 
 vants, who had come from below to see what 
 was the matter, and who, after some rough 
 handling, in which their clothing was torn 
 from their bodies, and most of their hair 
 from their heads, only escaped death by risk- 
 ing it in the shark - infested river. The last 
 Frenchman aboard, the quarter-master, fol- 
 lowed, and the schooner was in the hands 
 of lunatics. For a matter of ten minutes 
 they busied themselves in undressing, yell- 
 119 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 ing the while, and where buttons were ob- 
 stinate the garment suffered ; then a naked 
 master-spirit of them slipped the cable, the 
 schooner dropped down with the ebb, and 
 Captain Angus MacNab arose to the situa- 
 tion. 
 
 " 'Tis the act of God," he muttered. "I 
 am to carry oot his wark. I am to be a de- 
 strawin' angel o' the Lord. Loose fawrs'l 
 an' jibs," he added, in a roar. 
 
 They answered and obeyed, the instinct of 
 obedience overtopping their insanity. The 
 main-sail and fore-topsail followed, then the 
 light sails, and with Captain MacNab at the 
 wheel and the naked, screaming crew flitting 
 about the deck and rigging, the floating bed- 
 lam crossed the bar and went to sea. 
 
 " I've the latitude," said the captain," an' 
 the longitude is the coast of Africa. Praised 
 be the name o' the Lord !" 
 
 Crazy or sane, these men were sailors and 
 obeyed orders when given in a tone of au- 
 thority ; but it was three days before Cap- 
 tain MacNab dared leave the deck or at- 
 tempt to guide them into other tasks than 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 handling sail. By that time they were quiet 
 enough to sleep and take turns at cooking. 
 He chose a mate and divided the watches, 
 then, as they sailed to the southward, im- 
 pressed on their unsteady minds the wisdom 
 of practice at the guns. His own experience 
 embraced a voyage in a man-of-war, and 
 some of the men had also worn the blue. 
 He made these men gun-captains. 
 
 In a week they could run them out and 
 in, and go through the motions of swabbing, 
 loading, aiming, and firing. When they be- 
 came violent, he isolated and soothed them ; 
 when lazy or indifferent, he excited them 
 by cautious reminiscence. They wore no 
 clothes — nor needed them in the tropical 
 weather — slept and ate when and where they 
 pleased, fought one another occasionally, 
 practised at cutlass drill — with ofttimes 
 bloody effect— and, as they sailed across the 
 Gulf of Guinea, with powder and solid shot 
 and shell. Everything was done to arouse 
 their combativeness : nothing to improve 
 their minds or morals. 
 
 Captain MacXab continued the log-book, 
 
SPUN -YARN 
 
 thus keeping the day of the month, and with 
 the officers' sextants and a French almanac, 
 in which figures, if not words, were under- 
 standable, worked out the latitude as he 
 needed it, and one day sailed into the river 
 with the island at its mouth, up the north 
 channel and across to the sunken brig, where 
 he looked at the gunless, yellow deck, then 
 put to sea. 
 
 "The de'ils ha' come for their guns an' 
 drilled the spikes, na doot," he said; " an' 
 I'm thinkin' it '11 be a sea-fight — yard-arm to 
 yard-arm. Send that I raise her to wind- 
 ward. The barky 's best before it, but the 
 schooner's best close-hauled." 
 
 And to windward the bark was when he 
 finally " raised her." After a month's cruise 
 in the neighborhood, during which he as- 
 tonished several slave-trading bark captains 
 by chasing, then inconsistently dropping 
 them, he was blown far to sea by an east- 
 erly gale, and on his return, close-hauled on 
 the skirts of the faint trade -wind, sailed 
 one midnight into a fog -bank, which, dis- 
 solving at noon of the next day, revealed 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 the bark he was looking for heading south- 
 east on the other tack, and about five miles 
 ahead. 
 
 The black schooner was of too distinct a 
 type of craft to fail of being recognized by 
 a man who had disabled her once and fled 
 from her twice, and Captain MacXab was 
 surprised, though agreeably so, to find that 
 the bark made no effort to escape, either by 
 clapping on sail or falling off to a better sail- 
 ing point. She lay nearly upright, with roy- 
 als furled, while the schooner put about on 
 her lee-quarter and crept up — her lunatic 
 crew excitedly bringing up shot and shell 
 and scattering the contents of arm - chests 
 about the deck. Captain MacNab placed 
 the steadier of them in charge of the pow- 
 der supply, and his mate, the steadiest of all, 
 at the wheel. 
 
 A white flag arose to the gaff end of the 
 bark, her main yards were backed, and a 
 boat lowered, which, as it drew near, showed 
 to them the red shirts of the black rowers 
 and a small white flag flying from the stern. 
 " We'll e'en respect the etiquette o' war," 
 
SPUN -YARN 
 
 said Captain MacNab, as he went among 
 his men and admonished them. The fatal 
 color had nearly rendered them uncontrol- 
 lable. The boat stopped about twenty yards 
 distant, and Captain Arcand arose to his 
 feet in the stern. 
 
 "An* ha' ye foond a flag to sail under?" 
 inquired Captain MacNab, as he glared at 
 him. The other scanned the line of twisted 
 faces and naked shoulders appearing above 
 the rail in unrepressed astonishment. 
 
 " I had expected," he answered, " to meet 
 the officers of a French schooner-of-war, 
 explain my position, and come to a com- 
 promise. As I have told you, I have no 
 quarrel with men-of-war. But I did not 
 expect to see you." 
 
 "I ha' na doot — na doot o' it. But ye 
 meet a mon an' a crew mair efficient to deal 
 wi' ye. I want na explanations. Take my 
 boat back, an* looer my table-cloth fra the 
 gaff o' my bark, an' do it in ten minutes or 
 I'll sink ye." 
 
 "What is your wish — to fight? I have 
 no fears of the outcome ; but it would be 
 124 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 extremely repugnant to me. I am satisfied 
 that your men are more than punished." 
 
 "Back wi' ye! back wi' ye!" roared the 
 enraged Captain MacNab. " Ye're sawtis- 
 fied, are ye ? But the vengeance o' the Lord 
 is not !" 
 
 The boat was back and up to the davits 
 in less than ten minutes; then the bark 
 payed off, headed south across the schoon- 
 er's bow, and set the royals. But the white 
 flag remained at the gaff, and only fluttered 
 down when — the ten minutes being up — 
 Captain MacNab sent a shot from the bow- 
 chaser, the only gun that would bear, skim- 
 ming under the bowsprit. 
 
 The long-torn amidships on the bark now 
 flashed out, and with the report came a pair 
 of singing, whirling chain-shot towards the 
 schooner, cutting away the main top-mast, 
 as had happened before, and depriving them 
 of a useful gaff-topsail. Then Captain Mac- 
 Nab, who had payed off to a nearly parallel 
 course, answered with a broadside, which 
 brought one from the bark, and a running 
 fight began. But, while the guns of the 
 125 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 bark were aimed high to cripple the spars 
 of the pursuer, the lunatic avengers swept 
 the deck of the bark with the iron missiles, 
 and the shells from the forward gun, aimed 
 by the captain himself, did mighty work. It 
 was at close range, and the sea being smooth, 
 he planted those shells where he wished — 
 against the plank-sheer or above it. 
 
 Each at the lower edge of a cloud of 
 smoke the two vessels approached on con- 
 verging lines, while cannon roared, and 
 maniacs gibbered, and rigging above be- 
 came tattered shreds ; then down came the 
 schooner's fore top-mast with the three sails 
 supported by it, and the bark, with still in- 
 tact canvas, crept ahead. Excepting the 
 schooner's bow-chaser, which still killed men, 
 and the terrible long-torn on the bark, which 
 still sent its binary messengers hurtling 
 through sail and rigging, the guns of both 
 craft were now silent — unable to bear. The 
 schooner, in the wake of the other, was bare- 
 ly moving, but still with steerage-way, and 
 Captain MacNab decided on a change of 
 tactics. 
 
 126 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 "Up wi' the wheel!" he called. "Gybe 
 her, an' steady when she's abeam. Doon 
 wi' all breech-screws, laddies. Aim high an' 
 bring doon his spars." They obeyed him in 
 their way, and as the booms swung over and 
 the schooner lay across the wake of the bark, 
 they fired again with elevated muzzles. The 
 result was a shattered main top-gallant mast 
 and a dismounted long -torn, which was 
 struck by the falling spar. 
 
 Again and again they loaded and fired ; 
 and when the bark's main top-mast sagged 
 forward and fell, taking with it the yard 
 with some dotting red spots on it, Captain 
 MacNab decided to go on. He payed off, 
 gybed again, and in the face of a fusillade 
 of pistol-shots took the schooner up to the 
 starboard quarter of the bark, exactly as the 
 negro captain had done with his brig. The 
 pistol-shots were directed at him, and at him 
 alone, but beyond a few grazing wounds he 
 was unhurt. Throwing a grappling-hook, he 
 bound the two crafts together. 
 
 " Over ye go, my bairns !" he shouted, as 
 he grabbed a cutlass. " Pikes, handspikes, 
 127 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 or cutlasses, as ye will. At 'em i' the name 
 of an ootraged God !" 
 
 Wild -eyed and shrieking from the close 
 proximity of their enemies, the naked men 
 followed the frenzied captain to the corpse- 
 strewn deck of the bark. Then a strange, 
 one-sided struggle took place. Red-shirted 
 negroes were cut down with pikes and 
 swords, felled with handspikes and stamped 
 upon; bullets sang around Captain MacXab, 
 and some entered his flesh as he, nearly as 
 insane as his men, fought and endeavored to 
 reach the negro leader, who was coolly dis- 
 charging shot after shot at him, only pausing 
 to reload ; but not a crazy Scot was injured. 
 
 In the midst of it all the twanging blare 
 and drone of the pibroch was heard rising 
 over the din ; and marching aft from the 
 forecastle -hatch, where he had fought his 
 way and descended, came the naked mate 
 of the schooner. He had remembered his 
 treasure, the companion of many a dog- 
 watch, secured it, and now, mounting the 
 dismounted long-torn, played, cheerfully and 
 consistently, the wild, inspiriting tunes of 
 
 123 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 his native land, while his countrymen fought 
 and shouted, and black men fell and died. 
 The negroes, bleeding and patient, merely 
 defended themselves by dodging, feinting, 
 and retreating, and only fired at Captain Mac- 
 Nab at such times as they could do so with- 
 out hitting the others. 
 
 "Cease firing!" suddenly called out Cap- 
 tain Arcand ; " he is mad as the rest. Dis- 
 arm them if you can, and knock that bag- 
 piper off the gun !" 
 
 The latter was done — with the butt -end 
 of a pump-brake — and the musician climbed 
 back to the schooner with his precious pipes. 
 Disarming the others was not so easy, and 
 the fight raged hotter from the added offen- 
 sive action of the blacks. Captain Mac- 
 Nab sprang through a gap in the struggling 
 crowd and lunged at Captain Arcand. 
 
 " Mad be I ?" he yelled. " Possibly." The 
 lunge was parried, and a sword-combat, of- 
 fensive on one side, defensive on the other, 
 took place on the bloody deck. The white 
 captain roared inarticulately as he cut and 
 slashed ; the other, cool, impassive, and si- 
 
 i 129 
 
SPUN -YARN 
 
 lent, merely parried — though he occasion- 
 ally pricked the sword-arm of his adversary — 
 and retreated. It was English navy cut- 
 lass-drill against the French school of fen- 
 cing, and, in a short time, ended by the white 
 captain's blade flying overboard. He was 
 close to the handspike rack on the main- 
 mast, and seized one. The French school 
 of fencing has no guard for the sweeping 
 blow of such a weapon, and Captain Arcand 
 stretched on the deck with skull crushed in. 
 " Thus saith the Lord !" growled Captain 
 MacNab, as he turned to join the struggle 
 still going on among the men. At this mo- 
 ment the drone of the bagpipes arose from 
 the forecastle-deck of the schooner, where 
 the musician, from the top of the capstan, 
 was again discoursing. But the music he 
 gave them now was soft and low, and it ap- 
 pealed in a different manner to the disor- 
 dered understanding of these Scotchmen. 
 They swarmed after him, the battle -weary 
 remnant of the negro crew allowing them 
 to go peaceably, and seated themselves on 
 rail, cathead, and bitt, where they listened 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 silently or with weeping or accompanying 
 crooning, according to their several moods, 
 while the quaint melodies of home rose and 
 fell on the tropic air. 
 
 Captain MacNab was alone, surrounded by 
 angry, gleaming-eyed men, who sent bullet 
 after bullet at him. Their leader had fall- 
 en, and evidence of Captain MacNab's in- 
 sanity was conflicting ; for, though his eyes 
 blazed with maniacal fury, as he whirled 
 the handspike and cleared ground, he was 
 calling to his men, objurgating and beseech- 
 ing them, to come back and finish their 
 work. He gained the rail, bleeding from a 
 score of wounds, climbed aboard the schoon- 
 er, and with a flourish of his six-foot club 
 sent the bagpipes, flying from the arms of 
 the player, over the side. The musician 
 stared vacantly at him and wept. 
 
 " Hooray noo, lads ! Follow me back ! 
 Awa' wi' ye all!" he shouted, and turned to 
 lead them ; but in the brief time of his ab- 
 sence the negroes had dislodged the grap- 
 pling-hook, and ten feet of open space now 
 separated the two vessels. Dashing the blood 
 131 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 from his eyes, Captain MacNab sprang to 
 the main-deck and swabbed, loaded, and de- 
 pressed the port shell-gun until it pointed at 
 the water-line of the bark. Then he fired. 
 
 A solid shot fired at this angle would have 
 come out through the opposite bilge and 
 made a dangerous leak. A shell would, pre- 
 sumably, have exploded on impact, and 
 made a worse leak at the water-line. This 
 shell produced heavier results. Following 
 the roar of the gun, by the merest fraction 
 of a second, came a louder roar — a crashing, 
 crackling riot of deafening sound containing 
 every note in the chromatic scale. The 
 deck and black sides of the bark amidships 
 rose and bulged, separating across the planks, 
 and from the interior belched, upward and 
 outward, a burning, blinding sheet of red, 
 which hurled Captain MacNab and his men 
 to the deck, hairless, blistered, and writhing. 
 
 Captain MacNab arose a few moments 
 later, dragged himself painfully to the rail, 
 and looked over at an agitated turmoil of 
 water, on which appeared, at intervals, boxes, 
 small spars, slivers of planking, and an oc- 
 132 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 casional red - shirted body, or part of one. 
 The bark was gone. Broken in half by the 
 explosion of the powder-magazine, she had 
 sunk to the bottom, and of the half-hundred 
 men comprising her crew at the beginning 
 of the fight, not one came to the surface 
 alive. They were martyrs to a chivalry not 
 known in the ethics of civilized warfare. 
 
 Raising his blood-smeared face and out- 
 stretched arms to the blue cloud of smoke 
 above, Captain MacNab groaned hoarsely : 
 "Thou didst blow wi' thy wind, the sea 
 covered them ; they sank as lead i' the 
 mighty waters." Then he fell to the deck. 
 
 Twenty years later a French corvette ap- 
 peared off the mouth of the river with the 
 island at its mouth, and was boarded by a 
 Krooman, who could speak English, but not 
 French, and who offered to pilot the ship in 
 for a consideration. As the captain under- 
 stood English, he was available, and was en- 
 gaged. Conning the ship up the north chan- 
 nel, the pilot pointed out to the captain the 
 remains of a ten-gun battery on the island, 
 133 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 which covered all approach from the river 
 above, and explained that a long time ago — 
 before he came to the town — a black schoon- 
 er, with torn sails and no top-masts, had 
 come in and grounded on the river -bar. 
 Then her crew had unloaded stores and 
 guns, built a house, set fire to the schooner, 
 and lived for many years on yams they grew 
 and fish they caught. Whenever the na- 
 tives above would come down in their ca- 
 noes to visit them, they were fired at by one 
 or more of the guns, and they decided at 
 last to let them alone. One day, a white- 
 haired old man, scarred and shrivelled of 
 face, had come over from the island, explain- 
 ing that all his comrades had died, and this 
 white-haired, gentle old man had lived with 
 the natives many years more, nursing them 
 when sick, and teaching them of the white 
 man's God, until, as the town grew up and 
 traders arrived, he went away to the in- 
 terior, while those whom he had taught 
 wept and prayed for him. But he never 
 came back, and while with them had not told 
 them anything of himself, so they did not 
 134 
 
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 know, to this day, who the white men were, 
 or why they had burned their vessel and 
 lived on the island. 
 
 While the ship took in water and yams 
 that day, the captain called his gig and vis- 
 ited the island. He looked closely at the 
 dismounted and half-mired guns and nodded 
 his head. Then he stood over a square of 
 ground up from the beach and counted two 
 rows of ten and one of nine head -stones. 
 Around this plot was a fence of chain 
 stretched over the trunks of young trees 
 planted at its edge, every three feet of which 
 chain was marked by a shackle. 
 
 " Ze chains bind — in death as in life," 
 mused the captain. " Twenty-nine here — ze 
 mate, ovare on ze beach — and ze captain ; 
 ah, ze captain, he turn missionary to ze na- 
 tives. It is ze poetree of justice, but it is 
 horeeble." 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 ACROSS the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf 
 of Guinea to Cape St. Roque moves a great 
 body of water — the Main Equatorial Cur- 
 rent — which can be considered the motive 
 power, or mainspring, of the whole Atlantic 
 current system, as it obtains its motion di- 
 rectly from the everacting push of the trade- 
 winds. At Cape St. Roque this broad cur- 
 rent splits into two parts, one turning north, 
 the other south. The northern part con- 
 tracts, increases its speed, and, passing up 
 the northern coast of South America as the 
 Guiana Current, enters through the Carib- 
 bean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico, where it 
 circles around to the northward ; then, col- 
 ored a deep blue from the fine river silt of 
 the Mississippi, and heated from its long 
 surface exposure under a tropical sun to an 
 136 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 average temperature of eighty degrees, it 
 emerges into the Florida Channel as the 
 Gulf Stream. 
 
 From here it travels northeast, following 
 the trend of the coast line, until, off Cape 
 Hatteras, it splits into three divisions, one 
 of which, the westernmost, keeps on to lose 
 its warmth and life in Baffin's Bay. Anoth- 
 er impinges on the Hebrides, and is no more 
 recognizable as a current ; and the third, the 
 eastern and largest part of the divided 
 stream, makes a wide sweep to the east and 
 south, enclosing the Azores and the dead- 
 water called the Sargasso Sea, then, as the 
 African Current, runs down the coast until, 
 just below the Canary Isles, it merges into 
 the Lesser Equatorial Current, which, paral- 
 lel to the parent stream, and separated from 
 it by a narrow band of back-water, travels 
 west and filters through the West Indies, 
 making puzzling combinations with the tides, 
 and finally bearing so heavily on the young 
 Gulf Stream as to give to it the sharp turn to 
 the northward through the Florida Channel. 
 
 In the South Atlantic, the portion of the 
 137 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 Main Equatorial Current split off by Cape St. 
 Roque and directed south leaves the coast 
 at Cape Frio, and at the latitude of the Riv- 
 er Plate assumes a due easterly direction, 
 crossing the ocean as the Southern Connect- 
 ing Current. At the Cape of Good Hope 
 it meets the cold, northeasterly Cape Horn 
 Current, and with it passes up the coast of 
 Africa to join the Equatorial Current at the 
 starting-point in the Gulf of Guinea, the 
 whole constituting a circulatory system of 
 ocean rivers, of speed value varying from 
 eighteen to ninety miles a day. 
 
 On a bright morning in November, 1894, 
 a curious-looking craft floated into the branch 
 current which, skirting Cuba, flows west- 
 ward through the Bahama Channel. A man 
 standing on the highest of two points en- 
 closing a small bay near Cape Maisi, after a 
 critical examination through a telescope, 
 disappeared from the rocks, and in a few 
 moments a light boat, of the model used by 
 whalers, emerged from the mouth of the 
 bay, containing this man and another. In 
 the boat also was a coil of rope. 
 133 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 The one who had inspected the craft from 
 the rocks was a tall young fellow, dressed 
 in flannel shirt and trousers, the latter held 
 in place by a cartridge-belt, such as is used 
 by the American cowboy. To this was 
 hung a heavy revolver. On his head was a 
 broad -brimmed cork helmet, much soiled, 
 and resembling in shape the Mexican som- 
 brero. Beneath this head-gear was a mass 
 of brown hair, which showed a non-acquaint- 
 ance with barbers for, perhaps, months, and 
 under this hair a sun-tanned face, lighted by 
 serious gray eyes. The most noticeable 
 feature of this face was the extreme arching 
 of the eyebrows — a never- failing index of 
 the highest form of courage. It was a face 
 that would please. The face of the other 
 was equally pleasing in its way. It was red, 
 round, and jolly, with twinkling eyes, the 
 whole borrowing a certain dignity from close- 
 ly-cut white hair and mustaches. The man 
 was about fifty, dressed and armed like the 
 other. 
 
 "What do you want of pistols, Boston?" 
 he said to the younger man. " One might 
 139 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 think this an old-fashioned, piratical cutting 
 out." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, Doc. It's best to have 
 them. That hulk may be full of Spaniards, 
 and the whole thing nothing but a trick to 
 draw us out. But she looks like a derelict. 
 I don't see how she got into this channel, 
 unless she drifted up past Cape Maisi from 
 the southward, having come in with the 
 Guiana Current. It's all rocks and shoals to 
 the eastward." 
 
 The boat, under the impulse of their oars, 
 soon passed the fringing reef and came in 
 sight of the strange craft, which lay about a 
 mile east and half a mile off shore. " You 
 see," resumed the younger man, called Bos- 
 ton, " there's a back-water inside Point Mu- 
 las, and if she gets into it she may come 
 ashore right here." 
 
 " Where we can loot her. Nice business 
 for a respectable practitioner like me to be 
 engaged in ! Doctor Bryce, of Havana, con- 
 sorting with Fenians from Canada, exiled 
 German socialists, Cuban horse-thieves who 
 would be hung in a week if they went to 
 140 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 Texas, and a long - legged sailor man who 
 calls himself a retired naval officer, but who 
 looks like a pirate; and all shouting for 
 Cuba Libre ! Cuba Libre ! It's plunder you 
 want." 
 
 " But none of us ever manufactured dyna- 
 mite," answered Boston, with a grin. " How 
 long did they have you in Moro Castle, 
 Doc?" 
 
 " Eight months," snapped the doctor, his 
 face clouding. " Eight months in that rat- 
 hole, with the loss of my property and prac- 
 tice—all for devotion to science. I was on 
 the brink of the most important and benef- 
 icent discovery in explosives the world ever 
 dreamed of. Yes, sir, 'twould have made me 
 famous and stopped all warfare." 
 
 "The captain told me this morning that 
 he'd heard from Marti," said Boston, after 
 an interval. " Good news, he said, but that's 
 all I learned. Maybe it's from Gomez. If 
 he'll only take hold again we can chase the 
 Spanish off the island now. Then we'll put 
 some of your stuff under Moro and lift it off 
 the earth." 
 
 141 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 In a short time, details of the craft ahead, 
 hitherto hidden by distance, began to show. 
 There was no sign of life aboard ; her spars 
 were gone, with the exception of the fore- 
 mast, broken at the hounds, and she seemed 
 to be of about a thousand tons burden, col- 
 ored a mixed brown and dingy gray, which, 
 as they drew near, was shown as the action 
 of iron rust on black and lead-colored paint. 
 Here and there were outlines of painted 
 ports. Under the stump of a shattered bow- 
 sprit projected from between bluff bows a 
 weather-worn figure-head, representing the 
 god of the sea. Above on the bows were 
 wooden-stocked anchors stowed inboard, and 
 aft on the quarters were iron davits with 
 blocks intact — but no falls. In a few of the 
 dead-eyes in the channels could be seen 
 frayed rope-yarns, rotten with age, and, with 
 the stump of the foremast, the wooden 
 stocks of the anchors, and the teak -wood 
 rail, of a bleached gray color. On the round 
 stern, as they pulled under it, they spelled, 
 in raised letters, flecked here and there with 
 discolored gilt, the name " Neptune, of Lon- 
 142 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 don." Unkempt and forsaken, she had come 
 in from the mysterious sea to tell her story. 
 
 They climbed the channels, fastened the 
 painter, and peered over the rail. There 
 was no one in sight, and they sprang down, 
 finding themselves on a deck that was soft 
 and spongy with time and weather. 
 
 "She's an old tub," said Boston, scanning 
 the gray fabric fore and aft ; " one of the 
 first iron ships built, I should think. They 
 housed the crew under the t'gallant fore- 
 castle. See the doors forward, there? And 
 she has a full-decked cabin — that's old style. 
 Hatches are all battened down, but I doubt 
 if this tarpaulin holds water." He stepped 
 on the main hatch, brouglu his weight on 
 the ball of one foot, and turned around. 
 The canvas crumbled to threads, showing 
 the wood beneath. "Let's go below. If 
 there were any Spaniards here they'd have 
 shown themselves before this." The cabin 
 doors were latched but not locked, and they 
 opened them. 
 
 " Hold on," said the doctor; "this cabin 
 may have been closed for years, and generat- 
 i-i? 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 ed poisonous gases. Open that upper door, 
 Boston." 
 
 Boston ran up the shaky poop ladder and 
 opened the companion-way above, which let 
 a stream of the fresh morning air and sun- 
 shine into the cabin, then, after a moment 
 or two, descended and joined the other, who 
 had entered from the main -deck. They 
 were in an ordinary ship's cabin, surrounded 
 by state-rooms, and with the usual swing- 
 ing lamp and tray; but the table, chairs, 
 and floor were covered with fine dust. 
 
 " Where the deuce do you get so much 
 dust at sea?" coughed the doctor. 
 
 " Nobody knows, Doc. Let's hunt for the 
 manifest and the articles. This must have 
 been the skipper's room." They entered 
 the largest stateroom, and Boston opened an 
 old-fashioned desk. Among the discolored 
 documents it contained, he found one and 
 handed it to the doctor. " Articles," he 
 said; "look at it." Soon he took out an- 
 other. " I've got it. Now we'll find what 
 she has in her hold, and if it's worth bother- 
 ing about." 
 
 1-44 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 "Great Scott!" exclaimed the doctor; 
 "this paper is dated 1844, fifty years ago." 
 Boston looked over his shoulder. 
 
 " That's so ; she signed her crew at Bos- 
 ton, too. Where has she been all this time? 
 Let's see this one." 
 
 The manifest was short, and stated that 
 her cargo was 3000 barrels of lime, 8000 
 kids of tallow, and 2500 carboys of acid, 
 1700 of which were sulphuric, the rest of 
 nitric acid. " That cargo won't be much 
 good to us, Doc. I'd hoped to find some- 
 thing we could use. Let's find the log-book, 
 and see what happened to her." Boston 
 rummaged what seemed to be the first- 
 mate's room. " Plenty of duds here," he 
 said ; " but they're ready to fall to pieces. 
 Here's the log." 
 
 He returned with the book, and, seated at 
 the dusty table, they turned the yellow 
 leaves. " First departure, Highland Light, 
 March 10, 1844," read Boston. "We'll look 
 in the remarks column." 
 
 Nothing but the ordinary incidents of a 
 voyage were found until they reached the 
 k 145 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 date June 1st, where entry was made of the 
 ship being "caught aback" and dismasted 
 off the Cape of Good Hope in a sudden 
 gale. Then followed daily "remarks" of 
 the southeasterly drift of the ship, the ex- 
 treme cold (which, with the continuance of 
 the bad weather, prevented saving the wreck 
 for jury-masts), and the fact that no sails 
 were sighted. 
 
 June 6th told of her being locked in soft, 
 slushy ice, and still being pressed southward 
 by the never-ending gale; June ioth said 
 that the ice was hard, and at June 15th was 
 the terrible entry : " Fire in the hold !" 
 
 On June 16th was entered this: "Kept 
 hatches battened down and stopped all air- 
 holes, but the deck is too hot to stand on, 
 and getting hotter. Crew insist on lowering 
 the boats and pulling them northward over 
 the ice to open water in hopes of being 
 picked up. Good-bye." In the position 
 columns of this date the latitude was given 
 as 62 44/ S. and the longitude as 30 50' E. 
 There were no more entries. 
 
 "What tragedy does this tell of?" said 
 146 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 the doctor. " They left this ship in the ice 
 fifty years ago. Who can tell if they were 
 saved ?" 
 
 " Who indeed ?" said Boston. " The mate 
 hadn't much hope. He said 'Good -bye.' 
 But one thing is certain ; we are the first to 
 board her since. I take it she stayed down 
 there in the ice until she drifted around the 
 Pole, and thawed out where she could catch 
 the Cape Horn Current, which took her up 
 to the Hope. Then she came up with the 
 South African Current till she got into the 
 Equatorial drift, then west, and up with the 
 Guiana Current into the Caribbean Sea to 
 the southward of us, and this morning the 
 flood-tide brought her through. It isn't a 
 question of winds ; they're too variable. It's 
 currents, though it may have taken her years 
 to get here. But the surprising part of it is 
 that she hasn't been boarded. Let's look in 
 the hold and see what the fire has done." 
 
 When they boarded the hulk, the sky, 
 with the exception of a filmy haze overhang- 
 ing the eastern end of the island, was clear. 
 Now, as they emerged from the cabin, this 
 147 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 haze had solidified and was coming — one of 
 the black and vicious squalls of the West In- 
 dia seas. 
 
 "No man can tell what wind there is in 
 them/' remarked Boston, as he viewed it. 
 " But it's pretty close to the water, and 
 dropping rain. Hold on, there, Doc. Stay 
 aboard. We couldn't pull ashore in the 
 teeth of it." The doctor had made a spas- 
 modic leap to the rail. " If the chains were 
 shackled on, we might drop one of the hooks 
 and hold her ; but it's two hours' work for a 
 full crew." 
 
 " But we're likely to be blown away, aren't 
 we?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " Not far. I don't think it '11 last long. 
 We'll make the boat fast astern and get out 
 of the wet." They did so, and entered the 
 cabin. Soon the squall, coming with a shock 
 like that of a solid blow, struck the hulk 
 broadside to and careened her. From the 
 cabin door they watched the nearly hori- 
 zontal rain as it swished across the deck, 
 and listened to the screaming of the wind, 
 which prevented all conversation. Silently 
 143 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 they waited — one hour — two hours — then 
 Boston said : " This is getting serious. It's 
 no squall. If it wasn't so late in the season 
 I'd call it a hurricane. I'm going on deck." 
 He climbed the companion-way stairs to 
 the poop, and shut the scuttle behind him — 
 for the rain was flooding the cabin — then 
 looked around. The shore and horizon were 
 hidden by a dense wall of gray, which seemed 
 not a hundred feet distant. From to wind- 
 ward this wall was detaching great waves or 
 sheets of almost solid water, which bom- 
 barded the ship in successive blows, to be 
 then lost in the gray whirl to leeward. 
 Overhead was the same dismal hue, marked 
 by hurrying masses of darker cloud, and be- 
 low was a sea of froth, white and flat ; for 
 no waves could raise their heads in that 
 wind. Drenched to the skin, he tried the 
 wheel and found it free in its movements. 
 In front of it was a substantial binnacle, and 
 within a compass, which, though sluggish, 
 as from a well-worn pivot, was practically in 
 good condition. " Blowing us about nor'- 
 west by west," he muttered, as he looked 
 149 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 at it — " straight up the coast. It's better 
 than the beach in this weather, but may 
 land us in Havana." He examined the boat. 
 It was full of water, and tailing to windward, 
 held by its painter. Making sure that this 
 was fast, he went down. 
 
 " Doc," he said, as he squeezed the water 
 from his limp cork helmet and flattened it 
 on the table, " have you any objections to 
 being rescued by some craft going into Ha- 
 vana?" 
 
 " I have — decided objections." 
 
 " So have I ; but this wind is blowing us 
 there — sideways. Now, such a blow as this, 
 at this time of year, will last three days at 
 least, and I've an idea that it '11 haul gradually 
 to the south, and west towards the end of it. 
 Where'll we be then? Either piled up on 
 one of the Bahama keys or interviewed by 
 the Spaniards. Now I've been thinking of 
 a scheme on deck. We can't get back to 
 camp for a while — that's settled. This iron 
 hull is worth something, and if we can take 
 it into an American port we can claim sal- 
 vage. Key West is the nearest, but Fer- 
 150 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 nandina is the surest. We've got a stump of 
 a foremast and a rudder and a compass. If 
 we can get some kind of sail up forward and 
 bring her 'fore the wind, we can steer any 
 course within thirty degrees of the wind 
 line." 
 
 "But I can't steer. And how long will 
 this voyage take? What will we eat?" 
 
 11 Yes, you can steer — good enough. And, 
 of course, it depends on food, and water, too. 
 We'd better catch some of this that's going 
 to waste." 
 
 In what had been the steward's store- 
 room they found a harness-cask with bones 
 and a dry dust in the bottom. " It's salt 
 meat, I suppose," said the doctor, "reduced 
 to its elements." With the handles of their 
 pistols they carefully hammered down the 
 rusty hoops over the shrunken staves, which 
 were well preserved by the brine they had 
 once held, and taking the cask on deck, 
 cleaned it thoroughly under the scuppers— 
 or drain-holes— of the poop, and let it stand 
 under the stream of water to swell and 
 sweeten itself. 
 
 151 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 " If we find more casks we'll catch some 
 more," said Boston ; " but that will last us 
 two weeks. Now we'll hunt for her stores. 
 I've eaten salt-horse twenty years old, but I 
 can't vouch for what we may find here." 
 They examined all the rooms adjacent to the 
 cabin, but found nothing. 
 
 "Where's the lazarette in this kind of a 
 ship?" asked Boston. "The cabin runs 
 right aft to the stern. It must be below 
 us." He found that the carpet was not 
 tacked to the floor, and, raising the after 
 end, discovered a hatch, or trap-door, which 
 he lifted. Below, when their eyes were ac- 
 customed to the darkness, they saw boxes 
 and barrels — all covered with the same fine 
 dust which filled the cabin. 
 
 " Don't go down there, yet, Boston, "said 
 the doctor. " It may be full of carbonic acid 
 gas. She's been afire, you know. Wait." He 
 tore a strip from some bedding in one of the 
 rooms, and, lighting one end by means of a 
 flint and steel which he carried, lowered the 
 smouldering rag until it rested on the pile 
 below. It did not go out. 
 152 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 " Safe enough, Boston," he remarked. 
 " But you go down ; you're younger." 
 
 Boston smiled and sprang down on the 
 pile, from which he passed up a box. " Looks 
 like tinned stuff, Doc. Open it, and I'll 
 look over here." 
 
 The doctor smashed the box with his foot, 
 and found, as the other had thought, that it 
 contained cylindrical cans; but the labels 
 were faded with age. Opening one with 
 his jack-knife, he tasted the contents. It 
 was a mixture of meat and a fluid, called 
 by sailors " soup -and- bully," and as fresh 
 and sweet as though canned the day be- 
 fore. 
 
 "We're all right, Boston," he called down 
 the hatch. " Here's as good a dish as I've 
 tasted for months. Ready cooked, too." 
 
 Boston soon appeared. " There are some 
 beef or pork barrels over in the wing," he 
 said, "and plenty of this canned stuff. I 
 don't know what good the salt meat is. 
 The barrels seem tight, but we won't need 
 to broach one for a while. There's a bae of 
 coffee— gone to dust, and some hard bread 
 153 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 that isn't fit to eat; but this '11 do." He 
 picked up the open can. 
 
 " Boston," said the doctor, "if those bar- 
 rels contain meat, we'll find it cooked — 
 boiled in its own brine, like this." 
 
 " Isn't it strange," said Boston, as he tast- 
 ed the contents of the can, " that this stuff 
 should keep so long?" 
 
 " Not at all. It was cooked thoroughly 
 by the heat, and then frozen. If your bar- 
 rels haven't burst from the expansion of the 
 brine under the heat or cold, you'll find the 
 meat just as good." 
 
 ''But rather salty, if I'm a judge of salt- 
 horse. Now, where's the sail -locker? We 
 want a sail on that foremast. It must be 
 forward." 
 
 In the forecastle they found sailor's chests 
 and clothing in all stages of ruin, but none 
 of the spare sails that ships carry. In the 
 boatswain's locker, in one corner of the fore- 
 castle, however, they found some iron- 
 strapped blocks in fairly good condition, 
 which Boston noted. Then they opened the 
 main -hatch, and discovered a mixed pile of 
 154 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 boxes, some showing protruding necks of 
 large bottles, or carboys, others nothing but 
 the circular opening. Here and there in the 
 tangled heap were sections of canvas sails — 
 rolled and unrolled, but all yellow and worth- 
 less. They closed the hatch and returned 
 to the cabin, where they could converse. 
 
 " They stowed their spare canvas in the 
 'tween-deck on top of the cargo," said Bos- 
 ton ; " and the carboys — " 
 
 "And the carboys burst from the heat 
 and ruined the sails," broke in the doctor. 
 " But another question is, what became of 
 that acid?" 
 
 " If it's not in the 'tween-deck yet, it must 
 be in the hold — leaked through the hatches." 
 
 " I hope it hasn't reached the iron in the 
 hull, Boston, my boy. It takes a long time 
 for cold acids to act on iron after the first 
 oxidation, but in fifty years mixed nitric and 
 sulphuric will do lots of work." 
 
 " No fear, Doc ; it had done its work when 
 
 you were in your cradle. What '11 we do for 
 
 canvas ? We must get this craft before the 
 
 wind. How '11 the carpet do?" Boston lifted 
 
 *55 
 
S P U N - V A R N 
 
 the edge, and tried the fabric in his fingers. 
 '•It ':: go," he said: "well double it. Ill 
 hunt for a palm-and-needle and some twine." 
 These articles he found in the mate's room. 
 " The twine's no better than yarn," said he, 
 " but we'll use four parts." 
 
 Together they doubled the carpet diago- 
 nal!}-, an i with I : ag stitches joined the edges. 
 Then Boston sewed into each corner a thim- 
 ble—an iron ring — and they had a trian- 
 gular sail of about twelve feet hoist. " It 
 .-.:: txzzstd to the action of the air 
 like the ropes in the locker forward/ 1 said 
 B:ston, as he arose and took off the palm : 
 "and perhaps it "1 last till she pays off. 
 Then we cor. steer. You get the big pulley- 
 blocks iron: the locker, Doc. and I'll get the 
 rope from to It's lucky I thought to 
 
 jit; I expected to lift things out of the 
 hold with it. " 
 
 At the risk of his life Boston obtained the 
 
 coil at, while the doctor brought 
 
 .': = . Then, together, they rove off a 
 
 tackle With the handles of their pistols 
 
 they knocked bunk -boards to pieces and 
 
 156 
 
THE DEREL I : 7 N 
 
 saved the nails; then Boston rihnhrd the 
 foremast, as a painter dumbs a steeple — by 
 nailing successive biDets of wood above Ms 
 head for r.tzs N::c '.". = r_i_'fi .. ; ar_i 
 secured the tackle tc* tbe forward sidle of the 
 mast, with which they pulled up the rapper 
 corner of their ;.i; i:z±: '..i.i':.:~- : ..:• ;: 
 
 corners to the windlass and fife-raiL 
 
 It stood the z - r i :'~e '::...■: z.i : 
 
 slowly off and gathered headway. Boston 
 took the wheel ana r.tii ei lie.: i: :;-:.- 
 v;:i: :;/-;::: — ::i: :e:"::e :l_e ■ ./: — - :...t 
 the doctor, at his reqraest, broagnt the open 
 can of soup and lufc :\ :a: e-i :li e vl- eel-fcre 
 with the only substitrate for oil at their com- 
 mand ; for the screw worked hard with the 
 rust of n::y vears. 
 
 Their imprc < .. : esse-i f ; eaaaly ; ~ 
 
 but one side y had held together, brat now, 
 with the first fla 
 
 another direction, appeared a rent : with the 
 next flap the rag went to pieces- 
 
 -Lc* ::: ;: ?a -;:..: '1 : r. : z ^\ti:.iiy 
 " we can steer now. Come hen Doc 
 learn tc steel 
 
 ■S3 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 The doctor came ; and when he left that 
 wheel, three days later, he had learned. For 
 the wind had blown a continuous gale the 
 whole of this time, which, with the ugly sea 
 raised as the ship left the lee of the land, 
 necessitated the presence of both men at the 
 helm. Only occasionally was there a lull 
 during which one of them could rush below 
 and return with a can of the soup. During 
 one of these lulls Boston had examined the 
 boat, towing half out of water, and conclud- 
 ing that a short painter was best with a water- 
 logged boat, had reinforced it with a few 
 turns of his rope from forward. In the 
 three days they had sighted no craft except 
 such as their own — helpless — hove-to or 
 scudding. 
 
 Boston had judged rightly in regard to the 
 wind. It had hauled slowly to the south- 
 ward, allowing him to make the course he 
 wished — through the Bahama and up the 
 Florida Channel with the wind over the 
 stern. During the day he could guide him- 
 self by landmarks, but at night, with a dark- 
 ened binnacle, he could only steer blindly on 
 i 5 s 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 with the wind at his back. The storm cen- 
 tre, at first to the south of Cuba, had made 
 a wide circle, concentric with the curving 
 course of the ship, and when the latter had 
 reached the upper end of the Florida Chan- 
 nel, had spurted ahead and whirled out to 
 sea across her bows. It was then that the 
 undiminished gale, blowing nearly west, had 
 caused Boston, in despair, to throw the 
 wheel down and bring the ship into the 
 trough of the sea — to drift. Then the two 
 wet, exhausted, hollow-eyed men slept the 
 sleep that none but sailors and soldiers 
 know ; and when they wakened, twelve hours 
 later, stiff and sore, it was to look out on a 
 calm, starlit evening, with an eastern moon 
 silvering the surface of the long, north- 
 bound rollers, and showing in sharp relief a 
 dark horizon, on which there was no sign of 
 land or sail. 
 
 They satisfied their hunger ; then Boston, 
 with a rusty iron pot from the galley, to 
 which he fastened the end of his rope, 
 dipped up some of the water from over the 
 side. It was warm to the touch, and, aware 
 159 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 that they were in the Gulf Stream, they 
 crawled under the musty bedding in the 
 cabin berths and slept through the night. 
 In the morning there was no promise of the 
 easterly wind that Boston hoped would come 
 to blow them to port, and they secured their 
 boat — reeving off davit-tackles, and with the 
 plug out, pulling it up, one end at a time, 
 while the water drained out through the 
 hole in the bottom. 
 
 " Now, Boston," said the doctor, " here we 
 are, as you say, on the outer edge of the 
 Gulf Stream, drifting out into the broad At- 
 lantic at the rate of four miles an hour. 
 We've got to make the best of it until some- 
 thing comes along ; so you hunt through 
 that store-room and see what else there is to 
 eat, and I'll examine the cargo. I want to 
 know where that acid went." 
 
 They opened all the hatches, and while 
 Boston descended to the lazarette, the doc- 
 tor, with his trousers rolled up, climbed down 
 the notched steps in a stanchion. In a short 
 time he came up with a yellow substance in 
 his hand, which he washed thoroughly with 
 1 60 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE'' 
 
 fresh water in Boston's improvised draw- 
 bucket, and placed in the sun to dry. Then 
 he returned to the 'tween -deck. After a 
 while, Boston, rummaging the lazarette, heard 
 him calling through the bulkhead, and joined 
 him. 
 
 "Look here, Boston," said the doctor; 
 " I've cleared away the muck over this hatch. 
 It's ' corked,' as you sailormen call it. Help 
 me get it up." 
 
 They dug the compacted oakum from the 
 seams with their knives, and by iron rings 
 in each corner, now eaten with rust to almost 
 the thinness of wire, they lifted the hatch. 
 Below was a filthy-looking layer of whitish 
 substance, protruding from which were char- 
 red, half-burned staves. First they repeated 
 the experiment with the smouldering rag, 
 and finding that it burned, as before, they 
 descended. The whitish substance was hard 
 enough to bear their weight, and they looked 
 around. Overhead, hung to the under side 
 of the deck and extending the length of the 
 hold, were wooden tanks, charred, and in 
 some places burned through. 
 l 161 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 "She must have been built for a passen- 
 ger or troop ship," said Boston. " Those 
 tanks would water a regiment." 
 
 " Boston," answered the doctor, irrelevant- 
 ly, " will you climb up and bring down an 
 oar from the boat? Carry it down — don't 
 throw it, my boy." Boston obliged him, 
 and the doctor, picking his way forward, 
 then aft, struck each tank with the oar. 
 " Empty — all of them," he said. 
 
 He dug out with his knife a piece of the 
 whitish substance under foot, and examined 
 it closely in the light from the hatch. 
 
 "Boston," he said, impressively, " this ship 
 was loaded with lime, tallow, and acids — 
 acids above, lime and tallow down here. 
 This stuff is neither; it is lime-soap. And, 
 moreover, it has not been touched by acids." 
 The doctor's ruddy face was ashen. 
 
 " Well ?" asked Boston. 
 
 " Lime soap is formed by the causticizing 
 action of lime on tallow in the presence of 
 water and heat. It is easy to understand 
 this fire. One of those tanks leaked and 
 dribbled down on the cargo, attacking the 
 162 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 lime— which was stowed underneath, as all 
 these staves we see on top are from tallow- 
 kids. The heat generated by the slaking 
 lime set fire to the barrels in contact, which 
 in turn set fire to others, and they burned 
 until the air was exhausted, and then went 
 out. See, they are but partly consumed. 
 There was intense heat in this hold, and ex- 
 pansion of the water in all the tanks. Are 
 tanks at sea filled to the top?" 
 
 " Chock full, and a cap screwed down on 
 the upper end of the pipes." 
 
 "As I thought. The expanding water 
 burst every tank in the hold, and the cargo 
 was deluged with water, which attacked 
 every lime barrel in the bottom layer, at 
 least. Result — the bursting of those barrels 
 from the ebullition of slaking lime, the melt- 
 ing of the tallow — which could not burn 
 long in the closed-up space — and the mixing 
 of it in the interstices of the lime barrels 
 with water and lime — a boiling hot mess. 
 What happens under such conditions?" 
 
 '•' Give it up," said Boston, laconically. 
 
 " Lime soap is formed, which rises, and the 
 163 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 water beneath is in time all taken up by the 
 lime." 
 
 "But what of it?" interrupted the other. 
 
 " Wait. I see that this hold and the 
 'tween -deck are lined with wood. Is that 
 customary in iron ships ?" 
 
 "Not now. It used to be a notion that 
 an iron skin damaged the cargo ; so the first 
 iron ships were ceiled with wood." 
 
 " Are there any drains in the 'tween-deck 
 to let water out, in case it gets into that 
 deck from above — a sea, for instance?" 
 
 " Yes, always ; three or four scupper-holes 
 each side amidships. They lead the water 
 into the bilges, where the pumps can reach it." 
 
 " I found up there," continued the doctor, 
 " a large piece of wood, badly charred by 
 acid for half its length, charred to a lesser 
 degree for the rest. It was oval in cross 
 section, and the largest end was charred 
 most." 
 
 " Scupper plug. I suppose they plugged 
 the 'tween-deck scuppers to keep any water 
 they might ship out of the bilges and away 
 from the lime." 
 
 164 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 "Yes, and those plugs remained in place 
 for days, if not weeks or months, after the 
 carboys burst, as indicated by the greater 
 charring of the larger end of the plug. I 
 burrowed under the debris, and found the 
 hole which that plug fitted. It was worked 
 loose, or knocked out of the hole by some 
 internal movement of the broken carboys, 
 perhaps. At any rate, it came out, after re- 
 maining in place long enough for the acids 
 to become thoroughly mixed and for the 
 hull to cool down. She was in the ice, re- 
 member. Boston, the mixed acid went 
 down that hole, or others like it. Where is 
 it now?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Boston, thoughtfully, 
 "that it soaked up into the hold, through 
 the skin." 
 
 " Exactly. The skin is calked with oak- 
 um, is it not?" Boston nodded. 
 
 " That oakum would contract with the 
 charring action, as did the oakum in the 
 hatch, and every drop of that acid — ten 
 thousand gallons, as I have figured— has 
 filtered up into the hold, with the exception 
 165 
 
SPUX-YAR N 
 
 of what remained between the frames under 
 the skin. Have you ever studied organic 
 chemistry?" 
 "Slightly." 
 
 " Then you can follow me. When tallow 
 is saponified there is formed, from the pal- 
 mitin, stearin, and olein contained, with the 
 causticizing agent — in this case, lime — a 
 soap. But there are two ends to every 
 equation, and at the bottom of this im- 
 mense soap vat, held in solution by the wa- 
 ter, which would afterwards be taken up by 
 the surplus lime, was the other end of this 
 equation ; and as the yield from tallow of 
 this other product is about thirty per cent., 
 and as we start with eight thousand fifty- 
 pound kids — four hundred thousand pounds 
 — all of which has disappeared, we know that, 
 sticking to the skin and sides of the barrels 
 down here, is — or was once — one hundred 
 and twenty thousand pounds, or sixty tons, 
 of the other end of the equation — glyce- 
 rine !" 
 
 "Do you mean, Doc," asked Boston, with 
 a startled look, " that—" 
 1 66 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 " I mean," said the doctor, emphatically, 
 " that the first thing the acids — mixed in the 
 'tween-deck to just about the right propor- 
 tions, mind you — would attack, on oozing 
 through the skin, would be this glycerine ; 
 and the certain product of this union under 
 intense cold — this hull was frozen in the 
 ice, remember — would be nitro - glycerine ; 
 and, as the yield of the explosive is two 
 hundred and twenty per cent, of the glyce- 
 rine, we can be morally sure that in the bot- 
 tom of this hold, each minute globule of it 
 held firmly in a hard matrix of sulphate or 
 nitrate of calcium — which would be formed 
 next when the acids met the hydrates and 
 carbonates of lime — is over one hundred and 
 thirty tons of nitro-glycerine, all the more 
 explosive from not being washed of free 
 acids. Come up on deck. I'll show you 
 something else." 
 
 Limp and nerveless, Boston followed the 
 doctor. This question was beyond his sea- 
 manship. 
 
 The doctor brought the yellow substance 
 — now well dried. " I found plenty of this 
 167 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 in the 'tween-deck," he said; "and I should 
 judge they used it to pack between the car- 
 boy boxes. It was once cotton-batting. It 
 is now, since I have washed it, a very good 
 sample of gun-cotton. Get me a hammer — 
 crowbar — something hard." 
 
 Boston brought a marline-spike from the 
 locker, and the doctor, tearing off a small 
 piece of the substance and placing it on the 
 iron barrel of a gipsy-winch, gave it a hard 
 blow with the marline-spike, which was near- 
 ly torn from his hand by the explosion that 
 followed. 
 
 "We have in the 'tween-deck," said the 
 doctor, as he turned, " about twice as many 
 pounds of this stuff as they used to pack the 
 carboys with ; and, like the nitro-glycerine, 
 it is the more easily exploded from the im- 
 purities and free acids. I washed this for 
 safe handling. Boston, we are adrift on a 
 floating bomb that would pulverize the Rock 
 of Gibraltar !" 
 
 " But, doctor," asked Boston, as he leaned 
 against the rail for support, " wouldn't there 
 be evolution of heat from the action of the 
 
 168 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 acids on the lime — enough to explode the 
 nitro-glycerine just formed?" 
 
 " The best proof that it did not explode is 
 the fact that this hull still floats. The ac- 
 tion was too slow, and it was very cold down 
 there. But I can't yet account for the acids 
 left in the bilges. What have they been 
 doing all these fifty years?" 
 
 Boston found a sounding-rod in the locker, 
 which he scraped bright with his knife, then, 
 unlaying a strand of the rope for a line, 
 sounded the pump-well. The rod came up 
 dry, but with a slight discoloration on the low- 
 er end, which Boston showed to the doctor. 
 
 "The acids have expended themselves on 
 the iron frames and plates. How thick are 
 they?" 
 
 "Plates, about five -eighths of an inch; 
 frames, like railroad iron." 
 
 " This hull is a shell ! We won't get much 
 salvage. Get up some kind of distress sig- 
 nal, Boston." Somehow the doctor was now 
 the master-spirit. 
 
 A flag was nailed to the mast, union down, 
 to be blown to pieces with the first breeze ; 
 169 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 then another, and another, until the flag 
 locker was exhausted. Next they hung out, 
 piece after piece, all they could spare of the 
 rotten bedding, until that too was exhausted. 
 Then they found, in a locker of their boat, a 
 flag of Free Cuba, which they decided not 
 to waste, but to hang out only when a sail 
 appeared. 
 
 But no sail appeared, and the craft, buf- 
 feted by gales and seas, drifted eastward, 
 while the days became weeks, and the weeks 
 became months. Twice she entered the Sar- 
 gasso Sea — the graveyard of derelicts — to be 
 blown out by friendly gales and resume her 
 travels. Occasional rains replenished the 
 stock of fresh water, but the food they found 
 at first, with the exception of some cans of 
 fruit, was all that came to light ; for the salt 
 meat was leathery, and crumbled to a salty 
 dust on exposure to the air. After a while 
 their stomachs revolted at the diet of cold 
 soup, and they ate only when hunger com- 
 pelled them. 
 
 At first they had stood watch-and- watch, 
 but the lonely horror of the long night vigils 
 170 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 in the constant apprehension of instant 
 death had affected them alike, and they gave 
 it up, sleeping and watching together. They 
 had taken care of their boat and provisioned 
 it, ready to lower and pull into the track of 
 any craft that might approach. But it was 
 four months from the beginning of this 
 strange voyage when the two men, gaunt 
 and hungry — with ruined digestions and 
 shattered nerves— saw, with joy which may 
 be imagined, the first land and the first sail 
 that gladdened their eyes after the storm in 
 the Florida Channel. 
 
 A fierce gale from the southwest had been 
 driving them, broadside on, in the trough of 
 the sea, for the whole of the preceding day 
 and night; and the land they now saw ap- 
 peared to them a dark, ragged line of blue, 
 early in the morning. Boston could only 
 surmise that it was the coast of Portugal or 
 Spain. The sail— which lay between them 
 and the land, about three miles to leeward 
 —proved to be the try-sail of a black craft, 
 hove-to, with bows nearly towards them. 
 
 Boston climbed the foremast with their 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 only flag and secured it ; then, from the 
 high poop -deck, they watched the other 
 craft, plunging and wallowing in the im- 
 mense Atlantic combers, often raising her 
 forefoot into plain view, again descending 
 with a dive that hid the whole forward half 
 in a white cloud of spume. 
 
 " If she was a steamer I'd call her a cruis- 
 er," said Boston ; " one of England's black 
 ones, with a storm-sail on her military main- 
 mast. She has a ram bow, and — yes, spon- 
 sons and guns. That's what she is, with her 
 funnels and bridge carried away." 
 
 "Isn't she right in our track, Boston?" 
 asked the doctor, excitedly. " Hadn't she 
 better get out of our way?" 
 
 " She's got steam up — a full head ; see the 
 escape-jet? She isn't helpless. If she don't 
 launch a boat, we'll take to ours and board 
 her." 
 
 The distance lessened rapidly — the cruiser 
 plunging up and down in the same spot, the 
 derelict heaving to leeward in great, swing- 
 ing leaps, as the successive seas caught her, 
 each one leaving her half a length farther 
 172 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 on. Soon they could make out the figures 
 of men. 
 
 "Take us off," screamed the doctor, wav- 
 ing his arms, " and get out of our way !" 
 
 " We'll clear her," said Boston ; " see, she's 
 started her engine." 
 
 As they drifted down on the weather-side 
 of the cruiser they shouted repeatedly words 
 of supplication and warning. They were 
 answered by a solid shot from a secondary 
 gun, which flew over their heads. At the 
 same time, the ensign of Spain was run up 
 on the flag-staff. 
 
 "They're Spanish, Boston. They're fir- 
 ing on us. Into that boat with you ! If a 
 shot hits our cargo, we won't know what 
 struck us." 
 
 They sprang into the boat, which luckily 
 hung on the lee side, and cleared the falls- 
 fastened and coiled in the bow and stern. 
 Often during their long voyage they had re- 
 hearsed the launching of the boat in a sea- 
 way — an operation requiring quick and con- 
 certed action. 
 
 " Ready, Doc ?" sang out Boston. " One, 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 two, three — let go!" The falls overhauled 
 with a whir, and the falling boat, striking an 
 uprising sea with a smack, sank with it. 
 When it raised they unhooked the tackle 
 blocks, and pushed off with the oars just as 
 a second shot hummed over their heads. 
 
 "Pull, Boston; pull hard — straight to 
 windward !" cried the doctor. 
 
 The tight whaleboat shipped no water, 
 and though they were pulling in the teeth of 
 a furious gale, the hulk was drifting away 
 from them, so, in a short time, they were 
 separated from their late home by a full 
 quarter-mile of angry sea. The cruiser had 
 forged ahead in plain view, and, as they 
 looked, took in the try-sail. 
 
 " She's going to wear," said Boston. " See, 
 she's paying off." 
 
 " I don't know what 'wearing ' means, Bos- 
 ton," panted the doctor, "but I know the 
 Spanish nature. She's going to ram that 
 hundred and thirty tons of nitro. Don't 
 stop. Pull away. Hold on, there ; hold on, 
 you fools!" he shouted. "That's a tor- 
 pedo ; keep away from her !" 
 174 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 Forgetting his own injunction to "pull 
 away," the doctor stood up, waving his oar 
 frantically, and Boston assisted. But if their 
 shouts and gestures were understood aboard 
 the cruiser, they were ignored. She slowly 
 turned in a wide curve and headed straight 
 for the Neptune which had drifted to leeward 
 of her. 
 
 What was in the minds of the officers on 
 that cruiser's deck will never be known. 
 Cruisers of all nations hold roving commis- 
 sions in regard to derelicts, and it is fitting 
 and proper for one of them to gently prod a 
 " vagrant of the sea " with the steel prow 
 and send her below to trouble no more. 
 But it may be that the sight of the Cuban 
 flag, floating defiantly in the gale, had some- 
 thing to do with the full speed at which the 
 Spanish ship approached. When but half a 
 length separated the two craft, a heavy sea 
 lifted the bow of the cruiser high in air; 
 then it sank, and the sharp steel ram came 
 down like a butcher's cleaver on the side of 
 the derelict. 
 
 A great semicircular wall of red shut out 
 175 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the gray of the sea and sky to leeward, and 
 for an instant the horrified men in the boat 
 saw — as people see by a lightning flash — 
 dark lines radiating from the centre of this 
 red wall, and near this centre, poised on end 
 in mid-air, with deck and sponsons still in- 
 tact, a bowless, bottomless remnant of the 
 cruiser. Then, and before the remnant sank 
 into the vortex beneath, the spectacle went 
 out in the darkness of unconsciousness ; for 
 a report, as of concentrated thunder, struck 
 them down. A great wave had left the 
 crater-like depression in the sea, which threw 
 the boat on end, and with the inward rush 
 of surrounding water arose a mighty gray 
 cone, which then subsided to a hollow, 
 while another wave followed the first. Again 
 and again this gray pillar rose and fell, each 
 subsidence marked by the sending forth of a 
 wave. And long before these concentric 
 waves had lost themselves in the battle with 
 the storm -driven combers from the ocean, 
 the half -filled boat, with her unconscious 
 passengers, had drifted over the spot where 
 lay the shattered remnant, which, with the 
 176 
 
THE DERELICT "NEPTUNE" 
 
 splintered fragments of wood and iron strewn 
 on the surface and bottom of the sea for a 
 mile around, and the lessening cloud of dust 
 in the air, was ail that was left of the dere- 
 lict Neptune and one of the finest cruisers in 
 the Spanish navy. 
 
 A few days later, two exhausted, half- 
 starved men pulled a whaleboat up to the 
 steps of the wharf at Cadiz, where they told 
 some lies and sold their boat. Six months 
 after, these two men, sitting at a camp-fire 
 of the Cuban army, read from a discolored 
 newspaper, brought ashore with the last sup- 
 plies, the following : 
 
 " By cable to the ' Herald.' 
 
 "Cadiz, March 13, 1895.— Anxiety for the safety 
 of the Reina Regente has grown rapidly to-day, and 
 this evening it is feared, generally, that she went 
 down with her four hundred and twenty souls in the 
 storm which swept the southern coast on Sunday 
 night and Monday morning. Despatches from Gi- 
 braltar say that pieces of a boat and several sema- 
 phore flags belonging to the cruiser came ashore at 
 Ceuta and Tarifa this afternoon." 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 " Six days thou shalt labor and do all that thou 
 art able, 
 And on the seventh thou shalt holy -stone the 
 deck and scrape the cable." 
 
 Sailors Commandments, 
 
 When you have made a more than suc- 
 cessful cruise, on which you have ravaged the 
 coast from Callao to the Isthmus ; when 
 your hold is filled with the choicest of 
 brandies, wines, and liquors — with fancy 
 groceries and the finest of silks, brocades, 
 and broadcloths, and the covers of four 
 treasure-chests in the 'tween-deck will hardly 
 close over the contents ; when you have 
 nine ships, four barks, and a brig or two — as 
 well as a few competitive Malay praus — to 
 your credit, and your reputation for elusive- 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 ness troubles the men-of-war of four nations ; 
 lastly, when your number is reduced by 
 fights, sickness, and quarter-deck correction 
 from forty to twenty, and your share of the 
 spoil is increased in like ratio, it is hard- 
 very hard— to lie in the scuppers under a 
 hot Pacific sun and whistle for a wind, with 
 your island retreat just below the western 
 horizon, a fat and tempting Chinese junk a 
 half-mile off in the same direction, a curious, 
 though quiescent man-of-war three miles east, 
 and Palm Tree Island, towards which the cur- 
 rent is setting, threatening to receive you on 
 its shark-infested reef. 
 
 Such conditions would try the patience of 
 gentler souls than Captain Swarth and his 
 crew. The brig was taking in water through 
 a started butt— in spite of the thrummed 
 top-gallant sail under it— at the rate of a foot 
 an hour, while the one gang that they dared 
 show to those inquisitive government glasses 
 to the eastward could not pump her free; in 
 fact, the water gained. Wind was what 
 they wanted. Wind would settle the whole 
 matter. They could man all pumps, lay the 
 
 1/9 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 junk aboard, transship what was good of 
 her cargo, lead the "bull-dog" a chase to 
 the southward, and dodge back to their isl- 
 and to careen and refit, divide up and rest. 
 They knew that man-of-war — though she did 
 not seem to know them — knew her speed 
 and gunnery, and feared her not — with 
 wind. 
 
 Yank Tate, the carpenter, sounded the 
 pump-well and groaned a gentle oath. " No 
 good, Cappen," he said, as he walked aft 
 with the sounding-rod ; " must be up to the 
 second tier now." 
 
 Captain Swarth swept the smoky horizon 
 with his glasses. There was no sign of even 
 a cat's-paw; the motionless man-of-war — a 
 gun- deck sloop— lay outlined against the 
 haze with the distinct detail of a steel en- 
 graving, every block, rope, and reef- point 
 showing. Aboard the junk a big, fat China- 
 man sat at the tiller on the high poop, nod- 
 ding, as though asleep, while the rest of 
 her crew were hidden. Palm Tree Island 
 was nearer — he could plainly hear the surf 
 crashing on the barrier, 
 i So 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 " Get the boys up, Angel," he said to his 
 long-legged, solemn-faced mate ; " man both 
 pumps — and Chips" — this to the carpenter 
 — " see what you can do with the lumber 
 down below ; make a balin' pump if you 
 can." 
 
 " Then we'll have that feller's boats down 
 on us," answered the mate, " and lose the 
 junk too — they've got sweeps aboard. Them 
 rags won't fool the brass-buttons after they 
 see our crowd." He pointed to a string of 
 signal flags at the gaff-end, which, in answer 
 to a previous inquiry of the ship, had given 
 the official number of the last brig they had 
 taken — that now lay on the bottom, forty 
 miles east. " Why not hold on till dark, 
 Bill? The moon '11 bring wind." 
 
 "We'll likely have her boats here soon, 
 anyhow — they're only waiting till it's cooler. 
 As for the junk — let her go; there's not 
 much in her. We've got to float, above all 
 — and float high, or we can't get away when 
 the wind does come. We can fight the 
 boats off." 
 
 " Guess yer right, Bill. Pity we lost ours. 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 We could be through wi' the junk 'fore this 
 if we had 'em. Man the after-pump!" he 
 called. 
 
 The carpenter had disappeared in the 
 'tween-deck and the cosmopolitan crew, with 
 growls and hurrahs, according to their indi- 
 vidual appreciation of the situation, arose 
 from the hot deck and shipped pump-brakes. 
 As they did so a tremor ran through the 
 brig, and the water alongside was broken 
 into minute ripples. 
 
 " What the devil's that," said the captain 
 — " barrels adrift in the hold ? Pump away 
 there, my bullies ; lighten her up !" he shout- 
 ed to the men. 
 
 " Look at the Chinamen, Bill," said the 
 mate. 
 
 The crew of the junk had come to life. 
 Not less than forty long -tailed celestials 
 were flying about her deck, some lowering 
 the heavy mat sails, some shipping sweeps, 
 others working at the sharp-pronged wooden 
 anchors — evidently getting them ready. But 
 the sudden showing of fourteen extra white 
 men on the deck of their neighbor did not 
 182 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 seem to be the cause of their agitation ; for 
 they swung the light craft around until the 
 two painted eyes in the bows looked at the 
 brig, and pulled in the sweeps. 
 
 " She's a pirate — a Chinese pirate !" cried 
 the captain ; " no trading-junk carries that 
 crew. Blown off the coast, likely." The 
 men heard, and a howl of execration arose 
 from the brig's deck— not of offended virtue ; 
 it was, rather, the protest of union against 
 non-union labor. Pickings were scarce and 
 hard-earned in these seas, even when junks 
 and praus kept out of the business. The 
 howl was answered by a shout from the man 
 at the wheel. 
 
 " Look at the island — look ! Look at it !" 
 he cried. 
 
 Palm Tree Island had arisen from the sea 
 and receded. The low cone of the island 
 was a mile farther to the southward ; but it 
 towered in the air, and around its base was a 
 wade, gray offset which descended steeply to 
 the sea. It had been the barrier reef. 
 
 " Earthquake, Angel— that's what we felt," 
 shouted Captain Swarth ; "the sea-bed has 
 1S3 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 sunk, and we're being sucked into the hol- 
 low. We'll get the back wave soon. Bat- 
 ten down fore and aft, first thing — 'fore you 
 shorten sail." 
 
 They noticed that the man-of-war was 
 clewing up royals and top-gallant sails, that 
 the Chinamen had disappeared behind the 
 rail, and that the northern horizon, though 
 hidden by a newly formed fog-bank, was un- 
 questionably elevated — they seemed to be 
 looking uphill. None too soon was the 
 carpenter called, and hatches and compan- 
 ion-ways covered and secured, for suddenly, 
 about a mile up the slope, appeared a dark 
 line across the water. It deepened, raised 
 and approached, a comber — a liquid wall 
 which blotted out the fog-bank. It reached 
 the half-clad ship to the eastward, and they 
 saw her lift her bows to it, then, while every- 
 thing above top-mast-heads sank in a con- 
 fused tangle, roll on her beam-ends and dis- 
 appear behind the wave. 
 
 "Hang on, everybody!" roared Captain 
 Swarth, as he slipped the bight of a rope 
 over his shoulders ; " lash yourselves !" 
 184 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 The sloop-of-war had taken it bow on, and, 
 though dismasted, had ridden through. The 
 brig and junk presented their broadsides — 
 the latter intentionally, perhaps from some 
 canon of Chinese seamanship — and a mo- 
 ment later, were slid to near the crest of an 
 eighty-foot slope, where a Niagara of foaming 
 water pounded their decks and sides, and 
 rushed them on. Hatches were ripped off, 
 gun-breechings snapped, cursing and pray- 
 ing men were hurled around the deck, and 
 the salt avalanche held the brig in its clutch 
 for a full half-minute, then passed over and on; 
 and they looked — those who could — up the 
 receding hill to where the wave -head was 
 shivering itself over the barrier reef, and in 
 the other direction at a second wave— high- 
 er, blacker, more menacing than the first- 
 its crest hidden in fog. 
 
 With barely time for a long breath, the 
 gasping men felt their craft thrown to the 
 top of this comber, augmented in height by 
 the reflected water of the first. Again were 
 they hammered by the liquid riot, and amid 
 fog and foam, and thundering uproar, were 
 1S5 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 again hurled shoreward. Some caught a 
 momentary glimpse of the disappearing 
 knuckles of the reef below and a dismasted 
 junk just above; then the fog thickened, 
 blotting out all but the punishing water and 
 its deafening sound; then came again the 
 nauseating sinking ; then a shock and a sound 
 of smashing wood. The brig had struck — 
 on the reef or within it. 
 
 But the dominant volume of sound was 
 transferred from landward to seaward, and, 
 though they could see nothing now, they 
 knew that the third wave as it crashed over 
 the barrier was the largest of all. Up the 
 unseen slope the half-filled brig travelled, the 
 crew clinging to ropes and deck-fittings, un- 
 til, above the fog, and before the pitiless 
 cataract began to smother and beat them, 
 they viewed the highest hill-top of the isl- 
 and, not a quarter -mile away. Then they 
 saw no more — nor did they breathe — until, 
 after a succession of wrenchings, joltings, 
 and crashings, they found their brig sur- 
 rounded by palm-trees, jib-boom and bow- 
 sprit gone, main-mast pointing one way and 
 
 1S6 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 foremast the other— which latter phenom- 
 ena, with the open seams in the spirally 
 curved deck, indicated a broken backbone — 
 and looked, through thinning fog and tree- 
 trunks, down a moist slope to a chaotic 
 ocean, crossed and recrossed by advancing 
 and reflected tidal waves. 
 
 Eighteen bruised and half- drowned men 
 crawled along the sloping deck to where 
 Captain Swarth was looking over the rail at 
 the glistening streams spouting from the 
 wrecked hull. 
 
 "Who's gone?" he demanded, as he no- 
 ticed their diminished number. 
 
 " Big Tom went with the first sea," said 
 one. " He held on to the fore channels a 
 while, then let go." 
 
 "And none o' you dock-rats lent him a 
 hand? Who's in the forecastle?" Suspi- 
 cious sounds came from forward — jarrings 
 and oaths. The men looked at one another. 
 
 " Shorty and the Dago, likely," they an- 
 swered ; " dividin' up Tom's kit." 
 
 "You infernal jackals !" roared the captain, 
 his eyes snapping ; " let a good man drown, 
 1S7 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 and fight over his clothes before he's cold. 
 Mr. Todd, take a hand in that." 
 
 When Captain Swarth called his mate Mr. 
 Todd, things — and men — moved aboard that 
 brig. The solemn -faced officer selected a 
 belaying-pin from the main fife-rail, and go- 
 ing forward, coolly descended the forecastle- 
 hatch. The crew followed to the foremast, 
 and when, after a break and renewal of the 
 sounds in a new key, two bloody-faced men 
 emerged from the forecastle, they fell upon 
 them with fists and boots, and smote them, 
 hip and thigh. 
 
 " Stop that !" shouted the captain, after a 
 scowling approval ; " Shorty and Pedro got 
 ahead o' you — that's all. Clew up and stow 
 the canvas." 
 
 " What's the use, cappen ?" answered one 
 of them; "we're on the overland route." 
 Mr. Todd was behind the man and felled 
 him to the deck with the belaying-pin. 
 
 " Up wi' you !" he yelled. " Up aloft wi' 
 you ! D'ye think coz yer tossed ashore ye've 
 done wi' yer work?" The sailor arose, and, 
 rubbing his head, followed his mates to the 
 
 iSS 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 rigging. Then Mr. Todd, with the captain 
 and carpenter, dropped over the side to hold 
 a survey of the twisted hull. They walked 
 around it in the mud on which it lay, prob- 
 ing gaping seams with their knives, and peer- 
 ing into fore-and-aft fissures and thwart-ship 
 crevasses— through some of which they could 
 see the barrels of their cargo. The brig lay 
 bows down, half-way up the hill, with the 
 beach a quarter-mile away. The water was 
 still draining out. 
 
 '''She'll never float again, Chips, will she?" 
 said the captain. Yank Tate ruefully shook 
 his head. 
 
 "She's a fixture, cappen," said he; "a 
 dock-head caps'an couldn't budge her, and a 
 dock-yard couldn't mend her. The keel 's in 
 two pieces, three foot apart ; rudder s gone, 
 an' stern-post 's out o' true ; port garboard 's 
 ripped out, an' there ain't a sound frame 
 that side. She was a beauty, too — a beauty ; 
 I never saw her like among workin' boats." 
 A man hailed from the main-royal yard. 
 " There's the junk up the hill," he cried, " right 
 side up, and the yaller-backs eatin' supper !" 
 189 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 "Supper?" growled the mate, " supper? — 
 an' our grub must be spoiled. We were 
 half-way to the bottom, Bill, in the last sea." 
 
 " If they have grub we'll have some too," 
 said Captain Swarth, quietly. " It's a ques- 
 tion with me if the junk wasn't right to take 
 it broadside. Royal yard, there !" he hailed ; 
 " d' you see the bull-dog?" The man aloft 
 stood up, looked to the eastward and called 
 down : 
 
 " Headin' south under top-s'ls; everything 
 gone aloft an' low down in the water ; port- 
 holes amidships awash." 
 
 " Well, they're afloat anyhow, while we 
 and the Chinamen are high and dry. But if 
 they can't pump her out they're done for 
 too ; there'll be wind on top o' this." 
 
 Captain Swarth was right. Such a cata- 
 clysm as had, with three waves, washed a 
 five hundred ton brig over a reef and almost 
 to the centre of an island, could not but be 
 followed by atmospheric disturbance. Wind 
 came — a vicious hurricane — which kept them 
 beneath their leaky deck, listening to wail- 
 ings and screamings in the rigging, and to 
 i go 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 the crashing of palm -trunks and branches 
 over their heads, feeling the sway and the 
 heave of the brig on her muddy bed with 
 each heavier puff of the tempest, and passing 
 the day and following night thus, to the ac- 
 companiments of hunger and thirst. Pro- 
 visions were spoiled — except the salt meats, 
 which these free-lances would not eat — and 
 their appetites were only increased by the 
 tot of good grog served out by Captain 
 Swarth at nightfall, while their tempers 
 were ruffled by his injunction to stay below 
 or get shot. For, though the scuttle-butt 
 was on deck, three open hatches were there 
 as well, under which were barrels of whiskey ; 
 and Captain Swarth knew his men and the 
 unwritten ethics of the craft, which provide, 
 that when dry land is underfoot sea disci- 
 pline ends. He had work for those men in 
 the morning, and all night he or the mate 
 guarded the deck from the cabin windows 
 with the captain's pepper-box pistol, con- 
 taining in its six barrels the only dry powder 
 on board. 
 
 The hurricane ended at daylight, and the 
 191 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 sun rose in a clear blue sky. Hungry 
 enough now, and savage as uncaged wolves, 
 they ate of the salt-meat hash prepared by 
 the cook, after another allowance of grog. 
 Then Captain Swarth, who had taken a lit- 
 tle excursion, imparted the information that 
 the junk lay above them in a clearing, and, 
 though dismasted, was doubtless sound and 
 tight, as her rudder was intact, and no holes 
 could be seen in her. In her was food of 
 some kind — rice, sago, curry, fish, etc. Did 
 they want her? An inarticulate yell an- 
 swered. Cutlasses and boarding-pikes were 
 handed out, and twenty-two men clambered 
 down the sides and started to exterminate a 
 junkful of Chinamen. 
 
 Over fallen trunks and soggy banks, through 
 moist and tangled undergrowth, they picked 
 their way up the hill ; and when they opened 
 the clearing, with the junk resting straight 
 on her flat bottom, they charged for her 
 sides with curses and yells. 
 
 But they came back, scalded by hot water, 
 bruised by stones flung from primitive cata- 
 pults, and choking from the fumes of gas- 
 192 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 bombs thrown at them, and looked, when 
 their streaming eyes cleared, at an array of 
 sharp spear-heads along the rails, in each of 
 which was more of promise than in the best 
 of their pikes and short cutlasses, and be- 
 hind each of which was a Chinaman. The 
 fat man they had seen nodding at the tiller 
 stood on the high poop and seemed to be in 
 command. 
 
 "Melican man no hab come top side," he 
 called ; " Melican man no b'long. China- 
 man b'long fore side." 
 
 "Y' do, hey, you yellow-skinned vipers!" 
 cried Captain Swarth. " At 'em again, boys ! 
 Don't breathe till you get aboard!" 
 
 The second charge was half-hearted and 
 futile ; they did not breathe the demoraliz- 
 ing fumes, but those heathen were, unques- 
 tionably, fighters; and with several of their 
 number prodded by the spears they with- 
 drew. 
 
 "Why didn't ye give us pistols, cappen," 
 asked one, as he rubbed the blood from an 
 ugly scratch in his cheek. 
 
 "Powder 's wet, you blasted fool!" roared 
 
 N 193 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 the infuriated captain. "All there is that's 
 dry is right here " — he tapped his pistol — 
 "and I'll use this, not on Chinamen, but on 
 
 white men who 're afraid of them ! D n 
 
 your hides, can't you take a junk in a meadow ? 
 Could you take a peanut-stand if some one 
 showed you how ? Come on, now, you drove 
 of curs !" 
 
 Away they went, yelling with a forced en- 
 thusiasm, yet earnestly resolved to capture 
 that junk, but were again repulsed at the 
 brown sides. They tumbled back, caressing 
 more spear -pricks, and sat down on tree- 
 trunks — silent, gloomy, and ashamed — meek- 
 ly taking the tirade of abuse dealt out to 
 them in explosive volleys. For Captain 
 Swarth had the only fire-arm. 
 
 Then the captain and mate, both nursing 
 bloody knuckles, drew aside and conferred, 
 to which conference they called the carpen- 
 ter. They studied the junk and the ground 
 underfoot, peered down the slope through 
 the trees to the shelving beach, and dis- 
 cussed the shortcomings of the men. 
 
 " It 's only coz they're ashore, cappen," 
 194 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 said the carpenter; "a sailor ashore isn't 
 himself." 
 
 " Well, if they can't fight they can work. 
 And work they shall if the Chinamen agree." 
 
 With a dingy handkerchief at the end of 
 a stick, Captain Swarth approached the junk. 
 The Chinamen evidently understood a flag 
 of truce, for they threw nothing at him, and 
 he called to the captain : 
 
 " Chinaman no fight — no bobbery; Meli- 
 can no bobbery ; savvay?" 
 
 " Chinaman b'long," answered the big 
 man. 
 
 "Yes, that's right; Chinaman belong. 
 But we can't get away; neither can you. 
 Now, s'pose Melican belong all same China- 
 man — savvay?" The big captain nodded, 
 and Captain Swarth went on : 
 
 " Melican ship all smash — one piecee wreck 
 — all gone — no belong. Savvay?" — more 
 nods — " Chinaman got junk, no got mast, 
 no got sail. Melican got mast, got sail, no 
 got junk. Melican takee junk down fore- 
 side — makee junk top side — one piecee good 
 junk. Melican makee mast — makee sail. 
 195 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 Then, chop-chop — Chinaman go way fore- 
 side — takee Melican fifty mile — one piecee 
 island all same this." 
 
 "Melican no fightee — no kick up bob- 
 blee?" 
 
 " No, no, no bobbery — no trouble at all," 
 replied the wrathful and humiliated Captain 
 Swarth. " We'll slide your old tub down to 
 the beach, fit her out, launch her, and navi- 
 gate her. All we want is to get away — over 
 yonder." He waved his hand to the west- 
 ward. 
 
 The junk captain said something to his 
 followers, and while a babel of Chinese dis- 
 putation troubled the air, Captain Swarth 
 sat down and smoked (it was a fine cigar, 
 from the private stock of a tea-clipper's cap- 
 tain), mentally computing the weight of the 
 junk and the horse-power of his crew. The 
 outcry on the junk was silenced by the big 
 captain's laying about him with a bamboo 
 pole, and Captain Swarth, grinning from a 
 fellow-feeling, approached. The understand- 
 ing arrived at was— that the Chinamen were 
 to remain aboard their craft and do no work ; 
 196 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 that the white men could do what they 
 pleased except interfere with the peace and 
 comfort of the Chinamen ; and, if they suc- 
 ceeded in launching her, they could only ride 
 in her as far as their island, when they were 
 to depart, and allow the junk to go on with 
 the masts and sails as her own. To which 
 compact Captain Swarth and Captain Lee 
 Kin shook hands over the rail. 
 
 Then Captain Swarth climbed aboard, ex- 
 amined the crazy windlass with which the 
 Chinamen got their anchors, shook his head, 
 looked at the strong partners (strengthening 
 pieces) in the deck, which had received the 
 shroudless masts, smiled, and then asked 
 about her cargo. There was very little of it 
 — all clear of the mast-steps. 
 
 He returned to his men and told them 
 what they were to do. Another uproar fol- 
 lowed. They would see him in the lower 
 regions first. The cruise was ended, and with 
 it ended Captain Swarth's authority. They 
 would do what was possible to repair their 
 own craft and launch her ; they would fight 
 the Chinamen until the last man dropped ; 
 197 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 but they wouldn't work that junk down the 
 hill for any nest of rat-eating heathen. To 
 which Captain Swarth replied that they 
 would. They were nineteen old women, 
 afraid of getting hurt ; they couldn't fight 
 Chinamen, no matter how hard they tried ; 
 but they could work — under orders. He 
 had six bullets, each equal to a man, and a 
 cutlass good for another. Did any one care 
 to make one of the seven ? 
 
 Captain Swarth was a good shot and a 
 good swordsman, and their indignation sub- 
 sided to muttering sulks. Then, after ad- 
 monishing them to be respectful and obe- 
 dient, he laid out their work. They would 
 first dismantle the brig, leaving nothing 
 standing but the lower masts ; then they 
 would execute such suggestions of civil and 
 mechanical engineering as came to the minds 
 of the captain, mate, or carpenter in regard 
 to the floating of the junk. When that was 
 accomplished other things would follow. 
 The carpenter was to be their immediate 
 boss, or foreman, under whom they would 
 work by day. At night they would sleep in 
 i 9 s 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 their forecastle, and they would stay out 
 of the hold and let the liquor alone. The 
 captain and mate would stand " watch-and- 
 watch " with the pistol to keep them civil 
 by day and sober by night. The first man 
 who refused duty or entered the hold of the 
 brig would be shot. They would be served 
 a tot of grog three times a day, and eat the 
 salt meat and such vegetables as the cook, 
 who was to be excused from other labor, 
 could find on the island. 
 
 The man with the wounded cheek stepped 
 forward and suggested the propriety of a 
 " blow-out " with the whiskey before they 
 began, and Captain Swarth refused them 
 even this ; for the " blow-out " would not 
 end, he said, until the whiskey was gone, 
 and by that time half of them would be 
 dead, and the other half in the horrors. 
 
 Sullenly they arose at his order and 
 marched back to the brig, where they hand- 
 ed in their side-arms and pikes. They loosed 
 all canvas, and the day was spent in sending 
 it down as fast as it dried. Nightfall saw 
 the last sail, snugly rolled, deposited on 
 199 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 gratings alongside and covered. Then they 
 ate their salt supper and turned in. 
 
 In the morning mutiny was rampant. 
 Nineteen bad-tempered men faced Captain 
 Swarth at the main-mast and informed him 
 that he was deposed from the captaincy ; 
 that future work and movements would be 
 governed by election ; and that an immediate 
 overhaul of the cargo and division of the 
 treasure had been decided on. Two fell 
 dead, and the rest went to work, burying 
 their fallen shipmates first, while Captain 
 Swarth, remarking that there were four 
 bullets left, handed the pistol to Mr. 
 Todd, and went to his breakfast and his 
 bunk. 
 
 Sixteen able seamen, officered by such 
 men as Captain Swarth and Angel Todd, can 
 do a great deal with ropes and blocks. Roy- 
 al, top-gallant, top-sail, and lower yards came 
 down that day and were blocked alongside, 
 with the gear coiled up and tagged. Next 
 day followed the top-gallant masts and top- 
 masts, with the spanker boom and gaff. 
 " Growl ye may, but work ye must," said 
 200 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 Mr. Todd to them as they showed him their 
 sores and cursed him for a slave-driver. 
 
 The cook had found wild yams and bread- 
 fruit, which took the edge off the salt meat, 
 and the grog was served faithfully three 
 times a day ; but the next day was Sunday, 
 and they appealed to the religious and phys- 
 iological law of the world for a day's rest— 
 which was denied them— and in the ensuing 
 argument lost another of their number — 
 Shorty, it was— and they dragged the carpen- 
 ter's chest up the hill, burying Shorty on the 
 way, without prayers, and returned for the 
 two lower yards. This job used up the day, 
 and as they tied up their wounds with rope- 
 yarns and tar that night they talked to the 
 cook about poisoning the after-guard. The 
 cook refused ; it was unprofessional, and he 
 had no poison ; but, as a result of the discus- 
 sion, which was not whispered, Yank Tate 
 moved his goods and bedding into the cabin. 
 " For they're kinder displeased, cappen," he 
 said, " and very unreasonable ; and they might 
 get into my shop when I'm asleep and do 
 somethin' they'd be sorry for arterwards." 
 
 201 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 In the morning they rigged sheers over 
 the bow of the junk (which, like the brig, 
 pointed down hill), of the fore and main 
 yards, lashing the upper ends, and sinking 
 the lower in socket-holes in a couple of fen- 
 ders. At the sheer-head they lashed two 
 threefold blocks, each as large as a small 
 trunk, and, to a stump near the heel, a 
 rouse-about, or heavy snatch-block, to take 
 the hauling part of the eight-inch hawser 
 they would use as a lifting tackle. The 
 lower blocks of this tackle they would se- 
 cure to a shot of anchor-chain which they 
 were to pass under the bow. And this was 
 a job at which their souls revolted, for they 
 were forced to burrow under the junk with 
 knives, as there were no spades in the brig. 
 If the Chinamen possessed them, they made 
 no sign, but hung over the rail and guyed 
 them in derisive pantomine. 
 
 They took turns at the muddy task, and 
 the mud dried on them, layer over layer, for 
 no time was allowed them to clean up. 
 And as only four could work at a time at 
 this, the rest, after reeving off the big tackle, 
 
 202 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 busied themselves in cutting down palm- 
 trees, flattening the trunks for ways (or rails), 
 and in ripping up deck-planks and dragging 
 them up the hill for cradles. This work was 
 not done in a day — it took several ; and they 
 labored in the hot sun, teased by their sores, 
 policed continually by the captain or mate, 
 and on a short allowance of water, for sever- 
 al tanks had been demolished in the wreck. 
 But at last the holes were dug and the chain 
 passed under the bow, through the rings of 
 the lower blocks, and secured. Then they 
 hauled the twelve -part tackle hand -taut to 
 a palm-tree, clapped a tackle to the haul- 
 ing part close to the sheers, another on the 
 hauling part of this, and thus, luff upon luff, 
 they quadrupled their power, until, with five 
 tackles rigged to five trees, Captain Swarth 
 decided that his men could lift the bow of a 
 hundred-foot junk. 
 
 And they did. Under his stinging objur- 
 gations, backed by the flourished pistol, they 
 swung on the fall of the last tackle, shifting 
 up when blocks came home, sweating, curs- 
 ing, and complaining, while the painted eyes 
 203 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 in the bow glared at them, and twoscore 
 Chinamen grinned down on them and added 
 their weight. Up came the bow, a quarter 
 inch at a heave, until high enough for Yank 
 Tate to block up the forefoot (she had no 
 keel) with fenders. Then they slacked her 
 down on the blocks, shifted the sheers and 
 the gear to the stern, and repeated the oper- 
 ation. 
 
 With the junk resting on blocks, the next 
 step was to build two cradles to fit the bot- 
 tom. The men rigged the ways under Yank 
 Tate's supervision, while he himself fash- 
 ioned the cradles of the deck -planks and 
 the halves of anchor-stocks, which, flat sides 
 down and cleated, were to rest on the ways. 
 When all was ready — cradles in place and 
 the ways beneath pinned down, trussed, and 
 well greased — they knocked away the blocks, 
 and she rested on the cradles. The ways led 
 ahead in several sections, each section scarfed 
 at the ends so that those left behind could be 
 shifted in front as the junk travelled down. 
 With a slack stern-line out to a tree, they 
 pulled on a tackle leading ahead, and the 
 204 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 craft, amid the squealing of her crew, slid 
 forward until brought up by the hawser 
 astern. This was encouraging, and for a 
 moment the underlying sailor sentiment 
 dominated and the men gave a rousing 
 cheer. But when the next step was given 
 out — chopping down trees and clearing away 
 stumps — the sailor died out of them, and 
 Mr. Todd remained up in his watch below to 
 assist the captain in clubbing them into 
 obedience. 
 
 Captain Swarth was loath to shoot them, 
 recognizing that there was more of death- 
 potential in three bullets against fifteen men 
 (the cook had assumed an armed neutrality) 
 than in two against thirteen, or one against 
 fourteen. So the three bullets were held in 
 reserve, and Mr. Todd's assertion that one 
 handspike was " worth a dozen of 'em " was 
 acted on. And Yank Tate flourished his 
 broad-axe, and they went to work with ach- 
 ing heads and blue spots on their several 
 skins, and in three days had cleared a track 
 half way to the beach, where a deep gully 
 and a stretch of swampy ground beyond sent 
 205 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 them back for instructions. They received 
 them. They would trim off and sharpen 
 the trunks of the trees they had felled, and 
 as many more as was needed; then, after the 
 carpenter had constructed a pile-driver, they 
 would sink two parallel lines of piles to 
 support the ways to the solid ground be- 
 yond. 
 
 Captain Swarth was asleep at this juncture, 
 and Mr. Todd and the carpenter received the 
 assault, the one with a handspike and the 
 other with a top-maul (a light sledge), for 
 Yank Tate had a big, kindly heart, and only 
 threatened with his broad -axe — he could 
 not use it on them ; and they retired with 
 more aches and pains, and carried one man 
 to his bunk — envied of the rest — for he 
 owned a broken leg, which excused him from 
 work. The carpenter " fished " the injured 
 limb that night, and gave the moody men 
 words of counsel and comfort ; but what 
 good might have come of it was nullified by 
 the mate's looking down the forecastle-hatch 
 and reviling them. When he was gone they 
 chased Yank out of the forecastle. 
 206 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 The pile-driver was constructed, with a 
 carronade for a hammer, which they pulled 
 to the top by hand, and then let go. The 
 iron rings of the anchor-stocks served to slip 
 over the heads of the piles, and when the 
 ends were sawed off to a chalk-line mark, 
 these rings were split away to be used again. 
 It was weary work, and soul-maddening tort- 
 ure under the scorching sun on a diet of 
 salt meat and scant vegetables, and it is 
 small wonder that responsibility left them. 
 One morning they passed the cook's body 
 up the hatch and announced that they had 
 punished him for negligence in procuring 
 yams. 
 
 In answer to this the captain announced 
 that they would procure yams in their own 
 time now, or go without, and that the day's 
 work would continue, as before, from sunrise 
 to sunset. Any further trouble would result 
 in the stoppage of the grog. They charged 
 on him, a yelling, cursing mob of toil-crazed 
 animals, who could not understand that they 
 were conquered ; and when the smoke of bat- 
 tle cleared away, four lay dead on the deck — 
 207 
 
SPUN -YARN 
 
 two from bullets, two from broken skulls ; 
 for Mr. Todd was an artist with a handspike, 
 and even preferred it at close quarters to 
 fire-arm or cutlass. 
 
 With one bullet left, Captain Swarth did 
 not hesitate to stop their grog as he had 
 promised. The work went on, and for two 
 weeks there was no trouble. They hauled 
 the junk over the trestle in this time, and 
 getting her the rest of the way was compara- 
 tively easy, though they never ceased to 
 curse and complain, and the Chinamen never 
 ceased to jeer. 
 
 But at last she lay on the beach, just above 
 high -water mark, and when the spars and 
 sheers were dragged down to her they 
 stopped calling themselves horses and talked 
 and acted like sailors, for they were close to 
 their element and could see the end of their 
 labors. Captain Swarth rejoiced secretly at 
 the change, but did not dare commend it 
 openly ; they might take it for weakness, and 
 he had but one shot left. So the iron-willed 
 man maintained his iron rule — marshalling 
 them back and forth, night and morning, 
 208 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 like convicts, which the mate averred they 
 were bound to become. 
 
 The spirit of resistance was nearly extin- 
 guished now, but the appetite for liquor was 
 as strong as ever. It is questionable wisdom 
 to stop sailors' grog — almost as dangerous 
 an experiment as stopping tobacco. They 
 worked through the forecastle bulkhead one 
 night, secured a barrel of whiskey, and were 
 immovably drunk when the mate called them 
 in the morning. As there was no way to 
 punish them for this but to kill them, Cap- 
 tain Swarth allowed them to sleep it off, then 
 turned them out, with bursting heads, to 
 strike out of the hold every barrel on top of 
 the cargo. As fast as the barrels came up 
 Yank Tate knocked in the bungs and allowed 
 the contents to run to waste. In the judg- 
 ment of all well-regulated pirates this was as 
 illogical a proceeding as suicide, and they be- 
 gan to doubt the sanity of their captain. 
 
 But they went to work again. The sheers 
 were rigged and the double tackle singled to 
 one, while the carpenter dressed down and 
 tenoned the heels of the top-masts and en- 
 
 o 209 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 larged the holes in the deck. Then, with 
 luffs on the sheer-tackle, they hoisted the 
 brig's maintop-mast and fitted it where the 
 main-mast of the junk had been — in the cen- 
 tre. The foretop-mast followed, shipping 
 near the bows, and raking forward. " She'll 
 never be anything but a junk," said Yank, as 
 he eyed the hybrid, "no matter how we fix 
 her ; so what's the odds." 
 
 They wedged off the channels and chain- 
 plates of the brig, and spiked them to the 
 sides of the junk; for, though the junk had 
 carried no shrouds, the carpenter decided 
 that the mast-steps were too weak to support 
 the heavier spars of the brig. Then, for a 
 while, the beach looked like a rigging-loft as 
 they cut out rigging, turned in dead-eyes, 
 and set up shrouds and stays. When this 
 was done they sent up the topgallant-masts 
 for top-masts, first sawing off and discarding 
 the royal-masts to allow the spars to enter 
 the trestle-trees. Then came more cutting 
 and splicing, reeving off gear, and a little 
 sail -making; for most of the canvas had 
 been torn during the crashing flight of the 
 
 2IO 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 brig through the trees, and the foot of each 
 top-sail would drag too close to the deck, ne- 
 cessitating the cutting off of a strip. 
 
 They rigged no bowsprit, but the foretop- 
 mast-staysail, cut down and bent to the fore- 
 stay, made a handy sail to box her around 
 with, and for a spanker they rigged their own, 
 boom, gaff, and all, with a reef in it to make 
 it fit. And there she lay, complete, with 
 four square and two fore-and-aft sails, ready 
 to launch at the next high tide. As this 
 would not be until two o'clock next morn- 
 ing, they used up the day hunting for any 
 possible leaks or weak spots in the hull ; and, 
 as the tide went out in the evening, they 
 followed it down the beach with the ways, 
 pinning and greasing them. 
 
 While this was going on, Captain Swarth 
 and Captain Lee Kin, who had become very 
 good friends, held a little confab over the 
 quarter-rail. The outcome was, that when 
 the ways were laid, the men, tired as they 
 were, would take tackles up the hill and 
 hoist out of the 'tween-deck the four treas- 
 ure-chests, drag them down, and lift them 
 
 211 
 
SPUN- YARN 
 
 aboard the junk. They did it ; and midnight 
 coming as the last chest was transshipped, 
 they threw themselves down, like dead men, 
 on the sand, to await the time of launching". 
 Then it was that Captain Swarth gave way 
 to the first weakness — the first feeling of 
 pity. He had nearly killed them with work ; 
 but the work was done. There was not a 
 breath of wind, and it might be dangerous 
 to try to pass the reef at night. So he 
 spoke kindly to them, told them to turn in, 
 and sleep until high tide the next afternoon 
 if they wished ; then they could bring their 
 clothes and his instruments, which would be 
 their last work on the island until they re- 
 turned in a new ship for the barrels under 
 the cargo- He would serve out a nightcap 
 to each, and would hope that there was to 
 be no more trouble or misunderstanding. 
 Some cheered faintly ; others, too weak to 
 cheer, shed tears ; all voted him a fairly good 
 fellow at heart ; and they thankfully drank 
 the grog and turned in to dreamless sleep, 
 while Captain Swarth went to his room and 
 Angel Todd paced the deck, on watch. 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 An hour or so later Captain Lee Kin 
 emerged from his cabin and looked around 
 on the moonlit ocean and shadowy palm- 
 groves. It was full high tide, and the water 
 was lapping against the bow of his junk. 
 He whistled softly down a hatch and his 
 crew came up. Picking up Yank Tate's top- 
 maul, Captain Lee reached over the bow, and 
 with one blow— he was a large man and a 
 strong man— sent the starboard dogshore 
 flying. The rattling on the beach was an- 
 swered by a shout from up the hill. 
 
 "Melican wakee up," he muttered. He 
 stepped around and released the other shore, 
 and the junk, with a quiver running through 
 her, slid down the ways, raised her bow, 
 floated, and drifted towards the reef. The 
 crew were evidently instructed ahead— and 
 not for nothing, perhaps, had they watched 
 for months the reconstruction of their junk— 
 for they mounted aloft, loosed the square 
 sails, came down, and set them. Then fol- 
 lowed the staysail and spanker, while Cap- 
 tain Lee Kin steered, under the faint breath 
 of off-shore wind, for a break in the reef, 
 213 
 
SPUN-YARN 
 
 and looked back occasionally at a crowd 
 of yelling, cursing, raving men on the beach. 
 
 " Melican dam fool!" he grunted. 
 
 A shot rang out — only one — and Captain 
 Lee observed that the crowd had split up 
 into three groups, each a whirling, heaving 
 bunch of arms and legs. Then, for a while, 
 his attention was required in steering through 
 the inlet; but, as he looked back from without 
 the reef, he saw three men, bound hand and 
 foot, hanging from the sheer -head, where 
 they writhed and twisted in the moonlight. 
 
 " Cappen — matee man — calpentee man," 
 he said. 
 
 The spectacle impressed him, however, 
 and he treated his own crew kindly as he 
 sailed westward. 
 
 Six months later a gun-deck sloop, with 
 new royals and topgallant-sails, hove to off 
 the reef and sent in a boat. The lieutenant 
 in charge reported on his return as follows : 
 
 " We found the wreck of the brig up in the 
 woods dismantled and half burned, but no sign of 
 the junk. There's a line of piles up the hill, and 
 214 
 
HONOR AMONG THIEVES 
 
 ways on the beach, which go to show that they 
 launched her. We buried over a dozen grisly 
 skeletons— three of them we cut down from the 
 sheer-head — and, by the looks of things, they had a 
 battle, for every skeleton gripped a knife or a cut- 
 lass. It's Swarth's crowd, no doubt, and I suppose 
 they killed the poor Chinamen, fitted out the junk, 
 then fought among themselves, and the side that 
 won got away." 
 
 But a corpulent, opulent Chinese gentle- 
 man, who about this time opened a princely 
 establishment in Shanghai, could have given 
 a better explanation. 
 
 THE END 
 
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