SPUN* * YARN * MORGAN* ROBERTSON THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID Spun-Yarn RECENT FICTION. By GRANT ALLEN. Hilda Wade. 6s. By JOHN STRANGE WINTER. The Money Sense. 6s. By RICHARD MARSH. A Second Coming. 6s. By M. BOWLES. Charlotte Leyland. 6.r. By BOOTH TARKINGTON. A Gentleman from Indiana. 6. By R. W. CHAMBERS. Outsiders. 6s. By F. L. PUXLEY. Maitland of Cortezia. 6s. By ERNEST BRAMAH. The Wallet of Kai Lung. 6*. By THOMAS COBB. Scruples. 3$. 6d. ByW. C. MORROW. A Man : His Mark. 3*. 6d. By W. LINDSEY. Cinder-Path Tales. 3$. 6d. By ROSA MULLHOLLAND. Onora. 35. 6d. LONDON : GRANT RICHARDS, 9, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. Spun Yarn Sea Stories By Morgan Robertson London Grant Richards 1900 t I rt TO ITS GODFATHER JOHN S. PHILLIPS THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED CONTENTS PAGE WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD - - 1 THE BRAIN OF THE BATTLE -SHIP - - 43 THE WIGWAG MESSAGE - 66 THE TRADE-WIND - - 83 SALVAGE - 103 BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES - - 128 THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS - - 145 FROM THE ROYAL-YARD DOWN - 160 NEEDS MUST WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES - 175 WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK - 195 PRIMORDIAL - - 205 THE SLUMBER OF A SOUL : A TALE OF A MATE AND A COOK 228 THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST - 252 A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCE - 274 THE DERELICT NEPTUNE 305 HONOUR AMONG THIEVES - - 329 vii WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD * I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of each ; and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first. EGBERT Louis STEVENSON. PAET I THE first man to climb the Almena s side-ladder from the tug was the shipping-master, and after him came the crew he had shipped. They clustered at the rail, looking around and aloft with muttered profane com ments, one to the other, while the shipping-master approached a gray-eyed giant who stood with a shorter but broader man at the poop-deck steps. Mr. Jackson the mate here, I s pose? inquired the shipping-master. A nod answered him. I ve brought you a good crew, he continued ; we ll just tally em off, and then you can sign my receipt. The captain 11 be down with the pilot this afternoon. I m the mate yes, said the giant; but what dry-goods store did you raid for that crowd? Did the captain pick em out ? A delegation o parsons, muttered the short, broad man contemptuously. No, they re not parsons, said the shipping-master, as he turned to the man, the slightest trace of a smile on his seamy face. You re Mr. Becker, the second mate, I take it ; you ll find em all right, sir. They re I B c Where Angels sailors, and good ones, too. No, Mr. Jackson, the skipper didn t pick em just asked me for sixteen good men, and there you are. Muster up to the capstan here, boys, he called, and be counted. As they grouped themselves amidships with their clothes-bags, the shipping-master beckoned the chief mate over to the rail. You see, Mr. Jackson, he said, with a backward glance at the men, I ve only played the regular dodge on em. They ve all got the sailor s bug in their heads and want to go coasting ; so I told em this was a coaster. . So she is, answered the officer ; round the Horn to Callao is coasting. What more do they want ? Yes, but I said nothin of Callao, and they were all three sheets i the wind when they signed, so they didn t notice the articles. They expected a schooner, too, big enough for sixteen men ; but I ve just talked em out of that notion. They think, too, that they ll have a week in port to see if they like the craft ; and to make em think it was easy to quit, I told em to sign nicknames made em believe that a wrong name on the articles voided the contract. But it don t. They re here, and they ll stay that is, if they know enough to man the windlass. Of course of course. I m just givin you a pointer. You may have to run them a little at the start, but that s easy. Now we ll tally em off. Don t mind the names; they ll answer to em. You see, they re all townies, and bring their names from home. The shipping-master drew a large paper from his pocket, and they approached the men at the capstan, where the short, broad second mate had been taking their individual measures with scowling eye. It was a strange crew for the forecastle of an out ward-bound, deep-water American ship. Mr. Jackson looked in vain for the heavy, foreign faces, the greasy Fear to Tread canvas jackets and blanket trousers he was accustomed to see. Not that these men seemed to be landsmen ; each carried in his face and bearing the indefinable something by which sailors of all races may distinguish each other at a glance from fishermen, tugmen, and deck-hands. They were all young men, and their intelligent faces blemished more or less with marks of overnight dissipation were as sunburnt as were those of the two mates ; and where a hand could be seen it showed as brown and tarry as that of the ablest able seaman. There were no chests among them, but the canvas clothes-bags were the genuine article, and they shouldered and handled them as only sailors can. Yet, aside from these externals, they gave no sign of being anything but well-paid, well-fed, self-respecting citizens, who would read the papers, discuss politics, raise families, and drink more than is good on pay- nights, to repent at church in the morning. The hands among them that were hidden were covered with well-fitting gloves kid or dog-skin; all wore white shirts and fashionable neckwear ; their shoes were polished ; their hats were in style ; and here and there, where an unbuttoned, silk-faced overcoat ex posed the garments beneath, could be seen a gold watch-chain with tasteful charm. Now, boys, said the shipping-master cheerily, as he unfolded the articles on the capstan-head, answer, and step over to the starboard as I read your names. Ready? Tosser Galvin. Here. A man carried his bag across the deck a short distance. Bigpig Monahan. Another as large a man as the mate answered and followed. Moccasey Gill. Good God ! muttered the mate, as this man re sponded. Sinful Peck. An undersized man, with a culti- 3 B 2 * Where Angels vated blond moustache, lifted his hat politely to Mr. Jackson, disclosing a smooth, bald head, and passed over, smiling sweetly. Whatever his character, his name belied his appearance ; for his face was cherubic in its innocence. Say, interrupted the mate angrily, what kind of a game is this, anyhow ? Are these men sailors ? * Yes, yes, answered the shipping-master hurriedly; you ll find em all right. And, Sinful, he added, as he frowned reprovingly at the last man named, * don t you get gay till my receipt s signed and I m clear of you. Mr. Jackson wondered, but subsided; and, each name bringing forth a response, the reader called off : * Seldom Helward, Shiner O Toole, Senator Sands, Jump Black, Yampaw Gallagher, Sorry Welch, Yorker Jimson, General Lannigan, Turkey Twain, Gunner Meagher, Ghost O Brien, and Poop-deck Cahill. Then the astounded Mr. Jackson broke forth pro fanely. * I ve been shipmate, he declared between oaths, with freak names of all nations ; but this gang beats me. Say, you, he called you with the cro -jack eye there what s that name you go by? Who are you? He spoke to the large man who had answered to BigpigMonahan, and who suffered from a slight distortion of one eye ; but the man, instead of civilly repeating his name, answered curtly and coolly : I m the man that struck Billy Patterson. Fully realizing that the mate who hesitates is lost, and earnestly resolved to rebuke this man as his insolence required, Mr. Jackson had secured a belay- ing-pin and almost reached him, when he found him self looking into the bore of a pistol held by the shipping-master. * Now, stop this, said the latter firmly ; stop it right here, Mr. Jackson. These men are under my 4 Fear to Tread care till you ve signed my receipt. After that you can do as you like ; but if you touch one of them before you sign, I ll have you up fore the commis sioner. And you fellars, he said over his shoulder, you keep still and be civil till I m rid of you. I ve used you well, got your berths, and charged you nothin . All I wanted was to get Cappen Benson the right kind of a crew. * Let s see that receipt, snarled the mate. Put that gun up, too, or I ll show you one of my own. I ll tend to your good men when you get ashore. He glared at the quiescent Bigpig, and followed the shipping-master who still held his pistol ready, however over to the rails, where the receipt was produced and signed. Away you go, now, said the mate you and your gun. Get over the side. The shipping-master did not answer until he had scrambled down to the waiting tug and around to the far side of her deck-house. There, ready to dodge, he looked up at the mate with a triumphant grin on his shrewd face, and called : Say, Mr. Jackson, member the old barque Fair Wind ten years ago, and the ordinary seaman you triced up and skinned alive with a deck-scraper? D you member ? curse you ! Member breakin the same boy s arm with a heaver ? You do, don t you ? I m him. Member me sayin I d get square ? He stepped back to avoid the whirling belaying-pin sent by the mate, which, rebounding, only smashed a window in the pilot-house. Then, amid an exchange of blasphemous disapproval between Mr. Jackson and the tug- captain, and derisive jeers from the shipping- master who also averred that Mr. Jackson ought to be shot, but was not worth hanging for the tug gathered in her lines and steamed away. Wrathful of soul, Mr. Jackson turned to the men Where Angels on the deck. They had changed their position ; they were now close to the fife-rail at the mainmast, sur rounding Bigpig Monahan (for by their names we must know them), who, with an injured expression of face, was shedding outer garments and voicing his opinion of Mr. Jackson, which the others answered by nods and encouraging words. He had dropped a pair of starched cuffs over a belaying-pin, and was rolling up his shirt-sleeve, showing an arm as large as a small man s leg, and the mate was just about to inter rupt the discourse, when the second mate called his name. Turning, he beheld him beckoning violently from the cabin companion way, and joined him. Got your gun, Mr. Jackson ? asked the second officer anxiously, as he drew him within the door. * I started for mine when the shippin -master pulled. I can t make that crowd out ; but they re looking for fight, that s plain. When you were at the rail they were sayin : "Soak him, Bigpig!" " Paste him, Bigpig !" " Put a head on him !" They might be a lot o prize-fighters. Mr. Becker was not afraid ; his position and duties forbade it. He was simply human, and confronted with a new problem. Don t care a rap what they are, answered the mate, who was sufficiently warmed up to welcome any problem. They ll get fight enough. We ll overhaul their dunnage first for whisky and knives, then turn them to. Come on I m heeled. They stepped out and advanced to the capstan amidships, each with a hand in his trousers pocket. Pile those bags against the capstan here, and go forrard, ordered the mate, in his most officer-like tone. Go to the devil, they answered. What for ? they re our bags, not yours. Who in Sam Hill are you, anyhow? What are you? You talk like a p liceman. 6 Fear to Tread Before this irreverence could be replied to Bigpig Monahan advanced. Look here, old horse, he said; I don t know whether you re captain or mate, or owner or cook; and I don t care, either. You had somethin to say bout my eyes just now. Nature made my eyes, and I can t help how they look ; but I don t allow any big bull-heads to make remarks bout em. You re spoilin for somethin . Put up your hands. He threw him self into an aggressive attitude, one mighty fist within six inches of Mr. Jackson s face. Go forrard, roared the officer, his gray eyes sparkling forrard, all o you! We ll settle this ; then we ll go forrard. There ll be fair play ; these men ll see to that. You ll only have me to handle. Put up. Mr. Jackson did not put up. He repeated again his order to go forward, and was struck on the nose not a hard blow, just a preliminary tap, which started blood. He immediately drew his pistol and shot the man, who fell with a groan. An expression of shock and horror overspread every face among the crew, and they surged back, away from that murderous pistol. A momentary hesitance followed, then horror gave way to furious rage, and carnage began. Coats and vests were flung off, be- laying-pins and capstan-bars seized ; inarticulate, half-uttered imprecations punctuated by pistol-reports drowned the storm of abuse with which the mates justified the shot, and two distinct bands of men swayed and zigzagged about the deck, the centre of each an officer fighting according to his lights shoot ing as he could between blows of fists and clubs. Then the smoke of battle thinned, and two men with sore heads and bleeding faces retreated painfully and hurriedly to the cabin, followed by snarling maledic tions and threats. * Where Angels It was hardly a victory for either side. The pistols were empty and the fight taken out of the mates for a time ; and on the deck lay three moaning men, while two others clung to the fife-rail, draining blood from limp, hanging arms. But eleven sound and angry men were left and the officers had more ammunition. They entered their rooms, mopped their faces with wet towels, reloaded the firearms, pocketed the re maining cartridges, and returned to the deck, the mate carrying a small ensign. We ll run it up to the main, Becker, he said thickly for he suffered ignoring in his excitement the etiquette of the quarter-deck. Ay, ay, said the other, equally unmindful of his breeding. Will we go for em again ? The problem had defined itself to Mr. Becker. These men would fight, but not shoot. No, no, answered the mate ; not unless they go for us and it s self-defence. They re not sailors they don t know where they are. We don t want to get into trouble. Sailors don t act that way. We ll wait for the captain or the police. Which, interpreted, and plus the slight shade of anxiety showing in his disfigured face, meant that Mr. Jackson was confronted with a new phase of the problem as to how much more unsafe it might be to shoot down, on the deck of a ship, men who did not know where they were, than to shoot down sailors who did. So, while the uninjured men were assisting the wounded five into the forecastle, the police-flag was run up to the main truck, and the two mates retired to the poop to wait and watch. In a few moments the eleven men came aft in a body, empty-handed, however, and evidently with no present hostile intention : they had merely come for their clothes. But that dunnage had not been searched ; and in it might be all sorts of dangerous 8 Fear to Tread weapons and equally dangerous whisky, the possession of which could bring an unpleasant solution to the problem. So Mr. Jackson and Mr. Becker levelled their pistols over the poop-rail, and the chief mate roared : Let those things alone let em alone, or we ll drop some more o you! The men halted, hesitated, and sullenly returned to the forecastle. Guess they ve had enough, said Mr. Becker jubilantly. Don t fool yourself. They re not used to blood letting, that s all. If it wasn t for my wife and the kids, I d lower the dinghy and jump her ; and it isn t them I d run from, either. As it is, I ve half a mind to haul down the flag, and let the old man settle it. Steward, he called to a mild-faced man who had been flitting from galley to cabin, unmindful of the dis turbance, go forrard and find out how bad those fellows are hurt. Don t say I sent you, though/ The steward obeyed, and returned with the infor mation that two men had broken arms, two flesh- wounds in the legs, and one the big man suffered from a ragged hole through the shoulder. All were stretched out in bedless bunks, unwilling to move. He had been asked numerous questions by the others as to where the ship was bound, who the men were who had shot them, why there was no bedding in the forecastle, the captain s whereabouts, and the possi bility of getting ashore to swear out warrants. He had also been asked for bandages and hot water, which he requested permission to supply, as the wounded men were suffering greatly. This permission was re fused, and the slight very slight nautical flavour to the queries, and the hopeful condition of the stricken ones, decided Mr. Jackson to leave the police flag at the masthead. When dinner was served in the cabin, and Mr. Jack- Where Angels son sat down before a savoury roast, leaving Mr. Becker on deck to watch, the steward imparted the additional information that the men forward expected to eat in the cabin. Hang it ! he mused ; * they can t be sailormen. Then Mr. Becker reached his head down the sky light, and said : Kaisin the devil with the cook, sir ; dragged him out o the galley into the forecastle. * Are they coming aft ? 1 No, sir. < All right. Watch out. The mate went on eating, and the steward hurried forward to learn the fate of his assistant. He did not return until Mr. Jackson was about to leave the cabin. Then he came, with a wry face and disgust in his soul, complaining that he had been seized, hustled into the forecastle, and compelled, with the Chinese cook, to eat of the salt beef and pea-soup prepared for the men, which lay untouched by them. In spite of his aches and trouble of mind, Mr. Jackson was moved to a feeble grin. Takes a sailor or hog to eat it, hey, steward ? he said. He relieved Mr. Becker, who ate his dinner hurriedly, as became a good second mate, and the two resumed their watch on the poop, noticing that the cook was jabbering Chinese protest in the galley, and that the men had climbed to the topgallant-forecastle also watching, and occasionally waving futile signals to passing tugs or small sailing-craft. They, too, might have welcomed the police boat. But, either because the Almena lay too far over on the Jersey flats for the flag to be noticed, or because harbour police share the fallibility of their shore brethren in being elsewhere when wanted, no shiny black steamer with blue-coated guard appeared to investigate the trouble, and it was well on toward 10 Fear to Tread three o clock before a tug left the beaten track to the eastward and steamed over to the ship. The officers took her lines as she came alongside, and two men climbed the side-ladder one a Sandy Hook pilot, who need not be described, the other the captain of the ship. Captain Benson, in manner and appearance, was as superior to the smooth-shaven and manly-looking Mr. Jackson as the latter was to the misformed, hairy, and brutal second mate. With his fashionably-cut clothing, steady blue eye, and refined features, he could have been taken for an easy-going club man or educated army officer rather than the master of a working-craft. Yet there was no lack of seamanly decision in the leap he made from the rail to the deck, or in the tone of his voice as he demanded : What s the police flag up for, Mr. Jackson ? * Mutiny, sir. They started in to lick me fore turning to, and we ve shot five, but none of them fatally. Lower that flag at once ! Mr. Becker obeyed this order, and as the flag fluttered down the captain received an account of the crew s misdoing from the mate. He stepped into his cabin, and returning with a double-barrelled shot gun, leaned it against the booby-hatch, and said quietly : Call all hands aft who can come. Mr. Jackson delivered the order in a roar, and the eleven men forward, who had been watching the new comers from the forecastle-deck, straggled aft and clustered near the capstan, all of them hatless and coatless, shivering palpably in the keen December air. With no flinching of their eyes, they stared at Captain Benson and the pilot. Now, men, said the captain, what s this trouble about ? What s the matter ? Are you the captain here? asked a red-haired, ii c Where Angels Eoman-nosed man, as he stepped out of the group. There s matter enough. We ship for a run down to Eio Janeiro and back in a big schooner ; and here we re put aboard a square-rigged craft that we don t know anything about, bound for Callao, and fore we re here ten minutes we re howled at and shot. Bigpig Monahan thinks he s goin to die ; he s bleedin they re all bleedin , like stuck pigs. Sorry Welch and Turkey Twain ha got broken arms, and Jump Black and Ghost O Brien got it in the legs and can t stand up. What kind o work is this, anyhow ? That s perfectly right. You were shot for assault ing my officers. Do you call yourselves able seamen, and say you know nothing about square-rigged craft ? We re able seamen on the Lakes. We can get along in schooners. That s what we came down for. Captain Benson s lips puckered, and he whistled softly. The Lakes, he said Lake sailors. What part of the Lakes ? Oswego. We re all union men. The captain took a turn or two along the deck, then faced them, and said : Men, I ve been fooled as well as you. I would not have an Oswego sailor aboard my ship much less a whole crew of them. You may know your work up there, but are almost useless here until you learn. Although I paid five dollars a man for you, I d put you ashore and ship a new crew were it not for the fact that five wounded men going out of this ship requires explanations, which would delay my sailing and incur expense to my owners. However, I give you the choice to go to sea and learn your work under the mates, or go to gaol as mutineers ; for to protect my officers I must prosecute you all. S pose we do neither ? You will probably be shot to the last resisting man either by us or by the harbour police. You are up against the law. 12 Fear to Tread 5 They looked at each other with varying expressions on their faces ; then one asked : What about the bunks in the forecastle ? There s no bedding. If you failed to bring your own, you will sleep on the bunk-boards without it. And that swill the Chinaman cooked at dinner time what about that ? You will get the allowance of provisions provided by law no more. And you will eat it in the fore castle. Also, if you have neglected to bring pots, pans, and spoons, you will very likely eat it with your fingers. This is not a Lake vessel, where sailors eat at the cabin table with knives and forks. Decide this matter quickly. The captain began pacing the deck, and the listen ing pilot stepped forward, and said kindly : Take my advice, boys, and go along. You re in for it if you don t. They thanked him with their eyes for his sympathy, conferred together for a few moments ; then their spokesman called out, * We ll leave it to the fellers forrard, captain ; and forward they trooped. In five minutes they were back, with resolution in their faces. We ll go, captain, their leader said. Bigpig can t be moved thout killin him, and says if he lives he ll follow your mate to hell but he ll pay him back ; and the others talk the same ; and we ll stand by em we ll square up this day s work. Captain Benson brought his walk to a stop close to the shot-gun. Very well, that is your declaration, he said, his voice dropping the conversational tone he had assumed, and taking on one more in accordance with his position ; now I will deliver mine. We sail at once for Callao and back to an American port of discharge. You know your wages fourteen dollars a month. I am master of this ship, responsible to my owners and the law for the lives of all on board. And 13 Where Angels this responsibility includes the right to take the life of a mutineer. You have been such, but I waive the charge considering your ignorance of salt-water custom and your agreement to start anew. The law defines your allowance of food, but not your duties or your working and sleeping time. That is left to the dis cretion of your captain and officers. Precedent the decision of the Courts has decided the privilege of a captain or officer to punish insolence or lack of respect from a sailor with a blow of a fist or missile ; but, understand me now, a return of the blow makes that man a mutineer, and his prompt killing is justified by the law of the land. Is this plain to you? You are here to answer and obey orders respectfully, adding the word "sir" to each response; you are never to go to windward of an officer, or address him by name without the prefix " Mr."; and you are to work civilly and faithfully, resenting nothing said to you until you are discharged in an American port at the end of the voyage. A failure in this will bring you prompt punishment ; and resentment of this punishment on your part will bring death. Mr. Jackson, he con cluded, turning to his first officer, overhaul their dunnage, turn them to, and man the windlass. A man the bald-headed Sinful Peck sprang forward ; but his face was not cherubic now. His blue eyes blazed with emotion much in keeping with his sobriquet ; and, raising his hand, the nervously crooking fingers of which made it almost a fist, he said, in a voice explosively strident : That s all right. That s your say. You ve described the condition o nigger slaves, not American voters. And I ll tell you one thing, right here : I m a free-born citizen. I know my work, and can do it, without bein* cursed and abused ; and if you or your mates rub my fur the wrong way, I m goin to claw back ; and if I m shot, you want to shoot sure; for if you don t, I ll 14 Fear to Tread kill that man, if I have to lash my knife to a broom- handle, and prod him through his window when he s asleep. But alas for Sinful Peck ! He had barely finished his defiance when he fell like a log under the impact of the big mate s fist ; then, while the pilot, turning his back on the painful scene, walked aft, nodding and shaking his head, and the captain s strong language and levelled shot-gun induced the men to an agitated acquiescence, the two officers kicked and stamped upon the little man until consciousness left him. Before he recovered, he had been ironed to a stanchion in the tween-deck, and entered in the captain s official log for threatening life. And by this time the dunnage had been searched, a few sheath-knives tossed over board, and the remaining ten men were moodily heaving in the chain. And so, with a crippled crew of schooner sailors, the square-rigged Almena was towed to sea, smouldering rebellion in one end of her, the power of the law in the other murder in the heart of every man on board. PART II FIVE months later the Almena lay at an outer mooring- buoy in Callao Eoads, again ready for sea, but waiting. With her at the anchorage were representatives of most of the maritime nations. English ships and barques with painted ports and spider-web braces, high- sided, square-sterned American half-clippers, clumsy, square - bowed Dutchmen, coasting - brigs of any nation, lumber-schooners from Frisco, hide-carriers from Valparaiso, pearl-boats and fishermen, and even a couple of homesick Malay proas from the west, crowded the roadstead ; for the guano trade was booming, and Callao prosperous. Nearly every type of craft known to sailors was there ; but the postman 15 * Where Angels and the policeman of the seas the coastwise mail- steamer and the heavily sparred man-of-war were conspicuously absent. The Pacific Mail boat would not arrive for a week, and the last cruiser had de parted two days before. Beyond the faint land and sea breeze, there was no wind nor promise of it for several days ; and Captain Benson, though properly cleared at the Custom-house for New York, was in no hurry, and had taken advantage of the delay to give a dinner to some captains with whom he had fraternized on shore. * I ve a first-rate steward, he had told them, * and I ll treat you well; and I ve the best-trained crew that ever went to sea. Come, all of you, and bring your first officers. I want to give you an object-lesson on the influence of matter over mind that you can t learn in the books. So they came, at half-past eleven, in their own ships dinghies, which were sent back with orders to return at nightfall six big-fisted, more or less fat captains, and six big-fisted, beetle-browed, and em barrassed chief mates. As they climbed the gangway they were met and welcomed by Captain Benson, who led them to the poop, the only dry and clean part of the ship ; for the Almena s crew were holy-stoning the main-deck, and as this operation consists in grinding off the oiled surface of the planks with sandstone, the resulting slime of sand, oily wood-pulp, and salt water made walking unpleasant, as well as being very hard on polished shoe-leather. But in this filthy slime the men were on their knees, working the six- inch blocks of stone, technically called bibles, back and forth with about the speed and motion of an energetic woman over a wash-board. The mates also were working. With legs clad in long rubber boots, they filled buckets at the deck- pump and scattered water around where needed, 16 Fear to Tread occasionally throwing the whole bucketful at a doubt ful spot on the deck to expose it to criticism. As the visitors lined up against the monkey-rail and looked down on the scene, Mr. Becker launched such a bucketful as only a second mate can, and a man who happened to be in the way was rolled over by the unexpected impact. He gasped a little louder than might have been necessary, and the wasting of the bucketful of water having forced Mr. Becker to make an extra trip to the pump, the officer was duly incensed. * Get out o the way, there ! he bawled, eyeing the man sternly. What are you gruntin at? A little water won t hurt you soap neither. He went to the pump for more water, and the man crawled back to his holy-stone. It was Bigpig Monahan, hollow-eyed and thin, slow in his voluntary movements ; minus his look of injury, too, as though he might have welcomed the bowling over as a momentary respite for his aching muscles. Now and then, when the officers faces were partly turned, a man would stop, rise erect on his knees, and bend backward. A man may work a holy-stone much longer and press it much harder on the deck for these occasional stretchings of contracted tissue; but the two mates chose to ignore this physiological fact, and a moment later a little man, caught in the act by Mr. Jackson, was also rolled over on his back, not by a bucket of water, but by the boot of the mate, who uttered words suitable to the occasion, and held his hand in his pocket until the little man, grinning with rage, had resumed his work. * There, said Captain Benson to his guests on the poop, see that little devil ! See him show his teeth ! That is Mr. Sinful Peck. I ve had him in irons with a broken head five times, and the log is full of him. I towed him over the stern running down the trades 17 c Where Angels to take the cussedness out of him, and if he had not been born for higher things, he d have drowned. He was absolutely unconquerable until I found him telling his beads one time in irons and took them away from him. Now to get an occasional chance at them he is fairly quiet. So this is your trained crew, is it, captain ? said a grizzled old skipper of the party. What ails that fellow down in the scuppers with a prayer-book ? He pointed to a man who with one hand was rubbing a small holy- stone in a corner where a large one would not go. Ban foul of the big end of a handspike, answered Captain Benson quietly ; he ll carry his arm in splints all the way home, I think. His name is Gunner Meagher. I don t know how they got their names, but they signed them and will answer to them. They are unique. Look at that outlaw down there by the bitts. That is Poop-deck Cahill. Looks like a prize fighter, doesn t he ? But the steward tells me that he was educated for the priesthood, and fell by the way side. That one close to the hatch the one with the red head and hang-dog jib is Seldom Helward. He was shot off the cro -jack yard ; he fell into the lee clew of the cro -jack, so we pulled him in. What did he do, captain? asked the grizzled skipper. Threw a marlinespike at the mate. What made him throw it ? Never asked. I suppose he objected to something said to him. Ought to ha killed him on the yard. Are they all of a kind? Every man. Not one knew the ropes or his place when he shipped. They re schooner sailors from the Lakes, where the captain, if he is civil and respectful to his men, is as good as any of them. They started 18 Fear to Tread to clean us up the first day, but failed, and I went to sea with them. Since then, until lately, it has been war to the knife. I ve set more bones, mended more heads, and plugged more shot-holes on this passage than ever before, and my officers have grown per ceptibly thinner ; but little by little, man by man, we ve broken them in. Still, I admit, it was a job. Why, that same Seldom Helward I ironed and ran up on the fall of a main-buntline. We were rolling before a stiff breeze and sea, and he would swing six feet over each rail and bat against the mast in transit ; but the dog stood it six hours before he stopped cursing us. Then he was unconscious. When he came to in the forecastle, he was ready to begin again ; but they stopped him. They re keeping a log, I learn, and are going to law. Every time a man gets thumped they enter the tragedy, and all sign their names. Captain Benson smiled dignifiedly in answer to the outburst of laughter evoked by this, and the men below lifted their haggard, hopeless faces an instant, and looked at the party with eyes that were furtive cat-like. The grinding of the stones prevented their hearing the talk, but they knew that they were being laughed at. Never knew a sailor yet, wheezed a portly and asthmatic captain, who wasn t ready to sue the devil and try the court in hell when he s at sea. Trouble is, they never get past the first saloon. They got a little law here, resumed Captain Ben son quietly. I put them all in the guardo. The Consul advised it, and committed them for fear they might desert when we lay at the dock. When I took them out to run to the islands, they complained of being starved ; and to tell the truth, they didn t throw their next meal overboard as usual. Nevertheless, a good four weeks board-bill comes out of their wages. 19 c 2 Where Angels I don t think they ll have a big pay-day in New York: the natives cleaned out the forecastle in their absence, and they ll have to draw heavily on my slop-chest. * That s where captains have the best of it, said one of the mates jocularly and presumptuously, to judge by his captain s frown ; we hammer em round and wear out their clothes, and it s the captain that sells em new ones. Captain, said the grizzled one, who had been scanning the crew intently, I d pay that crew off if I were you ; you ought to ha let ern run, or worked em out and saved their pay. Look at em look at the devils in their eyes. I notice your mates seldom turn their backs on em. I d get rid of em. * What ! Just when we have got them under control and useful ? Oh no ! They know their work now, and I d only have to ship a crowd of beach-combers and half-breeds at nearly double pay. Besides, gentle men, we re just a little proud of this crew. They are Lake sailors from Oswego, a little port on Lake Ontario. When I was young I sailed on the Lakes a season or two and became thoroughly acquainted with the aggressive self-respect of that breed. They would rather fight than eat. Their reputation in this regard prevents them getting berths in any Oswego vessels, and even affects the policy of the nation. There s a fort at Oswego, and whenever a company of soldiers anywhere in the country become unmanageable when their officers can t control them outside the guard house the War Department at Washington transfers them to Oswego for the tutelage they will get from the sailors. And they get it ; they are well-behaved, well-licked soldiers when they leave. An Oswego sailor loves a row. He is possessed by the fighting spirit of a bulldog ; he inherits it with his Irish sense of injury ; he sucks it in with his mother s milk, and drinks it in with his whisky ; and when no enemies 20 Fear to Tread are near he will fight his friends. Pay them off? Not much ! I ve taken sixteen of those devils round the Horn, and I ll take them back. I m proud of them. Just look at them, he concluded vivaciously, as he waved his hand at his men * docile and obedient, down on their knees with bibles and prayer-books. * And the name o the Lord on their lips, grunted the adviser ; * but not in prayer, I ll bet you. Hardly, laughed Captain Benson. Come below, gentlemen ; the steward is ready. From lack of facilities the mild-faced and smiling steward could not serve that dinner with the style which it deserved. He would have liked, he explained, as they seated themselves, to bring it on in separate courses ; but one and all disclaimed such frivolity. The dinner was there, and that was enough. And it was a splendid dinner. In front of Captain Benson, at the head of the table, stood a large tureen of smoking terrapin- stew ; next to that a stuffed and baked freshly-caught fish ; and waiting their turn in the centre of the spread, a couple of brace of wild- geese from the inland lakes, brown and glistening, oyster-dressed and savoury. Farther along was a steaming plum-pudding, overhead on a swinging tray a dozen bottles of wine, by the captain s elbow a decanter of yellow fluid, and before each man s plate a couple of glasses of different size. We ll start off with an appetizer, gentlemen, said the host, as he passed the decanter to his neighbour. Here is some of the best Dutch courage ever distilled ; try it. The decanter went around, each filling his glass and holding it poised ; then, when all were supplied, they drank to the grizzled old captain s toast : A speedy and pleasant passage home for the Almena, and further confusion to her misguided crew. The captain responded gracefully, and began serving the 21 Where Angels stew, which the steward took from him plate by plate, and passed around. But, either because thirteen men had sat down to that table, or because the Fates were unusually freakish that day, it was destined that, beyond the initial glass of whisky, not a man present should par take of Captain Benson s dinner. On deck things had been happening, and just as the host had filled the last plate for himself, a wet, bedraggled, dirty little man, his tarry clothing splashed with the slime of the deck, his eyes flaming green, his face expanded to a smile of ferocity, appeared in the forward doorway, holding a cocked revolver which covered them all. Behind him in the passage were other men, equally unkempt, their eyes wide open with excitement and anticipation. Don t ye move, yelped the little man, not a man. Keep yer hands out o yer pockets. Put em over yer heads. That s it. You too, cappen. They obeyed him (there was death in the green eyes and smile), all but one. Captain Benson sprang to his feet, with a hand in his breast pocket. You scoundrels! he cried, as he drew forth a pistol. Leave this The speech was stopped by a report, deafening in the closed-up space ; and Captain Benson fell heavily, his pistol rattling on the floor. * Hang me up, will ye ? growled another voice through the smoke. In the after-door were more men, the red-haired Seldom Helward in the van, holding a smoking pistol. Get the gun, one o you fellows over there, he called. A man stepped in and picked up the pistol, which he cocked. One by one, said Seldom, his voice rising to the pitch and timbre of a trumpet-blast, you men walk out the forward companionway with your hands over 22 Fear to Tread your heads. Plug them, Sinful, if two move together, and shoot to kill. Taken by surprise, the guests, resolute men though they were, obeyed the command. As each rose to his feet, he was first relieved of a bright revolver, which served to increase the moral front of the enemy, then led out to the booby-hatch, on which lay a newly- broached coil of hambro-line and pile of thole-pins from the boatswain s locker. Here he was searched again for jack-knife or brass knuckles, bound with the hambro-line, gagged with a thole-pin, and marched forward, past the prostrate first mate, who lay quiet in the scuppers, and the erect but agonized second mate, gagged and bound to the fife -rail, to the port forecastle, where he was locked in with the Chinese cook, who, similarly treated, had preceded. The mild-faced steward, weeping now, as much from professional disappointment as from stronger emotion, was questioned sternly, and allowed his freedom on his promise not to sing out or make trouble. Captain Benson was examined, his injury diagnosed as brain- concussion, from the glancing bullet, more or less serious, and dragged out to the scuppers, where he was bound beside his unconscious first officer. Then, leaving them to live or die as their subconsciousness determined, the sixteen mutineers sacrilegiously re- entered the cabin and devoured the dinner. And the appetites they displayed their healthy, hilarious enjoyment of the good things on the table so affected the professional sense of the steward that he ceased his weeping, and even smiled as he waited on them. When you have cursed, beaten, and kicked a slave for five months, it is always advisable to watch him for a few seconds after you administer correction, to give him time to realize his condition. And when you have carried a revolver in the right-hand trousers pocket for five months, it is advisable occasionally to 23 Where Angels inspect the cloth of the pocket, to make sure that it is not wearing thin from the chafe of the muzzle. Mr. Jackson had ignored the first rule of conduct, Mr. Becker the second. Mr. Jackson had kicked Sinful Peck once too often ; hut not knowing that it was once too often, had immediately turned his back, and received thereat the sharp corner of a bible on his bump of inhabitiveness, which bump responded in its function ; for Mr. Jackson showed no immediate desire to move from the place where he fell. Beyond binding, he received no further attention from the men. Mr. Becker, on his way to the lazarette in the stern for a bucket of sand to assist in the holy-stoning, had reached the head of the poop steps when this occurred ; and turning at the sound of his superior s fall, had bounded to the main-deck without touching the steps, reaching for his pistol as he landed, only to pinion his fingers in a large hole in the pocket. Wildly he struggled to reclaim his weapon down his trouser-leg, held firmly to his knee by the tight rubber boot ; but he could not reach it. His anxious face betrayed his predicament to the wakening men, and when he looked into Mr. Jackson s revolver, held by Sinful Peck, he submitted to being bound to the fife-rail and gagged with the end of the topgallant-sheet a large rope, which just filled his mouth, and hurt. Then the firearm was recovered, and the descent upon the dinner-party quickly planned and carried out. Have you ever seen a kennel of hunting-dogs re leased on a fine day after long confinement how they bark and yelp, chasing one another, biting playfully, rolling and tumbling over and over in sheer joy and healthy appreciation of freedom ? Without the vocal expression of emotion, the conduct of these men after that wine dinner was very similar to that of such emancipated dogs. They waltzed, boxed, wrestled, threw each other about the deck, turned handsprings 24 Fear to Tread and cartwheels those not too weak buffeted, kicked, and clubbed the suffering Mr. Becker, reviled and cursed the unconscious captain and chief officer ; and when tired of this, as children and dogs of play, they turned to their captives for amusement. The second mate was taken from the fife-rail, with hands still bound, and led to the forecastle ; the gags of all and the bonds of the cook were removed, and the fore castle dinner was brought from the galley. This they were invited to eat. There was a piece of salt beef, boiled a little longer than usual on account of the delay; it was black, brown, green, and iridescent in spots ; it was slippery with ptomaines, filthy to the sight, stinking, and nauseating. There were potatoes, two years old, shrivelled before boiling hard and soggy, black, blue, and bitter after the process. And there was the usual weevily hardtack in the bread- barge. Protest was useless. The unhappy captives sur rounded that dinner on the forecastle floor (for there was neither table to sit at, nor chests, stools, or boxes to sit on, in the apartment), and, with hands behind their backs and disgust in their faces, masticated and swallowed the morsels which the Chinese cook put to their mouths, while their feelings were further out raged by the hilarity of the men at their backs, and their appetites occasionally jogged into activity by the impact on their heads of a tarry fist or pistol-butt. At last a portly captain began vomiting, and this being contagious, the meal ended; for even the stomachs of the sailors, overcharged as they were with the rich food and wine of the cabin table, were affected by the spectacle. There were cool heads in that crowd of mutineers men who thought of consequences : Poop-deck Cahill, square-faced and resolute, but thoughtful of eye and refined of speech; Seldom Helward, who had shot 25 c Where Angels the captain a man whose fiery hair, arching eye brows, Koman nose, and explosive language indicated the daredevil, but whose intelligent though humorous eye and corrugated forehead gave certain signs of repressive study and thought ; and Bigpig Monahan, already described. These three men went into session under the break of the poop, and came to the conclu sion that the Consul who had gaoled them for nothing would hang them for this ; then, calling the rest to the conference as a committee of the whole, they out lined and put to vote a proposition to make sail and go to sea, leaving the fate of their captives for later consideration which was adopted unanimously and with much profanity, the central thought of the latter being an intention to make em finish the holy-stonin for the fun they had laughin at us. Then Bigpig Monahan sneaked below and induced the steward to toss through the storeroom dead-light every bottle of wine and liquor which the ship contained. For Seldom and Poop-deck, he said to him, * are the only men in the gang fit to pick up navigation and git this ship into port again ; but if they git their fill of it, it s all day with you, steward. Six second mates on six American ships watched curiously, doubtingly, and at last anxiously, as sails were dropped and yards mastheaded on board the Almena, and as she paid off from the mooring-buoy before the land-breeze and showed them her stern, sent six dinghies, which gave up the pursuit in a few minutes and mustered around the buoy, where a wastefully slipped shot of anchor-chain gave additional evidence that all was not right. But by the time the matter was reported to the authorities ashore, the Almcna, having caught the newly-arrived southerly wind off the Peruvian coast, was hull down on the western horizon. 26 Fear to Tread Four days later, one of the Almena s boats, contain ing twelve men with sore heads, disfigured faces, and clothing ruined by oily wood-pulp ruined particularly about the knees of their trousers came wearily into the roadstead from the open sea, past the shipping, and up to the landing at the Custom-house docks. From here the twelve proceeded to the American Consul, and entered bitter complaint of inhuman treat ment received at the hands of sixteen mutinous sailors on board the Almena treatment so cruel that they had welcomed being turned adrift in an open boat ; whereat the Consul, deploring the absence of man-of- war or steamer to send in pursuit, took their individual affidavits ; and these he sent to San Francisco, from which point the account of the crime, described as piracy, spread to every newspaper in Christendom. PART III A NORTH-EAST gale off Hatteras : immense gray com bers, five to the mile, charging shoreward, occasionally breaking, again lifting their heads too high in the effort, truncated as by a knife, and the liquid apex shattered to spray ; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the rain- squalls, across which heavy back ground rushed the darker scud and storm-clouds ; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-centre. This is the picture that the sea-birds saw at daybreak on a September morning, and could the sea-birds have spoken they might have told that the square-rigged craft carried a navigator who had learned that a whirling fury of storm-centre was less to be feared than the deadly Diamond Shoals the outlying guard of Cape Hatteras toward which the steamer was drifting broadside on. 27 * Where Angels Clad in yellow oilskins and sou wester, he stood by the after-companionway, intently examining through a -pair of glasses the wallowing steamer to leeward, barely distinguishable in the half-light and driving spindrift. On the main-deck a half-dozen men paced up and down, sheltered by the weather-rail ; forward, two others walked the deck by the side of the forward house, but never allowed their march to extend past the after-corner ; and at the wheel stood a little man who sheltered a cheerful face under the lee of a big coat-collar, and occasionally peeped out at the navi gator. Poop-deck, he shouted above the noise of the wind, take the wheel till I fire up ! 1 Thought I was exempt from steering, growled the other good-humouredly, as he placed the glasses inside the companionway. You re getting too fat and sassy ; steer a little. Poop-deck relieved the little man, who descended the cabin stairs, and returned in a few moments smoking a short pipe. He took the wheel, and Poop- deck again examined the steamer with the glasses. There goes his ensign, union down, he exclaimed ; he s in trouble. We ll show ours. From a flag-locker inside the companionway he drew out the Stars and Stripes, which he ran up to the monkey-gaff. Then he looked again. Down goes his ensign ; up goes the code pennant. He wants to signal. Come up here, boys! called Poop-deck ; give me a hand. As the six men climbed the steps, he pulled out the corresponding code signal from the locker, and ran it up on the other part of the halyards as the ensign fluttered down. Go down, one of you, he said, and get the signal-book and shipping-list. He ll show his number next. Get ours ready E. L. F. T. While a man sprang below for the books named, the 28 Fear to Tread others hooked together the signal-flags forming the ship s number, and Poop-deck resumed the glasses. 1 Q. T. F. N., he exclaimed. Look it up. The books had arrived, and while one lowered and hoisted again the code signal, which was also the answering pennant, the others pored over the shipping- list. Steamer Aldelaran of New York, they said. The pennant came down, and the ship s number went up to the gaff. H. V., called Poop-deck, as he scanned two flags now flying from the steamer s truck. What does that say ? Damaged rudder cannot steer, they answered. Pull down the number and show the answering pennant again, said Poop-deck ; and let me see that signal-book. He turned the leaves, studied a page for a moment, then said : Eun up H. V. E. That says, "What do you want?" and that s the nearest thing to it. These flags took the place of the answering pennant at the gaff-end, and again Poop- deck watched through the glasses, noting first the showing of the steamer s answering pennant, then the letters K. E. N. What does K. E. N. say? he asked. They turned the leaves, and answered : I can tow you. Tow us ? We re all right ; we don t want a tow. He s crazy. How can he tow us when he can t steer ? exclaimed three or four together. He wants to tow us so that he can steer, you blasted fools ! said Poop-deck. He can keep head to sea and go where he likes with a big drag on his stern. That s so. Where s he bound you that has knowledge and eddication ? Didn t say ; but he s bound for the Diamond 29 Where Angels Shoals, and he ll fetch up in three hours, if we can t help him. He s close in. Tow - line s down the forepeak, said a man. Couldn t get it up in an hour, said another. Yes, we can, said a third. Then, all speaking at once, and each raising his voice to its limit, they argued excitedly : Can t be done. Coil it on the forecastle. Yes, we can. Too much sea. Kun down to wind ard. Line ud part, anyhow. Float a barrel. Shut up ! I tell you, we can. Call the watch. Seldom, yer daft. Needn t get a boat over. Hell, ye can. Call the boys. All hands with heavin - lines. Can t back a topsail in this. Go lay down. Soak yer head, Seldom. Hush! Shut up! Nothin you can t do. Go to the devil! I tell you, we can ; do as I say, and we ll get a line to him, or get his. The affirmative speaker, who had also uttered the last declaration, was Seldom Helward. Put me in command, he yelled excitedly, and do what I tell you, and we ll make fast to him. No captains here, growled one, while the rest eyed Seldom reprovingly. Well, there ought to be; you re all rattled, and don t know any more than to let thousands o dollars slip past you. There s salvage down to looward. Salvage ? Yes, salvage. Big boat full o passengers and valuable cargo shoals to looward of him can t steer. You poor fools ! what ails you ? Foller Seldom, vociferated the little man at the wheel ; * foller Seldom, and ye ll wear stripes. Dry up, Sinful. Call the watch. It s near seven bells, anyhow. Let s hear what the rest say. Strike the bell. The uproarious howl with which sailors call the watch below was delivered down the cabin stairs, and 30 Fear to Tread soon eight other men came up, rubbing their eyes and grumbling at the premature wakening, while another man came out of the forecastle and joined the two pacing the forward deck. Seldom Helward s pro position was discussed noisily in joint session on the poop, and finally accepted. We put you in charge, Seldom, against the rule, said Bigpig Monahan sternly, cause we think you ve some good scheme in your head ; but if you haven t if you make a mess of things just to have a little fun bossin us you ll hear from us. Go ahead, now. You re captain. Seldom climbed to the top of the after-house, looked to windward, then to leeward at the rolling steamer, and called out : I want more beef at the wheel. Bigpig, take it ; and you, Turkey, stand by with him. Get away from there, Sinful. Give her the upper main topsail, the rest of you. Poop-deck, you stand by the signal- halyards. Ask him if he s got a tow-line ready. Protesting angrily at the slight put upon him, Sinful Peck relinquished the wheel, and joined the rest on the main-deck, where they had hurried. Two men went aloft to loose the topsail, and the rest cleared away gear, while Poop-deck examined the signal-book. K. S. G. says, "Have a tow-line ready." That ought to do, Seldom, he called. *Eun it up, ordered the newly installed captain, and watch his answer. Up went the signal, and as the men on the main-deck were manning the topsail- halyards, Poop-deck made out the answer : V. K. C. 1 That means "All right," Seldom, he said, after inspecting the book. * Good enough ; but we ll get our line ready, too. Get down and help em masthead the yard first, then Where Angels take em forrard and coil the tow-line abaft the wind lass. Get all the heavin -lines ready, too. Poop-deck obeyed ; and while the main topsail yard slowly arose to place under the efforts of the rest, Seldom himself ran up the answering pennant, and then the repetition of the steamer s last message : All right. This was the final signal displayed be tween the two craft. Both signal-flags were lowered, and for a half-hour Seldom waited, until the others had lifted a nine-inch hawser from the forepeak and coiled it down. Then came his next orders in a con tinuous roar : * Three hands aft to the spanker- sheet ! Stand by to slack off and haul in ! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o you ! Hard up the wheel ! Check in port main and starboard cro -jack braces ! Shiver the topsail ! Slack off that spanker ! Before he had finished the men had reached their posts. The orders were obeyed. The ship paid off, staggered a little in the trough under the right-angle pressure of the gale, swung still farther, and steadied down to a long, rolling motion, dead before the wind, heading for the steamer. Yards were squared in, the spanker hauled aft, staysail trimmed to port, and all hands waited while the ship charged down the two miles of intervening sea. Handles like a yacht/ muttered Seldom, as, with brow wrinkled and keen eye flashing above his hooked nose, he conned the steering from his place near the mizzenmast. Three men separated themselves from the rest and came aft. They were those who had walked the forward deck. One was tall, broad-shouldered, and smooth-shaven, with a palpable limp ; another, short, broad, and hairy, showed a lamentable absence of front-teeth; and the third, a blue-eyed man, slight and graceful of movement, carried his arm in splints 32 Fear to Tread and sling. This last was in the van as they climbed the poop steps. 1 1 wish to protest, he said. I am captain of this ship under the law. I protest against this insanity. No boat can live in this sea. No help can be given that steamer. And I bear witness to the protest, said the tall man. The short, hairy man might have spoken also, but had no time. Get off the poop! yelled Seldom. Go forrard, where you belong. He stood close to the bucket-rack around the skylight. Seizing bucket after bucket, he launched them at his visitors, with the result that the big man was tumbled down the poop steps head first, while the other two followed, right side up, but hurriedly, and bearing some sore spots. Then the rest of the men set upon them, much as a pack of dogs would worry strange cats, and kicked and buffeted them forward. There was no time for much amusement of this sort. Yards were braced to port, for the ship was careering down toward the steamer at a ten-knot rate ; and soon black dots on her rail resolved into passengers waving hats and handkerchiefs, and black dots on the boat deck resolved into sailors standing by the end of a hawser which led up from the bitts below on the fantail. And the ship came down, until it might have seemed that Seldom s intention was to ram her. But not so ; when a scant two lengths separated the two craft, he called out : Hard down ! Light up the staysail-sheet and stand by the forebraces ! Around the ship came on the crest of a sea ; she sank into the hollow behind, shipped a few dozen tons of water from the next comber, and then lay fairly steady, with her bow meeting the seas, and the huge steamer not a half-length away on the lee quarter. The foretopmast-staysail was flattened, and 33 D < Where Angels Seldom closely scrutinized the drift and heave of the ship. How s your wheel, Bigpig ? he asked. Hard down. Put it up a little ; keep her in the trough. He noted the effect on the ship of this change ; then, as though satisfied, roared out : Let your fore- braces hang, forrard there ! Stand by heavin -lines fore and aft ! Stand by to go ahead with that steamer when we have your line ! The last injunction, delivered through his hands, went down the wind like a thunder-clap, and the officers on the steamer s bridge, vainly trying to make themselves heard against the gale in the same manner, started perceptibly at the impact of sound, and one went to the engine-room speaking-tube. Breast to breast the two vessels lifted and fell. At times it seemed that the ship was to be dropped bodily on the deck of the steamer ; at others, her crew looked up a streaked slope of a hundred feet to where the other craft was poised at the crest. Then the steamer would drop, and the next sea would heave the ship toward her. But it was noticeable that every bound brought her nearer to the steamer, and also farther ahead, for her sails were doing their work. Kick ahead on board the steamer ! thundered Seldom from his eminence. Go ahead ! Start the waggon, or say your prayers, you blasted idiots ! The engines were already turning; but it takes time to overcome three thousand tons of inertia, and before the steamer had forged ahead six feet the ship had lifted above her, and descended her black side with a grinding crash of wood against iron. Fore and main channels on the ship were carried away, leaving all lee rigging slack and useless ; lower braces caught in the steamer s davit-cleats and snapped, but the 34 Fear to Tread sails, held by the weather braces, remained full, and the yards did not swing. The two craft separated with a roll and came together again with more scrap ing and snapping of rigging. Passengers left the rail, dived indoors, and took refuge on the opposite side, where falling blocks and small spars might not reach them. Another leap toward the steamer resulted in the ship s maintop-gallant-mast falling in a zigzag whirl, as the snapping gear aloft impeded it ; and dropping athwart the steamer s funnel, it neatly sent the royal-yard with sail attached down the iron cylinder, where it soon blazed and helped the artificial draught in the stoke-hold. Next came the foretop-gallant-mast, which smashed a couple of boats. Then, as the round black stern of the steamer scraped the lee bow of the ship, jib-guys parted, and the jib-boom itself went, snapping at the bowsprit-cap, with the last bite the ship made at the steamer she was helping. But all through this riot of destruction while passengers screamed and prayed, while officers on the steamer shouted and swore, and Seldom Helward, bellowing insanely, danced up and down on the ship s house, and the hail of wood and iron from aloft threatened their heads men were passing the tow-line. It was a seven-inch steel hawser with a Manilla tail, which they had taken to the foretopsail-sheet bitts before the jib-boom had gone. Panting from their exertions, they watched it lift from the water as the steamer ahead paid out with a taut strain ; then, though the crippled spars were in danger of falling and really needed their first attention, they ignored the fact and hurried aft, as one man, to attend to Seldom. Encouraged by the objurgations of Bigpig and his assistant, who were steering now after the steamer, they called their late commander down from the house and deposed him in a concert of profane ridicule and 35 D 2 Where Angels abuse, to which he replied in kind. He was struck in the face by the small fist of Sinful Peck, and immedi ately knocked the little man down. Then he was knocked down himself by a larger fist, and, fighting bravely and viciously, became the object of fist-blows and kicks, until, in one of his whirling staggers along the deck, he passed close to the short, broad, hairy man, who yielded to the excitement of the moment and added a blow to Seldom s punishment. It was an unfortunate mistake ; for he took Seldom s place, and the rain of fists and boots descended on him until he fell unconscious. Mr. Helward himself delivered the last quieting blow, and then stood over him with a lurid grin on his bleeding face. Got to put down mutiny though the heavens fall, he said painfully. Eight you are, Seldom, answered one. Here, Jackson, Benson draw him forrard ; and, Seldom, he added reprovingly, don t you ever try it again. Want to be captain, hey ? You can t ; you don t know enough. You couldn t command my wheelbarrow. Here s three days work to clear up the muss you ve made. But in this they spoke more, and less, than the truth. The steamer, going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each quarter, kept the ship s canvas full until her crew had steadied the yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer- stays and shrouds on their shaky spars had there been time ; but there was not. An uncanny appear ance of the sea to leeward indicated too close proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to wind ward told of probable increase of wind and sea. And the steamer waited no longer. With a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the ship on her starboard bridle, gave power to her engines, and rounded to, very slowly, head to sea, while the 36 Fear to Tread men on the ship, who had been carrying the end of the coiled hawser up to the foretop-mast rigging, dropped it and came down hurriedly. Eeleased from the wind-pressure on her strong side, which had somewhat steadied her, the ship now rolled more than she had done in the trough, and with every starboard roll were ominous creakings and grindings aloft. At last came a heavier lurch, and both crippled topmasts fell, taking with them the mizzen-topgallant- mast. Luckily, no one was hurt, and they disgustedly cut the wreck adrift, stayed the fore and main masts with the hawser, and, resigning themselves to a large subtraction from their salvage, went to a late break fast a savoury meal of smoking fried ham and potatoes, hot cakes and coffee, served to sixteen in the cabin ; and an unsavoury meal of hardtack-hash, with an infusion of burnt bread-crust, pease, beans, and leather, handed, but not served, to three in the forecastle. Three days later, with Sandy Hook lighthouse show ing through the haze ahead, and nothing left of the gale but a rolling ground-swell, the steamer slowed down so that a pilot-boat s dinghy could put a man aboard each craft. And the one who climbed the ship s side was the pilot that had taken her to sea, outward bound, and sympathized with her crew. They surrounded him on the poop and asked for news, while the three men forward looked aft hungrily, as though they would have joined the meeting, but dared not. Instead of giving news, the pilot asked questions, which they answered. I knew you d taken charge, boys, he said at length. The whole world knows it, and every man-of-war on the Pacific stations has been looking for you. But they re only looking out there. What brings you round here, dismasted, towing into New York ? * That s where the ship s bound, New York. We 37 Where Angels took her out ; we bring her home. We don t want her don t belong to us. We re law-abidin men. Law-abiding men ? asked the amazed pilot. You bet. We re goin to prosecute those dogs of ours forrard there to the last limit o the law. We ll show em they can t starve and hammer and shoot free-born Americans just cause they ve got guns in their pockets. The pilot looked forward, nodded to one of the three, who beckoned to him, and asked : Who d you elect captain ? * Nobody, they roared. We d had enough o cap tains. This ship s an unlimited democracy every body just as good as the next man ; that is, all but the dogs. They sleep on the bunk-boards, do as they re told, and eat salt mule and dunderfunk same as we did goin out. Did they navigate for you ? Did no one have charge of things ? Poop-deck picked up navigation, and we let him off steerin and standin lookout. Then Seldom, here, he wanted to be captain just once, and we let him well, look at our spars. Poop-deck ? Which is Poop-deck ? Do you mean to say, asked the pilot when the navigator had been indicated to him, that you brought this ship home on picked-up navigation ? * Didn t know anything about it when we left Callao, answered the sailor modestly. The steward knew enough to wind the chronometer until I learned how. We made an offing and steered due south, while I studied the books and charts. It didn t take me long to learn how to take the sun. Then we blundered round the Horn somehow, and before long I could take chronometer sights for the longitude. Of course, I know we went out in four months and used up five to get back ; but a man can t learn the whole thing in 38 Fear to Tread one passage. We lost some time, too, chasing other ships and buying stores ; the cabin grub gave out. You bought, I suppose, with Captain Benson s money ? S pose it was his. We found it in his desk. But we ve kept account of every cent expended, and bought no grub too good for a white man to eat. What dismasted you ? They explained the meeting with the steamer and Seldom s misdoing, then requested information about the salvage laws. Boys, said the pilot, I m sorry for you. I saw the start of this voyage, and you appear to be decent men. You ll get no salvage; you ll get no wages. You are mutineers and pirates, with no standing in court. Any salvage which the Almena has earned will be paid to her owners and to the three men whom you deprived of command. What you can get the maximum, though I can t say how hard the judge will lay it on is ten years in State s prison, and a fine of 2,000 dollars each. We ll have to stop at quarantine. Take my advice : if you get a chance, lower the boats and skip. They laughed at the advice. They were American citizens who respected the law. They had killed no one, robbed no one ; their wages and salvage, inde pendently of insurance liabilities, would pay for the stores bought and the loss of the spars. They had no fear of any court of justice in the land ; for they had only asserted their manhood and repressed in human brutality. The pilot went forward, talked awhile with the three, and left them with joyous faces. An hour later he pointed out the Almena s number flying from the masthead of the steamer. He s telling on you, boys, he said. He knew you when you helped him, and used you, of course. Your 39 Where Angels reputation s pretty bad on the high seas. See that signal-station ashore there ? Well, they re telegraph ing now that the pirate Almena is coming in. You ll see a police-boat at quarantine. He was but partly right. Not only a police-boat, but an outward-bound man-of-war and an incoming revenue cutter escorted the ship to quarantine, where the tow-line was cast off and an anchor dropped. Then, in the persons of a scandalized health-officer, a naval captain, a revenue-marine lieutenant, and a purple-faced sergeant of the steamboat squad, the power of the law was rehabilitated on the Almena s quarter-deck, and the strong hand of the law closed down on her unruly crew. With blank faces, they discarded to shirts, trousers, and boots the slop- chest clothing which belonged to the triumphant Captain Benson, and descended the side to the police- boat, which immediately steamed away. Then a chuckling trio entered the ship s cabin, and ordered the steward to bring them something to eat. Now, there is no record either in the reports for that year of the police department, or from any official babbling, or from later yarns spun by the sixteen prisoners, of what really occurred on the deck of that steamer while she was going up the bay. Newspapers of the time gave generous space to speculations written upon the facts discovered by reporters ; but nothing was ever proved. The facts were few. A tug met the steamer in the Narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning, and her captain, on being questioned, de clared that all seemed well with her. The prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers and a sergeant. A little after twelve o clock a Battery boatman observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her heading 40 Fear to Tread up the North Eiver past the Battery. A watchman on the elevator docks at Sixty-third Street observed her charging up the river a little later in the after noon, wondered why, and spoke of it. The captain of the Mary Poiuel, bound up, reported catching her abreast of Yonkers. He had whistled as he passed, and, though no one was in sight, the salute was politely answered. At some time during the night residents of Sing Sing were awakened by a sound of steam blowing off somewhere on the river, and in the morning a couple of fishermen, going out to their pond-nets in the early dawn, found the police-boat grounded on the shoals. On boarding her they had released a pinioned, gagged, and hungry captain in the pilot-house, and an engineer, fireman, and two deck-hands, similarly limited, in the lamp -room. Hearing noises from below, they prised open the nailed doors of the dining-room staircase, and liberated a purple-faced sergeant and eight furious officers, who chased their deliverers into their skiff, and spoke sternly to the working force. Among the theories advanced was one, by the editor of a paper in a small Lake Ontario town, to the effect that it made little difference to an Oswego sailor whether he shipped as captain, mate, engineer, sailor, or fireman, and that the officers of the New York Harbour Patrol had only under-estimated the calibre of the men in their charge, leaving them unguarded while they went to dinner. But his paper and town were small and far away ; he could not possibly know anything of the subject, and his opinion obtained little credence. Years later, however, he attended, as guest, a meet ing and dinner of the Shipmasters and Pilots Associa tion of Cleveland, Ohio, when a resolution was adopted to petition the city for a harbour police service. Captain Monahan, Captain Helward, Captain Peck < Where Angels Fear to Tread and Captain Cahill, having spoken and voted in the negative, left their seats on the adoption of the pro position, reached a clear spot on the floor, shook hands silently, and then, forming a ring, danced around in a circle (the tails of their coats standing out in horizontal rigidity) until reproved by the Chair. And the editor knew why. 42 THE BRAIN OF THE BATTLE-SHIP BUILD an inverted Harvey-steel box about eight feet high, one hundred and fifty feet long, half as wide, with walls of eighteen-inch thickness, and a roof of three, and you have strong protection against shot and shell. Build up from the ends of the box two steel barbettes with revolving turrets as heavy as your side- walls ; place in each a pair of thirteen-inch rifles ; flank these turrets with four others of eight-inch wall, each holding two eight-inch guns ; these again with four smaller, containing four six-inch guns, and you have power of offence nearly equal to your protection. Loosely speaking, a modern gun-projectile will, at short range, pierce steel equal to itself in cross- section, and from an elevated muzzle will travel as many miles as this cross-section measures in inches. Placed upon an outlying shoal, this box with its guns would make an efficient fortress, but would lack the advantage of being able to move and choose position. Build underneath and each way from the ends of the box a cellular hull to float it ; place within it, and below the box, magazines, boilers and engines ; con struct above, between the turrets, a lighter super structure to hold additional quick -fire guns and torpedo-tubes ; cap the whole with a military mast supporting fighting-tops, and containing an armoured conning-tower in its base ; man and equip, provision and coal the fabric, and you can go to sea, confident 43 The Brain of of your ability to destroy everything that floats, except icebergs and other battle-ships. Of these essentials was the first-class coast-defence battle- ship A rgyll. She was of ten thousand tons dis placement, and was propelled by twin screws which received ten thousand horse-power from twin engines placed below the water-line. Three long tubes one fixed in the stem, two movable in the superstructure could launch Whitehead torpedoes, mechanical fish carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of guncotton in their heads, which sought in the water a twenty- foot depth, and hurried where pointed at a thirty-knot rate of speed. Their impact below the water-line was deadly, and only equalled in effect by the work of the rambow, the blow of the ship as a whole the last glorious, suicidal charge on an enemy that had dis mounted the guns, if such could happen. Besides her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch guns, she carried a secondary quick-fire battery of twenty six- pounders, four one-pounders, and four Gatling guns distributed about the superstructure and in the fighting-tops. The peculiar efficacy of this battery lay in its menace to threatening torpedo-boats, and its hostility to range-finders, big-gun sights, and opposing gunners. A torpedo-boat, receiving the full attention of her quick-fire battery, could be disin tegrated and sunk in a yeasty froth raised by the rain of projectiles long before she could come within range of torpedo action ; while a simultaneous discharge of all guns would distribute over seven thousand pounds of metal with foot-tons of energy sufficient to lift the ship herself high out of water. Bristling, glistening and massive, a reservoir of death potential, a centre of radiant destruction, a spitting, chattering, thunder ing epitome of racial hatred, she bore within her steel walls the ever-growing burden of progressive human thought. She was a maker of history, a changer of 44 the Battle-ship boundaries, a friend of young governments; and it chanced that on a fine tropical morning, in company with three armoured cruisers, four protected cruisers, and a fleet of torpedo-boats and destroyers, she went into action. She was stripped to bare steel and signal-halyards. Davits, anchors and cables were stowed and secured. Ladders, gratings, stanchions, and all movable deck- fittings were below the water-line. Wooden bulkheads, productive of splinters, were knocked down and dis carded, while all boats, with the plugs out, were over board, riding to a sea-anchor made of oars and small spars. The crew was at quarters. Below, in the magazine, handling -rooms, stoke -holds and bunkers, bare- waisted men worked and waited in stifling heat ; for she was under forced draft, and compartments were closed, even though the enemy was still five miles away. The chief and his first assistant engineer watched the main engines in their twin compartments, while the subordinate aids and machinists attended to the dynamos, motors and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets, pumps and ammunition-hoists. All boilers were hot and hissing steam ; all fire-pumps were working ; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while they waited. In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood ; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines ; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one -pounders and Gatling guns the easiest-minded of the ship s company, for they could see and breathe. Each division of fighters and workers was overseen by an officer, in some cases by two or three. 45 The Brain of Preparatory work was done, and, excepting the black gang, men were quiescent, but feverish. Few spoke, and then on frivolous things, in tones that were not recognised. Occasionally a man would bring out a piece of paper and write, using for a desk a gun- breech or carriage, a turret-wall, or the deck. An officer in a fighting-top used a telegraph-dial, and a stoker in the depths his shovel, in a chink of light from the furnace. These letters, written in instal ments, were pocketed in confidence that sometime they would be mailed. From the captain down each man knew that a large proportion of their number was foredoomed ; but not a consciousness among them could admit the pos sibility of itself being chosen. The great first law forbade it. Senior officers pictured in their minds dead juniors, and thought of extra work after the fight. Junior officers thought of vacancies above them and promotion. Men in the turrets bade mental good-bye to their mates in the superstructure; and these, secure in their five-inch protection, pitied those in the fighting-tops, where, cold logic says, no man may live through a sea-fight. Yet all would have volunteered to fill vacancies aloft. The healthy human mind can postulate suffering, but not its own extinction. In a circular apartment in the military mast, pro tected by twelve inches of steel, perforated by vertical and horizontal slits for observation, stood the captain and navigating officer, both in shirt-sleeves ; for this, the conning-tower, was hot. Around the inner walls were the nerve-terminals of the structure the indi cators, telegraph-dials, telephones, push-buttons, and speaking-tubes, which communicated with gun-stations, turrets, steering-room, engine-rooms, and all parts of the ship where men were stationed. In the forward part was a binnacle with small steering-wheel, dis- the Bat tie- ship connected now, for the steering was done by men below the water-line in the stern. A spiral staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first fighting -top above, in which staircase were small platforms where a signal -officer and two quarter masters watched through slits the signals from the flag-ship, and answered as directed by the captain below with small flags, which they mastheaded through the hollow within the staircase. The chief master-at-arms, bareheaded, climbed into the conning-tower. * Captain Blake, what ll we do with Finnegan ? he said. I ve released him from the brig as you ordered ; but Mr. Clarkson won t have him in the turret where he belongs, and no one else wants him around. They even chased him out of the bunkers. He wants to work and fight, but Mr. Clarkson won t place him ; says he washes his hands of Finnegan, and sent me to you. I took him to the bay, but he won t take medicine. Captain Blake, stern of face and kindly of eye, drew back from a peep-hole, and asked : What s his con dition ? 1 Shaky, sir. Sees little spiders and big spiders crawling round his cap-rim. Him and the recording angel knows where he gets it and where he keeps it, sir ; but I don t. I ve watched him for six months. Send him to me. * Very good, sir. The master-at-arms descended, and in a few moments the unwanted Finnegan appeared a gray-bearded, emaciated, bleary-eyed seaman, who brushed imaginary things from his neck and arms, and stammered, as he removed his cap : Keport for duty, sir. For duty? answered the captain, eyeing him sternly. For death. You will be allowed the honour able death of an English seaman. You will die in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours. 47 The Brain of The man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it, but said nothing, while Mr. Dalrymple, the navigating officer, with his eyes at a peep-hole and his ears open to the dialogue, wondered (as he and the whole ship s company had wondered before) what the real relation was between the captain and this wretched, drunken butt of the crew. For the captain s present attitude was a complete departure. Always he had shielded Finnegan from punishment to the extent that naval etiquette would permit. I have tried for six years, continued the captain, * to reform you and hold you to the manhood I once knew in you ; but I give you up. You are not fit to live, and will never be fitter to die than this morning, when the chance comes to you to die fighting for your country. But I want you to die fighting. Do you wish to see the surgeon or the chaplain ? No, no, no, cappen; one s bad as t other. The chaplam ll pray and the doctor ll fill me up wi bromide, and it just makes me crazy, sir. I m all right, cappen, if I only had a drink. Just give me a drink, cappen the doctor won t and send me down to my station, sir. I know it s only in my head, but I see em plain, all round. You ll give me a drink, cappen, please ; I know you ll give me a drink. He brushed his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake s stern face softened. His mind went back to his mid shipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, until this man s face young, strong, and cheery then appeared behind a white life-buoy ; and he heard again the panting voice of his rescuer : Here ye are, Mr. Blake ; boat s comin . He whistled down the speaking-tube, and when answered, called : the Battle-ship Send an opened bottle of whisky into the conning- tower no glasses. Thankee, sir. The captain resumed his position at the peep-hole, and Finnegan busied himself with his troubles until a Japanese servant appeared with a quart bottle. The captain received it, and the Jap withdrew. Help yourself, Finnegan, said the captain, extend ing the bottle ; take a good drink a last one. Fin negan took the equivalent of three. Now, up with you. The captain stood the bottle under the binnacle. Upper top. Eeport to Mr. Bates. Cappen, please send me down to the turret where I b long, sir. I m all right now. I don t want to go up there wi the sogers. I m not good at machine- guns. * No arguments. Up with you at once. You are good for nothing but to work a lever under the eye of an officer. Finnegan saluted silently and turned toward the stairs. Finnegan ! He turned. The captain extended his hand. Fin negan, he said, I don t forget that night, but you must go ; the eternal fitness of things demands it. Perhaps I ll go, too. Good-bye. The two extremes of the ship s company shook hands, and Finnegan ascended. When past the quartermasters and out of hearing, he grumbled and whined : No good, hey ? Thirty years in the service, and sent up here to think of my sins like a sick monkey. Good for nothin but to turn a crank with the sogers. Nice job for an able seaman ! What s the blasted service a-comin to ? The two fleets were approaching in similar formation, double column, at about a twelve-knot speed. Leading the left column was the Lancaster, and following came 49 E The Brain of the Argyll, Beaufort, and Atholl, the last two, like the Lancaster, armoured cruisers of the first class. On the Lancaster s starboard bow was the flag-ship Cum berland, a large unarmoured cruiser, and after her came the Maryborough, Montrose, and Sutherland, un armoured craft like the flag-ship, equally vulnerable to fire, the two columns making a zigzag line, with the heaviest ships to the left, nearest the enemy. Heading as they were, the fleets would pass about a mile apart. Led by a black, high-sided monster, the left column of the enemy was made up of four battle-ships of uncouth, foreign design and murderous appearance, while the right column contained the flag-ship and three others, all heavily - armoured cruisers. Flanking each fleet, far to the rear, were torpedo-boats and destroyers. We re outclassed, Dalrymple, said Captain Blake. * There are the ships we expected Warsaw, Riga, Kharkov, and Moscow, all of fighting weight, and the Obdorsk, Tobolsk, Saratov and Orenburg. Leaving out the Argyll, we haven t a ship equal to the weakest one there. This fight is the Argyll s. And the Argyll is equal to it, captain. All I fear is torpedoes. Of course our ends and superstructure will catch it, and I suppose we ll lose men all the quick-fire men, perhaps. Those in the tops, surely, said the captain. Dal rymple, what do you think ? I don t feel right about Finnegan. He belongs in the turret, and I ve sentenced him. Have I the right ? I ve half a mind to call him down. He pushed a button marked For ward turret, and listened at a telephone. Mr. Clarkson! he called. I ve put your man Finnegan in the upper top ; but he seems all right now. Can you use him ? The answer came : No, sir ; I ve filled his place. 50 the Battle-ship Die, then ! On my soul be it, Finnegan, poor devil ! muttered the captain gloomily. His foot struck the bottle under the binnacle, and, on an impulse due to his mood, he picked it up and uncorked it. Mr. Dalrymple observed the action and stepped toward him. * Captain, pardon me, he said, if I protest un officially. We are going into action not to dinner. The captain s eyes opened wide and shone brighter, while his lip curled. He extended the bottle to the lieutenant. The apologies are mine, Mr. Dalrymple, he said. * I forgot your presence. Take a drink. The officer forced a smile to his face, and stepped back, shaking his head. Captain Blake swallowed a generous portion of the whisky. * The fool ! mused the navigator, as he looked through the peep-hole. * The whole world is watch ing him to-day, and he turns to whisky. That s it, dammit ; that s the bond of sympathy : Blake and Finnegan, Finnegan and Blake dipsomaniacs. Lord, I never thought ! I ve seen him drunker than Finne gan, and if it wasn t for his position and obligations, he d see spiders, too. Mr. Dalrymple was not the only one on board who disapproved of * Dutch courage for captains. The Japanese servant, whose station was at the forward- turret ammunition-hoist, reported the service of the whisky to his mates, and from here the news spread as news will in a cellular hull up to turrets and gun-rooms, through speaking-tubes and water-tight bulkheads, down to stoke-hold, engine-rooms and steering-room ; and long before Captain Blake had thought of taking a drink the whole ship s company was commenting, mentally and openly, and more or less profanely, on the story that the old man was getting drunk in the conning-tower. 51 E 2 The Brain of And another piece of news travelled as fast and as far the whereabouts of Finnegan. Mr. Clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain, who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and spread. Men swore louder over this ; for though they did not want Finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die. Strong natures love those which may be teased ; and not a heart was there but contained a soft spot for the help less, harmless, ever good-natured, drunk and ridiculous Finnegan. The bark of an eight -inch gun was heard. Captain Blake saw, through the slits of the conning-tower, a cloud of thinning smoke drifting away from the flag ship. Stepping back, he rang up the forward turret. * Mr. Clarkson, he said to the telephone when it answered him, remember aim for the nearest water- line, load and fire, and expect no orders after the first shot. Calling up the officer in the after-turret, he repeated the injunction, substituting turrets as the object of assault. He called to the officers at the eight-inch guns that conning-towers and superstructures were to receive their attention ; to those at the six-inch guns to aim solely at turret apertures ; to ensigns and officers of marine in charge of the quick-fire batteries to aim at all holes and men showing, to watch for torpedo-boats, and, like the others, to expect no orders after the first shot. Then, ringing up the round of gun-stations, one after another, he sang out, in a voice to be heard lay all : Fire away ! The initial gun had been fired from the flag-ship when the leading ships of the two fleets were nearly abreast. It was followed by broadsides from all, and the action began. The Argyll, rolling slightly from the recoil of her guns, smoked down the line like a thing alive, voicing her message, dealing out death 52 the Battle-ship and receiving it. In this first round of the battle the fire of the eight opposing vessels was directed at her alone. Shells punctured her vulnerable parts, and, exploding inside, killed men and dismounted guns. The groans of the stricken, the crash of steel against steel, the roar of the turret-guns, the rattling chorus of quick-fire rifles, and the drumming of heavy shells against the armour and turrets, made an uproarious riot of sound over which no man above the water-line could lift his voice. But there were some there, besides the dead men who worked through and survived the action who, after the first impact of sound, did not hear it, nor anything else while they lived. They were the men who had neglected stuffing their ears with cotton. A fundamental canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy s fire, but to obtain and hold the most advan tageous position if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common centre ; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a melee. The two lines, a mile apart and each about a mile in length, were squarely abreast in less than five minutes from the time of firing the first gun ; and by now the furious bombardment of the Argyll by eight ships had ceased, for each one found it more profitable to deal with its vis-a-vis. But there was yet a deafen ing racket in the Argyll s conning-tower as small pro jectiles from the rear battle-ship abreast impinged on its steel walls ; and Captain Blake, his ears ringing, his eyes streaming, half stunned by the noise, almost 53 The Brain of blinded and suffocated by the smoke from his forward guns, did not know that his ship had dropped back in the line until the signal-officer descended and shouted in his ear an order signalled from the admiral : Move ahead to position. Hang the man who invented conning-towers ! he muttered angrily. Keep a lookout up there, Mr. Wright, he shouted ; I can see very little. The officer half saluted, half nodded, and ran up the stair, while Captain Blake rang full speed to the engines. The indicators on the wall showed increased revolution, and he resumed his place at the peep-hole. In a few moments Mr. Wright reappeared with a message from the flag-ship to Starboard helm ; follow ship ahead. All right. Watch out up there ; report all you see, he answered. Peeping out, he saw the Lancaster and the Cumberland sheering to port, and he moved the lever of the steering-telegraph. There was no answering ring. Shot away, by George ! he growled. He yelled into a supplementary voice-tube to Star board your wheel slowly. This was not answered, and with his own hands he coupled up the steering- wheel on the binnacle and gave it a turn. It was merely a governor, which admitted steam to the steering-engine, and there was no resisting pressure to guide him ; but a helm indicator showed him the changed position of the rudder, and, on looking ahead, he found that she answered the wheel ; also, on looking to starboard, he found that he had barely escaped collision with the Montrose, whose fire he had been masking, to the scandal of the admiral and the Montrose s officers. A little unnerved, Captain Blake called down a seven-inch tube to an apartment in the depths a central station of pipes and wires, to be used as a last resort directing the officer on post to notify the chief 54 the Battle-ship engineer of the damage, and to order the quarter masters in the steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. This was answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand on the wheel. Eeduces the captain of the ship to a helmsman, he muttered. The navigating officer approached, indicating by gesture and expression his intention of relieving him, but was waved away. I want the wheel myself, shouted the captain. Devil take a conning-tower, anyhow ! Keep a look out to port. But say, Dalrymple, send up for Finnegan. I ll not have him killed. Get him down, if he s alive. Mr. Dalrymple ascended the stair to pass the word for Finnegan, but did not come down. He had reached the signal-platform, where one quartermaster lay dead, and was transmitting the order to Mr. Wright, when a heavy shell struck the mast, above their heads and below the lower top, exploded inside, killed the three men on the platform, and hurled the upper part of the mast, with both tops full of dead men and living, high in air. The conning-tower was filled with gas and smoke ; but Captain Blake, though burned and nearly stripped of clothing by the blast of flames, was uninjured by the flying fragments of the shell. Smarting, gasping and choking, fully aware of the complete destruction above, his mind dwelt for an instant on the man who had once saved his life, whom he had sentenced to death. He looked up the hollow within the wrecked staircase, but saw nothing. Mr. Clarkson, however, happened to be looking through an upper peep-hole in the sighting-hood at this moment, and saw the upper half of the mast lift and turn; also, dimly through the smoke, he noticed, among the dozen of men hurled from the tops, the blue-shirted figure of one whom he knew to be Finnegan, clinging at arm s-length in mid-air to a 55 The Brain of Gatling gun, which had been torn from its fastenings. Then the smoke thickened and shut out the view ; but a moment later he heard the rattling crash of the mast as it fell upon the superstructure beneath. * The whole mast s gone, boys, he shouted to his crew both tops. Finnegan s done for. And the story of Finnegan s finish went down the hoist and through the ship, everywhere received with momentary sorrow, and increased malediction on the drunken captain, who thought no more and knew no more of a blue- jacket than to masthead him with , the marines. The tactics of both admirals being the same, and the speed of both fleets that of their slowest ships being equal, they turned, and, like two serpents pur suing each other s tails, charged around in a circle, each ship firing at the nearest or most important enemy. This fire was destructive. A ship a mile distant is a point-blank target for modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight inches of steel suffered. The Argyll had lost her military mast and most of her secondary guns. The flag- ship Cumberland, raked and riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. A long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted by her, unstruck by the shells sent by the flag-ship and the Marlborough. A larger thing, mouse- coloured and nearly hidden by a larger wave, was coming from the opposite direction, spitting one- pound shot at the rate of sixty a minute, but without present avail ; for a spindle-shaped object left the deck of the first when squarely abreast of the help less flag-ship, diving beneath the surface ; and the existence and position of this object were henceforth 56 the Battle-ship indicated only by a line of bubbles, a darting streak of froth, travelling toward the Cumberland. In less than a minute it had reached her. The sea alongside arose in a mound, and she seemed to lean away from it ; then the mound burst, and out of it, and spouting from funnels, ventilators and ports, came a dense cloud of smoke, which mingled with the steam and hid her from view, while a dull, booming roar, barely dis tinguishable in the noise of battle, came across the water. When the cloud thinned there was nothing to be seen but heads of swimming men, who swam for a time and sank. The flag-ship had been torpedoed. But the torpedo-boat followed her. Pursued by the mouse - coloured destroyer, she circled around and headed back in the endeavour to reach her consorts ; but she had not time. Little by little the avenger crept up, pounding her with small shot and shell, until, leaking from a hundred wounds, she settled beneath the surface. She had fulfilled her mission ; she was designed to strike once and die. No armoured cruiser may withstand the fire of a battle-ship. The Lancaster, leading the Argyll, re ceived through her eight-inch water-line belt the heavy shot and shell of the Moscow and Orenburg. Nine- and eleven-inch shell fire, sent by Canet and Hontoria guns, makes short work of eight -inch armour, and the doomed Lancaster settled and dis appeared, her crew yelling, her screws turning, and her guns firing until the water swamped her. The following Argyll scraped her funnels and masts as she passed over. Eight hundred feet back in the line was the Beau fort, armoured like the Lancaster. Her ending was dramatic and suicidal. Drilled through and through by the fire of the Riga, she fought and suffered until the Lancaster foundered ; then, with all guns out of action, but with still intact engine-power, she left the 57 The Brain of line, not to run, but to ram. The circle was narrow ing, but she had fully four minutes to steam before she could reach the opposite side and intercept her slayer. And in this short time she was reduced to scrap-iron by the concentrated fire of the Warsaw, Riga and Kharkov. Every shot from every gun on the three battle-ships struck the unlucky cruiser ; but in the face of the storm of steel she went on, exhaling through fissures and ports smoke from bursting shells and steam from broken pipes. Half-way across, an almost solid belching upward and outward of white steam indicated a stricken boiler, and from now on her progress was slow. She was visibly lower in the water and rolled heavily. Soon another cloud arose from her, her headway decreased, and she came to a stop two hundred yards on the port bow of the onrushing Riga, whose crew yelled derisively, whose quick-fire guns still punished her. But the yells suddenly ceased, and the gunners changed their aim. A small thing had left the nearly submerged; tube in the cruiser s stem, and the gunners were now firing at a darting line of bubbles, obliterating the target for a moment with the churning of the water, only to see the frothy streak within their range, coming on at locomotive speed. They aimed ahead ; two five-inch guns added their clamour, and even a Hontoria turret-gun voiced its roar and sent its messenger. But the bubbles would not stop ; they entered the bow wave of the battle-ship, and a second later the great floating fort separated into two parts, with a crackling thunder of sound and an outburst of flame and smoke which came of nothing less than an exploded magazine. The two halves rolled far to starboard, then to port, shivered, settled, turned com pletely over, and sank in a turmoil of bursting steam and air-bubbles. Three minutes later the Beaufort lifted her stern and dived gently after her victim, still 58 the Battle-ship groaning hoarsely from her punctured iron lungs. In her death-agony she had given birth to a child more terrible than a battle-ship. The rear ship of the inner column, the Atlioll, was officially an armoured cruiser, but possessed none of the attributes of the cruiser class. She was the laggard of the fleet, and her heaviest guns were of six-inch calibre ; but, being designed for a battle- ship, she carried this temporary battery behind sixteen inches of steel, and had maintained her integrity, taking harder blows than she could give. With the going down of the Beaufort she took a position astern of the Sutherland, and the double line of battle was reduced to a single line ; for the Argyll had left the column when the flag-ship sank. And this is why the overmatched, battered, and all but demoralized cruisers received no more attention from the enemy ; it were wiser to deal with the Argyll. The Saratov, blazing fiercely from the effects of a well- planted shell, had drawn out of line, the better to deal with her trouble. Her place in the line, and that of the sunken Riga, were filled by the following ships drawing ahead ; but the fleet still held to double column, and into the lanes between the lines the Argyll was coming at sixteen knots, breathing flame, vomiting steel, delivering destruction and death. She had rounded the Moscow s stern, raking her as she came, and sending armour-piercing shells through her citadel. Some exploded on impact, some inside ; all did work. An eight- inch projectile entered the after turret-port, and silenced the gun and gun-crew for ever. Before the Argyll was abeam, the Moscow had ceased firing. Boiling and smoking, her crew decimated, her guns disabled and steering-gear carried away, she swung out of line ; and the appearance in his field of vision of several rushing waves with short smoke-stacks behind, and the supplementary pelting 59 The Brain of his ship was now receiving from the Marlborough, decided her commander to lower his flag. On the starboard bow of the Argyll was the armoured cruiser Orenburg. Her fire, hot and true, ceased on the explosion of a large shell at her water-line, and she swung out of the fight, silent but for the roar of escaping steam, heeled heavily to port, and sank in ten minutes, her ensigns flying to the last. Mr. Clark- son rejoiced with his gun- crew. He had sent the shell. On stormed the Argyll. Her next adversary was the Kharkov, a battleship nearly equal in guns and armour to herself, but not quite by an inch. And that inch cost her the fight. With her main turrets damaged, her superstructure, secondary guns, and torpedo-tubes shot away, she yielded to fate, and, while the Argyll passed on, hauled down her ensigns at the request of a torpedo-boat. Ahead and to starboard was the cruiser Tobolsk, leaving the neighbourhood as fast as her twin-screws could push her. Her end was in sight ; in her wake were two gray destroyers, and behind, charging across the broken formation, was the fleet Marlborough. The Argyll ignored the Tobolsk ; for slowing down to await her coming was the black and high-sided Warsaiv, the monster of the fleet, bristling with guns, sombre, and ominous in her silence. Ahead of her, and turning to port, was the flagship Obdorsk, also slowed down ; but she promised to be fully occupied with the Atholl, Sutherland, and Mont- rose, who had wheeled in their tracks, no longer obliged to traverse a circle to reach an enemy. On rushed the Argyll, and when nearly up to the Warsaic, the latter gave steam to her engines. Breast to breast the gladiators charged across the sea, roar ing, flaming, and smoking. A torpedo left the side of the Warsaw, pointed diagonally ahead, to intercept 60 the Battle-ship the Argyll. But it was badly aimed, and the hissing bubbles passed under her stern. Before another could be discharged, the torpedo-room, located by the Argyll s officers, was enlarged to the size of three by the suc ceeding bombardment and the explosion of the re maining torpedoes. Twelve-inch armour cannot keep out thirteen-inch armour-piercing shell, and torpedoes cannot explode on board without damage to machinery, steering-gear, and vital connections. The Warsaw yawed, slackened speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speak ing, but the secondary guns silent. The A rgyll circled around her, sending her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch shells into her victim with almost muzzle energy. The two military masts of the Warsaw sank, and dead men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard. The forward turret seemed to explode ; smoke and flame shot out of the ports, and its top lifted and fell. Then the Argyll turned and headed straight for her side. There was little need of gun-fire now ; but the forward-turret guns belched once during the charge, and the more quickly handled eight- and six-inch rifles stormed away while there was no time to reload. Smoking, rolling, and barking ten thousand tons of inertia behind a solid steel knife she pounced on her now silent enemy. There was a crunching sound, muffled and continuous. The speed of the Argyll seemed hardly checked. In went the ram farther and farther, until the slanting edge began cutting above the water. Then the Warsaw, heeled far over by the impact, rolled back, and the knife cut upward. The smooth plates at the Argyll s water-line wrinkled like paper, and the pile of shattered steel which had once been her forward deck and bulkheads was shaken up and adjusted to new positions ; but not until her nose was actually buried in the wound until the Warsaw was cut half in two did the reversed engines begin to 61 The Brain of work. The Argyll backed out, exposing for a moment a hole like a cavern s mouth ; then the stricken ship rolled heavily toward her, burying the sore, and, humming and buzzing with exhausting steam and rushing air, settled rapidly and sank, while out from ports, doors, and nearly vertical hatches came her crew, as many as could. They sprang overboard and swam, and those that reached the now stationary Argyll were rescued ; for a cry had gone through the latter from the central station in her depths, All hands on deck to save life ! Bring ladders, life-buoys, and ropes ends ! The battle was ended ; for, with the ramming of the Warsaic, the Obdorsk struck to the three ships circling round her. They had suffered, but the battle-ship Argyll was reduced to a monitor. Her superstructure and the bow and stern above the water-line were shattered to a shapeless tangle of steel. What was left of her funnels and ventilators resembled nutmeg- graters, and she was perceptibly down by the head ; for her bow leaked through its wrinkled plates, and the forward compartment below the protective deck was filled. Yet she could still fight in smooth water. Her box-like citadel was intact and standing naked out of the wreck, scarred and dented, but uninjured, were the turrets, ammunition-hoists, and conning- tower. In the latter was the brain of the ship, that had fought her to victory, and then sent the call to her crew to save the lives of their enemies. Two men met on a level spot amidships and clasped hands. Both were bare-waisted and grimy, and one showed red as a lobster under the stains. He was the chief engineer. We ve won, Clarkson, he said. We ve won the hottest fight that history can tell of won it ourselves but he ll get the credit. And he s drunk as a lord drunk through it all. 62 the Battle-ship What did he ram for ? Why did he send two millions of prize-money to the bottom ? Lord ! Lord ! It s enough to make a man swear at his mother. We had her licked. Why did he ram ? Because he was drunk, that s why. He rang seven bells to me along at the first of the muss, and then sent word through young Felton that he wanted full speed. Dammit, he already had it, every pound of it. And he gave me no signal to reverse when we struck ; if it wasn t for luck and a kind Providence, we d have followed the Warsaw. I barely got her over. Here, Mr. Felton, you were in the central, were you not? How d the old man appear to be making it ? Were his orders intelligible ? A young man had joined them, hot, breathing hard, and unclothed. 1 Not always, sir ; I had to ask him often to repeat, and then I sometimes got another order. He kept me busy from the first, when he sent the torpedoes over board. * The torpedoes ! exclaimed Mr. Clarkson. Did we use them ? I didn t know it. * He was afraid they d explode on board, sir, he said. That was just after we took full speed. And just before he got too full to be afraid of any thing, muttered the lieutenant. Why don t he come out of that ? He glanced toward the conning-tower. Other officers had joined them. * We ll investigate/ said Mr. Clarkson. The door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the wheel, steering the drifting ship with one hand and 63 The Brain of holding an empty bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and bloody face. In spite of the dis figurement Mr. Clarkson knew him. Jammed into the narrow staircase leading below was the body of a man partly hidden by a Gatling gun, the lever of which had pierced the forehead. Finnegan ! yelled the officer, how d you get there ? The man at the wheel lifted a bleary eye and blinked ; then, unsteadily touching his forehead, answered : Fe dow -shtairs, shir. * Come out of that ! On deck, there ! Take the wheel, one hand, and stand by it ! Mr. Clarkson descended to the others with a serious look on his grimy face, and a sailor climbed the ladder and went down the mast. * Gentlemen, said the first lieutenant impressively, we were mistaken, and we wronged Captain Blake. He is dead. He died at the beginning. He lies under a Gatling gun in the bottom of the tower. I saw Finnegan hanging to that gun, whirling around it, when the mast blew up. It is all plain now. Finnegan and the gun fell into the tower. Finnegan may have struck the stairs and rolled down, but the gun went down the hollow within and killed the cap tain. We have been steered and commanded by a drunken man but it was Finnegan. Finnegan scrambled painfully down the ladder. He staggered, stumbled, and fell in a heap. Rise up, said Mr. Clarkson, as they surrounded him ; rise up, Daniel Drake Nelson Farragut Finne gan. You are small potatoes and few in the hill ; you are shamefully drunk, and your nose bleeds ; you are stricken with Spanish mildew, and you smell vilely but you are immortal. You have been a disgrace to the service, but Fate in her gentle irony has redeemed you, permitting you, in one brief moment of your misspent life, to save to your country the command 64 the Battle-ship of the seas to guide, with your subconscious intelli gence, the finest battle-ship the science of the world has constructed to glorious victory, through the fiercest sea-fight the world has known. Eise up, Daniel, and see the surgeon. But Finnegan only snored. THE WIGWAG MESSAGE As eight bells sounded, Captain Bacon and Mr. Knapp came up from breakfast, and Mr. Hansen, the squat and square-built second mate, immediately went down. The deck was still wet from the morning washing down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the forward house a heavy wet hawser used in towing out the evening before. They were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was necessary, the first mate re mained on the poop for a few moments further con versation with the captain. * Poor crew, cap n, he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men for ward. It ll take me a month to lick em into shape. To judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an operation. He was a giant, with a giant s fist and foot, red-haired and bearded, and of sinister countenance. But he was no more formidable in appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven, and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter. * Are the two drunks awake yet ? asked the latter. Not at four o clock, sir, answered the mate. Mr. Hansen couldn t get em out. I ll soon turn em to. 66 The Wigwag Message As he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward house, and came aft. They were young men, between twenty-five and thirty, with intelligent, sunburnt faces. One was slight of figure, with the refinement of thought and study in his features ; the other, heavier of mould and muscular, though equally quick in his movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea ; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of sea-legs, climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather-rail. The heavier man touched his cap, but the other man merely inclined his head, and, smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a pleasant, evenly modulated voice : Good-morning ! I presume that one of you is the captain ? I m the captain. What do you want ? was the gruff response. Captain, I believe that the etiquette of the mer chant service requires that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound ship he remains silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the passage ends ; but we cannot bring our selves to do so. We were struck down in a dark spot last night sandbagged, I should say and we do not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. We wakened this morning in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything we had with us. * Where were you slugged ? In Cherry Street. The bridge cars were not run ning, so we crossed from Brooklyn by the Catherine 67 F 2 The Wigwag Message Ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the elevated station. Well, what of it? What why why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first inbound craft we meet. Not much, I won t! answered the captain decidedly. You belong to my crew. I paid for twenty men, and you two and two others skipped at the dock. I had to wait all day in the Horseshoe. You two were caught dead drunk last night, and came down with the tug. That s what the runners said, and that s all I know about it. Go forrard ! Do you mean, captain Go forrard where you belong. Mr. Knapp, set these men to work. Captain Bacon turned his back on them, and walked away. Get off the poop, snarled the mate. Forrard wi you both ! Captain, I advise you to reconsider The words were stopped by a blow of the mate s fist, and the speaker fell to the deck. Then a hoarse growl of horror and rage came from his companion ; and Captain Bacon turned, to see him dancing around the first officer with the skill and agility of a professional boxer, planting vicious blows on his hairy face and neck. Stop this ! roared the captain, as his right hand sought the pocket of his coat. Stop it, I say ! Mr. Hansen, he called down the skylight, on deck here ! The huge mate was getting the worst of the un expected battle, and Captain Bacon approached cautiously. His right hand had come out of his pocket, armed with large brass knuckles ; but before he could use them his dazed and astonished first officer went down under the rain of blows. It was 68 The Wigwag Message then, while the victor waited for him to rise, that the brass knuckles impacted on his head, and he, too, went down, to lie quiet where he fell. The other young man had arisen by this time, somewhat shocked and unsteady in movement, and was coming bravely toward the captain ; but before he could reach him his arms were pinioned from behind by Mr. Hansen, who had run up the poop steps. What is dis, onnyway? he asked. Mudiny, I dink. Let go! said the other furiously. You shall suffer for this, you scoundrels ! Let go my arms ! He struggled wildly ; but Mr. Hansen was strong. Mr. Knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. His conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still active in rebellion. So, while the approving captain looked on in brass- knuckles, he sprang forward and struck, with strength born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless in the arms of Mr. Hansen, until his battered head sank supinely backward, and he struggled no more. Then Mr. Hansen dropped him. Lay aft, here, a couple o hands! thundered the captain from the break of the poop, and two awe struck men obeyed him. The whole crew had watched the fracas forward, and the man at the wheel had looked unspeakable things ; but no hand or voice had been raised in protest. One at a time they carried the unconscious men to the forecastle ; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons, and listened to a forceful speech by Captain Bacon, de livered in quick, incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his ship whether he believed himself shipped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a policeman, or a dry-nurse showed the slightest hesitation at obeying orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would be punished with fists, 69 The Wigwag Message brass knuckles, belaying-pins, or handspikes the officers were there for that purpose and if he per sisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. They could go forward. They went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered conscious ness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the best of it until the ship reached Hong-Kong, where they could all * jump her and get better berths. For if ye don t, concluded an Irishman, I take it ye ll die, an take sam wan of us wid ye ; fur this is an American ship, where the mates are hired fur the bigness o their fists an the hardness o their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o ye ; and wan o ye take this hash-kid back to the galley. The larger of the two victims sprang to his feet. He was stained and disfigured from the effects of the brass knuckles, and he looked anything but pleasant. Say, Irish, he said angrily, * do you know who you re talkin to ? Looks as though you don t. I m used to all sorts of guff from all sorts of men, but Mr. Breen, here Johnson, interrupted the other, * wait it s of no account now. This man s advice is sound. No one would believe us, and we can prove nothing. We are thoroughly helpless, and must submit until we reach a Consular port, or something happens. Now, men, he said to the others, my name is Breen. Call me by it. You, too, Johnson. I yield to the inevitable, and will do my share of the work as well as I can. If I make mistakes, don t hesitate to criticise, and post me, if you will. I ll be grateful. But I ll tell you one thing to start with, said Johnson, glaring round the forecastle : we ll take 70 The Wigwag Message turns at bringin grub and cleanin up the forecastle. Another thing: I ve sailed in these wind-jammers enough to know my work ; and that s more than you fellows know, by the looks of you. I don t want your instructions ; but Mr. Breen, here Breen, I mean (a gesture from the other had interrupted him) " Breen s forgotten what you and I will never learn, though he might not be used to pullin ropes and swabbin paint-work. If I find one o you pesterin him, or puttin up any jobs, I ll break that man s head ; understand me ? Anyone want to put this thing to the test, now ? He scanned each man s face in turn ; but none showed an inclination to respond. They had seen him fight the big first mate. There s not the makin of a whole man among you, he re sumed. You stand still while three men do up two, when, if you had any nerve, Mr. Breen, here, might be aft, stead o ^eatin cracker-hash with a lot o dock-rats and beach-combers. He s had better playmates ; so ve I, for that matter, o late years. Johnson, keep still, said the other. * It doesn t matter what we have had, who we were or might be. We re before the mast, bound for Hong-Kong. We may find a Consul at Anjer ; I m not sure. Mean while, I m Breen, and you are Johnson, and it s no one s business what we have been. I m not anxious for this matter to become public. I can explain to the Department, and no one else need know. * Very good, sir. No, not " sir." Keep that for our superiors. Johnson grumbled a little; then Mr. Hensen s round Swedish face appeared at the door. Hi, you in dere you big feller you come out. You belong in der utter watch. You hear ? You come out on deck, he called. 1 Ay, ay, sir, said Johnson, rising sullenly. All the better, Johnson, whispered Breen. One 7* The Wigwag Message can keep a lookout all the time. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. So for these two men the work of the voyage began. The hard-headed, aggressive Johnson, placed in the mate s watch, had no trouble in finding his place, and keeping it, at the top of the class. He ruled the assorted types of all nations who worked and slept with him with sound logic backed by a strong arm and hard fist, never trying to conceal his contempt for them. * You mixed nest o mongrels ! he would say at the end of some petty squabble which he had settled for them ; * why don t you stay in your own country ships, or, if you must sign in American craft, try to feel and act like Americans? It s just the same yawping at one another in the forecastles that makes it easy for the buckoes aft to hunt you. And that s why you get your berths. No skipper ll ship an American sailor while there s a Dutchman left in the shippin -office. He wouldn t think it safe to go to sea with too many American sailors forward to call him down and make him treat em decent. He picks a Dago here, and a Dutchman there, and all the Sou wegians he sees, and fills in with the rakin s and scrapin s o hell, Bedlam, and Newgate, knowin they ll hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together. To which they would respond in kind, though of lesser degree, always yielding him the last word when he spoke it loud enough. But Breen, in the second mate s watch, had trouble with his fellows at first. They could not understand his quiet, gentlemanly demeanour, mistaking it for fear of them ; so, unknown to Johnson, for he would not complain, they subjected him to all the petty annoyances which ignorance may inflict upon intelli gence. Though he showed a theoretical knowledge of ships and the sea superior to any they had met 72 The Wigwag Message with, he was not their equal in the practical work of a sailor. He was awkward at pulling ropes with others, placing his hands in the wrong place and mixing them up in what must be a concerted pull to be effective. His hands, unused to labour, became blistered and sore, and he often, unconsciously perhaps, held back from a task, to save himself from pain. He was an indifferent helmsman, and off Hatteras, in a blow, was sent from the wheel in disgrace. He did not know the ropes, and made sad mistakes until he had mastered the lesson. He could box the compass, in his own way ; for instance, the quarter-points between north- north-east and north-east by north he persisted in naming from the first of these points instead of from the other, as was seaman-like and proper ; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other quadrants. Once, at the wheel, when the ship was heading south-east by south half-south, he had been asked the course, and answered : South-south-east half-east, sir. For this he was profanely admonished by the captain and ridiculed by the men. Johnson had made the same mistake, but corrected himself in time, and nothing was said about it ; but Breen was bullied and badgered in the watch below the lubberly nomenclature becoming a byword of derision and con tempt until, patience leaving him, he doubled his sore fingers into fists one dog-watch, and thrashed the Irishman his most unforgiving critic so quickly, thoroughly, and scientifically that persecution ceased ; for the Irishman had been the master-spirit of the port forecastle. But the captain and mates were not won over. Practical Johnson an able seaman from crown to toe knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse ; but Breen did not. The very presence of such a man as he before the mast was a continuous menace an insult to their artificial superiority and they assailed 73 The Wigwag Message him at each mistake with volleys of Billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his eyes ; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warn ing to tyrants of better discrimination. Once again, while being rebuked in this manner, his self-control left him. With white face and blazing eyes he darted at Mr. Knapp, and had almost repeated Johnson s feat on the poop when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain descended upon him and broke his left arm. Mr. Knapp s fists and boots completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another lesson learned. Johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken bones and made a sling ; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward, secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water from the galley; but open assistance was re fused by the captain. Breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days ; then, the first mild skirts of the trade- wind being reached, the mate drove him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands (in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. But the trade-wind freshened, and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. With the men all aloft and the two mates forward, the ship nearly broached to one day, and only the opportune arrival of Captain Bacon on deck saved the spars. He seized the wheel, ground it up, and the ship paid off; then a whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was promptly and properly punished. He was kicked off the poop, and his arm, as a consequence, needed resetting. Johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he came down at supper-time. Yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging the broken arm earnestly explained, as Breen s groans would allow, that if he killed one the other two would 74 The Wigwag Message kill him, and nothing would be gained. For they ve brass knuckles in their pockets, sir, he said, and pistols under their pillows. We haven t even sheath- knives, and the crew wouldn t help. Whereupon, an inspired Eussian Finn of the watch remarked : * If a man know his work an do his work, an gif no back lip to te mates, he get no trupple mit te mates. In my country ships The disserta tion was not finished. Johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident closed. But they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short lying up. With the steward s wash board he could wash the captain s soiled linen, which the steward would afterwards wring out and hang up. He refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the lee scuppers amidships. Johnson made a detour on his way to the main-rigging, and muttered : Say the word, sir, and I ll chance it. No jury d convict. No, no ; go aloft, Johnson. I m all right, answered Breen, as he bent over the distasteful task. Johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royal-yard, which he was to scrape for re-oiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out : * Sail oh ! Dead ahead, sir. Looks like an armoured cruiser o the first class. Armoured cruiser o the first class ? muttered the captain, as he carried his binoculars to the weather- rail and looked ahead. More n I can make out with the glasses. If three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops indicate an armoured cruiser of the first class, Johnson was right. These the on-com ing craft showed plainly, even at seven miles distance. Fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward, a beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with buff-coloured turrets 75 The Wigwag Message and superstructure, and black guns bristling from all parts of her. The Stars and Stripes flew from the flagstaff at the stern ; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a small red-and-white flag. Captain Bacon brought out the American ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the gaff-end. Then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was doing, except the man washing clothes in the lee scuppers. His business was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to look at passing craft ; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the main-royal-yard. Johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left hand to the royal-pole certainly the most conspicuous detail of the whole ship to the eyes of those on board the cruiser and with his right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and down. There was method in his motions, for when he would cease the small red-and-white flag on the cruiser s bridge would answer, waving to the right and left, and up and down. A secondary gun spoke from a midship sponson, and Captain Bacon exclaimed enthusiastically, Salutin the flag ! and again dipped his ensign. Then, after an interval, during which it became apparent that the cruiser had altered her course to cross the ship s stern, there was seen another tongue of flame and cloud of smoke, and something seemed to rush through the air ahead of the ship. But it was a splash of water far off on the lee bow which really apprised them that the gun was shotted. At the same time a string of small flags arose to the signal-yard, and when Cap tain Bacon had found this combination in his code- The Wigwag Message book, he read with amazement : Heave to or take the consequences. By this time the cruiser was squarely across his wake, most certainly rounding-to for an interview. * Heave to or take the consequences ! he exclaimed. * And he s firm on us ! Down from aloft, all hands ! he roared upward ; then he seized the answering pennant from the flag-locker and displayed it from the rail, begrudging the time needful to hoist it. The men were sliding to the deck on backstays and running- gear, and the mates were throwing down coils of rope from the belaying-pins. Man both main clue-garnets, some o you ! yelled the captain. * Clue up ! Weather main-braces, the rest o you ! Slack away to looward ! Bound wi the yards, you farmers round wi em ! Down wi the wheel, there ! Bring her up three points and hold her. H 1 and blazes! what s he firin on me for? Excitedly the men obeyed him ; they were not used to gun fire, and it is certainly exciting to be shot at. Conspicuous among them was Johnson, who pulled and hauled lustily, shouting exuberantly the formless calls which sailors use in pulling ropes, and smiling sardonically. In five minutes from the time of the second gun the yards were backed, and, with weather leeches trembling, the ship lay hove to, drifting bodily to leeward. The cruiser had stopped her head way, and a boat had left her side. There were ten men at the oars, a coxswain at the yoke-ropes, and with him in the stern- sheets a young man in an ensign s uniform, who lifted his voice as the boat neared the lee quarter, and shouted : Eig a side- ladder aboard that ship ! He was hardly more than a boy, but he was obeyed ; not only the side-ladder, but the gangway steps were rigged ; and leaving the coxswain and bow oarsman to 77 The Wigwag Message care for the boat, the young officer climbed aboard, followed by the rest nine muscular man-of-war s- men, each armed with cutlass and pistol, one of them carrying a hand-bag, another a bundle. Captain Bacon, as became his position, remained upon the poop to receive his visitor, while the two mates stood at the main fife-rail, and the ship s crew clustered forward. Johnson, alert and attentive, stood a little in the van, and the man in the lee scuppers still washed clothes. What s the matter, young man? asked the captain from the break of the poop, with as much of dignity as his recent agitation would permit. * Why do you stop my ship on the high seas and board her with an armed boat s crew? * You have an officer and seaman of the navy on board this ship, answered the ensign, who had been looking about irresolutely. Produce them at once, if you please. * What what stuttered the captain, descend ing the poop steps ; but before more was said there was a sound from forward as of something hard striking something heavy, and as they looked they saw Captain Bacon s bucket of clothes sailing dia gonally over the lee rail, scattering a fountain of soapy water as it whirled ; his late laundryman coming toward them with head erect, as though he might have owned the ship and himself ; and Johnson, limp ing slightly, making for the crowd of bluejackets at the gangway. With these he fraternized at once, telling them things in a low voice, and somewhat profanely, while the two mates at the fife-rail eyed him reprovingly, but did not interrupt. Breen advanced to the ensign and said, as he ex tended his hand : I am Lieutenant Breen. Did you bring the clothing? This is an extremely fortunate meeting for me ; but I can thank you you and your 78 The Wigwag Message brother officers much more gracefully aboard the cruiser. The officer took the extended hand gingerly, with suspicion in his eyes. Perhaps, if it had not been thoroughly clean from its late friction with soap and water, he might have declined taking it ; for there was nothing in the appearance of the haggard, ragged wreck before him to indicate the naval officer. There is some mistake, he said coldly. * I am well acquainted with Lieutenant Breen, and you are certainly not he. Breen s face flushed hotly, but before he could reply the captain broke in. * Some mistake, hey ? said he derisively. I guess there is another mistake another bluff that don t go. Get out o here ; and I tell you now, blast yer hide ! that if you make me any more trouble board my ship, yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to your heels. And you, young man, he stormed, turning to the ensign, you look round, if you like. There s my crew. All the navy officers you find you can have, and welcome to em. He turned his back, stamped a few paces along the deck, and returned, working himself into a fury. Breen had not moved, but, with a slight sparkle to his eyes, said to the young officer : I think, sir, that if you take the trouble to investi gate, you will be satisfied. There are two Breens in the navy. You know one evidently ; I am the other. Lieutenant William Breen is on shore duty at Wash ington, I think. Lieutenant John Breen, lately in command of the torpedo-boat Wainwright, with his signalman, Thomas Johnson, are shanghaied on board this ship. There is Johnson talking to your men. The young man s face changed, and his hand went to his cap in salute. But the mischief was done. Captain Bacon s indignation was at bursting-pressure, 79 The Wigwag Message and his mind in no condition to respond readily to new impressions. He was captain of the ship, and grossly affronted. Johnson, noting his purple face, wisely reached for a topsail-brace belaying-pin, and stepped toward him ; for he now towered over Breen, cursing with volcanic energy. Didn t I tell you to go forrard ! he roared, drawing back his powerful fist. Breen stood his ground ; the officer raised his hand and half drew his sword, while the bluejackets sprang forward; but it was Johnson s belaying-pin which stopped that mighty fist in mid-passage. It was an iron club, eighteen inches long by an inch and a half diameter ; and Johnson, strong man though he was, used it two-handed. It struck the brawny forearm just above the wrist with a crashing sound, and seemed to sink in. Captain Bacon almost fell, but recovered his balance, and, holding the broken bones together, staggered toward the booby-hatch for support. He groaned in pain, but did not curse ; for it requires a modicum of self-respect for this, and Captain Bacon s self-respect was completely shocked out of him. But Mr. Knapp and Mr. Hansen still respected themselves, and were coming. You keep back, there you two ! yelled Johnson excitedly. Stand by here, mates. These buckoes 11 come one yet. Look out for their brass knuckles and guns. And the two officers halted. They had no desire to assert themselves before nine scowling, armed men an angry and aggressive mutineer with a belaying-pin, and a rather confused, but awakening, young officer with drawn sword. Johnson backed toward the latter. Don t you know me, Mr. Bronson ? he said * Tom Johnson, coxs n o the gig on your practice-cruise. Member me, sir? This is Lieutenant Breen take my word, sir. 80 The Wigwag Message Yes yes I understand, said the ensign, with a face redder than Breen s had been. I really beg your pardon, Mr. Breen. It was inexcusable in me, I know but I had expected to see a different face, and and we re three months out from Hong-Kong, you see Breen smiled, and interrupted with a gesture. No time for explanations, Mr. Bronson, said he kindly. Did you bring the clothes ? Thoughtful of Johnson to ask for them, wasn t it? It really would be embarrassing to join your ship in this rig. In the grip and bundle ? All right. Form your men across the deck, please, forward of the cabin. Keep these brutes away from us while we change. Come, Johnson. Taking the hand-bag and the bundle, they brazenly entered the cabin by the forward door. In ten minutes they emerged, Johnson clad in the blue rig of a man- of-war s-man, Breen in the undress uniform of an officer, his crippled arm buttoned into the coat. As they stepped toward the gangway, Captain Bacon, pale and perspiring, wheezing painfully, entered the cabin and passed out of their lives. The steward followed at his heels, and the two mates, with curiously work ing faces, approached Breen. Excuse me, sir, said Mr. Knapp, but I want to say that I had no notion o this at all ; and I hope you won t make no trouble for me ashore. Breen, one foot on the steps while he waited for the blue- jackets to file over the side, eyed him thought fully. No, he said slowly. I hardly think, Mr. Knapp, that I shall exert myself to make trouble for you personally, or for the other two. There is a measure now before Congress which, if it passes, will legislate brutes like you and your captain off the American quarter-deck by its educational conditions. This, with 81 G The Wigwag Message a consideration for your owners, is what permits you to continue this voyage, instead of going back to the United States in irons. But if I had the power, he added, looking at the beautiful flag still flying at the gaff, I would lower that ensign, and forbid you to hoist it. It is the flag of a free country, and should not float over slave-ships. He mounted the steps, and, assisted by the young officer and Johnson, descended to the boat ; but before Johnson went down, he peered over the rail at the two mates, grinning luridly. * And I ll promise you, he said, that I m always willing to make trouble for you, ashore or afloat, and wish I had a little more time for it now. And you can tell your skipper, if you like, in case he don t know it, that he got smashed with the same club that he used on Mr. Breen, and I m only d d sorry I didn t bring it down on his head. So long, you bloody - minded hell - drivers ! See you again some day. He descended, and Mr. Knapp gave the order to brace the yards. Give a good deal, he mused, as the men manned the braces, * to know just how they got news to that cruiser. Homeward bound from Hong-Kong three months out. Couldn t ha been sent after us. But he never learned. 82 THE TRADE-WIND THE orgy was finished. The last sea-song had re sounded over the smooth waters of the bay ; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were voiced ; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit deck, snoring. Though the barrel of rum broached on the main-hatch was but slightly lowered, their sleep was heavy ; scurvy-tainted men at the end of a Cape Horn passage may not drink long or deeply. Some lay as they fell face upward ; others on their sides for a while, then to roll over on their backs and so remain until the sleep was done ; for in no other position may the human body rest easy on a hard bed with no pillow. And as they slept through the tropic night the full moon in the east rose higher and higher, passed overhead and disappeared behind a thickening haze in the western sky ; but before it had crossed the meridian its cold, chemical rays had worked disastrously on the eyes of the sleeping men. Captain Swarth, prone upon the poop-deck, was the first to waken. There was pain in his head, pain in his eyes which were swollen and a whistling tumult of sound in his ears, coming from the Plutonian dark ness surrounding him, while a jarring vibration of the deck beneath him apprised his awakening brain that the anchor was dragging. As he staggered to his feet 83 G 2 The Trade-Wind a violent pressure of wind hurled him against the wheel, to which he clung, staring into the blackness to windward. All hands, there ! he roared. Up with you all ! Go forward and pay out on the chain ! Shouts, oaths, and growls answered him, and he heard the nasal voice of his mate repeating his order. Angel, he called, get the other anchor over and give her all of both chains. Ay, ay, sir, answered the mate. Send a lantern forrard, Bill. Can t see our noses. Steward! yelled the captain, where are you? Light up a deck-lantern and the binnacle. Bear a hand. He heard the steward s voice close to him, and the sound of the binnacle lights being removed from their places, then the opening and closing of the cabin companionway. He could see nothing, but knew that the steward had gone below to his store-room. In a minute more a shriek came from the cabin. It rang out again and again, and soon sounded from the companionway: I m blind, I m blind, cap n! I can t see. I lit the lantern and burned my fingers ; but I can t see the light. I m blind ! The steward s voice ended in a howl. Shut up, you blasted fool ! answered Captain Swarth ; get down there and light up. Where s that light ? came the mate s voice in a yell from amidships. Shankpainter s jammed, Bill ! Can t do a thing without a light. Come aft here and get it. Steward s drunk. The doors in the forward part of the cabin slammed, and the mate s profanity mingled with the protest of the steward in the cabin. Then shouts came from forward, borne on the gale, and soon followed by the shuffling of feet as the men groped their way aft and climbed the poop steps. The Trade- Wind We re stone-blind, cappen, they wailed. We lit the fo c s le lamp, an it don t show up. We can t see it. Nobody can see it. We re all blind. Come down here, Bill, called the mate from below. As Captain Swarth felt his way down the stairs, a sudden shock stilled the vibrations caused by the dragging anchor, and he knew that the chain had parted. Stand by on deck, Angel ; we re adrift, he said. It s darker than ten thousand black cats. What s the matter with you ? Can you see the light, Bill ? I can t. I m blind as the steward, or I m drunker/ No. Is it lit? Where? The men say they re blind, too. Here, forrard end o the table. The captain reached this end, searched with his hands, and burned them on the hot glass of a lantern. He removed the bowl and singed the hair on his wrists. The smell came to his nostrils. I m blind, too, he groaned. Angel, it s the moon. We re moonstruck moon-blind. And we re adrift in a squall. Steward, he said, as he made his way towards the stairs, light the binnacle, and stop that whining. Maybe some one can see a little. When he reached the deck he called to the men, growling, cursing, and complaining on the poop. Down below with you all! he ordered. Pass through and out the forrard door. If any man sees the light on the cabin table, let that man sing out. They obeyed him. Twenty men passed through the cabin and again climbed the poop stairs, their lamentations still troubling the night. But not one had seen the lantern. Some said that they could not open their eyes at all; some complained that their faces were swollen ; others that their mouths were 85 The Trade-Wind twisted up to where their ears should be ; and one man averred that he could not breathe through his nose. It ll only last a few days, boys, said the captain bravely ; we shouldn t have slept in the moonlight in these latitudes. Drop the lead over, one of you weather side. The devil knows where we re drifting, and the small anchor won t hold now ; we ll save it. Captain Swarth was himself again. But not so his men. They had become children, with children s fear of the dark. Even the doughty Angel Todd was oppressed by the first horror of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. Above the rushing sound of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or groan according to temperament added to the distraction on deck. One man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the side. An able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead. A quarter six, he sang out, and then, plaintively : We ll fetch up on the Barrier, capt n. S pose we try an get the other hook over ? Yes, yes, chorused some of the braver spirits. * It may hold. We don t want to drown on the reef. Let s get it over. Chain s overhauled ! Let the anchor alone ! roared the captain. No anchor-chain ll hold in this. Keep that lead a-going, Tom Plate, if it s you. What bottom do you find ? * Quarter less six, called the leadsman. Soft bottom. We re shoaling. Angel/ said the captain to his mate, who stood close to him, we re blowing out the south channel. We ve been drifting long enough to fetch up on the reef if it was in our way. There s hard bottom in the north channel, and the twenty-fathom lead wouldn t reach it half a length from the rocks. 86 The Trade- Wind The mate had nothing to say. And the south channel lay due south-east from our moorings, continued the captain. * Wind s nor -west, I should say, right down from the hilltops ; and I ve known these blasted West India squalls to last three days, blowing straight and hard. This has the smell of a gale in it already. Keep that lead a-going, there ! No bottom ! answered the leadsman. Good enough, said the captain cheerfully. No bottom! was called repeatedly, until the cap tain sang out : That ll do the lead. Then the leads man coiled up the line, and they heard his rasping, unpleasant voice, cursing softly but fiercely to himself. Captain Swarth descended the stairs, silenced the steward with a blow, felt of the clock-hands, secured his pistols, and returned to the deck. We re at sea, he said. * Two hands to the wheel ! Loose and set the fore-topmast-staysails and the fore- topsail ! Staysail first ! Let a man stay in the slings to square the yard by the feel as it goes up. What for ? they answered complainingly. What ye goin to do ? We can t see. Why didn t you bring to when you had bottom under you ? No arguments ! yelled Swarth. Forrard with you ! What are you doing on the poop, anyway ? If you can t see, you can feel, and what more do you want ? Jump, now. Set that head-sail and get her fore the wind quick ! or I ll drop some of you. They knew their captain, and they knew the ropes, on the blackest of dark nights. Blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and gaskets. Blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavouring to keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their faces. The Trade- Wind Keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you can without broaching to ! yelled the captain in their ears, and they answered and did their best. She was a clean-lined craft, and steered easily ; yet the off shore sea which was rising often threw her around until nearly in the trough. The captain remained by them, advising and encouraging. * Where re ye goin , Bill ? asked the mate weakly, as he scrambled up to him. * Eight out to sea ; and, unless we get our eyes back soon, right across to the Bight of Benin, three thousand miles from here. We ve no business on this coast in this condition. What ails you, Angel ? Lost your nerve ? 1 Mebbe, Bill. The mate s voice was hoarse and strained. This is new to me. I m falling falling all the time. So am I. Brace up ! We ll get used to it. Get a couple of hands aft and heave the log. We take our departure from Kittredge Point, Barbados Island, at six o clock this morning of the 10th October. We ll keep a Geordie s log-book with a jack-knife and a stick. They hove the log for him. It was marked for a now useless 28-second sand-glass, which Captain Swarth replaced by a spare chronometer, held to his ear in the companionway. It ticked even seconds, and when twenty-eight of them had passed he called, * Stop ! The markings on the line that had slipped through the mate s fingers indicated an eight-knot speed. Seven, allowing for wild steering, said the captain when he had stowed away his chronometer and re turned to the deck. Angel, we know we re going about sou -east by east, seven knots. There s practi cally no variation o the compass in these seas, and that course ll take us clear of Cape St. Eoque. Just 88 The Trade-Wind as fast as the men can stand it at the wheel, we ll pile on canvas and get all we can out o this good wind. If it takes us into the south-east trades, well and good. We can feel our way across on the trade- wind unless we hit something, of course. You see, it blows almost out of the east on this side, and ll haul more to the sou -east and south ard as we get over. By the wind first, then we ll square away as we need to. We ll know the smell o the trades nothing like it on earth and the smell o the Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, Slave Coast, and the Kameruns. And I ll lay odds we can feel the heat o the sun in the east and west enough to make a fair guess at the course. But it won t come to that. Some of us ll be able to see pretty soon. It was wild talk, but the demoralized mate needed encouraging. He answered with a steadier voice : * Lucky we got in grub and water yesterday. * Eight you are, Angel. Now, in case this holds on to us, why, we ll find some of our friends over in the Bight, and they ll know by our rig that something s wrong. Flanders is somewhere on the track you know he went back to the nigger business and Chink put a slave-deck in his hold down Kio way last spring. And old man Slack I did him a service when I crippled the corvette that was after him, and he s grateful. Hope we ll meet him. I d rather meet Chink than Flanders in the dark, and I d trust a Javanese trader before either. If either of them comes aboard, we ll be ready to use their eyes for our benefit, not let em use ours for theirs. Flanders once said he liked the looks of this brig. S pose we run foul of a bulldog ? * We ll have to chance it. This coast s full o them, too. Great guns, man ! would you drift round and do nothing ? Anywhere east of due south there s no land nearer than Cape Orange, and that s three 89 The Trade- Wind hundred and fifty miles from here. Beginning to morrow noon, we ll take deep-sea soundings until we strike the trade-wind. The negro cook felt his way through the preparing of meals and served them on time. The watches were set, and sail was put on the brig as fast as the men became accustomed to the new way of steering, those relieved always imparting what they had learned to their successors. Before nightfall on that first day they were scudding under foresail, topsail and top- gallantsail and maintopsail, with the spanker furled as useless, and the jib giving its aid to the foretop- mast-staysail in keeping the brig before the quarter ing seas which occasionally climbed aboard. The bowsprit light was rigged nightly ; they hove the log every two hours ; and Captain Swarth made scratches and notches on the sliding-hood of the companionway, while careful to wind his chronometer daily. But, in spite of the cheer of his indomitable courage and confidence, his men, with the exception of a few, dropped into a querulous, whining discontent. Mr. Todd, spurred by his responsibility, gradually came around to something like his old arbitrary self. Yank Tate, the carpenter, maintained through it all a patient faith in the captain, and, in so far as his influence could be felt, acted as a foil to the irascible, fault-finding Tom Plate, the forecastle lawyer, the man who had been at the lead-line at Barbados. But the rest of them were dazed and nerveless, too shaken in brain and body to consider seriously Tom s proposition to toss the after-guard overboard and beach the brig on the South American coast, where they could get fresh liver of shark, goat, sheep, or bullock, which even a nigger knew was the only cure for moon-blindness. They had not yet recovered from the unaccustomed debauch; their clouded brains seemed too large for their skulls, and their eyeballs ached in their sockets, 90 The Trade- Wind while they groped tremblingly from rope to rope at the behest of the captain or mate. So Tom marked himself for future attention by insolent and disapproving comments on the orders of his superiors, and a habit of moving swiftly to another part of the deck directly he had spoken, which pre vented the blind and angry captain finding him in the crowd. Dim as must have been the light of day through the pelting rain and storm-cloud, it caused increased pain in their eyes, and they bound them with their necker chiefs, applying meanwhile such remedies as fore castle lore could suggest. The captain derided these remedies, but frankly confessed his ignorance of any thing but time as a means of cure. And so they existed and suffered through a three days damp gale and a fourth day s dead calm, when the brig rolled scuppers under with all sail set, ready for the next breeze. It came, cool, dry, and faint at first, then brisker the unmistakable trade- wind. They boxed the brig about and braced sharp on the starboard tack, steering again by the feel of the wind and the rattling of shaking leeches aloft. The removal of bandages to ascertain the sun s position by sense of light or increase of pain brought agonized howls from the experimenters, and this deterred the rest. Not even by its warmth could they locate it. It was overhead at noon and useless as a guide. In the early morning and late afternoon, when it might have indicated east and west, its warmth was overcome by the coolness of the breeze. So they steered on blindly, close-hauled on the starboard tack, nearly as straight a course as though they were whole men. They took occasional deep-sea soundings with the brig shaking in the wind, but found no bottom, and at the end of fifteen days a longer heave to the ground-swell was evidence to Captain Swarth s mind The Trade-Wind that he was passing Cape St. Koque, and the sound ings were discontinued. No use bothering about St. Paul s Eocks or the Rocas, Angel, said he. They rise out o the deep sea, and if we re to hit, soundings won t warn us in time. I take it we ll pass between them and well north of Ascension. So he checked in the yards a little and brought the wind more abeam. One day Yank Tate appeared at the captain s elbow, and suggested, in a low voice, that he should examine the treasure-chests in the tween-deck. I was down stowing away some oakum, he said, an I was sure I heard the lid close ; but nobody answered me, an I couldn t feel anybody. Captain Swarth descended to his cabin and found his keys missing ; then he and the carpenter visited the chests. They were locked tight, and as heavy as ever. Someone has the keys, Yank, and has very likely raided the diamonds. We can t do anything but wait. He can t get away. Keep still about it. The air became cooler as they sailed on, and, judging that the trade- wind was blowing more from the south than he had allowed for, the captain brought the wind squarely abeam, and the brig sailed faster. Still, it was too cool for the latitude, and it puzzled him, until a man came aft and groaned that he had lifted his bandage to bathe his eyes, and had unmis takably seen the sun four points off the port quarter ; but his eyes were worse now, and he could not do it again. Four points off ! exclaimed Swarth. Four o clock in the afternoon. That s just about where the sun ought to be heading due east, and far enough south o the line to bring this cool weather. We re not far from Ascension. Never knew the sou -east trade to act like this before. Must ha been blowing out o the sou -west half the time. 92 The Trade- Wind A week later they were hove-to on the port tack under double-reefed topsails, with a cold gale of wind screaming through the rigging and cold green seas boarding their weather bow. It was the first break in the friendly trade-wind, and Swarth confessed to himself though not to his men that he was out of his reckoning ; but one thing he was sure of, that this was a cyclone with a dangerous centre. The brig laboured heavily during the lulls as the seas rose, and when the squalls came, flattening them to a level, she would lie down like a tired animal, while the aeolian song aloft prevented orders being heard unless shouted near by. Captain Swarth went below and smashed the glass of an aneroid barometer (newly invented and lately acquired from an outward- bound Englishman), in which he had not much con fidence, but which might tell him roughly of the air-density. Feeling of the indicator, and judging by the angle it made with the centre marked by a ring at the top he found a measurement which startled him. Setting the adjustable hand over the indicator for future reference, he returned to the deck, ill at ease, and ordered the topsails goose-winged. By the time the drenched and despairing blind men had accomplished this, a further lowering of the barometer induced him to furl topsails and fore-topmast-staysail, and allow the brig to ride under a storm-spanker. Then the increasing wind required that this also should be taken in, and its place filled by a tarpaulin lashed to the weather main-rigging. Angel, said the captain, shouting into the mate s ear, there s only one thing to account for this. We re on the right tack for the Southern Ocean, but the storm centre is overtaking us faster than we can drift away from it. We must scud out of its way. So they took in the tarpaulin and set the fore-top mast-staysail again, and, with the best two helmsmen 93 The Trade-Wind at the wheel, they sped before the tempest for four hours, during which there was no increase of the wind and no change in the barometer ; it still remained at its lowest reading. 1 Keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you dare, ordered Swarth. * We re simply sailing around the centre, and perhaps in with the vortex. They obeyed him as they could, and in a few hours more there was less fury in the blast and a slight rise in the barometer. I was right, said the captain. The centre will pass us now ! We re out of its way ! They brought the brig around amid a crashing of seas over the port rail, and stowing the staysail, pinned her again on the port tack with the tarpaulin. But a few hours of it brought an increase of wind and a fall of the barometer. What in d nation does it mean, Angel? cried the captain desperately. * By all laws of storms we ought to drift away from the centre. The mate could not tell ; but a voice out of the night, barely distinguishable above the shrieking wind, answered him. You all-fired fool don t you know any more than to heave to in the Gulf Stream? Then there was the faintest disturbance in the sounds of the sea, indicating the rushing by of a large craft. 1 What ! roared Swarth. The Gulf Stream ? I ve lost my reckoning. Where am I ? Ship ahoy ! Where am I ? There was no answer, and he stumbled down to the main-deck among his men, followed by the mate. Draw a bucket of water, one of you, he ordered. This was done, and he immersed his hand. The water was warm. 94 The Trade-Wind * Gulf Stream ! he yelled frantically* Gulf Stream ! How in h 1 did we get up here ? We ought to be down near St. Helena. Angel, come here. Let s think. We sailed by the wind on the south-east trade for No, we didn t : it was the north-east trade. We caught the north-east trade, and we ve circled all over the Western Ocean. You re a bully full-rigged navigator, you are ! came the sneering, rasping voice of Tom Plate from the crowd. Why didn t you drop your hook at Barbados, and give us a chance for our eyes ? The captain lunged toward him on the reeling deck ; but Tom moved on. Your time is coming, Tom Plate! he shouted insanely ; then he climbed to the poop, and when he had studied the situation awhile, called his bewildered mate up to him. 1 We were blown out of the north entrance o the bay, Angel, instead of the south, as we thought. I was fooled by the soundings. At this time o the year Barbados is about on the thermal equator half-way between the trades. This is a West India cyclone, and we re somewhere around Hatteras. No wonder the port tack drifted us into the centre. Storms revolve against the sun north o the line, and with the sun south of it. Oh, I m the two ends and the bight of a d d fool ! Wear ship ! he added in a thunder ing roar. They put the brig on the starboard tack, and took hourly soundings with the deep-sea lead. As they hauled it in for the fourth time, the men called that the water was cold ; and on the next sounding the lead reached bottom at ninety fathoms. We re inside the Stream and the hundred-fathom curve, Angel. The barometer s rising now. The storm-centre s leaving us, and we re drifting ashore, said the captain. I know pretty well where I am. 95 The Trade-Wind These storms follow an invariable track, and I judge the centre is to the east of us, moving north. That s why we didn t run into it when we thought we were dodging it. We ll square away with the wind on the starboard quarter now, and if we pick up the Stream and the glass don t rise, I ll be satisfied to turn in. I m about fagged out. It s too much for me, Bill, answered Mr. Todd wearily. I can navigate ; but this ain t navigation. This is blindman s buff. But he set the head-sail for his captain, and again the brig fled before the wind. Only once did they round - to for soundings, and this time found no bottom ; so they squared away, and when, a few hours later, the seas came aboard warm, Swarth was con fident enough of his position to allow his mind to dwell on pettier details of his business. It was nearly breakfast-time now, and the men would soon be eating. With his pistols in his coat- pockets he stationed himself beside the scuttle of the fore-hatch the entrance to the forecastle and waited long and patiently, listening to occasional comments on his folly and bad seamanship which ascended from below, until the harsh voice of Tom Plate on the stairs indicated his coming up. He reached toward Tom with one hand, holding a cocked pistol with the other ; but Tom slid easily out of his wavering grasp and fled along the deck. He followed his footsteps until he lost them, and picked up instead the angry plaint of the negro cook in the galley amidships. I do know who you are, but you want to get right out o my galley, now. You heah me? I se had enough o dis comin inter my galley. Gwan, now ! Is you de man dat s all time stealin my coffee ? I ll gib you coffee, you trash ! Take dat ! Captain Swarth reached the galley door in time to receive on the left side of his face a generous share of The Trade- Wind a pot of scalding coffee. It brought an involuntary shriek of agony from him ; then he clung to the galley- lashings and spoke his mind. Still in torment, he felt his way through the galley ; but the cook and the intruder had escaped by the other door and made no sound. All that day and the night following he chose to lie in his darkened state-room, with his face bandaged in oily cloths, while Yank Tate stood his watch. In the morning he removed the bandages and took in the sight of his state-room fittings : the bulkhead, his desk, chronometer, cutlass, and clothing hanging on the hooks. It was a joyous sight, and he shouted in glad ness. He could not see with his right eye and but dimly with his left, but a scrutiny of his face in a mirror disclosed deep lines that had not been there, distorted eyelids, and the left side where the coffee had scalded puffed to a large angry blister. He tied up his face, leaving his left eye free, and went on deck. The wind had moderated, but on all sides was a wild gray waste of heaving, white-crested combers, before which the brig was still scudding under the staysail. Three miles off on the port bow was a large, square-bowed, square-yarded ship, hove to and head ing away from them, which might be a frigate or a subsidized Englishman with painted ports ; but in either case she could not be investigated now. He looked at the compass. The brig was heading about south-east, and his judgment was confirmed. Two haggard-faced men with bandaged eyes were grinding the wheel to starboard and port, and keeping the brig s yaws within two points each way good work for blind men. Angel Todd stood near, his chin rest ing in his hand and his elbow on the companionway. Forward the watch sat about in coils of rope and sheltered nooks or walked the deck unsteadily, and a glance aloft showed the captain his rigging hanging in 97 H The Trade-Wind bights and yards pointed every way. She was un kempt as a wreck. The same glance apprized him of an English ensign, union down, tattered and frayed to half its size, at the end of the standing spanker- gaff, with the halyards made fast high on the royal- backstay, above the reach of bungling blind fingers. Torn Plate was coming aft with none of the hesitancy of the blind, and squinting aloft at the damaged distress-signal. He secured another ensign American from the flag-locker in the booby-hatch, mounted the rail, and hoisted it, union down, in place of the other. Then he dropped to the deck and looked into the glaring left eye and pepper-box pistol of Captain Swarth, who had descended on him. Hands up, Tom Plate, over your head ! quick, or I ll blow your brains out ! White in the face and open-mouthed, Tom obeyed. Mr. Todd ! called the captain, come down here port main-rigging. The mate came quickly, as he always did when he heard the prefix to his name. It was used only in emergencies. What soundings did you get at the lead when we were blowing out ? asked the captain. * What water did you have when you sang out " A quarter six " and " A quarter less six "? N-n-one, capt n. There warn t any bottom. I jes wanted to get you to drop the other anchor and hold her off the reef. Got him tight, cappen ? asked the mate. Shall I help you hold im ? I ve got my sight back. I ve got Tom Plate under my gun. How long have you been flying signals of distress, Tom Plate? Ever since I could see, capt n, answered the trembling sailor. How long is that ? 98 The Trade-Wind Second day out, sir. What s your idea in keeping still about it ? What could you gain by being taken aboard a man-of- war? * I didn t want to have all the work piled on me jes cause I could see, capt n. I never thought anybody could ever see again. I slept partly under No. 2 gun that night, and didn t get it so bad. You sneaked into my room, got my keys, and raided the treasure-chests. You know what the rules say about that? Death without trial. No, I didn t, capt n; I didn t. Search him, Mr. Todd. The search brought to light a tobacco-pouch in which were about fifty unset diamonds and a few well- jewelled solid-gold ornaments, which the captain pocketed. Not much of a haul, considering what you left behind, he said calmly. I suppose you only took what you could safely hide and swim with. I only took my share, sir ; I did no harm ; I didn t want to be driftin round wi blind men. How d I know anybody could ever see any more ? Sad mistake, Tom. All we wanted, it seems, was a good scalding with hot coffee. He mused a few moments, then continued : There must be some medical virtue in hot coffee which the doctors haven t learned, and well, Tom, you ve earned your finish. You won t do it, capt n; you can t do it. The men won t have it ; they re with me, stuttered the man. Possibly they are, I heard you all growling down the hatch yesterday morning. You re a pack of small- minded curs. I ll get another crew. Mr. Todd, he said to the listening mate, steward told me he was out of coffee, so we ll break a bag out o the lazarette. It s a heavy lift two hundred pounds and over bout 99 H 2 The Trade- Wind the weight of a man ; so we ll hoist it up. Let Tom, here, rig a whip to the spanker-gaff. He can see. Ay, ay, sir, answered the mate. * Get a single block and a strap and a gant-line out o the bo s n s locker, Tom. Is it all right, capt n ? asked Tom, lowering his hands with a deep sigh of relief. * I did what seemed right, you know. * Kig that whip, said Swarth, turning his back and ascending the poop. Tom secured the gear, and climbing aloft and out the gaff, fastened the block directly over the lazarette- hatch, just forward of the binnacle. Then he over hauled the rope until it reached the deck, and descended. Come up here on the poop, called the captain ; and he came. Shall I go down and hook on, sir ? he asked zealously. Make a hangman s noose in the end of the rope, said Swarth. Eh what a runnin bowline a timber-hitch? No, no, he yelled, as he read the captain s face. You can t do it ! The men Make a hangman s knot in the end of the rope ! thundered the captain, his pistol at Tom s ear. With a face like that of a death s-head he tied the knot. Pass it round your neck and draw it tight. Hoarse, inarticulate screams burst from the throat of the man, ended by a blow on the side of his face by the captain s iron-hard fist. He fell, and lay quiet, while Swarth himself adjusted the noose and bound the hands with his own handkerchief. The men at the wheel strained their necks this way and that, with tense waves of conflicting expressions flit- 100 The Trade- Wind ting across their weary faces, and the men forward, aroused by the screams, stood about in anxious expect ancy until they heard Swarth s roar: Lay aft here, the watch ! They came, feeling their way along by rail and hatch. Clap on to that gant-line at the main fife-rail, and lift this bag of coffee out o the lazarette/ sang out the captain. They found the loose rope, tautened it, hooked the bight into an open sheave in the stanchion, and list lessly walked forward with it. When they had hoisted the unconscious Tom to the gaff, Swarth ordered : * Belay, coil up the fall, and go forrard. They obeyed, listlessly as ever, with no wondering voice raised to inquire why they had not lowered the coffee they had hoisted. Captain Swarth looked at the square-rigged ship, now on the port quarter an ill-defined blur to his imperfect vision. Fine chance we d have had, he muttered, if that happened to be a bulldog. Angel, he said, as the mate drew near, hot coffee is good for moon-blindness, taken externally, as a blistering agent a counter-irritant. We have no fly-blisters in the medicine-chest, but smoking-hot grease must be just as good, if not better than either. Have the cook heat up a potful, and you get me out a nice small paint-brush. Forty- eight hours later, when the last wakening vision among the twenty men had taken cognizance of the grisly object aloft, the gaff was guyed outboard, the rope cut at the fife-rail, and the body of Tom Plate dropped, feet first, into the sea. Then, when Captain Swarth s eyes permitted, he took an observation or two, and, after a short lecture to his crew on the danger of sleeping in tropic moon light, shaped his course for Barbados Island, to take 101 The Trade-Wind up the burden of his battle with fate where the blind ness had forced him to lay it down ; to scheme and to plan, to dare and to do, to war and to destroy, against the inevitable coming of the time when fate should prove the stronger when he would lose in a game where one must always win or die. 102 SALVAGE SHE had a large crew, abnormally large hawse-pipes, and a bad reputation the last attribute born of the first. Registered as the Rosebud, this innocent name was painted on her stern and on her sixteen dories ; but she was known among the fishing-fleet as the Ishmaelite, and the name fitted her. Secretive and unfriendly, she fished alone, avoided company, an swered few hails, and, seldom filling her hold, dis posed of her catch as her needs required, in out-of- the-way ports, often as far south as Charleston. And she usually left behind her such bitter memories of her visit as placed the last port at the bottom of her list of markets. No ship-chandler or provision-dealer ever showed her receipted bills, and not a few of them openly averred that certain burglaries of their goods had plausible connection with her presence in port. Be this as it may, the fact stood that farmers on the coast who saw her high bow and unmistakable hawse- pipes when she ran in for bait invariably double- locked their barns and chicken - coops, and turned loose all tied dogs when night descended, often to find both dogs and chickens gone in the morning. Once, too, three small schooners had come home with empty holds, and complained of the appearance, while anchored in the fog, of a flotilla of dories 103 Salvage manned by masked men, who overpowered and locked all hands in cabin or forecastle, and then removed the cargoes of fish to their own craft, hidden in the fog. Shortly after this, the Rosebud disposed of a large catch in Baltimore, and the piracy was believed of her, but never proved. Her luck at finding things was remarkable. Drift ing dories, spars, oars, and trawl-tubs sought her unsavoury company, as though impelled by the inani mate perversity which had sent them drifting. They were sold in port, or returned to their owners, when paid for. In the early part of her career she had towed a whistling buoy into Boston and claimed salvage of the Government, showing her log-book to prove that she had picked it up far at sea. The salvage was paid ; but, as her reputation spread, there were those who declared that she herself had sent the buoy adrift. As poets and sailors believe that ships have souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures ; for her large, slanting, oval hawse- pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, Oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, com pelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed ; for she was a large craft, and there was menace in her solid, one-piece jib- boom, thick as an ordinary mainmast. An outward- bound coasting-schooner, resenting this lawlessness on one occasion, attempted to assert her rights, and being on the lawful starboard tack, bore steadily down on the Rosebud who budged not a quarter- point and, losing heart at the last moment, luffed up, all shaking, in just the position to allow the ring of her port anchor to catch on the bill of the Rosebud s starboard anchor. As her own ring-stopper and shank- 104 Salvage painter were weak, the patent windlass unlocked, and the end of the cable not secured in the chain-locker, the Rosebud walked calmly away with the anchor and a hundred fathoms of chain, which, at the next port, she sold as legitimate spoil of the sea. As her reputation increased, so did the hatred of men, while the number of ports on the coast which she could safely enter became painfully small. To avoid a conflict with local authority, she had hurried to sea without clearing at the Custom-house from Boston, Bangor, Portland, and Gloucester. She had carried local authority, in the persons of distressed United States marshals, to sea with her from three other ports, and landed it on some outlying point before the next meal-hour. With her blunt jib-boom she had prodded a hole in the side of a lighthouse supply-boat, and sailed away without answering ques tions. The Government was taking cognizance, and her description was written on the fly-leaves of several revenue-cutters log-books, while Sunday newspapers in the large cities began a series of special articles about the mysterious schooner-rigged pirate of the fishing-fleet. The future looked dark for her, and when the time came that she was chased away from Plymouth har bour which she had entered for provisions by a police-launch, it seemed that the end was at hand ; for she had done no wrong in Plymouth, and the police-boat was evidently acting on general principles and instructions, which were vital enough to extend the pursuit to the three-mile limit. Her trips had become necessarily longer, and there was but two weeks supply of food in the lazarette. The New England coast was an enemy s country, but in the crowded harbour of New York was a chance to lie un observed at anchor long enough to secure the stores she needed, which only a large city can supply. So 105 Salvage Cape Cod was doubled on the way to New York ; but the brisk offshore wind, which had helped her in escaping the police-boat, developed to a gale that blew her to sea, and increased in force as the hours passed by. Hard-headed, reckless fellows were these men who owned the Rosebud, and ran her on shares and under laws of their own making. Had they been of larger, broader minds, with no change of ethics, they would have acquired a larger, faster craft with guns, hoisted the black flag, and sailed southward to more fruitful fields. Being what they were fishermen gone wrong they laboured within their limitations and gleaned upon known ground. They were eighteen in number, and they typified the maritime nations of the world. Americans pre dominated, of course, but English, French, German, Portuguese, Scandinavian, and Eussian were among them. The cook was a West India negro, and the captain or their nearest approach to a captain a Portland Yankee. Both were large men, and held their positions by reason of special knowledge and a certain magnetic mastery of soul which dominated the others against their rules ; for in this social democracy captains and bosses were forbidden. The cook was an expert in the galley and a thorough sea man ; the other as able a seaman, and a navigator past the criticism of the rest. His navigation had its limits, however, and this gale defined them. He could find his latitude by meridian observation, and his longitude by morning sight and chronometer time; his dead-reckoning was trust worthy, and he possessed a fair working conception of the set and force of the Atlantic currents and the heave of the sea in a blow. But his studies had not given him more than a rudimentary knowledge of meteorology and the laws of storms. A gale was a 106 Salvage gale to him, and he knew that it would usually change its direction as a clock s hands will in moving over the dial ; and if, by chance, it should back around to its former point, he prepared for heavier trouble, with no reference to the fluctuations of the barometer, which instrument to him was merely a weather-glass about as valuable as a rheumatic big-toe. So, in the case we are considering, not knowing that he was caught by the southern fringe of a St. Law rence Valley storm, with its centre of low barometer to the north-west and coming toward him, he hove to on the port tack to avoid Cape Cod, and drifted to sea, shortening sail as the wind increased, until, with nothing set but a small storm-mainsail, he found himself in the sudden calm of the storm-centre, which had overtaken him. Here, in a tumultuous cross-sea, fifty miles off the shore, deceived by the light, shifty airs and the patches of blue sky showing between the rushing clouds, he made all sail and headed west, only to have the masts whipped out as the whistling fury of wind on the opposite side of the vortex caught and jibbed the canvas. It was manifestly a judgment of a displeased Provi dence ; and, glad that the hull was still tight, they cut away the wreck and rode out the gale now blow ing out of the north hanging to the tangle of spar and cordage which had once been the foremast and its gear. It made a fairly good sea-anchor, with the forestay strong as any chain for a cable, and she lay snug under the haphazard breakwater and bene fited by the protection, as the seas must first break their heads over the wreckage before reaching her. The main-mast was far away, with all that pertained to it ; but the solid, hard-pine jib-boom was still intact, and not one of the sixteen dories piled spoon- fashion in the four nests had been injured when the spars went by the board. So they were content to 107 Salvage smoke, sleep, and kill time as they could, until the gale and sea should moderate, and they could rig a jury-foremast of the wreck. But before they could begin while there was still wind enough to curl the head of an occasional sea into foam a speck which had been showing on the shortened horizon to windward, when the schooner lifted out of the hollows, took form and identity a two-masted steamer, with English colours, union down, at the gaff. High out of water, her broadside drift was faster than that of the dismasted craft riding to her wreckage, and in a few hours she was danger ously near, directly ahead, rolling heavily in the trough of the sea. They could see shreds of canvas hanging from masts and gaffs. * Wunner what s wrong wid her, said the cook, as he relinquished the glasses to the next man. * Amos, he called to another, you ve been in the ingine-room, you say. Is her ingine bus down ? Dunno, answered Amos. * Steam s all right ; see the jet comin out o the stack? There ! she s turnin over kickin ahead. Bout time, if she wants to clear us. She s signallin . What s that say, Elisha ? The ensign was fluttering down, and a string of small flags going aloft on the other part of the signal- halyards, while the steamer, heading west, pushed ahead about a length under the impulse of her pro peller. Elisha, the navigator, went below, and re turned with a couple of books, which he consulted. * Her number, he said. She s the Afghan Prince, o London. As the schooner carried no signal-flags, he waved his sou -wester in answer, and the flags came down, to be replaced by others. Rudder carried away, he read, and then looked with the glasses. Rudder seems all right ; must mean his steerin -gear. Why don t they rig up suthin , or a drag over the stern ? 108 Salvage * Don t know enough, said an expatriated English man of the crew. * She s one o them bloomin under manned tramps, run by apprentices an Thames watermen. They re drivin sailors an sailin -ships off the sea, blarst em ! * Martin, said Elisha to the cook, what s the matter with our bein a drag for her ? Dead easy, if we kin git his line an he knows how to rig a bridle. We can show him, if it comes to it. What ye say, boys? If we steer her into port, we re entitled to salvage. She s helpless ; we re not, for we ve got a jury-rig under the bows. Hello! what s he sayin now? Other flags had gone aloft on the steamer, which asked for the longitude. Then followed others which said that the chronometer was broken. Better n ever ! exclaimed Elisha excitedly. Can t navigate ! Our chronometer s all right ; we never needed it, an don t now, but it s a big help in a salvage claim. What ye say ? Can t we get our helm cable to him with a dory ? Why not? They were fishermen, accustomed to dory work. A short confab settled this point ; a dory was thrown over, and Elisha and Amos pulled to the steamer, which was now abreast, near enough for the name which Elisha read to be seen plainly on the stern, but not near enough for the men shouting from her taffrail to make themselves heard on the schooner. Elisha and Amos, in the dory, conferred with these men and then returned. Badly rattled, they reported. Tiller-ropes parted, an not a man aboard can put a long splice in a wire rope, an o course we said we couldn t. They ll take our line, an we re to chalk up the position an the course to New York. Clear case o salvage. We furnish everything, an sacrifice our jury-material to aid em. 109 Salvage What ll be our chance in court, I m thinkin , said one doubtfully. * Hadn t we better keep out o the courts? It s been takin most of our time lately. What s the matter wi ye ? yelled Elisha. We owe a few hundreds, an mebbe a fine or two ; an there s anywhere from one to two hundred thousand hull an cargo that we save. We ll get no less than a third, mebbe more. Go lay down, Bill. Bill subsided. They knotted four or five dory rodings together, coiled the long length of rope in the dory, unbent the end of their water-laid cable from the anchor, and waited until the wallowing steamer drifted far enough to leeward to come within the steering-arc of a craft with no canvas ; then they cut away the wreck, crowded forward, all hands spreading coats to the breeze, and when the schooner had paid off, steered her down with the wind on the quarter until almost near enough to hail the steamer, where they rounded to, safe in the knowledge that she could not drift as fast as the other. Away went the dory, paying out on the roding, the end of which was fastened to the disconnected cable, and when it had reached the steamer, a heaving-line was thrown, by which the roding was hauled aboard. Then the dory returned, while the steamer s men hauled the cable to their stern. The bridle, two heavy ropes leading from the after-winch out the opposite quarter-chocks to the end of the cable, was quickly rigged by the steamer s crew. With a warning toot of the whistle she went ahead, and the long tow-line swept the sea-tops, tautened and creaked on the windlass-bitts, and settled down to its work, while the schooner, dropping into her wake, was dragged westward at a ten-knot rate. This is bully! said Elisha gleefully. Now I ll chalk out the position an give her the course magnetic, to make sure. no Salvage He did so, and they held up in full view of the steamer s bridge a large blackboard showing in six- inch letters the formula : Lat. 4120. Lon. 6910. Mag. Co. W. half S. A toot of the whistle thanked them, and they watched the steamer, which had been heading a little to the south of this course, painfully swing her head up to it by hanging the schooner to the starboard leg of the bridle ; but she did not stop at west-half-south, and when she pointed unmistakably as high as north west, still dragging her tow by the starboard bridle, a light broke on them. * She s goin on her way with us ! said Elisha. 1 No, no ! she can t. She s bound for London, he added. * Halifax, mebbe ! They waved their hats to port, and shouted in chorus at the steamer. They were answered by caps flourished to starboard from the bridge, and out stretched arms which pointed across the Atlantic Ocean, while the course changed slowly to north, then faster as wind and sea bore on the other bow, until the steamer steadied and remained at east-by-north. The rhumb course to the Channel ! groaned Elisha wildly. * The nerve of it ! An I m supposed to give the longitude every noon ! Why, dammit, boys, they ll claim they rescued us, an like as not the English courts 11 allow them salvage on our little tub! Let go the tow-line! Let em go to h 1 ! they shouted angrily ; and some started forward, but were stopped by the cook. His eyes gleamed in his black face, and his voice was a little higher pitched than usual, otherwise he was the steadiest man there. We ll hang right on to our bran-new cable, men, he said. It s ours, not theirs. Course we kin turn her adrif ag in, an be wuss off, too ; we can t find de foremast now. But dat ain t de bes way. John, he in Salvage called to the Englishman of the crew, how many men do you country tramp steamers carry? John computed mentally, then muttered : Two mates, six ash-cats,* two flunkies, two quartermasters, watchman, deck-hands oh, bout sixteen or seven teen, Martin. Boys, le s man de win lass ! We ll heave in on our cable, an if we kin git close enough to climb aboard, we ll reason it out wid dat English cappen, who can t fin his way roun alone widout stealin little fishin -schooners. * Eight ! they yelled. Man the windlass ! We ll show the lime-juice thief who s doin this ! * Amos, said Martin to the ex-engineer, you try an member all you forgot bout ingines, in case any thing happens to de crew o dat steamer ; an , Elisha, you want to keep good track o where we go, so s you kin find you way back. I ll get the chronometer on deck now. I can take sight alone. They took the cable to the windlass-barrel and began to heave. It was hard work equal to heaving an anchor against a strong head wind and ten-knot tideway and only half the crew could find room on the windlass-brakes ; so, while the first shift laboured and swore and encouraged one another, the rest watched the approach of a small tug towing a couple of scows, which seemed to have arisen out of the sea ahead of them. When the steamer was nearly upon her, she let go her tow-line and ranged up alongside, while a man leaning out of the pilot-house gesticulated to the steamer s bridge and finally shook his fist. Then the tug dropped abreast of the schooner. She was a dingy little boat, the biggest and brightest of her fittings being the name-board on her pilot-house, * Engineers and firemen. 112 Salvage which spelt in large gilt letters the appellation J. C. Hawks. * Say, yelled her captain from his door, I m blown out wi my barges short o grub an water ! Can you gi me some? That lime-juice sucker ahead won t. Can you tow us to New York ? asked Elisha, who had brought up the chronometer and placed it on the house, ready to take morning sights for his longitude if the sun should appear. * No ; not unless I sacrifice the barges an lose my contract wi the city. They re garbage-scows, an I haven t power enough to hook another just got coal enough to get in. * An what do you call this a garbage-scow? answered Elisha ill-naturedly. We ve got no grub or water to spare. We ve got troubles of our own. Dammit, man, we re thirsty here ! Give us a breaker o water. Throw it overboard ; I ll get it. * No ; told you we have none to spare ; an we re bein yanked out to sea. Well, gi me a bottleful ; that won t hurt you. No ; sheer off ! Git out o this ! We re not in the Samaritan business. A forceful malediction came from the tug captain, and a whirling monkey-wrench from the hand of the engineer, who had listened from the engine-room door. It struck Elisha s chronometer and knocked it off the house, box and all, into the sea. He answered the profanity in kind, and sent an iron belay ing-pin at the engineer ; but it only dented the tug s rail, and with these compliments the two craft separated, the tug steaming back to her scows. That lessens our chance just so much, growled Elisha, as he joined the rest. Now we can t do all we agreed to. 1 Keep dead-reckonin , Lisha, said Martin ; dat s good nough for us ; an , say, can t you take sights 113 i Salvage by a watch jess for a bluff, to show in de log book? 1 Might ; t wouldn t be reliable. Good enough, though, for log-book testimony. That s what I ll do. Inch by inch they gathered in their cable and coiled it down, unmoved by the protesting toots of the steamer s whistle. When half of it lay on the deck, the steamer slowed down, while her crew worked at their end of the rope ; then she went ahead, the schooner dropped back to nearly the original distance, and they saw a long stretch of new Manila hawser leading out from the bridle and knotted to their cable. They cursed and shook their fists, but pumped man fully on the windlass, and by nightfall had brought the knot over their bows by means of a messenger, and were heaving on the new hawser. Weakens our case just that much more, growled Elisha. * We were to furnish the tow-line. Heave away, my boys ! said Martin. Dey s only so many ropes aboard her, an when we get em all we ve got dat boat an dem men. So they warped their craft across the Western Ocean. Knot after knot, hawser after hawser, came over the bows and cumbered the deck. They would have passed them over the stern as fast as they came in were they not salvors with litigation ahead ; for their hands must be clean when they entered their claim, and to this end Elisha chalked out the longitude daily at noon and showed it to the steamer, always receiving a thankful acknowledgment on the whistle. He secured the figures by his dead- reckoning ; but the carefully-kept log-book also showed longitude by chronometer sights, taken when the sun shone, with his old quadrant and older watch, and corrected to bring a result plausibly near to that of reckoning by log and compass. But the log-book 114 Salvage contained no reference to the loss of the chronometer. That was to happen at the last. On stormy days, when the sea rose, they dared not shorten their tow-line, and the steamer-folk made sure that it was long enough to eliminate the risk of its parting. So these days were passed in idleness and profanity; and when the sea went down they would go to work, hoping that the last tow-line was in their hands. But it was not until the steamer had given them three Manila and two steel hawsers, four weak too weak mooring chains, and a couple of old and frayed warping-lines, that the coming up to the bow of an anchor-chain of six-inch link told them that the end was near, that the steamer had exhausted her supply of tow-lines, and that her presumably sane skipper would not give them his last means of anchor ing the other chain. They were right. Either for this reason or because of the proximity to English bottom the steamer ceased her coyness, and her crew watched from the taffrail. while those implacable, purposeful men behind crept up to them. It was slow, laborious work ; for the small windlass would not grip the heavy links of the chain, and they must needs climb out a few fathoms, making fast messengers to heave on, while the idle half of them gathered in the slackened links by hand. On a calm, still night they finally unshipped the windlass-brakes and looked up at the round, black stern of the steamer not fifty feet ahead. They were surrounded by lights of outgoing and incoming craft, and they knew by soundings taken that day, when the steamer had slowed down for the same purpose, that they were within the hundred-fathom curve, close to the mouth of the Channel, but not within the three- mile limit. Kejoicing at the latter fact, they armed themselves to a man with belaying-pins from their still intact pin-rails, and climbed out on the cable, the whole 115 i 2 Salvage eighteen of them, man following man, in close climb ing order. * Now, look here, said a portly man with a gilt- bound cap to the leader of the line, as he threw a leg over the taffrail, what s the meaning, may I ask, of this unreasonable conduct ? * You may ask, of course, said the man it was Elisha * but we d like to ask something, too (he was sparring for time until more should arrive) ; we d like to ask why you drag us across the Atlantic Ocean against our will ? Another man climbed aboard, and said : Yes ; we J gree to steer you into New York. You s adrif in de trough of de sea, an you got no chrono meter, an you can t navigate, an we come long under command, mind you an give you our tow- line, an tell you de road to port. Wha you mean by dis? Tut, tut, my coloured friend! answered the man of gilt. * You were dismasted and helpless, and I gave you a tow. It was on the high seas, and I chose the port, as I had the right. Another climbed on board. * We were not helpless, rejoined Elisha. We had a good jury-rig under the bows, and we let it go to assist you. Are you the skipper here ? I am. Martin s big fist smote him heavily in the face, and the blow was followed by the crash of Elisha s belay- ing-pin on his head. The captain fell, and for a while lay quiet. There were four big, strong men over the rail now, and others coming. Opposing them were a second mate, an engineer, a fireman, a coal-passer, watchman, steward, and cook easy victims to these big-limbed fishermen. The rest of the crew were on duty below decks or at the steering-winch. It was a short, sharp battle ; a few pistols exploded, but no one 116 Salvage was hurt, and the firearms were captured and their owners well hammered with belaying - pins ; then, binding all victims as they overcame them, the whole party raided the steering-winch and engine-room, and the piracy was complete. But from their standpoint it was not piracy it was resistance to piracy and when Amos, the ex-engineer, had stopped the engines and banked the fires, they announced to the captives bound to the rail that, with all due respect for the law, national and international, they would take that distressed steamboat into New York and deliver her to the authorities, with a claim for salvage. The bargain had been made on the American coast, and their log-book not only attested this, but the well-doing of their part of the contract. When the infuriated English captain, now recovered, had exhausted his stock of adjectives and epithets, he informed them (and he was backed by his steward and engineer) that there was neither food nor coal for the run to New York ; to which Elisha replied that, if so, the foolish and destructive waste would be pro perly entered in the log-book, and might form the basis of a charge of barratry by the underwriters, if it turned out that any underwriters had taken a risk on a craft with such an all-fired lunatic for a skipper as this. But they would go back ; they might be forced to burn some of the woodwork fittings (her decks were of iron) for fuel, and as for food, though their own supply of groceries was about exhausted, there were several cubic yards of salt codfish in the schooner s hold, and this they would eat : they were used to it themselves, and science had declared that it was good brain-food good for feeble-minded Eng lishmen who couldn t splice wire nor take care of a chronometer. Before starting back they made some preliminary and precautionary preparations. While Martin in- 117 Salvage ventoried the stores and Amos the coal- supply, the others towed the schooner alongside and moored her. Then they shackled the schooner s end of the chain- cable around the inner barrel of the windlass and riveted the key of the shackle. They transhipped their clothing and what was left of the provisions. They also took the log-book and charts, compass, empty outer chronometer-case which Elisha handled tenderly and officiously by its strap in full view of the captives windlass-brakes, tool-chest, deck-tools, axes, handspikes, heavers, boat-hooks, belaying-pins, and everything in the shape of weapon or missile by which disgruntled Englishmen could do harm to the schooner or their rescuers. Then they passed the rescued ones down to the schooner, and Martin told them where they would find the iron kettle for boiling codfish, with the additional information that with skill and ingenuity they could make fish-balls in the same kettle. Martin had reported a plenitude of provisions, and anathematized the lying captain and steward ; and Amos had declared his belief that with careful economy in the use of coal they could steam to the American coast with the supply in the bunkers : so they did not take any of the codfish ; and the hawsers, valuable as fuel in case of a shortage, were left where they would be more valuable as evidence against the lawless, incompetent Englishmen. And they also left the dories, all but one, for reasons in Elisha s mind which he did not state at the time. They removed the bonds of one man who could release the others and cast off the fastenings ; then, with Amos and a picked crew of pupils in the boat s vitals, they went ahead and dropped the prison-hulk back to the full length of the chain, while the furious curses of the prisoners troubled the air. They found a little difficulty in steering by the winch and deck- 118 Salvage compass (they would have mended the tiller-ropes with a section of backstay had they not bargained otherwise), but finally mastered the knack, and headed westerly. You cannot take an Englishman s ship from under him homeward bound and close to port and drag him to sea again on a diet of salt codfish without impinging on his sanity. When day broke they looked and saw the hawsers slipping over the schooner s rail, and afterwards a fountain of fish arising from her hatches to follow the hawsers over board. What s de game, I wunner ? asked Martin. Tryin to starve deyselves ? Dunno, answered Elisha, with a serious expres sion. They re not doin it for nothin . They re wavin their hats at us. Somethin on their minds. We ll jes let em wave. We ll go long bout our business. So they went at eight knots an hour ; for, try as he might, Amos could get no more out of the engine. * She s a divil to chew up coal! he explained; we may have to burn the boat yet. Hope not, said Elisha. Tween you an me, Amos, this is a desperate bluff we re makin , an if we go to destroyin property we may get no credit for savin it. We d have no chance in the English courts at all, but it s likely an American judge "ud recognise our original position our bargain to steer her in. Too bad bout that tarred cable of ours, rejoined Amos ; three days good fuel in that, I calculate. Well, it s gone with the codfish, and the fact is properly entered in the log as barratrous conduct on the part of the skipper enough to prove him insane. And further to strengthen this possible aspect of the case, Elisha found a blank space on the leaf of the log-book which recorded the first meeting and 119 Salvage bargain to tow, and filled it with the potential sentence: Steamer s commander acts strangely. For a well-kept log-book is excellent testimony in court. Elisha s knowledge of navigation did not enable him to project a course on the great circle the shortest track between two points on the earth s surface, and the route taken by steamers. But he possessed a fairly practical and ingenious mind, and with a flexible steel straight-edge rule, and a class room globe in the skipper s room, laid out his course between the lane-routes of the liners which he would need to vary daily as it was not wise to court investi gation. But he signalled to two passing steamships for Greenwich time, and set his watch, obtaining its rate of correction by the second favour; and with this and his surely correct latitude by meridian observation he hoped to make an accurate landfall in home waters. And so the hours went by, with their captives waving caps ceaselessly, until the third day s sun arose to show them an empty deck on the schooner, over a dozen specks far astern and to the southward, and an east-bound steamship on their port bow. The specks could be nothing but the dories, and they were evidently trying to intercept the steamship. Elisha yelled in delight. 1 They ve abandoned ship just what I hoped for in the dories. They ve no case at all now. * But what for, Elisha ? asked Martin. Mus be hungry, I t ink. Mebbe, or else they think that liner, who can stop only to save life carries the mails, you see will turn round and put em in charge here. Why, nothin but an English man-o -war could do that now. They saw the steamship slow down, while the black specks flocked up to her, and then go on her way. 120 Salvage And they went on theirs ; but three days later they had reasoned out a better explanation of the English men s conduct. Martin came on deck with a worried face, and announced that, running short of salt meat in the harness-cask, he had broken out the barrels of beef, pork, and hard bread that he had counted upon, and found their contents absolutely uneatable, far gone in putrescence, alive with crawling things. * Must ha thought he was fitting out a Yankee hell-ship when he bought this, said Elisha in disgust, as he looked into the ill- smelling barrels. Overboard with it, boys ! Overboard went the provisions, for starving animals could not eat of them, and the odour permeated the ship. They resigned themselves to a gloomy outlook gloomier when Amos reported that the coal in the bunkers would last but two days longer. He had been mistaken, he said ; he had calculated to run compound engines with Scotch boilers, not a full- powered blast-furnace with six inches of scale on the crown-sheets. And they knew this, groaned Elisha. That s why they chucked the stuff overboard to bring us to terms, and never thinkin they d starve first. They were dead luny, but we re lunier. They stopped the engines and visited the schooner in the dory. Not a scrap of food was there, and the fish-kettle was scraped bright. They returned and went on. With plenty of coal there was still six days run ahead to New York. How many with wood fuel, chopped on empty stomachs and burned in coal- furnaces, they could not guess. But they went to work. There were three axes, two top-mauls, and several handspikes and pinch-bars aboard, and with these they attacked bulkheads and spare woodwork, and fed the fires with the fragments ; for a glance down the hatches had shown them nothing more 121 Salvage combustible and detachable in the cargo than a few layers of railroad iron, which covered and blocked the openings to the lower hold. With the tools at hand they could not supply the rapacious fires fast enough to keep up steam, and the engines slowed to a five-knot rate. As this would not maintain a sufficient tension on the dragging schooner to steer by, they were forced to sacrifice the best item in their claim for salvage : they spliced the tiller-ropes and steered from the pilot-house. They would have sacrificed the schooner, too, for Amos complained bitterly of the load on the engines ; but Elisha would not hear of it. She was the last evidence in their favour now, their last connection with respect ability. She and the pavement o h 1, he growled fiercely, * are all we ve got to back us up ! Without proof we re pirates under the law. However, he made no entry in the log of the splicing, trusting that a chance would come in port to remove the section of wire rope with which they had joined the broken ends. And, indeed, it seemed that their claim was dwindling. The chronometer which they were to use for the steamer s benefit was lost ; the tow-line which they were to furnish had been given back to them; the course to New York which they chalked out had not been accepted ; the abandoning of their ship by the Englishmen was clearly enforced by the pressure of their own presence ; and now they them selves had been forced to cancel from the claim the schooner s value, as a necessary drag behind the steamer, by substituting a three hours splicing- job, worth five dollars in a rigging-loft, and possibly fifty if bargained for at sea. Nothing was left them now but their good intentions, duly entered in the log book. 122 Salvage But fate, and the stupid understanding of some one or two of them, decreed that their good intentions also should be taken from them. The log-book disappeared, and, the strictest search failing to bring it to light, the conclusion was reached that it had been fed to the fires among the wreckage of the skipper s room and furniture. They blasphemed to the extent that the occasion required, and there was civil war for a time, while the suspected ones were being punished ; then they drew what remaining comfort they could from burning the steamer s log-book and track-chart, which contained data conflicting with their position in the case, and resumed their labours. Martin had raked and scraped together enough of food to give them two scant meals, but, these eaten, starvation began. The details of their suffering need not be given. They chopped, hammered, and pried in hunger and anxiety, and with lessening strength, while the days passed by fortunately spared the torture of thirst, for there was plenty of water in the tanks. Upheld by the dominating influence of Elisha, Martin, and Amos, they stripped the upper works and fed to the fires every door and sash, every bulkhead and wooden partition, all chairs, stools, and tables, cabin berths and forecastle bunks. Then they attempted sending down the top-masts, but gave it up for lack of strength to get mast-ropes aloft, and attacked instead the boats on the chocks, of which there were four. It was no part of the plan to ask help of passing craft, and have their distressed condition taken ad vantage of ; but when the hopelessness of the fight at last appealed to the master spirits, they consented to the signalling of an east-bound steamer, far to the northward, in the hope of getting food. So the English ensign, union down, was again flown from the gaff. It was at a time when Elisha could not 123 Salvage stand up at the wheel, when Amos at the engines could not have reversed them, when Martin man of iron staggered weakly around among the rest and struck them with a pump-brake, keeping them at work. (They would strive under the blows, and sit down when he had passed.) But the flag was not seen ; a haze arose between the two craft and thick ened to fog. By Elisha s reckoning they were on the Banks now, about a hundred miles due south from Cape Sable, and nearer to Boston than to Halifax ; other wise he might have made for the latter port, and defied alien prejudice. But the fog continued, and it was not port they were looking for now; it was help, food ; they were working for life, not salvage ; and, wasting no steam, they listened for whistles or fog-horns, but heard none near enough to be answered by their weak voices. And so the boat, dragging the dismal mockery behind her, plodded and groped her way on the course which Elisha had shaped for Boston, while man after man dropped in his tracks, refusing to rise ; and those that were left nourished the fires as they could, until the afternoon of the third day of fog, when the thumping, struggling engines halted, started, made a half-revolution, and came to a dead stop. Amos crawled on deck and forward to the bridge, where, with Elisha s help, he dragged on the whistle-rope, and dissipated the remaining steam in a wheezy, gasping howl, which lasted about a half- minute. It was answered by a furious siren-blast from directly astern, and out of the fog, at twenty knots an hour, came a mammoth black steamer. Seeming to heave the small tramp out of the way with her bow wave, she roared by at six feet distance, and in ten seconds they were looking at her vanishing stern. But ten minutes later the stern appeared in 124 Salvage view, as the liner backed toward them. The reversed English ensign still hung at the gaff; and the starving men, some prostrate on the deck, some clinging to the rails, unable to shout, had pointed to the flag of distress and beckoned as the big ship rushed by. There s a chance, said the captain of this liner to the pilot, as he rejoined him on the bridge an hour later, of international complications over this case, and I may have to lose a trip to testify. That s the Afghan Prince and consort that I was telling you about. Strange, isn t it, that I should pick up these fellows after picking up the legitimate crew going east? I don t know which crew was the hungriest. The real crew charge this crowd with piracy. By George, it s rather funny ! And these men, said the pilot, with a laugh, would have claimed salvage ? Yes, and had a good claim, too, for effort expended ; but they ve offset it by their violence. Their chance was good in the English courts, if they d only allowed the steamer to go on ; and then, too, they abandoned her in a more dangerous position than where they found her. You see, they met her off Nantucket with sea-room, and nothing wrong with her but broken tiller-ropes, and they quit her here close to Sandy Hook, in a fog, more than likely to hit the beach before morning. Then, in that case, she belongs to the owners or underwriters. Why didn t they make Boston ? asked the pilot. Tried to, but overran their distance. Chrono meter must have been way out. I talked to the one who navigated, and found that he d never thought of allowing for local attraction didn t happen to run against the boat s deviation table and so, with all 125 Salvage that railway iron below hatches, he fetched clear o Nantucket, and way in here. That s tough. The salvage of that steamer would make them rich, wouldn t it ? And I think they might have got it if they could have held out. Yes ; think they might. But here s another funny thing about it. They needn t have starved ; they needn t have chopped her to pieces for fuel. I just remember now. Her skipper told me there was good anthracite coal in her hold, and Chicago canned meats, Minnesota flour, beef, pork, and all sorts of good grub. He carried some of the rails in the tween-deck for steadying ballast, and I suppose it prevented them looking farther. And now they ll lose their salvage, and perhaps have to pay it on their own schooner if anything comes along and picks them up. That s the craft that ll get the salvage. Not likely, said the pilot ; not in this fog, and the wind and sea rising. I ll give em six hours to fetch up on the Jersey coast. A mail contract with the government is sometimes a nuisance, isn t it, captain? How many years would it take you to save money to equal your share of the salvage if you had yanked that tramp and the schooner into New York? It would take more than one lifetime, answered the captain, a little sadly. * A skipper on a mail- boat is the biggest fool that goes to sea ! The liner did not reach quarantine until after sun down, hence remained there through the night. As she was lifting her anchor in the morning, prepara tory to steaming up to her dock, the crew of the Rosebud, refreshed by food and sleep, but still weak and nerveless, came on deck to witness a harrowing sight. The Afghan Prince was coming toward the anchorage before a brisk south-east wind. Astern of her, held by the heavy iron chain, was their 126 Salvage schooner. Moored to her, one on each side, were two garbage-scows, and at the head of the parade, pretending to tow them all puffing, rolling, and smoking in the effort to keep a strain on the tow- line and tooting joyously with her whistle, was a little, dingy tugboat, with a large gilt name on her pilot-house J. C. Hawks. 127 BETWEEN THE MILLSTONES HE stood before the recruiting-officer, trembling with nervousness, anxious of face, and clothed in rags ; but he was clean, for knowing the moral effect of cleanliness, he had lately sought the beach and taken a swim. Want to enlist ? asked the officer, taking his measure with trained eye. Yes, sir ; I read you wanted men in the navy. Want seamen, firemen, and landsmen. What s your occupation? You look like a tramp. Yes, he answered bitterly, I m a tramp. That s all they d let me be. I used to be a locomotive engineer before the big strike. Then they black listed me, and I ve never had a job above labourin work since. It s easy to take to the road and stay at it when you find you can t make over a dollar a day at back-breakin work, after earnin three and four at the throttle. An engineer knows nothin but his trade, sir. Take it away, and he s a labourin man. 1 I d ha worked and learned another, but they gaoled me put me in choky, cause I had no visible means o support. I had no money, and was a criminal under the law. And they kept at it jailed me again and again as a vagrant when all I wanted was work. After a while I didn t care. But now s my chance, sir, if you ll take me on. I don t know 128 Between the Millstones much about boats and the sea, but I can fire an engine, and know something about steam. * A fireman s work on board a war-vessel is very different from that of a locomotive fireman, said the officer, leaning back in his chair. I know, sir; that may be, the tramp replied eagerly ; but I can shovel coal, and I can learn, and I can work. I m not very strong now, cause I haven t had much to eat o late years ; but I m not a drinkin man why, that costs more than grub. Give me a chance, sir ; I m an American ; I m sick o bein hunted from gaol to gaol, like a wild animal, just cause I can t be satisfied with pick-and-shovel work. I ve spent half o the last five years in gaol as a vagrant. I put in a month at Fernandina, and then I was chased out o town. They gave me two months at Cedar Keys, and I came here, only to get a month more in this gaol. I got out this mornin , and was told by the copper who pinched me to get out o Pensacola or he d run me in again. And he s outside now, waitin for me. I dodged past im to get in. Pass this man in to the surgeon, said the officer, with something like a sympathetic snort in the tone of his voice ; for he also was an American. An orderly escorted him to the surgeon, who ex amined him and passed him. Then the recruit signed his name to a paper. * Emaciated, wrote the surgeon in his daily report ; * body badly nourished, and susceptible to any infec tion. Shows slight febrile symptoms, which should be attended to. An intelligent man ; with good food and care will become valuable. The tramp marched to the receiving-ship with a squad of other recruits, and on the way smiled trium phantly into the face of a mulatto policeman, who glared at him. He had signed his name on a piece of paper, and the act had changed his status. From a 129 K Between the Millstones hunted fugitive and habitual criminal he had become a defender of his country s honour a potential hero. On board the receiving-ship he was given an outfit of clothes and bedding ; but before he had learned more than the correct way to lash his hammock and tie his silk neckerchief he was detailed for sea duty, and with a draft of men went to Key West in a navy- yard tug; for war was on, and the fleet blockading Havana needed men. At Key West he was appointed fireman on a torpedo- boat, where his work which he soon learned was to keep up steam in a tubular boiler. But he learned nothing of the rest of the boat, her business, or the reason of her construction. Sea-sickness prevented any assertion of curiosity at first, and later the febrile symptoms which the examining surgeon had noted developed in him until he could think of nothing else. There being no doctor aboard to diagnose his case, he was jeered by his fellows, and kept at work until he dropped ; then he took to his hammock. Shooting pains darted through him, centring in his head, while his throat was dry and his thirst tormenting. Life on a torpedo-boat engaged in despatch duty and rushing through a Gulf Stream sea at thirty knots is torture to a healthy nervous system. It sent this sick man into speedy delirium. He could eat very little, but he drank all the water that was given him. Moaning and muttering, tossing about in his hammock, never asleep, but sometimes unconscious, at other times raving, and occasionally lucid, he pre sented a problem which demanded solution. His emaciated face, flushed at first, had taken on a peculiar bronzed appearance, and there were some who declared that it was Yellow Jack. But nothing could be done until they reached the fleet, and could interview a cruiser with a surgeon. The sick man solved the problem. He scrambled 130 Between the Millstones out of his hammock at daylight in the morning, and dressed himself in his blue uniform, carefully tying his black neckerchief in the regulation knot. Then, muttering the while, he gained the deck. The boat was charging along at full speed, throwing aside a bow wave nearly as high as herself. Three miles astern, just discernible in the half-light, was a pursuing ram-bowed gunboat, spitting shot and shell ; and forward near the conning-tower were two blue- coated, brass-buttoned officers, watching the pursuer through binoculars. The crazed brain of the sick man took cognizance of nothing but the blue coats and brass buttons. He did not look for locust clubs and silver shields. These were policemen his deadliest enemies ; but he would escape them this time. With a yell he went overboard, and, being no swimmer, would have drowned had not one of the blue-coated officers flung a life-buoy. He came to the surface somewhat saner, and seized the white ring, which supported him, while the torpedo-boat rushed on. She could not stop for one man in time of war, with a heavily-armed enemy so near. A twenty-knot gunboat cannot chase a thirty-knot torpedo-boat very long without losing her below the horizon ; but this pursuit lasted ten minutes from the time the sick man went overboard before the gunboat ceased firing and slackened speed. The quarry was five miles away, out of Spanish range, and the floating man directly under her bow. He was seen and taken on board, with Spanish profanity sounding in his un- regarding ears. He lay on the deck, a bedraggled heap, gibbering and shivering, while a surgeon, with cotton in his nostrils and smelling-salts in his hand, diagnosed his case. Then the gunboat headed north, and dropped anchor in the bight of a small, crescent-shaped sand- 131 K 2 Between the Millstones key of the Florida Eeef. For the diagnosis was such as to suggest prompt action. Two brave men bundled him into the dinghy, lowered it, pulled ashore, and laid him on the sand. Keturning, they stripped and threw away their clothing, sank the boat with a buoy on a painter, took a swim, and climbed aboard to be further disinfected. Then the gunboat lifted her anchor and steamed east ward, her officers watching through glasses a small, low torpedo-boat, far to the south-east too far to be reached by gun-fire which was steering a parallel course, and presumably watching the gunboat. An idiot, a lunatic, with bloodshot eyes glaring from a yellow face, raved, rolled, and staggered bareheaded under the sun about the sandy crescent until sundown, then fell prostrate and unconscious into the water on the beach, luckily turning over so that his nostrils were not immersed. The tide went down, leaving him damp and still on the sands. In about an hour a sigh, followed by a deep, gasping breath, escaped him ; another long inhalation succeeded, and another ; then came steady, healthy breathing and childlike sleep, with perspiration oozing from every pore. He had passed a crisis. About midnight the cloudy sky cleared and the tropic stars came out, while the tide climbed the beach again, and lapped at the sleeping man s feet ; but he did not waken, even when the Spanish gunboat stole slowly into the bay from the sea and dropped anchor with a loud rattling of chain in the hawse-pipe. A boat was lowered, and a single man sculled it ashore ; then lifting out a small cask and bag, he placed them high on the sands and looked around. Spying the sleeping man, half immersed now, he approached and felt of the damp clothing and equally damp face. Not noticing that he breathed softly, the man crossed himself, then moved quickly and nervously 132 Between the Millstones toward his boat, muttering, Muerto, muerto ! Push ing out, he sculled rapidly toward the anchored craft, and disposed of the boat and his clothing as had been done before ; then he swam to the gangway and climbed aboard. Shortly after, the sleeping man, roused by the chill of the water, crawled aimlessly up the sand and slept again safe beyond the tide-line. In three hours he sat up and rubbed his eyes, half awake, but sane. Strange sights and sounds puzzled him. He knew nothing of this starlit beach and stretch of sparkling water nothing of that long black craft at anchor, with the longer beam of white light reaching over the sea from her pilot-house. He could only surmise that she was a war- vessel from the ram-bow a feature of the Government model which had impressed him at Key West and from the noise she was making. She quivered in a maze of flickering red flashes, and the rattling din of her rapid-fire and machine-guns tran scended in volume all the roadside blastings he had heard in his wanderings. Dazed and astonished, he rose to his feet, but, too weak to stand, sat down again and looked. Half a mile seaward, where the beam of light ended, a small craft, low down between two crested waves, was speeding toward the gunboat in the face of her fire. The water about her was lashed into turmoil by the hail of projectiles ; but she kept on, at locomotive speed, until within a thousand feet of the gunboat, when she turned sharply to starboard, doubled on her track, and raced off to sea, still covered by the search light and followed by shot and shell while the gunners could see her. When the gun-fire ceased, a hissing of steam could be heard in the distance, and a triumphant Spanish yell answered. The small enemy had been struck, and the gunboat slipped her cable and followed. 133 Between the Millstones The tired brain could not cope with the problem, and again the man slept, to awaken at sunrise with ravenous hunger and thirst, and a memory of what seemed to be horrible dreams vague recollections of painful experiences torturing labour with aching muscles and blistered hands ; harsh words and ridicule from strong, bearded men ; and running through and between, the shadowy figures of blue-coated, brass- buttoned men, continually ordering him on, and threatening arrest. The spectacle of the night was as dream-like as the rest ; for he remembered nothing of the gunboat which had rescued and marooned him. His face had lost its yellowish-bronze colour, but was pale and emaciated as ever, while his sunken eyes held the soft light which always comes of extreme physical suffering. He was too weak to remain on his feet, but in the effort to do so he spied the cask and bag higher up on the beach and crawled to them. Prizing a plug from the bunghole with his knife, he found water, sweet and delicious, which he drank by rolling the cask carefully and burying his lips in the overflow. Evidently someone in authority on the gunboat had decreed that he should not die of hunger or thirst, for the bag contained hard bread. Stronger after a meal, he climbed the highest sand- dune and studied the situation. An outcropping of coral formed the backbone of the thin crescent which held him, and which was about half a mile between the points. To the south, opening out from the bay, was a clear stretch of sea, green in the sunlight, deep- blue in the shadows of the clouds, and on the horizon were a few sails and smoke-columns. West and east were other sandy islets and coral reefs, and to the north a continuous line of larger islands, which might be inhabited, but gave no indication of it. Out in the bay, bobbing to the heave of the slight ground- swell, were the three white buoys left by the 134 Between the Millstones Spaniards to mark the sunken boats and slipped cable ; and far away on the beach, just within the western point, was something long and round, which rolled in the gentle surf and glistened in the sunlight. He knew nothing of buoys, but they relieved his loneli ness ; they were signs of human beings, who must have placed him there with the bread and water, and who might come for him. Wonder if I got pinched again, and this is some new kind of a choky, he mused. Been blamed sick and silly, and must ha lost the job and got gaoled again. Just my luck ! S pose the jug was crowded and they run me out here. Wish they d left me a hat. Wonder how long I m in for this time. He descended to the beach, and found that repeated wettings of his hair relieved him from the headache that the sun s heat was bringing on ; and satisfied that the strong hand of local law had again closed over him, he resigned himself to the situation, resent ing only the absence of a shade-tree or a hat. Much better n the calaboose in El Paso, he muttered, or the brickyard in Chicago. As he lolled in the sand, the glistening thing over at the western point again caught his eye. After a moment s scrutiny he rose and limped toward it, following the concave of the beach, and often pausing to rest and bathe his head. It was a long journey for him, and the tide, at half -ebb when he started, was rising again when he came abreast of the object and sat down to look at it. It was of metal, long and round, rolling nearly submerged, and held by the alternate surf and undertow parallel with the beach, about twenty feet out. He waded in, grasped it by a T-shaped projection in the middle, and headed it toward the shore. Then he launched it forward with all his strength not much, but enough to lift a bluntly-pointed end out of 135 Between the Millstones water as it grounded and exposed a small, four-bladed steel wheel, shaped something like a windmill. He examined this, but could not understand it, as it whirled freely either way and seemed to have no in ternal connection. The strange cylinder was about six teen feet long and about eighteen inches in diameter. * Boat o some kind, he muttered ; but what kind? That screw s too small to make it go. Let s see the other end. He launched it with difficulty, and noticed that when floating end on to the surf it ceased to roll and kept the T-shaped projection uppermost, proving that it was ballasted. Swinging it, he grounded the other end, which was radically different in appearance. It was long and finely pointed, with four steel blades or vanes, two horizontal and two vertical like the double tails of an ideal fish and in hollowed parts of these vanes were hung a pair of unmistakable propellers, one behind the other, and of opposite pitch and motion. * One works on the shaft, t other on a sleeve, he mused, as he turned them. A roundhouse wiper could see that. Bevel-gearin inside, I guess. It s a boat, sure enough, and this reverse action must be to keep her from rolling. On each of the four vanes he found a small blade, showing by its connection that it possessed range of action, yet immovable as the vane itself, as though held firmly by inner leverage. Those on the horizontal vanes were tilted upward. Just abaft the T-shaped projection which, fastened firmly to the hull, told him nothing of its purpose were numerous brass posts buried flush with the surface, in each of which was a square hole, as though intended to be turned with a key or crank. Some were marked with radiating lines and numbers, and they evidently con trolled the inner mechanism, part of which he could Between the Millstones see little brass cog-wheels, worms and levers through a fore-and-aft slot near the keyholes. Kising from the forward end of this slot, and lying close to the metal hull in front of it, was a strong lever of brass, L-shaped, connected internally, and indicating to his trained mechanical mind that its only sphere of action was to lift up and sink back into the slot. He fingered it, but did not yet try to move it. A little to the left of this lever was a small blade of steel, curved to fit the convex hull which it hugged closely and hinged at its forward edge. This, too, must have a purpose an internal connec tion and he did not disturb it until he had learned more. To the right of the brass lever was an oblong hatch about eight inches long, flush with the hull, and held in place by screws. Three seams, with lines of screws, encircled the round hulls, showing that it was con structed in four sections ; and these screws, with those in the hatch, were strong and numerous placed there to stay. Fatigued from his exertion, he moistened his hair, sat down, and watched the incoming tide swing the craft round parallel with the beach. As the sub merged bow raised to a level with the stern, he noticed that the small blades on the horizontal vanes dropped from their upward slant to a straight line with the vanes. Kudders, he said * horizontal rudders. Can t be anything else. With his chin in his hand and his wrinkled brow creased with deeper corrugations, he put his mind through a process of inductive reasoning. Horizontal rudders, he mused, must be to keep her from diving, or to make her dive. They work automatically, and I s pose the vertical rudders are the same. There s nothing outside to turn em with. That boat isn t made to ride in no way to get into Between the Millstones her and she isn t big enough, anyhow. And as you can t get into her, that brass lever must be what starts and stops her. Wonder what the steel blade s for. Tisn t a handy shape for a lever, to be handled with fingers too sharp ; but it has work to do, or it wouldn t be there. That section o railroad iron on top must be to hang the boat by a traveller when she s out o water. And the fan-wheel on the nose what s that for? If it s a speed or distance indicator, the dial s inside, out o sight. There s no exhaust, so the motive-power can t be steam. Clockwork or electricity, maybe. Mighty fine workmanship all through ! That square door is fitted in for keeps, and she must ha cost a heap, Now, as she has horizontal rudders, she s intended to steer up and down ; and as there s no way to get into her or to stay on her, and as she can t be started from the inside or steered from the outside, I take it she s a model o one o those submarine boats I ve heard of some fellow s invention that s got away from him. Guess I ll try that lever and see what happens. I ll bury the propellers, though ; no engine ought to race. He pushed the craft into deeper water, pointed it shoreward, and cautiously lifted the curved blade to a perpendicular position, as high as it would go. Nothing happened. He lowered it, raised it again it worked very easily then, leaving it upright, he threw the long brass lever back into the slot. A slight humming came from within, the propellers revolved slowly, and the craft moved ahead until the bow grounded. Then he followed and lifted the lever out of the slot to its first position, shutting off the power. Delighted with his success, he backed it out farther than before and again threw back the brass lever, this time with the curved blade down flat on the hull. With the sinking of the lever into the slot the 138 Between the Millstones mechanism within gave forth a rushing sound, the propellers at the stern threw up a mound of foam, and the craft shot past him, dived until it glanced on the sandy bottom, then slid a third of its length out of water on the beach and stopped, the propellers still churning, and the small wheel on the nose still spinning with the motion given it by the water. * Air-pressure ! he exclaimed, as he shut it off. He had seen a line of bubbles rise as the thing dived. An air-engine, and the whole thing must be full o compressed air. The brass lever turns it on, and if the steel blade s up, it gives it the slow motion ; if it s down, she gets full speed at once. Now I know why it s blade-shaped. It s so the water itself can push it down after she starts. He did not try to launch it ; he waited until the tide floated it, then pushed it along the beach toward his store of food, arriving at high water too exhausted to do more that day than ground his capture and break hard bread. And as the afternoon drew to a close the fatigue in his limbs became racking pain ; either as a result of his exposure, or as a later symptom of the fever, he was now in the clutch of a new enemy rheumatism. Then with the coming of night came a return of his first violent symptoms ; he was hot, shivery and feverish by turns, with dry tongue and throat, and a splitting headache ; but in this condition he could still take cognizance of a black, ram-bowed gunboat, which stole into the bay from the east and dropped anchor near the buoys. A half-moon shone in the western sky, and by its light the steamer presented an unkempt, broken appearance, even to the untrained eye of this cast away. Her after-funnel was but half as high as the other ; there were gaps in her iron rail, and vacancies below the twisted davits where boats should be ; and 139 Between the Millstones her pilot-house was wrecked the starboard door and nearest window merged in a large, ragged hole. Officers on the bridge gave orders in foreign speech, in tones which came shoreward faintly. Men sprang overboard with ropes, which they fastened to the buoys ; then they swam back, and for an hour or two the whole crew was busy getting the boats to the davits and the end of the cable into the hawse-pipe. The man on the beach recognised the craft he had seen when he wakened. He felt that she must in some way be connected with his being there, and he waited, expecting to see a boat put off ; but when both boats were hoisted and he heard the humming of a steam-windlass, he gave up this expectation and tried to hail. His voice could not rise above a hoarse whisper. The anchor was fished, and after an interval he heard the windlass again, heaving in the other chain. They were going away going to leave him there to die. He crawled and stumbled down to the water s edge. The tide was up again, rippling around the strange thing he had resolved to navigate. It was not a boat, but it would go ahead, and it would float it would possibly float him. With strength born of desperation and fear, he pushed it, inch by inch, into the water until it was clear of the sand, and tried the engine on the slow motion. The propellers turned and satisfied him. He shut off the power, swung the thing round until it pointed toward the steamer, and seated himself astride of it, just abaft the T-shaped projection in the middle. The long cylinder sank with him, and when it had steadied to a balance between his weight and its buoyancy, he found that it bore him, shoulders out; and the position he had taken within reach of the levers behind him lifted the blunt nose higher than the stern, but not out of water. This was practicable. 140 Between the Millstones He reached behind, raised the blade lever, threw back the large brass lever, and the craft went ahead, at about the speed of a healthy man s walk. He kept his left hand on the blade lever to hold it up, and by skilful paddling with his right maintained his balance and assisted his legs in steering. He had never learned to swim, but he felt less fear of drown ing than of slow death on the island. In five minutes he was near enough to the steamer to read her name. He pulled the starting-lever forward, stopping his headway ; for he must be sure of his welcome. Say, boss, he called faintly and hoarsely, take me along, can t you ? Or else gi me some medicine. I m blamed sick I ll die if I stay here. The noise of the windlass and chain prevented this being heard, but at last, after repeated calls on his part, a Spanish howl went up from amidships, and a sailor sprang from one of the boats to the deck, crossed himself, and pointing to the man in the water, ran forward. Madre de Dios! he yelled. El aparecido del muerto ! Work stopped, and a call down a hatchway stopped the windlass. In ports and dead -lights appeared faces ; and those on deck, officers and men, crowded to the rail, some to cross themselves, some to sink on their knees, others to grip the rail tightly, while they stared in silence at the torso and livid face in the moonlight on the sea the ghastly face of the man they had marooned to die alone, who had been seen later dead on the beach. Take me with you, boss, he pleaded with his weak voice. I m sick ; I can t hold on much longer. It was not the dead man s body washed out from the beach, for it moved, it spoke. And it was not a 141 Between the Millstones living man ; no man may recover from advanced yellow fever, and this man had been found afterward, dead cold and still. And no living man may swim in this manner high out of water, patting and splash ing with one hand. It was a ghost. It had come to punish them. For que nos atormentan asi, hombre, deja ? cried a white-faced officer. Can t you hear me? asked the apparition. I ll come closer. He threw back the starting-lever, and the thing began moving. Then a rifle-barrel protruded from a dead-light. There was a report and a flash, and a bullet passed through his hair. The shock startled him, and he lost his balance. In the effort to recover it his leg knocked down the blade-lever, and the steel cylinder sprang forward, leaving him floundering in the water. Pointed upward, it appeared for a moment on the surface, then dived like a porpoise and dis appeared. In five seconds something happened to the gunboat. Coincident with a sound like near-by thunder, the black craft lifted amidships like a bending jack-knife, and up from the shattered deck, and out from ports, doors and dead-lights came a volcano of flame and smoke. The sea beneath followed in a mound, which burst like a great bubble, sending a cloud of steam and spray and whitish-yellow smoke aloft to mingle with the first and meet the falling fragments. These fell for .several seconds hatches, gratings, buckets, ladders, splinters of wood, parts of men, and men whole, but limp. A side-ladder fell near the choking and half-stunned sick man, and he seized it. Before he could crawl on top, the two halves of the gunboat had sunk in a swirl of bubbles and whirlpools. A few broken and bleeding swimmers approached 142 Between the Millstones to share his support, saw his awful face in the moon light, and swam away. A few hours later a gray cruiser loomed up close by and directed a search-light at him. Then a gray cutter full of white-clad men approached and took him off the ladder. He was delirious again, and bleeding from mouth, nose and ears. The surgeon and the torpedo-lieutenant came up from the sick-bay, the latter with enthusiasm on his face for he was young and joined a group of officers on the quarter-deck. He ll pull through, gentlemen, said the surgeon. He is the man Mosher lost overboard, though he doesn t know anything about it, nor how he got on that sand-key. I suppose the Destructor picked him up and landed him. He found bread and water, he says. You see, the first symptoms are similar in Yellow Jack and relapsing bilious fever. I don t wonder that Mosher was nervous. Then it was the Destructor T asked an ensign, pulling out a note-book and a pencil. And Lieu tenant Mosher was right, after all ? Yes ; this man read her name before she blew up ; and a Spanish sailor has waked up and confirmed it. She was the Destructor, just over, and trying to get into Havana. Instead of blowing up in Algeciras Bay, as they thought, she had left with despatches for Havana, only to blow up on the Florida Keel The Destructor^ said the ensign, as he pocketed his note-book and pencil, carried fifty-five men. Don t we get the bounty as the nearest craft ? Not much! said the young and enthusiastic torpedo-lieutenant. We were not e ven within signal distance, and came along by accident. Listen, all of you. When an American war-craft sinks or destroys a larger enemy, there is a bounty due to her crew of 143 Between the Millstones two hundred dollars for every man on board the enemy. That is law, isn t it ? They nodded. * If a submarine boat can be a war-craft, so may a White- head torpedo, and certainly is one, being built for war. A war-craft abandoned is a derelict, and the man who finds her becomes her lawful commander for the time. If he belongs to the navy, his position is strengthened, and if he is alone he is not only commander, but the whole crew, and consequently he is entitled to all the bounty she may earn. That is law. Now, listen hard. Lieutenant Mosher sent one torpedo at the gunboat ; it missed and became derelict, while Mosher escaped under one boiler. This man found the derelict adrift, puzzled out the action, waited until the gunboat came back for her anchor, then straddled his craft, and rode out with the water- tripper up. They shot at him. He turned his dog loose and destroyed the enemy. If the Destructor carried fifty-five men, he is entitled to eleven thousand dollars, and the Government must pay, for that is law. 144 THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS EXTRACT from hospital record of the case of John Anderson, patient of Dr. Brown, Ward 3, Room 6 : August 3. Arrived at hospital in extreme mental distress, having been bitten on wrist three hours previously by dog known to have been rabid. Large, strong man, full-blooded and well nourished ; sanguine temperament ; pulse and temperature higher than normal, due to excitement. Cauterized wound at once (2 p.m.), and inoculated with antitoxin. As patient admits having recently escaped, by swimming ashore, from lately-arrived cholera ship, now at quarantine, he has been isolated and clothing disinfected. Watch for symptoms of cholera. August 3, 6 p.m. Microscopic examination of blood cor roborative of Metschnikoff s theory of fighting leucocytes. White corpuscles gorged with bacteria. ***** He was an amphibian, and, as such, undeniably beautiful ; for the sunlight, refracted and diffused in the water, gave his translucent, pearl-blue body all the shifting colours of the spectrum. Vigorous and graceful of movement, in shape he resembled a comma of three dimensions, twisted, when at rest, to a slight spiral curve ; but in travelling he straightened out with quick, successive jerks, each one sending him ahead a couple of lengths. Supplemented by the un- dulatory movement of a long continuation of his tail, it was his way of swimming, good enough to enable him to escape his enemies this, and riding at anchor The Battle of in a current by his cable-like appendage, constituted his main occupation in life. The pleasure of eating was denied him ; Nature had given him a mouth, but he used it only for purposes of offence and defence, absorbing his food in a most unheard-of manner through the soft walls of his body. Yet he enjoyed a few social pleasures. Though the organs of the five senses were missing in his economy, he possessed an inner sixth sense which answered for all, and also gave him power of speech. He would converse, swap news and views, with creatures of his own and other species, provided that they were of equal size and prowess ; but he wasted no time on any but his social peers. Smaller creatures he pur sued when they annoyed him ; larger ones pursued him. The sunlight, which made him so beautiful to look at, was distasteful to him ; it also made him too visible. He preferred a half-darkness and less fervour to life s battle time to judge of chances, to figure on an enemy s speed and turning-circle, before beginning flight or pursuit. But his dislike of it really came of a stronger animus a shuddering recollection of three hours once passed on dry land in a comatose condition, which had followed a particularly long and intense period of bright sunlight. He had never been able to explain the connection, but the awful memory still saddened his life. And now it seemed, as he swam about, that this experience might be repeated. The light was strong and long-continued, the water uncomfortably warm, and the crowd about him denser, so much so as to prevent him from attending properly to a social inferior who had crossed his bow. But just as his mind grasped the full imminence of the danger, there came a sudden darkness, a crash and vibra tion of the water, then a terrible rattling roar of 146 the Monsters sound. The social inferior slipped from his mouth, and, with his crowding neighbours, was washed far away, while he felt himself slipping along, bounding and rebounding against the projections of a corrugated wall, which showed white in the gloom. There was an unpleasant taste to the water, and he became aware of creatures in his vicinity unlike any he had known quickly-darting little monsters about a tenth as large as himself thousands of them, black and horrid to see, each with short, fish-like body and square head, like that of a dog, with wicked mouth that opened and shut nervously ; with hooked flippers on the middle part, and a bunch of tentacles on the fore that spread out ahead and around. A dozen of them surrounded him menacingly, but he was young and strong, much larger than they, and a little frightened. A blow of his tail killed two, and the rest drew off. The current bore them on until the white wall rounded off and was lost to sight beyond the mass of darting creatures. Here was slack water, and with desperate effort he swam back, pushing the small enemies out of his path, meeting some resist ance and receiving a few bites, until, in a hollow in the wall, he found temporary refuge and time to think. But he could not solve the problem. He had not the slightest idea where he was or what had happened, who and what were the strange black creatures, or why they had threatened him. His thoughts were interrupted. Another vibrant roar sounded, and there was pitch-black darkness ; then he was pushed and washed away from his shelter, jostled, bumped, and squeezed, until he found himself in a dimly - lighted tunnel, which, crowded as it was with swimmers, was narrow enough to enable him to see both sides at once. The walls were dark-brown and blue, broken up everywhere into 147 L 2 The Battle of depressions or caves, some of them so deep as to be almost like blind tunnels. The dog-faced creatures were there as far as he could see ; but besides them now were others of stranger shape of species un known to him. A slow current carried them on, and soon they entered a larger tunnel. He swam to the opposite wall, gripped a projection, and watched in wonder and awe the procession gliding by. He soon noticed the source of the dim light. A small creature with barrel-like body and innumerable legs or tentacles, wavering and reaching, floated past. Its body swelled and shrank alternately, with every swelling giving out a phosphorescent glow, with every contraction darken ing to a faint red colour. Then came a group of others ; then a second living lamp ; later another and another. They were evenly distributed, and illumined the tunnel. There were monstrous shapes, living but inert, barely pulsing with dormant life, as much larger than himself as the dog-headed kind were smaller huge, unwieldy, disc- shaped masses of tissue, light- gray at the margins, dark-red in the middle. They were in the majority, and blocked the view. Darting and wriggling between and about them were horrible forms, some larger than himself, others smaller. There were serpents, who swam with a serpent s motion. Some were serpents in form, but were curled rigidly into living corkscrews, and by sculling with their tails screwed their way through the water with surprising rapidity. Others were barrel or globe- shaped, with swarming tentacles. With these they pulled themselves along, in and out through the crowd, or, bringing their squirming appendages rear ward each an individual snake used them as pro pellers, and swam. There were creatures in the form of long cylinders, some with tentacles, by which they 148 the Monsters rolled along like a log in a tideway ; others, without appendages, were as inert and helpless as the huge red and gray discs. He saw four ball-shaped creatures float by, clinging together ; then a group of eight, then one of twelve. All these, to the extent of their volition, seemed to be in a state of extreme agitation and excitement. The cause was apparent. The tunnel from which he had come was still discharging the dog-faced animals by the thousand, and he knew now the business they were on. It was war war to the death. They flung themselves with furious energy into the parade, fighting and biting all they could reach. A hundred at a time would pounce on one of the large red-and-gray creatures, almost hiding it from view ; then, and before they had passed out of sight, they would fall off and disperse, and the once living victim would come with them, in parts. The smaller, active swimmers fled, but if one was caught he suffered a quick dart, a tangle of tentacles, an embrace of the wicked flippers, a bite, and a dead body floated on. And now into the battle came a ponderous engine of vengeance and defence a gigantic, lumbering, pulsating creature, white and translucent but for the dark, active brain showing through its walls, horrible in the slow, implacable deliberation of its movements, floating down with the current. It was larger than the huge red-and-gray creatures. It was formless, in the full irony of the definition for it assumed all forms. It was long barrel-shaped ; it shrank to a sphere, then broadened laterally, and again extended above and below. In turn it was a sphere, a disc, a pyramid, a pentahedron, a polyhedron. It possessed neither legs, flippers, nor tentacles ; but out from its heaving, shrinking body it would send, now from one spot, now from another, an active arm, or feeler, with 149 The Battle of which it swam, pulled, or pushed. An unlucky in vader which one of them touched made few more voluntary movements ; for instantly the whole side of the whitish mass bristled with arms. They seized, crushed, killed it, and then pushed it bodily through the living walls to the animal s interior to serve for food. And the gaping fissure healed at once, like the wounds of Milton s warring angels. The first white monster floated down, killing as he went ; then came another, pushing eagerly into the fray ; then came two, then three, then dozens. It seemed that the word had been passed, and the army of defence was mustering. Sick with horror, he watched the grim spectacle from the shelter of the projection, until roused to an active sense of danger to himself but not from the fighters. He was anchored by his tail, swinging easily in the eddy, and now felt himself touched from beneath, again from above. A projection down-stream was extending outward and toward him. The cave in which he had taken refuge was closing on him like a great mouth as though directed by an intelligence behind the wall. With a terrified flirt of his tail he flung himself out, and as he drifted down with the combat the walls of the cave crunched together. It was well for him that he was not there. The current was clogged with fragments of once living creatures, and everywhere, darting, dodging, and biting, were the fierce black invaders. But they paid no present attention to him or to the email ten- tacled animals. They killed the large, helpless red- and-gray kind, and were killed by the larger white monsters, each moment marking the death and rend ing to fragments of a victim, and the horrid interment of fully half his slayers. The tunnel grew larger, as mouth after mouth of tributary tunnels was passed ; but as each one discharged its quota of swimming 150 the Monsters and drifting creatures, there was no thinning of the crowd. As he drifted on with the inharmonious throng, he noticed what seemed the objective of the war. This was the caves which lined the tunnel. Some were apparently rigid, others were mobile. A large red- and-gray animal was pushed into the mouth of one of the latter, and the walls instantly closed ; then they opened, and the creature drifted out, limp and colour less, but alive ; and with him came fragments of the wall, broken off by the pressure. This happened again and again, but the large creature was never quite killed merely squeezed. The tentacled non- combatants and the large white fighters seemed to know the danger of these tunnel mouths, possibly from bitter experiences, for they avoided the walls ; but the dog-faced invaders sought this death, and only fought on their way to the caves. Sometimes two, often four or more, would launch themselves together into a hollow, but to no avail ; their united strength could not prevent the closing in of the mechanical maw, and they were crushed and flung out, to drift on with other debris. Soon the walls could not be seen for the pushing, jostling crowd, but everywhere the terrible, silent war went on until there came a time when fighting ceased ; for each must look out for himself. They seemed to be in an immense cave, and the tide was broken into cross-currents rushing violently to the accompani ment of rhythmical thunder. They were shaken, jostled, pushed about and pushed together, hundreds of the smaller creatures dying from the pressure. Then there was a moment of comparative quiet, during which fighting was resumed, and there could be seen the swiftly-flying walls of a large tunnel. Next they were rushed through a labyrinth of small caves with walls of curious, branching formation, The Battle of sponge-like and intricate. It required energetic effort to prevent being caught in the meshes, and the large red-and-gray creatures were sadly torn and crushed, while the white ones fought their way through by main strength. Again the flying walls of a tunnel, again a mighty cave, and the cross-currents, and the rhythmical thunder, and now a wild charge down an immense tunnel, the wall of which surged out ward and inward, in unison with the roaring of the thunder. The thunder died away in the distance, though the walls still surged even those of a smaller tunnel which divided the current and received them. Down stream the tunnel branched again and again, and with the lessening of the diameter was a lessening of the current s velocity, until, in a maze of small, short passages, the invaders, content to fight and kill in the swifter tide, again attacked the caves. But to the never -changing result: they were crushed, mangled, and cast out, the number of suicides in this neighbourhood largely exceeding those killed by the white warriors. And yet, in spite of the large mortality among them, the attacking force was increasing. Where one died two took his place ; and the reason was soon made plain they were re producing. A black fighter, longer than his fellows, a little sluggish of movement, as though from the restrictive pressure of a large, round protuberance in his middle, which made him resemble a snake which had swallowed an egg, was caught by a white monster and instantly embraced by a multitude of feelers. He struggled, bit, and broke in two; then the two parts escaped the grip of the astonished captor, and wriggled away, the protuberance becoming the head of the rear portion, which immediately joined the fight, snapping and biting with unmistakable jaws. This phenomenon was repeated. 152 the Monsters And on went the battle. Illumined by the living lamps, and watched by terrified noncombatants, the horrid carnival continued with never- slacking fury and ever-changing background past the mouths of tributary tunnels which increased the volume and velocity of the current and added to the fighting strength, on through widening archways to a repeti tion of the cross-currents, the thunder, and the sponge- like maze, down past the heaving walls of larger tunnels to branched passages, where, in comparatively slack water, the siege of the caves was resumed. For hour after hour this went on, the invaders dying by hundreds, but increasing by thousands and ten thou sands, as the geometrical progression advanced, until, with swimming-spaces nearly choked by their bodies, living and dead, there came the inevitable turn in the tide of battle. A white monster was killed. Glutted with victims, exhausted and sluggish, he was pounced upon by hundreds, hidden from view by a living envelope of black, which pulsed and throbbed with his death-throes. A feeler reached out, to be bitten off; then another, to no avail. His strength was gone, and the assailants bit and burrowed until they reached a vital part, when the great mass assumed a spherical form and throbbed no more. They dropped off, and, as the mangled ball floated on, charged on the next enemy with renewed fury and courage born of their victory. This one died as quickly. And as though it had been foreseen, and a policy arranged to meet it, the white army no longer fought in the open, but lined up along the walls to defend the immovable caves. They avoided the working jaws of the other kind, which certainly needed no garrison, and drifting slowly in the eddies, fought as they could, with decreasing strength and increasing death-rate. And thus it happened that our conservative non-com batant, out in mid-stream, found himself surrounded 153 The Battle of by a horde of black enemies who had nothing better to do than attack him. And they did. As many as could crowd about him closed their wicked jaws in his flesh. Squirming with pain, rendered trebly strong by his terror, he killed them by twos and threes as he could reach them with his tail. He shook them off with nervous contortions, only to make room for more. He plunged, rolled, launched himself forward and back, up and down, out and in, bending himself nearly double, then with lightning rapidity throwing himself far into the re verse curve. He was fighting for his life, and knew it. When he could, he used his jaws, only once to an enemy. He saw dimly at intervals that the white monsters were watching him ; but none offered to help, and he had not time to call. He thought that he must have become the object of the war ; for from all sides they swarmed, crowding about him, seeking a place on which to fasten their jaws. Little by little the large red-and-gray creatures, the non-combatants, and the phosphorescent animals were pushed aside, and he, the centre of an almost solid black mass, fought, in utter darkness, with the fury of extreme fright. He had no appreciation of the passing of time, no knowledge of his distance from the wall, or the destination of this never-pausing current. But finally, after an apparently intermin able period, he heard dimly, with failing consciousness, the reverberations of the thunder, and knew momen tary respite as the violent cross-currents tore his assailants away. Then, still in darkness, he felt the crashing and tearing of flesh against obstructing walls and sharp corners, the repetition of thunder and the roar of the current which told him he was once more in a large tunnel. An instant of light from a venture some torch showed him to his enemies, and again he fought, like a whale in his last flurry, slowly dying 154 the Monsters from exhaustion and pain, but still potential to kill terrible in his agony. There was no counting of scalps in that day s work ; but perhaps no devouring white monster in all the defensive army could have shown a death-list equal to his. From the surging black cloud there was a steady outflow of the dead, pushed back by the living. Weaker and weaker, while they mangled his flesh, and still in darkness, he fought them down through branching passages to another network of small tunnels, where he caught a momentary view of the walls and the stolid white guard, thence on to what he knew was open space. And here he felt that he could fight no more. They had covered him com pletely, and, try as he might with his failing strength, he could not dislodge them. So he ceased his struggles, and numb with pain, dazed with despair, he awaited the end. But it did not come. He was too exhausted to feel surprise or joy when they suddenly dropped away from him ; but the instinct of self-preservation was still in force, and he swam towards the wall. The small creatures paid him no attention ; they scurried this way and that, busy with troubles of their own, while he crept stupidly and painfully between two white sentries floating in the eddies one of whom considerately made room for him and anchored to a projection, luckily choosing a harbour that was not hostile. Any port in a storm, eh, neighbour ? said the one who had given him room, and who seemed to notice his dazed condition. You ll feel better soon. My, but you put up a good fight, that s what you did ! He could not answer, and the friendly guard re sumed his vigil. In a few moments, however, he could take cognizance of what was going on in the stream. There was a new army in the fight, and 155 The Battle of reinforcements were still coming. A short distance above him was a huge rent in the wall, and the caves around it, crushed and distorted, were grinding fiercely. Protruding through the rent and extending half-way across the tunnel was a huge mass of some strange substance, roughly shaped to a cylindrical form. It was hollow, and out of it, by thousands and hundred thousands, was pouring the auxiliary army, from which the black fighters were now fleeing for dear life. The newcomers, though resembling in general form the creatures they pursued, were much larger and of two distinct types. Both were light-brown in colour ; but while one showed huge development of head and jaw, with small flippers, the other kind reversed these attributes, their heads being small, but their flippers long and powerful. They ran their quarry down in the open, and seized them with outreaching tentacles. No mistakes were made no feints or false motions ; and there was no resistance by the victims. Where one was noticed he was doomed. The tentacles gathered him in to a murderous bite or a murderous embrace. At last, when the inflow had ceased when there must have been millions of the brown killers in the tunnel the great hollow cylinder turned slowly on its axis and backed out through the rent in the wall, which immediately closed, with a crushing and scat tering of fragments. Though the allies were far down-stream now, the war was practically ended ; for the white defenders remained near the walls, and the black invaders were in wildest panic, each one, as the resistless current rushed him past, swimming against the stream, to put distance between himself and the destroyer below. But before long an advance-guard of the brown enemy shot out from the tributaries above, and the tide of retreat swung backwards. 156 the Monsters Then came thousands of them, and the massacre was resumed. * Hot stuff, eh ? said his friendly neighbour to him. Y-y-y-es I guess so, he answered, rather vacantly. I don t know; I don t know anything about it. I never saw such doings. What is it all for? What does it mean ? Oh, this is nothing; it s all in a lifetime. Still, I admit it might ha been serious for us and you, too if we hadn t got help. But who are they, and what ? They all seem of a family, and are killing each other. Immortal shade of Darwin! exclaimed the other sentry, who had not spoken before. Where were you brought up? Don t you know that variations from type are the deadliest enemies of the parent stock? These two brown breeds are the hundredth or two-hundredth cousins of the black kind. When they ve killed off their common relative, and get to competing for grub, they ll exterminate each other, and we ll be rid of em all. Law of nature. Under stand? Oh, y-yes, I understand, of course ; but what did the black kind attack me for? And what do they want, anyway? To follow out their destiny, I s pose. They re the kind of folks who have missions reformers, we call em who want to enforce their peculiar ideas and habits on other people. Sometimes we call them ex pansionists fond of colonizing territory that doesn t belong to them. They wanted to get through the cells to the lymph-passages, then on to the brain and spinal marrow. Know what that means? Hydro phobia. What s that? Oh, say, now ! You re too easy. Come, come, said the other good-naturedly; don t 157 The Battle of guy him. He never had our advantages. You see, neighbour, we get these points from the subjective brain, which knows all things and gives us our instructions. We re the white corpuscles phago cytes the scientists call us and our work is to police the bloodvessels, and kill off invaders that make trouble. Those red-and-gray chumps can t take care of themselves, and we must protect em. Understand? But this invasion was too much for us, and we had to have help from outside. You must have come in with the first crowd think I saw you in at the bite. Second crowd came in through an inoculation tube, and just in time to pull you through. * I don t know, answered our bewildered friend. In at the bite ? What bite ? I was swimming round comfortable-like, and there was a big noise, and then I was alongside of a big white wall, and then Exactly ; the dog s tooth. You got into bad com pany, friend, and you re well out of it. That first gang is the microbe of rabies, not very well known yet, because a little too small to be seen by most microscopes. All the scientists seem to have learned about em is that a colony a few hundred generations old which they call a culture, or serum is death on the original bird ; and that s what they sent in to help out. Pasteur s dead, worse luck, but some time old Koch 11 find out what we ve known all along that it s only variation from type. Koch ! he answered eagerly and proudly. Oh, I know Koch ; I ve met him. And I know about micro scopes, too. Why, Koch had me under his microscope once. He discovered my family, and named us the comma bacilli the Spirilli of Asiatic Cholera. In silent horror they drew away from him, and then conversed together. Other white warriors drift ing along stopped and joined the conference, and 158 the Monsters when a hundred or more were massed before him, they spread out to a semi-spherical formation and closed in. What s the matter ? he asked nervously. What s wrong ? What are you going to do ? I haven t done anything, have I ? It s not what you ve done, stranger, said his quondam friend, or what we re going to do. It s what you re going to do. You re going to die. Don t see how you got past quarantine, anyhow. What why I don t want to die. I ve done nothing. All I want is peace and quiet, and a place to swim where it isn t too light nor too dark. I mind my own affairs. Let me alone you hear me let me alone ! They answered him not. Slowly and irresistibly the hollow formation contracted individuals slipping out when necessary until he was pushed, still pro testing, into the nearest movable cave. The walls crashed together, and his life went out. When he was cast forth he was in five pieces. And so our gentle, conservative, non-combative cholera microbe, who only wanted to be left alone to mind his own affairs, met this violent death, a martyr to prejudice and an unsympathetic environment. ***** Extract from hospital record of the case of John Anderson : August 18. As period of incubation for both cholera and hydrophobia has passed, and no initial symptoms of either disease have been noticed, patient is this day discharged, cured. FROM THE ROYAL-YARD DOWN As night descended, cold and damp, the wind hauled, and by nine o clock the ship was charging along before a half-gale and a rising sea from the port quarter. When the watch had braced the yards, the mate ordered the spanker brailed in and the mizzen- royal clewed up, as the ship steered hard. This was done, and the men coiled up the gear. Let the spanker hang in the brails ; tie up the royal, ordered the mate from his position at the break of the poop. Ay, ay, sir, answered a voice from the group, and an active figure sprang into the rigging. Another figure slim and graceful, clad in long yellow oilskin coat, and a sou -wester which could not confine a tangled fringe of wind-blown hair left the shelter of the aftercompanion-way and sped along the alley to the mate s side. The foot-rope, Mr. Adams, she said hurriedly. The seizing was chafed, you remember. By George, Miss Freda ! said the officer. Forgot all about it. Glad you spoke. Come down from aloft, he added in a roar. The sailor answered and descended. Get a piece of spun yarn out o the booby-hatch and take it up wi you, continued the mate. Pass a 160 From the Royal- Yard down temporary seizing on the lee royal foot-rope. Make sure it s all right fore you get on it, now. * Ay, ay, sir. The man passed down the poop steps, secured the spun yarn, and while rolling it into a ball to put in his pocket, stood for a moment in the light shining from the second mate s room. The girl on the poop looked down at him. He was a trim-built, well- favoured young fellow, with more refinement in his face than most sailors can show; yet there was no lack of seamanly deftness in the fingers which balled up the spun yarn and threw a half-hitch with the bight of the lanyard over the point of the marlinespike which hung to his neck. As he climbed the steps, the girl faced him, looking squarely into his eyes. Be careful, John Mr. Owen, she said. The seizing is chafed through. I heard the man report it it was Dutch George, of the other watch. Do be careful. Eh, why why, yes, Miss Folsom. Thank you. But you startled me. I ve been Jack for three years not John, nor Mister. Yes, it s all right ; I Get aloft to that mizzen-royal, thundered the mate, now near the wheel. Ay, ay, sir. He touched his sou -wester to the girl and mounted the weather mizzen-rigging, running up the ratlines as a fireman goes up a ladder. It was a black night with cold rain ; having thrown off his oiled jacket, he was already drenched to the skin; but no environment of sunshine, green fields and woodland, and flower - scented air ever made life brighter to him than had the incident of the last few moments ; and with every nerve in his body rejoicing in his victory, and her bitter words of four years back crowding his mind as a contrasting back ground, he danced up and over the futtock-shrouds, up the topmast-rigging, through the crosstrees, and 161 M From the up the topgallant-rigging to where the ratlines ended, and he must climb on the runner of the royal- halyards. As the yard was lowered, this was a short climb, and he swung himself upward to the weather yard-arm, where he rolled up one side of the sail with extravagant waste of muscular effort ; for she had said he was not a man, and he had proved her wrong : he had conquered himself, and he had conquered her. He hitched the gasket, and crossed over to the lee side, forgetting, in his exhilaration, the object of the spun yarn in his pocket and the marlinespike hung from his neck, stepped out on the foot-rope, passed his hands along the jack-stay to pull himself farther, and felt the foot-rope sink to the sound of snapping strands. The jackstay was torn from his grasp, and he fell, face downward, into the black void beneath. An involuntary shriek began on his lips, but was not finished. He felt that the last atom of air was jarred from his lungs by what he knew was the topgallant - yard, four feet below the royal ; and, unable to hold on, with a freezing cold in his veins and at the hair-roots, he experienced in its fulness the terrible sensation of falling whirling downward clutching wildly at vacancy with stiffened fingers. The first horror past, his mind took on a strange contemplativeness ; fear of death gave way to mild curiosity as to the manner of it. Would he strike on the lee quarter, or would he go overboard? And might he not catch something? There was rigging below him ; the lee royal-backstay stretched farthest out from the mast, and if he brushed it, there was a possible chance. He was now face upward, and with the utmost difficulty moved his eyes he could not yet, by any exercise of will or muscle, move his head and there, almost within reach, was a dark line, which he knew was the royal-backstay ; farther in 162 Royal-Yard down towards the spars was another the topgallant-back stay ; and within this, two other ropes which he knew for the topgallant-rigging, though he could see no ratlines, nor could he distinguish the lay of the strands ; the ropes appeared like solid bars. This, with the fact that he was still but a few feet below the topgallant-yard, surprised him, until it came to him that falling bodies travel over sixteen feet in the first second of descent, which is at a rate too fast for distinct vision, and that the apparent slowness of his falling was but relative because of the quickness of his mind, which could not wait on a sluggish optic nerve and more sluggish retina. Yet he wondered why he could not reach out and grasp the backstay. It seemed as though invisible fetters bound every muscle and joint, though not completely. An intense effort of will resulted in the slow extension of all the fingers of his right hand, and a little straightening of the arm toward the back stay ; but not until he had fallen to the level of the upper topsail-yard was this result reached. It did no good ; the backstay was now farther away. As it led in a straight line from the royal- masthead to the rail, this meant that he would fall overboard, and the thought comforted him. The concussion would kill him, of course ; but no self-pity afflicted him now. He merely considered that she, who had relented, would be spared the sight of him crushed to a pulp on the deck. As he drifted down past the expanse of upper top sail, he noticed that his head was sinking and his body turning, so that he would ultimately face for ward ; but still his arms and legs held their extended position, like those of a speared frog, and the thought recalled to him an incident of his infancy a frog- hunt with an older playmate, his prowess, success, wet feet, and consequent illness. It had been for- 163 M 2 From the gotten for years, but the chain was started, and led to other memories, long dead, which rose before him. His childhood passed in review, with its pleasures and griefs : his school-days, with their sports, conflicts, friends and enemies ; college, where he had acquired the polish to make him petted of all but one, and abhorrent to her. Almost every person, man or woman, boy or girl, with whom he had conversed in his whole life came back and repeated the scene ; and as he passed the lower topsail-yard, nearly head downward, he was muttering commonplaces to a brown-faced, gray-eyed girl, who listened, and looked him through and through, and seemed to be wonder ing why he existed. And as he traversed the depth of the lower topsail, turning gradually on his axis, he lived it over next to his first voyage, the most harrowing period of his life : the short two months during which he had striven vainly to impress this simple-natured sailor- girl with his good qualities, ending at last with his frantic declaration of a love that she did not want. * But it s not the least use, John, she said to him. I do not love you, and I cannot. You are a gentle man, as they say, and as such I like you well enough ; but I never can love you, nor anyone like you. I ve been among men real men all my life, and perhaps have ideals that are strange to you. John her eyes were wide open in earnestness * you are not a man ! Writhing under her words, which would have been brutal spoken by another, he cursed, not her, nor himself, but his luck, and the fates that had shaped his life. And next she was showing him the opened door, saying that she could tolerate profanity in a man, but not in a gentleman, and that under no circumstances was he to claim her acquaintance again. Then followed the snubbing in the street, when, like a lately - whipped dog, he had placed 164 Royal-Yard down himself in her way, hoping she would notice him; and the long agony of humiliation and despair as his heart and soul followed her over the seas in her father s ship, until the seed she had planted the small suspicion that her words were true developed into a wholesome conviction that she had measured him by a higher standard than any he had known, and found him wanting. So he would go to her school, and learn what she knew. With lightning-like rapidity, his mind rehearsed the details of his tuition : the four long voyages ; the brutality of the officers until he had learned his work ; their consideration and rough kindness when he had become useful and valuable ; the curious, incongruous feeling of self-respect that none but able seamen feel ; the growth in him of an aggressive physical courage ; the triumphant satisfaction with which he finally knew himself as a complete man, clean in morals and mind, able to look men in the face. And then came the moment when, mustering at the capstan with the new crew of her father s ship, he had met her surprised eyes with a steady glance, and received no recognition. And so he pleaded his cause, dumbly, by the life that he lived. Asking nothing by word or look, he proved himself under her eyes first on deck ; first in the rigging; the best man at a weather-earing; the best at the wheel ; quick, obedient, intelligent, and respectful, winning the admiration of his mates, the jealous ill-will of the officers, but no sign of interest or approval from her until to-night the ninety- second day of the passage. She had surrendered ; he had reached her level, only to die and he thought this strange. Facing downward, head inboard now, and nearly horizontal, he was passing the cross-jack yard. Below him was the sea black and crisp, motionless as 165 From the though carved in ebony. Neither was there move ment of the ship and its rigging ; the hanging bights of ropes were rigid, while a breaking sea just abaft the main chains remained poised, curled, its white crest a frozen pillow of foam. The rapidity of thought, he mused dreamily ; but I m falling fast enough fast enough to kill me when I strike. He could not move an eyelid now, nor was he conscious that he breathed ; but, being nearly up right, facing aft and inboard, the quarter-deck and its fittings were before his eyes, and he saw what brought him out of eternity to a moment of finite time and emotion. The helmsman stood at the motionless wheel with his right hand poised six inches above a spoke, as though some sudden paralysis gripped him, and his face, illumined by the binnacle light, turned aloft inquiringly. But it was not this. Standing at the taffrail, one hand on a life-buoy, was a girl in yellow, looking at him un speakable horror in the look and around her waist the arm of the mate, on whose rather handsome face was an evil grin. A pang of earthly rage and jealousy shot through him, and he wished to live. By a supreme effort of will he brought his legs close together and his arms straight above his head ; then the picture before him shot upward, and he was immersed in cold salt water, with blackness all about him. How long he remained under he could not guess. He had struck feet first and suffered no harm, but had gone down like a deep- sea lead. He felt the aching sensation in his lungs coming from suppressed breathing, and swam blindly in the darkness, not knowing in which direction was the surface, until he felt the marlinespike still fastened to his neck extending off to the right. Sure that it must hang downward, he turned the other way, and, keeping it parallel with his body, 166 Royal- Yard down swam with bursting lungs, until he felt air upon his face, and knew that he could breathe. In choking sobs and gasps his breath came and went, while he paddled with hands and feet, glad of his reprieve; and when his lungs worked normally he struck out for a white, circular life-buoy, not six feet away. Bless her for this ! he prayed, as he slipped it under his arms. His oilskin trousers were cumber some, and with a little trouble he shed them. He was alive, and his world was again in motion. Seas lifted and dropped him, occasionally breaking over his head. In the calm of the hollows he listened for voices of possible rescuers. On the tops of the seas ears filled with the roar of the gale he shouted, facing to leeward, and searching with strained eyes for sign of the ship or one of her boats. At last he saw a pin-point of light far away, and around it and above it blacker darkness, which was faintly shaped to the outline of a ship and canvas, hove to in the trough, with maintopsail aback, as he knew by its foreshortening. And even as he looked and shouted, it faded away. He screamed and cursed, for he wanted to live. He had survived that terrible fall, and it was his right. Something white showed on the top of a sea to leeward, and sank in a hollow. He sank with it, and when he rose again it was nearer. Boat ahoy ! he sang out boat ahoy ! This way port a little steady ! He swam as he could, cumbered by the life-buoy, and with every heaving sea the boat came nearer. At last he recognised it the ship s dinghy ; and it was being pulled into the teeth of that forceful wind and sea by a single rower a slight figure in yellow. It s Freda ! he exclaimed ; and then, in a shout : This way, Miss Folsom a little farther ! 167 From the She turned, nodded, and pulled the boat up to him. He seized the gunwale, and she took in the oars. * Can you climb in alone, John ? she asked in an even voice, as even as though she were asking him to have more tea. Wait a little I am tired and I will help you. She was ever calm and dispassionate, but he wondered at her now; yet he would not be out done. I ll climb over the stern, Freda, so as not to capsize you. Better go forward to balance my weight. * She did so. He pulled himself to the stern, slipped the life-buoy over his head and into the boat, then, by a mighty exercise of all his strength, vaulted aboard with seeming ease, and sat down on a thwart. He felt a strong inclination to laughter and tears, but repressed himself ; for masculine hysterics would not do before this young woman. She came aft to the next thwart, and when he felt steadier he said : You have saved my life, Freda; but thanks are idle now, for your own is in danger. Give me the oars. We must get back to the ship. She changed places with him, facing forward, and said wearily, as he shipped the oars : So you want to get back ? Why, yes ; don t you ? We are adrift in an open boat. The wind is going down, and the seas do not break, she answered, in the same weary voice. It does not rain any more, and we shall have the moon. A glance around told him that she spoke truly. There was less pressure to the wind, and the seas rose and fell, sweeping past them like moving hills of oil. Moonlight shining through thinning clouds faintly illumined her face, and he noted the expressionless 168 Royal- Yard down weariness of her voice, and a sad, dreamy look in her gray eyes. * How did you get the dinghy down, Freda ? he asked. And why did no one come with you ? * Father was asleep, and the mate was incompetent. I had my revolver, and they backed the yards for me and threw the dinghy over. I had loosened the gripes as you went aloft. I thought you would fall. Still, no one would come. And you came alone, he said in a broken voice, and pulled this boat to windward in this sea ! You are a wonder. I saw you catch the life-buoy. Why did you fall ? You were cautioned. I forgot the foot-rope. I was thinking of you. You are like the mate. He forgot the foot-rope all day because he was thinking of me. I should have gone aloft and seized it myself. There was no reproof or sarcasm in the tired voice. She had simply made an assertion. Why are you at sea, before the mast a man of your talents ? It was foolish, he knew, but the word man sent a thrill through him. * To please you, if I may ; to cultivate what you did not find in me. Yes, I knew ; when you came on board I knew it. But you might have spoken to me. There was petulance in the tone now, and the soul of the man rejoiced. The woman in her was asserting itself. Miss Folsom, he answered warmly, * I could not. You had made it impossible. It was your right, your duty, if you wished it. But you ignored my existence. * I was testing you. I am glad now, Mr. Owen. The petulance was gone, but there was something chilling in this answer. 169 From the * Can you see the ship ? he asked, after a moment s silence. The moonlight is stronger. We shall not reach her. They have squared away. The mate had the deck, and father is asleep. And left you in an open boat ! he answered angrily. He knew I was with you. What was irrelevant in this explanation of the mate s conduct escaped him at the time. The full moon had emerged from behind the racing clouds, and it brightened her face, fringed by the tangled hair and yellow sou -wester, to an unearthly beauty that he had never seen before. He wondered at it, and for a moment a grisly thought crossed his mind that this was not life, But death ; that he had died in the fall, and in some manner the girl had followed. She was standing erect, her lithe figure swaying to the boat s motion, and pointing to leeward, while the moonlit face was now sweetened by the smile of a happy child. He stood up, and looked where she pointed, but saw nothing, and seated himself to look at her. * See ! she exclaimed gleefully. They have hauled out the spanker, and are sheeting home the royal. I will never be married ! I will never be married ! He knew I was with you. Again he stood up and searched the sea to leeward. There was nothing in sight. Unhinged, he thought, by this night s trouble. Freda, he said gently, please sit down. You may fall overboard. I am not insane, she said, as though reading his thought; and, smiling radiantly in his face, she obeyed him. Do you know where we are ? he asked tentatively. Are we in the track of ships ? No, she answered, while her face took on the dreamy look again. We are out of all the tracks ; 170 Royal- Yard down we will not be picked up. We are due west from Ilio Island. I saw it at sundown broad on the star board bow. The wind is due south. If you will pull in the trough of the sea, we can reach it before day light. I am tired so tired and sleepy. Will you watch out? Why, certainly. Lie down in the stern-sheets and sleep if you can. She curled up in her yellow oil-coat and slumbered through the night, while he pulled easily on the oars not that he had full faith in her navigation, but to keep himself warm. The sea became smoother, and as the moon rose higher it attained a brightness almost equal to that of the sun, casting over the clear sky a deep-blue tint that shaded indefinitely into the darkness, extending from itself to the horizon. Late in the night he remembered the danger of sleeping in strong moonlight, and arising softly to cover her face with his damp handkerchief, he found her looking at him. We are almost there, John. Wake me when we arrive, she said, and closed her eyes. He covered her face, and, marvelling at her words, looked ahead. He was within a half-mile of a sandy beach which bordered a wooded island. The sea was now like glass in its level smoothness, and the air was warm and fragrant with the smell of flowers and foliage. He shipped the oars, and pulled to the beach. As the boat grounded she arose, and he helped her ashore. The beach shone white under the moonlight, and dotting it were large shellfish and moving crabs that scuttled away from them. Bordering the beach were forest and undergrowth, with interlacery of flowering vines. A ridge of rocks near by disclosed caves and hollows, some filled by the water of tinkling cascades. Oranges showed in the branches of trees, and cocoa- 171 From the palms lifted their heads high in the distance. A small deer arose, looked at them, and lay down, while a rabbit inspected them from another direc tion, and began nibbling. * An earthly paradise, I should say, he observed, as he hauled the boat up the beach. Plenty of food and water, at any rate. It is Ilio Island, she answered, with that same dreamy voice. It is uninhabited and never visited. But surely, Freda, something will come along and take us off. No ; if I am taken off, I must be married, of course; and I will never be married. Who to, Freda? Whom must you marry if we are rescued ? The mate Mr. Adams. Not you, John Owen not you. I do not like you. She was unbalanced, of course; but the speech pained him immeasurably, and he made no answer. He searched the clean-cut horizon for a moment, and when he looked back she was close to him, with the infantile smile on her face, candour and sanity in her gray eyes. Involuntarily he extended his arms, and she nestled within them. You will be married, Freda, he said; you will be married and to me. He held her tightly and kissed her lips; but the kiss ended in a crashing sound, and a shock of pain in his whole body which expelled the breath from his lungs. The moonlit island, sandy beach, blue sea and sky were swallowed in a blaze of light, which gave way to pitchy darkness, with rain on his face and whistling wind in his ears, while he clung with both arms, not to a girl, but to a hard, wet, and cold mizzen - topgallant - yard whose iron jack-stay had bumped him severely between the eyes. Below him in the darkness a scream rang out, followed by the 172 Royal-Yard down roar of the mate : Are you all right up there ? Want any help ? He had fallen four feet. When he could speak he answered : * I m all right, sir. And catching the royal footrope dangling from the end of the yard above him, he brought it to its place, passed the seizing, and finished furling the royal. But it was a long job ; his movements were uncertain, for every nerve in his body was jumping in its own inharmonious key. What s the matter wi you up there ? demanded the mate when he reached the deck ; and a yellow- clad figure drew near to listen. It was nothing, sir ; I forgot about the foot-rope. You re a bigger lunkhead than I thought. Go forrard. He went, and when he came aft at four bells to take his trick at the wheel, the girl was still on deck, standing near the companion way, facing forward. The mate stood at the other side of the binnacle, looking at her, with one elbow resting on the house. There was just light enough from the cabin skylight for Owen to see the expression which came over his face as he watched the graceful figure balancing to the heave of the ship. It took on the same evil look which he had seen in his fall, while there was no mistaking the thought behind the gleam in his eyes. The mate looked up into Owen s face and saw something there which he must have understood ; for he dropped his glance to the compass, snarled out, * Keep her on the course, and stepped into the lee alleyway, where the dinghy, lashed upside down on the house, hid him from view. The girl approached the man at the wheel. I saw you fall, Mr. Owen, she said in a trembling voice, and I could not help screaming. Were you hurt much ? 173 From the Royal-Yard down No, Miss Folsom, he answered in a low, though not a steady tone ; but I was sadly disappointed. I confess I was nervous very nervous when you went aloft, she said ; t and I cleared away the life buoy. Then, when you fell, it slipped out of my hand and went overboard. Mr. Adams scolded me. Wasn t it ridiculous ? There were tears and laughter in the speech. Not at all, he said gravely ; it saved my life for which I thank you. How why Who in Sam Hill s been casting off these gripe - lashings ? growled the voice of the mate behind the dinghy. The girl tittered hysterically, and stepped beside Owen at the wheel, where she patted the moving spokes, pretending to assist him in steering. * Miss Freda, said the officer sternly, as he came around the corner of the house, I must ask you plainly to let things alone ; and another thing, please don t talk to the man at the wheel. Will you please mind your own business ? she almost screamed ; and then, crying and laughing together : * If you paid as much attention to your work as you do to to me, men wouldn t fall from aloft on account of rotten foot-ropes. The abashed officer went forward, grumbling about * discipline and women aboard ship. When he was well out of sight in the darkness, the girl turned suddenly, passed both arms around Owen s neck, exerted a very slight pressure, patted him playfully on the shoulder as she withdrew them, and sped down the companion-way. He steered a wild course during that trick, and well deserved the profane criticism which he received from the mate. 174 NEEDS MUST WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES HOGGED at bow and stern, her deck sloped at the ends like a truck s platform, while a slight twist in the old hull canted the foremast to port and the mizzen to starboard. It would be hard to know when she was on an even keel. The uneven planking, inboard and out, was scarred like a chopping-block, possibly from a former and intimate acquaintance with the coal trade. Aloft were dingy gray spars, slack hemp rigging, untarred for years, and tan- coloured sails, mended with patch upon patch of lighter-hued canvas that seemed about to fall apart from their own weight. She was English-built, barque- rigged, bluff in the bow, square in the stern, unpainted and leaky on the whole as unkempt and disreputable looking a craft as ever flew the black flag ; and with the clank of the pumps marking time to the wailing squeak of the tiller-ropes, she wallowed through the waves like a log in an eddying tideway. Even the black flag at the gaff-end wore a make shift, slovenly air. It was a square section of the bark s foreroyal, painted black around the skull-and- cross-bones design, which had been left the original hue of the canvas. The port-holes were equally slovenly in appearance, being cut through between stanchions with axes instead of saws; and the bul- 175 Needs must when warks were further disfigured by extra holes smashed through at the stanchions to take the lashings of the gun-breechings. But the guns were bright and cared for, as were the uniforms of the crew ; for they had been lately transhipped. Far from home, with a general cargo, this ancient trader had been taken in a fog by Captain Swarth and his men an hour before their own well-found vessel had sunk alongside which gave them just time to hoist over guns and ammunition. When the fog shifted, the pursuing English war-brig that had riddled the pirate saw nothing but the peaceful old tub ahead, and went on into the fog, looking for the other. Any port in a storm, Angel, remarked Captain Swarth, as he flashed his keen eyes over the rickety fabric aloft ; but we ll find a better one soon. How do the boys stand the pumping ? Mr. Angel Todd, first mate and quartermaster, filled a black pipe before answering. Then, between the first and second deep puffs, he said : Growlin dammum. At the work ? Yep, and the grub. And they say the tween-deck and forecastle smells o bedbugs and bilge-water, and they want their grog. "An ungodly witness scorneth judgment : and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity." Mr. Todd had been educated for the pulpit ; but, going out as a missionary, he had fallen into ungodly ways and taken to the sea, where he was more successful. Many of his old phrasings clung to him. Well, drawled the captain, men get fastidious and high-toned in this business can t blame them but we ve got to make the coast, and if we don t pick up something on the way, we must careen and stop the leak. Then they ll have something to growl about. S pose the brig follows us in ? 176 the Devil drives Hope she will, said Captain Swarth with a pleasant smile and a lightening of his eyes hope she will, and give me a chance. Her majestic widow- ship owes me a brig, and that s a fine one. Mr. Todd had never been known to smile, but at this speech he lifted one eyebrow and turned his saturnine face full at his superior, inquiry written upon every line of it. Captain Swarth was musing, however, and said no more ; so the mate, knowing better than to attempt probing his mind, swung his long figure down the poop-ladder, and went forward to harass the men which, in their opinion, was all he was good for. According to his mood, Mr. Todd s speech was choicest English or the cosmopolitan, technical slang of the sea, mingled with wonderful profanity. But one habit of his early days he never dropped : he wore, in the hottest weather, and in storm and battle, the black frock and choker of his clerical profession. Standing now with one foot on the fore-hatch, waving his long arms and objurgating the scowling men at the pumps, he might easily have seemed, to anyone beyond the reach of his language, to be a clergy man exhorting them. Captain Swarth watched him with an amused look on his sunburnt face, and muttered : Good man, every inch of him, but he can t handle men. Then he called him aft. Angel, he said, we made a mistake in cutting the ports ; we can t catch anything afloat that sees them, so we ll have to pass for a peaceable craft until we can drift close enough to board something. I think the brig 11 be back this way, too. Get out some old tarpaulins and cover up the ports. Paint them, if you can, the colour of the sides, and you might coil some lines over the rail, as though to dry. Then you can break out cargo and strike the guns down the main-hatch. 177 N Needs must when Three days later, with Cape St. Eoque a black line to the westward, a round shot across her bows brought the old vessel minus the black emblem now, and outwardly respectable up to the wind, with main- topsail aback, while Captain Swarth and a dozen of his men equally respectable in the nondescript rig of the merchant sailor watched the approach of an English brig of war. Mr. Todd and the rest of the crew were below hatches with the guns. The brig came down the wind like a graceful bird a splendid craft, black, shiny and shipshape, five guns to a side, brass-bound officers on her quarter-deck, bluejackets darting about her white deck and up aloft, a homeward-bound pennant trailing from her main-truck, and at her gaff-end a British ensign as large as her mainroyal. Captain Swarth lazily hoisted the English flag to the barque s gaff, and, as the brig rounded to on his weather beam, he pointed to it ; but his dark eyes sparkled enviously as he viewed the craft whose Government s protection he appealed to. * Barque ahoy! came a voice through a trumpet. What barque is that ? Captain Swarth swung himself into the mizzen- rigging, and answered through his hands with an excellent cockney accent : * Tryde Wind o Lunnon, Cappen Quirk, fifty-one dyes out fro Liverpool, bound to Callao, gen ral cargo. You were not heading for the Horn. * Hi m a-leakin badly. Hi m a-goin to myke the coast to careen. D ye happen to know a good place? An officer left the group and returned with what Captain Swarth knew was a chart, which a few of them studied, while their captain hailed again : * See anything more of that pirate brig the other day? What ! a pirate ? Be e a pirate ? answered the Devil drives Captain Swarth in agitated tones. Be that you a-chasin of im ? Nao, hi seed nothink of im arter the fog shut im out. The captain conferred with his officers a moment, then called : We are going in to careen ourselves. That fellow struck us on the water-line. We are homeward bound, and Kio s too far to run back. Follow us in ; but if you lose sight of us, it s a small bay, latitude nine fifty-one forty south, rocks to the north, lowland to the south, good water at the entrance, and a fine beach. Look out for the brig. It s Swarth and his gang. Good-morning. * Ay, that hi will. Thank ye. Good-morninY In three hours the brig was a speck under the rising land ahead ; in another, she was out of sight ; but before this Captain Swarth and his crew had held a long conference, which resulted in sail being shortened, though the man at the wheel was given a straight course to the bay described by the English Captain. Late in the following afternoon the old barque blundered into this bay a rippling sheet of water, bag-shaped, and bordered on all sides by a sandy beach. Stretching up to the mountainous country was a luxurious forest of palm, laurel and cactus, bound and intertwined by almost impassable under growth, and about half-way from the entrance to the end of the bay was the English brig, moored and slightly careened on the inshore beach. Captain Swarth s seamanly eye noted certain appearances of the tackles that held her down which told him that the work was done and she was being slacked upright. Just in time ! he muttered. They brought the barque to anchor near the beach, about a half-mile from the brig, furled the canvas, and ran out an anchor astern, with the cable over the taffrail. Heaving on this, they brought the vessel 179 N 2 Needs must when parallel with the shore. So far, good. Guns and cargo lightered ashore, more anchors seaward to keep her off the beach, masthead tackles to the trees to heave her down, and preventer rigging and braces to assist the masts, would have been next in order, but they proceeded no further toward careening. Instead, they lowered the two crazy boats, provisioned and armed them on the inshore side of the barque, made certain other preparations and waited. On the deck of the English brig things were moving. A gang of bluejackets, under the first lieutenant, were heaving in the cable ; another gang, under the boat swain, were sending down and stowing away the heavy tackles and careening-gear, tailing out halyards and sheets and coiling down the light-running rigging, while topmen aloft loosed the canvas to bunt-gaskets, ready to drop it at the call from the deck. The second lieutenant, overseeing this latter, paced the port quarter-deck and answered remarks from Captain Bunce, who paced the sacred starboard side (the brig being at anchor) and occasionally turned his glass on the dilapidated craft down the beach. Seems to me, Mr. Shack, he said across the deck, that an owner who would send that barque around the Horn, and the master who would take her, ought to be sequestered and cared for, either in an asylum or in gaol. Yes, sir, I think so too, answered the second lieutenant, looking aloft. Might be an insurance job. Clear away that bunt-gasket on the royal-yard, he added in a roar. Captain Bunce round, rosy, with brilliant mutton- chop whiskers muttered : Insurance wrecked in tentionally no, not here where we are ; wouldn t court investigation by Her Majesty s officers. He rolled forward, then aft, and looked again through the glass. 180 the Devil drives Very large crew very large, he said; very curious, Mr. Shack. A hail from the forecastle, announcing that the anchor was short, prevented Mr. Shack s answering. Captain Bunce waved a deprecatory hand to the first lieutenant, who came aft at once, while Mr. Shack descended to the waist, and the boatswain ascended the forecastle steps to attend to the anchor. The first lieutenant now had charge of the brig, and from the quarter-deck gave his orders to the crew, while Captain Bunce busied himself with his glass and his thoughts. Fore-and-aft sail was set and head-sheets trimmed down to port, square sails were dropped, sheeted home, and hoisted, foreyards braced to port, the anchor tripped and fished, and the brig paid off from the land-breeze, and, with foreyards swung, steadied down to a course for the entrance. Mr. Duncan, said the captain, there are fully forty men on that barque s deck, all dressed alike all in red shirts and knitted caps and all dancing around like madmen. Look ! He handed the glass to the first lieutenant, who brought it to bear. Strange, said the officer, after a short scrutiny; there were only a few showing when we spoke her outside. It looks as though they were all drunk. As they drew near, sounds of singing uproarious discord reached them, and soon they could see with the naked eye that the men on the barque were wrestling, dancing, and running about. Quarters, sir ? inquired Mr. Duncan. Shall we bring to alongside ? Well no not yet, said the captain hesitatingly; it s all right possibly; yet it is strange. Wait a little. They waited, and had sailed down almost abreast of the gray old craft, noticing, as they drew near, an 181 Needs must when appreciable diminution of the uproar, when a flag arose from the stern of the barque, a dusky flag that straightened out directly towards them, so that it was difficult to make out. But they soon understood. As they reached a point squarely abreast of the barque, five points of flame burst from her innocent gray sides, five clouds of smoke ascended, and five round shot, coming with the thunder of the guns, hurtled through their rigging. Then they saw the design of the flag, a white skull and cross-bones, and noted another, a black flag too, but pennant- shaped, and showing in rudely painted letters the single word Swarth, sailing up to the forepeak. Thunder and lightning! roared Captain Bunce. Quarters, Mr. Duncan, quarters, and in with the kites. Give it to them. Put about first. A youngster of the crew had sprung below and immediately emerged with a drum, which, without definite instruction, he hammered vigorously; but before he had begun, men were clearing away guns and manning flying-jib downhaul and royal clue- lines. Others sprang to stations, anticipating all that the sharp voice of the first lieutenant could order. Around came the brig on the other tack and sailed back, receiving another broadside through her rigging and answering with her starboard guns. Then for a time the din was deafening. The brig backed her main-yards and sent broadside after broadside into the hull of the old craft. But it was not until the eighth had gone that Captain Bunce noticed through the smoke that the pirates were not firing. The smoke from the burning canvas port-coverings had deluded him. He ordered a cessation. Fully forty solid shot had torn through that old hull near the water-line, and not a man could now be seen on her deck. 182 the Devil drives Out with the boats, Mr. Duncan, he said ; they re drunk or crazy, but they re the men we want. Capture them. Suppose they run, sir suppose they take to their boats and get into the woods shall we follow ? * No, not past the beach not into an ambush. The four boatloads of men which put off from the brig found nothing but a deserted deck on the sinking barque and two empty boats hauled up on the beach. The pirates were in the woods, undoubtedly, having kept the barque between themselves and the brig as they pulled ashore. While the bluejackets clustered around the bows of their boats and watched nervously the line of forest up the beach, from which bullets might come at any time, the two lieutenants conferred for a few moments, and had decided to put back, when a rattling chorus of pistol reports sounded from the depths of the woods. It died away; then was heard a crashing of bush and branch, and out upon the sands sprang a figure a long, weird figure in black frock of clerical cut. Into their midst it sped with mighty bounds, and sinking down, lifted a glad face to the heavens with the groaning utterance : God, I thank Thee ! Protect me, gentlemen protect me from those wicked men. What is it ? Who are you ? asked Mr. Duncan. Were they shooting at you ? Yes, at me, who never harmed a fly. They would have killed me. My name is Todd. Oh, such suffering ! But you will protect me ? You are English officers. You are not pirates and murderers. But what has happened? Do you live around here ? It took some time for Mr. Todd to quiet down sufficiently to tell his story coherently. He was an humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord. He had gleaned among the poorest of the native popula- 183 Needs must when tion in the outskirts of Eio de Janeiro until his health suffered, and had taken passage home in a passenger- ship, which, ten days out, was captured by a pirate brig. And the pirate crew had murdered every soul on board but himself, and only spared his life, as he thought, for the purpose of amusement ; for they had compelled him to dance he, a minister of the Gospel ! and had made him drink under torture, and recite ribald poetry, and swear, and wash their clothes. All sorts of indignities had been heaped upon him, but he had remembered the injunction of the Master : he had invariably turned the other cheek when smitten, and had prayed for their souls. He told of the flight from the English war-brig, of the taking of the old barque in the fog and the sinking of the pirate craft, of the transfer of guns and treasure to the barque, and the interview at sea with the English brig, in which Captain Swarth had deceived the other, and of Captain Swarth s reckless confidence in himself, which had induced him to follow the brig in and careen in the same bay. He wound up his tale with a lurid description of the drunken debauch following the anchoring of the barque during which he had trembled for his life of the insane firing on the brig as she passed, and the tumbling into the boats when the brig returned the fire, of the flight into the woods, the fighting among themselves, and his escape under fire. As he finished he offered an incoherent prayer of thankfulness, and the sympathetic Mr. Shack drew forth his pocket-flask and offered it to the agitated sufferer; but Mr. Todd, who could probably drink more whisky and feel it less than any other man in the pirate crew, declined the poison with a shiver of abhorrence. Then Mr. Duncan, who had listened thoughtfully, said : You speak of treasure ; did they take it with them ? 184 the Devil drives Mr. Todd opened wide his eyes, looked towards the dark shades of the forest, then at the three masts of the barque rising out of the water, and answered impressively : * Gentlemen, they did not. They were intoxicated, mad with liquor. They took arms and a knapsack of food to each man ; they spoke of an inland retreat to which they were going; but the treasure from the passenger-ship the bars of gold and the bags of diamonds they forgot. They transferred it from their sinking vessel when sober, but when intoxicated they remembered food and left it behind. Gentlemen, there is untold wealth in the hull out there which your fire has sunk. It is, verily, the root of all evil ; let us hope that it remains at the bottom of the sea. Bars of gold bags of diamonds ! said Mr. Duncan. Come on board, Mr. Todd ; we ll see what the captain thinks. At dinner in the brig s cabin that evening as a prelude to which Mr. Todd said grace his account of the wealth spread out on Captain Swarth s cabin table after the taking of the passenger-ship was some thing to arouse interest in a less worldly man than Captain Bunce. Virgin gold in bars, ingots, bricks, and dust from the Morro Velho mines of Brazil was there, piled up on the table until the legs had given way and launched the glittering mass to the floor. Diamonds uncut, uncounted, of untold value a three years product of the whole Chapada district some as large as walnuts, had been spread out and tossed about like marbles by those lawless men, then boxed up with the gold and stowed among the cargo under the main-hatch. Again Mr. Todd expressed the hope that Providence would see fit to let this treasure remain where the pirates had left it, no longer to tempt man to kill and steal. But Captain Bunce and his officers thought differently. Glances, then tenta- 185 Needs must when tive comments, were exchanged, and in five minutes they were of one mind, even including Mr. Todd ; for it may not be needless to state that the treasure and the passenger- ship existed only in his imagination. Pending the return of the boats the brig s anchor had been dropped about two hundred yards from the barque ; now canvas was furled, and at eight bells all hands were mustered aft to hear what was in store. Captain Bunce stated the case succinctly ; they were homeward bound and under general orders until they reported to the admiral at Plymouth. Treasure was within their reach, apportionable, when obtained, as prize-money. It was useless to pursue the pirates into the Brazilian jungle ; but they would need to be watchful and ready for surprise at any moment, either while at work raising the barque or at night; for though they had brought out the two boats in which the pirates had escaped, they could find other means of attack should they dare or care to make it. The English sailors cheered. Mr. Todd begged to say a few words, and enjoined them not to allow the love of lucre to tempt their minds from the duty they owed to their God, their country, and their captain, which was also applauded and forgotten in a moment. Then, leaving a double-anchor watch, provided with blue fire and strict instructions, on deck, the crew turned in to dream of an affluent future, and Mr. Todd was shown to a comfortable state-room. He removed his coat and vest, closed the door and dead-light, filled and lighted his black pipe, and rolled into the berth with a seaman s sigh of contentment. 1 That was a good dinner, he murmured, after he had filled the room with smoke a good dinner. Nothing on earth is too good for a sky-pilot. I d go back to the business when I ve made my pile if it wasn t so all-fired hard on the throat ; and then the trustees, with their eternal kicking on economy, and 186 the Devil drives the sisters, and the donation-parties yah, to h 1 with em ! Wonder if this brig ever carried a chap lain. Wonder how Bill and the boys are making out. Fine brig this ! leven knots on a bow-line, I ll bet fine state-room, good grub, nothin to do but save souls and preach the Word on Sunday ! Guess I ll strike the fat duffer for the job in the morn The rest of the sentence merged into a snore, and Mr. Todd slept through the night in the fumes of tobacco, which so permeated his very being that Captain Bunce remarked it at breakfast. * Smoke, Captain Bunce? I smoke? Not I! he answered warmly ; but, you see, those ungodly men compelled me to clean all their pipes forty foul pipes and I do not doubt that some nicotine has lodged on my clothing. W T hereupon Captain Bunce told of a chap lain he had once sailed with whose clothing smelled so vilely that he himself had framed a petition to the admiral for his transfer to another ship and station. And the little story had the effect on Mr. Todd of causing him mentally to vow that he d ship with no man who didn t allow smoking, and openly aver that no sincere, consistent Christian clergyman would be satisfied to stultify himself and waste his energies in the comfort and ease of a naval chaplaincy, and that a chaplain who would smoke should be discredited and forced out of the profession. But later, when Captain Bunce and his officers lighted fat cigars, and he learned that the aforesaid chaplain had merely been a careless devotee of pipe and pigtail twist, Mr. Todd s feelings may be imagined (by a smoker) ; but he had committed himself against tobacco and must suffer. During the breakfast the two lieutenants reported the results of a survey which they had taken of the wreck at daylight. We find, said Mr. Duncan, about nine feet of Needs must when water over the deck at the stern, and about three feet over the fore-hatch at low tide. The topgallant-fore castle is awash and the end of the bowsprit out of water, so that we can easily reach the upper ends of the bobstays. There is about five feet rise and fall of tide. Now, we have no pontoons or casks. Our only plan, captain, is to lift her bodily. * But we have a diving-suit and air-pump, said Mr. Shack enthusiastically, and fifty men ready to dive without suits. We can raise her, captain, in two weeks. Gentlemen, said Captain Bunce grandly, * I have full faith in your seamanship and skill. I leave the work in your hands. Which was equivalent to an admission that he was fat and lazy, and did not care to take an active part. Thank you, sir, said Mr. Duncan, and * Thank you, sir, said Mr. Shack ; then the captain said other pleasant things, which brought other pleasant re sponses, and the breakfast passed off so agreeably that Mr. Todd, in spite of the soul-felt yearning for a smoke inspired by the cigars in the mouths of the others, felt the influence of the enthusiasm and be stowed his blessing qualifiedly on the enterprise. Every man of the brig s crew was eager for the work, but few could engage at first; for there was nothing but the forecastle-deck and the barque s rigging to stand upon. Down came the disgraceful black flags the first thing, and up to the gaff went the ensign of Britain. Then they sent down the fore and main lower and topsail yards, and erected them as sheers over the bow and stern, lower ends well socketed in spare anchor-stocks to prevent their sink ing in the sand, upper ends lashed together and stayed to each other and to the two anchors ahead and astern. To the two sheer-heads they rigged heavy threefold tackles, and to the disconnected bob- 188 the Devil drives stays (chains leading from the bowsprit end to the stem at the water-line) they hooked the forward tackle, and heaving on the submerged windlass, lifted the bow off the bottom high enough to enable them to slip two shots of anchor-chain under the keel, one to take the weight at the stern, the other at the bow, for the bobstays would pull out of the stem under the increased strain as the barque arose. Most of this work was done under water ; but a wetting is nothing to men looking for gold, and nobody cared. Yet, as a result of ruined uniforms, the order came from Captain Bunce to wear underclothing only or go naked, which latter the men preferred, though the officers clung to decency and tarry duck trousers. Every morning the day began with the washing of the brig s deck and scouring of brass work which must be done at sea though the heavens fall ; then followed breakfast, the arming of the boats ready for an attack from the shore, and the descent upon the barque of as many men as could work. Occasionally Captain Bunce would order the dinghy, and, accompanied by Mr. Todd, would visit the barque and offer interfering suggestions, after the manner of captains, which only embarrassed the officers ; and Mr. Todd would take advantage of these occasions to make landlubberly comments and show a sad ignor ance of things nautical. But often he would decline the invitation, and when the captain was gone would descend to his room, and, shutting the door, grip his beloved though empty black pipe between his teeth and breathe through it, while his eyes shone fiercely with unsatisfied desire, and his mind framed silent malediction on Bill Swarth for condemning him to this smokeless sojourn. For he dared not smoke ; stewards, cooks, and sailors were all about him. In three days the barque s nose was as high as the seven-part tackle would bring it, with all men heaving 189 Needs must when who could find room at the windlass-brakes. Then they clapped a luff-tackle on the fall, and by heaving on this, nippering and fleeting up, they lifted the fore- hatch and forecastle scuttle out of water which was enough. Before this another gang had been able to slip the other chain to position abaft the mizzenmast, hook on the tackle, and lead the fall through a snatch- block at the quarter-bitts forward to the midship capstan. Disdaining the diving -suit, they swam down nine feet to do these things, and when they had towed the rope forward they descended seven feet to wind it around the capstan and ship the bars, which they found in a rack at the mainmast. A man in the water weighs practically nothing, and to heave around a capstan under water requires lateral resistance. To secure this they dived with hammers and nails, and fastened a circle of cleats to catch their feet. Then, with a boy on the main fife-rail (his head out) holding slack, eighteen men three to a bar would inhale all the air their lungs could hold, and, with a One, two, three, would flounder down, push the capstan around a few pawls, and come up gasping and blue in the face, to perch on their bars and recover. It went slowly, this end, but in three days more they could walk around with their heads above water. The next day was Sunday, and they were entitled to rest ; but the flavour of wealth had entered their souls, and they petitioned the captain for privilege to work, which was granted, to the satisfaction of the officers, and against the vigorous protest of Mr. Todd, who had prepared a sermon, and borrowed clean linen from Mr. Shack in which to deliver it. With luff-tackles on the fall, they hove the stern up until the cabin doors and all deck-openings but the main-hatch were out of water, and then, with the barque hanging to the sheers as a swinging-cradle 190 the Devil drives hangs from its supports, some assisted the carpenter and his mates in building up and calking an upward extension of the main-hatch coaming that reached above water at high tide, while others went over the side looking for the shot-holes of eight broadsides. These, when found, were covered with planking, followed by canvas, nails being driven with shackles, sounding-leads, and stones from the bottom, in the hands of naked men clinging to weighted stagings men whose eyes protruded, whose lungs ached, whose brains were turning. Then, and before a final inspection by the boatswain in the diving-suit assured them that the last shothole was covered, they began bailing from the main-hatch, and when the water perceptibly lowered the first index of success a feverish yell arose and continued, while nude lunatics wrestled and floundered waist- deep on the flooded deck. The barque s pumps were manned and worked under water, baling-pumps square tubes with one valve were made and plunged up and down in each hatch, whips were rigged, and buckets rose and fell until the obstructing cargo confined the work to the barque s pumps. Can- hooks replaced the buckets on the whips, then boxes and barrels were hoisted, broken into, and thrown overboard, until the surface of the bay was dotted with them. They drifted back and forth with the tide, some stranding on the beach, others floating seaward through the inlet. And all the time that they worked, sharp eyes had watched through the bushes, and a few miles inland, in a glade sur rounded by the giant trees of the Brazilian forest, red-shirted men lolled and smoked and grew fat, while they discussed around the central fire the qualities of barbecued wild oxen, roast opossum and venison, and criticised the seamanship of the English men. 191 Needs must when With a clear deck to work on, every man and boy of the brig s crew, except the idlers (stewards, cooks, and servants), was requisitioned, and boxes flew merrily; but night closed down on the tenth day of their labour without sign of the treasure, and now Mr. Todd, who had noticed a shade of testiness in the queries of the officers as to the exact location of the gold and diamonds, expressed a desire to climb the rigging next afternoon, a feat he had often wished to perform, which he did clumsily, going through the lubber s hole ; and, seated in the maintop with Mr. Duncan s Bible, he remained in quiet meditation and apparent reading and prayer until the tropic day changed to sudden twilight and darkness, and the hysterical crew returned. Then he came down to dinner. In the morning the work was resumed, and more boxes sprinkled the bay. They drifted up with the flood, and came back with the ebb-tide ; but among them now were about forty others, unobserved by Captain Bunce, pacing his quarter-deck, but noted keenly by Mr. Todd. These forty drifted slowly to the offshore side of the brig and stopped, bobbing up and down on the crisp waves, even though the wind blew briskly with the tide, and they should have gone on with the others. It was then that Captain Bunce stepped below for a cigar, and it was then that Mr. Todd became strangely excited, hopping along the port-rail and throwing overboard every rope s end within reach, to the wonder and scandal of an open-eyed steward in the cabin door, who imme diately apprised the captain. Captain Bunce, smoking a freshly-lit cigar, emerged to witness a shocking sight the good and godly Mr. Todd, with an intense expression on his sombre countenance, holding a match to a black pipe and puffing vigorously, while through the ports and over 192 the Devil drives the rail red-shirted men, dripping wet and scowling, were boarding his brig. Each man carried a cutlass and twelve-inch knife, and Captain Bunce needed no special intelligence to know that he was tricked. One hail only he gave, and Mr. Todd, his pipe glowing like a hot coal, was upon him. The captain endeavoured to draw his sword, but sinewy arms en circled him; his cigar was removed from his lips, and inserted in the mouth of Mr. Todd alongside the pipe ; then he was lifted, spluttering with astonishment and rage, borne to the rail, and dropped overboard, his sword clanking against the side as he descended. When he came to the surface and looked up, he saw, through a cloud of smoke, on the rail the lantern jaws of Mr. Todd working convulsively on pipe and cigar, and heard the angry utterance : Yes, d n ye, I smoke ! Then a vibrant voice behind Mr. Todd roared out : Kill nobody toss em over board ! and the captain saw his servants, cooks, and stewards tumbling over to join him. Captain Bunce turned and swam ; there was nothing else to do. Soon he could see a black- eyed, black - moustached man on his quarter-deck delivering orders, and he recognised the thundering voice, but none of the cockney accent, of Captain Quirk. Men were already on the yards loosing canvas, and as he turned on his back to rest for, though fleshy and buoyant, swimming in full uniform fatigued him he saw his anchor - chains whizzing out the hawse-pipes. He was picked up by the first boat to put off from the barque, and ordered pursuit ; but this was soon seen to be useless. The clean-lined brig had stern- way equal to the best speed of the boats, and now head-sails were run up, and she paid off from the shore. Topsails were sheeted home and hoisted, she gathered way, and, with topgallant- sails and 193 o Needs must when the Devil drives royals, spanker and staysails, following in quick succession, the beautiful craft hummed down to the inlet and put to sea, while yells of derision occa sionally came back to the white-faced men in the boats. A month later the rehabilitated old barque also staggered out the entrance, and, with a naked, half- starved crew and sad-eyed, dilapidated officers, headed southward for Kio de Janeiro. 194 WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK * Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just. BARD OF AVON. 4 But 4 times he who gits hiz bio in fust. JOSH BILLINGS. CAPTAIN WILLIAM BELCHIOE was more than a martinet. He was known as * Bucko Belchior in every port where the English language is spoken, having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his days as second and chief mate, he would whirl belay- ing-pins, heavers, and handspikes about the decks, and by his success in knocking down, tricing up, and working up sailors who displeased him. With a blow of his fist he had broken the jaw of a man helplessly ironed in the tween-deck, and on the same voyage, armed with a simple belaying-pin, had sprung alone into a circle of brandishing sheath-knives and quelled a mutiny. He was short, broad, beetle-browed, and gray-eyed, of undoubted courage, but with the quality of sympathy left out of his nature. During the ten years in which he had been in com mand he was relieved of much of the executive work that had made him famous when he stood watch, but was always ready to justify his reputation as a * bucko should friction with the crew occur past the power of his officers to cope with. His ship, the 195 o 2 When Greek Wilmington, a skysail-yard clipper, was rated by sailor- men as the hottest craft under the American flag, and Captain Belchior himself was spoken of by Consuls and Commissioners, far and near, as a man peculiarly unfortunate in his selection of men ; for never a pas sage ended but he was complainant against one or more heavily-ironed and badly used-up members of his crew. His officers were, in the language of one of these defendants, * o the same breed o dorg. No others could or would sign with him. His crews were in variably put on board in the stream or at anchorage, never at the dock. Drunk when coerced by the board ing - masters into signing the ship s articles, kept drunk until delivery, they were driven or hoisted up the side like animals some in a stupor from drink or drugs, some tied hand and foot, struggling and cursing with returning reason. Equipped thus, the Wilmington, bound for Mel bourne, discharged her tug and pilot off Sandy Hook one summer morning, and, with a fresh quartering wind and raising sea, headed for the south-east. The day was spent in getting her sail on, and in the lick ing into shape of the men as fast as they recovered their senses. Oaths and missiles flew about the deck, knock-downs were frequent, and by eight bells in the evening, when the two mates chose the watches much as boys choose sides in a ball game the sailors were well convinced that their masters lived aft. Three men, long-haired fellows, sprawling on the main-hatch, helpless from seasickness, were left to the last in the choosing and then hustled into the light from the near-by galley-door to be examined. They had been dragged from the forecastle at the mate s call for all hands. * Call yourselves able seamen, I suppose ? he said, with an oath, as he glared into their woebegone faces* 196 meets Greek 1 No, pard, said the tallest and oldest of the three in a weak voice. We re not seamen ; we don t know how we got here, neither. The mate s answer was a fist-blow under the ear that sent the man headlong into the scuppers, where he lay quiet. * Say " sir " when you speak to me, you bandy legged farmers ! he snarled, glowering hard at the other two, as they leaned against the water-tank. I m " pard " to none of ye. They made him no answer, and he turned away in contempt. Mr. Tomm, he called, * want these Ethiopians in your watch ? No, sir, said the second mate ; I don t want em. They re no more use an a spare pump. I ll make em useful fore I m done with em ! Go forrard, you three ! Get the bile out o yer gizzards fore mornin , f ye value yer good looks ! He de livered a vicious kick at each of the two standing men, bawled out, Believe the wheel an lookout that ll do the watch, and went aft, while the crew assisted the seasick men to the forecastle and into three bedless bunks bedless because sailors must furnish their own, and these men had been shang haied. The wind died away during the night, and they awoke in the morning with their seasickness gone and appetites ravenous. Sombre and ominous was their bearing as they silently ate of the breakfast in the forecastle and stepped out on deck with the rest in answer to the mate s roar, All hands spread dun nage ! Having no dunnage but what they wore, they drew off toward the windlass and conferred together while chests and bags were dragged out on deck and overhauled by the officers for whisky and sheath- knives. What they found of the former they pocketed, and of the latter tossed overboard. 197 When Greek * Where are the canal-drivers ? demanded the chief mate, as he raised his head from the last chest. Where are our seasick gentlemen, who sleep all night What what ! he added in a stupor of surprise. He was looking down three eight-inch barrels of three heavy Colt revolvers, cocked, and held by three scowling, sunburnt men, each of whom was tucking with disengaged left hand the corner of a shirt into a waistband, around which was strapped a belt full of cartridges. Hands up! snapped the tall man; hands up, every one of ye ! Up with em over yer heads that s right! The pistols wandered around the heads of the crowd, and every hand was elevated. What s this ? What d ye mean ? Put them pistols down. Give em up ! Lay aft, there, some o ye, and call the captain ! blustered the mate, with his hands held high. Not a man stirred to obey. The scowling faces looked deadly in earnest. Eight about face! commanded the tall man. March, every man back to the other end o the boat. Laramie, take the other side and round up anybody you see. Now, gentlemen, hurry ! Away went the protesting procession, and, joined by the carpenter, sail-maker, donkey-man, and cook, rounded up from their sanctums by the man called Laramie, it had reached the main-hatch before the captain, pacing the quarter-deck, was aware of the disturbance. With Captain Belchior to think was to act. Springing to the cabin skylight, he shouted : Steward, bring up my pistols ! Bear a hand ! Lower your weapons, you scoundrels this is rank mutiny ! A pistol spoke, and the captain s hat left his head. There goes your hat! said a voice. Now for a button ! Another bullet sped, which cut from his 198 meets Greek coat the button nearest his heart. Come down from there come down! said the voice he had heard. Next shot goes home. Start while I count three. One two Captain Belchior descended the steps. Hands up, same as the rest ! Up went the captain s hands ; such marksmanship was beyond his philo sophy. Tache, went on the speaker, go up there and get the guns he wanted. The steward, with two bright revolvers in his hands, was met at the com panion-hatch by a man with but one ; but that one was so big, and the hand which held it was so steady, that it was no matter of surprise that he obeyed the terse command, Fork over, handles first! The captain s nickel-plated pistols went into the pockets of Tache s coat, and the white-faced steward, poked in the back by the muzzle of that big firearm, marched to the main-deck and joined the others. Go down that place, Tache, and chase out anyone else ye find, called the leader from behind the crowd. Bring em all down here. Tache descended, and reappeared with a frightened cabin-boy, whom, with the man at the wheel, he drove before him to the steps. There was no wind, and the ship could spare the helmsman. * Now, then, gentlemen, said the tall leader, I reckon we re all here. Keep yer hands up. We ll have a pow-wow. Tache, stay up there, and you, Laramie, cover em from behind. Plug the first man that moves. He mounted the steps to the quarter-deck, and, as he replaced empty shells with cartridges, looked down on them with a serene smile on his not ill-looking face. His voice, except when raised in accent of command, had in it the musical, drawling, plaintive tone so peculiar to the native Texan and so deceptive. The other two, younger and rougher men, looked, as they glanced at their victims through the sights of the 199 When Greek pistols, as though they longed for the word of permis sion to riddle the ship s company with bullets. * You ll pay for this, you infernal cut- throats ! spluttered the captain. This is piracy. Don t call any names, now, said the tall man ; * tain t healthy. We don t want to hurt ye, but I tell ye seriously, ye never were nearer death than ye are now. It s a risky thing, and a foolish thing, too, gentlemen, to steal three American citizens with guns under their shirts, and take em so far from land as this. Hangin s the fit and proper punishment for hoss-stealin , but man-stealin s so great a crime that I m not right sure what the punishment is. Now, we don t know much bout boats and ropes though we can tie a hangman s knot when necessary but we do know somethin bout guns and human natur here, you, come way from that fence. The captain was edging towards a belaying-pin ; but he noticed that the speaker s voice had lost its plaintiveness, and three tubes were looking at him. He drew inboard, and the leader resumed : Now, fust thing, who s foreman o this outfit? Who s boss ? I m captain here. * You are ? You are not ! I m captain ! Get up on that shanty! The small house over the mizzen- hatch was indicated, and Captain Belchior climbed it. The tubes were still looking at him. Now, you, there, you man who hit me last night when I was sick, who are you, and what ? Mate, d you ! Up with you, and don t cuss. You did a cowardly thing, pardner an unmanly thing low down and or nary. You don t deserve to live any longer; but my darter, back East at school, thinks I ve killed enough men for one lifetime, and mebbe she s right mebbe she s right. Anyhow, she don t like it, and 200 meets Greek that lets you out though I won t answer for Tache and Laramie when my back s turned. You kicked em both. But I ll just return the blow. The mate had but straightened up on top of the hatch-house when the terrible pistol spat out another red tongue, and his yell followed the report, as he clapped his hand to the ear through which the bullet had torn. * Hands up, there ! thundered the shooter, and the mate obeyed, while a stream of blood ran down inside his shirt-collar. Any more bosses here ? The second mate did not respond ; but Tache s pistol sought him out, and under its influence, and his guttural I know you; get up, he followed his superiors. * Any more ? A manly-looking fellow stepped out of the group, and said : You ve got the captain and two mates. I m bo s n here, and yonder s my mate. We re next, but we re not bosses in the way o bein responsible for anything that has happened or might happen to you. We b long forrard. There s no call to shoot at the crew, for there s not a man among em but what ud be glad to see you get ashore, and get there himself. Silence, bo s n ! bawled the captain. But the voice of authority seemed pitifully ludicrous and incongruous, coupled with the captain s position and attitude, and every face on the deck wore a grin. The leader noticed the silent merriment, and said : Laramie, I reckon these men ll stand. You can come up here. I m gettin long in years, and kind o steadyin down, but I s pose you and Tache want some fun. Start yer whistle and turn loose/ Up the steps bounded Laramie, and, with a ringing whoop as a prelude, began whistling a clear, musical trill, while Tache, growling out, * Dance, dance, ye 201 When Greek white-livered coyotes/ sent a bullet through the outer edge of the chief mate s boot-heel. Dance ! repeated Laramie between bars of the music. Crack, crack, went the pistols, while bullets rattled around the feet of the men on the hatch, and Laramie s whistle rose and fell on the soft morning air. The sun, who has looked on many scandalous sights, looked on this, and hid his face under a cloud, refusing to witness. For never before had the ethics of shipboard life been so outrageously violated. A squat captain and two six-foot officers, nearly black in the face from rage and exertion, with hands clasped over their heads, hopped and skipped around a narrow stage to the accompaniment of pistol reports harmoni ously disposed among the notes of a whistled tune, while bullets grazed their feet, and an unkempt, dis figured, and sore-headed crew looked on and chuckled. When the mate, weak from loss of blood, fell and rolled to the deck, the leader stopped the entertain ment. Now, gentlemen, he said in his serious voice, I m called Pecos Tom, and I ve had considerable experience in my time, but this is my fust with human creatur s so weak and thoughtless that they ll drug and steal three men without takin their guns away from them. And so, on count o this shiftless improvidence, I reckon this boat will have to turn round and go back. They bound them, rolled and kicked the two mates to the rail, lifted the captain to his feet, and then the leader said significantly : Give the right and proper order to yer men to turn this boat round. With his face working convulsively, Captain Belchior glanced at his captors, at his eager, waiting crew, at the wheel without a helmsman, at a darkening of the 202 meets Greek water on the starboard bow to the southward, up aloft, and back again at the three frowning muzzles so close to his head. * One hand to the wheel ! Square in main and cro -jack yards ! he called. He was conquered. With a hurrah which indicated the sincerity of these orders, the crew sprang to obey them, and with foreyards braced to starboard and head-sheets flat, the ship Wilmington paid off, wore around, and bringing the young breeze on the port quarter, steadied down to a course for Sandy Hook, which the captain, with hands released, but still under the influence of those threatening pistols, worked out from the mate s dead - reckoning. Then he was pinioned again, but allowed to pace the deck and watch his ship, while the two officers were kept under the rail, sometimes stepped upon or kicked, and often admonished on the evil of their ways. Early passengers on the East Kiver ferry-boats were treated to a novel sight next morning, which they appreciated according to their nautical know ledge. A lofty ship, with sky- sails and royals hanging in the buntlines, and jibs tailing ahead like flags, was charging up the harbour before a humming southerly breeze, followed by an elbowing crowd of puffing, whistling, snub-nosed tugs. It was noticeable that whenever a fresh tug arrived alongside, little white clouds left her quarter-deck, and that tug suddenly sheered off to take a position in the parade astern. Abreast of Governor s Island, topgallant - halyards were let go, as were those of the jibs ; but no clewing up or hauling down was done, nor were any men seen on her forecastle-deck getting ready lines or ground- tackle. She passed the Battery and up the East Eiver, craft of all kinds getting out of her way for it was obvious that something was wrong with her until, rounding slowly to a starboard wheel, with 203 When Greek meets Greek canvas rattling and running - gear in bights, she headed straight for a slip partly filled with canal- boats. Now her topsail-halyards were let go, and three heavy yards came down by the run, breaking across the caps ; and amid a grinding, creaking, and crashing of riven timbers, and a deafening din of applauding tug whistles, she ploughed her way into the nest of canal-boats and came to a stop. Then was a hejira. Down her black sides by ropes and chain-plates, to the wrecked and sinking canal- boats some with bags or chests, some without came eager men, who climbed to the dock, and, answering no questions of the gathering crowd of dock-loungers, scattered into the side-streets. Then three other men appeared on the rail, who shook their fists, and swore, and shouted for the police, calling particularly for the apprehension of three dark-faced, long-haired fellows with big hats. In the light of later developments it is known that the police responded, and, with the assistance of boarding-house runners, gathered in that day nearly all of this derelict crew even to the cautious boat swain who were promptly and severely punished for mutiny and desertion. But the later develop ments failed to show that the three dark-faced men were ever seen again. 204 PRIMORDIAL GASPING, blue in the face, half drowned, the boy was flung spitefully as though the sea scorned so poor a victory high on the sandy beach, where succeeding shorter waves lapped at him and retired. The en circling life-buoy was large enough to permit his crouching within it. Pillowing his head on one side of the smooth ring, he wailed hoarsely for an interval, then slept or swooned. The tide went down the beach, the typhoon whirled its raging centre off to sea, and the tropic moon shone out, lighting up, between the beach and barrier reef, a heaving stretch of oily lagoon, on which appeared and disappeared hundreds of shark-fins quickly dart ing, and out on the barrier reef, perched high, yet still pounded by the ocean combers raised by the storm, a fragment of ship s stern, with a stump of mizzenmast. The elevated position of the fragment, the quickly-darting dorsal fins, and the absence of company for the child on the beach, spoke too plainly of shipwreck, useless boats, and horrible death. Sharks must sleep, like other creatures, and they nestle in hollows at the bottom and in coral caves, or under overhanging ledges of the reefs which attract them. The first swimmer may pass safely by night, seldom the second. Like she-wolves, fiendish cats, 205 Primordial and vicious horses, they have been known to show mercy to children. For one or both reasons, this child had drifted to the beach unharmed. Anywhere but on a bed of hot sand near the equator the sleep in wet clothing of a three-year-old boy might have been fatal ; but salt water carries its own remedy for the evils of its moisture, and he wakened at day light with strength to rise and cry out his protest of loneliness and misery. His childish mind could record facts, but not their reason or coherency. He was in a new, an unknown, world. His mother had filled his old. Where was she now ? Why had she tied him into that thing, and thrown him from her into the darkness and wet ? Strange things had happened, which he dimly remembered. He had been roused from his sleep, dressed, and taken out of doors in the dark, where there were frightful crashing noises, shoutings of men, and crying of women and other children. He had cried himself, from sympathy and terror, until his mother had thrown him away. Had he been bad ? Was she angry? And after that what was the rest? He was hungry and thirsty now. Why did she not come ? He would go and find her. With the life-buoy hanging about his waist though of cork, a heavy weight for him he toddled along the beach to where it ended at a massive ridge of rock that came out of the wooded country inland and extended into the lagoon as an impassable point. He called the chief word in his vocabulary again and again, sobbing between calls. She was not there, or she would have come ; so he went back, glancing fearfully at the dark woods of palm and undergrowth. She might be in there, but he was afraid to look. His little feet carried him a full half-mile in the other direction before the line of trees and bushes reached so close to the beach as to stop him. Here he sat 206 Primordial down, screaming passionately and convulsively for his mother. Crying is an expenditure of energy which must be replenished by food. When he could cry no longer, he tugged at the straps and strings of the life-buoy. But they were wet and hard, his little fingers were weak, and he knew nothing of knots and their un tying, so it was well on toward mid-day before he succeeded in scrambling out of the meshes, by which time he was famished, feverish with thirst, and ail- but sunstruck. He wandered unsteadily along the beach, falling occasionally, moaning piteously through his parched, open lips, and when he reached the obstructing ridge of rock, turned blindly into the bushes at its base, and followed it until he came to a pool of water formed by a descending spray from above. From this, on his hands and knees, he drank deeply, burying his lips as would an animal. Instinct alone had guided him here, away from the salt pools on the beach, and impelled him to drink fearlessly. It was instinct a familiar phase in a child that induced him to put pebbles, twigs, and small articles in his mouth until he found what was pleasant to his taste and eatable nuts and berries ; and it was instinct, the most ancient and deeply im planted the lingering index of an arboreal ancestry that now taught him the safety and comfort of these woody shades, and, as night came on, prompted him as it prompts a drowning man to reach high, and leads a creeping babe to a chair to attempt climbing a tree. Failing in this from lack of strength, he mounted the rocky wall a few feet, and here, on a narrow ledge, after indulging in a final fit of crying, he slept through the night, not comfortably on so hard a bed, but soundly. During the day, while he had crawled about at the foot of the rocks, wild hogs, marsupial animals, and 207 Primordial wood-rats had examined him suspiciously through the undergrowth and decamped. As he slept, howl ing night-dogs came up, sniffed at him from a safe distance, and scattered from his vicinity. He would have yielded in a battle with a pugnacious kitten, but these creatures recognised a prehistoric foe, and would not abide with him. A week passed before he had ceased to cry and call for his mother; but from this on her image grew fainter, and in a month the infant intelligence had discarded it. He ate nuts and berries as he found them, drank from the pool, climbed the rocks and strolled in the wood, played on the beach with shells and fragments of splintered wreckage, wore out his clothes, and in another month was naked ; for when buttons and vital parts gave way and a garment fell, he let it lie. But he needed no clothes, even at night ; for it was southern summer, and the north-east mon soon, adding its humid warm to the radiating heat from the sun-baked rocks, kept the temperature nearly constant. He learned to avoid the sun at mid-day, and, free from contagion and motherly coddling, escaped many of the complaints which torture and kill children ; yet he suffered frightfully from colic until his stomach was accustomed to the change of diet, by which time he was emaciated to skin and bone. Then a reaction set in, and as time passed he gained healthy flesh and muscle on the nitrogenous food. Six months from the time of his arrival, another storm swept the beach. Pelted by the warm rain, terror-stricken, he cowered under the rocks through the night, and at daylight peered out on the surf- washed sands, heaving lagoon, and white line of breakers on the barrier reef. The short-lived typhoon had passed, but the wind still blew slantingly on the beach with force enough to raise a turmoil of crashing 208 Primordial sea and undertow in the small bay formed by the ex tension of the wall. The fragments of ship s stern on the reef had disappeared ; but a half-mile to the right, directly in the eye of the wind, was another wreck, and somewhat nearer, on the heaving swell of the lagoon, a black spot, which moved and approached. It came down before the wind, and resolved into a closely-packed group of human beings, some of whom tugged frantically at the oars of the water-logged boat which held them, others of whom as frantically baled with caps and hands. Escorting the boat was a fleet of dorsal fins, and erect in the stern-sheets was a white-faced woman, holding a child in one arm, while she endeavoured to remove a circular life-buoy from around her waist. At first heading straight for the part of the beach where the open-eyed boy was watching, the boat now changed its course, and by desperate exertion of the rowers reached a position from which it could drift to leeward of the point and its deadly maelstrom. With rowers baling and the white-faced woman seated, fastening the child in the life-buoy, the boat, gunwale-deep, and the grue some guard of sharks, drifted out of sight behind the point. The boy had not understood, but he had seen his kind, and from association of ideas appreciated again his loneliness, crying and wailing for a week but not for his mother ; he had forgotten her. With the change of the monsoon came a lowering of the temperature. Naked and shelterless, he barely survived the first winter, tropical though it was. But the second found him inured to the surroundings hardy and strong. When able to he climbed trees and found birds eggs, which he accidentally broke and naturally ate. It was a pleasant relief from a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg- thief ; then the birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked by an angry 209 p Primordial brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a combativeness and destructiveness that had lain dormant in his nature. Children the world over epitomize in their habits and thoughts the infancy of the human race. Their morals and modesty, as well as their games, are those of paleolithic man, and they are remorselessly cruel. From the day of his fracas with the turkey he was a hunter of grubs, insects, and young birds ; but only to kill, maim, or torture ; he did not eat them because hunger was satisfied, and he possessed a child s dis like of radical change. Deprived of friction with other minds, he was slower than his social prototype in the reproduction of the epochs. At a stage when most boys are passing through the age of stone, with its marbles, caves, and slings, he was yet in the earlier arboreal period a climber and would swing from branch to branch with almost the agility of an ape. On fine, sunny days, influenced by the weather, he would laugh and shout hilariously ; a gloomy sky made him morose. When hurt, or angered by dis appointment in the hunt, he would cry out inarticu lately ; but having no use for language, did not talk, hence did not think, as the term is understood. His mind received the impressions of his senses, and could fear, hate, and remember, but knew nothing of love, for nothing lovable appealed to it. He could hardly reason as yet ; his shadow puzzled, angered, and annoyed him until he noticed its concomitance with the sun, when he reversed cause and effect, con sidered it a beneficent, mysterious something that had life, and endeavoured by gesture and grimace to placate and please it. It was his beginning of re ligion. His dreams were often horrible. Strange shapes, immense snakes and reptiles, and nondescript mon- 210 Primordial sters made up of prehistoric legs, teeth, and heads, afflicted his sleep. He had never seen them ; they were an inheritance, but as real to him as the sea and sky, the wind and rain. Every six months, at the breaking up of the mon soon, would come squalls and typhoons full of menace, for his kindly, protecting shadow then de serted him. One day, when about ten years old, during a wild burst of storm, he fled down the beach in an agony of terror ; for, considering all that moved as alive, he thought that the crashing sea and sway ing, falling trees were attacking him, and, half buried in the sand near the bushes, found the forgotten life buoy, stained and weather-worn. It was quiescent, and new to him like nothing he had seen and he had clung to it. At that moment the sun appeared, and in a short time the storm had passed. He carried the life-buoy back with him spurning and threaten ing his delinquent shadow and looked for a place to put it, deciding at last on a small cave in the rocky wall near to the pool. In a corner of this he installed the ring of cork and canvas, and remained by it, pat ting and caressing it. When it rained again, he ap preciated, for the first time, the comfort of shelter, and became a cave-dweller, with a new god a fetish, to which he transferred his allegiance and obeisance because more powerful than his shadow. From correlation of instincts, he now entered the age of stone. He no longer played with shells and sticks, but with pebbles, which he gathered, hoarded in piles, and threw at marks to be gathered again seldom entering the woods but for food and the relaxa tion of the hunt. But with his change of habits came a lessening of his cruelty to defenceless creatures not that he felt pity : he merely found no more amuse ment in killing and tormenting and in time he trans ferred his antagonism to the sharks in the lagoon, 211 p 2 Primordial their dorsal fins making famous targets for his pebbles. He needed no experience with these pirates to teach him to fear and hate them, and when he bathed which habit he acquired as a relief from the heat, and indulged daily he chose a pool near the rocks that filled at high tide, and in it learned to swim, paddling like a dog. And so the boy, blue-eyed and fair at the beginning, grew to early manhood, as handsome an animal as the world contains, tall, straight, and clean-featured, with steady eyes wide apart, and skin the colour of old copper from sun and wind covered with a fine, soft down, which at the age of sixteen had not yet thickened on his face to beard and moustache, though his wavy brown hair reached to his shoulders. At this period a turning-point appeared in his life which gave an impetus to his almost stagnant mental development his food- supply diminished and his pebble- supply gave out completely, forcing him to wander. Pebble-throwing was his only amusement ; pebble-gathering his only labour ; eating was neither. He browsed and nibbled at all hours of the day, never knowing the sensation of a full stomach, and, until lately, of an empty one. To this, perhaps, may be ascribed his wonderful immunity from sickness. In collecting pebbles his method was to carry as many as his hands would hold to a pile on the beach and go back for more ; and in the six years of his stone- throwing he had found and thrown at the sharks every stone as small as his fist within a sector formed by the beach and the rocky wall to an equal distance inland. The fruits, nuts, edible roots, and grasses growing in this area had hitherto supported him, but would no longer, owing to a drought of the previous year, which, luckily, had not affected his water-supply. One morning, trembling with excitement, eye and 212 Primordial ear on the alert as a high-spirited horse enters a strange pasture he ventured past the junction of bush and tide-mark, and down the unknown beach beyond. He filled his hands with the first pebbles he found, but noticing the plentiful supply on the ground ahead of him, dropped them and went on ; there were other things to interest him. A broad stretch of undulating, scantily wooded country reached inland from the convex beach of sand and shells to where it met the receding line of forest and bush behind him ; and far away to his right, darting back and forth among stray bushes and sand-hummocks, were small crea tures strange, unlike those he knew, but in regard to which he felt curiosity rather than fear. He travelled around the circle of beach, and noticed that the moving creatures fled at his approach. They were wild hogs, hunted of men since hunting began. He entered the forest about mid-day, and emerging, found himself on a pebbly beach similar to his own, and facing a continuation of the rocky wall, which, like the other end, dipped into the lagoon and pre vented further progress. He was thirsty, and found a pool near the rocks ; hungry, and he ate of nuts and berries which he recognised. Puzzled by the reversal of perspective and the similarity of conditions, he proceeded along the wall, dimly expecting to find his cave. But none appeared, and, mystified some what frightened he plunged into the wood, keeping close to the wall and looking sharply about him. Like an exiled cat or a carrier-pigeon, he was making a straight line for home, but did not know it. His progress was slow, for boulders, stumps, and rising ground impeded him. Darkness descended when he was but half-way home and nearly on a level with the top of the wall. Forced to stop, he threw himself down, exhausted, yet nervous and wakeful, as any other animal in a strange place. 213 Primordial But the familiar moon came out, shining through the foliage, and this soothed him into a light slumber. He was wakened by a sound near by that he had heard all his life at a distance a wild chorus of barking. It was coming his way, and he crouched and waited, grasping a stone in each hand. The barking, interspersed soon with wheezing squeals, grew painfully loud, and culminated in vengeful growls, as a young pig sprang into a patch of moon light, with a dozen dingoes night-dogs at its heels. In the excitement of pursuit they did not notice the crouching boy, but pounced on the pig, tore at it, snapping and snarling at one another, and in a few minutes the meal was over. Frozen with terror at this strange sight, the boy remained quiet until the brutes began sniffing and turning in his direction ; then he stood erect, and giving vent to a scream which rang through the forest, hurle d the two stones with all his strength straight at the nearest. He was a good marksman. Agonized yelps followed the impact of stone on hide; two dogs rolled over and over, then, gaming their feet, sped after their fleeing companions, while the boy sat down, trembling in every limb completely unnerved. Yet he knew that he was the cause of their flight. With a stone in each hand, he watched and waited until daylight, then arose and went on homeward, with a new and intense emotion not fear of the dingoes: he was the superior animal, and knew it not pity for the pig : he had not developed to the pitying stage. He was possessed by a strong, instinctive desire to emulate the dogs and eat of animal food. It did not come of his empty stomach ; he felt it after he had satisfied his hunger on the way ; and as he plodded down the slope towards his cave, he gripped his missiles fiercely and watched sharply for small animals preferably pigs. 214 Primordial But no pigs appeared. He reached his cave, and slept all day and the following night, waking in the morning hungry, and with the memory of his late adventure strong in his mind. He picked up the two stones he had brought home, and started down the beach, but stopped, came back, and turned inland by the wall ; then he halted again and retraced his steps puzzled. He pondered awhile if his mental pro cesses may be so termed then walked slowly down the beach, entered the bush a short distance, turned again to the wall, and gained his starting-point. Then he reversed the trip, and coming back by way of the beach, struck inland with a clear and satisfied face. He had solved the problem a new and hard one for him that of two roads to a distant place ; and he had chosen the shortest. In a few hours he reached his late camping-spot, and crouched to the earth, listening for barking and squealing for a pig to be chased his way. But dingoes hunt only by night, and unmolested pigs do not squeal. Impatient at last, he went on through the forest in the direction from which they had come, until he reached the open country where he had first seen them ; and here, rooting under the bushes at the margin of the wood, he discovered a family a mother and four young ones which had possibly contained the victim of the dogs. He stalked them slowly and cautiously, keeping bushes between himself and them, but was seen by the mother when about twenty yards away. She sniffed suspiciously, then, with a warning grunt and a scattering of dust and twigs, scurried into the woods, with her brood all but one in her wake. A frightened pig is as easy a target as a darting dorsal fin, and a fat suckling lay kicking convulsively on the ground. He hurried up, the hunting gleam bright in his eyes, and hurled the second stone at the 215 Primordial little animal. It still kicked, and he picked up the first stone, thinking it might be more potent to kill, and crashed it down on the unfortunate pig s head. It glanced from the head to the other stone and struck a spark which he noticed. The pig now lay still, and, satisfied that he had killed it, he tried to repeat the cannon, but failed. Yet the spark had interested him he wanted to see it again and it was only after he had reduced the pig s head to a pulp that he became disgusted, and angrily threw the stone in his hand at the one on the ground. The resulting spark delighted him. He repeated the experiment again and again, each con cussion drawing a spark, and finally used one stone as a hammer on the other, with the same result to him, a bright and pretty thing, very small, but alive, which came from either of the dead stones. Tired of the play at last, he turned to the pig the food that he had yearned for. It was well for him, perhaps, that the initial taste of bristle and fat prevented his taking the second mouthful. Slightly nauseated, he dropped the carcass and turned to go, but immediately bounded in the air with a howl of pain. His left foot was red and smarting. Once he had cut it on a sharp shell, and now searched for a wound, but found none. Rubbing increased the pain. Looking on the ground for the cause, he discovered a wavering, widening ring of strange appearance, and within it a blackened surface on which rested the two stones. They were dry flint nodules, and he had set fire to the grass with the sparks. Considering this to be a new animal that had attacked him, he pelted it with stones, dancing around it in a rage and shouting hoarsely. He might have conquered the fire and never invoked it again, had not the supply of stones in the vicinity given out, or 216 Primordial those he had used grown too hot to handle ; for he stayed the advancing flame at one side. But the other side was creeping on, and he used dry branches, dropping to his hands and knees to pound the fire, fighting bravely, crying out with pain as he burned himself, and forced to drop stick after stick which caught fire. Soon it grew too hot to remain near, and he stood off and launched fuel at it, which resulted in a fair-sized bonfire ; then, in desperation and fear, he hurled the dead pig the cause of the trouble at the terrible monster, and fled. Looking back through the trees to see if he was pursued, he noticed that the strange enemy had taken new shape and colour ; it was reaching up into the air, black and cloud-like. Frightened, tired mentally and physically, and suffering keenly from his burns, he turned his back on the half-solved problem and endeavoured to satisfy his hunger. But he was on strange territory and found little of his accustomed food ; the chafing and abrading contact of bushes and twigs irritated his sore spots, preventing investigation and rapid progress, and at the end of three hours, still hungry, and exasperated by his torment into a reckless, fighting mood, he picked up stones and returned savagely to battle again with the enemy. But the enemy was dead. The grass had burned to where it met dry earth, and the central fire was now a black-and-white pile of still warm ashes, on which lay the charred and denuded pig, giving forth a savoury odour. Cautiously approaching, he studied the situation, then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, seized the pig and ran through the woods to the wall and down to his cave. Two hours later he was writhing on the ground with a violent stomach-ache. It was forty -eight hours after when he ate again, and then of his old food nuts and berries. But the craving returned in 217 Primordial a week, and he again killed a pig, but was compelled to forego eating it for lack of fire. Though he had discovered fire and cooked food, his only conception of the process, so far, was that the mysterious enemy was too powerful for him to kill, that it would eat sticks and grass, but did not like stones, and that a dead pig could kill it, and in the conflict be made eatable. It was only after months of playing with flints and sparks that he recognised the part borne by dry grass or moss, and that with these he could create it at will ; that a dead pig, though always improved by the effort, could not be depended upon to kill it, unless the enemy was young and small when stones would answer as well and that he could always kill it himself by depriving it of food. It is hardly possible that animal food produced a direct effect on his mind, but the effort to obtain it certainly did, arousing his torpid faculties to a keener activity. He grasped the relation of cause to effect seeing one, he looked for the other. He noticed resemblances, and soon realized the common attri butes of fire and the sun ; and, as his fetish was not always good to him the sun and storm seeming to follow their own sweet will in spite of his unspoken faith in the life-buoy he again became an apostate, transferring his allegiance to the sun, of which the friendly fire was evidently a part or symbol. He did not discard his dethroned fetish completely ; he still kept it in his cave to punch, kick, and revile by gestures and growls at times when the sun was hidden, retaining this habit from his former faith. The life-buoy was now his devil a symbol of evil, or, what was the same to him, discomfort ; for he had advanced in religious thought to a point where he needed one. Every morning when the sun shone, and at its reappearance after the rain, he prostrated 218 Primordial himself in a patch of sunlight this and the abuse of the life-buoy becoming ceremonies in his fire-worship. In time he became such a menace to the hogs that they climbed the wall at the high ground and dis appeared in the country beyond. And after them went the cowardly dingoes that preyed on their young. Kodent animals, more difficult to hunt, and a species of small kangaroo, furnished him occupa tion and food until they, too, emigrated, when he was forced to follow ; he was now a carnivorous animal, no longer satisfied with vegetable food. The longer hunts brought with them a difficulty which spurred him to further invention. He could carry only as many stones as his hands would hold, and often found himself far from his base of supply, with game in sight, and without means to kill it. The pouch in which the mother kangaroo carried her young suggested to his mind a like contrivance for carrying stones. Since he had cut his foot on the shell he had known the potency of a sharp edge, but not until he needed to remove charred and useless flesh from his food did he appreciate the utility. It was an easy advance for him roughly to skin a female kangaroo, and wear the garment for the pocket s sake. But it chafed and irritated him ; so, cutting off the troublesome parts little by little, he finally reduced it to a girdle which held only the pouch. And in this receptacle he carried stones for throwing and shells for cutting, his expeditions now extending for miles beyond the wall, and only limited by the necessity of returning for water, of which, in the limestone rock, there were plenty of pools and trickling springs. He learned that no stones but the dry flints he found close to the wall would strike sparks ; but, careless, improvident, petulant child of nature that he was, he exhausted the supply, and one day, too 219 Primordial indolent to search his hunting-tracts to regain the necessary two, he endeavoured to draw fire from a pair that he dug from the moist earth, and, failing, threw them with all his strength at the rocky wall. One of them shivered to irregular pieces, the other parted with a flake a six-inch, dagger-like fragment, flat on one side, convex on the other, with sharp edges that met in a point at one end, and at the other, where lay the cone of percussion, rounded into a roughly-cylindrical shape, convenient for handling. Though small, no flint-chipping savage of the stone age ever made a better knife, and he was quick to appreciate its superiority to a shell. Like most discoveries and inventions that have advanced the human race, his were, in the main, accidental; yet he could now reason from the acci dental to the analogous. Idly swinging his girdle around his head one day, and letting go, he was surprised at the distance to which, with little effort, he could send the stone-laden pouch. Months of puzzled experimenting produced a sling at first with a thong of hide fast to each stone, later with the double thong and pouch that small boys and savages have not yet improved upon. To this centrifugal force, which he could use with out wholly understanding, he added the factor of a rigid radius a handle to a heavy stone ; for only with this contrivance could he break large flints and open cocoanuts an article of good food that he had passed by all his life, and wondered at until his knife had divided a green one. His experiments in this line resulted in a heavy, sharp-edged, solid-backed flint, firmly bound with thongs to the end of a stick a rude tomahawk, convenient for the coup de grace. The ease with which he could send a heavy stone out of sight, or bury a smaller one in the side of a hog at short range, was wonderful to him ; but he 220 Primordial was twenty years old before, by daily practice with his sling, he brought his marksmanship up to that of his unaided hand, equal to which, at an earlier date, was his skill at hatchet-throwing. He could outrun and tomahawk the fastest hog, could bring down with his sling a kangaroo on the jump or a pigeon on the wing, could smell and distinguish game to windward with the keen scent of a hound, and became so formidable an enemy of his troublesome rivals, the dingoes whose flesh he disapproved of and the sharks in the lagoon, that the one deserted his hunting-ground and the other seldom left the reef. He broke or lost one knife and hatchet after another, and learned, in making new ones, that he could chip them into improved shape when freshly dug, and that he must allow them to dry before using, when they were also available for striking fire. He had enlarged his pocket, making a better one of a whole skin by roughly sewing the edges together with thongs, first curing the hide by soaking in salt water and scraping with his knife. His food-list now embraced shellfish and birds, wild yams, bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, which, even the latter, he cooked before eating and prepared before cooking. Pushed by an ever-present healthy appetite, and helped by inherited instincts based on the habits and knowledge of a long line of civilized ancestry, he had advanced in four years from an indolent, mindless existence to a plane of fearless, reasoning activity. He was a hunter of prowess, master of his surroundings, lord over all creatures he had seen, and, though still a cave- dweller when at home, in a fair way to become a hut-builder, herdsman, and agriculturist ; for he had arranged boughs to shelter him from the rain when hunting, had attempted to block up the pass over the wall to prevent the further wanderings of a herd of hogs that he had pursued, and had lately become 221 Primordial interested in the sprouting of nuts and seeds and the encroachments and changes of the vegetation. Yet he lacked speech, and did his thinking without words. The deficiency was not accompanied by the unpleasant twisted features and grimacing of mutes, which comes of conscious effort to communicate. His features were smooth and regular, his mouth sym metrical and firm, and his clear blue eye thoughtful and intent as that of a student, for he had studied and thought. He would smile and frown, laugh and shout, growl and whine, the pitch and timbre of his inarticulate utterance indicating the emotion which prompted it to about the same degree as does an intelligent dog s language to his master. But dogs and other social animals converse in a speech beyond human ken, and in this respect he was their inferior, for he had not yet known the need of language, and did not until, one day, in a section of his domain that he had never visited before, because game avoided it, down by the sea on the side of the wall opposite to his cave, he met a creature like himself. He had come down the wooded slope on the steady jog-trot he assumed when travelling, tomahawk in hand, careless, confident, and happy because of the bright sunshine and his lately appeased hunger, and, as he bounded on to the beach with a joyous whoop, was startled by an answering scream. Mingled with the frightful monsters in the dreams of his childhood had been transient glimpses of a kind, placid face that he seemed to know a face that bent over him. lovingly and kissed him. These were subconscious memories of his mother, which lasted long after he had forgotten her. As he neared man hood strange yearnings had come to him a dreary loneliness and craving for company. In his sleep he had seen fleeting visions of forms and faces like his reflection in a pool like, yet unlike soft, curving 222 Primordial outlines, tinted cheeks, eyes that beamed, and white, caressing hands appeared and disappeared frag mentary and illusive. He could not distinctly re member them when he wakened, but their influence made him strangely happy, strangely miserable ; and while the mood lasted he could not hunt and kill. Standing knee-deep in a shallow pool on the beach, staring at him with wide-open dark eyes, was the creature that had screamed a living, breathing em bodiment of the curves and colour, the softness, bright ness, and gentle sweetness that his subconsciousness knew. There were the familiar eyes, dark and limpid, wondering but not frightened ; two white little teeth showing between parted lips ; a wealth of long brown hair held back from the forehead by a small hand ; and a rounded, dimpled cheek, the damask shading of which merged delicately into the olive tint that extended to the feet. No Venus ever arose from the sea with rarer lines of beauty than were combined in the picture of loveliness which, backed by the blue of the lagoon, appeared to the astonished eyes of this wild boy. It was a girl naked as Mother Eve, and as innocently shameless. In the first confusion of his faculties, when habit and inherent propensity conflicted, habit dominated his mind. He was a huntsman feared and avoided : here was an intruder. He raised his hatchet to throw, but a second impulse brought it slowly down ; she had shown no fear no appreciation of what the gesture threatened. Dropping the weapon to the ground, he advanced slowly, the wonder in his face giving way to a delighted smile, and she came out of the pool to meet him. Face to face they looked into each other s eyes long and earnestly ; then, as though the scrutiny brought approval, the pretty features of the girl sweetened to a smile, but she did not speak or attempt 223 Primordial to. Stepping past him, she looked back, still smiling, halted until he followed, and then led him up to the wall, where, on a level with the ground, was a hollow in the formation, somewhat similar to his cave, but larger. Flowering vines grew at the entrance, which had prevented his seeing it before. She entered, and emerged immediately with a life-buoy, which she held before him, the action and smiling face indicating her desire that he should admire it. The boy thought he saw his property in the posses sion of another creature, and resented the spoliation. With an angry snarl he snatched the life-buoy and backed away, while the girl, surprised and a little indignant, followed with extended hands. He raised it threateningly, and though she did not cower, she knew intuitively that he was angry, and feeling the injustice, burst into tears ; then, turning from him, she covered her eyes with her hands and crouched to the ground, sobbing piteously. The face of the boy softened. He looked from the weeping girl to the life-buoy and back again ; then, puzzled still believing it to be his own he obeyed a generous impulse. Advancing, he laid the treasure at her feet ; but she turned away. Sober-faced and irresolute, not knowing what to do, he looked around and above. A pigeon fluttered on a branch at the edge of the wood. He whipped out his sling, loaded it, and sent a stone whizzing upward. The pigeon fell, and he was beneath it before it reached the ground. Hurrying back with the dead bird, he placed it before her ; but she shuddered in disgust and would not touch it. Off in the lagoon a misguided shark was swimming slowly along, its dorsal fin cutting the surface, a full two hundred yards from the beach. He ran to the water s edge, looked back once, flourished his sling, and two seconds later the shark was scudding for the reef. If she had seen, she evidently was not 224 Primordial impressed. He returned, picked up his tomahawk on the way, idly and nervously fingered the pebbles in his pocket, stood a moment over the sulky girl, and then studied the life-buoy on the ground. A light came to his eyes ; with a final glance at the girl he bounded up the slope and disappeared in the wood. Three hours later he returned with his discarded fetish, and found her sitting upright, with her life buoy on her knees. She smiled gladly as he ap proached, then pouted, as though remembering. Pant ing from his exertion, he humbly placed the faded, scarred, and misshapen ring on top of the brighter, better - cared - for possession of the girl, and stood, mutely pleading for pardon. It was granted. Smiling radiantly a little roguishly she arose and led him again to the cave, from which she brought forth another treasure. It was a billet of wood a dead branch, worn smooth at the ends around which were wrapped faded, half-rotten rags of calico. Hugging it for a moment, she handed it to him. He looked at it wonderingly and let it drop, turning his eyes upon her ; then, with impatience in her face, she reclaimed it, entered the cave the boy following and tenderly placed it in a corner. It was her doll. Up to the borders of womanhood untutored, unloved waif of the woods, living through the years of her simple existence alone she had lavished the instinctive mother-love of her heart on a stick, and had clothed it, though not herself. With a thoughtful little wrinkle in her brow, she studied the face of this new companion who acted so strangely, and he, equally mystified, looked around the cave. A pile of nuts in a corner indicated her house wifely thrift and forethought. A bed of dry moss with an evenly-packed elevation at the end which could be nothing but a pillow showed plainly the manner in which she had preserved the velvety soft- 225 g Primordial ness of her skin. Tinted shells and strips of faded calico, arranged with some approach to harmony of colour around the sides and the border of the floor, gave evidence of the tutelage of the bower-birds, of which there were many in the vicinity. And the vines at the entrance had surely been planted they were far from others of the kind. In her own way she had developed as fully as he. As he stood there, wondering at what he saw, the girl approached, slowly and irresolutely ; then, raising her hand, she softly pressed the tip of her finger into his shoulder. In the dim and misty ages of the past, when wander ing bands of ape-like human beings had not developed their tribal customs to the level of priestly ceremonies when the medicine-man had not arisen a marriage between a man and a young woman was generally consummated by the man beating the girl into insen sibility, and dragging her by the hair to his cave. Added to its simplicity, the custom had the merit of improving the race, as unhealthy and ill-favoured girls were not pursued, and similar men were clubbed out of the pursuit by stronger. But the process was necessarily painful to the loved one, and her female children very naturally inherited a repugnance to being wooed. When a civilized young lady, clothed and well- conducted, anticipates being kissed or embraced by her lover, she places in the way such difficulties as are in her power ; she gets behind tables and chairs, runs from him, compels him to pursue, and expects him to. In her maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help resisting. She obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go scream ing out of the cave and down the beach in simulated terror an instinct inherited from the prehistoric mother, who fled for dear life and a whole skin from 226 Primordial a man behind armed with a club and bent upon marriage. Shouting hoarsely, the boy followed in what, if he had been called upon to classify it, might have seemed to him a fury of rage, but it was not. He would not have harmed the girl, for he lacked the tribal education that induces cruelty to the weaker sex. But he did not catch her ; he stubbed his toe and fell, arising with a bruised kneecap which prevented further pur suit. Slowly, painfully, he limped back, tears welling in his eyes and increasing to a copious flood as he sat down with his back to the girl and nursed his aching knee. It was not the pain that brought the tears ; he was hardened to physical suffering. But his feelings had been hurt beyond any disappointment of the hunt or terror of the storm, and for the first time in his life since his babyhood he wept like the intel lectual child that he was. A soft, caressing touch on his head aroused him and brought him to his feet. She stood beside him, tears in her own eyes, and sympathy overflowing in every feature of the sweet face. From her lips came little cooing, gurgling sounds which he endeavoured to repeat. It was their first attempt at communication, and the sounds that they used understood by mothers and infants of all races were the first root-words of a new language. He extended his arms, and though she held back slightly, while a faint smile responded to his own, she did not resist, and he drew her close forgetting his pain as he pressed his lips to hers. 227 g 2 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 harbour, 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 compre hensive chart of the whole West India group, and had then made 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 legitimate business. Long, low, speedy steamers were built, painted slate-colour, 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, 228 The Slumber of a Soul 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 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 tanrail 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 noted the damage done in his department, and, to apprise the captain on the bridge, roared out : Eudder- post But the descending belaying-pin, striking him a glancing blow on the head, cut short the sentence, and he fell to the deck. 229 The Slumber The escaping steam brought the cruiser back to the chase, and the Petrel was captured, towed to a northern port, and condemned. Here John Dorsey, still unconscious, 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- combative good -humour, indicated by his smile, was the only mental attribute apparent. He even seemed to lack some of the instincts 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 lowering 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 necessary 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 improvement. 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 his 230 of a Soul 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 discharged cured ; but being useful, and not a stickler for salary, was allowed to remain in the hospital until it was officially abolished, six months after the close of the war. Then he was turned adrift a man in physique but a child in experience ; for his life now dated from the awakening in the hospital, 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 his mind expanded, but only to the limits of his soul. Some things he could not understand. In a measure the embargo on his faculties impressed its stamp on his face ; but the features of the intel ligent 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 care worn candour, saved him from commitment as weak- minded, though he was often sent to gaol as a vagrant. For thirty years he was a hopeless wanderer on the face of the earth, at the end of which time he had learned much, considering 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 nor write ; but he could count, though telling the time by the clock marked the limit of his progress in practical mathematics. 231 The Slumber A time-table map, the chart of his wandering con freres, was an incomprehensible puzzle to him. He knew the use of money and what his day s labour was worth, but his lack of skill at the simplest tasks pre vented his holding a job ; hence his ever-reactionary tendency to beggary. Latterly, however, he had worked in a hotel kitchen, and, liking the shelter and warmth, cultivated the industry to the extent of be coming, 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 corrupted 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 tor mented by no speculations as to his origin or destiny the impressions of a year back being forgotten unless renewed 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 mute expres sion of an innocence of soul which approached the divine beyond human understanding and it won him universal goodwill, though not always good treat ment. In the autumn of 1895 he was in New York, penni less ; 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 ? 232 of a Soul No. 1 Where s your clothes ? The applicant looked down at himself. Tramp, aren t you? said the captain good- humouredly. 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-rigged, five- hundred-ton iron screw steamer, with an old-fashioned oscillating engine, which her old-fashioned engineer patted lovingly 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-humoured, 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 Bruiser the Spanish have over. This was a blockade dodger in war times, named the 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 V asked the other, speaking with an accent that stamped him a foreigner. No, answered the captain ; I bought her years afterwards. But, he added proudly, 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 233 The Slumber 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 recognised 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 the dark stranger below in the empty hold. Two hours later a revenue cutter, primed with information of a pur posed 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 viewed 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 Canaveral, and here, after answer ing 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 carefully in the hold. As the largest boat came out, the captain 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 234 of a Soul let it touch the side, or it ll 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 appeared, outside the barrier and heading for the inlet, the revenue cutter that had followed 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 ! 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 cap tain. 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. Kun up a white flag! roared the captain ; then scull that boat ashore. The cook heard, but could not understand. The man on the bridge understood, but could not obey he could not find the flag-locker. However, he im pressed 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 con- 235 The Slumber scientiously and emphatically 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 report, 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 waves, 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, and, in a cracked falsetto, cried out, Carried away, sir ! finishing the sentence begun in his youth and interrupted by the descending 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 suspicious inspection, he examined the group on the beach. 236 of a Soul None of our crowd, he muttered. Then he turned the glass on the revenue vessel outside. Haven t they got enough men-of-war on the coast without trotting out their cutters ? he growled. What s he say? " M, L, H" get under way. Say, you, he demanded 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? Everything 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 problem, though, of course, with no regard to 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 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 approaching cutter. 237 The Slumber Cook ! I m mate if I m anything ! spluttered Dorsey, the sailor in him aroused by the affront. Yet the terror in his eyes might have indicated his doubts that he was anything. The vessel outside had stopped her engines at the mouth of the inlet, and now sent another and better- aimed shot across the Avon s stern. It aroused Dorsey to fury. 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 satisfy 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, emerging, the woolly head of the fireman, who had heard the gun and wanted to know. What steam you got ? demanded Dorsey, who recognised 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. * Answer 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 de manded : What steam you got ? 238 of a Soul 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 engine. 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 heavens 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. Who are you, anyhow ? he asked. Can you run the engine ? No. 1 * Can you steer ? * I cannot. Then I must do both. Eun 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, towards 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 fireman, and who 239 The Slumber now seemed to have the international signal code in his head, was the same smiling imbecile who could not scull a boat. Suspicions of Spanish espionage disturbed him. Yet the other s action might indicate a desire to escape ; and so, reasoning 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 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 unpleasant and aggressive com panion, possibly 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 pos sibly on account of grounding. Anxiously he watched from the engine-room door while the Avon backed to nearly her first position ; then, when he saw the 240 of a Soul 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 occupant, who sculled vigor ously towards the 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 outside. 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 Government craft placed in a more undignified 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 manner of the engine-room) to the oscillating cylinder, wagging away like the stump-tail of an overpleased dog, and 241 R The Slumber returned to the wheel ; while the man in the boat under the stern shouted profanely and vainly for assistance, 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 armament was modern, her engines were old older than the Avon s, and inferior by two knots speed per hour and she lost ground steadily. Dorsey steered due east, made periodical trips to the boat s vitals, and in two hours whooped in triumph as he saw the pursuer turn slowly around and start back. An hour later, and about five minutes after the ex hausted 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 sufficiently to realize to the full his isolation not of space, but of time. He was still of the past, just escaped from peril a generation 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 someone 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 confiscated. Keturning to the deck, he smoked and reflected, but in a few minutes put the pipe down, nauseated. Jack Shiven had not been a smoker. What ll I 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 242 of a Soul and I was too dead to move. Wish I knew where that cutter ll hunt next. Wish I knew what s hap pened. What ails the boat ? She looks as though she d been through seven hells. He went to the rail. Old paint! he exclaimed. Old ivoodwork ! 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 etiquette, he raised his foot, burst in the door, and entered. A large mirror on the bulkhead 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 accompanied. It s me, he groaned, and it isn t me. Approach ing the glass, he examined closely the spectre con fronting him. There was not a trace of resemblance between the old and the new John Dorsey, unless it was the colour 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 barrows. He sank down on a chest in helpless fright, while perspiration oozed from his forehead. In the berth lay a folded and discoloured newspaper, which he seized and examined. It was dated January 1, 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. Nonsense; 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 re turned to the captain s room and attacked the boat s library, tearing books from their places, examining 243 R 2 The Slumber 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 his entered was Jack x Shiven, 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 unguided far into the unknown, there was something unreal, unearthly, in the aspect of sea and sky. There was insufferable heat and dryness in the air he breathed, and a new, metallic ring to the tink ling swash of the water as the boat rolled ; and this sound, 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 someone else. Who ? He backed up against the side of the forward-house. Off to the westward was a speck the revenue-cutter. It was a tangible 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 day light, and I was here. He moved a few steps. And 244 of a Soul nothing is the same. He noticed the broken wire rope on the deck. What parted the lift ? It seems y es it must be that is what hit me. I remember now; I saw it 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 someone 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 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 de cisively : * 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 9 On deck, there ! came a hail from over the side. He stepped to the rail. A hatless, coatless man was 245 The Slumber wearily sculling a boat up to the steamer. Give me 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 that painter ? You ve pulled my arms six inches longer. lie peered into Dorsey s puzzled face ; then, as though appreciating the humour of the situation, he advanced with twinkling eyes and collared him. 1 So-ho, 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, rubbing 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 shaking, was also being rubbed. In his in complete 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 captain of the Avon, and he recognised him. The nigger was right, muttered the captain 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 Dorsey, with his hand on the captain s collar, you sit right there and answer a few questions answer them civilly. What do you know? What happened to me and the boat ? Why, Jack, I really don t know, said the captain, resolved to humour his captor, whose apparent maniacal strength prevented an escape ; but his neck was nearly dislocated by the sudden shake he received 246 of a Soul 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 him, and he saw it. His answer was unfortunate. * 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 engineer 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 clenched fist. When Captain Swift recovered his faculties and sat up, dazed and disfigured, his wrists were ironed ; for he had lain quiet on the deck long enough for Dorsey to rummage 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 Government House. Which ll you do help me get this boat back to Nassau and hold your berth and your money, or stay in irons, lose your pay, and be kicked into gaol for insubordination ? Well, said the subdued captain painfully, * I don t know but Nassau s a good place for this boat just now. What d you want me to do ? 247 The Slumber * 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 em phasizing shake ; * bring her sou -sou -east when I start the machine. And, mind you, if you play any games, overboard you go ! Yes, sir. The captain climbed the bridge steps to the pilot house. Might ha known better than to ship a 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 taller ; yet there s something about him. Well, we re going to Nassau; there s an old woman there who ll know, and I ll be at the meeting if I m alive. All that day and the following night Captain 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 binnacle and side-lights as night came on, and giving such indubitable evidence of sanity that Captain 248 of a Soul Swift once ventured to address him as Mr. Dorsey. It was taken as a matter 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 occasionally 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 harbour. On the highest point of the low shore was a figure 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 harbour Dorsey stopped the engine while he puzzled over the action of a patent windlass which was new to him. Mastering this, he went on at half-speed. The figure had left the rocks, and, still waving the red cloth, was hastening towards the landing. Close in as he dared go, Dorsey again shut off steam, and, with the cap tain 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 captain 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 ll 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 appear- 249 The Slumber ance of the water-front, he sculled to the steps of the nearest public wharf. As they landed, an old woman in a red shawl was waiting. With some difficulty Dorsey recognised in the stern face of this decrepit old woman 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 every thing 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 dubiously, 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, 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. 250 of a Soul But it isn t the Petrel, mother ; it s the Avon, of New York. Why, I don t know. That s what bothers me. 1 1 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 ? 1 Write where d I go? said the puzzled Dorsey. * Mother, what year is it ? 1 Eighteen ninety-five, John; didn t you know that? Captain Swift advanced, seized Dorsey by 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 hospital? 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 vigorously : 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 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 harbour and town. It has passed to me in the instant of time during which I felt something hard strike my head. Take me home, mother, and take care of me till I can make it out. 251 THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST HE had started life at sixteen on a small farm in Ohio, had won the heart of the farmer s wife by putting new life and ambition into the disabled old clock during her absence, but had incurred the wrath of the farmer himself by taking apart the threshing- machine, which showed signs of wear, and which he had sincere intentions of mending. A sound beating caused a vacancy on that farm, and filled 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 finding this means of livelihood easier than working, he continued at it, and developed in a few years into as picturesque a tramp as ever enlivened rural scenery. He was not vicious, only ignorant and lazy. Some times, to relieve ennui, he would work for a few days, but only at labour that brought him into contact with machinery. He was a born mechanic ; but this expresses all. He knew by intuition things that successful civil and mechanical engineers would be glad to acquire after years of study, at the same time possessing none of the balance of mind that makes us respectable. He had a bulging forehead, with ears set well back on his head. A phrenologist, examining such a head, would have described it as showing large 252 The Survival of the Fittest imitation, hope, form, and weight ; abnormally large causality, comparison, and constructiveness; but sadly deficient in continuity, combativeness, destructiveness, 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 beyond him. In short, he was a happy-go-lucky vagabond, with an ever-increasing repugnance for work, and an ever-decreasing community of interest with hisfellow- men. JL 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 waggon-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 waggon, 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 frantically climbed the tackle to reach a window just above him. The two remaining strands of the rope quivered under the strain, becoming 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 very quick movements. Seizing the end of the rope from the waggon, he pulled about eight feet twice around a near-by lamp-post, over and under itself, thus hitching it. Jumping to the waggon 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. 253 The Survival 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 foreman. * He s a sailor. I ve been there, and know the signs. He s passed a clove hitch 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 em ployer was suspicious at first of the ragged, unlicensed aspirant ; but he talked glibly of grate surface, eccen trics, 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 inherited know ledge, 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. On the second day he sailed over two fences amid a cloud of hot steam, while the shattered boiler went the other way. 254 of the Fittest He was picked up scalded, disfigured, and uncon scious, 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 employer : 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 understood the proper angle that sails should bear to the wind, and the resultant force exerted 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 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 griping was the carrying of the rudder to one side from the uneven pressure of the wind. By the time he had assimilated this nautical 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 255 The Survival whistle, to signify to the barges behind to Look out. 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 under by the bow of the on-coming 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 bobstay 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 bowsprit, and thence in-board to the deck, on to which he tumbled an unconscious heap. He was carried below, stripped, and brought to with much rubbing and copious draughts of whisky; but not being used to this stimulant 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 sounding, slowed down, took a cast of the lead, and went on, without being able to see 256 of the Fittest 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. It was his last speech. The terrific strain broke the iron casting on the bow through which the hawser led, and the mate, standing 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. Eopes were thrown out, but the relentless power at the other end of the tow-line carried 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, slacken ing the tow-line with the increased speed acquired in the wide sweep. Then she swung the other way, the strength of the helmsman, a mere boy, not being sufficient to steady her. As the tow-line tautened, leading now off to star board, though the brand-new rope held, the rotten tow-post, weakened by its wrenching, did not. Break ing 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, pointing 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. 257 s The Survival 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 ! The 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 scuppers, and in that blinding snow-storm, the flakes of which were attain ing a needle-like sharpness, the gray old skipper was more than ever resolved not to anchor in a dangerous 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 endeavoured 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 wind ward, a gray, nearly perpendicular wall. 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 258 of the Fittest 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 day light shone in on him ; then he remembered 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. 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 fore- hatch. He groaned with the sharp pain in his back, but could not rise. His legs were useless ; 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 gruesome thing above. Then he mounted the slippery ladder, shutting his eyes as he neared the staring face, and 259 s 2 The Survival 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 : Anyone here ? Hearing no sound, he descended, and opened all the state-room 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 experienced sailor. The vessel had once been a fine three-masted schooner, degraded later to a barge by sending down her top masts. 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, somewhere on Lake Erie, he was alone with a dead man. This much he knew. Ahead and astern were two lines of blue, which he 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 the first tow-barge, and his painful climb up the bobstays of the other, came back to him. But he remembered nothing more. * Somethin orful s happened, he muttered. S pose everyone got washed off or mebbe they re in the boat ; that s gone ! Wonder what killed the man forrard. I ve got t do somethinV He noticed the thumping of the spars alongside, where they lay held by the rigging, 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 260 of the Fittest drifted away. The jib-boom had snapped at the bow sprit end, but the bowsprit still 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 hum mock 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 replaced his wet rags. The captain s room furnished a good pair of rubber boots and a suit of oilskins. 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 corner was a circle, filled with numerous interlocking stars, which he could not understand. He put the chart away, and, clad in his warm, protec tive 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 261 The Survival 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. He went to the centre-board winch, measured 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 diagram 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 inde pendent 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, octagon-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 was lashed to the fife-rail around the stump of the fore mast. 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 comprehension. But he divined its scope and utility, and out of his environment of screaming wind and heaving water evolved a plan of salvation apparently so wild, so 262 of the Fittest baseless and hopeless, that no sane seafaring man, hampered by experience, would have considered 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 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 im mense icicle, the accretion 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 attempting 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 chopping 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. By the light of the galley-lamp he studied the chart, but could make little of it except 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 263 The Survival 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 inserted the ends of ropes, making a bridle such as boys put on their kites. Weighting one side with a heavy piece of iron, he fastened the end of a hawser from the box to the bridle, and pushed the contrivance over the stern, paying out the line as the vessel drifted away from it. When about a hundred feet were out, he made it fast to the quarter-bitt (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 quarter, and had the satisfaction of see ing the craft pay off and go staggering through the water, and though yawing right and left, keep a general direction eastward. He hurrahed 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 every 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 successful 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 of the drag- ropes, straining on the bitts, gave him an idea of 264 of the Fittest power that he could use power beyond the strength of a hundred men. Up he came and surveyed the ground, inspecting 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 be fore the wind. He needed a mast and a larger sail. So he inventoried his material. 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 dis connected 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 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 crackled, 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 receive the jaws when his mast should arise. Salting his work as he left it, he laboured on, perspiring with his efforts, and drenched by the merciless seas which boarded the craft amid- 265 The Survival ships. 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 ? Late in the afternoon he first felt hunger, and sur veyed 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 his sail. His fertile brain had worked in advance 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 mechani cal equivalents, 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 Manila. 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 266 of the Fittest 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 paid out carefully, and had the satisfaction of seeing 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 tautened, and, leading the drag-line across the deck, he slackened these guys alternately, paying out the drags as he moved back and forth, thus keeping the spar comparatively 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 paid out roundly, fearing the guys would part from the merciless tugs they received 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 drag-line. By the time he had done so darkness had almost arrived, and the ghastly 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, dropping the tackles and deck-tools down the stairs, he looked around the shortened horizon before following them. The aspect had not changed. The same black-and- 267 The Survival 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 manhood. Dry clothes and supper refreshed him a little, and again he studied the chart. Eeaching down the cook s rolling-pin and placing the chart on the floor, he knelt on it. * Now, that circle in the corner, he said, * can t mean nothin but to show the way 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 upstairs is marked just the same an allus points the same way wonder why ? Now, le s see. In the mornin I spects 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 touch ing 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 centre of the circle and flush with the rolling-pin. Eight 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 remember. 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 un questionably milder. So he turned in again, and 268 of the Fittest 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 halyard into the after upper corner of the sail, he passed the other through this block, and, 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, hammered, and pried, until he dared wait no longer ; then he threw off the drag-line turns and chopped again, where most needed, 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 know ing as yet how he was to secure the lower part, until he noticed 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 tackle, then, paying out more drag-line, brought the sail up. It set beautifully, a picturesque leg-of-mutton above, 269 The Survival 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 around. She would not come ; so, lashing the halyards 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 complete 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 dropped the wheel, rushed to the galley, and, coming back with some bread, found her rounding up to the wind. But she paid off when he put the wheel over, and, munching the bread, he steered on, watching for ports on the south shore. He saw no signs that his judgment approved of, how ever ; the wind was freshening and hauling back to its old quarter, and he resolved to go on; he could not miss Buffalo. As night came on he reasoned out the necessity of light on the compass, and, investigating, 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 mid night to a hurricane that at times flattened the seas to a level. His lame side ached ; his blind eye, in flamed with cold, smarted as though torn with needles; 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, 270 of the Fittest burned, and grew numb as the water in his boots con gealed. All but engulfed 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 beside 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 ringer 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 screaming sound. But during these moments mother and dead man would go ; for, braced heavily against the nearly immovable wheel, his tortured mind and body obtained momentary respite, and sanity came back. A bright light flared up 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 : north-east 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 unde cided which shore to strike. He awakened his com- 271 The Survival rades 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 along side the shapeless iceberg floundering into port, their captains roaring out requests for a line to the dis hevelled creature at the wheel. A vacant stare and a backward wave of the arm were the only answer. Gaily and noisily the procession passed up Buffalo Eiver, 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 ramming. 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. Newspaper men sought him and asked questions, which he answered between mouthfuls, mainly by a simple Dunno. One brought him a looking-glass, into which he looked wonderingly; his lips were shrunken and drawn, his face wrinkled, and his hair, which had been dark, was white as the crests of the seas he had conquered. The captain of a wind-bound liner appeared and interviewed him. He s not a sailor, he reported later; but he has accomplished the greatest feat of pure seamanship 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 272 of the Fittest 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. 273 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 Presby- terianism 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 schools ; he had walked through youth in the straight and narrow way, and on coming to manhood tall, loose- jointed, and solemn found himself with two definite incentives to future 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 prevented his choosing a career ; but he learned, in time, of the possibilities in mis sionary work among the heathen, and with much prayer and pious thought prepared himself and his way toward this calling. An outward-bound ship took him, primed with zeal and commissions, as far towards heathendom as the Eiver Plate, where an easterly gale wrecked the ship and drowned half her people. His baggage and credentials were lost, and the enforced companionship with seamen in the open air until they reached the settlements roughened him and prepared him to work 274 A Creature of Circumstance his way as a foremast hand to Buenos Ayres. Here he found no occupation congenial to his creed the Eoman 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 determined his life. With his small endow ment of spirituality reduced to intolerant dogmatism, and his clothing to tarry rags, he presented so un promising a front to the local missionaries as to fail him of encouragement, or even their efforts towards his discharge from the ship, and he finished the voyage, shipping 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 acquired 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, successful commander, with three or four bank accounts, and a reputation for piety and integrity that attracted to him all that was God-fearing in the seafaring element at the home ports, and repelled the opposite. Indeed, no irre ligious sailor would, or could, make the second voyage with him, and at the time this story opens in the early forties 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 com pany, subscribing their savings and services, and electing Captain MacNab, the heaviest subscriber, president, and his officers directors which company bought, for a song, a fast-sailing barque that had lately climbed high and dry on the beach, and been abandoned to the underwriters. Hard work and good seamanship floated her, and 275 T 2 A Creature 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 unsavoury cargo the purchase of which used up the last shilling of the company s capital and sailed for a Brazilian market. At daylight of the seventh day out Captain MacNab squared away to the southward, sent up stunsails, and a silent prayer to Heaven that the way of the ungodly might perish, and called his first mate, Sandy Ander son ; 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 were twelve guns and a Long Tom, 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 tricolour at the gaff end, and on her forecastle a vicious bow-chaser, which occasionally spoke. It ll 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. Ay, 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 ll be meat for the froggies ; she s makin but twa feet to the schooner s three save us ! what s that ? 1 A shell, Sandy a shell, a shell ! Oh, the in humanity 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 coincident 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 276 of Circumstance the wind and were taken in, while the schooner, which had luffed three points or more to fire this shot from a bow port, paid 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 surrender. 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-Tom amidships. She s hittin back hittin back ! murmured 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 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 paid off, set her mainsail and staysail, 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 west ward and the barque to the southward. At noon, with his quarrelling neighbours reduced to specks on the horizon, Captain 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 ? 277 A Creature Sandy could not answer, but next morning the question was answered by the brig herself. At mid night, though the weather was fine, the light sails had been furled ; for the coming day was Sunday, sacred to Captain MacNab, to be remembered re ligiously in meditation and prayer, undisturbed by the trimming and shortening of sail. Biding along on a course which nothing but threatening disaster was to change before the following midnight, the barque 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 -gallantsa 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 mari time supremacy, a bow gun belched forth, and sent a solid shot ricochetting ahead of the barque ; then a trumpet voice from the 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 Philistines- 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 barque, sending up stunsails 278 of Circumstance with all the quickness and precision of a Government craft. Then began a race, which, had the barque been in anything else but Sunday dress, might, other things equal, have resulted in her favour ; but it takes a little time, even with a frantic captain shouting, to loose and set top-gallantsails 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, as she lifted to the seas, occasional glimpses of bright copper be tween 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 MacNab 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. Niggers, Sandy niggers ! groaned the captain. 1 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 barque s star board quarter. Wild thoughts flitted through Captain MacNab s mind at this juncture thoughts of putting his wheel hard a-port as the white bow lapped 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 star board tack. But he looked at the black guns and Long Tom ; he had seen the brig s gunnery and he hesitated. The brig, answering a slight twist of her wheel, 279 A Creature 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 stunsails 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 headway the negro cutting the barque s upper braces as he came to them and with skilfully-thrown grappling hooks was checked, stopped, and fastened, with her nose abreast of the barque s mainmast, and her fore-royal stay lifting the foot-rope of the swinging main-yard. Captain MacNab, wrathful but helpless, gave no orders to his unarmed crew; the helmsman steered faithfully on before the wind as last directed, and the two craft, locked together, charged along, while a black horde, to the number of forty, crowded over the rail, each red waist encircled by a broad belt studded with little brass cylinders each belt supporting, besides a long knife, a brace of heavy pistols, with revolving chambers, curiously contrived and newly invented Colt re volvers. No resistance was offered by the Scotch crew, and no violence, as yet, by the blacks. They clustered amidships, while their commander, 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 righting 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 sanctums of turbulent weeklies, in legislative minorities, reform pulpits, lunatic asylums, and political prisons. They and 280 of Circumstance the minds behind are of the future, and are decidedly incongruous and displeasing in an age of the present. 1 Which is the captain of this barque ? he asked, in purest English, as his eyes wandered from Captain MacNab to his mate and back. Myself, Angus MacNab ; an this is my mate, Alexander Anderson ; an this is the barque 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 odour surrounding your craft. Open those hatches, men ! he called to his crew. In a trice this was done, the blacks shouldering 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 clamour became a humming, inarticulate roar. It was a tribute to liberty which all could comprehend. 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, motioning the Scot in charge away with a significant and effective flourish of his long knife. 281 A Creature How many ? demanded the negro captain tersely. * Three hunder. Shackled in pairs or in gangs ? * In gangs o ten. 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 heathen? 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 submit 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 instincts 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 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 misguided obstructionist is, to say the least, discouraging. The savings of twenty years and the approval of Captain MacNab s long-accusing conscience (for he was genuinely sincere) were con cerned in the success of this voyage. He looked at 282 of Circumstance 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, Lord ! he groaned. * Gi him the keys, Mr. Anderson. The mate nodded, and descending to his room, 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 namesake 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. 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 283 A Creature of the complaining crew, while the clean upper deck was filling with successive arrivals from below 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, young or old, cried and rejoiced, and grovelled 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. We re i the hands o robbers an thieves, rejoined Sandy irreverently. What s to be the final disposee- tion 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 ignorance an darkness to be robbed o the blessed tidings. Oh, the sinfu ness the sinfu 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 prisoners were conducted to the lower hold, where each chain was stretched out and the ends shackled to the 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 liberated blacks mocking them, the hatches were closed, and in darkness and filth they were left to themselves. To those unacquainted with the horrors of a slaver s hold it is enough to say without gruesome 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 impoverishing 284 of Circumstance 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 management, 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 placing the buckets at the ends of each line, carried 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 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 285 A Creature shortening sail from the 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 before. 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, chattering, red-eyed wild beasts stark, raving mad. The exception was Captain MacNab. His strong, abiding faith had saved his reason, though his hair was as white as the topsides of La Guillotine. Cleansing his poisoned lungs with gasping inhala tions of the sweet, fresh air, and closing his eyes against the blinding sunlight, he lifted his haggard face to the heavens. God o mercy ! he sobbed ; * I thank Ye for this reprieve. God o vengeance, gi me light, an strength a little longer an courage ! The two craft had been grounded, side by side, the brig inshore, near the left bank of a muddy river. About a hundred yards distant on the marshy beach was high-water mark, from which the water was now receding. 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- rnocky, wooded slope which stretched up to a distant 286 of Circumstance mountain-range ; and sprinkled here and there among the trees were clusters 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 stowing the sails of both vessels, while others coiled up gear below. On the deck of the barque was the horde of released slaves, huddled 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 smouldering coals, Captain MacNab 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 satisfied. This is the result of my mate, who sailed the barque in, mis understanding my directions. I am in favour of a clean, healthy vengeance on slave-traders but not this. 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 slavery. Ashore, you were to be killed, worked or whipped to death, or allowed to run and die in the swamps, as your masters determined. This latter will probably be the fate of your men, as my people, 287 A Creature in their native state, will have no dealings with the insane. And, on the whole, he added, his face hardening, * their punishment may be lighter than yours. An your punishment, ye child o hell, is to come! growled Captain MacNab in impotent rage. It ll be better, I m thinkin , could ye so balance the account that ye loose my daft laddies an let them rend ye limb from limb. The other turned away with a shrug of the shoulders and returned to the brig, while Captain MacNab cooled down a little in the endeavour 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 clank ing, and the outpourings of the huts had walked on the slant of mud to the brig, welcomed noisily the new recruits, and departed with them after a subdued and awe-struck inspection of the white men. Captain Arcand and his crew were over his side examining the hull of the brig, and the prisoners, under the influence of the fresh air and a bountiful supply of mush and possibly 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. Cap tain MacNab looked 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 ! His terrible ordeal had brought doubts to Captain MacNab s mind as to the civilizing 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 explosion of a shell 288 of Circumstance down the hatchway. She is old, and slower than the barque ; so, instead of burning your craft, as is my rule with prizes, I shall tranship 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 labour of the entire colony ashore in the burn ing of wood and lime-rock in the hills and trans porting the wood-ash and lime to the barque, and the labour of the black crew in removing, cleansing, and replacing ballast, and scouring and whitewashing the hold for ten days before Captain Arcand decided that the barque was a fit habitation for human beings. Then began 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 in creased draught such weights would give the barque, 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, apparently coming to no decision in the matter, avoided the brig s deck as they would a place of contagion, and the others, beyond feeding them, paid them no attention whatever. All at last being done but the transfer of the arma ment, the barque was kedged off at high tide, and with spring-lines to the now sunken brig and taut cables to anchors up stream and down, she was shored 289 u A Creature 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 barque ; seamanlike manoeuvres these, which Captain MacNab professionally com mended. Then they hooked a strong tackle from the brig s top-masthead and another from the barque s mainyard-arm to the heavy Long Tom, 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 topmast cross-trees directed it seaward for a moment ; then, slinging it over his shoulder by its strap, he slid to the deck on the backstay, and called out order after order to his men, while Captain MacNab looked on in wonder and his unfortunate crew in in creasing excitement at the effect produced. The men aboard the brig unhooked the yard-arm tackle and threw the block overboard, then ran along the shores to the barque and joined their hurrying shipmates 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 and then the up-stream cable, casting off the spar-lashings allow ing 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 barque, 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 chatter of his fellow- prisoners, but saw, however, a thinning cloud filtering through the barque s mizzen-rigging, while below it 290 of Circumstance was Captain Arcand ; resting his long revolver on the quarter-rail, about to fire again. A second puff of smoke arose before Captain MacNab could 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 reck less. 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 officer ; 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 barque had entered the head of the channel, the reason of the sudden 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-colour indicated their recent acquaintance with carpenters tools ; and Captain MacNab did not need to see the rest of the fabric the lower sails and glistening black hull to recognise the French schooner that had chased the brig. She was beating up the North Channel against the young ebb, and the outgoing barque, charging down the other channel with all sail spread, was in a 291 u 2 A Creature position to avoid observation for some time, as the high cone of the island would hide either craft from the deck of the other. If the schooner saw the barque, 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 tricolour flying, her crew at quarters, ports open and guns run out, and in each 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 fragment of his one-time white shirt that had escaped Sandy s clutches, waved it, shook the chain up and down, and pointed to the barque, 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, lowered four boats, into which they tumbled, each man armed with cutlass and pistol. Fifteen minutes later, Captain MacNab was explain ing matters to a group of French officers through the medium of one who understood English, while a carpenter s mate filed at the bolt of his shackle (the keys were in the barque), and his men declaimed at the line of blue -jackets. The officers were much interested in the account of the colony ashore, and laughed, somewhat unsteadily, 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 horreeble horreeble ! Captain MacNab made no response, and after a 292 of Circumstance short conference with the others the officer said: We haf come for fresh vegetebel for yams for any sing. 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. Ay, mun, answered Captain MacNab, as he shook his wrist out of the divided 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 barque ? 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 barquey. What was logical or practical in this proposition was ignored by the French officers. They had accom plished something, and perhaps wanted to return to civilization ; but they acknowledged Captain MacNab s claim on the brig in lieu of his barque, 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 landing up-shore of a well- laden provision-boat, the anchor was tripped, and they sailed down the channel, making out, as they opened up the broad Atlantic, a small speck on the 293 A Creature 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 accused of piracy. At Captain MacNab s request, 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. 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 alongside, and the occu pants 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 294 of Circumstance print dress, the rest bandanas. The colour 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. Captain MacNab, talking to the quartermaster in charge, heard the uproar and sprang forward 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 servants, 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 risking it in the shark-infested river. The last Frenchman aboard, the quartermaster, followed, and the schooner was in the hands of lunatics. For a matter of ten minutes they busied themselves in undressing, yelling the while, and where buttons were obstinate the garment suffered ; then a naked master-spirit of them slipped the cable, the schooner dropped down with the ebb, and Captain Angus McNab arose to the situation. Tis the act of God, he muttered. * I am to carry oot His wark. I am to be a destrawin 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 mainsail 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 bedlam crossed the bar and went to sea. I ve the latitude, said the captain, an the longi tude is the coast of Africa. Praised be the name o the Lord ! 295 A Creature Crazy or sane, these men were sailors, and obeyed orders when given in a tone of authority ; but it was three days before Captain MacNab dared leave the deck or attempt to guide them into other tasks than 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, impressed 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 became 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 com- bativeness, nothing to improve their minds or morals. Captain MacNab continued the log-book, thus keep ing the day of the month, and with the officers sextants and a French almanac, in which figures, if not words, were understandable, 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, no doot, he said ; an I m thinkin it ll be a sea-fight yard-arm to yard-arm. Send that I raise her to windward. The barque s best before it, but the schooner s best close-hauled. 296 of Circumstance And to windward the barque was when he finally raised her. After a month s cruise in the neigh bourhood, during which he astonished several slave- trading barque captains by chasing, then inconsistently dropping them, he was blown far to sea by an easterly gale, and on his return, close-hauled on the skirts of the faint trade-wind, sailed one midnight into a fog- bank, which, dissolving at noon of the next day, re vealed the barque 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 recognised by a man who had disabled her once and fled from her twice, and Captain MacNab was surprised, though agreeably so, to find that the barque made no effort to escape, either by clapping on sail or falling off to a better sailing point. She lay nearly upright, with royals 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 powder supply, and his mate, the steadiest of all, at the wheel. A white flag arose to the gaff end of the barque, 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, said Cap tain MacNab, as he went among his men and ad monished them. The fatal colour had nearly rendered them uncontrollable. 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 297 A Creature appearing above the rail in unrepressed astonish ment. I had expected, he answered, to meet the officers of a French schooner-of-war, explain my position, and come to a compromise. 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 barque, 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 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 sawtisfied, 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 barque paid off, headed south across the schooner 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, skimming under the bowsprit. The Long-Tom amidships on the barque now flashed out, and with the report came a pair of singing, whirl ing chain-shot towards the schooner, cutting away the main-topmast, as had happened before, and depriving them of a useful gaff-topsail. Then Captain Mac- Nab, who had paid off to a nearly parallel course, answered with a broadside, which brought one from the barque, and a running fight began. But, while the guns of the barque were aimed high, to cripple the spars of the pursuer, the lunatic avengers swept the deck of the barque with the iron missiles, and the 298 of Circumstance 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 converging lines, while cannon roared, and maniacs gibbered, and rigging above be came tattered shreds ; then down came the schooner s fore-topmast with the three sails supported by it, and the barque, with still intact canvas, crept ahead. Excepting the schooner s bow-chaser, which still killed men, and the terrible Long Tom on the barque, 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 barely moving, but still with steerage-way, and Captain MacNab decided on a change of tactics. 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-topgallant mast and a dismounted Long Tom, which was struck by the falling spar. Again and again they loaded and fired ; and when the barque s main-topmast sagged forward and fell, taking with it the yard, with some dotting red spots on it, Captain MacNab decided to go on. He paid off, gybed again, and in the face of a fusillade of pistol- shots took the schooner up to the starboard quarter of the barque, 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 craft together. 299 A Creature Over ye go, my bairns ! he shouted, as he grabbed a cutlass. Pikes, handspikes, 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 barque. Then a strange, one-sided struggle took place. Eed-shirted negroes were cut down with pikes and swords, felled with handspikes and stamped upon ; bullets sang around Captain MacNab, and some entered his flesh as he, nearly as insane as his men, fought and en deavoured to reach the negro leader, who was coolly discharging 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 Tom, played, cheerfully and consistently, the wild, inspiriting tunes of 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, feint ing, and retreating, and only fired at Captain MacNab at such times as they could do so without hitting the others. Cease firing ! suddenly called out Captain Arcand ; he is as mad as the rest. Disarm them if you can, and knock that bagpiper 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 offensive action of the blacks. Captain Mac- 300 of Circumstance 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, offensive 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 silent, merely parried though he occasionally pricked the sword-arm of his adversary and retreated. It was English navy cutlass-drill against the French school of fencing, and, in a short time, ended by the white captain s blade flying overboard. He was close to the handspike rack on the mainmast, 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 moment 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 appealed in a different manner to the disordered 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 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 fallen, and evidence of Captain MacNab s insanity was conflicting ; for, though his eyes blazed with maniacal fury, as he whirled the handspike and cleared ground, he was 301 A Creature calling to his men, objurgating and beseeching them to come back and finish their work. He gained the rail, bleeding from a score of wounds, climbed aboard the schooner, 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 absence the negroes had dislodged the grappling-hook, and ten feet of open space now separated the two vessels. Dashing the blood from his eyes, Captain MacNab sprang to the main-deck and swabbed, loaded, and depressed the port shell-gun until it pointed at the water-line of the barque. 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, presumably, 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 barque amid ships 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 occasional red-shirted body, or part of one. The barque was gone. Broken in half by the explosion of the powder-magazine, she had sunk to the bottom, 302 of Circumstance 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. Kaising his blood-smeared face and outstretched 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 appeared off 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 understood English, he was available, and was engaged. Conning the ship up the North Channel, the pilot pointed out to the captain the remains of a ten-gun battery on the island, which covered all approach from the river above, and explained that a long time ago before he came to the town a black schooner, with torn sails and no topmasts, 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 natives above would come down in their canoes to visit them, they were fired at by one or more of the guns, and they decided at last to let them alone. Long afterward a white-haired old man, scarred and shrivelled of face, had come over from the island, explaining 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 interior, while those whom he had taught wept and prayed for him. But he never came back, and 303 A Creature of Circumstance while with them had not told them anything of him self, so they did not 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 visited 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 headstones. 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 natives ! It is ze poetree of justice, but it is horreeble ! 34 THE DERELICT < NEPTUNE ACKOSS the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Guinea to Cape St. Koque moves a great body of water, the Main Equatorial Current, which can be considered the motive power, or mainspring, of the whole Atlantic current system, as it obtains its motion directly from the overacting push of the trade-winds. At Cape St. Eoque this broad current splits into two parts, one turning north, the other south. The northern part contracts, increases its speed, and, passing up the northern coast of South America as the Guiana Current, enters through the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico, where it circles around to the north ward ; then, coloured a deep blue from the fine river silt of the Mississippi, and heated from its long surface exposure under a tropical sun to an average temperature of eighty degrees, it emerges into the Florida Channel as the Gulf Stream. From here it travels north-east, following the trend of the coastline, 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. Another impinges on the Hebrides, and is no more recognisable 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 305 x The Derelict Neptune African Current, runs down the coast until, just below the Canary Isles, it merges into the Lesser Equatorial Current, which, parallel to the parent stream, and separated from it by a narrow band of backwater, 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 Main Equatorial Current split off by Cape St. Eoque and directed south leaves the coast at Cape Frio, and at the latitude of the Eiver 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, north-easterly 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 westward through the Bahama Channel. A man standing on the highest of two points enclosing 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. 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 re- 306 The Derelict Neptune sembling in shape the Mexican sombrero. Beneath this headgear was a mass of brown hair, which showed a non-acquaintance 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 closely-cut white hair and moustaches. This 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 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 Boston, there s a backwater inside Point Mulas, 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 ! Dr. Bryce, of Havana, consorting with Fenians from Canada, exiled German socialists. Cuban horse- thieves who would be hung in a week if they went to Texas, and a long-legged sailor-man who calls himself 307 X 2 The Derelict Neptune 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 dynamite, answered Boston with a grin. How long did they have you in Moro Castle, Doc ? Eight months, snapped the doctor, his face cloud ing. Eight months in that rat-hole, with the loss of my property and practice all for devotion to science. I was on the brink of the most important and bene ficent 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. 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 foremast, broken at the hounds, and she seemed to be about a thousand tons burden, coloured a mixed brown and dingy gray, which, as they grew near, was shown as the action of iron rust on black and lead-coloured paint. Here and there were outlines of painted ports. Under the stump of a shattered bowsprit 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 308 The Derelict c Neptune anchors, and the teak-wood rail, of a bleached gray colour. On the round stern, as they pulled under it, they spelled, in raised letters, flecked here and there with discoloured gilt, the name Neptune, of London. 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 forecastle. 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, brought 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 generated 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 sunshine 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 swinging 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. 309 The Derelict Neptune 1 Nobody knows, Doc. Let s hunt for the manifest and the articles. This must have been the skipper s room. They entered the largest state-room, and Boston opened an old-fashioned desk. Among the discoloured documents it contained, he found one and handed it to the doctor. Articles, he said ; look at it. Soon he took out another. * I ve got it ! Now we ll find what she has in her hold, and if it s worth bothering about. 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 Boston, too ! Where has she been all this time ? Let s see this one. The manifest was short, and stated that her cargo was 3,000 barrels of lime, 8,000 kids of tallow, and 2,500 carboys of acid, 1,700 of which were sulphuric, the rest nitric acid. That cargo won t be much good to us, Doc. I d hoped to find something 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 depar ture, 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 date June 1, 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 south easterly drift of the ship, the extreme 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 6 told of her being locked in soft, slushy ice, 310 The Derelict Neptune and still being pressed southward by the never-ending gale; June 10 said that the ice was hard, and at June 15 was the terrible entry : Fire in the hold. On June 16 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 north ward 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 at 62 44 S. and the longitude as 30 50 E. There were no more entries. What tragedy does this tell of ? said 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 Carib bean Sea to the southward of us, and this morning the flood-tide brought her through. It isn t a ques tion 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 overhanging the eastern end of the island, was clear. Now, as they emerged from the cabin, this haze had solidified and was coming one of the black and vicious squalls of the West Indian seas. The Derelict < Neptune 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 spasmodic 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 ll 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 horizontal rain as it swished across the deck, and listened to the scream ing of the wind, which prevented all conversation. Silently 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 companionway 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 windward this wall was detaching great waves or sheets of almost solid water, which bombarded 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 below 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 312 The Derelict Neptune from a well-worn pivot, was practically in good con dition. Blowing us about nor -west by west/ he muttered, as he looked 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 Havana ? 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 ll 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 cays 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 salvage. Key West is the nearest, but Fernandina 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 ? * Yes, you can steer good enough. And, of course, it depends on food, and water, too. W T e 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 The Derelict c Neptune 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. 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 accustomed to the darkness, they saw boxes and barrels all covered with the same fine dust which filled the cabin. 1 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. 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. 314 The Derelict c Neptune Opening one with his jack-knife, he tasted the con tents. 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 before. 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 bag of coffee gone to dust and some hard bread that isn t fit to eat ; but this ll do/ He picked up the open can. Boston, said the doctor, if those barrels contain meat, we ll find it cooked boiled in its own brine, like this. * Isn t it strange, said Boston, as he tasted the contents of the can, that this stuff should keep so long? 4 Not at all. It was cooked thoroughly by the heat, and then frozen. If your barrels 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 sailors 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 forecastle, 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 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 315 The Derelict Neptune 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 Boston; 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 ll we do for canvas ? We must get this craft before the wind. How ll the carpet do ? Boston lifted the edge, and tried the fabric in his fingers. It ll go, he said; we ll double it. I ll 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 diagonally, and with long stitches joined the edges. Then Boston sewed into each corner a thimble an iron ring and they had a triangular sail of about twelve feet hoist. It hasn t been exposed to the action of the air like the ropes in the locker forward, said Boston, as he arose and took off the palm ; and perhaps it ll last till she pays off. Then we can steer. You get the big pulley-blocks from the locker, Doc, and I ll get the rope from the boat. It s lucky I thought to bring it ; I expected to lift things out of the hold with it. At the risk of his life Boston obtained the coil from the boat, while the doctor brought the blocks. 316 The Derelict c Neptune Then, together, they rove off a tackle. With the handles of their pistols they knocked bunk-boards to pieces and saved the nails ; then Boston climbed the foremast, as a painter climbs a steeple by nailing successive billets of wood above his head for steps. Next he hauled up and secured the tackle to the forward side of the mast, with which they pulled up the upper corner of their sail, after lashing the lower corners to the windlass and fife-rail. It stood the pressure, and the hulk paid slowly off and gathered headway. Boston took the wheel and steadied her at north-west by west dead before the wind while the doctor, at his request, brought the open can of soup and lubricated the wheel-screw with the only substitute for oil at their command ; for the screw worked hard with the rust of fifty years. Their improvised sail, pressed steadily on but one side, had held together, but now, with the first flap as the gale caught it from another direction, appeared a rent ; with the next flap the rag went to pieces. Let her go ! sang out Boston gleefully ; we can steer now. Come here, Doc, and learn to steer. 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 soup. During one of these lulls Boston had examined the boat, towing half out of water, and con cluding 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. The Derelict Neptune It had hauled slowly to the southward, 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 himself by landmarks, but at night, with a darkened binnacle, he could only steer blindly on with the wind at his back. The storm centre, 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 Channel, 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 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 Atlantic at the rate of four miles The Derelict c Neptune an hour. We ve got to make the best of it until something 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 de scended to the lazarette, the doctor, 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 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 charred, 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. She must have been built for a passenger or troop ship, said Boston. Those tanks would water a regiment. 1 Boston, answered the doctor irrelevantly, will you climb up and bring down an oar from the boat ? Carry it down don t throw it, my boy. Boston 319 The Derelict Neptune obliged him, and the doctor, picking his way forward, then aft, struck each tank with an 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 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 expansion 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. Kesult : the bursting of those barrels from the ebullition of slaking lime, the melting 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. 320 The Derelict Neptune* Lime-soap is formed, which rises, and the 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. 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 remaining in place long enough for the acids to become thoroughly mixed and for the hull to cool down. She was in the ice, remember. 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 oakum, is it not ? Boston nodded. 321 Y The Derelict Neptune 1 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 of what remained between the frames under the skin. Have you ever studied organic chemistry ? 1 Slightly. Then you can follow me. When tallow is saponi fied there is formed, from the palmitin, 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 immense soap-vat, held in solution by the water, 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 glycerine ! Do you mean, Doc, asked Boston, with a startled look, that I mean, said the doctor emphatically, that the first thing the acids mixed in the tween-deck to just about the right proportions, 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 glycerine, we can be morally sure that in the bottom 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 322 The Derelict Neptune 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 seamanship. The doctor brought the yellow substance now well dried. I found plenty of this in the tween-deck, he said ; and I should judge they used it to pack between the carboy 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 some thing hard. Boston brought a marline-spike from the locker, and the doctor, tearing off a small piece of the sub stance and placing it on the iron barrel of a gipsy- winch, gave it a hard blow with the marline- spike, which was nearly 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 impurities and free acids. I washed this for safe handling. Boston, we are adrift on a floating bomb that would pulverize the Kock 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 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 action 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. 323 Y 2 The Derelict Neptune The rod came up dry, but with a slight discoloration on the lower 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 signal, Boston. Some how 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 ; 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 ex hausted. 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, buffeted by gales and seas, drifted eastward, while the days became weeks, and the weeks became months. Twice she entered the Sargasso Sea the graveyard of dere licts 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 compelled them. At first they had stood watch-and-watch, but the lonely horror of the long night vigils 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, 324 The Derelict Neptune gaunt and hungry with ruined digestions and shattered nerves saw, with joy which may be imagined, the first land and the first sail that glad dened their eyes after the storm in the Florida Channel. A fierce gale from the south-west 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 appeared to them a dark, ragged line of blue, early in the morning. Boston could only sur mise 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 only flag and secured it ; then, from the high poop-deck, they watched the other craft, plunging and wallowing in the immense Atlantic combers, often raising her fore foot into plain view, again descending with a dive that hid the whole forward half in a white cloud of spume. 1 If she was a steamer I d call her a cruiser, said Boston ; one of England s black ones, with a storm- sail on her military mainmast. She has a ram bow, and yes, sponsons 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, swinging leaps, as the successive seas caught her, each one leaving her half a length farther on. Soon they could make out the figures of men. 325 The Derelict Neptune Take us off, screamed the doctor, waving 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 firing 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 rehearsed the launching of the boat in a sea way an operation requiring quick and concerted action. Eeady, Doc ? sang out Boston. * One, 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, Boston, 326 The Derelict Neptune 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 torpedo ; keep away from her ! 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 under stood 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 commissions 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 something 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 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 intact, a bow- less, 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 depres sion in the sea, which threw the boat on end, and with the inward rush of surrounding water arose a 327 The Derelict Neptune 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 splintered frag ments 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 all that was left of the derelict 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 discoloured news paper, brought ashore with the last supplies, the following : By CABLE TO THE "HERALD." 1 CADIZ, March 13, 1895. Anxiety for the safety of the Peina 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 Gibraltar say that pieces of a boat and several semaphore flags belonging to the cruiser came ashore at Ceuta and Tarifa this afternoon. 328 HONOUR AMONG THIEVES * Six days thou shalt labour and do all that thou art able, And on the seventh thou shalt holy-stone the deck and scrape the cable. Sailors 1 Commandments. WHEN you have made a more than successful 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 liqueurs with fancy groceries and the finest of silks, brocades, and broad cloths, and the covers of four treasure-chests in the tween-deck will hardly close over the contents ; when you have nine ships, four barques, and a brig or two as well as a few competitive Malay praus to your credit, and your reputation for elusiveness 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, toward which the current is setting, threatening to receive you on its shark-infested reef. Such conditions would try the patience of gentler 329 Honour among Thieves souls than Captain Swarth and his crew. The brig was taking in water through a started butt in spite of the thrummed topgallant-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 junk aboard, tranship what was good of her cargo, lead the bull-dog a chase to the southward, and dodge back to their island 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 engraving, every block, rope, and reef-point showing. Aboard the junk a big, fat Chinaman sat at the tiller on the high poop, nodding, 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. 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 330 Honour among Thieves 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 ll 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. 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 individual appreciation of the situa tion, 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. W T hat the devil s that, said the captain barrels adrift in the hold ? Pump away there, my bullies ; lighten her up ! he shouted 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 ship ping 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 neighbour did not 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 Honour among Thieves offended virtue; it was, rather, the protest of union against non-union labour. 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 wide, 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 sunk, and we re being sucked into the hollow. We ll get the back wave soon. Batten down fore and aft first thing, fore you shorten sail. They noticed that the man-of-war was clewing up royals and topgallant-sails, that the Chinamen had disappeared behind the rail, and that the northern horizon, though hidden by a newly-formed fog-bank, was unquestionably elevated ; they seemed to be looking uphill. None too soon was the carpenter called, and hatches and companion-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 everything above topmast-heads sank in a confused tangle, roll on her beam-ends and disappear behind the wave. Hang on, everybody ! roared Captain Swarth, as he slipped the bight of a rope over his shoulders ; lash yourselves ! The sloop-of-war had taken it bow on, and, though dismasted, had ridden through. The brig and junk 332 Honour among Thieves presented their broadsides the latter intentionally, perhaps from some canon of Chinese seamanship and a moment 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 praying 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, higher, 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 iirst. Again were they hammered by the liquid riot, and, amid fog and foam and thundering uproar, were 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, until, above the fog, and before the pitiless cataract began to smother and beat them, they viewed the highest hill-top of the island, not a quarter-mile away. Then they saw no more, nor did they breathe, until, after 333 Honour among Thieves a succession of wrenchings, joltings, and crashings, they found their brig surrounded by palm-trees, jib- boom and bowsprit gone, mainmast pointing one way and foremast the other which latter phenomena, with the open searns 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 spout ing from the wrecked hull. Who s gone? he demanded, as he noticed 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? Suspicious sounds came from forward jarrings and oaths. The men looked at one another. * Shorty and the Dago, likely, they answered ; dividin up Tom s kit. You infernal jackals! roared the captain, his eyes snapping ; let a good man drown, 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 going forward, coolly descended the forecastle-hatch. The crew followed to the fore mast, 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 334 Honour among Thieves 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 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, probing gaping seams with their knives, and peering 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 dockyard couldn t mend her. The keel s in two pieces, three foot apart; rudder s gone, an stern-post s out o true ; port gar- board 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 ! 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 question with me if the junk wasn t right to take it broadside. Eoyal- 335 Honour among Thieves 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 ; portholes 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 cataclysm 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 wailings and screamings in the rigging, and to 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 accompani ments of hunger and thirst. Provisions 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 whisky; and Captain Swarth knew his men and the unwritten ethics of the craft, which provide that when dry land is underfoot sea discipline 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, containing in its six barrels the only dry powder on board. The hurricane ended at daylight, and the sun rose 336 Honour among Thieves 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 little 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 answered. 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 catapults, and choking from the fumes of gas-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 behind 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. Meliean man no hab come top side, he called; Melican man no b long. Chinaman b long fore side. 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 demoralizing fumes, but those heathen were, unquestionably, fighters; and 337 z Honour among Thieves with several of their number prodded by the spears they withdrew. * 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 the in furiated 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 enthusiasm, 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- meekly 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 confer ence they called the carpenter. They studied the junk and the ground underfoot, peered down the slope through the trees to the shelving beach, and discussed the shortcomings of the men. It s only coz they re ashore, cappen/ 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 ; Melican no bobbery ; saway ? 338 Honour among Thieves 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 Chinaman 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. Then, chop-chop Chinaman go way foreside takee Melican fifty mile one piecee island all same this. Melican no fightee no kick up bobblee ? 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 navigate 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 disputation troubled the air, Captain Swarth sat down and smoked (it was a fine cigar, from the private stock of a tea-clipper s captain), 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 understanding arrived at was : that the Chinamen were to remain aboard their craft and do no work; that the white men could do what they pleased except interfere with the peace and comfort of the Chinamen ; and, if they succeeded 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 339 z * Honour among Thieves Captain Swarth and Captain Lee Kin shook hands over the rail. Then Captain Swarth climbed aboard, examined 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 followed. 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 ; 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 anyone care to make one of the seven ? Captain Swarth was a good shot and a good swords man, and their indignation subsided to muttering sulks. Then, after admonishing them to be respectful and obedient, 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 fore man, under whom they would work by day. At night they would sleep in their forecastle, and they 340 Honour among Thieves 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 labour, could find on the island. The man with the wounded cheek stepped forward and suggested the propriety of a blow-out with the whisky before they began, and Captain Swarth re fused them even this ; for the blow-out would not end, he said, until the whisky 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 handed 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 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 over haul 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. Eoyal, topgallant, topsail, Honour among Thieves and lower yards came down that day and were blocked alongside, with the gear coiled up and tagged. Next day followed the topgallant masts and top-masts, with the spanker-boom and gaff. Growl ye may, but work ye must, said 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 physiological 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 carpenter 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 with the cook about poisoning the after-guard. The cook refused ; it was unpro fessional, and he had no poison ; but, as a result of the discussion, 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 something they d be sorry for arter wards. 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 fenders. At the sheer-head they lashed two three fold 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 secure to a shot of 342 Honour among Thieves 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 panto mime. 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, 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 laboured in the hot sun, teased by their sores, policed continually by the captain or mate, and on a short allowance of water, for several 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 hauling 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 objurgations, backed by the flourished pistol, they swung on the fall of the last tackle, shifting up when blocks came home, sweating, cursing, and complaining, while the painted eyes in the bow glared at them, and twoscore China men 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 343 Honour among Thieves her down on the blocks, shifted the sheers and the gear to the stern, and repeated the operation. With the junk resting on blocks, the next step was to build two cradles to fit the bottom. The men rigged the ways under Yank Tate s supervision, while he himself fashioned 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 craft, amid the squealing of her crew, slid forward until brought up by the hawser astern. This was encouraging, and for a moment the under lying 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, recognising that there was more of death-potential in three bullets against fifteen men (the cook had assumed an armed neutrality) than in two against fourteen, or one against thirteen. 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 aching 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 them back for instruc tions. They received them. They would trim off 344 Honour among Thieves and sharpen the trunks of the trees they had felled, and as many more as were 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 beyond. 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. 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 torture 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 negli gence 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 345 Honour among Thieves animals, who could not understand that they were conquered ; and when the smoke of battle cleared away, four lay dead on the deck 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 comparatively 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 labours. 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, like convicts, which the mate averred they were bound to become. The spirit of resistance was nearly extinguished 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 whisky, 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, Captain 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 346 Honour among Thieves bungs and allowed the contents to run to waste. In the judgment of all well-regulated pirates this was as illogical a proceeding as suicide, and they began 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 enlarged 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 centre. 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 top gallant-masts for top-masts, first sawing off and dis carding 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 brig through the trees, and the foot of each top-sail would drag too close to the deck, necessitating the cutting off of a strip. They rigged no bowsprit, but the fore-topmast stay sail, cut down and bent to the forestay, 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 347 Honour among Thieves the next high tide. As this would not be until two o clock next morning, 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 out come 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 treasure-chests, drag them down, and lift them aboard the junk. They did it ; and midnight coming as the last chest was transhipped, 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 instru ments, which would be their last work on the island until they returned 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. 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 348 Honour among Thieves 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 topmaul, 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 answered 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 followed the staysail and spanker, while Captain Lee Kin steered, under the faint breath of off-shore wind, for a break in the reef, 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 awhile 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 : 349 Honour among Thieves 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 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 cutlass. 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 gentleman who about this time opened a princely establishment in Shanghai could have given a better explanation. THE END BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD Some of the stories in this volume have already appeared in America, in a volume with the same title, published by Messrs. Harper and Brothers. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN OEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 20Sep 57B )g REC D LD SEP ?Q 1957 16Sep 59MW - LD 21-100m-6, 56 (B9311slO)476 General Library University of California Berkeley