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THE PASSAGE OF 
 THE BARQUE SAPPHO 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 A WAR-TIME 
 VOYAGE 
 
 Cloth. Crown Svo. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 
 
THE PASSAGE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BARQUE SAPPHO 
 
 BY 
 
 J. E. PATTERSON 
 
 Author of 
 Tillers of the Soil," "A War-Time Voyage," Etc. 
 
 I919 
 
 LONDON & TORONTO 
 J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 
 NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO, 
 
All rights reserved 
 
 « • i ■ t « « « 
 
TO 
 
 COMMANDER SIR EDWARD NICHOLL, R.N.R. 
 
 Dear Sir Edward, — Kindly allow me to warn you : This 
 is not a love-story ; that is, it contains no sexual affection, only 
 the love that a man may have for a man, or for a ship. My 
 narrative concerns itself entirely with the sea, men, ships and 
 the things and actions thereof. {Technically I ought to write " a 
 barque." But, then, all vessels that come to sea now-a-days are 
 "ships " to laymen and to all women; except with those conscience- 
 less persons who speak of all steam-driven vessels as " boats") 
 
 No, here I have no play and inter-play of love to offer you, no 
 plot and counterplot, only such as was found in life aboard a 
 windjammer. My story [nine-tenths of which have been written 
 at sea, and the remainder in certain open harbours) is nothing 
 more than the record of a crew of individualities (as all crews 
 are at their hearts, no matter how colourless they may seem to be) , 
 and of a passage that was, up to some ten years ago, much fre- 
 quented, and will always be famous in the annals of deep-water 
 sailing craft ; but which is now practically a thing of the past. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 J, E. P. 
 
 H.M. Transport s.s. Hall : 
 
 N. Atlantic, Lat. 5 40' N„ Long. 25° 57' W. May 5, 1917. 
 
 428497 
 
 p 
 
 1 
 
 /8 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 My intervention shall be brief and explicit. J. E. Patterson 
 wrote to me from his death-bed to ask me to pass for press 
 the proofs of this book. Within a fortnight of that call he 
 has gone, escaping from the rack of this tough world. 
 • I rejoice that this, my friend's posthumous novel, is char- 
 acteristic of him. Patterson loved the sea. It was his element. 
 He knew the sailor-man's life from keel to topgallant-sail, 
 from bowsprit to stern, so to speak, as thoroughly as experi- 
 ence and enthusiasm could teach it. It is, therefore, good 
 that this, the latest, if not the last, of his tale of novels 
 should be a sea-story, penned with the joy of the telling that 
 was part of the man. 
 
 How keen and well-proved a sailor he was I know from 
 personal experience, for seven years ago I shared with him 
 an adventure on a sailing-boat that proved to me his mettle 
 and seaman's qualities. He, with a friend who knew the 
 ways of yachting, a harmless necessary boat-boy, and myself 
 — we four — went for a Whit sun cruise off the Essex coast. 
 We started in holiday weather; but the conditions changed. 
 A squall broke on us, and then 'it was discovered that the 
 boat was a fair-weather craft. Buffeted by the winds and 
 waves she sprang a leak, sprang several leaks; soon the 
 cabin was up to the bunks in water. It was my function to 
 wade in this swaying flood and bale, bale hard; while the 
 deck-pump was worked. The weather grew worse. It light- 
 ened, it thundered, it rained; and for a long time continued 
 so to do. There was every prospect of the vessel foundering; 
 and added to the sufficient discomfort was the want of food. 
 Our store of bread was drenched, a can of paraffin, for use 
 
 vii 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 in the Primus, had emptied itself into the cold hash that was 
 the hope of the evening; while bottles of beer, washed from 
 the locker to the " cellarage " below, were rolling at the 
 bottom of the craft, as the crazy creature tossed on that 
 detestable sea. 
 
 The experience was entirely unpleasant and threatening; 
 yet there was one aspect in all the tumult, anxiety, and 
 pother that cheered and warmed. It was the aspect of J. E. 
 Patterson. For eleven or twelve hours, no less, he stood at 
 the tiller and sailed the ship. He was drenched to the skin 
 by rain and sea; unprotected he had endured the buffeting 
 of the thunder-storm; his spectacles were misty with spray: 
 yet never did the expression of absolute enjoyment pass 
 from his face; though, all the while, as afterwards he con- 
 fessed, he did not expect to get the vessel back to harbour. 
 His courage and cheerfulness throughout that occasion of 
 peril were indisputable. It was easy to realise that the sea 
 was his element and that he loved it. 
 
 For that reason, this book, a further example of his un- 
 subduable industry, is welcome. It is a record of the strenuous 
 sea-life of plain sailor-men. A theme excellently suited to 
 Patterson's particular gifts. It points the moral. Had he 
 been content in his fiction to portray the life and characters 
 of the tillers of the soil in the Essex flats, or of the workers 
 on the high sea and its fringes, the inlets and waterways of 
 the East Coast, he might have occupied a distinguished 
 place on the shelf that Joseph Conrad supremely adorns. 
 But that is one more of the pathetic might-have-beens. 
 
 As it is, the work Patterson did was vastly creditable to 
 him; for the difficulties he had to fight against and overcome 
 in his fife were of the very hardest. " My Vagabondage " 
 is a poignant and revealing autobiography. The man who 
 could achieve what Patterson did after such an apprentice- 
 ship to harshness and poverty was of no common clay. 
 
 And now he has gone to discover what in this book he has 
 called the Great Secret. He will be missed by those who 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 rightly knew him. It is strange that not again shall we see 
 his gleeful smile, the blandly questioning look in his round 
 spectacled eyes, or hold again that capable hand. He had 
 faults — of course, he had faults; he was human. I found 
 him always loyal, ready to help, eager, proud of his work, 
 ingenuous, kindly. 
 
 " Home is the sailor, Home from the sea." 
 
 Patterson's life was a fitful fever. May he sleep well in the 
 little graveyard of East Horndon Church where yesterday 
 we laid him! 
 
 C. E. LAWRENCE. 
 
 8th April, 1919. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK ONE : WHYMPER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Mate begins the Log with some Idea of Lionel, Captain Sennett, 
 
 San Francisco, the Barque and other things. i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Lionel's Narrative of Himself, his Impressions of a few of his Ship- 
 mates and of getting under way 12 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Mate talks again of Captain Sennett, and of a curious Dream 
 
 which the latter had . . . . . . • 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lionel throws further light on his Shipmates by repeating some 
 of their Conversation, and by showing how certain of them 
 were affected by a mysterious Noise in the Forecastle . , . 34 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Wherein the Mate relates certain Affairs concerning the Cabin- 
 boy, Mr. Young, Captain Sennett and some strange Dreams 
 which the latter told to him ...... 48 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Lionel's Story of Whymper's Efforts to discover the Origin of 
 the mysterious Noise, and of the dramatic Denouement that 
 ended those Efforts 62 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mr. Willoughby tells how Captain Sennett related the significant 
 Dream that had kept him quiet and finally puzzled them 
 
 both 72 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In which Lionel says how the Unpleasantness in the Forecastle 
 was overcome, and how Baily's mysterious something was 
 disclosed ......... 82 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Mate's Recital of Twelve Days in the Doldrums, and the 
 
 Effect of this on the Crew ...... 92 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Lionel bears witness of a Transformation in Whymper . . 103 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Wherein Mr. Willoughby shows another side of Captain Sennett's 
 
 Composition . . . . . . - . . . 109 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 More of Lionel's Account of Whymper as a Patient, also the re- 
 telling of a peculiar Yarn spun by Whymper . . .115 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 In which the Mate speaks somewhat lightly of certain Shipboard 
 
 Affairs . . : . . . . . . . .125 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Lionel relates further Proceedings in the Forecastle, mainly con- 
 cerning Whymper . . . . . . .131 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Mr. Willoughby recounts more of the Doings of Captain Sennett, 
 
 Mr. Young, Chips and the Cabin-boy. . . . .141 
 
 CHAPTER XVI ^ 
 
 Lionel's Description of " running the easting down," and of a 
 
 regrettable Occurrence '. . . . . . .148 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Wherein the Mate shows how Captain Sennett took the Loss 
 
 of a Man . . . . . . . . .159 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 BOOK TWO : THE SHARK'S HEAD 
 
 CHAPTER I page 
 
 Lionel continues his Recollections of Forecastle Polity, and tells 
 
 how Baily came to play the " Witch-fiddle " for them . .168 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Account of Captain Sennett in their first Cape 
 
 Horn Gale . . . . 178 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A Featherston Episode and a Yarn of Chambers' as re-told by 
 
 Lionel .......... 183 
 
 CHAPTER TV 
 
 The Mate discourses of a Breeze, the Barque, a washed-out Galley, 
 
 and of Captain Sennett's new Peculiarities. . . .193 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Which concerns itself mainly with Lionel's rendering of an Odyssey 
 
 spun by Smiley ........ 203 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Running out a Gale, also some other Matters as depicted by 
 
 Mr. Willoughby . . . . . . . .216 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Lionel's Recital of a Day in the great Gale . .... 228 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Mate speaks of an Instance of Madness, of a commendable 
 Trait in the Boy, of rigging up a jury Binnacle and of some 
 other Affairs ......... 239 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A ghostly Visitation, another View of the Second Mate, together 
 
 with some smaller Matters, as pourtrayed by Lionel . .251 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Remembrances of how Captain Sennett turned 
 Cook, then " interpreted " his own remarkable Dream, also 
 of a Trick done by the Boy ...... 261 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In which Lionel describes his Experiences in the Galley, what 
 he saw and thought of Captain Sennett, and how an unfor- 
 tunate Incident came to pass on the Fore-deck . . .272 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The cheating of a Squall, the coming of a Pampero, also certain 
 Matters concerning Captain Sennett and Mr. Young, as told 
 by the Mate * . . . . . . . . 282 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Lionel's Account of rigging up new Spars, the singing of Baily's 
 
 Chantey, and of some personal Reflections . . . .298 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Wherein the Mate shows how the Boy rose to the Occasion, how 
 the Cook sank to a Purpose and was helped out of it, also 
 certain other Items relating to Captain Sennett . . . 308 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A great Sunrise, Trouble in the Forecastle about Captain Sennett, 
 and an appalling Declaration of Baily's, as narrated by 
 Lionel . . . . . . . . . .321 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Recital of how the Barque came to be in the 
 Sargasso Sea, the Nature of that Sea, how a Shark was 
 caught, and the Portion claimed by Captain Sennett . -337 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Lionel's Description of the appearance of the Sargasso Sea by 
 Night and Day, of the Men's arrival at a momentous Con- 
 clusion, and of an Interview he had with Mr. Willoughby . 348 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 In which the Mate concludes the Log by showing how Captain 
 Sennett learnt of the Barque's Position, how he confounded 
 the Men, how he saw the true Reading of the Captain's 
 Dream, how Lionel changed his Quarters, how they left the 
 Sargasso Sea, and how a sorrowful Rite was performed . 361 
 
THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 THE BARQUE SAPPHO 
 
 BOOK ONE: WHYMPER 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Mate begins the Log with some Idea of Lionel, Captain Sennett, 
 San Francisco, the Barque and other things. 
 
 We were lying at Clancy's wharf, Frisco, in the spring of 
 the year, loading, and short of three A.B.'s and an ordinary 
 seaman. I mention this last fact because of the importance 
 it is to what we have to tell. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock one fine morning when a young 
 chap came up the gangway and across the deck to me and 
 asked if I wanted an O.S. Now if any one had told me then 
 that he was our owner's son, I should have told that person 
 to go ashore straight and get himself locked-up. I admit we 
 were in Frisco ; but it wasn't quite the Frisco that had been. 
 Still, a man should never be surprised at what he ships there, 
 any more than at Shanghai, Singapore, and a few other ports 
 I could mention. If Old Nick himself came to me there and 
 inquired for an A.B.'s job, and an angel with him that wanted 
 to be cook, I shouldn't be taken aback. 
 
 I asked the stranger a question or two ; saw he was a fine, 
 strapping, likely lad of about twenty, and took him aft to 
 the Old Man. 
 
 Left to myself, I should have shipped him there and then ; 
 but I wasn't allowed to meddle in such matters. Oh, no. I 
 may as well tell you at once, because so much came out of the 
 fact, Captain Sennett had his ways, although a kinder, more 
 considerate man never sailed a ship. He was elderly and 
 
 A 
 
2 THE;PASSAGE OF 
 
 naturally peaceful; y.et be had to have his w.ay when he 
 Wanted it, and shipping the hands was one of 'em. He con- 
 sidered himself to be something of a physiognomist, y' see. 
 It was for that reason he always selected his crew, instead 
 of leaving it to me, as most masters do with their chief 
 mates. — And only right, too; seeing that the mate has the 
 working of the men, just like a housekeeper with a staff of 
 servants. 
 
 So, as I said, I took the young chap aft at once; and in ten 
 minutes he had turned-to. As for his name and the fact that 
 we didn't know him from Adam, except that we should have 
 looked to that worthy for a few more signs of age: There 
 were plenty of Andersons in existence besides our owner. 
 And how were we to know he had a run-away son knocking 
 about the world? He never let us into his family secrets. 
 Even the O. M. didn't see him for twenty minutes on end 
 once a year. Of course, the new O.S. was one of the better 
 sort, by long chalks. But it's no rarity to meet a superior 
 young fellow here and there about the world, especially when 
 he's looking for a passage home to England ; which I guessed 
 was all this one was doing, particularly because of the fact 
 that he spoke so well and had no Yankee twang. 
 
 Thus we lay there, loading. Meanwhile the Old Man 
 searched for " the right men " we wanted, among those who 
 came aboard looking for the jobs, the loungers on the wharf, 
 and in the boarding-houses. 
 
 As a matter of fact — and it's necessary for me to say it — 
 there had been more trouble aboard since we last left home, 
 than the cap'n had seen in half-a-dozen voyages (I'd been 
 with him in three of 'em) — fights amongst the men, really 
 nasty grumblings, deputations to the cabin ; then the 
 " jumpings " * in Sydney, Freemantle and Frisco, so much 
 against his physiognomy, especially as every fresh-comer 
 had been a disturbing quantity in the old crowd. I'm certain 
 he had never seen anything like it in all his sea-going days. 
 So that with these things and the money-trouble there was no 
 
 1 When a man deserts in the Merchant Service he is said to have 
 " jumped " his vessel. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 3 
 
 wonder he was down-right worried, his particular tempera- 
 ment considered. 
 
 Then it came to our last day at the wharf -side. The Sappho 
 was full of grain. Eight hundred and fifty tons net she was, 
 and as handsome as they made 'em in the old days, in spite 
 of her age — one of the last of her sort. Probably she was the 
 last of her sort to make that passage. And the Old Man loved 
 her better than his best go-ashore suit — no, better than his 
 old slippers; for he loved old things better than new. 
 
 And if you had seen our men, you would have thought 
 them some of the last of their kidney, too — a set of middle- 
 aged, hairy-chested, whiskered shellbacks, barring the two 
 ordinary seamen, the nigger and the cabin-boy. The O. M. 
 liked men with beards and whiskers. He argued that, 
 taking 'em by-an'-large, they were steadier than men who 
 shaved. 
 
 It was past middle-day; and the cap'n was still ashore, 
 getting his clearance papers and that, and signing-on the 
 three new A.B.'s. 
 
 We had bent the sails and got practically everything read) 7 
 for beginning the passage. I was about the decks, attending 
 to the last few things alow and aloft, and at the same time 
 keeping a weather-eye open for the Old Man's return. Because 
 I knew his first question would be for me, if I was out of 
 sight — as a master's nearly always is at such a time. 
 
 Presently I saw him coming around the end of a warehouse, 
 and I could see that he was hot and fuming — that is, as much 
 as he ever did fume. At the time I would have laid odds that 
 he was saying something like this, 
 
 "Damn these ports! What 're they made for, except to 
 turn good men into devils? — making 'em cheat their mothers, 
 or drink an' drink an' drink till they don't know their bottom 
 ends from' their top ! — Damn 'em ! I'm a sailor, I am ! " 
 
 He was mopping his face with a silk bandana handkerchief 
 as he came along, and making a bee-line for our gangway. (I 
 should say here that he always cut his words when he was 
 angry, more than at any other time.) I began to fear some- 
 thing had gone wrong about the three new hands; but it 
 
4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 wasn't that, as I soon learnt. No, the worry in his mind just 
 then was due to his wealth. 
 
 A few weeks before leaving home on that voyage he had 
 suddenly been left £3000 odd. This was a sort of blow to 
 him. He was, apparently, without a relative in the world. 
 So, being on the point of sailing, or thereabouts, and not 
 knowing what else to do with the money, he left the solicitor 
 to fix things up with the owner of the Sappho. 
 
 As he often said, he was " pers'nally a sailor an' no business 
 man; because," he would add, "Nature made me so; an', 
 takin' it all full-an'-bye, one's gen'rally about as diff'rent 
 from t'other as an angel is from a land shark." 
 
 On the money-point: He was a bachelor, who rather 
 dreaded women, in a degree, than hated them. (He had been 
 broken badly on a rock of that sort in his early manhood.) 
 That was why it had seemed to him to be only fitting to have 
 the money with him, so to speak; and in his ship, the only 
 thing he loved in the world — except his fellow-men generally 
 — instead of leaving it ashore in something of which he knew 
 nothing and cared as little. Thus, involuntarily and almost 
 against his desire, so far as the money was concerned, his 
 cares had been increased, and especially while the barque 
 lay in harbour. 
 
 Still talking to himself, as I could see, yet more quietly 
 than before, I thought, he made to cross some railway lines 
 between the warehouse and his vessel. But he was com- 
 pelled to hurry, or turn back, to escape an on-coming goods 
 train. In fact, he went back in such a manner, that I ran 
 down the gangway and round the back-end of the train, in 
 case he had fallen, or something worse had happened. 
 
 Taken on the whole he was a leisurely sort of a man (as 
 most deep-watermen were, and still are — when you find 'em), 
 and this abrupt forcing the pace annoyed him afresh. When 
 I came up to him he was giving it bell -tinker in this way, 
 
 "Yes, damn 'em! Damn all ports! — But harbours, no! 
 We want them — want 'em to load in and discharge in an' get 
 a rest in now an' then. But ports, no ! Why don't they put 
 'em twenty miles away from the harbours? — them an' the'r 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 5 
 
 sharks an* ev'ry damned contraption they've got! They're 
 full o' bums an' sharks — full as the Devil is o' mischief, an' 
 hell with old sailormen." 
 
 He wiped his face with the bandana handkerchief, and I 
 got in a question as to whether he was all right or not. But 
 instead of answering he went on, as we started together for 
 the gangway, 
 
 " Makin' a poor devil of a shipmaster run here an' there 
 an' ev'ry where, clerkin' an' bargainin', an' watchin' as he 
 isn't bein' had all ways for Sund'y ; as he is bein' all the time, 
 an' 's bound to be in this dollar- almighty, God-forsaken 
 country. Got to carry a damned office in his head — be his 
 own charter-party, consignee, insurance supervisor, shippin'- 
 master, an' the Lord knows what! Just a dud in the hands 
 of 'em all, even when he* thinks he's smart an' gettin' his 
 owners a fair show in it all. It licks me all to pieces what 
 owners '11 want a master to do next; as if he hasn't got 
 enough responsibility as it is, gettin' his ship from place to 
 place." 
 
 He had been so long a master only and so short a time part 
 owner that he couldn't bring himself to an owner's frame of 
 mind, except when actually busy with money matters con- 
 cerning the barque. 
 
 This brought us to the gangway, up which he stumped 
 quite angrily — me behind him — and down the short step- 
 ladder to the deck. Turning -on his heel there, as if he had 
 just become aware of my presence, he asked, 
 
 " Has the new hands come aboard, Mr. Willoughby? " 
 
 " No, sir," said I, then inquired if there was more trouble. 
 
 "No, not about them. But why aren't they here? " he 
 answered in a testy way. I was beginning to say I didn't 
 know, when he broke in with, " Course, you don't! I don't 
 expect you do. I wasn't asking you." 
 
 Then, while I was weighing things up and getting the bear- 
 ings all right, he started aft, slowly wiping his face again and 
 saying, with his anger cooling down all the time, 
 
 " I ordered 'em aboard at twelve o'clock; now it's two. 
 But I forgot this isn't a country to order anything in. Although 
 
6 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 there's no manners in the whole blessed bunch, you've got to 
 ask for what you've paid for, an' be mighty polite about it." 
 At this he turned to me and told me to have all in readiness. 
 I replied that everything was ready. 
 
 " We'll slip moorings soon as they're aboard, and drop out 
 into the bay an' anchor till morning, at any rate," he said. 
 " The tug '11 be here any minute now; I knew it was no use 
 having it here till after the men was due. An' if we get away 
 from the quay, there'll be no chance for 'em to go ashore 
 again, or any other monkey tricks." 
 
 I made some sort of answer, and he went to his cabin under 
 the poop, still growling in that quiet style of his. iVnd I'll bet 
 he kept it up all the while he stowed away his clearance 
 papers, bills of lading, the barque's Articles, and other official 
 papers he had brought aboard. But I knew he would soon 
 stop his grumbling under the ministrations of that Machia- 
 vellian cabin-boy of ours, who danced attendance on the O. M. 
 like a woman in love with him. 
 
 After all there wasn't so much to worry about, now that 
 the new hands were assured and the shore-business was all 
 done with. Good luck had given us a quick despatch — there 
 were ships in the harbour that had been there weeks when 
 we arrived, and were still waiting their cargoes. But, then, 
 to give him the style and title he liked, Captain Sennet t was 
 made that way. Besides, when one's spent nearly sixty years, 
 as boy and man, in growing what you might call crooked, 
 you don't get much come-back out of what you spend to 
 straighten him. Not to say that our Old Man's crookedness 
 wasn't of a kindly sort ; it was, and a bit too kindly now and 
 then for discipline. Taking him all-in-all he was homely, as 
 we call it at sea; and that, of course, made us all the same — 
 in fact, he would have it. So the Sappho was a homely packet, 
 in spite of her beauty and classic name. 
 
 But there was another thing about the O. M., and I always 
 say that it handicapped him from the outset — more than that, 
 very likely. For who's going to say that it didn't sort of pre- 
 dispose the whole bag-o'-tricks — -master, crew, barque — for 
 what was to come? / wouldn't say it didn't; because there 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 7 
 
 are more things in this life and about us than we could under- 
 stand even if we knew of 'em. At any rate the Old Man was 
 nervous about the coming passage home, I knew that, by 
 the way he had talked. 
 
 It was all very well for him to put the beginning of the 
 trouble down to the fact that he had been compelled to ship 
 our original crew in what he called " that God-forgotten, 
 cosmopolitan hole of a Cardiff." He was an east-coast man, 
 and, like most of 'em, he didn't like the west. Considerably 
 because of this crew-hands matter he had decided not to sail 
 till morning. 
 
 At the same time, however, there was some superstition 
 at play. The next day would be Friday; and, although he 
 had started successful passages on that day, he was afraid. 
 Yes, that's the word. In his heart there was a sort of fear — 
 always had been a bit, I think; and he knew it, courageous 
 seaman as he certainly was. His fear lay in the doubt that 
 " there might be something in it, after all — now and then, 
 anyhow"; and his bent at the time was for " takin' no 
 further chances." I've sometimes wondered if he had then, 
 and more or less all the time after, a sort of foggy notion 
 of what was to happen in that terrible experience in the 
 Sargasso sea. 
 
 Then there was his fondness for sailing as the sun rose. 
 He was pulled between the two things, as I knew — sail at 
 daybreak on a Friday, or sail that night, a thing he detested 
 doing, particularly with new hands aboard. 
 
 And who was I to parade a common-sense view about 
 Friday sailings? A chief mate that knows his business never 
 tries to argue with his captain. No, not even if it's about his 
 own age and name, not till he is well-up Channel on the last 
 passage, at anyrate. Besides, honestly, did I know there was 
 nothing in it? Of course I didn't. I had seen some queer 
 things myself; and I wouldn't go so far as to say a stone's a 
 dead thing — not while it lies in its native spot, that is. 
 
 Still, to do our O. M. justice, there were other reasons for 
 his decision not to sail that evening — matters that were 
 reasons to him, I mean. Like most elderly bachelors, he was 
 
8 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 sentimental, on points. As I've said, he loved to leave har- 
 bour in the morning, to begin a passage with the beginning 
 of the day, especially if the morning was fine. 
 
 He was a bit of a symbolist, y ' see ; and doing this sort of 
 started off on the right tack. It was in accordance with 
 Nature, he said. It also gave the crew twelve or more hours 
 of sunlight in which to get all " ship-shape and Bristol 
 fashion " and a proper set-off for the voyage. And to men 
 working in new quarters there was " nothing like sunlight to 
 keep 'em in good mind," while night-time was just the 
 reverse. He had a notion that anything begun with the 
 rising of the sun — I mean any time while it was going up — or 
 before the moon reached her full, stood two chances to one 
 of becoming a success, and vice versa. He held that all things 
 should go right-handed — that's with the sun, y' know. He 
 just hated left-handed 1 ropes — said they were "an abomi- 
 nation to reason an' must have been invented by a man off 
 his rocker." I remember him saying that he had heard of 
 women buttoning their clothes from left to right, and if that 
 was so, then it was proof positive they had no reasoning 
 faculties. But women was a subject he rarely touched, and 
 never with disrespect, except in the case I've mentioned. 
 
 But about his. peculiarities as a seaman : He was fond of 
 starting from an anchorage, particularly on a passage home, 
 so that the men could turn-to with a chantey. He knew the 
 value of song at work, especially when leaving harbour. It 
 oiled the wheels of human contact, as we see it amongst 
 straining sailormen under orders — some of 'em probably 
 stupid and refractory from over-night drinking — and it eased 
 their natural objection to heavy work and putting to sea. 
 Finally, setting sail from an open anchorage gave the men a 
 night in to get over their liquid farewells ashore. 
 
 You see, a man that's been through the mill knows what 
 the grinding's like. And if he has a heart in him, he thinks of 
 it in his dealings with the men in the milk Which somehow 
 seems to prove there aren't many heartful men knocking 
 
 1 Ropes that coil from left to right — i.e. opposite to the way the 
 sun goes around. Such ropes are not common, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 9 
 
 around in these times, or there are precious few of 'em who 
 have been through the mill themselves. 
 
 However, seeing what I took to be the three new hands 
 coming along the wharf, I sent the cabin-boy to tell the Old 
 Man. The boy went away with a grin on his prematurely cute 
 face that made me want to knock it off. . He was one of those 
 boys who can say damned impertinent things with a smile as 
 easy as winking. His name was Parker, but we never used it. 
 To us he was always " the boy " ; and if we wanted him the 
 call or shout was just " Boy! " He was a Londoner, about 
 fifteen then — a lean, lazy, mouse-haired, smallish imp of 
 Satan, of whom I shall have a lot more to say by-and-by. 
 
 My message brought the O. M. on to the wharf -side of the 
 poop, where, without seeming to be there for that purpose, 
 he had a good view of how the men came aboard and what 
 they brought — all indicative of character. 
 
 The first was a fairly young six-footer, slenderly built 
 rather, and clean-shaved. He took long, easy strides, and 
 humped his dunnage up the gangway in the usual big canvas 
 bag, which was none too clean. Unlike most windjammer- 
 men he hadn't a sea-chest; and I knew our O. M. didn't like 
 that. It spoke too much of drink, shiftiness, short voyages 
 and the general moral faults of the sea-going man. 
 
 I stood about midway between the poop and the gangway, 
 which came by the after-part of the main-rigging. So I was 
 near enough to get a good sight of the men; and that first 
 one's face was something to make you think, if you were 
 given at all to thinking of what you can see in faces. It wasn't 
 a brutal face, not by any means, and it wasn't coarse exactly. 
 It was long, like its owner, and sharpish ; and it seemed to me 
 to have something very unusual about it, something that 
 fastened on you and kept you ; yet I couldn't then have said 
 just what for the life of me. Of course, I knew afterwards — 
 or rather I think I understood, when Lionel told me, as he did 
 before we reached London, the ins and outs of fo'c's'le life 
 while he was a member of it ; but that's another story. 
 
 After all, however, it was mainly the man's eyes, in spite 
 of their shiftiness, that had the something you couldn't get 
 
io THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 at. And in a flash, as he turned for'ard from the side-steps, I 
 came to the conclusion that he (Whymper was his name) was 
 a man with some sort of latent power. He might be a bit of a 
 dreamer into the bargain ; but certainly he was no fool, and 
 for my part I didn't like the hard set about his mouth and 
 the cynical little turn of his upper lip. It struck me at 
 the minute that the Old Man had picked him because of 
 that unusual face of his, or p'r'aps because the man had 
 succeeded in getting some hold on him while talking, a sort 
 of fascination. And, as a matter of fact, the latter turned out 
 to be correct. 
 
 The second man, Baily, was as different as chalk from 
 cheese. One of the most compact men I ever put eyes on, he 
 wasn't over five feet six, if that, with no spare flesh; one of 
 the brownest white men I've seen, he looked to be rather 
 dried up, and he wasn't much under fifty, if any. By his face 
 only he might have been sixty to sixty-five. He had a wiry 
 mustache and a short, trim beard. This was the one, I guessed, 
 whom the Old Man had said he liked for his quiet ways and 
 talk. And I now recollected seeing him on the wharf, taking 
 particular stock of the Sappho, two days before. A couple of 
 boarding-house sharks carried his chest. It was a green, 
 broad-bottomed thing of the real, old type, with finely worked 
 grummet handles; and, I would have bet a pound to a 
 shilling, as neat inside as an old maid's workbox. On the top 
 of it was lashed an oilskin bag, half the size of the first man's, 
 showing that he was much the better off in clothes and was 
 a true deep-water man to boot. 
 
 But what puzzled us all, and rather went against the Old 
 Man's liking (as I found out at tea and later on), was the fact 
 that the man himself carried a square something in a brand- 
 new canvas bag that was well made and had a grummet 
 handle of the most approved sailor-like make. And either it 
 was light in weight, or this man had unusual strength. That 
 thing attracted much attention from the older hands. I saw 
 wonderment on their faces, as they looked at it — such as 
 were near enough, as most of 'em were. Yet the owner went 
 stolidly along the deck to the fo'c's'le, heedless of it all. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO n 
 
 The last newcomer was taller than the second and stocky 
 with it. He was a Yankee, named Jennings, with a pair of 
 quick, smiling eyes, lively enough in his movements, and 
 such an unrufflable temper (as Lionel will show you) that he 
 was too good to be a sailorman. Circumstances ought to 
 have made him master of a school of boys such as our speci- 
 men. He, too, was without a hair on his roundish, good- 
 natured face, in which one could see at a glance why the Old 
 Man had signed him on . On his head he had hair like the cabin- 
 boy's and a tilted cap. His mouth suited his big face. There 
 was a bit of blue ribbon tied to his buttonhole. He possessed 
 a big wooden box, not the usual sea-chest, and a small bag; 
 and, what pleased me in particular, he wasn't more than 
 thirty years of age. For I said to myself: .Here's a worker. 
 
 The whole three of them were quite sober. 
 
 When the sun went down, the Sappho was riding comfort- 
 ably at her anchor in the bay, outwardly tdo lovely to be any 
 slur on her ancient namesake, and as good in her sea-behaviour 
 as she was to look at. In the short twilight even such faint 
 traces of years as she had were hidden in the grace of sym- 
 metry and the friendliness of fading light. Perhaps the last 
 of the great bevy of splendid sisters that had gone before, 
 she stood for what they had been — beautiful in repose, heroic 
 in struggle and romantic in everything. 
 
 And the huge yellow moon came up over the city, lending 
 all things an air and appearance of vague, misty loveliness, 
 and shimmered the smooth water of the bay with a silvery 
 sheen. It was one of those farewell sights that make a sailor 
 ask himself if he wasn't mad when he bound himself to the 
 sea. And the Old Man and I talked of this, as we smoked our 
 last pipes on the poop, then went to our cabins (just after 
 the anchor watch struck four bells) ; he with much satisfac- 
 tion in his heart now and then, also considerable hope, and 
 about the same amount of doubt and misgiving, though 
 where he got the latter from I couldn't see at that time. He 
 had done his best to propitiate trouble, and I did my best to 
 make him believe he had succeeded. 
 
 As the night had been, so was the morning. I came out 
 
12 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 early, to see what things were like. I was there when the Old 
 Man arrived on to the poop, for his usual examination of the 
 weather. He glanced at the western sky, where the sun was 
 coming into sight gloriously, over the city, and giving it a 
 pearly beauty that didn't belong to it properly. Then he 
 looked overhead generally and said, just loud enough for me 
 to hear, as he walked across to the starboard rail, 
 
 " M'm, good — couldn't be better. Thank God for it. It's 
 a rotten country, 'cept for two things, an' they're perfect — 
 weather an' fruit. Eh, don't you think so, Mr. Willoughby? " 
 
 I agreed, knowing what he meant. Because if he had been 
 cornered, he would have admitted that his reference to the 
 country really concerned only the business people of sailor- 
 town — and they're pretty rotten in every port. 
 
 In pyjamas, with a cup of coffee in one hand, his pipe in 
 the other, and his bare feet in a pair of heel-less, eastern 
 slippers, the Old Man turned about and gazed again to the 
 westward. At the end of a minute or so he drank his coffee 
 in the fullness of heart — a sort of morning libation to the 
 fortune that was favouring us. 
 
 After a look along the deck and aloft (a natural sailor's 
 regular actions, of course), he gave me orders to have every- 
 thing in readiness for heaving up the anchor; and said, as 
 he went down the companion-way, " And see to it, Mr. 
 Willoughby, that the men sing at the windlass." 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Lionel's Narrative of Himself, his Impressions of a few of his Ship- 
 mates and of getting under way. 
 
 We were roused out to the accompaniment of "Hi there! 
 Hi there! Show a leg! One bell, there, you sleepers! " But 
 the response was a slow, half-hearted one generally. In fact, 
 whether or not Captain Sennett was troubled with a pre- 
 monition of what was to happen, I sometimes think that the 
 general sullenness of our turning-to was suspiciously indicative 
 that there was more in the thing than we realised. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 13 
 
 Hines and I — being the only two O.S.'s — went to the 
 galley for our watches' coffee; because ordinary seamen in 
 sailing vessels were still the A.B.'s servants in a way. We 
 two were lively enough. Youth and going home made us so, 
 I suppose — or rather they made him so, for he was inclined 
 to be noisy out on the deck. I kept in my inclination to sing 
 and be merry. 
 
 When we returned with the coffee, Featherston growled 
 out an injunction to Hines to " stow that damned cackle "; 
 and, much to my surprise, even generally cheerful Smiley, in 
 the port forecastle, backed up the grumble. The strangers 
 were silent, and scarcely any one else had a word to say, 
 Scotty included so far. Altogether it was a dull, slow affair; 
 and I am going to tell it just as it happened; otherwise 
 I shall misrepresent things and put them out of proper 
 connection with what was to come. 
 
 The black, boiled, steaming liquid was swallowed in between 
 whiles, as we pulled on dungarees, boots, etc., filled our pipes 
 and lit up, or hunted for some misplaced piece of clothing or 
 other necessity. And still that sulky silence continued, mostly 
 filling the half -lighted place with an ominous atmosphere; 
 whilst flooding the decks on both sides of us was the genial 
 sunshine of that glorious morning. I began to feel depressed. 
 
 Before I proceed to further incidents let me say that a 
 deck-house just abaft the fore-mast was our quarters; and a 
 fore-and-aft bulkhead divided the place into two halves, one 
 for each watch. This had an intercommunication door in its 
 after-end, which was scarcely ever shut; whilst each half 
 had its own outlet to the deck, and was always expected to 
 use it, except when it happened to be on the windward side 
 in bad weather. 
 
 I tell you these things because I shall have to refer to them 
 from time to time. 
 
 On the previous evening the ice had, naturally, been broken 
 between the new-comers and the old hands; but only to a 
 certain extent. And I think it necessary to explain this, 
 otherwise my account of what happened in and about the 
 forecastle will be fragmentary, and leave the imagination too 
 
14 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 free a scope concerning a life of which so very little is known 
 by people on shore. 
 
 It seems to me that sailors, the men of windjammers and 
 deep water especially, are much the same as some children; 
 they are nervous, sensitive, suspicious. In quiet moments 
 they fear to " give themselves away " on some point or other, 
 are afraid of being " had," and dislike to bring too much 
 attention on themselves individually. This all comes of the 
 life they live afloat, I suppose; the disciplined sort of inter- 
 family life, in which they spend about ten months of every 
 year. Wary fencers who know nothing of either the latent 
 tricks, general abilities or style of play of their new opponents, 
 it is their custom, on the whole, to act on the defensive and 
 to rest as much as possible during the first few bouts. At 
 least, that was how they impressed me ; and Mr. Willoughby 
 says the same thing, only more and worse. 
 
 Besides, on that occasion there were more than the usual 
 reasons for quietude. Of course, I speak from knowledge 
 gained after the event; because I had no previous experi- 
 ence. But in those hundred and eighty-seven days I learnt 
 much from observation, deduction and later talk with Mr. 
 Willoughby, much that came as a finishing school of cor- 
 roboration to what I had already gathered in the States. 
 And it is out of such that I speak now. 
 
 Three new additions to seven formed a large percentage, so 
 large that it served as a check to the free words and actions 
 of the seven. The only real exception to this was Robin 
 Adair, the nigger, black as coal, " good as pie," a " native " 
 of Greenock, and one who was fond of saying, whenever his 
 full name was mentioned: "Yeah, thea; my fahdah an' 
 moddah gib me dat name." 
 
 Generally there was some addition to this formula; but he 
 could not pronounce either an " r " or an " s " except in 
 certain odd circumstances, and even then the "i" was 
 slurred almost out of hearing. Because of his being a " native " 
 of Greenock he was always called " Scotty." He was, I 
 believe, a late importation to the old negro colony of that 
 town. Another, but a slighter exception, was Smiley, a 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 15 
 
 hearty, hefty fellow from the North of England. His watch 
 was the port one; and as Scotty was in ours, the starboard, 
 we had one of the kind on each side — that is one who would 
 be an easy talker in almost any situation. Mc'Arthy, on the 
 port side, was as great a talker as either of them; but, 
 so far as I could read him, he always knew his audience 
 before letting his tongue wag. , 
 
 On the other hand, the new-comers had little to say, for 
 the plain reason, I suppose, that they were new-comers ; also 
 because one of them was a man of very few words at any 
 time, and was unknown to the other two. This was the man 
 with the mysterious something in the new canvas bag, of 
 which he was said to be exceedingly careful. Up to then I 
 had not heard his name. He and the tall, thin man had gone 
 into the port watch together; because the other — the man 
 with the round face and bluish eyes — had heard at the fore- 
 castle-doorway that our watch was short of only one man, 
 and had marched straight in and established himself on our 
 side. This was before either of the other two men knew where 
 the vacancies were. I saw him do' it, saw the satisfied smile 
 on his face, and thought I should not like him because of 
 his action. 
 
 Another reason for there being so little talk during coffee 
 and dressing that morning was the- thin man. For some 
 reason, curious at the time, but nothing more than individual- 
 istic, psychic, or something of that nature, when understood, 
 his mere presence acted as a check to conversation. Those 
 around him felt it, and spoke of it afterwards. Besides, his 
 own taciturnity kept him quiet; unless he had "let out" 
 in that way which our five matured, older hands had 
 already, from instinct and experience, credited him with— i.e. 
 grumbling. But it was then too early to exhibit such a 
 characteristic, even by a confirmed " growler." 
 
 Again, these three new hands had been shipped in an 
 American port, which was equivalent to saying that only 
 Heaven, the Devil and themselves, individually, knew who 
 or what they were in the matter of untried forces. Besides, 
 we were about to turn-to at work which every sailor seems to 
 
16 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 hate whilst he is at it — namely, leaving harbour. Finally, it 
 appeared to me that the atmosphere was such that only a 
 match of the right kind was needed to cause an explosion 
 and probably much damage. 
 
 Of Scotty's occasional remarks no one took any notice, 
 except myself; and I could not say much in return, against 
 that deadly atmosphere. I had already found a good deal of 
 fun in chaffing him ; and as we were both even-tempered fellows 
 we enjoyed it, he as much as I; and we had many a light 
 half-hour together, until things became too bad for humour 
 to lift its head in the gloom. We had struck up an acquaint- 
 anceship when I first joined the barque, and had become 
 chummy in the few days since then. And I must say this: 
 He was not only a cheerful beggar day in day out; but he 
 was as straight a chap as I ever came across. His habits were 
 clean and his mind was the same, so far as I saw in our daily 
 intercourse; and I am not going behind the matter far 
 enough even to think that he was not the same always. 
 
 But the main point to me was to get away all right. You 
 see, on the night before we left the wharf, I had posted a 
 letter to my father, telling him that I was coming in the 
 Sappho. This was whilst I was on shore buying some clothes 
 and soap and matches, also a second stack of books (because 
 even though I was going home, by a sort of pleasure trip, as 
 I thought, I must have plenty of books with me) and one in 
 which to write a record of the passage for those at home. 
 
 The letter was meant particularly for my mother and 
 sister, of whom I had thought most since I ran away from 
 school . I said nothing about my position on board ; that was 
 my joke, just as much as I was tickled all the time by the 
 fact that I was the owner's son, and no one knew it except 
 myself. I wanted to keep that a secret till the governor came 
 aboard, as I knew he would, the moment we arrived in 
 London docks. 
 
 I was determined to get home just as I had run away — 
 without costing any one a penny. And after having heard so 
 much in the forecastle about the trouble there had been with 
 the men, etc., I was afraid of something happening to stop 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 17 
 
 her from going — perhaps even to stop her altogether, or 
 prevent me from going in her. My heart was set on the joke. 
 
 I had been knocking about Canada and the States for two 
 years and a half, in all sorts of places and company, earning 
 my living, and roughing it pretty stiffly now and then. It was 
 all due to a scrape at school — nothing much, only a piece of 
 downright boyish devilment, done for a kind of wager, but 
 more because I was dared to it. Not that I disliked study; I 
 liked it well enough, and wherever I went in America and 
 Canada I always bought and read the best books I could get. 
 
 But the scrape got me into an awful row both at school and 
 at home. There was some talk of expelling me. So I bolted, 
 on a sudden impulse, and carried the thing through because 
 of natural obstinacy and being too much ashamed to go back. 
 I got across to Quebec, without caring a scrap where I went. 
 However, I soon found that I liked the hard, free life, with 
 its bits of adventure, better than being at school and the 
 dismal prospect of office-routine. 
 
 In the meantime my father had advertised for me. I had 
 seen a couple of advertisements and answered them, saying 
 that I was quite safe and happy, and would come home some 
 day. That was soon after I arrived in Canada, and I did the 
 same about every sfx months afterwards. This was to keep 
 them at home from worrying, especially my sister; but I 
 never gave them my address, and I always posted a letter 
 just as I left one place to go to another. 
 
 I worked my way, quite by chance, down through New 
 York State, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ten- 
 nessee, and down to Birmingham in Alabama. And wherever 
 I went I was always " the Britisher." That, I suppose, was. 
 due to the fact that I never had any Americanisms in my 
 speech. I was too proud of being what I was to acquire 
 them. 
 
 One day I happened to look at a map, and the result was 
 that I set out to work across to California, with some idea at 
 the back of my mind that when I reached the Pacific coast I 
 should be ready to go home. 
 
 Then I reached Frisco and spent a couple of weeks there. 
 
18 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 One morning I made straight for the front — I don't know 
 why — and nearly fell over myself at seeing the Sappho 
 moored there. I had heard my father speak of her as the 
 sister-ship to his Eurydice, and I was sure there could not be 
 two Sapphos of London. In an instant I jumped at the idea 
 of going home in her, incog. 
 
 I had worked at different things in the two years and a half 
 of wander-lust, including some months on the lakes ; so I was 
 quite ready to tackle an ordinary seaman's job. In fact, I 
 was so keen on working my passage home in the barque that 
 I shook a little with excitement when I tackled the mate on 
 the subject. I could have danced with joy, when he replied 
 that he wanted ah ordinary seaman ; but I got a shock when 
 he said he would have to see the master first. Then, when I 
 came out of the cabin, employed, I walked on air. I could 
 have stood on my head. 
 
 In the forecastle we were now five a side — five in each 
 watch, that is; and pretty comfortable we had been during 
 my week aboard. It was because of this and the long passage 
 before us that I had my share of anxiety about the new 
 hands. On the lakes I had not cared much how things went, 
 providing that the vessel kept afloat; but aboard the Sappho 
 matters were different — very different in every way, in men, 
 discipline, food, work — everything. 
 
 We had all been homely with one another during those few 
 days at the wharf, probably because the other hands had 
 been in the barque since she left England. On my side it was 
 because I felt I was at home, in a way, was determined to do 
 as the others did, wanted the ship to arrive all smiling (as my 
 father would be on the quay to meet us), and because I took 
 a kind of proprietary interest in it all — though, of course, I 
 was very careful to keep that strictly to myself. 
 
 However, there was only one stranger on our side — Jen- 
 nings, or, as he was soon nicknamed, " Booster "; which he 
 took laughingly, and, so far as I could tell up to then, there 
 was very little likelihood of trouble coming from him. His 
 only characteristics were an easy-going nature, a very broad 
 " American " twang, a continual "boosting" of all things 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 19 
 
 American (till Smiley damped him down somewhat), and a 
 queer, jarring habit of making a hissing noise by blowing his 
 breath through a gap between his front teeth. He called it 
 " whistling." Of course, I did not know it then; but before 
 we had been many days at sea I had come to the conclusion 
 that his quick decision to join our watch was in order to be 
 away from the tall, thin fellow, who had come from the same 
 boarding-house. 
 
 Our other three A.B.'s were the nigger: Chambers, a small, 
 middle-aged kind of man with one cheek-bone badly damaged 
 and a long, red scar on the side of his head. He had a thin, 
 high-pitched voice when raised, but a mumbling, disjointed 
 manner of talking, and an ever-recurring snigger that was 
 not jarring, only just inane. He was an old-timer, who would 
 have had barnacles all over him, were it not that he was 
 unusually clean in his personal habits. And, last, Featherston 
 — a big, gaunt chap, with a slight hump on the right side, 
 which made that shoulder higher than the left. He was the 
 greatest smoker I ever met, and never had much to say ; but 
 he was not morose or awkward at all to get on with. 
 
 In addition to the two strangers on " the other side " (as 
 we generally spoke of the port watch, when we were in the 
 forecastle, and they did the same of us) there was Smiley, a 
 Tynesider with a big laugh, an equally big chubby nose and 
 a generous, good-humoured mouth, a ginger beard, a -broad 
 figure and a very ready knack of verbal invention, as Mc'Arthy 
 knew to his chagrin. He was fond of arguing, and was a 
 serious, scornful opponent to everything American; but he 
 could enjoy a joke; all the same. 
 
 Last, they had Mc'Arthy — this was how he insisted on 
 spelling his name, and he must have been one of the queerest 
 fellows that ever sailed the seas. He was an Irishman, from 
 the north, Americanised when with Americans only, or when 
 they preponderated in the company ; but he could be diffident 
 enough as such when they happened to be in the minority, or 
 were getting the worst of -an argument. He was a short, 
 thinnish man with a face like a piece of raw beef, a big, 
 longish head on a small neck, and a wiry stubble, which he 
 
20 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 always kept trimmed — beard, whiskers and mustache — with 
 a pair of half -rusty scissors. 
 
 He laid claim to some education, and was fond of talking 
 of what his family had been. According to him, they had 
 made a good deal of Irish history. According to Smiley (who 
 badgered him unmercifully whenever he threatened to break 
 loose, and who had laughed and chaffed him almost out of 
 the habit of raking in some mythical ancestor at all times) it 
 was bunkum, first and last. And as Mc'Arthy never sup- 
 ported his assertions. with any reference to printed evidence, 
 it appeared that Smiley was correct. No one took him seri- 
 ously, and that hurt him as much as anything could; because, 
 behind all his arguing and family claims, he was as light- 
 minded as a man well could be. Perhaps that was the reason 
 why no one ever heard him swear. 
 
 Hines was the ordinary seaman of the port watch. He was 
 eighteen or nineteen years of age, and too ordinary to require 
 any notice. 
 
 These and the new-comers made up the " for'ard crowd " 
 that turned out, when the second mate (who also acted as 
 bosun) came along, his shirt open and showing a mass of 
 black hair that hid his chest, and he shouting in his would-be 
 •burly way, 
 
 "All hands on deck! " 
 
 I think that if a stranger had seen us going forward, in that 
 warm, cheery, morning sunlight, he would have said that, 
 with the exception of myself, there was not a man amongst 
 us with a heart for the work before us. What a contrast we 
 were to the weather and the occasion! Nine men (Chips 1 
 being with us, a tall, dark, whiskered man, awkwardly built, 
 of about fifty years and slow at all things) and two young 
 fellows all lightly clad and bare-armed, no one with anything 
 over his shirt, every neck of which was open; the elder men 
 with tattoo marks showing on arms and chests, especially 
 the quiet, brown man (who would soon have been called 
 " Brownie," but for the respect with which he filled us all 
 
 1 The shipboard name of the carpenter, as "Sails" is of the sail- 
 maker, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 21 
 
 from the outset) and Featherston, with Mc'Arthy and 
 Chambers in less degree. Whymper, the thin, tall man, I 
 noticed had a crucifixion on his chest in blue and red, whilst 
 his arms were covered with mottoes, letters and symbols. 
 Hines and Smiley had but little ; and Scotty — for an obvious 
 reason — Booster and I had none. Young, the second mate, 
 had a full share. 
 
 If Captain Sennett had then seen his men's faces and hang- 
 back movements he would surely have taken it all as a 
 serious presentiment of what was coming. Whereas, as 
 matters soon proved, the sulkiness, etc., were no more than 
 temperamental and due to the fact that we were putting to sea. 
 
 We manned the cross-handles of the windlass, and the 
 palls click-clacked sharply on that clear, morning air, as the 
 chain came slowly in — very slowly; so slowly that I was 
 thoroughly ashamed of the whole business. Then the mate, 
 on the forecastle-head, just above us, cried, 
 
 " Now, Scotty, sing up! Give us a chantey, man! You're 
 going home to Greenock and a good pay-day; so open your 
 throat, and let's hear from you! " 
 
 This stirred me up afresh, giving a new addition to my. 
 holiday feeling. The nigger was the chief chantey man of the 
 crowd, and, with a grin that puckered his whole face, he 
 began, 
 
 " A Yankee yship came down de yribbah! " — 
 
 But the single line was only a piping treble, and our one 
 line of chorus was flat and half-hearted. I was disgusted, in a 
 sense. The men were still slack in ways, heavy of heart and 
 sleepy-eyed. Another thing, by some curious lapse of memory 
 Scotty had started a hoisting chantey; I mean one that was 
 used only when hoisting a sail or pulling on a rope. So, 
 instead of continuing it, he let out one of those irresponsible, 
 childish laughs with which the black often gets over a blunder 
 without any embarrassment to himself. Whilst his quacking, 
 throaty self-amusement went on, it was broken here and 
 there by such remarks as, 
 
 " Golly, men, I'ze blowed if I doan' know w'at de mattah 
 
22 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 wid me deh yeh mo'ninj But — ha-ha-ha! Lo' b'ess me! I— 
 ha-ha-ha ! Deh am mighty funny ! You got allow dat ! 
 Ha-ha-ha!" 
 
 And jig- jog up and down all the time went the handle-bars 
 with a slowness that was exasperating to me. Meanwhile 
 Whymper, on the opposite handle, and with his crucifixion, 
 appearing to stare across at us, scowled at Scotty, and, to 
 judge by his lips and eyes, said something to himself in the 
 nature of a curse. Instinctively I took a dislike to the man 
 at once and felt that trouble would come out of him. But as 
 most of the men were amused, The Growler's bad temper 
 passed unnoticed. What is more, the little affair had brought 
 a welcome change over us generally. So that when the mate 
 came to the break of the forecastle-head to ascertain the cause 
 of the nigger's queer " chantey," there was no need for his, 
 
 "Now, then! What's the matter down there? Why the 
 devil don't you sing up? We don't want to go to sea, home- 
 ward-bound, as if we're going to our own funerals! " 
 
 For before he had finished, Scotty was giving us, in his 
 best style: 
 
 " Oh, wha ah yo' bound to, my yallah gal ? — 
 
 Heave-o, Rio ! J 
 Oh, wha ah yo' bound to, my yallah gal ? — 
 
 We're bound to the Rio Grande ! 
 
 Then it's h-eave-o, Rio ! Heave-o, Rio ! 
 And fare you well, my bonnie young gal, 
 
 For we're bound to the Rio Grande I 
 
 " Oh, wha ah yo' bound to, bully boys all ? — 
 
 Heave-o, Rio ! 
 Oh, wha ah yo' bound to, bully boys all ? — 
 
 We're bound to the Rio Grande ! 
 
 Then it's heave-o, Rio ! Heave-o, Rio ! 
 And fare you well, my bonny young gal, 
 
 For we're bound to the Rio Grande ! 
 
 " Oh, w'at to do dere, my bully boys all ?— 
 Heave-o, Rio! 
 Oh, w'at to do dere, my bully boys all ? — 
 In that far away Rio Grande ! 
 
 1 The italicised lines are the choruses; the soloist — i.e. the chantey- 
 man — sings the lines that are printed in roman type. The same is 
 true of all the chanteys in this book. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 23 
 
 Then it's heave-o, Rio ! Heave-o, Rio ! 
 A nd fare you well, my bonny young gal, 
 For we're bound to the Rio Grande ! 
 
 " To load up wid gold, my bully boys all ! — 
 
 Heave-o, Rio ! 
 To load up wid gold, my bully boys all ! — 
 
 A way in the Rio Grande ! 
 
 Then it's heave-o, Rio ! Heave-o, Rio I 
 And fare you well, my bonny young gal, 
 
 For we're bound to the Rio Grande ! 
 
 " O' die ob de febah, bully boys all! — 
 
 Heave-o, Rio ! 
 O' die ob de febah, bully boys all! — 
 
 A way in the Rio Grande ! 
 
 Then it's heave-o, Rio / Heave-o, Rio ! 
 A nd fare you well, my pretty young gal, 
 
 For we're bound to the Rio Grande I " 
 
 Now what a difference there was in us ! If Scotty's mistake 
 and his silly laugh had brought a change — and they had — 
 "Rio Grande" brought us a mountain of it. Meanwhile 
 Captain Sennett, walking his poop, was no doubt feeling 
 pleased as we were. 
 
 " To die of the fever " had gone by, ignored as completely 
 as if a sunny line had been sung in its place. The only man 
 whose face was not wearing a lively or a cheerful expression 
 was Whymper, who appeared to resent the brightness that 
 had come over us. He had joined the chorus only now and 
 then, and that in a grudging way and a voice nearly as high- 
 pitched as Chambers' voice. I thought, as I looked across at 
 his lean features and long arms, idly working on the bar,. that 
 I almost hated him. And yet — but never mind that now. I 
 believe every one comes by his own at some time or other. 
 Once, however, I glanced up and saw his unusual, hazel-like 
 eyes fixed on me with a strange intensity which rather 
 startled me at the moment; although that was nothing to 
 what I was to see in .them. 
 
 Of course, we were not all stirred up alike. Featherston 
 and the brown man (as I still called him in my mind, because 
 of not having heard his name) — they were not looking quite 
 
24 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 like schoolboys going home, as most of us were. Nor was 
 Chambers exactly the man to shine at any time, either; but 
 now and then he did show such increased vitality as a snigger 
 and a half -vapid remark could indicate. 
 
 To me it was all new enough to be rather wonderful. It is 
 quite true that in working my way across the States I had lost 
 a lot of the simple boyishness that I possessed when I bolted ; 
 but not so much as not to be moved very deeply indeed by 
 this anchor business, the singing and the idea of going home. 
 It was all like fine wine to me. There seemed to be real 
 romance in it ; and, naturally, that glorious morning was not 
 altogether a small part of the whole. 
 
 Well, we had only just finished " Rio Grande," and I was 
 hoping that some one would start another rousing chantey, 
 when the brown man made us all — or nearly all of us — prick 
 up our ears and stare at him. In a sweet, rather plaintive, 
 tenor voice, and with an enunciation so soft as to be instantly 
 remarkable, he sang, as the handle-bars continued to go up 
 and come down again, but with a marked increase of speed : 
 
 " Pipe all hands to man the windlass, 
 See your cable-chain stowed clear — ■ 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 For to-day we sail from Frisco, 
 
 And for English shores we'll steer — 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 Rolling home across the sea ! 
 Rolling home to dear old England ! 
 Rolling home, sweetheart, to thee ! 
 
 " If we all heave with a will, boys, 
 Soon our anchors we will trip — 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 Then across the world-wide oceans 
 We will steer our gallant ship — 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 Rolling home across the sea ! 
 Rolling home to dear old England / 
 Rolling home, sweetheart, to thee ! 
 
 " Two long years away from England; 
 Now a hundred days and more — 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 On salt horse and cracker-hash, boys, 
 Peas and pork that make us sore — 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 25 
 
 Rolling home ! Rolling home ! 
 Rolling home across the sea ! 
 • Rolling home to dear old England ! 
 Rolling home, sweetheart, to thee ! " 
 
 At the outset there had been some hesitation about the- 
 chorus. Then Smiley had come in suddenly and with gusto 
 as though he had but just remembered the thing. Scotty and 
 Featherston had followed on the full chorus, and in the second 
 stanza we were at home in the song. 
 
 With this there was another change — one that was deeper, 
 further-reaching and more abiding than our manifest surprise 
 at hearing the so -far almost silent man become the soloist in 
 a chantey, also to hear that he had such an unusual voice for 
 a sailor. In a sense his song had taken some of the red blood 
 from our vigour, some of the robust exhilaration from our 
 minds. The handle-bars were again travelling at a slower 
 rate; and, with red cotton handkerchies or shirt-sleeves, 
 some of us were paying more attention to our streaming faces 
 than to the heaving. If it had not been for the subject of the 
 chantey — the sentiment I mean— the sweet, semi-sadness of 
 it all (voice, tune, etc.) would have completely undone all the 
 good that " Rio Grande " had done. By this you will see that 
 the tune of " Rolling Home " is not at all suited to the song. 
 
 Captain Sennett, as I remember, was then leaning on the 
 fore-rail of the poop, looking along our side of the deck and 
 listening to the singing, apparently, and very likely quite 
 pleased with what he was hearing and with things generally ; 
 but he would probably have had another attack of nerves 
 and premonitions, if he had known how peculiarly this 
 chantey had affected us. In times which were then to come 
 two or three of us often turned back in our minds and to 
 one another, remembering the brown man's first chantey 
 amongst us. 
 
 However, the " rolling home " of it, " old England " and 
 " sweetheart " just about saved us from lapsing back to our 
 pre-" Rio Grande " state, with some new melancholy thrown 
 in. And as the mate chanced to come to the forecastle-head 
 rail at that minute (from leaning over the bow, where he had 
 
26 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 been watching the chain come in) he, not knowing the state 
 to which we had dropped so quickly, cried out, 
 
 " Now, Scotty, it's your turn! Up with it, man! Give it 
 gip! And put some life into those handle-bars, men! " 
 
 Right away the nigger launched into a spirited rendering 
 of " Blow the Man Down," and again we sang and hove with 
 such good-will that perspiration ran down our faces. Now we 
 were more homeward bound than before; faces were more 
 animated, eyes were brighter, and the whole ship — Whymper 
 alone excepted — seemed to feel the magic of going home. 
 
 When we were about half-way through the chantey, there 
 came a blow from the mate's whistle. The anchor was apeak. 
 This was the signal for the port watch and Chips to go on to 
 the forecastle-head to fish and cat the anchor; whilst we 
 went with Mr. Young to set some of the sails that had already 
 been loosened by a couple of men, whom the mate had told 
 off for that purpose when the cable became short, as we sang 
 " Blow the Man Down." 
 
 This was where Captain Sennett's tactics were seen at their 
 best. Two-thirds of us had a snatch of some sort of song on 
 our lips as we hurried, perspiring and happy, from task to 
 task; and Smiley (with whom I was working) chanted in a 
 gruff undertone to himself and with a pleasure that was 
 intense : 
 
 " It's hame, an' it's hame, hame fain wad I be; 
 Ay, it's hame, hame, hame in my own countree. 
 An' when the flower's i' the bud, an' the leaf is on the tree, 
 Oh, the lark shall sing me hame in my own countree! ; ' 
 
 The Sappho had now turned her fine head to the opening 
 of the bay. Within ten minutes or so half her sails were set, 
 to -the tunes of " Whiskey, Johnny, Whiskey," " Santa Anna," 
 " Ranzo, Boys, Ranzo " and other chanteys. For, with the 
 exception of hoisting the upper topsails and the maintop- 
 gallantsail, we worked in two batches — watch against watch. 
 So that by the time we were half-way through the bay, the 
 barque was bowling along cheerily under all plain sail, with 
 a fair wind at her heels, and Captain Sennett walking his poop 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 27 
 
 and feeling as pleased — to judge by his face — as a man 
 need be. 
 
 And, indeed, a man would have had a sad heart in him who 
 felt otherwise on that occasion. With a splendid-looking, 
 well-found vessel under his feet, all her canvas drawing to a 
 smart, following breeze, the warm sun shining from an almost 
 cloudless sky, the pale blue-green water feathered and danc- 
 ing along all around him, and he homeward-bound, how 
 could he have other than joy in his heart? And, unless he 
 were a misanthrope, what could he argue from it all but good 
 luck and the favour of the gods generally? 
 
 With optimism at high-water mark I began, in the first 
 dog-watch that day, to write my record of the passage home ; 
 by which I, naturally perhaps, drew upon me the questioning 
 glances of all my watch-mates except Featherston. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The Mate talks again of Captain Sennett, and of a curious Dream 
 which the latter had. 
 
 As Lionel has suggested, in a way, the Old Man was as pleased 
 with the style in which we got away from Frisco, as Punch 
 would have been if Judy had given him a slap-up supper and 
 a sounding kiss. He told me he was, as we went down to 
 dinner, while the barque was making a good eight-knots rate 
 with that off-shore wind, and the land was nearly out of 
 sight. But the pity was that he had no depth to his pleasure; 
 it wasn't of a sort to last. 
 
 He was as quiet as a mouse next day. Not that I paid any 
 particular attention to him because of this — I knew him and 
 his moods so well. Besides, this part -ownership had made 
 such an amount of difference in him, that I was prepared to 
 put down every change for the worse to the fact that he had 
 probably been worrying himself- again over the financial side 
 of his responsibilities. For, mind you, he was decidedly the 
 reverse of a mean man. So I came and went just as usual, 
 
28 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 and said nothing outside the daily routine of things as they 
 were. 
 
 Then the cat jumped, about the third day, I think it was, 
 when we had struck the nor' east trade and were doing a nice 
 little two hundred x a day towards the line, with the wind aft 
 and everything drawing beautifully, night and day — you 
 know, a regular windjammer's holiday. 
 
 He was such a considerate man, taking him all in all, that 
 when we had got our midday observation (he and I did the 
 navigation, because a lot of the second mate's time was filled 
 up with the work of bosun and sailmaker) he wouldn't have 
 the position worked up there and* then, as is the common 
 thing. No, it must wait till after dinner. Of course, dinner- 
 time was eight-bells (twelve o'clock) — always is aboard -ship — 
 and he would have it that it was too bad to make the cook 
 keep the dishes back when all was ready; to say nothing of 
 delaying the second table longer than was necessary, and 
 running the risk of spoiling their dinner. 
 
 As for working up the ship's position — well, he maintained, 
 what did it matter whether that was done immediately after 
 noon or at half -past one? — Nothing at all, on the open sea — 
 not a scrap. So he always left that job till dinner was over, 
 and we could have the clear table for the chart and books and 
 papers and all that, without interruption. Besides, as the 
 table was right under the skylight, we could see better there 
 than anywhere else. 
 
 Well, we had just finished the position for that day, and I 
 had packed up the gear, ready to carry it back to the little 
 chart-table in the Old Man's berth. In fact, I had taken away 
 the chart and a few more of the things and had come back 
 for the books, when he said, quite quietly, 
 
 " Sit down, Mr. Willoughby." 
 
 Being my watch below, I, of course, sat down, on the 
 cushion-covered locker at the opposite side of the table. And 
 it didn't take all the eyes I had to see that he had suddenly 
 begun to think hard about something. He was sitting a bit 
 aslant, with his elbow on the table and the side of his face in 
 1 Knots — from noon to noon, a nautical day. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 29 
 
 his hand. So that he looked straight along the cabin, through 
 the alley-way, past my door and the second mate's and the 
 pantry and out on to the deck. 
 
 I wasn't in the least troubled about him— not a bit. All his 
 quietness of the past two days I put down to the money 
 matters; and that being the case, I knew it was best to leave 
 him alone till we got further away from port and his mood 
 changed. He was not a man to break in on at such times, 
 gentle enough though he was. You just couldn't alter him — 
 that was all. 
 
 The look in his eyes was about as far-away as it could have 
 been — something like what you see in pictures of young 
 girls, when they are thinking of their absent sweethearts. I 
 thought, p'r'aps, he was going to s tell me some yarn about his 
 boyhood, or when he was a young man and had just got his 
 second mate's certificate — something a bit humorous, y'know. 
 Because he did pretty often buttonhole me in that way — it 
 was a likeable failing of his ; but he usually did it when I was 
 on the point of going to my bunk, or to some urgent piece of 
 work. Well, I was waiting for the yarn, which his face told 
 me wouldn't be humorous. I was a bit prepared, you see; 
 but you can imagine how I gasped to myself when he 
 enquired, in just the same quiet way as before, 
 
 " Do you believe in dreams, Mr. Willoughby? " 
 
 If he had asked me some of that bunkum about human 
 souls going into animals and toads and that, or why does a 
 woman smile when she says something nasty — well, I might 
 have tried to answer him. As it was I just took out my knife 
 and plug and started to cut up a pipe of tobacco. 
 
 He had a way now and then of asking me or the second 
 mate queer little conundrums like " Whose daughter did 
 Cain marry? " or "Why does a woman say Yes when she 
 means No? " or something of that sort — things to which 
 there was no answer, or things too obvious to be answered. But 
 there was always a quiet little twinkle in his eye whenever 
 he did that. On this occasion, however, he was as serious as 
 an old maid at a christening, and by that I knew he meant it. 
 
 I went on cutting my tobacco, without looking at it after 
 
30 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the first cut or so. To tell the truth, by gazing up under my 
 brows I could watch his face, with its thin, greyish- ginger 
 whiskers and beard, in -the cross-lights from the doorway and 
 overhead, and that's what I was doing. Knocked off my feet, 
 in a way, for a start, I was just ready for anything. Yet I 
 wasn't going to give him any more lead than I could help. 
 So I waited, till he said presently, exactly as before, 
 
 " I'll tell you why I ask if you believe in dreams." He took 
 his pipe from his mouth,- but kept his eyes fixed through the 
 alley-way, as if he was taking full stock of something on the 
 deck outside. 
 
 "Yes, sir," I put in, waiting again, and rubbing up my 
 tobacco. Then he began, 
 
 " I've had one these two nights running, and I can't make 
 head or tail of it. I don't say I altogether believe in 'em ; but 
 I've had a queer one or two in my time— things that would 
 nearly make a blind man wonder. There was the time, for 
 instance, when I had that unfortunate misunderstandin' with 
 Miss you remember." 
 
 I said I did remember. He meant when he was jilted so 
 brazenly b}' the girl he loved when he was a young man. At 
 least, by the way he had told me that story it was plain to see 
 that she had played him a very low-down trick. Yet on the 
 few occasions when he referred to it, it was always as his 
 "misunderstandin'." Another thing, she was always Miss 
 Blossom, not Sarah, or Jane, or Mary, like a sailor nearly 
 always speaks of his girl. However, I lit my pipe, and 
 reminded him again that I recollected the story. 
 
 " Well," he started afresh, " y' know how I came home 
 from that China voyage, with a big packin' case of fine knick- 
 knacks and things for the home an', her, an' found she'd been 
 married six weeks to Somers, the grocer with the two fine 
 shops." 
 
 " I do, sir, and how she stuck to the £75 you had left with 
 her to buy furniture," I put in; for although I had never seen 
 the woman I sort of hated her. 
 
 "Never mind that; I'm only referring to that time," he 
 said, waving his pipe a bit and still looking absently through* 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 31 
 
 the alley-doorway. " Well v as we went past the Western 
 Isles x on that passage home, I dreamt I was runnin' about 
 inside a tremendous big net ; it was over me, an' all round as 
 far as I could see, an' under me as well, because I could see 
 through it; an' ev'ry time I put me foot down, down the 
 thing went for half-a-yard or so. An' I was in such a sweat 
 tryin' to catch butterflies — things I wouldn't put me hand 
 out to interfere with. Then another night it was flyin' fish; 
 but I never caught one — 'stead of that, ev'ry time I made a 
 grab, down I came on the net an' rolled over; an' I could see 
 money, that had tumbled out of my pocket, goin' away down 
 to the earth below the net — I saw it clear enough, gold an' 
 silver an' new pennies, because they all glittered in the sun- 
 light. I wasn't troubled a bit about bein' up there in that 
 net — I mean about it breakin' an' lettin' me drop. All I cared 
 about was cat chin' the butterflies an' fish." 
 
 He said all this — or words to the same effect, that is — in a 
 quiet, easy way he had when he was telling a yarn; and all 
 the time he watched that something-nothing on deck. Yet 
 it was easy to see how he was keeping in a lot of the effect that 
 the dream had on him, or, I should say, had left on him since 
 the " misunderstandin'." This was the first time he had told 
 me of it. And somehow or other — I can't say just how — as he 
 told it, bit by bit, I saw it as a sort of allegory. 
 
 What I mean is this: It seemed to me that the net stood, 
 in a way, for the fact that he was in love with the girl — up in 
 the air and sunlight and all that, you know, but cooped up, 
 all the same. She, of course, was the butterfly (which she 
 was, or a fly of a worse sort), or the flying fish, which naturally 
 came into his mind. better than the butterfly. And he was 
 trying to catch it, because something that he didn't under- 
 stand, and I couldn't explain, was telling him all the time 
 that he hadn't got her — you see ? 
 
 As for the money: Well, he was losing it all the time — 
 
 Wasn't he? — or he was to lose it finally, which was all the 
 
 same so far as the dream went. And it stands to reason that 
 
 the sweat he was in, every time he missed catching the thing, 
 
 1 The Azores, always spoken of by seamen as " the Western Isles." 
 
32 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 was just a parallel to the upset he had, when he got home and 
 found she had married the grocer. That fellow, by the way, 
 was also a churchwarden, so that she gained a bit of position 
 as well as money by marrying him. Our Old Man was chief 
 mate at that time. And I fancy, from what I knew of him 
 and all he told me of those days, that he was one of the better 
 sort of sailors — you know, rather simple and true and all 
 that sort of thing. 
 
 At any rate, the minute he finished telling me his dream, I 
 up and told him what I saw in it — just as I've said. Not that 
 I believed it meant all that, mind you, any more than I do 
 now. What I say is : There's something more in such things 
 than we can understand, and there I leave it. Only, I'll 
 remind you of this — so far as appears to be known, nearly all 
 dreams that have been warnings have come in the shape of 
 allegories. 
 
 And what a change there was in the Old Man before I got 
 to the end of my bit of explanation ! I didn't call it interpre- 
 tation, only a parallelism ; because I never would have it said 
 that I thought I could read dreams in that way. I could see 
 the allegory, the parallel, and can do in most cases. Yet I 
 wouldn't undertake to say in any case that it meant just so 
 and so — if I did, I should understand; and, as I say, I don't. 
 
 But to return to the. Old Man: The moment I began to 
 explain the dream as I saw it (prophesying after the event, I 
 admit), he pricked up his ears, squared around, with his arms 
 on the table and him leaning forward, and looked at me as if 
 I had been a phenomenon. I never saw him so thoroughly 
 and quietly awake as he was then. He was all ears to every 
 word, and before ten minutes had gone by I wished I hadn't 
 told him what I saw in the thing. 
 
 Oh, the questions he asked — Did I believe this? — Did I 
 believe that? — and' so on, till I had to say very forcibly two 
 or three times that I believed nothing; that I only showed 
 what it seemed to me it might have meant. And why hadn't 
 I told him before that I could "read dreams"? Because 
 there had never been any occasion to, I said, and again tried 
 to drive it in that I didn't " read " dreams. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 33 
 
 • Then the wonderment — How true this was ! — How true 
 that was! And how ^simple it all was, really! He was like a 
 love-sick girl getting her fortune told by a gipsy who's already 
 learnt all about her from a neighbour. So I had to drive it 
 home to him that I couldn't have seen it as I had, if he hadn't 
 previously told me of the facts. 
 
 This shut him up for a little while. He put his pipe down, 
 crossed his hands on the table, rested his chin on them ; and 
 I went to my cabin for a minute or two. I knew the Old Man 
 hadn't told me what he wanted to say. He hadn't started out 
 to tell me that old dream, without having something else on 
 his mind. So presently I strolled back into the cabin and 
 stood at the near corner of the table. He was just as I had 
 left him, with his head down, and the sunshine from the sky- 
 light above showing up the small, round, bald patch on his 
 crown. 
 
 He didn't move; and I don't know how it was, but at that 
 minute I felt a sort of pity for him that I had never felt 
 before. In fact, although there was something common 
 between us and pretty strong, too, he had rather tried my 
 patience at times, with his worrying over things he couldn't 
 help, and hardly mattered to him, even if he could have 
 altered them. 
 
 You see, he was one of the old school, a good navigator and 
 a fine seaman, but with no education to speak of. Whilst I 
 was of the new generation, with something of a boarding- 
 school education to build on. And I'm afraid I had sometimes 
 looked on him a little hard, as an old fogey who ought to have 
 stayed ashore with his bit of money, and let a more capable 
 man have his place. 
 
 But now I felt quite sorry for him. With not a soul in the 
 world to care a brass farthing whether he lived or died, and 
 him so satisfied, in his way, with things as they had been, and 
 now made miserable by a few thousand pounds" — a man that 
 didn't value money at all, except for his daily wants. Well, it 
 touched me pretty deep for a minute or two. 
 
 And time and time again after that, especially when the 
 trouble was at its worst and when it was all over, I looked 
 c 
 
34 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 back to the occasion by the cabin-table and saw that -my 
 sympathy and respect for the Old Man, particularly my 
 sympathy, began from that minute. Somehow or other — / 
 don't know how — I saw, all at once, or felt, or what you like 
 to call it, that he was, in some curious way, a man to be 
 pitied considerably and blamed not at all. He was too well- 
 meaning and free from vice to be* blamed. 
 
 What I mean is that I seemed to see into him, through him 
 — to see the' real, true, good-hearted man, not that rather 
 thin, poor-looking, five-feet-seven or so of flesh and blood 
 and petty worries, antiquatedness and bits of humane silli- 
 ness that hardly worked aboard-ship — or at least didn't seem 
 to me to work properly, when I was not in the mood for them. 
 No, what I saw at the minute was the fine ego of the man. 
 It seemed to me, during those few seconds of peculiar in- 
 sight, that the flesh was gone, in a way ; and what I saw was 
 the soft, tender, straight-up-and-down something that had 
 the shape of the man himself, yet was all lovable in spite of 
 its kinks. 
 
 However, I soon found it was no use to look to him for any 
 more talk just then. Either his mind had become obsessed by 
 that old trouble, or he was lost in trying to work out the 
 problem of the allegory. So, knowing what he was at such 
 times, and thinking that he would open the subject again in 
 the dog-watch, I went to my bunk; but left the door of the 
 berth half-open, in case the Old Man came along before I fell 
 asleep. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Lionel throws further Light on his Shipmates by repeating some of 
 their Conversation, and by showing how certain of them were 
 affected by a mysterious Noise in the Forecastle. 
 
 To all intents and purposes I was out on an excursion, with 
 all the returned and welcome prodigal's delight to come at 
 the end. The months I had spent on the lakes were in floating 
 machines- — tanks and temporary warehouses with driving 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 35 
 
 engines in them. In addition, I had crossed the Atlantic as 
 a stowaway in- a big steamboat. But there, on board the 
 Sappho, everything was very different. The other had been 
 the sordid prose of seafaring; this was its poetry, and fine, 
 exhilarating poetry it was to me. 
 
 The glorious weather; the white sails and clean, white 
 decks ; the easy work, in which I found pleasure ; the eternal 
 beauty of all around us ; the newness of the whole situation, 
 and the fact that I was going home, no longer a boy in experi- 
 ence, but a man, content in that I had satisfied my lust of 
 wandering for the time being; and, on the top of it all, the 
 enjoyable secret of my identity — how could I be but happy as 
 the days were long? I had never even imagined anything 
 like it; and I should have been an insensible log had I not 
 felt it all very deeply. 
 
 As for my shipmates — fellow-sailors, I mean — they were 
 the fairly vivid colours of seafaring life, the very human salt 
 of it, not the drab and sordid, machine-like specimens I had 
 known on the lakes. Here were character, anecdote, yarn 
 and romance, to which my imagination and natural likings 
 no doubt lent some warmth and colouring; and I enjoyed it 
 all to the full. 
 
 In place of the daily nasal blasphemy, callousness and self- 
 seeking, here were a kind of homeliness and quietude of 
 speech; but speech that was never quite lacking in colour, 
 and seldom like what one hears on shore. Best of all, it was 
 rarely disfigured by crude oaths, except on the part of The 
 Growler. 
 
 I remember the second evening after we left Frisco, in part 
 because of what happened in this way and in part because of 
 the glorious sunset, the like of which I had never seen. Cloud- 
 banks of more or less broken layers hung in the western 
 heavens, about half-way up. At the back of them and reach- 
 ing well above there was a spread of bright, ruddy gold. The 
 nearer clouds were grey ; and all was grey, or greyish-green, 
 from the western horizon around to the east, where, natur- 
 ally, the darker tints were. 
 
 As the sun neared the horizon, all the higher clouds in the 
 
36 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 heavens, down to within a hand's breadth (held at arm's 
 length) of the eastern skyline, were splashed or touched with 
 some degree of red, from amber tint to that of a deep-red 
 fire on the wane. During two or three minutes — not more — 
 we were under an inverted world-cup of gold in differing 
 degrees of density, and relieved here and there with soft 
 greys, and greeny-grey on the side opposite to where the red 
 was deepest. And now those vapory masses which first were 
 ruddy became paler and paler until they were a silvery 
 golden. 
 
 Then, at the western horizon, a peep, fast spreading to a 
 splash of brilliant, burnished gold ; on each side of it a stretch 
 of gold-grey — and there was the sun, dropping perceptibly 
 from behind a purply-golden bank, still too bright to be 
 looked at steadily and long, although he was only his own 
 width from the horizon. Another two or three minutes and 
 down he went, ruddy and clear of outline, causing every 
 cloud in the heavens to change its colour again so quickly 
 that whilst you glanced from one to another 3/ou had lost 
 some of the change. 
 
 It was from seeing this and noting the darkening blue of 
 the water, over which the sun, then at the water's edge, had 
 thrown a momentary track of red through which the blue 
 came up, that I went into the forecastle, there to witness 
 a scene that proved my shipmates not to be brothers one 
 with another. No, they were never that. Whilst things ran 
 smoothly on the whole, they were easy enough to live with. 
 Already I saw this, and divined much more than I saw.' 
 Personal criticism and the like were not lacking amongst 
 them, both openly and covertly — the former always in good 
 part, of course, or trouble followed at once, unless the criti- 
 cised one was unable to retaliate after the fashion of the sea. 
 As for their discussing one another, notice what Smiley and 
 Booster said of Whymper on the evening of that splendid 
 Pacific sunset. 
 
 This was in the second dog-watch (our watch-below), when 
 Smiley had come in to have a talk with us, much as usual, 
 apparently, for he was a sociable man. After some general 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO * 37 
 
 remarks, chiefly between Scotty, Booster and Smiley, the 
 latter said something indicative of the way in which' Whymper 
 was working with him on a new foot rope. At this Booster's 
 head came half up, sideways and jerkily, from a slit that he 
 was herring boning up in the leg of his dungarees, made that 
 afternoon. He was looking askant at Smiley's broad, gingery- 
 whiskered face, and the expression in his eyes was keenly 
 quizzical, yet twinkling. He put in quietly, in that cotton- 
 wool, nostril-stuffed tone of his, 
 
 " Say, friend, he's pufyou wise, then, on the great topic? " 
 
 He laughed even more quietly than he had spoken; and 
 Smiley, apparently mistaking Booster's tone and thinking 
 there was some reflection on himself in the man's words, 
 replied rather tartly, 
 
 " Ay, mate, he's put me wise, as ye Yanks caal it — aboot 
 hisself " 
 
 " Same thing, sonny, ev'ry time shuar — the great topic 
 jes'," came the nasal interruption. 
 
 ''But Aa'm jiggered, ye knaa, if he can 'put me wise' 
 aboot ony thing else on this airth," Smiley concluded, a little 
 mollified by Booster's second remark. 
 
 I should say that Whymper was then at the wheel ; there- 
 fore he could not be a listener to the conversation about him. 
 Not that Smiley would have cared to have been overheard 
 by the subject of his talk; he had no kind of fear of the man; 
 and if Booster had, it was still to be seen. However, so far as 
 I can call to mind, the following opinions, etc., were ex- 
 changed and Booster told his story all in quiet, significant 
 tones. In the meantime Booster stitched away at his dun- 
 garees, by the tobacco-smoke dimmed light of the paraffin 
 lamp on the bulkhead, over the table, with its surrounding 
 array of pictures, postcards, etc., tacked to the wood. 
 
 " Waal, I guess I'd be a guy ef I said anything about that, 
 sonny. But he's some stiff * an' a trick 2 in one, in his own 
 estimation; an' you ken boost 3 on that, or I'm a gone-down 
 doodle vit." . • 
 
 1 A great person of proved ability. 2 A figure-head. 
 
 3 Advertise, or be sure of. 
 
38 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 "Den yo' jes' knowed deh fellah back in F'isco deah 
 mighty fine? " asked Scotty of Booster. 
 
 " Yeah, you ken take a fall 1 on that. We was in the same 
 boardin'-'ouse." 
 
 Booster did not speak the word " Yeah " as one would 
 think from the spelling of it. The last two letters were scarcely 
 silent, yet so softly were they spoken that you hardly heard 
 them. Beginning with a faint sound of the "a," they simply 
 tailed off to nothing, just as they do in the mouth of a 
 Virginian nigger. Smiley replied, 
 
 " Then Aa'll back 2 that wor w.'y ye didna cam' in oor 
 watch wi' him." 
 
 " Ye' re right ther'. Wen we kem aboard this packet I 
 registered it as 'twouldn't be long afore he'd jes' painted 
 himself red; an' none of your plain, nice Sund'y reds, but a 
 good un'oly Sat'rd'y-night red. An' ef he an't put the real 
 colour in yet, you bet it's got'r be done right here." 
 
 "Oh, he's just IT, reight enough; an' he'll tak' mighty 
 good care as ye an' me sha'n't forget it, mate. There's nae 
 mare like him i' this world ; an' there niver will be, an' ye can 
 back on that. His faither's deid, an' his mither's lost th' 
 mould." 
 
 " Well, gen'lemen, I'ze no' a niggah w'at like t'ouble; but 
 I doan' like deh same fellah," said Adair, standing up and 
 searching under his pillow for a plug of tobacco. 
 
 " Ay, Aa reckon he's just aboot big as th' States — . The 
 States for a countery, an' him as a man, an' th' worrld's 
 filled up, an' dinnajye forget it," Smiley added, apparently as 
 a rider to his previous summing-up on Whymper, and with a 
 slight twang from his big nose, accompanied by a humorous 
 flicker over his gingery-red face. 
 
 This was a smack at Booster's weakest place, his one really 
 objectionable trait, " the States." For to him, give-and-take, 
 sociable, very cheerful and most exceptional man of his class 
 though he was, "the States" was the only country in the 
 world deserving of a word, and it was worth the whole 
 dictionary. 
 
 1 Risk without fear of losing. 2 Bet. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 39 
 
 Of course, Smiley had met his kind before. He knew it 
 well, and was already showing rather too keen a liking for 
 rubbing it into Booster, as if the latter had been a month 
 aboard and "boosting" "the States" all that time. But 
 the American was not a man to take any joke amiss. In fact, 
 added to his thick-skinnedness and natural light-of-heart 
 nature, he often failed to feel a slight sting where one was 
 meant. For this reason, and sometimes to my annoyance, he 
 was now and then made a butt of when he certainly ought 
 not to have been. On that occasion he simply smiled, saying, 
 
 " Waal, sonny, you got the heave on me there. But all the 
 same, the States is some fine country, an' you ken't forgit it." 
 
 " P'r'aps Aa shouldn't forget it if Aa knowed it," said 
 Smiley, with a quaint mixture of humour, simplicity and 
 cuteness in tone, eyes and face. 
 
 " Had you been long in the same house with Whymper? " 
 I asked, wishing to get them away from a subject that was 
 likely to drift into a useless argument and perhaps some 
 ill-feeling. 
 
 " Yeah, quite a w'ile — six days, an' that was quite a w'ile 
 tu be in the same house as a guy of that kidney," he answered, 
 as he finished the herring-boning and proceeded to refill his 
 pipe. " He came ther' with that face of his — like a battle- 
 axe-— — ." 
 
 This description of Whymper's face made us all laugh. 
 Even little Chambers put on one of his infrequent smiles, 
 without the snigger, as he sat at the fore-end of the table, 
 near the lamp, darning a pair of socks, which he ought to 
 have thrown away on the previous voyage ; for the heels and 
 soles were all darns, and must have been miniature cushions 
 if they were not lumpy. 
 
 Sometimes, in light, and in biting, satirical, moments, he 
 was called Mister Chambers, and sometimes Rags. He had 
 very pale-gingery, clipped whiskers and a mustache and a 
 shaved chin. He wore spectacles when reading or mending 
 his clothes, every piece of which was well patched. He had 
 no dialect worth mentioning. He never joined an argument, 
 and no one knew where he hailed from. 
 
40 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Booster continued, with a little more than his usual, cal- 
 culated slowness, and, of course, in his most approved cotton- 
 wool tone, after lighting his pipe, during the refilling of which 
 we others had passed a few remarks, 
 
 " The guy had jes' got a reg'lar deep-sea roll on 'im, a list 
 tu starboard, his port light dimmed, his 'at bashed, an' 'is 
 mouth full of trouble 'bout ev'rything he'd ever come across. 
 I guess he'd bin tu some down-town, spit-an' -sawdust op'ra, 
 an' chewed the rag 'bout the show an' got fired. Any'ow, he 
 chummed up tu me right away, said I was jes' the next best 
 Amuriken tu himself in the 'ouse — no one else was ther' — an' 
 he asked ef I'd got w'isky. He'd got a five-dollar thirst on 
 him, he let on. I was a simp'. I took pity on him, an' said 
 I'd got — jes' a drop in the bottle, mebbe a couple o' drinks. 
 Ses he, ' Tip us your boat'ook, pal, an' bring it out. I'll fetch 
 in a bottle tumorro', cert.' So out I brings it, 'alf a bottle, an' 
 we mugs the lot an' went to bed." 
 
 " Well? " I asked, after waiting perhaps half a minute. 
 
 " Waal, did he bring in the bottle nex' day, or the nex', or 
 the nex ' ? Yours in the faith, sirree, he did not. So I gives 
 'im a hint, like — might ha'e bin a bit more 'an plain. An' 'e 
 brings one in an' passes over to me, with a give-away-a- 
 kingdom sort o' style, w'en us two was alone in the eatin' 
 saloon. Waal, sirs, I drew that cork, you bet, right as" the 
 States. Holy sailor, the figure'ead out ther' would ha'e 
 sneezed some at a smell of it! I tasted it. Gee, but he w r ould 
 ha'e bin a beast as didn't turn teetotal right away ! I didn't 
 want to be blown tu bits, or I'd ha'e put a match tu the top 
 an' bust the bottle, my oath. I turned away, with me mouth 
 an' nose in me hand, an' left 'im tu mop what he called his 
 w'isky. He asked ef I was hurt. I said I'd got a pain some- 
 w'ere as I couldn't jes' locate, an' went tu the parlour door 
 an' begged a bit o' blue ribbon from Mrs. Cramp tu tie in me 
 botton-'ole; then took meself off an' blowed in tu Father 
 Mooney's Mission. I've bin off w'isky since that day." 
 
 There he finished, took his pipe in his hand, and looked for 
 somewhere io empty his mouth. But he had learnt that 
 expectorating was not allowed in the forecastle ; and as there 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 41 
 
 was no spittoon in the place, he went to the doorway and 
 spat on deck. 
 
 Talk like the foregone — but seldom on one's present ship- 
 mates — sailorising, mishaps and Jollity ashore, previous 
 voyages, discussions on ports, card-playing for small squares 
 of plug-tobacco, clothes-mending and washing, and, occa- 
 sionally, reading, all combined to fill up the dog-watches 1 
 from day to day. Now and then there was an effort at a full- 
 blown yarn, mostly by Chambers and delivered in short, dis- 
 jointed mumblings; and by Mc'Arthy, who generally drifted 
 off to his great-uncle this or that, till Smiley sailed in with 
 some satirical impromptu. 
 
 But in the second dog-watch of the following day some- 
 thing very unusual happened. This was our watch-out, just 
 as it had been ours in on the night before. It was the evening 
 of the same day as Mr. Willoughby had his first talk about 
 dreams with Captain Sennett. 
 
 The weather was perfect. A full, ruddy moon had come up, 
 clear at the horizon, as the round and redder sun had gone 
 into the water on the opposite side, half of each one being 
 visible at the same moment. I had never seen or dreamt of 
 anything like it. When I came on deck at four-bells 2 the 
 scene was one of wonderful beauty, besides the strange 
 phenomenon — strange and a little weird to me — of the half- 
 sunken sun and the half-risen moon. 
 
 It was Booster's wheel, and Chambers' look-out; so, being 
 a farmer, 3 I went to the forecastle-rail and leaned on it, 
 enjoying the beauty of those tinted splashes and beams east 
 
 1 Four to six, and six to eight o'clock, afternoon and evening. The 
 breaking up of one watch into these two short ones causes the personnel 
 of the watches to change every twenty-four hours, by which means 
 the easy and the hard watches are equalised and the monotony is 
 considerably relieved. 
 
 2 Theoretically the bell is struck once for each half-hour from noon 
 to four o'clock, and so on throughout the watches, night and day; 
 but in practice the half -hours are omitted. 
 
 3 One who has neither wheel nor look-out duty in a night-watch, 
 and is therefore at liberty to lie and sleep on the deck until he is required 
 on a rope or a sail. 
 
42 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 and west, with their pearls, greys and opals right and left of 
 each part; with the deepening blue of the Pacific, dotted 
 with white, in between the two lights, and the rolling, white- 
 sailed barque the centre of it all — so dot-like in reality and 
 comparison, yet so large and all-important to us. 
 
 Overhead was blue-grey — not the grey-blue of a fine, 
 English summer's evening — and already two stars were 
 faintly discernible where the sky was darkest in the east. 
 The tip of the sun's disc had disappeared, leaving a spread of 
 colour, dark and kind of muddy at the horizon; but clear 
 and deep above, and above that again paling to reddish 
 amber, whilst over that was a stretch of bright, opalescent 
 grey. In the east the moon was above the water, losing her 
 ruddiness, giving more light as she took on her natural colour, 
 yet leaving the horizon indistinct underneath, and on each 
 side of her a deep, dark grey, which her beams would presently 
 disperse. 
 
 Such was the changing, moving scene — for it moved me 
 greatly — which I stood and contemplated, thinking of home 
 and my sister, my way of returning, and some other kindred 
 things. Till at length the night became simply a brilliantly 
 moonlit one. My train of thought changed, and I went down 
 to join the group of men on the deck, by the after-port corner 
 of the deck-house, pausing on the way to say a word or two 
 to Denis, the young pig that was housed between the fore- 
 mast and the deck-house, near the fowls, that was scrubbed 
 every morning when we washed decks, and was a favourite 
 with almost every one, the cook especially excepted. 
 
 The group was made up of the port watch, except Baily; 
 and Featherston and Scotty were with them. It appeared 
 that Whymper had started an argument by complaining 
 that " this old hooker's bill o' fare was just starvation," and 
 we were all something short of being men for putting up with 
 it. The latter was rather insinuated than declared, and it 
 hurt me doubly because it was not true, and because I felt it 
 personally as the owner's son. 
 
 It must also be remembered that Whymper had at all 
 times some American twang; but it varied in density. In his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 43 
 
 occasional times of ordinary talk to us Britishers it was thin 
 enough to be unobjectionable; yet when talking to Booster, 
 or running down British things in his presence (till after the 
 declaration of his own nationality), and sometimes in the 
 heat of argument, it was, in the words of Smiley, " thick 
 enough to cut wi' a knife/' But the worst of it was his nasty, 
 snarling, envious and malicious tone. The deepest nasal 
 depth and all the States' vocabulary of slang were far more 
 welcome from Booster, than even a thin twang was from 
 Whymper. 
 
 However, I learnt that Smiley had at once picked up the 
 challenge about the barque's food. He was one of the old 
 hands; he loved justice, liked the vessel and her master, and 
 detested his opponent. Their argument had drawn the other 
 men around them. Featherston and Scotty were now and 
 then putting in a word with Smiley; whilst Mc'Arthy, as 
 usual, was playing Jack on both sides, talking much at the 
 same time as the others talked, and being listened to by no 
 one. Hines, the other member of the group, became my 
 informant when I joined them. The argument was just then 
 waxing strong, with Whymper snarling his worst at all 
 things British, and Smiley dealing him smashing, verbal 
 blows in broad Doric and with scarcely a ruffle of temper. 
 
 Being only an ordinary seaman, with my intense individual 
 desire to have discipline and peace maintained, I contented 
 myself with listening to the squabble — in which, happily, 
 there were no personalities for the time being. Anything of 
 that nature just then might have meant serious trouble. But 
 I may as well admit at once that on all occasions of high 
 words and a probability of worse my sense of responsibility, 
 as the owner's son, came dangerously close to making me 
 commit the colossal blunder of interfering. 
 
 Then the break came — or, rather, it began. The talk had 
 taken place between the after-port corner of the deck-house 
 and the bulwarks, whilst the chief opponents sat on the 
 spare mainyard, their conjoiners standing or sitting near 
 them, and Hines and I close by. Now the deck-house con- 
 sisted of the forecastle, which occupied the forward half of 
 
44 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the structure, and, in the latter half, the carpenter's shop, 
 lamp-room and the paint-locker. So that the port forecastle 
 doorway was only about twelve feet away. And presently — 
 perhaps ten minutes after I joined the group — there came 
 from somewhere in that neighbourhood the strangest sound 
 I had ever heard. At first I was not sure of it, it was so faint. 
 Besides, the talkers made so much noise ; although, being on 
 deck and abaft the forecastle, they kept their voices well 
 within bounds. 
 
 After a glance in the direction of what I thought I heard, 
 I turned to look at Hines. I was really seeking confirmation. 
 With his head leaning backwards and sideways, he was 
 staring forward, across my back, and the expression — which 
 the great, bold moon made quite plain — was just the simple 
 questions: What is it? Where is it? Seeing me gazing at 
 him, he gazed at me, with the same queries in his smallish 
 eyes. Then, as the noise had ceased, and Hines being for the 
 moment unsure that he had heard anything out of the ordin- 
 ary, he turned again to the disputants, whose talk had 
 prevented them from hearing what we had certainly heard. 
 
 A couple of minutes later the sound came again — or they 
 did; faint, minor sounds that varied only a few notes, and 
 seemed to creep against the wind (we stood on the weather 
 side of the deck, and the breeze blew past us and ahead), or 
 float on it, indistinct, uncertain and not continuous. They 
 might have been some harmless, pitiful yet lovable elfin, or, 
 rather, fairy, sounds, personified and in trouble, desirous of 
 drawing attention, but afraid to do so. They filled me with 
 such feeling as I had never known before ; and at the moment 
 I could have easily imagined anything and everything gentle, 
 sweet and pathetic in connection with them. 
 
 I snatched a side- glance at Hines. He was in the same 
 position as before; but the expression in his eyes and face 
 had deepened into one of real wonderment and some appre- 
 hension. I turned my head and looked forward again, held 
 nearly speechless by what I was hearing. 
 
 Then slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the sounds 
 became louder; and I knew, subconsciously, that the five 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 45 
 
 disputants had heard also. Gradually their talk slackened. 
 Their faces were turned forward; and, at the end of two or 
 three long minutes, they, like us, were silent. The moon was 
 behind them, besides which they were in the shadow of the 
 bulwarks, so that I could scarcely have detailed their facial 
 expressions even if I had looked at them. But I knew, quite 
 clearly, that they were deeply impressed, and that a feeling 
 of wonderment, query and suspicion was growing on them. 
 Suddenly Featherston (an old-timer, but one of the most ■ 
 equable men aboard the barque) said, in a grumbling tone of 
 wonder and unbelief, 
 
 " W'y, a blessed cat! " 
 
 Now we all knew that there was no cat aboard the Sappho 
 except the cabin cat and our forecastle pet — unless : Well, it 
 was always possible for a cat to get aboard a vessel at a quay- 
 side, and to stow itself away, in a sense, where the loading 
 would pen it in. And such might have happened. There was 
 the forehatch along that way, tarpaulined and battened 
 down, and if a cat chanced to be under it, its cries, however 
 loud, would certainty be fined down to nearly nothing before 
 they reached us. These were the thoughts running through 
 our heads generally, as afterwards transpired. 
 
 For myself — no, not so much. Quickly I came to the con- 
 clusion, hard in its rapid reasoning and warm in its repulsion 
 of a gross and ridiculous idea, that there was no cat in this 
 matter. Granted that here and there, on the middle notes of 
 what we were hearing, and very occasionally, there was a 
 suggestion of the very low, singing sort of tone that a cat 
 lets out when an enemy approaches in the night. But, 
 heavens, how wonderfully, marvellously musical a cat would 
 have to be to sound those notes, give them that infinite depth 
 of feeling, and work them into such perfect unison with the 
 other notes, which were not catlike at all. 
 
 This was the point of view to which I had come, when 
 Featherston and Smiley began a slow and cautious move 
 forward, followed — rather reluctantly, I thought- — by 
 Mc'Arthy' Whymper and Scotty, in this order; whilst I 
 — unlike them with no thought of there being anything 
 
46 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 uncanny in the sounds — kept just behind Featherston and 
 side-by-side with Mc'Arthy, Hines being at my heels, or 
 nearly so. 
 
 With every step that we took, what we heard became 
 louder and clearer, yet only sufficiently so to prove, beyond 
 all question, that it was music and was coming from the fore- 
 castle. As Featherston and Smiley arrived at the doorway 
 and blocked it up with their heads and shoulders, I sprang 
 past them, doubled around between the foremast and Denis's 
 sty and in at our starboard doorway, to be pulled up at the 
 one in the forecastle partition by the most sweetly ravishing 
 sounds that, I think, ever came from an instrument. 
 
 Across the way the two middle-aged men's heads were 
 craned into the place and turned forward, in a vain effort to 
 see around the foot of the tier of bunks that was built flush 
 with the forward jamb of the doorway. In the half-light their 
 faces seemed to be full of strain, query and a sort of fear. It 
 was plain to me at the moment that they, in a sense, dared 
 not come any farther. 
 
 I will not say they were actually afraid, especially Feather- 
 ston ; because they were not men to feel any ordinary bodily 
 fear. What I mean is that for the moment they were reduced 
 to a state of inaction and a kind of stupor by the combined 
 strangeness and unhuman sweetness of music, which was so 
 uncanny to them that they could not think of it as music. 
 
 I had stopped abruptly in that inner doorway, looking 
 forward, over the table (hinged to the dividing bulkhead) and 
 past the lamp above it, to Baily ; who, so far as I could see, 
 was sitting on the edge of his open chest, leaning over some- 
 thing. It was from him, or some instrument so close to him 
 that I could not see it, that the wonderful music came. 
 
 Such sweet pathos; such gentle melancholy; such human 
 tenderness ; such perfect, minor harmony, sometimes scarcely 
 more than a penetrating whisper! — singly they would have 
 been compelling to the uttermost ; blended as they were they 
 became so unbelievable as to make me still doubt my senses. 
 I was passionately fond of music, beautiful things and fine 
 reading (am so still, and hope I always shall be) ; and this— 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 47 
 
 nothing can describe what I felt in those long, yet all too 
 short, two or three minutes. 
 
 Then, with a suddenness that left me like stone, it stopped. 
 Baily stood, bent over his chest for a moment, and down 
 came the lid. He was upright, leaning over the edge of his 
 bunk, apparently seeking something. I stretched myself up 
 again and sighed — I don't know why ; but it was such a sigh 
 as to make me normal at once. More, it appeared to me that 
 my stretching and sigh indicated to Smiley and Featherston 
 that, whatever the music had come from, it was finished for 
 the present; because the expression on their faces changed 
 immediately, and over the foot-high doorstep^ they came, 
 now eager and alert — to see what ? 
 
 Just Baily, standing by his chest and looking towards us 
 in that quiet, long-seasoned, old-manish way of his. He was 
 cutting up a pipeful of tobacco. 
 
 They glanced at him, at me, at each other, then again at 
 him, their faces now full of disappointment and I know not 
 what. Then Featherston pushed past me into our side. 
 Smiley seemed to be on the point of doing the same; but, 
 probably deterred by a recollection of the understood law 
 that one watch should not pass across the other's forecastle 
 on their way to the deck in ordinary weather, he turned about, 
 was met by the other men — the nigger excepted — coming in 
 at their doorway, and sat down on his chest. 
 
 Whymper, Mc'Arthy and Hines advanced to their bunks 
 or chests, giving brief, askant glances at Baily, but fastening 
 their individual attention quickly on their own concerns. 
 Each one of their faces, like Smiley's, was " full of speech "; 
 • yet no one said a word. Scotty peeped in, then went around 
 and came into our own place. Baily took an American 
 magazine from under his pillow and settled himself to read 
 in the most ordinary manner possible. His watchmates got, 
 or pretended to get, what they wanted and returned to the 
 deck, to ask each other there, in subdued tones : What was it ? 
 
 Inside the forecastle the atmosphere was too surcharged, 
 too oppressive to be borne quietly; and both shipboard 
 policy and etiquette forbade the opening of the only subject 
 
48 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 that every man desired ardently to discuss- — at least, forbade 
 it being done with a man of such abnormal strength and 
 quietude as Baily at that stage of our general inter-comrade- 
 ship. One thing that every one of us had noticed, excepting 
 Scotty, was the fact that the canvas bag, containing the 
 unknown something, was still securely tied, up and lying in 
 the spare bunk under Baily 's own, where it had lain since its 
 owner carried it aboard. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Wherein the Mate relates certain Affairs concerning the Cabin-boy, 
 Mr. Young, Captain Sennett and some strange Dreams which 
 the latter told to him. 
 
 As a proof of how things were going against the Old Man's 
 peace of mind, therefore all working up to the big affairs to 
 come, listen to what was happening aft during the evening of 
 which Lionel has just spoken. 
 
 We ought to have called our cabin-boy " Boy-devil," for 
 he was the very incarnation of subtle devilment. I like to see 
 healthy mischief in a youngster ; it shows he's got no megrims 
 in his head, and seems to me to say there's the beginning of a 
 man in him, that he won't want to be wearing a frilled shirt 
 and embroidered socks by-and-by, and look as if he would 
 like to put his hair in curl at nights. 
 
 But that boy of ours — ! Well, I can only say that if Old Nick 
 ever stood godfather to a boy, he must have done it to that 
 one. He was the top-notch of his kidney, and we all knew it, 
 except the Old Man. To be quite truthful, though, I could 
 never just make out whether the cap'n didn't see it, or made 
 himself blind to the most of it on purpose, knowing what 
 there was behind it. You see, the Old Man had taken him to 
 sea, a voyage before that one, " to give him a calling in life " ; 
 and so far as the O. M. was concerned, that boy was going to 
 have his calling of ship's steward. 
 
 Why, on one occasion I actually caught him red-handed 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 49 
 
 pinching from the men's whack of lime-juice — to make it up 
 with water, of course — after the slow old cook and he had 
 measured it out, and the cook's back was turned for a moment. 
 And what for ? To sell half of it to the second mate (who had 
 a queer love of the stuff), and drink the other half himself. 
 Oh, he had a keen eye for No. 1, young as he was, and cut out 
 pretty well for a steward. 
 
 And when I tackled him with it, red-handed, as I say, he 
 up and swore point-blank that he'd done nothing of the sort 
 — that the lime-juice in the jug (from which he had just taken 
 a gulping swig, and denied it to my face, although I had seen 
 him do it) was over-measure, withdrawn at the " doctor's " 1 
 orders. Then when I had the cook fetched in to say his say 
 (all unknown to the Old Man; who would only have said I 
 was mistaken, and would have told me privately not to "be 
 prejudiced against the boy," as he was " young and had his 
 way to make "), the wiry, little limb of Satan wriggled out of 
 it by swearing that he " thought the cook had said so." 
 
 Oh, he was a better liar than a snake; and I think that's 
 had the blue ribbon, so far, for lying. 
 
 And callous ! — I've known him rig up a pannikin of ice-cold 
 water so that with a string he could tip it up and spill the 
 water on the cook's head, through the skylight just over the 
 galley-stove. He did it again and again, and always when the 
 cook was busiest. But the worst of it was the hot steam 
 that rushed up at the cook's face, when the water struck the 
 red-hot stove. 
 
 Of course, the " doctor " would have trounced him for it 
 in any other ship ; but not with Captain Sennett for master. 
 The boy had a great liking for putting pins point-up in the 
 cook's bed, and fine, white pepper on his pillow ; till he made 
 the mistake of trying it on Chips, who picked the young devil 
 up and soused him well in a big deck-tub ; and told the O. M. 
 when the inevitable enquiry came, that he would " do it again, 
 an' worse, if ever the young rat peppered his pillow, or stuck 
 pins in. his bed again." Chips had let him off the first time. 
 
 1 The ship-board nickname of the cook, the origin of which appears 
 to be ]ost. 
 D 
 
50 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 But he looked well after the 0. M., and he kept the cabin 
 clean on his own account — clean as a new pin. Oh, he knew 
 on which side his bread was buttered ! But that didn't prevent 
 his natural bent from expending itself now and then on the 
 cabin cat, for which the Old Man would have given him — 
 well, a talking to, if he had caught him, as I did sometimes. 
 And yet, you know, that boy made good before the end 
 came. 
 
 As for the second mate : To the men he was more " Bosun " 
 than anything else, because he had been bosun on the passage 
 out from home, till the fiery, young Welsh second mate 
 jumped the barque in Sydney. Then, as Young had a master's 
 ticket, the Old Man gave him the berth; but he still acted as 
 bosun in the daytime work of the barque — that was why I 
 helped in the navigation. You see, the second mate of a 
 vessel is usually the navigating officer, under the captain's 
 supervision, of course — generally. ' 
 
 Young was a fellow who always tried to be burly in a job- 
 o'-work or yarn-spinning; but he nearly always failed. I 
 suppose he had acquired this habit — the burliness, I mean, 
 not the failing — by sailing as bosun. He was broad and rather 
 short, with a fat face covered with black hair, which he would 
 have shaved off, if he had been wise, to make him look 
 younger. Because, although he was hardly forty, his manner 
 and movements and his way of talking stamped him as fifty 
 or more. 
 
 He had made a howling " error of judgment," as the court 
 of enquiry called it, on his first voyage as master, when he 
 was a fairly young man. And as he had done something of 
 the sort when he was mate, his ticket was taken away for 
 eighteen months — an unusually long time — and he had never 
 been able to get the upper hand of the matter. That was why 
 he mostly sailed as bosun — that and some other faults he had. 
 
 P'r'aps it was natural enough in him to be rather soured. 
 But there was no earthly good in him thinking that everybody 
 was against him, or that a man was trying to push him 
 further down the ladder every time he had to point out a bit 
 of a fault in the work. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 51 
 
 He hailed from Ipswich ; and he would have it that it was 
 " one of the best towns on earth." I used to pull his leg by 
 asking him how a sailor could come from a place like Ipswich, 
 especially a deep-water man. Another peculiarity of his, and 
 one that's always taken as a sign of weakness aboard- 
 ship, he never missed a chance of referring to, or talking 
 about, his " young wife," whom he had left in a Suffolk 
 cottage. Another bit of him: He tried his hand at a joke 
 now and then; but it was generally too heavy to carry 
 beyond himself. 
 
 Well, anyhow, that was the sort of man we had for second 
 mate — or, at least, that was part of him; because Young 
 was like most of us, to know him up and down you had to be 
 with him more than a day or two. He wasn't subtle, like 
 some men. I don't think it ever occurred to him to pretend 
 one thing and be another. And he wasn't naturally very 
 complex. He was nearly all on the surf ace ; but he had some 
 surprising bits of character of his own, all the same, and one 
 of them had been the very matter that came to a sudden 
 head in that dog-watch. I say " had been " because I'd 
 known of it since soon after Young became second mate, and 
 on one or two occasions I had warned him of the consequences 
 of it and threatened the cabin-boy. , 
 
 Up to then that was all I could do — all / could do. Another 
 man in my place might have done otherwise — gone to the 
 0. M., for instance. But I'm open to bet that the majority 
 of merchant service officers would have done as I had — so 
 far, at any rate. Yes, and I think they would have done the 
 same on that occasion. 
 
 Happening to come out of my berth, in search of the boy — 
 he had left my lamp untrimmed — I noticed that owing to 
 the alley-way door being wide open a stream of light, from 
 the big swing-lamp in the cabin, extended along the deck 
 for'ard. Seeing that this might dazzle the eyes of the look-out 
 man whenever he chanced to turn aft, I went to shut the 
 door; but for some reason or other, quite half-absently, I 
 shut myself outside. 
 
 The main reason for this was that I fancied I heard those 
 
52 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 few weird notes that Lionel was just going to talk about, and 
 they were so new and strange that I wanted to hear more and 
 try to locate them. But before I could do so, I heard words, 
 from nearly over my head, that made me prick my ears at 
 once for more. They were from the second mate and the boy 
 — question and answer. To any one else -except me they 
 would have been quite ordinary, and taken as referring to 
 some matter of daily routine. But, unfortunately for them 
 and a lot to my annoyance — as I soon found out — I knew 
 their secret; and from their cautious tone and the fact that 
 they were talking of the matter up there, I surmised that 
 there was something more than usual in it. 
 
 As you can see, this compelled me to be what a man hates 
 to be — a listener. But that wasn't a common, private affair. 
 It was the ship's affair, and would have been very much so, 
 unluckily, if I hadn't followed it up that night and put the 
 kybosh on it for good — I mean that as matters went later on, 
 we should have had to suffer for what those two worthies 
 were doing, if they hadn't been stopped there and then. 
 
 Of course, they were quite safe to talk it over up there, as 
 I -was quite safely hidden from them under the overhanging 
 poop-deck. Providing that the Old Man and I were in the 
 cabin, or in our berths — which was to be expected just then 
 — there was no one to overhear them; because, as the cook 
 and Chips were berthed together in a little house abaft the 
 galley, amidships, no one else had any right to be there. 
 Besides, it was the second mate's watch-out — as Lionel has 
 shown — so the young monkey had had to go on to the poop 
 to tell him what he had done; and, unhappily for them, I 
 hopped in just in time to hear enough, although I didn't hear 
 more than a third, p'r'aps. 
 
 I quietly half -opened the alley-way door again, stepped in, 
 closed it behind me, and went into my berth, wondering what 
 would be the best way to go to work. What I'd threatened 
 to do in the past, I had to do now — bring the O. M. in. But 
 how? Should I go to him and tell him the nice little tale 
 I'd heard? Should I take him into the second mate's berth 
 and let him see the things there for himself? Or should 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 53 
 
 I get him into the cabin, then make the young imp fetch 
 even-thing out in front of the Old Man ? 
 
 I didn't like the first; it looked too much like tittle-tattling. 
 The second was good enough, except that it didn't bring the 
 culprits in at the discovery — there was no clenching the 
 thing down on them by this method. Besides, it left the boy 
 free to swear point-blank, as usual, that he hadn't had a 
 hand in the thing, which the O. M. might believe. But as 
 this would put all the blame on to the second mate's shoulders, 
 I didn't fear it much; because I knew him too well to think 
 he would allow the boy to slip out of it in that way. 
 
 It was the third way of blowing the gaff on them that 
 appealed to me most. And that, of course, left them both 
 free to swear I had put the job up on them — at the boy's lead, 
 because I don't think Young v/as bent that way. As for the 
 O. M. believing them, if they did start such a lie : No, there 
 was really no chance of it going through; but it would sort 
 of check the proper running of the discovery, which I wanted 
 to be swift and clean. That was my trouble — what made me 
 sit and think it all over so much after I got into my berth. 
 I wanted to stage-manage the thing so that it would go 
 straight off in a few minutes, and I couldn't make up my 
 mind which act to bring it off in — first, second or third. 
 
 How long I should have stopped there thinking it all out 
 I don't know; but the Old Man came and settled the point 
 for me. It seemed he had called for the boy (I hadn't heard 
 him), and getting no answer, he had come looking for him. 
 At any rate, I heard him go past my door to the pantry, 
 saying, " Boy, d'ye hear me? " He looked into the pantry. 
 No boy there, of course. Then he came back and pushed open 
 the door of the second mate's berth, where the boy slept, in 
 the bottom bunk, and I heard him ask, " Are you in here? " 
 Then he let out some words of surprise; and I thought 
 p'r'aps it was time for me to put in an appearance. So out I 
 stepped, saying, 
 
 " If you want the boy, sir, he's on the poop, talking to 
 Mr. Young; and I think you ought to know what I heard 
 between 'em when I was out there just now." 
 
54 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " What you heard between 'em I don't know; but I'd like 
 to know the meaning o' this," said he, in what was quite an 
 angry voice for him. 
 
 I crowded in a bit, pushed the door further open and looked 
 where he was pointing; this was towards the settee, behind 
 the door withal. The cushion-seat was thrown back in a heap, 
 and the lid of the locker was off, showing a beautiful assort- 
 ment of tins of salmon and sardines and that; two or three 
 little round Dutch cheeses; two big square tins of special 
 cabin biscuits, and I hardly know what — just the very things 
 I had heard the young thief tell the second mate he had put 
 in there ; all for a consideration, of course. 
 
 Oh, yes, it was all to be paid for; that boy wasn't the one 
 to risk trouble and give material benefits for the love of any- 
 body except himself — and the Old Man. Bad as he was, I 
 wouldn't like to have to swear what he wouldn't have done 
 for the O. M. 
 
 I glanced at the Old Man, pleased ~as. Punch that he had 
 tumbled on the thing in his own way. He looked at me and 
 asked, 
 
 " Do you know anything about this? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I'm sorry, in a way, to say I do," said I, and- 1 
 told him briefly what I had just heard outside. 
 
 He was thunderstruck. I had been prepared for him to 
 take it badly — cry out about it being another piece of his 
 bad luck, etc.; and I'd pitied him in advance. But, no, he 
 needed nothing of the sort. He was his old self again, able to 
 take hard knocks and stand up under 'em. I was quite 
 pleased with him. I began to think he had recovered from 
 the evil effects of Frisco, and all the other things that had 
 gone wrong since we struck Sydney. 
 
 Well, in half-an-hour he had gone through that affair just 
 like a good ship's master who had suddenly found his cherished 
 cabin-boy stealing the dainties out of his stores to provide 
 midnight feeds for the gluttonous stomach of the second 
 mate — as I knew had been done at times before; but I wasn't 
 aware that it had been as systematic as it had. That was 
 one of Young's failings — a midnight hunger. He was a man 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 55 
 
 with a belly ; and whether he went off watch at twelve o'clock, 
 or turned out to take watch, he must have a regular feed. 
 However, after that he had to content himself with the usual 
 biscuit and cheese and glass of water at the cabin-table, 
 instead of a dainty tuck-in in his berth. 
 
 And the quiet, straight-ahead way in which the O. M. 
 went for Young put a damper on him for weeks afterwards — ■ 
 kept him glum, that is. Because his only retaliation was the 
 expected complaint that " all the world was down on him. 
 He couldn't do a bit of a thing wrong without being found out, 
 but others could do all sorts of things," and so on. 
 
 But what hurt the Old Man worst of all was finding out 
 what a deceitful little liar and thief that boy was. For at the 
 beginning of the thing the young imp started in with a denial 
 of any knowledge or hand in the matter. It made the Old 
 Man sad now and then for months afterwards. 
 
 As for giving the culprits a chance to do the same again — 
 no. The Old Man couldn't quite bring his mind to serve out 
 the stores himself, and quite right, too — that was a bit beneath 
 his dignity. So I had to take the keys of the store-room and 
 the lazarette, and serve 'em out. And an unpleasant piece of 
 friction it was now and then right up to the end of things, 
 especially when matters came to their worst and stores were 
 running short. 
 
 To go back to what was the main subject to me at that 
 time, the Old Man didn't at once broach again the matter 
 of his dreams. He was too full of the stealing affair, and 
 I began to see it in his face; but I said nothing. Besides, 
 I knew it would not do for me to try to bring the other 
 thing to a head — not with him. It would have to be done 
 in his own way and at his own time. 
 
 All the same a keen desire had got into my silly head to 
 know what the dream was that led him to open the subject. 
 I don't know when I had been so* set on a thing that possibly 
 had nothing at all to do with me. And time and time again I 
 wondered how on earth it was that he hadn't spoken to me 
 
56 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 before about his dreams, while all the time it was likely 
 enough because he hadn't dreamt till then — I mean not 
 whilst I had sailed with him. 
 
 However, after ascertaining the barque's position on the 
 following day, I put away the chart and things, took a look 
 on deck, then returned to the table and said I thought we 
 should have to tighten the weather-braces at eight-bells. 
 This was merely to start conversation. He had been very 
 quiet all day, looking sometimes as if he would speak; and 
 as this was usually his time for a bit of chatter-magging, I 
 was determined to give him every chance. 
 
 In the average windjammer of even those days such a job 
 as tightening braces fore and aft would have been done at 
 the change of dog-watches, two hours later, when all the 
 usual day-work would be finished. But our O. M. would 
 have none of that. From five o'clock in the afternoon to 
 eight in the evening was the men's time, he said, with the 
 exception of wheel and look-out, make sail and shorten sail; 
 and he wouldn't have it encroached on for work that should be 
 done in the ordinary working watch. He looked up and said, 
 
 " All right; there's plenty of time. Sit down again, please." 
 
 Of course, there was plenty of time; it wasn't even four- 
 bells then. But that shows how much he had something on 
 his mind. Just then the cabin-boy came in, all ears and eyes. 
 So, and as it was my watch-out, I suggested that we should 
 go on deck, where we could talk without interruption, or any 
 one overhearing us. He agreed, and we went on to the poop, 
 where we leaned on the fore-rail, in that beautiful weather, 
 with the cool breeze tempering the hot sun, the Pacific blue 
 alive with movement and little white patches, and the good 
 old barque making a fine holiday of it all. 
 
 Presently, whilst he stared steadily over the deck-house 
 and away ahead, and without even a glance at me, the Old 
 Man said, quite quietly again, yet in a tone of voice that 
 showed both how impressed he was, and how his mind had 
 kept on the one thing for twenty-four hours, 
 
 " But it's strange, y' know — very, very strange. It beats 
 me into a cocked hat." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 57 
 
 I made a sort of answer about there being more strangeness 
 around us night and day than man would ever find out, which 
 I've always believed since I've known what's what . He went on, 
 
 " Then there was that affair about my sister an' her hus- 
 band — I dreamt it all, plain as day, just as it happened. I 
 was outward-bound at the time, runnin' the easting down, 
 for Sydney, when I was mate of the Leonidas. I saw 'em get 
 into the Scotch express at King's Cross, just as I can see that 
 foremast — them an' their two children. And I saw the train 
 start off an' bash into another; it seemed to me just outside 
 the station; but, of course, we know it was up north — 
 Yorkshire way, wasn't it? — where that awful collision was 
 about five-an'-twenty years ago." 
 
 I replied that I thought so, but couldn't be sure, and he 
 continued, 
 
 " Anyhow, I saw all the wreckage about the lines, an' my 
 sister an' her husband and the little uns all dead in a heap. 
 Of course, they were not the only ones; the death-roll was 
 terrible. I remember readin' all about it when we got to 
 Sydney." 
 
 " Was this before the collision, or after it, sir? " I asked. 
 
 " Was what? " he enquired, looking at me. 
 
 " The dream," said I. 
 
 " Well, now, you've got me there; for to tell the truth, I 
 could never quite make out whether it was before or after. 
 Y' see, I took no notice of it till I saw the collision in an old 
 paper (y' know, I always read up the old papers when I get 
 to port — always did), then it seemed to me the dream was 
 just about the same time; but I was never sure. But when I 
 got home agen and was able to get hold of the partic'lars, I 
 saw that ev'rything in my dream was correct as could be. It 
 was astoundin'! You could have knocked me down with a 
 feather, both then an' in Sydney. I was all gone from clew 
 to earin'." * 
 
 I. waited a bit, thinking he would go on about his dreams; 
 but he didn't, so I asked if he had experienced any more such 
 dreams. 
 
 1 From the bottom of a sail, to the top of it. 
 
58 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Well, no, not exactly of that sort. But I did have another 
 queer one or two when I was a young man, only I don't recol- 
 lect the partic'lars altogether. I know they struck me at the 
 time as bein' a long way more than I could grasp, an' they 
 were in my mind for years afterwards in that way." 
 
 " And didn't you ever think, sir, there was something else 
 in them besides queerness? " I enquired. 
 
 " You mean like what you saw in the dream about the net 
 an' that? " asked he. 
 
 " Well, yes — like what it seems to me to have been, a sort 
 of warning? " said I. 
 
 " No, it never occurred to me that they were anything but 
 queer, 'specially the one about my sister." 
 
 " M'm," I remarked and waited again, till he resumed, 
 
 " But I can remember right enough now that some people 
 I knew at the time said they should take 'em as warnin's — I 
 mean the other two; partic'larly the one where I was having 
 a bath, an' the bottom fell out. — Yes, that was it. I remember 
 now ! An' I dropped into me mother's lap — me, all a man, an' 
 stark-naked, an' me mother dead years an' years before then ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said in a sort of asking way. I wanted him to 
 go on to the next item. 
 
 " Well," he enquired, " wasn't it comical, except for 
 the — ? Look, I was naked! " 
 
 " Yes, sir. But was that the end? " 
 
 " Yes. I woke up there." 
 
 " And what happened after? " 
 
 " After? In what way? — Oh, me ! Well, I went to sea two 
 days after an' was wrecked — went ashore south of Dunge- 
 ness, an' I was taken right off to a fortnight in the hospital, 
 because of the exposure I'd suffered." 
 
 " And can't you see any connection, sir, between the 
 bottom of your bath falling out and your ship going ashore? " 
 asked I, and he answered, 
 
 " No, I'm blest if I can ! A bath isn't a ship any more than 
 a ship's a bath! " 
 
 "No; but the bottom of both fell out — in effect; and both 
 were concerned with water as a principal agent," I said. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 59 
 
 He had been looking away ahead again. But here he 
 suddenly slewed his face to me again, and there was that 
 same look in his eyes that I had seen at the cabin-table. For 
 a minute or two he was speechless again ; so I added on, 
 
 " Besides, you landed in a hospital, really. — Didn't you? — 
 just as you landed on your mother's lap — because you were 
 taken straight off to one. And I'll bet you had the treat- 
 ment of motherly nurses while you were there. — Didn't 
 you? " 
 
 But all he could do was to stare at me, like a child at a 
 story of magic. I also said something about it being a time 
 when he wanted only such attentions as a mother would give 
 under the circumstances — motherly nursing, that is — no.t a 
 doctor's attention. Still he made no reply, only stared at me 
 a while longer; then turned his head for'ard again, with the 
 look on his face of a man who's just come up against his own 
 ghost. And there he stuck, leaning on the rail and gazing 
 straight ahead into the everlasting. 
 
 I was afraid he was shut up again for the day, same as the 
 day before. So I took this opportunity of slipping away 
 for'ard, to give him time to pick up, while I saw how the 
 work was going on at the new footropes, some of which were 
 rather badly wanted. 
 
 When I came back, the O. M. was just the same. It was 
 then four-bells by the skylight clock, by which the ship's time 
 was kept. So I went to the poop-bell, close to the Old Man, and 
 struck the time, thinking that it would rouse him up. Pooh, 
 I might as well have tinkled a bell on a baby's rattle! He 
 took no notice, not a scrap. But I wanted him to talk, not 
 to mope and ponder like that over something that was dead 
 and gone years before, and was no more good than a rope- 
 yarn to scarf a spar. I wanted to hear what he had dreamt 
 since we left Frisco. Without being anything more a believer 
 in dreams than I ever had been, he had become decidedly 
 interesting to me as a dreamer. 
 
 Besides, who knew — ? And this was where my impartiality 
 and professed detachment rather suffered. I was again con- 
 scious suddenly of a keen hankering to know if the Old Man 
 
60 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 had dreamt anything that would serve as an allegory of what 
 the passage was to be. Not that / had any foreboding of 
 trouble, not in the least, no more than Lionel had. But he 
 (the Old Man, I mean) had evidently been favoured with such 
 remarkable sleep-warnings, that I was growing anxious to 
 know if something of the sort had come to him now. 
 
 At the same time, personally I was hardly affected, in a 
 way — that is, I was strong, healthy, optimistic and fairly 
 young at the time. As for this bent for seeing things in 
 dreams, it never troubled me a bit. You see, no such warning 
 had ever come to me. I did get a dream once in a blue moon, 
 and when I did it was just the usual silly jumble of things, 
 out of which you couldn't make head or tail. And 'the three 
 or four I had made out for friends up to that time had been 
 so far apart and of such little importance — except one — that, 
 personally, I was uninfluenced by it all at most times. 
 
 Still, I felt very much pushed to know what this new 
 dream of his was; yet I couldn't force the pace, and that 
 was beginning to chafe. I walked aft, looked at the compass, 
 cast my eye aloft and examined the sails, yards, running-gear, 
 standing-gear, and every blessed thing up there till my neck 
 ached. Then I went back to the Old Man, leaned on the rail 
 by his side again; and, driven to it at last, yet not meaning 
 to say quite what I did say, I said, 
 
 " But it isn't so very strange, you know, sir, after all — 
 just coincidence, one thing like another; and p'r'aps not 
 half as strange as the dream you've now had, if you'd only 
 tell it me." 
 
 "Aye, um-m, what — what dream ? " he enquired, straighten- 
 ing up like a man just awaking out of a deep sleep. 
 
 At the same time he turned and stared at me as if I was 
 the biggest stranger on earth and had just asked him to lend 
 me his house, wife and money. For the instant I thought I 
 had surely made a mess of the thing. But the look in his 
 eyes changed at once, and very glad I was that it did. That 
 far-away, mother-come-to-me look that I had seen in them 
 now and then since the previous afternoon was anything but 
 soothing to me. And he said, in almost an ordinary way, 
 
THE -BARQUE SAPPHO 61 
 
 " Why, yes, of course. I told you yesterday I'd had a 
 dream.— Didn't I? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, you did; and was going to tell me about it, I 
 think," replied I, ready to jump for joy at the alteration in 
 him; yet a bit afraid, by another expression that was filling 
 his face, lest he had forgotten it, or some of it. 
 
 " Yes, so I did. Now, let me see," and turning for'ard he 
 leaned on his arms oh the rail again, with his hands stuck 
 out in front and clasped, and he looking down through the 
 triangle between arms and rail at the boob} 7 hatch. 
 
 Meantime, I stood alongside, leaning on the rail, much as 
 he did, and waiting. And you can stake your bottom dollar 
 that my mind wasn't easy, because he was a long time before 
 he spoke. I shouldn't be exaggerating at all if I said I nearly 
 shivered for fear the Old Man had forgotten any important 
 part of his dream. I never before knew a thing to get hold 
 of me in the same way, and hardly ever since — except when 
 my poor mother dreamt she saw herself walk into a solid 
 brick wall and disappear. She died a week after, in the hospital 
 — appendicitis. 
 
 However, to my intense relief, he said presently and 
 quietly, more like his own self than he had been since the 
 previous day, and without looking at me, 
 
 " Yes, that's it. — I've got it now. You see, Mr. Willoughby, 
 it was like this. I dreamt I was born agen, made agen, or 
 whatever one likes to call it. I saw myself comin' out of a 
 sort of box, with the feeling of comin' fresh into life. Yes, 
 that was it, just it — I felt it, knew it, — comin' fresh into life. 
 So I call it made agen, because it wasn't really born agen. It 
 was the night after we left Frisco that I had it first ; then it 
 came agen night before last. But, y' know, I had some bits 
 of it, one place or another in it — because it was a precious 
 long dream, you see — oh, time after time, nearly all last 
 passage. But they were only bits, no heads or tails. I could 
 make nothing of 'em — not as- 1 tried, either; because I never 
 took any notice of me dreams at any time — put 'em down to 
 indigestion, or bad circulation, or something o' that sort; 
 till the whole thing came to me, as I said, when we left Frisco 
 
62 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 an' night before last. Then it made me begin to think; an* 
 I felt I must talk about it with someb'dy. So, as-y' know, I 
 asked you if you believed in dreams. Well, that was only 
 my way of divin' into the matter. I just wanted to talk o' 
 what I'd dreamt, an' there was only you for me to talk to. 
 Then you whipped out them ideas of yours about my other 
 dreams, an' drove the new one nearly out o' memory, by 
 makin' me think so much of the others an' what you said. 
 Well, now, as I've told you, I was made agen, a young, strong 
 
 man, straight out of a box; an' " 
 
 The Old Man got no further on that occasion. I have said 
 we were leaning on the fore-rail of the poop, therefore with 
 our faces for'ard. And just as he arrived at this point in his 
 story, out from the port forecastle-doorway came Whymper, 
 like a bundle of ugliness tied up badly. He struck against 
 the spare main-yard and dropped to the deck, and we started 
 for'ard — at least the O. M. did, and I followed. But as Lionel 
 knows more of that affair, because he lived amongst the men, 
 I think it will be better for him to tell it. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Lionel's Story of Whymper's Efforts to discover the Origin of the 
 mysterious Noise, and of the dramatic Denouement that ended 
 those Efforts. 
 
 Whymper was not the man to let rest such an affair as the 
 mysterious music, nor, for that matter, were two or three of 
 the others. But he was the prime mover in the disturbance. 
 He was at it day and night, in quiet corners, whenever he 
 had a chance, or could make one. 
 
 Two evenings later, in almost identical circumstances, we 
 heard the music again, but only for two or three minutes. I 
 was just outside the forecastle at the time. When Baily 
 stopped it, and there was evidently no more of it to come 
 for the present, I went aft, to where the men were, in confi- 
 dential tones, almost talking their heads off about " the noise." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 63 
 
 As for the hole-and-corner nature of these hot discussions, 
 in which Hines was too up-to-date to be much interested: 
 For some curious, instinctive reason, (counterparts of which 
 I had seen amongst rough men in the States) all hands for- 
 ward were chary of getting on the wrong side of Baily. There 
 was not a great deal of the brown man to look at; but his 
 surprising strength (considerably more than any other man 
 amongst us could show) and his unusual quietude (for he 
 hardly seemed to speak to any one unless he was first spoken 
 to) made him a very dark horse to deal with. 
 
 With regard to his colour: It was settled by the older men 
 that this was an outcome of his having lived a long time in a 
 hot country, not that there~was any " black " blood in him; 
 although he appeared to be quite as brown under his clothes 
 as his face was. 
 
 Another thing, sailors, it seems to me, are always too 
 ready to pick one another to pieces; they are generally 
 too critical of each other, and there never seems to be much 
 real sympathy between them. Probably this is because of 
 the confined nature of their lives, and the real necessity of 
 every man doing his share of work. They live so much on 
 one another. But whether my deduction is correct or not I 
 will leave to Mr. Willoughby, merely saying that it was a 
 very noticeable fact that no one amongst us had so far passed 
 a word of criticism on Baily. 
 
 However, that music of his forced the flood-gates, in a 
 sense. Whymper, Mc'Arthy, Smiley and Scotty were again 
 seated around the after-part of the main-hatch. There no 
 one could come upon them unawares. Hines was standing 
 in front of them, listening to their intense, low tones and 
 half -amused at their attitude towards " that noise," but 
 careful not to let them see too much of the ridicule that was 
 in his mind. Although Hines had nothing to complain of as 
 to his treatment aboard the Sappho, he was well acquainted 
 with the petty tyranny and occasional hard blows which 
 A.B.'s could put on ordinary seamen, and no officer be the 
 wiser, unless the young fellow went the unheard-of length of 
 informing one. It was solely for this reason that Hines kept 
 
64 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 in the background of things generally, because his bent was 
 rather the other way. 
 
 Featherston was not one of the group on the hatch. Of all 
 the older men, fore and aft, he was the least likely to be 
 swayed by the unusual, especially when the charm had 
 passed. And, whatever he thought of " that noise," he had, 
 apparently, settled his mind on its being " nothin' to worry 
 about." What was more, to him it was a matter that con- 
 cerned only Baily, providing that it did not disturb any 
 man's watch -below; and being an upholder of personal 
 rights and liberties, he was just the man to leave the matter 
 where it was. 
 
 As I arrived alongside of Hines, the four men turned to 
 me at once; with Whymper craning his long, thin neck and 
 body and his moonlit, " battle-axe " face towards me, and 
 having the most to say. Smiley, however, was not much 
 behind him in volume. But the northerner was not half so 
 strenuous, for the simple reason he did not take the affair 
 with more than a quarter of The Growler's seriousness. 
 Mc'Arthy, never sure of his own mind, any more than any 
 one was ever sure of him, backed and rilled between Whym- 
 per's strong suggestion of witchery — or something of that 
 nature — and Smiley 's slightly amused contention that " the 
 jiggery-pokery, mother-kiss-me-sweet noise " was probably 
 " nothin' more 'an sum new-fandangled super-jew's-'arp." 
 
 " But ye was right inside, son — you was," said Whymper, 
 stabbing at my chest with a bony forefinger, till I backed out 
 of his reach; for, of all men at our end of the barque, some- 
 how or other I liked him least to touch me. There were times 
 when he seemed scarcely to be wholesome. And leaning 
 forward, as he was doing then, with that vivid moonlight 
 full on his sharp features, and his kind of hawk eyes glittering 
 with intensity, there appeared to be really something of the 
 vulture about him — vulture, because instinctively I knew 
 already, we all did, that he lacked the necessary spirit to be 
 a fighting bird of prey. However, the talk then went on in 
 this manner. 
 
 " Yes, ye was right inside," he repeated, in his cocksure 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 65 
 
 drawl and a strong suggestion of command. " Ye could see 
 what he 'ad, what he got them 'ell's own noises out of — 
 'cause they wasn't earthly, or I'm a son of a gun, / am" 
 
 I made no answer; for my mind had suddenly become 
 filled with the idea that Whymper was a secret hater of 
 Baily. It appeared to me that there was real hatred in his 
 references to the man. He began again with, 
 
 " Now, ye ken jes' let up an' tell us what the 'oly curse of 
 a thing was, an' " 
 
 " No, I can't," said I, rousing up from my thought and 
 about to say why I could not, when he interrupted me, in a 
 snarling, suspicious tone, 
 
 " An' what for ken't ye, me bold Mister Ken't? Ar' y'u in 
 the know with 'im, jes' ? " and he pointed melodramatically 
 at my face. " Say, now, an' spit it right out, sonny, if ye 
 wants tu give the go-bye tu trouble, 'cause I'm jes' the man 
 as is goin' tu know. What's the lay? " 
 
 "What's what lay? " I asked, in the manner I had ac- 
 quired amongst his kind. 
 
 " Y'u knows what. None o' y'ur biff, or ye'll be makin' 
 me thirsty, young man; an' then " 
 
 " Oh, weel, if it's dry ye're gettin', tak' a drink o' waiter, 
 mon, an' gi'e yo'r inside a s'prise," Smiley put in, thrusting his 
 big head and shoulders somewhat between Whymper and me. 
 
 " There'll be some stars tu play with, Lguess," The Growler 
 concluded; and Smiley, unable to resist a drive at his red 
 rag, added in the same gruff undertone as before, but with a 
 certain sense of irresponsibility and humour, 
 
 " Ay, wee'll play wi' 'em, me lad, by-an'-by, when we're 
 ready; wee'll tie 'em up i' yo'r stripes an' mak' a navvy's 
 wee bundle on 'em." 
 
 This brought Whymper round on him with a sneering, 
 
 " Don't you be a gink * tu y'ur betters, or " 
 
 " Whaat, ye ma betters ? W'y, for twa pins Aa'd tak' yo'r 
 starve-gutted length be the heels an' dip yo'r heid ower- 
 board," said Smiley, with a grim flicker about his mouth and 
 eyes, but in a tone that stood for action. 
 
 1 Fool. 
 
 E 
 
66 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Naturally, the centre of interest was shifted for the moment. 
 All our eyes and attention were on the two men. But 
 Whymper backed down with an effort at adjustment, say- 
 ing, still in that snarling way of his, however, 
 
 " No, me mighty possible, not me! — I'm not y'ur betters — ■ 
 a poor, 'ospital case like me, no ! But the Amwricen flag, an' 
 that's the Amwricen people — them's y'ur betters, I guess." 
 
 " No, by Jack Robi's'n they're not, an' divn't ye forget 
 that, ma fine, juicy corncob! " Smiley replied with emphasis, 
 and no grin, and turning his face to Whymper, so close that 
 they must have felt each other's breath. " An', be the Lord, 
 look ye here noo, this is a British packet — a reight-doon, 
 oot-an'-oot British packet, better 'an ony daamned thing as 
 ever flew ye're dog's-collar stars an' 'listin' sargeant's ribb'ns! 
 An' fro' this on, if ye an' that Booster divna respec' that fact, 
 an' put on sum o' th' manners as interlopers should put on — ■ 
 wee'll, if ye divn't, so help ma God Aa'll baste th' pair o' ye, 
 straight ! For Aa'm fair sick ta ma in'ards o' ye're daamned, 
 everlastin' cackle aboot a countery as can only scrape up 
 dollars an' crow! " 
 
 This had been said with a marked rise in feeling, especially 
 towards the end, therefore in higher tones than the previous 
 conversation, and I certainly feared that it would end in 
 blows. A little more " Americanism," and I am sure Smiley 
 would have been on his feet. For this reason I forgot my 
 rating and made haste to join Mc'Arthy and the nigger in 
 efforts for the maintenance of peace. But before we could 
 say more than three or four words each, and all together, 
 Smiley interrupted, quietly enough, whilst Whymper re- 
 mained silent, 
 
 " Noo divn't ye lot get nervous-like, an' think ther's goin' 
 ta be blood an' skittles on th' spot, 'cause ther' isn't. We're 
 only payin' cumpliments ta wun anither; and neether me, 
 nor W'ymper, nor Booster, 's fightin' men — not wile ther's 
 ony taalk ta be dun or corners to get raand." I saw him 
 wink at Mc'Arthy — which Whymper could not see — as he 
 continued, " Aall ther's in it is that Aa'm just nearly laid up 
 wi' this ' boostin' ' of a countery that's nothin' to crack on 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 67 
 
 aboot, an' Aa'm goin' ta lash oot a bit afore Aa gans doon 
 under it — that's aall. An' noo, me lad, let's be hearin' what 
 ye did see in theer, w'en that soort o' heaven's own cat was 
 screechin' sae gently." 
 
 The latter part of this was addressed to me, of course. So 
 I answered that I had seen nothing more than Baily sitting 
 on the edge of his chest, with his back towards me. In a 
 moment every one of them jerked himself up on his seat, as 
 if he had been suddenly stiffened. Their simultaneous action 
 proved that this was certainly the opposite to what had been 
 expected. It was, truly, a bolt from the blue ; and the parti- 
 cular effect of it on each man was seen in his reply, as was 
 the man himself to some extent. Mc'Arthy, the lightest- 
 minded of the group, was the first to get his words out, the 
 last three being spoken in a coaxing way. 
 
 "Didn't you? Is that true? But you did." 
 
 Then, overlapping each other, came Smiley, Scotty and 
 Whymper, with these remarks, 
 
 " Gosh, but that's funny! " 
 
 " Oh, Lo', den we yshipped de Debil, shu-ah! " 
 
 "That same man's got some un'oly contrivance; an' I 
 votes as we waits on 'im right away." 
 
 "Wait on 'im? " echoed Smiley, in light irony. "What 
 wi' ?• — a gin-cocktail, or a sherry an' biscuit ? He is not Mc's 
 great-uncle Michael Alexander James, w'at saved th' Battle 
 o' th' Black Boy be runnin' away fro' it! " 
 
 " I mean as we should jes' ask him tu explain the noise 'e 
 made. A noise like that in a ship's fo'c's'le is calkerlated 
 tu " 
 
 "Do ye? " Smiley interrupted, with deliberate slowness, 
 and looking overboard. " Wee'll, Aa never puts ony thing i' 
 th' way o' them as wants ta try a new thing, 's long as they 
 leaves me oot o' th' reckonin'. Aa wunce tried a new thing 
 masel'; but that's a stoory Aa'll tell ye anuther time. Aa 
 wants ta say this noo," turning directly to Whymper, " if ye 
 did that ta me, Aa should gi'e ye a straight un atween th' 
 eyes, son, then ask ye what ye meant." 
 
 Mc'Arthy began to give some wavering opinions. At the 
 
68 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 same time Whymper tried to force his point; but Smiley 
 stood up and stepped away from the hatch, saying, lightly 
 as before, 
 
 " Ay, weell, ye can, if that's yo'r mind. But for masel', 
 Aa never care ta look inta anuther man's pocket. Tisn't 
 nice ta find yo'rsel' blinkin' doon a six-shooter, w'en ye gan 
 lookin' aboot for toffee." 
 
 With that he strolled forward, relighting his pipe as he 
 went. Whymper turned to Mc'Arthy, with no better result. 
 The Scots-Irishman was not cast in the heroic mould, and he 
 was too light-minded for The Growler's fascination to have 
 good effect on him. I moved to the bulwark, and leaned my 
 back against it, waiting to see what the end would be, and 
 watching the men on the corner of the hatch in that flood 
 of white moonlight. Hines came with me, and Whymper 
 fastened on the nigger — the man in the crew to whom he 
 would not look for a rope if he were overboard, according to 
 his past expressions on " coloured hoodahs." But Scotty 
 would not^even argue the point — not with Whymper; he 
 came over to us, just as one-bell 1 struck, and we walked 
 forward together, Scotty saying, in a way, that he had a kind 
 of dread of Whymper. 
 
 When the watches were changed it happened to be Baily's 
 wheel and Smiley's look-out. So, Whymper being free till 
 four-bells, he came into our side, with a long yarn about " the 
 noise " Baily had made, nrysterious suggestions as to its 
 origin, and much argument for a deputation to " wait on " 
 the wrongdoer. This was particularly for the edification of 
 Booster and Chambers, neither of whom made an answer 
 except when directly challenged, and even then it was grudg- 
 ingly made. This was borne quietly for about twenty minutes 
 of our precious watch-below. Then Featherstdn, who had 
 
 1 The warning bell for the watch-below; when the watch is asleep, 
 it is the call-bell, and is struck at a quarter to twelve — midnight, a 
 quarter to four a.m., and a quarter to four in the afternoon. When 
 the watches are changed at eight o'clock in the morning and at noon, 
 the watch-below is called at 7.20 and 11.20, in order to give the men 
 time to have their breakfast or dinner before going on duty. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 69 
 
 scarcely spoken a word all the time, turned his head on the 
 pillow, looked straight at Whymper and said, with quiet 
 emphasis, * 
 
 " Say, mate, it's the port-watch on deck, an' this is the 
 starboard fo'c's'le, an' we're turned in. Anderson, you can 
 reach the lamp — turn it down." 
 
 With all proper haste I turned the light down, then rolled 
 over, with my face to the Bulkhead, laughing to myself — as 
 Booster and Scotty did — at the snub given to the agitator. 
 Possibly realising at last that all the forces on our side, posi- 
 tive and negative, were against him, he walked out there and 
 then, without another word. 
 
 Two or three days went by, during which I heard now and 
 then just enough to show me that Whymper was still ferret- 
 ing at the subject of " that 'oly, unearthly noise." He was 
 not drawing so much attention by this time; but his per- 
 sistency was disquieting to me, because I saw clearly that it 
 was sure to end in trouble, if not dropped at once. 
 
 Then Hines told me that on going into their forecastle at 
 about half-past nine on the night before he " saw Whymper 
 messin' about the lid of Baily's chest, an' lookin' red an' 
 flummoxed " when he (Hines) walked in on him. Seeing what 
 happened later, this was very likely; and, owing to the 
 duties of wheel and look-out and to other things, that would 
 be about the only time that Whymper was free to attempt 
 in his own way to discover the mystery. 
 
 It should be remembered that forecastle etiquette does 
 not allow the locking of chests. If a man locked his chest in 
 a windjammer's forecastle, he would promptly have it broken 
 open, so I learnt. The implication of a locked chest is that 
 there are thieves in the place — naturally a dangerous sugges- 
 tion to make, and every man feels it. At the same time, 
 every man is expected to keep the till of his chest locked. 
 This is a small locker, perhaps six inches deep and the same 
 wide, built across the top of one end of the chest. It is in 
 there that a man keeps his private papers, when his chest 
 has no " false bottom " — discharge-notes, any kind of certi- 
 ficate that he may have, and, if he be secretive, photographs 
 
■jo . THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 and letters of his friends. The two unwritten laws of the 
 unlocked chest and the locked till appear to be as old as is 
 the sailor's habit of taldng a clothes-chest to sea, which is 
 done nowadays only by men in sailing vessels. 
 
 As for the crowning point of it all, that which stopped 
 Captain Sennett in the recital of his wonderful and signifi- 
 cant dream: It was the port-watch out. Smiley, Baily and 
 Mc'Arthy were working on the new footropes, across the 
 forepart of the deck, by the windlass. Four-bells was struck. 
 Hines went to clean the tar off his hands, which he ought to 
 have done ten minutes before ; then he relieved Whymper at 
 the wheel, and Whymper came forward and went into their 
 side for the usual " five-minutes' smoke." (It was a day-time 
 custom on the Sappho — and is, I believe, in most easy-going 
 ships — for a man to have a short smoke, out of sight in the 
 forecastle, on being relieved from the wheel, that is, at 
 ordinary times. When relieved at night-time he can, of 
 course, smoke about the deck.) 
 
 Well, whether or not Baily had any suspicion of Whymper 
 no one knew, because he was not the man to tell any one. 
 But it happened that a minute or two after The Growler 
 went into the forecastle, Baily walked up from the starboard 
 side, turned aft, and followed him in. Mind, he had not seen 
 Whymper go in, neither had Whymper seen where he was 
 working on the deck. 
 
 Baily was wearing a pair of his own-made canvas shoes at 
 the time, with sennit soles, for which reason he was probably 
 at the back of Whymper before Whimper knew it. At any 
 rate, what we gathered was that when he entered, The 
 Growler had the lid of his chest up and was moving the 
 clothes about. 
 
 Without a word Baily got a grip on the back of his neck, 
 hauled him the eight or ten feet aft, to a line with the door- 
 way, then picked him up almost bodily, and flung him out 
 on deck. The immediate results were: First, as statecl by 
 Mr. Willoughby, Whymper fouled painfully with the spare 
 spar, also with the bulwarks, and remained on the deck, half- 
 doubled-up and moaning. Second, Captain Sennett and the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 71 
 
 mate came forward at once to investigate — or, rather, the 
 captain came for that purpose ; because Mr. Willoughby here 
 believed in letting the men settle their own differences, 
 providing there was no knife-work or other foul play, and no 
 interference with duties. 
 
 But before they arrived on the scene, Smiley and Mc'Arthy 
 were there; they had only about twenty feet to go straight 
 from their work. Baily was then in the forecastle doorway, 
 looking at the moaning Growler — and one can guess how — 
 and saying something about " a common thie/f " in a low 
 voice. He then turned to the other two men and said simply, 
 
 "I've just caught the hoodah at my chest. Come in an' 
 see w'ere he's scattered me things on the floor, if you like." 
 
 Baily had a very slight nasal twang, which was scarcely 
 noticeable in that peculiarly soft way he had of speaking 
 English. Otherwise his speech was free from dialect. But 
 the approach of Captain Sennett and the mate kept Mc'Arthy 
 and Smiley outside. 
 
 As the captain arrived he asked what was the meaning of 
 the trouble. Baily replied in quiet scorn and about the same 
 words he had used to his two watch-mates, who were then 
 going back to their work. Whymper was moaning that his 
 "bones was broken, shuar"; and he made no effort to 
 regain his feet. 
 
 He had no answer to the charge ; and such an accusation 
 as Baily had made against him was a very serious thing, 
 perhaps more so, in a way, aboard-ship than ashore. On a 
 vessel under Captain Sennett's command it was something 
 to be seen into at once; and without a moment's delay he 
 accepted Baily's invitation, stepped into the forecastle and 
 inspected the open chest and pieces of clothing along the 
 floor, which Whymper had dropped as Baily dragged him 
 backwards. 
 
 By this time we were all awake on our side. Booster, 
 Scotty and I were out of our bunks, near the intercommuni- 
 cation doorway, and listening to whatever we could hear. 
 Captain Sennett — with the mate at his heels — asked a few 
 simple questions, which Baily answered as briefly. Then the 
 
72 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 captain went outside and enquired of Whymper what he had 
 to say for himself. He was now sitting on the spar, and all 
 he said in his high-pitched voice, or moaned, was what most 
 of us believed, and Baily thought soon afterwards — that he 
 was not a thief; but had been " lookin' for the un'oly thing 
 as Baily made his 'orrible, nerve-tearin' noise with " the 
 night before. And what an object of injured, beaten, hating 
 manhood he was as he sat there, looking at the master with 
 an apologetic gaze that also asked for protection, then at 
 Baily with malevolence in those brownish-greenish eyes of 
 his, which no one seemed to like; yet they were of a good 
 size, and certainty not ill-looking. 
 
 This made Captain Sennett turn to Baily again for an 
 explanation, and was told that he had "a bit of an instru- 
 ment, got in Hawaii," which he had played to himself a few 
 minutes, and was no more unholy than anything else aboard 
 the barque. The master asked to see it. Baily turned inside 
 again, followed by Captain Sennett, and immediately we 
 heard half-a-dozen or so of those wondrous sweet and tender 
 notes. Then the captain came out once more, cautioned 
 Whymper not to meddle again with his shipmates' affairs, 
 and went aft, Mr. Willoughby along with him. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mr. Willoughby tells how Captain Sennett related the significant 
 Dream that had kept him quiet and finally puzzled them both. 
 
 When the Old Man and I went aft from the little kick-up he 
 spoke of the wonderful sweetness of Baily 's instrument. / 
 hadn't seen the thing, and I wasn't interested enough in it to 
 ask about it ; the episode was rather trivial to me. I wanted 
 badly to get back to the dream. 
 
 But he was impressed by those few notes and would have 
 liked to hear more. I think if he could have had Baily and 
 the instrument aft for a few hours — or have had it to him- 
 self, only that it would have wanted a handle for him to play 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 73 
 
 it — they might have made a great difference in him all along ; 
 because, in spite of his worries, he turned back to the " sweet- 
 ness " every now and then. And worry — yes, he started 
 straight into it there and then. That stealing affair had been 
 working on him for some days, as I had seen. But he wasn't 
 for fastening on it as the dog that was gnawing at him inside — 
 no, that was too near home, in his own little crowd, and 
 especially affecting his pet project of giving the boy " an 
 honest callin' in life." With, that working on him, I know, 
 he turned to the new thing. 
 
 As for the dream: It was a shelved subject for that after- 
 noon. In fact, the trouble for'ard had, to all intents and 
 purposes, put it into a bottle, corked it up, and stowed the 
 bottle away. It didn't matter how I tried to get near the 
 matter, I blew cold all the time; and I did try. The success 
 that had attended my earlier effort made me bold enough to 
 lay my hand on the bottle, speaking figuratively. 
 
 But it was no go. The unusual means that have helped 
 you over the wall once, may drop you on the next occasion, 
 and leave you in a worse hole than ever. At any rate, what 
 had served me half-an-hour before became a stumbling- 
 block to me then. The Old Man would have none of it. The 
 first time I tried it, he ignored it ; and on the second trial he 
 said, kindly enough, but finally, all the same, 
 
 " Never mind the dream, Mr. Willoughby; we'41 have that 
 at a fit tin' time, if I can remember it then. For the present 
 there's something much more serious to think about — this 
 trouble among the men." 
 
 Yes, he would have it so — there was serious friction for'ard. 
 — How he wished that man hadn't brought the. instrument! 
 • — He had half a mind to go and buy it, even if it cost him a 
 five-pound note. But, then, probably the. man wouldn't sell; 
 then he, himself, would look silly. — If musical instruments 
 were only forbidden by the Articles, like firearms and spirituous 
 liquors, he would go and confiscate the thing till the end of 
 the passage. — He was sure it was going to cause a lot of 
 trouble, in spite of its wonderful sweetness and that sort of 
 heart-hug it had — etc., as he sat in a deck-chair on the poop, 
 
74 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 doubled up, in a sense, from what he had been just before 
 the little upset. 
 
 And all the time I boxed about him, full of cheery assur- 
 ances that were like drops of water on a sleeping duck's back ; 
 making to go, here, there and yonder, but every time turning 
 to him again at the end of two or three strides ; wishing Old 
 Nick had both the two men and the instrument, and (not 
 knowing, of course, what it was going to be to us in the long 
 run) feeling ready to go for'ard and throw the confounded 
 thing over the side. I hadn't been so put out I didn't know 
 when. It was just like having a fine, ripe cherry in my mouth, 
 one I had been longing for, as a woman longs, and some one 
 snatching it out, as I began to taste it. 
 
 Still, fuming to myself and fooling about was no good. 
 The thing had happened ; the Old Man was put off his course 
 for the time being; and I could no more alter those two 
 staple facts than I could have made the sea run against the 
 wind. — Plain as day, I should have to grin and bear it, and 
 along with it his doleful forebodings — at any rate till such 
 times as he took on a more cheerful frame of mind. And that 
 didn't come to pass for a day or two. On the contrary, he 
 was as glum as a sick hen all next day. 
 
 I was that wild, I could have given both Whymper and 
 Baily a break-me-up job for a watch or two — if I hadn't 
 seen the error of my ways, that is, and repented of it before 
 the first watch was out. 
 
 Then nothing would do but Chips and the " doctor " must 
 chime in with their bit of the general go-wrong. It wasn't 
 much. As things go commonly aboard-ship it was just an 
 ordinary piece of give-and-take ; something to laugh at more 
 than anything else. But, just showing how prone the O. M. 
 was sometimes to meet trouble half way, to him it was " the 
 last blow of the hammer, the last link in the chain." There 
 was "trouble for'ard, trouble aft; and now the intermed'- 
 aries must set to an' put their oar into the boat." 
 
 What it began about I didn't know, really, didn't take the 
 trouble to find out. I remember the second mate saying 
 something about a photograph being at the bottom of it. I 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 75 
 
 think it was Chips that said a word or two uncomplimentary 
 about a portrait the cook had hanging over his bunk. If it 
 was, then Chips, as a seagoing man, ought to have known 
 better; because every man who goes, to sea knows what 
 sailors are to plaster the backs of their bunks with photo- 
 graphs of women — their mothers, sisters, sweethearts, wives 
 (when they have any), and women of whom the less 'said the 
 better; generally he puts them all together. 
 
 Well, anyhow, whether that was it or not, the two elderly 
 fools got at loggerheads. Chips was a big, scraggy sort of 
 chap; a west-countryman, slow in all things and apparently 
 indifferent to most things. Broad and heavy as the " doctor " 
 was, Chips could have bowled him over and sewed him up in 
 a bolt of canvas, though he might have kicked his worst all 
 the time. He was squat in shape, slow, elderly, had a splutter- 
 ing, mouthful way of talking and a bitter tongue. Nobody 
 seemed to like him. 
 
 It appeared that the trouble began between 'em overnight, 
 simmered all the forenoon, then came to the boil when Chips 
 went for his dinner at twelve o'clock. The " doctor " was 
 flurried a bit probably — he often was — and put out with one 
 thing or another. However, it was a pea-soup day. Chips 
 said something that took the " doctor " aback; so what did 
 the old chap do but heave half a kid * of hot soup at Chips' 
 head. The Old Man and I were standing on the poop at the 
 time, with our sextants in our hands,' just finished taking 
 the sun. Looking at Chips I couldn't help laughing; he was 
 so comical, with the yellow soup all over his head and face. 
 
 But, of course, the O. M. saw the seriousness of it right 
 away. Saying something to me about the affair not being a 
 laughing matter, he downed sextant on the skylight, and off 
 he went to the galley. 
 
 Well, as I say, in itself it wasn't much. The Old Man soon 
 got it under by mopping the soup off the carpenter's head 
 with his own handkerchief. There was ho real scalding; the 
 soup was just hot. Meanwhile he sided with both sides and 
 
 1 A large, deep tin dish. The men's meals — hash, soup, meat, vege- 
 tables and the like — are always served out to them in these " kids." 
 
76 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 blamed both sides, so as not to make one seem better than 
 the other. The two men had sailed with him for years, especi- 
 ally the cook; so he had considerable influence over 'em. 
 Then he made them shake hands and appear to be friends;, 
 which, as a matter of fact, they soon were as much as they 
 had ever been — that is, they tolerated each other in peace. 
 But to the Old Man it was more trouble — more trouble. All 
 things were going against him ; he knew they were, and the 
 only thing to do was to grin and bear it — and so on, and 
 so on. And yet what a cheerful, considerate, charitable Old 
 Man he could be at the best of times ! 
 
 For three days after this the O. M. was as sour earth, and 
 all the time I worried no end about that dream. How it did 
 play me up! But those wise old heads that made the pro- 
 verbs, they knew a thing or two, in their way.—" There's a 
 time to be merry, and a time to be sad " ; and all things have 
 their end, you know, somewhere or other. Yes, the cat came 
 out of the bag — as I might have known it would, if I had 
 stopped to think, as I ought to have done. 
 
 Some days later, when I had begun to think less of the 
 dream, we were still in that soldier's weather, but getting 
 down towards the doldrums. Then the Old Man came to me,' 
 as I sat at the fore-end of the poop, doing a bit of sailmaking, 
 and wondering when we should see a sail. So far we hadn't 
 seen one, and smoke on the horizon only once, since we left 
 Frisco; and in the old times we used to see sail or steam 
 pretty often. But we were too far off the land to expect 
 steamers. # 
 
 However, with his hands in the pockets of his buff nankeen 
 jacket, the Old Man leaned back against the weather-mizzen 
 rigging, looked down at me and said, quite quiet, yet in a 
 voice that showed me how impressed he was, 
 
 " I've had it agen." 
 
 For the moment I stared at him, hardly knowing what he 
 meant. Although something or other about that dream had 
 been more in my mind for days than any two or three things 
 that I had to think of at that time, yet for the life of me I 
 couldn't see off-hand what he meant, till he added, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 77 
 
 " You know, that dream. I've dreamt it agen, night 
 before last, just the same as before, an' I can't get it out of 
 me mind." 
 
 " Oh! " said I. I was delighted. 
 
 Then it suddenly struck me that I would try another set of 
 tactics— run back on my own course, so to speak, by pretend- 
 ing not to be much interested in the thing. This was because 
 I had thought several times during the interval that possibly 
 I'd shown myself rather too eager to get the dream out of 
 him. He was inclined to be a bit obstinate and contrary 
 when his moods were on him, especially if you tried to per- 
 suade him the other way, or hurry him. So I kept to my 
 stitching, and left him to talk as it suited him. Yet all the 
 time I was ready to kick myself if it happened that my 
 tactics were wrong. 
 
 " Yes," he went on in a minute or so, while he looked at 
 my sewing as if he was judging the distance between the 
 stitches to the thousandth fraction of an inch, " Yes, it's 
 been to me agen, an' I can't get any peace for thinkin' about 
 it. Last night I lay worryin' so much on it that I went right 
 through it, from beginning to end, and thought I'd dreamt 
 it agen, till I suddenly found I was awake — been awake all 
 the blessed time." 
 
 " Oh, then it must be getting a bad hold on you, sir," I 
 remarked and stitched away, without looking at him, except 
 sort of sideways, ^simply to watch the expression on his 
 face. 
 
 " That's just what it's doin', an' I want to shake it off. It's 
 that bein' made agen that's worst; it jumps up in me mind 
 every now an' then like a devil of a jack-i'-the-box; but the 
 slimy part of it's nearly as bad. Why, I sometimes think I'm 
 in it really, an' begin to lash about me to get through it, like 
 down in the cabin just now. I b'lieve I should go mad if I 
 was in it really." 
 
 " M'm, slimy, aye? You didn't tell me about that," said 
 I, just casually, and all the time pretty well aching to hear 
 the whole yarn. 
 " " Didn't I? " he asked in surprise. " I thought I did." 
 
78 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 "No; you only told me of coming out of the box, made 
 again." 
 
 " Oh, was that it"? " enquired he, and he came and sat on 
 the end of the stool, 1 where my sail-hook had been fastened. 
 I had stopped seaming, and was beginning to put a grummet 
 in; so he was not then in my way, and I was ready to skip 
 like lambs for joy. 
 
 "Well," he began, slow and sure, with his elbows on his 
 knees, and those kind grey- eyes of his fixed on the horizon 
 about six points away the port bow, " when I came out of 
 the box, made afresh an' all that, I was as strong — it seemed 
 to me I'd never been as strong in me life. I could have lifted 
 a horse, an' not strained much at that. An' I was full of 
 vitality, quick, an' ready for anything an' everything. It was 
 joyful to think of it, let alone feel it, an' do things. But I 
 think the biggest wonder I had was at my mind — I was 
 marvlously keen. Why, I could tell everything about me 
 out of my own mind. I seemed to see into things without 
 looking, an' knew all ther' was there. An' when I thought of 
 it, it sort of made me walk light, as if me feet hardly touched 
 the ground when they was off agen. Oh, it was there, right 
 enough, just the same as if I'd gone through it only an hour 
 or two ago. In fact, I think it's keener an' clearer on me 
 mind than if I'd gone through it all really." 
 
 " Yes, sir, dreams are sometimes like that, I believe," I 
 ventured to put in, while he paused a moment, perhaps in 
 looking back at the thing, or to get his breath a bit ; because 
 he had been speaking faster and with some feeling since he 
 struck the mind part of it. 
 
 " Are they?— But there!— Don't I know it? Look at that 
 dream I had about the net an' the money an' the butterflies 
 an' that! Why, it was clearer to me for months than if I'd 
 lived it. It's as clear now as anything I've actually gone 
 through." 
 
 " I daresay, sir — I daresay; and this about slime will be 
 more so, I've no doubt, as it's so much fresher," I said, fear- 
 
 1 A sail -maker's stool is a short bench aboard-ship, and usually 
 so everywhere. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 79 
 
 ing in my heart that he was off at a tangent and would be 
 hard to get back to the essential thing. But I needn't have 
 worried; he was off again with, • 
 
 "Slime? No, it wasn't slime, as much as it was slimy 
 things. You see, I was travellin', as it seemed, on foot an' 
 over good ground — oh, a tidy bit of country altogether— 
 when I came to a part of it that was full of slimy things; 
 that is, the air was full of 'em, but only up to my chin or so. 
 Sometimes they was deeper, an' it looked as if I should be 
 smothered with 'em; I can feel it now, an' the way I lashed 
 my arms about to knock the things away an' get breath. 
 Oh, it was awful, that was! " 
 
 " But what things were they, sir? — what were they like? " 
 I enquired, forgetting my new tactics in anxiety to know 
 this before he went any further. 
 
 " Well, that I can't say. They were just slimy things, some 
 long, some short, now big lumps of 'em, then all separate, — 
 none of 'em bigger than a child's arm. They floated 
 about- " 
 
 "Were they alive? " 
 
 "Yes — no. Well, now, I can't tell that, either, not exactly. 
 Sometimes I fancied 'em alive; then they seemed to be just 
 dead things, floatin' 'round an' goin' nowhere in partic'lar." 
 
 " Any colour to them? " 
 
 " Yes, a sort of brown an' shiny — of course, bein' slimy, 
 they would shine. An' the air, wherever they float ed> that is, 
 which was gen'rally on a level with my neck, it was sort of 
 thick an' sea-green. You couldn't see more than a few feet 
 in it, an' the top o' that part was nearly like the top o' water 
 — it was so different to the air above it." 
 
 " And how did you feel, sir, when you were going through 
 there? " asked I, forgetting my new tactics altogether and 
 letting the work lie idle. 
 
 "Felt?" 
 
 " Yes, sir — that is, besides the smothering sensation now 
 and then." 
 
 " Oh, I felt all right, barrin' that, an' savage because I 
 couldn't get along through it," he replied ordinarily, for by 
 
80 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 this time his usual easy manner when yarning had come 
 back to him. 
 
 " You didn't feel as if you'd go down in it, then? — as if it 
 would get the better of you-? " I queried, hunting in my 
 mind for a parallel for either answer. 
 
 " No, I felt nothing of that. The fact is, I seemed to know 
 I should get through it all right. It seemed to me that was 
 why I stuck at it till I got to the open country agen. Then I 
 had a fine time. After that I had a stretch o' ground as hurt 
 me feet badly, it was all hill an' hole an' stones — rocky road 
 to Dublin, if you like — an' foggy. Wasn't I glad to get out 
 o' that! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said I presently. He had stopped talking and 
 appeared to be trying to recollect the next item; but I soon 
 knew he wasn't. He was stopping because of its feminine 
 nature. 
 
 "Well, it seemed I came across a woman then," he re- 
 sumed slowly. "She wasn't young; but she was good- 
 lookin' an' all that. Some roughs had set on her; an' I — 
 well, I walked in and tried to 'get her out of it." 
 
 I was at my sewing again, for, fear he should think I was 
 hanging on every word and sort of trying to push him on 
 with his tale. But I took a side peep at him here, and it 
 looked to me as if he blushed a bit. Anyhow, in the pause he 
 made it was plain to see that he was rather embarrassed. 
 Then he went on again. 
 
 " But I hadn't the great strength I'd had before I met the 
 slimy things — no, I was just an ordinary sort of man then. 
 An' I don't know as I really got her out o' the mess; yet she 
 came out with me. Ther' was some muddle there, in the 
 hurly-burly; I don't know what it was. That part's a bit 
 foggy ; but it seems to me she'd as much to do with the gettin' 
 out of it as anybody had, an' ther' was a few of us in it, too. 
 However, some'ow or other she went with me to the end of it 
 all. So did the others, only most of 'em was in the back- 
 ground behind, an' I didn't see much of 'em, except I looked 
 back on purpose. Then one of 'em sort of disappeared — how 
 I couldn't tell; but it looked as if he just went all of a sudden, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 81 
 
 nob'dy knew where, and ther' was a rumpus, an' we was all 
 in the blues about it — me, too. Well, we just went on like 
 that through a piece of country that got worse an' worse, 
 till we came to a sort of village of mud huts, where there was 
 no life, an' there it ended." 
 
 " Do you mean that was the end of the dream, sir? " I 
 asked, and I'm afraid I showed some anxiety. For by this 
 time I was wrapped up in the thing, and the end was as much 
 a disappointment as the whole dream was puzzling me. 
 
 " Yes, that was the last of it — except that I seemed very 
 satisfied with the place, the village, I mean." 
 
 He waited a while, looking at my face, but not in any 
 unusual way. There was nothing in his expression to show 
 that he was anxious at all, or was looking for something that 
 might not come. I saw this, out of the corner of my eye and 
 in a sort of instinctive way. For I was gazing dead ahead of me 
 then, that is out to wind'ard, where the Old Man had looked 
 when he first sat down. 
 
 But what a difference there was in us ! He had lost pretty 
 nearly all the seriousness he had then, I mean his heavy 
 seriousness ; and I had gained it. I was not only disappointed ; 
 I was wild with myself because I could see no allegory to the 
 dream. In a way my reputation was at stake. At the same 
 time, just to show how inconsistent I was, I had said to the 
 Old Man again and again that I didn't lay any claim to reading 
 dreams. Yet. there I was — feeling chagrined as you please, 
 piqued that I couldn't rise to the occasion — a sort of test affair 
 that I couldn't come up to. Besides, hadn't the Old Man come 
 for an interpretation of his dream ? And there I was — unable to 
 say a word about it, except that I didn't like the end, which 
 any noodle could say. However, he enquired presently, 
 
 "What do you make of it, Mr. Willoughby? — anything 
 partic'lar? You seem serious enough about it." 
 
 " No, sir, I don't," said I. " To tell you the truth, it puzzles 
 me altogether. I can't make head or tail of it." I then began 
 to excuse myself by saying that I had, of course, come across 
 other dreams that baffled me ; but he interrupted with, 
 
 " Oh, yes, that's likely enough; and I'm not bothered 
 
 F 
 
82 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 because you can't read this one right away. PYaps there's no 
 readin' of it — no meanin' in it I mean; an' I don't know as it 
 will bother me if you don't read it at all; p'r'aps if you did, 
 we'd be no better off for it — maybe worse. There's advantage 
 sometimes in not knowin' what is goin' to happen. — Isn't 
 there? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose there is sometimes," I answered, with all 
 my thoughts on the dream, and some relief in his taking it so 
 easily. 
 
 " What interests me just now is the fact that I don't seem to 
 care about it any way. What I mean is that tellin' it to you 
 seems to have taken away all the weight of it. I wish I'd told 
 you it before. An' ten to one I shouldn't have told you at all, 
 if we hadn't talked of them others, an' you seen what you did in 
 'em. Well, well, we're all born; but we're not all- dead yet." 
 
 With that he left the stool, went over to the weather-rigging 
 again and began to talk about the work I was having done 
 aloft. But I wished to goodness he would let it alone and go 
 down to his cabin. I wanted to think about the dream, that 
 was fairly worrying me, because I could not see any living 
 parallel. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 In which Lionel says how the Unpleasantness in the Forecastle was 
 overcome, and how Baily's mysterious something was disclosed. 
 
 Of course, it was only natural that there should be some 
 strained feeling in the port forecastle for a few watches after 
 the upset. But I am sure that Baily felt the least of it; that 
 was my impression when I went into their side in the dog- 
 watch, ostensibly to speak to Hines, but really to take note of 
 things (I was anxious about this break in the ship's peace), 
 and nothing occurred afterwards to change my impression. 
 Smiley and Mc'Arthy probably felt rather embarrassed, 
 because of what they had thought and said of Baily and 
 " the noise." 
 But it was Whymper, as it was bound to be, who both felt 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 83 
 
 the strain most of all and who caused its continuance. Even 
 on deck, except when at work, he was like a fish out of water ; 
 and he apparent^ could not bear to be inside, only to eat and 
 sleep. For my part I pitied the poor beggar; but, then, I was 
 not saturated with the strict, if rather crude, etiquette of the 
 forecastle. Although I, too, considered that the man had done 
 wrong in looking into Baily's chest, I could not see that he 
 should be sent to Coventry for the act. 
 
 However, his attitude over the affair was a good indication 
 of his temperament: He had been caught doing wrong, had 
 been beaten physically (I mean punished by one against whom 
 he dared Jiot attempt retaliation, and that one the- man to 
 whom he had done the wrong, and whom he would hate as 
 long as he lived) ; and these two facts made him dejected and 
 kept him so for some days. He was, undoubtedly, a man with 
 a great opinion of himself, a considerable sense of his own 
 dignity, and was sensitive to any attempt to lower him in 
 either way. And having been lowered in the eyes of all hands — 
 brought down with a bang, in fact — he felt the descent as 
 deeply as he had felt the impact on the spar. It was this too 
 palpable effect that made him a wet blanket on the others. I 
 began to fear that our homeliness and general good-fellowship 
 were gone for good. 
 
 But such a condition of things could not last very long; it 
 was bound to get better or worse. And, happily for us, it was 
 broken up towards the end of the first dog-watch on the third 
 evening. The habit aboard the barque — except at odd times 
 when things on deck did not allow it — was that all day-work 
 stopped at the same time; instead of the usual watch-below 
 to tea at five, and the other watch have their tea when they 
 were relieved at six o'clock. This was another innovation of 
 Captain Sennett's. 
 
 However, it was Scotty who brought about the desired 
 change; and, although he would have done as much as I 
 would to make things pleasant again, it was quite uninten- 
 tional. He had a flute, and he took it out of his chest that 
 evening; after being nearly all the voyage, so far, trying to 
 learn to play it ; but he could scarcely blow into the 'hole. 
 
84 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 This was because his lower lip was too thick to let the wind 
 go in. He could not tuck that lip in enough for the operation, 
 consequently nearly all his blowing was over the flute. He 
 could blow into the hole only when he held it against both 
 lips, which turned the flute round too far for him to finger 
 the note-holes. 
 
 The joke to me was that he failed altogether to understand 
 why he was unable to blow the thing in the proper way. Nor 
 did any of his' shipmates see the truth, much as some of them 
 — the older hands — tried to show him how to blow it. I was 
 luck} 7 enough to see the cause at once, only I thought it was 
 too delicate a matter to explain. I had already learnt that 
 the subject of thick lips was a sensitive one to a nigger, much 
 more so than colour; and I should have been very sorry to 
 have hurt Scotty's feelings. So I watched the antics, keeping 
 my amusement to myself, till the poor fellow became 
 exasperated, in his laughing way, and said, 
 
 " By goh, chaps, I tink I nebbah will play deh ting! " 
 
 " Yes, you will; you stick to it," put in Hines, who had 
 come into our side. And Smiley, who was sitting on his 
 watch's water-keg, just through the inner doorway, and 
 mending a pair of trousers, remarked, 
 
 "Ay, ye stick ta it, man. Ye'll play it sum day — when 
 ye're in heaven, if ye divn't gan to Fiddler's Green." 1 
 
 " Yeah, I tink I will." And he held the flute out in front 
 of him, clutching and shaking it in his right hand, adding, 
 and still laughing, " Yo' b'ack debil, yo' tink yo' sheat me! 
 But I no gib in! No, suhuh, I zee you — By de " 
 
 " Now, no 'arsh words, Scotty," Featherston interrupted 
 jocularly, without a smile. 
 
 "No, — Inozweah; but I do zweah — He-he-he! I zweah 
 by de figure-' ead ob deh yeah packet, an' dat am a woman, 
 by goh! — I zweah by de figure-'ead I play deh yeah flute 
 afo'e " 
 
 "Afore yo'r mither, an' she's deid," came from Smiley; 
 
 1 On board-ship Fiddler's Green is said to be the place where sailors 
 and lawyers go after death, " ten degrees of south latitude beyond 
 hell." Sometimes said to be " on the line there." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 85 
 
 whilst Hines, Featherston, Booster and I said on the heels of 
 one another, 
 
 " Before 'e sleeps, I should say, for makin' the row 'e does." 
 
 " W'ich isn't half as bad as your snorin', my lad." 
 
 "No, I guess it an't bad, friends; because ther' an't 
 enough on it to be either good or bad. Don't you be a mutt, 1 
 mate; you blow away, some, 's long 's you got the wind to 
 waste." 
 
 "Yes, you keep it up, Scotty; you will master it 
 by-and-by." 
 
 " Yeah, by jiminny, I will! " 
 
 " Yes; but supposin' you gives us a tune on the w'istle in 
 the meantime — aye? " 
 
 This was asked by Featherston, in a quiet, pleasant, en- 
 couraging way that was characteristic of the man, and always 
 had a kind of fatherly command in it. The suggestion was 
 backed up by every one, except by Booster and me. I re- 
 frained because I did not know if this was a joke, and I took 
 it, from Booster's enquiring glance, that he was silent for the 
 same reason. Scotty was never one that required much per- 
 suasion to do a friendly thing. He dived at once into his 
 chest, left the flute there, and came up again with a small 
 brass whistle in his hand. After a few preliminary " blows " 
 and scales, he led off with " Annie Laurie." 
 
 This brought Mc'Arthy into our side, a pair of half-rusty 
 scissors in his hand, with which he had been trimming the 
 wiry stubble on his red face. He was undoubtedly drawn in 
 by the song; because however much he bragged about the 
 doings of his " ancestors " in Irish history, it was noticeable 
 that his leanings and general habit of mind were much more 
 Scotch than Irish. 
 
 He sat down at once on the water-keg, at the after-end of 
 the forecastle, beat time with the scissors and joined in at the 
 middle of the first verse. But he had no singing voice, only 
 a harsh, cracked sound, which he mercifully kept down to a 
 kind of breathy rumble for a while. In the first part of the 
 second verse he went out of tune, and immediately tried to 
 
 1 A fool. 
 
86 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 hold Scotty up, saying that the nigger had gone wrong. But 
 a burst of contradictions silenced him at once on that point; 
 and quite rightly so, for Scotty had more music in his little 
 finger than our turn-coat had in his whole composition. 
 
 Without the slightest show of embarrassment at being 
 corrected (in fact, he never showed any at such a time) 
 Mc'Arthy joined in again, as before. But when it came to 
 the final chorus he could not resist the temptation to try his 
 awful vocal powers and his most affected pronunciation. The 
 result was that on one of the high notes he made such a 
 dismal, cracked screech, that I could not avoid throwing my 
 pillow at him, along with a laughing expostulation not to 
 spoil the music. 
 
 The pillow struck him on the face, at the top of the high 
 note, and bumped his head against the bulk-head behind 
 him. But I had already weighed him up well; and I knew 
 he was not a likely one to make trouble out of such an in- 
 cident, although it was a liberty on the part of an ordinary 
 seaman. 
 
 However, as I expected, others came to my support; and 
 he^was promised, amongst a variety of threats and epithets, 
 that if he did not keep his " 'eavenly voice " to himself " for 
 the rest of the concert " he would be " dumped " — i.e. 
 thrown overboard — and given " a early chance o' bein' 
 pitched out of 'eaven for creatin' a disturbance/' 
 
 Mc'Arthy took it all in good part — as he always did in 
 such matters — and Scotty whistled away, mostly at Cale- 
 donian airs, with a sprinkling of English and Irish. It was 
 plain to see that the man was particularly fond of old songs. 
 At the requests of others he played a few up-to-date, popular 
 ditties; but he always turned back to the old. He delighted 
 in the music. He played well, the instrument considered; 
 and so long as he was giving pleasure, I think he would have 
 nearly blown his last breath away. 
 
 Then the surprise of the evening came, just as four-bells 
 was struck, and Booster went to relieve Whymper at the 
 wheel, and Chambers to the look-out. Of all the forward 
 hands Smiley was the one to take a bull by the horns. And, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 87 
 
 whilst Scotty rested a few minutes, panting, pleased and 
 talking, Smiley said to Baily, 
 
 " Noo, mate, ye' re a bit on a musician; why not fetch oot 
 that wee fiddle ye got an' gi'e us a proper taste on it ? Cum' 
 on — be shipmatey." 
 
 What Baily 's answer was I could not hear; he was out of 
 sight in the forward part of their forecastle ; but it must have 
 .been a ready acceptance, or Smiley would not have said at 
 once, 
 
 " That's reit. Aa luves an obligin' chap, an' good players 
 niver tak' a lot o' askin'." 
 
 "Am dat one foh me, too, Smiley?" Scotty enquired, 
 grinning all over his face, and added, when he got the reply, 
 " Dat's good! Yo' am alius chummy." 
 
 " Chummy? " echoed Smiley. " Ay, Aa could be chummy 
 wi' eether Old Nick or an angel, if they wor chummy, an' he 
 didn't play too many on his tricks, an' t'other didna swank 
 ower much 'bout bein' i' Paradise." 
 
 Whilst these remarks were being exchanged, Mc'Arthy, 
 Hines, Scotty and I had gathered at the intercommunication 
 doorway — or, rather, the first two had lingered there a 
 moment, then gone into their own side, leaving us two lean- 
 ing against the doorposts. Featherston kept his seat at our 
 table, reading and thoroughly enjoying a tattered copy of 
 Alice in Wonderland. 
 
 , As a matter of course we others were all on tiptoe to hear 
 " that fiddle," and even to see it; for we had already decided 
 that it must be no common instrument — or its owner a most 
 wonderful player — for such rare sounds to be got out of it as. 
 we had heard on that evening before the trouble. 
 
 But we were all to be disappointed, yet delighted at the 
 same time; that is, we were not to hear the " fiddle," not oh 
 that occasion. It appeared that Baily had said he would 
 " oblige." 
 
 When I got my head in at the doorway, he was lifting the 
 new canvas bag out of the spare bunk and placing it on his 
 chest, saying, 
 
 " I'm nothhV loth to add a bit to the harmony, mates; 
 
88 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 only as some don't seem to like the ' fiddle/ which is no 
 fiddle, I'll give something else." 
 
 As I have said before, in one way or another, Baily was the 
 most silent man amongst us; and neither Featherston nor 
 Chambers were men of average talk. Up to the present I had 
 never worked with a man who had so little to say. In the 
 course of seven days I don't think I had exchanged a dozen 
 remarks with him. Nor had I once seen him, or known him 
 to be, in anything that could be termed a conversation with 
 a member of his own watch. Neither had he been any quieter 
 since he threw Whymper out of the forecastle than he was 
 before that affair. Another thing, he was by no means a 
 gloomy man ; he would never cause a reasonable person the 
 impression that he was a misanthrope. On the contrary, he 
 cculd often be heard whistling softly to himself; which 
 neither Chambers nor Featherston ever did, although both 
 of them were considerably more talkative than Baily had so 
 far proved himself to be. 
 
 Now, as he talked in that cheerful, methodical and curiously 
 quiet, soft tone of his, I could not avoid taking a new valua- 
 tion of him. He had interested me much, made me speculate 
 freely about him, even to have doubts and apprehension as 
 to what would come of his being one of the crew. Now, and 
 during the next half-hour or so, willy-nilly in a wa}^, I found 
 myself weighing him up afresh, chiefly by his readiness " to 
 add a bit to the harmony,'-' and his words and manner of 
 speaking them. He had no dialect, only that very slight, 
 scarcely perceptible nasal twang; nor did he clip his words 
 much. But perhaps his most outstanding trait, certainly the 
 most impressive one to me, was the unostensible assurance 
 that stamped him in everything. 
 
 Within half a minute he had the canvas bag off the mysteri- 
 ous something, that had been the cause of many a guess and 
 a dozen or so of discussions. Another moment, and lo! the 
 baffling puzzle was a gramophone. How we looked at one 
 another! — some of us no doubt feeling that we would have 
 given much to have been able to unsay what we had said 
 about the " mystery." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 89 
 
 Baily had taken the records from his chest before moving 
 the machine 1 out of the unoccupied bunk; and Whymper 
 came in from the wheel just as he was putting the first disc 
 into position. Naturally, The Growler opened his eyes wide 
 at what he saw. But that was nothing to the way in which 
 both he and all of us stared when we heard the first notes. 
 They were an intensified reproduction of what we had heard 
 so imperfectly on the previous occasion, with the difference 
 that being now close to the machine, we could better judge, 
 and were far more under the influence of, the music, than we 
 had been when Baily sounded the still mysterious " fiddle " 
 for Captain Sennett. 
 
 Its wonderfully weird, searching and appealing tender- 
 ness; its marvellous pathos that seemed to cling and wail, 
 yet was unbelievably sweet in its nature and tuneful in its 
 composition — all this came creeping gently (" creeping " is 
 the only right word) out of the sound-box and into our heads 
 and hearts till, in two or three minutes' time, we stood, or 
 sat, there, and would scarcely have known if some one had 
 stuck pins into us. Seven men and a youth (for Featherston 
 had come quietly and was standing between Scotty and me), 
 all of whom had seen much rough, even brutal, life, and some 
 of whom were "really rough by nature, held so that we were 
 literally enraptured. 
 
 No other words would describe the state of mind and even 
 bodily attention into which every one of us was drawn before 
 half a dozen bars had been played. When I thought of it all 
 afterwards the word that occurred to me was that old- 
 fashioned one, " ravished." Every head except Baily's was 
 craned forward; every pair of eyes had a stare, more or less 
 intense; and every face was strained. 
 
 Perhaps Whymper was the most outstanding figure in the 
 group. He had pulled up sharply just as he was turning to 
 
 1 Query: Is a gramophone an instrument or a machine? Up to 
 then all such contrivances had been machines to me; I hated their 
 mechanicalness and their wheezy and brassy sounds, till I heard that 
 one playing those Hawaiian airs. Both wills and violins are instru- 
 ments, but neither of them is a machine. L. A. 
 
90 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 round the foot of the bunks that had- prevented Smiley and 
 Featherston from seeing Baily sit on the edge of his chest, 
 playing " that fiddle." His left hand was on the holding-in 
 board of the top bunk. His tall, lean figure was bent forward. 
 His long, thinnish, dark face — nearly up to the white deck 
 above — with its straight, sharp-edged nose, and his peculiar 
 eyes, with the red and blue crucifixion showing dimly on his 
 chest (for the weather was hot), all went to make up a study 
 indeed. I had never before seen a face that said half so much 
 at the same moment, and I don't think that any face in the 
 world could have said more. 
 
 Smiley, about three or four feet behind him and to one side 
 withal, moved as he was by the music, was almost an ordinary 
 listener compared to Whymper. Next, in consecutive order, 
 was Scotty, who leaned against the after-post of the door- 
 way, his black head stretched into their forecastle till it 
 would have been over Smiley's ginger one, but that it was a 
 little too far forward. His big eyes were more than one half 
 white. His wide nostrils were distended, like a partially- 
 frightened horse's; and his great mouth was well open. 
 Featherston stood next to him sideways, his dark, bearded 
 face close to mine and full of feeling. 
 
 Baily changed the discs so smartly that there were only a 
 few moments of silence before our ears were again bewitched 
 with the music. We hardly knew that an interval had occurred. 
 
 At the nearer side of the table, on my right, and his back 
 to the bulkhead, sat Mc'Arthy, his beef-red, dirty face 
 (Mc'Arthy did not wash himself every day) and pale-gingery 
 stubble snowing up in the light of the lamp that hung to the 
 bulkhead a couple of feet further on. His was a nature that 
 could be impressed with about as much facility and success 
 as one would leave an indented mark on a piece of rubber 
 with a cold stamp. All the same, for the time being at any 
 rate, he seemed to be as much engrossed by the music as 
 either Smiley or Featherston. 
 
 At the further side of the table, therefore the nearest to 
 the machine, was Hines, with his cap half-covering his 
 mousy hair. He was not too light of temperament, like the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 91 
 
 Scots-Irishman, but too inherently wooden, to be moved to 
 an unusual depth. Whilst beyond us all, in the fore-port 
 corner of the place, and none too clear in that bad light, 
 was wordless Baily, manipulating the machine quickly and 
 silently. 
 
 Then a change came. Baily had put in a voice record, 
 without causing any abatement in our attention. But even 
 when he turned the disc over and gave us another song, there 
 was no more than a faint, passing idea amongst us to break 
 the spell by remarking on the singing that, in certain ways, 
 was only a little less wonderful than the songless music, of 
 which nature the accompaniments were— less, I mean, in its 
 irresistible appeal and strange enthralment. 
 
 The only break was Whymper's reaching out a hand, to 
 the head of his bunk, for pipe and tobacco. With these he 
 sat down silently on the nearest chest, and as silently cut up 
 a pipe of tobacco, which he did not light ; although he brought 
 matches from a pocket after filling the pipe. 
 
 Presently Baily gave us more of the music only, then songs 
 again. And so the time went by; and nothing was said by 
 any one. And one-bell came (a quarter to eight o'clock) and 
 none of us — Baily excepted probably — knew that even seven 
 o'clock had gone by. Then he said, as if the occasion was the 
 most ordinary one possible, and stopping the gramophone 
 immediately on the ring of the bell, 
 
 " There, boys, I think that'll do for to-night." And he 
 began to pack up. 
 
 Some of us awoke at once— came to our senses, or what- 
 ever you will — and we of the starboard watch dropped back 
 into our own side and proceeded to get ready mechanically 
 for our bunks. But I don't think that any one of us, who 
 remained awake, — barring Mc'Arthy and Hines — was really 
 alive to all the old things around us until some time after- 
 wards. One remarkable fact was that no one asked Baily of 
 what nationality the music and songs were. 
 
 For my own part, I got but little sleep during that watch; 
 and throughout the middle watch I could think of nothing 
 except the music. The bright moonlight; the clear, ultra- 
 
92 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 marine blue of the sky away from the moon; the kind of 
 laughing run of the white-topped waves; the steady heave 
 and exhilarating forward movement of the barque; the pull 
 of the sails, that had been such a joyful sensation to me — all 
 were forgotten. I saw none of it, nor of the fact that I was 
 going home in our vessel, although I had revelled in these 
 things on every previous night. Those haunting melodies 
 were all that my mind would carry; they were in my ears, 
 in my head and heart, for watches afterwards. 
 
 I say that I neither heard nor saw the things that were 
 audible or visible. That is wrong. I both heard and saw 
 everything; but in it all — in the run of the waves, the sough 
 of the wind, the creaking and straining of spars and cordage, 
 and in the hissing of the churned water along the barque's 
 sides — there was ever the beat and much of the sweet, plain- 
 tive character of that wonderful music. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 The Mate's Recital of Twelve Days in the Doldrums, and the Effect 
 of this on the Crew. 
 
 To keep proper tally of time: The days just mentioned by 
 Lionel — and many more days, for that matter — were 'spent 
 by me mostly in worrying around the Old Man's dream. 
 But however much I bothered my head about it, it worried 
 me more than I did it. I couldn't let it alone, and I couldn't 
 touch it — couldn't get a hold on it anywhere. I was flat 
 against a stone wall that went up to the skies, and out of 
 sight port and starboard ; and I could neither dig under it, 
 nor peck holes in the mortar to get a stone out. I stood there, 
 spread-eagled on the wall, gnashing my teeth, in a sense, at 
 my impotence. 
 
 I think I had never in my life wanted so much to get at 
 the back of a thing as I wanted to get at the back of that 
 dream; and I'm sure I'd never been so completely baulked 
 at anything. It was worse than trying to square the circle, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 93 
 
 put two into one, or rig up a t' gallant mast where there was 
 no topmast to rig it on. Out of the dozens of dreams that had 
 been told me there wasn't one that could hold a candle to 
 this for being a puzzle. I tried it all ways (except the 
 right way, of course, as I saw when it was too late) and 
 every way I tried it ended in a fog — flat against the wall, as 
 before. 
 
 I said many a damn over the way that thing fooled me. 
 And all the time I could see— as any mug could have done — 
 that the dream was possibly an allegory to something in 
 connection with the Old Man. (My experience is that journey- 
 dreams always are so.) Yes, but what? That was the insolv- 
 able problem; that was the circle-squaring — to me then, at 
 any rate. Was it a parallel to this passage, to the whole 
 voyage, or to his life ? That was the flummoxer. I tried the 
 dream on each of these three courses; and the only 
 satisfaction I could get out of it all was the dismal one of 
 seeing that, if the thing was to be taken as a plain allegory, 
 then the end was to be a bad one, if not altogether one of 
 disaster. 
 
 In the meantime the Old Man was just his average better 
 self, luckily. It seemed, as he had said, that in telling the 
 dream to me all his depression had passed away; though, 
 goodness knows, I hadn't done anything to ease his mind. 
 And I was very glad, I can assure you, that he took the 
 affair as he did, saying nothing of it one way or another. For 
 if he had come bothering me then for a meaning to the dream, 
 as he did later on, I should have had a nice old time of it; 
 his worrying and my unsuccessful efforts and annoyance 
 would have about done for me. 
 
 But this didn't last long, I am sorry to say. In the after- 
 noon of the next day we ran out of the north-east trades, in 
 about 8° N.; that was the day following the evening when 
 Baily gave the forecastle hands their treat of Hawaiian 
 music. We heard it aft; but too faint to know the nature of 
 it, or be influenced by it. And the Old Man was pleased at it; 
 he said it was a good sign that the men were at peace with 
 one another and things generally. He thought that, " after 
 
94 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 all, the man with the instrument might be a rather good one 
 to have aboard." 
 
 And later on, when I knew who Lionel was, and we com- 
 pared notes of the past, I remembered that the first time we 
 heard music for'ard on that passage was the night before we 
 struck the Doldrums, which some navigators have called the 
 Calms of Cancer and others the Horse Latitudes. 
 
 Yes, that was the new trouble — those few degrees of north 
 latitude, where it's all sudden gusts, calms, torrential rains, 
 and thunder and lightning. And it was a few degrees with 
 us, for we struck them in their narrowest part, where the 
 north-east trade wind reached to within about two hundred 
 miles of the northern limit of the sou' -west trade. That was 
 the master's purpose — to give us as little of the Doldrums as 
 possible, both for our sakes personally and for the shortness 
 of the passage. But things were against him. 
 
 We were twelve days in there; and I have known ships to 
 be there two to three weeks. Of course, the trouble was a 
 matter of luck, in a way. One vessel will go into a thing and 
 come out Ai, while another will put her head into it, in a 
 sense, and get knocked up — just the same as men. Look at 
 them: Why, one man can live and grow fat on what kills 
 another man. And ships have their characters and disposi- 
 tions just as men have. 
 
 Not that the Sappho herself suffered much in the Doldrums 
 — no vessel ever does, so far as I've seen or heard, beyond 
 an old sail blown away here and there in squalls; though, 
 naturally, heavier things go sometimes, when a big squall 
 catches a packet aback. But, then, big squalls, regular 
 boomers, are not frequent there. No, it wasn't what the 
 barque got, although she did lose her fore-royal one night, 
 and had the old main t'gallantsail blown to smithereens 
 next day. It was what we men had to put up with in lost 
 sleep, soaking clothes, pully-haully, damp heat like the inside 
 of a steaming oven, low spirits, never a glimpse of the sun 
 from the first day to the last, and just about everything that 
 could be to make life miserable. 
 
 It was a continual run-and-sweat-and-swear game. That 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 95 
 
 was the trouble— we were twelve days and nights on the go, 
 without a single easy watch on deck all the time, and all for 
 about two hundred and thirty miles! No sooner was the 
 barque bobbing along on one tack, than down dropped the 
 wind to nothing, all in a jiffy, and up it came on the other 
 side, took her all aback; and off we ran again to sheets and 
 braces, wet to the skin with rain and perspiration, our hands 
 sore with pulling, sweat smarting in our eyes, the Devil's 
 own feelings in our hearts and no breath left to speak 
 'em with. 
 
 Partly in imitation of the second mate, some of the men 
 went nearly naked. That was the first time we saw that 
 Baily was brown to his waist. From the very first of it, night 
 and day on deck, Young wore no more than dungaree trousers 
 and a pair of canvas slippers, the thick black hair on his 
 chest and arms full of either perspiration or rain from coming 
 on deck to going below. But, then, he went bare-chested 
 nearly always — that is, with no clothing on it. There was no 
 chest to be seen, only the mat of black, thick hair. That was 
 part of the man — not the hair, but going bare-chested. 
 
 "Horse Latitudes!" Yes, that's about the best name 
 that could be given to 'em. I've seen something of the Dol- 
 drums in my time, been in them nearly twenty days on two 
 passages. But, Lord, those twelve days beat all my other 
 experiences, before and since! 
 
 With all this going on, was there any wonder that the men 
 growled, jangled amongst themselves, and nearly got out of 
 hand now and then? — that is, some of them, as Lionel could 
 specify. But I know he would tell you that Baily and Feather- 
 ston said the least by a long way. I know they went about 
 the work with the least grumble, in fact I hardly heard them 
 grumble. P'r'aps they didn't run here and there as much as 
 some others did. They took things more easily, because in 
 their way they were philosophers. They got there, however, 
 and did the work, and kept at it. And I learnt later — from 
 Lionel, when he made himself known to me, although I 
 naturally guessed some of it before then — that a strong 
 friendship began between them at that unholy time. And, 
 
96 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 believe me, it was a time to make either friends or enemies 
 and to prove both. 
 
 As for the Old Man : For the first two days he kept cheerful 
 enough — just his easy-going self, and was up and about most 
 of the time, night and day. Then he came down wallop. 
 For one twenty-four hours he was as glum as a beetle, and 
 would have been as black as one, only it wasn't in him to be 
 so. Then he revived again — came up from a few hours' sleep, 
 after being pretty well exhausted, I know, and was just his 
 old self. But he couldn't stick it. Poor old chap, he drooped 
 away next day, and was one of the most miserable men 
 afloat till we bobbed out of those God-forsaken and Devil- 
 haunted latitudes, and picked up the sou'-west trade. 
 
 At first he just growled in a quiet way; said he had never 
 seen anything like it, and wondered if it was another piece 
 of his bad -luck: While all the time he was out of the hurly- 
 burly. It was not he, but the men, the second mate and I 
 who had the racing up and down; the haul-haul-haul; the 
 sweating and the five-shilling thirsts. Although he did come 
 nobly up to the scratch in the last item ; because he gave us 
 a drink of oatmeal water after each change of tack; x and 
 allowed us a double whack of lime-juice every day, with a 
 drop of rum in it to cheer us up a bit. 
 
 But, ah! we were to be long enough on that passage to 
 know the want of that extra and liberal allowance of both 
 water and lime-juice. 
 
 It was during those few last days of the misery that the 
 Old Man reverted to his dream. He began by " wondering if 
 there was anything in it." Then he wanted to know if I really 
 couldn't see ^something in it, and the more I told him I 
 couldn't, the worse he got. He was like a young woman with 
 hysterics, off and on. When I said the dream puzzled me 
 altogether, he nearly lost his temper in telling me that I was 
 " a mug at interpretin' " ; that I wasn't " fit to black Joseph's 
 shoes at the game," and I don't know what. 
 
 1 Only three quarts of water per man per day are allowed aboard- 
 ship, for drinking, cooking and washing; so that extra water in a 
 time of hard work and hot weather is much appreciated. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 97 
 
 Then he would turn round, laugh it* all away — or try to, 
 but without much success — and declare he was joking all 
 the time. I knew better, however; and, for his sake, I didn't 
 at all like the way he was taking things. 
 
 At another time he would say, in the manner of a spoilt 
 child, that it was bad luck spiting him in his effort to get down 
 to the Horn and round it before the winter gales set in. And 
 in this he suddenly recollected that it was on a 19th of the 
 month when he sailed and was jilted; it was on a 19th when 
 she married the other man, and a 19th when he arrived home 
 and learnt the truth; and, finally, it was a 19th when we 
 sailed on that passage. He could jemember other bad I9ths, 
 he said; but this was enough, and from it he argued that 
 something was sure to go very wrong either during the 
 passage or at the end of it. 
 
 After this, tilLwe fell into the sou'-west trade, it didn't 
 matter a ropeyarn how I tried to talk sense into him, he 
 wouldn't have it — no, not a scrap. There was disaster in 
 front of us, and this was the beginning of it. I'm blest if I 
 didn't feel sometimes like taking hold of him and shaking the 
 nonsense out of him. 
 
 Then he took a round turn on the dream and pulled up on 
 it. This was on one of his railings against his bad luck. In a 
 flash he saw in it all that I had seen so far — in a nutshell, that 
 the thing was a journey with a bad end. And what, he asked, 
 staring at me across the cabin-table (while the rain hammered 
 in sheets on the deck, and that wiry young piece of inquisi- 
 tiveness and lies from Blackwall, the cabin-boy, listened to 
 it all just inside the pantry-door, ready to take it to the 
 cook, for the cook to spread it further) — what, he cried, was a 
 passage at sea but a journey ? 
 
 Oh, how I tried to reason with him! But it was no good. 
 I might as well have gone up and tried to stop the rain by 
 talking to it, or drive the barque out of that wet oven of 
 trouble by blowing at the sails. In a sort of despair I left him 
 and went on deck, full of pity for him even while I blamed him 
 for being so weak and unmanlike. 
 
 Yet many a time since then I've wondered if he was not 
 
 G 
 
98 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 really acting under the influence of some subconscious pre- 
 monition. Because, besides being so superstitious, he was 
 particularly sensitive to some things — I mean he was often 
 and, it seemed to me, easily influenced by immaterial things ; 
 hidden .things, that is ; things that very few men would see 
 or think about. 
 
 Then the worst thing of all happened, so far — on the night 
 before we got out of that infernal mess. It was Young's fault, 
 and his blunder was this. The Sappho was on the port tack, 
 close-hauled, when the wind dropped like a sheet from a line, 
 and came up again right away in a gust on the starboard side, 
 filling everything aback in a minute. We hadn't been braced 
 up, and ropes coiled down more than ten minutes. It was at 
 the change of the first watch; x and black as the Earl of Hell's 
 waistcoat it was, too, but no rain just then. All hands were on 
 deck. I was going up the poop-ladder to the Old Man, when the 
 wind struck me on my back, and he shouted in the nick of 
 time, 
 
 " Slack away the lee-braces! — Man the weather ones there! 
 Quick now, men! Lively, lively! " 
 
 Down I jumped to the main-deck again, ran to the lee- 
 main-braces, and began to ease off, shouting to the men to 
 haul away to wind'ard. Hardly had I thrown the main-brace 
 off its pin, when I heard a confusion of voices along the deck 
 on my side, in the waist. Then there was a sort of yell, a thud 
 and some groans, amongst all of which I could easily detect 
 the voice of the second mate. 
 
 I called out to know what was the matter. This brought a 
 shout from the Old Man to me, to know what it was that I 
 wanted to know. I roared back that I didn't know, then to 
 the men to wind'ard again to haul the yards round, and 
 practically in the same breath to the second mate again. 
 
 At the same time the Old Man was up there at the poop-rail, 
 urging the men to do their utmost, till he was hoarse and 
 probably almost black in the face (we were nearly all hoarse 
 as fish-hawkers with the yelling of the past nine days) ; while 
 the men hauled and pulled, and shouted as they pulled. The 
 1 Eight o'clock at night. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 99 
 
 yards were moving. Blocks and other things were creaking. 
 Men were running through the thick darkness with the slack 
 of the ropes. Rain began to come down again, in those big, 
 flat, half-spoonful drops that fall only in the Doldrums. And 
 now, having cast off and overhauled my set of braces, I ran 
 for'ard, within two minutes of the thud and groans, to see 
 what the trouble was about. 
 
 I found Whymper on the deck, senseless — at least, I guessed 
 it was he by his length, etc. He was fouled up somehow in 
 the fall x of the fore-brace, and Young was pulling at it like 
 a big, strong automaton, jerking the man here and there 
 about the deck, instead of clearing him of it in a proper way. 
 I stopped him; but I couldn't do it at once. He was boiling 
 over with the idea to pay out the fall; that was all he could 
 think of, and the man was a so-so fool not to get out of the 
 way. 
 
 I made him hold: on to the fall, while I began to clear it of 
 Whymper's legs. In the meantime I had to keep snatching 
 a look aloft and half -guess how the yards were in the dark, 
 shout to the men to haul here or belay there, answer the Old 
 Man's calls, and I don't know what. By this time the rain 
 was coming down good-o; but there was this advantage to 
 it : So long as the ram fell, there would not be wind enough 
 to do any damage, seeing that the wind came before the rain. 
 
 As I was trjdng to get the insensible man clear of the 
 brace, along came Anderson. The Old Man had sent him 
 from aft to ascertain the cause of the hitch on the starboard 
 side of the waist. He came with a run, and was into me 
 before either of us knew it. The bump was a sideways one, 
 and he glanced off me and went full-length on to Whymper. 
 Neither knowing nor caring a rap who he was, I called him 
 a balmy idiot and something worse for not looking where he 
 was going — as if anything less than cats' eyes would have 
 been of real service in that blackness. 
 
 However, he came to his feet with what I thought was a 
 saucy answer. I knew him then, by his voice, of course, and 
 
 1 A " fall " is the loose part of a tackle, the part that the men 
 haul on. 
 
ioo THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 told him what I would do to him if he was not more civil. He 
 snapped out his errand. I told him to help me in what I was 
 doing, which he did, though not without some grumbling, 
 for which I threatened him again. By that time the fall was 
 clear of Whymper ; so I sent Lionel aft at once with news of 
 what was on. (P'r'aps it's hardly fair to say that he was cool 
 towards me for some days afterwards. I may say here, 
 though, that the O. M. and I had several times already 
 noticed how well Lionel worked and conducted himself 
 generally; and we had wondered what had brought him 
 down to an ordinary seaman's job.) 
 
 Then I made the second mate get hold of one end of 
 Whymper. I took the other end, and we lugged him away to 
 the fo'c's'le floor. Next I set Young to carry on the bracing up, 
 etc., while I went to the Old Man, who accompanied me at 
 once to Whymper. The man was just opening his eyes when 
 we arrived. He had a bit of a nasty gash at the back of his 
 head, where it had struck some half-sharp thing on the deck; 
 and he complained of having pains nearly everywhere. 
 These were merely bruises, caused by the second mate's 
 wooden-headed way of clearing the fall from him; and the 
 cut was nothing to worry about, I thought. 
 
 While the Old Man went aft for remedies, I got the first 
 man I could lay hands on — Smiley — to help me to change 
 Whymper's clothes and put him into his bunk. Half an hour 
 later his head and the worst of his bruises were dressed; he 
 was sleeping, under an opiate, and the Old Man and I went 
 aft — he, who had been so quick, deft and sympathetic during 
 the surgical business, now moaning his heart out almost at 
 this fresh proof that bad luck was pursuing him. He was 
 sorry he had shipped "this man"; he hadn't "liked him, 
 not a bit. But the fellow had sort of fascinated me," he said, 
 " and talked me into shipping him." Otherwise he wouldn't 
 have had the man; and now he wished he hadn't; for there 
 was something in him which he couldn't fathom and didn't 
 like at all. And so on till I was tired of hearing him. 
 
 Young simply didn't know what had happened before I 
 arrived on the scene — or he professed that he didn't. But 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 101 
 
 when Whymper was questioned on the following day it 
 appeared pretty conclusive that he was in the act of turning 
 over the coiled-down fall, and somehow got his foot into it, 
 when the second mate ran up and threw the fall off the pin. 
 The result, of course, was that, as Whymper shouted a too- 
 late warning to wait a moment, out went" the brace with a 
 run, and Whymper was thrown hard on the deck. The second 
 mate must have felt a bit sore, thick-skinned as he was, about 
 what the Old Man said to him of the affair. 
 
 Well, no good could come by making more of the trouble in 
 complaints. And in the afternoon we slipped out of the 
 misery of those twelve days. The weather suddenly cleared 
 up. (We hadn't had any rain since early morning.) The sun 
 came out — oh, what joy it was to see " old Jamaica " again! 
 We struck a light breeze at once, on the starboard tack, saw 
 to our sheets and braces, and away went the Sappho, smooth 
 as you please, while every man was saying to the next one, 
 like long-sentence prisoners released from gaol: ''The sou'- 
 west trade!" 
 
 Yes, so it was — at last! And there were sails to set. 
 Owing to the heaviness of the squalls during the past two 
 days the barque had been brought down to her topsails, fore- 
 courser, lower staysails and reefed spanker. So all hands 
 were called, and up went a couple to the maint'ga'nsail, 
 and in a few minutes we, now stripped to the waist mostly 
 manned the halyards, and Scotty was singing, 1 appropriately 
 though ten to one he didn't think of it then, 
 
 " Now, me lads, get yo' beds an' lie down! — 
 With a hoodah /"•« 
 
 Here the second mate — who was on the downward part of 
 the fall, along with Scotty — shouted, 
 
 " A double pull, boys!—' With a hoodah ! ' " 
 
 The result was that instead of one pull after each first line, 
 we got two ; and Scotty went on with his chantey, 
 
 1 " Banks of Sacramento." 
 
 - The italicised lines form the chorus, in which all hands join, and 
 all pull together at the end of each chorus. 
 
102 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Now, me lads, get yo' beds an' lie down! — 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! 
 
 " Blow, boys, blow fo' Calif o'ni-o! — 
 With a hoodah ! . . With a hoodah ! 
 Blow, boys, blow fo' Califo'ni-o ! 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! 
 
 '* Deh's plenty ob gold, zo I'be bin told! — 
 With a hoodah ! . . With a hoodah ! 
 Deh's plenty ob gold, zo I'be bin told ! — 
 On the banks of Sacramento ! 
 
 " On de banks ob Sac'amento, boys! — 
 With a hoodah ! . . With a hoodah ! 
 On de banks ob Sac'amento, boys ! — 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! 
 
 " We come to a land wha de cocktail flow! — 
 With a hoodah ! . . With a hoodah ! 
 We come to a land wha de cocktail flow! — 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! 
 
 " We come to a ribbah wha we couldn't get across! — 
 With a hoodah I . . With a hoodah ! 
 We come to a ribbah wha we couldn't get across ! 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! 
 
 " An' de plenty ob gold, az I'll hab you told! — 
 With a hoodah ! . . With a hoodah ! 
 Wass a bully-bully, bully-bully loss ! — 
 With a hoodah-hoodah-day ! " 
 
 " Belay! " I shouted, for the yard was up. 
 
 Then at it we went generally — foret'ga'nsail, royals, light 
 staysails, full spanker — yes, every stitch we could spread. 
 And they were ready hands and cheerful hearts all round 
 that did the work. And when it was done, and an extra 
 whack of lime-juice, rum and water was served out, and ten 
 minutes given for a blow and a smoke before clearing up 
 decks, you can take my word for it that they were bright 
 faces, as well as tired limbs and sweating bodies, that set 
 themselves towards that blessed, glorious sou'-west trade. 
 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 103 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Lionel bears witness of a Transformation in Whymper. 
 
 Just to show what a cantankerous and discontented kind of 
 man Whymper was before the night of his injury in the 
 Doldrums, I learnt that, as he was a " farmer " in the first 
 watch after Baily gave us the music on the gramophone, he 
 spent the whole four hours in complaining and arguing to 
 Smiley, Mc'Arthy and Hines — whichever one or two he 
 -could buttonhole — that Baily had " gingered us up with that 
 guy box o' tricks just, 'stead of his witch-fiddle." He did 
 more, he even stayed on deck till two-bells in the next watch, 
 talking in the same way to any one of us that would listen 
 to him. He thought he had a legitimate grievance against 
 Baily for not playing the " fiddle." 
 
 Of course, no one heeded him, except Hines, Mc'Arthy and 
 Chambers, over whom he was gaining a certain amount of 
 influence. On the contrary he got scant ceremony with any 
 one else, because every other one was too thankful to Baily 
 to agree to a word said by Whymper. But the latter was hard 
 to shake off, and impossible to quieten till his own good time, 
 when once he fastened on a subject. 
 
 As to the other men's opinions of the strange music when 
 its influence had faded : They may be conjectured by the fact 
 that scarcely a word was said on the subject. Every one of us, 
 except Whymper and Mc'Arthy, was satisfied to remark 
 jokingly on the prosaic contents of the -mysterious bag, and 
 leave it at that. 
 
 Whymper kept to his largely unheeded growls, as I have said ; 
 and the Scots-Irishman was one who would have criticised 
 the choir of Heaven, if he had heard it. I believe that every- 
 thing he ever heard or saw was subjected to the same light- 
 minded ignorance. But if he got any reply, from most of us, 
 to his seriously-meant nonsense, it was seldom more than a 
 rude request to -stop his "chin-music," or to "shut up 
 chewin' the rag," followed by a flat and emphatic declaration 
 that he knew nothing of what he was talking about. 
 
io 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Then came the Doldrums, as Mr. Willpughby has said, with 
 no thought whatever of anything else whilst they lasted ; and 
 my contribution to that matter is this : If I had known before- 
 hand w 7 hat those twelve da} T s were to be like, I should not have 
 yielded to my impulse to go home in the Sappho. Not only 
 were they awf ul to me ; I thought we should never get out of 
 the horror. And the mate's threat to give me a physical lesson 
 in civility was just about the last strain my line would bear. 
 I could not see that I had used the least incivility. And I am 
 sure that if I had not been " the owner's son," and that I so 
 ardently desired to maintain the peace of the ship right along, 
 I should not have waited for him to carry out his threat. The 
 insult in itself was enough. 
 
 But getting into fine weather again on the following day, 
 and the feeling that the barque was once more hurrying home- 
 wards, soon helped me to a better frame of mind. In a couple 
 of days I had seen the foolishness of bearing Resentment for 
 words uttered in anger on such an occasion as that last night 
 in the Doldrums — a time when an angel might have lost its 
 temper, or found one. 
 
 However, the temporary revelation that came out of it all 
 was Whymper. It was a transformation, and one that simply 
 took all the wind out of our sails. At the same time it w r as done 
 so naturally that it set the oldest and cutest hands amongst 
 us on their beam-ends, and left them there, to roll up to a 
 proper sea-going position — as Mr. Willoughby would say — 
 viien they pleased. 
 
 Of course we were. all sorry for him, in varying degrees — 
 Booster, Hines and Mc'Arthy being in the middle position. 
 Even Baily and Featherston, whcr had held some inherent 
 antipathy, to the man, were not much behind Smiley, Scotty, 
 Chambers and myself. When we knew what had happened to 
 him, we, one and all, said that w T e w r ere in for a long spell of 
 misery in the forecastle. His pushfulness was so well known 
 that even our side expected to be called in to serve, and 
 grumbled at, probably sworn at, for its service. Arguing from 
 what the man had been in health, the only line of reasoning 
 was that he would be worse as a patient. All this took place 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 105 
 
 at the changes of weather throughout that night, whilst 
 Whymper lay under his sleeping draught. Then came morning 
 and the transformation. 
 
 His bunk was the top one at the after-end of the tier, with 
 its foot close to the outer doorway. I learnt from Smiley that 
 Whymper opened his eyes and looked at them, without moving 
 his bandaged head, whilst they were breakfasting on cracker- 
 hash, 1 for that was a Thursday. He was lying on his side, with 
 his face towards them; so the wound on his head was not 
 touching the pillow. 
 
 They expected every moment to hear a long growl with 
 all the wrath of " Mahomet's black dog " called down on 
 the head of the so-and-so second mate. Smiley, Mc'Arthy 
 and Hines were silent because they were afraid, in a way, 
 to set Whymper's tongue going; and Baily was quiet from 
 habit. But Whymper did not say a word, till Mc'Arthy 
 (always one of the first to speak, no matter what was on) asked 
 him how he felt. His answer was a slow: "Oh, kinder queer, 
 bully," and he said no more. 
 
 This led the other three fellows to speak to him, hoping 
 that he was " not so bad, after all," and that he would soon 
 be on his feet again. He made no reply, but just looked steadily 
 across to the bulkhead, where hung, level with his eyes, a 
 gaudy Frisco almanack, showing a well-developed young 
 woman paddling on the foreshore, with her skirts up to her 
 knees. I gathered, however, that he was not looking at the 
 picture. His mind was evidently too full of something either 
 for him to notice the thing, or heed what his watch-mates 
 said to him. 
 
 At this point, and at the tail-end of the last short, sharp 
 deluge we had, Captain Sennett entered, followed by the 
 cabin-boy with a tray containing two boiled eggs, some bread 
 and butter and a pot of specially brewed tea. All except Baily 
 and Whymper were well acquainted with Captain Sennett's 
 
 *Made of ship's broken biscuits, soaked in water; then mixed with 
 minced salt pork, mostly lean, and chopped onions. The whole is 
 seasoned and baked brown. It was, and still is in some vessels, the 
 fixed forecastle breakfast on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 
 
106 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 likelihood of action at such a time ; so there was no surprise 
 except on the patient's face. 
 
 The captain felt his pulse, took his temperature, examined 
 the bandages, told Whymper to keep quiet and only to sit up 
 to eat, cautioned the other men not to talk to him much for 
 a few days, and went aft. Then the wonderful began. 
 
 When Whymper had finished his breakfast, or brought it 
 to a conclusion, he offered Baily the remaining half of the 
 second egg and the last piece of bread and butter. Without 
 turning a hair Baily said he did not fancy it, as he had already 
 lit his pipe and turned -in. The offer was then made to Smiley, 
 who was measuring out the cook's share of their fresh water 
 for Hines to take it to the galley. He laughed shortly, replied 
 that he had never been able to eat an egg since he killed his 
 wife's pet hen in mistake (all a joke), and sent Hines off 
 with the water, then put the tray on the table for Whymper. 
 
 Hines and Mc'Arthy would have jumped at the offer; but 
 they did not get the opportunity. Smiley said afterwards 
 that, just before he fell asleep, Mc'Arthy made a half- 
 whispered kind of suggestion that he was ready to oblige; 
 but Whymper seemed not to hear him. So both Hines and 
 the Scots-Irishman had to go to sleep with the temptation on 
 the table. 
 
 Hines came running to me with news of the unbelievable 
 wonder. I was coiling up ropes at the fife-rail around the 
 foremast ; thus we were able to have a confab on the matter 
 without the second mate seeing us. 
 
 The next thing was : Whymper pushed the half -egg on to 
 Chambers, when the latter went into the forecastle for his 
 customary smoke, on being relieved from the wheel at ten 
 o'clock. On returning to the deck, Chambers came to work 
 with Scotty and me, so we heard all about it, in the elderly 
 little man's mumbling voice, accompanied by his queer, 
 sniggering kind of laugh. 
 
 To finish with that day, as a sample of the others that were 
 to come. At dinner-time there was a milk pudding for the 
 patient. It was a fresh-soup day, and the square-built, 
 grumbling, waddling old cook brought him a chunk of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 107 
 
 bread to eat with his soup, because masticating the hard 
 biscuits would jar his head. He was not to have any meat, 
 and particularly " salt horse." 
 
 When he had finished, his own watch was on deck. So 
 about a third of the pudding — in a tiny dish — was offered 
 to Featherston, then to me, and finally to Scotty, who 
 accepted it. 
 
 At tea-time there was another egg, some buttered toast 
 and special tea again. The cook — a blunt Yorkshireman — 
 took these in to Whymper, after the other teas were served 
 out, and grumbling audibly about " pamperin' a slacker." 
 But, wonder of wonders, the patient made no answer. He 
 gave the last of the three pieces of toast to Mc'Arthy, who 
 took it at once, and asked Whymper if he could cut him up 
 a pipe of tobacco. This, also, was accepted. 
 
 We were then in fine weather again, as Mr. Willoughby 
 has said; and the end of that dog-watch and the whole of 
 the second one were spent by every free man (except Baily 
 and Featherston, who were not then converted to the trans- 
 formation, and who were in our side, playing euchre for 
 tobacco) congregating around the side of Whymper's bunk 
 and telling him merry yarns to cheer him up. 
 
 Well, the tid-bits were a daily institution so long as 
 Whymper was laid up. He even gave some to Tiger, the fine, 
 big, fawn-coloured tabby cat, a terror to rats, and which 
 made its home mostly on our side, because of Whymper's 
 harshness towards it. Both Featherston and Baily shared 
 the tid-bits before the end came, though I cannot say that 
 I thought the latter had much heart in the acceptance. He 
 seemed to me to take the things just as I did — to please the 
 giver. 
 
 Thus we competed with one another to be kind to the 
 patient. When we struck the fine weather again, we hung out 
 his wet clothes along with our own — practically all he had. 
 We did more, very much more from a sailor's point of view, 
 we washed him a " shifting," x so that he could have clean 
 
 *A change of underclothing. Sailors mostly sleep in their pants 
 and vests. 
 
108 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 clothes to lie in. We cut up his tobacco, yarned with him 
 whenever possible and rummaged around to find him reading 
 matter to his taste. 
 
 In our gratitude for the peace he had given us we even 
 went to the extent of going against orders by giving him salt 
 meat — at his urgent request — until the captain said that the 
 wound was refusing to heal, and declared that his patient 
 was getting salt meat. When we heard this we resolutely 
 declined to give Whymper the stuff; and, in the face of cir- 
 cumstances, he could not persist in asking for it. At the same 
 time, he did ask, mostly with a laugh. He said he was " jes' 
 dyin' for a bit o' the real, old tack, something with a bully 
 bite in it "; and complained, still laughing, but with a little 
 of his former cynical tone, that we would not give him what 
 he desired. 
 
 He also argued that what the captain said about salt meat 
 damaging the wound was all " biff." But Mc'Arthy was the 
 only one who gave in to his entreaties; and he immediately 
 stopped doing so at a few words from Baily. Mc'Arthy had 
 a profound respect for Baily, even more than he had for 
 Featherston. 
 
 It should be noted that as Whymper's share of beef and 
 pork was kept back by the cook — who also acted as steward 
 in the matter of serving out the food (except such as was 
 done by Mr. Willoughby) — and each of the other men got 
 only his regulation allowance, any one who gave meat to 
 Whymper was depriving himself. 
 
 And, to take that easy-going " crowd " as a sample, I am 
 bound to admit that sailors are exceptionally keen to get the 
 last ounce of whatever is allowed them — individually, I mean. 
 Probably it is not so much their fault personally, as it is an 
 outcome of the bad old days when no man got enough food, 
 justice, charity, and whatever else goes to make an environ- 
 ment bearable. Possibly that is also why sailors are so child- 
 ishly jealous of each other, always suspicious and ready to 
 find fault with one another — Mr. Willoughby agrees that this 
 is generally the case with them; and my own idea is that 
 their lives are too confined for them to have any breadth of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 109 
 
 mind, or even the common give-and-take of landsmen, who 
 ■are more tolerant because they see more of the crowd and 
 less of the individual. 
 
 As a class of men I am naturally interested very much in 
 seamen, fore and aft. I saw the fore part myself, and Mr. 
 Willoughby corroborates all my deductions about them. For 
 the other part : He says there is no class of men in the world 
 so prone to get " notions " and hold to them as if they were 
 facts and very tenaciously. Of course, not " notions " about 
 the workaday things close around them; on those they are 
 correct enough. It is on the facts of life generally where they 
 are so wrong and so stubborn. In petty jealousy he says they 
 are even worse than the men, as if a little education had 
 upset their balance. As instances he gives me these and says 
 they are out of actual occurrences: "If you happen to be 
 afflicted with a soft, white skin — certainly a drawback at 
 sea — and you say you have it, every man Jack of your 
 hearers will take it as a challenge to his. skin, and think you 
 are trying to crow over him. The fact of the matter is not 
 heeded, and the possibility of the statement being bona fide 
 and unbiassed does not exist. On the other hand, if you say 
 your skin is unusually hard and tough, every one will up and 
 dare you right away to try bruises with them against any fixed 
 thing at hand." 
 
 Well, all that one can say is that such attitudes of mind 
 are the outcome of the narrow lives lived .by the officers of 
 merchant vessels, especially tramps. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Wherein Mr. Willoughby shows another side of Captain Sennett's 
 Composition. 
 
 I have mentioned that the boy used to torment the cabin 
 cat. I speak of it as " the cabin cat," because there was 
 another for'ard, about which Lionel may have something 
 to say. 
 
 However, unlike the for'ard one, there would be nothing 
 
no ■ THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to say of the cat itself, if it were not for the boy. And many a 
 time the Old Man remarked to me that he couldn't understand 
 why the cat would have no truck with the boy — not if it could 
 get away from him. Of course, I could have enlightened him 
 on the subject — or, at least, I could have told him why the 
 cat wanted nothing to do with the boy; but whether or not 
 he would have been enlightened by it is another matter. As 
 things went I said nothing — much as I should like to have done, 
 for the sake of justice, that is; because for cats themselves I 
 never had any liking. 
 
 Then one afternoon, in that perfect weather, while Whymper 
 was still laid up, and the O. M. was playing the fatherly doctor 
 to him, we had a regular little hullaballoo that might easily 
 have ended in something very serious. It was my watch-out. 
 Two hands were working for'ard, and one — Baily I think it 
 was — helped me with some sail-making on the weather side 
 of the poop. Well, there were no bulwarks around the poop — 
 only stanchions, with a teak-wood rail along the top of 'em and 
 a round pipe-rail half-way up. The cat was on the poop, fooling 
 around with a bit of paper in the wind, as cats will. It seemed 
 that it was over by the lee-quarter (I was too busy with my 
 work to take much notice how things were just then), when 
 the boy came up and wanted to take a hand in with it and 
 the paper. But, as usual, the cat wasn't having any where 
 that boy was concerned. 
 
 I don't know quite how it happened. As I say, I was intent 
 on my work. Besides, the skylight and companion were more 
 or less in a line between the affair and me. Smiley, at the wheel, 
 was the man who saw it all. And it appeared that the boy 
 made a grab at the cat, when it was under the rail. At that 
 instant the barque rolled to lu'ard, and before you could say 
 Jack Robinson, boy and cat were overboard. 
 
 It seemed that the boy lost his balance in the roll, though it 
 couldn't have been much of a roll, because there wasn't a lot 
 of either wind or sea. I suppose it was just one of those 
 accidents that don't seem to have quite enough cause in 'em, 
 unless you're right in 'em yourself. However, the youngster 
 shot clean through between the pipe-rail and the top one, and 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO in 
 
 the cat went over at the same time, not knowing what it was 
 doing, you bet, and frightened, no doubt. 
 
 Anyhow, Smiley yelled, " The boy's ower the side! " before 
 the shrieking little imp could have touched the water; and 
 Baily and I jumped to our feet. As the boy went through the 
 rails, the Old Man stepped out of the companion-wa}^. His 
 appearance, Smiley 's shout and the boy's scream were just 
 about simultaneous; and almost before I was on my feet 
 properly the O. M. had sized things up. 
 
 " Hard up ! Hard up y 'r helm ! " he cried, heaving over the 
 lee-quarter a small, pneumatic, patent raft that was kept 
 buttoned to what was then the lee-side of the companion. 
 " Mr. Willoughby, wear ship^and come after me," and, lifting 
 a life-buo)' from its hook at the rail, over he went with it, just 
 as if he had been going down to his dinner and all things were 
 Ai. Of course, he was dressed very lightly, as we all were in 
 that weather. 
 
 Not half a minute had passed since -he put his foot on the 
 deck. That, as I knew, was our Old Man when he was all there. 
 He was one of those men that show up best only in a sudden 
 crisis, at times when most men are found wanting. I shall 
 never forget the quiet, masterly, self-possessed look of him as 
 he turned my way (I had sprung aft then, with some of the 
 surprise going out of me), with that hot sun shining full on 
 his face, after flinging over the raft. 
 
 My impulse at the moment was to go after him. I could 
 swim weH and was young and strong; but a thought of the 
 second mate — who was in his bunk — having charge of the 
 rescue proceedings was more than enough. Then I thought of 
 that dream of the captain's: Was this the end of it ? I 
 wondered. Had it corneas a warning of this, and me too dense 
 to see it? Was he to be drowned there and then before us? — 
 And all for that scallywag of a boy ! My God ! how I jumped 
 inwardly, and wished the youngster at the devil. Of course, 
 all these thoughts came and went like lightning. Before you 
 could say ten words, I was through them all and at hard work. 
 
 Involuntarily I threw a look port and starboard — seeing 
 the Old Man, the boy and the raft as I did so — wondering if 
 
ii2 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 a craft had come into sight that could be at the Old Man 
 before us. (I must admit that. I worried nothing about the 
 youngster, although I should have been sorry if he had come 
 by his death that day.) Naturally the hope of a vessel was 
 just the sudden father to the thought. But how could it be? 
 We were hundreds of miles too, far off the land to be near the 
 track of steamers. As for a windjammer: Hadn't w r e seemed 
 to be the last of the tribe when we spread our sails in Frisco 
 bay, and the only one afloat since then ? 
 
 Already the barque was swinging off before the wind; to 
 help her Smiley had taken a turn on the wheel and let the 
 spanker-sheets go out to the knot. Baily was away for'ard, 
 shouting out the watch-below with the rousing cry of "Man 
 overboard! " And out they came in pants and singlets, at his 
 heels. 
 
 No one wanted telling what to do, as we hurried about the 
 trimming of the sails. Chips was unlashing the gig on the booby- 
 hatch, though it wasn't in him to make much haste even over 
 that. And the cook was helping him, with a big meat knife on 
 the fine, new lashings I had had made, and felt so pleased with, 
 in Frisco. That was the only good thing I ever knew the cook 
 to do — help to get the boat ready, I mean, not the cutting of 
 my lashings. There was some good sailorising in them, and for 
 the moment it cut my heart to see 'em hacked to pieces. I 
 could almost have shouted to " the doctor " to stop his game. 
 But there was so much urgency, so many things to do, and in 
 my mind I had to be everywhere. 
 
 Happily the wind was light, as I have said, and there was 
 next to no sea running. This was all to the good. Yet what of 
 the sharks ? Remember, we were in tropical waters. At this 
 thought I began to hurry about with new energy. I had told 
 Smiley to keep a look-out on the Old Man, as well as attend to 
 the wheel, which he could do pretty well under the circum- 
 stances, and no man better. The result was that every now 
 and then we were heartened by hearing him shout, 
 
 "Aa see 'em! . . . The cap'n's got 'im! . . . Aa see 'em 
 yet! . . . They're on th' raft! " etc. 
 
 By this time the second mate was out, and glad I was of his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 113 
 
 great strength. Chips had sent " the doctor " to call him. 
 He was tod sound a sleeper to be fetched out by the hulla- 
 balloo — though / couldn't have slept through even the 
 beginning of it. 
 
 Now the barque was before the wind. Smiley was pointing 
 away to lu'ard and ahead withal and yelling for all his worth, 
 
 " Theer they are! — Aa see 'em! " 
 
 " Quick, boys! " I cried, "gather in your lee-braces, and 
 let's get 'em before the sharks do! In with that fore-sheet, 
 somebody ! . Mr. Young, you and Featherston go round the 
 tacks and sheets! Anderson, up the fore-rigging! — Smart 
 now! — you're intelligent — and keep a look-out on the captain 
 and tell Smiley how to steer for them! Keep 'em just under 
 the lee-bow! " 
 
 Lionel went like a shot. In a few minutes we had done 
 with the ropes — sheets, braces and that I mean — and the 
 Sappho was going merrily away back along her track. But, 
 oh, how slow she seemed to be, with the thought of those 
 sharks in one's mind! This gave me a sort of sick feeling, 
 which I tried to shake off by hurrying the men to the boat. 
 But I couldn't get that miserable dream out of my mind — or 
 rather, the end of it. I was handicapped with the feeling that 
 all we were doing would be for nothing. And how I cursed 
 that boy in between whiles ! — swearing to myself that, if we 
 did get them aboard all right, I would make him pay dearly 
 for it all. 
 
 We were eight men, counting the cook — who wasn't worth 
 counting without his knife, and a knife was no good there — 
 and we fairly picked up that boat, carried it to the four-feet- 
 high rail, and shot it overboard, stern first, and nearly every 
 one of us grabbing for the painter before we knew whether 
 she floated, had turned over, gone under, or what. 
 
 She was all right, however. That was where I had to bring 
 the second mate in, by ordering him, Featherston and Baily 
 into the boat; and, to do him justice, he moved as smartly 
 as anybody. Just then Lionel shouted that the captain and 
 the boy were close by under the lee-bow. Into the lee-main- 
 rigging I sprang, being close to it, saw the two of them not 
 
 H 
 
ii4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 two ship's lengths away — the boy and the cat on the raft, 
 and the Old Man with the lifebuoy around him and him 
 holding on to the edge of the raft. ' 
 
 "Away boat!" I yelled. "Down helm! — Hard down! 
 Stand by to back the mainyard! " 
 
 And down I jumped, excited out of myself nearly at the 
 thought that we were going to be successful, yet sick to my 
 boots every other minute or so when I thought of the sharks 
 and that dream. 
 
 Well, it came out all right. When I got the yards backed — 
 only two or three minutes, you can bet — and ran to the lee- 
 rail, by the break of the f'c's'le-head, all the men at my heels, 
 of course, Mr. Young had the Old Man half over the gunnel of 
 the boat and was gripping the seat of his trousers to haul 
 him right in. That was my moment of exultation. "Hurrah! 
 Now damn the sharks! " I shouted, and nearly said, " damn 
 the dream as well." But I waved my arm in the air, like any 
 excitable young landsman when he first sees anything of the 
 sort done, and turned to give orders for receiving the boat, 
 and putting the barque back on her course as soon as the 
 boat came alongside. 
 
 In the explanations that naturally followed I learnt that 
 the Old Man had helped the boy on to the little raft. (The 
 boy could swim, and the cat had swum to the raft itself.) 
 But he wouldn't try to get on himself, and so be out of the 
 reach of sharks, for fear of tipping the boy off again. As for 
 saying anything to the young imp about the affair being a 
 lesson to him to keep out of mischief — not he, not a word. I 
 made up my mind, however, that I'd have something to say, 
 or do, when the right time came along. Another thing that 
 made me determined in this was the fact that the young imp 
 had come aboard quite cheekily, I thought, as if to say no 
 one dared say anything to him then, because the O. M. was 
 there. By his looks he might have come out of a duck-pond, 
 where he knew he couldn't hurt, instead of the Pacific, where 
 a shark might come along any minute ! 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 115 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 More of Lionel's Account of Whymper as a Patient, also the re-telling 
 of a peculiar Yarn spun by Whymper. 
 
 Well, the cut on Whymper's head did not get better. By 
 the way, it went to the bone, and it was rather bigger than 
 Mr. Willoughby makes it out to have been. It seemed as if 
 jthe thing never would heal up ,* and we gathered, from what 
 Captain Sennett said whilst dressing the wound each morn- 
 ing, that he suspected some deterrent influence to be at work 
 somewhere. It puzzled him that the wound had done so well 
 at first and was then doing so badly. 
 
 He questioned us again — not in Whymper's presence — as 
 to whether or not any one was giving the patient salt meat. 
 He even asked us what was done with the surplus beef, or 
 pork, after dinner each day. And when he learnt that both 
 the port-watch and we were accustomed to put the remainder 
 into our cupboards, he ordered it to be taken back to the 
 galley, brought out again at tea-time, and taken back again 
 after that, as usual, for the cook to hash up for breakfast. 
 
 This was the first true inkling that some of us got of what 
 Whymper had been doing to keep himself laid up; because, 
 hingeing on this matter, Captain Sennett had sai& all along 
 that Whymper was not to resume work so long as the wound 
 kept open. He was foolish enough to reiterate this in the 
 patient's presence, and to say he was afraid of " complica- 
 tions setting in " if Whymper " went amongst the dirt and 
 that on deck before the cut was healed." 
 
 Then, one to another in quiet times and places about the 
 decks, it began to be asked why, during the past week or so, 
 the meat had always seemed to shrink considerably between 
 dinner and tea. And the port-watch was not alone in this; 
 ours appeared to have gone in the same way. The supposi- 
 tion that the meat had dwindled had been remarked on from 
 day to day, always at tea-time, when it was brought out of 
 the cupboard, and I gathered that it was the same on the 
 
n6 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 port side; but only and always as rfo more than a supposi- 
 tion. Now, however, there were ominous looks, and rather- 
 vague mutterings the gist of which was that the mutterers 
 were " not surprised after all," and " the Devil couldn't keep 
 his cloven hoof out of sight, in spite of himself." But I 
 noticed that Mc'Arthy, Hines and Chambers had little to say 
 against the undoubted culprit. So for the influence of his 
 personality over them. 
 
 Of course, nothing of this was said in Whymper's hearing; 
 neither was he foolish enough to speak of the meat being 
 taken back to the galley after dinner each day. Of course, he 
 saw it go from his own side; he could not do otherwise. And 
 the fact that he said nothing served for further comment 
 on deck. 
 
 But he committed one indiscretion in the little affair: In 
 the dog-watch that evening, after the captain had ordered us 
 to take our meat back to the galley after dinner, Whymper 
 spoke of " that gink old dodderer " and " his old buck about 
 salt tack." Then he seemed to recognise the indiscretion, as 
 no one answered him ; and he tried to laugh it off ; but it was 
 a dismal failure. Seeing the way in which Captain Sennett 
 had treated him, we resented his way of referring to the 
 captain. 
 
 The two men who said least on the subject to others, but 
 who, I believe, fully expressed their opinions to one another, 
 were Baily and Featherston. By this time it was quite the 
 common thing to see those two men, in the dog-watches and 
 on Sundays, sitting together, apart from the others, talking 
 in quiet tones, or playing euchre for tobacco. Neither of them 
 ever played with another man; and they were the only two 
 men whom I ever saw play continuously without a dispute 
 of any kind. 
 
 Still the tid-bits were handed around as usual, with the 
 changed result that Mc'Arthy, Scotty, Chambers and Hines 
 got more than formerly, because of his growing influence 
 over them, and because we others accepted less — they did 
 this on account of their revived contempt for the giver, and I 
 because I was glad of the opportunity to follow their lead in 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 117 
 
 what I should previously have done single-handed, but for 
 the dislike of being an odd one. 
 
 So well did Whymper still play his part, however, that by 
 the following day most of us were as attentive to his wants 
 as ever. Mc'Arthy, Scotty, Chambers and Hines cut up his 
 tobacco as before, and the nigger played his whistle. And I 
 must confess to some of his influence, despite my better sense 
 and efforts to stop it. We (speaking without Baily and 
 Featherston in this) all saw to it that he always had a cool 
 drink of water at hand from the " chatty " 1 that hung on 
 the shady side of the deck-house. Some of us clubbed up to 
 give "him an extra drink of lime-juice by sparing a little from 
 each one's allowance. 
 
 In the dog-watches we congregated as usual about his 
 bunk and vied with one another in spinning yarns; and 
 Baity — latterly at our solicitations, added to Whymper's 
 request — gave tunes two or three times on his gramophone. 
 But for no one would he play the " witch-fiddle, " as 
 Whymper called it every evening when he asked for it. Solely, 
 I am sure now, for the purpose of having his way in the 
 matter, he even pleaded for it as a special favour; and we, 
 all except Featherston, added our voices to the petition. 
 Baily was just hard rock to it all. He neither smiled, relaxed 
 in any way, nor showed ill-feeling. He could not be moved, 
 that was all ; and some of us thought him then a churlish old 
 curmudgeon for his obstinacy. But he knew best. 
 
 In one of those dog-watches Whymper told us a yarn which 
 we remembered very distinctly when he was no longer with us, 
 when, in fact, it looked too much as if his story had been a 
 piece of unconscious prophecy as to what was to happen to 
 the barque and us. It was our watch below, and Mc'Arthy 
 and Baily were the two men at the wheel and look-out. With 
 the exception of Featherston (who, as usual on those occasions, 
 
 1 A large, slightly porous caraffe; hung in such a manner that it 
 spins continually; the spinning and the fact that the caraffe is always 
 hung in the shade and in a current of air keeps the water cool. In the 
 absence of a caraffe it is sometimes made of thick canvas, with a 
 bottle-neck sewn into one corner as a mouthpiece. 
 
n8 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 remained on our side, reading or mending some clothes) we 
 were all in the port forecastle, when in came Smiley, saying 
 jocularly to Whymper, in his lively way, 
 
 " Noo, then, ye invaleed, better buck up an' get well! 
 Ther's that shark under th' lee-quarter yet. — Bin ther' twa 
 days noo, ye knaa; an' "he's agan' ta ha'e ye, 'nless ye look 
 slippy an* get aal reit ! " 
 
 Whether or not a particular shark was following us I don't 
 think any one in the vessel could say; but a big man-eating 
 creature had been seen just astern of us off and on since the 
 previous morning. At least, it was said, fore and aft, to be a 
 man-eater ; and I could only go by what I heard jn that matter, 
 because all sharks were the same to me. 
 
 As for Smiley's rather sinister threat : That, as I learnt then, 
 was merely an allusion to the sea-going idea that whenever a 
 person is about to die aboard-ship, a shark follows her till the 
 death occurs, even though it be a week after the creature first 
 appears. Of course, there was no more likelihood of Whymper 
 dying, so far as we could see, than there was of any one of us. 
 But he was superstitious enough for the reference to bring his 
 long, thin face — which was then rather white — up quickly from 
 the pillow, with something of a stare in his fascinated eyes, 
 and make him ask apprehensively of the company generally, 
 and with his high voice strained by feeling, 
 
 " An't the mate goen' tu try an' ketch the brute? " No 
 answer was made to this. It seemed to me that Whymper's 
 sudden and apparently needless anxiety had rather tongue- 
 tied the men with surprise. Then he enquired, with a little 
 less force, " Say, shipmates, ken't some o' you persuade the 
 mate tu fish that devil aboard? " 
 
 Smiley laughingly reassured him that he was " still worth 
 a duzzen deid uns, specially at a platter," and all that the 
 shark wanted was a piece of pork, not him. Others joined in 
 with similar remarks ; but all the effect they had was to make 
 Whymper lie down again, saying plaintively and with a little 
 of his old growl, 
 
 " 'Tan't sort o' pleasant tu lie here, knowin' as that thing's 
 a ploughin' along ther' ready fer a man, ef anything should 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 119 
 
 happen tu 'im. An' one never jes' knows when a hole like 
 this '11 turn tu mortification — with a thing like that in the 
 wake all the time, waitinY' 
 
 This caused a general laugh, followed by more hearty 
 assurances that if the shark had nothing to eat till it got him, 
 it would certainly die of starvation. During this I learnt from 
 Chambers that it was supposed that unless a " followin' 
 shark " were caught, or wounded and driven off by gun-fire, 
 the person would die; and the only way to save him, or her, 
 was to catch the shark or drive it away. 
 
 Presently, in a lull in the conversation, Whymper began in 
 a tone that was curiously quiet for him, and was, I thought, 
 just a little menacing in a queer sort of way — or rather, I 
 thought this afterwards, when other circumstances led my 
 mind back to the story, to him as he lay there, and to the 
 upper part of that crucifixion on his chest, with its red crown 
 of thorns on its blue head, and showing clearly all the time he 
 talked and spun his yarn. v 
 
 " Some o' ye fellahs — you as don't know any more about 
 sharks 'an my poor mother did — you may jes' think ther' 's 
 nothen' in 'em. But, look here, me sons, I guess as how ye 
 never made a greater mistake in all yer natural. I ken tell ye 
 things about sharks — things as 'u'd make some o' your hair 
 jes' stand up straight fer Sund'y. An' me — I don't know the 
 a b c 'bout sharks, I don't, — no, me sons, not the a b c; but, 
 sufferin' Moses, all the same fer that, I knows jes' a few things 
 as 'u'd make ye go goosey — yes, goosey; an' I wouldn't want 
 a dark night an' the lights out an' slow music to do it in, 
 eether." 
 
 Whymper paused a moment, possibly for the sake of effect, 
 although he did it with the appearance of having finished what 
 he had to say. I noticed then that whilst he had seemed to 
 speak to nobody in particular, he had yet made every man 
 think he was talking to him. As no one made any answer, he 
 continued, in that half -indifferent, but slightly pitying and 
 scornful tone in which he first began, his voice carrying 
 into every corner because of its nature and in spite of his 
 keeping it low, 
 
120 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " W'y, what 'u'd ye think of a shark as made a crew turn 
 mutiny an' drive the ship ashore? — aye? — same as we had jes' 
 in the Lucknow of Liverpool." 
 
 " You mean Brown an* Barnes' Lucknow ? — A full-rigger 
 wot went ashore on the Western Islands an' was a total wreck, 
 'bout ten year ago? " mumbled Chambers, looking up from 
 an ancestral and " historical " photograph that Mc'Arthy 
 was showing him, as the two small men sat on the edge 
 of Mc'Arthy's open chest. Chambers was something of an 
 authority on the ships of his day and to whom they belonged. 
 
 " Yes, shipmate, you git me. 'Twas jes' that same ship, 
 an' I was in her. From Iquique we was, with nitrate — longest 
 passage ever known from Iquique to the Western Islands." 
 
 " Yes, I've heard as it was a long un," said Chambers, turn- 
 ing back to Mc'Arthy's " bit of Irish history." " A hun'red 
 an' forty days — Wasn't it ? " 
 
 "A hun'red an' forty! No, sirree! 'Twas a hun'red and 
 seventy-three, an' don't ye forgit it " 
 
 " He wouldna forgit it, Whymper, if he'd bin ther' wi' ye," 
 put in Smiley in his usual, bluff, light way, but with an under- 
 lying irony which we all recognised. 
 
 " An' 'twas the mate as caused it all, jes' — him an' the shark, 
 that is," Whymper continued, heedless of Smiley's inter- 
 ruption and without pause. " 'Twas up along that God- 
 forsaken coast of Brazil as we picked 'im up, in a calm, after 
 one o' them Brazil blows, an' 'e was some shark, he was, me 
 sons — five-and-twenty feet from snout to tail; a stiff 'e 
 was " 
 
 " Say, ye got th' amdavvit on that? " Smiley interrupted 
 again. " 'Cause I'd like ta see it, signed be th' Auld Mon." 
 
 But Whymper was neither to be put out nor put off. With 
 his gaze mostly on that Frisco almanack, he kept to the even 
 tenor of his yarn and tone — or, rather, what I should term a 
 fighting monotone; and such a straight-ahead, steady out- 
 pouring of words I had never heard before. I thought he would 
 not stop that night, unless some one stopped him. But so 
 long as he kept the stream going, no one interrupted or 
 made a move. And so far as I can imitate him this was it : 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 121 
 
 " You bet he took no old buck from any shark as he met — 
 not 'e! An' what does the mate do jes', after we'd nailed the 
 tail tu the jib-boom-end, — well, he ups an' 'as the head-bone 
 cut out, shuar — ye know, the bone as is like a woman's 
 middle — an' gits an apprentice tu scrape it clean — clean as 
 he ken — an' ses as he's takin' it tu some dime museum, — the 
 gink ! The Old Man told 'im as he was a reg'lar mutt tu do 
 what 'e was a-doen'; but he ups an' swears it was 'is stunt; 
 an' as the skipper was one o' the quiet sort,^the mate gits his 
 dolgasted way an' 'as the w'ole skebang to hisself. First 'e 
 tows the thing overboard in a 'ammock-net, jes' tu git all the 
 flesh off clean an' make the bone w'ite. But Antonio, our 
 one-eyed 'Taliano from Palermo (he was in the second mate's 
 watch, same as yo'r 'umble), 'e makes tu cut the tow-line — a 
 reef-earin', of course — w'en Bristol Bill, in the port-watch, 
 relieves him at the wheel. But the mate sees 'im. — The 
 maccaroni mutt should 'ave done it w'en he went to the 
 wheel, jes', w'en the mate wasn't on the poop. But 'e blows 
 in an' goes for it then ; an' the mate sees 'im an' goes for 'im. 
 Oh, the mate was ther', all ways at once for Sat'rd'y night, in 
 a scrap — bin at a Liverp'ol boxin'-school 'e had, an' could 
 take as much punishin' as the figure-'ead. So ye can guess, 
 sons, as ther' was jes' red hell tu play on that poop fer about 
 two minutes thirty;, 'twasn't more, 'cause, ye see, Antonio 
 'd got his knife out tu cut the darned line. An' the mate jes' 
 hauls him around with 'is left — so Bristol Bill said — then 
 gives him one between the eyes with 'is right; an' Antonio 
 wants no more maccaroni fer a week. But the mate wasn't 
 satisfied at that. 'E was a hefty sort of a chap, was the mate 
 o' the Lucknow on that passage, an' he'd got a fifty-dollar 
 temper of his own, shuar; an' that bone was jes' a pet stunt 
 of 'is, see ? So what does 'e do but up with Taliano in both 
 'ands, like a bag o' bones, an' drops him on tu the main-deck 
 —sos. Well, I guess I never 'ad any use fer them Dagoes, 1 
 meself, more 'an a square-'ead. That was at eight-bells, 
 
 *To British sea-going men Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese are " Dagoes " ; and Hollanders, Germans and Scandinavians 
 are " square-heads." 
 
122 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 middle watch; so, y' bet, the mate kep' his own guard till 
 breakfast. An' as the second mate was one o' the old-timers 'e 
 was fer agreein' with us about that dolgasted bone — though, 
 course, he didn't jes' up an' spit it out tu the mate, only 
 quietly tu two or three of us at the wheel. But he told the 
 mate as 'e wasn't agoen' tu be -answerable fer the bone in his 
 night-watches — not 'e, sirree. So in it has tu come at eight- 
 bells, afternoon-watch, an' the mate lugs it away tu the 
 galley an' asks the doctor tu boil it. But the doc' was a 
 champ', an' 'e ses no — a straight up-an'-down British No. 
 What, boil that blessed, tarnation thing in 'is galley? No. 
 In the first place, 'e hadn't a pan big enough, not even 'is hot- 
 water boiler; an' in the second 'e wasn't goen' tu perlute 'is 
 galley with that thing — no, sirree, not fer all the chief mates 
 as ever went tu Fiddler's Green. Well, course, the mate biffs 
 in with a lot of old buck an' gets red as a ten-alarm fire-bust. 
 But 'twasn't any kinda good on the doc'. Oh, no — 'e was 
 twenty-one carat was that cook, an' the finest 'and at a kid 
 of 'ash, wet or dry, as ever drew a bee-line on the pork cask 
 on a Mond'y mornin'. The mate might swear 'is head intu 
 the maintop — an' 'e jes' could swear some; a bully man with 
 four-stranded oaths, 'e was — but cookee didn't budge one 
 split pea. So away goes the mate tu the Old Man — Cap'n 
 Ginnell was 'is name — but that mate 'ad pulled a bone play, 
 y' see. The cap'n was a simp' fer not orderin' 'im tu throw 
 the cussed thing over the side; but 'e wouldn't help 'im 
 'ginst the doc'. ' No,' ses he, ' 'tan't no part o' the cook's 
 duty tu boil shark's-'ead bones fer any man, an' I an't agoen' 
 tu upset him be orderin' 'im tu do what an't his duty.' Well, 
 ye'd a-thought as the mate would ha'e seen reason then — - 
 any man 'cept a top-'ole gink would; but not that mate. 
 No, he allowed as 'twas up aginst him tu show his mettle, an' 
 he showed it. Oh, 'e was game in 'is way, was that same big 
 husky. He lugs the thing aft agin an' takes it intu his berth 
 till 'e comes on watch agin, w'en he tows it overboard, same 
 as before, an' takes it tu his berth w'en he goes below. But 
 that night the weather breaks, an' we gits it stiff. Squalls an* 
 gales, fair winds an' foul uns! — my oath, sons, I never seen 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 123 
 
 the like, an' don't want tu agin. Sell a farm an' come tu 
 sea! — w'y, if I was a sky-pilot I'd sell me church an' come — 
 if I was mad enough. An' that was 'ow the trouble went. 
 Ev'ry man was kickin' jes', an' ready tu hunk the mate over 
 the side. But he was hefty an' carried a shooter in 'is pocket. 
 In one o' the squalls, w'en the Lucknow heeled to lu'ard 
 pretty 'eayy, cookee's pots took charge, an' 'e was scalded 
 some bad, I tell ye. (That was w'en the mate 'ad the bone 
 bleachin' on the poop.) So the Old Man puts 'im in'the sick- 
 bay — oh, yeah, we had a sick-bay 'board that packet, 'twas 
 a small 'ouse abaft the mainmast — good as any Amuriken. 
 An* a fellah in the port-watch, as knew a bit about makin' 
 hash an' spoiling grub, 'e was put intu the galley jes', with 
 the youngest 'prentice tu peel spuds fer 'im an' that. But, 
 sufferin' mankind, nothin' 'u'd go right — we guessed 'twas 
 that bone. Any'ow, the doc' swore 'twas the bone as made 
 'is pots take charge — an' how he'd fix that mate ef 'e ever 
 got well agin an' met 'im ashore ! Then Antonio goes for the 
 mate bald-'eaded, shortenin' sail one night in a breeze o' 
 wind; an' the mate jes' taps 'im on the boko with a belayin' 
 pin, an' down goes Dago, dead as a handspike; though the 
 mate 'ad got a five-inch gash in 'is arm. Course, 'twas self- 
 defence — we all sees that, more or less. But ye ken bet yo'r 
 bottom dollar, mates, as 'twas that bone all the time; it was 
 jes' gingerin' up ev'ry thing fore an' aft. Yeah, 'twas that 
 bone, shuar; an' we all knowed it. 'Cause, look, young Jack- 
 son, third apprentice, scrapin' down the mizzen-mast, slips 
 out of 'is bosun's chair an' comes down w'ack on the bone — 
 bleachin' agin on the poop — an' 'e gits put in the sick-bay 
 'long o' cookee, with two ribs broke an' a kink in 'is leg. I 
 was at the wheel an' got a flash at 'im an' seen him shiver 
 w'en he eyes the bone, jes' as they picked him up. An' ye ken 
 figure it as ye like, sons, but if trier's any proper thing afloat 
 as'll bring a young fellah straight out'n a bosun's chair, like 
 havin' a line on his leg an' pullin' 'im out — well, I guess as 
 I'd jes' like tu see that same thing right away. No, sirrees, 
 'twas that curse of a bone. W'y, didn't the Old Man tell the 
 mate, soon as Jackson was stowed in the bay, as he'd got to 
 
124 _. THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 keep the thing in 'is berth or fling it away ? So 'e did ; but 
 'twasn't any use — no, no more use 'an a ropeyarn fer a tow- 
 line. Then Sam Hicks — a Greenwich A.B. in our watch — • 
 slips on the mizzen topsail-yard, lee-side, shortenin' sail agin, 
 first watch, gives out a yell an' — goodbye, Hicks. — 'S good a 
 sailorman as ever touched a marlinspike. No, never seen or 
 'eard of 'im agin. An' all that bone ! Well, I guess, mates, as 
 no man could expect much after that on'y mutiny. 'Twas 
 jes* gettin' fierce, y' see. W'y, look, even Hicks couldn't go 
 over from a fore-yard or a main-yard. No, sirs, 't'ad tu be 
 from the mizzen as he went; the nearest set o' yards tu that 
 bone. So we ups an' tells Cap'n Ginnell at da3 7 light as we 
 does no more till that bone goes over the side, an' that jes' 
 put the tin hat on it — leastwise 'twould ha'e done so ef the 
 cap'n hadn't been feared o' the big husky what 'ad the bone. 
 He talked with the mate, up on the poop there; then 'e 
 turns tu us, an' told us the bone should go right away. An' 
 they brought it up, as we was ginks enough to think — the 
 mate did — in the old net he'd towed it in, shuar, an' showed, 
 it tu us, through the net (course, we was on the main-deck, 
 an' he was on the poop); then over the side he hove it — 
 Sandy Macintyre, at the wheel, sees it go. But it didn't, y* 
 see, mates. That's jes' how the after-guard's alius got the 
 poor sailorman. We're doodlewits tu them — jes' suckers, 
 ev'ry time; an' ye ken take a chance on that, me sons — 
 ev'ry time. No, 'twas something else as they hove overboard ; 
 'cause that infernal luck went on; an' w'en the Lucknow 
 drove ashore on Fayal, jes' five .days later, that cussed bone 
 was in the mate's berth' — so was 'e, mates — so was 'e, with 
 'is 'ead bashed in an' a iron belayin'-pin alongside 'im, an' 
 nobody knowin' w'o did it — 'cept them as did it. An' poor 
 cookee an' young Jackson was drowned in the sick-bay; an' 
 we lost three A.B.'s an' Sails and the steward in the surf. 
 An' if that an't enough fer one shark tu do, then I guess 
 I'm jes' a son of a gun ef I don't want tu know right away 
 what is." 
 
 There, for the time being, the monotone ended abruptly. 
 Whymper took his gaze from the bare-legged girl and flashed 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 125 
 
 it challengingly from face to face of his listeners. On his 
 long, sharp face there was a passing expression of defiance, 
 whilst his rather birdlike eyes were actually repellent. 
 
 As for me: Although I, even more than any of the others, 
 perhaps, had been fascinated in a way by the story, I was 
 glad that the end had come. His words had been like the 
 everlasting tapping of a light but forcible hammer. 
 
 Leaving the other men to discuss the yarn, as usual, I 
 went on deck, to think it over to myself and wait for one- 
 bell to strike. I was not superstitious, as they were, more or 
 less. Nothing on earth would have made me believe that 
 the bone had any connection whatever with the unfortunate 
 happenings; but I must admit that the story had made a 
 rather queer sort of impression on me. In addition, it had 
 shown me afresh and with more conviction than ever how 
 easily sailormen could be stirred up by old beliefs and mere 
 coincidences, especially by a man like Whymper, who'se 
 peculiar influence even I was feeling in a limited way. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 In which the Mate speaks somewhat lightly of certain Shipboard 
 Affairs. 
 
 I am afraid I haven't much more than small beer to chronicle 
 this time. Yet, at any rate, if it was small, it sparkled a bit. 
 At least, things with us seemed to sparkle after the Old 
 Man's rescue of the boy and cat. In contrast to the Doldrums 
 those few weeks in the sou'-west trade were a bit of heaven 
 afloat ; and it appeared to be all the more heavenly because 
 of the continual worries and upsets we had gone through 
 since we entered Sydney — the O. M. that is. 
 
 Still, as the master of a - ship mostly makes the mental 
 weather— you know what .1 mean — for his officers and the 
 after-" crowd ".generally, at any rate, it's quite right to say 
 " us " in such cases. Some masters keep their shipboard 
 troubles to themselves, and so make fair weather and easy 
 
126 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 sailing of it most of the time; while others do just the oppo- 
 site, and make everybody miserable that's influenced by 'em. 
 
 As the Old Man said to me one day, when he came on to 
 the poop, from his afternoon nap, and had passed a laughing 
 remark or two about the old cook (who was then sitting out- 
 side his galley doorway, peeling potatoes) being so slow and 
 having the name of Sharp, 
 
 "M'm, the quarter-deck barometer is keeping up very 
 nicely. — Don't you think so, Mr. Willoughby? " 
 
 Having said this he turned and walked aft to the binnacle, 
 glanced at the compass, then came for'ard again, to where I 
 was overhauling another sail and deciding what to do to it. 
 As he came along, I noticed he was smiling that smile of his 
 in which I knew the very best of his heart was having a good 
 share. Then I saw that he meant himself, and I made what 
 I thought was a suitable answer, raking in the weather and 
 good sleep as contributory causes of his even frame of mind 
 from day to day; but, of course, I didn't say " even frame 
 of mind," because that would have been crude. 
 
 " Yes, it's the weather, no doubt, Mr. Willoughby," said 
 he. " And a man ought to be good in it, because, y' know, it 
 seems to me like the beginnin' of married life, or what I 
 imagine married life to be at the start." 
 
 " Why, sir, because it's too good to last? " I asked him. 
 
 " Now, now, I didn't mean thatj an' I shouldn't like to 
 think of any married life only beginnin' fine like this weather." 
 But he laughed, in spite of his reproof. " No, I meant in 
 contrast to them twelve days in the Doldrums this is like the 
 beginnin' of married life. But I suppose you knows best — 
 you're married." 
 
 "I see. Then the bachelor part would be like the 
 Doldrums? " 
 
 " Yes. Don't you think so? " he replied, and I saw the 
 twinkle in his eyes that I knew so well. 
 
 " No, sir, I'm afraid I don't," said I. " Because I should 
 say if the passage is like married life at all, then from Frisco 
 to the Doldrums was the beginning; the Doldrums was 
 trouble and separation, and this is the coming together again." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 127 
 
 " Oh, I don't like that! No, I don't like that. Because 
 I've heard when there's been one separation there's always 
 likely to be another; an' if the Doldrums was to represent 
 that, then we're very likely in for more trouble. — Eh? No, 
 I don't like that." 
 
 And it was not merely that he didn't like it; he wouldn't 
 have it. And I saw it would be both unkind and unwise 
 to push the parallel, although I knew — and he knew — how 
 probable it was that we should get at least some bad weather 
 off the Horn. 
 
 Speaking nautically, we had, as a matter of course, that 
 saints' weather all the time. (You know at sea there are three 
 sorts of weather: Saints' weather, which is better than you 
 deserve; sinners' weather, that levels up to about what you 
 are yourself; and devils' weather, which is twice as bad as 
 you deserve.) 
 
 Yes, it was that glorious sunshine, and the fine, steady 
 breeze day after day — the happy sing-song of things alow 
 and aloft, and in the even roll and forward push of the barque, 
 that was putting us all in such excellent trim, especially the 
 Old Man. My pleasure was really in seeing him so comfortable 
 in his mind again. And the further we got away from the 
 tropics and the nearer down to the latitude of the Horn, the 
 more he became himself — I mean his old, even-tempered and 
 rather easy-going self. But don't run away with the idea that 
 because he was fatherly and easy in his ways the* Old Man 
 hadn't a mind of his own. On the contrary he had plenty of 
 mind; only he wasn't the man to be always using it — as 
 some men are. 
 
 Because there are men (and women, too, possibly; but I" 
 don't know so much about them — haven't seen enough of 
 'em, not enough to judge 'em by, nor to please my fancy 
 either, for that matter, — it's one of the drawbacks of going 
 to sea) — anyhow, there are men who always have their mind 
 on tap, or what stands to them for mind. They seem to be 
 mortally afraid that if they don't keep it on show, people will 
 somehow forget they've got it. And it's all the same to thern 
 whether it's a run of words — usually pretty empty — or a big 
 
128 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 growl and a blustering way. Oh, I've seen a good few of 'em, 
 both at sea and ashore; men who thought mighty high of 
 themselves, and always kept their opinion — blatant per- 
 sonality I mean — flying at the fore. And I'm sorry to say 
 there seems to be more of 'em at sea than ashore. 
 
 But that wasn't our good Old Man in the Sappho. He was, 
 weak and trying at times, which only showed that he was a 
 man; and he was apt to go down under a series of petty 
 worries. But, by jingo, there was no pretence about him, 
 either of one sort or another ! What he was you saw, if you 
 could see anything; and if you didn't admire what you saw, 
 ■ — then I'm afraid you would be one that I shouldn't care to 
 go far with. 
 
 As he said to me one forenoon-watch — on the poop again, 
 where we usually had our talks — and a few days after the 
 bit of conversation about the passage so far being like some 
 parts of married life, 
 
 " It isn't to say, y' know, Mr. Willoughby, that because 
 we by-an'-by find serious faults in a friend we should set to 
 an' disrate his virtues, or even love him less. — Aye? " 
 
 That morning I had been at the unpleasant duty of serving 
 out the stores — a job I detested, and always felt like trounc- 
 ing the boy every Saturday, when the job came round. 
 Young had gone past at the time and tried one of his elephan- 
 tine jokes, which the Old Man had heard; and this remark 
 of his was due to some references to it and one or two recent 
 blunders of the second mate's. And I couldn't help smiling 
 to myself at the thought of loving Young, or even having 
 him as a friend. But, then, on the other hand, the O. M. 
 hadn't meant anything of the sort. He had only used the 
 idea as an illustration to carry his point. Of course I agreed, 
 for the reason that I believed with him, not owing to its 
 being shipboard polity to do so. 
 
 " Because, y' know, if he does blunder about a little bit 
 maybe like a blind walrus after sprats in a ornamental fish- 
 pond, he's a good worker; he's got no animosity as I can 
 see. Besides, he means well, an' does the best he can; an' I 
 don't think you can say he doesn't. — Can you, now? " 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 129 
 
 " No, sir. But, you know, they say the floor of hell's paved 
 with good intentions," said I. 
 
 " Yes, I know they do," he replied, a bit testily. " But I 
 ^ion't like savin's like that; there's something nasty an' 
 biting in 'em. We could get on a good deal better, of that I'm 
 mortally certain, if people wouldn't say such things. I'd like 
 to fine ev'rybody five shillings ev'ry time they use a sayin' 
 like that." 
 
 " But there's a good deal of truth in a lot of 'em, sir," I 
 -remarked, in a laughing way, because I wanted to keep his 
 brighter side upwards, and I wasn't quite inclined to give in 
 where I didn't agree. 
 
 "Truth? Truth is God, it seems to me," said he very 
 seriously, as he watched me pull the sail this way and that, 
 looking for weak places, which I hardly saw for thinking of 
 what he said. " An' if that's so, how're you goin' to get much 
 of it out of man? In the lump, taking him full-an' -large, 
 man's earth turned to flesh, held together by sin, in a way, 
 an' lent life by means of immortal breath from Heaven. 
 Leastwise, that's how I see it." 
 
 I tried to say lightly that there was truth in what he said, 
 at any rate, and good truth at that. I was trying a sort of 
 pun, you see, on his idea, in the hope of getting him out of 
 the "serious mood into which he was drifting deeper. Besides, 
 I didn't want any argument with him while he was in that 
 frame of mind. But it was no go — not just then, anyhow. 
 He launched off again with, 
 
 ' 'Course, I may be wrong. I didn't go to school much 
 when I was a nipper, seein' as how I was a deck-boy afore I 
 was thirteen. But I've always been on long passages; an', as 
 y' know, you can get some long thoughts on long passages." 
 
 " You can, sir, and deuced long ones, too, sometimes. Do 
 you mind holding that for me a minute, while I cut out this 
 bad piece? " said I, holding up a part of the sail. 
 
 Just then the boy came out of the companion-way to ask 
 
 what sort of pudding the O. M. wanted for dinner. This was 
 
 a regular happening every day. The Old Man was a pretty 
 
 good cook, in fact a regular dabster he was at made-up 
 
 1 
 
130 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 things; and he mostly fabricated the pudding for the day, 
 in part to show the boy how to do it ; but the young imp was 
 no learner of anything that was good for him to know. How- 
 ever, his backwardness in that matter had the welcome effect 
 of taking the O. M. off his subject and away to the pantry, 
 to give another half-wasted lesson in the politic art of making 
 puddings. 
 
 You see by these things how completely the Old Man had 
 got over the nasty effect of that long, trying spell in the 
 Doldrums. 
 
 Besides, Whymper was really well enough to be on deck 
 again; in fact, I was rather impatient with the O. M. — in my 
 heart, that is — at not turning the fellow out. As for the 
 shark under the quarter: Of course, I knew the superstition 
 about a following shark and a sick person; and, in simple 
 truth, I was secretly feeding the brute, to keep it there, and 
 so help to frighten Whymper out of his bunk a few days 
 sooner than the O. M. was likely to turn him out. 
 
 Catch the shark to ease his mind? — as he wanted me to, 
 and I heard of — not me ! I laughed to myself at the thought 
 of it and what I was really doing in the matter. To speak 
 truly, I was a bit anxious every morning for fear the shark 
 had left us; but I managed to keep him there till Whymper 
 was at work again, then I starved him off and let him go. I 
 wouldn't catch him, in case Whymper should take to his 
 bunk again at once ; because I knew the fellow to be a chronic 
 shirker. 
 
 But I was talking about the Old Man : Well, that dream of 
 his was shelved altogether, so far as he was concerned at 
 that time; though it still bothered me a bit now and then. 
 I hate to be beaten by a thing of that sort; yet touch it he 
 wouldn't. No, he said, he had done with it, whenever I tried 
 to broach the subject. But had he? Wait a while. 
 
 Then, again, the trouble with the second mate and the boy 
 was about forgotten. — Oh, he had forgiven 'em within twenty- 
 four hours of finding it out. That was one thing in which the 
 O. M. was like Young — he never bore any malice. Young 
 had a good deal in him that I didn't like; but, to do him 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 131 
 
 justice, I don't think he ever carried ill-will beyond an hour 
 or so after the upset. P'r'aps that was because he wasn't 
 deep enough in feeling; and if it was — well, it was a virtue in 
 a sort of defect. Which goes to prove that some shortcomings 
 are all the better for the easy running of human intercourse. 
 Young was a blunderer, right enough, and a would-be blus- 
 terer, as I've said, I believe. Besides, he hadn't many scruples 
 about truth and the rights of this or that in small ways, and 
 whenever he was shown to be seriously in the wrong then all 
 the world was against him ; yet all his faults and good points 
 alike were pretty near the top. But, Lord, what a holdful of 
 faults can be covered by the tarpaulin of one virtue ! 
 
 Well, things were going so pleasantly that I began to 
 think we — the O. M. and I, that is — were. getting a bit of our 
 own back for the tribulations of the past, especially him. 
 Yet if I had known what was to come, by heaven, I should 
 have thought differently, I can assure you ! However, it was 
 a piece of blessed good fortune that I didn't know — that 
 none of us knew. Because, as it was, we made the best of the 
 good things that fell to us — the easy running and that, I 
 mean. And, after all, those few pleasant weeks and shorten- 
 ing days were not wasted time in other ways. It takes fine 
 weather, you know — and by " fine weather " I mean easy 
 sailing in life generally — as well as foul, to form character, 
 and make men understand one another. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Lionel relates further Proceedings in the Forecastle, mainly concerning 
 Whymper. 
 
 As Mr. Willoughby has just said, Whymper was well enough 
 to be on deck. He was aware of that, also of the likelihood of 
 his being at work again any day — so were we. We knew it 
 chiefly by his change of manner. I keep to him for the present, 
 because so long as he was with us he was certainly the most 
 outstanding human note in the two watches. If he was not 
 
132 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the actual centre of interest in an affair, he always contrived 
 to push himself in for a large share of it. 
 
 Almost from the day when Captain Sennett gave the orders 
 that prevented Whymper from having any more salt meat, 
 little by little the quiet, subtle, penitent, rather sorrowful and 
 ingratiating tactics, that had made us pity him so, had been 
 dropped. The tid-bits had likewise been withheld in the same 
 ratio; and the old, cynical, snarling style of thought and 
 expression had come out again more and more since the night 
 of his yarn about the shark's head-bone. It seemed as if on 
 that occasion he had made up his mind that his lying-up days 
 were nearly at an end ; as a matter of fact, they finished four 
 days later. 
 
 Then it was that we — the most simple of us, that is — began 
 to realise how extensively we had been deceived. These were, 
 in the first degree, the Booster, Scotty, Hines and myself; 
 and, in the second degree, Smiley, .Chambers and Mc'Arthy. 
 And when the full enormity of this broke in on us, we, natur- 
 ally, took much council amongst ourselves in quiet corners of 
 the dog-watches. And it was an interesting study to me to 
 watch the effect of this on the influence which Whymper had 
 previously obtained over certain of us. 
 
 Baily, Featherston, Chips and the cook were outside the 
 pale of this. In their hearts the first three had known it 
 for at least half of the time; and the cook had reiterated it, 
 with blunt indifference, whenever he brought food to the 
 patient. 
 
 Booster complained that it had never entered his " doodle- 
 wit-box " that he " would be jes' guyed six ways fer Sund'y 
 by a mutt with a ev'ryday growl on him." After working his 
 way down the coast from Vancouver, he had " biffed " him- 
 self " inter this pretty, old hooker of a British packet jes' tu 
 git a stunt in experience, an' tu git a flash on Europe." IJut 
 he was " goldasted intu a three-deck gink " if he had " thought 
 that a common, week-day sucker, like that hoodah with the 
 eyes an' the hatchet face, would have yawped him in jes' 
 like any greenhorn." In fact, both he and Smiley seemed to 
 be more annoyed at the surprise they felt — indirectly, of course, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 133 
 
 at their own simplicity, or credulity — than at the hoodwink- 
 ing itself. 
 
 Chambers' peculiar, enigmatic and apparently vapid smile 
 said more than his tongue did, if you only studied it deeply 
 enough to understand it. With this on his face he asked 
 Booster, 
 
 " Didn't you see into him better than that w'en you was 
 ashore together? " Then he laughed that queer, quiet, low, 
 sniggering laugh of his. 
 
 This was whilst we were preparing to turn in, after breakfast, 
 during which Denis had been begging all the time, as usual, 
 at the forecastle doorway ; and Scotty had at last quietened 
 him by giving him, again as usual, the cracker-hash kid to 
 rub his snout around and hunt out the morsels we had left. 
 
 I should say that Chambers had no dialect, or, rather, no 
 twang. He sometimes dropped an initial " h," or a "g"; 
 but in his speech there was no further indication of his early 
 environment. He never spoke of any relatives of his, nor of 
 himself except as being in this or that ship. And as no one 
 remembered where and when he had said he was born, when 
 the Articles were signed, none of us knew either where he came 
 from or how old he was. 
 
 " See intu him, sonny? I guess it an't fer the like o' me tu 
 see through a brick wall, any more 'an you ken," was Booster's 
 reply, which was jerked out of him in a way, as he put one 
 foot on a chest, then vaulted into his bunk. 
 
 " But you said just now 'e was only a ' sucker ' an' a 
 ' hoodah,' " Chambers persisted in his very quiet way, smiling 
 sphinx-like at the tobacco he was cutting up. 
 
 Expectant of what I thought would prove to be an amusing 
 conversation, I looked up at Booster's face. He was sitting 
 in his bunk, with the lower half of his legs dangling over the 
 chest below. His gaze was on Chambers' inscrutable face, with 
 its close-cropped pale-gingery whiskers and mustache, and his 
 own was as imperturbable. 
 
 " Waal, shipmate," he drawled, " ef I said as how he's a 
 hoodah, then he's a hoodah ; ef I said he's a sucker, you bet he 
 sucks. An' I'll jes' ask sonny here ef he hasn't sucked you an' 
 
134 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 me an' a few more of us, an' played the hpodah all the gee- 
 twisted time." 
 
 I was the " sonny " he referred to; but I only smiled. I 
 was willing enough, hopeful even, for them to carry on their 
 discussion; because I knew that no harm could come out of 
 it; but I was not to be drawn into the discussion. Chambers 
 would rather have gone over the main-truck than have been 
 a party to a quarrel. Booster was not so easy to read; but I 
 had noticed many a time that whenever he seemed about to be 
 landed into a dispute, he had evaded it in a rather clever way, 
 even when the right was on his side. In doing this he always 
 used a kind of set form of argument that attracted attention 
 from the subject of dispute. At such times he also put some 
 extra drawl into his words. 
 
 And somehow or other the general impression on me was 
 that whatever Booster happened to be at heart, or would do 
 in a crisis, he was one who would edge back around almost 
 any corner rather than quarrel outright. Yet he wasn't an 
 elderly weakling like Chambers, but a broad, well-built, if 
 rather short, strong-looking man, who appeared to be well 
 able to take care of himself in pretty nearly any situation. 
 
 Chambers continued to smile, but made no answer. Booster 
 lifted up his legs quite leisurely, stretched them down under 
 his blanket, sank back on to the pillow, all in a kind of waiting 
 indifference. Then he said, still with the increased drawl and 
 extra nasalness, 
 
 "An' jes' you crack this nut, mate: 'Tan't the cleverest 
 man as isn't the biggest gink somew'er', some'ow, an' you ken 
 boost on that, shuar. That hoodah's smart, so's the Devil; 
 but ef what I've he-ard's true, the Devil wasn't smart 'nough 
 tu keep a champ' soft job w'en he had it. So, true as I'm jes' 
 3/ours in the faith, 'tan't difficult tu be a mutt an' a stiff at the 
 same time." 
 
 Chambers was still smiling silently. Booster knew by this 
 that he would get no more from the little man of much cleanli- 
 ness and many patches, unless it were a few inconsequent 
 words, mumbled partially to himself, and still the smile. So 
 apparently being sleepy (it had been our " eight hours out " 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 135 
 
 the night before), Booster put down his pipe and shut his 
 eyes. (It appears that every sailor smokes after turning in, if 
 he smokes at all.) Chambers had an under-bunk, 1 into which 
 he crept, smoking. He was a man of little sleep, and light at 
 that. I climbed to mine — over Chambers — and fell asleep 
 whilst reading one of the reprints of masterpieces that I had 
 bought in Frisco. (Perhaps I should say here that nearly all 
 my reading — and I read much in those times — leaned to the 
 accepted masters of literature, ancient and modern.) 
 
 Of course, Whymper had simply played on us for his own 
 ends. Knowing, as he did — perhaps no one better — how a 
 laid-up man is so disliked aboard-ship, he had played his 
 cards to make every one of us his temporary friend. Now, 
 when he was at work again, the old Adam of his disgruntled 
 nature broke out at times as if impatient of the late restraint, 
 and desirous of making up for lost time. Taking him all-in- 
 all, though, I don't think he was so regularly bitter as he had 
 been before that last night in the Doldrums. His biting 
 cynicism and dissatisfaction with everything came more in 
 gasps and spasms than formerly; "Squalls an' catspaws," 
 Smiley termed them. 
 
 Before the injury to his head I had never known Whymper 
 to laugh, and scarcely ever to smile. Now, however, when 
 reminding some of us, in answer to a personal remark thrown 
 at him, of how completely he had " kinda guyed the w'ole 
 show " — both watches he meant — I saw him laugh on several 
 occasions. Naturally, this was not a merry performance. The 
 laugh was curiously like Chambers' snigger, except that in 
 place of the little man's emptiness of meaning, Whymper's 
 had a bitterness that could not be mistaken. But it was not 
 a hard, hurtful bitterness, happily, only a lightish, biting kind 
 of tone — one that was certainly preferable to the scornful 
 puckering of his thin lips which used to have to do duty as 
 the accompaniment to bitter observations. 
 
 Then came one of those sudden upheavals that seem to be 
 
 1 In nearly all cases the non-pushful A.B.'s of a crew take the lower 
 bunks. It is merely a psychological trait. They are in nowise forced 
 to this,*but do^it involuntarily. 
 
136 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the irregular order of forecastle life. It was a first dog-watch 
 — our turn below — between five and six o'clock, when day-, 
 work was done, and all hands were resting, .except the helms- 
 man and the man on the look-out. The Growler sat on our 
 water-keg, by the after-bulkhead — the usual place, by-the- 
 bye, for a casual visitor. 
 
 Tiger, the forecastle cat, had been sitting up, voluntarily, 
 begging for bits of tinned fresh meat, called by sailors 
 " Harriet Lane," the name, I believe, of a woman who was 
 killed and cut up by her murderer. This was a part of the 
 " education " taught by Scotty to the cat. He had also 
 trained Tiger to sit up on its haunches and catch a small 
 paper ball between its fore-paws. 
 
 Tea was over, and Scotty began to " perform " with the 
 cat, heedless of Whymper's sarcastic remarks. In the midst 
 of this Mc'Arthy came^in, and sat down on the end of the 
 chest nearest to the doorway. This was the chest on which 
 the " performance " was taking place, it was not big enough 
 for the newcomer and what was already going on there. So 
 Scotty took his pet and stood him up on the floor, just oppo- 
 site, with his back to the partition-bulkhead. 
 
 " What d'ye want to fool about like that for, man? Stash 
 it, an' give us a tshoon on the whustle," said Mc'Arthy. 
 
 " You jes' lie low. This an't your put; so keep your beak 
 out'n it. Don't ye'r know, little things please little minds." 
 
 This came from Whymper in his most biting snarl, in which 
 there was contempt enough to sting almost any man. It was 
 said to Mc'Arthy, but meant for Scotty; and it made me 
 think of how easily some men can insult beyond measure 
 with the use of words that would cause no annoyance if they 
 came from other men. As I thought of this, I happened to 
 glance across at Feathers ton. He was looking at The Growler, 
 and the expression on his face was certainly not pleasant; I 
 had never seen anything like it there before. 
 
 At this point Scotty left his seat to make Tiger sit up 
 straighter; and whilst he was coaxing the cat, and talking 
 to it in his particularly soft-mouthed way, as he always did, 
 Whymper left the water-keg and took Scotty's place on the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 137 
 
 inner side of Mc'Arthy. Tiger was a little refractory, or tired 
 of the proceedings ; and in the meantime, more nasty remarks 
 were passed by the two visitors. 
 
 Surreptitiously I watched Featherston's face, as he gave 
 occasional looks at Whymper. Booster was on deck, or in 
 the other side. Chambers, as usual, was mending clothes by 
 the fore-end of the table ; and the only other proof of his not 
 being an automaton was the fact that he now and then looked 
 towards the others and sniggered silently. But there was no 
 discrimination in his smile; he gave it to all alike. 
 
 Having got the cat into a better position, and apparently 
 more inclined to continue the " performance," Scotty backed, 
 now slantwise towards the doorway, preparatory to throwing 
 the little paper ball. 
 
 "S'cat!" hissed Whymper viciously; and down to all 
 fours came Tiger, with a startled look on its face. 
 
 " Wha fo' yo' do dat? " asked Scotty, annoyed, but too 
 peaceful by nature to resent with vigour. He went to Tiger 
 and began to stand him up again. 
 
 " Stash ye'r antics, man; an' give us the whustle," advised 
 Mc'Arthy. 
 
 " Say, now, don't ye jes' think ye're a little, black, bare- 
 buffed piccaninny agin, playin' with the kitten in a mud 
 shebang? " Whymper enquired, offensively, of Scotty. 
 
 Instead of answering the nigger continued to stroke and 
 otherwise soothe his pet; which, although so keen on killing 
 rats, was a most gentle and intelligent creature, and was 
 loved by the majority of us. But Featherston — sitting 
 quietly in his corner, where the thwart-ship bunks met the 
 fore-and-aft ones, at the forward end of the place — said, in a 
 harder and more significant way than was usual with him, 
 
 " Look here, Growler, if you can't keep decent, take 
 yo'rself back to yo'r own side. We lives in peace 'ere." 
 
 Mc'Arthy glanced rather apprehensively across the front 
 of Whymper, who affected to pay no heed to Featherston. 
 On the contrary, he immediately threw a more offensive 
 remark at Scotty. The latter, however, went on with his task 
 of persuading Tiger that no harm was meant, and he made 
 
138 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 no answer to Whymper. But I noticed that a dark, threatening 
 expression passed slowly over the big-boned, full-bearded face 
 of Featherston. 
 
 In my heart I knew that unless Growler at once mended 
 his manners something very unpleasant would happen. Still, 
 so annoyed was I at the intruder's words and bearing, and so 
 convinced that he needed to have some kind of a lesson taught 
 him, that, for once, I did not mind if the peace were broken. 
 Perhaps at the back of my mind there was the selfish reflection 
 that, providing the quarrel remained between Featherston 
 and Whymper, no real damage would be done — not intention- 
 ally ; because as the former would probably keep too tight a 
 rein on himself, the latter would be afraid to retaliate severely, 
 even if at all in a physical sense. Another thing, the trend of 
 the matter was showing me what I was glad to see — viz. that 
 Whymper had lost the influence which he had gained over 
 Featherston, and was, to my deep regret, increasing prior to 
 his boasting that he had " guyed " the whole of us during the 
 time he was laid up. 
 
 Whilst I had thought of these things, Scotty had succeeded 
 again in calming Tiger to the extent that the cat once more 
 sat upright, and Scotty began to retire to throw the ball. 
 Just then Whymper hit Tiger with his cap. This made the 
 animal bolt, properly frightened, for the doorway. To catch 
 him and soothe him again the nigger threw himself forward on 
 the floor. The result was that he caught the cat, but bumped 
 his head hard against the corner of the chest on which 
 Whymper and Mc'Arthy were sitting. Poor, harmless Scotty 
 sat up, rubbing his crown ruefully with one hand, whilst he 
 held Tiger in the other arm. 
 
 Before this point was reached — in fact, as Whymper flung 
 the cap, Featherston was on his feet. His dark face was really 
 ominous ; and it seemed to me that his big, gaunt body was 
 swelling considerably, also that the higher right shoulder and 
 the smallish protuberance behind it were going half-way up 
 his head. With his pipe-stem he was pointing to the open 
 intercommunication doorway, whilst he said, in a low, hard, 
 quiet way, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 139 
 
 " Now, Growler, get a move on you, or, by God, I'll move 
 you. An' w'en we wants you agen, we'll send for you." 
 Whymper glanced up at him, insolently for a moment; then 
 I thought I saw the beginning of a change on his long, thin 
 face. " Shift, an' be smart," Featherston added. 
 
 " Ye'r some boss. — An't you ? " Whymper replied, trying to 
 brazen the thing out. 
 
 " Shift." 
 
 This was all the answer he got, and such was the look in 
 Featherston's eyes that Whymper arose, almost as if he were 
 being hauled up by a line around his arm-pits. When his long, 
 lean body was nearly straight, he turned his uncommon eye 
 (in which, I am sure, there was an expression of. fierce hate) 
 away from Featherston's, and made for the doorway. Two 
 strides or so and he was at Scotty's side, or near enough for 
 the dirty purpose of making a kick at Tiger, which he did, 
 causing the cat to cry out and scratch Scotty badly in a 
 second dash for the open deck. 
 
 Scarcely was the kick delivered, however, when Feather- 
 ston, quickly placing his pipe in his mouth, stepped forward. 
 Whymper was going more hurriedly for his own side; but 
 Featherston got a hand on his shoulder, hauled him around, 
 then gave him such a blow with the other fist that he dropped 
 in a heap in front of the inner doorway. 
 
 " Now you can get another move on you; an' if you comes 
 in 'ere agen this passage, I'll boot you out, sure as you're a 
 damned Yankee waster," said Featherston, just as. before, 
 and without showing the slightest excitement of any kind. 
 But as he stood there, directly in the light of the paraffin 
 lamp, I could see there was a very devil of determination in 
 his face. 
 
 Then came one of the meanest and in a way most pitiful 
 pieces of vituperation and confession that I have ever heard. 
 Partly sitting and partly lying on the floor, and making no 
 effort to get up, Whymper began, with a vile oath, and in a 
 whining, snarling tone that was detestable, and was made 
 worse by the pitch of his voice, to declare that he was " no 
 Yankee waster, more 'an any other so-so man aboard " that 
 
140 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 "hooker"; He was "a Liverpoolite," he was, "an' as good 
 a Englishman as the next." 
 
 " Then get up an' be English," said Featherston. 
 
 But it was Scotty only who got up, and sat on the chest 
 that had raised the big bump on his head. Meanwhile he 
 dabbed at the freely bleeding scores made by Tiger, and looked 
 down at the sinister, " battle-axe face " of Whymper, who 
 continued to pour out his passionate anathemas, declare him- 
 self " good as the next," and whine that everybody was 
 against him just because he was " not a big husky," and had 
 " alius bin too respectable tu be a low-down boxer." 
 
 Before the second outflow of this Featherston had gone 
 back to his corner, merely repeating his quiet warning to 
 Whymper to " shift " and keep on his own side in future. 
 Chambers and I had not moved from our seats. Scotty arose 
 and went out to look for his pet, and Mc'Arthy followed him. 
 Whymper's vituperation soon tailed off to a disjointed, snarl- 
 ing mutter. Then he scrambled up, went into the port fore- 
 castle and continued the snarling there. Presently Featherston 
 asked me to close the communication door (it opened into our 
 side), which I did, glad to shut out that miserable, biting 
 whine. 
 
 Of course the affair was talked about all through the second 
 dog-watch; and, equally of course, every one agreed that 
 Whymper had only got his due, mostly with some additional 
 opinions that he might in future "be a decent shipmate." 
 I say " every one "; but if Baity expressed himself definitely 
 on the matter it was when he and Featherston were " alone 
 together," as the Irishman said. Another point of interest to 
 me lay in the fact that this action of Whymper's had quite 
 finished the sinister influence that he had been gaining over 
 Scotty. But with regard to Mc'Arthy and Hines: Although 
 they joined others in denouncing Whymper, when he was not 
 there, I had my doubts of their honesty. As for the black eye 
 that Whymper had: When Captain Sennett enquired the 
 cause of it, whilst Whymper was at the wheel next day, the 
 latter said he had fallen against the water-keg ; and there it stood, 
 so far as the master was concerned, because Mr. Willoughby, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 141 
 
 who soon learnt the true reason of the damage, thought it 
 best to leave it there. For a few days I wondered if Whympcr 
 would raise the courage to retaliate in some way or other; 
 but nothing of the kind happened, neither did he come into our 
 side again for weeks afterwards, and never when Featherston 
 was in there. 
 
 . CHAPTER XV 
 
 Mr. Willoughby recounts more of the Doings of Captain Sennett, 
 Mr. Young, Chips and the Cabin-boy. 
 
 You will remember that I said it takes more than fine weather 
 to make men understand one another properly, and how it 
 was a good thing for us not to know what was to come after 
 the ease and contentment we got in the sou'-west trade. 
 
 Well, the smooth running and' general peace of things, in 
 the latter half of the run especially, brought some things out 
 of the Old Man that I hardly thought were in him. I suppose 
 it was the reaction ^after the worries he had suffered during 
 the previous seven or eight months. You see, in the whole of 
 the two voyages before that one, and on the passage out from 
 home that voyage, there hadn't been a single mishap worth 
 mentioning — not of any sort. And I had grown to look on 
 him as just the usual, easy-going skipper of the old school, — 
 that is, whose sole interests were in ships, crews, weathers 
 and cargoes; yet who could put his foot down squarely 
 enough when he thought fit to. 
 
 No, it isn't right to say I hardly thought those things were 
 in him; because if I had looked back a bit and recollected 
 his bent to be a symbolist in some ways — without knowing 
 anything about symbolism — I should have seen the connec- 
 tion in a jiffy. Besides, there was his bent for ideas — thoughts 
 of things out of the common, which he seemed to me to have 
 had always, and which must have been a bit startling to some 
 of the mates who had sailed with him. 
 
 But there it is — for nearly three weeks he was one of the 
 
i 4 2 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 most cheery cap'ns afloat. His brightness from day to day 
 certainly did surprise me; because up to then he had just 
 been pleasant and easy. But during that time he fairly 
 sparkled — scintillated, in fact. And I'm sure if any one had 
 tried to kill him then, or done him any other deadly injury, 
 he would have forgiven them out of hand, never mind what 
 the motives had been. 
 
 Why, look at the case of the boy and the second mate — or, 
 rather, the two cases, because they were separate in a way. 
 Oh, I don't mean another stealing affair, nor anything of 
 the sort. No. You know something of what the imp was for 
 mischief. Well, Young was a very thirsty man — apart from 
 lime-juice. He belonged to the always-hot-and-pumng tribe. 
 He had a shelf across the head of his bunk, where he con- 
 stantly kept a glass of water when he turned in. This was so 
 that he could reach it easily and get a drink, whenever he 
 woke up. But, of course, the glass didn't stand on the shelf; 
 it stood in a hole in the shelf, as all such things do at sea; 
 otherwise they would never stop where you put 'em. 
 
 Well, now, the boy naturally knew of this. So what must 
 he do but bore a hole through the bulkhead between his 
 pantry and Young's berth, right in a line with the glass, and 
 just big enough to get a small wire through ; but not in a line 
 with the glass in its hole, because that wouldn't have worked. 
 No. What the limb of Satan did was to stand the glass on the 
 shelf, close to the side of the hole (the barque being pretty 
 steady, you see, in her movements at the time), and trust to 
 the second mate turning in without noticing it. 
 
 M'm, they say the Devil helps his own to gain their ends. — 
 Don't they? And I believe it's fairly true up to a certain 
 pitch. Then the erring one's guardian angel comes back to 
 duty; the wrongdoer is arrested on his downward way, sees 
 the error of his ways, that is, and goes straight afterwards, 
 unless the guardian angel has another lapse from duty. 
 
 At any rate, this is how the Old Man argued in that. very 
 case. He would have it that we all have one of these guardian 
 angels, every mother's son and daughter of us; only as they 
 are the spirits of departed relatives of the generation before 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 143 
 
 us, or of dead friends of our fathers or mothers, and as the 
 next stage of life to this is not the perfect one, these spiritual 
 guardians of ours are apt to commit what he called " dere- 
 lictions of duty " — you know, what the schoolboy calls 
 " miching.'' In plain words the guardian gets a bee-line on 
 something else, now and then, and finds he has other fish to 
 fry. But when I pointed this out to the Old Man (of course, 
 all in proper seriousness, just as he was putting it) and said 
 that if that was the case there was an end at once to all inde- 
 pendence of action and all blame for doing wrong, he wouldn't 
 agree. Oh, no, he couldn't see that! It was a few of these 
 queer little twists that made me wonder about him two or 
 three times in that sou' -west trade. 
 
 However, the point is that things played into the hands of 
 the young scamp. Right enough — all too right, for that 
 matter — he tipped the water, glass and all, down on to the 
 second mate's face, wallop! — and asleep as he was. Poor 
 beggar must have thought for the moment that the barque 
 was shipping green seas! Anyhow, he had a fine old bump 
 on his forehead where the edge of the glass struck him. 
 
 Well, you bet, Young was out like one John Smith hell-belt 
 for election — at least, he was as soon as he came to his senses 
 properly. Because, although his age was about forty-six, he 
 was one of the soundest -sleeping men I ever came across. 
 At every one-bell it always took him quite rive minutes to 
 come to the fact that he was aboard-ship and called to his 
 watch. You see, what gave the game away was this : When 
 the little imp had pushed the glass over he was in such a 
 hurry to get his wire back that he jammed it in the hole. The 
 consequence was that when Young swung himself up, at the 
 contact of the water, to a sitting position in the bunk, with 
 his legs dangling down outside (always a sailor's first action 
 at such a time), he saw the wriggling wire — couldn't avoid 
 seeing it. 
 
 So down he jumps (two and two were four, as they've been 
 all through to common-sense); into the pantry he goes, 
 barefooted and making no noise; collars Master Practical 
 Joker by the scruff of his neck, and cuffs his ears till the imp 
 
i 4 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 yells blue murder for help and mercy. You see, he had 
 counted on the usual happening — his getting away until the 
 victim cooled down, then a useless Chase, or a missile, and a 
 patched-up peace. Besides, no doubt in this case the boy 
 had reckoned on having some extra latitude, for the simple 
 reason that he and his victim had been equally guilty in 
 those past offences, as I believe he had done in previous 
 jokes played on the second mate. 
 
 But in squaring up his log beforehand (always a bad 
 habit, unless you're clever enough to make events to fit) he 
 forgot to allow for Young's possibility of flaring up at once — 
 or, rather, of Young getting hold of him while the temper 
 was up. 
 
 Anyhow, the cuffing went on long enough for the Old Man 
 to arrive and effect a rescue — it was in the afternoon, and the 
 O. M. was tying on the settee in his berth. I was on the poop 
 at the time, and heard the hullaballoo; but, as I detected 
 such words as " Let me go! " among the " Oh's! " etc., and 
 knew the voice they were in, I surmised what was taking 
 place. Well, it appeared from what I gathered out of the 
 affair, that the second mate was still wild enough to put it to 
 the Old Man so forcibly that he told the young beggar he had 
 only got what he deserved, and threatened that if he ever did 
 such a thing again he would get — oh, I don't know what, 
 main-trucked, keel-hauled, or something of the sort. 
 
 This, you see, was where the guardian angel went back to 
 his duty, and kept his charge in order for a week or so — a 
 much longer time than ever before, aboard the Sappho, at 
 any rate. But, then, the O. M. had never before gone against 
 him like that, and never promised him hard punishment. 
 And you mustn't forget that, in his way, the boy had some 
 real affection for the Old Man. .After all, I was a bit sorry for 
 the boy sometimes — that is, when he was satisfied with 
 tricks in which there was no real devilment — because he had 
 so little scope for his mischief. There were only the cook and 
 the second mate and the cat for him to exercise his animal 
 spirits on. He never attempted them on me, nor on Chips 
 either, since Chips gave him the drubbing for peppering his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 145 
 
 pillow. And somehow or other he understood that he wasn't 
 to have any truck of any sort with the men. He didn't go 
 near them, and that was a sort of virtue with him. 
 
 As I put it to the cap'n in the little talk we had on the 
 matter, when he brought out his notion of the guardian angel 
 and that (while I kept the poop in the first dog-watch, for 
 Young to superintend the clearing up of the day's work), 
 that boy's spiritual mentor must have been one of the scally- 
 wags of the next world. He ought to have been thoroughly 
 ashamed of himself, I said — if there was sex in that state of 
 life, and it was a he; and, naturally, that must be the case, 
 seeing how indelicate it would be now and then if a female 
 spirit was set to look* after a harum-scarum male on this side 
 of the Great Secret. I had a hard job to keep a straight face 
 in it all; yet I managed it. 
 
 But that wasn't the end of the affair between the second 
 mate and the boy — at least, there was a sequel to it; that 
 was what I meant by the two separate cases. It appeared 
 that in the second dog-watch (when I was on duty, and the 
 O. M. walked the poop with me, settling the fate of the 
 universe, generally, and, as I say, particularly during that 
 happy respite of ours, just as he did for the first hour or so, 
 when I had the eight-to-twelve watch at night, and the 
 weather was fine) Young went along to see Chips about some- 
 thing ; and in his heavy, lumbering way Chips began to chaff 
 him about the trick the boy had played on him. 
 
 Well, that was a sort of thing Young couldn't stand much 
 of. So what does the fool do but fire up, and talk of punching 
 Chips on the head ; and as one was as short of humour as the 
 other, there were some lively compliments. Then it seems 
 that Young — who was standing on the outside of the door- 
 way, while the carpenter sat just inside — grabbed Chips by 
 the collar, suddenly, and hauled him on deck. 
 
 Now they were both big, strong fellows, with a good deal 
 of the animal about 'em; and if it hadn't been for the Old 
 Man hurrying down the poop-ladder at once and running to 
 them, there would have been some serious business, you may 
 be sure. But the O. M. got there in time to part 'em before 
 
 K 
 
146 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 any real damage was done, mostly by the weight of his 
 authority, of course. And I don't think that would have 
 been of much use, if they had fairly got to grips, because 
 they were both as hard-headed as scupper-nails. 
 
 Naturally, I was at his heels, in case he wanted help; in 
 fact, I pulled Young away, and held on to him, as the Old 
 Man did with Chips, till they began to cool down under the 
 outflow of his fatherly remonstrances. And, my word, didn't 
 he pour it out ! He was never in finer trim in all his life for 
 that business. I shall remember it to my dying day. The way 
 he pitched into those two grown men, bearded, and each of 
 'em with a sleeping devil of his own, just as if they were 
 two boys 
 
 I tell you, when you had a sense of humour to bring to 
 bear on it, it was as good as a comedy. It was all I could do 
 to keep from laughing outright. As it was, I soon went back 
 to the poop, laughing to myself. The end of it was they both 
 promised the skipper that neither of 'em would ever be the 
 first to make trouble again, so long as they sailed with him. 
 He told me just afterwards (and Lionel here backed it up 
 later on, when I knew who he was; because he and some 
 others had come flocking to see what the fracas was about) — 
 he told me that " when the second mate made his promise 
 there were actually tears in his voice." But Chips was made 
 of sterner stuff — I mean he was more wooden. 
 
 This was when the O. M. joined me again on the poop. As 
 he came up the ladder I was afraid he would begin to com- 
 plain again that his bad luck was coming back ; and if he did, 
 a ship to a rope-yarn it would be good-bye to the dearly 
 beloved cheeriness of the past two weeks. But, bless your 
 life, he did nothing of the sort. True as I'm here, he came up 
 to me with a laugh — or, at least, a chuckle — and began at 
 once to say what children men are one time with another. 
 Then, having told me how Chips and Young had made it up, 
 he out with the idea — not in a heavy way ; all his talk during 
 those weeks was bright, whatever the subject was — he out 
 with the idea that Young, the boy, Chips, and all others who 
 made trouble of one sort or another, were " just going through 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 147 
 
 Nature's process of squeezin' out." Nature was " just squeezin' 
 their natural evil out of 'em, till by-an'-by there would be 
 only good stuff left; like wine's made by squeezin' the juice 
 out, only the other way about," he said. . 
 
 Well, that was how he talked more or less every day. And 
 what a relief it was from the worrying and fretting that I'd 
 had to put up with for months! I knew long before that I 
 liked the Old Man — there was so much in him to like — and 
 the time was to come when I should pity him as I had never 
 pitied anything in my life. But the brotherly sort of love 
 that I felt for him, and began when I got the queer glimpse 
 into the man himself, as he sat at the table in the saloon that 
 time, I'm sure it was made strong and lasting during the 
 bright time we spent from the Doldrums till we ran out of 
 the sou'-west trade, and the bad weather and other evil 
 things set in. 
 
 As usual we fetched the higher latitudes well away to the 
 west, much further west than we had reckoned on. This 
 gave us more easting to run down, 1 and we started into it, 
 with the O. M.'s temperamental thermometer still running 
 high. 
 
 But on the third or fourth day, as we tore away through 
 it all, there came up astern that solitary, blackish bird, with 
 the oblique, white, broad stripe on each wing, and I knew 
 we were in for heavy weather. It's a biggish bird, that's only 
 seen in cold latitudes, never when others are about — I mean 
 birds of other sorts; because I don't think two of its own 
 sort have ever been seen together, not out at sea, at any rate. 
 It's, always seen on the edge of an area of unusual hard 
 weather. It's got a rather ugly, sinister look; and I never 
 came across any one that knew its name. 
 
 As I stood aft, looking at the bird, and wishing to Heaven 
 it hadn't put in its appearance — not from superstition, but 
 from common, seafaring knowledge — the Old Man came on 
 
 1 When a sailing vessel is coming around the Horn or going around 
 1he Cape she always has a spell of "running the easting down" — 
 i.e., running before a strong westerly wind that never changes, except 
 in force. By this the vessel rapidly lessens her westerly longitude. 
 
148 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 deck, saw what I was gazing at, and said, more gloomily than 
 he had spoken for quite two- or three-and-twenty days, 
 
 '-' Yes, we're in for it — I suppose." 
 
 " Yes, sir, likely enough, seeing that we have to get round 
 the Horn yet/' said I, putting on some extra cheeriness to 
 counteract his gloom. " But, thank goodness, we've got a good 
 ship to do it in! " 
 
 " Ah, yes, Mr. Willoughby," he answered, " she's a dear. 
 She's been a home and a sort of wife to me these many years 
 now. But, y' know, I sometimes wonder lately if I shall ever 
 get her home again." 
 
 Naturally, I tried my utmost to talk this out of him; but 
 the best I could get in reply was, 
 
 " Of course, it's only a silly notion I've got hold of some- 
 'ow; still it's there now and then, and I'm afraid it's gettin' 
 more an' more hold on me. It's that dream I think, really, 
 y' know ; it gets a hold on me many a time w'en I say nothing 
 to you about it; and I can't get it out of me head that it 
 means something very important to me some'ow. P'r'aps the 
 Andersons have gone broke, and I've lost me bit of money. — 
 You can't tell." 
 
 He turned away to the weather side, and I knew I was in 
 for another spell of complaining, and possibly still useless 
 efforts to find a satisfactory reading of the dream. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Lionel's Description of " running the easting down " and of a regrettable 
 Occurrence. 
 
 The bird mentioned by Mr. Willoughby was seen by the men, 
 as a matter of course. Mc'Arthy, who was always ready with 
 " enlightenment " on any unfamiliar subject (only the others 
 would have it that it was more misleading than informing), said 
 it was a " Cape Horn Petrel," which he probably borrowed 
 from Stormy Petrel. But when Featherston quietly announced 
 that he had " scores o' times seen the same bird in North 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 149 
 
 Atlantic winters an' off the Cape," Mc'Arthy said no more on 
 that subject. The general name given to it by the forecastle 
 hands was " Ugly Duckling." 
 
 They also knew it as the herald of bad weather; but I 
 could not see that it caused them any uneasiness. It seems 
 to me that the sea makes two kinds of men, philosophers and 
 pessimists ; and as Whymper was the only real pessimist we 
 had, it will easily be seen that the hard work to come was 
 looked forward to with a good deal of equanimity. A few 
 words here and there, such as Mr. Willoughby says Captain 
 Sennet t said, were all that were given to the bird and its un- 
 welcome message. It was something that had to be faced, 
 therefore what was the good of talking about it ? 
 
 Nor did even Whymper do much growling on the matter. 
 Since the day when Featherston knocked him down for kicking 
 the cat he had talked comparatively little to any one except 
 Mc'Arthy and Hines, and — so far as I learnt — not nearly so 
 much to them as he had done before that occasion. In which 
 fact I found my own satisfaction. Nor had he been into our 
 side more than two or three times since then, and not once 
 when Featherston was there. But if his personal influence was 
 practically gone, I am sorry to say another kind was not — I 
 mean that of his yarn. Since then 1 had gathered amongst the 
 men that none of them had previously heard of the super- 
 stition; all the same for that, however, most of them fully 
 believed it, Featherston as much as any one. 
 
 Undoubtedly Whymper was a changed man, for the time 
 being, at least, if not permanently so — ■" permanently " if 
 he had lived, I mean. And no wonder, seeing that he 
 had been twice deeply humiliated in about six weeks — each 
 time defeated with what may be called one action, and he 
 taking it without retaliation. No man — not even light-minded 
 Mc'Arthy — could stand up against that and be the same all 
 along. For myself, I pitied the poor beggar; and I believe 
 Scotty, and, for that matter, most of the others, did the same, 
 to some extent. But there is no denying that both Featherston 
 and Baily had more contempt than pity for the man. Although 
 I daresay that even they would have looked on him with more 
 
150 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 kindness, if they had known how soon and tragically he was 
 to leave us. 
 
 However, before the happening of that sad event Baily 
 himself became an object of compassion. Not that he received 
 much sympathy from Hines, Mc'Arthy, Chambers or Booster, 
 all of whom had what I had learnt was the usual forecastle 
 attitude towards a sick man — that is, that he was getting an 
 easy time at their expense, as they were having to do his work. 
 Featherston would, no doubt, have been one with them, but 
 for his chumminess with Baily. And I suppose that Smiley, 
 Scotty and I would have belonged to the majority, were it 
 not that we were scarcely of the usual forecastle make. Still, 
 there must be odd ones, surely, in every group — I mean, men 
 of our kind in every " for'ard crowd." Of Whymper I make 
 no mention, further than to say you will know his feelings in 
 the matter without being told. 
 
 As to the weather : It was not bad at first, because we went 
 along for a couple of days under the same amount of canvas. 
 True, the wind blew pretty hard ; but it was aftj therefore the 
 Sappho raced along splendidly. Besides, the seas were not 
 high at the start ; and as she was such a fine sea-craft, it was a 
 positive treat to me to see the way she rushed onward through 
 the dark bluey-green of what I looked on as big seas, though 
 in reality they were not. The . beautiful blue of the higher 
 Pacific was gone. Still, it was a return of the exhilaration that 
 I had felt on leaving Frisco. Ail there was needed to make it 
 thoroughly enjoyable to me was warm weather in place of 
 the cold; for cold it was, indeed, and bitterly so at nights. 
 This was why our bogie-stoves had been fetched out of the 
 fore-peak and set up in the forecastles, making the places 
 sometimes too hot for comfort and at other times full of smoke. 
 
 Then came the first shortening of sail, not a great deal on 
 that occasion. We took only the royals and the lighter fore- 
 and-aft sails off her. Perhaps some masters would have taken 
 in the fore-top-gallant-sail and reefed the spanker. Because, 
 according to the way the men talked, Captain Sennett was 
 rather carrying on at the time. But I was in nowise appre- 
 hensive; my point of view being that he knew his ship far 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 151 
 
 better than they could possibly know her. In addition, I had 
 not their prejudices, even though I lacked their experiences; 
 and it was enough for me to believe in him, as he was in 
 authority and a tried man. 
 
 Further still, I loved to see her going. You must remember 
 that up to then there had been no accident since we started 
 the racing, neither had the barque shipped any water heavier 
 than sprays. Another thing, the first half of the night was 
 moonlit again. And that not only made work easier whilst the 
 moon was up ; it appeared considerably to lessen what danger 
 there was. More still, to my mind, it gave to that scene of 
 wind and water turmoil a beauty in which I revelled. Now I 
 felt afresh that I was truly going home in our Sappho, and 
 going like a racehorse for the winning-post. One thing I 
 wanted, however, to make my enjoyment complete, and in 
 addition to warmth, was some one to share the feeling with 
 me. On the other hand, I still found much pleasure in the 
 secret of my identity. In fact, the new exhilaration had brought 
 back that joy with fresh vigour. 
 
 This was the first time I saw the Ancient Mariner's fatal 
 bird; but it — a "white" albatross — was at a distance, and 
 it did not come near enough to give me a good view before 
 it was off again. However, there was one of the smaller 
 variety near us, one of the kind that I subsequently put 
 down to be the female birds. But I did not think much of it, 
 ten feet though it was probably from tip to tip. Only the 
 under sides of its wings were white. It was brown otherwise, 
 and quite disappointing to me. Still, I was assured that I 
 should get other opportunities. 
 
 Of Cape Hens there were plenty — a splendid flyer, always 
 planing, with the wind or against it, about the size of a wood- 
 pigeon, with a black head, white under its body, and all else 
 a rich brown. It had scarcely any tail. 
 
 Mother Carey's Chickens were also plentiful. They fluttered 
 around the Sappho's stern, just above the surface of the 
 water, apparently finding food in the water that was churned 
 up by the vessel's progress. Rather larger than a blackbird, 
 they seem to be about the smallest real, ocean-going bird 
 
152 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 there is. They are of a blackish brown, faintly speckled with 
 white; the tail and head are practically black. So that with 
 the white band encircling the body near the tail, they are 
 such quaint-looking things that one does not wonder at old- 
 time sailors considering them as heralds of bad weather. I 
 was not then aware that these birds, or some of their tribe, 
 would keep us company from there to Capricorn. 
 
 Then the troubles began. The first was when we reduced 
 sail again, at the end of the afternoon watch on the fourth 
 day. As the watch-out— the mate's — had got everything in 
 readiness, we soon put the barque under about half of her 
 usual canvas. The work aloft was finished just before dark- 
 ness fell — or, rather, the moonlight began. 
 
 But when we started to clear up the decks, in haste to go 
 to tea, it was found that " Denis," * the pig, had got free and 
 was running and slipping about the decks. It seemed that, 
 unintentionally, of course, he had poked his snout between 
 the bars of his sty and pushed the wooden pin up out of the 
 hasp, thus causing the door to swing open. So we had to drop 
 the coiling-up at once, and chase him back to his proper 
 place, for fear a sea should come aboard, catch him in its 
 hurly-burly, and do him an injury. 
 
 However, it was not him that suffered, but Baily. In 
 making an effort to turn the pig by the mainmast, he stepped 
 on an eye-bolt in the deck and went over in a heavy leeward 
 heave of the barque, with his foot inwards. None of us 
 noticed him at the moment, and he was not the man to call 
 out under the circumstances. We found him sitting there, on 
 returning to the coiling-up, after putting " Denis " back 
 into his sty. 
 
 Baily said his ankle was too painful for him to stand up. 
 So we proceeded to get him to the forecastle, whilst some one 
 ran aft to tell the mate, who had gone back to the poop as 
 soon as the important part of the work was done. This was 
 under the orders of Mr. Young, who nearly carried Baily 
 forward. 
 
 1 " Denis " is the name that is always given to a pig on board a 
 sailing ship. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 153 
 
 (And, in the interval of waiting, in a sense, for the coming 
 of authority, I will take this opportunity of saying that I 
 don't think Mr. Willoughby quite does justice to the second 
 mate. This may be because he saw the man from a different 
 angle — from the inner circle of the officer, I mean, which was 
 naturally prejudiced by those " derelictions from duty " that 
 had happened in the cabin. 
 
 My view of him was that of an observer — a young one, 
 certainly, but an observer, all the same — who saw the man's 
 actions and his dealings with men and circumstances from 
 watch to watch, day and night. And, apart from his stealing 
 the food, and that, which I put down to an abnormal appetite 
 and his natural lack of thought, Young was not a bad sort of 
 fellow at all. True, he blundered; but it was out of impulse. 
 He was always in too great a hurry to do whatever needed to 
 be done. That was really his outstanding fault — he rushed 
 in, did a thing, and thought about it afterwards. 
 
 But he was just as full of impulsive kindness. After one 
 strenuous piece of work, he never failed to give his men a 
 spell before tackling another. He was just the same about hot 
 coffee for us, whenever it could be had, in those terribly bitter 
 nights off the Horn; and I am sure he often took less than 
 his share when it was short, because of the grumbling, stingy 
 cook not leaving enough coffee out, or the previous watch 
 having taken more than their share, or some other cause of 
 shortage. [By the way, I understand that the sea-cook who 
 does not grumble is quite a rarity.] And when " a man with 
 a belly," as Mr. Willoughby calls it, pinches himself for his 
 men, there is not much the matter with the humane side 
 of him. 
 
 In fact, Young was a man of this sort : If he were hurrying 
 along a road on a matter of importance to himself, something 
 to his benefit if done at once, and he came upon an injured 
 man; on the spur of the moment he would push the crowd 
 apart, throw the man on to his shoulder — without a word as 
 to what the injuries were— and hasten away with him to the 
 nearest doctor, possibly to find that he had finished the man 
 off in his hurry to do him a good turn.) 
 
154 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 However, by the time we had got Baily into the forecastle 
 and were debating about taking his boot off (a sea-boot, but 
 fortunately of rubber; the second mate would have had it 
 off at once, if Baily had not stopped him), in came Captain 
 Sennett, not Mr. Willoughby. Smiley and I were selected 
 haphazardly to lend a hand, the others being dismissed to 
 clear-up decks. 
 
 At first the captain thought Baily' s ankle was broken ; and 
 although he evidently strove to keep sympathy the prominent 
 note in his voice, I felt sure that I detected keen disappoint- 
 ment when he said this. At any rate, his face fell at it. Of 
 course, he was thinking, if that should be the case, of his 
 crew being a hand short for months to come, and possibly 
 of some dreadful complications in the fracture. Then he 
 brightened up, ventured the hopeful half-belief that it was 
 only a severe sprain, and left Smiley and me to get Baily 
 undressed and into bed, whilst he himself went aft for 
 bandages and remedies. 
 
 That evening I was taken off watch and put on day-work. 
 This was done to equalise the watches, during the time Baily 
 was laid up. But I was not to have the whole of every night 
 in my bunk. On the contrary, I had to be one of the " crowd " 
 whenever it was a case of all hands make or shorten sail, or 
 any other urgent work at night-time. 
 
 With the morning, when the swelling had gone down some- 
 what, we were all more or less relieved — Whymper alone 
 excepted — to learn that Baily's ankle was not broken; and 
 that, at the worst, he would not be more than two or three 
 weeks off duty. 
 
 As to Whymper: It appeared that- during the forenoon 
 watch that day (his watch on deck) and whilst my watch 
 was asleep, he went into their side, ostensibly to get a chew 
 of tobacco ; but, some of the men declared, really to vent his 
 spite on Baily, knowing, of course, that the other could not 
 retaliate. Whether that was so or not, he certainly said some- 
 thing very bitter and sneering to Baily. Perhaps working in 
 his subconsciousness there was some kind of foreknowledge 
 — not strong enough to be a premonition — that his days 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 155 
 
 amongst us were so limited as to prevent Baily from ever 
 making more than a verbal return. From what I could learn 
 of the matter, however, the victim did not even do that at 
 the time. 
 
 But if Baily could not respond in the accepted ways of the 
 sea, Whymper might have remembered that Featherston 
 could, and was likely to do so. If Whymper was not actuated 
 by the foreknowledge I have mentioned, then one can only 
 suppose that he did go in for the tobacco and gave way to a 
 sudden feeling of venom. I never heard what the words were, 
 because Baily repeated them to no one except Featherston, 
 and he was almost as silent on the subject as Baily was. He 
 did, however, threaten Whymper to give him " a lay-out " 
 if he said another wrong word to Baily whilst the latter was 
 laid up, and there the matter ended. 
 
 The only difference that I saw between the two chums, up 
 to that time, was that Baily seemed to have no temper at all. 
 His equanimity was never broken. Just as when he threw 
 Whymper out of the forecastle, he did everything coolly. 
 The only changes of mood he appeared to have were light and 
 deep seriousness, with a few shades in between. On the other 
 hand, Featherston could become pretty angry at times; but 
 it was always with a kind of sleeping fire underneath, as if 
 one saw only the smoke of the furnace. 
 
 Then the disaster happened — that is, taking it in its turn 
 as one of the notable events of the passage. It was two days 
 later than Baily's accident, again at the end of the afternoon- 
 watch; or at half-past three, to be exact; the watch being 
 called out then because of the work that had to be done 
 before night came on. 
 
 The wind had freshened to what seemed to me to be a 
 stiffish gale. And although it was a grand, inspiring sight — 
 certainly with a considerable degree of the awful in it, to a 
 novice like me, at any rate — to see the barque go careening 
 along through the great waves as she did, with masses of 
 foam around her, now poised in a way on the top of a sea, 
 then down in the hollow between two of them, and looking 
 as if the next one would come rolling right over her, yards 
 
156 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 deep on her decks — I say that in spite of my appreciation of 
 the grandeur of this, I was glad of the order to shorten sail. 
 
 By this time I had become somewhat accustomed to the 
 running seas, and had considerable faith — and pride in the 
 fact — that the barque would not let any of them come aboard 
 her. Still, to tell the truth, I was decidedly afraid that either 
 a spar or a sail would go in one of the heavy puffs of wind — 
 for the breeze was not steady — then something worse happen, 
 perhaps, as a sequel. 
 
 Well, we began the work all right; and soon afterwards 
 we heard Baily playing the " witch-fiddle," sitting up in his 
 bunk, no doubt, to play it. We knew it was not a gramophone 
 reproduction; the notes were too loud, full and far-reaching 
 for that. Seeing that all hands were out, Baily knew that no 
 one would be disturbed by the music; and possibly he was 
 yielding to an overpowering desire to hear again, and hear 
 properly, the instrument that brought him back some prized 
 scenes and recollections, and which, as I subsequently dis- 
 covered, he loved with all the quiet depth of his nature. 
 
 We were getting in the fore-upper-topsail at the time; so 
 that some of the wonderful pathos and sweetness of the 
 music was carried up to us by the wind. I was up on the 
 yard, and it was the volume of sound reaching us that made 
 me decide at once that Baily was not playing the gramophone. 
 In fact, we, especially those who were working on deck, lost 
 so little of its characteristics, that the usual " Aye-ho's! " 
 etc., of hauling men were interspersed by remarks on the 
 music; some of them being uneasy, swear-word wonderings 
 why Baily was giving us those " ghost-," or " sweet-cat-, 
 noises" at such a time; whilst others showed tha.t the 
 ^speakers enjoyed the music and wished it to continue. 
 Whymper snarled, 
 
 " Yes, the mean-gutted rat, he ken jig-saw that un'ory thing 
 now till he busts it, now he's laid up. But 'e wouldn't give a 
 twang of its blasted strings fer me w'en I was laid up ! " And 
 more to the same effect, wherever he went, providing that 
 Featherston was not near. 
 
 We had finished shortening forward, stowed the reduced 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 157 
 
 spanker, set the main-staysail in its place (so that the vessel 
 would still steer all right), and were taking in the main-upper- 
 topsail, when the sad occurrence happened. 
 
 Whatever work was being done Whymper was nearly 
 always at the tail-end of it. I would not say that he did not 
 put the most of his weight on — never all of it — when he got 
 there; but he was usually the last to arrive, with the excep- 
 tion of stowing a square sail. To get the easiest part of that 
 he would have had to be first up the rigging when the order 
 was given, which he hardly ever could be, because of being a 
 " tail-ender." The last to go aloft on that work are those who 
 get the heaviest, the bunt — i.e. the bulk of the sail in the 
 middle. Whymper generally managed to avoid that, how- 
 ever, by putting on a little spurt, which brought him up 
 there about the fourth, when it was a case of all hands. 
 
 On that occasion he drew his long, lean length into the 
 rigging at my side but a little below me, just as Baily began 
 to sing some wild, sweet Hawaiian song, the most of which 
 came out to us in that fine tenor voice of his. This drew 
 another growl from Whymper ; and I raced away up, leaving 
 him to grumble to some one else. I was not aware at the 
 moment that Featherston was the next, to whom he, of 
 course, would not growl. 
 
 When he arrived on the yard the weather side had its 
 complement of men; so that, with Featherston immediately 
 behind him, he was pushed along, in a way, to the lee- 
 yard-arm, well over the watery hurly-burly — a position that 
 many men don't like, but one that suited Whymper next to 
 the weather-yard-arm, because it was the second easiest 
 place on the yard. 
 
 It was twilight then, with the moon showing fitfully 
 between masses of heavy clouds, and Baily's song still reach- 
 ing us, with faint touches of the music now and then. It was 
 my first turn on a yard in a really strong breeze. And I shall 
 never forget the feeling; the bitter cold; the rush and roar 
 of the seas; the racing of the barque; the pull and strain of 
 the forward sails; the up-and-down heave of that great 
 wind-bag at our numbed hands, and the general, dim, grand 
 
158 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 wildness of the whole scene. When I looked at the great, 
 mad seas, realised how frail the barque was to them and 
 remembered the intensity of the cold, the danger and the 
 general discomfort of it all, for a moment I wished that I had 
 gone home in the stereotyped way. Then the sort of glory of 
 it came back. I heard Baily's song and music again; and I 
 wet my fingers, got a hold on the sail and pulled at the lusty 
 " Aye-aye-ho! " of the second mate in by the mast. 
 
 We had got the bunt almost on to the yard and were 
 gathering our energies for the final pull, when up from the 
 lee-side there came an awful shriek in Whymper's thin and 
 naturally high-pitched voice". Like the others, I turned my 
 face instantly that way. I can see it all now, without shutting 
 my eyes. It was awful. 
 
 Somehow or other he had lost his hold and slipped off the' 
 footrope. The general opinion afterwards was that he had- 
 " bin foolin' about with the gasket." 1 That is, instead of 
 " laying in " — coming nearer to the middle, as Featherston 
 had — and helping to roll the sail on to the yard, he had prob- 
 ably pulled on it with one hand, whilst with the other he 
 worked at getting the gasket ready. 
 
 However it was, when I looked his way, there the poor 
 beggar was — falling, with the end of the gasket in his hand. 
 He must have shouted the moment he felt himself going. I 
 saw him turn over as he struck the pennant of the main-brace. 
 The gasket was torn out of his hand at the same instant. He 
 shrieked again and was gone, head-first into the darkening, 
 seething, ice-cold turmoil under our lee. I almost lost my hold 
 in trying to watch the spot where he disappeared. 
 
 Then by a big shout the second mate brought us all back to 
 the necessity of the moment. At the same instant the wind 
 brought us up an order from the mate to secure the topsail 
 where it was and hurry down. We gave the sail a spasmodic 
 tug that rolled it up to its place, whipped around it a few turns 
 of the gaskets, got the bunt one made fast, and went to the 
 decks — some of us going like a party of frightened monkeys. 
 For myself : My previous experiences had not risen to this — the 
 1 A short piece of line to hold the stowed sail on its yard. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 159 
 
 loss of a man in such a scene of Nature's savagery — and I was 
 filled with horror. 
 
 Hines and Scotty, I believe, were much the same. Yet I was 
 not so numbed by the happening that I failed to note the kind 
 of ironic requiem that Baily was playing and singing un- 
 consciously to his enemy. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Wherein the Mate shows how Captain Sennett took the Loss of a Man. 
 
 In one way it was a jolly good job that the Old Man was below 
 when Whymper fell. He had gone down to fill-up and light 
 his pipe, because with a following wind there was no shelter in 
 the companion. But if he had been on deck, it's a moral 
 certainty he would have tried some crack-brained effort, such 
 as snatching a life-buoy and jumping after him. Then we 
 should have lost two men instead of one — or, at least, one real 
 man and a piece of one, and the piece a bad un at that. 
 
 I'm not going to mince the matter or gloze it over; there's 
 no need to. So I say at once that Whymper was no great loss. 
 A decent youth in his place would have been a gain in the 
 work; and I know, besides having Lionel's word for it, that his 
 going was beneficial to life in the fo'c's'le. And if any exces- 
 sive humanitarian wants to make me think it's a sad thing for 
 such a man to die, then, whoever he is, he's going to tackle a 
 pretty tough job, except — it's a sad thing for such a man, 
 because it is so for any man, to die in such a way. In himself 
 he was no good to life, and wherever he happened to be he 
 was bound to make matters worse for the people about him. 
 
 However, I had superintended the work from the break of 
 the poop, where I was still standing, watching the men and 
 keeping an eye on things generally. So I saw Whymper fall, 
 and began to raise bobs-a-dinah right away, just as I should 
 have done for any man, although I knew in my heart that all 
 efforts to save him were hopeless. 
 
 As Lionel has said, I shouted first to the second mate to 
 
160 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 secure the sail where it was and hurry down — " tumble down " 
 were my words, a common expression at such a time aboard- 
 ship. Inside of tenseconds of that I had snatched alife-buoy from 
 its hook and flung it over the quarter, as near as,I could heave 
 it to where Whymper had gone under. But I couldn't see any- 
 thing of him, which I should have done in that mass of foam, 
 if he had come up again within reasonable time. I could only 
 hope — as I did — that in striking the main-brace pennant he 
 had injured himself enough to make him unconscious. Then 
 I ran to the companion and yelled down, 
 
 " Man overboard, sir! Man overboard! " 
 
 And up came the cap'n, nearly quick enough to knock me 
 out of the way. He must have been in the semi-darkness at 
 the bottom of the steps when I shouted. 
 
 " AYhere, where? " he cried, staring about. 
 
 " From the topsel-yard, lee-side! I've thrown a life-buoy 
 at the spot; but he hasn't come up! " I replied. 
 
 " Get the men down at once ! Let the sail go, Mr.Willoughby ! 
 Up helm! — Up with it! " he ordered, hurrying to the wheel. 
 
 " But we mustn't wear ship till the men are at the braces, 
 sir! " said I. 
 
 To put out a boat would have been throwing* it and the 
 men away. He turned and looked at the main, so did I. The 
 men were coming down hand-over-fist, some of 'em sliding 
 down the back-stays fast enough to burn their hands with the 
 friction. The Old Man repeated his order to the helmsman. 
 I saw he was right, as the men were ready for the new job; 
 so I left him to the poop, and started for my duties on the 
 main-deck. As I went down the ladder, he ran to the top of 
 it and shouted to the men in the waist, 
 
 " Go tell that man to stop his music at once ! — quick, now ! " 
 And some one went to Baily. 
 
 I don't think any ship afloat ever wore round in less time 
 than we did. The barque was in beautiful trim; you could 
 have done nearly anything with her — in half the wind and sea 
 there were then. That was the trouble — that, and the fact 
 that we had to get back in the teeth of the breeze. She had 
 about half as much more canvas on her as she ought to have 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 161 
 
 had to come up close-hauled in that weather. But the Old 
 Man knew this just as well as I did; and if he had forgotten it 
 for the moment, he would soon have it flung at him again — 
 which he did. 
 
 Up she came, and lay over under the press of canvas she 
 carried. Her way was practically stopped. She was only 
 driving to lu'ard, like a log; with the probability of a sail or 
 a spar going at any moment, or a big sea coming aboard and 
 carrying away something below. But, of course, it wasn't for 
 me to offer advice, and it wasn't wanted. As I was telling the 
 men to stand by for a sea, the order came, 
 
 " Clew up the foresel ! " 
 
 " Well," I said to myself, as the men skurried for'ard to the 
 clewlines and that, "if he means to persist in this hopeless 
 game, that's the only thing to do — get some of this clout off her. 
 But, my God, we want fifty men to do it in time, and here we 
 have nine! " This was including Young^nd the carpenter. 
 
 That sail would have taken us half an hour to an hour to get 
 in, and it wasn't the only one to serve in the same way. Then, 
 after all the pulling and hauling, what would the barque have 
 done? — a mile, if not two, to lu'ard for every one ahead. 
 Besides, it would have been impossible to tack her in that 
 wind and sea; which meant that we should have had to 
 wear ship every time we wanted to get on the other tack — 
 run down to lu'ard, when all the time our object was to get 
 away up in the wind's eye. Meanwhile darkness was thicken- 
 ing, and our chance of spotting Whymper was about one in 
 a hundred, or less, even if he had come up again and was 
 keeping alive in that ice-cold water. However, circumstances 
 settled it all for us ; though I think the Old Man must have 
 weighed these things up in his mind before the next order 
 came. 
 
 The men had manned the lee-clewline, and Young was 
 easing off the sheet, when up at the break of the fo'c's'le- 
 head rose a big, green sea. From my place on the weather-side 
 I saw it, yelled to the men, " Look out! Scaldings! " 1 and 
 
 1 " Scaldings " is the word that is used to give warning of water 
 being about to break aboard. 
 L 
 
162 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 down it dropped, making the barque shiver fore and aft. It 
 broke on the foremast, pig-sty and fo'c's'le. 
 
 Under the shelter of the weather-bulwarks, in the waist, I 
 got only the fringe of it. But I was afraid that something 
 serious might have happened on the lee-side, where the 
 hands were, and the force of the sea had gone, and I thought 
 I had heard the crack of breaking wood. So I hurried along 
 there, to find presently, much to my satisfaction, that the 
 men were safe, although some of them were knocked about 
 and hurt a bit. Half the front of the sty was gone, besides a 
 hole in the lee-end of it big enough for " Denis " to go through 
 sideways. But, for a good job, he hadn't; he was bunched up 
 at the weather-end, grunting, and wondering, p'r'aps, what 
 the dickens was the matter. Another thing I was pleased to 
 find was that the second mate had secured the fore-sheet 
 again, before the sea washed him along the deck, thus pre- 
 venting the clew from flapping about and probably doing 
 some damage to the sail. How he had managed it, with 
 all its pull on it and in that short time, I don't know; but, 
 to do him justice, it was more than most men would have 
 done. 
 
 While I was ascertaining these things, the Old Man was 
 shouting to know if the hands were safe, what the damage 
 was, etc. I yelled back that I didn't know yet; but he kept 
 up his shouts, by which I knew he was getting nervy. So, 
 soon as possible, I hurried aft and yelled as to what I'd 
 ascertained. His reply was, 
 
 "Never mind the foresel! Stand by to trim the yards! 
 We'll wear ship agen! " 
 
 That was enough for mej and mighty pleased I was with it. 
 But if ever there was sad resignation in a man's voice, it was 
 in our Old Man's when he said, " We'll wear ship agen." By 
 that tone I knew his heart was nearly breaking. I called the 
 hands aft at once, in case another sea came aboard, and had 
 no sooner shouted the order, than one came, sending them 
 all skurrying to the after-deck. Happily, however, it wasn't 
 anything like so big as the first one; and as the barque soon 
 paid off and gathered way again, we were not troubled with 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 163 
 
 any more. Just before the Old Man gave the order to slack 
 away lee-braces, he leaned over the poop-rail and asked, with 
 sorrow in his voice, 
 
 " Which one was it, Mr. Willoughby? " 
 
 " Whymper, sir," said I, knowing what he meant. 
 
 " Poor fellow! " he said. " Ease away an' trim as smartly 
 as you can." 
 
 Well, we got back to our course, just as darkness set in 
 proper. I recollect that one of the men had to hold a lantern 
 for Chips, while he nailed some old canvas over the broken 
 part of the pig-sty till morning. And I supposed that the 
 reason why " Denis " didn't take his opportunity to break 
 out, was because the two seas and the smashing-up had 
 scared him too much. One thing that showed me how the Old 
 Man was taking the unfortunate affair, he didn't give the men 
 a tot of rum each, as he always had done after a piece of 
 strenuous work, particularly in cold weather. 
 
 As soon as we had finished with the braces and that, I sent 
 a couple of hands to square things up in the fo'c's'les, because 
 a good part of the first big sea had gone in at the lee-doorway ; 
 the others I left Young to finish securing the topsel and clear 
 up the decks. Then I took myself to the poop, quite expect- 
 ing to find the Old Man in a sort of collapse, and I did ; but 
 he had nothing to say about the loss of Whymper. All he 
 said was — and, oh, the regret in his voice ! — 
 
 " Keep her on her course, Mr. Willoughby." 
 
 " All right, sir," I answered, walking aft to look at the 
 compass. 
 
 And down the companion-way he went, straight to his 
 berth, and I didn't see him again till next morning. And if he 
 didn't»shed a tear that night, I'll bet a ship to a shilling that 
 he knelt and prayed. For my part I was glad he left me as he 
 did, instead of pouring out a string of doleful and useless 
 regrets, wishes, etc. But, of course, I knew it would have to 
 come. That tone of his was enough to settle the matter in 
 my mind; unless he should get a good night's rest and sleep 
 it off, which he wasn't likely to do. 
 
 When the work was done, I called the men aft and attended 
 
1 64 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to the little injuries they had. Then I went to where I — and 
 I only — knew the key was kept, and gave them the usual peg 
 of rum, from the store-room. 
 
 The trouble began next morning, when I met the Old Man 
 at the breakfast-table — it couldn't begin before, because I 
 didn't see him again till then. He came from his berth, with 
 a face as long as a fiddle. By that I knew I was in for it, and 
 I didn't feel pleased at the prospect, I can assure you. My 
 view was the plain, sensible one that as the man was gone, 
 and circumstances had made it impossible for us to save 
 him, there was no more good in worrying about it than there 
 would have been in swearing at the man in the moon for it. 
 But I wasn't aware at the time that, in addition to the loss 
 of the man, he was beginning to wony again on the old 
 score ; and I was too much annoyed at the way he was taking 
 the matter for me to think of this. 
 
 After he had said " Good-morning," as if he was saying an 
 eternal good-bye, he sat down, and ate his porridge without 
 another word. So I thought it was best to let him take the 
 lead in whatever talking there was to be done, although my 
 inclination was to weigh in with something foreign to the 
 trouble over-night and keep at it, just to prevent him from 
 raising that subject and worrying about it. But when the 
 fish-cakes came in, he asked if I'd heard anything as to how 
 Whymper had come by his fall. I replied, 
 
 " No, sir. Featherston, who was next to him on the yard, 
 told me last night that he didn't know anything of it till he 
 heard Whymper shout and saw him going down." 
 
 Then came these remarks and answers, all in a slow, quiet 
 way, with a pause now and then, on the Old Man's part. 
 
 " Oh, Featherston? ... He was next on the yard.-*-Was 
 he? . . . He's a sort of chum to the man that's laid up.-r 
 Isn't he?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " An' the man that's laid up is the one that threw Whymper 
 out on deck up in the nor'-east trade? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." . . . 
 
 " Has there been any trouble 'tween him an' W T hymper? " 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 165 
 
 "Oh, nothing to talk about that I know of." 
 
 " There has been some, then? " 
 
 " Yes. I think Featherston gave Whymper a black eye for 
 ill-treating the cat ; but that's blown over long since." . . . 
 
 " M'm. . . . Yes, he did have a black eye." 
 
 " Why, you don't think there's been any dirty work in it. 
 — Do you, sir? " It was no use trying to keep the matter in; 
 I was bound to ask it, under the circumstances. 
 
 " One never knows. I must see into it," replied he, so 
 dubiously that I said at once and pretty firmly, 
 
 " If that's in your mind, sir, I'm sure enough that you can 
 turn it out soon as you like. There was no more dirty work 
 there than there is at this table now." 
 
 I wanted to stop this right away, lest he should go to work 
 on the idea and do some harm. Besides, that imp of a boy 
 was coming and going all the time, with his big ears cocked 
 for every word said ; and I knew he was fond of carrying bits 
 of things to the cook, who, in his turn, doled them out to the 
 men— not to make mischief, I thought at that time, but just 
 in the way of news. 
 
 " M'm, can't say," he sort of muttered, and went on with 
 his breakfast a while; then he said, almost to himself, " Never 
 lost a man before since I've been master or mate, ... never." 
 
 After breakfast we took a sight, 1 as usual, whilst Young 
 was having his meal. Then, when Young had finished, the Old 
 Man questioned him as to who was on the lee-side of the topsail 
 yard when Whymper fell. But all he got was against the idea 
 of foul play, an idea that was so strange to him as to make 
 me wonder how he came by it. (Later in the passage I under- 
 stood both this and some other lately queer things in him.) 
 
 It was proved that Featherston was well away from 
 Whymper, helping to get up the bunt of the sail, when the 
 accident happened. Besides, as I pointed out, I didn't think 
 Featherston was the sort of man for that kind of thing; and 
 making close enquiries of such a nature was likely to set the 
 men by the ears and cause trouble generally. But, no, the 
 skipper couldn't see it. He was off his course again, and all 
 1 A solar observation. 
 
166 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 I could say or do wouldn't fetch him back to it till he was 
 ready. 
 
 Instead of going for'ard to look at Baily's ankle, immedi- 
 ately we had taken a sight, as he had done so far, he didn't go 
 that morning till four-bells; and when he came back he 
 began on the old lay, and I'm blest if he didn't let it rip. The 
 man was going to be laid up another month or two, — and 
 now a man was lost, never lost one before, — he was sure his 
 bad luck was beginning afresh, — couldn't I see something of 
 this in that dream? — he was sure it had to do with these 
 misfortunes, — couldn't I read a bit of it? — get a start into it? 
 — if so, that might lead to a reading of the whole thing. And 
 so on and so on, till I nearly lost patience with him, and broke 
 in to ask if he didn't think I had better borrow a hand from 
 the starboard-watch, till Baily was well enough to be on 
 deck again. 
 
 To get rid of this and keep to his subject he told me to do 
 as I liked — not a word of advice, an order really, as to which 
 man to take. So to put an end to his wonyings, for the time, 
 at least, I went for'ard on a pretence to see about the ex- 
 change. I hung around there quite a while, looking at things 
 I didn't want to look at, and watching him out of the corner 
 of my eye all the time, in the hope that he would go below; 
 but he didn't, and I had to come back, with him there. 
 However, I wasn't going to give him the lead again if I could 
 help it. So I said, 
 
 " I'm taking Anderson, sir." This was only what I'd 
 decided on. I hadn't said a word to any one for'ard. 
 
 " Oh," was all he said, showing me he hadn't a scrap of 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 I hoped he would have roused up and argued the pros and 
 cons of this man and that, same as he did at ordinary times. 
 Because, you know, when he was all right, there wasn't a 
 thing aboard the barque he didn't take an interest 'in. 
 
 " Yes, I think he's about the best one I can borrow, all 
 things considered," I answered, thinking that this would 
 stir him up to know the why and wherefore. Because only 
 the day before we had discussed the young chap again, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 167 
 
 wondering what he was doing at sea and who he was. But 
 my announcement didn't move him, and I had to continue 
 to put up with his doleful talk. 
 
 By-and-by, however, the Old Man went below — to sleep, 
 I hoped ; for I was sure he hadn't slept much since the night 
 before. This left me to myself and my cogitations, which 
 were presently boxing about between the O. M., his worries 
 and vagaries, that dream — in the lump, I mean — the in- 
 creasing probability of real trouble before us, how he was 
 apparently going to make it worse, etc. Then, in thinking 
 again of his pointed reference to the dream, I suddenly recol- 
 lected that some one was le^t behind in it, and along with 
 that the loss of Whymper. The two thoughts were so quick 
 on one another's heels that they, were practically one, and 
 they made me jump, in a way. Was this the key to the thing? 
 I wondered. Should I be able, after all, to go to him and 
 say : Here's the reading of your dream, sir ? 
 
 From then right on till he came up to take the sun with me 
 at mid-day I worked away at the thing, this way and that, 
 till I felt as if my brain had been tied in knots; and still I 
 was baffled everywhere. All I could see were the parallel 
 losses — what any Johnny could have seen ! And the more I 
 fumbled about the thing, like a helpless monkey at an iron 
 door, bolted on the other side, the more I became positive 
 that the dream related to the passage we were making. 
 
1 6-8 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 BOOK TWO: THE SHARK'S HEAD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Lionel continues his Recollections of Forecastle Polity, and tells how 
 Baily came to play the " Witch-fiddle " for them. 
 
 To keep a steady view of things I find it necessary to turn 
 back to the loss of Whymper. But before referring to it I may 
 say — and I am pleased to say — that whilst my watch were 
 sorry to lose me (socially I mean, as well as physically), 
 especially Scotty, the port-watch gave me a ready welcome, 
 Smiley in particular. Even Baily said he was glad I had 
 joined them. 
 
 Personally I was sorry to leave my watch-mates; but I 
 recognised that the change would give me a better oppor- 
 tunity to study both the mate and Baily, and, naturally, 
 " the brown man," as I often called him in my mind, was 
 still a source of considerable interest to me. For weeks gone 
 by I had come to the conclusion that there was a story, 
 probably an absorbing one, behind his quietude, and I was 
 anxious to know what it was. For this reason, and because 
 I had a strong liking for the man, I made myself as pleasant 
 to him as self-respect would allow, and not without satis- 
 faction to me. 
 
 As to the loss of Whymper : The men were unusually quiet 
 for a few days. It would have been a wonder if they had not 
 been so, the affair and the men considered individually . They 
 had seen one of their number go headlong and instantly, 
 without a moment's warning, into the Everlasting, and it 
 might be the fate of any one of them on the morrow, or 
 within the hour even. And I believe that, in spite of the man's 
 faults and of their general dislike of him, they were all 
 genuinely sorry — in differing degrees, of course — that he had 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 169 
 
 died in such a manner. For myself, it took me a week to get 
 over the horror of it, and I shall never forget the sight of the 
 man falling into that wild sea. 
 
 Before the affair passed into the background of interest, 
 Scotty, Hines, Chambers and Mc'Arthy let their superstition 
 come to the front by wondering if Baily's " witch-fiddle " 
 and " foreign " singing had had anything to do with 
 Whymper's losing his hold. Naturally, they did not let Baily 
 hear this; it was kept for quiet talks in odd times on deck, 
 and they discussed the subject till it seemed to me that they 
 pretty fairly believed it. But, curiously enough, they attached 
 no blame to Baily in the matter. To them it was just a 
 coincidence that the music had affected Whymper so badly 
 at a time when he was least able to resist its influence — with, 
 apparently, at the back of their minds some wondering if it 
 would ever affect them in a similar way. 
 
 At the same time they blamed him for bringing such a 
 " thing " — the " fiddle " — aboard-ship, and for playing it 
 there. Yet even this blame was only half-hearted, as I dis- 
 covered in their talks to me on the whole subject — talks in 
 which I tried laughingly to put some reason into them, but 
 in vain. Where superstition is, reason, naturally, cannot 
 get in. 
 
 It was a sort of witch music, said they ; Whymper had felt 
 that all along, and there was no telling what it would do. 
 Look how it had played on us all, they argued, even when 
 we heard it ,on the gramophone — at second-hand! — How it 
 had drawn us all to it, kept us quiet, and nearly did as it 
 liked with us ! 
 
 As a matter of" fact, I am not sure that Featherston would 
 not have been one with them were it not for the friendship 
 between him and Baily and the latter's influence over him. 
 At any rate, in other matters of superstition he showed dis- 
 tinctly enough that he was no broader-minded than they 
 were. 
 
 This was where Smiley came in with his robust common- 
 sense — into a discussion by the superstitious ones, including 
 Featherston, as to Whymper, his yarn of the shark's head- 
 
i 7 o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 bone (the unlucky idea of which had got too good a hold of 
 some of them), the manner of his death and Baily 's accom- 
 paniment; but without any reference to the already half- 
 believed occult powers of the " witch-fiddle." Featherston's 
 presence forbade that. After slashing at them right and left, 
 laughingly for the most part, but scornfully all the time, his 
 big, bunchy nose shaking now and then with his laughing 
 vehemence, till not an answer was left, he said, 
 
 " But wee'll get 'im agen yet — Aa knaa that. — Him an' 
 that daamned silly yarn o' his. Oh, Vs deid enough: But 
 Aa'll back me heid ta Mc's greeat-gran'mither Angelina 
 Priscilla Georgina Mac-Mahon-Macarthy-arthy, as he isn't 
 buried.' ' And right away he launched into one of his pieces of 
 ready invention, about a similar character with whom he 
 said he had sailed; but it was all bunkum, as he told me 
 afterwards, when we talked of their foolishness. 
 
 Referring again to Baily and going ahead of where we are 
 now in our story, it soon became apparent that the absence 
 of Whymper had somewhat loosened his tongue. As the 
 weeks and months went by this became more and more 
 evident, although Baily was never one to have much to say. 
 In fact, he once admitted that he had always felt a dislike to 
 talk, and had regularly resisted any chance inclination that 
 way, whenever Whymper was present. This was because of 
 his antipathy to the man and to his determination not to be 
 drawn into an argument with him. 
 
 In proof of this, the first time he was asked to play the 
 " fiddle " after Whymper's death — about two weeks later — 
 he brought it out at once, played it, and always did the same 
 whenever there was a suitable occasion. And when this had 
 taken place three times in rather quick succession, without 
 any untoward incident happening, I made a little laughing 
 capital of it against Hines, Scotty, Mc'Arthy and Chambers. 
 
 But I was not aware till weeks afterwards that Baily had 
 
 no real liking either to play the instrument or sing Hawaiian 
 
 songs, except when he was alone. They brought him back a 
 
 sorrow that was still too keen to be stirred up voluntarily in 
 
 ' the presence of others, though one would not have thought 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 171 
 
 at such times that he had a deep-seated grief with which the 
 " fiddle " was closely associated. 
 
 But I am speaking of things about which I shall have 
 much more to say when the right time comes. Besides, I have 
 gone too far ahead. So I will come back to events in their 
 order of happening. 
 
 We had finished running the " easting down," passed 
 through some days of unsettled weather in trying to get up 
 to the Horn, then had got into a north-westerly breeze that 
 rapidly became a gale and drove us away down south. How 
 far we went I could not say; but I know that it was most 
 bitterly cold, and now and then we saw an iceberg that looked 
 ghostly enough in the clear, hard moonlight. And thankful 
 we were that the nights were moonlit. All this time we were 
 hove-to under a goose-winged main-topsail and a rag of main- 
 topmast-staysail, which meant that we were going bodily to 
 leeward, therefore getting further and further away from our 
 objective and into the icy hurly-burly. And small seas came 
 aboard at times, and bitter, biting sprays stung our faces 
 like whips. 
 
 It was here that I had my first opportunity of closely 
 watching the greater albatross, called by sailors " the white 
 albatross." 1 One had come along when we were trying to get 
 near the Horn ; but he went off again immediately, possibly 
 because of the crowd of other birds about us then, gulls and 
 Cape Hens. Here, however, there were only the latter, and 
 not many of them. Speaking of him in the singular, and in 
 the masculine — because I believe the " white " to be the 
 male bird — his head, body and the under side of his wings 
 were all white, except the tips of the wings, which were black. 
 A fine, light brown, speckled with white near the body, was 
 the colour on the upper side of his wings, each of which had 
 a white patch about a third of the distance from body to tip. 
 Every one of them seemed to have ten to fourteen feet spread 
 
 1 In 1 91 6 one of these birds followed the s.s. Eaton Hall over 3000 
 miles. It was recognised daily by having some feathers missing from 
 one wing. And as the bird was always there at sunrise, it must have 
 flown during the nights. 
 
172 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 from tip to tip. And what fliers they were! — always planing. 
 I did not see a single bird flap its wings. But the flying I will 
 reserve for another occasion, because I have in mind the sub- 
 sequent performance of a particular bird. The set of the head 
 I did not like; it was too low and had an unprepossessing 
 appearance, almost vulture-like. Of the smaller, browner 
 albatross there were only two specimens, one on one day, and 
 another — or the same one — some days later, and it kept too 
 far off for me to notice details. 
 
 The men, even to Featherston, assured me that it was not 
 " a real Cape Horner," which assurance I had then some 
 difficulty in believing, but not later on. They said that the 
 worst of it was its length ; because a breeze of that sort, with 
 a clear sky, was likely to last a fortnight. This was when it 
 had blown for five days, and Hines and Mc'Arthy were half- 
 jokingly asking if we had a shark's headbone aboard. How 
 cheering, I thought ! But, then, I was becoming accustomed 
 to it all. 
 
 The great, white-topped, thundering seas had lost some of 
 their fascination for me, also the dire threats they carried by 
 coming down at us instead of after us. I noticed the callous, 
 steely blue of the sky, with now and then a few small, fleecy 
 clouds high up and cold-looking, despite the sunlight, and 
 now and then little greyish black ones, lower down and travel- 
 ling at a great pace,— yes, I noticed them, but without much 
 heed, as subsequently I was to see and feel almost unheedinglv 
 the glare of the deeper, hurtful blue. The happy fact that the 
 barque had so far, in that gale, thrown nothing worse than 
 sprays over us, seemed to have lessened the probability of one 
 of those huge rollers coming aboard. The tremendous straining 
 of the vessel, masts and spars, and our inability to keep warm 
 in the bunk or on deck, no matter what clothes were heaped 
 on, were already becoming habitual. The almost appalling 
 grandeur of the scene alone remained unchanged ; " age could 
 not " lessen, " nor custom stale, its infinite " impressiveness. 
 
 The realisation that something short of half an inch of iron 
 — not steel — stood between us and poor Whymper's fate was 
 decreasing day by day. (I say " us " because I thought in the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 173 
 
 plural; though I doubt if these things were in the minds of 
 my shipmates, certainly not as they were in mine.) But the 
 discomfort of the continual, heavy lurches to leeward seemed 
 not to grow less, especially at food times; neither did the 
 trouble of keeping the bogie-fires going sufficiently in the fore- 
 castles (the duty of each watch in its turn on deck), without 
 letting them smoke or over-heat the places. Then there was 
 the looking ahead to where we should be if the gale blew — 
 as some of the men said it might — for a couple of weeks more ; 
 and every time we turned in it was with the expressed hope 
 for better weather when we turned out, with its resultant 
 disappointment. 
 
 On the other hand, there was the pleasure, of having dry 
 clothes and fairly dry decks ; of the comparative security one 
 felt, so long as the Sappho lifted her head so clear, and — I 
 often thought — so proudly, of those great seas. Also there 
 was the coffee-making in the night-watches, each watch at its 
 own bogie-fire, because of the galley-fire being out, and of the 
 cantankerous old cook's unwillingness to " 'ave any one potter- 
 in' an' foolin' about " his galley; x and last, the tot of rum to 
 each man, now served out by Mr. Willoughby at the forward 
 door of the cabin every night at eight o'clock. 
 
 However, to leave the etceteras of the situation and come 
 to something more interesting, it was on the evening of our 
 fifth day in the gale that the long-looked-for and often- 
 mentioned incident took place — viz. a sight of the " witch- 
 fiddle." All hands had finished tea, except the relieved men 
 from wheel and look-out; the latter being then kept on the 
 fore-end of the deck-house (i.e. over our heads), where there 
 was less danger of being washed overboard than on the fore- 
 castle-head. These two had just come in, when some one 
 asked Scotty for a tune on his whistle, which caused the usual 
 attempt, and the usual failure, to get a tune out of the flute. 
 
 1 A cook aboard-ship in the merchant service is even far more 
 master of his galley than one in a house is mistress of her kitchen. 
 And the same holds good although the cook " cannot boil a potato," 
 and unfortunately there are still too many who cannot, in spite of 
 the certificates they carry and of the Nautical School of Cookery. 
 
174 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 And what a sight of primitiveness, half-lights and dull 
 colours the two forecastles were ! Ours was the lee one of the 
 two. The door between them was open, of course; and our 
 outer door was shut, to keep away the bitterly cold wind that 
 got in in spite of us, and was all the better for our health. 
 The lamp in the port-side burnt fairly well; but to do any 
 sewing by it one would have to be pretty near to it. Ours was 
 a " go-down " that night. 
 
 The bogie-stoves were about fifteen inches high, a foot wide 
 at the bottom and nine inches at the top. They stood on legs, 
 in metal pans that also had legs to keep the heat from the deck 
 underneath, and turned-up edges to prevent the ashes from 
 falling out when the vessel rolled. To stop them from smoking 
 the doors had to be shut most of the time, for which reason 
 they needed very- close watching. Just then our stove was 
 sending out puffs of smoke whenever the barque rolled to 
 windward; whilst the port-side one had suddenly become 
 red-hot ; it had a better draught than ours, because it was on 
 the weather-side of the deck-house. They were wired to little 
 ring-bolts in the deck, and both they and their pipes were 
 rusty from lying away in the fore-peak. 
 
 On the after-bulkhead, port and starboard, where the water- 
 kegs stood, hung oilskins, sou'westers, and great, heavy, old 
 coats more or less raggecl and wet. The bulkheads — I mean 
 the walls generally — had once been painted white, since when 
 they had been washed many a time and were then in need of 
 another cleansing. The colour of the bunks was a dark pink — 
 known, I believe, as " mast-colour," because of so many vessels 
 having their lower masts and spars painted with it.. But the 
 flat boards, that kept beds, sleepers, etc., in their places, and 
 the posts were of a much darker tint for the most part than the 
 paint had been originally; in other places the paint was thin. 
 
 Against the lining at the back of the bunks were photo- 
 graphs, small coloured prints, picture-postcards — generally 
 of " leggy " young women — sets of pockets, some of them 
 quite gaudy, containing combs, brushes, shaving-gear, pipes, 
 and whatnot. The back of Baily's bunk was the only one 
 not tricked out in this manner. For I had " followed suit " 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 175 
 
 in the matter of a set of pockets and a few postcard repro- 
 ductions of masterpieces. My rule of conduct during the two 
 years of roughing it had been, within certain limits, to do in 
 Rome as they did in Rome. On the fore-and-aft bulkhead, 
 between the two " sides," there were pictures — perhaps half 
 a dozen on each side — from semi-sacred to the port almanack 
 of the big-limbed girl paddling, ankle-deep, with three- 
 quarters of her legs showing, and others of its sort. 
 
 Scattered about in the midst of this were the seven of us — 
 four middle-aged, bearded men, the nigger, and we two 
 " youngsters," clean-shaven and rather more lively than the 
 others, Scotty excepted — all in rubber sea-boots (barring 
 Baily, of course) ready for a call on deck; but the most of us 
 with as little clothing on as possible, so that we should feel 
 the full benefit of what we put on when we went out to the 
 piercing yet more healthy atmosphere of the deck. Such was 
 the scene inside, whilst the gale shrieked and the seas roared 
 without. 
 
 After Scotty had tried the flute again in vain, to the usual 
 accompaniment of ironic jests and laughter (happily now, 
 however, without the cynical sarcasm of Whymper, whose 
 absence had already sweetened the life of the forecastle), he 
 put * it away, and played his whistle quite excellently until 
 he literally had to stop for lack of breath. Then Mc'Arthy, 
 saying what most of us would have liked to have said, but had 
 not the necessary lightness of mind (Smiley was at the wheel, 
 pitting his bluff good-nature against the weather and the 
 " kicking " of the helm), asked Baily to " give us a tshoon on 
 ye' re ' fiddle/ " 
 
 I could only suppose, as I did, that the goodfellowship 
 arising out of Scotty's music had prompted the Scots-Irishman 
 to make his request. Some of us glanced at him rather aghast, 
 as he sat on his chest and seemed to poke his dirty, salty, 
 short-haired face forward at Baily. The latter made no reply 
 at first. He appeared to me to be undecided; but, then, his 
 was a face that never gave away much of his thoughts. His 
 ankle was improving excellently — was almost well, in fact, 
 and he was sitting lengthwise on his chest, with the " gammy " 
 
176 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 foot just clear of the edge of the lid. Mc'Arthy made his 
 request again, as perkily as before; and Scotty plucked up 
 courage enough to put his smiling black face in at the doorway 
 and say, in his most coaxing manner, 
 
 " Yeah, Baily, come 'long, man, gib us a p'opah go now ob 
 dat heabenly music yo' got 'towed away in dat ches' ob yo'rn." 
 
 Then we were all* more or less electrified by Baily answering 
 in his quiet manner, as he proceeded to balance himself on 
 one leg and raise the lid of his chest, 
 
 " Well, if that's your want, mates, I don't mind complyin'; 
 but, as I said before, you know, it ain't no fiddle." 
 
 " Nebah mind waat it be. Yo' jes' b'ing it out an' gib us a 
 bellyfu' ob it; den yo' be de fus' man deh side ob G'ennock," 
 said Scotty, coming in, whistle in hand, to the guest's seat 
 on the water-keg. 
 
 Featherston was already on our side — my temporar}/ one, 
 that is — sitting up by Baily and helping him with the chest- 
 lid. For this reason the " fiddle," came quickly into view, 
 and proved to be a simple, even a rather primitive, arrange- 
 ment of a sound-box — apparently made from the dried husk 
 of some gourd — a " neck " almost as long as a banjo's and 
 three strings. It was by the three strings that I understood 
 at last the cause of the simplicity of the music. 
 
 Without any to-do, and with a minimum of tuning, Baity 
 began to pluck out of the strings one of the daintiest, most 
 quaint, simple and tripping airs I have ever heard. Here there 
 were no deep notes; it was all minor, but a minor such as no 
 other instrument could have produced. The air was a quick- 
 step march, and it just rippled along. Then, almost without 
 pause, he changed to some sort of dance that was beautiful 
 and sweet, at times merry and light, then deepening again, 
 but never with the pathos for which I was listening — yes, and 
 found myself presently waiting for it with something like 
 anxiety. The third change was another march, deeper and 
 more vigorous than the first; unlike the others, it finished 
 with a kind of flourish, which I did not like, for it seemed 
 not, to me, to be native to its context. Then Baily paused 
 and said, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 177 
 
 " Now, I think it's the whistle's turn — aye? " 
 
 Booster and Mc'Arthy backed up this; but Feather^ton, 
 Chambers and I were for more from the " fiddle," with 
 Mc'Arthy very soon on our side, and just as likely to go over 
 to Booster again, if he should become insistent. However, 
 Baily himself settled the matter by saying, in that well- 
 understood tone of finality of his, that he would " play agen 
 after the whistle." Thus Scotty had to puff out his cheeks 
 once more; and, good in itself though the whistle was, how 
 harsh and jarring it sounded against the " fiddle " ! 
 
 When he had blown out three or four tunes, Mc'Arthy 
 suggested that the two instruments should be tried together. 
 Booster and Chambers seconded the idea. Scotty grinned 
 his genial mouth another two inches longer, deferentially 
 thought he " would like a try," but was doubtful of the issue. 
 Feathers ton was mute, pulling away at his pipe all the time, 
 without a word since the music began. Baily remarked that 
 it would not work, yet he was willing to give it a trial. At 
 this I went to the fore-end of our side, ostensibly to get some- 
 thing from my bunk, really to put as much distance as 
 possible between me and the noise that was coming. 
 
 Of course, the effort ended in failure; and, to my delight, 
 Baily cut it short by breaking into the music of an Hawaiian 
 song, the pathos, sweetness and passion of which held us all 
 silent in their grip. Then for about half an hour he gave 
 us a feast of similar airs. I would not say there was much 
 variety in the pieces ; that could not be, owing to the narrow 
 range of the instrument, for which the music had been very 
 apparently made. But, within the compass, I doubt if 
 anything was ever heard that had so sweet, pathetic, deep yet 
 gentle plaint. It was impossible to withstand the appeal ; and 
 at times the notes were rich and full. It was music to which 
 one never seemed to be tired of listening, and it had some 
 indefinable attraction for men who did not really like it — ■ 
 Whymper had been one of these, and Chambers, Chips and 
 Booster were others. Slow and wooden as the cook was, we 
 found by-and-by that the music, as he said, " got round " 
 his "heart like a swaddlin' band"; whilst the second 
 
 M 
 
178 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 mate proved to be the only man aboard on whom it had no 
 effect. 
 
 After that Baily brought out the " fiddle " (which he had 
 got in Hawaii, he said, answering a question from inquisitive 
 Mc'Arthy) almost whenever he was asked, perhaps on an 
 average of once a week. But it was always in that easy, don't- 
 care manner of his, and never did he play us the deeper, 
 stronger things that he played to himself whenever all hands 
 were out (whilst he remained laid up) and which the most of 
 us liked to hear as we worked, Chips alone really excepted, 
 for we were yet to find that he was not indifferent to all 
 things. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Account of Captain Sennett in their first Cape 
 Horn Gale. 
 
 Well, you know, I'm afraid I haven't much to say this time; 
 and what I have is of a pretty dismal sort. In fact, it's my 
 misfortune in this affair to have the heavy end of the thing, 
 as the man said when his wife gave him the knob-end of his 
 walking-stick. 
 
 But, then, there are two ways of looking at everything — in 
 most cases I believe there are more. And if you only have a 
 sense of humour big enough, — why, hang it ! you could laugh 
 at your own funeral, if you were there, and had enjoyed life 
 sufficiently. As I said to that poor, dear Old Man one day, 
 when he came pestering me about a silly bit of a dream he'd 
 had, away down in the Antarctic there, when it looked as if 
 our next change of diet would be seals and penguins, if our 
 salt tack only held out long enough, — -we all ought to be 
 cross-eyed in our minds, I said, so that we could see both 
 ways at once, the heavy way and the light way. Then he 
 looked at me in one way, thought, evidently, that I had gone 
 dotty, or was pulling his leg, and went below — to come to 
 the conclusion, possibly, as I believe most women have at 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 179 
 
 some time or other in their lives, that " men were deceivers 
 ever," especially if the}' were sailors. 
 
 Yes, the Old Man was full of woe all the time we were down 
 south. His bad luck had come back on him, and it ran in his 
 blood, he said again and again, that it was going to continue 
 till it put him under. And I'm blest if he wasn't speaking 
 prophecy, without knowing it — well, as nearly as two and 
 two are four. If I could have thought at the time of what he 
 was to go through — helped considerably, I admit, by his own 
 worrying (but, there, a man has to be what he is) — I should 
 have had far more patience with him than I had. 
 
 During that bad weather — yes, practically all the time we 
 were off the Horn — he had only three subjects, — the loss of 
 Whymper, his belief that the real ill-luck set in then and 
 would continue, and his dream. He pestered me so much with 
 these that time and time again I came near telling him of the 
 " key " I found impossible to use (I mean the parallel losses), 
 and letting him try his hand with it. But, no; I knew that if 
 I did, he would pester me worse still. It never occurred to 
 me that he might have got right into the dream with that 
 " key." 
 
 If we could have missed that first gale, we should have got 
 around the Horn right away, and, it's my opinion, have 
 sheered clear of nearly all the subsequent trouble. You see, 
 the Old Man had reckoned on getting round into the Atlantic 
 before the winter gales set in; but they set in earlier that 
 winter than usual; and this upset ail his plans. Well, the 
 breeze Lionel has spoken of blew eight days hard, on end. 
 Then we got a bit of a break of a day and a half, during which 
 we bucked up, made sail again, and naturally thought it was 
 done with. But was it? — not if you please; and it wasn't, 
 whether we pleased or not. No, it came down on us again; 
 and away we went again for another five days. 
 
 This was when the Old Man was at his worst up to that 
 time. It was all about his bad luck, as before. It started with 
 the loss of Whymper, he said, as he knew at the time it 
 would. He wasn't a good sort of man, Whymper wasn't ; and 
 he had left some of his evil influence with us. That was how 
 
180 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 he ran on. Of course, I wouldn't have it that the man had 
 done anything of the kind. Honestly I didn't believe he had, 
 because I knew nothing of what was going on in that way 
 for'ard. But it only shows you how some men will make 
 sacks full of trouble out of a waistcoat-pocketful. Another 
 of his moanings harped on " We left on a Friday," and 
 all the variations he could work in as to " Why did we 
 doit?" 
 
 Then he struck the idea that there must be some unlucky 
 thing aboard, " p'r'aps a Jonah," said he; and told me of a 
 couple of instances where he had known of " real Jonahs " 
 being in a crew, and good luck coming to the vessels again as 
 soon as the Jonahs were out of 'em. How he bothered me 
 over that, and put me on my mettle to argue it out of him ! 
 I began to fear he would make trouble for'ard by going to 
 Baily and demanding his " heathenish gu'tar," as he called 
 it afterwards; because I knew if he did, Bail}- would defy 
 him to take the thing. And that was just when the poor old 
 chap became Captain Sennett — when any one defied him 
 aboard his ship. Happily, however, he didn't seem to think 
 of what I learnt later on was known for'ard as the " witch- 
 fiddle." 
 
 I wanted to tell him that Whymper had been the Jonah; 
 but there was this gale to throw the lie in my teeth. And all 
 was useless that I could say about our good luck in having 
 no smashing seas come aboard, only small seas and sprays, 
 losing no sails or spars, no trouble with the men, no leak 
 through the heavy labouring of the old barque, and now of 
 Bail}- being at work again — by which same sign Lionel here 
 was on day-work once more, with as much of each night in as 
 he could get, or the weather would let him have. But his 
 time was easy, because he had ho wheel or look-out; and 
 nothing was done about the decks or aloft, except what 
 circumstances compelled to be done day by day, as the O. M. 
 would have the men stand-by all the time and " keep out o' 
 danger " all they could, by* which lie meant out of the way of 
 a boarding sea. In any ship so situated in the old days, and 
 in the majority of windjammers then (if there were any more 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 181 
 
 afloat, which there didn't seem to be), it would have been 
 " sand and canvas " 1 all that time, not " stand by." 
 
 Another advantage Lionel had by the alteration was that 
 he changed his table companions every day, when the weather 
 allowed 'em to use their tables. This was because the Old 
 Man (a bit of a stickler he was, in a way, for routine) had 
 ordered that he was to go to breakfast and dinner at eight 
 and twelve o'clock every day, which made him an eating 
 member of one watch one day and of the other watch the 
 next day — a Jack of both sides, you see, in more ways than 
 one, and that did away with a good deal of the monotony for 
 him. In fact, it made me wish to goodness that I could change 
 my table companion for a day now and then. At the same 
 time it gave the cook something to grumble about, because 
 he had to make the eight-bell dinner one man bigger every 
 day, instead of having it fixed on one watch. 
 
 But I did get a change. Chips split his thumb-end with a 
 chisel ; and the Old Man was never so little full of himself as 
 when he had some one else's trouble to look after. I was sorry 
 for Chips; but his injury was a little godsend to me and the 
 skipper. It gave me a blessed respite, and kept him on the 
 sane side of the line a little longer. You see, he was afraid 
 that poison had got in. "A septic wound," he said it was. 
 Oh, he liked the technical terms of a thing when he was in it. 
 So he must needs dress and fool about with the split three 
 times a day ; till I began to fear he'd never let it heal, because 
 the man was very helpful in a time -of " all hands," to say 
 nothing of how we should need him if a spar went, or there 
 was a smash-up of deck-fittings. Yes, there's humour in 
 minor tragedy, sure enough, when you've only got the right 
 view on. 
 
 But it didn't last long, worse luck. Chips was a " healthy 
 subject," and in a few days he insisted on returning to his 
 " shop." He was no reader and almost as little a thinker; so 
 time was heavy on him, laid up. But I think the main reason 
 
 1 Fine sand and old sail-cloth were the materials then used for 
 scrubbing paint-work ; and it was always* clone when the weather was 
 too bad or wet for other work. 
 
182 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 for his returning to work so soon was to get rid of some of the 
 daily dressings. 
 
 Then the Old Man turned back on me and began to worr}' 
 me again about that long dream of his, where he was in the 
 slime. Couldn't I see an answer to it yet ? What was the good 
 of being able to read one if you couldn't read another? Or 
 was it that I had read it, and found it so bad that I wouldn't 
 tell him the meaning ? 
 
 Yes, he declared, that must be it — I knew of all this bad 
 luck beforehand and all the other that was to come, but I 
 wouldn't tell him; I was letting him be killed by it piece- 
 meal, when all the time I could save him by telling him what 
 was coming. And what was it for? — All for my own ends r of 
 course; I wanted his berth, as every mate afloat wanted the 
 master's, and everybody knew it. (Naturally, he was aware 
 that I had a master's certificate, as so many chief mates have.) 
 Yet I had seemed to be such a decent fellow, so sympathetic 
 and reasonable and even intelligent, not half like the average, 
 self-seeking merchant officer. And here I was treating him 
 like this! It was unbelievable; and it was the greatest dis- 
 appointment he had met with since — well, since he was a 
 young man. (By this I knew that he meant his love affair.) 
 And still I could get no further with the dream than the 
 parallel losses of men, although once I had thought that I 
 saw some likeness between the woman in his dream and the 
 barque; but was fogged again. 
 
 However, that's a sample of what I had to put up with, and 
 all in a fretful, complaining way. Was there any wonder that 
 I very nearly lost patience sometimes ? I should have lost it 
 more than once, and emphatically at that, if it hadn't been 
 for the humour I saw in a grown man talking as he talked. 
 At the same time, I wasn't blind to the pity of it, not by a 
 long way. It was the pity that hurt me; but it wouldn't have 
 done to show him much of it — he would have blubbered like 
 a child, if I had. No, the only way to deal with him was to 
 be firm and reasonable, yet quiet; coaxing him now and 
 then, laughing at him a bit sometimes, and all that. But, 
 then, as I say, if I had only known what it was all leading to 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 183 
 
 — ah ! if. And yet, you know, I did once or twice wonder if 
 it» could be leading to what it eventually arrived at. And I 
 might have thought more on that line, only it was too painful 
 in connection with him; nor would anything have made me 
 believe it up to then. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A Featherston Episode and a Yarn of Chambers' as re-told by Lionel. 
 
 We were in that second north-west gale Mr. Willoughby has 
 mentioned, when Featherston came from the wheel at four 
 o'clock one day. I had then gone back to my former bunk, 
 and looked on the starboard side as my domicile, as, in 
 fact, r had done all through. In spite of the port -watch's 
 kindness to me (and I may also say, in spite of Hines' 
 unheeded jealousy) I could not feel so much at home on 
 their side as I did on the side where I had first settled 
 down; although the friendship between Baily and me was 
 growing slowly. 
 
 This was why I was in there, lighting the lamp — for the 
 days were short then — when Featherston entered. I happened 
 to turn from the lamp as he came forward, with the light full 
 on his face, so that I noticed its unusual expression. His 
 dark, weather-hardened features were never genial; they 
 were scarcely that even when he smiled, although the smile 
 did light up his face, as the novelists say. Not that the man 
 had anything sinister about him, either. It was rather that 
 there was a hard, steady set in his face. But on this occasion 
 it had a dark, forbidding expression — or, at least, the eyes 
 had, because so much of his face was hidden by thick, curly, 
 black hair, like fine wire twisted together, that only his eyes, 
 forehead, nose and cheek-bones were visible. One has to 
 admit, however, that his misshapen shoulder, his gaunt, big 
 body, and his queer, lee-bow kind of lurch had a tendency to 
 give him a sinister appearance at all times. 
 
184 "THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 After taking -off his heavy reefer jacket, oilskin, sou'- 
 wester and muffler, he lumbered straight to his bunk for pipe 
 and tobacco— always a sailor's first movement and requisites 
 on being relieved from duty. He had lit his pipe and was 
 smoking in silence. His brooding gaze was fixed on some- 
 thing under the table ; but it was easy to see that his thoughts 
 were not there. 
 
 My time on deck being finished till morning — unless there 
 should come a case of " all hands " before then — I got out a 
 book and sat by the after-end of the table to read until tea- 
 time. For a while, however, I could not fasten to the page; 
 .Featherston's face, obliquely opposite, was still prominent in 
 my mind. 
 
 In his usual place at the fore-end of the table, and engaged 
 on his daily occupation of clothes-repairing, sat Chambers, 
 directly in front of Featherston, and now and then breaking 
 the silence, in that mumbling voice of his, with a remark on 
 something so obvious as to call for no answer. That was one 
 of his peculiarities : At a time when we were all quiet, read- 
 ing, mending, or merely smoking, he would continually " chip 
 in " with some inanity, then snigger softly to himself, wait 
 two or three minutes, and repeat the process. Scotty was in 
 the port side, playing cut-throat euchre with Smiley and 
 Mc'Arthy; Hines being on the look-out. 
 
 Booster sat forward, re-sewing the buckle into his strap 
 with a sailor's thimble 1 and some sail-twine. Meanwhile he 
 kept up that sibilant noise of his, by blowing a jiggy kind of 
 tune between his lower lip and upper teeth. He called this 
 whistling, and he indulged in it at most times when engaged 
 in light work — that is, until some one swore, or chaffed, him 
 out of it temporarily, as one or another mostly did with 
 Chambers and his inane remarks. During this I noticed 
 Booster look two or three times at Featherston's face; and 
 presently he stopped his " whistle," looked again and 
 drawled casually, yet, it seemed to me, with a certain mean- 
 ing that was not in his question, 
 
 1 A palm, a leather thing that fits on the hand and has an iron 
 socket with which to push the needle through. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 185 
 
 " Waal, jnate, has she bin kicken some in your trick? " * 
 
 This was in reference to the sudden and violent jerks 
 caused by the heavy seas and the fact that the barque was 
 making no way. It is called " kicking " amongst sailors; and 
 at such times relieving tackles (i.e. self-working ones, often 
 called " kicking straps ") are put on to ease the abrupt strain 
 on the rudder-chains and steering-gear generally. Ours had 
 been on since the gale began. 
 
 Featherston made no answer for quite half a minute. This 
 was not unusual amongst my shipmates, nor was it so on the 
 lakes, or with other rough men whom I had experienced in 
 the States. It was not rude, or even inattentive, to be silent 
 for a whole minute after a question was asked. Booster^ was 
 " whistling " away again and thrusting his needle through 
 and through, when Featherston replied with some bitterness, 
 
 " Ay, she's been at it bad enough." 
 
 " Guessed she had jes', sonny," said the American in a 
 pause of his " whistling," then added, after more hissing, 
 " 'Twas .stiff on your face, mate; an* as et's jes' my perishen 
 nex' trick, I guess as how I'll have ter ginger meself up fer et." 
 
 " No, 'twasn't stiff on me face, neether, Booster — not that 
 wasn't. Wot the Sappho can kick with them tackles on 
 won't 'urt me, I fancy," Featherston replied, in a manner 
 rather resenting the implication that the barque's "kicking" 
 was trying to him. 
 
 " Oh, my mistake jes', — no offence, mate," remarked 
 Booster in another break in that unpleasant noise of his; 
 meanwhile he glanced searchingly at Featherston's face again. 
 
 Looking sideways from my book I was watching them 
 both, for I felt sure that Featherston had found new trouble 
 somewhere, also that Booster was of the same opinion and 
 was trying in his roundabout, experienced way to draw it 
 out. This he did after a couple more remarks, now on the 
 gale and the Sappho's behaviour, for Featherston said, with 
 considerable emphasis, and throwing off his brooding manner, 
 
 " No, 'twasn't 'er kickin'. 'Twas that damned skipper! — 
 Blast 'im!" 
 
 1 The usual two-hours' spell at the wheel. 
 
186 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Waal, what's he bin " 
 
 " Got the face on 'im to say as I shoved Growler off the 
 yard! — leastwise that's 'bout wot it 'mounts to! " Feather- 
 ston interrupted vehemently. 
 
 "Oh, he didn't really say, then, that you did it?" I 
 enquired, relieved to hear that there was no direct accusation 
 and hoping, for this reason, that the thing would blow over 
 at once. For I had a fair knowledge of what Featherston 
 would be when roused up against a great injustice. 
 
 " Not to me 'e didn't; but 'e said it to the mate, 's far as I 
 could make out ! Ay, that 'e did ! An' by God ! it's more 'an 
 any man afloat shall say o' me, 'nless 'e ses it to me face ; then 
 we'll see wot. An' I'm agoin' straight to 'im now an 'ave it 
 out! " 
 
 At this in came Scotty, Smiley and Mc'Arthy. They had 
 heard part of what Featherston had said, and they were agog 
 to hear all about the affair. But Featherston was too angry 
 to be more explicit, or to repeat more than a few of his words. 
 He put away his pipe, jammed on his sou'-wester, and out 
 he went, leaving us all wondering what would be the upshot 
 of this " bearding the lion in his den "; not that any of us 
 thought there was much " lion " in Captain Sennett. Still, it 
 was a great undertaking for any man to go even to him and 
 ask for an explanation of something he had said. The Grand 
 Mogul may not be much of a man physically, yet whilst he 
 sits on the throne he is the Grand Mogul, especially to the 
 lower classes of his subjects. 
 
 As for myself: Although I had grown accustomed to 
 breaks in our peace, and was becoming sufficiently hardened 
 to them not to expect murder and mutiny out of every up- 
 heaval, this was so serious an affair that I was certainly very 
 anxious till Featherston returned. 
 
 For some minutes there were, naturally, various specula- 
 tions on the upshot of the matter, the most of which ranged 
 from the positive of Featherston going " bald-'eaded for the 
 Old Man " to the possibility of his doing so. In these I took 
 no share. It, was enough for me that such a danger threatened, 
 with its probable attendant evils; and down there in that 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 187 
 
 bitter and terrific weather to boot — why, the whole thing 
 became like a nightmare to me. 
 
 Then came a blessed interlude. The talk had turned from 
 Featherston to the barque's luck generally, and in this her 
 name cropped up, as a matter of course. Then Chambers 
 raised his shining, round face, with its everlasting sense of 
 soap and water, and its scrubby hair, and asked sniggeringly, 
 concerning an American translation of a French novel that 
 I had lent him, 
 
 " Well, wot was Sappho? This book ses, ' An' Sappho was 
 a Lesbian/ Wot's that?" 
 
 I was not interested enough to reply, although the question 
 did make a kind of break into my miserable wondering about 
 what was happening aft. Besides, at the back of my mind 
 there was doubt as to whether or not I could have made him 
 understand the matter sufficiently to warrant an explanation. 
 In fact, I was too absorbed by what Featherston was doing 
 and the possibility of some tragic result for me to trouble to 
 answer. But Smiley turned the thing aside by saying heartify, 
 
 " Ye ask Mc', Mr. Chambers. He's th' ownly wun 'ere 'at 
 can tell ye that. Divn't ye knaw, his greeat-annt, Henr'etta 
 Macguire Wellin'ton Macarthy, was wan w'en King George 
 the Theard went ower to conquer Ireland? " 
 
 Chambers, understanding the satire flung at Mc'Arthy, 
 sniggered again and said he had not heard of this particular 
 great-aunt, on which Smiley replied, and laughed, 
 
 " Oh, then, ye're hist'ry's now'ere, man! Wat for don't 
 }^e reead ye're hist'ry an' improve ye're mind a wee bit? 
 Same as Mc's dun." 
 
 How often after that was I to hear, in all kinds of times 
 and conditions, the phrase: " An' Sappho was a Lesbian! " 
 
 For some minutes the banter was continued. Then the 
 interest veered around again to Featherston, just as the door 
 opened and in he came, with his face wearing so much of its 
 ordinary expression as to make my anxiety drop at the 
 instant — or, rather, bounce ; for in a second it came back in 
 the wonderment: Is that look of satisfaction caused by his 
 having done some desperate thing? As a matter of fact, I 
 
i88 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 was so worked up, that I caught myself looking about him, 
 as he went past me, to see if his knife was bloody ! 
 
 What a waste of nervous energy! I might have joined the 
 talk and been as light-hearted as Scotty or Mc'Arthy. The 
 affair had ended as amicably as even I could have wished. 
 Featherston was scarcely into the place when he was assailed 
 with questions as to how he had got on. Oh, it was all right, 
 replied he in his usual, quiet way, and made again for the 
 pipe that he had left lying on his blanket. The Old Man had 
 said that " he 'adn't meant nothin'." 
 
 " 'Twas only me as mistook wot was said," he continued, 
 after lighting his pipe. " 'E was nice as pie, a-sittin' at the 
 cabin table. An' he said>I'd done just the right thing be goin' 
 to 'im an' gettin' it off me chest; because things like that 
 goes worryin' a man w'en he carries 'em to hisself, an' 'e don't 
 like any of 'is men agoin' about with a grievance in 'is heart. 
 I sort of axt 'im to send on deck for the mate an' let him 'ave 
 'is say; but he said as 'twasn't needed, an' I come away, 
 sayin', of course, as I was sorry as I'd thought it an' gone 
 troublin' him. An' 'e said it wasn't troublin'. ' Alius, come 
 to me,' 'e said, ' w'en you've got a grievance.' " 
 
 With that — one of the longest speeches I had known 
 Featherston to make up to then — his audience had to be 
 satisfied, so far as I heard at the moment. For it was then 
 tea-time, and off I went for the tea, as pleased as if the gale 
 and the seas had suddenly died away. True, during the meal 
 Featherston gave a few supplementary remarks on what had 
 transpired in the cabin ; but they threw no further real light 
 on the matter. 
 
 Another pleasure at the meal — if I may mention it — was 
 that I had made -some "dandy-funk" 1 during the afternoon. 
 It was an outcome really of Featherston having complained, 
 in a way, of there being " a s'utherly wind in the bread- 
 locker " — i.e. the biscuits wefe slightly damp. Smiley had 
 taught me how to make the mess; so he fell to with us and 
 praised me for being " a good larner." 
 
 1 Pounded biscuit, molasses and butter well-mixed and baked in 
 an oven. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 189 
 
 • 
 
 After tea, when the place was once more half-filled with 
 smoke from the bogie and tobacco-smoke, Whymper again 
 became the subject of conversation; from him it turned to 
 his yarn of the shark's headbone, and Chambers, mumbling 
 up in his corner by the fore-end of the table, and clearing his 
 throat after every three or four words until he was well under 
 way, said, as near as I remembered it, when I wrote it down 
 in scraps that night and next day, 
 
 " That reminds me, you know, w'en I was in the Thomas 
 Brown, & Bristol brig. — Were I got these. " He indicated the 
 scars on his head and face, then added, " I was goin' to tell 
 you about it before; but — Aye, wot? " 
 
 He looked up from his stitching, and gave slow, enquiring 
 glances at those who had flung interrupting questions at him 
 as to whether or not this was going to be a yarn. Although he 
 did sometimes tell a more or less straightforward story about 
 one of the numerous vessels he had sailed in, he was afflicted 
 with the annoying habit of beginning what appeared to be a 
 yarn and ending it nowhere. Either his memory failed him 
 as to essentials, or the thing petered out to a thinness that 
 caused some of his listeners to chaff him into silence. ' 
 
 On the present occasion he assured us that it was " a proper 
 yarn," as we should hear, if we could only have manners to 
 behave ourselves long enough. This brought forth laughs and 
 expostulations ending with such remarks as, " Go a'ead, then, 
 Mr. Chambers! " "All right, fire away, Rags! " and " Well, 
 buck up, Starch, an' let drive! " The last appellation was 
 sometimes thrown at him in fun because he did now and 
 then starch a piece of clothing (an action practically unknown 
 amongst merchant seamen), on which occasions he wheedled 
 the crusty cook to heat his flat-iron. He gave a general look 
 around (his eyes, by-the-bye, /were of a watery grey), a look 
 in which there was nothing in particular, then cleared his 
 voice again and resumed, 
 
 " As I was sayin', I was in the Thomas Brown, a Bristol 
 packet, an' we 'ad one of them queer happenin's, like wot 
 Wymper told us of the shark's 'ead, only it wasn't as bad. 
 She was a fine packet, was the T. B., as we called 'er, well- 
 
igo THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 found alow an' aloft, carried royals an' stunsels, an' was 
 about the best ship I sailed in them days. I'm speakin' o' 
 five- or six-an' -thirty years ago, mebbe a year or two 
 more " 
 
 " Never mind a year or twa, man. Say 'twor forty, an' 
 gi'e us th' yarn," put in Smiley vigorously. 
 
 " I was ord'nary seaman then," continued Chambers, un- 
 heedingly and looking at me in what was meant to be a signi- 
 ficant manner, in which Hines would no doubt have had to 
 share if he had been there, " an' them was times w'en ord'- 
 nary seamen 'ad to be sailors, I can tell you, an' do a sailor's 
 work." 
 
 I smiled, and two or three of the men made appropriate, 
 laughing remarks. He proceeded, in his easy, mumbling kind 
 of way, 
 
 " As I said, she was a fine brig, good as the best; so w T as 
 'er cap'n mostly, but a bit bull-'eaded, like most of them west- 
 countrymen — 'e was Bristol, too, leastwise 'twas said so 
 aboard. A big, straight-up man 'e was, with a face like a 
 hairy 'am; an' hard — w'y, 'e never wore a pair o' sea-boots 
 or a oilskin, alius went in slippers and a pea-jacket; steward 
 said he'd got a dozen pairs o' slippers an' six or seven pea- 
 jackets. 'Course, I don't know, as I never seed more 'an one 
 at once; but I've seen 'im change three an' four in a trick o' 
 mine at the w'eel." 
 
 Here there were more urgings to " cut the cackle an' give 
 us the yarn," this time with less laughing and more im- 
 patience. Perhaps it was the tone of his interrupters that 
 made Chambers start afresh with, 
 
 "Well, give a man a chance! " Then he sniggered and 
 went on, still sewing, and continuing to do so all the time he 
 talked, with a vapid smile now and then, " We'd gone out to 
 the Mauritius with coal — north-country coal it was, 'Artie- 
 pool — then filled up with sugar for Bombay; but we runs 
 into one o' them Indian Ocean 'urrican's, an', by Jiminny, 
 didn't it blow ! We lost the main-topmast, three or four sails, 
 an' sprung a leak an' had to put into the Seachells * to fix 
 1 Seychelle Islands, Indian Ocean. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 191 
 
 things up agen. She was wood, y' see — one of the old-timers. 
 An' w'ile we was there the Old Man 'ears about them twin 
 cocoanuts, wot's something like a woman cut off at the waist 
 an' 'er legs gone." This caused some significant smiles; but 
 Chambers continued, without sharing them. He never made 
 disrespectful references to women, any more than he used 
 swear-words. 
 
 " You know, wot they say 'elped General Gordon to fasten 
 on the Seachells as the Garden of Eden. Well, wot must our 
 skipper do but get one o' the things — Applin was 'is name — 
 wanted it to take 'ome for a curio, so the steward said ; he'd 
 bin cook-an' -steward, with a boy to 'elp, till the boy got 
 hisself drowned in Mauritius harbour, an' we got a nigger- 
 cook there. Well, we puts to sea agen, an' wot happens? 
 W'y we gets into another 'urrican', right away; an' you can 
 b'lieve it or not, away goes the fore-topmast an' the jibboom. 
 So we rigs up some jury spars same as before, an' makes back 
 agen. But afore we gets in the boom goes agen an' takes a 
 man with it, a Gravesender 'e was an' a corkin' good sailor- 
 man at that. Then there begins to be trouble. The men ses as 
 it was all along of that nut — a big thing it was — I saw it — 
 big as 'arf-a-dozen, three on each side all in one. They ses it 
 was the nut, because of it bein' like a woman, as I said. Well, 
 I was a youngster, not a A.B., an' had nothing to say, on'y 
 go with 'em, as I did, at the back. An' they goes to Cap'n 
 Applin, an' tells him if 'e don't throw that nut over the side 
 they'd fetch it out an' throw it for 'im. Well, I told you, he 
 was a big chap, an' down off the poop 'e comes, goin' to 
 knock skittles out of us. But some on us was big as 'e was 
 nearly, an' we was eight to one, not countin' me an' Sanders, 
 t'other O.S. So we stands our ground, an' 'e pulls up a bit 
 an' palavers; but 'twas no use. We'd got to see the nut go 
 over; an' we all talked — with big Black Joe an' Plymouth 
 Jack an' Sam Jackson in front — so as there shouldn't be a 
 ringleader to make sit up for it arterwards. So the Old Man 
 goes up agen an' has a word with the mate — a decent young 
 fellah, first time out on 'is mate's ticket. Then he goes into 
 the cabin an' brings out the nut and heaves it overboard; an' 
 
192 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 we thanks him an' goes for'ard, an' works the barque into 
 the Seachells agen, an'— Wot's that? One-bell? W'y, it's 
 my trick! " 
 
 And, giving us a meaningless snigger, he began to bundle 
 his sewing-gear into his ditty-bag, 1 then to load himself with 
 clothes ready for the wheel. In the meantime, however, he 
 mumbled out enough to show us that when the brig put to 
 sea again the captain had another nut, unknown to the men ; 
 also that they had another series of mishaps, which caused 
 a second rising on the part of the men, who then broke into 
 the cabin and threw the offending thing into the sea; with 
 the result, said Chambers, as eight-bells struck and he made 
 for the door, that " the T. B. got safe to Bombay, an' we all 
 went to Parsee George's for a square feed." 
 
 Allowing for Chambers' mumbling, slow manner of speech, 
 the story had been told in a light kind of way, without a 
 touch of the forced impressiveness and dramatic characteris- 
 tics of Whymper's yarn-spinning, or of any one of the telling 
 mannerisms of the other yarning members of our " crowd," 
 and most of them told a story now and then. In fact, what 
 with his queer, inoffensive little snigger and his conversational 
 traits generally it was impossible for him to be in the least 
 impressive in his stories. 
 
 In spite of all this, however, I could not avoid noticing 
 that his yarn had made its mark this time. All too plainly 
 for my liking it had set most of the men thinking, created a 
 quieter atmosphere altogether. In the course of the next 
 two or three days, during which there were more growlings 
 against the weather, etc., than I had heard since we left 
 the south-west trade wind, the believed influence of the 
 twin cocoanut was ominously referred to again and again; 
 along with references to the supposed still more evil shark's 
 headbone. 
 
 All this made me very thankful that Baily's " fiddle " had 
 no resemblance whatever to any part of a woman; because 
 
 1 A small bag in which a sailor keeps his clothes-mending materials, 
 and is usually made by himself. In the Navy it is, or used to be, a deal 
 box with a sliding lid. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 193 
 
 if the reverse had been the case serious trouble must have 
 arisen, and I should have felt great regret for Baily, between 
 whom and myself there was then an established friendship. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Mate discourses of a Breeze, the Barque, a washed-out Galley, 
 and of Captain Sennett's new Peculiarities. 
 
 Looking back at that little affair between the O. M. and 
 Featherston, I don't know that the man wasn't quite right 
 in going to him; because he had said, pretty clearly enough, 
 that he wondered if Featherston had had anything to do with 
 Whymper's fall from the yard. And when a man — master of 
 a ship or any one else — wonders a thing like that in the 
 presence of the man and doesn't out with it as he ought to, 
 and have done with it, then I think the man's justified in 
 fetching it out — although that sort of thing doesn't make for 
 discipline. Still, my sympathy lies with the man in a case 
 like that, especially with as good a man as Featherston was. 
 
 It happened in this way. I came on deck five or six minutes 
 before the bell struck — as I always have done in bad weather, 
 or when work was being done, so as to get the full hang of 
 things before the other officer went below. And as I stepped 
 out of the companion, I found myself alongside the Old Man. 
 He was standing staring away at the weather and that. Yet 
 his mind must have been on the unfortunate accident all the 
 time, or he wouldn't have turned to me at once, as he did, 
 and launched straight into it — wondering this and wondering 
 that. Mind, he said nothing definite ; he just wonctered. And 
 it must have been jolly aggravating, you know, for the man 
 — only six or eight feet behind us — to hear things like that 
 being said about him instead of to him, so that he could 
 answer 'em. It was enough to make most men break out 
 at once. 
 
 As for Featherston going aft: He went in at the alley- 
 doorway, off the main-deck; and I knew nothing about it 
 
 N ■ 
 
i 9 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 till long afterwards. (It was dark, you know.) The boy 
 wouldn't tell me, because he hated me like poison at that 
 time — he never had loved me — and kept all he could from 
 me. Many a thing he was to have told me he didn't, then 
 swore he had forgotten it; especially if keeping it back gave 
 me any trouble, or made it seem to the Old Man as if I was 
 dilatory or careless. Oh, he was nuts on anything like that 
 between the O. M. and me. You see, he was aware, of course, 
 that we were friendly with one another — a good deal more 
 so than master and mate usually are; but he didn't know 
 that, hadn't experience enough to know it. All he knew and 
 cared about was to break it up all he could. Oh, though he 
 was a boy in years, and a limb of the devil in mischief, he had 
 every one of his buttons on where his own interest was con- 
 cerned. And if he had one ambition in the world it was to be 
 first — ay, first, second and third — in the Old Man's eyes; 
 only that part of him that belonged to the devil would get 
 the upper hand now and then. 
 
 The thing that interested me in the matter, when I knew 
 of it, was the fact that the cap'n had sort of run away from 
 Featherston, to put it nicely. I knew he was down in the 
 dumps at the time. But if I'd known that he had backed out 
 of the affair in the way he did, which I didn't realise till some 
 time after, it would have opened my eyes a lot to the real 
 truth of his condition;' yes, even to the probability of what 
 might come from him, and to that little kink of moral 
 cowardice of which I had seen a bit here and there, yet hadn't 
 thought was of any consequence. However, no one can tell 
 what was staved off by his edging out of the trouble. 
 
 Well, thank goodness, the weather mended soon after that 
 little affair. At least, I thanked goodness then — so did we 
 all, I know. About a couple of days later the wind lessened, 
 and on the following day we got a bit more canvas on to the 
 old girl; but it wasn't enough to make her pick up her heels 
 at all, and that sea was bad — it was hopeless to expect her to 
 do anything against it. She was a duck to behave as she did. 
 
 I don't know how it was, but she didn't ship a single nasty 
 sea till the breeze dropped. Then, when there wasn't a suffi- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 195 
 
 cient press of wind to keep her lively under the canvas she 
 carried, and she came rolling up to wind'ard between the 
 big seas, over flopped a regular green one — twenty-five to 
 thirty tons of it, I should think, from the after-part of the 
 fo'c's'le-head nearly to the main-rigging. For a good thing 
 the deck-house broke the back of it without getting any 
 damage itself. Yet everything wasn't so lucky. The sea 
 charged aft, of course; and somehow or other (in the back- 
 wash, I suppose; you never know what the backwash of a 
 sea will do) it got the galley's weather-door open. 
 
 Well, you talk about a bull in a china shop — yes, but you 
 •wouldn't, never again, if once you saw a fairly big sea in a 
 ship's galley, then went round gathering things up, when the 
 sea had finished its little game. To say nothing of breakages, 
 from a wash-out like that, amidships, mind you, I've known 
 a kettle carried into the cabin and a saucepan lid down the 
 fore-peak, under the fo'c's'le-head, right in the eyes — washed 
 .the hatch off, of course, and popped the lid down there. Oh, 
 apart from the damage done, I've seen some fine fun come 
 out of a sea going through a galley, or a fo'c's'le; and I 
 should do the same if it went through the cabin, but it can't, 
 not in at one door and out of the other; a cabin is always 
 where that can't be. Why, when a sea breaks into a place 
 like that it looks to me as if it was a parcel of great, romping, 
 humorous bears got into a toy : shop while the owners were 
 away, and laughing and knocking one another over in the 
 higgledy-piggledy mess they're making. 
 
 Anyhow, that one got in there, and nearly every blessed 
 thing in it was out through the lee-doorway in a jiffy. The 
 old cook hadn't moved so smartly since his wedding-day, 
 unless it was on the day he left a nagging wife, about whom 
 he was* too fond of making a short, caustic reference now and 
 then. You see, he got a moment's warning by the door being 
 wrenched open in the weather-roll; and if he was no sailor, 
 he was, at any rate, a seagoing man. For that reason he knew 
 what would happen next. He knew that with the corre- 
 sponding lee-roll, that icy, raging, lashing devil out on the 
 deck there (as it was to him, and would be to any one in his 
 
196 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 place) would be in, and making a sort of sea-hash of his pots, 
 pans, kettles, his fire and his half-cooked dinner, with him- 
 self as the chief ingredient. So out he hops, through the foot 
 or two of water going in at the lee-door, from what had got 
 around the house, fore and aft. 
 
 I was on the poop at the time and saw him come out, with 
 the fear of God on his face, and I expect more than that in 
 his heart. For although he was a seafaring man, he was about 
 the most frightened one I ever came across. 
 
 However, he would have been a fool if he hadn't bolted as 
 he did (and nobody could say there was much " f " about 
 him), especially with that fire and pans of boiling things 
 behind him. For right at his heels out it all came — a rush of 
 water that nearly filled the doorway, steam and black objects. 
 The cook crept away for'ard in the pell-mell of it, and gasp- 
 ing, I know, poor beggar ! He was holding on to the hand-rail 
 that some considerate genius of a marine architect, or ship- 
 yard boss, had put along the side of the caboose and the 
 berths attached to it, port and starboard. I can see him now, 
 broad and thick and short, his stubbly head bare, crawling, 
 hand-over-hand, and thinking, ten to one, that his last 
 minute had come. I had run to the lee-side of the poop to 
 watch if anything went over the side, or if the water broke 
 away any of the lee-ports; that was why I saw it all so well. 
 And if I remember aright, Lionel here was caught by the sea 
 at the after-starboard corner of the house (we were on the 
 port-tack) . He was flung against the bulwarks, was rather un- 
 kindly mauled in the matter of bruises and cuts, and would 
 probably have gone through the lee-port just there, if the 
 chains had carried away, as they did a month later. 
 
 I began to shout an order to get the watch on deck. — -You 
 see, all this was done within a minute of the roller boarding us. 
 Then I saw that I had better be along there myself, and off I 
 went, just as the Old Man came out of the companion, looking 
 two ways for Sunday . Of course, he knew what was on, except 
 for details; and at another time he would have bounced up, 
 ready for anything. But he had his mental megrims on again. 
 
 Rushing past the gasping, spluttering cook, still holding to the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 197 
 
 hand-rail, I first of all got a hold on Anderson and yanked him 
 on to the main-hatch, told him to get a grab on something and 
 keep his head above water; he seemed to be a bit dazed, and 
 was spluttering salt water as if he wanted to rival a new 
 fountain at Sands-dn-Sea, or make a new paddling lake for 
 -the Crab Walk at Saltcliffe. But, Lord, wasn't it cold! That 
 was my first proper feel of it — nothing more than sprays on 
 my oil-skins before — and you can take my hope of thereafter 
 for it, that I " jes* moved some." 
 
 I made to unhook the chains and let the waist port go wide 
 open, so as to clear off the water sooner. But a big saucepan 
 thumped against my leg as I was going, showing me that if 
 I opened the port, our next meal might have to be cooked in 
 paint-tins, with an iron oil-drum for a soup-kettle. So I turned 
 to something else. By this time the men were coming on deck ; 
 and, having secured the weather door of the galley first, we 
 grabbed the utensils as we could. Some lids and small things 
 had gone through the partly open ports. 
 
 Then a fresh fire was lit for the cook, whilst he got into some 
 dry clothes, swearing the top of his head off all the time, you 
 bet; and I sent Lionel to do the same for himself — the 
 swearing excepted — then come aft and have his bruises and 
 that seen to, which I knew would be a turn for me by giving 
 the O. M. somebody to attend to. Of course, I lost no time in 
 getting into some warmer clothes myself. But the worst of it 
 all was that our dinner was gone. It was too late to cook 
 another in time ; so we had to be content with a cold scrap-meal, 
 barring the rum and hot coffee we got. However, the Old Man 
 had the cook aft by-and-by ; and the result was a spanking tea: 
 
 That evening the O. M. developed a new worry; possibly it 
 came out of the bit of trouble given us by the boarding sea ; 
 but he said nothing on that point. His new notion was to have 
 a " real prophetic dream," something that I could " read like 
 print, and would be all about this voyage plain as day." How 
 he came to me, night and day, every now and then, wishing 
 this, and bringing me bits of silly dreams again — oh, dear! 
 And how I wished I had never said a word to him about reading 
 dreams ! Ah, it was pathetic ! 
 
198 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Well, the longest day has an end, they say; and twenty- 
 four hours later we began to give the old barque enough 
 dressing to make her look decent again: Goodness knows, she 
 had been in decollete and " shorts " long enough ! And when it 
 came to the hoisting the main-upper-topsel — the only piece 
 of pulling that needed all hands, because we didn't set the 
 fore-upper-topsel till next day — you can be sure there was 
 some heartiness put into the chantey. 
 
 It was " Sally Brown," and, as a matter of fact, I selected 
 it. Before the sheets were hauled out I got hold of the nigger 
 and told him I wanted " Sally Brown " sung on the halyards, 
 and I wanted it sung with all the gusto he could give it, and he 
 was not to sing any other chantey unless it was a cheery one. 
 (You see, most chanteys have a rather doleful, plaintive sort 
 of air.) And as Baily was the only one else who had shown 
 that he could sing a chantey, I said to him as he went by, 
 
 " No doleful song to-day, Baily. Follow Scotty, if another 
 chantey is wanted, and you like to ; but make it bright. " 
 
 " All right, sir," he replied, and looked as if he understood all 
 my meaning. 
 
 But he didn't ; he only knew by this that I wanted things 
 to be lively for the sake of everybody. What I was particularly 
 after you can guess. Anyhow, as soon as the fall was manned, 
 the nigger yelped out in his falsetto : 
 
 " Iy shipped aboa'd ob a Libahpool linah " — 
 
 " Give it a bit of life, Scotty ! Think it's your wedding-song !" 
 I called from amidships, on my way to the weather-side to 
 watch the yard go up and see that all was clear ; and I was just 
 in time, for out rolled the chorus beautifully — 
 " Way-O, roll and go ! " 
 
 Then Scotty piped in much better trim, and the men gave 
 sheet to the choruses : 
 
 " Iy shipped aboa'd ob a Libahpool linah — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown / 
 
 " Sally B'own waaz a nice mulatto — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 Sally B'own waaz a nice mulatto — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! 
 \ 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 199 
 
 " Seben long yeah I cou'ted Sally — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 Seben long yeah I cou'ted Sally — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown I 
 
 " Sally, sed I, come an' let's get malied — 
 • Way-O, roll and go ! 
 Sally, sed I, come an' let's get malied — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! 
 
 " She sed she l would w'en I got some money — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 She sed she would w'en I got some money — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! 
 
 " So lound de Ho'n I went fo' Sally — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 So lound de Ho'n I went fo' Sally — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! 
 
 " Sally B'own she malied a bakah — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 Sally B'own she malied a bakah — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown I 
 
 " In Baltimo' 'e took huh dancin' — 
 Way-O, roll and go / 
 In Baltimo' 'e took huh dancin' — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown I 
 
 " In F'isco town she kep' a slop-shop — 
 Way-O, roll and go / 
 In F'isco town she kep' a slop-shop — 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! 
 
 "An' now ma Sally am gone for ebbah — 
 Way-O, roll and go ! 
 An' now ma Sally am gone for ebbah — 
 
 Spend my money on Sally Brown ! " 
 
 " Belay, boys ! " I shouted quite, gaily, for the yard was up, 
 then turned to look at the O. M. — casually, that is. He was 
 standing by the fore-rail of the poop, watching the work, as he 
 always did at such times, and always putting in a word or two 
 here and there about it. On this occasion, however, he had 
 
 1 It is impossible to spell such words as " she sed she " as Scotty 
 pronounced them. All his " s's " were as nearly silent as could be. 
 
200 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 said nothing, and I didn't like it. So I was looking at him in 
 the hope that he would say a few words as to the sail being set 
 properly, or the trim of the yards or something else. But no, 
 not a word. I felt that blessed disappointed that, after another 
 look aloft to see if the sail was all right, I glanced aft again and 
 asked, pretty sharply, 
 
 "How is it, sir? " 
 
 " Oh, it will do," he said, hardly casting his eye above the 
 main-top. Then he put his hands on the poop-rail, leaned on 
 it, and looked away to wind'ard, like some lovesick loony 
 watching for the coming of his dearie ! I turned round, kicked 
 a rope for satisfaction, and bustled the men from job to job 
 till we had finished spreading canvas and the decks were 
 cleared up. But before that was done I regretted my im- 
 patience and was as sorry for him as ever. After all's said 
 and done, I thought, we're safely out of the breeze; and if 
 things only go decently now, we'll soon be up in Christian 
 latitudes again ; then he'll brighten up, and we shall see this 
 is all nothing. 
 
 I was looking ahead, you see, to when all would be ship- 
 shape and Bristol fashion once more; and when you're, 
 amongst mountains a molehill is a small affair. I told myself 
 the worst was over, providing that we could get up to the 
 neighbourhood of the Horn again. But was it? Ever since 
 then, you know, it's always seemed to me that somewhere at 
 the back of his mind, or elsewhere in him, probably with- 
 out him knowing anything at all about it really, there was 
 something that told him better. 
 
 Because, look at the way he behaved in that alternating 
 fine weather and short breezes. It's true that we got on 
 slowly and were a long time going up north again. But we 
 were getting along, and things had mended for us consider- 
 ably. We hadn't carried anything away worth mentioning, 
 or lost any gear; and the barque was in a fine, seaworthy 
 condition. Yet all this didn't seem to weigh at all with him. 
 I don't say he was never cheerful during those weeks— that 
 wouldn't be true, he was; but it was in such short spells. 
 Then again he was so often gloomy when everything was 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 201 
 
 going well — as well as could be expected — just as if there 
 was that something at the back of his mind all the time. And 
 every now and then he came worrying me about that dream 
 (in which I was still fogged), his recurring desire for "a big, 
 clear one " that I could read. Still I looked on him only as 
 being tiresome for no real reason. 
 
 Why, on one occasion we had got a slant * of wind. I had 
 been down on the main-deck, seeing to the trimming of the 
 yards and that. And when I'd done, I felt so pleased at this 
 bit of good luck, and I also wanted to make the O. M. cheer 
 up a little, that I ran up the poop-ladder and landed with a 
 jump on. the deck, singing, from a song I knew, 
 
 " Oh, merrily goes the bark when the wind blows fair! " 
 
 Then I yapped out at once, laughing, " ' Bark,' you know, 
 sir — b-a-r-k. I don't know whether it's the bark of a tree or 
 a dog's bark; but that's how the song has it." And I'm blest 
 if he didn't look at me as if I'd done him an injury, then 
 turned straight round, went aft. to the compass, and stood 
 there, studying it and the wind — or seeming to. 
 
 Another time, during about a week's spell of nice, light 
 weather — although the wind was nearly dead ahead — and 
 while the Old Man was in one of his better moods, or, to be 
 correct, at the end of what had been one of his bright times, 
 he came up to me (it was my afternoon-watch out) and told 
 me he had just dreamt he was a cat in a place with a lot of 
 mice that couldn't get out. 
 
 " Were you hungry, sir? " I interrupted, thinking only of 
 what I was going to say next, or the gist of it rather, if he 
 answered " yes "; which he did, and looked sharp at me, as 
 though the matter was of vital importance. " What a feed 
 of fresh meat you were in for, then," said I. 
 
 We had been nearly three months on salt tack at the time, 
 so the joke should have had a double point to him, as it would 
 have had to any sailor, especially a deep-water shellback. 
 But, Lord, he only gave me one of those looks of injury, those 
 pathetic looks, to which I was beginning to be a bit accustomed. 
 <- 1 A fair wind, but not a " following " one. 
 
202 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Then, very quietly, he told me he was after the mice, here, 
 there and everywhere, and seemed as if he could feel the 
 juicy taste of 'em; but when he made to run one way, he 
 found himself going the other, running backwards in a way. 
 The long and short of it was that his tail was at the fore-end 
 and his head was at the end where his tail ought to have been! 
 And when he saw a fat mouse and thought he'd have it, his 
 feet went pattering in the opposite direction; and when he 
 wanted to swish his tail, as cats do at such times, he only 
 waggled his head. 
 
 Well, yoii know, at the minute it seemed to me that the 
 whole thing was just a piece of nonsense, like all his recent 
 dreams, only more comical — if he dreamt all he said he did, or 
 only imagined 'em. So I laughed; but there was no laugh in 
 him — oh, no ! Serious ? He might have been trying to solve 
 the fate of a nation, just about to square the circle, on the 
 point of getting perpetual motion, or something of that sort. 
 It might mean this, and it might mean that, and it might 
 mean the other, he went on with one silly unlikelihood after 
 another (no — I should say they seemed silly to me just then), 
 with no sort of parallel in 'em that I could see, till at last I 
 burst out, singing in a way — and where I got it from I don't 
 know; it came into my mind at the moment, and like a fool 
 I blabbed it out: 
 
 . " It might have been a walrus; 
 It might have been a whale; 
 It might have been a stickleback 
 In mother's china pail." ' 
 
 Then the fat was in the fire ! I could have bitten my tongue 
 out half-a-minute later — only that I should have reflected 
 on the probable use of it to bring him back to reason and 
 common-sense. While I chirped out the few lines he had 
 watched me with that look I've just told you of; and as soon 
 as I'd finished, he said, something like an old hen might say 
 to the duckling she's hatched, when it's just come out of the 
 water for the first time, 
 
 " Your levity, Mr. Willoughby, is unpardonable." 
 
 And with that he turns on his heel, goes straight to the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 203 
 
 companion and down below. Thunder, I thought, now I have 
 opened my mouth and put my foot in it ! Well, I should have 
 tried to put it right with him when I went below at eight- 
 bells; but he was in his berth with the door shut. 
 
 It was next morning before I saw him again ; then I said I 
 was sorry at the way he had taken my silly talk as to the 
 dream. All I got was : " There's no need to talk about it, Mr. 
 Willoughby." This was in such a shut-up-and-have-done- 
 with-it way that I said no more; and for a whole week he 
 was as glum with me as a vain wife who can't get a com- 
 pliment out of her husband. And all the while that imp of a 
 boy, seeing what was what, without knowing the cause of it, 
 went about with a smirk on his face that I came near to 
 wiping off forcibly two or three times. 
 
 But I had far more on my mind than him and his impish 
 pleasure, more than I think he could have put there, what- 
 ever he had done. I was thinking of that word " levity " — or, 
 rather, of the Old Man's using it. There was a newness about 
 it — a strangeness, in fact. It was a word I had never heard 
 him use before — that, and the way he had used it, made me 
 think " some," I can tell you. He was a man of everyday 
 words. " Merry," " lively," even " jocular " — yes, he might 
 have used either of them; they were common enough to 
 him. But "levity" — no; it was foreign to him, and it 
 carried a suggestion that was both subtle and sinister; although 
 I didn't, at the time, see more than a tenth of what I afterwards 
 believed it meant. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Which concerns itself mainly with Lionel's rendering of an Odyssey 
 spun by Smiley. 
 
 I mentioned the fact that Chambers' story of the twin- 
 cocoanut seemed to have taken a greater hold on my ship- 
 mates than I liked, and the truth of this cropped up repeatedly 
 during the next week or so. Furthermore, the time was to 
 come, unfortunately, when, as a kind of corroboration of the 
 
2o 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 shark's head-bone idea, it would have a sinister influence on 
 some of them. Every man who had heard the yarn, with two 
 exceptions, spoke superstitiously of it so long as the bad 
 weather lasted, and pretty frequently in the slow crawl up to 
 the north. This was especially the case in head-winds and 
 when it appeared as if we should still be weeks before the 
 latitude of the Horn was reached. 
 
 Still, these were not men who believed in the supposed evil 
 of overturning the salt-pot, bread-box or a cap-hatch, sailing on 
 Friday/going out stern-first, having an actual woman on board, 
 etc. They had outgrown those things; and I could only 
 surmise that the nut yarn had come on them as a kind of 
 over- weight, after the other. 
 
 One of the exceptions referred to was Smiley. Whenever he 
 heard any of the others talking dolefully of the imagined evil 
 nature of such things as twin-cocoanuts, sharks' head-bones, 
 coral formations of similar shape, or anything of that kind, he 
 always came in with some of his vigorous, broad Doric sarcasm. 
 Then, one dog-watch in the fine weather — which, by-the-bye, 
 was still bitterly cold — he launched a kind of counterblast^ 
 one that, he told Baily and me later on, he had thought out 
 piece by piece since the night of the twin-nut story. 
 
 It happened that the same two men were on duty as had the 
 wheel and the look-out when Chambers told his yarn, so that 
 the audiences were identical ; a circumstance at which Smiley 
 had possibly aimed, seeing what his purpose was. Booster — 
 the other of the two exceptions — had been amusing us with 
 some anecdotes rather than stories of his experiences on the 
 lakes, interspersed with the north-countryman's laughing 
 irony on anything mentioned that was too " Amurican " for 
 his taste. And presently, when Booster chanced to say that 
 there were " no fancy notions up ther' 'bout women afloat or 
 anything of a woman," Smiley interrupted, in a manner that 
 showed he had something to say and meant to say it, 
 
 " Noo that reminds me o' w'en Aa was i' th' good ship 
 Steerweel, wun o' th' finest beauties as ever braced a yard, 
 mates. Sail? W'y, she'd as clean a pair o' heels as ever left 
 th' chops o' th' Channel ! An' gan on a wind ! W'y, she luved 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 205 
 
 it that much she 'ugged up ta it like a fore-an'-after. An' luck ! 
 Ye taalk aboot yo'r sharks' heids an' yo'r blinkin' coocoa- 
 nuts an' them soort o' things I Wait till Aa tell ye aboot th' 
 Sleerwed" 
 
 He began to cut up some tobacco, saying in disjointed 
 sentences, whilst the others saw to their pipes in one way or 
 another and prepared to hear the story, 
 
 " Mebbe Aa shan't finish it this neit. . . . But Aa'll tell 
 ye aal t'same. . . . She wor a Hull packet; an' as them 
 Yorksher'men ar' cute beggars — slick, as Booster wad say — 
 p'r'aps she'd soort o' picked up the'r cuteiness." 
 
 He stopped to light his. pipe; and I, sitting pretty close to 
 him and to one side a little, thought I saw a glimmering of 
 that roguish twinkle in his grey eyes. His style of beginning the 
 story had attracted my attention. To my ears the wording 
 was of a prepared nature ; it sounded bookish. But, on the other 
 hand, Smiley was so fond of a joke and did so much chaffing 
 that it was hard sometimes to know if he was serious, unless he 
 happened to be angry. For these reasons I had watched him 
 closely from the start. Now I was half-smiling at him, as a 
 piece of understanding reciprocation. I should also have passed 
 a remark — probably, for that was my inclination — showing 
 that I saw what he was at ; but my habit of keeping myself in 
 the background saved me from this egregious blunder at the 
 outset. Then it occurred to me that his real purpose was to 
 spin a bogus yarn without the others knowing it as such. This 
 was sufficient to keep me quiet altogether, and I was very glad 
 that it did. 
 
 Having got his pipe well under way, at the expense of three 
 or four matches and varied by more broken observations, 
 Smiley began afresh with, so far as my memory goes, 
 
 " Ay, we filled her up wi' general i' Princes Dock, Hull — 
 seventeen 'un'red and seventeen ton she wor, — painted poorts, 
 aal w'ite paint an' varnish inside, — a yacht, ye can bet, an' 
 put yo'r Sund'y slippers on it. Cap'n Joe Smith wor master, 
 knaan on that East Cooast as.' Niver-change,' 'e wor such a 
 determined chap. Th' mate wor Frank Sikes o' Sun'erlan', 
 anuther like him; Wun-eved Sikes he wor called, — hed it 
 
2 o6 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 gouged out on a fight wi' a doon-east Yank w'en he wor second 
 mate. Weel, we raan 'er oot to Caalcutta, wun o' th' finest 
 passages ever made; an' we fills 'er oop wi' general agen. 
 But ye taalk aboot yo'r twin-nuts ; w'y, we'd a case on 'em — 
 case as big as a fore-hatch ; sum special soort they wor, picked 
 uns, because o' the'r markin's, goin' hoam ta sum mewseum. 
 An' let me tell ye this," he looked at Chambers very steadily; 
 the faint twinkle had gone out of his eyes; he was, I suppose, 
 warming to his story enough to try to make it appear to be 
 real, " them Seachells isn't th' only place w'eer twin-coocoa- 
 nuts grow. Ther's anuther sumw'eer doon Pondicherry way; 
 an' Aa s'ppoaze them as we hed cum through theer. Onyway, 
 theer they wor. Then we hed three cases o' sharks — ay, three 
 on 'em; daam'd big things twenty-odd feet long, blue sharks 
 an' w'ite sharks, they sed, goin' to anuther mewseum. An' 
 w'en ye've got a shark, ye've got his heid an' aal 'at's in it. 
 As for coral wumen an' wee bits o' nature things like that " 
 
 He waved one hand in a manner that, combined with the 
 momentary expression on his big face, signified that the sub- 
 ject was beneath further notice. Then, after a short pause, 
 and now fixing his gaze a little obliquely on a small, highly- 
 coloured Madonna and Child just above Chambers' head (a 
 relic of the previous voyage apparently, and most likely put 
 there by some demonstratively devotional Italian), and 
 appearing as if he were on the point of launching into a serious 
 recital, Smiley resumed, 
 
 " But, Lord bless ye, them worn't aal! We'd got mummy - 
 wumen, we hed ; an' Aa should think if a live un's bad, a deid 
 un wad be badder. Ay, deid wumen we hed ; an' sacred saalt 
 from the 'Imilayas, wot the priests 'ave, an' brings bad luck 
 ta ev'rybody else, like that Hooap di'mond we read aboot i' 
 Frisco. We war tackin' it hooam ta be analysed ta see if it 
 hed got them special prooperties wot the priests sed it hed. 
 Then we'd a pair o' Frid'y cats, an' fair devils they wor ta 
 look at, Aa can tell ye— big, tigerish things in a cage, wi' 
 blazin' eyes an' claaws like three-inch wire-nails. Qh, they 
 worn't deid. Mebbe ye never hee-ard on 'em afore — Aa 'adn't 
 dun till then. They're a soort o' tabbies, a sandy soort; an' 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 207 
 
 doon th' middle o' the'r backs, from th' back o' th' heid ta th' 
 tail, ther's a brooad black line, wi' anuther across it from doon 
 wun shoulder ower an' across ta t'other. Ye see, wun on 'em as 
 hed young uns in 'er got on th' lee-side o' th' Cross on Calvary — 
 lee-side from th' sun Aa mean — just as them big, black cloads 
 cam' doon an' auld Jamaica hid his face. Well, th' shaddah 
 o' th' Cross fell on that cat's back, fore-an'-aft, th' last thing 
 it tuched, an' theer it stopped; an' ' shu-ar,' as Booster wad 
 say, them kittens hed got it w'en they wor born. Then th' 
 trouble began. Them Jews as croocified Him wanted ta croocify 
 th' cats wot hed got His mark on 'em, an' theer wor a 'ue an' cry ; 
 but a pair on 'em wor got away ta India, a pretty long job in 
 them days. An' sum priests got howd on 'em; they'd never seen 
 onything like 'em, ye see; an' they sed ta the'rsel's: ' These 
 '11 be aal reit ta keep sacred, an' mak' th' people boow doon 
 an' gi'e the'r money ta.' This worn't for th' Cross, ye bet; 
 b'cause they divn't knaa ony more aboot th' Croocifixion 'an 
 that cat duz." 
 
 He pointed to our tabby, which was lying on Scotty's knee, 
 near the stove, and blinking at the yarn-spinner. By this time 
 I was sure, or as sure as I could be, that he was romancing, 
 using that inventive faculty of his to the very best of his ability. 
 My reason for this was, of course, the fact that I had never 
 previously heard or read of his mythical cat. Besides, the im- 
 possibility of that long shadow fitting the cat's back had 
 appealed to me at once. But on the faces of the other five 
 listeners, Booster's as much as any, there was no question of 
 doubt ; they were as full of interest and attention as, I think, 
 they could have been at any story. I snatched a quick, search- 
 ing look at Smiley's face, expecting to see the twinkle there, if 
 only ever so faint; but, no. Outwardly he was as serious as 
 any judge. 
 
 " Weel," he continued, " ye knaa, if ye knaa onything, 'at 
 w'eer parsons is an' they caal 'em priests they gets the'r blessed 
 fists inta everything — or everything inta the'r fists, w'ich is 
 aal th' same i' th' long run. Soa that wor w'y them priests 
 kept th' cats an' divn't let 'em breed ower much, an' on'y gave 
 young uns ta uther priests, wot did jest t' same; soa ther' wor 
 
208 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 never ony o' th' cats at large like, among th' people. This is 
 wot we wor telled b' th' man i' charge o' the cage, wot hed cum 
 wi' 'em fro' thousands o' miles up th' countery. He wor 
 tackin' 'em ta sum Zoo, Lundun, Aa think. Then we hed sum 
 doodle-birds. — Never heear on 'em?" 
 
 He looked from one to another — Mc'Arthy, Featherston, 
 Booster, Chambers, who sat along the side (where he was, 
 half -turned forward) and at the fore-end of the place. Three 
 of them shook their heads, and Featherston looked his denial. 
 Scotty and I sat more to one side of Smiley; he with his 
 biggish eyes showing all their whites and staring hard at 
 Smiley 's broad face, ginger beard and large nose; whilst I 
 wondered when the tale-teller would get to his story proper, 
 or if he would make the mistake of dragging out the side- 
 issues to the extent of spoiling the thing by arousing the 
 suspicions of his other listeners. 
 
 " Oh, weel, more hedn't Aa till then; soa ther' 's nae shame 
 i' not knaain'. But Aa've seen 'em, a few, sin' then. But, 
 then, Aa'm fond o' birds an' gan ta mewseums. That wor 
 in me w*en Aa wor young, Aa s'ppoaze, or Aa shouldn't 'a'e 
 bin sae much i' luve wi' th' mewseum an' things we'd got 
 aboard that Steerweel. As Rags theer sed, Aa wor young then, 
 on'y a ord'nary seaman — fact is, 'twor ma last voyage as 
 ord'nary. Next voyage Aa shipped A.B. i' the — Oh, Aa forget 
 'er name ! But them birds — by gum, ye should 'a'e seen 'em ! 
 We carried six on 'em, case sum pegged oot. They cum from 
 Thibit, soa we heeard, an' Aa've read on 'em sin' then. An' 
 that's w'eer ye get them priests in agen, — Aa tell ye the'r inta 
 ev'ry thing 'at's worth gettin'. Them birds cum from th' 
 monastries, w'eer th' priests kept 'em for just t'same purpose as 
 t'other priests kept th' cats. But hoo they managed ta get 
 howd on 'em first of aal, Aa can't say — Aa never hee-ard. 
 But if ther' 's onything ta be dun cute like, leeave it ta a priest ; 
 'e'll get it dun if ony man can. But th' birds — weel, they wor 
 a sort o' misfit 'tween a bromley kite an' a blue goslin' wi' a 
 bare neck; an' th' funniest paart aboot 'em was the'r e'es — 
 wun wor green an' t'other w'ite, or near as it duzn't matter; 
 but th' green un wor a nasty, dark, sickly lookin' thing 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 209 
 
 — soort o* malaaria e'e, Aa should caal it. An' w'en ye 
 offered wun on 'em summat on that side, 'e took it in 'is big, 
 flat beeak an' tried ta chew it oop; 'twor aal t' same, a piece 
 o' cooal or a piece o' cake. That wor 'ow it got th' name o' 
 doodle-bird. Oour bosun 'twor as christened it ; an' th' nattur'- 
 list i' charge on 'em took it oop an' put it on the'r cage 'long 
 wi' t' scientific name; an' Aa've read as it's stuck ta 'em. Ye 
 see, th' poor things hed nae taste, th' man sed ; an' as wun e'e 
 looked broad away ta poort an' t'other straight ta starboard, 
 ev'ry time th' blooamin' thing waanted ta look at summat 
 wi' boath e'es it hed ta tack its heid aboot. Mind ye, it could 
 tell t'other fro' w'ich wi' that malaaria e'e, by gum, it could ! 
 An' if ye offered it a wrong thing on that side — w'y, it made 
 ye shiver b' th' way it looked at ye. That's waar th' priests 
 cum in, ye see. They kept them birds ta mak' money oot o' 
 th' people. If a man or a wuman cum an' waanted th' oracle 
 read — an' they say as that's dun a lot oop theer — wot he'd got 
 ta do wor ta plank doon 'is bag o' rice, or his 'andful o' rupees, 
 or wot he'd got ; then th' bird did as th' blaam'd priest telled 
 it — that was th' trick — see? If th' offerin' wor aal reit, then 
 th' priest made a sign like, an' th' bird turned his best e'e on 
 it, an' t' man gave sum more an' went hooam, 'appy as Larry. 
 But if th' offerin' worn't enough— then look oot. 'Boot went 
 th' bird's heid, doon cum that malaaria e'e, an' th' poor beggar 
 on 'is knees hed ta get oop an' gan hooam an' say 'is prayers 
 an' get hissel' ready, 'cause he knew 'is days was numbered 
 aal reit. An' that chap wat wor i' charge o' th' birds sed as 
 '00 th' poor devil did gan an' snuff it reit enough i' mooast 
 cases; ye see, thinkin' o' deein' killed 'im. An' Aa've knaan 
 wun or two Britishers slip th' bucket b' th' same complaint." 
 Here Smiley switched off to the Steerwell, much to my 
 relief; for I was then fearing that I saw signs of questioning 
 and contradiction on the faces of Mc'Arthy and Booster, 
 and I was rather anxious for Smiley to effect what I felt sure 
 was his purpose. But later on I came to the conclusion that 
 what I saw was only what I, too, was experiencing, a little 
 impatience for Smiley to get off his side-tracks and go ahead 
 with the story proper. At the same time I was feeling con- 
 o 
 
210 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 siderable admiration for the inventiveness he was displaying, 
 in spite of my wonderment as to where it would end. 
 
 Besides, time was getting on. Six-bells had just been 
 struck, which meant that in another three-quarters of an 
 hour one-bell would cause a break-up amongst us. Last of 
 all, when Smiley got off on a verbal racket, one never knew 
 where it would end; not that he had ever previously done 
 anything comparative to this in continuity. Most of his 
 former efforts at entertainment had always been as short and 
 snappy as they were generally of a vigorous and laughing 
 nature. However, after lighting his pipe once more he made 
 another start, this time in a manner that seemed to say he 
 meant to hurry straight on. 
 
 " Weel, Aa tell ye these wor th' fancy wee bits o' things as 
 we left Caalcutta wi', an' we'd nae sooner got doon th* 
 Bay 'an she began ta kick up bobs-a-dinah. Oh, ma butes! 
 Ye wad 'a'e sed she'd got th' Devil hissel' in 'er, an' aal 
 t' other devils as weel — if ther' 's more 'an wun. She wor in 
 a paddy, an' nae mistak'! Aa'll tell ye 'oo she wor in a 
 paddy, as we knaaed by-an'-by, but divn't knaa then. 
 She knaaed o' them things i' 'er inside — you bet, she did! 
 Knaaed ? Ay, as weel as we did. Be'ave 'ersel', like a deeacent 
 packet, not she ! 'Twor like as if she'd sed to hersel' : ' Aa 
 couldn't do onything ta tell ye, w'en Aa was tied oop at 
 Garden Reeach; but noo ye've set ma free, Aa'll show ye 
 wot it is ta stuff me wi' these balmy things.' Ye see, 'boot 
 horf-way doon t' Bay we run inta squaally weather an' a 
 nasty, loppy sea. An' divn't she jump an' roll an' pitch an' 
 tumble aboot! By gum, she wor like that sheep's heid wi' 
 quicksilver in it, tuppin' th' dumplin's oot o' th' saucepan. 
 Cap'n Joe begins ta say as th' cargo worn't stowed proper. 
 Weel, ye knaa 'oo a chief mate wad tak' that taalk, specially 
 wun like Wun-eyed Sikes. Th' fat was i' th' fire in a minute, 
 an' they flies at wun anuther like billy-o. But th' second mate 
 wor 'andy, an', naatur'lly, he jumps in an' tak's th' Auld 
 Man's paart. Soa ther' worn't much damage dun. But we'd 
 got ta set to an' do a lot o' re-stowin', an' a blessin' it wor for 
 us as we tumbled inta sum fine weather for it w'en she couldn't 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 211 
 
 tumble aboot. Then wun o' th' cases o' shark, doon th' 
 booby-hatch, cums sos on Ginger Sam's chest, an* 'e was a 
 dun un. But that wor 'ardly a beginnin'. In a squaal aff th' 
 ylndamans x bang went th' fore-t'gal'nmast, an' tore th' 
 t'gal'nsel an' royal — we'd got aal t' three royals flyin' — aal ta 
 smithereens. Weel, we gets that little job put reit, an' begins 
 ta slip along agen, w'en rip! — Doon b' th' Nicobars — ye'll 
 follow me, ye as knaa ye'r Bay o' Bengaal — ay, we hedn't got 
 ony for'arder 'an th' Nicobars, w'en slap inta a cycloone we 
 runs and blows away aal t' three upper-topsels afore we 
 could get 'em in. Ye see, cycloones i' them paarts cum on 
 ye like squaals — squaals as last twenty-foor an' foorty-eight 
 hoours. An' by jimininy, divn't they pipe! — an' gan roond 
 an' roond! That's w'y they'r caaled cycloones, ye, knaa — it 
 meeans roond. An' roond we went, Aa can tell ye! We boxed 
 that cumpass five moortal times i' eight-an' -twenty hoours! 
 — Never seen ony thing like it afore, an' divn't want ta agen. 
 An' aal under bare poles, mind ye — not a rag standin' ! But 
 we got oot on it — ay, an' daam'd near run ashore oot o' hand 
 aff Aachin — ye knaa, north point o' Sumatra. Mebbe ye've 
 not bin oop theer like me. Aa knaaed them places wun time 
 like Aa knaa me face. Onyway, we saves 'er be aboot a ship's 
 length. Then we gets a slant aff shore, an' slips away inta th' 
 daam'dest set o' calms as ever Auld Nick made ta send 
 shellbacks ta 'ell." 
 
 A slight break was caused by this; but although Smiley 
 used it to relight his pipe in, he seemed to resent the short 
 grins it brought out. For there was a kind of a snort in his 
 words as he began again, 
 
 " Hot ! That divn't tell ye wot 'twor .ike — not a scrap ! It 
 wor 'ell. — It wor 'ell ! — 'ell proper. Ye see, we wor close doon 
 ta th' line, an' never a claad or a drop o' rain fro' day to day. 
 Th' sun wor nearly ower heid; an' wun day doon drops twa 
 on oour chaps on th' deck, wollop. 'Twor Wun-eyed Sikes's 
 fault; th' blitherin' idiot wad keep us at wark aal th' time, 
 an' nae extra watter or lime-juice. Oh, she wor a warkhoose, 
 reit enough, though she'd got plenty o' grub an' stores. An' 
 1 The Andaman Islands. 
 
212 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 th' mate an' Cap'n Joe hed anuther set-to ower that. Wun 
 sed t' other wor wrang, an* t' other swore *e wor wrang; an' 
 at it they went. Wun o' th' men got better; t' other we 
 buried. — Better? Aa meean 'e could potter aboot th' deck; 
 but ye couldna send him aloft — aallus a bit silly after that 
 an' luved ta lie doon i' corners. Weel, theer we wor an' 
 couldna get oot o' them calms. Then sum o' th' aulder 'ands 
 begins ta taalk aboot them things we'd got abooard. An' wot 
 d'ye think? W'y, wun neit them twa cages vamoosed, 
 bunked, did a guy. Wen th' mornin' cum ther' wor neether 
 cats nor birds. Ye see, they wor kept on deck, under th' 
 break o' th' poop, for the'r health's saake; an' they went 
 ower th' side for oour saakes. Then, as ye knaa, ther' wor 
 hell ta play — a munkey ta shave, but naeb'dy wad howd th' 
 lathther-box. 'Coourse nub'dy could say 'oo'd dun it; an' 
 Cap'n Joe an' Wun-eyed Sikes an' Mister Nattur'list wor aal 
 beside the'rsel's — Cap'n Joe least on 'em, b'cause he felt wi' 
 us a bit. Aa divn't say as 'e thowt ther' wor bad luck i' them 
 things — not a wink. But he knaaed wot shellbacks wor— 
 good as t' next if they'r considered, devils i' sulks if ye wark 
 'em contrariwise. But t' others — they wor rampin'. Ye see, 
 th' mate wad 'a got a fine bonus if we'd landed them birds 
 an' cats alive, same as aallus. Onyway, they wor gone; an' 
 sumb'dy knaaed w'eer, as th' boy sed he did w'en 'e dropped 
 t' kettle owerboard. Then we got oot o' th' calms; but we 
 couldna mak' ony westin'. It looked as if we wad be driven 
 doon ta Australia. Sae aft we tramps — th' w'ole twenty-wun 
 on us — we wor twenty-foor; but wun died, wun silly, an' 
 anuther just agan hooam — 'im as that case o' shark fell on — 
 made us twenty-wun. Weel, wun or anuther on us we put it 
 tae th' Auld Man as nicely as we could. — Wot Aa sed worn't 
 enough for me ta remember. Like Chambers theer ower t' 
 nut, Aa was a young un, an' kept w'eer young uns should." 
 
 (This was a false note, and it seemed to me that Smiley 
 regretted it at once, for he hurried on impressively, in order 
 to counteract the smiles he had caused by his reference to 
 Chambers.) 
 
 " Wot we waanted was for Cap'n Joe ta put inta Cape Toon 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 213 
 
 an' get rid o' th' w'ole bag o' tricks — mummy-wumen, sacred 
 salt, nuts, an' aal. Wun-eyed Sikes sed he'd see us daam'd 
 fust, if 'e was th' cap'n ; an' we sed he worn't cap'n, an' we'd 
 daam' 'im if he wor. But Cap'n Joe was a gentleman — w'en 
 'e happened ta think as ye did, or saw as he'd got ta see as ye 
 saw. Sae 'e sed he'd do it, if we warked cheerful an' proper 
 till we got theer, an' we sed we wad. But this worn't enough 
 for summat. Ginger Sam slipped 'is painter, an' we left him 
 astarn wun evenin', as t' sun went doon red as Mc's face. 
 Then th' weather we 'ad — by gum, it was a corker! We wor 
 sixty days gettin' ta Cape Toon — eighty-seven days oot fro' 
 Caalcutta! Th' like on it hed never bin heeard on. Weel, 
 ' under stress o' circumstances,' Aa think th' Auld Man 
 caaled it, we put them blaamed things ashore, an' aff we 
 slips agen, thinkin', af coourse, as we wor gan ta finish th' 
 passage like wun o'clock. But did we? Nae, tworn't tae be 
 dun, mates. Ye see, we divn't knaa it, but we'd still got th' 
 cause o' aal th' trouble abooard." 
 
 Here there were a few half-gaping questions as to what the 
 thing was. Only Feathers ton continued to smoke and say 
 nothing. Smiley, however, pressed onwards, without paying 
 any heed to them. 
 
 " We wor hardly oot o' Table Bay w'en doon cums a nor'- 
 easter on us — weel, pVaps we wor oot three days w'en it 
 cum, — an' pipe ! Ma conscience, but it gave us fits ! West o' 
 St. Helena it sent us, away ta th' devil an' back — or theer, 
 at ony rate; it divn't fetch us back much, not it! B'sides, it 
 blew us away that much canvas 'at we had ta set-to an' mak' 
 new uns oot o' auld uns, like a couple o' topsels oot on a spare 
 foresel, an' that. Sailmackin'? — Aa've not seen sae much 
 patchin' an' mackin' sin' Aa cum ta sea, 'cept wot Aa've seen 
 Rags theer do this voyage." 
 
 This relieved the tension again, and caused more smiles to 
 appear on the faces of Scotty and Mc'Arthy, whilst Chambers 
 sniggered. But such was not Smiley 's intention. The refer- 
 ence, like the others, had been quite unpremeditated, some- 
 thing that Smiley could not resist when once it was at his 
 tongue. Now, however, he recognised his mistake, and 
 
214 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 launched out again, very apparently with the determination 
 to " haul 'em back ta the'r moorin's " there and then. In 
 fact, he began at once to work up for his denouement, know- 
 ing quite well that he would have to be most impressive 
 there, or all his elaborate preparations would be useless. 
 
 " Then th' weather fined oop an' gave us a slant. But, 
 Lord bless ye! afore we knaaed w'eer we wor, a westerly 
 breeze got a bear's 'ug on us an' ower to Sooth America we 
 went. Ma conscience, Aa shall never forget that blaw ! It 
 sent us straight ower ta Pernambucco. Warse 'an aal, it lost 
 us twa hands — Portsmouth Bob an' W'iskers, twa real gude 
 men, though they did luv the'r drop i' harbour. That wor 
 foor in a passage, mind ye—foor, an' wun silly! Ma God, 
 worn't it enough ta mak' men stand on the'r heids an' sing 
 Oh, b' joyful? An' wot o' th' sails we'd blaawn away, an' 
 spars we'd smashed, an' wot not ? Ony'ow, we got oot on it — 
 ay, oot o' that an' inta th' Doldrums. An' ye taalk o' rain an' 
 sweat, an' sweat an' rain, an' pully-hauly! Phew! W'y we 
 was in it three-ah' -twenty days — course, sum poor devils 
 'a'e bin theer longer — an' monny a time we fell asleep at th' 
 braces, an' ye can b'lieve me or dae t' other thing. But Aa 
 think th' warst wor w'en th' bread went bad — damp hed got 
 at th' biscuits, an' they wor aal mouldy, 'cept a few barrels. 
 Then it wor — sae we heeard sum weeks later, w'en aal wor 
 gan well — it wor then 'at oour nattur'list (wot decided at 
 Cape Toon ta cam hooam wi' us, an' let 'is deid wumen an' 
 sharks an' that cum on after) went to Cap'n Joe an' sed as 'e 
 was beginnin' ta think ther' wor summat iri ha'in' unlucky 
 things aboot ye, an' as 'e wor consarned aboot th' ship. An' 
 as he'd still got sum photygraphs o' them doodle-birds, un- 
 beknaain' ta onyb'dy, 'e wad heaave 'em inta th' deep — that's 
 wot 'e sed, ' heeave 'em inta th' deep, an' sae perpishiate (Aa 
 think that wor t' way t' steward sed it) — perpishiate th' 
 inflewences as wor agenst us.' Sae ower went th' photy- 
 graphs. But that wadn't dae th' trick for us, though Aa'm 
 pleeased ta say it did sum on it. It took us oot o' th' Doldrums 
 inta anuther set o' calms, w'eer a block cum doon on t' third 
 mate's heid, an' made us anuther fun'ral. Next thing, th' 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 215 
 
 watter got brackish, an' we could see scurvy cumin'. Then 
 that nattur'list chap oops an' ses he's got a ring fro' a man as 
 wranged anuther man's wife; ' An' theer,' he ses, an' chucks 
 it ower t' side, ' p'r'aps that's the trouble.' An' trew as Aa'm 
 sittin' 'eere tellin' ye this, we wor in a luvely breeze i' twenty- 
 foor oours; an' we carried a fine westerly wind reit oop th' 
 Channel, an' divn't ha'e anuther bit o' trouble aal th' way 
 fro' that day ta Hull. An' w'en ye think on it, as a thing like 
 that — th' ring o' a sinner, like ony wun on us, '11 cause ye ta 
 lose men an' sails an' spars, an' send th' grub bad, an' put 
 ev'rything at sixes an' sevens, an' drive ye away i' gales an' 
 calms ta w'eer ye'd never gan wi'oot 'em — weel, w'en it cums 
 ta a pass like that Aa think it's aboot time ta stop ashore, or 
 cum ta sea stark-nak't an' carry on'y cooals. Mind, Aa'm 
 not sayin' as onyb'dy 'eere 's wranged anuther man's wife. 
 But w'at Aa dae say 's this : If ev'ry ship 's ta ha'e nae bad 
 luck, then ninety-nine oot o' th' hun'red on us had better get 
 jobs ashore. Remember, aal oor bad luck wor owin' ta that 
 ring." 
 
 There the story finished; and if Smiley had not made the 
 end so good or impressive as I hoped he would have done, he 
 certainly put plenty of driving force into it; and there was 
 no denying that it had made its mark. Until one-bell rang 
 (and I knew that neither it nor eight-bells came too soon for 
 Smiley's relief) Scotty, Mc'Arthy, Chambers and Booster — 
 the last in a less degree — pestered him with questions on this 
 or that point in his yarn ; but never with any apparent doubt 
 of the truth of the tale. (Smiley was too big, strong and 
 ready a man to doubt, unless he gave you a lead that way.) 
 Even Featherston asked a few quiet queries, only, however, 
 on comparatively simple matters. 
 
216 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Running out a Gale, also some other Matters as depicted by Mr. 
 Willoughby. 
 
 Well, we did manage to crawl away up north; but! you 
 know, I count it one of the most trying pieces of work that 
 I can remember. It was ten times worse than a gale of wind ; 
 because in a gale you know you're helpless; it's so much 
 bigger and stronger than you are. You feel there's something 
 omnipotent about it, and it sort of makes you sit back on 
 your own impotence and keep quiet. But in baffling winds 
 and calms, when you can put canvas on, yet Can't get to 
 where you want to be, for weeks together, and know you 
 could, if only the wind would give you a slant or even keep 
 steady in one direction — I can assure you that if Job had to 
 come back and go through the experience, he wouldn't have 
 much reputation left for patience. 
 
 As for the Old Man during that time — the less said the 
 better. . I had never seen him so gloomy as he was towards 
 the end of that time ; and there were some things he did and 
 said, some notions chiefly that he brought out, when he was 
 inclined to talk, that brought back what I had wondered 
 about him two or three times, and made me pretty anxious. 
 
 He had dropped worrying me about dreams, as I about the 
 one in particular. So I was thrown on myself miserably; 
 because the second mate couldn't talk for sour apples, only 
 about the day's work, ship-board matters generally and his 
 " young wife." 
 
 However, as we got up towards the latitude of the Horn 
 again the cap'n brightened up a bit; and wasn't I thankful 
 he did! 
 
 It was like the lifting of a fog when you're on a coast and 
 don't know how close you are, or quite where. But we were 
 no sooner up there than away we went again. At daybreak 
 one morning it was, cold as you please, and a nasty, sharp, 
 stinging look on the lively little sea that was running. I've 
 got a clear recollection of it and thinking how I didn't like it. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 217 
 
 It was all so keen and hard, as sunrise had been, with some 
 savagery in the shape of the clouds and the way they tumbled 
 along. The barque was standing up to a north-easterly 
 breeze, and doing well, the old girl was, when suddenly the 
 glass began to go down — not a quick drop, like you get in 
 warm, moist latitudes, but a steady, persistent falling. 
 
 At noon it was blowing a stiff half-gale, and we knew we 
 were in for some very dirty weather. By that time the Sappho 
 had been put into shorts and decollete again; yet she was 
 doing her duty handsomely; in spite of a biggish sea that 
 had jumped up quickly. It was my afternoon-watch out, and 
 I was glad the Old Man kept below; because he was either 
 glum as a sick fish at the time or full of forebodings that gave 
 one the hump over again. 
 
 About half-past three I went down to tell him what I 
 thought of the weather and suggest a further shortening of 
 sail ready for the night. Because if we were going to do it — 
 and it was only common-sense to do it — there wasn't too 
 much daylight left for the work. As you may guess, the days 
 were still miserably short, although they were not so skimpy 
 as they had been down south. Why, in spite of the cold, the 
 short days, the long crawl and the aggravating weather, 
 coming up from the south had been, you know, something 
 like coming home. 
 
 However, as I said, I went to the saloon to tell him how 
 things were, thinking, as I entered the companion-way, how 
 different it was from the time — only a few weeks before — 
 when he would have been up and down so much that you 
 couldn't have told him anything he didn't know of the 
 situation. 
 
 I had rubber boots on, so I made no noise in going down 
 the steps. The Old Man's door was shut, and the saloon was 
 already half-dark, because there was no sky to be seen for 
 clouds. But a light was shining along the alley-way, towards 
 fhe door that opened on to the main-deck. I knew this came 
 from the pantry, and I couldn't make out what it was burning 
 for at that time of day. So, as the O. M. was shut in his berth, 
 out of the way, I went quietly along and peeped into the 
 
218 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 pantry, and I was glad I did. There was that wiry, little 
 devil of a boy firing hard peas at the cat's face. He had 
 managed to tie the cat up, in a corner on the locker, so that 
 its face was towards him and it couldn't twist about much. 
 His shooter was a piece of fine bamboo that he had probably 
 found in the store-room or down the booby hatchway; and 
 there he was, standing by the door, a matter of six or eight 
 feet from the cat, and driving those peas at its face, with, I'm 
 sure, the sporting chance of making a bull's-eye by hitting it 
 in one eye or the other. 
 
 Thanks to my rubber boots and the careful way I had 
 come along I was there before he knew it. His next shot was 
 off the target altogether, because he made it just as I fetched 
 him a clip under the ear that sent him sideways and must 
 have made it ring for an hour after. I was that wild that I 
 don't know how it was I didn't get a piece of line and give 
 him a proper trouncing. And there were some old scores at 
 the back of my mind, too. 
 
 - As for bringing the Old Man on to the scene and so to the 
 boy's rescue: At the time I shouldn't have cared a rap if he 
 had come; and if he had, I should have rapped out pretty 
 freely, I know, partly because I was already well fed up with 
 the Old Man's illogical nonsense — or what I looked on as such, 
 except when he let into the worst of those notions I've 
 mentioned. 
 
 But, you know, the young monkey was too artful to kick 
 up a rumpus ; he knew it wouldn't pay him to have the O. M. 
 fetched there. So he just took it with a snivel; and I let the 
 cat go, promising him that he should have exactly the same 
 as the cat if I caught him at it again. Oh, he was game right 
 enough, where it suited his purpose. Look at him up to a 
 thing like that in a stimsh gale and a big sea running. Yes, 
 he'd got the way of the sea in him, as it's called, sure as 
 Heaven makes little apples. The fact is no one knew what 
 there was in that boy till it came out — I mean no one would 
 have guessed what was there. And when you knew, you 
 found it easy enough to forgive what you didn't like, that is 
 so far as it lay behind. v I had never forgotten — nor forgiven 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 219 
 
 up to then — how cheekily, as I called it, he came over the 
 side from the boat, on the day when he fell overboard, after 
 the cat. He knew those were shark waters, as well as we 
 did ; and he was the reverse of being wooden. 
 
 Anyhow, I left him hugging the side of his head, called 
 the Old Man, told him my opinions of the weather, etc., then 
 went on deck again. He came up a couple of minutes later, 
 took a look round and said, as if he was a sad superintendent 
 talking to some new Sunday-school teacher at a bun and tea 
 fight, 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Willoughby, bring her down to the main-lower- 
 topsail. I will stay here and ease her up whenever you are 
 ready." 
 
 I went down the ladder with my thoughts on him much 
 more than on the work before me. This precise and correct 
 way of speaking was new to him; although I had believed, 
 and do now, that there had been a time in his life when he 
 would have developed along those lines, if circumstances 
 hadn't been against him. It was one of the new peculiarities 
 that I didn't like in him, one that he showed only now and 
 then and always when he was deep in the glumps. And for 
 him to come on the poop in that condition at such a time — • 
 well, it was like setting a drunken engineer to drive a railway 
 train; it might come out all right; but you didn't know 
 what would happen. 
 
 However, nothing went wrong. We got the sails in and 
 stowed; but we were longer about it than I thought we 
 should be. It was nearly dark when I looked around, before 
 going to the poop, to see if all was done except the clearing- 
 up. As I did so I caught a glimpse of the Old Man staring 
 away at the weather-bow. In a couple of seconds I had stepped 
 to the side, looked in the same direction, seen a huge sea 
 almost ready to drop aboard, and yelled for all I was worth, 
 
 "Scaldings! Cover! Hold on, men!" Then with "My 
 God! " to myself and a sort of little prayer, I ran aft, ready 
 to slip on to the poop if much of the sea came along. Yet, 
 with thoughts of the men for'ard and hopes for their safety, 
 my mind was mostly full of wonderment at the Old Man sort 
 
220. THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 of gaping at the sea and giving us no warning. This was 
 beyond me entirely. I wanted to go up and talk to him, and 
 say a bit of what I thought about him seeing a roller like 
 that coming aboard, and not opening his mouth. But there 
 was so much of more important work to do. 
 
 In less than half-a-minute I was away for'ard again — on 
 the weather-side, I admit, out of the water all I could get — 
 hearing Denis squeal as if he were being killed, while I shouted 
 to the men thereabouts generally to know if they were all 
 right. Happily, all hands were there, and no one was hurt, 
 with the exception of such cuts and bruises as happen at 
 those times and no one bothers about. 
 
 Denis wasn't hurt either, for another good job. Because 
 if he had been damaged much, we should have had to kill 
 him at once, or leave him to die in the night, then be thrown 
 overboard ; and there was no time to spare for killing pigs to 
 save fresh pork, however succulent the idea might be. I 
 suppose that having had his home partly smashed before and 
 by the same sort of hurly-burly, he thought he had better not 
 stand mum and frightened in a corner this time, but sing out 
 pen and ink for help. 
 
 Luckily for us the chains of the for'ard port had broken, 
 allowing the port to swing right out; so that the water was 
 clearing off at a fast rate. Yet it would not have been lucky 
 if one of the men had gone through. However, in about five 
 minutes we were beginning to be normal again; then over 
 came another sea, and struck me right on my back — fool 
 that I was not to have been on the look-out for it, seeing how 
 nearly we had already been caught napping ! I went down in 
 a heap, spluttering salt oaths on the water, and damning the 
 O. M. in my mind for being a bigger fool than I was in not 
 shouting to us. 
 
 Ah, well, for a blessing, it was only a small sea and did 
 no harm, except wet me to the skin everywhere, which it 
 wouldn't have done if I hadn't been standing near the bul- 
 warks. As there was nothing else to keep me for'ard, I told 
 the second mate to re-secure the port soon as the water was 
 gone; then I turned aft, intending to get those icy clothes 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 221 
 
 off right away if possible. But it was to be some time before 
 that happened. I hadn't taken three steps, when the Old 
 Man shouted to me to set the fore-topmast-staysel. 
 
 " All right, sir! n I bawled back, and went to see the work 
 done, wondering what on earth he meant to do. Was this 
 some of the drunken engineer's work? I wondered. Yet if I 
 had thought in the right direction for a moment I should 
 have known; for what reason could he have in setting that 
 sail, except to get the barque's head off the wind ? And, right 
 enough, five minutes after the sail was set, I said to myself: 
 " The Old Man's funked it! " — funked trying to weather the 
 gale out by lying-to. But I wouldn't say that in calm moments ; 
 because only the man who knows his ship to the uttermost 
 can tell if it is better to lie-to, or up helm and let her go. 
 
 At any rate, there she was, with wind and sea abeam. And, 
 my God, how I prayed for her to be lively, get along and 
 swing further off! The sight of that steep, short sea right 
 alongside made me feel that if one came aboard — from bow 
 to quarter as it would, if it did come — another one or two 
 would follow before the barque could recover herself, and 
 then — chaos, and the Lord forgive us all. Then it was, 
 
 " Weather-main-brace! Slack away your lee one! " 
 
 " Ay-ay, sir! " called I. "Come along, men! Smart now! 
 Ease away to luward, Mr. Young, soon as you're ready! " 
 
 And aft we went at the run, every mother's son of us, I 
 know, being mighty pleased to watch that sea get abaft our 
 beam. The yard was squared at once. We were then dead 
 before the gale; and so that all should be made snug before 
 it was really dark, I hurried the men off to finish clearing-up 
 decks, then get their teas and all muster under the break of 
 the poop, as I expected there would be the topsel to take off 
 her at once. Then I went up to the Old Man — or, at least, I 
 went and stood by the mizzen-rigging, at the fore-port end 
 of the poop, that is. I had finished my work and had nothing 
 to say to him. I was still smarting from his neglect of us as 
 to those two seas, the first of which might have lost us a man 
 or two, but for my timely warning, and the second had 
 drenched me through. So if he had anything to say he could 
 
222 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 come to me; and if he didn't come soon, I was going below 
 to change my clothes. 
 
 But, I say, what pigs we are when we think we're 
 unjustly treated! Why, if I had been worth tbe name of a 
 Christian, or anything like a reasonable man, at that moment, 
 I should have weighed things up a bit — remembered his 
 abnormal condition of mind before he took the drastic step 
 of putting her before the gale, to run back probably to where 
 we had spent miserable weeks in crawling from; have put 
 this and that together as to what sort of mind he would be in 
 just then, and have gone over to him and talked cheerily. 
 
 He didn't come; but stood by the binnacle, watching the 
 compass and now and then looking at the seas astern. So I 
 went to the companion and began to ask about the topsel, 
 when he interrupted with, just as he had spoken before 
 shortening sail, 
 
 " Do everything that is necessary and proper, Mr. Wil- 
 loughby. You know what is wanted as well as I do." 
 
 That was enough — yes, by jingo, of its sort it was too 
 much. I got a move on me and closed the companion doors; 
 they faced aft, and I didn't want the saloon washed out, 
 because I shouldn't have laughed at it in my present state of 
 mind. Then, as the second mate had come on to the poop, I 
 told him to lay all hands aft in ten minutes and give them 
 warning at once ; also if any water came over the stern to get 
 a grab on the Old Man first thing. With that I went below, 
 by the alley-doorway, and got into dry clothes as fast as a 
 half -frozen man knew how. 
 
 I won't say much about getting that topsel in. Of course, 
 it ought to have been taken in while we were hove-to. But 
 we got it in — or the men and the second mate did, in spite of 
 the gale making it like a steel balloon. What wouldn't I — all 
 of us — have given for a moon! or, better still even, to have 
 had the Old Man at the break of the poop, shouting cheerily 
 to us all the time, off and on. To me there was something 
 exceptionally depressing about him; and I was on tenter- 
 hooks all the while for fear a sea came over and got him in its 
 hug. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 223 
 
 When the sail was in, and the fore-topmast-staysel stopped 
 down to about half its size, just to keep her manageable, I 
 hurried on to the poop again, went up to the Old Man, talked 
 nicely to him — but got nothing out of him — took him by the 
 arm, led him to the companion, put him inside, told him to 
 go and lie down till he felt better and said I would keep 
 handy all night. Then I called the boy to bolt the doors 
 inside; I shut 'em, and went to the binnacle. This was 
 another revelation to me — his allowing me to send him below 
 and leave him there in a time of danger. No further back than 
 the sou' -west trade I would have bet any odds that such a 
 thing would never happen; and now it had come it rather 
 upset me. 
 
 But there were other things to do — a lee-helmsman to get, 
 first thing, and both of them to secure with life-lines ; for if 
 we were pooped by one of those seas nothing movable would 
 stand up under it. I even thought it possible that if such a 
 thing happened the barque would go down head-first. Then 
 I had all hands mustered aft, cook and Chips as well, ordered 
 them to secure every door and whatever else they could 
 for'ard, and to lay aft when they had done and make them- 
 selves comfortable for the night, but all to be ready for a 
 moment's call — the. two hands of the watch-out under the 
 overhang of the poop, and Chips, the cook and the watch-in 
 in the sail-locker, which opened under the starboard side of 
 the overhang, and had a square door, so high that three feet 
 of water on deck would not get in there. 
 
 By the time these things were done the second mate came 
 up from his tea, and I went down. The Old Man's door was 
 shut. I hoped he was making the best of things. But I feared 
 there was no sleep for him — not till his mood changed, and 
 it had then lasted so long that it seemed to me it would never 
 change again. While I was having my tea I noticed that the 
 boy was going about as glum as the Old Man was. This was 
 so new that I wanted to ask him what was the matter; but 
 I said nothing, and went on to the poop for the second dog- 
 watch. There I found that Young had adopted the precau- 
 tion of a life-line, and when he left me I did the same, with 
 
224 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the result that before the watch was out I had it to thank for 
 saving my life. 
 
 It was then pitch-dark, with a squall of rain or sleet at 
 times. A look-out was impossible. I could only see the 
 barque's head when she half -buried it in foam. When she 
 lifted it again and went roaring away into the blackness all 
 outline was lost. Beyond the seas breaking near us, ocean 
 and clouds were one. Talk about selling a farm to go to sea, 
 that was a time to say you wouldn't sell a quiet death-bed 
 ashore to go there and live. But the worst of it all was aft — 
 astern there. If only we can get safely through the night, I 
 thought, and run into daylight, when these huge, short, 
 steep seas will have become proper, long rollers, we may see 
 the end of it and be alive. Yes, if — yet it wasn't to be. 
 
 The mischief happened just after six-bells, in a squall of 
 sleet and snow. I had been to the binnacle, seen that the men 
 were all right at the wheel, ascertained the time- by the sky- 
 light clock (there was a round hole for that purpose in the 
 canvas cover that I had had put on to prevent the light from 
 dazzling our eyes, and to keep water out), then struck the 
 bell and took a turn again with my line to a pin in the rail 
 near the bell. Immediately after this there was so much 
 chatter under the overhang, amongst which I heard, " Well, 
 Sappho was a Lesbian! An' wot the Devil's a Lesbian, 
 any'ow? " that I called out to them to make less noise. 
 There was only a bulkhead between the sail-locker and the 
 Old Man's room, and I didn't want them to disturb him; 
 although, at the same time, I knew it was good for him to 
 know that they were not gloomy. 
 
 Hardly had I done this when there was a huge roar astern. 
 It seemed to hit me on the back of my head. I snatched a 
 look that way and felt the end had come. There, roaring like 
 some fabulous monster or hellish devil, at least eight feet 
 above the taffrail, its top curled over in whitish phosphores- 
 cent foam, stood a wall of black water — it s*eemed to stand 
 at the moment. Then down it fell, within an instant of me 
 looking in that direction. 
 
 I turned again, at the impact, took the rail in my arms, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 225 
 
 said a few words of prayer — as I believe every man does at^ 
 such a time — and it was on me. I thought it would never 
 have done going over, When I opened my eyes again I was 
 on the foreside of the rail, hanging there by the life-line and 
 my hands. I clambered back on to the poop-deck and looked 
 for'ard, feeling as if I'd been dragged through a whirlpool 
 along with a lot of wreckage. 
 
 The barque, seemed to be standing nearly on her head. 
 Nothing of her was visible except a faint outline of masts and 
 spars. Was she doing as I had thought was possible? I 
 wondered — going down head-first. I turned and shouted to 
 the men at the wheel, to see if they were all right. What the 
 answer was I didn't know at the moment. Something ahead 
 attracted my attention, more psychologically, I think, than 
 otherwise. Then I made out what it was. The fore-lower- 
 topsel had got adrift at the bunt. I saw the huge bag swell 
 out against a background of white foam. (How I prayed to 
 God it would not burst ! For I knew; of course, its providential 
 service at the instant.) 
 
 Under the enormous pull the gale gave to the bag up came 
 the Sappho's head. Her decks levelled again. Another great 
 sea was thundering up astern — two smaller ones had already 
 passed us since the murdering mass came aboard. She seemed 
 to shake herself, like a retriever coming out of the water. 
 Then away she went, as if she knew her peril and was deter- 
 mined to get away from it at once, and not a second too soon 
 to escape that fearful roar over the stern. Hardly knowing 
 what I did, so overjoyed was I, I patted the rail where I 
 stood, called her an " old dear," " a beauty," and I don't 
 know what, then bowed my bare head (my sou' -wester was 
 gone) in a few moments of thankfulness. 
 
 When I looked up again she was nearly clear of water and 
 was racing through it like a deer. Denis was squealing for 
 his life again, and he had to be left to squeal. You could see 
 the foam she was making half her own length from her bows, 
 white and sparkling with phosphorus. All round her, in fact, 
 was a mass of it; outside that there was nothing but black- 
 ness, the roar of crashing seas, and the howls and shrieks of 
 p 
 
226 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Jhe wind as you caught it on the top of a sea, or it caught 
 only the top-gear when she was down in a hole. 
 
 Just as I raised my head up came the two men from under 
 the overhang to see if all was well. My line was off in no 
 time, and we went aft together, in the glare of the skylight, 
 the cover of which was torn to ribbons — what was left of it. 
 The first thing I noticed was that the binnacle was gone; I 
 missed its light, and thought: Well, we can steer by the sea 
 and the skylight compass till morning. The two men at the 
 wheel — Mc'Arthy and Hines — were lying insensible on the 
 grating. The great sea had fallen right on to them. The wheel 
 was spinning port and starboard at its pleasure. Those head- 
 sails were steering the barque. At my orders Smiley took 
 the wheel — he was the bigger and stronger man. Baily I sent 
 for help. He came running back at once to say the cap'n 
 was at the alley-doorway, asking if all was well. 
 
 " Tell him ' Yes,' and say no more; and hurry along with 
 a couple of hands t '■ I said. 
 
 He ran off again, as the second mate came up, and he and I 
 began to get Mc'Arthy away. Up came Baily with two men, 
 and I told them to bring Hines down to the cabin. As a matter 
 of fact I sent Young back to the poop there and then (more 
 for form's sake than anything else, because no man could have 
 seen half-a-ship's length ahead), and examined the men in the 
 pantry. This was to keep the Old Man from knowing about 
 them till I knew what the damage was. And you can guess 
 my relief when I found that they were both practically un- 
 hurt, only insensible, and fast coming-to. The younger man 
 had a big lump on his forehead, where it had struck a spoke of 
 the wheel, I fancied. But the other fellow had done no more, 
 so far as I could make out, than give in at once and make all 
 haste to swallow as much of the sea as he could, so as to get 
 things over quickly. Not bad tactics when you know it is all 
 up; but 
 
 However, as they were in their senses again — with the liberal 
 help of brandy, of course — I sent two hands to fetch them dry 
 clothes from the fo'c's'le, and got into some myself, then 
 relieved Young again. He wanted to know if he should get 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 227 
 
 the topsel re-secured. (To give him his due, he was always 
 ready for any work that had to be done ; a readier man in that 
 way I never met.) 
 
 " No," said I. " It pulled her out of the hole ; and whether 
 Heaven or the other place loosened it for the job, I'm not 
 going to meddle with it yet awhile. Let it go, so long as it helps 
 her out of the way of these seas. You can send two men up to 
 pass extra quarter-gaskets, so that the sail doesn't get any 
 further loose. And while you're on your feet you might take a 
 look round the decks and see if anything's broke away. 
 There's that damned pig squealing yet every now and 
 then." 
 
 He said, " All right," and went down the ladder. 
 
 And the sail was helping her, too. By Jove, she was lifting ! 
 If there had been a- moon, it would have been a magnificent 
 sight, and no mistake ! To tell the truth, with such a sea as that 
 was I ought to have left her a piece of canvas aloft to keep her 
 head up and help her along. That was a bad " error of judg- 
 ment " on my part, as nautical assessors would say; but it 
 was nothing of the sort — there was no judgment in it. I just 
 forgot the thing, and there it was. 
 
 When the second mate came back with his report I was 
 pleased to learn that no damage was done beyond some 
 broken port-chains — which had helped the barque to roll off 
 the water all the quicker — and the hen-coop. The latter was 
 smashed up, and the few fowls left were dead ones; he had 
 brought them aft, cutting their heads off as he came, and would 
 hang them up under one of the boat-beams, so that they could 
 bleed, then we could have 'em cooked, he said. There was 
 " no yirtue in throwin' good fresh meat away after a hundred 
 days on salt tack! " 
 
 " And what about the pig? — What's he keep squealing 
 about? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, — only wants to come aft, same as all hands. 
 He's one oFem, you know." 
 
 " I see — he's lonely — doesn't like the separation," said I, 
 knowing how the men made a pet of the pig, and smiling to 
 myself at the notion of his not liking to be left for'ard. 
 
228 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " No. What if I brings him aft,Mr.Willoughby,till mornin' ?" 
 
 " What to do ? — Keep him in your berth ? n 
 
 " No. Could put him in the sail-locker with the men, they 
 won't mind," he answered quite seriously. 
 
 " No, Mr. Young. He came aboard here as a pig; and till 
 he can at least make his mark on the Articles, he's not going 
 to rank as an A.B. Leave him where he is ; a pig has to suffer 
 the ills of being a pig," I said, and he went below. 
 
 At eight-bells I gave the men a tot of rum apiece, and had 
 some fun but of the old cook coming to the galley-doorway for 
 " my whack," as he called it. 'They were very comfortable in 
 there on the sails; that big overhang of the poop, the fact 
 that the locker had no proper door, and the barque's nearly 
 going on her head the instant after the sea came aboard, had 
 combined to save them from getting any water in there at all. 
 
 Towards the end of my next watch on deck (twelve o'clock 
 to four) the topsel slatted so much that it burst, and the loose 
 part soon went to rags. The night was still as black as Hades, 
 now and then squalls of snow or sleet, but no rain; and I 
 would not risk the lives of men for, the sake of a sail, whilst 
 there were more in the locker. Next to this, the main point 
 was: Either that short, devilish, steep sea had run itself into 
 a decent and respectable sub-antarctic roll, or we had run 
 away from it ; for which reason there was no longer any real 
 need for the sail. The stopped-down fore-topmast-staysel 
 was doing all that we wanted in that way. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Lionel's Recital of a Day in the great Gale. 
 
 We were fairly comfortable in the dark sail-locker. In fact there 
 was a very snug feeling in being there, warm under plenty 
 of soft, well-worn sail-cloth, with your oilskins for a pillow, 
 ready to snatch them in a moment, and hearing the wind and 
 seas roaring and shrieking. outside. It only needed safety- to 
 make the thing even enjoyable. That was the " but " and 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 229 
 
 the "If " in one. How the others were taking it in their own 
 minds I could only tell by a query here and there as to whether 
 or not we had " W'ymper's shark's 'ead-bone aboard/' These 
 were ominous, and I was glad that they went no further. I 
 noticed, however, that there were very few remarks on the 
 situation itself — much fewer than there had been~on previous 
 bad ones, and that fact was enough to keep me from asking 
 questions. This was especially the case after the sea came over 
 the poop. 
 
 For myself : I lay^till, with as little sail on me as possible, 
 and not any further than I could prevent from the three-feet- 
 square opening that served as a doorway. If it was going to 
 be a case of " Jump and look after yourself," I did not intend 
 to be the last to jump. As to my thoughts : They boxed about 
 r from home — sister, mother, father — to what I should get hold 
 of, if the worst happened ; then of the futility of holding to 
 anything less than the ship in those bitter, deserted waters, and 
 round the circle back home again. One thing I know I did 
 think, wish I mean, hard and definitely : That I had not given 
 wa}' to the romantic idea of going home in the Sappho. 
 
 However, after the rum was served out (of which I had 
 my tot) there was a little more talk, and on the whole it had 
 a rather more hopeful strain. From Mc'Arthy, in fact, there 
 was a great deal more talk; but it was all about what he 
 thought and felt like when the sea dropped on him. The tiny 
 details of his sensations were remembered marvellously. I 
 believe he could haye talked all the night on what he fancied 
 he had said to himself and had done in the water. I was very 
 pleased when the others at last growled him into silence. 
 Then, after a while, he tried to start the shark's head-bone 
 idea afresh; but, to my great relief, Smiley came down on 
 him, and there was peace. 
 
 This brighter outlook, I considered, was probably due to 
 the rum, but only in part; because a drink so small as that 
 would not affect such heads as theirs. What was more, their 
 hopefulness was based on the barque having "a bit o' clout 
 now to pull 'er out of it." This seemed to be such a logical 
 reason for hope, especially as no more seas were coming on 
 
230 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 board, that I fastened on to it. In proof of this I presently 
 followed the advice of Baily and the example of Chips and 
 " the doctor," by creeping away to a corner, where I should 
 be less disturbed by the changes of watches, and where I 
 slept like a top till I was awakened about six o'clock to 
 " fetch coffee for the crowd." 
 
 The barque was then tearing along with dry decks, except 
 for the snow and sleet left by the squalls. And I will leave 
 you to imagine what my feelings were whilst I gathered my 
 scattered senses together; realised how I had slept in that 
 terrific weather, and some other etcetera of the situation, 
 then scrambled out to fetch the coffee. 
 
 Now I will tell you how the first day of that awful gale 
 went — or, rather, of how the men comported themselves in 
 the face of that continual danger of annihilation; a danger, 
 that was deadly, piercingly cold, had all the ferociousness of 
 a tiger and was freezing instead of hot ; a threatening death 
 without a touch of glory in it or any kind of warmth. 
 
 At breakfast-time we were back in our own quarters, glad 
 to find " Tiger " quite as usual, although he had been shut 
 up to himself all night and had had a sea battering to get in 
 at him. Denis's disrupted nerves we tried to soothe by giving 
 him more than a fair share of our cracker-hash; but when- 
 ever- any one of us went into his sight he squealed, instead 
 of grunting as usual. Whether or not he was still frightened, 
 or merely wanted his frequent morning privilege of begging, 
 with his two fore-feet on the forecastle door-sill, I cannot 
 say. However, after trying to quieten him, and only making 
 him worse, by putting a piece of canvas over the open part of 
 his sty, we had to keep out of his sight all we could during 
 that day. 
 
 A pigsty aboard-ship is generally, so I understand, a 
 wooden, covered-in cage, with iron bars along the front, 
 standing about a foot above the deck and secured with stays 
 and lashings. At any rate, that is what ours was ; and in all 
 probability the fact that the great sea had not broken it 
 adrift was because it was back on to the forward end of the 
 forecastle, which broke the rush of the water as it tore like 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 231 
 
 an avalanche from the poop. At the same time, owing to 
 Denis's roof keeping him down, ten to one the poor beggar 
 was under water during the half-minute or so that the sea 
 filled the deck. 
 
 After breakfast we took down what was left of the fore- 
 topsail, and bent another, but saw that it was well-stowed 
 before we left it. The Sappho could make way enough then 
 without more sail than the piece of fore-staysail. 
 
 All the morning and up to ten o'clock, when he went to 
 the wheel, Mc'Arthy was once more all talk about his ex- 
 periences in the sea on the poop — that is, when no officer 
 was near. It was then daylight; we were not huddled in a 
 dark sail-locker, listening to death roaring for us outside, 
 and that poop-experience was far away. For these reasons 
 the chaff and stinging sarcasm about his having " got a jag," 
 being " stuffed with pidgeon " (bunkum), " tippin' us a lot 
 of his biff," " slammin' old buck at us," and the like all fell 
 off as harmlessly as they did when they were flung at him 
 concerning the mythical doings of his ancestors in Irish 
 history — or the historical exploits of his mythical ancestors; 
 I never took the trouble to ascertain correctly which bee it 
 was that he had in his bonnet. But I am inclined to think 
 that in the beginning he came across the record of some real 
 Mc'Arthy in history, perhaps hunted up a few others, and 
 adopted them all as his forebears, with one or another thrown 
 in from his own powers of creation as circumstances seemed 
 to require. 
 
 However, with a Parthian shot from Smiley, to the effect 
 that if he only gave " that sea " enough of his " daam'd clap- 
 trap it wad lee doon quiet an' let's gae back ta th' Horn," he 
 went to his trick at the wheel. At that time the sea was a 
 regular series of huge rollers ; they were so high yet so finely 
 sloped that the barque just about filled a slope; and when 
 she was down between two of them, I'm sure their crests 
 must have been somewhere near the level of her maintop. 
 And the beauty of it all! — I mean the grandeur! — The magni- 
 ficence ! It was too great to talk about. It only needed a clear 
 sky and warm sun. to make it .perfect, instead of that over- 
 
232 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 cast, the occasional driving scud and squalls of sleet or snow, 
 and the pinched, bitter look of everything. 
 
 Well, I don't know how it was, whether Mc'Arthy was 
 thinking of something outside his work (his so-so " ancestors, 
 damn 'em! If ther* was ever any of 'em to damn," said my 
 companions generally), or he got into a little panic of his 
 own, whilst Mr. Willoughby was below with Captain Sennett 
 — they had just been taking a sight; but, however it was, 
 he let the barque broach-to sufficiently for a sea to come 
 threateningly and obliquely along the port-side. Smiley, 
 Baily, Hines and I — who were getting the remains of the 
 topsail aft to the locker — looked^up quickly. We were then 
 on the lee-side of the main-hatch, forward withal. Smiley 
 shook his big fist at Mc'Arthy, and Hines muttered a curse. 
 Only the top of the sea curled over and spattered aboard. 
 We could see Mc'Arthy heaving away at the wheel for all he 
 was worth, and he could see us shaking our fists at him. 
 
 Then, before Mc'Arthy could get the barque off square 
 with the gale again, up came the next sea. Being rather 
 steeper than its forerunner, or because of the Sappho not 
 being quick enough in her movements, or something that 
 was outside my cognisance, it thundered against her by the 
 break of the poop, ran like a terrible, intelligent monster 
 along her side, obliquely as before, to about the main-rigging, 
 then flopped probably twenty tons of water sideways on to 
 the deck. 
 
 It broke on the main-hatch and the after-end of the house, 
 the bulk of it going forward between the house and the port 
 bulwarks. There, with a roll of the barque, it charged across 
 the deck, between the foremast and Denis's sty, which it 
 half -filled, making him squeal his loudest; it struck the star- 
 board bulwarks, and— as the Sappho then began to climb 
 the incline of another roller — it turned aft. That was where 
 Hines, Baily and I were caught. Smiley, being the furthest 
 aft of our party, had bolted in that direction. To get out of 
 the way of the portion of the sea that came to leeward we 
 had hurried back, between the house and the lee-bulwarks, 
 forgetting all about the major portion. All doors were being 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 233 
 
 kept closed — except the upper half of the galley's lee-door — 
 so escape was impossible. The bigger part got us first; we 
 ran into it, in a way, as it turned aft down the steep deck. 
 Just there it must have been three feet deep. It was like ice, 
 and had sufficient force to bowl us all over and wash us along 
 the deck to the part from which we had run away. 
 
 When we were on our feet again, perhaps half-a-minute 
 later, there was not one of us, even Baily included, who 
 would not have gladly served Mc'Arthy as the sea had served 
 us. In the foot or so of water that was still swishing about 
 our feet we stood and shook our fists (I would not swear to 
 Baily in this case) at the cause of the trouble, in spite of the 
 mate and Captain Sennett being then engaged in "wigging" 
 him. Having done this we lugged the wet remnants of the 
 sail aft, threw it down under the overhang of the poop, and 
 went to put on dry clothes, again anathematising Mc'Arthy 
 for making us carry so much water into the forecastles. 
 
 I may say here that I had already learnt the usual ship- 
 board way of always blaming the helmsman for any water, 
 even to sprays generally, that boards a vessel — in sailing 
 craft at any rate. 
 
 It was during the remainder of that watch, whilst we 
 were " loafing " and yarning under the forecastle-head, that 
 Smiley told Baily and me of the made-up nature of his long 
 yarn (Baily had heard of it, of course) and swore us to secrecy 
 in the matter. 
 
 Turning from ourselves for a moment, I remember that 
 day so well because of the exceptionally large number of 
 Cape Hens and Mother Carey's Chickens there were about, 
 but most of all because of a great albatross that appeared at 
 noon. What a magnificent creature he was ! Sixteen feet .or 
 so (most of the men swore it was eighteen or more) of slender- 
 looking grace, planing this way and that, with all the ease 
 imaginable, against that howling gale! I don't say he flew 
 high. He was seldom more than forty or fifty feet above .the 
 crests of the waves and not often that. But oh! the way he 
 planed up and down the long, blue sides of the rollers to wind- 
 ward, turned this way or that in the bottom of a valley, so 
 
234 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 low that the tip of a wing went into the water frequently, 
 came up again and headed the gale over the foaming top; 
 then took a turn towards us, sailed along the ridge — ten to 
 fifteen feet above it — now canting his under side to the 
 breeze, now the upper, across the stern ; then sweeping past 
 our lee-side, down the wind, like a marvellous winged dart 
 of brown and white over the wild and roaring run of deep 
 blue and white, shooting across our head and so back to his 
 "weather berth "; there to hover again for a while, before 
 making other evolutions around us. And always that great, 
 low-set, solemn-looking head pointing straight forward; 
 whilst the big, alert, yet equally solemn-looking near eye 
 watched us more closely, I think, than a cat watches a mouse. 
 
 Some of us were so moved by his beauty and his easy 
 masterfulness as a flyer that we threw him almost anything we 
 could lay hands on in the way of food ; but biscuits were not 
 in his line, and of meat we had precious little to spare. One 
 thing I noticed, that although some of the Cape Hens were 
 socialistic enough to sail in and pick up outlying morsels, or 
 pieces of biscuit which his lordship had seized and dropped, 
 the mass of them and the Chickens entirely kept a respectful 
 distance. 
 
 From Baily (who was mostly then always ready to talk 
 with me in his easy, soft, low-toned way) I learned that the 
 albatross was the largest he had ever seen, and he had been 
 " around the Horn dozens o' times in the old days." By that 
 time I had adopted the habit of always going to him for such 
 information, because he was reliable, and about the oldest 
 and most intelligent man in the " crowd." He told me he had 
 helped to catch many of them, but had never known one to 
 be over sixteen feet from tip to tip, and very seldom that. It 
 was "all moonshine to talk of eighteen an' twenty feet," 
 same as it was " all moonshine to talk o' sharks twenty-five 
 an' thirty feet long." 
 
 Another thing I learnt from him was that he had never 
 come across the superstition that trouble would assail the 
 ship where an albatross was caught; he thought it was " a 
 landsman's, not a sailor's notion." It was also a fallacy to 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 235 
 
 think that only one of those birds was usually seen at once; 
 that was the exception, he said, and a big exception, too, and 
 not the rule. He also exploded the superstition about bad 
 weather following immediately, when Mother Carey's Chickens 
 were seen first to leeward; for the simple reason that you 
 never see them anywhere else. They always come to you on 
 the lee-side, and the first thing you know is that they are 
 there — away the lee-quarter and astern, making a feast on 
 the small forms of surface life that are churned up by the 
 passing of the vessel. It is only right to say that Smiley, 
 Featherston and, later on, Mr. Willoughby and the second 
 mate all corroborated these points. 
 
 Turning again to my shipmates and the manner in which 
 they took that tremendous weather and time of great danger : 
 Just after tea, when Booster was at the wheel, and Scott y 
 was keeping what look-out he could from the roof of the 
 deck-house; when the bogies were burning pretty well, pipes 
 were alight, and the Sappho was tearing away through the 
 darkness again, conversation turned on the decrease of 
 " windbags " and the increase of steamers, with the con- 
 comitant decadence of " sailorising." And this, so far as I 
 remember, was about how it ran. 
 
 Chambers (without the snigger; but with his needle going) : 
 " Oh, ther' 's no ships now-a-days. The blamed things is all 
 boats ! Look at them Liverpool Cambrians — kings an' princes 
 an' that— an' the Hills. They're all gone." 
 
 Smiley : " Ay, ma son, like ye'r innorcence an' beauty — 
 they cum oop an' flourished a little w'ile, same as th' Glassga' 
 Marions an' Counties " 
 
 Mc'Arlhy : "And the Liverpool Welsh Counties — the 
 Flintshire, the Denbigh " 
 
 Smiley : " Then pop, an' the' 're gan, as ye'll be afore lang. 
 Ye knaa, Rags, Aa can't for th' life o' me mak' oot w'y it is 
 as sich a fossil " 
 
 Mc'Arthy (in pretended seriousness): "'Ere, Chambers, 
 you're not standing that! — Are you? " 
 
 Smiley: " Nae, he's sittin' it. Can't ye see that? Oris 
 ye'r greeat aunt Anna-Maria- Jane-Grey Mac-M'Arthy-Arthy 
 
2 3 6 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 i' th' way? — or that wee bit o' sea ye fetched abooard ta- 
 day? " This was only about the fiftieth time that reference 
 had been made to "that sea," since the "ragging" Mc'Arthy 
 got when he came from the wheel at twelve o'clock. 
 
 Chambers (with the snigger): "No, I don't care wot he 
 
 ses, as long as 'e don't say I'm a Geordie. I'm thinkin ." 
 
 What else he said at the moment was drowned in laughter 
 at his quiet hit back at Smiley's county designation, in which 
 Smiley himself was as loud as any. When the racket had 
 subsided sufficiently Chambers added, 
 
 " I was thinkin' 'ow we're goin' to pieces at sea. Wot's to 
 train young men to be sailors, w'en we've got no sails to 
 train 'em with? Look at, the time w'en we'd got the Empires 
 an' the Sierras an' the Castles an' the Monarchs, all Liverpool, 
 same as the 'Ills an' Cambrians an' Counties — fine ships, 
 ev'ry one of 'em; an' " 
 
 Smiley : " Look ye 'eere, Rags, b' th' way ye'r gassin' on 
 aboot ye'r Liverpool fairms, wun wad think as ther' worn't 
 anuther poort i' th' warld. W'y th' Tyne sent ships ta sea- 
 ay, ships Aa'm taalkin' aboot — afore th' Mairsey knaaed wot 
 a ship wor." 
 
 Hines : "Go it, Smiley! Rub 'im down! 'E's always 
 crackin' on about Liverpool this an' Liverpool that," 
 
 Smiley (in mock seriousness to Hines) : "Yehowd ye'r wisht, 
 ma lad. Boys wi'oot beeard should be seen but not 'eeard. We're 
 taalkin' aboot things as ye knaa naething on; sae bide quiet." 
 
 This was all the more appreciated because Smiley himself 
 could only have been a small boy at the time they were talking 
 about. Mc'Arthy joined in here, with similar remarks to 
 Hines ; this being a regular habit of his, whenever any one 
 gave another person any kind of caution or admonition. 
 But on that occasion Smiley turned his Doric sarcasm on him 
 and snubbed him into silence — for a minute or two. 
 
 Feather ston (rather heavily, as if he were just awaking 
 to the conversation, whereas he had been alert to it, in his way, 
 all the time) : " An' w'ile you're mentionin' yer Liverpool lot, 
 wot of Green's London Black Ball liners, aye? — Some o' the 
 best-found ships as ever come to sea. W'y, look at 'em, dead 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 237 
 
 an' gone these years an' years, an' the'r name still known in 
 ev'ry port from Gravesend to Sydney." 
 
 Mc'Arthy : " You're right. And wot about — — " 
 
 Hines : "Of course, 'e's right; an' don't want your word 
 to back 'im up either " 
 
 Featherston (talking doggedly on, and ignoring the fact that 
 Mc'Arthy was enumerating some Glasgow firms of clipper 
 sailing ships): " Don't you be too nasty, me lad. A nasty 
 tongue's got many a nasty face, an' worse 'an that. But, as 
 I was sayin', wot o' the ' Invers ' — Inveramsy an' all them — 
 an' Thomson's Greek ships — Thermopolyee an' that— of 
 Aberdeen? " 
 
 Mc'Arthy 1 " Yes, and Cory's Stars out o' Belfast." 
 
 Chambers: "An' Brocklebanks' East-Indiamen, a' good as 
 any." 
 
 Baily : " Yes, they was all good as one another, in some way 
 or other. But w'en you've done, you know, you've got to go 
 to Glasgow for some o' the best, and for most of 'em, because 
 the Clyde had the most firms. — Isn't that so ? " 
 
 General chorus with Featherston's slow notes half a bar 
 behind : " Yes, that's so ! " 
 
 Baily (with all of us listening quietly): "You know, if I 
 remember right, there was the Shires, Brackenridge's Falls, 
 Aitken's Lochs, Lilburn's Ports, Carmel Stuart's Mounts, 
 Smith's Cities, Dunlop's Clans, Andrew Weir's Banks (though 
 I shouldn't say they was of the bes*t). Then there wer' the 
 Queens, and the Scottish hills, lochs, chiefs an' that — you'll 
 remember — an' Skinner's Castles an' Spence's Firths, Yes, 
 mates, the Clyde had the pull, you know." 
 
 With this Baily turned his attention to his pipe, as if to 
 announce that he had had his say. It was, in fact, as long, if 
 not quite the longest, speech I had heard from him. Since 
 the loss of Whymper he had generally been a member of the 
 dog-watch talks; but on all occasions he was far more a 
 listener than a talker, and his remarks were invariably con- 
 tained in a few words. 
 
 Mc'Arthy (with his best inflections and his queer mixture 
 of Scots burr and Irish brogue, also with an effort to be 
 
238 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 sprightly and secure attention) : " Then there were the 
 Grennock ships — y'know, Carmichael's very fast ships, an' 
 Lang an* Fulton's ' Ards,' the Ardgowan, Ardarran, etc., and 
 the Grennock ' Quebecers ' " 
 
 Smiley : " Ay, man, an' th' Grennock West-Indiamen, wot 
 brought the niggers' colony 'at's theer noo." 
 
 Hines (laughing): " Is that wot Scotty is? " 
 
 Smiley : " Ye be wise an' let Scooty alone, me lad; or ye'll 
 be gettin' ye'r ear duffed. Scooty 's got a big haand, an' ye'll 
 knaa it, mebbe." 
 
 Whilst Hines waxed forcible on his ability to protect him- 
 self against Scotty, " or any other Scotch nigger," Baily 
 turned to Smiley and Featherston and extracted from them 
 some further information that practically all the clipper ships 
 of which they had spoken had passed away, so far as the Red 
 Ensign was concerned. Smiley added that if " Rags theer " 
 wanted to train young men to be sailors, he would only have to 
 put them under the Norwegian flag, or any other to which our 
 sailing craft had been sold. And it seemed to me that this 
 news caused Baily some regret and as much surprise as he ever 
 felt. In fact, it affected him so greatly that, as an explanation, 
 he said he had been many years away from all kinds of shipping 
 and shipping information; that was why he had asked his 
 questions. And that was why we had seen only two sailing 
 vessels all the way down the west coast and not one off the 
 Horn. 
 
 A few minutes later the bell rang. The door was opened; 
 and it was once more thrust in upon us that the gale raged and 
 the sea roared on through the black night, as much as it had 
 done during the day. Yet when Booster and Scotty came in, 
 and the door was shut again, and they settled down to their 
 tea, things outside were ignored, and the talk was as careless 
 as ever. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 239 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Mate speaks of an Instance of Madness, of a commendable Trait 
 in the Boy, of rigging up a jury Binnacle and of some other Affairs. 
 
 I was on deck before eight-bells next morning — on the day 
 Lionel has been talking about, I mean. My feeling was 
 that I had the responsibility of the barque on my shoulders, 
 that from that day on I should have to answer to the owners 
 concerning her, and I was anxious, naturally — look what it 
 would mean to me if I got her home safely. But I could have 
 saved my anxiety for a more weighty occasion. 
 
 However, I wanted to see how things were immediately 
 there was light enough to see with. Young was not much of 
 a hand at the weather ; in fact he couldn't detail anything, only 
 in a broken sort of way. He wasn't an observer, that was the 
 long and short of it ; and not being blest (or cursed, as it is 
 pretty often) with many words, he just gave you a generalisa- 
 tion of what you asked for, and there it was — you could take 
 it or leave it. 
 
 I had examined the glass before going on to the poop, and 
 got precious little comfort there. Nor did I do any better on 
 deck. Daybreak — if a " break " you could call it — had been 
 high; that was clear, both from what Young said and from 
 what I saw. Sunrise there was none, not visible. If we got 
 a sight of the sun later on we should be lucky. I took a look 
 around generally — hard as steel, cold as ice, terrific. The only 
 bit of satisfaction there was lay in the long, easy run of the 
 sea. With proper handling, I thought, she'll do this and keep 
 her decks dry till she runs into ice — if she has t^o run long 
 enough. 
 
 This was by the mizzenmast. And when I turned to look 
 at the sea astern, and watch how she lifted to each one as it 
 came up, it was nearly a wonder I didn't go over. There within 
 arm's length and a little behind withal was the Old Man. He 
 had come up the companion-way, in felt slippers, a sight of 
 which, all things considered, was more than enough for me. 
 The second mate was standing in the fore-port corner of the 
 
2 4 o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 poop, so that he had less chance of seeing the cap' than I had. 
 And how weary-looking he was ! He might have gone through 
 months of misery and wakefulness since the previous night. 
 My heart ached as I glanced at him. I slipped aft to see that 
 the companion-doors were fastened again, then went back and 
 said, quite kindly, 
 
 " You shouldn't have come up that way, sir." 
 
 " Oh, shouldn't I ? Why can't I come up that way ? " 
 
 It was just for all the world like a docile child asking why 
 it couldn't do so-and-so, and that was the look in his face and 
 in his eyes. Meanwhile I had a strong impression that he 
 didn't know who he was talking to. . 
 
 " Not now, you know," said I. " A sea might come aboard 
 while the doors were open; then we should have the cabin 
 filled, and that would put her down by the stern enough to 
 bring another sea or two over." 
 
 I know that if his understanding wasn't gone it was no use 
 to talk to him about the probability of his getting injured, 
 killed likely enough, if a sea met him in the companion-way. 
 And if he wasn't in his right mind, again what would be the 
 good of such talk ? 
 
 " Come along, sir," I added, cheerily, "I'll show you the 
 way to come up now, while this weather lasts," 
 
 And I took him by the arm and led him to the poop-ladder, 
 telling Young, as we went by, to begin to get the rags of the 
 .topsel down, now that my watch were coming on deck — eight- 
 bells had just been struck. I thought the Old Man hadn't 
 noticed the sail, and what I told the second mate was partly 
 intended to see how he would take it. But that was another 
 mistake of mine. He had taken stock of the sail, for he said, 
 following me down the ladder, 
 
 " Yes, I think you'd better get it down, Mr* Willoughby, an' 
 bend another. I'd bend the new one, I think." 
 
 This wasn't spoken quite as he had answered me on the 
 poop; but it was a long way from being in his proper voice 
 and manner. Still, as I turned at the foot of the ladder, to 
 prompt rrfm round to the alley-door, I saw the expression in 
 his eyes had changed a bit for the better, and replied, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 2 4 t 
 
 " That's what I was going to do, sir," and I made at once 
 to open the door, instead of leading him to it. 
 . "I s'pose you had to loosen it to give her a lift out of the 
 way o' the seas, an' it blew to pieces with bangin' about? " 
 he asked, as before. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I answered, feeling that the world was coming 
 back again. 
 
 Oh, but it didn't last long — not talk like that. He soon 
 became glum and silent, as we ate our breakfasts. Then, just 
 as I was wondering if he had missed the binnacle, he remarked 
 that it was gone; that we should have to get Chips to build 
 another up at once, and put in the spare compass and adjust 
 it. But in placing the magnets we should have to be careful 
 not to affect the skylight compass. 
 
 Now this was solid reason ; and I went on deck quite hope- 
 fully. Yet, all the same, I took the precaution to tell Young not 
 to set the Old Man talking, nor to take any more notice than 
 he could help of anything the O. M. said to him. As ah excuse 
 for this I gave out that the O. M. was not well, which Young 
 knew from my taking charge the night before. As for anything 
 else : I left him to form his own conclusions, if he noticed any- 
 thing to form them on; and reflected that he probably would, 
 seeing that I didn't want him to. That's usually the way with 
 such men. What you want 'em to see they fall over and then 
 don't see; and what you don't want 'em to see, they've got 
 in a minute. 
 
 While speaking of him I may say that the cook gave us an 
 excellent change at dinner with a couple of the drowned fowls. 
 There was not enough for all hands to have a feed ; so I ordered 
 the cook to keep them for the cabin table, instead of spread- 
 ing them out as the O. M. would have done, for every man 
 to have a taste — and grudge the next two men for having a 
 taste as well, because the three tastes would just about have 
 satisfied him. 
 
 Well, the first thing after breakfast was to set Chips on to 
 
 build the new binnacle, which I did. Then, having Smiley at 
 
 the wheel — my best helmsman — I went for'ard now and then 
 
 to superintend the work at the fore-topsel. This was a long 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 job, because I had only four hands for the work; but as there 
 was no likelihood of our wanting the sail for another twenty- 
 four hours, if then, I wasn't in such a hurry as to make it an 
 all-hands affair. And it was when I was away for'ard, about 
 the third time, that the Old Man had me with the first of his 
 queer tricks. 
 
 I was standing along the deck between the port bulwark 
 and the forecastle, looking aloft and shouting to the men there, 
 when I became aware of something out of the usual; you 
 know, something that didn't fit into the scheme of things as it 
 was just then. How I got the idea I don't know — through the 
 skin, I suppose, as we seem to get certain impressions. It 
 might, though, have been partly by the men aloft gazing aft 
 more than was necessary, which I took no notice of till I felt, 
 somewhere within me, that an odd thing had jumped in 
 suddenly and was out of focus with all else. 
 
 This made me turn round and look aft. The first thing to 
 attract my attention was the Old Man at the poop-rail, cap 
 off and his head bowed down. At the same instant something 
 jerked my notice to the main-t'gal'n-mast — and no wonder! 
 There was the Union Jack at half-mast ! Well, you know, for 
 the minute I was just flabbergasted. I didn't know what to 
 make of it, head or tail. Only the Old Man could have done 
 it; and as it was a thing to attend to at once, aft I went. 
 
 By the booby-hatch I suddenly wheeled about, made for 
 the flag-halyards on the starboard side, and hauled the Jack 
 down. Meanwhile I noticed the cook's head at his galley 
 doorway. He was staring up at the flag, as I crossed the deck, 
 and I should have liked to know what was on his mind, as he 
 watched me pull it down. It was something queer, I knew by 
 the expression. 
 
 This was a matter, I told myself, over which it was neces- 
 sary to be emphatic and lose no time. I must be as gentle as 
 I knew how ; but if I sacrificed other things to that I should 
 bungle the affair. And of all things else I especially wanted to 
 keep any inkling of the Old Man's condition from the men. 
 For if once they saw that his mind was affected, no matter 
 how little, it would be all up with his ever having com- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 243 
 
 mand or influence over them again, and probably with their 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 You see, I was still hoping, believing even, that as soon as 
 things went all right with us once more — say, when we got 
 round that infernal Horn and up the Argentine coast, or any- 
 where north of Cape San Diego — the O. M. would be quite 
 himself again. By this you will be able to guess how I was 
 knocked aback on the poop. 
 
 I went up to him, hitching the flag-lanyard round the roll, 
 and said, just as I'd spoken to him first thing that morning, 
 because some instinct told me there was no other treatment for 
 him, + 
 
 " You know you shouldn't have hoisted this up like that, 
 sir." I wasn't afraid of talking to him there, seeing that the 
 nearest man was Smiley, and the gale prevented him from 
 hearing a word. 
 
 "But wh^ shouldn't I?" he asked, a bit petulantly I 
 thought, and turned his face my way ; but he had, again, all 
 the manner of a man who is talking to a stranger. 
 
 " Well, you know, sir, it might set the men off talking. 
 And you don't know where they're going to stop, when they 
 start. — Do you? " I answered in my best possible way, and 
 wished the next instant that I hadn't mentioned the men, in 
 case he got waxy at the thought of them interfering with his 
 purposes, or of nim restricting his movements because of 
 them. Luckily, however, the thing took an opposite turn. 
 In a pleasant tone, where surprise was the dominating note, 
 he said, 
 
 " Ah, yes,. I didn't think of them." 
 
 That answer and the way he made it was more to me at the 
 moment than sudden fine weather would have been; for I 
 had a sort of dread at the thought of him losing his temper in 
 that condition of mind. At the same time, a question from 
 him as to what the hangment the men had to do with what he 
 did would have shown that his mind was becoming healthy 
 again, and thus have relieved my anxiety, although it 
 would have put me on my mettle to find him a quietening 
 reply. 
 
244 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 When he said this he was looking steadily at me, and I was 
 thinking how much better I liked the expression in his grey 
 eyes. I also was wondering what next to say, how to turn the 
 conversation to some safe subject; yet before I could do so, 
 he remarked, somewhat as he had at first spoken, 
 
 " But I don't see what they've got to grumble for. He was 
 their friend as well as ours." Of course, he used " grumble " 
 in the sailor's sense of something said in opposition. 
 
 "He? Who? " asked I, fearing the worst again. 
 
 " Why, Jesus, to be sure. He died for them, same as for 
 us.— Didn't He?" 
 
 " Yes," I replied, hardly knowing what I said. . 
 
 " Well, then, what for should they grumble because we fly 
 the flag half-mast on the anniversary of His death? " 
 
 If any one had asked me at that minute whether I was 
 alive or dead, a hundred to one I should have said — Dead. In 
 the next breath he went on, 
 
 " You know, He died for us all something like nineteen 
 hundred years ago to-day; an' — ." He broke off at that, and 
 all I could do just then was to stare at him. For the time being 
 he was stuck. But in half-a-minute, p'r'aps, he started 
 afresh. " Yes, that's it, you know. It's my opinion we ought 
 to fly the national flag properly, 'alf-mast; same as we do for 
 anybody of note. — Don't you think so? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, of course we should," said I in a hurry, snatch- 
 ing at the escape I could see. " But, you know, you've made 
 a mistake in the day. Come down with me, and we'll look at 
 the almanack together." 
 
 I took hold of his arm to lead him to the ladder, saying to 
 myself, as I looked round at that wild sea, " My God, he's 
 gone now. — In a Cape Horn gale with a mad skipper. — If the 
 men get to know this they will funk it somehow or other." 
 But instead of making a move he stared at me steadily for 
 another good half-minute, then he said, quite quietly, 
 
 " How funny. — Not the right day. Why, if it was anything 
 else, you know, I should say: What a joke! I should, 
 really.— Shouldn't I?" 
 
 And before I could answer him I'm blest if he wasn't laugh- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 245 
 
 ing as I hadn't heard him laugh since the passage out from 
 home. As a matter of course, I laughed with him — roared, in 
 fact, so that all hands in sight should hear and see. I recog- 
 nised, naturally, that this was just what I wanted to account, 
 in a sort of way, for the hoisting of the flag. 
 
 But, good God, I said to myself, what a ghastly thing! At 
 the instant I could have beaten my fists against the gale and the 
 snow-squall that was just beginning, such was my feeling of 
 impotence and momentary despair. Up to then I hadn't 
 looked on the cap' as going to be mad; I hadn't thought of 
 madness, only of a sort of imbecility that would make him 
 have to be looked after like a child, and would put all the 
 responsibility of things on to my shoulders. But now 
 
 Then I pulled up. In a second two thoughts were running 
 through my head like one again, just the same as when I 
 struck the " parallel losses." Now they were those words in 
 his dream : " My mind was marvellously keen," and his present 
 mental condition. I couldn't say they were connected. My 
 head was all rush and tumble just then. And as the two things 
 were opposite to one another, I couldn't really reconcile them. 
 Yet for all that I felt sure they belonged to one another. 
 
 However, I had to put this away, which I did, and we were 
 no sooner into the saloon than down he went, like an empty 
 sack. I suppose it was some reaction working in him. Thinking 
 it was an apoplectic fit, p'r'aps, I set to work on him, with the 
 help of the boy; whom I cautioned at once to make no noise, 
 and to shut the door at the inner end of the alley-way. 
 
 This was to prevent disturbing the second mate. So far as 
 I knew up to then he had noticed nothing more than the Old 
 Man's unusual moodiness, and I particularly didn't want him 
 to know anything of this affair. He had one great fault in an 
 officer— brought on probably by his being bosun so much — 
 he would talk to the men about cabin matters; or, more 
 correctly, he was given to letting out hints and bits of explana- 
 tion. As for the boy: I thought I could trust him wherever 
 the O. M.'s interests were closely concerned. To tell the truth, 
 tears were running down his face as he helped me, and I felt 
 they were not " crocodile." He did his best to hide 'em; and 
 
246 THE .PASSAGE OF 
 
 from that minute I understood him better because I saw the 
 other side of him. But it was too soon then to forget his past. 
 
 It didn't take long to bring the cap'n round. And you can 
 guess my relief when the poor old chap opened his eyes, 
 looked at my face in just a dazed way and asked, 
 
 " What's the matter, Mr. Willoughby? What is it? " 
 
 " What's what, sir? " I enquired, to gain time mostly, and 
 " some " pleased to notice the use of my name, which he hadn't 
 done since his stiff formality on the previous afternoon, 
 except once in his lucid interval just before breakfast. 
 
 " Why, what am I doin' here? " He was flat on his back on 
 the floor, and staring from me to everything overhead and 
 round about, then back to me. " What's happened? — Seems 
 as if I've been asleep for ages," he murmured. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing, sir, now you've come round all right," 
 said I cheerily. " You've just had a bit of a collapse, that's all." 
 
 " A collapse? What d'you mean? " 
 
 " Only that you just dropped down. — A bit of over-strain 
 p'r'aps. It's nothing at all to worry about. I shouldn't let 
 it trouble me " 
 
 " I'm not worryin' — not I," he broke in, coming to a sitting 
 position and adding, " Only it's so funny." 
 
 "Well, you know — Here, come across to the settee." I sent 
 the boy to the pantry, for fear he should get hold of too much 
 of the truth. This was while I helped the Old Man to his feet, 
 as much as he would let me, and enquired, as he sat down by 
 the end of the table, " How do you feel now, sir? " 
 
 He seemed to be examining himself, then he replied, 
 
 " I'm bothered if I know. I don't feel there's anything the 
 
 matter with me; an' yet . . . Yes, I'm a bit weak; an' 
 
 my head — yes, it's queer — sore — no, not sore — it's inside — 
 been squeezed like. Yes, that's it. I feel as if I'd been asleep 
 for a month or two." 
 
 " Oh, well, that isn't much. — Is it? You'll soon be all right 
 now, if you take it easy a while," said I, con amore, you know, 
 and laughing. " I shall have to get on deck again. And I 
 want you to take a sight with me presently if the sun comes 
 out." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 247 
 
 At the alley-doorway I glanced back. He had put an elbow 
 on the table, was resting his cheek in his hand, with a very 
 puzzled look on his face. " Now remember, sir, you're not to 
 bother your head in the least about it," I reminded him, but 
 not loud enough for Young to hear, if he happened to be 
 awake — which, a hundred to one, he wasn't; for he lost less 
 of his watch-below than any other man I ever knew, and 
 he would have made a fine substitute for one of the Seven 
 Sleepers. 
 
 The Old Man looked up, a sort of " All right " look; yet I 
 didn't quite like it. At the same time I could do no more, 
 only to caution the boy — as I did at the pantry doorway — not 
 to tell him anything except that he fell down, and not to say 
 a word to any one about it. The poor little beggar stared up 
 at me and asked, 
 
 "Will'e be all right, sir?" 
 
 " Yes, of course he will ! He's only been worrying too much. 
 And don't you go about with a funeral face, mind you. Look 
 cheerful, and say nothing to anybody," said I, and went on 
 deck. 
 
 I didn't go for'ard again, but on to the poop, by the weather- 
 mizzen rigging. I wanted to think ; and I believe you'll agree 
 with me that I had something to keep my mind busy for a 
 while. Yet it's a curious thing how the brain boxes about 
 at times. Do you know, I actually found myself, by-and-by, 
 working out the speed at which that huge sea was running, 
 all in between my thoughts of the Old Man, my new " key " 
 to his dream, and I don't know what. In fact, once or twice I 
 wondered if I wasn't going a bit dotty myself. 
 
 But to leave that miserable subject for a spell: Taking the 
 length of the barque as a criterion, I estimated the distance 
 from crest to crest to be a good two hundred feet ; and as there 
 were ten seas to the minute, every one of 'em was making, 
 roughly, thirty miles an hour. 
 
 At last I arrived at the only practical conclusion there was to 
 come to; Go ahead with the work, worry no more than was 
 necessary, be prepared for everything so far as was humanly 
 possible, trust to God for help at the last — if it was needed — 
 
248 >. THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 and see what happened. But, I say, what queer creatures we 
 are to form lines of conduct, then go straight and break away 
 from 'em ! And although he or she that doesn't deviate from 
 a set course may be an admirable person and an example 
 to some of us, for the comfort of living give me one of the 
 opposite sort. 
 
 However, having ascertained how Chips was getting on with 
 the new binnacle, I went for'ard to superintend the work at 
 the topsel again. On my way I met the cook. He was going 
 aft, and I guessed at once that he was bound for his orders as 
 to the cabin pudding for that day. So I stopped, asked him, 
 found I was right and told him to make one of the Old Man's 
 favourites. 
 
 " The captain's a bit queer to-day," I said; then pulled up 
 sharp at the look in his ferrety old eyes and a recollection of 
 the flag incident. As best I could I edged it off by saying the 
 O. M. had slipped in the saloon and rather- hurt himself. Then 
 I went for'ard; but that suspicious look in the cook's eyes 
 would stick in my mind. There was something nasty in it. 
 And yet, you know, although I believed him to be an old rat, 
 I wasn't sharp enough to see through his skin, in a sense. 
 
 Just after four-bells there was a break in the clouds, with 
 a possibility of the sun coming through. So I went down to 
 the Old Man, found him conning over the log-book (trying to 
 gather what had happened during his " sleep," I supposed), 
 and got him to help me to take a sight. He came readily enough ; 
 but he was painfully quiet. Still, it was something to keep 
 him from brooding ; and, equally as good, it would make the 
 men think that, whatever was the matter with him, he was 
 yet capable of doing his work. And with sailormen (to be quite 
 fair p'r'aps I should say also with the bulk of officers) that's 
 the be-all and end-all aboard-ship. 
 
 Well, the sight-taking wasn't a success, by any means; 
 but it was good enough to give the O. M. something to do for a 
 little while, and, as I said, bluff the men. Besides, I believe 
 that little job liad a lot to do with the feather-brained 
 Mc'Arthy letting the barque swing to, bring the sea aboard 
 and stir the Old Man up a bit. It took me below, you see, out 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 249 
 
 of all possibility of keeping a watch on Mc'Arthy ; and he was 
 one of those men who can run straight enough so long as 
 they're watched, and know it, but go off immediately the 
 supervision goes. 
 
 Anyhow, when the sea crashed aboard, I hurried on deck, 
 saw how it had happened in a glance and made for Mc'Arthy 
 without pause. The O. M. was at my heels, and he opened out 
 at the fellow in a way that I hadn't heard him use for a month 
 or two. There was nothing fierce about it. On the contrary, 
 it was quiet ; but it bit in, and he was, for him, a long time at 
 it. And whether it did Mc'Arthy any good or not, it did me 
 some; for I was delighted to hear him talk that way once 
 more. " Besides," said I to myself, " that's one in the eye to 
 any idea in the men's minds that the O. M.'s gone crazy." 
 
 Another thing, it's my opinion that it was practically this — 
 the sea in particular — that bucked the Old Man up to help 
 me in adjusting the spare compass, when Chips finished the 
 binnacle in the afternoon. At the end of this there was another 
 sign of his revived interest in things : He began to wonder if 
 we might heave the barque to the wind and let her lay-to. I 
 said no, and said it at once and emphatically, for fear he 
 should act there and then. To bring her to in that wind and 
 sea would have been madness, if you like. But after watching 
 the rollers and the weather generally for a bit, he shook his 
 head sadly and, I thought, wearily again ; said it would not 
 bio, and went below. 
 
 He was below when the sun set, or he would have realised 
 how much it would not have done. I've often noticed in high 
 latitudes and especially in cold weather there that when the 
 sky has been full of clouds all day, the sun shows something of 
 himself just before he goes down, as if to assure you that he 
 hasn't disappeared from the solar system. He did so that day, 
 and it was one of the wildest, savage-looking pieces of sky- 
 colouring I had ever seen. If red can be cold and hard, that 
 red was, what there was of it, and such as it was there was 
 more than enough. As for the steel-greys, the few, thin streaks 
 of greeny-amber, and the ragged, jagged and damned masses 
 of black-grey — I tell you that looking at it there, under our 
 
250 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 lee and ahead withal, it was enough to put a shiver into any 
 man of decent feeling. 
 
 Then that night something happened for'ard that might 
 have been very serious, but for the second mate's sort of 
 wooden-headed pluck. Just after I went on deck, in the second 
 dog-watch, I began to suspect that the new steering-compass 
 was going to develop eccentricities of its own, or the magnets 
 we had put down for it were acting on the compass in the 
 skylight. So I fetched up a boat-compass, turned back a part 
 of the old sail we had put on for a temporary skylight cover, 
 and began to watch the three as well as I could. 
 
 Of course, I could have left this till morning, when I 
 should have been able to keep an eye on the run of the sea as 
 well, which, because of its running so true, would have served 
 as a rough check on the skylight compass. But my hands were 
 idle, I was inclined that way, rather anxious — needlessly so 
 for the time being — and into the thing I went. And I was 
 busy with it, when Smiley came and told me the big spare spar 
 by the port bulwarks was loose in its lashings. It was a 
 roughly-shaped piece of timber, meant for a main-yard or a 
 lower-mast, I forget which ; and if it got adrift it would mean 
 damage. So, as it was a biggish job, and I had my hands full, 
 I ordered him to call out the second mate and the watch and 
 re-secure the spar. 
 
 Still as Lionel was on the scene, and I could only tell it at 
 second-hand, I think I had better leave it to him, with this 
 explanation : In spite of the gale blowing from me to them I 
 heard some of the hullaballoo, and could see enough, when I 
 looked for'ard, to know that something out of the routine was 
 going on. But, as I have said, I was busy; and whatever was 
 happening along the deck there, I had no need to bother my- 
 self about it till I was called to it. For the rest : Young would 
 tell me all about it soon enough, if it was of no account. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 251 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A ghostly Visitation, another View of the Second Mate, together with 
 some smaller Matters, as pourtrayed by Lionel. 
 
 Well, when we came on deck to the work of re-lashing, and 
 had got ropes for the purpose, the second mate divided us 
 into two parties, one to each end of the spar. He did not tell off 
 any one to either end ; but just said : " Come along o' me some 
 of you; the others lay aft there an' get on with the fixin'. I 
 don't want to be here longer 'an I can help, an' I don't s'pose 
 you do." 
 
 With that he, moved "forward; and, always considering 
 myself as one of his watch, I went with him. It happened, so 
 far as I remember, that the after-party was made up of 
 Mc'Arthy, Scotty, Chambers and Featherston; whilst in the 
 fore one there were the second mate, Smiley, Booster and I. 
 Baily was at the wheel, and Hines was keeping a look-out at 
 what was called " the safety spot " — the forward end of the 
 deck-house, nearly on a level with us. 
 
 When we were about in the midst of the work, Hines let 
 out a cry of terror, ran aft, and took a flying leap on to the 
 main-hatch. This made Smiley and me look up. The second 
 mate was head-first over the spar, doing something with the 
 new lashing which Booster had failed to do, so that the cry 
 had not attracted his attention. (It was one of Young's 
 peculiarities, a part of his natural hastiness, that when a man 
 did not do readily what he told him to do, he usually snatched 
 the material out of the man's hands and did the thing himself.) 
 
 Almost the moment we glanced aft, Hines was amongst the 
 men at that end of the spar. We could hear them talking 
 excitedly, all in a jumble; but I detected the words 
 " Whymper's ghost," and thought I saw them looking past us 
 towards the head of the vessel, and gesticulating in that direc- 
 tion. I glanced there also, without seeing anything unusual. 
 
 Ordinarily they might have laughed at Hines. But Whymper 
 had gone whilst working on a watch-call in bad weather, as 
 
252 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 we were doing then, and practically in darkness, though 
 certainly not so thick as it was on the former occasion. It only 
 needed Baily's " sweet-cat noises " to complete the parallel. 
 Possibly there was something in the fact that Hines could not 
 have fallen amongst four more superstitious men in the whole 
 crew. At any rate, the whole bunch of them scrambled at 
 once on to the roof of the house (there were two iron, upright, 
 little ladders fixed against the after-end), hurried to the fore- 
 end — near us — craned their heads forward, and almost 
 immediately began to yell " There it is ! " and similar cries. 
 
 And well they might ! I was gazing ahead at the same time, 
 in imitation of them, and I decidedly saw the upper part of 
 a vague white figure. It seemed to be standing on the port 
 bow, close to the bowsprit almost, leaning to port, and was 
 fairly outlined by the blackness beyond. It disappeared as 
 the barque's head went down. 
 
 By the time they were making their ejaculations, the second 
 mate was up from the inside of the spar. His 'first action was 
 to look up and ask what the so-so was the matter with them. 
 When they made him understand, and he stared forward, the 
 Sappho had lifted her head into the black night again,* but 
 nothing was to be seen out of the common. 
 
 With my glimpse of the figure I had not felt particularly 
 moved. Perhaps that was because of the suddenness of the 
 whole thing, the considerable doubt that holds fast under a first 
 assault, also of my being in the midst of a number of men and 
 not of the type that are given to seeing things. Now, however, 
 it was different — very different. I had looked forward again 
 with Young, fully expecting to see the figure there, and the 
 fact that it was not there affected me far more than a sight of 
 it had done. By this it was acting up to the traditions of its 
 class — coming and going. To .convince me completely it 
 needed only to reappear in another place. 
 
 He oathfully declared that he could see nothing, added that 
 he did not believe there had been anything to see ; it was all 
 
 a piece of — — bogie business, and if they did not tumble 
 
 down out of that in two shakes, he would be up there and 
 
 fetch them. The moment I could get a word in, at the tail-end 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 253 
 
 of this, and whilst the men above were still declaring and 
 gesticulating, all more or less at once, I told Young that I also 
 had seen the thing. This, together with a statement of having 
 seen it in the identical spot where the men had, gave him a 
 sharp pull-up. I might have been flattered by his disbelieving 
 them and not me; but I was too full of the matter in hand. 
 Besides, I had already become accustomed to a rather different 
 treatment, both from him and the mate — him more so— than 
 what was generally given to the men: Why? I had not 
 troubled to ask myself. 
 
 However, just then up came the barque's head again, a 
 second time, and there, exactly in the same place, was the 
 figure, vague though distinctly whitish against the black back- 
 ground of gale-filled space. The whole nine of us saw it that 
 time, and every one, except myself and perhaps Featherston, 
 had something emphatic to say about it — especially Hines, 
 whose reputation as a look-out man was at stake. Whilst this 
 was carried on the Sappho's head went down in a roar of water, 
 hiding the figure in a smother of foam whiter than itself. A 
 few moments, then up she came again, and there was the 
 figure, just as before. • 
 
 " Run aft, one of you, an' tell the mate!" gasped Young. 
 Then he shouted, " No ! Damned if I don't see what it is ! " 
 
 And forward he went with a rush. He was at the forecastle 
 ladder when it occurred to Smiley, Booster and me, in this 
 order yet almost simultaneously, and perhaps because we were 
 his party, that such an instance of courage could not be 
 allowed to stand alone. Thus we hurried up the ladder after 
 him. Nothing — no, nothing in the nature of a white figure 
 was to be seen anywhere. 
 
 After half a minute or so of peering here and there about 
 the. stowed sails, butt of the bowsprit, anchors, fife-rail, 1 etc., 
 each one of us with some nervousness, I have no doubt — I am 
 sure Booster and I had — up came the five men from the roof 
 of the deck-house. Then quickly low tones became higr^ ones. 
 Speculation reared its head again— or I should say its nose; 
 there was so little of it, seeing that each man had to fall back 
 1 A rail with belaying pins for ropes. 
 
254 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 on the confession that he had seen the thing. Into this the 
 second mate ejaculated, 
 
 " If 'twasn't for the weather I'd think it the 'air-brained 
 joke of some idiot; an' that 'u'd be one o' you, if 'twas so. 
 Only I don't think one o' you's big enough fool to come up 
 'ere riggin' up japes in this un'oly weather. But come on, let's 
 get that lashin' done." 
 
 With that he laughed slightly, so did the lighter-minded of 
 the men. Then he moved in the direction of the ladder, 
 followed closely by us three. The other four had edged across 
 towards the starboard bow, so that the course was clear for 
 us to lead the way back to work. As the second mate was 
 stepping on to the ladder, Smiley at his back, the barque's 
 bows went deep again into the roaring waters. In a few 
 moments they were up again. And as she rose clear of the 
 welter, shouts of fear rang out behind us. I heard Scotty's 
 shrill voice well above the others. The Booster, Smiley (some 
 steps down the ladder) and I turned about as one man, and saw 
 the figure just where we had seen it before. Young was trying 
 to push up past Smiley. 
 
 It was into this condition of things on our part that three of 
 the other men dashed, pell-mell. Two of them had gone helter- 
 skelter down the starboard ladder, more from instinct that it 
 was clear than from mental selection, I'll warrant. I have 
 always had a notion that one of the three, and that one 
 Mc'Arthy, seeing his inability to go down the port ladder, 
 went through the stanchion-supported chains, from one ladder 
 to the other, and dropped to the deck. 
 
 The next thing I was really conscious of was the shouldering 
 presence — if I may put it so — of the second mate. He came 
 through the little crowd, followed at once by Smiley, like a 
 navvy through a handful of puny townsmen. In the rush of 
 the three men I, as the last of our party, had been pushed over 
 to the port-chains along the edge of the forecastle-head. In 
 fact, I had to cling to them to avoid going overboard, and was 
 doing so when Young thrust by. 
 
 The sea had rolled past. The Sappho was digging her head 
 once more into the smother, as the second mate went by ; but 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO - 255 
 
 he pushed on, picking his way over the cat-harpings, the anchor, 
 etc. And as her head came up again, there he was, nearing the 
 figure that was so awful to most of us, and was too suggestively 
 uncanny to the remainder. I know that at that moment, as 
 when I turned and looked half a minute before, my back cer- 
 tainly had the ". creeps." And both Smiley and Booster were 
 morally brave enough to admit, within the hour, that they had 
 " just followed the second mate's lead " and were " shaky at 
 the knees all the time." 
 
 But the end was near. A few seconds more, whilst we three 
 and Featherston gazed, more or less spell-bound, at Young, 
 he shouted, 
 
 " Come 'ere, you balmy idiots ! Come an' see your ' ghost ' ! " 
 
 He shouted much more than that, all meaning the same 
 thing. Even when we got to his side, and saw that the " ghost" 
 was the partially unsecured figure-head, he cried, in that 
 would-be burly way of his, 
 
 " Lend me a hand 'ere, one o' you, w'ile t'other two go an' 
 rouse back them scared kids, an' bring a few fathoms o' that 
 two-inch manilla 1 from under the fo'c's'le-'ead ! Lay-to, 
 now! " 
 
 He was holding to the figure-head with one hand, whilst 
 with the other he tried to pass around it the end of a rope he 
 had snatched from the fife-rail by the bowsprit. To have the 
 fun of the thing, I suppose, Smiley and Booster pushed back 
 and went 'on the errand. This left Featherston and me to help 
 Young, and he stepped up to the work. He was a few paces 
 ahead of me. As I came to Young's other side, he, having 
 recognised Featherston, was saying, 
 
 "C, it's you! — Is it? One o' the scared kiddies! Here, 
 catch 'old!" 
 
 He threw the rope-end around the figure, just as the vessel 
 went smothering down till the water was within a foot of us 
 and giving us a thick shower-bath of fine spray. I gulped at 
 being so near to the wild turmoil, and the thought of how little 
 more might have lifted us away to Eternity ; and that, too, 
 by such an appalling, bitter and desolate way. Again I said 
 ' 1 The rope that is commonly used aboard -ship. 
 
256 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to myself, in a manner, as I had previously done several times : 
 Truly, romance has two sides — the before and the after. 
 Hardly had she begun to rise, when I heard the second mate 
 ask Featherston rather brutally why he had not caught the 
 end of the rope, and add a stinging rider as to whether or not 
 he was " as much afraid o' cold water as of wooden ghosts/' 
 
 Before her head descended again Featherston had taken the 
 rope from Young, pushed him out of the way, passed the rope 
 around the figure-head, hauled it tight from the rail, made it 
 fast and was round on Young saying, in a hard, low voice full 
 of passion, 
 
 " Now, you damned blusterin' boggier, say that agen, if 
 you dare, an' by God I'll lay you out." 
 
 The second mate backed a couple of paces, and said nothing. 
 I thought he would perhaps come to' the scratch, being a big 
 man, and make some foul work in that dangerous position ; for 
 one of those deep dips of the barque's would be sure to sweep 
 them away in each other's grip. But Young's answer was, in 
 a laughing, big- voiced way, 
 
 "Wot a man you are to take offence! You knows well 
 enough I meant no 'arm! " 
 
 " Then damned-well keep to words as does no 'arm! You 
 does too much on it, any'ow. An' you can get me logged 
 for that, if you likes," growled Featherston and turned back 
 to the effigy, as the other men came trooping up the ladders 
 and towards us, and the second mate said, good-humouredly 
 enough, 
 
 " You knows I sha'n't get you logged! Never got a man 
 logged in me life! " 
 
 It was the most dangerous situation I had been in so far. 
 The two or three minutes the men spent in securing the figure- 
 head seemed to me like twenty. Aware of the danger, those 
 who could get to work were as smart as men could be ; but the 
 possibility of a sea being around us at any instant did. not 
 prevent them from chaffing freely on the running away. This 
 was one of the second mate's shortcomings. At a time like 
 that he would keep all hands, when one half could be sent to 
 some other work. I don't remember ever being so pleased as 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 257 
 
 when we came off the forecastle-head ; and I am not ashamed 
 to say that when the order was given, I did not wait for the 
 A.B.'s to take precedence. 
 
 As for the vagaries of poor Sappho's effigy: The seas had 
 broken it adrift from all its fastenings except a large bolt 
 through the bottom part, where its feet were supposed to be 
 hidden in the " drapery," and well into the vessel's stem. On 
 that it turned around, so far as the gear would allow it. Thus 
 when she buried her head in a sea, the water brought the figure 
 up and now and then left it there, leaning against a stay or 
 something. These were the times when we had seen it; and 
 which caused Hines to be jocularly called " Ghost " whenever 
 any one wanted to tease him. 
 
 The serious part of the affair was this (as I believe Mr. 
 Willoughby recognised in his own mind, when he knew the 
 details) : If the second mate had not made his dash to the 
 forecastle-head, and the effigy had been wrenched away before 
 the mystery was solved (as it certainly would have been if left 
 a few hours in that condition), the majority of the men would 
 as certainly have maintained that Whymper's ghost had been 
 there when it went, and that the whole affair was a kind of 
 prophecy of disaster, to which they would undoubtedly have 
 attached Captain Sennett's hoisting of the Union Jack half- 
 mast-high. And if the two things, the loss and the apparition, 
 had reached Captain Sennett's ears (as they might have done, 
 and the first was practically bound to), they must have had an 
 exceedingly bad effect on him. 
 
 On the personal side of Young's stimulating, if unconsidered, 
 example: He laughingly confessed, whilst we were finishing 
 with the spar, that he had not thought of anything ghostly ; 
 and that if he had he would not have made the dash for all 
 the worth of the Sappho. He had simply been unable to believe 
 his own eyes at the first sight, and in the second one he had 
 made his second dash under the belief that the thing was a 
 trick after all. 
 
 Looking back to the day itself, I am bound to admit that 
 if Captain Sennett had not assisted the mate to take an 
 observation, then to adjust the new steering compass, some 
 
 R 
 
258 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 evil would, almost inevitably, have come out of his crazy 
 action with the flag. Even as things were, it was to them a 
 source of much puzzled speculation, and not a little misgiving 
 at something that was beyond both their tongues and their 
 understanding. The very fact that it baffled them was par- 
 tially the cause of their sticking to it, and an additional reason 
 why they believed in some sinister motive or foreboding lying 
 behind the thing. 
 
 Looking back at them, I know they were asking themselves : 
 Is it a kind of back-handed insult to Whymper ? (A dangerous 
 thing to do to the memory of even such a man, and one of 
 which only Captain Sennett's many kindnesses saved him from 
 being judged guilty.) Is it some silly practical joke ? Or what's 
 the matter with the Old Man ? , 
 
 That was the first time I pressed into an argument. So 
 much was at stake, I thought, that I could not let them con- 
 tinue to wonder, doubt, hint at vague evils, etc., without 
 doing what little I could to put matters right. You see, in 
 spite of the fact that they were, in thought, speech and routine, 
 living very much their daily existence afloat, there was — as I 
 knew, and Mr. Willoughby did not know at that time — an 
 under-current of real complaint amongst the men. 
 
 That long spell off the Horn, with its bitter cold and bad 
 weather, was beginning to tell on them. They were asking one 
 another if they were ever to get out of it. On the surface this 
 was jocularly done for the most part; but I was aware that 
 the seat of the question was deep enough to make some of the 
 men ask it of themselves. This was why I tackled them 
 directly on the subject of the flag, on which I should certainly 
 have lost had it not been for the sight-taking, the compass- 
 adjusting, and, to an almost equal extent, to the support of 
 Baily. The other seven were all against me, more or less. 
 Even Smiley was losing his buoyant spirits. 
 
 However, on the following day things began to mend a 
 little, insomuch as the squalls ceased, and the sky cleared 
 somewhat. The figure-head was re-lashed in a more secure 
 manner and left there till fine weather came and enabled 
 Chips to fasten it once more in its place. Then, in the middle- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 259 
 
 watch that night the gale lessened. By the forenoon of next 
 day both wind and sea had gone down so much that it was 
 decided to make sail and bring her to the wind. This was done, 
 on the starboard tack, so that the barque was heading up about 
 north-north-west; but I noticed that the joy fulness shown 
 by the men in the work lacked the strength of the real thing. 
 It seemed as if they doubted whether the ill-luck was over or 
 not. At any rate, they were not disposed to take too much 
 on credit. 
 
 And this was seen again at the end of the afternoon-watch, 
 when more canvas was spread. At the hoisting of the main- 
 topsail the mate called for a chantey. No one obeyed. He 
 called again, mentioning Scotty by name. The nigger's reply 
 was a half-laughing evasion. Baily, the only other man likely 
 to " oblige," was at the wheel. The second mate tried to 
 start " Ranzo," but failed. A second time Mr. Willoughby 
 called on Scotty. Smiley came in with his vigorous urging; 
 he even gave Scotty a friendly push (the nigger being im- 
 mediately in front of him) to go to the downward part of the 
 fall and sing. Thus, compelled in a way, Scotty began : 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey am de libe ob man — 
 Whiskey I Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey am de libe ob man — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny ! 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey killed my poo' ole dad — ■ 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey killed my poo' ole dad — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny ! " 
 
 But the singing was so doleful that the mate — possibly 
 more for the sake of Captain Sennett on the poop there than 
 of anything else — cried out here, 
 
 " Now, Scotty, sing up, man! — sing, up! This is not your 
 funeral, you know. And if you must think you're going to bury 
 somebody, think it's your mother-in-law! " By this time 
 Scotty was almost through the next verse, and in much better 
 style, for which reason Mr. Willoughby shouted, " That's 
 better ! Give it some life ! And stir up the chorus with 'em a 
 bit, Mr. Young! " Hence we continued in a somewhat rousing 
 
260 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 manner at the offset, in which I did my best, both because of 
 what, liveliness meant to us altogether and because I liked 
 those work-songs : 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey gib me two black eyes — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey gib me two black eyes — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny / 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey made me pawn ma clothes — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey made me pawn ma clothes — 
 Whiskey Joy me, Johnny f 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey d'own' my ole Aunt Jane — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey d'own' my ole Aunt Jane — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny ! 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey made me go to sea — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey made me go to sea — 
 Whiskey J or me, Johnny ! 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey send my wibe to hell — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey send m}' wibe to hell — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny I ' ' 
 
 " Now then, you're going dead again! A bit more life and 
 a last pull or two! Come, men, put your backs into it! " the 
 mate called, and the nigger struck up again : 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey young! Oh, w'iskey ole! — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! 
 Oh, w'iskey young! Oh, w'iskey ole! — 
 Whiskey for me, Johnny ! 
 
 " Oh, w'iskey 's hell an' ibe bin sol' — 
 Whiskey ! Johnny ! " 
 
 " Make fast! — and don't lose a fathom of it! " shouted the 
 mate peremptorily. 
 
 He was plainly annoyed ; but all his annoyance did not put 
 more real life into the men ; what they needed for that was the 
 better luck then coming to us. But there was one good thing 
 that came of the lugubrious singing of " Whiskey! Johnny! " 
 of which I will talk further when the right time comes. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 261 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Remembrances of how Captain Sennett turned 
 Cook, then " interpreted " his own remarkable Dream, also of a 
 Trick done by the Boy. 
 
 Well, a few days after that doleful singing of "Whiskey! 
 Johnny! " (which I recollect distinctly) we struck a light 
 sou '-westerly breeze that carried us a good half of the way 
 back over the ground we had lost. And none too soon, I 
 assure you; for we had been down to 6o°, and I'd thought 
 sometimes we should be at the South Shetlands before we 
 had done. Now, however, cheerful looks began to come back 
 among us. 
 
 Then we had the same old luck of baffling winds, etc.; till 
 I'm blest if it didn't begin to get into my bones a bit, and that 
 made me all the more patient with the Old Man's vagaries. 
 He wasn't crazy during that time — not in the first part of it, 
 anyway. (You shall hear about the second part in a few 
 minutes.) No, taking him all-in-all throughout that first half 
 he was only what they call peculiar ; and only that in certain 
 odd ways to me. You see (I don't know whether I told you or 
 not), from the first right up to the end he had the instinct, 
 continued habit, or what you like to call it, of always coming 
 to me, or going to the boy whenever he needed anything he 
 couldn't get for himself, or when he wanted to speak about 
 something. In fact, in one " lucid interval " he asked me if he 
 did this when, as he put it, he " was — a — was — a — was a bit 
 queer." I told him; and he said he felt it, yet was glad to 
 have my assurance. Well, I think I've heard somewhere that 
 there's some sense in every mad person; and he wasn't mad. 
 
 On the point of the second mate : He would have been an 
 anxiety if he had been sharper. But, then, if he had been 
 sharper he might have been some help, more chummy and that. 
 As it was, the O. M. had never found much to say to him — a 
 master seldom does to a second mate, and in that case there 
 was a big difference in the men, their tastes, etc. So his silence 
 to Young passed unnoticed ; and so far as I knew, Young still 
 
262 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 saw no more in the Old Man than moodiness, and now and then 
 a " bilious attack n that kept him in his room. For these 
 reasons generally the men had nothing to fasten on as a cause 
 for trouble, except the all-round bad luck. Of course, I was 
 taking it that the flag incident had passed off as a sort of joke. 
 
 But there was something else that gave me a bad ten 
 minutes now and then — I mean the cook. On the day after 
 the flag affair the boy told me that the old beggar had been 
 questioning him as to what was M really wrong wi' the Auld 
 Man." To my enquiry as to what he had said in reply the boy 
 grinned. That was enough. Smelling a rat — and a long-bearded 
 one at that — I took particular care to keep the cook from 
 talking to the O. M., except when I knew it was quite safe — so 
 far as it was ever safe from one day to another. 
 
 Then, one day after the O. M. had been " queer " for a 
 spell, during which I had found it difficult to keep the cook 
 away from him (on that subject of puddings, etc., principally), 
 I took occasion to arrange with the O. M. to tell the fat old 
 rascal — or let me tell him in his presence — that for the re- 
 mainder of that voyage he was to go ahead with his dinners, 
 on his own lines, whenever I told him to. Of course, I didn't 
 tell the Old Man of the dirty game the cook was playing; 
 because he wouldn't have believed it — in the goodness of his 
 heart he couldn't. 
 
 Well, when the boy fetched the cook to the saloon, I thought 
 every minute the O. M. would give the game away, although 
 he had so readily agreed to it, said it was necessary, and seemed 
 glad of it. In addition it took me all my time to prevent the 
 cook from cornering the Old Man with questions. I could have 
 jumped up and kicked him out on deck for the artful, monkey 
 trick he was playing. Before he had been there five minutes 
 I saw clearly enough that he believed the cap'n to be " wrong 
 in his head " to some extent, at any rate. And I thought what 
 a jolly good job it was that he had no real proof. I hated the 
 look in his eyes, as he stood there, coffee stains on his fatherly 
 beard, one corner of his dirty apron tucked into the strings at 
 the back, showing his almost equally dirty, buff-coloured cotton 
 trousers, and his bare feet in a pair of dilapidated slippers; 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 263 
 
 while his big, round, close-cropped head leaned forward a 
 little, making me think of a vulture's. From that day you may 
 be sure he was a thorn in my side, and one that I was yearning 
 all the time to break — and would have done if it hadn't been 
 for the Old Man. But, there, again, if it hadn't been for the 
 Old Man that cook would have been no trouble to me. 
 
 However, to turn to other things : The nor' -west gale had 
 given us some of the easting we wanted; but, Lord, how it 
 had carried us south! Then the nor'-easter had taken us west 
 and south again; so that to level matters up at all decently 
 we ought to have held that sou'-wester, or have had a westerly 
 breeze, right up to the Horn. On the contrary we had, as I 
 say, another long spell of very trying weather. And what does 
 the fat, old cook do, about the middle of it, but go and spill a 
 pan of boiling water on his feet. However, what might have 
 been a bit of a calamity turned out to be something just 
 opposite. 
 
 It was in the forenoon watch when he did it, my watch on 
 deck; and when the news was brought to me by one of the 
 men, I thought that surely this would send the Old Man off 
 again pell-mell, or give the cook all the knowledge he wanted. 
 But the first was just what it didn't do, and I saw to the second. 
 I suppose it was simply one of those incalculable turns, as 
 they're called, with which human nature seems to surprise 
 everybody now and then. But it appears to me, you know, 
 after being shipmates with some hundreds of men, and trying 
 my best to see through every one of 'em — it appears to me 
 that poor old human nature, hackneyed as it is, is the very 
 thing that gives us most surprises day-in, day-out, the year 
 roiind. 
 
 Besides, if I had taken time to think what the O. M. had 
 done in certain previous cases, I should not have been sur- 
 prised at the way he dropped his worries and rose to the 
 occasion. Remember, he always forgot his own troubles 
 whenever he was called to attend to the troubles of some one 
 else. As to the cook plying him with questions during the 
 daily dressings: At first he was in too much pain for that; 
 and I took good care to be there on all subsequent occasions. 
 
264 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 What surprised me really was the way the O. M. took the 
 cook's place — or, I should say, did the cooking. Because 
 he immediately commandeered Lionel here as cook's mate, 
 which meant that Lionel had to do all the washing-up, stoking, 
 peeling potatoes, galley-scrubbing, etc., etc. In short, he had 
 to do the work ; the Old Man did the thinking and ordering. 
 Of course, I knew that he could cook. By certain odd things 
 that had gone before I had put this and that together, and 
 come to the conclusion that he was, a ship to a ropey arn, a 
 better cook than ever a windjammer carried — except p'r'aps 
 in the days of the Liverpool Packets and the East-Indiamen. 
 I also knew that for a homely, fatherly sort of man our O. M. 
 had as much dignity as the next one. That was why I " kinder 
 jumped," as the American says, when, on his hearing from 
 the men that none of them could cook, he said merely, " Then 
 I will." 
 
 He had carried that podgy, grumbling old galleyman ten 
 years and forgiven him all sorts of sins and shortcomings, so 
 keen was he on good cooking. ("As a duty to the food God sends 
 and as a necessity to one's health and strength," he was fond of 
 saying.) And if one of the men had said he could cook and had 
 proved to be of the usual kidney, I believe the Old Man would 
 have taken his place and ordered him on deck again. In fact, he 
 was pleased that not one of them had volunteered for the galley. 
 
 But, then, as I say, he had Lionel to do the work and the 
 serving out; and he had, you may bet, that thought in his 
 mind when he said " Then I will." I don't think his dignity 
 was hurt by the cooking, mind you — oh, no ! In a way, to him, 
 that was too much of a high and sacred office for him to be 
 humiliated by cooking food for his men. It was the serving 
 out and washing up that would have hurt him ; and if there 
 hadn't been a man he could take off the deck, the boy would 
 have had to do that work. As it was, Lionel was so quick at 
 picking things up, that by the time the cook was fit for duty 
 again, and we were away up the Brazilian coast, superintend- 
 ing now and then was about all the 0. M. had to do. But he 
 kept at it, all the same. And I was glad he did. 
 
 As for the men: Well, it's true they were sailors, men of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 265 
 
 small thoughts generally, such as their limited experiences of 
 life gave them — and gives to all, officers and men alike, with 
 the usual exceptions, of course, in every one of which it's just 
 a case of the original mind rising over circumstances. But if 
 they were sailors, they were not wooden. They were a very 
 decent lot, short of Whymper, and taking 'em by-and-large. 
 At the galley doorway they did what thousands of their class 
 wouldn't have done, they behaved themselves as men who 
 understood the situation and were thankful for the good 
 cooking and the special dishes they were getting. In fact, 
 unknown to himself — or to any one of us, for that matter — 
 he was laying up for himself a store of sympathy and goodwill 
 against the time when he, poor beggar, would need it, yet be 
 unaffected by it. 
 
 Then, again, it must be borne in mind that a week or so 
 after the cook's mishap we got into fine weather proper. A 
 good westerly breeze carried us up past the Falklands. Then 
 it shifted to the nor' -west, and we went away beautifully on 
 the port tack, heading in the right direction. The bitter 
 weather was left astern, and it looked as if the bad luck was 
 left with it. This was the time when cheerfulness became 
 common again; when the days drew out once more, and jokes 
 were frequent ; when, by-and-by, as the weather grew warmer, 
 one heard either Scotty's whistle, the gramophone, or Baily's 
 instrument, from the open deck, by the lee-forecastle doorway 
 or further for'ard. It only needed to have the cook in the 
 galley again, and the O. M. in his own place, to make every- 
 thing " ship-shape and Bristol fashion " once more. But the 
 cook was an "unhealthy subject," it seemed; and the 
 problem of getting the skin to grow on his feet again was 
 giving the Old Man much to think about. 
 
 But, no. — Although things were going very pleasantly on 
 the surface, and there was nothing wrong underneath, gener- 
 ally speaking; yet the cook back in his place, and the O. M. 
 in his, would have left something to be desired — I mean the 
 something that was still missing in the O. M., in spite of his 
 occasional joke, his brightness now and then, and his pretty 
 regular interest in all that was going on. 
 
266 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 For instance, now, just notice the doings of one afternoon. 
 I don't say every day was as bad ; because he often went 
 through a day without a show of either cheerfulness or 
 eccentricity, days when he was glum and nothing more. Ever 
 since that collapse down-off the Horn he had been groggy on 
 figures, sometimes more than others. And nearly every day I 
 had a deuce of a job with him when it came to working up the 
 ship's position. 
 
 He could take a sight, and knew all about variations, 
 declinations, and that sort of thing as well as ever ; but when it 
 came to doing the thing on paper, he was flummoxed more 
 often than not. He got into a fog, would look dazed, seemed 
 to be trying to remember where he was, and would rub his 
 hand across his forehead, or put his face in his hands, with his 
 elbows on the table, and stare down at the figures. At other 
 times he went right through with the job, and passed me his 
 findings, for comparison, as usual — all wrong, in most cases. 
 
 Well, that was where the mischief came in for me. It was 
 a delicate piece of business, correcting him like that pretty 
 nearly ever} 7 da} 7 . You see, he was navigating the ship, not I. 
 And what wouldn't I have given to be able to practise hypnotic 
 suggestion on him at those times ! But he took it like the brick 
 he was — " brick," because at the back of his mind I'm sure 
 he knew what was wrong. 
 
 And the question as to whether it would ever be right 
 again or not must have troubled the poor old chap very 
 seriously. Likely enough, in fact, that question may have 
 been doing him more harm since we were first driven down 
 south, or even since the loss of Whymper, than everything 
 else. As for me: I know the way I had to bear with him, 
 humour him and that, did a lot towards making me a better 
 man than I'd ever- been before, or ever might have been, for 
 that matter. 
 
 However, after the usual business of fixing the barque's 
 position for the day — in which he had been hopelessly wrong 
 that time — I had gone on deck again. It was my watch-out, 
 and when I returned aft, from seeing how the men were 
 getting on with the work (I had just begun the usual task of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 267 
 
 cleaning, painting and tarring ship ready to go all spick-and- 
 span into the home port), there he was on the poop, looking 
 as bright and cheerful as ever he did. As I've said, I think, he 
 had these spells every now and then; but his face told me at 
 once that there was something more than common in his . 
 mind this time. He began right away, 
 
 " I've got it at last! I've beaten you this time! " And he 
 looked as pleased as a good-natured dog that suddenly finds 
 he's got two tails to wag. 
 
 I smiled, of course, and genuinely. What I said I don't 
 recollect — something about being glad he had " got one home 
 on me." 
 
 " Yes, I have — you listen. Come here, an' I'll tell you." 
 
 He went to our usual yarning place, leaning on the weather- 
 side of the poop fore-rail. I followed suit in each particular, 
 and he launched out, 
 
 " You know that dream I had comin' down the Pacific, the 
 one as boggled us about its meanin' ? " 
 
 "Where you were among the slimy things? " I put in. 
 After the failure of my two " keys " I had given it up entirely. 
 
 " Yes, that one," replied he. " Well, I can see through it 
 now. I've got it pat ! I'd just laid down on the settee to get 
 a nap, w'en the whole thing came bump into me mind. It was 
 like a flash — what they call inspiration.' — Isn't it? Or is it 
 divination? " 
 
 " Both — it's all one," said I, wanting to please him. 
 
 " Well, this is it ; an' it's about you " 
 
 " Me? " I asked. I thought he was joking, because of the 
 joyful smile on his face. 
 
 " Yes, you — not me at all. You wait a minute — listen. 
 You know I've had dreams about friends before. — Don't 
 you? " 
 
 " Yes, sir — I know you seem to have had," said I. 
 
 " An' you know you told me you'd a bad illness, fever or 
 something, on your first voyage as second mate, to the colonies ; 
 an' when you got all right again you was better than you'd 
 ever been before. Well, wasn't that bein' made again in a 
 way ? Of course it was. An' wasn't the box the bunk you laid 
 
268 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 in? Why, it's as clear as day, Mr. Willoughby. An' didn't 
 you say they told you w'en you got well, as you'd been talkin' 
 about snakes all the time you was light-headed ? That's clear 
 enough. — Isn't it? — My slimy things over agen, y' see." 
 
 I agreed that it looked like it, and encouraged him to go 
 on, wondering how he would work it all out, and not a bit 
 surprised, as you may be sure. 
 
 " Well, the ship went ashore in a fog outside Sydney Heads 
 an' became a total wreck. — Didn't she? An! you was paid off 
 an' went up country — the open country in my dream. Don't 
 you see? " 
 
 " Yes. But where does the wreck come in? " I asked. 
 
 "Oh, you mustn't expect ev'ry detail, y' know! That's 
 wantin' too much. Anyway, you went right up in the bush, 
 you said; an' that was rough enough. — You said it was. An' 
 you said you didn't know w'ere you was goin' half the time, 
 you and the man with you. I remember it right enough, y' 
 see. An' wasn't that my fog in the rough country? Of course 
 it was. Then you told me of workin' your, way back an' 
 gettin' to a settler's place w'ere some blacks had molested the 
 woman because she was alone, an' how you two went after 
 'em, caught 'em, because they'd stolen a bottle o' whiskey an' 
 got drunk. Isn't that right?" 
 
 I was forced to admit that it was right; and on he went 
 again, pleased as ever. 
 
 " But they put up a fight, an' you had a stiff job to secure 
 'em? Aye? Well, there you are — that's the hurly-burly in 
 my dream. Then you lost your pal — died of fever in the bush. 
 — Didn't he? And that upset you badly, an' you nearly went 
 under y'rself before you got out of that awful piece o' country ; 
 till you came to w'ere someb'dy 'd been campin', an' you fell 
 down, an' was found by a mounted policeman just in time. 
 Isn't that it ? An' ther' 's the end o' mv dream, a place with 
 no life!" 
 
 "Well, it tallies wonderfully. — Doesn't it?" I answered. 
 
 To tell the truth I hardly knew what to make of it all. The 
 parallel was so good and one that I must have seen in a 
 minute if I'd ever thought of putting myself into his dream. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 269 
 
 And for him to have remembered it so clearly, seen the 
 parallel, and reeled it off as he had, proved his mind to be in 
 such a condition — just then, at least — as to give me consider- 
 able pleasure. But the pity was I had seen flashes like it 
 before, and I knew what value to put on 'em. As a matter of 
 fact, they were always followed pretty soon by either a deep 
 spell of glumpiness, or by some half-crazy trick, such as came 
 along on the heels of his " interpretation " of the dream. 
 
 Presently I asked, more to criticise the thing than for any 
 other reason, " But why doesn't your dream go on through 
 the whole of my doings out there ? " 
 
 " You mean gettin' a wife an' sailin' on the coast an' that ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Oh, well, you can't expect ev'rything. — Can you? It 
 must stop somew'ere; or on that score you'd want your life 
 in a dream. — Wouldn't you ? " 
 
 Again I had to admit he was right. And mark that reason- 
 ing, against what happened within half-an-hour. 
 
 We spent some time talking about the curious resemblance 
 of his dream to that Australian jaunt of mine. (Oh, he fully 
 believed he had found the solution of the dream; but I didn't. 
 To me it was just a coincidence. In my heart I knew that the 
 dream belonged to him; I still had faith in its significance, 
 and was often annoyed that I could not work out the allegory. 
 As it was, I had to humour him.) 
 
 Wcwere still discussing this subject, when, from right under 
 us, there came up a squeal nearly loud and piercing enough to 
 wake the dead. In fact, it fetched Young out on to the deck 
 in his pyjamas, looking all ways for Sunday and still half- 
 asleep. He came out as I was going down the ladder after 
 Denis. Instantly on the heels of the first squeal the poor 
 beggar had run from under the overhang of the poop and gone 
 for'ard like a mad pig. He was throwing his head about, and 
 squealing as if his throat was cut. 
 
 Naturally, I first thought of that incarnation of devilment 
 in the cabin. Besides, there was no one else near to have hurt 
 Denis. For the present, however, the first thing to do was to 
 catch him and find out what was the matter with him. But 
 
270 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 that was no easy job. He was still young enough to be nimble, 
 and the way he scooted about those decks was something to 
 remember — now pausing a moment to put his head down and 
 seem to rub the front of it against one of his fore-legs, then 
 flinging it up again and starting off afresh with another yell, fore 
 and aft, port and starboard, knocking over tar-pots and every 
 other loose thing in his way. On the second turn round he 
 slipped in the tar he had upset (it was Stockholm luckily), 
 rolled over in it and was up and away again, while Mc'Arthy 
 went down in it while making a grab at him. 
 
 The second mate hadn't joined the chase. Seeing that the 
 trouble was only about the pig, he had gone straight to his 
 bunk again. But the Old Man still leaned on the poop-rail, 
 and actually laughed out, as Denis doubled us by the booby- 
 hatch, just fore-side of the poop, bowled Hines over and 
 raced for'ard again, still yelling his loudest. In short, it was 
 his squealing that made me keep up the chase. I wanted to 
 know what was the matter with the pig. 
 
 Then we cornered him under the t'gal'n'-fo'c's'le-head, and 
 I thought for sure we had him. No, he had us instead — 
 Lionel and me, at any rate. We both made to block him in 
 between the midship fixtures and the paint-locker. But he 
 came at us, squealing. We went down and got some tidy 
 bruises. He went aft, squealing still. However, Smiley 
 brought him up by the main-hatch. There were some coils 
 of rope lying on the hatch, and Smiley was sharp enough to 
 drop one over Denis's head. That stopped his wild career, 
 because he couldn't lift his fore-legs against it, Then I found 
 he had a big sail-needle sticking an inch or so into the top of 
 his snout, and every time he had rubbed his nose against his 
 leg it had increased the pain. 
 
 Leaving Lionel to go back to his galley, and the three men 
 to get the tar off Denis -with turpentine, I took the needle and 
 went aft. At the capture of Denis, the Old Man had gone 
 below. So I walked in through the alley-way, and found him 
 lying on the cabin settee. I showed him the needle, said the 
 boy had stuck it into the pig's nose, probably when the poor 
 beast was standing with his fore-feet on the high door-sill, as 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 271 
 
 he often did when he went begging for dainties. And what 
 do you think? I'm blest if he didn't sit up, say petulantly he 
 didn't want to be bothered with trifles, and asked how I knew 
 the boy had done it. Then, when I explained how I knew and 
 offered to call the young imp in, as true as I'm here he refused 
 to have him in, and actually wanted to turn the matter into 
 an argument as to whether or not the pig had his fore-feet on 
 the door-sill when the needle was stuck in his nose ! 
 
 Well, what could you do against a thing like that? — only 
 say you were sorry and go on deck. It wasn't, mind you, that 
 he had suddenly turned cruel, or that he showed any signs of 
 cruelty in those fits. It was just that his mood had changed, 
 and he was parading his inherent obstinacy, nearly without 
 knowing it — only more than usual — simply because he thought 
 an effort was being made to urge him on a course he didn't 
 want. 
 
 As I passed through the alley -way, the boy was leaving the 
 galley to go aft. With his monkey artfulness he knew what I 
 had gone into the cabin about, and that possibly he would be 
 called on to the carpet; so he had taken himself off to the 
 furthest point that lay within his beat. This was in order that 
 he might plead the excuse of not hearing a call, and have a 
 few moments' respite in going aft, if he were called. I knew 
 his tricks. I also lengthened my stride, met him half-way to 
 the galley, and, so wild was I at what he had done and the 
 thought of him getting off scot-free, that I fetched him a real, 
 good sounder on the ear. He staggered, put his hand to the 
 stinging side of his head, said nothing — not a murmur — and 
 went on. Oh, yes, he could take his punishment all right — 
 when it suited him to ; and he could squeal like Denis when he 
 wasn't hurt. I was just going to call after him that I would 
 give him another or two like it, if he went crying to the 
 captain about it; then I thought: No — if I do that, he may 
 go; if I don't, he may think it's the Old Man's orders. 
 
 Whether the O. M. said anything to him on the subject or 
 not I don't know, I don't think he did; because when his 
 mood changed like that, he seldom remembered things that 
 happened just before the change. And when his brightness 
 
272 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 came back he hardly ever reverted to anything that had been 
 said while he was gloomy. But this I do know : If ever a boy 
 tried to make friends with an animal, that one did with Denis 
 from the very next day. He didn't let me see any more of it 
 than he could help, either ; yet I saw enough of it to make me 
 a bit sorry for the open-hander I gave him. Yes, and he 
 succeeded with the pig. And ever after that if there was any 
 eatable to give away at the pantry, so long as Denis was one 
 of the ship's company, he was the favoured one — not Chips, 
 who usually got the left oddments of pies, puddings and that, 
 nor even the second mate. 
 
 As to the Old Man : While we had discussed his " interpreta- 
 tion" of his dream, I had thought again of the dream itself, 
 and that one point had stuck obstinately in my head again : 
 " My mind was marvellously keen." And this time I seemed to 
 get an inkling in a flash. For an instant or so I believed I had 
 the door ajar, in a sense, and these words and his present 
 mental condition were the key. In fact, when the time came 
 that the thing was clear I knew that I'd had a glimpse of the 
 whole allegory — not in detail; oh, no, or I shouldn't have lost 
 it so soon. No; but an idea of it — a sort of fogged idea.. But 
 I wasn't going to give it up at that. I had obtained a sight of 
 what I felt sure to be the genuine thing, and I was determined 
 to follow it up till I got it all clear. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 In which Lionel describes his Experiences in the Galley, what he saw 
 and thought of Captain Sennett, and how an unfortunate Incident 
 came to pass on the Fore-deck. 
 
 In my last contribution to the story I spoke of a good thing 
 coming out of the doleful singing of " Whiskey ! Johnny ! " and 
 this was it. Some days afterwards it cropped up in a dog- 
 watch talk, and Baily asked the other men if any of them 
 knew of a chantey called " Pull away, Joe ! " The answer was 
 that no one had heard the song. Then, on request, Baily sang 
 in a low key, or rather hummed : 
 
i 
 
 THE BARQUE SAPPHO 273 
 
 " As I was a-walkin' down Ratcliff Highway — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe f 
 As I was a-walkin' down Ratcliff Highway — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 The result was that it at once took every one's fancy, 
 especially Smiley's and Scotty's, and Baily was urged to 
 make it common property. To this end I was brought in to 
 write copies of the chantey, in order to give each man a chance 
 to learn it, Baily saying, " I'm no hand at writin', y' know." 
 Altogether I made eight copies, three for each watch, and one 
 to paste on each side of the bulkhead, over the tables. 
 Naturally I learnt it in the transcribing ; but I think it will be 
 better for you to have the whole thing, as it was sung after the 
 Brazilian pampero had carried away our fore-topmast, etc. 
 Because that will put it into its proper place in our narrative ; 
 and as it appears to be a rather uncommon chantey, there will 
 be more than the usual justification for repeating it in full. 
 
 As to the men : A few words in passing will be sufficient to 
 show how things went with them during those weeks of general 
 satisfaction— "general," that is apart from the secret trouble 
 aft. 
 
 By this time (the time to which Mr. Willoughby has brought 
 us) there were no grumblings or evil forebodings amongst the 
 men. With the exception of passing disputes of no account, 
 everything was going very cheerfully in the forecastle and at 
 work. It was Captain Sennett who started this by his taking 
 the cook's place, and giving the men the opposite of that which 
 seems to cause more trouble aboard-ship than anything else, 
 I mean bad food. If ever a master won the affection of his 
 crew, I think he did in that case. Instead of dwelling on trouble 
 as before, the most recurrent topic of conversation amongst 
 my shipmates all the way up the South Atlantic was the 
 " long pay-day " they would have. The figure-head affair 
 was still a frequent joke, although it no longer rivalled 
 Mc'Arthy's imaginary ancestors; nor did it then threaten to 
 cause blows, as it had done on two or three past occasions. 
 
 With regard to my turn in the galley, that is soon settled. 
 I got on splendidly with Captain Sennett ; *so well, as a matter 
 s 
 
274 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 of fact, that he now and then took a rather embarrassing 
 interest as to where I sprang from, how I came to be there, 
 and what I intended to do with myself when the voyage was 
 over. This began with a remark that I neither spoke like an 
 American nor like a sailor. At first I scarcely knew how to put 
 him off ; but I managed to do so without giving him any hint 
 as to who I was or where I came from. 
 
 Another proof of how well I got on with him was the boy's 
 jealousy. I thought the best thing with him, however, was 
 to take no notice of him, which I did. And the first time he 
 tried a trick on me — his overhead water trick — 1 waited till 
 he came to the galley again; then, although his trick had 
 missed fire, I gave him a bucketful on his head, and it was 
 jolly cold. I expected he would go to Captain Sennet t about 
 that. But he was game to the extent of not doing so ; in fact, I 
 don't think he ever sneaked in that way. From then onwards 
 I had no further trouble with him. 
 
 One point about Captain Sennett at that time: I saw no 
 signs of craziness in him. As a rule, he came to the galley 
 quite cheerful, even when he was there soon enough to show 
 me how to prepare breakfast, and he generally remained so 
 whilst he was there. The only evidences I saw of mental weak- 
 ness were that he was sometimes very moody and forgot things. 
 The moment, however, that he broke out of a spell of gloomy 
 silence (which to me was just a part of the man) he was as cheer- 
 ful as need be. You see, I knew nothing of what he had been, 
 nor of what was going on aft. 
 
 After the first week he was there only an hour or so at once. 
 His routine was, by-and-by, to come a little while before 
 breakfast, to see that all was well; then for an hour after 
 breakfast, to show one how to get dinner under way. From 
 then to seven-bells — when the first dinner was served out — 
 he would look in at odd intervals. His next visit would be 
 towards tea-time, and that was his last for the day. 
 
 With the men — who called me " cookee," "cook's mate" 
 and " doctor " — my time was just as easy. So that altogether 
 I was very well pleased with myself and everything else. My 
 regrets at having joined the Sappho were past, and I was 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 275 
 
 looking forward with great pleasure to the remainder of the 
 passage and my arrival in London, 
 
 Of course, that which got me so well into the men's favour 
 was my interest in their food. Soon as I knew how, I made 
 them something for tea almost every day (which the cook had 
 never done), such as good cracker-hash, dandy -funk and dog's- 
 body. 1 I had to keep to things the bulk of which was biscuits, 
 because potatoes were scarce, although we had plenty of 
 onions still. And as the biscuits had become intensely hard, 
 these messes were all the more welcome. 
 
 Then, after we had enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that 
 we were not the only vessel afloat, by having seen — on different 
 days — two Argentine barques and a Brazilian, there happened 
 that out of which I thought surely the worst was to come. We 
 caught a shark. It was one warm afternoon in a calm that the 
 thing came up astern, and Captain Sennett saw it first and 
 told Mr. Willoughby to ca'tch it. "Now/' I thought, "it's 
 here at last! " For somehow or other the idea had got hold 
 of the back of my mind that there would be a shark's head- 
 bone aboard before the passage ended. So you will see how 
 my heart was in my mouth when the brute fell on the deck, 
 and whilst it was being cut up; and how delighted I was 
 when it all was thrown away except the backbone and the 
 tail. 
 
 The only other incident of note during that spell of fine 
 weather — with us forward I mean — was a piece of trouble 
 that might easily have become a serious matter. This was 
 in a dog-watch, when almost all exceptional things happened 
 amongst the men, and the cause of it was Chips. I think he has 
 been described as a big, dark, whiskered and scraggy fellow, 
 slow in his ways and indifferent to most things. But his in- 
 difference did not reach to all, and where he was otherwise that 
 trait was as pronounced as its opposite. And one of the things 
 towards which this incident was to prove him as not being 
 indifferent was Baily's Hawaiian music, which some of us 
 had heard him curse now and then. 
 
 1 Powdered biscuits, bits of salt beef or pork, pepper (or curry 
 powder and chutney) and onion well mixed and baked in an oven. 
 
276 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 The barque was going along beautifully, close-hauled to a 
 north-west wind. I think we were somewhere in the latitude 
 of the River Plate then, and not very far — perhaps two to 
 three hundred miles — off the land ; because in addition to the 
 water having lost its bright, intense blue and become a curious 
 dark- green, there were black- winged and larger grey -winged 
 gulls about. I had also seen of late a few Cape Hens, a couple 
 of mollyhawks — or what I was told were molly hawks — and 
 a smaller albatross, that is the one that I put down in the 
 Pacific to be the female bird. 
 
 The men had finished tea, and most of them were sitting 
 about on the deck and spare spars on the lee-side of the fore- 
 castle — i.e. the deck-house. This was because of the genial 
 weather. I sat on an up- turned bucket, outside the galley- 
 doorway, peeling potatoes for the next morning's " dry-hash." 1 
 For once Chambers was neither mending nor washing clothes, 
 but was reading a book I had lent him, as were Mc'Arthy and 
 Hines ; both of whom were frequent borrowers at my stock of 
 literature, the latter being all and shamelessly for the cheapest 
 stuff I had. 
 
 With Mc'Arthy it was different. He always came to change 
 his book when others were there, and whatever conversation 
 was going on he talked loud enough about the exchange, his 
 tastes in reading, and " the time wasted in readin' trash," 
 for all to hear. On such occasions he invariably had much to 
 say about " the classics," his love of them, the " necessity of 
 readin' them to be well-informed," etc. And although he might 
 make two or three gross errors — he seldom made less than one 
 — in every reference, he went straight on all the same, with 
 both eyes on me, but all his words for the others. Of course, I 
 never corrected him. — Oh, no ! Those times were too precious, 
 too full of humour, and too few as it was, for me to stop or 
 lessen them. I would rather have multiplied them; especially 
 as he always borrowed a book by a well-known writer — of 
 first rank I mean — whether it was fiction or not, yet in the^ 
 lingering moments of his going away he also always looked 
 
 1 A mixture of mashed potatoes, minced salt beef and onions, baked 
 in a dish, or fried as " meat-balls." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 277 
 
 longingly at, and referred as needlessly to, the books that 
 pleased Hines. 
 
 However, in addition to those three, Smiley and Feather- 
 ston were playing at euchre, with their backs against the deck- 
 house, their legs sprawled out on the deck, and the cards dealt 
 between them. Then out came Scotty, and Smiley began to 
 urge him to play his whistle. At this Mc'Arthy lowered his 
 book at once and joined Smiley. (I knew at heart, as I often 
 did on similar occasions, that if he were reading at all, it was 
 only in imitation of the others, particularly of Chambers, or 
 perhaps I ought to say in rivalry of the latter.) The result was 
 two or three tunes, during which Baily joined the group, from 
 somewhere out of sight forward. 
 
 Then the requests were turned on him, three- fourths of 
 them being for the " fiddle " — " 'spec'lly seem' as how Scotty 
 would oblige wi' the variations," i.e. some lighter and merrier 
 pieces. Baily tried to persuade them to have the gramophone 
 instead — no, I should say he offered them the mechanical 
 instrument, as a substitute. But Smiley, Scotty, Chambers 
 and I pressed for the " fiddle," with Mc'Arthy joining us when 
 he saw that Featherston kept to his cards and was silent, and 
 only Hines asked for the gramophone. 
 
 Thus urged Baily said no more, but went in for his instru- 
 ment ; he had not spoken more than half a dozen of his quiet 
 phrases during the whole talk. Meanwhile, Scotty " tuned 
 up " again, and I moved my bucket and potatoes along the 
 deck and placed myself between the forecastle-doorway and 
 that of the lamp-room. Baily gave us a couple of airs, at the 
 beginning of which all reading was stopped. The nigger 
 followed, much to my dislike and, I was sure, to that of Baily 
 himself. Then Baily took the turn again ; what was more, he 
 kept it, playing on and on, to prevent the whistle from jarring 
 in any more till his listeners showed signs that they had heard 
 enough Hawaiian for the present. 
 
 This was where Chips came in, with the proof that he was not 
 indifferent to all things. Baily was on the third or fourth tune, 
 when Chips stepped out of his berth and came along the deck, 
 a pair of old-fashioned, black-rimmed spectacles in one hand, 
 
278 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 a yellowish newspaper in the other and a sullen look on his 
 dark face. So fixed was his attention on Baily that he went 
 past me apparently without seeing me, for he kicked against 
 my pail of potatoes, half-stumbled, but kept his eyes forward 
 and went on. Pulling up level with our doorway, fore-side of 
 which the men were grouped loosely, Chips said to Baily in 
 a nasty, masterful growl, 
 
 " Say, mate, don't yer think y' 've given us plenty o' them 
 catterwaulin's ? Cos w'ether y' do er y' don't, I does. I'm fair 
 sick on 'em." 
 
 Baily 's only reply was to take no notice of the man, and 
 continue playing. 
 
 Smiley (the only one who openly paid no respect to the 
 carpenter at any time) looked, laughed and exclaimed, 
 
 " Wat ho, Shavin's! Is y'r mither deid, as ye can't abide 
 a bit o' breight mewsic? " 
 
 Without giving him either look or reply Chips, still keeping 
 his gaze on Baily, said, showing no passion whatever, 
 
 " D' ye 'ear me? Cos if yer don't stash it, damn "me eyes, 
 I'll stash it for you." 
 
 Baily played on, just as if there was no interruption. 
 
 " Ye away an' boil ye'r heid, man! D'ye think th' ship's 
 yo'rs? Wat th' hell next will ye waant ? " Smiley asked, in a 
 change of tone, but not so offensively as his words might imply. 
 At the same time he, being nearest of all to the carpenter, 
 lifted one foot and tried playfully to kick the faded newspaper. 
 
 Featherston and Chambers both made remarks that I did 
 not hear. The nigger laughed and enquired of Chips if he 
 wanted " to play shut-eye " — i.e. sleep. Mc'Arthy asked, 
 
 " 'Aven't you any music in your soul, Chips? Can't you 
 'ppreciate the beautiful? " And Hines, from his position 
 furthest forward, cried, flippantly, 
 
 " Well, tell us wot's a Lesbian, Chips! Then Baily '11 oblige 
 you! " 
 
 This was now one of Hines's favourite phrases, which he 
 used in and out of season. Indeed, Smiley, Mc'Arthy, Scotty 
 and Booster (the last was then at the wheel) were all in the 
 habit of asking the question humorously whenever conversa- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 279 
 
 tion, or anything else, had reached an unanswerable point. 
 For this reason it now raised a general laugh, in the midst of 
 which Denis, clean and wholesome, came around the corner 
 of the deck-house, close enough for Hines to drop his book, 
 throw both arms about the pig's neck and cling there, whilst 
 he exclaimed, 
 
 "Oh, Denis, you're better 'an Chips! — Ain't yer? You 
 loves music! — Don't yer? " 
 
 If anything had been wanting to stir the carpenter's anger 
 beyond bounds, this would have done it. For he hated the pig 
 as much as if he had been a Mohammedan ; and, practically 
 at the same moment as Hines spoke, he advanced two or three 
 paces, and lifted his foot to kick the " fiddle " out of Baily's 
 hands. The next instant he had dropped heavily on the deck, 
 his head towards the bulwarks, his spectacles going under the 
 spars, and the paper fluttering away to where Denis was still 
 struggling in the arms of Hines. It was Smiley who had seized 
 the carpenter's foot and toppled him over. 
 
 Of course I stopped my potato-peeling, apprehensive that 
 there was going to be some serious trouble ; because, as Chips 
 fell, Smiley, Featherston and Baily all came to their feet, 
 with every fist clenched, and intense anger on the faces of the 
 first and second. Scotty sat still on the spars, his big mouth 
 wide open, and by his side Chambers looked on as if he was 
 unsure whether to snigger or not. Mc'Arthy was judiciously 
 silent, awaiting developments before he " took sides." Smiley 
 began to reel off some Doric oaths as to the carpenter's inter- 
 ference with what was of no concern to him, of their being on 
 their own ground, amusing themselves in their own time, and 
 of how he would "spoil" Chips's "daamned beauty," if the 
 latter would " just get up an' stand oot." 
 
 Into the midst of this came Featherston. He stepped in 
 front of Smiley, said, in effect and without an oath, that he 
 would take the matter on, and gave Chips another invitation 
 to rise. Almost simultaneously Baily, having handed his 
 " fiddle " into Scotty 's care, drew Featherston back, took his 
 place, and announced, even more quietly than usual, that the 
 affair was his, and he would settle with Chips. 
 
2 8o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Whilst this last move went on the carpenter scrambled 
 slowly to his feet. He must have had an exceedingly nasty jar 
 in his fall. I was on tenterhooks with anxiety; and I know 
 that every one of us felt practically certain that bad blood 
 was about to be spilled. None of us had ever seen Chips in 
 such a situation. We had known him to have passing words 
 with one or another, but never to go so far as even to threaten 
 blows. What was more to the point, we one and all looked on 
 him as a most likely ugly customer in a fracas, merely because 
 of his build and general cantankerous manner. So that when 
 he gained his feet, groped for and found his spectacles, then 
 went forward for his newspaper (Denis having broken from 
 Hines and cleared out of the way), turned round and made for 
 his berth, without a word — well, we looked at one another, 
 and nobody spoke. 
 
 Smiley was the first to find his tongue, then Mc'Arthy and 
 Scotty. Chambers followed with a snigger, which, for once, 
 was more expressive than any words of his would have been. 
 When the matter had been discussed a few minutes, Baily said 
 he would " play a couple more airs, on principle like," and he 
 did so. 
 
 Going ahead of that day somewhat, in order to finish with 
 the affair : Chips was more sullen than usual. It was evident 
 that he carried some sleeping animosity against his three 
 opponents in particular, and generally towards the other men ; 
 but he said nothing to revive the trouble, not even when Baily 
 played the " fiddle " on deck again, and, as before, " on prin- 
 ciple." But, apparently and happily, like so many such things 
 aboard-ship, the antipathy faded away by-and-by till there 
 seemed to be nothing left of it. Besides an occasion was coming 
 when Chips would have much more respect for Baily than he 
 seemed capable of having for any man. All the same, however, 
 when the " fiddle " was in evidence, Chips always got as far 
 away from it as possible, either by shutting himself in his 
 berth, or by going as far aft as he had any business to go. 
 
 By the time the music ceased I had finished the potatoes, 
 done a few small jobs in the galley, and so brought my day's 
 work to an end. Then, having washed, I went on to the fore- 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 281 
 
 castle-head to smoke and think. I still had some apprehen- 
 sions about the carpenter ; also a fit of home-longing had come 
 over me, as had been the case several times of late. 
 
 But sunset soon came and drew my thoughts away from 
 both the ship and home. It surpassed anything I had ever 
 seen of its kind before, especially in its character. The sun had 
 disappeared behind a large, suspended bank of blue-black 
 clouds, above which were scraps of pale-golden clouds with 
 splashes of dark-grey, almost black, on their nearer sides. To 
 the right of the bank hung heavy masses of other clouds, the 
 ruddy hue of which, on the further side, tipped their edges and, 
 in a way, shone through the clouds, making the black seaward 
 sides a curious dark, purply-pink. Beyond this again was an 
 expanse of ruddy sky that thinned in its colour on the eastern 
 edge. 
 
 On the left of the bank that hid the sun there was a gap of 
 light, then a red-gold bank of fleecy layers; and further on 
 again and nearer to us were cumulus clouds that looked 
 exactly like lightly -piled, golden snow. Next, still going east, 
 on a background of a kind of darkish sea-green, stretched a 
 range of what might have been snow mountains, grey at their 
 base, and lightening in colour up to their white peaks. 
 
 From the greyish end of the greeny background an almost 
 purple red, above a dark bank that touched the horizon, 
 reached right round to the spread of ruddy sky on the right 
 of the sunset. Over the bank that hid the sun there were other 
 banks, streaks and splashes of purple or reddish -black, with 
 the blue-grey above all. And high up in the eastern sky sailed 
 the almost full moon, quite strong and clear in outline, 
 although the sun was still above the horizon; whilst a little 
 lower, towards the darker east, one faint star seemed to be in 
 attendance on her. 
 
 Turning my face to the west again I saw the red sun descend 
 inch by inch, as it appeared, from behind the cloud -bank, 
 until his whole disc was visible between the sharp horizon 
 and" the more definitely outlined edge of the bank, with what 
 seemed to be a finger's width of clear, pinky-opalescent sky 
 above and below him. At that moment a change took place in 
 
282 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 well-nigh every colour and tint within sight, just whilst sun 
 and moon might have been thought to be staring at each 
 other's face. , Only the blackish bank above him kept its hue; 
 all else was white, light -grey, purple, red, gold, or blue-grey. 
 Then the sun was gone, and night was there. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The cheating of a Squall, the coming of a Pampero, also certain Matters 
 concerning Captain Sennett and Mr. Young, as told by the Mate. 
 
 I said that the Old Man's reference to his dream and those 
 words of his, " my mind marvellously keen," had given me 
 an inkling to the real allegory of the dream. They had; but 
 after my fogged impressions had cleared off, and I had spent 
 many a long hour in the night trying uselessly to come at a 
 better understanding of the'thing as I walked the poop, all 
 I had left was the belief that the dream had something to do 
 with his craziness. It was just a sort of touch-point — a place 
 where the fantasy swerved suddenly to the fact, touched it, 
 and was away again ; like a mollyhawk swooping down to the 
 water for a flying-fish, then off once more without stopping. 
 Of late, however, I had gone back and boggled about with the 
 two " keys," all to no purpose. Still I kept pegging away, with 
 the intention of doing so till the next inkling came, and so on 
 to the revelation at the end. 
 
 In the O. M. himself there was no change, not a scrap, till 
 the cook took to his work again. Taking him all-in-all he was 
 just a queer, whimsical sort of chap, whose great fault was 
 that he was so hard to understand. He only wanted a lighter 
 touch in those occasional oddities of his, and a big laugh at the 
 end of each one, to pass them off as first-class jokes ; they were 
 more at times; they were bits of real wit. But, good Lord, 
 what a sickly brilliance, when you came to look into it! — - 
 especially when you really understood it, as I did afterwards. 
 
 In his moody times he was worse than a pig, because he 
 hardly grunted. — No, I can't liken him to a pig! He was too 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 283 
 
 good for that. Say he was wooden. Then in his good times — 
 more than half of the whole, happily — how he made me hope 
 and hope he would come round altogether presently! But 
 there was that nasty set-back every now and then — I mean 
 his habit of forgetting whatever had happened during the 
 past two or three days, and sometimes more. 
 
 This and his other queer tricks of mind made me wonder 
 pretty often what would take place if he should have to go 
 through a crisis of some sort. However, I wasn't to wonder 
 this much longer, although I would rather have done so, if 
 doing it had kept him as he was then. 
 
 It was about a week after the cook went back to his galley, 
 and the Old Man had practically nothing to occupy his time. 
 He was beginning to be more moody and whimsical than ever. 
 It was also a Sunday, when such things mostly happen at sea, 
 and the men were playing at " Jack's pleasure " — that is 
 going over their go-ashore finery, on the good excuse of airing 
 things. That's the chief time when sailors show one another 
 their family photos, become confidential, and let each other 
 see the contents of their chests. 
 
 The trouble began with a squall in the forenoon-watch. I 
 was on deck. The barque was racing along under all plain sail, 
 with a fresh beam-wind that hadn't been blowing long enough 
 to raise more than a low, brisk sea. I saw the squall gathering 
 to wind'ard, and was wondering whether to try to cheat it, 
 or furl the lighter sails. I was afraid it might be of too large 
 an area to cheat, although it was fairly well-aft, and looked as 
 if we should get only the nor'-eastern half of it. 
 
 But the thing that decided me to shorten canvas was the 
 possibility of getting a bit more of the squall than I wanted — 
 in cheating it I mean — and so running the risk of bringing 
 the Old Man on deck in a hurry. I was on the point of shouting 
 an order to clew up the fore- and main-royals, when out of the 
 companion stepped the O. M. I stood by the weather mizzen- 
 rigging, and he walked over to me, eying the weather as he 
 came. 
 
 " I was just going to have the royals furled, sir, and the 
 lighter staysels hauled down. Don't you think we'd better? " 
 
284 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 I remarked, as he drew up alongside, still gazing at the squall. 
 Meanwhile I watched his eyes and face, you can bet, in an effort 
 to see how his mind was at the moment. For my thought was : 
 Am I going to have the unpleasantness of being compelled to 
 supersede him in the management of the vessel? 
 
 You see, up to this, ever since his collapse off the Horn, the 
 important matters of making and shortening sail had all come 
 at times when there was no need of hurry or flurry ; when it 
 was a matter of plain commonsense what to do ; often when 
 he was below, and didn't appear during the work; or when 
 he was on the poop, and I just started things going and finished 
 them, as if he wasn't there. And, fortunately, he had never 
 put in a word of interference and seldom of advice. 
 
 On this occasion, however, I was sure I saw, as he came 
 towards me, a change passing over his face. During the first 
 part of the watch (it was then about eleven o'clock) he had 
 pestered me with some really childish jokes and another 
 attempt (about the sixth altogether) to tell me the " inter- 
 pretation " of his dream. But I had choked him off by going 
 for'ard, as usual, to see how the work went on. 
 
 In other words I put my question to him again, and scru- 
 tinised his face even more closely as he turned it past me to 
 look at the canvas we were carrying. Yes, there was a change 
 in it. It was neither moody nor vacant. His answer was, 
 
 " No, Mr. Willoughby. I think we can save that trouble. 
 We'll cheat this squall, an' see what follows." 
 
 Naturally this gave me considerable pleasure. But I had 
 already seen its like too many times to be deceived into think- 
 ing it would last long. We watched the approach of the squall 
 for a little while. Then he said, 
 
 " Now I think it's time to run her off." 
 
 At this I gave the necessary orders to the helmsman, and 
 off went the barque. She was always quick in answering her 
 helm. Then I looked at the Old Man's face again; it was 
 twitching, and his eyelids bobbed up and down pretty fast. 
 He was striving to keep his mind on the thing in hand ; while 
 I was watching him to catch a change for the worse and step 
 into the breach, also with an eye on the squall, lest the right 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 285 
 
 moment should be missed for cheating it. Presently what we 
 waited for came — the first few drops of rain. I had words on 
 my tongue to speak to him when he gave the order, 
 
 " Down helm! Smart, now! Down with it!" 
 
 I ran to the lee side of the wheel arid helped Mc'Arthy to 
 get it over. Up she swung, shooting away ahead withal, and 
 the squall went sweeping across her stern. We got only the 
 fringe of it. 
 
 " Ease up. Don't let her come into the wind," I said to 
 Mc'Arthy, letting go the wheel, and meaning that he should 
 run it over the opposite way and check the barque's swing to 
 the wind. At the same moment the Old Man called out, 
 - " Watch her now! She's greedy for attention as a jealous 
 woman! " 
 
 The royals and t'gan'sels were beginning to shiver in the 
 wind. Smiling to myself at the O. M.'s remark, although I 
 knew it to be a sort of flash in the pan, I waited by the binnacle 
 till the sails were steady again. I then told Mc'Arthy to keep 
 the vessel as she was going (this was in order to get her further 
 away from the edge of the squall), and went back to the Old 
 Man. As I did so, he called again, 
 
 " Keep her full-an'-bye there! " Then turning, and looking 
 at the helmsman and partly at me, he added, still in a tone of 
 command, " An' don't go off your course." 
 
 And I knew the " lucid interval " was about at an end. 
 That childish expression was coming into his face again. 
 Mc'Arthy grinned, taking the rider as a joke, happily; know- 
 ing that he could not both' keep her full-and-bye and on her 
 course, seeing that her course gave her a beam-wind. When 
 I reached the Old Man's side I asked him if he didn't think he 
 ought to go and lie down a while, and suggested that he might 
 look at the barometer for me. He said he thought he would. 
 I went with him to the companion, and waited there till he 
 came to the foot of the steps to say the glass was falling, and 
 p'r'aps I'd better shorten sail. He added wearily, 
 
 " Better come and look at it." 
 
 So down I went, and found the glass had fallen but little 
 since my last examination of it. As I made for the companion- 
 
286 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 steps again I noticed that the childish look on his face had 
 given way to the usual tired one that followed any real mental 
 effort on his part, and I returned to the deck, pitying him 
 profoundly, I can assure you, and knowing that he wouldn't 
 come bothering me up there again for a time. 
 
 On deck I put the barque to her course again, then debated 
 the problem whether to shorten sail, and so keep the Old 
 Man quiet maybe, or let things go, and make the best of the 
 changing wind till the glass warranted a reduction of canvas. 
 The squall had left us a much lighter breeze than what we 
 had before it came, as I expected it would. And on the 
 horizon, away on our port bow, I could see a full-rigger carrying 
 all except his royals. Personally I would have preferred 
 to carry all the canvas possible. I wanted to see the Sappho 
 drawing near the English Channel, and too much reducing 
 of sail would keep her a week or two longer on the high seas. 
 But another squall was forming to windward. So I called 
 the hands together and got in the royals at once; and when 
 the squall struck us the light staysails were in also. Not 
 that we got a lot of it, either. It was too far astern for me to 
 trouble about cheating it. That was why I let her rip, for 
 the little there was of it. 
 
 When it had passed I saw one of the queerest bits of meteor- 
 ologic phenomena that had ever come my way. Out to 
 wind'ard of us a small squall was just playing about on the 
 road, in a sense, instead of getting away on its business. 
 The thing was for all the world like some frolicking boy or 
 young animal. It was only a couple of miles or less across, 
 looking at it fore and aft, as we were going; and from certain 
 indications I judged it to be shorter the other way on. Right 
 and left of it there was a good stretch of clear sea and horizon, 
 sunny and fair; but squalls were about us generally. 
 
 Well, there it was, and there it kept, fooling round and 
 round itself, a miniature cyclone. Every now and then, 
 through a break in the mist of fine rain that pretty well 
 filled it I could see, with the glasses, that the sea was stirred 
 up rather sharply inside the squall. For this reason I told 
 my men to stand by t'gal'n'- and topsel-halyards ; because 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 287 
 
 if the squall began to move down on us, things would have 
 to be let run. Thus you may be sure I kept a wary eye on the 
 little beggar; because if once it struck us the barque would 
 be all aback one minute and tearing along the next — that 
 is if she had any canvas left to go with. Mind you, I don't 
 think this baby cyclone was strong enough to do more than 
 split sails, and possibly not that if they were good ones, 
 which some of ours were not. 
 
 But my great point was not to have the O. M. come running 
 on deck in a panic. That was why I felt glad to see the queer, 
 little squall keep its distance, till by-and-by it played itself 
 out and became just a mass of rainy mist, the density of 
 which changed its area considerably. 
 
 One remarkable thing I noticed in this was the growing. 
 of a rainbow, from. one end to the other, not its whole appear- 
 ance, clear from the first, or vague and growing clearer, as 
 they generally come in Europe. It began first with a sundog, 
 and a clear, well-enough shaped thing it was, rather abaft 
 our beam and apparently about four miles away, with the 
 mist right and left of it, especially to the right. 
 
 From that it grew steadily and slowly, up and over and 
 down to the other end — Of course, I mean that it appeared 
 to ; because I couldn't say exactly whether it grew like that, 
 or it was there all in the piece to begin with, and that the 
 mist just cleared away from it. But I can swear to this: 
 There was no thinning of the mist anywhere in or around the 
 arch. By the time it was complete (and it was as fine a rain- 
 bow as I ever saw) there wasn't more than a mile between 
 us and the parts of the sea on which the ends seemed to 
 stand. 
 
 By this time the area of the squall — the two miles or so 
 of rain and mist, that is — had moved down and taken us 
 into it; though what on earth had brought the thing I don't 
 know, because there was no wind in it, and where that had 
 gone the heavens alone knew. It hadn't come out at the 
 sides — ahead, astern, and towards us — not that / had seen, 
 anyhow. And a sailor couldn't believe that it had gone out 
 to windward — never ! If it had gone out along the face of 
 
288 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the sea it must have taken some of the mist and patches of 
 rain with it, straggling along its course. But, no — as I said, 
 in this respect the area remained the same, so did the varia- 
 tions of density, as far as I could see. 
 
 However, I was talking about the rainbow. When I turned 
 back to it, from realising that we were in the area and the 
 wind was gone, there were the two ends of the rainbow not 
 a hundred yards away. The rain was slight and, as I've 
 mentioned, in patches, like the mist in its density; so that 
 I could see the water through the rainbow* each piece taking 
 on it the colour through which I looked. And as I looked it 
 came nearer still, until I could easily have pitched a biscuit 
 into either of the ends. These were not more than two-thirds 
 the length of the barque from one another, and were, as they 
 lay on the water, about four yards across. 
 
 At that moment (in this state it lasted ten or twelve minutes), 
 except for the short break between the ends, and the two 
 sharp bends where the bow crossed — or seemed to cross — 
 the line of the horizon and continued upwards, except for 
 these the thing was a complete circle of vivid colours with 
 fairly well-defined lines through their length and breadth. 
 
 Never before or since have I been so close to a perfect 
 rainbow, and for the same reason I've never seen another so 
 perfect in any way. And while I stood there watching its 
 movements and that, I couldn't help wondering if any one 
 in a vessel on the other side of the phenomenon could have 
 seen it as we saw it, and if the ends would have seemed to 
 be as near to them as they were to us. This is something I 
 haven't had a chance to learn, because I've never known any 
 one who happened to be on the side of a rainbow opposite to me. 
 
 Well, this brought us up to one-bell; but as it was no use 
 trying to take the sun, I left my sextant below. And I wasn't 
 sorry, either, although it was two days since I got an obser- 
 vation, and I was working on dead reckoning. I was glad 
 because it saved me both from having to get the Old Man 
 to take one with me, as a check merely, and from bringing 
 in the second mate, for the same purpose, on the score that 
 the 0. M. had a bad head. I had done this sometimes of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 289 
 
 late; and, by the way Young had spoken of the O. M. on 
 each occasion, I was satisfied that while he had no suspicion 
 of the truth, he couldn't understand how a man came to 
 have a bad head without drinking. As the lesser of two evils 
 I left the matter at that, knowing he would be sure to blurt 
 it out the moment he fell across the truth, which would mean 
 that all hands would soon know it as well. 
 
 At dinner I saw that whatever was to happen that day, 
 I needn't look to the Old Man for either support or inter- 
 ference. So as soon as the meal was over I persuaded him 
 into his room, on to the settee there, and shut him in, telling 
 the boy not to disturb him, nor to let the second mate do so. 
 I then relieved Young to have his dinner. 
 
 When Young came back to take charge of his watch I 
 told' him that the Old Man had gone to lie down, not feeling 
 well, and that if the glass dropped below 29°io (it was then 
 at 29°25, and was a rather low-working glass) he was to call 
 me, not the Old Man. I also cautioned him about the squalls 
 that were hanging around (the Sappho had no more than 
 steering way at the time) ; and said that if the glass fell at 
 all from where it was, he could take in the fore- and main- 
 t'ga'n'sels, the flying jib, and reef the spanker. At that I 
 left him, and went to my berth; but I didn't turn in. Ihad 
 a notion that I should be wanted on deck before my watch- 
 below was over. So I was, yet not at Young's calling, as I 
 had expected. It was the boy who called me. 
 
 I don't know how he had come to do it ; but somehow or 
 other, since the day of the skipper's collapse, the boy had 
 been different in his bearing towards me. Not that he'd 
 suddenly turned round and kow-towed. No, he wasn't of 
 that kidney. By this time you know he was of finer make 
 than that, in certain ways at any rate. Besides, so far as' I 
 had seen, he was no respecter of station, nor of authority 
 either, only inasmuch as it forced him to obey. If you couldn't 
 get the little animal's affection, then you were an enemy; 
 it was all for or against with him. He didn't understand 
 neutrality, and I don't think he believed in it a scrap, either. 
 
 What is more, if I may judge his class by what I've seen 
 
 T 
 
2 9 o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 of 'em aboard-ship — that is boys of the lower working-class 
 in big industrial towns and near docks — I should say that 
 same idea is a fundamental thing with them. It's all or 
 nothing, like the Philadelphia lawyer — a bull in a china shop, 
 or a child at play. 
 
 Yes, it was the boy who roused me out. He came about half- 
 past three, awoke me and said, in his way, he was sorry to 
 disturb me; but the glass was " dahn nearly to the 29," and 
 the vessel was still under the same canvas. I stared at him, a 
 bit stupefied, as you may guess. For the moment I couldn't 
 make head or tail of what he meant. It was all so different 
 from what it should have been, if somebody had sent him to 
 call me. And that he was calling me " on his own " was a bit 
 too much to think in a half-awakened state. 
 
 " What do you mean, boy ? " I asked, sitting up on the settee, 
 where I had slept. I was rather annoyed, and wondered a 
 little if he was trying at last to play a trick on me. He saw 
 something of this in my face, backed towards the door and 
 answered, 
 
 " You told Mr. Young ter shorten sile, sir, an' ter call yer 
 out if the glaass went dahn ter 29 — I think yer said. Well, it's 
 there, sir." 
 
 " Did he send you to tell me? " I enquired. 
 
 " No, sir, an' 'e ain't took in no sile. 'E's a-workin' for'ard 
 wiv the men." 
 
 Out I went", brushing past the boy and leaving "thanks " 
 till I understood the situation better. True enough — a jolly 
 sight too true, in fact — the glass was at 29°3. I ran up the 
 companion-way and bounced out on deck. The squalls were 
 gone. The barque was slipping slowly through oily-looking 
 water, close-hauled to a hot, light northerly air that was not 
 enough on the surface to cause ripples, yet sufficiently strong 
 aloft to keep the t'ga'n'sels and topsels full. Not an eye-hole 
 of sky was to be seen, and visibility didn't reach more than 
 five or six miles. The horizon was vague even at that. Over- 
 head and down to the water we were cupped in with a haze 
 that was like a wall of fog at a distance. And as to the colour 
 of it — it was no colour at all, and what it had of tint was just 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 291 
 
 ugly. At the first glance you would have said it was dark-grey 
 with a touch of brown in it. So it was, yet it wasn't; because 
 when you looked steadily at it you could see a faint tinge of 
 red, not here and there, but all through it, only stronger 
 towards the water than higher up ; and the more you looked, 
 the more red you saw. It didn't take me more than two or 
 three minutes to know this. Then I turned to Featherston, 
 thinking: " M'm, got one of his best men at the wheel, any- 
 how," and asking, 
 
 " How long has it been like this? " 
 
 " Oh, 'bout half-an-hour, sir, I should think," he replied. 
 
 " No change at all in that time? " 
 
 " No, sir — not in the wind, 'cept for backin' an' fillin'." 
 
 "How much does it vary? " I enquired, knowing that I 
 should get better accuracy from him than from the second 
 mate, now that the latter had to be called to account for not 
 obeying orders — not a new thing by any means, and one that 
 was more due to woodenness than to wilfulness. 
 
 " Sometimes a point or so a'ead o' this, sir, an' sometimes 
 two or three abaft it." 
 
 I had already noticed that the barque was two points east 
 of her course — to lu'ard of it, that is. So, all-in-all, she was 
 about keeping her head in the right direction. I next asked 
 him if there had been any change in the haze in that time. 
 He said: "No." Then I went to the fore-rail of the poop and 
 blew my whistle. Young appeared from somewhere for'ard 
 of the deck-house and came lumbering aft, looking stubborn 
 and foolish as he drew nearer. 
 
 Well, it's never a pleasant thing to find fault with an officer, 
 especially one of his sort. So I will pass over it and say that I 
 told him the state of the barometer and ordered him there and 
 then to take in the sails originally ordered, also to clew up the 
 mainsail ready for all hands to furl at eight-bells. His excuse 
 was that he had gone to hurry the men on with the work they 
 were doing, had stopped to lend them a hand, as no look-out 
 was needed, and had forgotten to watch the glass in his haste 
 to get the work done — merely the preparing of some new 
 for'ard back-stays. 
 
292 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 I knew he had gone there as much for company and a yarn as 
 anything else. He was a man who didn't like to be alone. I 
 told him to go ahead with the shortening, do it smartly, and 
 help with it, as I should stop on the poop, seeing that it wasn't 
 worth while to go back to my cabin till eight-bells. Then he 
 tried to argue the point that no harm had been done by 
 letting the sails stand, that he had got a iew more knots out 
 of the barque by doing so, etc. But I choked him off by 
 threatening to hold him responsible if the impending wind 
 came down on us and did any damage before tlie canvas was 
 in. As a matter of fact, I didn't think it would. Still, there was 
 no knowing when it wfould come ; and as a matter of truth, I 
 was committing " an error of judgment " by not calling all 
 hands and snugging the vessel down as fast as possible. It 
 was one of those cases — the coming wind, I mean — where you 
 shouldn't prophesy till you know, nor think afterwards that 
 you thought the right thing at the time. 
 
 I've said before, I think, that Young was a stubborn sort 
 of man. That was why he went and spent some valuable time 
 in putting away the work and tidying up. In fact, he was so 
 long messing about and showing no signs of beginning to 
 shorten down, that I sent the boy to tell him to drop every- 
 thing and go ahead with the sails at once. The youngster 
 happened to come from the cabin-alleyway on to the main 
 deck as I stood by ' the poop-rail, half -determined to go 
 for'ard and let out at Young. So I thanked him for calling 
 me — the boy I mean; he had been under the open sky- 
 light while I gave Young his orders. I then sent him on 
 the errand, noticing at the same time that the light air was 
 about done. 
 
 While I watched him going along the deck, the Old Man 
 came to my side — or, rather, he was there, in a pair of list 
 slippers without heels, before. I knew it properly. Feeling that 
 I would rather have had the Devil himself there just then, 
 and probably for a few hours to come, I turned to examine his 
 face and eyes. They were quiet, but tired-looking. Well, I 
 thought, this is better than any silly tricks : Please God he'll 
 keep so, or get better. As I knew by his first observation, his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 293 
 
 sailor's instinct had woke him up, if he was asleep, and fetched 
 him on deck. His mind had told him there was something 
 unusual about. 
 
 "How is the glass? " he enquired ordinarily, and gazing 
 for'ard steadily. I supposed he had taken stock of the haze 
 and the canvas when he came out of the companion. 
 
 " Very low, sir. I've just sent Mr. Young to take in the 
 t'ga'n'sels and that," I replied. " P'r'aps we had better snug 
 her right down while we're at it." I didn't think it necessary 
 to tell him about the second mate's slip. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," he said, in his quiet way. " It's pretty 
 sure to be a sou'-wester, by the look of things. An' if it doesn't 
 come too hard at first, it'll send us on very well, you know. 
 No — I don't think I'd take too much off her at first. She's a 
 beauty, you know, at all times. Let her have a chance when 
 it comes." 
 
 "AH right, sir," answered I; but I couldn't help adding, 
 " It's my opinion we shall get it stiff when it comes. It'll be a 
 regular pampero, I'll bet. Look at that haze. Why, it's like 
 being in a steaming oven ! " 
 
 The light air had dropped and we were in a flat calm, with 
 the sails hanging like sheets in a closed room. 
 
 " Yes. But I want to. get home, Mr. Willoughby — I want 
 to get home," he replied; and I think I never heard anything 
 more pathetic than the tone of those words. Not that he 
 intended it — no, he wasn't one to show any sort of pain while 
 his wits were about him, even though they might be a bit 
 feeble at the time. 
 
 I told him kindly I was aware of this, and hoped we should 
 every one get home all right. He gave me an understanding 
 glance, said, 
 
 " Amen to that, Mr. Willoughby," and remarked, " Besides, 
 as the wind '11 be aft when it comes, if we can keep her head 
 as it is, she won't hurt much, I don't suppose, even if it 
 comes " 
 
 He paused and turned to look astern. So did I at the same 
 instant. And well we might. A queer, far-off, sort of shrieking 
 roar had jerked us both round at once; and there, away the 
 
294 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 port-quarter, was a huge roundish hole in the haze. It was a 
 hole that looked much the same as the end of a tunnel does, 
 when you're some distance inside ; but instead of being whitish 
 or pearly, it was a damned nasty, ugly, reddish, greyish cream, 
 something like the river Plate when the mud's being stirred up. 
 Oh, it was brutish, and foul as hell, I can tell you! And it 
 appeared all the worse by comparison with the solid-looking 
 haze. In the few seconds we spent in staring at it, the roar 
 grew louder. Without any reference to the Old Man, I turned 
 to bawl for'ard; but he was before me, shouting, 
 
 " Quick, for God's sake, Mr. Young, up with that t'ga'n'sel ! " 
 They were at main; the fore one was up. " Call all hands, 
 and up with the lower topsels fast as you can get 'em ! Haul 
 your staysels down! Lively now! " 
 
 At that the carpenter put his head out of his workshop 
 and was told to go and help for'ard. At the same moment I 
 was at the mizzen, letting-go the halyards of the main-stay- 
 sails, then the peak and clew out-haulers of the spanker. 
 
 " That's it, Mr. Willoughby! — That's it! " he cried, coming 
 to lend me a hand to brail-in the sail. • 
 
 This brought us facing the coming pampero again; and I 
 noticed that the hole was much bigger; that the water was 
 being churned up from it towards us, and that already the 
 atmosphere was colder. 
 
 " Mind your helm well, when it comes, Featherston! Keep 
 it on the port-quarter till we get the yards trimmed!" I 
 yelled, as the spanker came in to the mast, and the man 
 answered, "Aye, aye, sir!" 
 
 Owing to the yards being braced sharp up on the port-tack, 
 if once the wind got on the starboard-quarter, either the 
 sails would split in banging about, or she might swing further 
 up that way ; then over she would go, unless the sticks went 
 at once. It was a relief to me to know that one of our best 
 men was at the wheel. I was taking an extra turn or two with 
 the brails, and snugging them in, because I knew there would 
 be some tremendous force put on them, when the Old Man 
 said, 
 
 "For'ard now, Mr. Willoughby! Your men are out! Up 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 295 
 
 with the mainsel, w'ile the other watch gets the fore-topsel 
 up! " 
 
 "All right, sir! " I replied, hurrying past him; but not 
 too fast to get a good look at his face. Then down the ladder 
 I went, sliding on my hands on the rails, my feet only touching 
 a step here and there. That look had given me new hope; 
 but it hadn't assured me. 
 
 I wasn't more than three or four strides away from the 
 ladder, when the wind struck us, and over the barque heaved, 
 a good ten degrees to lu'ard. Yet this wasn't the worst, and 
 I knew it. Wild now with the second mate that he hadn't 
 got the shortening done, as I told him to, and fearful of 
 something going, I sprang ahead, shouted savagely to Young 
 to tackle the fore-topsel, then called my watch to the mainsel. 
 
 Why, the words were hardly out of my mouth, when 
 crack ! The full blast of the infernal thing had got us, and the 
 fore-topmast was gone; it and all its top-hamper were 
 hanging over the lee-bow. The mainsel and the main-topsel 
 had split from yard to foot-rope, and were going to pieces, 
 like wet paper»in a breeze. If the yards had been checked 
 in to meet it, so that it had struck the sails square, either 
 the masts would have gone altogether, or we shouldn't have 
 had a sound clout left. 
 
 I was five or six feet away from the main-fife-rail when the 
 full force came; yet it picked me up and smacked me like 
 a doll against the rail and pins, etc., and made me think I 
 hadn't a whole bone left, or a foot of skin unbroken. Several 
 of the men, on the open deck further for'ard, were downed 
 like nine-pins; and when I looked aft, I saw the Old Man 
 raising himself slowly from the poop-rail. The wind had 
 banged him at it, as it had me at the fife-rail. And I may as 
 well say it now, while I'm on these matters: Featherston 
 had a badly sprained wrist, owing to the way he stuck to the 
 wheel, when the pampero hit him rather to one side and 
 twisted him to lu'ard. But he was a brick. He held on 
 till all was cleared up, and his relief came. And I'm glad to 
 say no one else was hurt, except for cuts and bruises. 
 
 Well, you know, civilisation is a fine thing — the beginning 
 
296 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 of man's salvation, likely enough. And it's good to be humane ; 
 to try to be a man at all times, and a gentleman whenever 
 you can. But, I don't mind telling you, if I could have got 
 a square left-hander on Young's face, just as I drew away 
 from that fife-rail, I'm sure his dark beauty would have been 
 spoiled for next morning's breakfast. 
 
 - However, as the gigantic squall (for that's what a pampero 
 is, and not always either very heavy or very long) had short- 
 ened us down enough for the time being, I made for'ard to 
 get the wreckage cleared. By the main-hatch the O. M. over- 
 took me, slithering along in his slippers like one o'clock. 
 He was on his way to see what damage was done, and he took 
 • it in in a jiffy, in spite of the infernal and nearly continual 
 squealing of Denis, which wouldn't be quiet for any one. 
 
 The cap'n was on to the fo'c's'le-head, leaning over the 
 bow to find out if any of the fallen spars had hurt the hull, 
 and up and down and round about generally, just as fast 
 as I could go. But with never a word to me, only mutterings 
 to himself, and heedless apparently of all I said. When we 
 were clear of the wreckage again, I suggested that I had 
 better work away at it, while daylight lasted, as there would 
 be no need to bother with the sails for some time. 
 
 "Yes. Oh, yes! Certainly, Mr. Willoughby! — Certainly! 
 You know — er -" 
 
 We were passing aft, between the deck-house and the 
 lee bulwarks, and as he stopped speaking he turned his face 
 towards me, and I saw that the vapid expression was back. 
 I made to go to the poop with him, with the intention of 
 getting him below; but he wouldn't have it. He was so 
 emphatic on my staying for'ard and hurrying on the clearing, 
 that I had to give way, hoping he would either recover 
 when he got aft, or have the sense to go to his cabin. 
 
 However, within two or three minutes a man who was 
 clearing things in the lee fore-rigging told me that Featherston 
 -was halloing. Fearing the truth, I turned aft, and at the 
 same time wondered if there was something wrong with the 
 helmsman, the steering-gear, and I don't know what else. 
 You see, I hadn't been aft since the pampero first struck us; 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 297 
 
 and nearly anything could have happened there, without 
 the Old Man telling me, seeing the state he was in. So, as I 
 hurried away, I rather hoped it was something else, and not 
 him— providing that the " something " was not too serious. 
 
 At the after-corner of the deck-house I butted into the 
 fat, old cook at the corner (not so fat, quite, as before the 
 scalding " put him in irons "), me going to wind'ard, and him 
 coming to lu'ard, with two or three streaks of pea-soup 
 down his patriarchal beard. It was well known that he never 
 took his dinner till he had finished for the afternoon. He had 
 a queer, spluttering, mouthful way of talking, and he began 
 to tell me that the Old Man was lying on the poop. Feather- 
 ston had shouted that to him. Without waiting for more 
 I pushed past him, ran along the weather deck, bounded 
 up the poop-ladder, and was nearly knocked back by the 
 wind at the top. 
 
 Yes, too miserably true, there, was the skipper, doubled 
 up in a heap by the skylight, and the boy at his side. I turned 
 him over, saw his drawn face, and knew that this was a more 
 serious affair than the collapse in the cabin. Well, I got him 
 down to the saloon, did my best to revive him, failed for the 
 time being, and left him with the boy (to come and tell me 
 if he began to recover; I wanted to see him in the first stage). 
 I then went up to Featherston and asked if the cap'n had 
 tripped over something. ■ . 
 
 " No, sir," said he. " 'E just tottered a bit— I thought 
 'twas the wind a-makin' him — then down 'e flops, just as 
 you found 'im." 
 
 That was enough. I went for'ard; but every now and 
 then I ran to the cabin, and returned as oft to the work, 
 none the better in mind, and soundly rating Young off and 
 on for bringing the mischief on us, till I had to stop it for 
 shame at myself. About an hour later I slipped into the 
 saloon, as the Old Man was opening his eyes. He wasn't the 
 same man, and I'll leave it at that for now. 
 
 Even the boy — well, I don't know why I should say " even " 
 him ; because he was cute enough for his years, and a measure 
 or two over in some things. Anyhow, he understood the 
 
298 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 thing then, quite; and the poor little beggar did his best to 
 keep me from seeing his tears; but they came too freely for 
 that. His shirt-sleeves must have been pretty wet when I 
 left him, with instructions what to do. As I entered the 
 alley-way I thought I heard the Old Man speak. (He hadn't 
 said a word since opening his eyes.) So I stepped back into 
 the saloon. The skipper was in his berth. But it wasn't 
 him; it was the boy, on his knees by the settee, sa3 7 ing, or 
 muttering, 
 
 "Pore old capt'in! Pore old dear! I'll tike keer on yer. 
 I'll see as yer don't 'urt." 
 
 I left him talking like that. And I will take this opportunity 
 of saying that from then onwards that boy played no tricks 
 on any one or anything. 
 
 We saved the spars, as they were all hanging by the gear. 
 When darkness closed in, and the blessed pampero was 
 already beginning to ease up and leave us cold under a clear 
 sky, everything was as tidy as it need be for the time being; 
 even to holes patched up in the deck of the fo'c's'le-head 
 and the fore-deck, where the ends of the yards had gone 
 through; also planks nailed on the bulwarks, where the 
 wreckage from aloft had broken them. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Lionel's Account of rigging up new Spars, the singing of Baily's Chantey, 
 and of some personal Reflections. 
 
 I have a little to say about the pampero, so I must go back 
 to it. Besides, Mr. Willoughby has omitted to tell you of 
 an outstanding feature of the affair — one that cannot be left 
 out except by seriously damaging the tout ensemble. 
 
 To begin with myself (always the initial be-all, and often 
 the end-all, of such things, it seems to me): As one of the 
 forward working party, I was just to leeward of the foremast, 
 hauling on a line with Chambers, when we heard the gun- 
 like crack of the broken topmast. His and the other men's 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 299 
 
 instincts took them to windward in a jump, as it always 
 does with sailors when breaking occurs aloft; and, as an 
 instantaneous imitation, I was with them. That movement 
 saved our lives — Chambers' and mine. One of the upper 
 yards struck the forecastle-head deck, end-on, then fell 
 aft, right across the place where we had stood. 
 
 This caused the after-end to break through the front of 
 Denis's sty, and instantly the crash came on his domicile he 
 set up one of the most piercing squeals imaginable. Worse 
 still, he kept it up, with breathing intervals, right on until 
 the yard was removed, and some boards were nailed over 
 the broken front. This means that almost all the time Captain 
 Sennett and Mr. Willoughby were examining the damage, 
 Denis was squealing for his life. I noticed this, and the queer 
 thing to me was that, although he was deafening and annoying, 
 no one seemed to take any heed of him. The only remarks 
 I remember hearing were Scott3/'s, "Poo' old Denis!" 
 Hines's, "Wot price a Lesbian now? " and Chambers' mum- 
 bled, " It's enough to make you think W'ymper's bone 's 
 aboard." 
 
 With regard to myself: You must remember, please, that 
 I had never before experienced anything of this kind. " Run- 
 ning the easting down " and those gales of wind off the Horn 
 had no doubt made me rather blase. But after all, I was only 
 twenty — Was I? And even though I had "roughed it" 
 during a couple of years on shore, and thought myself man 
 enough to work my passage home as a sailor, bear in mind 
 the romantic idea at the bottom, of it, the fact that I knew 
 nothing of life in a sailing vessel, and the lovely weather 
 that prevailed from the inception of the idea right down to 
 the Doldrums. 
 
 Here, however, when the crack came and the spars fell, 
 I am bound to confess that my heart was in my mouth. 
 At that moment, and for some little time afterwards, I would 
 have given the Sappho to be safe on shore; just as I would 
 have done in the second gale off the Horn and occasionally, 
 but less so, when aloft whilst " running the easting down." 
 And when I turned aft, and felt the wind so heavy that I 
 
300 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 could scarcely breathe against it, I thought that surely more 
 spars must go, and we should be left a derelict on the face 
 of the waters. But, of course, it was a horse of another colour 
 when all was cleared up, and I turned in for the night, with 
 the wind lessening so much that I expected to be called out 
 to make sail before morning." To my pleased surprise the 
 watches made sail without me. 
 
 Then the morning — a more gorgeous sunrise I never saw. 
 Some in the Pacific had been grand, beautiful; but this 
 
 one ! I had no time to take notes on it; so that I cannot 
 
 particularise. It is simply in my mind as the greatest range 
 and spread of quick-changing colouring that even Nature 
 could produce. You see, it was all over in a few minutes. 
 Mr. Willoughby lias told you what the sunset was like. 
 Well, it appeared as if Nature was determined to outdo 
 herself in making what amends she could. I saw it by turning 
 out to satisfy myself about the weather just before being 
 called. 
 
 And with the morning, when Hines — being then on duty 
 as part of the mate's watch — came into the forecastle with 
 coffee for all hands, at a quarter to six o'clock (for that was 
 to be an " all-hands " day, irrespective of watches), and 
 shouted, 
 
 " Hi, there! Show a leg! Show a leg! Hi! Hi! All 'ands 
 to the pump; there's a man overboard, an' the cap'n's lost 
 'is breeches! " 
 
 This had, of course, its desired effect. It brought two or 
 three of us to sitting postures, and wakeful answers from 
 the others. Some one asked what the morning was like. 
 I left Hines to reply, which he did, then said something 
 flippant on the work there-was to do, and turned to go on 
 deck again, adding, in a loud, ironic way, 
 
 "That's the bloomin' luckier get 'ere! Oh, an' Sappho 
 was a Lesbian! — My Gawd! " And out he went, as Booster 
 drawled, sitting on his bunk-edge, and pulling a pair of 
 holey socks on to a pair of dirty feet, 
 
 " Well, friends, I guess I'd jes' fer once kind-a like tu know 
 what's a Lesbian, any'ow." 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 301 
 
 " Weel, mate," said Smiley, who had come to the bulk- 
 head doorway just in time to hear the American, " Aa'm 
 thinkin' as it's summat same as bein' a bitch. But Aa daresay, 
 ye knaa, Mc's greeat-gran'mither on his fayther's side wad 
 be better able ta tell ye, than Aa can." 
 
 Booster made a laughing reply; Scotty made another; 
 Chambers sniggered in silence, and the butt of the remark 
 called out something from the other forecastle, which went 
 unheeded. 
 
 Featherston (he was never an early mover, and very seldom 
 late) stretched out the arm of the injured wrist (By the 
 way, he did not lay up; he scorned to do so whilst he had 
 " two good feet an' a 'and.") and enquired of Smiley, 
 
 " You chaps 'card anything o' the Old Man this mornin' 
 yet?'; 
 
 Smiley said they had not. Featherston sat up in his bunk, 
 his dark face being a puzzle in expression. We all knew there 
 was something more than usual on his mind, and in a minute 
 or two he was being plied with questions, much as had been 
 poured out on the previous night, as to how Captain Sennett 
 came to fall insensible, and why he had remained in ,that 
 condition so long. In addition, it was now: Is he all right? 
 And if he is not, what is the matter with him ? 
 
 Of course, we all knew that for weeks and weeks gone by 
 he had not been the quietly-cheerful, fatherly yet masterly 
 man that he was in the Pacific ; that, our seeing so much less 
 of him of late, and the fact that the mate had pretty con- 
 siderably taken his place on deck, were all the points we had. 
 
 Of what took place in the cabin we knew nothing — or as 
 good as nothing — and the same of what passed between 
 them on the poop. But one or two things that every one 
 knew, except Booster and I, and Hines in a less degree: We 
 had been unfortunate in the weather, now in the matter of 
 serious damage, and were making what promised to be an 
 exceptionally long passage. 
 
 They spoke of these things (which they had done many a 
 time before, but not as then), and, naturally, linked them 
 with the change in Captain Sennett; a change which we 
 
3 o2 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 all understood in the matter of his quietude, but were puzzled 
 — and in most cases, I could see, suspicious — as to the insen- 
 sibility. If he had not been so considerate of them in the 
 past, I am certain that from that morning they would have 
 sworn they were sailing with a madman; and, a hundred 
 to one, have refused to obey his orders on that score. One 
 of the most ominous signs of this was a recollection of the 
 flag at half-mast — as dangerous a subject as can be played 
 with aboard-ship, especially with real " Shellbacks," 
 
 However, for the next three days there was too much 
 work to do to allow of a deal of talking; and partially for 
 this reason: Mr. Willoughby put all hands on day-work — ■ 
 sunrise to sunset — till the repairs were made, every man to 
 get what sleep he could during the night, only the man for 
 the wheel to be called as his turn came; there was to be no 
 making sail in the night (as a matter of fact we gave the 
 barque all we could during that forenoon, and only cat's-paws 
 and calms for four or five days afterwards), and no look-out 
 more than the officer of the watch could keep, unless he 
 thought fit to have a man on the forecastle-head. 
 
 All this was given out as from Captain Sennett; but Mr. 
 Willoughby can tell you that during those three days he, for his 
 own purposes, was keeping the master in his berth. To us it 
 was said, by the cook and the second mate (neither of whom 
 knew the facts at all, and seemed not to suspect the truth), 
 that the captain had hurt himself in the fall. I could not dis- 
 believe this; and, so far as I could see, Chambers, Booster, 
 Scotty and Baily were each more or less inclined the same way. 
 
 But Smiley first, then Mc'Arthy, Hines and Featherston 
 were the unbelievers, in this order. And whenever Smiley or 
 Mc'Arthy passed the cabin-boy on deck, and no officer was 
 near, they tried to get out of him some corroboration of their 
 suspicions ; but he was much too artful even for Smiley. Of 
 course, I would not believe this ; I dreaded to do so, and did all 
 I could to put it down, without effect ; for it grew, and I was 
 miserable in consequence. 
 
 The mate's arrangement gave us more hands for the work, 
 and practically satisfied everybody. Another thing it did, it 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 303 
 
 buried the hatchet between Baily and Chips. The making of 
 a new topmast, etc., out of the roughly-shaped spars on the 
 deck, proved that Baily could use an adze, a saw, a plane and 
 a chisel, if nothing else in that line, almost as well as Chips 
 could himself. This caused the latter to ask Baily if he had 
 ever been an apprentice to carpentry, or had worked at a 
 bench ; and when Baily said no, his respect for the man went 
 up very considerably. During the three days they were mates, 
 and friends for the remainder of the passage. 
 
 Then the happy third afternoon came ; and we looked aloft 
 with pride, satisfaction, and what was far better, new hope. 
 For the fact of once more seeing all complete aloft — in the 
 matter of spars just then — appeared to make us think we 
 should get a fresh start now and go through. The whole eleven 
 of us had worked hard and willingly during the two days and 
 a half. Perhaps I should except myself, though, seeing that I 
 was at the wheel throughout the greater part of each day. 
 This was because my abilities as a steersman were so far in 
 advance of my knowledge of splicing, marling, serving, parcel- 
 ling, and all the etcetera of sailorising. Now, however, I had 
 just come from my dinner, after being relieved from the wheel 
 for that purpose. The lower-fore-topsail and the head sails had 
 been set. The upper-topsail was being bent on, ready for 
 hoisting; and very soon the halyards were manned, and 
 Scotty said, with his usual laugh all over his face, 
 
 " Come on, Baily. You jes' gotah sing dat deh chantey ob 
 you'n now." 
 
 This occasioned other urgings, and Baily went to the down- 
 ward part of the fall. The mate called out to hurry up with 
 the sail. Unknown to us he did not want any singing, although 
 there had been a good deal of " Yo-hoing " during the preced- 
 ing day and all that morning. He was afraid that a regular 
 chantey would arouse Captain Sennett and bring him on deck, 
 before he — the mate — was ready for him. But he could not 
 say we were not to sing. That would be so unsailorlike as to 
 savour of madness. So we " lay out " along the rope, seven 
 men, dirty, tarry, tattooed, half-naked and bathed in per- 
 spiration, with Baily — who could stand the heat better than 
 
3o 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 we could — and the bare-black-chested r-econd mate on the 
 downward part. Then the singing and hoisting began: 
 
 " As I was a-walkin' down Rat cliff Highway — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 As I was a-walkin' down Ratcliff Highway — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " With a pound in me pocket an' nothing to pay — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 With a pound in me pocket an' nothing to pay — . 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " An' what does I see but a skipper I knows — 
 Hd ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 An' what does I see but a skipper I knows — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " Ses he: 'If you're wantin' a ship come along ' — 
 Hi ! Hi ! ' Pull away, Joe ! 
 Ses he: 'If you're wantin' a ship come along ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " Ses I : ' I'm not wantin' ; but w'ere ar' you bound ? '— 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 Ses I : 'I'm riot wantin' ; but w'ere ar' you bound ? ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " Ses he: ' I'm for Chiny, w'ere dollars ar' thick ' — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 Ses he: ' I'm for Chiny, w'ere dollars ar' thick ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " So I ships as his bosun at five pounds a month — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 So I ships as his bosun at five pounds a month — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " To me good-lookin' Sally I leaves me 'alf-pay — 
 Hi I Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 To me good-lookin' Sally I leaves me 'alf-pay — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy 0/" 
 
 " Belay! " cried the mate. 
 
 We made fast the halyards, and took our snatch-block 
 across the deck for the top-gallantsail halyards. The song was 
 not finished. So, as we seized the fall, Baily struck up again: 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 305 
 
 " Now w'en I runs up into Foo-loo-chow roads — 
 Hi f Hi ! Pull away, Joe f 
 Now w'en I runs up into Foo-loo-chow roads— 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O t 
 
 " I spies a young beauty an' tips her a wink — 
 Hi f Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 I spies a young beauty an' tips her a wink — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " Then she slues her about, an' she waddles her foot — - 
 Hi ! Hi f Pull away, Joe f 
 Then she slues her about, an' she waddles her foot — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O f 
 
 " So I lays alongside; but she lets out a yell — 
 Hi ! Hi I Pull away, Joe ! 
 So I lays alongside ; but she lets out a yell — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O f 
 
 " An' a bloomin' mandarrm runs up with his knife — 
 Hi I Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 An' a bloomin' manrfamn runs up with his knife — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " But I wipes him a oner that knocks out his light — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 But I wipes him a oner that knocks out his light — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " An' w'en he lays dead as a piece o' salt pork — 
 Hi f Hi ! Pull away, Joe ! 
 An' w'en he lays dead as a piece o' salt pork — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy Of" 
 
 By making short pulls we had tried to finish the chantey 
 before the yard was up. But we had failed ; it was up, and 
 here came the order to belay. However, the remaining verses 
 were : 
 
 " She ups and she ses: ' Now that's just what I meant ' — 
 Hi f Hi f Pull away, Joe f 
 She ups and she ses: ' Now that's just what I meant ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O f 
 
 " ' He was me husband, the jealous old rat! ' — 
 Hi f Hi f Pull away, Joe f 
 ' He was me husband, the jealous old rat! ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy ! 
 u 
 
306 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " ' So me gallant young sailor, here's live hundred 
 pounds ' — 
 Hi ! Hi ! Pull away, Joe I 
 ' So me gallant young sailor, here's five hundred 
 pounds ' — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy O ! 
 
 " So homeward I comes to me good-lookin' Sal — 
 Hi 7 Hi ! Pull away, Joe / 
 So homeward I comes to me good-lookin' Sal — 
 There's a gel that fits me dandy Of" 
 
 The moment the sails were up and trimmed, Mr. Willoughby 
 ordered the decks to be cleared, the ropes coiled tidily, and no 
 more work done till next day, except such as the wind 
 and steering made necessary. And well had the rest been 
 earned. 
 
 After a wash and getting into some clean clothes, I took a 
 book and found a shady corner on the forecastle-head. But 
 I could not read. My mind was too full of the possibility of 
 Captain Sennett having gone out of his mind and what that 
 might mean generally, as it had been since the men first 
 mooted the idea. In fact, and in spite of the strenuousness of 
 those three days, the thing had grown from unbelief to doubt, 
 and from doubt to half-belief that was besoming conviction, 
 although all the evidence I could raise, except the hoisting of 
 the flag, was against the idea. 
 
 From a feeling of impotence in the matter I, in my great 
 anxiety, turned to the thought of declaring my identity — 
 that is, I began to wonder, for the first time, if any good would 
 be done by such an action. And, as you will see at once, I 
 was soon compelled to recognise it as a foolish notion — that 
 nothing / could do would make the least difference in the 
 situation. 
 
 I saw at last what a mad captain would mean to the majority 
 of the men; how deeply they would be affected, tempera- 
 mentally, by it. Even if he were shut up, and the navigation, 
 etc., in the hands of a capable officer, they would feel the same 
 effect — the effect of madness being aboard, at the head of 
 affairs, and of their being ignorant, superstitious and elemental 
 men. The more I thought of the matter, the blacker it seemed 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 307 
 
 to become. Again, and now for a different reason, I would 
 have given the Sappho to be safely on shore. 
 
 Then the reaction came, as the sun began to set. I don't 
 suppose I should have got into such a miserable state of mind, 
 if I had not gone into the venture with so much enthusiasm. 
 I was really suffering the set-back from that. Still, as I say, 
 some second reaction came with the sunset. I began to see 
 that practically and in reality the madness (if madness it was) 
 of Captain Sennett would not materially affect the ship. 
 Because how could it, with a man like Mr. Willoughby in his 
 place ? It would only mean that we should be an officer short. 
 And, 3^et, was that all ? My thoughts went back to the men, to 
 certain possibilities, and misgivings began to return. 
 
 To get rid of these I stood up, shook myself and looked 
 around. There was scarcely a breath of wind. The sea was a 
 true, deepish blue, when looked down at, and an ultramarine 
 at a distance. But for the slatting of the sails, the creaking of 
 yards and blocks, the occasional straining of the new gear, 
 and that queer — in our case faint — frou-frou of a sailing 
 vessel's quiet movements in such a situation, — but for these 
 things we might have been " a painted ship upon a painted 
 ocean." 
 
 The sun had just disappeared, and over where he had gone 
 down were broad, irregular bands of darkish red on a back- 
 ground of slightly reddish amber. Floating easily across the 
 front of these were tiny clouds, black in comparison, and so 
 clear in outline as to appear to be dark aeroplanes. Almost 
 overhead the quarter-moon shone, quite clearly and bold in 
 outline, through faintly-pink white clouds that looked like 
 flaky snow and in which there was no perceptible move. 
 And, looking around at all this beauty, something seemed to 
 say to me suddenly : The hand that fashioned this can easily 
 guard your small affair. Have faith. With that I picked up 
 my book and went amongst the men on the main-deck. 
 
308 , THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Wherein the Mate shows how the. Boy rose to the Occasion, how the 
 Cook sank to a Purpose and was helped out of it> also certain 
 other Items relating to Captain Sennett. 
 
 Lionel has mentioned that while we were refitting the spars, 
 I kept the Old Man shut up in his berth. Yes, so I did. I 
 had a game to play ; and I must say the boy helped me in it as 
 much as any man could. That, of course, was owing to his 
 affection for the O. M. ; but the cause didn't matter. It was 
 the end I had to look to ; and for that purpose the little beggar 
 lied like one o'clock. He not only kept the O. M. shut in his 
 berth, and everybody away from him, when I was not there; 
 but if the second mate or the cook asked questions about the 
 skipper, he put them off beautifully, and the pat way he did 
 it showed that he took pleasure in doing it. But, then, I was 
 the guilty party for telling him to do the thing. 
 
 Well, now, after that preliminary canter, let me give you 
 a brief view of how things were working aft during those 
 three days. 
 
 Eirst of all, before I went on deck on the night of the 
 accident (it was my first watch), I put the Old Man into bed, 
 and told the boy to sleep on the settee there. This was as a 
 sort of guard, lest the O. M. left the room and went wandering, 
 in which case the boy was to gome to me at once. I'm glad 
 to say, both for his sake and mine and, later, for the sake of 
 my plot, I had no trouble in that way from first to last. 
 
 In the morning he was just as he had been all night, except 
 when -he slept — and a blessing for him, I think, that he did 
 sleep. I mean he was wooden. He just lay on his back and 
 stared at the deck. I couldn't get anything out of him. This 
 was all right for me, of course ; it would keep him out of the 
 way with no trouble to me. But, oh, how pitiful he looked ! 
 It made my heart ache thinking of him, as I went back to 
 the poop. It was then that I decided on my programme to 
 keep the Old Man out of sight as long as I could, or till he 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 309 
 
 recovered. This was where I swore the boy in, and before an 
 hour had gone by I was glad of it, for this reason. 
 
 I had slipped aft (as I did every hour or so, just to see if 
 any change had taken place in the O. M.), and was standing 
 by his bunk, when I heard the cook come into the saloon 
 and ask the boy about the orders for dinner, then sheer off 
 to questions as to the .Old Man's injuries. Now, first, that 
 patriarchal rat hadn't troubled me at all in this way since 
 he had been on duty again; and, second, on each day since 
 the blow I had sent the*boy along to him, the first thing after 
 breakfast, with orders for dinner. I had done this, rather 
 than give him a general order to go ahead, so that he should 
 think the instructions were coming from the Old Man day 
 by day. 
 
 Now, "however, his suspicions were re-aroused. He was 
 at his old game again. He couldn't see me from where the}' 
 stood, and where — I was sure — the boy was detaining him 
 so that he should not see me. Hence I kept quiet and listened, 
 became convinced of my suspicions; but still quite satisfied 
 that I couldn't have a better helper than the boy. 
 
 I sent the cook back to his galley with orders to carry on 
 with the dinners till he was told to do otherwise. But his 
 action had made me so uneasy that every now and then I 
 caught myself on the point of committing some idiotic mistake ' 
 in the work. I know I was ready to see a mountain in a 
 molehill at that time, and for some weeks past I had sus- 
 pected the cook of wanting to know things which, in my 
 opinion, were of no concern to him. Worse still, because these 
 were facts, I knew him to be both ungrateful and a bit subtle 
 in his ways, like most of the East coast-men. Another thing 
 that rather worried me just then : So far as I could see, the 
 cook and the second mate had very lately become much 
 thicker than they had ever been before. Not that I feared 
 Young at all in this. His natural lack of observation, and the 
 upper hand I now had on him as to the damage, were enough 
 for me in his case. 
 
 It was the selfish, fat, crawling old cook that upset me; 
 and in that matter there must have been something of the' 
 
310 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 coming event casting its shadow before. Because, looking 
 at the thing in a practical light: What had I to fear from 
 him? Nothing, of course. Ah, but what are commonsense 
 and practicality to a set of hard-grained, superstitious shell- 
 backs? Why, the elements, etc., considered, the situation 
 teemed with possibilities — probabilities I mean — of all sorts. 
 Already there were madness and plotting in it; and before 
 a week was out there might be even mutiny and murder, 
 as well. For no one can ever tell what's going to crop up 
 when the passions and prejudices of elemental men are 
 roused up. 
 
 Once before I had seen how a parcel of windjammer-men 
 took a case of madness, real, violent madness. I was an 
 apprentice then, and the impression made on my mind was 
 a deep one. Now, after carefully Weighing up the men I had 
 to deal with, I felt sure that if they knew the O. M. was 
 crazy, trouble would come out of it. Not that they would 
 make trouble directly, as the other crew did — Oh, no! The^e 
 were hardly of that sort, I thought; and I was glad that 
 YVhymper wasn't one of 'em. This was my one offset against 
 the belief that the cook was hatching up a plot. In my heart 
 I was sure he had been working on Young; but so far I 
 didn't think he had said anything to the men. On the con- 
 trary, as Lionel seems to have shown, he had already seriously 
 affected Featherstoh and made Smiley curious. All the same 
 they were just of the right kidney for trouble of some kind 
 to come out of the matter, if once they knew the truth ; that 
 was all, and I couldn't afford to take risks. Prevention was 
 not only better than Cure in my case, it was absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
 But to return to the Old Man, it was the afternoon of that 
 first day before I got him to talk, and found out, as I expected, 
 he was all at sixes and sevens with the truth, all moanings 
 and mutterings. It was on his mind that some real disaster 
 had happened; but he didn't know what. So, to get him out 
 of that mood — if a mood it was — I set the boy to go into his 
 berth, shut the door, and talk with him cheerfully, joke a 
 bit, and not to say a word about damage, bad weather, long 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 311 
 
 passage, nor anything of that sort, but just to rattle on as if 
 everything was A 1. 
 
 Well, we kept this up till next morning; and I made the 
 boy lock the Old Man's door whenever he went out of the 
 cabin and I wasn't there. By that time the O. M. was much 
 better in some ways. But it had got into his head that the 
 calamit}' was a complete dismasting of the barque. Naturally, 
 I set in to put that right; and at the very beginning of it, 
 the idea occurred to me that while I was about it I might 
 as well try to persuade him there was nothing wrong any- 
 where. There couldn't be much evil in it, and I failed to see 
 where harm lay. On the other hand, I should do a lot of good 
 if I succeeded. If I prevented him from getting on deck, or 
 looking aloft, till the new spars were up and all was trim and 
 shipshape again, I could then point out that all was well, as 
 a contradiction to his painfully ruling notion that all was 
 wrong. And, if need be, stick to it that nothing had been 
 wrong. One help I had in this was the fact that the two 
 port-lights in his cabin looked out over the barque's side. 
 
 Anyhow j 1 went on with the work, and left the boy to 
 go in and patter to the Old Man whenever he could, and 
 especially to get the idea out of his poor, old head that there 
 was anything the matter with the barque. I had also cau- 
 tioned him again about the cook, without much need, I think. 
 Then, as Young and I were leaving the cabin, by the alley- 
 way — after he had taken the time at the chronometer for 
 me, while I obtained a sight — he startled me by asking 
 bluntty, 
 
 " What's wrong wi' the Old Man, really, Mr. Willoughby? 
 He didn't 'urt 'isself t'other night.— Did 'e? " 
 
 Well, you can bet I looked at him sharply. And what 
 made me wilder was the grin on his black-haired face. In 
 plain truth and just as John Bullish I enquired, 
 
 " What the devil do you mean? " 
 
 At this he made shift to smile broader, but in a sickly sort 
 of way, and said, 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean nothen. I on'y thought 'e was just a 
 bit sick in 'is head mebbe wi' the smash-up." 
 
3 i2 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " And what do you mean by ' sick in the head ' ? " I asked 
 as severely as I could. 
 
 " Oh, just got a bad 'ead, that's all," he replied, in a way 
 that threw up the sponge. 
 
 " Look here, mister," said I, thinking that this was too 
 good an occasion to let slip by, " you bother your head with 
 your own affairs, and especially your duties aboard here, 
 and let the cap'n's alone; or you're dead certain to find the 
 smash-up you grin about will be a costly business to you." 
 
 At the instant I finished we were passing the galley door- 
 way, and such an altered expression came over Young's 
 face that I snatched a glance inside, just in time to see that 
 he and the cook had exchanged some sort of tell-tale look. 
 Then it occurred to me at once : Does Young know the truth, 
 object to my being master and mate as well, and think he 
 ought to be made first mate? His closeness with the cook 
 and their questions to the boy (of which the latter had told 
 me more than I had heard) all convinced me that these 
 references of his to the Old Man were neither casual, nor 
 innocent of a deeper meaning. And I put the cook down to 
 be at the bottom of it all. But why? My love of finding a 
 motive was boggled at this; but I believed it, all the same, 
 and left .the motive alone for the present. 
 
 The next step came just after dinner. Having seen the 
 hands back at their separate jobs, I went aft again, to work 
 out the ship's position, from the observations which Young 
 and I had taken at noon. In passing the galley I happened 
 to notice that the cook had his head over some pot at the 
 opposite doorway, so he didn't see me go by. I mention this 
 because of what is to come. After making a start, at the 
 cabin table as usual, I walked into my berth (in the alleyway, 
 you know) to get some tobacco; and while I was there the 
 cook shuffled quietly past my doorway, without seeing me, 
 because I was at a cupboard in a corner behind the door. 
 1 heard him gt> by, guessing, yet not knowing, who he was. 
 However, I got my head into the alley way just in time to 
 see him stretch his thick neck round the door-jamb towards 
 the O. M.'s berth. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 313 
 
 He stopped there a minute or two, listening, as I could see. 
 Then he crept into the cabin — not on tiptoes, because he was 
 too heavy and clumsy for that, with a bit of a roll on the 
 barque ; but on his nearly worn-out slipper-heels for the most 
 part, and in a way that would have made me laugh heartily 
 at any other time. In a second I had left my slippers behind, 
 and was at the cabin-end of the alleyway, watching him sneak 
 close to the Old Man's door, then stretch out his bullet-shaped 
 hat-rest to listen again. The boy was inside, chattering away 
 as ordered. 
 
 Now the cook's action had put him stern-on to me, in a 
 rather bent position; and I was casting about in my mind, 
 and around me as well, as to how best to let him know what he 
 was doing and my opinion of it. Then I remembered a rough 
 little bat in one of my lockers, made by a former mate for his 
 child to play with while it was aboard with its mother in 
 London. I was back with it before you could say " Jack 
 Robinson." Well, you know the cook was lumpy; and when 
 I brought the bat -down, he clapped one hand behind him, 
 came up straighter than he had been for years, and yelled, 
 
 "'Oh, ma God!" 
 
 Before he could do more than moan a repetition of the 
 words, I dragged him into the alleyway, chiefly by the tearing 
 neck of his shirt, which came off altogether, along with some 
 of the adjacent parts, when I sent him neck and crop out on 
 to the deck, with the reminder that if he ever entered the cabin 
 again I would break every bone in his body. Naturally, I was 
 confident in an instant that he had been at the game since the 
 day before. On turning round I met the boy, learnt that the 
 Old Man had taken no notice of the j^ell, and told the boy from 
 then on to keep the doors locked between the alleyway and 
 the cabin and at the top of the companion-way. 
 
 When I went for'ard again I called the second mate aside, 
 told him what I'd caught his "pal, the cook," doing; and 
 that, " acting on orders," I had locked the cabin and the 
 companion-way. doors. There was to be no admittance into 
 the cabin for any of us, except at meal-times and for naviga- 
 tion purposes ; the cap'n was determined to be respected and 
 
3 i 4 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 left in peace, I said. Of course, my purpose was to make him 
 believe these orders had come from the O. M., as a contra- 
 diction to the idea that he was " sick in the head." 
 
 " And," I cautioned him, if you want to keep out of 
 trouble, you'd better give your new pal the go-bye." 
 
 He wanted to talk the matter over ; but I told him to get on 
 with his work, and I went to mine. 
 
 Well, those were the circumstances I had to put up with 
 while repairing the damage, and I couldn't get it out of my 
 mind that more of the sort was coming. 
 
 However, the work was done, and the barque looked trim 
 and smart again, before I had to face any more of it, and I was 
 thankful for that much. It seemed to me that while the second 
 mate was glad to break off with the cook and keep quiet for 
 his own sake, the cook was very sensitive of the truth getting 
 out as to both his dirty trick and what he got for it ; because 
 he knew that until he could substantiate his belief in the Old 
 Man's madness, the men would probably be against him — the 
 O. M. had done so much for them, and the cook had always 
 been a grumbler; although the O. M. paid him more than the 
 usual windjammer cook's wages. 
 
 Then the fourth day came — my forenoon-watch on deck, 
 with a light, steady breeze abaft the beam and smooth water. 
 The boy and I between us had succeeded in the first part of 
 my programme— that is, we had chased the idea out of the 
 Old Man's mind that any damage had been done; at least, 
 there had been no repetition of it during the past twenty-four 
 hours. But it wasn't quite gone, as I was soon to find out 
 and turn to some use. 
 
 Now it had come to the second part — taking him on 
 deck to see how things were; with the hope, of course, that 
 his seeing everything as it should be would balance his mind 
 up again, especially when he heard from me — as he would if 
 needful — that there had been no disaster, except his fall on 
 the poop. 
 
 Here, however, there was a hitch. In the first place, he was 
 supposed to have hurt himself in the fall. But where? The 
 idea hadn't occurred to me to make it understood that he had 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 315 
 
 hurt his inside, or twisted his knee, or something of that. 
 Besides, if I had set such a thing going, how was I to sub- 
 stantiate it ? I couldn't depend on him playing the game, not 
 a moment. These were my thoughts as I stood in his berth, 
 looking down at him. He was lying on the settee, dressed 
 enough to go on deck. 
 
 Then came the saving clause, as it mostly does, at the last 
 minute: Either make him think his head was hurt, and 
 bandage it up, or get him to agree to the deception. The 
 alternative struck me because, during the previous day and 
 evening, I had fancied now and then that there was a faint 
 return of intelligence in his eyes, as there certainly appeared to 
 be in some of his answering remarks. But, as for the latter, 
 I had learnt to piyj: no faith in them ; they were so likely to be 
 mere repetitions, in a way, out of memory, and with no will 
 to say them at the moment. 
 
 Anyhow, I asked him if he wouldn't like to go on deck and 
 get some fresh air. He muttered something that seemed like 
 he didn't care if he did. Then said I, 
 
 " But what of your head, sir? " And this is about how we 
 went on for a bit, he slowly all the time and making short 
 pauses between sentences, as well as speaking the words 
 clearer than usual : 
 
 "Head? Mjyhead? " 
 
 " Yes. You know, you fell down on the poop the other 
 night — tripped over the bight of a rope, or something — and 
 knocked your head against the skylight." 
 
 "Oh, I? ... I don't remember. It's queer, you know; 
 I've been thinkin' of that dream agen an' the man Whymper. 
 — He'd come to tell me all about it." 
 
 " Ah, that's your head, sir — where you bumped it." 
 
 " Is it? " I thought he would have put up a hand to ascer- 
 tain the damage; but he just stared at me steadily and easily, 
 as he had done since I walked up to his side. " But I must get 
 up, an' see what that young man is doin' about breakfast." 
 I waited a minute. He didn't move. So I said, 
 
 " Not this morning." 
 
 "Aye? " 
 
316 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Not this morning, sir. The cook's turned-to again." 
 
 "Has he?" 
 
 " Yes. Your head's made you forget it, you see." 
 
 " Yes; I'm afraid I've forgotten a lot." 
 
 11 Well, we shall have to bandage vour head up a^ain." 
 
 "Aye?" 
 
 * We shall have to fix up your head again, sir; so that you 
 can go on deck. You can't stop in here all the time. I want 
 to get you well again. Sit up, please." 
 
 I pulled his legs gently off the settee and began to get him 
 to a sitting posture, while he remarked in the same slow, absent 
 sort of way, 
 
 " Me head? What's the ." He stopped, stared at me, 
 
 with a better look in his eyes, and I replied,^ 
 
 " Yes, sir, you know, where you fell and bumped it." 
 
 With that I put my hand to the side of his head that was 
 downward when I found him on the poop ; and you can guess 
 my surprise, for there was a lump like the half of an egg — as 
 long and broad, but not quite so high. What was more, when 
 I touched it, he shrank away and said, " Oh ! " 
 
 Don't ask me why I hadn't thought of that before. I simply 
 hadn't. What with the smash aloft, the danger to the barque, 
 Baily's assurance that the Old Man had " just crumpled up 
 on the spot," and my recollection of his collapse in the cabin, 
 all helped to make me forget then and thereafter to look for 
 any physical hurt. Now, of course, I was all questions as to 
 whether he had stumbled and so got this lump and his present 
 mental condition ? Whether or not the lump had anything to 
 do with his mind ? Whether it would make a large difference 
 in him from then on, or nothing? Whether or not a golden 
 opportunity had been missed by not attending to the lump at 
 first? — over three days ago! Whether it was still too late to 
 rectify the error? — if it \\%s an error, and if it was: Should I 
 rue it all my life? etc. 
 
 In the meantime the poor old chap (he wasn't old, you 
 know; but he seemed so much older than his years; and he 
 had shrunk up and become fragile-looking from what he was 
 in Frisco) — well, he was holding his hand to the lump, and 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 317 
 
 looking at me with the queerest, I-know-you, don't-hurt-me, 
 trustful, child-like expression in his grey eyes and thin face 
 that I ever saw on a human being. If F could put it all into 
 a painting it would make me famous. That lo.ok itself was 
 enough to make any one love the man. At the moment I 
 heard the boy in the cabin, and called him in to look at the 
 O. M.'s face. I thought he had wits enough to understand 
 it; and he had, such as there was left of it, because my call 
 and his coming had changed it a bit. But there was still enough 
 of it to make the boy stare at him, with real affection in his 
 own eyes, and say, 
 
 "Ain't 'e a dear? Gawd 'elp me, but I'll never b'lieve 
 Him, if 'E don't make 'im well agine! " I looked at him 
 severely; but he added, " I won't, sir! I won't, $' 'elp me 
 never! " 
 
 But, mind you, the boy was quite as lazy as ever; although, 
 as I said before, his tricks were gone, which was a proof of 
 how he was taking the Old Man's condition to heart. 
 
 Well, I bandaged up the Old Man's head. And he certainly 
 seemed to b,e sane during the process. Whether I was right 
 or wrong in the supposition I don't know, but my opinion 
 was, and is, that by way of the pain caused by pressing the 
 injury he got back some of his old intelligence. Noticing 
 this,. I purposely gave him pain, and talked to him all the 
 time about his "supposed disaster"; till I got his mind 
 fairly focussed on the idea. Then I walked him straight out 
 through the alleyway to the main-deck. (I wouldn't risk 
 taking him up the companion-steps, in case the effort should 
 be rather much for him. Besides, that way would have taken 
 him too close to chattering Mc'Arthy, who was at the 
 wheel.) 
 
 " There now," I asked, pointing aloft, " can you see any 
 disaster there, sir?" He was silent. I laughed, repeating my 
 question and pretending to pull his cap further over the 
 bandage, really to touch the lump* and he answered, wincing 
 and drawing his head away, 
 
 " No. She looks fine. Of course, I was wrong." 
 
 " Come here, and look," I said, leading him to the lee side 
 
318 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 and pointing over at the broad streak of seething foam that 
 seemed to go hurrying past the Sappho's black side, but 
 which, in reality, she was passing. "There! Isn't that 
 good? Doesn't it make you better to see that, and to see 
 she's all A i aloft, sir? " 
 
 During the next two or three minutes he looked steadily 
 at the water, then slued his face for'ard — from me — then 
 aloft, then up at the mizzen abaft and above us; and finally 
 he turned to go back to the alley-doorway, with his brain 
 trying to get back to realities; I could see that in his eyes- 
 and on his face. .At that second I saw the cook coming 
 shuffling aft along the weather deck. He would be at the 
 door just as we should; and I hardly knew whether to carry 
 on, or turn about and go up the lee ladder to the poop. My 
 lack of quick decision boggled the thing. We went too far 
 to go back, under the circumstances. 
 
 But the O. M. saved the situation. He did more than 
 that ; he nearly put things back to their status quo. Without 
 any sort of warning, look at me, word, or anything, and with 
 his head hanging down a bit, he let out a regular rollicking 
 laugh. This was three or four paces from the doorway. For 
 an instant it took me aback. I was ready to grab him, not 
 knowing what was going to happen. Then he said, quite 
 loud and clear, and raising his head, 
 
 " What a silly old fool I was to think that! Why, it " 
 
 and he broke off to laugh again. 
 
 This brought us on to the grating in front of the doorway, 
 close enough to the cook for me to have touched him, and I 
 noticed instantly that he was scrutinising the O. M.'s face. 
 Of course, I knew the old ,rat had come aft solely for that 
 purpose, and I should have liked to give him another stroke 
 of the bat for his insolence. As it was I took a step forward 
 and slued half round, so as to put myself between him and 
 the cap'n, and at the same time leave the way open for the 
 cap'n to go into the doorway first. But the cook was equal 
 to it. In a second across my back he had asked, 
 
 " Wot am Aa ta get for dinner, sir? " 
 
 And in another second I was round on him, glaring at his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 319 
 
 fat face and big beard, wishing I .had him to myself, and 
 saying, 
 
 "I told you the other day that the captain said go on with 
 the dinners till further orders ! — Didn't I ? And what do you 
 mean by coming here again like this? " 
 
 But he was game. — Yes. He didn't flinch a bit. And he 
 didn't look at me either. He just kept his eyes fixed on the 
 Old Man's face; and they were eyes. Nine times out of ten 
 they seemed to be half asleep, like his movements. Yet 
 nothing was ever more deceiving. On occasions like that 
 you could have said there were tiny scraps of light in 'em — 
 greeny-brown I mostly thought 'em; but they were just 
 bits of light on the greyish background. Naturally, I was 
 on tenterhooks, and pretty sharp ones, too. I wondered 
 what the end was to be, and whether to let the thing go on, 
 or lead the O. M. inside and send the cook about his business. 
 While I thought of this, and saw the foolishness of cutting 
 in too drastically, the Old Man said, rather mournfully 
 looking at me, now with an expression in his eyes that I 
 would have given ten pounds to prevent the cook from 
 seeing, 
 
 " Yes, you're right. — Isn't it a pity me — — " 
 
 He broke off again; and the cook, knowing the cap'n's 
 ways, and I supposed, thinking this was his corroboration 
 of what I'd said, turned on his heel as if to go back to his 
 galley; then he pulled up right on the spot. I haven't the 
 least doubt but that in another half-minute or less he would 
 have been about again, with more questions to the Old 
 Man; ignoring me, of course, while the captain was there 
 and supposed to be in his senses. Only the human touch 
 came in just then. 
 
 Exactly as he had let out that laugh, and in what was, in 
 gunnery parlance, one motion in three parts, he turned his 
 head, stared at the back of the cook as if he hadn't seen him 
 before and would like to ask him what he was doing there; 
 then in the same instant he slued half round, lifted his foot 
 and kicked the cook on the spot where I had made him 
 acquainted with the bat. At least, I think he must have 
 
320 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 done; for the cook clapped the same hand on the same 
 place in a second and cried again, 
 
 "Oh, ma God!" 
 
 And muttering I didn't know what, and cared as much, 
 he went shuffling away to his galley, thoroughly convinced, 
 I knew, that the O. M. was in his senses. 1 hat kick was 
 proof indisputable to him ; to me it was strong as Holy Writ 
 the other way. Such an action as that, under those circum- 
 stances, would have been absolutely beyond him in his sane 
 moments. For no reason in particular I stepped up to his 
 side, as the cook moved off, saw that a couple of the men 
 and Lionel here had seen it all from the fore deck — as they 
 must have heard the laugh — then took a glance at the Old 
 Man's face. If the cook had turned at that moment and 
 seen what I saw, he must have come back for an explanation, 
 or have known the truth at sight. The O. M. was watching 
 him just as he would have watched a sack of flour walk 
 away, only with more simpleness and less gape. I got him 
 about for the doorway again at once, and as he put his first 
 foot over the high sill, he said, so exactly in the same tone 
 as before that I knew right away that the cook episode was 
 as dead as it had been involuntary, 
 
 " Yes, you're right, it's a pity men put an enemy into 
 their mouths to take their brains away." Along the alleyway 
 he added, " I've always said so," then began to mutter 
 disjointedly. 
 
 Now I'm ready to argue that from this the average man 
 would do just as I did: Say the poor Old Man was done for 
 at last and completely. Well, he wasn't. And that's just 
 where your averages go wrong when they tackle the inscrut- 
 able human; and surely the brain of man is inscrutable. 
 If it isn't, then nothing human is. 
 
 I took him straight back to his cabin. He laid down at 
 once on the settee and slept eight hours on end, dead to the 
 world as a door-nail. After that he had a meal, a good one. 
 I sat by while he ate it; but he said next to nothing till it 
 was over, then! found that he was just childish, with some- 
 thing of what I should call grown-up awkwardness. You 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 321 
 
 must remember that when he was all there he had a 
 full share of obstinacy, whenever he thought you wanted to 
 persuade him on a course of your own. He knew once 
 more who he was, where he was, and all that, to a certain 
 extent. 
 
 But the whole past was a sort of fog to him; a kind of 
 painful journey in the dark out of which he could pick neither 
 object nor incident, yet the whole of which had left a very 
 decided impression — so decided that every time it was 
 brought back to his mind, a look of pain came over his face, 
 you could see his eyes go dim, and he would put up a hand 
 and wave it gently to and fro, as if trying to fend off something. 
 The lump on his head passed away; but the pain seemed to 
 remain more or less. And from that night till the great 
 change came he had no moodiness; he was just the same 
 all along. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A great Sunrise, Trouble in the Forecastle about Captain Sennett, 
 and an appalling Declaration of Baily's, as narrated by Lionel. 
 
 Well, the next incident of note amongst us in the forecastle 
 was a partial outbreak of what the mate feared would cause 
 a worse upheaval, and how far he was right in his appre- 
 hension you will be able to ascertain from what took place. 
 
 I remember the day distinctly by its sunrise; because, 
 coming as it did in the midst of many gorgeous ones, it was 
 the most outstanding one I had seen in the Atlantic, and 
 came near to being the. equal of that wonderful piece of 
 Pacific sky- and cloud-colouring. I also remember the sun- 
 rise so well because of what happened that day. We had 
 come through the Atlantic Doldrums, without noticing them 
 much, had dropped the Southern Cross, picked up our own 
 much finer constellations, such as the Great Bear, Orion, 
 and others, and were drawing towards the northern limit 
 of the tropics, through lovely days and still more lovely 
 
322 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 nights. Oh, the beauty of it all, and how it contrasted with 
 the mind-sordidness, squalor and ugliness that had come 
 into our rough yet healthy and fairly even peace! 
 
 I was up at daybreak, after dozing and waking from the 
 calling of the watch at eight-bells. And seeing what the 
 sunrise was likely to be, I went in for a pencil and a little 
 note-book, in which I was in the habit of jotting down things 
 ready for transference to my diary. For this purpose I went 
 on to the forecastle-head, where I was alone, and not likely 
 to attract attention till my time came to begin work. Without 
 altering more than a word here and there of the description, 
 you shall have it as I took it down during the seventeen to 
 eighteen minutes of changing hues and tints. 
 
 " In the east-north-east, rather high, and above a blackish 
 bank of cloud that extends through north to west — left- 
 wards — along the horizon, the pearly, bluey-grey of dawn 
 covers what appear to be a few acres and stretches its young, 
 weakening light almost into the fleecy, cloud-dotted and 
 splashed blue heavens overhead. In the western half of 
 space — night, thickening from the zenith down to the horizon, 
 along which it is black, thinning to dark-grey, then to grey, 
 right and left of the centre, and above me to bluish-grey in 
 which I can see four or five faint stars amongst the odds 
 and ends of cloud. 
 
 " Directly in the east, and at the right-hand end of the 
 cloud-bank, a huge, ugly hump of black-grey cloud that 
 seems to be separate from the bank and much nearer this 
 way. Its top is twisted fantastically in two shapes, sinisterly 
 and in opposite directions. To the right of it (southwards, 
 that is) a series of cloud layers, dark to lightish grey, and 
 underneath them the almost clear horizon. The pearly acres 
 have grown much stronger and rather whiter. As I look at 
 them they increase in both light and area. Now, in a moment, 
 the layers are flushed a delicate pinky-gold on their further 
 sides, darker at their tips. Scarcely have I time to be assured 
 of the tints, when, lo ! they are changed to yellowy-coppery- 
 gold, whilst blackish-red fills in the shadows where the 
 layers overlap one another. A painter, with all his shades and 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 323 
 
 colours ready, could not keep time with the changes. For 
 already the gold and the copper, the yellow and the red are 
 gone; pale gold fills their places, and that is fast becoming 
 a silvery-gold. 
 
 " That blackish bank from east to north and westwards 
 is now purplish, with dark-ruddy tops and edges that show 
 vividly, little as there is of them, against the dark mass 
 below and the opalescence above. The hump has come near 
 enough to be a great, ugly tower of cloud, squat and blackish 
 still, with the twisted heads now seeming to be grotesque 
 turrets. On the other, the right, side of the tower the clear 
 horizon is everything from guinea-gold to deep pink, and 
 above it the layers now becoming a warm silvery-grey. 
 
 " Another quick change right and left of that dirty-looking, 
 sun-blocking tower. I snatch a glance overhead and around 
 the heavens generally. All the upper stratum of clouds, the 
 fleecy and the darker-grey things that were, are bright gold 
 on their nearer sides, a brightness that is gone and has left 
 a ruddy depth even as I write, and yet again has become a 
 warm grey whilst I have looked over the arch from east to 
 west. The last of night has gone also — or, at least, what 
 remains of it is a western bank blended of grey, purple, 
 blue and green, all in the darkest shades, and defying any 
 man to say which predominates. I follow the circle to the 
 left (back through south to the east) and find, half up to the 
 zenith, some long, broad, golden - mackerel-backs and 
 mares' tails,' without any corresponding hue in the north, 
 or elsewhere in the heavens. 
 
 " Looking back instantly from the north I notice that the 
 tower is moving towards us, and that a flush of pale, pinky 
 heliotrope or delicate mauve is spreading over, or rather 
 through, the opalescence of the dawn. In a few seconds of 
 time it becomes the turn of the lower stratum of clouds. 
 On their further sides they are bright gold, deep gold, red 
 gold as quickly as I can write it; and already the gold is 
 become dark. In a moment it will be grey thinly tinged with 
 red. Before I can put it down on my page the advancing, 
 dirty-grey, menacing-looking tower has been a deep fiery 
 
324 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 red on its edges ; but only a faint touch of it remains, strong 
 enough, however, against the light beyond. 
 
 " Whilst I am noticing this and the spread of light over- 
 head, I see, under the cloud-bank, immediately left of the 
 tower and right at the horizon, a gleam that looks, exactly 
 like a clear, strong, pinky light in the gathering darkness 
 of a late evening in autumn. It is the sun, taking a key-hole 
 peep at our world before he tops the clouds and says : Now 
 it is day ! The ugly tower has gone higher. Driven by a little 
 squall of wind it is tumbling over and breaking up as it 
 crosses the middle distance from horizon to zenith. It appears 
 to be the only cloud moving, and its pace is hurried. 
 
 " Now I also see that what appeared to be a solid cloud- 
 bank is another series of layers, broader and heavier than 
 the others, between the chinks and crevices of which comes 
 filtering the colour of life, here a guinea-tint and yonder a 
 blood-red. And there, behind the smaller, broken clouds on 
 the top of the bank, is the sun ! — a mass of burnished, blinding 
 gold that proceeds to pinken the rippled, white-dotted blue — 
 real blue — through which the barque is surging easily." 
 
 This was what I wrote, and I went to- work with that 
 morning glory in my mind. But I was not allowed to keep 
 it there for long. Since that spell in the galley I had been 
 permitted to please myself as to how I took my meals. For 
 this reason I was once more, in all except work, a member 
 of the starboard watch, on whose forecastle I had always 
 slept and had my weekly share of provisions (such as butter, 
 sugar, marmalade and bread) served out with theirs. 
 
 At breakfast (eight o'clock that morning, as my watch 
 were just off duty) Featherston was not only silent. His face 
 was glum; and some of us saw easily that his thoughts were 
 of an unenviable nature. When the meal was over and pipes 
 were being lit, Scotty — the lightest-minded one on our 
 side — said to Featherston, 
 
 " Say, chum, by goh, yo' got somet'ing on yo' mind deh 
 mo'nen! W'at de matteah, man? — Hab a bad d'eam in de 
 middle watch? " 
 
 " No, Scotty, I've 'ad no dream. By God I wishes I 'ad, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 325 
 
 'stead o' thinkin' o' wot's goin' on in this packet nowadays," 
 Featherston answered heavily, but without making an 
 exclamation of any part of it. 
 
 " W'y, w'at yo' mean? — Deh bad luck? Nebeah mind 
 dat, man! — Mo'e days, mo'e dollahs! " 
 
 " No, 'tain't the bad luck exactly either. — Leastwise not 
 wot you means. I means aft ther'! " 
 
 " Aft," said Chambers, with his usual snigger. " You 
 means the Old Man, mate." 
 
 " Wot else 'u'd I mean? " questioned Featherston gloomily. 
 
 In a moment I was all attention. Of late I had heard certain 
 murmurings, chiefly by Featherston, Hines and Mc'Arthy; 
 but this was the first direct allusion that had been made in 
 my presence. Probably I should have heard more had I not, 
 on an already recorded occasion, argued long and closely with 
 them on Captain Sennett's behalf. Since that time little had 
 been said about him and his protracted indisposition when I 
 was there. I had noticed this, and put it down as being merely 
 regular— I mean that the men had not talked about him 
 further than I was aware. 
 
 I had also observed of late that Featherston had been more 
 than commonly intimate with the cook, and I now saw that 
 this gloominess of his had come upon him during that time. 
 He had not gone into the cook's berth, no doubt because of 
 Chips being there; nor had the cook come into the forecastle, 
 because that would have been so irregular as to attract 
 attention. But I had frequently come upon them talking 
 together in low tones about the fore-deck after nightfall. Not 
 that there had been anything significant in this to me. I knew 
 nothing of what Mr. Willoughby has told of the cook's actions 
 and suspicions ; and none of us were aware that it was Captain 
 Sennett who had kicked the cook on that occasion, weeks 
 before. We thought it was the mate, because we could not 
 attribute it to the master. Besides, it was well known that 
 the cook had been many voyages with Captain Sennett. 
 
 Thus you will see my position in what was to me a new and 
 very unpleasant situation — unpleasant, because on a few 
 occasions when the captain's health had been mentioned, one 
 
326 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 or another had turned the matter off to talk of what he would 
 think of having to sail with a madman. Still, at those times — 
 before this intimacy between Featherston and the cook — it 
 had never occurred to me to think that there was anything 
 seriously wrong with Captain Sennett's head ; and I am prac- 
 tically sure that it was the same then with Smiley, Booster, 
 Scotty and Mc' Arthy ; and if the others thought of it at that 
 time they very carefully kept it to themselves. 
 
 From the point where I have broken off in what the men 
 were saying about Captain Sennett, Featherston briefly went 
 on to state his conviction that there was " madness aft." The 
 others were doubtful, but did not say they disbelieved. He, 
 in his short, emphatic way, said there was, and he would 
 " 'ave it out with all 'ands in the dog-watch." Thus I, having 
 taken no part in the talk, returned to work, with a mind that 
 can be imagined, but not envied. I think that if I had been in 
 the mate's watch, and so known him better, unseasoned as I 
 was to ship-board polity, I should have gone aft and told 
 him of the trouble brewing ; because it filled me with such 
 apprehensions as I had not previously felt. 
 
 When the second dog-watch came, and all hands were idle 
 (except Scotty, who was at the wheel), Featherston went into 
 the port side. I immediately took a seat on our water-keg, the 
 nearest seat to the communication doorway. I had a book in 
 my hand; but, of course, I was not reading. Featherston 
 started his subject at once; I knew that by the occasional 
 word or two that I caught. He had gone to the forward end 
 of the place, and was speaking in a guarded tone, no doubt to 
 prevent his words from being heard by any chance loiterer 
 near the outer door. Then the talk became rather general. I 
 hoard Hines' and Mc'Arthy's voices. It seemed to me that 
 Smiley and Baily were listening so far. Then Mc' Arthy said 
 in his usual tone, thin and rather high-pitched, 
 
 " 'Course, he's luny! Any one's seen that these weeks an' 
 weeks." 
 
 " Stash yer damned fool's chitterin'. We doesn't want it up 
 an' down the decks till we're ready," I heard Featherston say, 
 with a certain emphasis, but no apparent passion. Mc' Arthy 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 327 
 
 was silent. Then Smiley came in with, more quietly than 
 usual, 
 
 " Weel, mate, let's get aall here, an* just see hoo we stand 
 i' th' question. Coz this 's a job for aall, or nooan, Aa tak' it." 
 
 I thought I heard Baily support this. Featherston said that 
 was what he wanted. Mc'Arthy followed his bent by joining 
 the majority. Smiley came to the doorway and asked 
 Booster to go into the port side. To me he gave a kind of 
 invitation glance, which was enough; I went in at once, 
 followed by the other two. In the interval Hines, at Feathcr- 
 ston's request, had closed the outer door, which would not 
 appear unusual, as that was the weather side — so far as there 
 was a weather side ; for the little wind we had was abaft the 
 beam. Immediately all were settled, Smiley asked Feather- 
 ston to " go aheid noo " and state his case. When this was 
 done, disjointedly, awkwardly, but in all honesty so far as his 
 understanding went, and with far more words than were 
 usual with him, it all amounted to the belief that Captain 
 Sennett was mad ("mad," "madness" and "madman" 
 were the words used by him and his supporters all the time, 
 with an emphasis on the " mad " always, except in the last 
 instance), and some cryptic half-suggestions that this state oi 
 things could not be tolerated, that it was the cause of our long 
 run of bad luck, and that misfortunes would continue to fall 
 on us so long as there was a " madman aboard." When he had 
 finished he turned to Hines, at his side, and said, 
 
 " Fetch 'im in," and Hines went out, as Smiley began, 
 
 " Noo, look ye here, Featherst'n, Aa'm not dootin' 3^e're 
 intentions; they're good enough, Aa'll bet. But ye may think 
 as ye've made oot ye're case aall fine, spick-an'-span. But 
 wha beside ye ses as th' Auld Man's aff his heid ? ■" 
 
 " ' Mad,' I ses," put in Featherston, to whom there was a 
 difference in the terms. Smiley continued in this strain, 
 
 " But Aa asks wha ses it ? Ye knaa, mate, ye hevn't got aall 
 th' e'es i' th' ship. Aa've seen th' skipper these weeks an' 
 months, same as ye hev, an' we aall hev; but daamn ma e'es 
 if Aa've seen owt but a bit o' fool's play, same as ony man 
 wad do, if he worn't ponderin' aboot w'at claethes he wad be 
 
328 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 buried in." I wondered if Featherston would see this satire on 
 himself and break in; but he remained silent, and Smiley 
 went on, 
 
 " He's sick, is th' Auld Man — God help 'im oot 'n it, ses Aa! 
 An' noo an' then, w'en he's a wee bit better,- 'e's frisky an' 
 mebbe a bit childish, as ony wise man wad be under th* 
 circumstances. But if that's bein' mad — weel, ye can put me 
 doon for Bedlam — next on turn. That's aall." 
 
 He paused again. No one answered; so he continued, 
 " W'y, on'y yesterd'y, w'en Aa wor at th' w'eel, he axed that 
 second mate: ' Mr. Young,' 'e ses, ' If a herrin' an' a half cost 
 three'apence, w'at Vd a dozen cost ? ' Then 'e laughed. Aa 
 dooan't say he laughed as Aa should, or ye wad ; but 'e laughed, 
 an' Aa liked ta see him laugh. Weel, wor that madness? " 
 
 Just before Smiley finished (and what a load he had taken 
 off my mind!) in came Hines again, followed by the cook; 
 then Hines, as if acting on a second thought, turned back and 
 posted himself in our doorway. I saw this from my position 
 on'the after-corner of Mc'Arthy's chest, and I at once took it 
 that he was acting as a guard against intrusion whilst the cook 
 was there, also as a look-out for him wKen going on deck 
 again. The cook halted just inside the doorway, looking at 
 Featherston, who asked at once, 
 
 " Wot ses you, cook, about the Old Man ? " 
 
 " 'E's mad, — mad as a March 'are ! W'y, w'o ses he isn't ? " 
 answered the cook, 
 
 He then glared around from face to face quickly; and I 
 saw, as his large spread of features and beard turned my way, 
 that there was hate in his eyes. This I instantly put down to 
 be hate of Captain Sennett, a kind of benefactor to him— as 
 we all knew — and from that moment I loathed the man. 
 But I was committing something of an error. His hatred really 
 was for the mate, with a certain natural resentment against 
 C 'tain Sennett for the kick. Then his gaze met that of Smiley, 
 who said in his quietest, most assured tone, 
 
 " Aa do." 
 
 The place was full of intense silence and expectation. 
 Those two men stared straight into each other's eyes; and 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 329 
 
 in that rather dim light (the place was lit only by three port- 
 lights and such of the waning day as came in through the 
 starboard forecastle) I could have sworn that the cook's 
 actually glittered. "I admit that my view of them was an 
 oblique one. Anyway, it was a moment full of possibilities; 
 so full/that I temporarily forgot the anxiety that had sprung 
 up again at the cook's declaration. These two were country- 
 men; and I at once thought of " When Greek meets Greek." 
 But with^all respect to what Mr. Willoughby has said of the 
 cook being game, he was not game enough to meet his fellow 
 northerner. Instead of doing so, he looked forward again at 
 Featherston and rasped out, 
 
 " Aa ses he's mad ! An' Aa'd sooner sail wi' the Devil ony 
 day 'an wi' a m&dmanl " 
 
 " An' Aa say ye're th' daamnedest liar abooard this packet, 
 an' if ye ses it agen Aa'll shuv it doon ye're gizzard. Sae 'elp 
 me God Aa will! " said Smiley, without any temper except 
 in the last six words. There was a slight pause, which Smiley 
 broke with, " Tae think as he's carried yo'r stinkin' fat 
 carcas' aall these years, an' paid yo'r drinkin' debts i' 'arbour, 
 an' yo'r claethes debts an' yo'r bumboat debts, an' saved 
 yo'r muney for ye, an' ye tarn roound on 'im like this — 
 Ma God, get oot, afore Aa flings ye oot! Ye're nae man! " 
 It was generally known that at the end of each voyage Captain 
 Sennett banked the cook's surplus money for him, and kept 
 him at work, so that he would not need to draw on the 
 account. 
 
 Smiley spat on the floor in his vehemence, then stood up 
 and turned to his bunk. I had never before seen him so deeply 
 moved. And how I thanked him in my heart for the turn 
 he had given the matter! The cook was not done, however, 
 although he would have no more to say with Smiley. He began 
 at once to tell all and sundry that he had nothing against 
 the captain, only he was " mad," and for his part he, himself, 
 would rather do — well, anything on earth or sea than be in 
 the same vessel as a " madman." (It was easy to see that 
 the fellow had really a kind of horror of madness.) No, he 
 had " nae animositee to Cap'n Sennett 'isself ; but that 
 
330 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 mate — that ." His words began to come out splutteringly. 
 
 He gasped, in a way, 
 
 " Aa — Aa hates 'im, th' thund'rin' devil, worse 'an Aa — 
 Aa hates me wife! The bitch as " 
 
 Smiley turned from his bunk and said quietly, 
 
 " Noo get a move on ye. This shanty b'longs th' poort 
 watch, an' Aa'm wun on it. See? Get." 
 
 He took a step towards the cook, who did a right-about 
 and was off, cursing thickly, and shouldering Hines out of 
 the way as if the latter was trying to block the exit. Whether 
 or not any one aft saw him go out I am sure he neither knew 
 nor cared. Then Smiley looked at Featherston again, saying, 
 
 " Noo, mate, s'ppoase ye go on wi' th' subject. Let's hev 
 it aall oot w'ile we're aboot it, an' be dun wi' it. Ave, 
 Baily?" 
 
 " Yes, I think it should be settled w'ile we're at it," replied 
 Baity, as usual. 
 
 Featherston sucked at his pipe for a minute or two. Then, 
 at first in a tentative way, he reopened the subject with a 
 number of instances of the master's recent eccentricities, 
 quoting them as proofs of madness. Smiley would not admit 
 the word " madness," and would, I believe, if he had been 
 allowed to have his way, have turned the discussion into an 
 argument as to what constituted " madness " and have 
 carried it on till midnight. In the matter of words and logic 
 he certainly had all his opponents at a considerable dis- 
 advantage. But Featherston persisted in using the word, 
 and refused steadily to let that be made the argument. I 
 took no part. I was thankful to leave what I looked on as 
 " our side " in better hands than mine. My anxiety now 
 was for fear the disputants lost their tempers. 
 
 In the course of it all it was plain that Mc'Arthy, Hines, 
 Scotty and, later, Booster agreed with Featherston that 
 the master was, as Booster put it, " jes' a bit queer in his 
 top hatch sometimes." Hines, then Booster, with Mc'Arthy 
 finally wavering between the two points, " allowed " that 
 it was " madness." (Chambers showed afterwards that he 1 
 would have gone with them, if he had been there.) Baily had 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 331 
 
 scarcely anything to say, and that little was in agreement 
 with Smiley. The result, to my mind, being this: Given a 
 serious matter over which they could, in their own eyes 
 justly, raise formidable trouble, and they would do it without 
 further thought. In a sense, I trembled to see how much 
 further Featherston would have carried them had it not 
 been for Smiley's vigorous opposition. Baily also would 
 have been some check : but it was Smiley who really blocked 
 the way. Then, when they were about at an end, Smiley 
 said quietly, 
 
 " Well, noo, ye've settled it amang yo'rselves 'at this 
 Auld Man's gone daft. Noo, let's carry it a bit further, for 
 argiment's sake: Let's say he's mad — stark, starin', ravin' 
 mad. Wat 're ye gan ta do? . . Aye? — W'at 're ye gan ta 
 do? . . Ye can't chuck 'im ower-booard. — Can ye?" There 
 were murmurs of " No." " Then ye've got ta sail wi' 'im. 
 See? Noo, w'at 're ye gan ta do noo? — Ye've got to sail wi' 
 'im to t' next pooart." 
 
 Featherston at length looked up and answered, as the 
 others were evidently leaving it to him, 
 
 " W'y, go aft, o' course, an' tell the mate as 'e'd 'ave ter 
 lock the Old Man up; 'cause we couldn't sail under the 
 orders 'n a madm*w; an' tell 'im he must make the nearest 
 port an' put 'im ashore." 
 
 " An' s'ppooasin' th' mate's already doin' that. W'at a 
 hell 'n a pretty pickle ye'd be in! — Wadn't ye, noo? An' hoo 
 damned well ye'd desarve it ! — Wadn't ye ? . . That's enough 
 -for me." 
 
 And taking a box of matches from the table (a stray box 
 it seemed to me) out he went. This was an example that most 
 of us followed, leaving Baily and Featherston still sitting 
 together at the fore-end of the place, now almost in the 
 dark; the latter being as unconvinced as ever, and as ready 
 as ever to go on with the matter to he knew not what end, 
 so be that he was " up aginst madness." 
 
 I also went on deck; not with a book as usual, but to 
 think, and presently to recognise that I ought to have fore- 
 seen the conclusion to which Smiley's Doric had brought 
 
332 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 them all. My anxiety had stood in the way oi that. And still 
 there - I he chance of. ; ston influencing a majority 
 
 of the men to go aft and make trouble. At the time I almost 
 hated the man. much as I had liked him before. For my own 
 part, I knew not what to think of Captain Sennet t : but my 
 inclinations were to give him all the benefit of the doubt, 
 think charitably of what he had gone through, and was still 
 suffering, and leave all else to Mr. Willoughby; who. at any 
 rate, could get us home: And what else e trouble 
 
 about ? 
 
 Fir-: I ant on to the forecastle-head the better to feel 
 the light, cool breeze, and to look around in the hope oi seeing 
 some vessel. For we had been almost twenty iays without 
 gnt of one, and the men were wondering where we had 
 got to, to be all that time in ttie North Atlantic, and : 
 craft to be seen of any kind. Failing in this, I toe :hing 
 
 the odds and ends and larger patches of weed, which 
 r>ecoming daily more and more common — with tragi signi- 
 ficance to us, but we did not know it. I: was this weed that 
 made some of the men say in the Gulf Stream ; whilst 
 
 others held that we could not be there, be heat, 
 
 but that we must be in the neighbourhood of the West I 
 where they had previously seen plenty of t: 
 
 Then, when the look-out (Featherston, as it happened) 
 came to his duty and disturbed my thoughts ; and when the 
 great, round, %ed moon seemed to be hanging in a ma 
 darkish opalescence, the edges of the apparentlv burning 
 disc being silvered, whilst higher up and higher the uncertain 
 blue of night deepened and deepened to an unnam 
 hue, in which stars were begmning faintly to appear — then 
 I; remembering the sunrise, went down to the main-deck 
 and found quiet in a corner by the windlass. 
 
 There chance brought Baily to nv: .'-_:: ling some 
 
 time and pains to get "that notion" out of F ton's 
 
 head (he did not say with any success or not), and the 1 
 having to go to the look-out, he also had come in search of 
 " quietude in a corner." It was the way he said this that 
 fixed mv attention: so that I remarked, 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 333 
 
 " No, I don't think you like these upsets, Baily, any more 
 than I do." 
 
 " That I don't, me lad. You can b'lieve me there." 
 
 " You have been used to quiet ships, I should think," 
 I ventured, feeling that it was a venture; for although we 
 had been so friendly during the past two months or more, 
 it had never occurred to me to put to him anything like a 
 question as to his past. It was for this reason that I was 
 surprised by his answering, in that queer, soft way he had 
 of speaking English, and thus made me understand the reason 
 of it, 
 
 " Yes, you're 'bout right, Anderson: — I have been used 
 to a quiet ship. The quiet ship of a lovely little shanty, my 
 lad, in the loveliest an' finest country as God ever made. 
 It's now twenty-odd year since I last sailed salt water — in 
 this way I means — an' just as it'll be the last, please God as 
 I gets out of it all right, so I wish to the Lord I'd never seen 
 the Sappho." 
 
 " Why, you're not letting Feathers ton upset you so much 
 as that! — Are you? " I asked, feeling some hurt that he 
 should seem to blame the barque, apprehensive of I knew 
 not what, because of the unwonted pessimism in his tone, 
 and certainly sorry for him. I had never before heard him 
 speak like this. Every vestige of his quiet hopefulness was 
 gone. 
 
 " No, 'tisn't him, really; it's only him a bit. He's upset 
 me rather 'bout this damned silly notion, 'cause he's been 
 at it some time now, the cook an' him; an' I thought a 
 sight better of 'im. But it's the way things is goin' on gen'rally, 
 me lad, as is troublin' me. But I don't want to talk about 
 it, makin' things worse mebbe. God knows they're bad 
 enough; an' if I get a-talkin', too, others may think 'em 
 worse than they are." 
 
 I made haste to convince him that no others would hear 
 a word of what he might say to me. He was silent, however, 
 seeming to take no heed of my assurance. I waited, hoping; 
 for the occasion was unique to me. And presently he began 
 again, somewhat reminiscently, as if partially to himself, 
 
334 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Yes, I was sorry before we was out o' the bay, an' would 
 ha' gone ashore right away that night, if the chance had 
 come. I was sorry because o' that fellah Whymper. Well, 
 he's gone — say no more. Then the gales off the Horn. — 
 No, 'twasn't them; 'twas the crawling up again. I've bin 
 driven down three times on a passage, an' come up agen the 
 three times in less 'an we came up once. An' this awful 
 creep up from the Horn — longer 'an she ought to ha' bin 
 from the Horn to Falmouth. An' here we are — skipper 
 crazy with it " 
 
 " Do you really think so? " I interrupted eagerly. 
 
 " No doubt o' that, Anderson, me lad; but he's no more 
 downright mad than me an' you are. He can do some things 
 still, as we sees; but he's touched. And now this weed, an' 
 the courses we've bin keepin', though it do seem to ha' bin 
 as much Providence as anybody's fault, 's far as I sees at 
 present; an' that's why I wishes I'd never seen her. Some'ow 
 or other this ship's cursed; she's un'oly; there's something 
 aboard her as is driving her to ruin. I'm not superstitious, 
 takin' me full-an' -large, lad; but I've seen things in me 
 early days ; an' I knows ships do get runs o' the Devil's own 
 luck till they founders, or goes ashore. An' it's my b'lief as 
 we're in for something o' that. Else w'y get up here into 
 this infernal weed, an' keep on goin' into it? " 
 
 "Why, what weed is it, Baily?" I asked, almost in a 
 whisper, for the spirit of mystery and disaster was getting 
 hold of me. 
 
 " Sargassa, me lad. It means as we're goin' into the Sar- 
 gassa Sea, 'nless they changes our course pretty quick an' 
 keeps away from it." 
 
 "But I thought the Atlantic filled all this part of the 
 world," said I, in astonishment. 
 
 " Ay, so it does; but the Sargassa Sea's in it, an' a dead 
 hole it is, as I've heard." 
 
 "Why, what is it then?" 
 
 " It's a thousand miles or two o' weed an' weed an' cat's- 
 paws an' dead calms, with the weed thick as mud in the 
 middle an' no wind at all. I've heard o' ships getting stuck 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 335 
 
 there an' rottin' there till they fell to pieces an' went down. 
 Now I've told you, Anderson — w'ich I didn't mean to; 
 an' don't you breathe a word on it. You wait, same as I'm 
 doin'; b'cause no good '11 come o' shoutin' — 'tisn't in our 
 'ands. So sit still an' hold tight." 
 
 I assured him that I would; but I am afraid my thoughts 
 were far more on what he had told me than on making him 
 believe me. He was, however, too much lost in his own 
 thoughts to heed that. 
 
 One-bell was struck. Eight-bells came; the watch was 
 changed, and still we sat there in a shadow thrown by the 
 great white moon; for Baily had no duty till four-bells. 
 By-and-by, I said to him, 
 
 " You hadn't been at sea, then, for a long time, till you 
 joined the barque? " 
 
 " No)" he replied, lighting his pipe afresh. " After I served 
 my time an' got me second mate's ticket — yes, I've got one; 
 that's how I knows w'ere we are — I went on the Australian 
 coast a w'ile. Then I got a run up to the States, joined a 
 schooner for the SandwichTslands an' left her there. I lived 
 ashore, one of a tribe nearly, for twenty years, with one o' 
 the finest little women as ever lived, till she died. Then I 
 sickened o' the place, God's own best bit of earth though it 
 was. I wanted to see England again. I'd saved a bit o' 
 money out o' tradin' with the schooners. So I got away up 
 to Frisco, sent me money on, an' shipped 'ere to save 
 the passage-money home, so as I should ha' the more to 
 live on w'en I got there. An' now, 'nless it please God to 
 alter things mighty quick an' good, I'll never see land 
 again." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that, Baily! Don't say that, man! You'll 
 get out again! — We all shall! God is good, you know! Let's 
 trust Him! " I cried, both in alarm and with some pleading, 
 for the hopeless tone of his last words was awful to me. 
 From any one else — Smiley perhaps excepted — they would 
 not have had half so bad an effect, even if accompanied, as 
 his were, by that astounding revelation as to our position 
 and danger. He smoked in silence. After a while I said, 
 
336 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " It was from there, then, that you brought your instru- 
 ment, what they call the ' fiddle ' ? " 
 
 " It was. I learnt it from me wife, an' got on well with the 
 natives b' cause I played it so well and sang their songs. I 
 used to play it nearly ev'ry ev'ning, outside our shanty, 
 an' me wife used to sing. She could sing better 'an those 
 voices on the gramophone." (This was great praise; for 
 some of the voices were really fine.) " I don't like playin' 
 it here, 'cept w'en I'm alone; it brings it all back, you see, 
 lad — you'll know it better w'en you're older. That's w'y I 
 bought the 'phone — just for a tune now an' then on the 
 passage, an' keep the other till I got home — if ever I gets 
 there an' has a bit of a cottage." 
 
 Again I tried my best, and at greater length, to bring him 
 around to the belief that all would be well in the end ; but I 
 don't know that I made any real impression on him, perhaps 
 because I was secretly so miserable myself. I knew that he 
 was not the man to give words to so dark an outlook unless 
 he believed it himself. 
 
 In his subsequent talk of things aboard generally he did, 
 however, seem to be rather more cheerful. Still, when I left 
 him, to go in and write down what I could of the day's doings 
 — as I mostly did — and especially this conversation with 
 him, he pressed upon me the necessity of telling nothing to 
 the other men, and with such a return of hopelessness that 
 I was compelled once more to cheer him up. It appeared as 
 if he had held on within himself to the last, like a runner who 
 keeps up his pace till he drops. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 337 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Mr. Willoughby's Recital of how the Barque came to be in the Sar- 
 gasso Sea, the Nature of that Sea, how a Shark was caught, and 
 the Portion claimed by Captain Sennett. 
 
 Lionel has told you we were getting away up north — ■" draw- 
 ing towards the northern limit of the tropics," I think he said. 
 As a matter of fact we were not so far north as that ; and he 
 supplies one proof that we were not — I mean the heat. Any- 
 how, the barque was all too surely where she ought not to 
 have been. Worse still, circumstances were carrying her all 
 the time in the wrong direction — the direction of what Lionel 
 had called " tragic significance." 
 
 And tragic significance it was, I can tell you; especially to 
 me, who alone, as I thought, of all hands, knew what was 
 happening, and was unable to stop it. I say " alone," because 
 if Young was aware of what was going on in that way he showed 
 no sign of it; and I'm morally certain that he wasn't so 
 wooden in feeling as not to have let me see it, if he had felt it. 
 He was never keen to keep small things in that hurt him, and 
 he was too impulsive to keep big ones back, although he could 
 be considerate on occasions. 
 
 I've said I was unable to stop it. Let me explain. I stated 
 before that the Old Man remained childish up to the last 
 change ; that he had none of his previous moods of gloominess, 
 with now and then a sudden brightening up and a touch of 
 what was nearly brilliance. So he did ; but taking it all-in-all 
 there was so much of the man in it, so much of what seemed 
 to be playful intelligence, that if it hadn't been for his odd 
 tricks now and then, and his bits of real childishness at other 
 times, even / should have been deceived into thinking he was 
 fast recovering all his senses. Another thing was, and especi- 
 ally during the latter part of the time, now and then there was 
 a light in his eyes that warned me not to oppose him. 
 
 As for his oddities, the things on which the men had fastened 
 unknown to me, but, naturally, not unguessed: Well, for 
 v 
 
338 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 instance, he would come on to the poop, perhaps after dinner 
 or in the evening, dressed in a silk hat and frock-coat, gloves 
 on his hands and an umbrella up, and say he was going to 
 morning church. One middle-watch he appeared up there in 
 nature's garment, and nearly frightened the life out of the 
 helmsman, who thought he was another edition of Whymper's 
 ghost. It was for these reasons that I kept the cabin-doors 
 locked again whenever I was not on watch. But, mind you, 
 these things were rare — on an average of once a week perhaps ; 
 and somehow or other they always ended in a laugh, as if each 
 one had been done only for a joke. That was what deceived 
 the second mate, I'm certain, and kept him in the dark up to 
 the final change. 
 
 In addition, he would march up to the man at the wheel, 
 look at the compass, and say to him : " Can you steer through 
 the eye of a needle? " (You know, steering through the eye 
 of a needle is common talk amongst shellbacks.) Then, when 
 the man answered: " Yes, sir," as he would in nine cases out 
 of ten; the Old Man would whip out a sail-needle, hold it up 
 and say: " Come on, then— steer through this, or I'll disrate 
 you to a shilling a month." Well, that, again, would wind up 
 with a laugh. I must also say that he still kept up that in- 
 stinctive habit of always coming to me, or going to the boy, 
 whenever he was " off colour " and wanted to say anything, 
 or have something done. 
 
 So, you see, it was hard for any one to say definitely whether 
 the man was really crazy, or was doing his best in his way to 
 relieve the monotony of the passage. — And monotonous it had 
 become, by heavens ! — deadly monotonous ! If it hadn't been 
 for the Old Man's peculiarities; the way I had to take care 
 of him, to be ever on the que vive about him (though, don't 
 forget, the boy was splendid in it all wherever the O. M. was 
 concerned ; I should never have got through without him) ; 
 my anxiety over the direction we were going, over the probable 
 shortage of provisions, and the general responsibility that had 
 fallen on my shoulders — if it hadn't been for these things I 
 should have been sick to death of the monotony. How the 
 men stood it all along, especially when things got worse, I 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 339 
 
 don't know. I suppose, after all, it was a case of those evils of 
 education — nerves and sensibility; because I've noticed that 
 where they are suffering is always acute; and where they're 
 not worries and pain get small hold. 
 
 There was another thing for me to think about: Should I 
 afterwards be held to blame for not keeping the O. M. a prisoner 
 below, out of the navigation of the barque, and taking her 
 whole working on myself? This was a sore problem to me. 
 Liking — yes, I can honestly say loving him as I did, pitying 
 him as I did, seeing how compos mentis he was one time with 
 another — or seemed to be — how could I take and shut him up 
 night and day ? 
 
 His signatures to my entries in the Official Log were quite 
 as usual, and that fact would go far in clearing me of blame 
 for allowing him to have a hand so long in the working of the 
 barque ; but whether or not he always, or ever really, under- 
 stood what he put his name to I would not say. Looking back, 
 however, I have long been of the opinion that if I had shut 
 him up, he would very soon, if not at once, have taken to the 
 cabin as his natural habitat, and possibly never have re- 
 membered anything about deck affairs, his being afloat, or 
 anything of the sort. 
 
 Well, that was the " error of judgment " I committed. I, 
 who was too fond of blaming others for lack of decision, 
 fell far short of decisive action when, probably, I ought 
 to have had it in particular. On the other hand: Did I? 
 Note now. 
 
 Other ships, without having crazy skippers, had got into 
 the Sargasso, 1 according to accounts. (It is Sargasso, by-the- 
 
 1 Facus natans (floating seaweed), the name given by the early- 
 Portuguese navigators to what we term " Gulf-weed," i.e., the weed 
 of the Gulf Stream. They called it this from its small, grape-like 
 berries — " Sarga," corrupted into " Sargasso " long ago, and later 
 used to designate that huge area into which the Gulf Stream, on two 
 sides, has been throwing in its weed during unknown ages. The weed 
 grows thickly on the coasts of the Gulf, the Bahamas and about there 
 generally, also on the Bermudas. It is torn away by the tides, strong 
 seas and other agencies, and is carried away in the Gulf Stream, which 
 sweeps the shores of all its growing-places. Findlay says it is " an 
 
340 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 bye, not Sargasso, as Baily persisted in calling it.) We had 
 come along with a most unholy set of contrary, light airs, 
 unsuspected drift, a chronometer slightly wrong since, I 
 believe, we passed the Falklands, some unknown westerly 
 deviation in the compass, and — I must admit it — the con- 
 tinual interference of a master who didn't know where we 
 were going, although he appeared to do so all the time 
 
 That was really how we had got well inside the edge of the 
 dreaded Sargasso. But, if I had taken full charge, putting the 
 Old Man out of it altogether, wouldn't the other things have 
 got us there just the same? I don't know — no, honour bright, 
 I don't; and that's where I say again: Was I to blame or 
 not ? Besides, look what happened when I did take charge. 
 
 Let me now turn to the really fearful evil that threatened us. 
 I knew nothing of the Sargasso Sea, any more than the average, 
 youngish officer who has never been near it. To me then it 
 was no more than a name that I'd come on accidentally, and 
 forgotten as quickly, in the nautical reading necessary to get 
 a certificate. Why, there are scores of merchant officers afloat 
 to-day who don't hardly know the name, and hundreds in the 
 past didn't. So, at last, when I found where we were drifting 
 and boggling to, I rummaged out whatever I could find in the 
 Old Man's " library " that bore on this practically unknown 
 sea; and when I'd done — well, I gasped a bit, in a sense, you 
 can take my word for that. 
 
 Hark what I got out of one book or another. I copied the 
 extracts down so that I could study them, and have kept 'em, 
 along with all else I could relative to the passage. Baily was 
 right in saying it was a thousand miles or two of weed. (In 
 his early days he had been in the W 7 est India and Virginia 
 trade; so he had skirted it pretty often, and ought to have 
 known really more about it than he did.) 
 
 "Full limits, n° N. to 37 N. and 28 W. to 73°W.; 
 densest part, 27 N. to 33 N. and 35 W. to 53 W.; 1000 
 
 aquatic plant that will live and flourish when separated from its 
 native stem." A bunch of it has been known to throw off enough 
 phosphorescent light to make things visible within eight or nine 
 feet of it. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 341 
 
 miles broad and 3000 miles long, with something like 600 
 miles by 350 of more or less thick, impeding weed and no wind. 
 It is this smaller part that really forms the Sargasso Sea. 
 Roughly it is the heart of the North Atlantic, with all the 
 Ocean's currents driving round it — on its west and north the 
 Gulf Stream; on its east the North African Current, which 
 deflects on the coast of Africa and becomes the North 
 Equatorial Current and finally goes back to augment the Gulf 
 Stream. Thus the Sargasso is ovaled in. And the inner edges 
 of the three currents all run to waste in it, and so form the 
 deadly centre." 
 
 Where I got that from I don't know, probably from several 
 entries in different books and charts. But listen to this from 
 Major Rennell's " Investigation " : 
 
 " It has been observed that the waters of the North Atlantic 
 have a greater tendency towards the middle of the ocean than 
 otherwise, and this seems to indicate a reduced level, forming 
 a kind of hollow space or depressed surface. It is certain that 
 the setting of the currents is such as might be expected to 
 take place if such a hollow existed; for the currents do really 
 set into the Sargasso Sea from the north and from the south ; 
 whilst in the middle part the currents are not regular, but 
 indicate a kind of vortex." 
 
 Columbus got into a part of it, and his men said: " Even 
 the sea changed its nature into terrestrial to prevent him 
 from going further." And from somewhere or other I copied: 
 " If we could imagine the surface of a wide, extended moor, 
 covered with water, the furze and heath bushes would appear 
 something like the clusters oifucus Scattered over the thickest 
 part of this sea." And from Sir Wyville Thompson: 
 
 " The floating islands of the Gulf weed, with which we 
 have become very familiar — as we had now nearly made 
 the circuit of the " Sargasso Sea ' " (Not crossed it, mind 
 you, nor even been well into it.) " — are usually from a couple 
 of feet to two or three yards in diameter, sometimes much 
 larger; we have seen on one or two occasions fields several 
 acres in extent, and such expanses are probably more fre- 
 quent near the centre of its area." 
 
342 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " 'Fields.' My God ! what is there before us ? " I wondered. 
 " Fields" ! All too likely, seeing that we had already passed 
 thick, half-acre patches; and for some days we hadn't been 
 in water that was really clear of the hateful stuff. 
 
 It was in an afternoon watch-below, about a week later 
 than Lionel's recorded efforts on Featherston's part to raise 
 trouble, that I found these things out; and you can believe 
 me that when I'd done, I went on deck for some fresh air. 
 I wanted fresh air, light and sweetness into both my lungs 
 and my head. But where was I to get them from? Not from 
 that burly, black-whiskered, bare-chested son of a gun, 
 idling about there on the weather rail of the poop! And 
 ten to one thinking spooningly of his " 3 7 oung wife in Suffolk." 
 No! I should get no help from him. And for the moment 
 I could have gone up to him and called him all the wooden- 
 headed, pigeon-hearted galoots that ever went to sea. " Lumps 
 of living insensibility! " I said to myself. " What on earth 
 can a woman see in you, I wonder? — And she's pretty, too, 
 by her photograph, and looks quite intelligent. — And here 
 you are " 
 
 I turned away and crossed the deck, for fear I made a 
 fool of myself. That action caused me to see a shark idling 
 about astern. Hello! thinks I, here's something to stir up 
 his idleship, and give the men a rest from their grumblings ! — ■ 
 which I could see in their faces from day to day, and occasion- 
 ally catch something like echoes of it. I was eager for some 
 object or purpose to vent my feelings on; so I crossed again, 
 and told Young to get the shark-hook, and lay the watch 
 aft, but not to make any noise. Personally I went to the 
 harness cask and selected a nice, fat piece of pork, about 
 three pounds weight. I would have offered him a bigger 
 bait, only that there was too dark a prospect of our being 
 short, unless our evil fortunes changed before long. 
 
 Shellbacks know well enough to be quiet while a shark 
 is being caught. So the watch came aft bare-footed or in 
 sennit-and-canvas slippers. A line (what you would call a 
 rope) was passed outside all running- and standing-gear, 
 from just abaft the main-rigging. I bowlined it into the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 343 
 
 ring at the end of the chain. 1 Then I baited the big, steel 
 hook, lowered it slowly down a couple or three fathoms, 
 and let go the line. This was so that the pork would drift 
 astern, then come up, when the line tautened, somewhere 
 near the shark. The light air was only just enough to give 
 the barque steering-way, which made the conditions ideal 
 for shark-catching. 
 
 At the lee fore-corner of the poop stood Young to signal 
 to the men on the main-deck, where Chips and Lionel and 
 all the watch except Chambers — who was at the wheel — - 
 were ready to haul in as soon as the second mate passed the 
 word to them. I was leaning on the poop-rail, peeping over, 
 interested enough but by no means absorbed in the matter, 
 when I found the O. M. at my side. He had been turned-in, 
 as though it was night, and was in his pyjamas and bare- 
 headed. Cream-coloured they were, with a broad and a 
 narrow green stripe down 'em. I remember them because 
 of the odd way they struck me at the moment. He had 
 crept up the companion-way, because of my leaving the 
 door open; and he knew quite well what we were doing. 
 He looked astern to where the pork gleamed bluey-white 
 a little way below the blackish solid of the big fish, then 
 turned his grinning face to me. I don't say "grinning" out 
 of disrespect, or in a moment's forgetfulness of the Old 
 Man — not at all. I say it because he was grinning, and would 
 have called it a grin himself — a proper grin. For the time 
 being he was just an overgrown, elderly boy gloating over 
 the catching of some bird, or fish, or something that would 
 make him a red-letter day. He whispered to me, 
 
 "Catch him! Catch him! He's a big un! One less! One 
 less, if we catch him! He's the vill'in in my dream t'other 
 night! Catch him, and we shall catch the vill'in! " 
 
 He had said nothing to me about a fresh dream, though 
 he had often mentioned the big puzzler in a rapid way. As 
 for the " one less," that simply meant the sailor's common 
 
 1 A shark-hook has about a fathom of steel chain attached, so that 
 the fish cannot bite off the hook, which is also springed to ensure its 
 better holding. 
 
344 
 
 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 hatred of sharks, and his using it was no proof that it didn't 
 come, parrot-like, from the back of his mind. 
 
 I took no notice of him. The shark had just then given a 
 flick of his tail, turned slightly over, showing a streak of his 
 whitish belly, and taken a small sweep down to the pork, 
 the smell of which had no doubt been coming up to him. 
 He was either lazy or not hungry, and I feared he was going 
 to be difficult to hook. 
 
 " Tell the men to stand-by," I said in a low voice to the 
 second mate, and glancing for'ard, " and keep their heads 
 inside the rail. You stand back a bit further yourself, Mr. 
 Young. He's none too eager; and if he sees any of you, he 
 may sheer off, you know." I turned my head aft again, 
 found the O. M. leaning half-over the rail, pulled him back 
 and cautioned him to keep further in-board. Here the boy 
 came up and I called him. He knew what I meant and came 
 to the after-side of the Old Man. 
 
 We waited an intense, dragging, in a way deadly, half- 
 hour, drawing up the bait and letting it sink and drift away 
 again. Still the brute would have none of it, only nose about 
 it, and drop off and come up again. So I had it hauled in, 
 dipped a while in boiling water, to take off any smell of my 
 hands, then flung it over the side once more, along with a 
 dozen fathoms of the line, in order that it would sink well 
 before the line became taut. Having done this I went leisurely 
 back to my place on the poop, where the Old Man had stood 
 all the time, now grinning and whispering, then quiet and 
 staring into the water, with the boy pretty near him all the 
 while. I had hardly reached the spot when one of the men 
 shouted, 
 
 "He's got it!" 
 
 I snatched a look over the side, saw the line snapped out 
 like a back-stay, and told the men to haul it in, but keep 
 their hands from between it and the rail, lest they got their 
 fingers nearly cut off. Of course, the end of the line had 
 been made fast at the outset. I then cautioned the boy to 
 keep by the Old Man and watch him closely, in case he 
 became excited while we were getting the shark aboard. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 345 
 
 I next stationed myself in the lee fore-corner of the poop, 
 to superintend the operations. The line had then been taken 
 to the mainmast, so that the men could spread themselves 
 out on it; and there were five of them, with one taking in 
 at the mast, Featherston, Young and Chips being big, hefty 
 fellows; yet that shark repeatedly fetched the whole bunch 
 of 'em up to the rail, or into a heap in the scuppers. I was 
 afraid the hook would break away; but. it held on, and 
 presently the brute was alongside — a good twenty feet of 
 him, I saw at a glance, and evidently a regular " white " 
 man-eater. 
 
 Now the thing was to get a luff-tackle up to the lee' quarter 
 of the main-yard, which was soon done, as .one or two of the 
 men had fetched one from for'ard, while I was fixing the 
 pork for the last throw. When we had him half-out of the 
 water, kicking and floundering below as the very Devil 
 would in his place, his head was above the rail. I then came 
 to the conclusion that the hook wouldn't stand his weight — 
 or, at least, it would tear out, if we tried to get him aboard 
 with it only. For that reason I sent some of the men 
 hunting, while I rummaged in the bosun's locker and found 
 a big, inch-thick iron hook; but it was blunt as my little 
 finger-end. 
 
 However, there was nothing else for it; so the chain was 
 made fast to a bulwark-stanchion, the tackle eased up, and the 
 big hook placed under the arch of his upper jaw — and a 
 delicate job it was, I can tell you; but I managed it, because 
 of his mouth being slightly open all the time. And I shall 
 never forget the feeling I had during the few minutes the 
 job lasted, you can take my word for that. Being so close 
 to those triple rows of spiky teeth, about an inch long, my 
 hand about six inches from the top row, and my head a 
 couple of feet from the brute's cavernous, half-circle of a 
 mouth — well, the sensation was horrible at first, and again 
 when I got away. Yet, you know, there was a certain 
 fascination in it after the first minute or so. 
 
 Then the tackle was put to again, set taut, and in went 
 the hook, by the sheer weight of the shark. Two or three 
 
346 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 minutes later he was making a proper hurly-burly on the 
 deck — twenty-one feet eight inches, as I measured him, 
 or rather, the pieces, When he was dead. 
 
 As he dropped, with a thud like a ton or two of flesh, the 
 Old Man held on to the fore-rail of the poop and danced 
 like an excited youngster. Soon as the shark was down the 
 second mate got an axe and began to hack off its head, getting 
 in a blow now and then, as the brute jumped and kicked, 
 and the great jaws snapped together, and I told him not to 
 cut the deck. Then the instant the head was off, down came 
 the O. M., claimed the head, and had Young drag it away 
 aft for him. Of course, I took no particular notice of this, 
 any more than I did of seeing Featherston and some of the 
 other men watch the proceeding with more interest than I 
 either understood or heeded. As a matter of fact, I was glad 
 to see him taking such an apparently sane and ordinary 
 part in the affair. I thought it would show the men " how 
 sane he was." So I sent the boy to his work, and kept an eye 
 on the O. M. myself. 
 
 Then the latter came back, with Young still dancing 
 attendance on him. No.v he wanted the stomach opened, 
 to see what there was in it. Well, why not? The question 
 was natural enough. The whole business was amusing him, 
 and of no harm to anybody. I saw no excuse for interfering 
 and persuading him away, any more than Fd seen in his 
 having the head dragged aft. But if I had known before- 
 hand — Ah, that would have been another matter, as it is 
 in so many things — afterwards. 
 
 So, while I was away at the weather side, looking to wind- 
 'ard and at the weed, the thing was opened up. And when 
 I walked back to the lee deck, it was to find the Old Man 
 with a good handful of long, shining, black hair — a woman's 
 undoubtedly. I felt sick at the sight, and tried all I could 
 there and then to get him to throw it overboard. But he 
 wouldn't. No, he stuck to it like a barnacle to a ship's bottom. 
 I would have taken it from him and thrown it away, if it 
 hadn't been for a glint of that new sort of light in his eyes, 
 which cautioned me not to cross him just then, unless I; 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 347 
 
 wanted an unpleasant exhibition before the men. I say 
 " new," but it was only new in expression at times. It 
 was, of course, a strong reappearance of his old stubborn 
 dislike to any opposition when he had set his mind on a 
 thing. 
 
 Well, with the second mate as his factotum, and the two of 
 'em apart from the others, the hair was washed carefully 
 enough. It seemed to me that Young found a good deal of 
 pleasure in the job. I noticed him feeling and commenting on 
 the fine texture of the hair, and heard him say, " Blest if it 
 ain't silken as my wife's, sir! — on'y 'tain't black like this. 
 It's fair — fair as sunlight — Bless 'er heart! — Wish you could 
 see 'er, sir." 
 
 But the O. M. didn't hear apparently ; all his attention was 
 on the hair. Then they went aft to the head, and I was in two 
 minds whether or not to try to get the Old Man back to his 
 cabin, in case he did something worse than usual. This might 
 easily happen out of such an uncommon affair. Besides, I 
 didn't want to have to hang about near him all the time. 
 But he soon settled the matter for me by going to his berth 
 and falling straight asleep. I supposed the excitement had 
 exhausted him mentally for the time being. Anyhow, I was glad 
 of the opportunity to lock him in and give the key to the boy. 
 I had followed him in, the minute I missed him. Now I went 
 out again, to finish about the shark before I turned in. 
 
 I found Young stripping the flesh from the head of the thing, 
 learnt that he was doing this at the O. M.'s request, thought 
 nothing of it, and stepped along to the men in the waist. My 
 purpose with them was a bit of propitiation of a sort. I asked 
 if any of them wanted the shark's backbone — the trophy of 
 the occasion, you know. / would have had it ; but I thought 
 this would please 'em. One or two answered rather sulkily 
 that they didn't care. The others said nothing. I took this 
 to be just a bit of what was then their more or less daily mood, 
 and I rather sympathised with them; yet I thought they 
 might have been a bit more gracious over what was really a 
 big concession. However, I told them to decide amongst them- 
 selves who was to have it, also to save two or three yards of 
 
348 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the skin, 1 then to clear up the decks and go ahead with their 
 work. 
 
 Truth to tell, I might have saved myself the last part of the 
 order; because for ten or a dozen days gone by there hadn't 
 been any regular work done. Little by' little the men had been 
 allowed to work when they pleased and idle about the same, 
 so long as the idling wasn't too open a flouting of the poop. 
 As I went past the second mate I mentioned to him what I'd 
 said to the men, told him not to trouble about keeping them at 
 work; then went to mv cabin. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Lionel's Description of the appearance of the Sargasso Sea by Night 
 and Day, of the Men's arrival at a momentous Conclusion, and 
 of an Interview he had with Mr. Willoughby. 
 
 Yes, it was a deplorable fact, ghastly and tragic indeed to 
 us just then — we were in the Sea of Sargasso. I am speaking of 
 ten days after the catching of the shark : Ten days of further 
 drifting, useless and aggravating cat's-paws, thicker and 
 thicker weed and increasing gloom; of dead calms, burning 
 suns, shortened rations, and more and more talk that made me 
 daily expect some kind of violent upheaval amongst the men : 
 Also ten nights of wonderful beauty still as death — suggestive, 
 in fact, of death in a most lovely swamp; of an enchanting 
 morass turned to a cemetery without a single headstone, the 
 barque for its imperceptibly moving chapel. 
 
 For in the latter part of the night the moon still shone with 
 sufficient brilliance to make the dark " fields " glisten in 
 myriads of tiny places (phosphorus on the leaves of the 
 plants I suppose), and to enable us to discern the acres-wide 
 patches from the blackish-blue of the lanes of clear water that 
 
 1 Because of its toughness and its rough surface shark-skin makes 
 a capital substitute for scrubbing-brushes, especially for ships' paint- 
 work; but only whilst cold water is used. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 349 
 
 irregularly divided them. By day the scene was more garish. 
 But what a beauty — a splendour, rather, it had in spite of 
 that! — the splendour of a gaudy mausoleum, or a gorgeous 
 valley of death. The dark " fields " were then a lovely, shining 
 brown, glistening still, although not with bluish light; the 
 separating ways were of an indigo blue the mere tint of which 
 was a joy ; and day after day the sun shone the same — at first 
 so gloriously to me, then with monotonous brilliance; finally 
 burning, callous, fiendish and implacable. 
 
 I have said that the grumbling increased and the gloom 
 deepened. On this tenth day we were having tea, all hands, 
 except the helmsman for the time being, who was Hines. It 
 was past six o'clock. We had spent most of the day in boxing 
 the yards about to catch some light airs, in an effort that Mr. 
 Willoughby was making to get out of the weed ; all of which 
 had ended in nothing, so far as we could see, for the barque 
 was left stuck in a " field " that appeared to be yards in thick- 
 ness. And we were all hot, sticky with perspiration, physically 
 strained and uncomfortable generally; some were blasphe- 
 mous in their anger; two or three were heavily silent. 
 
 I was silent, too ; but it was with the silence of sorrow only — ■ 
 sorrow that I had come in the Sappho, sorrow that my return 
 home was not to be as I had planned it, sorrow for those at 
 home, especially my sister and mother, and this with a sorrow 
 so deep as to make me forget utterly that I was as good as 
 dead to them already. The failure of the light airs had brought 
 back one of my spells of pessimism, one of those times which 
 had increased and deepened during the ten days — times in 
 which I saw us lost irretrievably in the weed ; but, curiously, 
 never thought of death. To my mind we were just lost — cut off 
 from mankind— lost beyond finding in a sea that was not a 
 sea, and into which no one ever came, except the lost. 
 
 To me, for the impression of sorrow they had made, those 
 ten nights and days might have been ten weeks of burning sun, 
 a blank horizon and hopelessness, then ten weeks of moonlit 
 beauty and mental gloom. They and the days and nights that 
 followed put ten years on to my shoulders ; they turned a fairly 
 light-hearted young fellow into a serious-minded man. 
 
35o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 But I was saying that we were at tea. By -and -by, 
 Mc'Arthy said, putting his head in at the middle doorway, 
 
 " Well, let's go aft an' tell 'em they must overboard with 
 that bone an' the woman's 'air." 
 
 "I'm for that, an' no more hangin' about it," replied 
 Featherston gloomily, tapping a piece of biscuit on the lid 
 of his chest to shake the weevils out; and looking more 
 gloomy still, because of his peculiar " hump " and his dark, 
 impressive face. 
 
 "Oh, an' Sappho was a Lesbian!" sniggered Chambers, 
 carrying to his mouth a corner of tea-soaked biscuit, weevils 
 and all. This levity brought from Featherston, in a hard tone, 
 but no temper, 
 
 " Shut y'ur damned fly-trap, you fool. Ther' 's them as 'u'd 
 see fun i' the'r mother's fallin' down stairs; though I'm not 
 one of 'em." 
 
 "No, 'tain't a Ry-irap, Feathers'; 'e can't shut it fast 
 enough; they all get out again," said Mc'Arthy, taking a seat 
 on our water-keg, with his pannikin of tea in one hand and a 
 biscuit in the other from which thin marmalade was running. 
 But he only got a scowl from Featherston for his effort to be 
 witty. 
 
 " Waal, frien's," drawled Booster in his cotton-wool tones, 
 " I kent say as I thinks that guy of a bone's got anything tu 
 do with it jes'. As for the 'air — there I guess you've got me 
 some, 'cause my mother used tu say as 'twas kinda bad tu 
 'ave human 'air hangin' around ; an' w'en she sold me sister's 
 ■ — as that stiff of a doctor hed cut off 'cause o' fever. — Waal, 
 I reckon as 'twas a bully deal; seein' as how the bucks 1 paid 
 the stiff's bill, an' we all jes' went boostin' along an' makin' 
 mighty good after that. An' afore it — gee, sirree, but ther' 'd 
 bin some gingerin' up tu keep things alive." 
 
 " But wot d'you say 'bout flingin' them things overboard ? " 
 Featherston asked unpleasantly. He appeared not to like 
 Booster's contribution to the subject. 
 
 " Jes' wot I ses. The 'air's bad — pitch it. Whymper said as 
 the bone was some worse — pitch it. 'Cause I guess he knowed 
 
 1 Dollars. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 351 
 
 more about sharks' 'ead-bones than any kid in this gatherin' 
 of champs." 
 
 " M'm, that's more like," grunted Featherston, whose 
 previous attempts to be an agitator and a leader seemed to 
 have acted as a damper on him. 
 
 He then asked Chambers and Scotty what they thought of 
 the matter. The first rather surprised me by a frank, though 
 brief, confession that he believed the things were responsible 
 for our drifting further into the weed, and the addition of his 
 faith in there being something aboard — it was not for him to 
 say what — that had brought us all the misfortunes we had 
 suffered since we left Frisco. At the same time Scotty's super- 
 stitious, African blood showed itself in, 
 
 " Yeah, dey's all bad — damn' bad! — Obah wid 'em! " 
 
 In the midst of this in walked Smiley, with his hands full, 
 much the same as Mc' Arthy's, and said laughingly, as Chambers 
 concluded, 
 
 " Weel dun, Mr. Patches! Theer gans W'ymper! — Him to 
 a tick, 's far as beliefs gan. Oh, we hedn't dun wi' W'ymper, 
 w'en he dropped fro' that yard — or puttin' it t'other way, 'e 
 hedn't dun wi' us. Aa knaaed 'e hedn't. A chap on his sooart 
 aallus leeaves a bit be'ind him." 
 
 To the nigger he said nothing. Colour accounted for every- 
 thing there, I suppose. As to myself : I felt it was not the time 
 for me to say a word, not even to Scotty. Unheeding this 
 interruption, Featherston turned to Mc'Arthy, who was 
 true enough to himself to raise the scorn of his questioner, 
 until Smiley, after watching the vacillating for a while, 
 put in, 
 
 " Noo, then, Macmah'oon-Macarty, cum to th' scratch an' 
 be dun for. If ye hang aboot, ye'll oon'y get flayed for it. 
 Cum up, noo." 
 
 " You mind your own business, if you know 'ow! I can 
 manage mine," said Mc'Arthy, his beefy face becoming a 
 deeper red, whilst the wiry stubble around it seemed to stick 
 out like miniature quills. 
 
 This only subjected him to further chaff from Smiley, 
 who would have kept it up indefinitely, had it not been for 
 
352 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 Featherston reminding him — without real offence, but none 
 too pleasantly — that he was not on his " own side," and 
 that he was interfering in talk that was going on when he 
 entered. This reminder of the strict etiquette, 1 which we 
 commonly used as between host and uninvited guest, had 
 no further effect on Smiley than .to make him turn to 
 Mc'Arthy and ask him, 
 
 " Noo, w'at wad ye'r greeat-gran'faither on ye'r mither's 
 uncle Michael's side, w'at 'eld King Billy's stirrup at th' 
 battle o' Never-wor — w'at wad 'e say i' this case ? Cum on, 
 oot wi' it, man! " 
 
 "He'd say: 'Chuck the things to the Devil'! That's 
 wot 'e'd say! An' I ses the same, if you want to know! " 
 Mc'Arthy snapped out, in one of his rare and brief exhibitions 
 of spirit. But the northerner only smiled, blew his large, 
 fat nose into a red, cotton handkerchief, and remarked, 
 knowing that a reference to Mc'Arthy's size would only 
 anger him more, 
 
 " That's it, me little man, spayk up for yo'rsel'. Ye knaa 
 ye'r in wi' t' crood. So w'at d'ye hang back for? " 
 
 "Well, Smiley, an' wot side are you for, then? " Feather- 
 ston enquired, interrupting more of Smiley's chaff. 
 
 " Right O, as ye want ta knaa derrect Aa'm wi' ye, for 
 this ree-ason " 
 
 " Oh, blast yer reasons! All I wants ta know " 
 
 " Then Aa'll tell ye w'at, Featherston," Smiley broke in 
 slowly, but with such impressiveness as to stop the other's 
 words, "if ye divn't waant me ree-asons; then ye can 
 gan ta hell wi'oot me; for Aa'm not gan wi' ye. — See? " 
 
 Yes, it was very plain that Featherston did see. His face 
 said so, as he looked at Smiley, on whose broad features and 
 blue-grey eyes there was still the flicker of humour; but 
 behind it, in a sense, lurked the warning that was, happily, 
 so seldom seen in him. The silence that had come so suddenly 
 was creating an awkward feeling. Smiley was rising to go 
 back to his " own side," and I began to think that the 
 threatening upheaval would be checked, when Featherston 
 1 Just the usual thing. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 353 
 
 said, in a way that showed how little he liked the corner into 
 which he had been forced, 
 
 " Well, wot's yer reasons, then? " 
 
 Smiley dropped back; but I am certain that for a few 
 moments his inclination was to throw some of his virile 
 scorn at Featherston and walk out. He replied, however, 
 quietly, and not without a little sarcasm here and there, 
 
 " M'm, well, as ye'r considerat' enough to want ta knaa 
 me ree-asons, Aa'll tell ye, an' w'en Aa've telled ye Aa'll — ■ 
 but Aa'll tell ye. Ma ree-asons ar' thee-ase: Aa said Aa wor 
 wi' ye becos Aa can't see onny hairm i' w'ether them things 
 is aboard or ower t' side, an' becos Aa wadn't stand oot from 
 th' crood w'en ther's noa hairm ta onnybody b' standin' in. 
 Wat's more, Aa wor ready ta do me share at puttin' aall 
 yo'r minds at rest aboot a rotten, deid booan an' a poor 
 wuman's bit o' 'air. Weel, them's me ree-asons, Featherston. 
 Do ye like 'em? " 
 
 " Oh, the' 're all rite. 'Course, you b'lieves in nothing " — 
 was the ungracious answer, which Smiley interrupted ^vith, 
 
 "Beggin' yo'r parrdon, old cock, Aa believes in more 'n 
 a lot o' ye do — Aa believes in this barque an' th' sea an' 
 sky an' th' Almighty an' me mither an' commonsense, an' 
 a few more bits o' things w'at dooan't matter to maist folk. 
 See?" 
 
 " Yes, I see." 
 
 " An' ye think me ree-asons good enough? " 
 
 " The' 're all rite, I said." 
 
 " Weel, keep 'em i' yo'r mind, an.' tak' 'em to blazes wi' ye'. 
 It's aall ye'll get oot o' me." 
 
 With that he made for his " own side." Featherston 
 tried to stay him ; but all he succeeded in doing was to bring 
 Smiley back instantly into the doorway, with a quickly 
 spoken reminder of his yarn about disasters whilst having 
 so-called unlucky things aboard, and how it was found out 
 that none of them had anything to do with the troubles. 
 He flung at them the " ree-ason " of that unprecedented ill- 
 luck; told them that he had invented the story just to hoax 
 them; said the head-bone and the hair had as much to do 
 
354 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 with our misfortunes now; swore they were " a pack o' kids 
 ta be ' guyed be a golgasted guy like that rooster W'ymper.' **. 
 The last nine words had been spoken in Booster's manner and 
 pointedly at him, and with them Smiley had disappeared. 
 
 During the next few minutes not a word was said. Then 
 Featherston began, in a curious, inconsequential way, as if 
 he felt he must but had no need, to enumerate the items in 
 our calendar of bad luck, from " sailin' on a Frid'y " to 
 " this curst bone an' 'air — a woman's 'air," our getting into 
 the weed and being put on " short tack." (The mate — 
 ostensibly at " the captain's orders," of course, had put us 
 on two-thirds allowance of provisions and one-half of water. 
 He had also announced that unless we got out of the weed 
 within a week, the pig would have to be killed. This was bad 
 news to some of us, especially to Scotty, who had readily 
 joined me in forfeiting our daily share of condensed milk 
 for Tiger.) 
 
 In all Featherston's rigmarole it was easy to see the influence 
 of Whymper at work. And I dare be bound that if he had not 
 told his yarn of the shark's head-bone (which Smiley and I 
 had long put down to be a make-up), we should not have 
 had Chambers' story of the twin-cocoanut (to a belief in 
 which, you will remember, " Rags " had not committed 
 himself), and therefore none of this foolish superstition. 
 
 Whilst Featherston had been talking disjointedly of these 
 things, Baily had come in, smoking, and I was more surprised 
 than ever to learn that he was one with Featherston in this 
 matter. Looking more at me than at any one else, he added, 
 with what appeared to me to be some increase in that easy, 
 soft-spoken way of his, that he had been compelled to think 
 there was " something in it, p'r'aps, else w'y all this trouble? " 
 He was not, he said, influenced in the least by Whymper; 
 but he wanted to get out of the weed, to catch the north-east 
 trade wind and get home ; and if throwing those things over 
 the side — the loss of which could not hurt anybody — would 
 help us homewards, then he was " one for the heavin'." 
 I remembered that he had been twenty years or so amongst 
 South Sea Islanders, and so found excuse for him. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 355 
 
 Not one of them said a word to me. I supposed this was 
 because they were hopeless of any success and were chary 
 of offering an opening for an argument, especially after what 
 had just occurred concerning Smiley. I don't think it was 
 due to any persuasive powers of mine, nor to any particular 
 keenness in arguing, although I had overcome them once. 
 Nor did I wish them to speak on that matter. Whilst the 
 talk had gone on, I had made up my mind what to do and 
 was determined to carry it out. 
 
 Presently, when it had been decided that they would go 
 to the mate in the morning (a decision that agreed well with 
 my own plan), Mc'Arthy said he would " pop in an' talk to 
 Chips." But Featherston growled that he could save himself 
 the trouble, as he (the speaker) had " seen Chips," and it 
 was "no go." This was pleasing to me, because it added one 
 more to our little "side"; and I left the stuffy, smoke- 
 ridden place for the galling splendour that surrounded us. 
 I was soon followed, practically at once, by all the others 
 except Baily and Featherston; and as they came lounging 
 about the fore-deck, I went on to the forecastle-head again, 
 where I should be alone till darkness fell. Smiley was then 
 smoking his pipe on the large spar by the fore-rigging. 
 
 By-and-by I heard Featherston's hard voice down by the 
 windlass, and I came to the conclusion that he was having 
 a further talk to his supporters. Then, as the short twilight 
 was setting in, and the beauty of glistening brown, blue 
 " lane " and softer light was creeping from east to west over 
 the garishness the sun had made, out from the forecastle 
 came stealing the tender sweetness of Baily's " fiddle." It 
 was like cooling ointment on burning skin. In half-a-minute 
 not a voice was to be heard on the main-deck there, whence 
 the different tones and twangs of the five men had come up, 
 marring my thoughts from the outset. Baily played two 
 airs; and it seemed as if the whole barque was listening to 
 him. Exquisite sadness it was. Now I appeared to see what 
 the instrument was particularly adaptable for — sorrow that 
 was too tender, too deep, too plaintive and inexpressible for 
 any other instrument. I thought he had never before played 
 
356 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 with so much feeling and sweet pathos. Perhaps he never 
 had-^never had found so much reason or incentive as he 
 found then. I know that I had never up to then — up to the 
 past twenty days or so — even expected ever to be in a position 
 of such suffering of heart and mind. 
 
 Then Baily sang; and if his playing had been exceptional, 
 his singing was doubly so. He was, I knew, singing to the 
 spirit of his dead, native wife, of whom he had recently shown 
 me a photograph, thus proving that she had been both 
 young and very beautiful in feature and figure. I was quite 
 sure that he had not the slightest thought of us out there on 
 the deck. In spite of that, he was also singing to my sorrow, 
 perhaps not so poignant as his, perhaps more so. His heart 
 was elderly, and had apparently suffered much; mine was 
 young, unused to pain, and had suddenly been crushed 
 whilst in the anticipation of a great joy. Be that as it may, 
 however long I live or whatever I have to go through, I don't 
 think it can possibly surpass the heart-breaking feeling that 
 I experienced during the hour or so that Baily sang and 
 played. Meanwhile all hands listened, except Chips; and 
 in the almost silent frou-frou of the barque, as she moved 
 on the invisible heave of the sea, that wonderfully plaintive 
 music went out over the darkening yet gleaming " fields " 
 and " lanes," where it appeared that we were to linger on to 
 nothing. 
 
 But let me get away from that painful evening. The 
 remembrance of it is still too vivid. 
 
 It was the mate's middle-watch. I would rather that the 
 first watch had been his ; for that would have enabled me to 
 get through earlier with my purpose, then go to sleep. As it 
 was I read till nearly six-bells (eleven o'clock), then turned -in, 
 so that the men should not think there was anything irregular 
 in my movements. . But it was not to sleep, only to wait till 
 the watches were changed, and matters had settled down 
 again. Whatever they — or any one else, for that matter — 
 would have thought of what I was going to do, I did not stop 
 to think. I don't believe I should have cared either, so full 
 was I of my project. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 357 
 
 Happily for me the moon was not then up. In a sense the 
 night was dark; that is, from a few feet above the sea up 
 into the heavens, up till one's eyes met the light of the stars, 
 everything was dark as it could be on a starry night. As far 
 as sight could reach over the sea's surface the " fields " and 
 acres gleamed bluey-white; not each one in an unbroken 
 expanse, but in a mass of patches and particles, which had 
 more beauty than a large and continuous spread could have 
 had. They made the " lanes " black in comparison. And one 
 peculiarity of their light was to cause the middle space to be 
 darker than it would have been without them. Again it was 
 a matter of degree, of comparing one with the other. And as 
 the light was not strong enough to rise and overtop our 
 bulwarks, in between them was like being inside a gigantic, 
 although shallow and open, box placed in a sea of " fairy " 
 lamps; whilst the barque herself was a great, black thing of 
 blurred' outlines, except where the light sharply defined her 
 bulwark-rails and the like when you looked beyond her. 
 
 It was in these conditions that I went aft (not " stole," for 
 by that time I seemed to care little whether I was seen or 
 not), in a long coat to hide my pyjamas; but oblivious of the 
 foot or so of whitish legs below the coat, which were surely 
 attractive enough in their bobbing past each other along 
 the dark deck. However, in spite of my carelessness as to 
 the idle hands of the watch seeing me (they were possibly 
 asleep somewhere on the fore-deck at that time), I made for 
 the lee ladder of the poop, — starboard side it was — thinking 
 that the spanker would help to prevent the helmsman from 
 seeing me. But at the foot of it I chanced to see Mr. 
 Willoughby's head and shoulders outlined against the stars, 
 to my right and above me. He was leaning on the poop-rail, 
 near the port ladder. As a matter of fact, he had caught 
 sight of my naked feet and bottoms of pyjamas coming along 
 the deck, and he was watching me. Acting on a sudden thought, 
 I turned across the deck, looking under the poop-overhang as 
 I went, to ascertain if any of the men were there. When I 
 stood directly under him, I said, just loud enough for him to 
 hear, as I thought, 
 
358 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " Please can you come down here a minute, Mr. Willoughby ? 
 I want to speak to you." 
 
 But my words failed to reach him distinctly. He asked what 
 I wanted, who I was; and made me fear he would attract 
 attention; his voice sounded so clearly on the stillness and 
 wondrous beauty of the night. I will even say that it came 
 as a shock, a kind of blatancy, in a scene where it was almost 
 a profanation to speak aloud, and where, to my thinking, all 
 talk should be in soft, low tones. 
 
 I repeated my question. At the same time I motioned with 
 my arm. He leaned further over, caught my words, and came 
 down. For several moments I knew not what to say, how to 
 begin ; then out it all came suddenly, like this, 
 
 " The men are coming to you to-morrow, sir, to demand 
 that the shark-bone and the woman's hair are thrown over- 
 board ; and if they are not, I'm afraid something dreadful will 
 happen. They are also going to ask you to take charge of the 
 vessel, and confine Captain Sennett to his room. They say he 
 is crazy, and can't tell where he is taking her. I came to tell 
 you, so that you will be prepared, and perhaps able to do 
 something to circumvent them and avoid further trouble." 
 
 I thought he would have been surprised, have shown a 
 little consternation and that ; but all he said, quite ordinarily, 
 was, 
 
 "Oh, they are. — Are they? And when did they arrive at 
 this decision ? " I told him. " And how long has it been going 
 on? — And who's the leader? " 
 
 " It has been going on since the shark was caught, I believe," 
 said I, " and before that in a way. But they have not said 
 much in my presence till last night." 
 
 " M'm, you're not one ofi#em, in more ways than this, I 
 take it ; so they don't trust you much — aye, isn't that it ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " They trust me enough, or I should not have been able to 
 tell you this," I replied, feeling a guilty stab over the affair. 
 
 " Well, yes; but that isn't what I meant, quite. Anyhow, 
 who's leading them? " 
 
 " Excuse me, please, sir, I can't tell you that," was my 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 359 
 
 immediate answer, and again I felt embarrassed; so did he, 
 it appeared to me. Then I added, rather awkwardly, I admit, 
 " I came to tell you of their intention, simply to save serious 
 trouble; but I can't tell you who started it, or anything of 
 that," 
 
 " M'm, I see. — I understand," observed he. 
 
 " I thought, you know, if you only knew beforehand you 
 would be ready to meet them, and perhaps stop the evil from 
 going further," I remarked. He was silent a little while, then 
 he said, 
 
 " Yes, well, so I shall be now; and I'm obliged to you for 
 telling me. It will enable me to get a nice weather-hand on 
 'em." 
 
 " I hope you won't " began I, then stopped at a thought 
 
 of the temerity of what I was going to say. 
 
 " No, don't fear, there'll be no punishment," he put in. 
 " Poor beggars, I don't blame 'em much — not as I should, if 
 they knew better. And, of course, they'll know nothing of this." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. I knew that would be so," said I. Then 
 I told him of Whymper's yarn and the hold it had got on all 
 the men except Smiley. He commented on this; and I was 
 about to go forward again, pleased with the result of my 
 errand, when he remarked, changing his manner from a 
 strictly business tone to that of a kindly inviting one, 
 
 " No, you're not one of them; I've seen that from the first, 
 and I've pretty often wondered how you came to be here." 
 
 " Oh, a romantically foolish idea," I answered, feeling 
 abruptly that we were no longer chief officer and ordinary 
 seaman; "one that I wish to heaven I had never given 
 way to! " 
 
 Then in quick succession we said, to the best of my recol- 
 lection, he smiling, I thought, yet interested and encouraging, 
 and I so eager in a way, careless and full of bitter pain, that 
 before I realised the truth of it, I had gone too far, 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Because it is ending in this" — with a despondent sweep 
 of my arm. 
 
 " But this isn't the end of anything." 
 
360 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 " It looks terribly like it." 
 
 " Looks are only on the surface, Anderson. And you 
 shouldn't be pessimistic at your age." 
 
 " How can you help it when everything goes wrong with 
 your greatest hope ? " 
 
 " Yet I'm not, you see." 
 
 " Perhaps not; but this is not your great venture; you're 
 not returning home in your father's ship and every one at home 
 thinking you dead." 
 
 " Oh, so that's the romance. — Is it? " 
 
 " And now find it all ending in this terrible sea of weed! " 
 I broke in, rather passionately, but without raising my voice. 
 
 " Well, I knew there was something behind it all. We don't 
 get your sort before the mast so oft as all that. Still I didn't 
 think it was this." Seeing what I had done, I began to say 
 that it had not been my intention. " Have you got any papers 
 with you about this? " he interrupted. " Some written proof 
 of it, you know. I'm not doubting your word. But if you have 
 any papers, I should like to see 'em, just for satisfaction's 
 sake." 
 
 I told him I had, then fetched my father's advertisements 
 and some letters from home to me at school, including one 
 written by my father at his office and having the official head- 
 ing and address on it. When I returned, Mr. Willoughby came 
 off the poop again and led the way into the cabin, by the 
 alleyway. 
 
 Within five minutes we were on deck again. There he urged 
 me to cheer up. We should get out of the weed, he said, even 
 if all hands had to man the longboat and tow her out by night, 
 and sleep by day — as the days were too hot for such work. 
 On short rations we had enough to last us another sixty or 
 seventy days, by which time he was certain we should be in 
 clear water and the north-east trade, as he had now taken full 
 charge of the vessel. Before this the question of the captain's 
 sanity had cropped up two or three times in what had been 
 said. 
 
 Here I told him of Baily having a second mate's certificate, 
 and suggested that he might bring the man aft to complete his 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 361 
 
 officers. He was glad to know of this; but said he thought I 
 should take the place, as I could always call on him in cases 
 of making or shortening sail. I, however, did not agree. I 
 thought that being in the cabin with Captain Sennett would 
 be too miserable to bear, so long as we were in the weed 
 especially. Besides, I detested the thought of having nothing to 
 do, in a sense, and was suddenly and rather illogically sensi- 
 tive to the men becoming aware of my identity. No — if 
 peace could be maintained, I much preferred to stay in the 
 forecastle. And as the smallish half-moon was then rising 
 ruddily above the dark bluey-grey horizon, and would soon 
 be lighting up the decks, I went back to the forecastle; but I 
 got very little sleep between then and morning. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 In which the Mate concludes the Log by showing how Captain Sennett 
 learnt of the Barque's Position, how he confounded the Men, how 
 he saw the true Reading of the Captain's Dream, how Lionel 
 changed his Quarters, how they left the Sargasso Sea, and how 
 a sorrowful Rite was performed. 
 
 Well, the next day came, of course, as next days have a 
 habit of doing, even in the Sargasso, and with the men ready 
 to mutiny over a shark's head-bone and a big tress of feminine 
 hair. They came aft immediately they had finished their 
 breakfasts. Oh, they were not disposed to let the thing lie 
 by; being an unpleasant. business, they wanted it over and 
 done with — quite rightly. Smiley wasn't with them. When 
 Lionel told me the cause of this afterwards, he said that just 
 before the men came aft, Baily asked Smiley if he was coming 
 with them, and Smiley answered: " Noa, Ba'ly, Aa'm not; 
 an' Featherst'n 's got me ree-asons." 
 
 But if Smiley wasn't there, the cook was, looking murder, 
 or as near it as Jie could. I thought how much better he 
 would have looked as head of the deputation, with his fat 
 
362 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 pomposity and his old-time father's beard, instead of being 
 just an item in the number. But Featherston made quite 
 a good figure-head. His dark face wasn't a pleasant picture, 
 I assure you; and that humped-up shoulder of his helped 
 to give him a bit of real sinister appearance. By a few previous 
 things, of which you are aware, and by the way the cook 
 hutched up to Featherston, as if to encourage him, I knew 
 where the real instigator was. 
 
 It was my watch on deck — would be, of course, seeing 
 that I had the middle watch. And I was on the poop, waiting 
 for the second mate to have his breakfast, then mark the 
 time for me, while I took a sight ; also waiting for them, as I 
 expected they would be on the scene early. They came along 
 the port deck, Featherston and the cook side-by-side and a 
 yard or two ahead of the others. That was where I got my 
 inkling of how the trouble grew. Baily was about the last, 
 talking to Jennings (Booster). I saw them coming, and went 
 to the poop-rail to meet 'em. The leaders pulled up just 
 abaft the booby hatch, so that they wouldn't have to crane 
 up their necks too much, I supposed; and I asked them 
 what they wanted. 
 
 Well, Featherston was no sort of a spokesman, you know. 
 He couldn't talk for sour apples. They would have had a 
 far better case by letting the cook be their Devil's advocate. 
 Not that Featherston wasn't in earnest — he was, very much 
 so. However, I let him go on, and asked a few questions, 
 just to hide the fact that I knew all about it. When he was 
 about half-way through, the Old Man put in an appearance, 
 dressed for church — about the tenth time. He came along- 
 side, and stood there quietly, looking at the men. Featherston 
 had just about made their case plain, when I saw the Old 
 Man feel in his coat-tail pocket — for his prayer-book, I 
 knew ; and to forestall him, also to keep up the farce before 
 the men (though heaven knew there was little use in it then), 
 I said, 
 
 "The men want your shark's bone, sir;" and to my 
 surprise he interrupted, very precisely, with, 
 
 "Well, let them have it."' 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 363 
 
 " I mean, to throw it overboard," I added. 
 
 ■" Well, let them have it," he answered, as before. 
 
 " And the hair, sir? " asked I. 
 
 '- Oh, they cannot have it — cannot have it. No, not for 
 
 their very souls! I ." He had just turned his face to 
 
 port, the nearer side of the barque; and without a pause 
 he stepped slowly across to the rail, looked intently at the 
 weed and enquired, in a tone that would have been quite 
 ordinary but for the surprise in it, "What's this? — What 
 does this mean? Where is she? " 
 
 Knowing that he meant the barque, feeling he was in his 
 right mind just then, at any rate, and not thinking of anything 
 else, I replied, 
 
 " It means, sir, that she's in the Sargasso Sea." 
 
 " In what? " he asked. 
 
 " In the Sar-gas-so," said I. 
 
 " Oh, my God! " he cried, turned from the rail, and took 
 astride towards the companion. As he moved, he said, in a 
 voice I can't describe, "My dream!" and fell head-first, 
 full length, like a dead man, his silk hat going skurrying 
 across the deck and through the starboard railings, into the 
 weed. 
 
 In a minute I had Young up, and we carried the Old Man 
 down to the settee in his berth. His chin was cut rather 
 badly; but that was all the damage I could see. I then sent 
 Young to dismiss the men, and tell them I would see them 
 presently. He remained on the poop for me. It was a good 
 hour before the Old Man opened his eyes; and when he did, 
 there was such an empty, unusual expression in them, that 
 I felt his mind had gone altogether at last. All that time I 
 had been too concerned about bringing him round to think 
 of anything else. Now I looked at the poor fellow in something 
 like horror. So far I had thought that, given no more sets- 
 back, he would fully recover under proper care at home. 
 But now — and I, too, said, to myself, " My God! " 
 
 Here I found the boy looking hard at me. He wanted to 
 know if the cap'n was worse this time. The intuition that 
 comes of affection was telling him the truth; but it needed 
 
364 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 my corroboration to fix it properly. Needless to say I didn't 
 give it. Steering clear as possible of a lie, I told him to cheer 
 up. There were better times coming, I said, and did my bes,t 
 to make him think so. 
 
 Then I set about making his room everything it should 
 be, to the best of my ability and means, for a man in his 
 condition. During this I wondered if, after all, it wasn't 
 better for him to be as he was then, instead of having spells 
 of one and glimmerings of the other. Anyhow, I reflected, 
 it's the doing of the Almighty; and He knows best, because 
 He knows all, the before and the after. 
 
 Having left him safe and physically comfortable I returned 
 to the poop, and asked Young to call the men aft; then he 
 could go below, I said. Now a bit wild with them for their 
 awkwardness, want of consideration and childish ideas, also 
 impotent and angry in another way at the new turn in events, 
 I was determined they shouldn't escape the little pull on 
 them that Lionel's information had enabled me to arrange. 
 Although, at the same time, I felt there was a sort of ghastli- 
 ness in carrying it out, now that the Old Man was in such an 
 awful condition. For the minute I wished he had not put 
 in an appearance till I had settled with the men, which 
 I was almost on the point of doing as he came on the scene. 
 
 When they were gathered below, so exactly as before that 
 they might have been rehearsing a part, I looked down at 
 'em — or at the cook and Featherston — and said, 
 
 " So it's the bone and the hair you want. — Is it? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered Featherston, civil enough and, 
 I believed, a bit knocked over at having found the job so 
 easy. I don't mean annoyed, as I've seen men be, because 
 of finding the wind taken out of their sails in similar situ- 
 ations. No; Featherston was ashamed more than anything 
 else. But it wasn't so with the cook. He stuck up his jib and 
 replied, 
 
 " Ay, we do," so insolently that I said, 
 
 " I am not dealing with you, you cur. I am dealing with 
 the men, and I don't include you in anything I say to them." 
 Without giving them time to break in, I added to them 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 365 
 
 generally, " Have any of you seen the bone during the past 
 three or four days? " 
 
 Previous to the time I mentioned the bone had been about 
 the poop, bleaching, after the second mate had scraped and 
 scrubbed it clean; then the Old Man had taken it to his 
 room and tied the hair round it, without knowing what he 
 was doing, I'm sure. At my question they all looked at one 
 another — each man asking his fellow, in. a way, if he had 
 seen the thing. Of course, their faces were blank. Then I 
 thoroughly enjoyed watching the changes, as it began to 
 break in on them, a bit here and a bit there, that there was 
 something behind it all — something that would flummox 
 them. At last I enquired again, this time with more emphasis, 
 
 " Has any one of you seen the bone this week? " 
 
 That day was a Thursday, you see. Again there was no 
 direct answer, only a few mumbled denials one to another. 
 The cook tried to make out he had seen it on the poop two 
 days before. I told him he was a liar, and shut him up — 
 the only way to deal with him. I then said, 
 
 " No, not one of you have seen it since Sunday. And now 
 you've come kicking up a row about it, when the thing's 
 over the side — both it and the hair. As for it getting us 
 further into the weed: You've seen how we've got further 
 and further in these four days, how the weed's got thicker 
 and thicker. And yet you'd be fools enough to blame a 
 piece of bone and some poor woman's hair! Don't you 
 think you've lost your senses a bit? — Let' this old rat" (I 
 pointed to the cook) " lead you off your tracks, I fancy. — 
 Isn't that it? " 
 
 Every one of 'em, except the cook, looked as if he wished 
 himself anywhere but on that quarter-deck. As for the other, 
 he up with his head and began to splutter about " the cap'n's 
 mad, an' 'e's got us here," etc. I ordered him to be silent; 
 yet he kept at it, till Featherston put a hand on his mouth, 
 at my request. Having got silence, I talked to them like 
 this. You see, I not only wanted to stop the cook's scheming 
 by discrediting him altogether in their eyes, and thus pun- 
 ishing him all I could for the present; I particularly wished 
 
366 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to re-establish matters between us so that they would both 
 feel ashamed of this affair all along, and give me no further 
 trouble, even if our misfortunes continued. 
 
 '" As for the captain being crazy," I said: "Yes, poor 
 man, he is. Didn't he say this morning you could have the 
 bone? — When it's overboard! And what's made him crazy, 
 except worrying about getting his ship home, and you with 
 her, of course ? And what did it begin with ? Why, the loss 
 of Whymper. He's never been the same man since then;' 
 and you, who've had your eyes open, know it. Whymper, 
 mind you — his loss that started it. The man who told you 
 a damned, silly yarn about a shark's head-bone. And you 
 come here to worry the poor Old Man on the same count- 
 See the point? It's a sharp one. — Isn't it? Enough to prick 
 leather nearly." 
 
 Most of this was said straight at Featherston, whom I 
 took to be the leader of the men. My knowing of the yarn 
 was a slip ; but it could easily have come to me by ordinary 
 gossip at the time. After pretending to clear my throat I 
 went on. 
 
 " Well, that is how the captain's gone crazy. Is that a 
 fault of his, then ? Is it something for which you should make 
 things worse for him? — if you could, which you can't, because 
 he's past having things made worse for him. Although that 
 old rat there (the cook) would make them worse if he could, 
 after the captain has been his friend and paid him extra 
 wages out of his own pocket for ten years. Well, I've said 
 the captain's crazy. What next? Is there any next, only 
 to pity the poor man, look after him all we can, and keep 
 him out of mischief both to himself and us? Nothing, of 
 course. And that's what I've been doing with him these 
 three weeks or so. The cook's told you, I expect — because 
 he's said it aft here, as if he knew anything at all about it — 
 he's told you the captain's got us into this mess. I tell you 
 he hasn't. I tell you it's the currents and lack of wind that's 
 got us here; and I tell you that because I've been navigating 
 the barque for weeks past now. So if it isn't the wind and 
 currents, it's me. And if I'm crazy, or don't want to get 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 367 
 
 home as much as any one of you — well, I'll leave that to 
 you." 
 
 Naturally, I wasn't going to let them blame the harmless 
 Old Man, just to tell them the truth; especially when, if 
 any one was really to blame, it was me for not taking full 
 charge three weeks or a month before then. However, I 
 wound up by telling them to pick out a man to search the 
 cabin for the bone and hair; I would send the boy with him, 
 I said, to show him the lockers and that ; and I would come 
 myself, when they reached the captain's room. They declared 
 they didn't want to search — they believed me. But the 
 cook clamoured for a search, which they told him he could 
 make for himself; they would have nothing to do with it, 
 not even Featherston. I said the cook shouldn't go past 
 the pantry any more; and I would rather that one of them 
 did search. So, in the end, Baily went in; and before long 
 they were away for'ard, cursing the cook up hill and down 
 dale, and Featherston looking thoroughly ashamed of himself. 
 
 Of course, I had thrown the harmless things over the side 
 in the middle watch. While talking to Lionel I'd seen, in a 
 flash, that there was likely to be real trouble with such a 
 party of shellbacks over an acute question of superstition. 
 Therefore of two evils I must choose the less : Let the trouble 
 go ahead with them; or, possibly, upset the Old Man by 
 taking his playthings away. As for letting them know of 
 the defective compass and chronometer: That would never 
 have done — not unless I had wanted to lose their confidence. 
 
 Well, for some time after the men had gone for'ard I 
 stood there — if you could call it standing; with my arms 
 folded on the rail, me leaning on 'em, rail about three feet 
 high. You will grant, I believe, that I had something to 
 think about. And, as a matter of course, the Old Man was 
 the pivot of it all. One of the first things: I must either 
 fetch Baily aft as second mate, and put Young into my 
 place, so that I could give something like proper attention 
 to the patient; or continue to take a watch, and persuade 
 " young Anderson " (that was how I thought of him then) 
 to come aft and act as attendant. I didn't want Baily in the 
 
368 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 cabin, not after he had shown his belief in such a rotten piece 
 of superstition. Besides, he and Young would be too chummy, 
 if he allowed it; they were old stagers, both of 'em. Another 
 thing, the more I thought of Lionel being in the fo'c's'le, the 
 less I liked it, and the more I knew he ought to be aft. 
 
 This brought me round to the Old Man again, making me 
 suddenly remember his words by the rail. In a second I was 
 over there, looking at the weed and saying to myself, startled, 
 and with a bit of creepy feeling about me — 
 
 "His dream! — Yes, the slimy things! Great God, and 
 the poor old dear saw it in his last moment of reason ! And a 
 hundred to one he would have seen it before, if he'd been in 
 his senbes when he looked at the weed! " 
 
 Thunderstruck, in a way, and bolt-upright, I stood there, 
 staring at the slippery, brown stuff, and thinking of the 
 dream. Then, with a jump, my mind went back to that 
 afternoon off the Horn, when he " interpreted " his dream 
 to fit me. You will remember, after I had spoken to him 
 about the boy's heartless trick on Denis, those words of his, 
 " my mind was marvellously keen," seemed to give me a 
 quick, foggy sort of vision of the whole. Now I knew they 
 had, just as I knew that the weed was the slimy things, 
 and the keenness of mind was some parallel to his craziness. 
 Yes, but how ? For two or three minutes I gasped mentally. 
 Here was the key again! — or another key! Should I lose it? 
 Talk about being nervous! I was shaking. Then I had it! 
 Got it sure and fast! " Eureka! " I cried, heedless of the 
 man at the wheel thinking I, too, had gone off my head. 
 Then I stepped close to the rail, leaned on it, and looked at 
 the weed as I worked the thing out. 
 
 Yes, one's upside-down to the other, I thought; crazy — 
 keen mind, and so on all through, one backwards and the 
 other ahead. But which? — Which way does each one go? 
 The dream ahead, and the passage back? — or vice versa? 
 I wondered, and wondered, fitting bits here and bits there, 
 finding this one worked, and that one didn't. Then I had it 
 all clear — all up to* the parallel in front of me, physically. 
 
 It was ahead with the passage, and backwards with the 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 369 
 
 dream, nearly everything being represented by an inversion 
 of some sort. In this way: We had a fine start from a great 
 city, he finished with mud huts and no life; we had a good 
 passage down to the " easting " and the best of it towards 
 the end, he passed through country that grew worse and 
 worse; then the loss of Whymper — i.e., one of his party 
 gone, and everybody upset ; next, us off the Horn, his hurly- 
 burly, trouble and the woman, who, of course, was the 
 Sappho, and came out of it all as much by herself as by 
 assistance; then the pampero, open country in his dream;* 
 our baffling winds, drifting and faulty instruments stood 
 for more of his open country ; finally the weed — slimy things ; 
 and great mentality, the deplorable reverse. 
 
 Finally, I say because I was face-to-face with these two 
 items. And as I came bolt up against the last two parallels, 
 I saw him there again, turning from the weed, the light of 
 almost frightened sanity in his eyes for a moment; then 
 the fall — and now the query: Was it my fault? Had I 
 been too blunt Jn giving him the information? I asked 
 myself, with more pain than you may imagine. Ought I to 
 have given it him at all? 
 
 For some time I was racked in this manner. And the 
 only solace I could find was the thought that: If I had not 
 told him, and he had remained in his right mind long enough, 
 he must have known himself where the barque was. But it 
 didn't satisfy. More still, I had been pulled up in my alle- 
 gory of the dream, and for the life of me I couldn't get any 
 further with it. I was just like a man up against a blank 
 wall at the bottom of a lane. I worried about it enough as 
 it was, and should have worried more, I'm certain, if I hadn't 
 had so much else to keep my mind bus} 7 . 
 
 In passing I may mention the boy, in justice to him, 
 rather than as a worry to me; although, mind you, I was 
 really sorry for him. Of course, he had heard what was 
 the matter with the Old Man ; and, ten to one, the cook had 
 made matters worse to him, probably worse than they were 
 or ever would be. Anyhow, he took to moping; and several 
 times I caught him crying on the quiet. And all I could do 
 
370 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to counteract this seemed to have no effect. That boy was a 
 changed creature. 
 
 And all the time we were drifting further into the weed, 
 in spite of the fact that I had the longboat out, with all hands 
 in it, Lionel at the wheel, and me, whenever occasion required, 
 on the fo'c's'le-head directing them, one after the other. At 
 night the men all turned in, while Young, Chips and I kept 
 watch, in four-hour spells each. This was to get all the towing 
 done that was possible, and at the same time keep the men 
 from complaining. 
 
 Not even a light air, and seldom a cat's-paw, day by day, did 
 
 we get. And the heat ! I should never have thought it 
 
 could be so hot so far north of the line. But I suppose it was 
 due, to a large extent, anyway, to the weed-islands throwing 
 back the sun's rays, instead of taking them in, as the open 
 water did. As for rain: To judge by the weather we had, the 
 everlastingly cloudless skies, the absolutely clear risings and 
 settings of the sun and moon, I should say there's been no 
 rain in the Sargasso since it was made. Then, again, there 
 being no wind at all helped to create the heat and that dead 
 silence. 
 
 Dead — yes, no other word I can think of would say so well 
 what I mean. , Except for the very slight heave of the barque 
 (because, you know, however smooth the water is, there's 
 always some motion in a vessel at sea) — except for that, as I 
 say, and the occasional creak of a paral x or a block, and the 
 slat of a sail, the silence around us was dead) a sort of solid 
 thing that crushed you, that you wanted to get up against and 
 shove away; something that got on your nerves after a few 
 days, and made you wonder if there was any life or noise or 
 movement anywhere in the world. Time and time again I 
 caught myself feeling, believing that we were the last of the 
 world — the last things left alive. It was ghastly. You may 
 imagine part of what it was like; you can't imagine it all, 
 because no imagination ever comes up to reality. P'r'aps I 
 should say, though, that you may imagine the thing, scene, 
 conditions, or what you like; but you can't put yourself there 
 
 1 The iron collar and its attachment that hold a yard to its mast. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 371 
 
 — you can't feel it as you would if you were there. It's like 
 looking at a moving picture in the real colours — you're not in 
 it. That's why I say, with all its beauty, its mysteriousness 
 and that, it was ghastly. 
 
 And nearly the whole^of the time, all day and every day, 
 we had the Old Man on deck. It came about in this way. A 
 couple of days after his last fall on the poop he began to bother 
 me to let him " go downstairs " — to " get up and go down- 
 stairs." (I should say that he still had the knack of looking 
 to me for anything he couldn't get from the boy.) I was then 
 keeping him in bed for the time being, to save having to dress 
 and undress him night and morning; because there was 
 enough to do without that. So to please him I dressed him and 
 took him into the saloon. But that wasn't enough. He wanted 
 to go on deck, only he called it " downstairs." I then re- 
 membered that during those two days he had done certain 
 things in an upside-down sort of way, said some things back- 
 wards in a sense, and so on. 
 
 Well, I led him up, and made him comfortable in his old 
 deck-chair between the companion and the skylight, with 
 the boy to sit by, when he wasn't busy below. The cut on his 
 chin was already healing up nicely. You see, I could no 
 longer trust the Old* Man alone, except in his room, with the 
 door locked. I don't mean that he had shown signs of violence. 
 Oh, no, he never did. I don't think he had any of that in him, 
 even in madness. But he was so downright crazy that I was 
 bound to take all precautions. This was why — when I found 
 him persistent night and morning to " get up and go down- 
 stairs," then "go up to bed " at night — I had a sort of tent 
 rigged up for him, where he spent the first two days in the 
 chair. By this he was kept out of the sight of the man at the 
 wheel, was hemmed in on three sides and half-so on the fourth ; 
 that is I had a low, canvas door there, over which he could see 
 easily, yet couldn't get out of without attracting attention. 
 
 It was during this time that he took such a liking to hear 
 Baily's " heathenish gu'tar," as he had called it now and then 
 in his brighter times, when he'd also spoken of its music as 
 " sweet-cat sorrow." This, of course, was towards the end of 
 
372 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 the day and in the evening, when the men were resting after 
 their hard work in the boat — so hard that, in addition to two 
 hours' rest at midday, I simply had to call them in about four 
 o'clock each day. No other work was attempted at that time. 
 
 Baily, if my recollections are true, brought out the gramo- 
 phone on the first afternoon of the Old Man being on deck, 
 and this caused him to ask for " the cat — that squeaking cat 
 that made the nice noises." Tumbling to what he meant, I 
 got Baily to play his " fiddle." So it was every evening. And, 
 although I hadn't then taken much to its peculiar music, 
 I'm bound to admit that Lionel is right in saying it was really 
 wonderful in its pathetic sweetness. To my mind it was an 
 experience — that music in that situation — such as you 
 wouldn't get twice in a lifetime, and wouldn't want to, either, 
 not even if you were sure of getting out of it all right. How- 
 ever, it had a rare power of soothing, quietening on both the 
 Old Man and the men. Not that he was awkward at all; 
 but while it was going he just sat still, with his eyes shut, 
 and never spoke, although all the rest of the time he was 
 chattering incessantly. 
 
 At the same time that which I had wanted Lionel to do 
 came along in its own way. He was driven aft by circumstances. 
 When the men went for'ard, after my talk to them, some of 
 'em remembered my reference to Whymper's yarn and 
 wondered how I got to hear of it. Mc'Arthy was talking of it 
 as they entered the fo'c's'le, Lionel told me; and right away 
 he felt guilty. Well, we all know what it is to feel guilty in a 
 case like that. It made him pretty miserable, and more and 
 more so because from that hour they — Hines and Mc'Arthy 
 at first — treated him with suspicion ; then they all ostracised 
 him; he wasn't one of 'em. Naturally he hadn't been more 
 than half one of 'em all the time ; but, then, he had played the 
 game in everything. 
 
 In his presence, during that day and the next, the two sus- 
 picious ones got up talk about the yarn, wondered how I knew 
 of it, asked this and that one if they had told me. Every one 
 of 'em denied having spoken of it either to me or to the second 
 mate, at any time. So Lionel was judged guilty and sent to 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 373 
 
 Coventry by most of the crowd. Baily, he said, was the only 
 one that didn't change towards him. Even the nigger gave 
 him the cold shoulder. Of course, somehow or other they must 
 have connected it — my knowing of the yarn, I mean — with my 
 throwing the bone overboard before they came to me. 
 
 At the same time, however, Young told me that there were 
 grumblings in the boat during the day, because Anderson was 
 not taking a turn there. (It was I who kept him aboard to 
 steer every day, against his wish.) And he was getting such 
 back-handers in the fo'c's'le that he had to stand up for him- 
 self, with the result that Hines got a thrashing on the fore- 
 deck, where the house prevented any one aft from witnessing 
 what was going on. You see, Lionel was tall and unusually 
 strong and well-built for his age; perhaps that was why 
 Booster — next on turn — didn't come up again when Lionel 
 knocked him down over the same thing at dinner next day. 
 
 However, when they turned-to again Booster had a fine 
 black eye. But the mate of a ship isn't a schoolmaster; he 
 takes no stock of that sort of thing, providing it's done on the 
 quiet and out of working hours. Only while I was aft, attend- 
 ing to the Old Man more than anything else, it occurred to 
 me to ask Lionel what had been on at dinner-time. Naturally, 
 I didn't want additional trouble of any sort at that time. He 
 tried to edge the thing off; but it wouldn't work. That only 
 made me keener to know, and at last I got it all out of him. 
 
 " And now," said I, " I should think you wish you had come 
 aft at first." 
 
 I meant when I first suggested it. He as good as admitted 
 he did, and that was enough. His things were all aft when 
 the men came aboard again. And I told 'em, there and then 
 on the deck, who he was; that / hadn't known till the last 
 few days; that he was no spy on them, but had shipped as 
 honestly as any one of 'em; and that they had only them- 
 selves to blame for not having his help in the work all the 
 way home — which was a bit of a sell to them, you may be 
 sure, seeing that they were already one hand short. 
 
 Without any further to do I made Young chief mate, and 
 put Lionel down, for form's sake, as second. Then, in addition 
 
374 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 to what he had already learnt in practice, he insisted that I 
 should give him lessons, in theory, as to how to shorten sail 
 in given circumstances. And we did this during the evenings, 
 while the Old Man chattered away to himself in his cabin, 
 with the door open, so that I could keep an eye on him, as I 
 hated to shut him up whenever I could avoid it. 
 
 While this went on the second mate also kept to his berth, 
 or sat smoking on deck, although I told him he was just 
 as welcome to the saloon as ever. He was, in fact, something 
 of a joke to Lionel and me over that; because he no sooner 
 understood who Lionel was than he was all " sir," as if he 
 were the gold-braided chief officer of a Western Ocean " grey- 
 hound," and Lionel his second, with a coldness between 
 'em. But the funniest part of it was when he happened to 
 go into the saloon and Lionel was there. Right away at once 
 he would doff cap, " beg pardon, sir," and out again, or pass 
 through sheepishly, if he had come down the companion- 
 way and was going to his berth. And we couldn't break him 
 of this, either. What is more to the point, I firmly believe 
 it was genuine. With all his faults he was no sycophant, 
 wasn't Young; he was too wooden and not calculating 
 enough for that. 
 
 I still kept up the same system of night watches, mine 
 being the first — eight to twelve o'clock. This was so that 
 there should be no break in the general working of things 
 while we were in the weed, and to keep Lionel at the wheel 
 each day. 
 
 Well, to get back to the subject: I was all the time doing 
 my utmost to work the barque out of that infernal weed, the 
 galling beauty of which never got a hold on me as it did on 
 Lionel. Then there were new additions to my anxiety in 
 the facts that our lime-juice had run out, making me think 
 rather bitterly of the ad lib. portions served out in the Pacific 
 Doldrums; and that I had thought it wise to reduce both 
 water and rations a bit further. It was in connection with 
 the latter, when leaving the tea-table one day, that I 
 
 1 A sailor's tea is his last meal for the clay. It comes at five o'clock, 
 and is a combination of tea and supper — a very substantial meal. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 375 
 
 had occasion to tell Young, in answer to some half- veiled 
 grumbling — remember he was a man with a belly: 
 
 " If you're not satisfied, go to your room and get an 
 imaginary feed off those things you had out of the cabin- 
 stores, and which we could do very well with just now — all 
 of us." 
 
 As for water: Neither Lionel, Young nor I had indulged 
 in a wash for over a week. But when the boat came alongside 
 on the Sunday afternoon, I decided that, come what might, 
 we would go to tea with clean faces, whether we ever had 
 the luxury again or not. So, after some discussion as to who 
 should be the first to use the three quarts of water (my 
 allowance for the triple ablutions), Lionel or I — he urging 
 me, and me urging him — Young, seeing that he was to be 
 Number Three in any case, asked why we could not each 
 have a third of the water and make the best we could of it. 
 Lionel and I looked at one another. Honestly, that idea 
 hadn't occurred to me, and apparently not to Lionel. And 
 what could we do but agree? Young was worth his quart 
 for that, at any rate. Whether or not he afterwards washed 
 a shirt in it, I don't know; he may have done, for that was 
 what I did with little more than a quart of water once or 
 twice during my apprenticeship. 
 
 The next thing of any note was the killing of Denis. He 
 ought to have been killed before; but I knew some of the 
 men would miss him rather badly, and so be more inclined 
 to cause trouble. It was : Anything for peace and hard work. 
 All the same, Denis would have been settled with before 
 then, except that he could live mainly on the potatoes that 
 were too bad for us to eat. Now, however, they were gone, 
 and he had to go too. Lionel was really very sorry. He 
 would have liked to take Denis home, I think. Scotty, also, 
 was troubled. He refused to lend the cook a hand to kill and 
 dress the pig; neither would he eat any of it afterwards, I 
 heard. In fact, it seemed to me that every one hated the 
 job, or thereabouts, except the cook; and he, because he 
 had to feed Denis, hated him enough to kill him. 
 
 As I say, I had been doing my best to get her out of it. 
 
376 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 We had gone in, according to my reckonings, somewhere 
 near what I should call the south-west corner of the oval; 
 and to avoid being drawn into the heart of the thing — where 
 we might really have stuck and starved and rotted away — 
 I had striven to work her back to the south-east, where I 
 knew I should have the least current against me. 
 
 Once I felt sure I saw the centre from the fore-masthead, 
 where I went two or three times a day to find out where 
 the best " lanes " Were. You see, they were so narrow that 
 we couldn't turn the barque in most of 'em, without getting 
 stuck in the thick weed. As for working the boat in it : That 
 was impossible. So I had to keep a good look-out for what 
 seemed to be the best ways. And it was while I was aloft on 
 this job that I saw what I put down to be the middle of 
 the Sargasso. It lay broad-away our port beam (We were 
 heading nearly east at the time, allowing for the defect in 
 the compass.) ; it went north beyond the horizon apparently, 
 and stretched east and west as far as I could see. In the 
 distance it was nearly black — had something solid and real 
 blackish about it. 
 
 Since then I've seen the dead and decaying weed, a very 
 dark brown, on some of the West India islands, and the 
 Bermudas, where it's used for manure. And I should say 
 the difference between it and what I saw from the masthead 
 that day was no more than the difference of distance, mass, 
 and the fact that the mass was still wet. But the worst of 
 it was a dank smell of something rotting, that came along 
 in a cat's-paw — not like shore vegetation. No. The sea gave 
 it a tang of its own. The idea of it alone was ghastly. I came 
 down that rigging with the shivery feeling of a man who has 
 looked on his grave, and that is a much more awful thing 
 than merely being buried. 
 
 Young and the men had smelt it ; so had every one of us. 
 They mentioned it when they came aboard at four o'clock. 
 For that reason I took the occasion to tell them what I 
 thought it was; how I was trying to work the barque out 
 of the weed, and how it seemed as if I should succeed. I 
 told them this to encourage them to do their utmost, both 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 377 
 
 in fear of what lay there to the north of us, and in new hope 
 to escape sooner than they expected to. 
 
 After that I took all the good s'utherly " lanes " I could 
 find, or nearly all. A week later I was daily expecting enough 
 wind to make me call the boat alongside. During the past 
 two days I had seen an occasional fringe of a cloud-bank at 
 the north-eastern horizon, and the glass had gone down a 
 tenth. But I said nothing to any one except Lionel, lest I 
 should be mistaken, and their hearts go slump in consequence. 
 At the time they might have known something of the sort 
 themselves, because the " fields " were lessening perceptibly 
 both in area and number. 
 
 Then it came. Early in the afternoon I was aloft on my 
 usual errand, when I saw a ripple on a broad " lane " away 
 to the north-east of us. I watched it for a few minutes, my 
 heart thumping with hope, I can assure you. I noticed it 
 cross a brown " field " nearer towards us, touch another 
 blue " lane," then peter out to a cat's-paw before reaching 
 us. You can imagine what I felt. The next minute I spied 
 what appeared to be a second rippled " lane " ahead of us. 
 So up the topmast rigging I went, fast enough to make the 
 perspiration run out of me. In an instant my glasses were 
 on the " find." Yes; it was the same light air, and beyond 
 that I could see where it was more of a breeze. 
 
 Being sure now, I shouted my news to the boat, encouraged 
 them to pull harder, and I must say I had never seen men 
 pull as they did. After a glance at the yards, braces, etc., 
 as I came down to the fore-top again (We were tight up on 
 the port tack.), I waited awhile in the top, gazing anxiously 
 ahead under the foot of the to'psel. Then, as if I were yelling 
 deliriously at my own deliverance from death, I shouted, 
 
 "Boat aboard! Drop alongside! Come on, men! Here's 
 the wind." 
 
 I next turned and called to Lionel to look out for the 
 breeze, watch the barque carefully and keep her sails full, 
 but not get her into the weed. At that moment I saw, without 
 heeding, that the Old Man was on his feet outside the " tent." 
 Then, just as I'd done as an apprentice, I jumped at a back- 
 
378 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 stay, and went down it like a monkey. To hasten the men 
 up I ran on to the fo'c's'le-head. But they needed no urging. 
 They were already under the bow. They had felt the cool 
 draught on their sweating, burning faces. As they came 
 over the side, I hurried aft, telling them to slacken the boat 
 astern (I was afraid of hoisting it in before I knew that it 
 wouldn't be wanted again.), and sending Young on to the 
 bow to act as pilot along the " lane." 
 
 On the poop I found the Old Man decidedly excited, but 
 keeping it in as if he were in his senses. By a glance at him 
 I was sure he had some inkling of what was taking place. 
 Without thinking there was anything more in it than this, 
 I looked aloft, saw the lighter sails begin to swell out, felt 
 my heart swell with them, shouted to Young to know if the 
 barque was heading aright, got the answer: "Yes, sir!" 
 then had the blessed feeling of her responding to the breeze, 
 and heard the low, sweet sound, half-hiss, half-bubble, 
 of the water along her sides. And, great Heaven, how sweet 
 it was! 
 
 Just then Lionel called my attention to the Old Man. 
 He was standing by the skylight, holding on to it and swaying 
 a bit. I ran aft to him, to get him into his tent. He looked 
 at me in a way I can't describe beyond this: From the 
 expression in his eyes and face he might have known every 
 detail of the affair, seen that we were really being delivered 
 out of it, but he unable to express his feelings because of 
 having been just struck dumb, and he a little vacant at it, 
 yet oceans too happy to care for that. 
 
 " Come along, you dear old chap," I said, leading him into 
 the^ tent," " let's put you safe again for a bit. Would to the 
 Almighty you could enjoy this as we're doing! " 
 
 With that I hitched up his door again, while he gazed up at 
 me in that joyful, rather empty way, saying, 
 
 " I've been an' looked — I've seen." 
 
 " Yes, and I wish to God you understood," said I. 
 
 " Did you read my dream? " he asked, as I turned away, 
 saw that the wind was coming aft and hurried off to have the 
 yards checked in. 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 379 
 
 When the work was done, and I had been up the rigging 
 again to see what the " lane " was like well ahead, I made for 
 the binnacle to ascertain where the " lane " was leading us. 
 This took me past the Old Man's tent. He wasn't in his chair. 
 So, wonderingly, I snatched a look inside. There he was on 
 the deck, had rolled out of the chair evidently, as he lay rather 
 crumpled up at the side of it. Thinking, of course, that it was 
 another fit of unconsciousness, I yanked the " door " open, 
 had him on his back in a second, felt there was something un- 
 usually queer about him, then found out the miserable truth. 
 He was dead. 
 
 I fetched up a blanket, reverently covered him over, then 
 told Lionel ; and was debating whether or not to tell Young, 
 or leave it till night, when the boy came up with the Old 
 Man's afternoon cup of tea. He was at the body before I could 
 stop him, because I had been standing by the weather rail, 
 for'ard withal. The result was a cry — nearly a shriek, in fact — ■ 
 as I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. He 
 had just uncovered the face. Down went cup and saucer bang 
 on the deck. I put the blanket back, and led the boy away, 
 talking to him as best I could, and telling him to go below and 
 say nothing to any one till I told him to. 
 
 Next I tore down the tent and spread it over the body; 
 because any one who saw the blanket, with the body outlined, 
 might guess the truth. Then I changed my mind, sent Chips 
 to take the second mate's place, called the latter aft, carried 
 the body down at once — lest some one should blunder over 
 the canvas — and swore him to secrecy for the present. I was 
 afraid, in a sense, that if the men knew of the Old Man's 
 death, and the wind fell away again at once, they might become 
 downhearted, think he was only the first to go, and have but 
 little work left in them. 
 
 Happily, however, the wind held, and was a good, gentle 
 breeze by the second dog-watch, with every prospect of con- 
 tinuing at that, and the " lanes " getting wider as we went. 
 So I called all hands together, told them what had happened, 
 reminded them of the conduct of men when death was aboard, 
 and said the funeral would be at sundown next day. 
 
3 8o THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 About mid-afternoon Chips and Baily had the coffin ready. 
 Of course, it wasn't an imitation of a shore-made affair; but 
 just what we could put together within the time. It wasn't 
 even planed. We lined and covered it with bunting instead, 
 and weighted it with plenty of old iron, which we put between 
 the real and a " false " bottom. I did this because I couldn't 
 bear to think of his body being served as the poor woman had, 
 whose hair he had treasured in a way. I painted his name, age 
 and occupation on the lid myself. 
 
 Then we took it into his cabin and laid him gently in it. At 
 that instant something said to me: " Into the box — Out of 
 the box." And I had the missing part of the dream, the part 
 that had eluded me, by my recollection of the Old Man, as he 
 himself caught the first glimpse of the allegory. There it was 
 complete. Our escape from the weed and his death — " into 
 the box "■ — were his " Out of the box," " made again," at the 
 outset of his dream. 
 
 As the sun neared the horizon under a bank of cloud, we 
 backed the main-yard, brought the barque to a standstill, and 
 while the bare-headed crew stood round, I read the Service for 
 Burial at Sea — the saddest thing I've done so far. And when 
 the red disc was half-way into the water, Young raised his end 
 of the plank till the lower one just touched the water, through 
 the after-port. The coffin — greased underneath to avoid any 
 unseemly pushing— slid easily down, and disappeared without' 
 a splash. Heaven knows I was sick enough at heart on turning 
 in-board ; but by far the saddest of us all was the boy, and his 
 sadness stuck to him till we arrived in London — how long 
 after that I don't know, because, although I offered to take 
 him with me on the next voyage, I never saw him after 
 signing-off. 
 
 On the poop I watched the sunset effects — thinking. I 
 didn't want to talk to any one, not even about him we had 
 just buried. Cumulus light-grey piles of cloud were gathering 
 in front of the bank above the sunset — the bank that seemed 
 to have lifted to let the sun have a clear setting, and was itself 
 then becoming a purple-black. There were a few acres of reds 
 at each end of it, and pearly-grey was over all. Northerly of 
 
THE BARQUE SAPPHO 381 
 
 the sunset a big, dark-grey, lumpy cloud, like a small moun- 
 tain of more or less soiled snow, appeared to be quite close — 
 close enough to darken the still lessening patches of weed and 
 the white-tipped, little blue waves. That cloud seemed to be 
 close because of a small bank behind it being so far away, and 
 at once I saw how typical it was of what we had just left 
 behind. S'utherly of the sunset there was a far-away back- 
 ground of real greeny-blue, beginning from a finger's breadth 
 above the horizon, the bottom of it being higher as it went 
 east; while the space between it and the water's edge was 
 filled with piled-up clouds that looked wonderfully like soft 
 snow. In the other parts of the heavens there were broad and 
 narrow streaks of pinky-greyey-white vapour backed by the 
 greeny-blue, which was soon a blue that defied naming and 
 was full of twinkling spots of light. 
 
 And so I stood there, looking heavenward and about me 
 and thinking — of him; of those sunset symbols, which he 
 would have seen so readily, if our places had been changed; 
 of his dream and its allegory in life ; of the things we see, yet 
 miss their significance, and suffer so much because of doing 
 so ; of what I've read of as " the immutable sadness of things " ; 
 of the unspeakable, pathetic impotence of wishing him there 
 to hear and feel the music of that north-east trade wind, and 
 to feel once more the lively movement of the barque; but 
 most of all of him — thinking — thinking. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Six-bells, afternoon watch. 
 
 May 5, 1917. N. Atlantic: 5*24' N., 25 40' W. 
 
 Just struck the north-east trade. 
 
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