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diff --git a/2415-h/2415-h.htm b/2415-h/2415-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7c1da8 --- /dev/null +++ b/2415-h/2415-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,17315 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mutiny of the Elsinore, by Jack London</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mutiny of the Elsinore, by Jack London</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Mutiny of the Elsinore</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jack London</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 2000 [eBook #2415]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 20, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price and Rab Hughes</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MUTINY OF THE ELSINORE ***</div> + +<h1>The Mutiny of the Elsinore</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break"> +by<br /> +JACK LONDON</h2> + +<p class="center"> +MILLS & BOON, LIMITED<br /> +49 RUPERT STREET<br /> +LONDON, W. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Published 1915</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Copyright in the United States of America by</i> Jack London +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">CHAPTER XL.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER XLI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER XLII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER XLIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">CHAPTER XLIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER XLV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">CHAPTER XLVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">CHAPTER XLVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">CHAPTER XLVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap49">CHAPTER XLIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap50">CHAPTER L.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +From the first the voyage was going wrong. Routed out of my hotel on a bitter +March morning, I had crossed Baltimore and reached the pier-end precisely on +time. At nine o’clock the tug was to have taken me down the bay and put +me on board the <i>Elsinore</i>, and with growing irritation I sat frozen +inside my taxicab and waited. On the seat, outside, the driver and Wada sat +hunched in a temperature perhaps half a degree colder than mine. And there was +no tug. +</p> + +<p> +Possum, the fox-terrier puppy Galbraith had so inconsiderately foisted upon me, +whimpered and shivered on my lap inside my greatcoat and under the fur robe. +But he would not settle down. Continually he whimpered and clawed and struggled +to get out. And, once out and bitten by the cold, with equal insistence he +whimpered and clawed to get back. +</p> + +<p> +His unceasing plaint and movement was anything but sedative to my jangled +nerves. In the first place I was uninterested in the brute. He meant nothing to +me. I did not know him. Time and again, as I drearily waited, I was on the +verge of giving him to the driver. Once, when two little girls—evidently +the wharfinger’s daughters—went by, my hand reached out to the door +to open it so that I might call to them and present them with the puling little +wretch. +</p> + +<p> +A farewell surprise package from Galbraith, he had arrived at the hotel the +night before, by express from New York. It was Galbraith’s way. Yet he +might so easily have been decently like other folk and sent fruit . . . or +flowers, even. But no; his affectionate inspiration had to take the form of a +yelping, yapping two months’ old puppy. And with the advent of the +terrier the trouble had begun. The hotel clerk judged me a criminal before the +act I had not even had time to meditate. And then Wada, on his own initiative +and out of his own foolish stupidity, had attempted to smuggle the puppy into +his room and been caught by a house detective. Promptly Wada had forgotten all +his English and lapsed into hysterical Japanese, and the house detective +remembered only his Irish; while the hotel clerk had given me to understand in +no uncertain terms that it was only what he had expected of me. +</p> + +<p> +Damn the dog, anyway! And damn Galbraith too! And as I froze on in the cab on +that bleak pier-end, I damned myself as well, and the mad freak that had +started me voyaging on a sailing-ship around the Horn. +</p> + +<p> +By ten o’clock a nondescript youth arrived on foot, carrying a suit-case, +which was turned over to me a few minutes later by the wharfinger. It belonged +to the pilot, he said, and gave instructions to the chauffeur how to find some +other pier from which, at some indeterminate time, I should be taken aboard the +<i>Elsinore</i> by some other tug. This served to increase my irritation. Why +should I not have been informed as well as the pilot? +</p> + +<p> +An hour later, still in my cab and stationed at the shore end of the new pier, +the pilot arrived. Anything more unlike a pilot I could not have imagined. Here +was no blue-jacketed, weather-beaten son of the sea, but a soft-spoken +gentleman, for all the world the type of successful business man one meets in +all the clubs. He introduced himself immediately, and I invited him to share my +freezing cab with Possum and the baggage. That some change had been made in the +arrangements by Captain West was all he knew, though he fancied the tug would +come along any time. +</p> + +<p> +And it did, at one in the afternoon, after I had been compelled to wait and +freeze for four mortal hours. During this time I fully made up my mind that I +was not going to like this Captain West. Although I had never met him, his +treatment of me from the outset had been, to say the least, cavalier. When the +<i>Elsinore</i> lay in Erie Basin, just arrived from California with a cargo of +barley, I had crossed over from New York to inspect what was to be my home for +many months. I had been delighted with the ship and the cabin accommodation. +Even the stateroom selected for me was satisfactory and far more spacious than +I had expected. But when I peeped into the captain’s room I was amazed at +its comfort. When I say that it opened directly into a bath-room, and that, +among other things, it was furnished with a big brass bed such as one would +never suspect to find at sea, I have said enough. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally, I had resolved that the bath-room and the big brass bed should be +mine. When I asked the agents to arrange with the captain they seemed +non-committal and uncomfortable. “I don’t know in the least what it +is worth,” I said. “And I don’t care. Whether it costs one +hundred and fifty dollars or five hundred, I must have those quarters.” +</p> + +<p> +Harrison and Gray, the agents, debated silently with each other and scarcely +thought Captain West would see his way to the arrangement. “Then he is +the first sea captain I ever heard of that wouldn’t,” I asserted +confidently. “Why, the captains of all the Atlantic liners regularly sell +their quarters.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Captain West is not the captain of an Atlantic liner,” Mr. +Harrison observed gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember, I am to be on that ship many a month,” I retorted. +“Why, heavens, bid him up to a thousand if necessary.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll try,” said Mr. Gray, “but we warn you not to +place too much dependence on our efforts. Captain West is in Searsport at the +present time, and we will write him to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +To my astonishment Mr. Gray called me up several days later to inform me that +Captain West had declined my offer. “Did you offer him up to a +thousand?” I demanded. “What did he say?” +</p> + +<p> +“He regretted that he was unable to concede what you asked,” Mr. +Gray replied. +</p> + +<p> +A day later I received a letter from Captain West. The writing and the wording +were old-fashioned and formal. He regretted not having yet met me, and assured +me that he would see personally that my quarters were made comfortable. For +that matter he had already dispatched orders to Mr. Pike, the first mate of the +<i>Elsinore</i>, to knock out the partition between my state-room and the spare +state-room adjoining. Further—and here is where my dislike for Captain +West began—he informed me that if, when once well at sea, I should find +myself dissatisfied, he would gladly, in that case, exchange quarters with me. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, after such a rebuff, I knew that no circumstance could ever persuade +me to occupy Captain West’s brass bed. And it was this Captain Nathaniel +West, whom I had not yet met, who had now kept me freezing on pier-ends through +four miserable hours. The less I saw of him on the voyage the better, was my +decision; and it was with a little tickle of pleasure that I thought of the +many boxes of books I had dispatched on board from New York. Thank the Lord, I +did not depend on sea captains for entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +I turned Possum over to Wada, who was settling with the cabman, and while the +tug’s sailors were carrying my luggage on board I was led by the pilot to +an introduction with Captain West. At the first glimpse I knew that he was no +more a sea captain than the pilot was a pilot. I had seen the best of the +breed, the captains of the liners, and he no more resembled them than did he +resemble the bluff-faced, gruff-voiced skippers I had read about in books. By +his side stood a woman, of whom little was to be seen and who made a warm and +gorgeous blob of colour in the huge muff and boa of red fox in which she was +well-nigh buried. +</p> + +<p> +“My God!—his wife!” I darted in a whisper at the pilot. +“Going along with him? . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +I had expressly stipulated with Mr. Harrison, when engaging passage, that the +one thing I could not possibly consider was the skipper of the <i>Elsinore</i> +taking his wife on the voyage. And Mr. Harrison had smiled and assured me that +Captain West would sail unaccompanied by a wife. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s his daughter,” the pilot replied under his breath. +“Come to see him off, I fancy. His wife died over a year ago. They say +that is what sent him back to sea. He’d retired, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain West advanced to meet me, and before our outstretched hands touched, +before his face broke from repose to greeting and the lips moved to speech, I +got the first astonishing impact of his personality. Long, lean, in his face a +touch of race I as yet could only sense, he was as cool as the day was cold, as +poised as a king or emperor, as remote as the farthest fixed star, as neutral +as a proposition of Euclid. And then, just ere our hands met, a twinkle +of—oh—such distant and controlled geniality quickened the many tiny +wrinkles in the corner of the eyes; the clear blue of the eyes was suffused by +an almost colourful warmth; the face, too, seemed similarly to suffuse; the +thin lips, harsh-set the instant before, were as gracious as Bernhardt’s +when she moulds sound into speech. +</p> + +<p> +So curiously was I affected by this first glimpse of Captain West that I was +aware of expecting to fall from his lips I knew not what words of untold +beneficence and wisdom. Yet he uttered most commonplace regrets at the delay in +a voice provocative of fresh surprise to me. It was low and gentle, almost too +low, yet clear as a bell and touched with a faint reminiscent twang of old New +England. +</p> + +<p> +“And this is the young woman who is guilty of the delay,” he +concluded my introduction to his daughter. “Margaret, this is Mr. +Pathurst.” +</p> + +<p> +Her gloved hand promptly emerged from the fox-skins to meet mine, and I found +myself looking into a pair of gray eyes bent steadily and gravely upon me. It +was discomfiting, that cool, penetrating, searching gaze. It was not that it +was challenging, but that it was so insolently business-like. It was much in +the very way one would look at a new coachman he was about to engage. I did not +know then that she was to go on the voyage, and that her curiosity about the +man who was to be a fellow-passenger for half a year was therefore only +natural. Immediately she realized what she was doing, and her lips and eyes +smiled as she spoke. +</p> + +<p> +As we moved on to enter the tug’s cabin I heard Possum’s shivering +whimper rising to a screech, and went forward to tell Wada to take the creature +in out of the cold. I found him hovering about my luggage, wedging my +dressing-case securely upright by means of my little automatic rifle. I was +startled by the mountain of luggage around which mine was no more than a +fringe. Ship’s stores, was my first thought, until I noted the number of +trunks, boxes, suit-cases, and parcels and bundles of all sorts. The initials +on what looked suspiciously like a woman’s hat trunk caught my +eye—“M.W.” Yet Captain West’s first name was Nathaniel. +On closer investigation I did find several “N.W’s.” but +everywhere I could see “M.W’s.” Then I remembered that he had +called her Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +I was too angry to return to the cabin, and paced up and down the cold deck +biting my lips with vexation. I had so expressly stipulated with the agents +that no captain’s wife was to come along. The last thing under the sun I +desired in the pet quarters of a ship was a woman. But I had never thought +about a captain’s daughter. For two cents I was ready to throw the voyage +over and return on the tug to Baltimore. +</p> + +<p> +By the time the wind caused by our speed had chilled me bitterly, I noticed +Miss West coming along the narrow deck, and could not avoid being struck by the +spring and vitality of her walk. Her face, despite its firm moulding, had a +suggestion of fragility that was belied by the robustness of her body. At +least, one would argue that her body must be robust from her fashion of +movement of it, though little could one divine the lines of it under the +shapelessness of the furs. +</p> + +<p> +I turned away on my heel and fell moodily to contemplating the mountain of +luggage. A huge packing-case attracted my attention, and I was staring at it +when she spoke at my shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what really caused the delay,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I asked incuriously. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, the <i>Elsinore’s</i> piano, all renovated. When I made up my +mind to come, I telegraphed Mr. Pike—he’s the mate, you know. He +did his best. It was the fault of the piano house. And while we waited to-day I +gave them a piece of my mind they’ll not forget in a hurry.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed at the recollection, and commenced to peep and peer into the +luggage as if in search of some particular piece. Having satisfied herself, she +was starting back, when she paused and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you come into the cabin where it’s warm? We +won’t be there for half an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“When did you decide to make this voyage?” I demanded abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +So quick was the look she gave me that I knew she had in that moment caught all +my disgruntlement and disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Two days ago,” she answered. “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +Her readiness for give and take took me aback, and before I could speak she +went on: +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’re not to be at all silly about my coming, Mr. Pathurst. I +probably know more about long-voyaging than you do, and we’re all going +to be comfortable and happy. You can’t bother me, and I promise you I +won’t bother you. I’ve sailed with passengers before, and +I’ve learned to put up with more than they ever proved they were able to +put up with. So there. Let us start right, and it won’t be any trouble to +keep on going right. I know what is the matter with you. You think you’ll +be called upon to entertain me. Please know that I do not need entertainment. I +never saw the longest voyage that was too long, and I always arrive at the end +with too many things not done for the passage ever to have been tedious, and . +. . I don’t play <i>Chopsticks</i>.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +The <i>Elsinore</i>, fresh-loaded with coal, lay very deep in the water when we +came alongside. I knew too little about ships to be capable of admiring her +lines, and, besides, I was in no mood for admiration. I was still debating with +myself whether or not to chuck the whole thing and return on the tug. From all +of which it must not be taken that I am a vacillating type of man. On the +contrary. +</p> + +<p> +The trouble was that at no time, from the first thought of it, had I been keen +for the voyage. Practically the reason I was taking it was because there was +nothing else I was keen on. For some time now life had lost its savour. I was +not jaded, nor was I exactly bored. But the zest had gone out of things. I had +lost taste for my fellow-men and all their foolish, little, serious endeavours. +For a far longer period I had been dissatisfied with women. I had endured them, +but I had been too analytic of the faults of their primitiveness, of their +almost ferocious devotion to the destiny of sex, to be enchanted with them. And +I had come to be oppressed by what seemed to me the futility of art—a +pompous legerdemain, a consummate charlatanry that deceived not only its +devotees but its practitioners. +</p> + +<p> +In short, I was embarking on the <i>Elsinore</i> because it was easier to than +not; yet everything else was as equally and perilously easy. That was the curse +of the condition into which I had fallen. That was why, as I stepped upon the +deck of the <i>Elsinore</i>, I was half of a mind to tell them to keep my +luggage where it was and bid Captain West and his daughter good-day. +</p> + +<p> +I almost think what decided me was the welcoming, hospitable smile Miss West +gave me as she started directly across the deck for the cabin, and the +knowledge that it must be quite warm in the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike, the mate, I had already met, when I visited the ship in Erie Basin. +He smiled a stiff, crack-faced smile that I knew must be painful, but did not +offer to shake hands, turning immediately to call orders to half-a-dozen +frozen-looking youths and aged men who shambled up from somewhere in the waist +of the ship. Mr. Pike had been drinking. That was patent. His face was puffed +and discoloured, and his large gray eyes were bitter and bloodshot. +</p> + +<p> +I lingered, with a sinking heart watching my belongings come aboard and chiding +my weakness of will which prevented me from uttering the few words that would +put a stop to it. As for the half-dozen men who were now carrying the luggage +aft into the cabin, they were unlike any concept I had ever entertained of +sailors. Certainly, on the liners, I had observed nothing that resembled them. +</p> + +<p> +One, a most vivid-faced youth of eighteen, smiled at me from a pair of +remarkable Italian eyes. But he was a dwarf. So short was he that he was all +sea-boots and sou’wester. And yet he was not entirely Italian. So certain +was I that I asked the mate, who answered morosely: +</p> + +<p> +“Him? Shorty? He’s a dago half-breed. The other half’s Jap or +Malay.” +</p> + +<p> +One old man, who I learned was a bosun, was so decrepit that I thought he had +been recently injured. His face was stolid and ox-like, and as he shuffled and +dragged his brogans over the deck he paused every several steps to place both +hands on his abdomen and execute a queer, pressing, lifting movement. Months +were to pass, in which I saw him do this thousands of times, ere I learned that +there was nothing the matter with him and that his action was purely a habit. +His face reminded me of the Man with the Hoe, save that it was unthinkably and +abysmally stupider. And his name, as I was to learn, of all names was Sundry +Buyers. And he was bosun of the fine American sailing-ship +<i>Elsinore</i>—rated one of the finest sailing-ships afloat! +</p> + +<p> +Of this group of aged men and boys that moved the luggage along I saw only one, +called Henry, a youth of sixteen, who approximated in the slightest what I had +conceived all sailors to be like. He had come off a training ship, the mate +told me, and this was his first voyage to sea. His face was keen-cut, alert, as +were his bodily movements, and he wore sailor-appearing clothes with +sailor-seeming grace. In fact, as I was to learn, he was to be the only +sailor-seeming creature fore and aft. +</p> + +<p> +The main crew had not yet come aboard, but was expected at any moment, the mate +vouchsafed with a snarl of ominous expectancy. Those already on board were the +miscellaneous ones who had shipped themselves in New York without the mediation +of boarding-house masters. And what the crew itself would be like God alone +could tell—so said the mate. Shorty, the Japanese (or Malay) and Italian +half-caste, the mate told me, was an able seaman, though he had come out of +steam and this was his first sailing voyage. +</p> + +<p> +“Ordinary seamen!” Mr. Pike snorted, in reply to a question. +“We don’t carry Landsmen!—forget it! Every clodhopper +an’ cow-walloper these days is an able seaman. That’s the way they +rank and are paid. The merchant service is all shot to hell. There ain’t +no more sailors. They all died years ago, before you were born even.” +</p> + +<p> +I could smell the raw whiskey on the mate’s breath. Yet he did not +stagger nor show any signs of intoxication. Not until afterward was I to know +that his willingness to talk was most unwonted and was where the liquor gave +him away. +</p> + +<p> +“It’d a-ben a grace had I died years ago,” he said, +“rather than to a-lived to see sailors an’ ships pass away from the +sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I understand the <i>Elsinore</i> is considered one of the +finest,” I urged. +</p> + +<p> +“So she is . . . to-day. But what is she?—a damned cargo-carrier. +She ain’t built for sailin’, an’ if she was there ain’t +no sailors left to sail her. Lord! Lord! The old clippers! When I think of +’em!—<i>The Gamecock</i>, <i>Shootin’ Star</i>, +<i>Flyin’ Fish</i>, <i>Witch o’ the Wave</i>, <i>Staghound</i>, +<i>Harvey Birch</i>, <i>Canvas-back</i>, <i>Fleetwing</i>, <i>Sea Serpent</i>, +<i>Northern Light</i>! An’ when I think of the fleets of the tea-clippers +that used to load at Hong Kong an’ race the Eastern Passages. A fine +sight! A fine sight!” +</p> + +<p> +I was interested. Here was a man, a live man. I was in no hurry to go into the +cabin, where I knew Wada was unpacking my things, so I paced up and down the +deck with the huge Mr. Pike. Huge he was in all conscience, broad-shouldered, +heavy-boned, and, despite the profound stoop of his shoulders, fully six feet +in height. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a splendid figure of a man,” I complimented. +</p> + +<p> +“I was, I was,” he muttered sadly, and I caught the whiff of +whiskey strong on the air. +</p> + +<p> +I stole a look at his gnarled hands. Any finger would have made three of mine. +His wrist would have made three of my wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you weigh?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Two hundred an’ ten. But in my day, at my best, I tipped the +scales close to two-forty.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the <i>Elsinore</i> can’t sail,” I said, returning to +the subject which had roused him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take you even, anything from a pound of tobacco to a +month’s wages, she won’t make it around in a hundred an’ +fifty days,” he answered. “Yet I’ve come round in the old +<i>Flyin’ Cloud</i> in eighty-nine days—eighty-nine days, sir, from +Sandy Hook to ’Frisco. Sixty men for’ard that <i>was</i> men, +an’ eight boys, an’ drive! drive! drive! Three hundred an’ +seventy-four miles for a day’s run under t’gallantsails, an’ +in the squalls eighteen knots o’ line not enough to time her. Eighty-nine +days—never beat, an’ tied once by the old <i>Andrew Jackson</i> +nine years afterwards. Them was the days!” +</p> + +<p> +“When did the <i>Andrew Jackson</i> tie her?” I asked, because of +the growing suspicion that he was “having” me. +</p> + +<p> +“In 1860,” was his prompt reply. +</p> + +<p> +“And you sailed in the <i>Flying Cloud</i> nine years before that, and +this is 1913—why, that was sixty-two years ago,” I charged. +</p> + +<p> +“And I was seven years old,” he chuckled. “My mother was +stewardess on the <i>Flyin’ Cloud</i>. I was born at sea. I was boy when +I was twelve, on the <i>Herald o’ the Morn</i>, when she made around in +ninety-nine days—half the crew in irons most o’ the time, five men +lost from aloft off the Horn, the points of our sheath-knives broken square +off, knuckle-dusters an’ belayin’-pins flyin’, three men shot +by the officers in one day, the second mate killed dead an’ no one to +know who done it, an’ drive! drive! drive! ninety-nine days from land to +land, a run of seventeen thousand miles, an’ east to west around Cape +Stiff!” +</p> + +<p> +“But that would make you sixty-nine years old,” I insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Which I am,” he retorted proudly, “an’ a better man at +that than the scrubby younglings of these days. A generation of ’em would +die under the things I’ve been through. Did you ever hear of the <i>Sunny +South</i>?—she that was sold in Havana to run slaves an’ changed +her name to <i>Emanuela</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve sailed the Middle Passage!” I cried, recollecting +the old phrase. +</p> + +<p> +“I was on the <i>Emanuela</i> that day in Mozambique Channel when the +<i>Brisk</i> caught us with nine hundred slaves between-decks. Only she +wouldn’t a-caught us except for her having steam.” +</p> + +<p> +I continued to stroll up and down beside this massive relic of the past, and to +listen to his hints and muttered reminiscences of old man-killing and +man-driving days. He was too real to be true, and yet, as I studied his +shoulder-stoop and the age-drag of his huge feet, I was convinced that his +years were as he asserted. He spoke of a Captain Sonurs. +</p> + +<p> +“He was a great captain,” he was saying. “An’ in the +two years I sailed mate with him there was never a port I didn’t jump the +ship goin’ in an’ stay in hiding until I sneaked aboard when she +sailed again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why?” +</p> + +<p> +“The men, on account of the men swearin’ blood an’ vengeance +and warrants against me because of my ways of teachin’ them to be +sailors. Why, the times I was caught, and the fines the skipper paid for +me—and yet it was my work that made the ship make money.” +</p> + +<p> +He held up his huge paws, and as I stared at the battered, malformed knuckles I +understood the nature of his work. +</p> + +<p> +“But all that’s stopped now,” he lamented. “A +sailor’s a gentleman these days. You can’t raise your voice or your +hand to them.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment he was addressed from the poop-rail above by the second mate, a +medium-sized, heavily built, clean-shaven, blond man. +</p> + +<p> +“The tug’s in sight with the crew, sir,” he announced. +</p> + +<p> +The mate grunted an acknowledgment, then added, “Come on down, Mr. +Mellaire, and meet our passenger.” +</p> + +<p> +I could not help noting the air and carriage with which Mr. Mellaire came down +the poop-ladder and took his part in the introduction. He was courteous in an +old-world way, soft-spoken, suave, and unmistakably from south of Mason and +Dixon. +</p> + +<p> +“A Southerner,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Georgia, sir.” He bowed and smiled, as only a Southerner can bow +and smile. +</p> + +<p> +His features and expression were genial and gentle, and yet his mouth was the +cruellest gash I had ever seen in a man’s face. It was a gash. There is +no other way of describing that harsh, thin-lipped, shapeless mouth that +uttered gracious things so graciously. Involuntarily I glanced at his hands. +Like the mate’s, they were thick-boned, broken-knuckled, and malformed. +Back into his blue eyes I looked. On the surface of them was a film of light, a +gloss of gentle kindness and cordiality, but behind that gloss I knew resided +neither sincerity nor mercy. Behind that gloss was something cold and terrible, +that lurked and waited and watched—something catlike, something inimical +and deadly. Behind that gloss of soft light and of social sparkle was the live, +fearful thing that had shaped that mouth into the gash it was. What I sensed +behind in those eyes chilled me with its repulsiveness and strangeness. +</p> + +<p> +As I faced Mr. Mellaire, and talked with him, and smiled, and exchanged +amenities, I was aware of the feeling that comes to one in the forest or jungle +when he knows unseen wild eyes of hunting animals are spying upon him. Frankly +I was afraid of the thing ambushed behind there in the skull of Mr. Mellaire. +One so as a matter of course identifies form and feature with the spirit +within. But I could not do this with the second mate. His face and form and +manner and suave ease were one thing, inside which he, an entirely different +thing, lay hid. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed Wada standing in the cabin door, evidently waiting to ask for +instructions. I nodded, and prepared to follow him inside. Mr. Pike looked at +me quickly and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Just a moment, Mr. Pathurst.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave some orders to the second mate, who turned on his heel and started +for’ard. I stood and waited for Mr. Pike’s communication, which he +did not choose to make until he saw the second mate well out of ear-shot. Then +he leaned closely to me and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mention that little matter of my age to anybody. Each year I +sign on I sign my age one year younger. I am fifty-four, now, on the +articles.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t look a day older,” I answered lightly, though +I meant it in all sincerity. +</p> + +<p> +“And I don’t feel it. I can outwork and outgame the huskiest of the +younglings. And don’t let my age get to anybody’s ears, Mr. +Pathurst. Skippers are not particular for mates getting around the seventy +mark. And owners neither. I’ve had my hopes for this ship, and I’d +a-got her, I think, except for the old man decidin’ to go to sea again. +As if he needed the money! The old skinflint!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is he well off?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Well off! If I had a tenth of his money I could retire on a chicken +ranch in California and live like a fighting cock—yes, if I had a +fiftieth of what he’s got salted away. Why, he owns more stock in all the +Blackwood ships . . . and they’ve always been lucky and always earned +money. I’m getting old, and it’s about time I got a command. But +no; the old cuss has to take it into his head to go to sea again just as the +berth’s ripe for me to fall into.” +</p> + +<p> +Again I started to enter the cabin, but was stopped by the mate. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pathurst? You won’t mention about my age?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, certainly not, Mr. Pike,” I said. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +Quite chilled through, I was immediately struck by the warm comfort of the +cabin. All the connecting doors were open, making what I might call a large +suite of rooms or a whale house. The main-deck entrance, on the port side, was +into a wide, well-carpeted hallway. Into this hallway, from the port side, +opened five rooms: first, on entering, the mate’s; next, the two +state-rooms which had been knocked into one for me; then the steward’s +room; and, adjoining his, completing the row, a state-room which was used for +the slop-chest. +</p> + +<p> +Across the hall was a region with which I was not yet acquainted, though I knew +it contained the dining-room, the bath-rooms, the cabin proper, which was in +truth a spacious living-room, the captain’s quarters, and, undoubtedly, +Miss West’s quarters. I could hear her humming some air as she bustled +about with her unpacking. The steward’s pantry, separated by crosshalls +and by the stairway leading into the chart-room above on the poop, was placed +strategically in the centre of all its operations. Thus, on the starboard side +of it were the state-rooms of the captain and Miss West, for’ard of it +were the dining-room and main cabin; while on the port side of it was the row +of rooms I have described, two of which were mine. +</p> + +<p> +I ventured down the hall toward the stern, and found it opened into the stern +of the <i>Elsinore</i>, forming a single large apartment at least thirty-five +feet from side to side and fifteen to eighteen feet in depth, curved, of +course, to the lines of the ship’s stern. This seemed a store-room. I +noted wash-tubs, bolts of canvas, many lockers, hams and bacon hanging, a +step-ladder that led up through a small hatch to the poop, and, in the floor, +another hatch. +</p> + +<p> +I spoke to the steward, an old Chinese, smooth-faced and brisk of movement, +whose name I never learned, but whose age on the articles was fifty-six. +</p> + +<p> +“What is down there?” I asked, pointing to the hatch in the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Him lazarette,” he answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And who eats there?” I indicated a table with two stationary +sea-chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Him second table. Second mate and carpenter him eat that table.” +</p> + +<p> +When I had finished giving instructions to Wada for the arranging of my things +I looked at my watch. It was early yet, only several minutes after three so I +went on deck again to witness the arrival of the crew. +</p> + +<p> +The actual coming on board from the tug I had missed, but for’ard of the +amidship house I encountered a few laggards who had not yet gone into the +forecastle. These were the worse for liquor, and a more wretched, miserable, +disgusting group of men I had never seen in any slum. Their clothes were rags. +Their faces were bloated, bloody, and dirty. I won’t say they were +villainous. They were merely filthy and vile. They were vile of appearance, of +speech, and action. +</p> + +<p> +“Come! Come! Get your dunnage into the +fo’c’s’le!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike uttered these words sharply from the bridge above. A light and +graceful bridge of steel rods and planking ran the full length of the +<i>Elsinore</i>, starting from the poop, crossing the amidship house and the +forecastle, and connecting with the forecastle-head at the very bow of the +ship. +</p> + +<p> +At the mate’s command the men reeled about and glowered up at him, one or +two starting clumsily to obey. The others ceased their drunken yammerings and +regarded the mate sullenly. One of them, with a face mashed by some mad god in +the making, and who was afterwards to be known by me as Larry, burst into a +guffaw, and spat insolently on the deck. Then, with utmost deliberation, he +turned to his fellows and demanded loudly and huskily: +</p> + +<p> +“Who in hell’s the old stiff, anyways?” +</p> + +<p> +I saw Mr. Pike’s huge form tense convulsively and involuntarily, and I +noted the way his huge hands strained in their clutch on the bridge-railing. +Beyond that he controlled himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, you,” he said. “I’ll have nothing out of you. +Get into the fo’c’s’le.” +</p> + +<p> +And then, to my surprise, he turned and walked aft along the bridge to where +the tug was casting off its lines. So this was all his high and mighty talk of +kill and drive, I thought. Not until afterwards did I recollect, as I turned +aft down the deck, that I saw Captain West leaning on the rail at the break of +the poop and gazing for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +The tug’s lines were being cast off, and I was interested in watching the +manoeuvre until she had backed clear of the ship, at which moment, from +for’ard, arose a queer babel of howling and yelping, as numbers of +drunken voices cried out that a man was overboard. The second mate sprang down +the poop-ladder and darted past me along the deck. The mate, still on the +slender, white-painted bridge, that seemed no more than a spider thread, +surprised me by the activity with which he dashed along the bridge to the +’midship house, leaped upon the canvas-covered long-boat, and swung +outboard where he might see. Before the men could clamber upon the rail the +second mate was among them, and it was he who flung a coil of line overboard. +</p> + +<p> +What impressed me particularly was the mental and muscular superiority of these +two officers. Despite their age—the mate sixty-nine and the second mate +at least fifty—their minds and their bodies had acted with the swiftness +and accuracy of steel springs. They were potent. They were iron. They were +perceivers, willers, and doers. They were as of another species compared with +the sailors under them. While the latter, witnesses of the happening and +directly on the spot, had been crying out in befuddled helplessness, and with +slow wits and slower bodies been climbing upon the rail, the second mate had +descended the steep ladder from the poop, covered two hundred feet of deck, +sprung upon the rail, grasped the instant need of the situation, and cast the +coil of line into the water. +</p> + +<p> +And of the same nature and quality had been the actions of Mr. Pike. He and Mr. +Mellaire were masters over the wretched creatures of sailors by virtue of this +remarkable difference of efficiency and will. Truly, they were more widely +differentiated from the men under them than were the men under them +differentiated from Hottentots—ay, and from monkeys. +</p> + +<p> +I, too, by this time, was standing on the big hawser-bitts in a position to see +a man in the water who seemed deliberately swimming away from the ship. He was +a dark-skinned Mediterranean of some sort, and his face, in a clear glimpse I +caught of it, was distorted by frenzy. His black eyes were maniacal. The line +was so accurately flung by the second mate that it fell across the man’s +shoulders, and for several strokes his arms tangled in it ere he could swim +clear. This accomplished, he proceeded to scream some wild harangue and once, +as he uptossed his arms for emphasis, I saw in his hand the blade of a long +knife. +</p> + +<p> +Bells were jangling on the tug as it started to the rescue. I stole a look up +at Captain West. He had walked to the port side of the poop, where, hands in +pockets, he was glancing, now for’ard at the struggling man, now aft at +the tug. He gave no orders, betrayed no excitement, and appeared, I may well +say, the most casual of spectators. +</p> + +<p> +The creature in the water seemed now engaged in taking off his clothes. I saw +one bare arm, and then the other, appear. In his struggles he sometimes sank +beneath the surface, but always he emerged, flourishing the knife and screaming +his addled harangue. He even tried to escape the tug by diving and swimming +underneath. +</p> + +<p> +I strolled for’ard, and arrived in time to see him hoisted in over the +rail of the <i>Elsinore</i>. He was stark naked, covered with blood, and +raving. He had cut and slashed himself in a score of places. From one wound in +the wrist the blood spurted with each beat of the pulse. He was a loathsome, +non-human thing. I have seen a scared orang in a zoo, and for all the world +this bestial-faced, mowing, gibbering thing reminded me of the orang. The +sailors surrounded him, laying hands on him, withstraining him, the while they +guffawed and cheered. Right and left the two mates shoved them away, and +dragged the lunatic down the deck and into a room in the ’midship house. +I could not help marking the strength of Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire. I had heard +of the superhuman strength of madmen, but this particular madman was as a wisp +of straw in their hands. Once into the bunk, Mr. Pike held down the struggling +fool easily with one hand while he dispatched the second mate for marlin with +which to tie the fellow’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Bughouse,” Mr. Pike grinned at me. “I’ve seen some +bughouse crews in my time, but this one’s the limit.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” I asked. “The man will bleed to +death.” +</p> + +<p> +“And good riddance,” he answered promptly. “We’ll have +our hands full of him until we can lose him somehow. When he gets easy +I’ll sew him up, that’s all, if I have to ease him with a clout of +the jaw.” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced at the mate’s huge paw and appreciated its anæsthetic +qualities. Out on deck again, I saw Captain West on the poop, hands still in +pockets, quite uninterested, gazing at a blue break in the sky to the +north-east. More than the mates and the maniac, more than the drunken +callousness of the men, did this quiet figure, hands in pockets, impress upon +me that I was in a different world from any I had known. +</p> + +<p> +Wada broke in upon my thoughts by telling me he had been sent to say that Miss +West was serving tea in the cabin. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +The contrast, as I entered the cabin, was startling. All contrasts aboard the +<i>Elsinore</i> promised to be startling. Instead of the cold, hard deck my +feet sank into soft carpet. In place of the mean and narrow room, built of +naked iron, where I had left the lunatic, I was in a spacious and beautiful +apartment. With the bawling of the men’s voices still in my ears, and +with the pictures of their drink-puffed and filthy faces still vivid under my +eyelids, I found myself greeted by a delicate-faced, prettily-gowned woman who +sat beside a lacquered oriental table on which rested an exquisite tea-service +of Canton china. All was repose and calm. The steward, noiseless-footed, +expressionless, was a shadow, scarcely noticed, that drifted into the room on +some service and drifted out again. +</p> + +<p> +Not at once could I relax, and Miss West, serving my tea, laughed and said: +</p> + +<p> +“You look as if you had been seeing things. The steward tells me a man +has been overboard. I fancy the cold water must have sobered him.” +</p> + +<p> +I resented her unconcern. +</p> + +<p> +“The man is a lunatic,” I said. “This ship is no place for +him. He should be sent ashore to some hospital.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid, if we begin that, we’d have to send two-thirds of our +complement ashore—one lump? +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please,” I answered. “But the man has terribly wounded +himself. He is liable to bleed to death.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me for a moment, her gray eyes serious and scrutinizing, as she +passed me my cup; then laughter welled up in her eyes, and she shook her head +reprovingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now please don’t begin the voyage by being shocked, Mr. Pathurst. +Such things are very ordinary occurrences. You’ll get used to them. You +must remember some queer creatures go down to the sea in ships. The man is +safe. Trust Mr. Pike to attend to his wounds. I’ve never sailed with Mr. +Pike, but I’ve heard enough about him. Mr. Pike is quite a surgeon. Last +voyage, they say, he performed a successful amputation, and so elated was he +that he turned his attention on the carpenter, who happened to be suffering +from some sort of indigestion. Mr. Pike was so convinced of the correctness of +his diagnosis that he tried to bribe the carpenter into having his appendix +removed.” She broke off to laugh heartily, then added: “They say he +offered the poor man just pounds and pounds of tobacco to consent to the +operation.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is it safe . . . for the . . . the working of the ship,” I +urged, “to take such a lunatic along?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrugged her shoulders, as if not intending to reply, then said: +</p> + +<p> +“This incident is nothing. There are always several lunatics or idiots in +every ship’s company. And they always come aboard filled with whiskey and +raving. I remember, once, when we sailed from Seattle, a long time ago, one +such madman. He showed no signs of madness at all; just calmly seized two +boarding-house runners and sprang overboard with them. We sailed the same day, +before the bodies were recovered.” +</p> + +<p> +Again she shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you? The sea is hard, Mr. Pathurst. And for our sailors we +get the worst type of men. I sometimes wonder where they find them. And we do +our best with them, and somehow manage to make them help us carry on our work +in the world. But they are low . . . low.” +</p> + +<p> +As I listened, and studied her face, contrasting her woman’s sensitivity +and her soft pretty dress with the brute faces and rags of the men I had +noticed, I could not help being convinced intellectually of the rightness of +her position. Nevertheless, I was hurt sentimentally,—chiefly, I do +believe, because of the very hardness and unconcern with which she enunciated +her view. It was because she was a woman, and so different from the +sea-creatures, that I resented her having received such harsh education in the +school of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“I could not help remarking your father’s—er, er <i>sang +froid</i> during the occurrence.” I ventured. +</p> + +<p> +“He never took his hands from his pockets!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes sparkled as I nodded confirmation. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it! It’s his way. I’ve seen it so often. I remember +when I was twelve years old—mother was alone—we were running into +San Francisco. It was in the <i>Dixie</i>, a ship almost as big as this. There +was a strong fair wind blowing, and father did not take a tug. We sailed right +through the Golden Gate and up the San Francisco water-front. There was a swift +flood tide, too; and the men, both watches, were taking in sail as fast as they +could. +</p> + +<p> +“Now the fault was the steamboat captain’s. He miscalculated our +speed and tried to cross our bow. Then came the collision, and the +<i>Dixie’s</i> bow cut through that steamboat, cabin and hull. There were +hundreds of passengers, men, women, and children. Father never took his hands +from his pockets. He sent the mate for’ard to superintend rescuing the +passengers, who were already climbing on to our bowsprit and forecastle-head, +and in a voice no different from what he’d use to ask some one to pass +the butter he told the second mate to set all sail. And he told him which sails +to begin with.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why set more sails?” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Because he could see the situation. Don’t you see, the steamboat +was cut wide open. All that kept her from sinking instantly was the bow of the +<i>Dixie</i> jammed into her side. By setting more sail and keeping before the +wind, he continued to keep the bow of the <i>Dixie</i> jammed. +</p> + +<p> +“I was terribly frightened. People who had sprung or fallen overboard +were drowning on each side of us, right in my sight, as we sailed along up the +water-front. But when I looked at father, there he was, just as I had always +known him, hands in pockets, walking slowly up and down, now giving an order to +the wheel—you see, he had to direct the <i>Dixie’s</i> course +through all the shipping—now watching the passengers swarming over our +bow and along our deck, now looking ahead to see his way through the ships at +anchor. Sometimes he did glance at the poor, drowning ones, but he was not +concerned with them. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, there were numbers drowned, but by keeping his hands in his +pockets and his head cool he saved hundreds of lives. Not until the last person +was off the steamboat—he sent men aboard to make sure—did he take +off the press of sail. And the steamboat sank at once.” +</p> + +<p> +She ceased, and looked at me with shining eyes for approbation. +</p> + +<p> +“It was splendid,” I acknowledged. “I admire the quiet man of +power, though I confess that such quietness under stress seems to me almost +unearthly and beyond human. I can’t conceive of myself acting that way, +and I am confident that I was suffering more while that poor devil was in the +water than all the rest of the onlookers put together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father suffers!” she defended loyally. “Only he does not +show it.” +</p> + +<p> +I bowed, for I felt she had missed my point. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +I came out from tea in the cabin to find the tug <i>Britannia</i> in sight. She +was the craft that was to tow us down Chesapeake Bay to sea. Strolling +for’ard I noted the sailors being routed out of the forecastle by Sundry +Buyers, forever tenderly pressing his abdomen with his hands. Another man was +helping Sundry Buyers at routing out the sailors. I asked Mr. Pike who the man +was. +</p> + +<p> +“Nancy—my bosun; ain’t he a peach?” was the answer I +got, and from the mate’s manner of enunciation I was quite aware that +“Nancy” had been used derisively. +</p> + +<p> +Nancy could not have been more than thirty, though he looked as if he had lived +a very long time. He was toothless and sad and weary of movement. His eyes were +slate-coloured and muddy, his shaven face was sickly yellow. Narrow-shouldered, +sunken-chested, with cheeks cavernously hollow, he looked like a man in the +last stages of consumption. Little life as Sundry Buyers showed, Nancy showed +even less life. And these were bosuns!—bosuns of the fine American +sailing-ship <i>Elsinore</i>! Never had any illusion of mine taken a more +distressing cropper. +</p> + +<p> +It was plain to me that the pair of them, spineless and spunkless, were afraid +of the men they were supposed to boss. And the men! Doré could never +have conjured a more delectable hell’s broth. For the first time I saw +them all, and I could not blame the two bosuns for being afraid of them. They +did not walk. They slouched and shambled, some even tottered, as from weakness +or drink. +</p> + +<p> +But it was their faces. I could not help remembering what Miss West had just +told me—that ships always sailed with several lunatics or idiots in their +crews. But these looked as if they were all lunatic or feeble-minded. And I, +too, wondered where such a mass of human wreckage could have been obtained. +There was something wrong with all of them. Their bodies were twisted, their +faces distorted, and almost without exception they were under-sized. The +several quite fairly large men I marked were vacant-faced. One man, however, +large and unmistakably Irish, was also unmistakably mad. He was talking and +muttering to himself as he came out. A little, curved, lop-sided man, with his +head on one side and with the shrewdest and wickedest of faces and pale blue +eyes, addressed an obscene remark to the mad Irishman, calling him +O’Sullivan. But O’Sullivan took no notice and muttered on. On the +heels of the little lop-sided man appeared an overgrown dolt of a fat youth, +followed by another youth so tall and emaciated of body that it seemed a marvel +his flesh could hold his frame together. +</p> + +<p> +Next, after this perambulating skeleton, came the weirdest creature I have ever +beheld. He was a twisted oaf of a man. Face and body were twisted as with the +pain of a thousand years of torture. His was the face of an ill-treated and +feeble-minded faun. His large black eyes were bright, eager, and filled with +pain; and they flashed questioningly from face to face and to everything about. +They were so pitifully alert, those eyes, as if forever astrain to catch the +clue to some perplexing and threatening enigma. Not until afterwards did I +learn the cause of this. He was stone deaf, having had his ear-drums destroyed +in the boiler explosion which had wrecked the rest of him. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed the steward, standing at the galley door and watching the men from a +distance. His keen, Asiatic face, quick with intelligence, was a relief to the +eye, as was the vivid face of Shorty, who came out of the forecastle with a +leap and a gurgle of laughter. But there was something wrong with him, too. He +was a dwarf, and, as I was to come to know, his high spirits and low mentality +united to make him a clown. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike stopped beside me a moment and while he watched the men I watched him. +The expression on his face was that of a cattle-buyer, and it was plain that he +was disgusted with the quality of cattle delivered. +</p> + +<p> +“Something the matter with the last mother’s son of them,” he +growled. +</p> + +<p> +And still they came: one, pallid, furtive-eyed, that I instantly adjudged a +drug fiend; another, a tiny, wizened old man, pinch-faced and wrinkled, with +beady, malevolent blue eyes; a third, a small, well-fleshed man, who seemed to +my eye the most normal and least unintelligent specimen that had yet appeared. +But Mr. Pike’s eye was better trained than mine. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter with <i>you</i>?” he snarled at the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir,” the fellow answered, stopping immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike never spoke to a sailor save with a snarl. +</p> + +<p> +“Charles Davis, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you limping about?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t limpin’, sir,” the man answered respectfully, +and, at a nod of dismissal from the mate, marched off jauntily along the deck +with a hoodlum swing to the shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a sailor all right,” the mate grumbled; “but +I’ll bet you a pound of tobacco or a month’s wages there’s +something wrong with him.” +</p> + +<p> +The forecastle now seemed empty, but the mate turned on the bosuns with his +customary snarl. +</p> + +<p> +“What in hell are you doing? Sleeping? Think this is a rest cure? Get in +there an’ rustle ’em out!” +</p> + +<p> +Sundry Buyers pressed his abdomen gingerly and hesitated, while Nancy, his face +one dogged, long-suffering bleakness, reluctantly entered the forecastle. Then, +from inside, we heard oaths, vile and filthy, urgings and expostulations on the +part of Nancy, meekly and pleadingly uttered. +</p> + +<p> +I noted the grim and savage look that came on Mr. Pike’s face, and was +prepared for I knew not what awful monstrosities to emerge from the forecastle. +Instead, to my surprise, came three fellows who were strikingly superior to the +ruck that had preceded them. I looked to see the mate’s face soften to +some sort of approval. On the contrary, his blue eyes contracted to narrow +slits, the snarl of his voice was communicated to his lips, so that he seemed +like a dog about to bite. +</p> + +<p> +But the three fellows. They were small men, all; and young men, anywhere +between twenty-five and thirty. Though roughly dressed, they were well dressed, +and under their clothes their bodily movements showed physical well-being. +Their faces were keen cut, intelligent. And though I felt there was something +queer about them, I could not divine what it was. +</p> + +<p> +Here were no ill-fed, whiskey-poisoned men, such as the rest of the sailors, +who, having drunk up their last pay-days, had starved ashore until they had +received and drunk up their advance money for the present voyage. These three, +on the other hand were supple and vigorous. Their movements were spontaneously +quick and accurate. Perhaps it was the way they looked at me, with incurious +yet calculating eyes that nothing escaped. They seemed so worldly wise, so +indifferent, so sure of themselves. I was confident they were not sailors. Yet, +as shore-dwellers, I could not place them. They were a type I had never +encountered. Possibly I can give a better idea of them by describing what +occurred. +</p> + +<p> +As they passed before us they favoured Mr. Pike with the same indifferent, keen +glances they gave me. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name—you?” Mr. Pike barked at the first of +the trio, evidently a hybrid Irish-Jew. Jewish his nose unmistakably was. +Equally unmistakable was the Irish of his eyes, and jaw, and upper lip. +</p> + +<p> +The three had immediately stopped, and, though they did not look directly at +one another, they seemed to be holding a silent conference. Another of the +trio, in whose veins ran God alone knows what Semitic, Babylonish and Latin +strains, gave a warning signal. Oh, nothing so crass as a wink or a nod. I +almost doubted that I had intercepted it, and yet I knew he had communicated a +warning to his fellows. More a shade of expression that had crossed his eyes, +or a glint in them of sudden light—or whatever it was, it carried the +message. +</p> + +<p> +“Murphy,” the other answered the mate. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir!” Mr. Pike snarled at him. +</p> + +<p> +Murphy shrugged his shoulders in token that he did not understand. It was the +poise of the man, of the three of them, the cool poise that impressed me. +</p> + +<p> +“When you address any officer on this ship you’ll say +‘sir,’” Mr. Pike explained, his voice as harsh as his face +was forbidding. “Did you get <i>that</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes . . . sir,” Murphy drawled with deliberate slowness. “I +gotcha.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir!” Mr. Pike roared. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” Murphy answered, so softly and carelessly that it irritated +the mate to further bullyragging. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Murphy’s too long,” he announced. +“Nosey’ll do you aboard this craft. Got <i>that</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gotcha . . . sir,” came the reply, insolent in its very softness +and unconcern. “Nosey Murphy goes . . . sir.” +</p> + +<p> +And then he laughed—the three of them laughed, if laughter it might be +called that was laughter without sound or facial movement. The eyes alone +laughed, mirthlessly and cold-bloodedly. +</p> + +<p> +Certainly Mr. Pike was not enjoying himself with these baffling personalities. +He turned upon the leader, the one who had given the warning and who looked the +admixture of all that was Mediterranean and Semitic. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s <i>your</i> name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bert Rhine . . . sir,” was the reply, in tones as soft and +careless and silkily irritating as the other’s. +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>you</i>?”—this to the remaining one, the youngest of +the trio, a dark-eyed, olive-skinned fellow with a face most striking in its +cameo-like beauty. American-born, I placed him, of immigrants from Southern +Italy—from Naples, or even Sicily. +</p> + +<p> +“Twist . . . sir,” he answered, precisely in the same manner as the +others. +</p> + +<p> +“Too long,” the mate sneered. “The Kid’ll do you. Got +<i>that</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“I gotcha . . . sir. Kid Twist’ll do me . . . sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Kid’ll do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Kid . . . sir.” +</p> + +<p> +And the three laughed their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time Mr. Pike was +beside himself with a rage that could find no excuse for action. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I’m going to tell you something, the bunch of you, for the +good of your health.” The mate’s voice grated with the rage he was +suppressing. “I know your kind. You’re dirt. D’ye get +<i>that</i>? You’re dirt. And on this ship you’ll be treated as +dirt. You’ll do your work like men, or I’ll know the reason why. +The first time one of you bats an eye, or even looks like batting an eye, he +gets his. D’ye get that? Now get out. Get along for’ard to the +windlass.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike turned on his heel, and I swung alongside of him as he moved aft. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you make of them?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“The limit,” he grunted. “I know their kidney. They’ve +done time, the three of them. They’re just plain sweepings of +hell—” +</p> + +<p> +Here his speech was broken off by the spectacle that greeted him on Number Two +hatch. Sprawled out on the hatch were five or six men, among them Larry, the +tatterdemalion who had called him “old stiff” earlier in the +afternoon. That Larry had not obeyed orders was patent, for he was sitting with +his back propped against his sea-bag, which ought to have been in the +forecastle. Also, he and the group with him ought to have been for’ard +manning the windlass. +</p> + +<p> +The mate stepped upon the hatch and towered over the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up,” he ordered. +</p> + +<p> +Larry made an effort, groaned, and failed to get up. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t, sir. I was drunk last night an’ slept in Jefferson +Market. An’ this mornin’ I was froze tight, sir. They had to pry me +loose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stiff with the cold you were, eh?” the mate grinned. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s well ye might say it, sir,” Larry answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And you feel like an old stiff, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +Larry blinked with the troubled, querulous eyes of a monkey. He was beginning +to apprehend he knew not what, and he knew that bending over him was a +man-master. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll just be showin’ you what an old stiff feels like, +anyways.” Mr. Pike mimicked the other’s brogue. +</p> + +<p> +And now I shall tell what I saw happen. Please remember what I have said of the +huge paws of Mr. Pike, the fingers much longer than mine and twice as thick, +the wrists massive-boned, the arm-bones and the shoulder-bones of the same +massive order. With one flip of his right hand, with what I might call an +open-handed, lifting, upward slap, save that it was the ends of the fingers +only that touched Larry’s face, he lifted Larry into the air, sprawling +him backward on his back across his sea-bag. +</p> + +<p> +The man alongside of Larry emitted a menacing growl and started to spring +belligerently to his feet. But he never reached his feet. Mr. Pike, with the +back of same right hand, open, smote the man on the side of the face. The loud +smack of the impact was startling. The mate’s strength was amazing. The +blow looked so easy, so effortless; it had seemed like the lazy stroke of a +good-natured bear, but in it was such a weight of bone and muscle that the man +went down sidewise and rolled off the hatch on to the deck. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, lurching aimlessly along, appeared O’Sullivan. A sudden +access of muttering, on his part, reached Mr. Pike’s ear, and Mr. Pike, +instantly keen as a wild animal, his paw in the act of striking +O’Sullivan, whipped out like a revolver shot, “What’s +that?” Then he noted the sense-struck face of O’Sullivan and +withheld the blow. “Bug-house,” Mr. Pike commented. +</p> + +<p> +Involuntarily I had glanced to see if Captain West was on the poop, and found +that we were hidden from the poop by the ’midship house. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike, taking no notice of the man who lay groaning on the deck, stood over +Larry, who was likewise groaning. The rest of the sprawling men were on their +feet, subdued and respectful. I, too, was respectful of this terrific, aged +figure of a man. The exhibition had quite convinced me of the verity of his +earlier driving and killing days. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s the old stiff now?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis me, sir,” Larry moaned contritely. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up!” +</p> + +<p> +Larry got up without any difficulty at all. +</p> + +<p> +“Now get for’ard to the windlass! The rest of you!” +</p> + +<p> +And they went, sullenly, shamblingly, like the cowed brutes they were. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +I climbed the ladder on the side of the for’ard house (which house +contained, as I discovered, the forecastle, the galley, and the donkey-engine +room), and went part way along the bridge to a position by the foremast, where +I could observe the crew heaving up anchor. The <i>Britannia</i> was alongside, +and we were getting under way. +</p> + +<p> +A considerable body of men was walking around with the windlass or variously +engaged on the forecastle-head. Of the crew proper were two watches of fifteen +men each. In addition were sailmakers, boys, bosuns, and the carpenter. Nearly +forty men were they, but such men! They were sad and lifeless. There was no +vim, no go, no activity. Every step and movement was an effort, as if they were +dead men raised out of coffins or sick men dragged from hospital beds. Sick +they were—whiskey-poisoned. Starved they were, and weak from poor +nutrition. And worst of all, they were imbecile and lunatic. +</p> + +<p> +I looked aloft at the intricate ropes, at the steel masts rising and carrying +huge yards of steel, rising higher and higher, until steel masts and yards gave +way to slender spars of wood, while ropes and stays turned into a delicate +tracery of spider-thread against the sky. That such a wretched muck of men +should be able to work this magnificent ship through all storm and darkness and +peril of the sea was beyond all seeming. I remembered the two mates, the +super-efficiency, mental and physical, of Mr. Mellaire and Mr. Pike—could +they make this human wreckage do it? They, at least, evinced no doubts of their +ability. The sea? If this feat of mastery were possible, then clear it was that +I knew nothing of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +I looked back at the misshapen, starved, sick, stumbling hulks of men who trod +the dreary round of the windlass. Mr. Pike was right. These were not the brisk, +devilish, able-bodied men who manned the ships of the old clipper-ship days; +who fought their officers, who had the points of their sheath-knives broken +off, who killed and were killed, but who did their work as men. These men, +these shambling carcasses at the windlass—I looked, and looked, and +vainly I strove to conjure the vision of them swinging aloft in rack and storm, +“clearing the raffle,” as Kipling puts it, “with their clasp +knives in their teeth.” Why didn’t they sing a chanty as they hove +the anchor up? In the old days, as I had read, the anchor always came up to the +rollicking sailor songs of sea-chested men. +</p> + +<p> +I tired of watching the spiritless performance, and went aft on an exploring +trip along the slender bridge. It was a beautiful structure, strong yet light, +traversing the length of the ship in three aerial leaps. It spanned from the +forecastle-head to the forecastle-house, next to the ’midship house, and +then to the poop. The poop, which was really the roof or deck over all the +cabin space below, and which occupied the whole after-part of the ship, was +very large. It was broken only by the half-round and half-covered wheel-house +at the very stern and by the chart-house. On either side of the latter two +doors opened into a tiny hallway. This, in turn, gave access to the chart-room +and to a stairway that led down into the cabin quarters beneath. +</p> + +<p> +I peeped into the chart-room and was greeted with a smile by Captain West. He +was lolling back comfortably in a swing chair, his feet cocked on the desk +opposite. On a broad, upholstered couch sat the pilot. Both were smoking +cigars; and, lingering for a moment to listen to the conversation, I grasped +that the pilot was an ex-sea-captain. +</p> + +<p> +As I descended the stairs, from Miss West’s room came a sound of humming +and bustling, as she settled her belongings. The energy she displayed, to judge +by the cheerful noises of it, was almost perturbing. +</p> + +<p> +Passing by the pantry, I put my head inside the door to greet the steward and +courteously let him know that I was aware of his existence. Here, in his little +realm, it was plain that efficiency reigned. Everything was spotless and in +order, and I could have wished and wished vainly for a more noiseless servant +than he ashore. His face, as he regarded me, had as little or as much +expression as the Sphinx. But his slant, black eyes were bright, with +intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of the crew?” I asked, in order to put words to +my invasion of his castle. +</p> + +<p> +“Buggy-house,” he answered promptly, with a disgusted shake of the +head. “Too much buggy-house. All crazy. You see. No good. Rotten. Down to +hell.” +</p> + +<p> +That was all, but it verified my own judgment. While it might be true, as Miss +West had said, that every ship’s crew contained several lunatics and +idiots, it was a foregone conclusion that our crew contained far more than +several. In fact, and as it was to turn out, our crew, even in these degenerate +sailing days, was an unusual crew in so far as its helplessness and +worthlessness were beyond the average. +</p> + +<p> +I found my own room (in reality it was two rooms) delightful. Wada had unpacked +and stored away my entire outfit of clothing, and had filled numerous shelves +with the library I had brought along. Everything was in order and place, from +my shaving outfit in the drawer beside the wash-basin, and my sea-boots and +oilskins hung ready to hand, to my writing materials on the desk, before which +a swing arm-chair, leather-upholstered and screwed solidly to the floor, +invited me. My pyjamas and dressing-gown were out. My slippers, in their +accustomed place by the bed, also invited me. +</p> + +<p> +Here, aft, all was fitness, intelligence. On deck it was what I have +described—a nightmare spawn of creatures, assumably human, but malformed, +mentally and physically, into caricatures of men. Yes, it was an unusual crew; +and that Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire could whip it into the efficient shape +necessary to work this vast and intricate and beautiful fabric of a ship was +beyond all seeming of possibility. +</p> + +<p> +Depressed as I was by what I had just witnessed on deck, there came to me, as I +leaned back in my chair and opened the second volume of George Moore’s +<i>Hail and Farewell</i>, a premonition that the voyage was to be disastrous. +But then, as I looked about the room, measured its generous space, realized +that I was more comfortably situated than I had ever been on any passenger +steamer, I dismissed foreboding thoughts and caught a pleasant vision of +myself, through weeks and months, catching up with all the necessary reading +which I had so long neglected. +</p> + +<p> +Once, I asked Wada if he had seen the crew. No, he hadn’t, but the +steward had said that in all his years at sea this was the worst crew he had +ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +“He say, all crazy, no sailors, rotten,” Wada said. “He say +all big fools and bime by much trouble. ‘You see,’ he say all the +time. ‘You see, You see.’ He pretty old man—fifty-five years, +he say. Very smart man for Chinaman. Just now, first time for long time, he go +to sea. Before, he have big business in San Francisco. Then he get much +trouble—police. They say he opium smuggle. Oh, big, big trouble. But he +catch good lawyer. He no go to jail. But long time lawyer work, and when +trouble all finish lawyer got all his business, all his money, everything. Then +he go to sea, like before. He make good money. He get sixty-five dollars a +month on this ship. But he don’t like. Crew all crazy. When this time +finish he leave ship, go back start business in San Francisco.” +</p> + +<p> +Later, when I had Wada open one of the ports for ventilation, I could hear the +gurgle and swish of water alongside, and I knew the anchor was up and that we +were in the grip of the <i>Britannia</i>, towing down the Chesapeake to sea. +The idea suggested itself that it was not too late. I could very easily abandon +the adventure and return to Baltimore on the <i>Britannia</i> when she cast off +the <i>Elsinore</i>. And then I heard a slight tinkling of china from the +pantry as the steward proceeded to set the table, and, also, it was so warm and +comfortable, and George Moore was so irritatingly fascinating. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +In every way dinner proved up beyond my expectations, and I registered a note +that the cook, whoever or whatever he might be, was a capable man at his trade. +Miss West served, and, though she and the steward were strangers, they worked +together splendidly. I should have thought, from the smoothness of the service, +that he was an old house servant who for years had known her every way. +</p> + +<p> +The pilot ate in the chart-house, so that at table were the four of us that +would always be at table together. Captain West and his daughter faced each +other, while I, on the captain’s right, faced Mr. Pike. This put Miss +West across the corner on my right. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike, his dark sack coat (put on for the meal) bulging and wrinkling over +the lumps of muscles that padded his stooped shoulders, had nothing at all to +say. But he had eaten too many years at captains’ tables not to have +proper table manners. At first I thought he was abashed by Miss West’s +presence. Later, I decided it was due to the presence of the captain. For +Captain West had a way with him that I was beginning to learn. Far removed as +Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire were from the sailors, individuals as they were of an +entirely different and superior breed, yet equally as different and far removed +from his officers was Captain West. He was a serene and absolute aristocrat. He +neither talked “ship” nor anything else to Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, Captain West’s attitude toward me was that of a social +equal. But then, I was a passenger. Miss West treated me the same way, but +unbent more to Mr. Pike. And Mr. Pike, answering her with “Yes, +Miss,” and “No, Miss,” ate good-manneredly and with his +shaggy-browed gray eyes studied me across the table. I, too, studied him. +Despite his violent past, killer and driver that he was, I could not help +liking the man. He was honest, genuine. Almost more than for that, I liked him +for the spontaneous boyish laugh he gave on the occasions when I reached the +points of several funny stories. No man could laugh like that and be all bad. I +was glad that it was he, and not Mr. Mellaire, who was to sit opposite +throughout the voyage. And I was very glad that Mr. Mellaire was not to eat +with us at all. +</p> + +<p> +I am afraid that Miss West and I did most of the talking. She was breezy, +vivacious, tonic, and I noted again that the delicate, almost fragile oval of +her face was given the lie by her body. She was a robust, healthy young woman. +That was undeniable. Not fat—heaven forbid!—not even plump; yet her +lines had that swelling roundness that accompanies long, live muscles. She was +full-bodied, vigorous; and yet not so full-bodied as she seemed. I remember +with what surprise, when we arose from table, I noted her slender waist. At +that moment I got the impression that she was willowy. And willowy she was, +with a normal waist and with, in addition, always that informing bodily vigour +that made her appear rounder and robuster than she really was. +</p> + +<p> +It was the health of her that interested me. When I studied her face more +closely I saw that only the lines of the oval of it were delicate. Delicate it +was not, nor fragile. The flesh was firm, and the texture of the skin was firm +and fine as it moved over the firm muscles of face and neck. The neck was a +beautiful and adequate pillar of white. Its flesh was firm, its skin fine, and +it was muscular. The hands, too, attracted me—not small, but well-shaped, +fine, white and strong, and well cared for. I could only conclude that she was +an unusual captain’s daughter, just as her father was an unusual captain +and man. And their noses were alike, just the hint-touch of the beak of power +and race. +</p> + +<p> +While Miss West was telling of the unexpectedness of the voyage, of how +suddenly she had decided to come—she accounted for it as a whim—and +while she told of all the complications she had encountered in her haste of +preparation, I found myself casting up a tally of the efficient ones on board +the <i>Elsinore</i>. They were Captain West and his daughter, the two mates, +myself, of course, Wada and the steward, and, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the +cook. The dinner vouched for him. Thus I found our total of efficients to be +eight. But the cook, the steward, and Wada were servants, not sailors, while +Miss West and myself were supernumeraries. Remained to work, direct, do, but +three efficients out of a total ship’s company of forty-five. I had no +doubt that other efficients there were; it seemed impossible that my first +impression of the crew should be correct. There was the carpenter. He might, at +his trade, be as good as the cook. Then the two sailmakers, whom I had not yet +seen, might prove up. +</p> + +<p> +A little later during the meal I ventured to talk about what had interested me +and aroused my admiration, namely, the masterfulness with which Mr. Pike and +Mr. Mellaire had gripped hold of that woeful, worthless crew. It was all new to +me, I explained, but I appreciated the need of it. As I led up to the +occurrence on Number Two hatch, when Mr. Pike had lifted up Larry and toppled +him back with a mere slap from the ends of his fingers, I saw in Mr. +Pike’s eyes a warning, almost threatening, expression. Nevertheless, I +completed my description of the episode. +</p> + +<p> +When I had quite finished there was a silence. Miss West was busy serving +coffee from a copper percolator. Mr. Pike, profoundly occupied with cracking +walnuts, could not quite hide the wicked, little, half-humorous, +half-revengeful gleam in his eyes. But Captain West looked straight at me, but +from oh! such a distance—millions and millions of miles away. His clear +blue eyes were as serene as ever, his tones as low and soft. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the one rule I ask to be observed, Mr. Pathurst—we never +discuss the sailors.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a facer to me, and with quite a pronounced fellow-feeling for Larry I +hurriedly added: +</p> + +<p> +“It was not merely the discipline that interested me. It was the feat of +strength.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sailors are trouble enough without our hearing about them, Mr. +Pathurst,” Captain West went on, as evenly and imperturbably as if I had +not spoken. “I leave the handling of the sailors to my officers. +That’s their business, and they are quite aware that I tolerate no +undeserved roughness or severity.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike’s harsh face carried the faintest shadow of an amused grin as he +stolidly regarded the tablecloth. I glanced to Miss West for sympathy. She +laughed frankly, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“You see, father never has any sailors. And it’s a good plan, +too.” +</p> + +<p> +“A very good plan,” Mr. Pike muttered. +</p> + +<p> +Then Miss West kindly led the talk away from that subject, and soon had us +laughing with a spirited recital of a recent encounter of hers with a Boston +cab-driver. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner over, I stepped to my room in quest of cigarettes, and incidentally +asked Wada about the cook. Wada was always a great gatherer of information. +</p> + +<p> +“His name Louis,” he said. “He Chinaman, too. No; only half +Chinaman. Other half Englishman. You know one island Napoleon he stop long time +and bime by die that island?” +</p> + +<p> +“St. Helena,” I prompted. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that place Louis he born. He talk very good English.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, entering the hall from the deck, Mr. Mellaire, just relieved by +the mate, passed me on his way to the big room in the stern where the second +table was set. His “Good evening, sir,” was as stately and +courteous as any southern gentleman of the old days could have uttered it. And +yet I could not like the man. His outward seeming was so at variance with the +personality that resided within. Even as he spoke and smiled I felt that from +inside his skull he was watching me, studying me. And somehow, in a flash of +intuition, I knew not why, I was reminded of the three strange young men, +routed last from the forecastle, to whom Mr. Pike had read the law. They, too, +had given me a similar impression. +</p> + +<p> +Behind Mr. Mellaire slouched a self-conscious, embarrassed individual, with the +face of a stupid boy and the body of a giant. His feet were even larger than +Mr. Pike’s, but the hands—I shot a quick glance to see—were +not so large as Mr. Pike’s. +</p> + +<p> +As they passed I looked inquiry to Wada. +</p> + +<p> +“He carpenter. He sat second table. His name Sam Lavroff. He come from +New York on ship. Steward say he very young for carpenter, maybe twenty-two, +three years old.” +</p> + +<p> +As I approached the open port over my desk I again heard the swish and gurgle +of water and again realized that we were under way. So steady and noiseless was +our progress, that, say seated at table, it never entered one’s head that +we were moving or were anywhere save on the solid land. I had been used to +steamers all my life, and it was difficult immediately to adjust myself to the +absence of the propeller-thrust vibration. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you think?” I asked Wada, who, like myself, had +never made a sailing-ship voyage. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Very funny ship. Very funny sailors. I don’t know. Mebbe all +right. We see.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think trouble?” I asked pointedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I think sailors very funny,” he evaded. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +Having lighted my cigarette, I strolled for’ard along the deck to where +work was going on. Above my head dim shapes of canvas showed in the starlight. +Sail was being made, and being made slowly, as I might judge, who was only the +veriest tyro in such matters. The indistinguishable shapes of men, in long +lines, pulled on ropes. They pulled in sick and dogged silence, though Mr. +Pike, ubiquitous, snarled out orders and rapped out oaths from every angle upon +their miserable heads. +</p> + +<p> +Certainly, from what I had read, no ship of the old days ever proceeded so +sadly and blunderingly to sea. Ere long Mr. Mellaire joined Mr. Pike in the +struggle of directing the men. It was not yet eight in the evening, and all +hands were at work. They did not seem to know the ropes. Time and again, when +the half-hearted suggestions of the bosuns had been of no avail, I saw one or +the other of the mates leap to the rail and put the right rope in the hands of +the men. +</p> + +<p> +These, on the deck, I concluded, were the hopeless ones. Up aloft, from sounds +and cries, I knew were other men, undoubtedly those who were at least a little +seaman-like, loosing the sails. +</p> + +<p> +But on deck! Twenty or thirty of the poor devils, tailed on a rope that hoisted +a yard, would pull without concerted effort and with painfully slow movements. +“Walk away with it!” Mr. Pike would yell. And perhaps for two or +three yards they would manage to walk with the rope ere they came to a halt +like stalled horses on a hill. And yet, did either of the mates spring in and +add his strength, they were able to move right along the deck without stopping. +Either of the mates, old men that they were, was muscularly worth half-a-dozen +of the wretched creatures. +</p> + +<p> +“This is what sailin’s come to,” Mr. Pike paused to snort in +my ear. “This ain’t the place for an officer down here pulling and +hauling. But what can you do when the bosuns are worse than the men?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought sailors sang songs when they pulled,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure they do. Want to hear ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +I knew there was malice of some sort in his voice, but I answered that +I’d like to very much. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you bosun!” Mr. Pike snarled. “Wake up! Start a song! +Topsail halyards!” +</p> + +<p> +In the pause that followed I could have sworn that Sundry Buyers was pressing +his hands against his abdomen, while Nancy, infinite bleakness freezing upon +his face, was wetting his lips to begin. +</p> + +<p> +Nancy it was who began, for from no other man, I was confident, could have +issued so sepulchral a plaint. It was unmusical, unbeautiful, unlively, and +indescribably doleful. Yet the words showed that it should have ripped and +crackled with high spirits and lawlessness, for the words poor Nancy sang were: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Away, way, way, yar,<br /> +We’ll kill Paddy Doyle for bus boots.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quit it! Quit it!” Mr. Pike roared. “This ain’t a +funeral! Ain’t there one of you that can sing? Come on, now! It’s a +topsail-yard—” +</p> + +<p> +He broke off to leap in to the pin-rail and get the wrong ropes out of the +men’s hands to put into them the right rope. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, bosun! Break her out!” +</p> + +<p> +Then out of the gloom arose Sundry Buyers’ voice, cracked and crazy and +even more lugubrious than Nancy’s: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Then up aloft that yard must go,<br /> +Whiskey for my Johnny.” +</p> + +<p> +The second line was supposed to be the chorus, but not more than two men feebly +mumbled it. Sundry Buyers quavered the next line: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, whiskey killed my sister Sue.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Mr. Pike took a hand, seizing the hauling-part next to the pin and lifting +his voice with a rare snap and devilishness: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And whiskey killed the old man, too,<br /> +Whiskey for my Johnny.” +</p> + +<p> +He sang the devil-may-care lines on and on, lifting the crew to the work and to +the chorused emphasis of “Whiskey for my Johnny.” +</p> + +<p> +And to his voice they pulled, they moved, they sang, and were alive, until he +interrupted the song to cry “Belay!” +</p> + +<p> +And then all the life and lilt went out of them, and they were again maundering +and futile things, getting in one another’s way, stumbling and shuffling +through the darkness, hesitating to grasp ropes, and, when they did take hold, +invariably taking hold of the wrong rope first. Skulkers there were among them, +too; and once, from for’ard of the ’midship house, I heard smacks, +and curses, and groans, and out of the darkness hurriedly emerged two men, on +their heels Mr. Pike, who chanted a recital of the distressing things that +would befall them if he caught them at such tricks again. +</p> + +<p> +The whole thing was too depressing for me to care to watch further, so I +strolled aft and climbed the poop. In the lee of the chart-house Captain West +and the pilot were pacing slowly up and down. Passing on aft, I saw steering at +the wheel the weazened little old man I had noted earlier in the day. In the +light of the binnacle his small blue eyes looked more malevolent than ever. So +weazened and tiny was he, and so large was the brass-studded wheel, that they +seemed of a height. His face was withered, scorched, and wrinkled, and in all +seeming he was fifty years older than Mr. Pike. He was the most remarkable +figure of a burnt-out, aged man one would expect to find able seaman on one of +the proudest sailing-ships afloat. Later, through Wada, I was to learn that his +name was Andy Fay and that he claimed no more years than sixty-three. +</p> + +<p> +I leaned against the rail in the lee of the wheel-house, and stared up at the +lofty spars and myriad ropes that I could guess were there. No, I decided I was +not keen on the voyage. The whole atmosphere of it was wrong. There were the +cold hours I had waited on the pier-ends. There was Miss West coming along. +There was the crew of broken men and lunatics. I wondered if the wounded Greek +in the ’midship house still gibbered, and if Mr. Pike had yet sewed him +up; and I was quite sure I would not care to witness such a transaction in +surgery. +</p> + +<p> +Even Wada, who had never been in a sailing-ship, had his doubts of the voyage. +So had the steward, who had spent most of a life-time in sailing-ships. So far +as Captain West was concerned, crews did not exist. And as for Miss West, she +was so abominably robust that she could not be anything else than an optimist +in such matters. She had always lived; her red blood sang to her only that she +would always live and that nothing evil would ever happen to her glorious +personality. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, trust me, I knew the way of red blood. Such was my condition that the +red-blood health of Miss West was virtually an affront to me—for I knew +how unthinking and immoderate such blood could be. And for five months at +least—there was Mr. Pike’s offered wager of a pound of tobacco or a +month’s wages to that effect—I was to be pent on the same ship with +her. As sure as cosmic sap was cosmic sap, just that sure was I that ere the +voyage was over I should be pestered by her making love to me. Please do not +mistake me. My certainty in this matter was due, not to any exalted sense of my +own desirableness to women, but to my anything but exalted concept of women as +instinctive huntresses of men. In my experience women hunted men with quite the +same blind tropism that marks the pursuit of the sun by the sunflower, the +pursuit of attachable surfaces by the tendrils of the grapevine. +</p> + +<p> +Call me blasé—I do not mind, if by blasé is meant the +world-weariness, intellectual, artistic, sensational, which can come to a young +man of thirty. For I was thirty, and I was weary of all these +things—weary and in doubt. It was because of this state that I was +undertaking the voyage. I wanted to get away by myself, to get away from all +these things, and, with proper perspective, mull the matter over. +</p> + +<p> +It sometimes seemed to me that the culmination of this world-sickness had been +brought about by the success of my play—my first play, as every one +knows. But it had been such a success that it raised the doubt in my own mind, +just as the success of my several volumes of verse had raised doubts. Was the +public right? Were the critics right? Surely the function of the artist was to +voice life, yet what did I know of life? +</p> + +<p> +So you begin to glimpse what I mean by the world-sickness that afflicted me. +Really, I had been, and was, very sick. Mad thoughts of isolating myself +entirely from the world had hounded me. I had even canvassed the idea of going +to Molokai and devoting the rest of my years to the lepers—I, who was +thirty years old, and healthy and strong, who had no particular tragedy, who +had a bigger income than I knew how to spend, who by my own achievement had put +my name on the lips of men and proved myself a power to be reckoned +with—I was that mad that I had considered the lazar house for a destiny. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps it will be suggested that success had turned my head. Very well. +Granted. But the turned head remains a fact, an incontrovertible fact—my +sickness, if you will, and a real sickness, and a fact. This I knew: I had +reached an intellectual and artistic climacteric, a life-climacteric of some +sort. And I had diagnosed my own case and prescribed this voyage. And here was +the atrociously healthy and profoundly feminine Miss West along—the very +last ingredient I would have considered introducing into my prescription. +</p> + +<p> +A woman! Woman! Heaven knows I had been sufficiently tormented by their +persecutions to know them. I leave it to you: thirty years of age, not entirely +unhandsome, an intellectual and artistic place in the world, and an income most +dazzling—why shouldn’t women pursue me? They would have pursued me +had I been a hunchback, for the sake of my artistic place alone, for the sake +of my income alone. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; and love! Did I not know love—lyric, passionate, mad, romantic love? +That, too, was of old time with me. I, too, had throbbed and sung and sobbed +and sighed—yes, and known grief, and buried my dead. But it was so long +ago. How young I was—turned twenty-four! And after that I had learned the +bitter lesson that even deathless grief may die; and I had laughed again and +done my share of philandering with the pretty, ferocious moths that fluttered +around the light of my fortune and artistry; and after that, in turn, I had +retired disgusted from the lists of woman, and gone on long lance-breaking +adventures in the realm of mind. And here I was, on board the <i>Elsinore</i>, +unhorsed by my encounters with the problems of the ultimate, carried off the +field with a broken pate. +</p> + +<p> +As I leaned against the rail, dismissing premonitions of disaster, I could not +help thinking of Miss West below, bustling and humming as she made her little +nest. And from her my thought drifted on to the everlasting mystery of woman. +Yes, I, with all the futuristic contempt for woman, am ever caught up afresh by +the mystery of woman. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, no illusions, thank you. Woman, the love-seeker, obsessing and possessing, +fragile and fierce, soft and venomous, prouder than Lucifer and as prideless, +holds a perpetual, almost morbid, attraction for the thinker. What is this +flame of her, blazing through all her contradictions and +ignobilities?—this ruthless passion for life, always for life, more life +on the planet? At times it seems to me brazen, and awful, and soulless. At +times I am made petulant by it. And at other times I am swayed by the sublimity +of it. No; there is no escape from woman. Always, as a savage returns to a dark +glen where goblins are and gods may be, so do I return to the contemplation of +woman. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike’s voice interrupted my musings. From for’ard, on the main +deck, I heard him snarl: +</p> + +<p> +“On the main-topsail-yard, there!—if you cut that gasket I’ll +split your damned skull!” +</p> + +<p> +Again he called, with a marked change of voice, and the Henry he called to I +concluded was the training-ship boy. +</p> + +<p> +“You, Henry, main-skysail-yard, there!” he cried. +“Don’t make those gaskets up! Fetch ’em in along the yard and +make fast to the tye!” +</p> + +<p> +Thus routed from my reverie, I decided to go below to bed. As my hand went out +to the knob of the chart-house door again the mate’s voice rang out: +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, you gentlemen’s sons in disguise! Wake up! Lively +now!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +I did not sleep well. To begin with, I read late. Not till two in the morning +did I reach up and turn out the kerosene reading-lamp which Wada had purchased +and installed for me. I was asleep immediately—perfect sleep being +perhaps my greatest gift; but almost immediately I was awake again. And +thereafter, with dozings and cat-naps and restless tossings, I struggled to win +to sleep, then gave it up. For of all things, in my state of jangled nerves, to +be afflicted with hives! And still again, to be afflicted with hives in cold +winter weather! +</p> + +<p> +At four I lighted up and went to reading, forgetting my irritated skin in +Vernon Lee’s delightful screed against William James, and his “will +to believe.” I was on the weather side of the ship, and from overhead, +through the deck, came the steady footfalls of some officer on watch. I knew +that they were not the steps of Mr. Pike, and wondered whether they were Mr. +Mellaire’s or the pilot’s. Somebody above there was awake. The work +was going on, the vigilant seeing and overseeing, that, I could plainly +conclude, would go on through every hour of all the hours on the voyage. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past four I heard the steward’s alarm go off, instantly +suppressed, and five minutes later I lifted my hand to motion him in through my +open door. What I desired was a cup of coffee, and Wada had been with me +through too many years for me to doubt that he had given the steward precise +instructions and turned over to him my coffee and my coffee-making apparatus. +</p> + +<p> +The steward was a jewel. In ten minutes he served me with a perfect cup of +coffee. I read on until daylight, and half-past eight found me, breakfast in +bed finished, dressed and shaved, and on deck. We were still towing, but all +sails were set to a light favouring breeze from the north. In the chart-room +Captain West and the pilot were smoking cigars. At the wheel I noted what I +decided at once was an efficient. He was not a large man; if anything he was +undersized. But his countenance was broad-browed and intelligently formed. Tom, +I later learned, was his name—Tom Spink, an Englishman. He was blue-eyed, +fair-skinned, well-grizzled, and, to the eye, a hale fifty years of age. His +reply of “Good morning, sir” was cheery, and he smiled as he +uttered the simple phrase. He did not look sailor-like, as did Henry, the +training-ship boy; and yet I felt at once that he was a sailor, and an able +one. +</p> + +<p> +It was Mr. Pike’s watch, and on asking him about Tom he grudgingly +admitted that the man was the “best of the boiling.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss West emerged from the chart-house, with a rosy morning face and her vital, +springy limb-movement, and immediately began establishing her contacts. On +asking how I had slept, and when I said wretchedly, she demanded an +explanation. I told her of my affliction of hives and showed her the lumps on +my wrists. +</p> + +<p> +“Your blood needs thinning and cooling,” she adjudged promptly. +“Wait a minute. I’ll see what can be done for you.” +</p> + +<p> +And with that she was away and below and back in a trice, in her hand a part +glass of water into which she stirred a teaspoonful of cream of tartar. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink it,” she ordered, as a matter of course. +</p> + +<p> +I drank it. And at eleven in the morning she came up to my deck-chair with a +second dose of the stuff. Also she reproached me soundly for permitting Wada to +feed meat to Possum. It was from her that Wada and I learned how mortal a sin +it was to give meat to a young puppy. Furthermore, she laid down the law and +the diet for Possum, not alone to me and Wada, but to the steward, the +carpenter, and Mr. Mellaire. Of the latter two, because they ate by themselves +in the big after-room and because Possum played there, she was especially +suspicious; and she was outspoken in voicing her suspicions to their faces. The +carpenter mumbled embarrassed asseverations in broken English of past, present, +and future innocence, the while he humbly scraped and shuffled before her on +his huge feet. Mr. Mellaire’s protestations were of the same nature, save +that they were made with the grace and suavity of a Chesterfield. +</p> + +<p> +In short, Possum’s diet raised quite a tempest in the <i>Elsinore</i> +teapot, and by the time it was over Miss West had established this particular +contact with me and given me a feeling that we were the mutual owners of the +puppy. I noticed, later in the day, that it was to Miss West that Wada went for +instructions as to the quantity of warm water he must use to dilute +Possum’s condensed milk. +</p> + +<p> +Lunch won my continued approbation of the cook. In the afternoon I made a trip +for’ard to the galley to make his acquaintance. To all intents he was a +Chinese, until he spoke, whereupon, measured by speech alone, he was an +Englishman. In fact, so cultured was his speech that I can fairly say it was +vested with an Oxford accent. He, too, was old, fully sixty—he +acknowledged fifty-nine. Three things about him were markedly conspicuous: his +smile, that embraced all of his clean-shaven Asiatic face and Asiatic eyes; his +even-rowed, white, and perfect teeth, which I deemed false until Wada +ascertained otherwise for me; and his hands and feet. It was his hands, +ridiculously small and beautifully modelled, that led my scrutiny to his feet. +They, too, were ridiculously small and very neatly, almost dandifiedly, shod. +</p> + +<p> +We had put the pilot off at midday, but the <i>Britannia</i> towed us well into +the afternoon and did not cast us off until the ocean was wide about us and the +land a faint blur on the western horizon. Here, at the moment of leaving the +tug, we made our “departure”—that is to say, technically +began the voyage, despite the fact that we had already travelled a full +twenty-four hours away from Baltimore. +</p> + +<p> +It was about the time of casting off, when I was leaning on the poop-rail +gazing for’ard, when Miss West joined me. She had been busy below all +day, and had just come up, as she put it, for a breath of air. She surveyed the +sky in weather-wise fashion for a full five minutes, then remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“The barometer’s very high—30.60. This light north wind +won’t last. It will either go into a calm or work around into a +north-east gale.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which would you prefer?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The gale, by all means. It will help us off the land, and it will put me +through my torment of sea-sickness more quickly. Oh, yes,” she added, +“I’m a good sailor, but I do suffer dreadfully at the beginning of +every voyage. You probably won’t see me for a couple of days now. +That’s why I’ve been so busy getting settled first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Nelson, I have read, never got over his squeamishness at +sea,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ve seen father sea-sick on occasion,” she answered. +“Yes, and some of the strongest, hardest sailors I have ever +known.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike here joined us for a moment, ceasing from his everlasting pacing up +and down to lean with us on the poop-rail. +</p> + +<p> +Many of the crew were in evidence, pulling on ropes on the main deck below us. +To my inexperienced eye they appeared more unprepossessing than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty scraggly crew, Mr. Pike,” Miss West remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“The worst ever,” he growled, “and I’ve seen some +pretty bad ones. We’re teachin’ them the ropes just now—most +of ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“They look starved,” I commented. +</p> + +<p> +“They are, they almost always are,” Miss West answered, and her +eyes roved over them in the same appraising, cattle-buyer’s fashion I had +marked in Mr. Pike. “But they’ll fatten up with regular hours, no +whiskey, and solid food—won’t they, Mr. Pike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sure. They always do. And you’ll see them liven up when we get +’em in hand . . . maybe. They’re a measly lot, though.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked aloft at the vast towers of canvas. Our four masts seemed to have +flowered into all the sails possible, yet the sailors beneath us, under Mr. +Mellaire’s direction, were setting triangular sails, like jibs, between +the masts, and there were so many that they overlapped one another. The +slowness and clumsiness with which the men handled these small sails led me to +ask: +</p> + +<p> +“But what would you do, Mr. Pike, with a green crew like this, if you +were caught right now in a storm with all this canvas spread?” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders, as if I had asked what he would do in an earthquake +with two rows of New York skyscrapers falling on his head from both sides of a +street. +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” Miss West answered for him. “We’d get the sail +off. Oh, it can be done, Mr. Pathurst, with any kind of a crew. If it +couldn’t, I should have been drowned long ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” Mr. Pike upheld her. “So would I.” +</p> + +<p> +“The officers can perform miracles with the most worthless sailors, in a +pinch,” Miss West went on. +</p> + +<p> +Again Mr. Pike nodded his head and agreed, and I noted his two big paws, +relaxed the moment before and drooping over the rail, quite unconsciously +tensed and folded themselves into fists. Also, I noted fresh abrasions on the +knuckles. Miss West laughed heartily, as from some recollection. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember one time when we sailed from San Francisco with a most +hopeless crew. It was in the <i>Lallah Rookh</i>—you remember her, Mr. +Pike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father’s fifth command,” he nodded. “Lost on the +West Coast afterwards—went ashore in that big earthquake and tidal wave. +Parted her anchors, and when she hit under the cliff, the cliff fell on +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the ship. Well, our crew seemed mostly cow-boys, and +bricklayers, and tramps, and more tramps than anything else. Where the +boarding-house masters got them was beyond imagining. A number of them were +shanghaied, that was certain. You should have seen them when they were first +sent aloft.” Again she laughed. “It was better than circus clowns. +And scarcely had the tug cast us off, outside the Heads, when it began to blow +up and we began to shorten down. And then our mates performed miracles. You +remember Mr. Harding—Silas Harding?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t I though!” Mr. Pike proclaimed enthusiastically. +“He was some man, and he must have been an old man even then.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was, and a terrible man,” she concurred, and added, almost +reverently: “And a wonderful man.” She turned her face to me. +“He was our mate. The men were sea-sick and miserable and green. But Mr. +Harding got the sail off the <i>Lallah Rookh</i> just the same. What I wanted +to tell you was this: +</p> + +<p> +“I was on the poop, just like I am now, and Mr. Harding had a lot of +those miserable sick men putting gaskets on the main-lower-topsail. How far +would that be above the deck, Mr. Pike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see . . . the <i>Lallah Rookh</i>.” Mr. Pike paused to +consider. “Oh, say around a hundred feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw it myself. One of the green hands, a tramp—and he must +already have got a taste of Mr. Harding—fell off the lower-topsail-yard. +I was only a little girl, but it looked like certain death, for he was falling +from the weather side of the yard straight down on deck. But he fell into the +belly of the mainsail, breaking his fall, turned a somersault, and landed on +his feet on deck and unhurt. And he landed right alongside of Mr. Harding, +facing him. I don’t know which was the more astonished, but I think Mr. +Harding was, for he stood there petrified. He had expected the man to be +killed. Not so the man. He took one look at Mr. Harding, then made a wild jump +for the rigging and climbed right back up to that topsail-yard.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss West and the mate laughed so heartily that they scarcely heard me say: +</p> + +<p> +“Astonishing! Think of the jar to the man’s nerves, falling to +apparent death that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’d been jarred harder by Silas Harding, I guess,” was Mr. +Pike’s remark, with another burst of laughter, in which Miss West joined. +</p> + +<p> +Which was all very well in a way. Ships were ships, and judging by what I had +seen of our present crew harsh treatment was necessary. But that a young woman +of the niceness of Miss West should know of such things and be so saturated in +this side of ship life was not nice. It was not nice for me, though it +interested me, I confess,—and strengthened my grip on reality. Yet it +meant a hardening of one’s fibres, and I did not like to think of Miss +West being so hardened. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her and could not help marking again the fineness and firmness of +her skin. Her hair was dark, as were her eyebrows, which were almost straight +and rather low over her long eyes. Gray her eyes were, a warm gray, and very +steady and direct in expression, intelligent and alive. Perhaps, taking her +face as a whole, the most noteworthy expression of it was a great calm. She +seemed always in repose, at peace with herself and with the external world. The +most beautiful feature was her eyes, framed in lashes as dark as her brows and +hair. The most admirable feature was her nose, quite straight, very straight, +and just the slightest trifle too long. In this it was reminiscent of her +father’s nose. But the perfect modelling of the bridge and nostrils +conveyed an indescribable advertisement of race and blood. +</p> + +<p> +Hers was a slender-lipped, sensitive, sensible, and generous +mouth—generous, not so much in size, which was quite average, but +generous rather in tolerance, in power, and in laughter. All the health and +buoyancy of her was in her mouth, as well as in her eyes. She rarely exposed +her teeth in smiling, for which purpose she seemed chiefly to employ her eyes; +but when she laughed she showed strong white teeth, even, not babyish in their +smallness, but just the firm, sensible, normal size one would expect in a woman +as healthy and normal as she. +</p> + +<p> +I would never have called her beautiful, and yet she possessed many of the +factors that go to compose feminine beauty. She had all the beauty of +colouring, a white skin that was healthy white and that was emphasized by the +darkness of her lashes, brows, and hair. And, in the same way, the darkness of +lashes and brows and the whiteness of skin set off the warm gray of her eyes. +The forehead was, well, medium-broad and medium high, and quite smooth. No +lines nor hints of lines were there, suggestive of nervousness, of blue days of +depression and white nights of insomnia. Oh, she bore all the marks of the +healthy, human female, who never worried nor was vexed in the spirit of her, +and in whose body every process and function was frictionless and automatic. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss West has posed to me as quite a weather prophet,” I said to +the mate. “Now what is your forecast of our coming weather?” +</p> + +<p> +“She ought to be,” was Mr. Pike’s reply as he lifted his +glance across the smooth swell of sea to the sky. “This ain’t the +first time she’s been on the North Atlantic in winter.” He debated +a moment, as he studied the sea and sky. “I should say, considering the +high barometer, we ought to get a mild gale from the north-east or a calm, with +the chances in favour of the calm.” +</p> + +<p> +She favoured me with a triumphant smile, and suddenly clutched the rail as the +<i>Elsinore</i> lifted on an unusually large swell and sank into the trough +with a roll from windward that flapped all the sails in hollow thunder. +</p> + +<p> +“The calm has it,” Miss West said, with just a hint of grimness. +“And if this keeps up I’ll be in my bunk in about five +minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +She waved aside all sympathy. “Oh, don’t bother about me, Mr. +Pathurst. Sea-sickness is only detestable and horrid, like sleet, and muddy +weather, and poison ivy; besides, I’d rather be sea-sick than have the +hives.” +</p> + +<p> +Something went wrong with the men below us on the deck, some stupidity or +blunder that was made aware to us by Mr. Mellaire’s raised voice. Like +Mr. Pike, he had a way of snarling at the sailors that was distinctly +unpleasant to the ear. +</p> + +<p> +On the faces of several of the sailors bruises were in evidence. One, in +particular, had an eye so swollen that it was closed. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks as if he had run against a stanchion in the dark,” I +observed. +</p> + +<p> +Most eloquent, and most unconscious, was the quick flash of Miss West’s +eyes to Mr. Pike’s big paws, with freshly abraded knuckles, resting on +the rail. It was a stab of hurt to me. <i>She knew</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +That evening the three men of us had dinner alone, with racks on the table, +while the <i>Elsinore</i> rolled in the calm that had sent Miss West to her +room. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t see her for a couple of days,” Captain West told +me. “Her mother was the same way—a born sailor, but always sick at +the outset of a voyage.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the shaking down.” Mr. Pike astonished me with the +longest observation I had yet heard him utter at table. “Everybody has to +shake down when they leave the land. We’ve got to forget the good times +on shore, and the good things money’ll buy, and start watch and watch, +four hours on deck and four below. And it comes hard, and all our tempers are +strung until we can make the change. Did it happen that you heard Caruso and +Blanche Arral this winter in New York, Mr. Pathurst?” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded, still marvelling over this spate of speech at table. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, think of hearing them, and Homer, and Witherspoon, and Amato, +every night for nights and nights at the Metropolitan; and then to give it the +go-by, and get to sea and shake down to watch and watch.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like the sea?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +He sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. But of course the sea is all I know—” +</p> + +<p> +“Except music,” I threw in. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but the sea and all the long-voyaging has cheated me out of most of +the music I oughta have had coming to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ve heard Schumann Heink?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful, wonderful!” he murmured fervently, then regarded me +with an eager wistfulness. “I’ve half-a-dozen of her records, and +I’ve got the second dog-watch below. If Captain West don’t mind . . +. ” (Captain West nodded that he didn’t mind). “And if +you’d want to hear them? The machine is a good one.” +</p> + +<p> +And then, to my amazement, when the steward had cleared the table, this hoary +old relic of man-killing and man-driving days, battered waif of the sea that he +was, carried in from his room a most splendid collection of phonograph records. +These, and the machine, he placed on the table. The big doors were opened, +making the dining-room and the main cabin into one large room. It was in the +cabin that Captain West and I lolled in big leather chairs while Mr. Pike ran +the phonograph. His face was in a blaze of light from the swinging lamps, and +every shade of expression was visible to me. +</p> + +<p> +In vain I waited for him to start some popular song. His records were only of +the best, and the care he took of them was a revelation. He handled each one +reverently, as a sacred thing, untying and unwrapping it and brushing it with a +fine camel’s hair brush while it revolved and ere he placed the needle on +it. For a time all I could see was the huge brute hands of a brute-driver, with +skin off the knuckles, that expressed love in their every movement. Each touch +on the discs was a caress, and while the record played he hovered over it and +dreamed in some heaven of music all his own. +</p> + +<p> +During this time Captain West lay back and smoked a cigar. His face was +expressionless, and he seemed very far away, untouched by the music. I almost +doubted that he heard it. He made no remarks between whiles, betrayed no sign +of approbation or displeasure. He seemed preternaturally serene, +preternaturally remote. And while I watched him I wondered what his duties +were. I had not seen him perform any. Mr. Pike had attended to the loading of +the ship. Not until she was ready for sea had Captain West come on board. I had +not seen him give an order. It looked to me that Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire did +the work. All Captain West did was to smoke cigars and keep blissfully +oblivious of the <i>Elsinore’s</i> crew. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Pike had played the “Hallelujah Chorus” from the +<i>Messiah</i>, and “He Shall Feed His Flock,” he mentioned to me, +almost apologetically, that he liked sacred music, and for the reason, perhaps, +that for a short period, a child ashore in San Francisco, he had been a choir +boy. +</p> + +<p> +“And then I hit the dominie over the head with a baseball bat and sneaked +off to sea again,” he concluded with a harsh laugh. +</p> + +<p> +And thereat he fell to dreaming while he played Meyerbeer’s “King +of Heaven,” and Mendelssohn’s “O Rest in the Lord.” +</p> + +<p> +When one bell struck, at quarter to eight, he carried his music, all carefully +wrapped, back into his room. I lingered with him while he rolled a cigarette +ere eight bells struck. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve got a lot more good things,” he said confidentially: +“Coenen’s ‘Come Unto Me,’ and Faure’s +‘Crucifix’; and there’s ‘O Salutaris,’ and +‘Lead, Kindly Light’ by the Trinity Choir; and ‘Jesu, Lover +of My Soul’ would just melt your heart. I’ll play ’em for you +some night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe in them?” I was led to ask by his rapt expression +and by the picture of his brute-driving hands which I could not shake from my +consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated perceptibly, then replied: +</p> + +<p> +“I do . . . when I’m listening to them.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +My sleep that night was wretched. Short of sleep from the previous night, I +closed my book and turned my light off early. But scarcely had I dropped into +slumber when I was aroused by the recrudescence of my hives. All day they had +not bothered me; yet the instant I put out the light and slept, the damnable +persistent itching set up. Wada had not yet gone to bed, and from him I got +more cream of tartar. It was useless, however, and at midnight, when I heard +the watch changing, I partially dressed, slipped into my dressing-gown, and +went up on to the poop. +</p> + +<p> +I saw Mr. Mellaire beginning his four hours’ watch, pacing up and down +the port side of the poop; and I slipped away aft, past the man at the wheel, +whom I did not recognize, and took refuge in the lee of the wheel-house. +</p> + +<p> +Once again I studied the dim loom and tracery of intricate rigging and lofty, +sail-carrying spars, thought of the mad, imbecile crew, and experienced +premonitions of disaster. How could such a voyage be possible, with such a +crew, on the huge <i>Elsinore</i>, a cargo-carrier that was only a steel shell +half an inch thick burdened with five thousand tons of coal? It was appalling +to contemplate. The voyage had gone wrong from the first. In the wretched +unbalance that loss of sleep brings to any good sleeper, I could decide only +that the voyage was doomed. Yet how doomed it was, in truth, neither I nor a +madman could have dreamed. +</p> + +<p> +I thought of the red-blooded Miss West, who had always lived and had no doubts +but what she would always live. I thought of the killing and driving and +music-loving Mr. Pike. Many a haler remnant than he had gone down on a last +voyage. As for Captain West, he did not count. He was too neutral a being, too +far away, a sort of favoured passenger who had nothing to do but serenely and +passively exist in some Nirvana of his own creating. +</p> + +<p> +Next I remembered the self-wounded Greek, sewed up by Mr. Pike and lying +gibbering between the steel walls of the ’midship-house. This picture +almost decided me, for in my fevered imagination he typified the whole mad, +helpless, idiotic crew. Certainly I could go back to Baltimore. Thank God I had +the money to humour my whims. Had not Mr. Pike told me, in reply to a question, +that he estimated the running expenses of the <i>Elsinore</i> at two hundred +dollars a day? I could afford to pay two hundred a day, or two thousand, for +the several days that might be necessary to get me back to the land, to a pilot +tug, or any inbound craft to Baltimore. +</p> + +<p> +I was quite wholly of a mind to go down and rout out Captain West to tell him +my decision, when another presented itself: <i>Then are you</i>, <i>the thinker +and philosopher</i>, <i>the world-sick one</i>, <i>afraid to go down</i>, <i>to +cease in the darkness</i>? Bah! My own pride in my life-pridelessness saved +Captain West’s sleep from interruption. Of course I would go on with the +adventure, if adventure it might be called, to go sailing around Cape Horn with +a shipload of fools and lunatics—and worse; for I remembered the three +Babylonish and Semitic ones who had aroused Mr. Pike’s ire and who had +laughed so terribly and silently. +</p> + +<p> +Night thoughts! Sleepless thoughts! I dismissed them all and started below, +chilled through by the cold. But at the chart-room door I encountered Mr. +Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +“A pleasant evening, sir,” he greeted me. “A pity +there’s not a little wind to help us off the land.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of the crew?” I asked, after a moment or so. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire shrugged his shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen many queer crews in my time, Mr. Pathurst. But I never +saw one as queer as this—boys, old men, cripples and—you saw Tony +the Greek go overboard yesterday? Well, that’s only the beginning. +He’s a sample. I’ve got a big Irishman in my watch who’s +going bad. Did you notice a little, dried-up Scotchman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who looks mean and angry all the time, and who was steering the evening +before last?” +</p> + +<p> +“The very one—Andy Fay. Well, Andy Fay’s just been +complaining to me about O’Sullivan. Says O’Sullivan’s +threatened his life. When Andy Fay went off watch at eight he found +O’Sullivan stropping a razor. I’ll give you the conversation as +Andy gave it to me: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Says O’Sullivan to me, “Mr. Fay, I’ll have a +word wid yeh?” “Certainly,” says I; “what can I do for +you?” “Sell me your sea-boots, Mr. Fay,” says +O’Sullivan, polite as can be. “But what will you be wantin’ +of them?” says I. “’Twill be a great favour,” says +O’Sullivan. “But it’s my only pair,” says I; “and +you have a pair of your own,” says I. “Mr. Fay, I’ll be +needin’ me own in bad weather,” says O’Sullivan. +“Besides,” says I, “you have no money.” +“I’ll pay for them when we pay off in Seattle,” says +O’Sullivan. “I’ll not do it,” says I; “besides, +you’re not tellin’ me what you’ll be doin’ with +them.” “But I will tell yeh,” says O’Sullivan; +“I’m wantin’ to throw ’em over the side.” And +with that I turns to walk away, but O’Sullivan says, very polite and +seducin’-like, still a-stroppin’ the razor, “Mr. Fay,” +says he, “will you kindly step this way an’ have your throat +cut?” And with that I knew my life was in danger, and I have come to make +report to you, sir, that the man is a violent lunatic.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Or soon will be,” I remarked. “I noticed him yesterday, a +big man muttering continually to himself?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the man,” Mr. Mellaire said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you have many such at sea?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“More than my share, I do believe, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +He was lighting a cigarette at the moment, and with a quick movement he pulled +off his cap, bent his head forward, and held up the blazing match that I might +see. +</p> + +<p> +I saw a grizzled head, the full crown of which was not entirely bald, but +partially covered with a few sparse long hairs. And full across this crown, +disappearing in the thicker fringe above the ears, ran the most prodigious scar +I had ever seen. Because the vision of it was so fleeting, ere the match blew +out, and because of the scar’s very prodigiousness, I may possibly +exaggerate, but I could have sworn that I could lay two fingers deep into the +horrid cleft and that it was fully two fingers broad. There seemed no bone at +all, just a great fissure, a deep valley covered with skin; and I was confident +that the brain pulsed immediately under that skin. +</p> + +<p> +He pulled his cap on and laughed in an amused, reassuring way. +</p> + +<p> +“A crazy sea cook did that, Mr. Pathurst, with a meat-axe. We were +thousands of miles from anywhere, in the South Indian Ocean at the time, +running our Easting down, but the cook got the idea into his addled head that +we were lying in Boston Harbour, and that I wouldn’t let him go ashore. I +had my back to him at the time, and I never knew what struck me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how could you recover from so fearful an injury?” I +questioned. “There must have been a splendid surgeon on board, and you +must have had wonderful vitality.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been the vitality . . . and the molasses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Molasses!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the captain had old-fashioned prejudices against antiseptics. He +always used molasses for fresh wound-dressings. I lay in my bunk many weary +weeks—we had a long passage—and by the time we reached Hong Kong +the thing was healed, there was no need for a shore surgeon, and I was standing +my third mate’s watch—we carried third mates in those days.” +</p> + +<p> +Not for many a long day was I to realize the dire part that scar in Mr. +Mellaire’s head was to play in his destiny and in the destiny of the +<i>Elsinore</i>. Had I known at the time, Captain West would have received the +most unusual awakening from sleep that he ever experienced; for he would have +been routed out by a very determined, partially-dressed passenger with a +proposition capable of going to the extent of buying the <i>Elsinore</i> +outright with all her cargo, so that she might be sailed straight back to +Baltimore. +</p> + +<p> +As it was, I merely thought it a very marvellous thing that Mr. Mellaire should +have lived so many years with such a hole in his head. +</p> + +<p> +We talked on, and he gave me many details of that particular happening, and of +other happenings at sea on the part of the lunatics that seem to infest the +sea. +</p> + +<p> +And yet I could not like the man. In nothing he said, nor in the manner of +saying things, could I find fault. He seemed generous, broad-minded, and, for a +sailor, very much of a man of the world. It was easy for me to overlook his +excessive suavity of speech and super-courtesy of social mannerism. It was not +that. But all the time I was distressingly, and, I suppose, intuitively aware, +though in the darkness I couldn’t even see his eyes, that there, behind +those eyes, inside that skull, was ambuscaded an alien personality that spied +upon me, measured me, studied me, and that said one thing while it thought +another thing. +</p> + +<p> +When I said good night and went below it was with the feeling that I had been +talking with the one half of some sort of a dual creature. The other half had +not spoken. Yet I sensed it there, fluttering and quick, behind the mask of +words and flesh. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +But I could not sleep. I took more cream of tartar. It must be the heat of the +bed-clothes, I decided, that excited my hives. And yet, whenever I ceased +struggling for sleep, and lighted the lamp and read, my skin irritation +decreased. But as soon as I turned out the lamp and closed my eyes I was +troubled again. So hour after hour passed, through which, between vain attempts +to sleep, I managed to wade through many pages of Rosny’s <i>Le +Termite</i>—a not very cheerful proceeding, I must say, concerned as it +is with the microscopic and over-elaborate recital of Noël +Servaise’s tortured nerves, bodily pains, and intellectual phantasma. At +last I tossed the novel aside, damned all analytical Frenchmen, and found some +measure of relief in the more genial and cynical Stendhal. +</p> + +<p> +Over my head I could hear Mr. Mellaire steadily pace up and down. At four the +watches changed, and I recognized the age-lag in Mr. Pike’s promenade. +Half an hour later, just as the steward’s alarm went off, instantly +checked by that light-sleeping Asiatic, the <i>Elsinore</i> began to heel over +on my side. I could hear Mr. Pike barking and snarling orders, and at times a +trample and shuffle of many feet passed over my head as the weird crew pulled +and hauled. The <i>Elsinore</i> continued to heel over until I could see the +water against my port, and then she gathered way and dashed ahead at such a +rate that I could hear the stinging and singing of the foam through the circle +of thick glass beside me. +</p> + +<p> +The steward brought me coffee, and I read till daylight and after, when Wada +served me breakfast and helped me dress. He, too, complained of inability to +sleep. He had been bunked with Nancy in one of the rooms in the +’midship-house. Wada described the situation. The tiny room, made of +steel, was air-tight when the steel door was closed. And Nancy insisted on +keeping the door closed. As a result Wada, in the upper bunk, had stifled. He +told me that the air had got so bad that the flame of the lamp, no matter how +high it was turned, guttered down and all but refused to burn. Nancy snored +beautifully through it all, while he had been unable to close his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“He is not clean,” quoth Wada. “He is a pig. No more will I +sleep in that place.” +</p> + +<p> +On the poop I found the <i>Elsinore</i>, with many of her sails furled, +slashing along through a troubled sea under an overcast sky. Also I found Mr. +Mellaire marching up and down, just as I had left him hours before, and it took +quite a distinct effort for me to realize that he had had the watch off between +four and eight. Even then, he told me, he had slept from four until half-past +seven. +</p> + +<p> +“That is one thing, Mr. Pathurst, I always sleep like a baby . . . which +means a good conscience, sir, yes, a good conscience.” +</p> + +<p> +And while he enunciated the platitude I was uncomfortably aware that that alien +thing inside his skull was watching me, studying me. +</p> + +<p> +In the cabin Captain West smoked a cigar and read the Bible. Miss West did not +appear, and I was grateful that to my sleeplessness the curse of sea-sickness +had not been added. +</p> + +<p> +Without asking permission of anybody, Wada arranged a sleeping place for +himself in a far corner of the big after-room, screening the corner with a +solidly lashed wall of my trunks and empty book boxes. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dreary enough day, no sun, with occasional splatters of rain and a +persistent crash of seas over the weather rail and swash of water across the +deck. With my eyes glued to the cabin ports, which gave for’ard along the +main deck, I could see the wretched sailors, whenever they were given some task +of pull and haul, wet through and through by the boarding seas. Several times I +saw some of them taken off their feet and rolled about in the creaming foam. +And yet, erect, unstaggering, with certitude of weight and strength, among +these rolled men, these clutching, cowering ones, moved either Mr. Pike or Mr. +Mellaire. They were never taken off their feet. They never shrank away from a +splash of spray or heavier bulk of down-falling water. They had fed on +different food, were informed with a different spirit, were of iron in contrast +with the poor miserables they drove to their bidding. +</p> + +<p> +In the afternoon I dozed for half-an-hour in one of the big chairs in the +cabin. Had it not been for the violent motion of the ship I could have slept +there for hours, for the hives did not trouble. Captain West, stretched out on +the cabin sofa, his feet in carpet slippers, slept enviably. By some instinct, +I might say, in the deep of sleep, he kept his place and was not rolled off +upon the floor. Also, he lightly held a half-smoked cigar in one hand. I +watched him for an hour, and knew him to be asleep, and marvelled that he +maintained his easy posture and did not drop the cigar. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner there was no phonograph. The second dog-watch was Mr. Pike’s +on deck. Besides, as he explained, the rolling was too severe. It would make +the needle jump and scratch his beloved records. +</p> + +<p> +And no sleep! Another weary night of torment, and another dreary, overcast day +and leaden, troubled sea. And no Miss West. Wada, too, is sea-sick, although +heroically he kept his feet and tried to tend on me with glassy, unseeing eyes. +I sent him to his bunk, and read through the endless hours until my eyes were +tired, and my brain, between lack of sleep and over-use, was fuzzy. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West is no conversationalist. The more I see of him the more I am +baffled. I have not yet found a reason for that first impression I received of +him. He has all the poise and air of a remote and superior being, and yet I +wonder if it be not poise and air and nothing else. Just as I had expected, +that first meeting, ere he spoke a word, to hear fall from his lips words of +untold beneficence and wisdom, and then heard him utter mere social +commonplaces, so I now find myself almost forced to conclude that his touch of +race, and beak of power, and all the tall, aristocratic slenderness of him have +nothing behind them. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, on the other hand, I can find no reason for rejecting that first +impression. He has not shown any strength, but by the same token he has not +shown any weakness. Sometimes I wonder what resides behind those clear blue +eyes. Certainly I have failed to find any intellectual backing. I tried him out +with William James’ <i>Varieties of Religious Experience</i>. He glanced +at a few pages, then returned it to me with the frank statement that it did not +interest him. He has no books of his own. Evidently he is not a reader. Then +what is he? I dared to feel him out on politics. He listened courteously, said +sometimes yes and sometimes no, and, when I ceased from very discouragement, +said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +Aloof as the two officers are from the men, Captain West is still more aloof +from his officers. I have not seen him address a further word to Mr. Mellaire +than “Good morning” on the poop. As for Mr. Pike, who eats three +times a day with him, scarcely any more conversation obtains between them. And +I am surprised by what seems the very conspicuous awe with which Mr. Pike seems +to regard his commander. +</p> + +<p> +Another thing. What are Captain West’s duties? So far he has done +nothing, save eat three times a day, smoke many cigars, and each day stroll a +total of one mile around the poop. The mates do all the work, and hard work it +is, four hours on deck and four below, day and night with never a variation. I +watch Captain West and am amazed. He will loll back in the cabin and stare +straight before him for hours at a time, until I am almost frantic to demand of +him what are his thoughts. Sometimes I doubt that he is thinking at all. I give +him up. I cannot fathom him. +</p> + +<p> +Altogether a depressing day of rain-splatter and wash of water across the deck. +I can see, now, that the problem of sailing a ship with five thousand tons of +coal around the Horn is more serious than I had thought. So deep is the +<i>Elsinore</i> in the water that she is like a log awash. Her tall, six-foot +bulwarks of steel cannot keep the seas from boarding her. She has not the +buoyancy one is accustomed to ascribe to ships. On the contrary, she is +weighted down until she is dead, so that, for this one day alone, I am appalled +at the thought of how many thousands of tons of the North Atlantic have boarded +her and poured out through her spouting scuppers and clanging ports. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, a depressing day. The two mates have alternated on deck and in their +bunks. Captain West has dozed on the cabin sofa or read the Bible. Miss West is +still sea-sick. I have tired myself out with reading, and the fuzziness of my +unsleeping brain makes for melancholy. Even Wada is anything but a cheering +spectacle, crawling out of his bunk, as he does at stated intervals, and with +sick, glassy eyes trying to discern what my needs may be. I almost wish I could +get sea-sick myself. I had never dreamed that a sea voyage could be so +unenlivening as this one is proving. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +Another morning of overcast sky and leaden sea, and of the <i>Elsinore</i>, +under half her canvas, clanging her deck ports, spouting water from her +scuppers, and dashing eastward into the heart of the Atlantic. And I have +failed to sleep half-an-hour all told. At this rate, in a very short time I +shall have consumed all the cream of tartar on the ship. I never have had hives +like these before. I can’t understand it. So long as I keep my lamp +burning and read I am untroubled. The instant I put out the lamp and drowse off +the irritation starts and the lumps on my skin begin to form. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West may be sea-sick, but she cannot be comatose, because at frequent +intervals she sends the steward to me with more cream of tartar. +</p> + +<p> +I have had a revelation to-day. I have discovered Captain West. He is a +Samurai.—You remember the Samurai that H. G. Wells describes in his +<i>Modern Utopia</i>—the superior breed of men who know things and are +masters of life and of their fellow-men in a super-benevolent, super-wise way? +Well, that is what Captain West is. Let me tell it to you. +</p> + +<p> +We had a shift of wind to-day. In the height of a south-west gale the wind +shifted, in the instant, eight points, which is equivalent to a quarter of the +circle. Imagine it! Imagine a gale howling from out of the south-west. And then +imagine the wind, in a heavier and more violent gale, abruptly smiting you from +the north-west. We had been sailing through a circular storm, Captain West +vouchsafed to me, before the event, and the wind could be expected to box the +compass. +</p> + +<p> +Clad in sea-boots, oilskins and sou’wester, I had for some time been +hanging upon the rail at the break of the poop, staring down fascinated at the +poor devils of sailors, repeatedly up to their necks in water, or submerged, or +dashed like straws about the deck, while they pulled and hauled, stupidly, +blindly, and in evident fear, under the orders of Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was with them, working them and working with them. He took every +chance they took, yet somehow he escaped being washed off his feet, though +several times I saw him entirely buried from view. There was more than luck in +the matter; for I saw him, twice, at the head of a line of the men, himself +next to the pin. And twice, in this position, I saw the North Atlantic curl +over the rail and fall upon them. And each time he alone remained, holding the +turn of the rope on the pin, while the rest of them were rolled and sprawled +helplessly away. +</p> + +<p> +Almost it seemed to me good fun, as at a circus, watching their antics. But I +did not apprehend the seriousness of the situation until, the wind screaming +higher than ever and the sea a-smoke and white with wrath, two men did not get +up from the deck. One was carried away for’ard with a broken leg—it +was Iare Jacobson, a dull-witted Scandinavian; and the other, Kid Twist, was +carried away, unconscious, with a bleeding scalp. +</p> + +<p> +In the height of the gusts, in my high position, where the seas did not break, +I found myself compelled to cling tightly to the rail to escape being blown +away. My face was stung to severe pain by the high-driving spindrift, and I had +a feeling that the wind was blowing the cobwebs out of my sleep-starved brain. +</p> + +<p> +And all the time, slender, aristocratic, graceful in streaming oilskins, in +apparent unconcern, giving no orders, effortlessly accommodating his body to +the violent rolling of the <i>Elsinore</i>, Captain West strolled up and down. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this stage in the gale that he unbent sufficiently to tell me that we +were going through a circular storm and that the wind was boxing the compass. I +did notice that he kept his gaze pretty steadily fixed on the overcast, +cloud-driven sky. At last, when it seemed the wind could not possibly blow more +fiercely, he found in the sky what he sought. It was then that I first heard +his voice—a sea-voice, clear as a bell, distinct as silver, and of an +ineffable sweetness and volume, as it might be the trump of Gabriel. That +voice!—effortless, dominating! The mighty threat of the storm, made +articulate by the resistance of the <i>Elsinore</i>, shouted in all the stays, +bellowed in the shrouds, thrummed the taut ropes against the steel masts, and +from the myriad tiny ropes far aloft evoked a devil’s chorus of shrill +pipings and screechings. And yet, through this bedlam of noise, came Captain +West’s voice, as of a spirit visitant, distinct, unrelated, mellow as all +music and mighty as an archangel’s call to judgment. And it carried +understanding and command to the man at the wheel, and to Mr. Pike, waist-deep +in the wash of sea below us. And the man at the wheel obeyed, and Mr. Pike +obeyed, barking and snarling orders to the poor wallowing devils who wallowed +on and obeyed him in turn. And as the voice was the face. This face I had never +seen before. It was the face of the spirit visitant, chaste with wisdom, +lighted by a splendour of power and calm. Perhaps it was the calm that smote me +most of all. It was as the calm of one who had crossed chaos to bless poor +sea-worn men with the word that all was well. It was not the face of the +fighter. To my thrilled imagination it was the face of one who dwelt beyond all +strivings of the elements and broody dissensions of the blood. +</p> + +<p> +The Samurai had arrived, in thunders and lightnings, riding the wings of the +storm, directing the gigantic, labouring <i>Elsinore</i> in all her intricate +massiveness, commanding the wisps of humans to his will, which was the will of +wisdom. +</p> + +<p> +And then, that wonderful Gabriel voice of his, silent (while his creatures +laboured his will), unconcerned, detached and casual, more slenderly tall and +aristocratic than ever in his streaming oilskins, Captain West touched my +shoulder and pointed astern over our weather quarter. I looked, and all that I +could see was a vague smoke of sea and air and a cloud-bank of sky that tore at +the ocean’s breast. And at the same moment the gale from the south-west +ceased. There was no gale, no moving zephyrs, nothing but a vast quietude of +air. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I gasped, out of equilibrium from the abrupt +cessation of wind. +</p> + +<p> +“The shift,” he said. “There she comes.” +</p> + +<p> +And it came, from the north-west, a blast of wind, a blow, an atmospheric +impact that bewildered and stunned and again made the <i>Elsinore</i> harp +protest. It forced me down on the rail. I was like a windle-straw. As I faced +this new abruptness of gale it drove the air back into my lungs, so that I +suffocated and turned my head aside to breathe in the lee of the draught. The +man at the wheel again listened to the Gabriel voice; and Mr. Pike, on the deck +below, listened and repeated the will of the voice; and Captain West, in +slender and stately balance, leaned into the face of the wind and slowly paced +the deck. +</p> + +<p> +It was magnificent. Now, and for the first time, I knew the sea, and the men +who overlord the sea. Captain West had vindicated himself, exposited himself. +At the height and crisis of storm he had taken charge of the <i>Elsinore</i>, +and Mr. Pike had become, what in truth was all he was, the foreman of a gang of +men, the slave-driver of slaves, serving the one from beyond—the Samurai. +</p> + +<p> +A minute or so longer Captain West strolled up and down, leaning easily into +the face of this new and abominable gale or resting his back against it, and +then he went below, pausing for a moment, his hand on the knob of the +chart-room door, to cast a last measuring look at the storm-white sea and +wrath-sombre sky he had mastered. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes later, below, passing the open cabin door, I glanced in and saw +him. Sea-boots and storm-trappings were gone; his feet, in carpet slippers, +rested on a hassock; while he lay back in the big leather chair smoking +dreamily, his eyes wide open, absorbed, non-seeing—or, if they saw, +seeing things beyond the reeling cabin walls and beyond my ken. I have +developed an immense respect for Captain West, though now I know him less than +the little I thought I knew him before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +Small wonder that Miss West remains sea-sick on an ocean like this, which has +become a factory where the veering gales manufacture the selectest and most +mountainous brands of cross-seas. The way the poor <i>Elsinore</i> pitches, +plunges, rolls, and shivers, with all her lofty spars and masts and all her +five thousand tons of dead-weight cargo, is astonishing. To me she is the most +erratic thing imaginable; yet Mr. Pike, with whom I now pace the poop on +occasion, tells me that coal is a good cargo, and that the <i>Elsinore</i> is +well-loaded because he saw to it himself. +</p> + +<p> +He will pause abruptly, in the midst of his interminable pacing, in order to +watch her in her maddest antics. The sight is very pleasant to him, for his +eyes glisten and a faint glow seems to irradiate his face and impart to it a +hint of ecstasy. The <i>Elsinore</i> has a snug place in his heart, I am +confident. He calls her behaviour admirable, and at such times will repeat to +me that it was he who saw to her loading. +</p> + +<p> +It is very curious, the habituation of this man, through a long life on the +sea, to the motion of the sea. There <i>is</i> a rhythm to this chaos of +crossing, buffeting waves. I sense this rhythm, although I cannot solve it. But +Mr. Pike <i>knows</i> it. Again and again, as we paced up and down this +afternoon, when to me nothing unusually antic seemed impending, he would seize +my arm as I lost balance, and as the <i>Elsinore</i> smashed down on her side +and heeled over and over with a colossal roll that seemed never to end, and +that always ended with an abrupt, snap-of-the-whip effect as she began the +corresponding roll to windward. In vain I strove to learn how Mr. Pike +forecasts these antics, and I am driven to believe that he does not consciously +forecast them at all. He <i>feels</i> them; he knows them. They, and the sea, +are ingrained in him. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the end of our little promenade I was guilty of impatiently shaking off +a sudden seizure of my arm in his big paw. If ever, in an hour, the +<i>Elsinore</i> had been less gymnastic than at that moment, I had not noticed +it. So I shook off the sustaining clutch, and the next moment the +<i>Elsinore</i> had smashed down and buried a couple of hundred feet of her +starboard rail beneath the sea, while I had shot down the deck and smashed +myself breathless against the wall of the chart-house. My ribs and one shoulder +are sore from it yet. Now how did he know? +</p> + +<p> +And he never staggers nor seems in danger of being rolled away. On the +contrary, such a surplus of surety of balance has he that time and again he +lent his surplus to me. I begin to have more respect, not for the sea, but for +the men of the sea, and not for the sweepings of seamen that are as slaves on +our decks, but for the real seamen who are their masters—for Captain +West, for Mr. Pike, yes, and for Mr. Mellaire, dislike him as I do. +</p> + +<p> +As early as three in the afternoon the wind, still a gale, went back to the +south-west. Mr. Mellaire had the deck, and he went below and reported the +change to Captain West. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll wear ship at four, Mr. Pathurst,” the second mate told +me when he came back. “You’ll find it an interesting +manoeuvre.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why wait till four?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The Captain’s orders, sir. The watches will be changing, and +we’ll have the use of both of them, without working a hardship on the +watch below by calling it out now.” +</p> + +<p> +And when both watches were on deck Captain West, again in oilskins, came out of +the chart-house. Mr. Pike, out on the bridge, took charge of the many men who, +on deck and on the poop, were to manage the mizzen-braces, while Mr. Mellaire +went for’ard with his watch to handle the fore-and main-braces. It was a +pretty manoeuvre, a play of leverages, by which they eased the force of the +wind on the after part of the <i>Elsinore</i> and used the force of the wind on +the for’ard part. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West gave no orders whatever, and, to all intents, was quite oblivious +of what was being done. He was again the favoured passenger, taking a stroll +for his health’s sake. And yet I knew that both his officers were +uncomfortably aware of his presence and were keyed to their finest seamanship. +I know, now, Captain West’s position on board. He is the brains of the +<i>Elsinore</i>. He is the master strategist. There is more in directing a ship +on the ocean than in standing watches and ordering men to pull and haul. They +are pawns, and the two officers are pieces, with which Captain West plays the +game against sea, and wind, and season, and ocean current. He is the knower. +They are his tongue, by which he makes his knowledge articulate. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +A bad night—equally bad for the <i>Elsinore</i> and for me. She is +receiving a sharp buffeting at the hands of the wintry North Atlantic. I fell +asleep early, exhausted from lack of sleep, and awoke in an hour, frantic with +my lumped and burning skin. More cream of tartar, more reading, more vain +attempts to sleep, until shortly before five, when the steward brought me my +coffee, I wrapped myself in my dressing-gown, and like a being distracted +prowled into the cabin. I dozed in a leather chair and was thrown out by a +violent roll of the ship. I tried the sofa, sinking to sleep immediately, and +immediately thereafter finding myself precipitated to the floor. I am convinced +that when Captain West naps on the sofa he is only half asleep. How else can he +maintain so precarious a position?—unless, in him, too, the sea and its +motion be ingrained. +</p> + +<p> +I wandered into the dining-room, wedged myself into a screwed chair, and fell +asleep, my head on my arms, my arms on the table. And at quarter past seven the +steward roused me by shaking my shoulders. It was time to set table. +</p> + +<p> +Heavy with the brief heaviness of sleep I had had, I dressed and stumbled up on +to the poop in the hope that the wind would clear my brain. Mr. Pike had the +watch, and with sure, age-lagging step he paced the deck. The man is a +marvel—sixty-nine years old, a life of hardship, and as sturdy as a lion. +Yet of the past night alone his hours had been: four to six in the afternoon on +deck; eight to twelve on deck; and four to eight in the morning on deck. In a +few minutes he would be relieved, but at midday he would again be on deck. +</p> + +<p> +I leaned on the poop-rail and stared for’ard along the dreary waste of +deck. Every port and scupper was working to ease the weight of North Atlantic +that perpetually fell on board. Between the rush of the cascades, streaks of +rust showed everywhere. Some sort of a wooden pin-rail had carried away on the +starboard-rail at the foot of the mizzen-shrouds, and an amazing raffle of +ropes and tackles washed about. Here Nancy and half-a-dozen men worked +sporadically, and in fear of their lives, to clear the tangle. +</p> + +<p> +The long-suffering bleakness was very pronounced on Nancy’s face, and +when the walls of water, in impending downfall, reared above the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> rail, he was always the first to leap for the life-line +which had been stretched fore and aft across the wide space of deck. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the men were scarcely less backward in dropping their work and +springing to safety—if safety it might be called, to grip a rope in both +hands and have legs sweep out from under, and be wrenched full-length upon the +boiling surface of an ice-cold flood. Small wonder they look wretched. Bad as +their condition was when they came aboard at Baltimore, they look far worse +now, what of the last several days of wet and freezing hardship. +</p> + +<p> +From time to time, completing his for’ard pace along the poop, Mr. Pike +would pause, ere he retraced his steps, and snort sardonic glee at what +happened to the poor devils below. The man’s heart is callous. A thing of +iron, he has endured; and he has no patience nor sympathy with these creatures +who lack his own excessive iron. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed the stone-deaf man, the twisted oaf whose face I have described as +being that of an ill-treated and feeble-minded faun. His bright, liquid, +pain-filled eyes were more filled with pain than ever, his face still more lean +and drawn with suffering. And yet his face showed an excess of nervousness, +sensitiveness, and a pathetic eagerness to please and do. I could not help +observing that, despite his dreadful sense-handicap and his wrecked, frail +body, he did the most work, was always the last of the group to spring to the +life-line and always the first to loose the life-line and slosh knee-deep or +waist-deep through the churning water to attack the immense and depressing +tangle of rope and tackle. +</p> + +<p> +I remarked to Mr. Pike that the men seemed thinner and weaker than when they +came on board, and he delayed replying for a moment while he stared down at +them with that cattle-buyer’s eye of his. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure they are,” he said disgustedly. “A weak breed, +that’s what they are—nothing to build on, no stamina. The least +thing drags them down. Why, in my day we grew fat on work like that—only +we didn’t; we worked so hard there wasn’t any chance for fat. We +kept in fighting trim, that was all. But as for this scum and slum—say, +you remember, Mr. Pathurst, that man I spoke to the first day, who said his +name was Charles Davis?” +</p> + +<p> +“The one you thought there was something the matter with?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and there was, too. He’s in that ’midship room with the +Greek now. He’ll never do a tap of work the whole Voyage. He’s a +hospital case, if there ever was one. Talk about shot to pieces! He’s got +holes in him I could shove my fist through. I don’t know whether +they’re perforating ulcers, or cancers, or cannon-shot wounds, or what +not. And he had the nerve to tell me they showed up after he came on +board!” +</p> + +<p> +“And he had them all the time?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“All the time! Take my word, Mr. Pathurst, they’re years old. But +he’s a wonder. I watched him those first days, sent him aloft, had him +down in the fore-hold trimming a few tons of coal, did everything to him, and +he never showed a wince. Being up to the neck in the salt water finally fetched +him, and now he’s reported off duty—for the voyage. And he’ll +draw his wages for the whole time, have all night in, and never do a tap. Oh, +he’s a hot one to have passed over on us, and the <i>Elsinore’s</i> +another man short.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another!” I exclaimed. “Is the Greek going to die?” +</p> + +<p> +“No fear. I’ll have him steering in a few days. I refer to the +misfits. If we rolled a dozen of them together they wouldn’t make one +real man. I’m not saying it to alarm you, for there’s nothing +alarming about it; but we’re going to have proper hell this +voyage.” He broke off to stare reflectively at his broken knuckles, as if +estimating how much drive was left in them, then sighed and concluded, +“Well, I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Sympathizing with Mr. Pike is futile; the only effect is to make his mood +blacker. I tried it, and he retaliated with: +</p> + +<p> +“You oughta see the bloke with curvature of the spine in Mr. +Mellaire’s watch. He’s a proper hobo, too, and a land lubber, and +don’t weigh more’n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, +and he’s got curvature of the spine, and he’s able seaman, if you +please, on the <i>Elsinore</i>. And worse than all that, he puts it over on +you; he’s nasty, he’s mean, he’s a viper, a wasp. He +ain’t afraid of anything because he knows you dassent hit him for fear of +croaking him. Oh, he’s a pearl of purest ray serene, if anybody should +slide down a backstay and ask you. If you fail to identify him any other way, +his name is Mulligan Jacobs.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast, again on deck, in Mr. Mellaire’s watch, I discovered +another efficient. He was at the wheel, a small, well-knit, muscular man of say +forty-five, with black hair graying on the temples, a big eagle-face, swarthy, +with keen, intelligent black eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire vindicated my judgment by telling me the man was the best sailor +in his watch, a proper seaman. When he referred to the man as the Maltese +Cockney, and I asked why, he replied: +</p> + +<p> +“First, because he is Maltese, Mr. Pathurst; and next, because he talks +Cockney like a native. And depend upon it, he heard Bow Bells before he lisped +his first word.” +</p> + +<p> +“And has O’Sullivan bought Andy Fay’s sea-boots yet?” I +queried. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that Miss West emerged upon the poop. She was as rosy and +vital as ever, and certainly, if she had been sea-sick, she flew no signals of +it. As she came toward me, greeting me, I could not help remarking again the +lithe and springy limb-movement with which she walked, and her fine, firm skin. +Her neck, free in a sailor collar, with white sweater open at the throat, +seemed almost redoubtably strong to my sleepless, jaundiced eyes. Her hair, +under a white knitted cap, was smooth and well-groomed. In fact, the totality +of impression she conveyed was of a well-groomedness one would not expect of a +sea-captain’s daughter, much less of a woman who had been sea-sick. +Life!—that is the key of her, the essential note of her—life and +health. I’ll wager she has never entertained a morbid thought in that +practical, balanced, sensible head of hers. +</p> + +<p> +“And how have you been?” she asked, then rattled on with sheer +exuberance ere I could answer. “Had a lovely night’s sleep. I was +really over my sickness yesterday, but I just devoted myself to resting up. I +slept ten solid hours—what do you think of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could say the same,” I replied with appropriate +dejection, as I swung in beside her, for she had evinced her intention of +promenading. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then you’ve been sick?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” I answered dryly. “And I wish I had been. +I haven’t had five hours’ sleep all told since I came on board. +These pestiferous hives. . . ” +</p> + +<p> +I held up a lumpy wrist to show. She took one glance at it, halted abruptly, +and, neatly balancing herself to the roll, took my wrist in both her hands and +gave it close scrutiny. +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy!” she cried; and then began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +I was of two minds. Her laughter was delightful to the ear, there was such a +mellowness, and healthiness, and frankness about it. On the other hand, that it +should be directed at my misfortune was exasperating. I suppose my perplexity +showed in my face, for when she had eased her laughter and looked at me with a +sobering countenance, she immediately went off into more peals. +</p> + +<p> +“You poor child,” she gurgled at last. “And when I think of +all the cream of tartar I made you consume!” +</p> + +<p> +It was rather presumptuous of her to poor-child me, and I resolved to take +advantage of the data I already possessed in order to ascertain just how many +years she was my junior. She had told me she was twelve years old the time the +<i>Dixie</i> collided with the river steamer in San Francisco Bay. Very well, +all I had to do was to ascertain the date of that disaster and I had her. But +in the meantime she laughed at me and my hives. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it is—er—humorous, in some sort of way,” I +said a bit stiffly, only to find that there was no use in being stiff with Miss +West, for it only set her off into more laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“What you needed,” she announced, with fresh gurglings, “was +an exterior treatment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tell me I’ve got the chicken-pox or the +measles,” I protested. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” She shook her head emphatically while she enjoyed another +paroxysm. “What you are suffering from is a severe attack . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +She paused deliberately, and looked me straight in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Of bedbugs,” she concluded. And then, all seriousness and +practicality, she went on: “But we’ll have that righted in a jiffy. +I’ll turn the <i>Elsinore’s</i> after-quarters upside down, though +I know there are none in father’s room or mine. And though this is my +first voyage with Mr. Pike I know he’s too hard-bitten” (here I +laughed at her involuntary pun) “an old sailor not to know that his room +is clean. Yours” (I was perturbed for fear she was going to say that I +had brought them on board) “have most probably drifted in from +for’ard. They always have them for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +“And now, Mr. Pathurst, I am going down to attend to your case. +You’d better get your Wada to make up a camping kit for you. The next +couple of nights you’ll spend in the cabin or chart-room. And be sure +Wada removes all silver and metallic tarnishable stuff from your rooms. +There’s going to be all sorts of fumigating, and tearing out of woodwork, +and rebuilding. Trust me. I know the vermin.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +Such a cleaning up and turning over! For two nights, one in the chart-room and +one on the cabin sofa, I have soaked myself in sleep, and I am now almost +stupid with excess of sleep. The land seems very far away. By some strange +quirk, I have an impression that weeks, or months, have passed since I left +Baltimore on that bitter March morning. And yet it was March 28, and this is +only the first week in April. +</p> + +<p> +I was entirely right in my first estimation of Miss West. She is the most +capable, practically masterful woman I have ever encountered. What passed +between her and Mr. Pike I do not know; but whatever it was, she was convinced +that he was not the erring one. In some strange way, my two rooms are the only +ones which have been invaded by this plague of vermin. Under Miss West’s +instructions bunks, drawers, shelves, and all superficial woodwork have been +ripped out. She worked the carpenter from daylight till dark, and then, after a +night of fumigation, two of the sailors, with turpentine and white lead, put +the finishing touches on the cleansing operations. The carpenter is now busy +rebuilding my rooms. Then will come the painting, and in two or three more days +I expect to be settled back in my quarters. +</p> + +<p> +Of the men who did the turpentining and white-leading there have been four. Two +of them were quickly rejected by Miss West as not being up to the work. The +first one, Steve Roberts, which he told me was his name, is an interesting +fellow. I talked with him quite a bit ere Miss West sent him packing and told +Mr. Pike that she wanted a real sailor. +</p> + +<p> +This is the first time Steve Roberts has ever seen the sea. How he happened to +drift from the western cattle-ranges to New York he did not explain, any more +than did he explain how he came to ship on the <i>Elsinore</i>. But here he is, +not a sailor on horseback, but a cowboy on the sea. He is a small man, but most +powerfully built. His shoulders are very broad, and his muscles bulge under his +shirt; and yet he is slender-waisted, lean-limbed, and hollow-cheeked. This +last, however, is not due to sickness or ill-health. Tyro as he is on the sea, +Steve Roberts is keen and intelligent . . . yes, and crooked. He has a way of +looking straight at one with utmost frankness while he talks, and yet it is at +such moments I get most strongly the impression of crookedness. But he is a +man, if trouble should arise, to be reckoned with. In ways he suggests a +kinship with the three men Mr. Pike took so instant a prejudice +against—Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine. And I have already +noticed, in the dog-watches, that it is with this trio that Steve Roberts +chums. +</p> + +<p> +The second sailor Miss West rejected, after silently watching him work for five +minutes, was Mulligan Jacobs, the wisp of a man with curvature of the spine. +But before she sent him packing other things occurred in which I was concerned. +I was in the room when Mulligan Jacobs first came in to go to work, and I could +not help observing the startled, avid glance he threw at my big shelves of +books. He advanced on them in the way a robber might advance on a secret hoard +of gold, and as a miser would fondle gold so Mulligan Jacobs fondled these +book-titles with his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +And such eyes! All the bitterness and venom Mr. Pike had told me the man +possessed was there in his eyes. They were small, pale-blue, and gimlet-pointed +with fire. His eyelids were inflamed, and but served to ensanguine the bitter +and cold-blazing intensity of the pupils. The man was constitutionally a hater, +and I was not long in learning that he hated all things except books. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you care to read some of them?” I said hospitably. +</p> + +<p> +All the caress in his eyes for the books vanished as he turned his head to look +at me, and ere he spoke I knew that I, too, was hated. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hell, ain’t it?—you with a strong body and +servants to carry for you a weight of books like this, and me with a curved +spine that puts the pot-hooks of hell-fire into my brain?” +</p> + +<p> +How can I possibly convey the terrible venomousness with which he uttered these +words? I know that Mr. Pike, dragging his feet down the hall past my open door, +gave me a very gratifying sense of safety. Being alone in the room with this +man seemed much the same as if I were locked in a cage with a tiger-cat. The +devilishness, the wickedness, and, above all, the pitch of glaring hatred with +which the man eyed me and addressed me, were most unpleasant. I swear I knew +fear—not calculated caution, not timid apprehension, but blind, panic, +unreasoned terror. The malignancy of the creature was blood curdling; nor did +it require words to convey it: it poured from him, out of his red-rimmed, +blazing eyes, out of his withered, twisted, tortured face, out of his +broken-nailed, crooked talons of hands. And yet, in that very moment of +instinctive startle and repulsion, the thought was in my mind that with one +hand I could take the throat of the weazened wisp of a crippled thing and +throttle the malformed life out of it. +</p> + +<p> +But there was little encouragement in such thought—no more than a man +might feel in a cave of rattlesnakes or a pit of centipedes, for, crush them +with his very bulk, nevertheless they would first sink their poison into him. +And so with this Mulligan Jacobs. My fear of him was the fear of being infected +with his venom. I could not help it; for I caught a quick vision of the black +and broken teeth I had seen in his mouth sinking into my flesh, polluting me, +eating me with their acid, destroying me. +</p> + +<p> +One thing was very clear. In the creature was no fear. Absolutely, he did not +know fear. He was as devoid of it as the fetid slime one treads underfoot in +nightmares. Lord, Lord! that is what the thing was, a nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +“You suffer pain often?” I asked, attempting to get myself in hand +by the calculated use of sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“The hooks are in me, in the brain, white-hot hooks that burn an’ +burn,” was his reply. “But by what damnable right do you have all +these books, and time to read ’em, an’ all night in to read +’em, an’ soak in them, when me brain’s on fire, and I’m +watch and watch, an’ me broken spine won’t let me carry half a +hundredweight of books about with me?” +</p> + +<p> +Another madman, was my conclusion; and yet I was quickly compelled to modify +it, for, thinking to play with a rattle-brain, I asked him what were the books +up to half a hundredweight he carried, and what were the writers he preferred. +His library, he told me, among other things included, first and fore-most, a +complete Byron. Next was a complete Shakespeare; also a complete Browning in +one volume. A full hall dozen he had in the forecastle of Renan, a stray volume +of Lecky, Winwood Reade’s <i>Martyrdom of Man</i>, several of Carlyle, +and eight or ten of Zola. Zola he swore by, though Anatole France was a prime +favourite. +</p> + +<p> +He might be mad, was my revised judgment, but he was most differently mad from +any madman I had ever encountered. I talked on with him about books and +bookmen. He was most universal and particular. He liked O. Henry. George Moore +was a cad and a four—flusher. Edgar Saltus’ <i>Anatomy of +Negation</i> was profounder than Kant. Maeterlinck was a mystic frump. Emerson +was a charlatan. Ibsen’s <i>Ghosts</i> was the stuff, though Ibsen was a +bourgeois lickspittler. Heine was the real goods. He preferred Flaubert to de +Maupassant, and Turgenieff to Tolstoy; but Gorky was the best of the Russian +boiling. John Masefield knew what he was writing about, and Joseph Conrad was +living too fat to turn out the stuff he first turned out. +</p> + +<p> +And so it went, the most amazing running commentary on literature I had ever +heard. I was hugely interested, and I quizzed him on sociology. Yes, he was a +Red, and knew his Kropotkin, but he was no anarchist. On the other hand, +political action was a blind-alley leading to reformism and quietism. Political +socialism had gone to pot, while industrial unionism was the logical +culmination of Marxism. He was a direct actionist. The mass strike was the +thing. Sabotage, not merely as a withdrawal of efficiency, but as a keen +destruction-of-profits policy, was the weapon. Of course he believed in the +propaganda of the deed, but a man was a fool to talk about it. His job was to +do it and keep his mouth shut, and the way to do it was to shoot the evidence. +Of course, <i>he</i> talked; but what of it? Didn’t he have curvature of +the spine? He didn’t care when he got his, and woe to the man who tried +to give it to him. +</p> + +<p> +And while he talked he hated me. He seemed to hate the things he talked about +and espoused. I judged him to be of Irish descent, and it was patent that he +was self-educated. When I asked him how it was he had come to sea, he replied +that the hooks in his brain were as hot one place as another. He unbent enough +to tell me that he had been an athlete, when he was a young man, a professional +foot-racer in Eastern Canada. And then his disease had come upon him, and for a +quarter of a century he had been a common tramp and vagabond, and he bragged of +a personal acquaintance with more city prisons and county jails than any man +that ever existed. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this stage in our talk that Mr. Pike thrust his head into the +doorway. He did not address me, but he favoured me with a most sour look of +disapprobation. Mr. Pike’s countenance is almost petrified. Any +expression seems to crack it—with the exception of sourness. But when Mr. +Pike wants to look sour he has no difficulty at all. His hard-skinned, +hard-muscled face just flows to sourness. Evidently he condemned my consuming +Mulligan Jacobs’s time. To Mulligan Jacobs he said in his customary +snarl: +</p> + +<p> +“Go on an’ get to your work. Chew the rag in your watch +below.” +</p> + +<p> +And then I got a sample of Mulligan Jacobs. The venom of hatred I had already +seen in his face was as nothing compared with what now was manifested. I had a +feeling that, like stroking a cat in cold weather, did I touch his face it +would crackle electric sparks. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, go to hell, you old stiff,” said Mulligan Jacobs. +</p> + +<p> +If ever I had seen murder in a man’s eyes, I saw it then in the +mate’s. He lunged into the room, his arm tensed to strike, the hand not +open but clenched. One stroke of that bear’s paw and Mulligan Jacobs and +all the poisonous flame of him would have been quenched in the everlasting +darkness. But he was unafraid. Like a cornered rat, like a rattlesnake on the +trail, unflinching, sneering, snarling, he faced the irate giant. More than +that. He even thrust his face forward on its twisted neck to meet the blow. +</p> + +<p> +It was too much for Mr. Pike; it was too impossible to strike that frail, +crippled, repulsive thing. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s me that can call you the stiff,” said Mulligan Jacobs. +“I ain’t no Larry. G’wan an’ hit me. Why don’t +you hit me?” +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Pike was too appalled to strike the creature. He, whose whole career on +the sea had been that of a bucko driver in a shambles, could not strike this +fractured splinter of a man. I swear that Mr. Pike actually struggled with +himself to strike. I saw it. But he could not. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on to your work,” he ordered. “The voyage is young yet, +Mulligan. I’ll have you eatin’ outa my hand before it’s +over.” +</p> + +<p> +And Mulligan Jacobs’s face thrust another inch closer on its twisted +neck, while all his concentrated rage seemed on the verge of bursting into +incandescence. So immense and tremendous was the bitterness that consumed him +that he could find no words to clothe it. All he could do was to hawk and +guttural deep in his throat until I should not have been surprised had he spat +poison in the mate’s face. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Pike turned on his heel and left the room, beaten, absolutely beaten. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I can’t get it out of my mind. The picture of the mate and the cripple +facing each other keeps leaping up under my eyelids. This is different from the +books and from what I know of existence. It is revelation. Life is a profoundly +amazing thing. What is this bitter flame that informs Mulligan Jacobs? How dare +he—with no hope of any profit, not a hero, not a leader of a forlorn hope +nor a martyr to God, but a mere filthy, malignant rat—how dare he, I ask +myself, be so defiant, so death-inviting? The spectacle of him makes me doubt +all the schools of the metaphysicians and the realists. No philosophy has a leg +to stand on that does not account for Mulligan Jacobs. And all the midnight oil +of philosophy I have burned does not enable me to account for Mulligan Jacobs . +. . unless he be insane. And then I don’t know. +</p> + +<p> +Was there ever such a freight of human souls on the sea as these humans with +whom I am herded on the <i>Elsinore</i>? +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And now, working in my rooms, white-leading and turpentining, is another one of +them. I have learned his name. It is Arthur Deacon. He is the pallid, +furtive-eyed man whom I observed the first day when the men were routed out of +the forecastle to man the windlass—the man I so instantly adjudged a +drug-fiend. He certainly looks it. +</p> + +<p> +I asked Mr. Pike his estimate of the man. +</p> + +<p> +“White slaver,” was his answer. “Had to skin outa New York to +save his skin. He’ll be consorting with those other three larrakins I +gave a piece of my mind to.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what do you make of them?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A month’s wages to a pound of tobacco that a district attorney, or +a committee of some sort investigating the New York police is lookin’ for +’em right now. I’d like to have the cash somebody’s put up in +New York to send them on this get-away. Oh, I know the breed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gangsters?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what. But I’ll trim their dirty hides. I’ll +trim ’em. Mr. Pathurst, this voyage ain’t started yet, and this old +stiff’s a long way from his last legs. I’ll give them a run for +their money. Why, I’ve buried better men than the best of them aboard +this craft. And I’ll bury some of them that think me an old stiff.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and looked at me solemnly for a full half minute. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pathurst, I’ve heard you’re a writing man. And when they +told me at the agents’ you were going along passenger, I made a point of +going to see your play. Now I’m not saying anything about that play, one +way or the other. But I just want to tell you, that as a writing man +you’ll get stuff in plenty to write about on this voyage. Hell’s +going to pop, believe me, and right here before you is the stiff that’ll +do a lot of the poppin’. Some several and plenty’s going to learn +who’s an old stiff.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +How I have been sleeping! This relief of renewed normality is +delicious—thanks to Miss West. Now why did not Captain West, or Mr. Pike, +both experienced men, diagnose my trouble for me? And then there was Wada. But +no; it required Miss West. Again I contemplate the problem of woman. It is just +such an incident among a million others that keeps the thinker’s gaze +fixed on woman. They truly are the mothers and the conservers of the race. +</p> + +<p> +Rail as I will at Miss West’s red-blood complacency of life, yet I must +bow my head to her life-giving to me. Practical, sensible, hard-headed, a +comfort-maker and a nest-builder, possessing all the distressing attributes of +the blind-instinctive race-mother, nevertheless I must confess I am most +grateful that she is along. Had she not been on the <i>Elsinore</i>, by this +time I should have been so overwrought from lack of sleep that I would be +biting my veins and howling—as mad a hatter as any of our cargo of mad +hatters. And so we come to it—the everlasting mystery of woman. One may +not be able to get along with her; yet is it patent, as of old time, that one +cannot get along without her. But, regarding Miss West, I do entertain one +fervent hope, namely, that she is not a suffragette. That would be too much. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West may be a Samurai, but he is also human. He was really a bit +fluttery this morning, in his reserved, controlled way, when he regretted the +plague of vermin I had encountered in my rooms. It seems he has a keen sense of +hospitality, and that he is my host on the <i>Elsinore</i>, and that, although +he is oblivious of the existence of the crew, he is not oblivious of my +comfort. By his few expressions of regret it appears that he cannot forgive +himself for his careless acceptance of the erroneous diagnosis of my +affliction. Yes; Captain West is a real human man. Is he not the father of the +slender-faced, strapping-bodied Miss West? +</p> + +<p> +“Thank goodness that’s settled,” was Miss West’s +exclamation this morning, when we met on the poop and after I had told her how +gloriously I had slept. +</p> + +<p> +And then, that nightmare episode dismissed because, forsooth, for all practical +purposes—it was settled, she next said: +</p> + +<p> +“Come on and see the chickens.” +</p> + +<p> +And I accompanied her along the spidery bridge to the top of the +’midship-house, to look at the one rooster and the four dozen fat hens in +the ship’s chicken-coop. +</p> + +<p> +As I accompanied her, my eyes dwelling pleasurably on that vital gait of hers +as she preceded me, I could not help reflecting that, coming down on the tug +from Baltimore, she had promised not to bother me nor require to be +entertained. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Come and see the chickens</i>!—Oh, the sheer female possessiveness of +that simple invitation! For effrontery of possessiveness is there anything that +can exceed the nest-making, planet-populating, female, human +woman?—<i>Come and see the chickens</i>! Oh, well, the sailors +for’ard may be hard-bitten, but I can promise Miss West that here, aft, +is one male passenger, unmarried and never married, who is an equally +hard-bitten adventurer on the sea of matrimony. When I go over the census I +remember at least several women, superior to Miss West, who trilled their song +of sex and failed to shipwreck me. +</p> + +<p> +As I read over what I have written I notice how the terminology of the sea has +stolen into my mental processes. Involuntarily I think in terms of the sea. +Another thing I notice is my excessive use of superlatives. But then, +everything on board the <i>Elsinore</i> is superlative. I find myself +continually combing my vocabulary in quest of just and adequate words. Yet am I +aware of failure. For example, all the words of all the dictionaries would fail +to approximate the exceeding terribleness of Mulligan Jacobs. +</p> + +<p> +But to return to the chickens. Despite every precaution, it was evident that +they had had a hard time during the past days of storm. It was equally evident +that Miss West, even during her sea-sickness, had not neglected them. Under her +directions the steward had actually installed a small oil-stove in the big +coop, and she now beckoned him up to the top of the house as he was passing +for’ard to the galley. It was for the purpose of instructing him further +in the matter of feeding them. +</p> + +<p> +Where were the grits? They needed grits. He didn’t know. The sack had +been lost among the miscellaneous stores, but Mr. Pike had promised a couple of +sailors that afternoon to overhaul the lazarette. +</p> + +<p> +“Plenty of ashes,” she told the steward. “Remember. And if a +sailor doesn’t clean the coop each day, you report to me. And give them +only clean food—no spoiled scraps, mind. How many eggs yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +The steward’s eyes glistened with enthusiasm as he said he had got nine +the day before and expected fully a dozen to-day. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor things,” said Miss West—to me. “You’ve +no idea how bad weather reduces their laying.” She turned back upon the +steward. “Mind now, you watch and find out which hens don’t lay, +and kill them first. And you ask me each time before you kill one.” +</p> + +<p> +I found myself neglected, out there on top the draughty house, while Miss West +talked chickens with the Chinese ex-smuggler. But it gave me opportunity to +observe her. It is the length of her eyes that accentuates their steadiness of +gaze—helped, of course, by the dark brows and lashes. I noted again the +warm gray of her eyes. And I began to identify her, to locate her. She is a +physical type of the best of the womanhood of old New England. Nothing spare +nor meagre, nor bred out, but generously strong, and yet not quite what one +would call robust. When I said she was strapping-bodied I erred. I must fall +back on my other word, which will have to be the last: Miss West is +vital-bodied. That is the key-word. +</p> + +<p> +When we had regained the poop, and Miss West had gone below, I ventured my +customary pleasantry with Mr. Mellaire of: +</p> + +<p> +“And has O’Sullivan bought Andy Fay’s sea-boots yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, Mr. Pathurst,” was the reply, “though he nearly got +them early this morning. Come on along, sir, and I’ll show you.” +</p> + +<p> +Vouchsafing no further information, the second mate led the way along the +bridge, across the ’midship-house and the for’ard-house. From the +edge of the latter, looking down on Number One hatch, I saw two Japanese, with +sail-needles and twine, sewing up a canvas-swathed bundle that unmistakably +contained a human body. +</p> + +<p> +“O’Sullivan used a razor,” said Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +“And that is Andy Fay?” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, not Andy. That’s a Dutchman. Christian Jespersen was his +name on the articles. He got in O’Sullivan’s way when +O’Sullivan went after the boots. That’s what saved Andy. Andy was +more active. Jespersen couldn’t get out of his own way, much less out of +O’Sullivan’s. There’s Andy sitting over there.” +</p> + +<p> +I followed Mr. Mellaire’s gaze, and saw the burnt-out, aged little +Scotchman squatted on a spare spar and sucking a pipe. One arm was in a sling +and his head was bandaged. Beside him squatted Mulligan Jacobs. They were a +pair. Both were blue-eyed, and both were malevolent-eyed. And they were equally +emaciated. It was easy to see that they had discovered early in the voyage +their kinship of bitterness. Andy Fay, I knew, was sixty-three years old, +although he looked a hundred; and Mulligan Jacobs, who was only about fifty, +made up for the difference by the furnace-heat of hatred that burned in his +face and eyes. I wondered if he sat beside the injured bitter one in some sense +of sympathy, or if he were there in order to gloat. +</p> + +<p> +Around the corner of the house strolled Shorty, flinging up to me his +inevitable clown-grin. One hand was swathed in bandages. +</p> + +<p> +“Must have kept Mr. Pike busy,” was my comment to Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +“He was sewing up cripples about all his watch from four till +eight.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” I asked. “Are there any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“One more, sir, a sheeny. I didn’t know his name before, but Mr. +Pike got it—Isaac B. Chantz. I never saw in all my life at sea as many +sheenies as are on board the <i>Elsinore</i> right now. Sheenies don’t +take to the sea as a rule. We’ve certainly got more than our share of +them. Chantz isn’t badly hurt, but you ought to hear him whimper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s O’Sullivan?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“In the ’midship-house with Davis, and without a mark. Mr. Pike got +into the rumpus and put him to sleep with one on the jaw. And now he’s +lashed down and talking in a trance. He’s thrown the fear of God into +Davis. Davis is sitting up in his bunk with a marlin-spike, threatening to +brain O’Sullivan if he starts to break loose, and complaining that +it’s no way to run a hospital. He’d have padded cells, +straitjackets, night and day nurses, and violent wards, I suppose—and a +convalescents’ home in a Queen Anne cottage on the poop. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. “This is the +funniest voyage and the funniest crew I’ve ever tackled. It’s not +going to come to a good end. Anybody can see that with half an eye. It’ll +be dead of winter off the Horn, and a fo’c’s’le full of +lunatics and cripples to do the work.—Just take a look at that one. Crazy +as a bedbug. He’s likely to go overboard any time.” +</p> + +<p> +I followed his glance and saw Tony the Greek, the one who had sprung overboard +the first day. He had just come around the corner of the house, and, beyond one +arm in a sling, seemed in good condition. He walked easily and with strength, a +testimonial to the virtues of Mr. Pike’s rough surgery. +</p> + +<p> +My eyes kept returning to the canvas-covered body of Christian Jespersen, and +to the Japanese who sewed with sail-twine his sailor’s shroud. One of +them had his right hand in a huge wrapping of cotton and bandage. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he get hurt, too?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. He’s the sail-maker. They’re both sail-makers. +He’s a good one, too. Yatsuda is his name. But he’s just had +blood-poisoning and lain in hospital in New York for eighteen months. He flatly +refused to let them amputate. He’s all right now, but the hand is dead, +all except the thumb and fore-finger, and he’s teaching himself to sew +with his left hand. He’s as clever a sail-maker as you’ll find at +sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lunatic and a razor make a cruel combination,” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s put five men out of commission,” Mr. Mellaire sighed. +“There’s O’Sullivan himself, and Christian Jespersen gone, +and Andy Fay, and Shorty, and the sheeny. And the voyage not started yet. And +there’s Lars with the broken leg, and Davis laid off for keeps—why, +sir, we’ll soon be that weak it’ll take both watches to set a +staysail.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, while I talked in a matter-of-fact way with Mr. Mellaire, I was +shocked—no; not because death was aboard with us. I have stood by my +philosophic guns too long to be shocked by death, or by murder. What affected +me was the utter, stupid bestiality of the affair. Even murder—murder for +cause—I can understand. It is comprehensible that men should kill one +another in the passion of love, of hatred, of patriotism, of religion. But this +was different. Here was killing without cause, an orgy of blind-brutishness, a +thing monstrously irrational. +</p> + +<p> +Later on, strolling with Possum on the main deck, as I passed the open door of +the hospital I heard the muttering chant of O’Sullivan, and peeped in. +There he lay, lashed fast on his back in the lower bunk, rolling his eyes and +raving. In the top bunk, directly above, lay Charles Davis, calmly smoking a +pipe. I looked for the marlin-spike. There it was, ready to hand, on the +bedding beside him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hell, ain’t it, sir?” was his greeting. +“And how am I goin’ to get any sleep with that baboon chattering +away there. He never lets up—keeps his chin-music goin’ right along +when he’s asleep, only worse. The way he grits his teeth is something +awful. Now I leave it to you, sir, is it right to put a crazy like that in with +a sick man? And I am a sick man.” +</p> + +<p> +While he talked the massive form of Mr. Pike loomed beside me and halted just +out of sight of the man in the bunk. And the man talked on. +</p> + +<p> +“By rights, I oughta have that lower bunk. It hurts me to crawl up here. +It’s inhumanity, that’s what it is, and sailors at sea are better +protected by the law than they used to be. And I’ll have you for a +witness to this before the court when we get to Seattle.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike stepped into the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, you damned sea-lawyer, you,” he snarled. +“Haven’t you played a dirty trick enough comin’ on board this +ship in your condition? And if I have anything more out of you . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was so angry that he could not complete the threat. After spluttering +for a moment he made a fresh attempt. +</p> + +<p> +“You . . . you . . . well, you annoy me, that’s what you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know the law, sir,” Davis answered promptly. “I worked +full able seaman on this here ship. All hands can testify to that. I was aloft +from the start. Yes, sir, and up to my neck in salt water day and night. And +you had me below trimmin’ coal. I did full duty and more, until this +sickness got me—” +</p> + +<p> +“You were petrified and rotten before you ever saw this ship,” Mr. +Pike broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“The court’ll decide that, sir,” replied the imperturbable +Davis. +</p> + +<p> +“And if you go to shoutin’ off your sea-lawyer mouth,” Mr. +Pike continued, “I’ll jerk you out of that and show you what real +work is.” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ lay the owners open for lovely damages when we get in,” +Davis sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I bury you before we get in,” was the mate’s quick, +grim retort. “And let me tell you, Davis, you ain’t the first +sea-lawyer I’ve dropped over the side with a sack of coal to his +feet.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike turned, with a final “Damned sea-lawyer!” and started +along the deck. I was walking behind him when he stopped abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pathurst.” +</p> + +<p> +Not as an officer to a passenger did he thus address me. His tone was +imperative, and I gave heed. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pathurst. From now on the less you see aboard this ship the better. +That is all.” +</p> + +<p> +And again he turned on his heel and went his way. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +No, the sea is not a gentle place. It must be the very hardness of the life +that makes all sea-people hard. Of course, Captain West is unaware that his +crew exists, and Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire never address the men save to give +commands. But Miss West, who is more like myself, a passenger, ignores the men. +She does not even say good-morning to the man at the wheel when she first comes +on deck. Nevertheless I shall, at least to the man at the wheel. Am I not a +passenger? +</p> + +<p> +Which reminds me. Technically I am not a passenger. The <i>Elsinore</i> has no +licence to carry passengers, and I am down on the articles as third mate and am +supposed to receive thirty-five dollars a month. Wada is down as cabin boy, +although I paid a good price for his passage and he is my servant. +</p> + +<p> +Not much time is lost at sea in getting rid of the dead. Within an hour after I +had watched the sail-makers at work Christian Jespersen was slid overboard, +feet first, a sack of coal to his feet to sink him. It was a mild, calm day, +and the <i>Elsinore</i>, logging a lazy two knots, was not hove to for the +occasion. At the last moment Captain West came for’ard, prayer-book in +hand, read the brief service for burial at sea, and returned immediately aft. +It was the first time I had seen him for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +I shall not bother to describe the burial. All I shall say of it is that it was +as sordid as Christian Jespersen’s life had been and as his death had +been. +</p> + +<p> +As for Miss West, she sat in a deck-chair on the poop busily engaged with some +sort of fancy work. When Christian Jespersen and his coal splashed into the sea +the crew immediately dispersed, the watch below going to its bunks, the watch +on deck to its work. Not a minute elapsed ere Mr. Mellaire was giving orders +and the men were pulling and hauling. So I returned to the poop to be +unpleasantly impressed by Miss West’s smiling unconcern. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’s buried,” I observed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” she said, with all the tonelessness of disinterest, and went +on with her stitching. +</p> + +<p> +She must have sensed my frame of mind, for, after a moment, she paused from her +sewing and looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +Your first sea funeral, Mr. Pathurst? +</p> + +<p> +“Death at sea does not seem to affect you,” I said bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not any more than on the land.” She shrugged her shoulders. +“So many people die, you know. And when they are strangers to you . . . +well, what do you do on the land when you learn that some workers have been +killed in a factory you pass every day coming to town? It is the same on the +sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too bad we are a hand short,” I said deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +It did not miss her. Just as deliberately she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it? And so early in the voyage, too.” She looked +at me, and when I could not forbear a smile of appreciation she smiled back. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know very well, Mr. Pathurst, that you think me a heartless +wretch. But it isn’t that it’s . . . it’s the sea, I suppose. +And yet, I didn’t know this man. I don’t remember ever having seen +him. At this stage of the voyage I doubt if I could pick out half-a-dozen of +the sailors as men I had ever laid eyes on. So why vex myself with even +thinking of this stupid stranger who was killed by another stupid stranger? As +well might one die of grief with reading the murder columns of the daily +papers.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet, it seems somehow different,” I contended. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’ll get used to it,” she assured me cheerfully, and +returned to her sewing. +</p> + +<p> +I asked her if she had read Moody’s <i>Ship of Souls</i>, but she had +not. I searched her out further. She liked Browning, and was especially fond of +<i>The Ring and the Book</i>. This was the key to her. She cared only for +healthful literature—for the literature that exposits the vital lies of +life. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, the mention of Schopenhauer produced smiles and laughter. To her +all the philosophers of pessimism were laughable. The red blood of her would +not permit her to take them seriously. I tried her out with a conversation I +had had with De Casseres shortly before leaving New York. De Casseres, after +tracing Jules de Gaultier’s philosophic genealogy back to Schopenhauer +and Nietzsche, had concluded with the proposition that out of their two +formulas de Gaultier had constructed an even profounder formula. The +“Will-to-Live” of the one and the “Will-to-Power” of +the other were, after all, only parts of de Gaultier’s supreme +generalization, the “Will-to-Illusion.” +</p> + +<p> +I flatter myself that even De Casseres would have been pleased with the way I +repeated his argument. And when I had concluded it, Miss West promptly demanded +if the realists might not be fooled by their own phrases as often and as +completely as were the poor common mortals with the vital lies they never +questioned. +</p> + +<p> +And there we were. An ordinary young woman, who had never vexed her brains with +ultimate problems, hears such things stated for the first time, and +immediately, and with a laugh, sweeps them all away. I doubt not that De +Casseres would have agreed with her. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you believe in God?” I asked rather abruptly. She dropped her +sewing into her lap, looked at me meditatively, then gazed on and away across +the flashing sea and up into the azure dome of sky. And finally, with true +feminine evasion, she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“My father does.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you?” I insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t know. I don’t bother my head about such +things. I used to when I was a little girl. And yet . . . yes, surely I believe +in God. At times, when I am not thinking about it at all, I am very sure, and +my faith that all is well is just as strong as the faith of your Jewish friend +in the phrases of the philosophers. That’s all it comes to, I suppose, in +every case—faith. But, as I say, why bother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I have you now, Miss West!” I cried. “You are a true +daughter of Herodias.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t sound nice,” she said with a <i>moue</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“And it isn’t,” I exulted. “Nevertheless, it is what +you are. It is Arthur Symon’s poem, <i>The Daughters of Herodias</i>. +Some day I shall read it to you, and you will answer. I know you will answer +that you, too, have looked often upon the stars.” +</p> + +<p> +We had just got upon the subject of music, of which she possesses a +surprisingly solid knowledge, and she was telling me that Debussy and his +school held no particular charm for her, when Possum set up a wild yelping. +</p> + +<p> +The puppy had strayed for’ard along the bridge to the +’midship-house, and had evidently been investigating the chickens when +his disaster came upon him. So shrill was his terror that we both stood up. He +was dashing along the bridge toward us at full speed, yelping at every jump and +continually turning his head back in the direction whence he came. +</p> + +<p> +I spoke to him and held out my hand, and was rewarded with a snap and clash of +teeth as he scuttled past. Still with head turned back, he went on along the +poop. Before I could apprehend his danger, Mr. Pike and Miss West were after +him. The mate was the nearer, and with a magnificent leap gained the rail just +in time to intercept Possum, who was blindly going overboard under the slender +railing. With a sort of scooping kick Mr. Pike sent the animal rolling half +across the poop. Howling and snapping more violently, Possum regained his feet +and staggered on toward the opposite railing. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t touch him!” Mr. Pike cried, as Miss West showed her +intention of catching the crazed little animal with her hands. +“Don’t touch’m! He’s got a fit.” +</p> + +<p> +But it did not deter her. He was half-way under the railing when she caught him +up and held him at arm’s length while he howled and barked and slavered. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a fit,” said Mr. Pike, as the terrier collapsed and lay +on the deck jerking convulsively. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps a chicken pecked him,” said Miss West. “At any rate, +get a bucket of water.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better let me take him,” I volunteered helplessly, for I was +unfamiliar with fits. +</p> + +<p> +“No; it’s all right,” she answered. “I’ll take +charge of him. The cold water is what he needs. He got too close to the coop, +and a peck on the nose frightened him into the fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“First time I ever heard of a fit coming that way,” Mr. Pike +remarked, as he poured water over the puppy under Miss West’s direction. +“It’s just a plain puppy fit. They all get them at sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was the sails that caused it,” I argued. +“I’ve noticed that he is very afraid of them. When they flap, he +crouches down in terror and starts to run. You noticed how he ran with his head +turned back?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen dogs with fits do that when there was nothing to +frighten them,” Mr. Pike contended. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a fit, no matter what caused it,” Miss West stated +conclusively. “Which means that he has not been fed properly. From now on +I shall feed him. You tell your boy that, Mr. Pathurst. Nobody is to feed +Possum anything without my permission.” +</p> + +<p> +At this juncture Wada arrived with Possum’s little sleeping box, and they +prepared to take him below. +</p> + +<p> +“It was splendid of you, Miss West,” I said, “and rash, as +well, and I won’t attempt to thank you. But I tell you what-you take him. +He’s your dog now.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed and shook her head as I opened the chart-house door for her to +pass. +</p> + +<p> +“No; but I’ll take care of him for you. Now don’t bother to +come below. This is my affair, and you would only be in the way. Wada will help +me.” +</p> + +<p> +And I was rather surprised, as I returned to my deck chair and sat down, to +find how affected I was by the little episode. I remembered, at the first, that +my pulse had been distinctly accelerated with the excitement of what had taken +place. And somehow, as I leaned back in my chair and lighted a cigarette, the +strangeness of the whole voyage vividly came to me. Miss West and I talk +philosophy and art on the poop of a stately ship in a circle of flashing sea, +while Captain West dreams of his far home, and Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire stand +watch and watch and snarl orders, and the slaves of men pull and haul, and +Possum has fits, and Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs burn with hatred +unconsumable, and the small-handed half-caste Chinese cooks for all, and Sundry +Buyers perpetually presses his abdomen, and O’Sullivan raves in the steel +cell of the ’midship-house, and Charles Davis lies about him nursing a +marlin-spike, and Christian Jespersen, miles astern, is deep sunk in the sea +with a sack of coal at his feet. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +Two weeks out to-day, on a balmy sea, under a cloud-flecked sky, and slipping +an easy eight knots through the water to a light easterly wind. Captain West +said he was almost convinced that it was the north-east trade. Also, I have +learned that the <i>Elsinore</i>, in order to avoid being jammed down on Cape +San Roque, on the Brazil coast, must first fight eastward almost to the coast +of Africa. On occasion, on this traverse, the Cape Verde Islands are raised. No +wonder the voyage from Baltimore to Seattle is reckoned at eighteen thousand +miles. +</p> + +<p> +I found Tony, the suicidal Greek, steering this morning when I came on deck. He +seemed sensible enough, and quite rationally took off his hat when I said good +morning to him. The sick men are improving nicely, with the exceptions of +Charles Davis and O’Sullivan. The latter still is lashed to his bunk, and +Mr. Pike has compelled Davis to attend on him. As a result, Davis moves about +the deck, bringing food and water from the galley and grumbling his wrongs to +every member of the crew. +</p> + +<p> +Wada told me a strange thing this morning. It seems that he, the steward, and +the two sail-makers foregather each evening in the cook’s room—all +being Asiatics—where they talk over ship’s gossip. They seem to +miss little, and Wada brings it all to me. The thing Wada told me was the +curious conduct of Mr. Mellaire. They have sat in judgment on him and they do +not approve of his intimacy with the three gangsters for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Wada,” I said, “he is not that kind of a man. He is +very hard and rough with all the sailors. He treats them like dogs. You know +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sure,” assented Wada. “Other sailors he do that. But those +three very bad men he make good friends. Louis say second mate belong aft like +first mate and captain. No good for second mate talk like friend with sailors. +No good for ship. Bime by trouble. You see. Louis say Mr. Mellaire crazy do +that kind funny business.” +</p> + +<p> +All of which, if it were true, and I saw no reason to doubt it, led me to +inquire. It seems that the gangsters, Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine, +have made themselves cocks of the forecastle. Standing together, they have +established a reign of terror and are ruling the forecastle. All their training +in New York in ruling the slum brutes and weaklings in their gangs fits them +for the part. As near as I could make out from Wada’s tale, they first +began on the two Italians in their watch, Guido Bombini and Mike Cipriani. By +means I cannot guess, they have reduced these two wretches to trembling slaves. +As an instance, the other night, according to the ship’s gossip, Bert +Rhine made Bombini get out of bed and fetch him a drink of water. +</p> + +<p> +Isaac Chantz is likewise under their rule, though he is treated more kindly. +Herman Lunkenheimer, a good-natured but simple-minded dolt of a German, +received a severe beating from the three because he refused to wash some of +Nosey Murphy’s dirty garments. The two bosuns are in fear of their lives +with this clique, which is growing; for Steve Roberts, the ex-cowboy, and the +white-slaver, Arthur Deacon, have been admitted to it. +</p> + +<p> +I am the only one aft who possesses this information, and I confess I +don’t know what to do with it. I know that Mr. Pike would tell me to mind +my own business. Mr. Mellaire is out of the question. And Captain West +hasn’t any crew. And I fear Miss West would laugh at me for my pains. +Besides, I understand that every forecastle has its bully, or group of bullies; +so this is merely a forecastle matter and no concern of the afterguard. The +ship’s work goes on. The only effect I can conjecture is an increase in +the woes of the unfortunates who must bow to this petty tyranny for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +—Oh, and another thing Wada told me. The gangster clique has established +its privilege of taking first cut of the salt-beef in the meat-kids. After +that, the rest take the rejected pieces. But I will say, contrary to my +expectations, the <i>Elsinore’s</i> forecastle is well found. The men are +not on whack. They have all they want to eat. A barrel of good hardtack stands +always open in the forecastle. Louis bakes fresh bread for the sailors three +times a week. The variety of food is excellent, if not the quality. There is no +restriction in the amount of water for drinking purposes. And I can only say +that in this good weather the men’s appearance improves daily. +</p> + +<p> +Possum is very sick. Each day he grows thinner. Scarcely can I call him a +perambulating skeleton, because he is too weak to walk. Each day, in this +delightful weather, Wada, under Miss West’s instructions, brings him up +in his box and places him out of the wind on the awninged poop. She has taken +full charge of the puppy, and has him sleep in her room each night. I found her +yesterday, in the chart-room, reading up the <i>Elsinore’s</i> medical +library. Later on she overhauled the medicine-chest. She is essentially the +life-giving, life-conserving female of the species. All her ways, for herself +and for others, make toward life. +</p> + +<p> +And yet—and this is so curious it gives me pause—she shows no +interest in the sick and injured for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +They are to her cattle, or less than cattle. As the life-giver and +race-conserver, I should have imagined her a Lady Bountiful, tripping regularly +into that ghastly steel-walled hospital room of the midship-house and +dispensing gruel, sunshine, and even tracts. On the contrary, as with her +father, these wretched humans do not exist. +</p> + +<p> +And still again, when the steward jammed a splinter under his nail, she was +greatly concerned, and manipulated the tweezers and pulled it out. The Elsinore +reminds me of a slave plantation before the war; and Miss West is the lady of +the plantation, interested only in the house-slaves. The field slaves are +beyond her ken or consideration, and the sailors are the Elsinore’s field +slaves. Why, several days back, when Wada suffered from a severe headache, she +was quite perturbed, and dosed him with aspirin. Well, I suppose this is all +due to her sea-training. She has been trained hard. +</p> + +<p> +We have the phonograph in the second dog-watch every other evening in this fine +weather. On the alternate evenings this period is Mr. Pike’s watch on +deck. But when it is his evening below, even at dinner, he betrays his +anticipation by an eagerness ill suppressed. And yet, on each such occasion, he +punctiliously waits until we ask if we are to be favoured with music. Then his +hard-bitten face lights up, although the lines remain hard as ever, hiding his +ecstasy, and he remarks gruffly, off-handedly, that he guesses he can play over +a few records. And so, every other evening, we watch this killer and driver, +with lacerated knuckles and gorilla paws, brushing and caressing his beloved +discs, ravished with the music of them, and, as he told me early in the voyage, +at such moments believing in God. +</p> + +<p> +A strange experience is this life on the Elsinore. I confess, while it seems +that I have been here for long months, so familiar am I with every detail of +the little round of living, that I cannot orient myself. My mind continually +strays from things non-understandable to things incomprehensible—from our +Samurai captain with the exquisite Gabriel voice that is heard only in the +tumult and thunder of storm; on to the ill-treated and feeble-minded faun with +the bright, liquid, pain-filled eyes; to the three gangsters who rule the +forecastle and seduce the second mate; to the perpetually muttering +O’Sullivan in the steel-walled hole and the complaining Davis nursing the +marlin-spike in the upper bunk; and to Christian Jespersen somewhere adrift in +this vastitude of ocean with a coal-sack at his feet. At such moments all the +life on the <i>Elsinore</i> becomes as unreal as life to the philosopher is +unreal. +</p> + +<p> +I am a philosopher. Therefore, it is unreal to me. But is it unreal to Messrs. +Pike and Mellaire? to the lunatics and idiots? to the rest of the stupid herd +for’ard? I cannot help remembering a remark of De Casseres. It was over +the wine in Mouquin’s. Said he: “The profoundest instinct in man is +to war against the truth; that is, against the Real. He shuns facts from his +infancy. His life is a perpetual evasion. Miracle, chimera and to-morrow keep +him alive. He lives on fiction and myth. It is the Lie that makes him free. +Animals alone are given the privilege of lifting the veil of Isis; men dare +not. The animal, awake, has no fictional escape from the Real because he has no +imagination. Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, +Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From +Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie.” +</p> + +<p> +Ben will agree that I have quoted him fairly. And so, the thought comes to me, +that to all these slaves of the <i>Elsinore</i> the Real is real because they +fictionally escape it. One and all they are obsessed with the belief that they +are free agents. To me the Real is unreal, because I have torn aside the veils +of fiction and myth. My pristine fictional escape from the Real, making me a +philosopher, has bound me absolutely to the wheel of the Real. I, the +super-realist, am the only unrealist on board the <i>Elsinore</i>. Therefore I, +who penetrate it deepest, in the whole phenomena of living on the +<i>Elsinore</i> see it only as phantasmagoria. +</p> + +<p> +Paradoxes? I admit it. All deep thinkers are drowned in the sea of +contradictions. But all the others on the <i>Elsinore</i>, sheer surface +swimmers, keep afloat on this sea—forsooth, because they have never +dreamed its depth. And I can easily imagine what Miss West’s practical, +hard-headed judgment would be on these speculations of mine. After all, words +are traps. I don’t know what I know, nor what I think I think. +</p> + +<p> +This I do know: I cannot orient myself. I am the maddest and most sea-lost soul +on board. Take Miss West. I am beginning to admire her. Why, I know not, unless +it be because she is so abominably healthy. And yet, it is this very health of +her, the absence of any shred of degenerative genius, that prevents her from +being great . . . for instance, in her music. +</p> + +<p> +A number of times, now, I have come in during the day to listen to her playing. +The piano is good, and her teaching has evidently been of the best. To my +astonishment I learn that she is a graduate of Bryn Mawr, and that her father +took a degree from old Bowdoin long ago. And yet she lacks in her music. +</p> + +<p> +Her touch is masterful. She has the firmness and weight (without sharpness or +pounding) of a man’s playing—the strength and surety that most +women lack and that some women know they lack. When she makes a slip she is +ruthless with herself, and replays until the difficulty is overcome. And she is +quick to overcome it. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, and there is a sort of temperament in her work, but there is no sentiment, +no fire. When she plays Chopin, she interprets his sureness and neatness. She +is the master of Chopin’s technique, but she never walks where Chopin +walks on the heights. Somehow, she stops short of the fulness of music. +</p> + +<p> +I did like her method with Brahms, and she was not unwilling, at my suggestion, +to go over and over the Three Rhapsodies. On the Third Intermezzo she was at +her best, and a good best it was. +</p> + +<p> +“You were talking of Debussy,” she remarked. “I’ve got +some of his stuff here. But I don’t get into it. I don’t understand +it, and there is no use in trying. It doesn’t seem altogether like real +music to me. It fails to get hold of me, just as I fail to get hold of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet you like MacDowell,” I challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“Y. . . es,” she admitted grudgingly. “His New England Idylls +and Fireside Tales. And I like that Finnish man’s stuff, Sibelius, too, +although it seems to me too soft, too richly soft, too beautiful, if you know +what I mean. It seems to cloy.” +</p> + +<p> +What a pity, I thought, that with that noble masculine touch of hers she is +unaware of the deeps of music. Some day I shall try to get from her just what +Beethoven, say, and Chopin, mean to her. She has not read Shaw’s +<i>Perfect Wagnerite</i>, nor had she ever heard of Nietzsche’s <i>Case +of Wagner</i>. She likes Mozart, and old Boccherini, and Leonardo Leo. Likewise +she is partial to Schumann, especially Forest Scenes. And she played his +Papillons most brilliantly. When I closed my eyes I could have sworn it was a +man’s fingers on the keys. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, I must say it, in the long run her playing makes me nervous. I am +continually led up to false expectations. Always, she seems just on the verge +of achieving the big thing, the super-big thing, and always she just misses it +by a shade. Just as I am prepared for the culminating flash and illumination, I +receive more perfection of technique. She is cold. She must be cold . . . Or +else, and the theory is worth considering, she is too healthy. +</p> + +<p> +I shall certainly read to her <i>The Daughters of Herodias</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +Was there ever such a voyage! This morning, when I came on deck, I found nobody +at the wheel. It was a startling sight—the great <i>Elsinore</i>, by the +wind, under an Alpine range of canvas, every sail set from skysails to +try-sails and spanker, slipping across the surface of a mild trade-wind sea, +and no hand at the wheel to guide her. +</p> + +<p> +No one was on the poop. It was Mr. Pike’s watch, and I strolled +for’ard along the bridge to find him. He was on Number One hatch giving +some instructions to the sail-makers. I awaited my chance, until he glanced up +and greeted me. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning,” I answered. “And what man is at the wheel +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“That crazy Greek, Tony,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“A month’s wages to a pound of tobacco he isn’t,” I +offered. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike looked at me with quick sharpness. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is at the wheel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +And then he exploded into action. The age-lag left his massive frame, and he +bounded aft along the deck at a speed no man on board could have exceeded; and +I doubt if very many could have equalled it. He went up the poop-ladder three +steps at a time and disappeared in the direction of the wheel behind the +chart-house. +</p> + +<p> +Next came a promptitude of bellowed orders, and all the watch was slacking away +after braces to starboard and pulling on after braces to port. I had already +learned the manoeuvre. Mr. Pike was wearing ship. +</p> + +<p> +As I returned aft along the bridge Mr. Mellaire and the carpenter emerged from +the cabin door. They had been interrupted at breakfast, for they were wiping +their mouths. Mr. Pike came to the break of the poop, called down instructions +to the second mate, who proceeded for’ard, and ordered the carpenter to +take the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +As the <i>Elsinore</i> swung around on her heel Mr. Pike put her on the back +track so as to cover the water she had just crossed over. He lowered the +glasses through which he was scanning the sea and pointed down the hatchway +that opened into the big after-room beneath. The ladder was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Must have taken the lazarette ladder with him,” said Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West strolled out of the chart-room. He said good morning in his +customary way, courteously to me and formally to the mate, and strolled on +along the poop to the wheel, where he paused to glance into the binnacle. +Turning, he went on leisurely to the break of the poop. Again he came back to +us. Fully two minutes must have elapsed ere he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, Mr. Pike? Man overboard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“And took the lazarette ladder along with him?” Captain West +queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. It’s the Greek that jumped over at Baltimore.” +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the affair was not serious enough for Captain West to be the Samurai. +He lighted a cigar and resumed his stroll. And yet he had missed nothing, not +even the absence of the ladder. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike sent look-outs aloft to every skysail-yard, and the <i>Elsinore</i> +slipped along through the smooth sea. Miss West came up and stood beside me, +searching the ocean with her eyes while I told her the little I knew. She +evidenced no excitement, and reassured me by telling me how difficult it was to +lose a man of Tony’s suicidal type. +</p> + +<p> +“Their madness always seems to come upon them in fine weather or under +safe circumstances,” she smiled, “when a boat can be lowered or a +tug is alongside. And sometimes they take life—preservers with them, as +in this case.” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of an hour Mr. Pike wore the <i>Elsinore</i> around, and again +retraced the course she must have been sailing when the Greek went over. +Captain West still strolled and smoked, and Miss West made a brief trip below +to give Wada forgotten instructions about Possum. Andy Pay was called to the +wheel, and the carpenter went below to finish his breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +It all seemed rather callous to me. Nobody was much concerned for the man who +was overboard somewhere on that lonely ocean. And yet I had to admit that +everything possible was being done to find him. I talked a little with Mr. +Pike, and he seemed more vexed than anything else. He disliked to have the +ship’s work interrupted in such fashion. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire’s attitude was different. +</p> + +<p> +“We are short-handed enough as it is,” he told me, when he joined +us on the poop. “We can’t afford to lose him even if he is crazy. +We need him. He’s a good sailor most of the time.” +</p> + +<p> +The hail came from the mizzen-skysail-yard. The Maltese Cockney it was who +first sighted the man and called down the information. The mate, looking to +windwards, suddenly lowered his glasses, rubbed his eyes in a puzzled way, and +looked again. Then Miss West, using another pair of glasses, cried out in +surprise and began to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you make of it, Miss West?” the mate asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t seem to be in the water. He’s standing up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s on the ladder,” he said. “I’d forgotten +that. It fooled me at first. I couldn’t understand it.” He turned +to the second mate. “Mr. Mellaire, will you launch the long boat and get +some kind of a crew into it while I back the main-yard? I’ll go in the +boat. Pick men that can pull an oar.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go, too,” Miss West said to me. “It will be an +opportunity to get outside the <i>Elsinore</i> and see her under full +sail.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike nodded consent, so I went along, sitting near him in the stern-sheets +where he steered, while half a dozen hands rowed us toward the suicide, who +stood so weirdly upon the surface of the sea. The Maltese Cockney pulled the +stroke oar, and among the other five men was one whose name I had but recently +learned—Ditman Olansen, a Norwegian. A good seaman, Mr. Mellaire had told +me, in whose watch he was; a good seaman, but “crank-eyed.” When +pressed for an explanation Mr. Mellaire had said that he was the sort of man +who flew into blind rages, and that one never could tell what little thing +would produce such a rage. As near as I could grasp it, Ditman Olansen was a +Berserker type. Yet, as I watched him pulling in good time at the oar, his +large, pale-blue eyes seemed almost bovine—the last man in the world, in +my judgment, to have a Berserker fit. +</p> + +<p> +As we drew close to the Greek he began to scream menacingly at us and to +brandish a sheath-knife. His weight sank the ladder until the water washed his +knees, and on this submerged support he balanced himself with wild writhing and +outflinging of arms. His face, grimacing like a monkey’s, was not a +pretty thing to look upon. And as he continued to threaten us with the knife I +wondered how the problem of rescuing him would be solved. +</p> + +<p> +But I should have trusted Mr. Pike for that. He removed the boat-stretcher from +under the Maltese Cockney’s feet and laid it close to hand in the +stern-sheets. Then he had the men reverse the boat and back it upon the Greek. +Dodging a sweep of the knife, Mr. Pike awaited his chance, until a passing wave +lifted the boat’s stern high, while Tony was sinking toward the trough. +This was the moment. Again I was favoured with a sample of the lightning speed +with which that aged man of sixty-nine could handle his body. Timed precisely, +and delivered in a flash and with weight, the boat-stretcher came down on the +Greek’s head. The knife fell into the sea, and the demented creature +collapsed and followed it, knocked unconscious. Mr. Pike scooped him out, quite +effortlessly it seemed to me, and flung him into the boat’s bottom at my +feet. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment the men were bending to their oars and the mate was steering +back to the <i>Elsinore</i>. It was a stout rap Mr. Pike had administered with +the boat-stretcher. Thin streaks of blood oozed on the damp, plastered hair +from the broken scalp. I could but stare at the lump of unconscious flesh that +dripped sea-water at my feet. A man, all life and movement one moment, defying +the universe, reduced the next moment to immobility and the blackness and +blankness of death, is always a fascinating object for the contemplative eye of +the philosopher. And in this case it had been accomplished so simply, by means +of a stick of wood brought sharply in contact with his skull. +</p> + +<p> +If Tony the Greek be accounted an <i>appearance</i>, what was he now?—a +<i>disappearance</i>? And if so, whither had he disappeared? And whence would +he journey back to reoccupy that body when what we call consciousness returned +to him? The first word, much less the last, of the phenomena of personality and +consciousness yet remains to be uttered by the psychologists. +</p> + +<p> +Pondering thus, I chanced to lift my eyes, and the glorious spectacle of the +<i>Elsinore</i> burst upon me. I had been so long on board, and in board of +her, that I had forgotten she was a white-painted ship. So low to the water was +her hull, so delicate and slender, that the tall, sky-reaching spars and masts +and the hugeness of the spread of canvas seemed preposterous and impossible, an +insolent derision of the law of gravitation. It required effort to realize that +that slim curve of hull inclosed and bore up from the sea’s bottom five +thousand tons of coal. And again, it seemed a miracle that the mites of men had +conceived and constructed so stately and magnificent an element-defying +fabric—mites of men, most woefully like the Greek at my feet, prone to +precipitation into the blackness by means of a rap on the head with a piece of +wood. +</p> + +<p> +Tony made a struggling noise in his throat, then coughed and groaned. From +somewhere he was reappearing. I noticed Mr. Pike look at him quickly, as if +apprehending some recrudescence of frenzy that would require more +boat-stretcher. But Tony merely fluttered his big black eyes open and stared at +me for a long minute of incurious amaze ere he closed them again. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do with him?” I asked the mate. +</p> + +<p> +“Put ’m back to work,” was the reply. “It’s all +he’s good for, and he ain’t hurt. Somebody’s got to work this +ship around the Horn.” +</p> + +<p> +When we hoisted the boat on board I found Miss West had gone below. In the +chart-room Captain West was winding the chronometers. Mr. Mellaire had turned +in to catch an hour or two of sleep ere his watch on deck at noon. Mr. +Mellaire, by the way, as I have forgotten to state, does not sleep aft. He +shares a room in the ’midship-house with Mr. Pike’s Nancy. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody showed sympathy for the unfortunate Greek. He was bundled out upon +Number Two hatch like so much carrion and left there unattended, to recover +consciousness as he might elect. Yes, and so inured have I become that I make +free to admit I felt no sympathy for him myself. My eyes were still filled with +the beauty of the <i>Elsinore</i>. One does grow hard at sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +One does not mind the trades. We have held the north-east trade for days now, +and the miles roll off behind us as the patent log whirls and tinkles on the +taffrail. Yesterday, log and observation approximated a run of two hundred and +fifty-two miles; the day before we ran two hundred and forty, and the day +before that two hundred and sixty-one. But one does not appreciate the force of +the wind. So balmy and exhilarating is it that it is so much atmospheric wine. +I delight to open my lungs and my pores to it. Nor does it chill. At any hour +of the night, while the cabin lies asleep, I break off from my reading and go +up on the poop in the thinnest of tropical pyjamas. +</p> + +<p> +I never knew before what the trade wind was. And now I am infatuated with it. I +stroll up and down for an hour at a time, with whichever mate has the watch. +Mr. Mellaire is always full-garmented, but Mr. Pike, on these delicious nights, +stands his first watch after midnight in his pyjamas. He is a fearfully +muscular man. Sixty-nine years seem impossible when I see his single, slimpsy +garments pressed like fleshings against his form and bulged by heavy bone and +huge muscle. A splendid figure of a man! What he must have been in the hey-day +of youth two score years and more ago passes comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +The days, so filled with simple routine, pass as in a dream. Here, where time +is rigidly measured and emphasized by the changing of the watches, where every +hour and half-hour is persistently brought to one’s notice by the +striking of the ship’s bells fore and aft, time ceases. Days merge into +days, and weeks slip into weeks, and I, for one, can never remember the day of +the week or month. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Elsinore</i> is never totally asleep. Day and night, always, there are +the men on watch, the look-out on the forecastle head, the man at the wheel, +and the officer of the deck. I lie reading in my bunk, which is on the weather +side, and continually over my head during the long night hours impact the +footsteps of one mate or the other, pacing up and down, and, as I well know, +the man himself is forever peering for’ard from the break of the poop, +or glancing into the binnacle, or feeling and gauging the weight and direction +of wind on his cheek, or watching the cloud-stuff in the sky adrift and a-scud +across the stars and the moon. Always, always, there are wakeful eyes on the +<i>Elsinore</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Last night, or this morning, rather, about two o’clock, as I lay with the +printed page swimming drowsily before me, I was aroused by an abrupt outbreak +of snarl from Mr. Pike. I located him as at the break of the poop; and the man +at whom he snarled was Larry, evidently on the main deck beneath him. Not until +Wada brought me breakfast did I learn what had occurred. +</p> + +<p> +Larry, with his funny pug nose, his curiously flat and twisted face, and his +querulous, plaintive chimpanzee eyes, had been moved by some unlucky whim to +venture an insolent remark under the cover of darkness on the main deck. But +Mr. Pike, from above, at the break of the poop, had picked the offender +unerringly. This was when the explosion occurred. Then the unfortunate Larry, +truly half-devil and all child, had waxed sullen and retorted still more +insolently; and the next he knew, the mate, descending upon him like a +hurricane, had handcuffed him to the mizzen fife-rail. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine, on Mr. Pike’s part, that this was one for Larry and at least ten +for Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine. I’ll not be so absurd as to +say that the mate is afraid of those gangsters. I doubt if he has ever +experienced fear. It is not in him. On the other hand, I am confident that he +apprehends trouble from these men, and that it was for their benefit he made +this example of Larry. +</p> + +<p> +Larry could stand no more than an hour in irons, at which time his stupid +brutishness overcame any fear he might have possessed, because he bellowed out +to the poop to come down and loose him for a fair fight. Promptly Mr. Pike was +there with the key to the handcuffs. As if Larry had the shred of a chance +against that redoubtable aged man! Wada reported that Larry, amongst other +things, had lost a couple of front teeth and was laid up in his bunk for the +day. When I met Mr. Pike on deck after eight o’clock I glanced at his +knuckles. They verified Wada’s tale. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot help being amused by the keen interest I take in little events like +the foregoing. Not only has time ceased, but the world has ceased. Strange it +is, when I come to think of it, in all these weeks I have received no letter, +no telephone call, no telegram, no visitor. I have not been to the play. I have +not read a newspaper. So far as I am concerned, there are no plays nor +newspapers. All such things have vanished with the vanished world. All that +exists is the <i>Elsinore</i>, with her queer human freightage and her cargo of +coal, cleaving a rotund of ocean of which the skyline is a dozen miles away. +</p> + +<p> +I am reminded of Captain Scott, frozen on his south-polar venture, who for ten +months after his death was believed by the world to be alive. Not until the +world learned of his death was he anything but alive to the world. By the same +token, was he not alive? And by the same token, here on the <i>Elsinore</i>, +has not the land-world ceased? May not the pupil of one’s eye be, not +merely the centre of the world, but the world itself? Truly, it is tenable that +the world exists only in consciousness. “The world is my idea,” +said Schopenhauer. Said Jules de Gaultier, “The world is my +invention.” His dogma was that imagination created the Real. Ah, me, I +know that the practical Miss West would dub my metaphysics a depressing and +unhealthful exercise of my wits. +</p> + +<p> +To-day, in our deck chairs on the poop, I read <i>The Daughters of Herodias</i> +to Miss West. It was superb in its effect—just what I had expected of +her. She hemstitched a fine white linen handkerchief for her father while I +read. (She is never idle, being so essentially a nest-maker and +comfort-producer and race-conserver; and she has a whole pile of these +handkerchiefs for her father.) +</p> + +<p> +She smiled, how shall I say?—oh, incredulously, triumphantly, oh, with +all the sure wisdom of all the generations of women in her warm, long gray +eyes, when I read: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“But they smile innocently and dance on,<br /> +Having no thought but this unslumbering thought:<br /> +‘Am I not beautiful? Shall I not be loved?’<br /> +Be patient, for they will not understand,<br /> +Not till the end of time will they put by<br /> +The weaving of slow steps about men’s hearts.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is well for the world that it is so,” was her comment. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, Symons knew women! His perfect knowledge she attested when I read that +magnificent passage: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“They do not understand that in the world<br /> +There grows between the sunlight and the grass<br /> +Anything save themselves desirable.<br /> +It seems to them that the swift eyes of men<br /> +Are made but to be mirrors, not to see<br /> +Far-off, disastrous, unattainable things.<br /> +‘For are not we,’ they say, ‘the end of all?<br /> +Why should you look beyond us? If you look<br /> +Into the night, you will find nothing there:<br /> +We also have gazed often at the stars.’” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Miss West, in the pause I permitted in order to +see how she had received the thought. “We also have gazed often at the +stars.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the very thing I had predicted to her face that she would say. +</p> + +<p> +“But wait,” I cried. “Let me read on.” And I read: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘We, we alone among all beautiful things,<br /> +We only are real: for the rest are dreams.<br /> +Why will you follow after wandering dreams<br /> +When we await you? And you can but dream<br /> +Of us, and in our image fashion them.’” +</p> + +<p> +“True, most true,” she murmured, while all unconsciously pride and +power mounted in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“A wonderful poem,” she conceded—nay, proclaimed—when I +had done. +</p> + +<p> +“But do you not see . . .” I began impulsively, then abandoned the +attempt. For how could she see, being woman, the “far-off, disastrous, +unattainable things,” when she, as she so stoutly averred, had gazed +often on the stars? +</p> + +<p> +She? What could she see, save what all women see—that they only are real, +and that all the rest are dreams. +</p> + +<p> +“I am proud to be a daughter of Herodias,” said Miss West. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I admitted lamely, “we agree. You remember it is what +I told you you were.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am grateful for the compliment,” she said; and in those long +gray eyes of hers were limned and coloured all the satisfaction, and +self-certitude and answering complacency of power that constitute so large a +part of the seductive mystery and mastery that is possessed by woman. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +Heavens!—how I read in this fine weather. I take so little exercise that +my sleep need is very small; and there are so few interruptions, such as life +teems with on the land, that I read myself almost stupid. Recommend me a +sea-voyage any time for a man who is behind in his reading. I am making up +years of it. It is an orgy, a debauch; and I am sure the addled sailors adjudge +me the queerest creature on board. +</p> + +<p> +At times, so fuzzy do I get from so much reading, that I am glad for any +diversion. When we strike the doldrums, which lie between the north-east and +the south-east trades, I shall have Wada assemble my little twenty-two +automatic rifle and try to learn how to shoot. I used to shoot, when I was a +wee lad. I can remember dragging a shot-gun around with me over the hills. +Also, I possessed an air-rifle, with which, on great occasion, I was even able +to slaughter a robin. +</p> + +<p> +While the poop is quite large for promenading, the available space for +deck-chairs is limited to the awnings that stretch across from either side of +the chart-house and that are of the width of the chart-house. This space again +is restricted to one side or the other according to the slant of the morning +and afternoon sun and the freshness of the breeze. Wherefore, Miss West’s +chair and mine are most frequently side by side. Captain West has a chair, +which he infrequently occupies. He has so little to do in the working of the +ship, taking his regular observations and working them up with such celerity, +that he is rarely in the chart-room for any length of time. He elects to spend +his hours in the main cabin, not reading, not doing anything save dream with +eyes wide open in the draught of wind that pours through the open ports and +door from out the huge crojack and the jigger staysails. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West is never idle. Below, in the big after-room, she does her own +laundering. Nor will she let the steward touch her father’s fine linen. +In the main cabin she has installed a sewing-machine. All hand-stitching, and +embroidering, and fancy work she does in the deck-chair beside me. She avers +that she loves the sea and the atmosphere of sea-life, yet, verily, she has +brought her home-things and land-things along with her—even to her pretty +china for afternoon tea. +</p> + +<p> +Most essentially is she the woman and home-maker. She is a born cook. The +steward and Louis prepare dishes extraordinary and <i>de luxe</i> for the cabin +table; yet Miss West is able at a moment’s notice to improve on these +dishes. She never lets any of their dishes come on the table without first +planning them or passing on them. She has quick judgment, an unerring taste, +and is possessed of the needful steel of decision. It seems she has only to +look at a dish, no matter who has cooked it, and immediately divine its lack or +its surplusage, and prescribe a treatment that transforms it into something +indescribably different and delicious—My, how I do eat! I am quite +dumbfounded by the unfailing voracity of my appetite. Already am I quite +convinced that I am glad Miss West is making the voyage. +</p> + +<p> +She has sailed “out East,” as she quaintly calls it, and has an +enormous repertoire of tasty, spicy, Eastern dishes. In the cooking of rice +Louis is a master; but in the making of the accompanying curry he fades into a +blundering amateur compared with Miss West. In the matter of curry she is a +sheer genius. How often one’s thoughts dwell upon food when at sea! +</p> + +<p> +So in this trade-wind weather I see a great deal of Miss West. I read all the +time, and quite a good part of the time I read aloud to her passages, and even +books, with which I am interested in trying her out. Then, too, such reading +gives rise to discussions, and she has not yet uttered anything that would lead +me to change my first judgment of her. She is a genuine daughter of Herodias. +</p> + +<p> +And yet she is not what one would call a cute girl. She isn’t a girl, she +is a mature woman with all the freshness of a girl. She has the carriage, the +attitude of mind, the aplomb of a woman, and yet she cannot be described as +being in the slightest degree stately. She is generous, dependable, +sensible—yes, and sensitive; and her superabundant vitality, the vitality +that makes her walk so gloriously, discounts the maturity of her. Sometimes she +seems all of thirty to me; at other times, when her spirits and risibilities +are aroused, she scarcely seems thirteen. I shall make a point of asking +Captain West the date of the <i>Dixie’s</i> collision with that river +steamer in San Francisco Bay. In a word, she is the most normal, the most +healthy, natural woman I have ever known. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, and she is feminine, despite, no matter how she does her hair, that it is +as invariably smooth and well-groomed as all the rest of her. On the other +hand, this perpetual well-groomedness is relieved by the latitude of dress she +allows herself. She never fails of being a woman. Her sex, and the lure of it, +is ever present. Possibly she may possess high collars, but I have never seen +her in one on board. Her blouses are always open at the throat, disclosing one +of her choicest assets, the muscular, adequate neck, with its fine-textured +garmenture of skin. I embarrass myself by stealing long glances at that bare +throat of hers and at the hint of fine, firm-surfaced shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Visiting the chickens has developed into a regular function. At least once each +day we make the journey for’ard along the bridge to the top of the +’midship-house. Possum, who is now convalescent, accompanies us. The +steward makes a point of being there so as to receive instructions and report +the egg-output and laying conduct of the many hens. At the present time our +four dozen hens are laying two dozen eggs a day, with which record Miss West is +greatly elated. +</p> + +<p> +Already she has given names to most of them. The cock is Peter, of course. A +much-speckled hen is Dolly Varden. A slim, trim thing that dogs Peter’s +heels she calls Cleopatra. Another hen—the mellowest-voiced one of +all—she addresses as Bernhardt. One thing I have noted: whenever she and +the steward have passed death sentence on a non-laying hen (which occurs +regularly once a week), she takes no part in the eating of the meat, not even +when it is metamorphosed into one of her delectable curries. At such times she +has a special curry made for herself of tinned lobster, or shrimp, or tinned +chicken. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, I must not forget. I have learned that it was no man-interest (in me, if +you please) that brought about her sudden interest to come on the voyage. It +was for her father that she came. Something is the matter with Captain West. At +rare moments I have observed her gazing at him with a world of solicitude and +anxiety in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +I was telling an amusing story at table yesterday midday, when my glance +chanced to rest upon Miss West. She was not listening. Her food on her fork was +suspended in the air a sheer instant as she looked at her father with all her +eyes. It was a stare of fear. She realized that I was observing, and with +superb control, slowly, quite naturally, she lowered the fork and rested it on +her plate, retaining her hold on it and retaining her father’s face in +her look. +</p> + +<p> +But I had seen. Yes; I had seen more than that. I had seen Captain West’s +face a transparent white, while his eyelids fluttered down and his lips moved +noiselessly. Then the eyelids raised, the lips set again with their habitual +discipline, and the colour slowly returned to his face. It was as if he had +been away for a time and just returned. But I had seen, and guessed her secret. +</p> + +<p> +And yet it was this same Captain West, seven hours later, who chastened the +proud sailor spirit of Mr. Pike. It was in the second dog-watch that evening, a +dark night, and the watch was pulling away on the main deck. I had just come +out of the chart-house door and seen Captain West pace by me, hands in pockets, +toward the break of the poop. Abruptly, from the mizzen-mast, came a snap of +breakage and crash of fabric. At the same instant the men fell backward and +sprawled over the deck. +</p> + +<p> +A moment of silence followed, and then Captain West’s voice went out: +</p> + +<p> +“What carried away, Mr. Pike?” +</p> + +<p> +“The halyards, sir,” came the reply out of the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause. Again Captain West’s voice went out. +</p> + +<p> +“Next time slack away on your sheet first.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Pike is incontestably a splendid seaman. Yet in this instance he had +been wrong. I have come to know him, and I can well imagine the hurt to his +pride. And more—he has a wicked, resentful, primitive nature, and though +he answered respectfully enough, “Yes, sir,” I felt safe in +predicting to myself that the poor devils under him would receive the weight of +his resentment in the later watches of the night. +</p> + +<p> +They evidently did; for this morning I noted a black eye on John Hackey, a San +Francisco hoodlum, and Guido Bombini was carrying a freshly and outrageously +swollen jaw. I asked Wada about the matter, and he soon brought me the news. +Quite a bit of beating up takes place for’ard of the deck-houses in the +night watches while we of the after-guard peacefully slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Even to-day Mr. Pike is going around sullen and morose, snarling at the men +more than usual, and barely polite to Miss West and me when we chance to +address him. His replies are grunted in monosyllables, and his face is set in +superlative sourness. Miss West who is unaware of the occurrence, laughs and +calls it a “sea grouch”—a phenomenon with which she claims +large experience. +</p> + +<p> +But I know Mr. Pike now—the stubborn, wonderful old sea-dog. It will be +three days before he is himself again. He takes a terrible pride in his +seamanship, and what hurts him most is the knowledge that he was guilty of the +blunder. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +To-day, twenty-eight days out, in the early morning, while I was drinking my +coffee, still carrying the north-east trade, we crossed the line. And Charles +Davis signalized the event by murdering O’Sullivan. It was Boney, the +lanky splinter of a youth in Mr. Mellaire’s watch, who brought the news. +The second mate and I had just arrived in the hospital room, when Mr. Pike +entered. +</p> + +<p> +O’Sullivan’s troubles were over. The man in the upper bunk had +completed the mad, sad span of his life with the marlin-spike. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot understand this Charles Davis. He sat up calmly in his bunk, and +calmly lighted his pipe ere he replied to Mr. Mellaire. He certainly is not +insane. Yet deliberately, in cold blood, he has murdered a helpless man. +</p> + +<p> +“What’d you do it for?” Mr. Mellaire demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Because, sir,” said Charles Davis, applying a second match to his +pipe, “because”—puff, puff—“he bothered my +sleep.” Here he caught Mr. Pike’s glowering eye. +“Because”—puff, puff—“he annoyed me. The next +time”—puff, puff—“I hope better judgment will be shown +in what kind of a man is put in with me. Besides”—puff, +puff—“this top bunk ain’t no place for me. It hurts me to get +into it”—puff, puff—“an’ I’m goin’ +back to that lower bunk as soon as you get O’Sullivan out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what’d you do it for?” Mr. Pike snarled. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you, sir, because he annoyed me. I got tired of it, an’ so, +this morning, I just put him out of his misery. An’ what are you +goin’ to do about it? The man’s dead, ain’t he? An’ I +killed ’m in self-defence. I know the law. What right’d you to put +a ravin’ lunatic in with me, an’ me sick an’ helpless?” +</p> + +<p> +“By God, Davis!” the mate burst forth. “You’ll never +draw your pay-day in Seattle. I’ll fix you out for this, killing a crazy +lashed down in his bunk an’ harmless. You’ll follow ’m +overside, my hearty.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I do, you’ll hang for it, sir,” Davis retorted. He turned +his cool eyes on me. “An’ I call on you, sir, to witness the +threats he’s made. An’ you’ll testify to them, too, in court. +An’ he’ll hang as sure as I go over the side. Oh, I know his +record. He’s afraid to face a court with it. He’s been up too many +a time with charges of man-killin’ an’ brutality on the high seas. +An’ a man could retire for life an live off the interest of the fines +he’s paid, or his owners paid for him—” +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your mouth or I’ll knock it out of your face!” Mr. Pike +roared, springing toward him with clenched, up-raised fist. +</p> + +<p> +Davis involuntarily shrank away. His flesh was weak, but not so his spirit. He +got himself promptly in hand and struck another match. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t get my goat, sir,” he sneered, under the shadow of +the impending blow. “I ain’t scared to die. A man’s got to +die once anyway, an’ it’s none so hard a trick to do when you +can’t help it. O’Sullivan died so easy it was amazin’. +Besides, I ain’t goin’ to die. I’m goin’ to finish this +voyage, an’ sue the owners when I get to Seattle. I know my rights +an’ the law. An’ I got witnesses.” +</p> + +<p> +Truly, I was divided between admiration for the courage of this wretched sailor +and sympathy for Mr. Pike thus bearded by a sick man he could not bring himself +to strike. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless he sprang upon the man with calculated fury, gripped him between +the base of the neck and the shoulders with both gnarled paws, and shook him +back and forth, violently and frightfully, for a full minute. It was a wonder +the man’s neck was not dislocated. +</p> + +<p> +“I call on you to witness, sir,” Davis gasped at me the instant he +was free. +</p> + +<p> +He coughed and strangled, felt his throat, and made wry neck-movements +indicative of injury. +</p> + +<p> +“The marks’ll begin to show in a few minutes,” he murmured +complacently as his dizziness left him and his breath came back. +</p> + +<p> +This was too much for Mr. Pike, who turned and left the room, growling and +cursing incoherently, deep in his throat. When I made my departure, a moment +later, Davis was refilling his pipe and telling Mr. Mellaire that he’d +have him up for a witness in Seattle. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +So we have had another burial at sea. Mr. Pike was vexed by it because the +<i>Elsinore</i>, according to sea tradition, was going too fast through the +water for a proper ceremony. Thus a few minutes of the voyage were lost by +backing the <i>Elsinore’s</i> main-topsail and deadening her way while +the service was read and O’Sullivan was slid overboard with the +inevitable sack of coal at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Hope the coal holds out,” Mr. Pike grumbled morosely at me five +minutes later. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And we sit on the poop, Miss West and I, tended on by servants, sipping +afternoon tea, sewing fancy work, discussing philosophy and art, while a few +feet away from us, on this tiny floating world, all the grimy, sordid tragedy +of sordid, malformed, brutish life plays itself out. And Captain West, remote, +untroubled, sits dreaming in the twilight cabin while the draught of wind from +the crojack blows upon him through the open ports. He has no doubts, no +worries. He believes in God. All is settled and clear and well as he nears his +far home. His serenity is vast and enviable. But I cannot shake from my eyes +that vision of him when life forsook his veins, and his mouth slacked, and his +eyelids closed, while his face took on the white transparency of death. +</p> + +<p> +I wonder who will be the next to finish the game and depart with a sack of +coal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, this is nothing, sir,” Mr. Mellaire remarked to me cheerfully +as we strolled the poop during the first watch. “I was once on a voyage +on a tramp steamer loaded with four hundred Chinks—I beg your pardon, +sir—Chinese. They were coolies, contract labourers, coming back from +serving their time. +</p> + +<p> +“And the cholera broke out. We hove over three hundred of them overboard, +sir, along with both bosuns, most of the Lascar crew, and the captain, the +mate, the third mate, and the first and third engineers. The second and one +white oiler was all that was left below, and I was in command on deck, when we +made port. The doctors wouldn’t come aboard. They made me anchor in the +outer roads and told me to heave out my dead. There was some tall buryin’ +about that time, Mr. Pathurst, and they went overboard without canvas, coal, or +iron. They had to. I had nobody to help me, and the Chinks below wouldn’t +lift a hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I had to go down myself, drag the bodies on to the slings, then climb on +deck and heave them up with the donkey. And each trip I took a drink. I was +pretty drunk when the job was done.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you never caught it yourself?” I queried. Mr. Mellaire held up +his left hand. I had often noted that the index finger was missing. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all that happened to me, sir. The old man’d had a +fox-terrier like yours. And after the old man passed out the puppy got real, +chummy with me. Just as I was making the hoist of the last sling-load, what +does the puppy do but jump on my leg and sniff my hand. I turned to pat him, +and the next I knew my other hand had slipped into the gears and that finger +wasn’t there any more. +</p> + +<p> +“Heavens!” I cried. “What abominable luck to come through +such a terrible experience like that and then lose your finger!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I thought, sir,” Mr. Mellaire agreed. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, just held it up and looked at it, and said ‘My goodness +gracious!’ and took another drink.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you didn’t get the cholera afterwards?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. I reckon I was so full of alcohol the germs dropped dead before +they could get to me.” He considered a moment. “Candidly, Mr. +Pathurst, I don’t know about that alcohol theory. The old man and the +mates died drunk, and so did the third engineer. But the chief was a +teetotaller, and he died, too.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Never again shall I wonder that the sea is hard. I walked apart from the second +mate and stared up at the magnificent fabric of the <i>Elsinore</i> sweeping +and swaying great blotting curves of darkness across the face of the starry +sky. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +Something has happened. But nobody knows, either fore or aft, except the +interested persons, and they will not say anything. Yet the ship is abuzz with +rumours and guesses. +</p> + +<p> +This I do know: Mr. Pike has received a fearful blow on the head. At table, +yesterday, at midday, I arrived late, and, passing behind his chair, I saw a +prodigious lump on top of his head. When I was seated, facing him, I noted that +his eyes seemed dazed; yes, and I could see pain in them. He took no part in +the conversation, ate perfunctorily, behaved stupidly at times, and it was +patent that he was controlling himself with an iron hand. +</p> + +<p> +And nobody dares ask him what has happened. I know I don’t dare ask him, +and I am a passenger, a privileged person. This redoubtable old sea-relic has +inspired me with a respect for him that partakes half of timidity and half of +awe. +</p> + +<p> +He acts as if he were suffering from concussion of the brain. His pain is +evident, not alone in his eyes and the strained expression of his face, but by +his conduct when he thinks he is unobserved. Last night, just for a breath of +air and a moment’s gaze at the stars, I came out of the cabin door and +stood on the main deck under the break of the poop. From directly over my head +came a low and persistent groaning. My curiosity was aroused, and I retreated +into the cabin, came out softly on to the poop by way of the chart-house, and +strolled noiselessly for’ard in my slippers. It was Mr. Pike. He was +leaning collapsed on the rail, his head resting on his arms. He was giving +voice in secret to the pain that racked him. A dozen feet away he could not be +heard. But, close to his shoulder, I could hear his steady, smothered groaning +that seemed to take the form of a chant. Also, at regular intervals, he would +mutter: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Always he repeated +the phrase five times, then returned to his groaning. I stole away as silently +as I had come. +</p> + +<p> +Yet he resolutely stands his watches and performs all his duties of chief +officer. Oh, I forgot. Miss West dared to quiz him, and he replied that he had +a toothache, and that if it didn’t get better he’d pull it out. +</p> + +<p> +Wada cannot learn what has happened. There were no eye-witnesses. He says that +the Asiatic clique, discussing the affair in the cook’s room, thinks the +three gangsters are responsible. Bert Rhine is carrying a lame shoulder. Nosey +Murphy is limping as from some injury in the hips. And Kid Twist has been so +badly beaten that he has not left his bunk for two days. And that is all the +data to build on. The gangsters are as close-mouthed as Mr. Pike. The Asiatic +clique has decided that murder was attempted and that all that saved the mate +was his hard skull. +</p> + +<p> +Last evening, in the second dog-watch, I got another proof that Captain West is +not so oblivious of what goes on aboard the <i>Elsinore</i> as he seems. I had +gone for’ard along the bridge to the mizzen-mast, in the shadow of which +I was leaning. From the main deck, in the alley-way between the +’midship-house and the rail, came the voices of Bert Rhine, Nosey Murphy, +and Mr. Mellaire. It was not ship’s work. They were having a friendly, +even sociable chat, for their voices hummed genially, and now and again one or +another laughed, and sometimes all laughed. +</p> + +<p> +I remembered Wada’s reports on this unseamanlike intimacy of the second +mate with the gangsters, and tried to make out the nature of the conversation. +But the gangsters were low-voiced, and all I could catch was the tone of +friendliness and good-nature. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, from the poop, came Captain West’s voice. It was the voice, not +of the Samurai riding the storm, but of the Samurai calm and cold. It was +clear, soft, and mellow as the mellowest bell ever cast by eastern artificers +of old time to call worshippers to prayer. I know I slightly chilled to +it—it was so exquisitely sweet and yet as passionless as the ring of +steel on a frosty night. And I knew the effect on the men beneath me was +electrical. I could <i>feel</i> them stiffen and chill to it as I had stiffened +and chilled. And yet all he said was: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mellaire.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Mellaire, after a moment of tense silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Come aft here,” came Captain West’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +I heard the second mate move along the deck beneath me and stop at the foot of +the poop-ladder. +</p> + +<p> +“Your place is aft on the poop, Mr. Mellaire,” said the cold, +passionless voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” answered the second mate. +</p> + +<p> +That was all. Not another word was spoken. Captain West resumed his stroll on +the weather side of the poop, and Mr. Mellaire, ascending the ladder, went to +pacing up and down the lee side. +</p> + +<p> +I continued along the bridge to the forecastle head and purposely remained +there half an hour ere I returned to the cabin by way of the main deck. +Although I did not analyze my motive, I knew I did not desire any one to know +that I had overheard the occurrence. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I have made a discovery. Ninety per cent. of our crew is brunette. Aft, with +the exception of Wada and the steward, who are our servants, we are all blonds. +What led me to this discovery was Woodruff’s <i>Effects of Tropical Light +on White Men</i>, which I am just reading. Major Woodruff’s thesis is +that the white-skinned, blue-eyed Aryan, born to government and command, ever +leaving his primeval, overcast and foggy home, ever commands and governs the +rest of the world and ever perishes because of the too-white light he +encounters. It is a very tenable hypothesis, and will bear looking into. +</p> + +<p> +But to return. Every one of us who sits aft in the high place is a blond Aryan. +For’ard, leavened with a ten per cent, of degenerate blonds, the +remaining ninety per cent, of the slaves that toil for us are brunettes. They +will not perish. According to Woodruff, they will inherit the earth, not +because of their capacity for mastery and government, but because of their +skin-pigmentation which enables their tissues to resist the ravages of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +And I look at the four of us at table—Captain West, his daughter, Mr. +Pike, and myself—all fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and perishing, yet +mastering and commanding, like our fathers before us, to the end of our type on +the earth. Ah, well, ours is a lordly history, and though we may be doomed to +pass, in our time we shall have trod on the faces of all peoples, disciplined +them to obedience, taught them government, and dwelt in the palaces we have +compelled them by the weight of our own right arms to build for us. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Elsinore</i> depicts this in miniature. The best of the food and all +spacious and beautiful accommodation is ours. For’ard is a pig-sty and a +slave-pen. +</p> + +<p> +As a king, Captain West sits above all. As a captain of soldiers, Mr. Pike +enforces his king’s will. Miss West is a princess of the royal house. And +I? Am I not an honourable, noble-lineaged pensioner on the deeds and +achievements of my father, who, in his day, compelled thousands of the lesser +types to the building of the fortune I enjoy? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +The north-west trade carried us almost into the south-east trade, and then left +us for several days to roll and swelter in the doldrums. +</p> + +<p> +During this time I have discovered that I have a genius for rifle-shooting. Mr. +Pike swore I must have had long practice; and I confess I was myself startled +by the ease of the thing. Of course, it’s the knack; but one must be so +made, I suppose, in order to be able to acquire the knack. +</p> + +<p> +By the end of half an hour, standing on the heaving deck and shooting at +bottles floating on the rolling swell, I found that I broke each bottle at the +first shot. The supply of empty bottles giving out, Mr. Pike was so interested +that he had the carpenter saw me a lot of small square blocks of hard wood. +These were more satisfactory. A well-aimed shot threw them out of the water and +spinning into the air, and I could use a single block until it had drifted out +of range. In an hour’s time I could, shooting quickly and at short range, +empty my magazine at a block and hit it nine times, and, on occasion, ten +times, out of eleven. +</p> + +<p> +I might not have judged my aptitude as unusual, had I not induced Miss West and +Wada to try their hands. Neither had luck like mine. I finally persuaded Mr. +Pike, and he went behind the wheel-house so that none of the crew might see how +poor a shot he was. He was never able to hit the mark, and was guilty of the +most ludicrous misses. +</p> + +<p> +“I never could get the hang of rifle-shooting,” he announced +disgustedly, “but when it comes to close range with a gat I’m right +there. I guess I might as well overhaul mine and limber it up.” +</p> + +<p> +He went below and came back with a huge ’44 automatic pistol and a +handful of loaded clips. +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere from right against the body up to ten or twelve feet away, +holding for the stomach, it’s astonishing, Mr. Pathurst, what you can do +with a weapon like this. Now you can’t use a rifle in a mix-up. +I’ve been down and under, with a bunch giving me the boot, when I turned +loose with this. Talk about damage! It ranged them the full length of their +bodies. One of them’d just landed his brogans on my face when I +let’m have it. The bullet entered just above his knee, smashed the +collarbone, where it came out, and then clipped off an ear. I guess that +bullet’s still going. It took more than a full-sized man to stop it. So I +say, give me a good handy gat when something’s doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t you afraid you’ll use all your ammunition up?” +he asked anxiously half an hour later, as I continued to crack away with my new +toy. +</p> + +<p> +He was quite reassured when I told him Wada had brought along fifty thousand +rounds for me. +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of the shooting, two sharks came swimming around. They were quite +large, Mr. Pike said, and he estimated their length at fifteen feet. It was +Sunday morning, so that the crew, except for working the ship, had its time to +itself, and soon the carpenter, with a rope for a fish-line and a great iron +hook baited with a chunk of salt pork the size of my head, captured first one, +and then the other, of the monsters. They were hoisted in on the main deck. And +then I saw a spectacle of the cruelty of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The full crew gathered about with sheath knives, hatchets, clubs, and big +butcher knives borrowed from the galley. I shall not give the details, save +that they gloated and lusted, and roared and bellowed their delight in the +atrocities they committed. Finally, the first of the two fish was thrown back +into the ocean with a pointed stake thrust into its upper and lower jaws so +that it could not close its mouth. Inevitable and prolonged starvation was the +fate thus meted out to it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll show you something, boys,” Andy Fay cried, as they +prepared to handle the second shark. +</p> + +<p> +The Maltese Cockney had been a most capable master of ceremonies with the first +one. More than anything else, I think, was I hardened against these brutes by +what I saw them do. In the end, the maltreated fish thrashed about the deck +entirely eviscerated. Nothing remained but the mere flesh-shell of the +creature, yet it would not die. It was amazing the life that lingered when all +the vital organs were gone. But more amazing things were to follow. +</p> + +<p> +Mulligan Jacobs, his arms a butcher’s to the elbows, without as much as +“by your leave,” suddenly thrust a hunk of meat into my hand. I +sprang back, startled, and dropped it to the deck, while a gleeful howl went up +from the two-score men. I was shamed, despite myself. These brutes held me in +little respect; and, after all, human nature is so strange a compound that even +a philosopher dislikes being held in disesteem by the brutes of his own +species. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at what I had dropped. It was the heart of the shark, and as I looked, +there under my eyes, on the scorching deck where the pitch oozed from the +seams, the heart pulsed with life. +</p> + +<p> +And I dared. I would not permit these animals to laugh at any fastidiousness of +mine. I stooped and picked up the heart, and while I concealed and conquered my +qualms I held it in my hand and felt it beat in my hand. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, I had won a mild victory over Mulligan Jacobs; for he abandoned me +for the more delectable diversion of torturing the shark that would not die. +For several minutes it had been lying quite motionless. Mulligan Jacobs smote +it a heavy blow on the nose with the flat of a hatchet, and as the thing +galvanized into life and flung its body about the deck the little venomous man +screamed in ecstasy: +</p> + +<p> +“The hooks are in it!—the hooks are in it!—and burnin’ +hot!” +</p> + +<p> +He squirmed and writhed with fiendish delight, and again he struck it on the +nose and made it leap. +</p> + +<p> +This was too much, and I beat a retreat—feigning boredom, or cessation of +interest, of course; and absently carrying the still throbbing heart in my +hand. +</p> + +<p> +As I came upon the poop I saw Miss West, with her sewing basket, emerging from +the port door of the chart-house. The deck-chairs were on that side, so I stole +around on the starboard side of the chart-house in order to fling overboard +unobserved the dreadful thing I carried. But, drying on the surface in the +tropic heat and still pulsing inside, it stuck to my hand, so that it was a bad +cast. Instead of clearing the railing, it struck on the pin-rail and stuck +there in the shade, and as I opened the door to go below and wash my hands, +with a last glance I saw it pulse where it had fallen. +</p> + +<p> +When I came back it was still pulsing. I heard a splash overside from the waist +of the ship, and knew the carcass had been flung overboard. I did not go around +the chart-house and join Miss West, but stood enthralled by the spectacle of +that heart that beat in the tropic heat. +</p> + +<p> +Boisterous shouts from the sailors attracted my attention. They had all climbed +to the top of the tall rail and were watching something outboard. I followed +their gaze and saw the amazing thing. That long-eviscerated shark was not dead. +It moved, it swam, it thrashed about, and ever it strove to escape from the +surface of the ocean. Sometimes it swam down as deep as fifty or a hundred +feet, and then, still struggling to escape the surface, struggled involuntarily +to the surface. Each failure thus to escape fetched wild laughter from the men. +But why did they laugh? The thing was sublime, horrible, but it was not +humorous. I leave it to you. What is there laughable in the sight of a +pain-distraught fish rolling helplessly on the surface of the sea and exposing +to the sun all its essential emptiness? +</p> + +<p> +I was turning away, when renewed shouting drew my gaze. Half a dozen other +sharks had appeared, smaller ones, nine or ten feet long. They attacked their +helpless comrade. They tore him to pieces they destroyed him, devoured him. I +saw the last shred of him disappear down their maws. He was gone, +disintegrated, entombed in the living bodies of his kind, and already entering +into the processes of digestion. And yet, there, in the shade on the pin-rail, +that unbelievable and monstrous heart beat on. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +The voyage is doomed to disaster and death. I know Mr. Pike, now, and if ever +he discovers the identity of Mr. Mellaire, murder will be done. Mr. Mellaire is +not Mr. Mellaire. He is not from Georgia. He is from Virginia. His name is +Waltham—Sidney Waltham. He is one of the Walthams of Virginia, a black +sheep, true, but a Waltham. Of this I am convinced, just as utterly as I am +convinced that Mr. Pike will kill him if he learns who he is. +</p> + +<p> +Let me tell how I have discovered all this. It was last night, shortly before +midnight, when I came up on the poop to enjoy a whiff of the south-east trades +in which we are now bowling along, close-hauled in order to weather Cape San +Roque. Mr. Pike had the watch, and I paced up and down with him while he told +me old pages of his life. He has often done this, when not +“sea-grouched,” and often he has mentioned with pride—yes, +with reverence—a master with whom he sailed five years. “Old +Captain Somers,” he called him—“the finest, squarest, noblest +man I ever sailed under, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, last night our talk turned on lugubrious subjects, and Mr. Pike, wicked +old man that he is, descanted on the wickedness of the world and on the +wickedness of the man who had murdered Captain Somers. +</p> + +<p> +“He was an old man, over seventy years old,” Mr. Pike went on. +“And they say he’d got a touch of palsy—I hadn’t seen +him for years. You see, I’d had to clear out from the coast because of +trouble. And that devil of a second mate caught him in bed late at night and +beat him to death. It was terrible. They told me about it. Right in San +Francisco, on board the <i>Jason Harrison</i>, it happened, eleven years ago. +</p> + +<p> +“And do you know what they did? First, they gave the murderer life, when +he should have been hanged. His plea was insanity, from having had his head +chopped open a long time before by a crazy sea-cook. And when he’d served +seven years the governor pardoned him. He wasn’t any good, but his people +were a powerful old Virginian family, the Walthams—I guess you’ve +heard of them—and they brought all kinds of pressure to bear. His name +was Sidney Waltham.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the warning bell, a single stroke fifteen minutes before the +change of watch, rang out from the wheel and was repeated by the look-out on +the forecastle head. Mr. Pike, under his stress of feeling, had stopped +walking, and we stood at the break of the poop. As chance would have it, Mr. +Mellaire was a quarter of an hour ahead of time, and he climbed the poop-ladder +and stood beside us while the mate concluded his tale. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mind it,” Mr. Pike continued, “as long as +he’d got life and was serving his time. But when they pardoned him out +after only seven years I swore I’d get him. And I will. I don’t +believe in God or devil, and it’s a rotten crazy world anyway; but I do +believe in hunches. And I know I’m going to get him.” +</p> + +<p> +“What will you do?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Do?” Mr. Pike’s voice was fraught with surprise that I +should not know. “Do? Well, what did he do to old Captain Somers? Yet +he’s disappeared these last three years now. I’ve heard neither +hide nor hair of him. But he’s a sailor, and he’ll drift back to +the sea, and some day . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +In the illumination of a match with which the second mate was lighting his pipe +I saw Mr. Pike’s gorilla arms and huge clenched paws raised to heaven, +and his face convulsed and working. Also, in that brief moment of light, I saw +that the second mate’s hand which held the match was shaking. +</p> + +<p> +“And I ain’t never seen even a photo of him,” Mr. Pike added. +“But I’ve got a general idea of his looks, and he’s got a +mark unmistakable. I could know him by it in the dark. All I’d have to do +is feel it. Some day I’ll stick my fingers into that mark.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say, sir, was the captain’s name?” Mr. Mellaire +asked casually. +</p> + +<p> +“Somers—old Captain Somers,” Mr. Pike answered. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire repeated the name aloud several times, and then hazarded: +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t he command the <i>Lammermoor</i> thirty years ago?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I recognized him. I lay at anchor in a ship next to his in +Table Bay that time ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the wickedness of the world, the wickedness of the world,” Mr. +Pike muttered as he turned and strode away. +</p> + +<p> +I said good-night to the second mate and had started to go below, when he +called to me in a low voice, “Mr. Pathurst!” +</p> + +<p> +I stopped, and then he said, hurriedly and confusedly: +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, sir . . . I beg your pardon . . . I—I changed my +mind.” +</p> + +<p> +Below, lying in my bunk, I found myself unable to read. My mind was bent on +returning to what had just occurred on deck, and, against my will, the most +gruesome speculations kept suggesting themselves. +</p> + +<p> +And then came Mr. Mellaire. He had slipped down the booby hatch into the big +after-room and thence through the hallway to my room. He entered noiselessly, +on clumsy tiptoes, and pressed his finger warningly to his lips. Not until he +was beside my bunk did he speak, and then it was in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir, Mr. Pathurst . . . I—I beg your pardon; +but, you see, sir, I was just passing, and seeing you awake I . . . I thought +it would not inconvenience you to . . . you see, I thought I might just as well +prefer a small favour . . . seeing that I would not inconvenience you, sir . . +. I . . . I . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +I waited for him to proceed, and in the pause that ensued, while he licked his +dry lips with his tongue, the thing ambushed in his skull peered at me through +his eyes and seemed almost on the verge of leaping out and pouncing upon me. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir,” he began again, this time more coherently, +“it’s just a little thing—foolish on my part, of +course—a whim, so to say—but you will remember, near the beginning +of the voyage, I showed you a scar on my head . . . a really small affair, sir, +which I contracted in a misadventure. It amounts to a deformity, which it is my +fancy to conceal. Not for worlds, sir, would I care to have Miss West, for +instance, know that I carried such a deformity. A man is a man, sir—you +understand—and you have not spoken of it to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I replied. “It just happens that I have not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor to anybody else?—to, say, Captain West?—or, say, Mr. +Pike?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t mentioned it to anybody,” I averred. +</p> + +<p> +He could not conceal the relief he experienced. The perturbation went out of +his face and manner, and the ambushed thing drew back deeper into the recess of +his skull. +</p> + +<p> +“The favour, sir, Mr. Pathurst, that I would prefer is that you will not +mention that little matter to anybody. I suppose” (he smiled, and his +voice was superlatively suave) “it is vanity on my part—you +understand, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded, and made a restless movement with my book as evidence that I desired +to resume my reading. +</p> + +<p> +“I can depend upon you for that, Mr. Pathurst?” His whole voice and +manner had changed. It was practically a command, and I could almost see fangs, +bared and menacing, sprouting in the jaws of that thing I fancied dwelt behind +his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” I answered coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir—I thank you,” he said, and, without more ado, +tiptoed from the room. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I did not read. How could I? Nor did I sleep. My mind ran on, and on, +and not until the steward brought my coffee, shortly before five, did I sink +into my first doze. +</p> + +<p> +One thing is very evident. Mr. Pike does not dream that the murderer of Captain +Somers is on board the <i>Elsinore</i>. He has never glimpsed that prodigious +fissure that clefts Mr. Mellaire’s, or, rather, Sidney Waltham’s, +skull. And I, for one, shall never tell Mr. Pike. And I know, now, why from the +very first I disliked the second mate. And I understand that live thing, that +other thing, that lurks within and peers out through the eyes. I have +recognized the same thing in the three gangsters for’ard. Like the second +mate, they are prison birds. The restraint, the secrecy, and iron control of +prison life has developed in all of them terrible other selves. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, and another thing is very evident. On board this ship, driving now through +the South Atlantic for the winter passage of Cape Horn, are all the elements of +sea tragedy and horror. We are freighted with human dynamite that is liable at +any moment to blow our tiny floating world to fragments. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +The days slip by. The south-east trade is brisk and small splashes of sea +occasionally invade my open ports. Mr. Pike’s room was soaked yesterday. +This is the most exciting thing that has happened for some time. The gangsters +rule in the forecastle. Larry and Shorty have had a harmless <i>fight</i>. The +hooks continue to burn in Mulligan Jacobs’s brain. Charles Davis resides +alone in his little steel room, coming out only to get his food from the +galley. Miss West plays and sings, doctors Possum, launders, and is forever +otherwise busy with her fancy work. Mr. Pike runs the phonograph every other +evening in the second dog-watch. Mr. Mellaire hides the cleft in his head. I +keep his secret. And Captain West, more remote than ever, sits in the draught +of wind in the twilight cabin. +</p> + +<p> +We are now thirty-seven days at sea, in which time, until to-day, we have not +sighted a vessel. And to-day, at one time, no less than six vessels were +visible from the deck. Not until I saw these ships was I able thoroughly to +realize how lonely this ocean is. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike tells me we are several hundred miles off the South American coast. +And yet, only the other day, it seems, we were scarcely more distant from +Africa. A big velvety moth fluttered aboard this morning, and we are filled +with conjecture. How possibly could it have come from the South American coast +these hundreds of miles in the teeth of the trades? +</p> + +<p> +The Southern Cross has been visible, of course, for weeks; the North Star has +disappeared behind the bulge of the earth; and the Great Bear, at its highest, +is very low. Soon it, too, will be gone and we shall be raising the Magellan +Clouds. +</p> + +<p> +I remember the fight between Larry and Shorty. Wada reports that Mr. Pike +watched it for some time, until, becoming incensed at their awkwardness, he +clouted both of them with his open hands and made them stop, announcing that +until they could make a better showing he intended doing all the fighting on +the <i>Elsinore</i> himself. +</p> + +<p> +It is a feat beyond me to realize that he is sixty-nine years old. And when I +look at the tremendous build of him and at his fearful, man-handling hands, I +conjure up a vision of him avenging Captain Somers’s murder. +</p> + +<p> +Life is cruel. Amongst the <i>Elsinore’s</i> five thousand tons of coal +are thousands of rats. There is no way for them to get out of their +steel-walled prison, for all the ventilators are guarded with stout wire-mesh. +On her previous voyage, loaded with barley, they increased and multiplied. Now +they are imprisoned in the coal, and cannibalism is what must occur among them. +Mr. Pike says that when we reach Seattle there will be a dozen or a score of +survivors, huge fellows, the strongest and fiercest. Sometimes, passing the +mouth of one ventilator that is in the after wall of the chart-house, I can +hear their plaintive squealing and crying from far beneath in the coal. +</p> + +<p> +Other and luckier rats are in the ’tween decks for’ard, where all +the spare suits of sails are stored. They come out and run about the deck at +night, steal food from the galley, and lap up the dew. Which reminds me that +Mr. Pike will no longer look at Possum. It seems, under his suggestion, that +Wada trapped a rat in the donkey-engine room. Wada swears that it was the +father of all rats, and that, by actual measurement, it scaled eighteen inches +from nose to the tip of tail. Also, it seems that Mr. Pike and Wada, with the +door shut in the former’s room, pitted the rat against Possum, and that +Possum was licked. They were compelled to kill the rat themselves, while +Possum, when all was over, lay down and had a fit. +</p> + +<p> +Now Mr. Pike abhors a coward, and his disgust with Possum is profound. He no +longer plays with the puppy, nor even speaks to him, and, whenever he passes +him on the deck, glowers sourly at him. +</p> + +<p> +I have been reading up the South Atlantic Sailing Directions, and I find that +we are now entering the most beautiful sunset region in the world. And this +evening we were favoured with a sample. I was in my quarters, overhauling my +books, when Miss West called to me from the foot of the chart-house stairs: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pathurst!—Come quick! Oh, do come quick! You can’t +afford to miss it!” +</p> + +<p> +Half the sky, from the zenith to the western sea-line, was an astonishing sheet +of pure, pale, even gold. And through this sheen, on the horizon, burned the +sun, a disc of richer gold. The gold of the sky grew more golden, then +tarnished before our eyes and began to glow faintly with red. As the red +deepened, a mist spread over the whole sheet of gold and the burning yellow +sun. Turner was never guilty of so audacious an orgy in gold-mist. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, along the horizon, entirely completing the circle of sea and sky, +the tight-packed shapes of the trade wind clouds began to show through the +mist; and as they took form they spilled with rose-colour at their upper edges, +while their bases were a pulsing, bluish-white. I say it advisedly. All the +colours of this display <i>pulsed</i>. +</p> + +<p> +As the gold-mist continued to clear away, the colours became garish, bold; the +turquoises went into greens and the roses turned to the red of blood. And the +purple and indigo of the long swells of sea were bronzed with the colour-riot +in the sky, while across the water, like gigantic serpents, crawled red and +green sky-reflections. And then all the gorgeousness quickly dulled, and the +warm, tropic darkness drew about us. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +The <i>Elsinore</i> is truly the ship of souls, the world in miniature; and, +because she is such a small world, cleaving this vastitude of ocean as our +larger world cleaves space, the strange juxtapositions that continually occur +are startling. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, this afternoon on the poop. Let me describe it. Here was Miss +West, in a crisp duck sailor suit, immaculately white, open at the throat, +where, under the broad collar, was knotted a man-of-war black silk neckerchief. +Her smooth-groomed hair, a trifle rebellious in the breeze, was glorious. And +here was I, in white ducks, white shoes, and white silk shirt, as immaculate +and well-tended as she. The steward was just bringing the pretty tea-service +for Miss West, and in the background Wada hovered. +</p> + +<p> +We had been discussing philosophy—or, rather, I had been feeling her out; +and from a sketch of Spinoza’s anticipations of the modern mind, through +the speculative interpretations of the latest achievements in physics of Sir +Oliver Lodge and Sir William Ramsay, I had come, as usual, to De Casseres, whom +I was quoting, when Mr. Pike snarled orders to the watch. +</p> + +<p> +“‘In this rise into the azure of pure perception, attainable only +by a very few human beings, the spectacular sense is born,’.” I was +quoting. “‘Life is no longer good or evil. It is a perpetual play +of forces without beginning or end. The freed Intellect merges itself with the +World-Will and partakes of its essence, which is not a moral essence but an +æsthetic essence . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +And at this moment the watch swarmed on to the poop to haul on the port-braces +of the mizzen-sky-sail, royal and topgallant-sail. The sailors passed us, or +toiled close to us, with lowered eyes. They did not look at us, so far removed +from them were we. It was this contrast that caught my fancy. Here were the +high and low, slaves and masters, beauty and ugliness, cleanness and filth. +Their feet were bare and scaled with patches of tar and pitch. Their unbathed +bodies were garmented in the meanest of clothes, dingy, dirty, ragged, and +sparse. Each one had on but two garments—dungaree trousers and a shoddy +cotton shirt. +</p> + +<p> +And we, in our comfortable deck-chairs, our two servants at our backs, the +quintessence of elegant leisure, sipped delicate tea from beautiful, fragile +cups, and looked on at these wretched ones whose labour made possible the +journey of our little world. We did not speak to them, nor recognize their +existence, any more than would they have dared speak to us. +</p> + +<p> +And Miss West, with the appraising eye of a plantation mistress for the +condition of her field slaves, looked them over. +</p> + +<p> +“You see how they have fleshed up,” she said, as they coiled the +last turns of the ropes over the pins and faded away for’ard off the +poop. “It is the regular hours, the good weather, the hard work, the open +air, the sufficient food, and the absence of whisky. And they will keep in this +fettle until they get off the Horn. And then you will see them go down from day +to day. A winter passage of the Horn is always a severe strain on the men. +</p> + +<p> +“But then, once we are around and in the good weather of the Pacific, you +will see them gain again from day to day. And when we reach Seattle they will +be in splendid shape. Only they will go ashore, drink up their wages in several +days, and ship away on other vessels in precisely the same sodden, miserable +condition that they were in when they sailed with us from Baltimore.” +</p> + +<p> +And just then Captain West came out the chart-house door, strolled by for a +single turn up and down, and with a smile and a word for us and an +all-observant eye for the ship, the trim of her sails, the wind, and the sky, +and the weather promise, went back through the chart-house door—the blond +Aryan master, the king, the Samurai. +</p> + +<p> +And I finished sipping my tea of delicious and most expensive aroma, and our +slant-eyed, dark-skinned servitors carried the pretty gear away, and I read, +continuing De Casseres: +</p> + +<p> +“‘Instinct wills, creates, carries on the work of the species. The +Intellect destroys, negatives, satirizes and ends in pure nihilism, instinct +creates life, endlessly, hurling forth profusely and blindly its clowns, +tragedians and comedians. Intellect remains the eternal spectator of the play. +It participates at will, but never gives itself wholly to the fine sport. The +Intellect, freed from the trammels of the personal will, soars into the ether +of perception, where Instinct follows it in a thousand disguises, seeking to +draw it down to earth.’” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +We are now south of Rio and working south. We are out of the latitude of the +trades, and the wind is capricious. Rain squalls and wind squalls vex the +<i>Elsinore</i>. One hour we may be rolling sickeningly in a dead calm, and the +next hour we may be dashing fourteen knots through the water and taking off +sail as fast as the men can clew up and lower away. A night of calm, when sleep +is well-nigh impossible in the sultry, muggy air, may be followed by a day of +blazing sun and an oily swell from the south’ard, connoting great gales +in that area of ocean we are sailing toward—or all day long the +<i>Elsinore</i>, under an overcast sky, royals and sky sails furled, may plunge +and buck under wind-pressure into a short and choppy head-sea. +</p> + +<p> +And all this means work for the men. Taking Mr. Pike’s judgment, they are +very inadequate, though by this time they know the ropes. He growls and +grumbles, and snorts and sneers whenever he watches them doing anything. +To-day, at eleven in the morning, the wind was so violent, continuing in +greater gusts after having come in a great gust, that Mr. Pike ordered the +mainsail taken off. The great crojack was already off. But the watch could not +clew up the mainsail, and, after much vain sing-songing and pull-hauling, the +watch below was routed out to bear a hand. +</p> + +<p> +“My God!” Mr. Pike groaned to me. “Two watches for a rag like +that when half a decent watch could do it! Look at that preventer bosun of +mine!” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Nancy! He looked the saddest, sickest, bleakest creature I had ever seen. +He was so wretched, so miserable, so helpless. And Sundry Buyers was just as +impotent. The expression on his face was of pain and hopelessness, and as he +pressed his abdomen he lumbered futilely about, ever seeking something he might +do and ever failing to find it. He pottered. He would stand and stare at one +rope for a minute or so at a time, following it aloft with his eyes through the +maze of ropes and stabs and gears with all the intentness of a man working out +an intricate problem. Then, holding his hand against his stomach, he would +lumber on a few steps and select another rope for study. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mr. Pike lamented. “How can one drive +with bosuns like that and a crew like that? Just the same, if I was captain of +this ship I’d drive ’em. I’d show ’em what drive was, +if I had to lose a few of them. And when they grow weak off the Horn +what’ll we do? It’ll be both watches all the time, which will +weaken them just that much the faster.” +</p> + +<p> +Evidently this winter passage of the Horn is all that one has been led to +expect from reading the narratives of the navigators. Iron men like the two +mates are very respectful of “Cape Stiff,” as they call that +uttermost tip of the American continent. Speaking of the two mates, iron-made +and iron-mouthed that they are, it is amusing that in really serious moments +both of them curse with “Oh dear, oh dear.” +</p> + +<p> +In the spells of calm I take great delight in the little rifle. I have already +fired away five thousand rounds, and have come to consider myself an expert. +Whatever the knack of shooting may be, I’ve got it. When I get back I +shall take up target practice. It is a neat, deft sport. +</p> + +<p> +Not only is Possum afraid of the sails and of rats, but he is afraid of +rifle-fire, and at the first discharge goes yelping and ki-yi-ing below. The +dislike Mr. Pike has developed for the poor little puppy is ludicrous. He even +told me that if it were his dog he’d throw it overboard for a target. +Just the same, he is an affectionate, heart-warming little rascal, and has +already crept so deep into my heart that I am glad Miss West did not accept +him. +</p> + +<p> +And—oh!—he insists on sleeping with me on top the bedding; a +proceeding which has scandalized the mate. “I suppose he’ll be +using your toothbrush next,” Mr. Pike growled at me. But the puppy loves +my companionship, and is never happier than when on the bed with me. Yet the +bed is not entirely paradise, for Possum is badly frightened when ours is the +lee side and the seas pound and smash against the glass ports. Then the little +beggar, electric with fear to every hair tip, crouches and snarls menacingly +and almost at the same time whimpers appeasingly at the storm-monster outside. +</p> + +<p> +“Father <i>knows</i> the sea,” Miss West said to me this afternoon. +“He understands it, and he loves it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or it may be habit,” I ventured. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“He does know it. And he loves it. That is why he has come back to it. +All his people before him were sea folk. His grandfather, Anthony West, made +forty-six voyages between 1801 and 1847. And his father, Robert, sailed master +to the north-west coast before the gold days and was captain of some of the +fastest Cape Horn clippers after the gold discovery. Elijah West, +father’s great-grandfather, was a privateersman in the Revolution. He +commanded the armed brig <i>New Defence</i>. And, even before that, +Elijah’s father, in turn, and Elijah’s father’s father, were +masters and owners on long-voyage merchant adventures. +</p> + +<p> +“Anthony West, in 1813 and 1814, commanded the <i>David Bruce</i>, with +letters of marque. He was half-owner, with Gracie & Sons as the other +half-owners. She was a two-hundred-ton schooner, built right up in Maine. She +carried a long eighteen-pounder, two ten-pounders, and ten six-pounders, and +she sailed like a witch. She ran the blockade off Newport and got away to the +English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. And, do you know, though she only cost +twelve thousand dollars all told, she took over three hundred thousand dollars +of British prizes. A brother of his was on the <i>Wasp</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“So, you see, the sea is in our blood. She is our mother. As far back as +we can trace all our line was born to the sea.” She laughed and went on. +“We’ve pirates and slavers in our family, and all sorts of +disreputable sea-rovers. Old Ezra West, just how far back I don’t +remember, was executed for piracy and his body hung in chains at Plymouth. +</p> + +<p> +“The sea is father’s blood. And he knows, well, a ship, as you +would know a dog or a horse. Every ship he sails has a distinct personality for +him. I have watched him, in high moments, and <i>seen</i> him think. But oh! +the times I have seen him when he does not think—when he <i>feels</i> and +knows everything without thinking at all. Really, with all that appertains to +the sea and ships, he is an artist. There is no other word for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think a great deal of your father,” I remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“He is the most wonderful man I have ever known,” she replied. +“Remember, you are not seeing him at his best. He has never been the same +since mother’s death. If ever a man and woman were one, they were.” +She broke off, then concluded abruptly. “You don’t know him. You +don’t know him at all.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +“I think we are going to have a fine sunset,” Captain West remarked +last evening. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West and I abandoned our rubber of cribbage and hastened on deck. The +sunset had not yet come, but all was preparing. As we gazed we could see the +sky gathering the materials, grouping the gray clouds in long lines and +towering masses, spreading its palette with slow-growing, glowing tints and +sudden blobs of colour. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the Golden Gate!” Miss West cried, indicating the west. +“See! We’re just inside the harbour. Look to the south there. If +that isn’t the sky-line of San Francisco! There’s the Call +Building, and there, far down, the Ferry Tower, and surely that is the +Fairmount.” Her eyes roved back through the opening between the cloud +masses, and she clapped her hands. “It’s a sunset within a sunset! +See! The Farallones!”—swimming in a miniature orange and red sunset +all their own. “Isn’t it the Golden Gate, and San Francisco, and +the Farallones?” She appealed to Mr. Pike, who, leaning near, on the +poop-rail, was divided between gazing sourly at Nancy pottering on the main +deck and sourly at Possum, who, on the bridge, crouched with terror each time +the crojack flapped emptily above him. +</p> + +<p> +The mate turned his head and favoured the sky picture with a solemn stare. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know,” he growled. “It may look like the +Farallones to you, but to me it looks like a battleship coming right in the +Gate with a bone in its teeth at a twenty-knot clip.” +</p> + +<p> +Sure enough. The floating Farallones had metamorphosed into a giant warship. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the colour riot, the dominant tone of which was green. It was green, +green, green—the blue-green of the springing year, and sere and yellow +green and tawny-brown green of autumn. There were orange green, gold green, and +a copper green. And all these greens were rich green beyond description; and +yet the richness and the greenness passed even as we gazed upon it, going out +of the gray clouds and into the sea, which assumed the exquisite golden pink of +polished copper, while the hollows of the smooth and silken ripples were +touched by a most ethereal pea green. +</p> + +<p> +The gray clouds became a long, low swathe of ruby red, or garnet red—such +as one sees in a glass of heavy burgundy when held to the light. There was such +depth to this red! And, below it, separated from the main colour-mass by a line +of gray-white fog, or line of sea, was another and smaller streak of +ruddy-coloured wine. +</p> + +<p> +I strolled across the poop to the port side. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Come back! Look! Look!” Miss West cried to me. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the use?” I answered. “I’ve something +just as good over here.” +</p> + +<p> +She joined me, and as she did so I noted, a sour grin on Mr. Pike’s face. +</p> + +<p> +The eastern heavens were equally spectacular. That quarter of the sky was sheer +and delicate shell of blue, the upper portions of which faded, changed, through +every harmony, into a pale, yet warm, rose, all trembling, palpitating, with +misty blue tinting into pink. The reflection of this coloured sky-shell upon +the water made of the sea a glimmering watered silk, all changeable, blue, +Nile-green, and salmon-pink. It was silky, silken, a wonderful silk that +veneered and flossed the softly moving, wavy water. +</p> + +<p> +And the pale moon looked like a wet pearl gleaming through the tinted mist of +the sky-shell. +</p> + +<p> +In the southern quadrant of the sky we discovered an entirely different +sunset—what would be accounted a very excellent orange-and-red sunset +anywhere, with grey clouds hanging low and lighted and tinted on all their +under edges. +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” Mr. Pike muttered gruffly, while we were exclaiming over our +fresh discovery. “Look at the sunset I got here to the north. It +ain’t doing so badly now, I leave it to you.” +</p> + +<p> +And it wasn’t. The northern quadrant was a great fen of colour and cloud, +that spread ribs of feathery pink, fleece-frilled, from the horizon to the +zenith. It was all amazing. Four sunsets at the one time in the sky! Each +quadrant glowed, and burned, and pulsed with a sunset distinctly its own. +</p> + +<p> +And as the colours dulled in the slow twilight, the moon, still misty, wept +tears of brilliant, heavy silver into the dim lilac sea. And then came the hush +of darkness and the night, and we came to ourselves, out of reverie, sated with +beauty, leaning toward each other as we leaned upon the rail side by side. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I never grow tired of watching Captain West. In a way he bears a sort of +resemblance to several of Washington’s portraits. He is six feet of +aristocratic thinness, and has a very definite, leisurely and stately grace of +movement. His thinness is almost ascetic. In appearance and manner he is the +perfect old-type New England gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +He has the same gray eyes as his daughter, although his are genial rather than +warm; and his eyes have the same trick of smiling. His skin is pinker than +hers, and his brows and lashes are fairer. But he seems removed beyond passion, +or even simple enthusiasm. Miss West is firm, like her father; but there is +warmth in her firmness. He is clean, he is sweet and courteous; but he is +coolly sweet, coolly courteous. With all his certain graciousness, in cabin or +on deck, so far as his social equals are concerned, his graciousness is cool, +elevated, thin. +</p> + +<p> +He is the perfect master of the art of doing nothing. He never reads, except +the Bible; yet he is never bored. Often, I note him in a deck-chair, studying +his perfect finger-nails, and, I’ll swear, not seeing them at all. Miss +West says he loves the sea. And I ask myself a thousand times, “But +how?” He shows no interest in any phase of the sea. Although he called +our attention to the glorious sunset I have just described, he did not remain +on deck to enjoy it. He sat below, in the big leather chair, not reading, not +dozing, but merely gazing straight before him at nothing. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The days pass, and the seasons pass. We left Baltimore at the tail-end of +winter, went into spring and on through summer, and now we are in fall weather +and urging our way south to the winter of Cape Horn. And as we double the Cape +and proceed north, we shall go through spring and summer—a long +summer—pursuing the sun north through its declination and arriving at +Seattle in summer. And all these seasons have occurred, and will have occurred, +in the space of five months. +</p> + +<p> +Our white ducks are gone, and, in south latitude thirty-five, we are wearing +the garments of a temperate clime. I notice that Wada has given me heavier +underclothes and heavier pyjamas, and that Possum, of nights, is no longer +content with the top of the bed but must crawl underneath the bed-clothes. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +We are now off the Plate, a region notorious for storms, and Mr. Pike is on the +lookout for a pampero. Captain West does not seem to be on the lookout for +anything; yet I notice that he spends longer hours on deck when the sky and +barometer are threatening. +</p> + +<p> +Yesterday we had a hint of Plate weather, and to-day an awesome fiasco of the +same. The hint came last evening between the twilight and the dark. There was +practically no wind, and the <i>Elsinore</i>, just maintaining steerage way by +means of intermittent fans of air from the north, floundered exasperatingly in +a huge glassy swell that rolled up as an echo from some blown-out storm to the +south. +</p> + +<p> +Ahead of us, arising with the swiftness of magic, was a dense slate-blackness. +I suppose it was cloud-formation, but it bore no semblance to clouds. It was +merely and sheerly a blackness that towered higher and higher until it overhung +us, while it spread to right and left, blotting out half the sea. +</p> + +<p> +And still the light puffs from the north filled our sails; and still, as the +<i>Elsinore</i> floundered on the huge, smooth swells and the sails emptied and +flapped a hollow thunder, we moved slowly towards that ominous blackness. In +the east, in what was quite distinctly an active thunder cloud, the lightning +fairly winked, while the blackness in front of us was rent with blobs and +flashes of lightning. +</p> + +<p> +The last puffs left us, and in the hushes, between the rumbles of the nearing +thunder, the voices of the men aloft on the yards came to one’s ear as if +they were right beside one instead of being hundreds of feet away and up in the +air. That they were duly impressed by what was impending was patent from the +earnestness with which they worked. Both watches toiled under both mates, and +Captain West strolled the poop in his usual casual way, and gave no orders at +all, save in low conversational tones, when Mr. Pike came upon the poop and +conferred with him. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West, having deserted the scene five minutes before, returned, a proper +sea-woman, clad in oil-skins, sou’wester, and long sea-boots. She ordered +me, quite peremptorily, to do the same. But I could not bring myself to leave +the deck for fear of missing something, so I compromised by having Wada bring +my storm-gear to me. +</p> + +<p> +And then the wind came, smack out of the blackness, with the abruptness of +thunder and accompanied by the most diabolical thunder. And with the rain and +thunder came the blackness. It was tangible. It drove past us in the bellowing +wind like so much stuff that one could feel. Blackness as well as wind impacted +on us. There is no other way to describe it than by the old, ancient old, way +of saying one could not see his hand before his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it splendid!” Miss West shouted into my ear, close +beside me, as we clung to the railing of the break of the poop. +</p> + +<p> +“Superb!” I shouted back, my lips to her ear, so that her hair +tickled my face. +</p> + +<p> +And, I know not why—it must have been spontaneous with both of +us—in that shouting blackness of wind, as we clung to the rail to avoid +being blown away, our hands went out to each other and my hand and hers gripped +and pressed and then held mutually to the rail. +</p> + +<p> +“Daughter of Herodias,” I commented grimly to myself; but my hand +did not leave hers. +</p> + +<p> +“What is happening?” I shouted in her ear. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve lost way,” came her answer. “I think we’re +caught aback! The wheel’s up, but she could not steer!” +</p> + +<p> +The Gabriel voice of the Samurai rang out. “Hard over?” was his +mellow storm-call to the man at the wheel. “Hard over, sir,” came +the helmsman’s reply, vague, cracked with strain, and smothered. +</p> + +<p> +Came the lightning, before us, behind us, on every side, bathing us in flaming +minutes at a time. And all the while we were deafened by the unceasing uproar +of thunder. It was a weird sight—far aloft the black skeleton of spars +and masts from which the sails had been removed; lower down, the sailors +clinging like monstrous bugs as they passed the gaskets and furled; beneath +them the few set sails, filled backward against the masts, gleaming whitely, +wickedly, evilly, in the fearful illumination; and, at the bottom, the deck and +bridge and houses of the <i>Elsinore</i>, and a tangled riff-raff of flying +ropes, and clumps and bunches of swaying, pulling, hauling, human creatures. +</p> + +<p> +It was a great moment, the master’s moment—caught all aback with +all our bulk and tonnage and infinitude of gear, and our heaven-aspiring masts +two hundred feet above our heads. And our master was there, in sheeting flame, +slender, casual, imperturbable, with two men—one of them a +murderer—under him to pass on and enforce his will, and with a horde of +inefficients and weaklings to obey that will, and pull, and haul, and by the +sheer leverages of physics manipulate our floating world so that it would +endure this fury of the elements. +</p> + +<p> +What happened next, what was done, I do not know, save that now and again I +heard the Gabriel voice; for the darkness came, and the rain in pouring, +horizontal sheets. It filled my mouth and strangled my lungs as if I had fallen +overboard. It seemed to drive up as well as down, piercing its way under my +sou’wester, through my oilskins, down my tight-buttoned collar, and into +my sea-boots. I was dizzied, obfuscated, by all this onslaught of thunder, +lightning, wind, blackness, and water. And yet the master, near to me, there on +the poop, lived and moved serenely in all, voicing his wisdom and will to the +wisps of creatures who obeyed and by their brute, puny strength pulled braces, +slacked sheets, dragged courses, swung yards and lowered them, hauled on +buntlines and clewlines, smoothed and gasketed the huge spreads of canvas. +</p> + +<p> +How it happened I know not, but Miss West and I crouched together, clinging to +the rail and to each other in the shelter of the thrumming weather-cloth. My +arm was about her and fast to the railing; her shoulder pressed close against +me, and by one hand she held tightly to the lapel of my oilskin. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later we made our way across the poop to the chart-house, helping each +other to maintain footing as the <i>Elsinore</i> plunged and bucked in the +rising sea and was pressed over and down by the weight of wind on her few +remaining set sails. The wind, which had lulled after the rain, had risen in +recurrent gusts to storm violence. But all was well with the gallant ship. The +crisis was past, and the ship lived, and we lived, and with streaming faces and +bright eyes we looked at each other and laughed in the bright light of the +chart-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Who can blame one for loving the sea?” Miss West cried out +exultantly, as she wrung the rain from her ropes of hair which had gone adrift +in the turmoil. “And the men of the sea!” she cried. “The +masters of the sea! You saw my father . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a king,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a king,” she repeated after me. +</p> + +<p> +And the <i>Elsinore</i> lifted on a cresting sea and flung down on her side, so +that we were thrown together and brought up breathless against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +I said good-night to her at the foot of the stairs, and as I passed the open +door to the cabin I glanced in. There sat Captain West, whom I had thought +still on deck. His storm-trappings were removed, his sea-boots replaced by +slippers; and he leaned back in the big leather chair, eyes wide open, +beholding visions in the curling smoke of a cigar against a background of +wildly reeling cabin wall. +</p> + +<p> +It was at eleven this morning that the Plate gave us a fiasco. Last +night’s was a real pampero—though a mild one. To-day’s +promised to be a far worse one, and then laughed at us as a proper cosmic joke. +The wind, during the night, had so eased that by nine in the morning we had all +our topgallant-sails set. By ten we were rolling in a dead calm. By eleven the +stuff began making up ominously in the south’ard. +</p> + +<p> +The overcast sky closed down. Our lofty trucks seemed to scrape the +cloud-zenith. The horizon drew in on us till it seemed scarcely half a mile +away. The <i>Elsinore</i> was embayed in a tiny universe of mist and sea. The +lightning played. Sky and horizon drew so close that the <i>Elsinore</i> seemed +on the verge of being absorbed, sucked in by it, sucked up by it. +</p> + +<p> +Then from zenith to horizon the sky was cracked with forked lightning, and the +wet atmosphere turned to a horrid green. The rain, beginning gently, in dead +calm, grew into a deluge of enormous streaming drops. It grew darker and +darker, a green darkness, and in the cabin, although it was midday, Wada and +the steward lighted lamps. The lightning came closer and closer, until the ship +was enveloped in it. The green darkness was continually a-tremble with flame, +through which broke greater illuminations of forked lightning. These became +more violent as the rain lessened, and, so absolutely were we centred in this +electrical maelstrom, there was no connecting any chain or flash or fork of +lightning with any particular thunder-clap. The atmosphere all about us paled +and flamed. Such a crashing and smashing! We looked every moment for the +<i>Elsinore</i> to be struck. And never had I seen such colours in lightning. +Although from moment to moment we were dazzled by the greater bolts, there +persisted always a tremulous, pulsing lesser play of light, sometimes softly +blue, at other times a thin purple that quivered on into a thousand shades of +lavender. +</p> + +<p> +And there was no wind. No wind came. Nothing happened. The <i>Elsinore</i>, +naked-sparred, under only lower-topsails, with spanker and crojack furled, was +prepared for anything. Her lower-topsails hung in limp emptiness from the +yards, heavy with rain and flapping soggily when she rolled. The cloud mass +thinned, the day brightened, the green blackness passed into gray twilight, the +lightning eased, the thunder moved along away from us, and there was no wind. +In half an hour the sun was shining, the thunder muttered intermittently along +the horizon, and the <i>Elsinore</i> still rolled in a hush of air. +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t tell, sir,” Mr. Pike growled to me. “Thirty +years ago I was dismasted right here off the Plate in a clap of wind that come +on just as that come on.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the changing of the watches, and Mr. Mellaire, who had come on the poop +to relieve the mate, stood beside me. +</p> + +<p> +“One of the nastiest pieces of water in the world,” he concurred. +“Eighteen years ago the Plate gave it to me—lost half our sticks, +twenty hours on our beam-ends, cargo shifted, and foundered. I was two days in +the boat before an English tramp picked us up. And none of the other boats ever +was picked up.” +</p> + +<p> +“The <i>Elsinore</i> behaved very well last night,” I put in +cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hell, that wasn’t nothing,” Mr. Pike grumbled. +“Wait till you see a real pampero. It’s a dirty stretch hereabouts, +and I, for one, ’ll be glad when we get across It. I’d sooner have +a dozen Cape Horn snorters than one of these. How about you, Mr. +Mellaire?” +</p> + +<p> +“Same here, sir,” he answered. “Those sou’-westers are +honest. You know what to expect. But here you never know. The best of +ship-masters can get tripped up off the Plate.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘As I’ve found out . . .<br /> +Beyond a doubt,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mr. Pike hummed from Newcomb’s <i>Celeste</i>, as he went down the +ladder. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p> +The sunsets grow more bizarre and spectacular off this coast of the Argentine. +Last evening we had high clouds, broken white and golden, flung disorderly, +generously, over the western half of the sky, while in the east was painted a +second sunset—a reflection, perhaps, of the first. At any rate, the +eastern sky was a bank of pale clouds that shed soft, spread rays of blue and +white upon a blue-grey sea. +</p> + +<p> +And the evening before last we had a gorgeous Arizona riot in the west. +Bastioned upon the ocean cloud-tier was piled upon cloud-tier, spacious and +lofty, until we gazed upon a Grand Canyon a myriad times vaster and more +celestial than that of the Colorado. The clouds took on the same stratified, +serrated, rose-rock formation, and all the hollows were filled with the opal +blues and purple hazes of the Painted Lands. +</p> + +<p> +The Sailing Directions say that these remarkable sunsets are due to the dust +being driven high into the air by the winds that blow across the pampas of the +Argentine. +</p> + +<p> +And our sunset to-night—I am writing this at midnight, as I sit propped +in my blankets, wedged by pillows, while the <i>Elsinore</i> wallows damnably +in a dead calm and a huge swell rolling up from the Cape Horn region, where, it +does seem, gales perpetually blow. But our sunset. Turner might have +perpetrated it. The west was as if a painter had stood off and slapped +brushfuls of gray at a green canvas. On this green background of sky the clouds +spilled and crumpled. +</p> + +<p> +But such a background! Such an orgy of green! No shade of green was missing in +the interstices, large and small, between the milky, curdled +clouds—Nile-green high up, and then, in order, each with a thousand +shades, blue-green, brown-green, grey-green, and a wonderful olive-green that +tarnished into a rich bronze-green. +</p> + +<p> +During the display the rest of the horizon glowed with broad bands of pink, and +blue, and pale green, and yellow. A little later, when the sun was quite down, +in the background of the curdled clouds smouldered a wine-red mass of colour, +that faded to bronze and tinged all the fading greens with its sanguinary hue. +The clouds themselves flushed to rose of all shades, while a fan of gigantic +streamers of pale rose radiated toward the zenith. These deepened rapidly into +flaunting rose-flame and burned long in the slow-closing twilight. +</p> + +<p> +And with all this wonder of the beauty of the world still glowing in my brain +hours afterward, I hear the snarling of Mr. Pike above my head, and the trample +and drag of feet as the men move from rope to rope and pull and haul. More +weather is making, and from the way sail is being taken in it cannot be far +off. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Yet at daylight this morning we were still wallowing in the same dead calm and +sickly swell. Miss West says the barometer is down, but that the warning has +been too long, for the Plate, to amount to anything. Pamperos happen quickly +here, and though the <i>Elsinore</i>, under bare poles to her upper-topsails, +is prepared for anything, it may well be that they will be crowding on canvas +in another hour. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was so fooled that he actually had set the topgallant-sails, and the +gaskets were being taken off the royals, when the Samurai came on deck, +strolled back and forth a casual five minutes, then spoke in an undertone to +Mr. Pike. Mr. Pike did not like it. To me, a tyro, it was evident that he +disagreed with his master. Nevertheless, his voice went out in a snarl aloft to +the men on the royal-yards to make all fast again. Then it was clewlines and +buntlines and lowering of yards as the topgallant-sails were stripped off. The +crojack was taken in, and some of the outer fore-and-aft handsails, whose order +of names I can never remember. +</p> + +<p> +A breeze set in from the south-west, blowing briskly under a clear sky. I could +see that Mr. Pike was secretly pleased. The Samurai had been mistaken. And each +time Mr. Pike glanced aloft at the naked topgallant- and royal-yards, I knew +his thought was that they might well be carrying sail. I was quite convinced +that the Plate had fooled Captain West. So was Miss West convinced, and, being +a favoured person like myself, she frankly told me so. +</p> + +<p> +“Father will be setting sail in half an hour,” she prophesied. +</p> + +<p> +What superior weather-sense Captain West possesses I know not, save that it is +his by Samurai right. The sky, as I have said, was clear. The air was +brittle—sparkling gloriously in the windy sun. And yet, behold, in a +brief quarter of an hour, the change that took place. I had just returned from +a trip below, and Miss West was venting her scorn on the River Plate and +promising to go below to the sewing-machine, when we heard Mr. Pike groan. It +was a whimsical groan of disgust, contrition, and acknowledgment of inferiority +before the master. +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the whole River Plate,” was what he groaned. +</p> + +<p> +Following his gaze to the south-west, we saw it coming. It was a cloud-mass +that blotted out the sunlight and the day. It seemed to swell and belch and +roll over and over on itself as it advanced with a rapidity that told of +enormous wind behind it and in it. Its speed was headlong, terrific; and, +beneath it, covering the sea, advancing with it, was a gray bank of mist. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West spoke to the mate, who bawled the order along, and the watch, +reinforced by the watch below, began clewing up the mainsail and foresail and +climbing into the rigging. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep off! Put your wheel over! Hard over!” Captain West called +gently to the helmsman. +</p> + +<p> +And the big wheel spun around, and the <i>Elsinore’s</i> bow fell off so +that she might not be caught aback by the onslaught of wind. +</p> + +<p> +Thunder rode in that rushing, rolling blackness of cloud; and it was rent by +lightning as it fell upon us. +</p> + +<p> +Then it was rain, wind, obscureness of gloom, and lightning. I caught a glimpse +of the men on the lower-yards as they were blotted from view and as the +<i>Elsinore</i> heeled over and down. There were fifteen men of them to each +yard, and the gaskets were well passed ere we were struck. How they regained +the deck I do not know, I never saw; for the <i>Elsinore</i>, under only upper- +and lower-topsails, lay down on her side, her port-rail buried in the sea, and +did not rise. +</p> + +<p> +There was no maintaining an unsupported upright position on that acute slant of +deck. Everybody held on. Mr. Pike frankly gripped the poop-rail with both +hands, and Miss West and I made frantic clutches and scrambled for footing. But +I noticed that the Samurai, poised lightly, like a bird on the verge of flight, +merely rested one hand on the rail. He gave no orders. As I divined, there was +nothing to be done. He waited—that was all—in tranquillity and +repose. The situation was simple. Either the masts would go, or the +<i>Elsinore</i> would rise with her masts intact, or she would never rise +again. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime she lay dead, her lee yardarms almost touching the sea, the sea +creaming solidly to her hatch-combings across the buried, unseen rail. +</p> + +<p> +The minutes were as centuries, until the bow paid off and the <i>Elsinore</i>, +turned tail before it, righted to an even keel. Immediately this was +accomplished Captain West had her brought back upon the wind. And immediately, +thereupon, the big foresail went adrift from its gaskets. The shock, or +succession of shocks, to the ship, from the tremendous buffeting that followed, +was fearful. It seemed she was being racked to pieces. Master and mate were +side by side when this happened, and the expressions on their faces typified +them. In neither face was apprehension. Mr. Pike’s face bore a sour sneer +for the worthless sailors who had botched the job. Captain West’s face +was serenely considerative. +</p> + +<p> +Still, nothing was to be done, could be done; and for five minutes the +<i>Elsinore</i> was shaken as in the maw of some gigantic monster, until the +last shreds of the great piece of canvas had been torn away. +</p> + +<p> +“Our foresail has departed for Africa,” Miss West laughed in my +ear. +</p> + +<p> +She is like her father, unaware of fear. +</p> + +<p> +“And now we may as well go below and be comfortable,” she said five +minutes later. “The worst is over. It will only be blow, blow, blow, and +a big sea making.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +All day it blew. And the big sea that arose made the <i>Elsinore’s</i> +conduct almost unlivable. My only comfort was achieved by taking to my bunk and +wedging myself with pillows buttressed against the bunk’s sides by empty +soap-boxes which Wada arranged. Mr. Pike, clinging to my door-casing while his +legs sprawled adrift in a succession of terrific rolls, paused to tell me that +it was a new one on him in the pampero line. It was all wrong from the first. +It had not come on right. It had no reason to be. +</p> + +<p> +He paused a little longer, and, in a casual way, that under the circumstances +was ridiculously transparent, exposed what was at ferment in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +First of all he was absurd enough to ask if Possum showed symptoms of +sea-sickness. Next, he unburdened his wrath for the inefficients who had lost +the foresail, and sympathized with the sail-makers for the extra work thrown +upon them. Then he asked permission to borrow one of my books, and, clinging to +my bunk, selected Buchner’s <i>Force and Matter</i> from my shelf, +carefully wedging the empty space with the doubled magazine I use for that +purpose. +</p> + +<p> +Still he was loth to depart, and, cudgelling his brains for a pretext, he set +up a rambling discourse on River Plate weather. And all the time I kept +wondering what was behind it all. At last it came. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Mr. Pathurst,” he remarked, “do you happen to +remember how many years ago Mr. Mellaire said it was that he was dismasted and +foundered off here?” +</p> + +<p> +I caught his drift on the instant. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight years ago, wasn’t it?” I lied. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike let this sink in and slowly digested it, while the <i>Elsinore</i> was +guilty of three huge rolls down to port and back again. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I wonder what ship was sunk off the Plate eight years ago?” he +communed, as if with himself. “I guess I’ll have to ask Mr. +Mellaire her name. You can search me for all any I can recollect.” +</p> + +<p> +He thanked me with unwonted elaborateness for <i>Force and Matter</i>, of which +I knew he would never read a line, and felt his way to the door. Here he hung +on for a moment, as if struck by a new and most accidental idea. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it wasn’t, by any chance, that he said eighteen years +ago?” he queried. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“Eight years ago,” I said. “That’s the way I remember +it, though why I should remember it at all I don’t know. But that is what +he said,” I went on with increasing confidence. “Eight years ago. I +am sure of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike looked at me ponderingly, and waited until the <i>Elsinore</i> had +fairly righted for an instant ere he took his departure down the hall. +</p> + +<p> +I think I have followed the working of his mind. I have long since learned that +his memory of ships, officers, cargoes, gales, and disasters is remarkable. He +is a veritable encyclopædia of the sea. Also, it is patent that he has +equipped himself with Sidney Waltham’s history. As yet, he does not dream +that Mr. Mellaire is Sidney Waltham, and he is merely wondering if Mr. Mellaire +was a ship-mate of Sidney Waltham eighteen years ago in the ship lost off the +Plate. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, I shall never forgive Mr. Mellaire for this slip he has made. +He should have been more careful. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<p> +An abominable night! A wonderful night! Sleep? I suppose I did sleep, in +catnaps, but I swear I heard every bell struck until three-thirty. Then came a +change, an easement. No longer was it a stubborn, loggy fight against +pressures. The <i>Elsinore</i> moved. I could feel her slip, and slide, and +send, and soar. Whereas before she had been flung continually down to port, she +now rolled as far to one side as to the other. +</p> + +<p> +I knew what had taken place. Instead of remaining hove-to on the pampero, +Captain West had turned tail and was running before it. This, I understood, +meant a really serious storm, for the north-east was the last direction in +which Captain West desired to go. But at any rate the movement, though wilder, +was easier, and I slept. I was awakened at five by the thunder of seas that +fell aboard, rushed down the main deck, and crashed against the cabin wall. +Through my open door I could see water swashing up and down the hall, while +half a foot of water creamed and curdled from under my bunk across the floor +each time the ship rolled to starboard. +</p> + +<p> +The steward brought me my coffee, and, wedged by boxes and pillows, like an +equilibrist, I sat up and drank it. Luckily I managed to finish it in time, for +a succession of terrific rolls emptied one of my book-shelves. Possum, crawling +upward from my feet under the covered way of my bed, yapped with terror as the +seas smashed and thundered and as the avalanche of books descended upon us. And +I could not but grin when the <i>Paste Board Crown</i> smote me on the head, +while the puppy was knocked gasping with Chesterton’s <i>What’s +Wrong with the World</i>? +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you think?” I queried of the steward who was helping +to set us and the books to rights. +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders, and his bright slant eyes were very bright as he +replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Many times I see like this. Me old man. Many times I see more bad. Too +much wind, too much work. Rotten dam bad.” +</p> + +<p> +I could guess that the scene on deck was a spectacle, and at six o’clock, +as gray light showed through my ports in the intervals when they were not +submerged, I essayed the side-board of my bunk like a gymnast, captured my +careering slippers, and shuddered as I thrust my bare feet into their chill +sogginess. I did not wait to dress. Merely in pyjamas I headed for the poop, +Possum wailing dismally at my desertion. +</p> + +<p> +It was a feat to travel the narrow halls. Time and again I paused and held on +until my finger-tips hurt. In the moments of easement I made progress. Yet I +miscalculated. The foot of the broad stairway to the chart-house rested on a +cross-hall a dozen feet in length. Over-confidence and an unusually violent +antic of the <i>Elsinore</i> caused the disaster. She flung down to starboard +with such suddenness and at such a pitch that the flooring seemed to go out +from under me and I hustled helplessly down the incline. I missed a frantic +clutch at the newel-post, flung up my arm in time to save my face, and, most +fortunately, whirled half about, and, still falling, impacted with my shoulder +muscle-pad on Captain West’s door. +</p> + +<p> +Youth will have its way. So will a ship in a sea. And so will a hundred and +seventy pounds of a man. The beautiful hardwood door-panel splintered, the +latch fetched away, and I broke the nails of the four fingers of my right hand +in a futile grab at the flying door, marring the polished surface with four +parallel scratches. I kept right on, erupting into Captain West’s +spacious room with the big brass bed. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West, swathed in a woollen dressing-gown, her eyes heavy still with sleep, +her hair glorious and for the once ungroomed, clinging in the doorway that gave +entrance on the main cabin, met my startled gaze with an equally startled gaze. +</p> + +<p> +It was no time for apologies. I kept right on my mad way, caught the foot +stanchion, and was whipped around in half a circle flat upon Captain +West’s brass bed. +</p> + +<p> +Miss West was beginning to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Come right in,” she gurgled. +</p> + +<p> +A score of retorts, all deliciously inadvisable, tickled my tongue, so I said +nothing, contenting myself with holding on with my left hand while I nursed my +stinging right hand under my arm-pit. Beyond her, across the floor of the main +cabin, I saw the steward in pursuit of Captain West’s Bible and a sheaf +of Miss West’s music. And as she gurgled and laughed at me, beholding her +in this intimacy of storm, the thought flashed through my brain: +</p> + +<p> +<i>She is a woman</i>. <i>She is desirable</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Now did she sense this fleeting, unuttered flash of mine? I know not, save that +her laughter left her, and long conventional training asserted itself as she +said: +</p> + +<p> +“I just knew everything was adrift in father’s room. He +hasn’t been in it all night. I could hear things rolling around . . . +What is wrong? Are you hurt?” +</p> + +<p> +“Stubbed my fingers, that’s all,” I answered, looking at my +broken nails and standing gingerly upright. +</p> + +<p> +“My, that <i>was</i> a roll,” she sympathized. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I’d started to go upstairs,” I said, “and not to +turn into your father’s bed. I’m afraid I’ve ruined the +door.” +</p> + +<p> +Came another series of great rolls. I sat down on the bed and held on. Miss +West, secure in the doorway, began gurgling again, while beyond, across the +cabin carpet, the steward shot past, embracing a small writing-desk that had +evidently carried away from its fastenings when he seized hold of it for +support. More seas smashed and crashed against the for’ard wall of the +cabin; and the steward, failing of lodgment, shot back across the carpet, still +holding the desk from harm. +</p> + +<p> +Taking advantage of favouring spells, I managed to effect my exit and gain the +newel-post ere the next series of rolls came. And as I clung on and waited, I +could not forget what I had just seen. Vividly under my eyelids burned the +picture of Miss West’s sleep-laden eyes, her hair, and all the softness +of her. <i>A woman and desirable</i> kept drumming in my brain. +</p> + +<p> +But I forgot all this, when, nearly at the top, I was thrown up the hill of the +stairs as if it had suddenly become downhill. My feet flew from stair to stair +to escape falling, and I flew, or fell, apparently upward, until, at the top, I +hung on for dear life while the stern of the <i>Elsinore</i> flung skyward on +some mighty surge. +</p> + +<p> +Such antics of so huge a ship! The old stereotyped “toy” describes +her; for toy she was, the sheerest splinter of a plaything in the grip of the +elements. And yet, despite this overwhelming sensation of microscopic +helplessness, I was aware of a sense of surety. There was the Samurai. Informed +with his will and wisdom, the <i>Elsinore</i> was no cat’s-paw. +Everything was ordered, controlled. She was doing what he ordained her to do, +and, no matter what storm-Titans bellowed about her and buffeted her, she would +continue to do what he ordained her to do. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced into the chart-room. There he sat, leaned back in a screw-chair, his +sea-booted legs, wedged against the settee, holding him in place in the most +violent rolls. His black oilskin coat glistened in the lamplight with a myriad +drops of ocean that advertised a recent return from deck. His sou’wester, +black and glistening, was like the helmet of some legendary hero. He was +smoking a cigar, and he smiled and greeted me. But he seemed very tired and +very old—old with wisdom, however, not weakness. The flesh of his face, +the pink pigment quite washed and worn away, was more transparent than ever; +and yet never was he more serene, never more the master absolute of our tiny, +fragile world. The age that showed in him was not a matter of terrestrial +years. It was ageless, passionless, beyond human. Never had he appeared so +great to me, so far remote, so much a spirit visitant. +</p> + +<p> +And he cautioned and advised me, in silver-mellow beneficent voice, as I +essayed the venture of opening the chart-house door to gain outside. He knew +the moment, although I never could have guessed it for myself, and gave the +word that enabled me to win the poop. +</p> + +<p> +Water was everywhere. The <i>Elsinore</i> was rushing through a blurring whirr +of water. Seas creamed and licked the poop-deck edge, now to starboard, now to +port. High in the air, over-towering and perilously down-toppling, +following-seas pursued our stern. The air was filled with spindrift like a fog +or spray. No officer of the watch was in sight. The poop was deserted, save for +two helmsmen in streaming oilskins under the half-shelter of the open +wheel-house. I nodded good morning to them. +</p> + +<p> +One was Tom Spink, the elderly but keen and dependable English sailor. The +other was Bill Quigley, one of a forecastle group of three that herded uniquely +together, though the other two, Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Giller, were in +the second mate’s watch. The three had proved handy with their fists, and +clannish; they had fought pitched forecastle battles with the gangster clique +and won a sort of neutrality of independence for themselves. They were not +exactly sailors—Mr. Mellaire sneeringly called them the +“bricklayers”—but they had successfully refused subservience +to the gangster crowd. +</p> + +<p> +To cross the deck from the chart-house to the break of the poop was no slight +feat, but I managed it and hung on to the railing while the wind stung my flesh +with the flappings of my pyjamas. At this moment, and for the moment, the +<i>Elsinore</i> righted to an even keel, and dashed along and down the +avalanching face of a wave. And as she thus righted her deck was filled with +water level from rail to rail. Above this flood, or knee-deep in it, Mr. Pike +and half-a-dozen sailors were bunched on the fife-rail of the mizzen-mast. The +carpenter, too, was there, with a couple of assistants. +</p> + +<p> +The next roll spilled half a thousand tons of water outboard sheer over the +starboard-rail, while all the starboard ports opened automatically and gushed +huge streams. Then came the opposite roll to port, with a clanging shut of the +iron doors; and a hundred tons of sea sloshed outboard across the port-rail, +while all the iron doors on that side opened wide and gushed. And all this +time, it must not be forgotten, the <i>Elsinore</i> was dashing ahead through +the sea. +</p> + +<p> +The only sail she carried was three upper-topsails. Not the tiniest triangle of +headsail was on her. I had never seen her with so little wind-surface, and the +three narrow strips of canvas, bellied to the seemingness of sheet-iron with +the pressure of the wind, drove her before the gale at astonishing speed. +</p> + +<p> +As the water on the deck subsided the men on the fife-rail left their refuge. +One group, led by the redoubtable Mr. Pike, strove to capture a mass of planks +and twisted steel. For the moment I did not recognize what it was. The +carpenter, with two men, sprang upon Number Three hatch and worked hurriedly +and fearfully. And I knew why Captain West had turned tail to the storm. Number +Three hatch was a wreck. Among other things the great timber, called the +“strong-back,” was broken. He had had to run, or founder. Before +our decks were swept again I could make out the carpenter’s emergency +repairs. With fresh timbers he was bolting, lashing, and wedging Number Three +hatch into some sort of tightness. +</p> + +<p> +When the <i>Elsinore</i> dipped her port-rail under and scooped several hundred +tons of South Atlantic, and then, immediately rolling her starboard-rail under, +had another hundred tons of breaking sea fall in board upon her, all the men +forsook everything and scrambled for life upon the fife-rail. In the bursting +spray they were quite hidden; and then I saw them and counted them all as they +emerged into view. Again they waited for the water to subside. +</p> + +<p> +The mass of wreckage pursued by Mr. Pike and his men ground a hundred feet +along the deck for’ard, and, as the <i>Elsinore’s</i> stern sank +down in some abyss, ground back again and smashed up against the cabin wall. I +identified this stuff as part of the bridge. That portion which spanned from +the mizzen-mast to the ’midship-house was missing, while the starboard +boat on the ’midship-house was a splintered mess. +</p> + +<p> +Watching the struggle to capture and subdue the section of bridge, I was +reminded of Victor Hugo’s splendid description of the sailor’s +battle with a ship’s gun gone adrift in a night of storm. But there was a +difference, I found that Hugo’s narrative had stirred me more profoundly +than was I stirred by this actual struggle before my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +I have repeatedly said that the sea makes one hard. I now realized how hard I +had become as I stood there at the break of the poop in my wind-whipped, +spray-soaked pyjamas. I felt no solicitude for the forecastle humans who +struggled in peril of their lives beneath me. They did not count. Ah—I +was even curious to see what might happen, did they get caught by those +crashing avalanches of sea ere they could gain the safety of the fife-rail. +</p> + +<p> +And I saw. Mr. Pike, in the lead, of course, up to his waist in rushing water, +dashed in, caught the flying wreckage with a turn of rope, and fetched it up +short with a turn around one of the port mizzen-shrouds. The <i>Elsinore</i> +flung down to port, and a solid wall of down-toppling green upreared a dozen +feet above the rail. The men fled to the fife-rail. But Mr. Pike, holding his +turn, held on, looked squarely into the wall of the wave, and received the +downfall. He emerged, still holding by the turn the captured bridge. +</p> + +<p> +The feeble-minded faun (the stone-deaf man) led the way to Mr. Pike’s +assistance, followed by Tony, the suicidal Greek. Paddy was next, and in order +came Shorty, Henry the training-ship boy, and Nancy, last, of course, and +looking as if he were going to execution. +</p> + +<p> +The deck-water was no more than knee-deep, though rushing with torrential +force, when Mr. Pike and the six men lifted the section of bridge and started +for’ard with it. They swayed and staggered, but managed to keep going. +</p> + +<p> +The carpenter saw the impending ocean-mountain first. I saw him cry to his own +men and then to Mr. Pike ere he fled to the fife-rail. But Mr. Pike’s men +had no chance. Abreast of the ’midship-house, on the starboard side, +fully fifteen feet above the rail and twenty above the deck, the sea fell on +board. The top of the ’midship-house was swept clean of the splintered +boat. The water, impacting against the side of the house, spouted skyward as +high as the crojack-yard. And all this, in addition to the main bulk of the +wave, swept and descended upon Mr. Pike and his men. +</p> + +<p> +They disappeared. The bridge disappeared. The <i>Elsinore</i> rolled to port +and dipped her deck full from rail to rail. Next, she plunged down by the head, +and all this mass of water surged forward. Through the creaming, foaming +surface now and then emerged an arm, or a head, or a back, while cruel edges of +jagged plank and twisted steel rods advertised that the bridge was turning over +and over. I wondered what men were beneath it and what mauling they were +receiving. +</p> + +<p> +And yet these men did not count. I was aware of anxiety only for Mr. Pike. He, +in a way, socially, was of my caste and class. He and I belonged aft in the +high place; ate at the same table. I was acutely desirous that he should not be +hurt or killed. The rest did not matter. They were not of my world. I imagine +the old-time skippers, on the middle passage, felt much the same toward their +slave-cargoes in the fetid ’tween decks. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Elsinore’s</i> bow tilted skyward while her stern fell into a +foaming valley. Not a man had gained his feet. Bridge and men swept back toward +me and fetched up against the mizzen-shrouds. And then that prodigious, +incredible old man appeared out of the water, on his two legs, upright, +dragging with him, a man in each hand, the helpless forms of Nancy and the +Faun. My heart leapt at beholding this mighty figure of a man-killer and +slave-driver, it is true, but who sprang first into the teeth of danger so that +his slaves might follow, and who emerged with a half-drowned slave in either +hand. +</p> + +<p> +I knew augustness and pride as I gazed—pride that my eyes were blue, like +his; that my skin was blond, like his; that my place was aft with him, and with +the Samurai, in the high place of government and command. I nearly wept with +the chill of pride that was akin to awe and that tingled and bristled along my +spinal column and in my brain. As for the rest—the weaklings and the +rejected, and the dark-pigmented things, the half-castes, the mongrel-bloods, +and the dregs of long-conquered races—how could they count? My heels were +iron as I gazed on them in their peril and weakness. Lord! Lord! For ten +thousand generations and centuries we had stamped upon their faces and enslaved +them to the toil of our will. +</p> + +<p> +Again the <i>Elsinore</i> rolled to starboard and to port, while the spume +spouted to our lower-yards and a thousand tons of South Atlantic surged across +from rail to rail. And again all were down and under, with jagged plank and +twisted steel overriding them. And again that amazing blond-skinned giant +emerged, on his two legs upstanding, a broken waif like a rat in either hand. +He forced his way through rushing, waist-high water, deposited his burdens with +the carpenter on the fife-rail, and returned to drag Larry reeling to his feet +and help him to the fife-rail. Out of the wash, Tony, the Greek, crawled on +hands and knees and sank down helplessly at the fife-rail. There was nothing +suicidal now in his mood. Struggle as he would, he could not lift himself until +the mate, gripping his oilskin at the collar, with one hand flung him through +the air into the carpenter’s arms. +</p> + +<p> +Next came Shorty, his face streaming blood, one arm hanging useless, his +sea-boots stripped from him. Mr. Pike pitched him into the fife-rail, and +returned for the last man. It was Henry, the training-ship boy. Him I had seen, +unstruggling, motionless, show at the surface like a drowned man and sink again +as the flood surged aft and smashed him against the cabin. Mr. Pike, +shoulder-deep, twice beaten to his knees and under by bursting seas, caught the +lad, shouldered him, and carried him away for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later, in the cabin, I encountered Mr. Pike going into breakfast. He +had changed his clothes, and he had shaved! Now how could one treat a hero such +as he save as I treated him when I remarked off-handedly that he must have had +a lively watch? +</p> + +<p> +“My,” he answered, equally off-handedly, “I did get a prime +soaking.” +</p> + +<p> +That was all. He had had no time to see me at the poop-rail. It was merely the +day’s work, the ship’s work, the MAN’S work—all +capitals, if you please, in MAN. I was the only one aft who knew, and I knew +because I had chanced to see. Had I not been on the poop at that early hour no +one aft ever would have known those gray, storm-morning deeds of his. +</p> + +<p> +“Anybody hurt?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, some of the men got wet. But no bones broke. Henry’ll be laid +off for a day. He got turned over in a sea and bashed his head. And +Shorty’s got a wrenched shoulder, I think.—But, say, we got Davis +into the top bunk! The seas filled him full and he had to climb for it. +He’s all awash and wet now, and you oughta seen me praying for +more.” He paused and sighed. “I’m getting old, I guess. I +oughta wring his neck, but somehow I ain’t got the gumption. Just the +same, he’ll be overside before we get in.” +</p> + +<p> +“A month’s wages against a pound of tobacco he won’t,” +I challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Mr. Pike slowly. “But I’ll tell you what I +will do. I’ll bet you a pound of tobacco even, or a month’s wages +even, that I’ll have the pleasure of putting a sack of coal to his feet +that never will come off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said Mr. Pike. “And now I guess I’ll get a bite +to eat.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<p> +The more I see of Miss West the more she pleases me. Explain it in terms of +propinquity, or isolation, or whatever you will; I, at least, do not attempt +explanation. I know only that she is a woman and desirable. And I am rather +proud, in a way, to find that I am just a man like any man. The midnight oil, +and the relentless pursuit I have endured in the past from the whole tribe of +women, have not, I am glad to say, utterly spoiled me. +</p> + +<p> +I am obsessed by that phrase—a <i>woman and desirable</i>. It beats in my +brain, in my thought. I go out of my way to steal a glimpse of Miss West +through a cabin door or vista of hall when she does not know I am looking. A +woman is a wonderful thing. A woman’s hair is wonderful. A woman’s +softness is a magic.—Oh, I know them for what they are, and yet this very +knowledge makes them only the more wonderful. I know—I would stake my +soul—that Miss West has considered me as a mate a thousand times to once +that I have so considered her. And yet—she is a woman and desirable. +</p> + +<p> +And I find myself continually reminded of Richard Le Gallienne’s +inimitable quatrain: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Were I a woman, I would all day long<br /> +Sing my own beauty in some holy song,<br /> +Bend low before it, hushed and half afraid,<br /> +And say ‘I am a woman’ all day long.” +</p> + +<p> +Let me advise all philosophers suffering from world-sickness to take a long sea +voyage with a woman like Miss West. +</p> + +<p> +In this narrative I shall call her “Miss West” no more. She has +ceased to be Miss West. She is Margaret. I do not think of her as Miss West. I +think of her as Margaret. It is a pretty word, a woman-word. What poet must +have created it! Margaret! I never tire of it. My tongue is enamoured of it. +Margaret West! What a name to conjure with! A name provocative of dreams and +mighty connotations. The history of our westward-faring race is written in it. +There is pride in it, and dominion, and adventure, and conquest. When I murmur +it I see visions of lean, beaked ships, of winged helmets, and heels iron-shod +of restless men, royal lovers, royal adventurers, royal fighters. Yes, and even +now, in these latter days when the sun consumes us, still we sit in the high +seat of government and command. +</p> + +<p> +Oh—and by the way—she is twenty-four years old. I asked Mr. Pike +the date of the <i>Dixie’s</i> collision with the river steamer in San +Francisco Bay. This occurred in 1901. Margaret was twelve years old at the +time. This is 1913. Blessings on the head of the man who invented arithmetic! +She is twenty-four. Her name is Margaret, and she is desirable. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +There are so many things to tell about. Where and how this mad voyage, with a +mad crew, will end is beyond all surmise. But the <i>Elsinore</i> drives on, +and day by day her history is bloodily written. And while murder is done, and +while the whole floating drama moves toward the bleak southern ocean and the +icy blasts of Cape Horn, I sit in the high place with the masters, unafraid, I +am proud to say, in an ecstasy, I am proud to say, and I murmur over and over +to <i>myself</i>—<i>Margaret</i>, <i>a woman</i>; <i>Margaret</i>, <i>and +desirable</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But to resume. It is the first day of June. Ten days have passed since the +pampero. When the strong back on Number Three hatch was repaired Captain West +came back on the wind, hove to, and rode out the gale. Since then, in calm, and +fog, and damp, and storm, we have won south until to-day we are almost abreast +of the Falklands. The coast of the Argentine lies to the West, below the +sea-line, and some time this morning we crossed the fiftieth parallel of south +latitude. Here begins the passage of Cape Horn, for so it is reckoned by the +navigators—fifty south in the Atlantic to fifty south in the Pacific. +</p> + +<p> +And yet all is well with us in the matter of weather. The <i>Elsinore</i> +slides along with favouring winds. Daily it grows colder. The great cabin stove +roars and is white-hot, and all the connecting doors are open, so that the +whole after region of the ship is warm and comfortable. But on the deck the air +bites, and Margaret and I wear mittens as we promenade the poop or go +for’ard along the repaired bridge to see the chickens on the +’midship-house. The poor, wretched creatures of instinct and climate! +Behold, as they approach the southern mid-winter of the Horn, when they have +need of all their feathers, they proceed to moult, because, forsooth, this is +the summer time in the land they came from. Or is moulting determined by the +time of year they happen to be born? I shall have to look into this. Margaret +will know. +</p> + +<p> +Yesterday ominous preparations were made for the passage of the Horn. All the +braces were taken from the main deck pin-rails and geared and arranged so that +they may be worked from the tops of the houses. +</p> + +<p> +Thus, the fore-braces run to the top of the forecastle, the main-braces to the +top of the ’midship-house, and the mizzen-braces to the poop. It is +evident that they expect our main deck frequently to be filled with water. So +evident is it that a laden ship when in big seas is like a log awash, that fore +and aft, on both sides, along the deck, shoulder-high, life-lines have been +rigged. Also, the two iron doors, on port and starboard, that open from the +cabin directly upon the main deck, have been barricaded and caulked. Not until +we are in the Pacific and flying north will these doors open again. +</p> + +<p> +And while we prepare to battle around the stormiest headland in the world our +situation on board grows darker. This morning Petro Marinkovich, a sailor in +Mr. Mellaire’s watch, was found dead on Number One hatch. The body bore +several knife-wounds and the throat was cut. It was palpably done by some one +or several of the forecastle hands; but not a word can be elicited. Those who +are guilty of it are silent, of course; while others who may chance to know are +afraid to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Before midday the body was overside with the customary sack of coal. Already +the man is a past episode. But the humans for’ard are tense with +expectancy of what is to come. I strolled for’ard this afternoon, and +noted for the first time a distinct hostility toward me. They recognize that I +belong with the after-guard in the high place. Oh, nothing was said; but it was +patent by the way almost every man looked at me, or refused to look at me. Only +Mulligan Jacobs and Charles Davis were outspoken. +</p> + +<p> +“Good riddance,” said Mulligan Jacobs. “The Guinea +didn’t have the spunk of a louse. And he’s better off, ain’t +he? He lived dirty, an’ he died dirty, an’ now he’s over +an’ done with the whole dirty game. There’s men on board that +oughta wish they was as lucky as him. Theirs is still a-coming to +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean . . . ?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever you want to think I mean,” the twisted wretch grinned +malevolently into my face. +</p> + +<p> +Charles Davis, when I peeped into his iron room, was exuberant. +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty tale for the court in Seattle,” he exulted. +“It’ll only make my case that much stronger. And wait till the +reporters get hold of it! The hell-ship <i>Elsinore</i>! They’ll have +pretty pickin’s!” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen any hell-ship,” I said coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve seen my treatment, ain’t you?” he retorted. +“You’ve seen the hell I’ve got, ain’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you for a cold-blooded murderer,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“The court will determine that, sir. All you’ll have to do is to +testify to facts.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll testify that had I been in the mate’s place I’d +have hanged you for murder.” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes positively sparkled. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll ask you to remember this conversation when you’re under +oath, sir,” he cried eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +I confess the man aroused in me a reluctant admiration. I looked about his +mean, iron-walled room. During the pampero the place had been awash. The white +paint was peeling off in huge scabs, and iron-rust was everywhere. The floor +was filthy. The place stank with the stench of his sickness. His pannikin and +unwashed eating-gear from the last meal were scattered on the floor: His +blankets were wet, his clothing was wet. In a corner was a heterogeneous mass +of soggy, dirty garments. He lay in the very bunk in which he had brained +O’Sullivan. He had been months in this vile hole. In order to live he +would have to remain months more in it. And while his rat-like vitality won my +admiration, I loathed and detested him in very nausea. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you afraid?” I demanded. “What makes you think +you will last the voyage? Don’t you know bets are being made that you +won’t?” +</p> + +<p> +So interested was he that he seemed to prick up his ears as he raised on his +elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re too scared to tell me about them bets,” he +sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ve bet you’ll last,” I assured him. +</p> + +<p> +“That means there’s others that bet I won’t,” he +rattled on hastily. “An’ that means that there’s men aboard +the <i>Elsinore</i> right now financially interested in my taking-off.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the doorway +and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had missed his vocation. +He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-lawyer. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, sir,” he went on. “I’ll have you testify to +that in Seattle, unless you’re lying to a helpless sick man, or unless +you’ll perjure yourself under oath.” +</p> + +<p> +He got what he was seeking, for he stung me to retort: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’ll testify. Though I tell you candidly that I don’t +think I’ll win my bet.” +</p> + +<p> +“You loose ’m bet sure,” the steward broke in, nodding his +head. “That fellow him die damn soon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bet with’m, sir,” Davis challenged me. “It’s a +straight tip from me, an’ a regular cinch.” +</p> + +<p> +The whole situation was so gruesome and grotesque, and I had been swept into it +so absurdly, that for the moment I did not know what to do or say. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s good money,” Davis urged. “I ain’t +goin’ to die. Look here, steward, how much you want to bet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five dollar, ten dollar, twenty dollar,” the steward answered, +with a shoulder-shrug that meant that the sum was immaterial. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well then, steward. Mr. Pathurst covers your money, say for twenty. +Is it a go, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you bet with him yourself?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Sure I will, sir. Here, you steward, I bet you twenty even I don’t +die.” +</p> + +<p> +The steward shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I bet you twenty to ten,” the sick man insisted. +“What’s eatin’ you, anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“You live, me lose, me pay you,” the steward explained. “You +die, I win, you dead; no pay me.” +</p> + +<p> +Still grinning and shaking his head, he went his way. +</p> + +<p> +“Just the same, sir, it’ll be rich testimony,” Davis +chuckled. “An’ can’t you see the reporters eatin’ it +up?” +</p> + +<p> +The Asiatic clique in the cook’s room has its suspicions about the death +of Marinkovich, but will not voice them. Beyond shakings of heads and dark +mutterings, I can get nothing out of Wada or the steward. When I talked with +the sail-maker, he complained that his injured hand was hurting him and that he +would be glad when he could get to the surgeons in Seattle. As for the murder, +when pressed by me, he gave me to understand that it was no affair of the +Japanese or Chinese on board, and that he was a Japanese. +</p> + +<p> +But Louis, the Chinese half-caste with the Oxford accent, was more frank. I +caught him aft from the galley on a trip to the lazarette for provisions. +</p> + +<p> +“We are of a different race, sir, from these men,” he said; +“and our safest policy is to leave them alone. We have talked it over, +and we have nothing to say, sir, nothing whatever to say. Consider my position. +I work for’ard in the galley; I am in constant contact with the sailors; +I even sleep in their section of the ship; and I am one man against many. The +only other countryman I have on board is the steward, and he sleeps aft. Your +servant and the two sail-makers are Japanese. They are only remotely kin to us, +though we’ve agreed to stand together and apart from whatever +happens.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is Shorty,” I said, remembering Mr. Pike’s diagnosis +of his mixed nationality. +</p> + +<p> +“But we do not recognize him, sir,” Louis answered suavely. +“He is Portuguese; he is Malay; he is Japanese, true; but he is a +mongrel, sir, a mongrel and a bastard. Also, he is a fool. And please, sir, +remember that we are very few, and that our position compels us to +neutrality.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your outlook is gloomy,” I persisted. “How do you think +it will end?” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall arrive in Seattle most probably, some of us. But I can tell you +this, sir: I have lived a long life on the sea, but I have never seen a crew +like this. There are few sailors in it; there are bad men in it; and the rest +are fools and worse. You will notice I mention no names, sir; but there are men +on board whom I do not care to antagonize. I am just Louis, the cook. I do my +work to the best of my ability, and that is all, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And will Charles Davis arrive in Seattle?” I asked, changing the +topic in acknowledgment of his right to be reticent. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I do not think so, sir,” he answered, although his eyes +thanked me for my courtesy. “The steward tells me you have bet that he +will. I think, sir, it is a poor bet. We are about to go around the Horn. I +have been around it many times. This is midwinter, and we are going from east +to west. Davis’ room will be awash for weeks. It will never be dry. A +strong healthy man confined in it could well die of the hardship. And Davis is +far from well. In short, sir, I know his condition, and he is in a shocking +state. Surgeons might prolong his life, but here in a wind-jammer it is +shortened very rapidly. I have seen many men die at sea. I know, sir. Thank +you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Eurasian Chinese-Englishman bowed himself away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<p> +Things are worse than I fancied. Here are two episodes within the last +seventy-two hours. Mr. Mellaire, for instance, is going to pieces. He cannot +stand the strain of being on the same vessel with the man who has sworn to +avenge Captain Somers’s murder, especially when that man is the +redoubtable Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +For several days Margaret and I have been remarking the second mate’s +bloodshot eyes and pain-lined face and wondering if he were sick. And to-day +the secret leaked out. Wada does not like Mr. Mellaire, and this morning, when +he brought me breakfast, I saw by the wicked, gleeful gleam in his almond eyes +that he was spilling over with some fresh, delectable ship’s gossip. +</p> + +<p> +For several days, I learned, he and the steward have been solving a cabin +mystery. A gallon can of wood alcohol, standing on a shelf in the after-room, +had lost quite a portion of its contents. They compared notes and then made of +themselves a Sherlock Holmes and a Doctor Watson. First, they gauged the daily +diminution of alcohol. Next they gauged it several times daily, and learned +that the diminution, whenever it occurred, was first apparent immediately after +meal-time. This focussed their attention on two suspects—the second mate +and the carpenter, who alone sat in the after-room. The rest was easy. Whenever +Mr. Mellaire arrived ahead of the carpenter more alcohol was missing. When they +arrived and departed together, the alcohol was undisturbed. The carpenter was +never alone in the room. The syllogism was complete. And now the steward stores +the alcohol under his bunk. +</p> + +<p> +But wood alcohol is deadly poison. What a constitution this man of fifty must +have! Small wonder his eyes have been bloodshot. The great wonder is that the +stuff did not destroy him. +</p> + +<p> +I have not whispered a word of this to Margaret; nor shall I whisper it. I +should like to put Mr. Pike on his guard; and yet I know that the revealing of +Mr. Mellaire’s identity would precipitate another killing. And still we +drive south, close-hauled on the wind, toward the inhospitable tip of the +continent. To-day we are south of a line drawn between the Straits of Magellan +and the Falklands, and to-morrow, if the breeze holds, we shall pick up the +coast of Tierra del Fuego close to the entrance of the Straits of Le Maire, +through which Captain West intends to pass if the wind favours. +</p> + +<p> +The other episode occurred last night. Mr. Pike says nothing, yet he knows the +crew situation. I have been watching some time now, ever since the death of +Marinkovich; and I am certain that Mr. Pike never ventures on the main deck +after dark. Yet he holds his tongue, confides in no man, and plays out the +bitter perilous game as a commonplace matter of course and all in the +day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +And now to the episode. Shortly after the close of the second dog-watch last +evening I went for’ard to the chickens on the ’midship-house on an +errand for Margaret. I was to make sure that the steward had carried out her +orders. The canvas covering to the big chicken coop had to be down, the +ventilation insured, and the kerosene stove burning properly. When I had proved +to my satisfaction the dependableness of the steward, and just as I was on the +verge of returning to the poop, I was drawn aside by the weird crying of +penguins in the darkness and by the unmistakable noise of a whale blowing not +far away. +</p> + +<p> +I had climbed around the end of the port boat, and was standing there, quite +hidden in the darkness, when I heard the unmistakable age-lag step of the mate +proceed along the bridge from the poop. It was a dim starry night, and the +<i>Elsinore</i>, in the calm ocean under the lee of Tierra del Fuego, was +slipping gently and prettily through the water at an eight-knot clip. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike paused at the for’ard end of the housetop and stood in a +listening attitude. From the main deck below, near Number Two hatch, across the +mumbling of various voices, I could recognize Kid Twist, Nosey Murphy, and Bert +Rhine—the three gangsters. But Steve Roberts, the cow-boy, was also +there, as was Mr. Mellaire, both of whom belonged in the other watch and should +have been turned in; for, at midnight, it would be their watch on deck. +Especially wrong was Mr. Mellaire’s presence, holding social converse +with members of the crew—a breach of ship ethics most grievous. +</p> + +<p> +I have always been cursed with curiosity. Always have I wanted to know; and, on +the <i>Elsinore</i>, I have already witnessed many a little scene that was a +clean-cut dramatic gem. So I did not discover myself, but lurked behind the +boat. +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. The men still talked. I was tantalized +by the crying of the penguins, and by the whale, evidently playful, which came +so close that it spouted and splashed a biscuit-toss away. I saw Mr. +Pike’s head turn at the sound; he glanced squarely in my direction, but +did not see me. Then he returned to listening to the mumble of voices from +beneath. +</p> + +<p> +Now whether Mulligan Jacobs just happened along, or whether he was deliberately +scouting, I do not know. I tell what occurred. Up-and-down the side of the +’midship-house is a ladder. And up this ladder Mulligan Jacobs climbed so +noiselessly that I was not aware of his presence until I heard Mr. Pike snarl: +</p> + +<p> +“What the hell you doin’ here?” +</p> + +<p> +Then I saw Mulligan Jacobs in the gloom, within two yards of the mate. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s it to you?” Mulligan Jacobs snarled back. The voices +below hushed. I knew every man stood there tense and listening. No; the +philosophers have not yet explained Mulligan Jacobs. There is something more to +him than the last word has said in any book. He stood there in the darkness, a +fragile creature with curvature of the spine, facing alone the first mate, and +he was not afraid. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike cursed him with fearful, unrepeatable words, and again demanded what +he was doing there. +</p> + +<p> +“I left me plug of tobacco here when I was coiling down last,” said +the little twisted man—no; he did not say it. He spat it out like so much +venom. +</p> + +<p> +“Get off of here, or I’ll throw you off, you and your +tobacco,” raged the mate. +</p> + +<p> +Mulligan Jacobs lurched closer to Mr. Pike, and in the gloom and with the roll +of the ship swayed in the other’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“By God, Jacobs!” was all the mate could say. +</p> + +<p> +“You old stiff,” was all the terrible little cripple could retort. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike gripped him by the collar and swung him in the air. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you goin’ down?—or am I goin’ to throw you +down?” the mate demanded. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot describe their manner of utterance. It was that of wild beasts. +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t ate outa your hand yet, have I?” was the reply. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike tried to say something, still holding the cripple suspended, but he +could do no more than strangle in his impotence of rage. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re an old stiff, an old stiff, an old stiff,” Mulligan +Jacobs chanted, equally incoherent and unimaginative with brutish fury. +</p> + +<p> +“Say it again and over you go,” the mate managed to enunciate +thickly. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re an old stiff,” gasped Mulligan Jacobs. He was flung. +He soared through the air with the might of the fling, and even as he soared +and fell through the darkness he reiterated: +</p> + +<p> +“Old stiff! Old stiff!” +</p> + +<p> +He fell among the men on Number Two hatch, and there were confusion and +movement below, and groans. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike paced up and down the narrow house and gritted his teeth. Then he +paused. He leaned his arms on the bridge-rail, rested his head on his arms for +a full minute, then groaned: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” That was all. Then he went +aft, slowly, dragging his feet along the bridge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<p> +The days grow gray. The sun has lost its warmth, and each noon, at meridian, it +is lower in the northern sky. All the old stars have long since gone, and it +would seem the sun is following them. The world—the only world I +know—has been left behind far there to the north, and the hill of the +earth is between it and us. This sad and solitary ocean, gray and cold, is the +end of all things, the falling-off place where all things cease. Only it grows +colder, and grayer, and penguins cry in the night, and huge amphibians moan and +slubber, and great albatrosses, gray with storm-battling of the Horn, wheel and +veer. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“Land ho!” was the cry yesterday morning. I shivered as I gazed at +this, the first land since Baltimore a few centuries ago. There was no sun, and +the morning was damp and cold with a brisk wind that penetrated any garment. +The deck thermometer marked 30—two degrees below freezing-point; and now +and then easy squalls of snow swept past. +</p> + +<p> +All of the land that was to be seen was snow. Long, low chains of peaks, +snow-covered, arose out of the ocean. As we drew closer, there were no signs of +life. It was a sheer, savage, bleak, forsaken land. By eleven, off the entrance +of Le Maire Straits, the squalls ceased, the wind steadied, and the tide began +to make through in the direction we desired to go. +</p> + +<p> +Captain West did not hesitate. His orders to Mr. Pike were quick and tranquil. +The man at the wheel altered the course, while both watches sprang aloft to +shake out royals and skysails. And yet Captain West knew every inch of the risk +he took in this graveyard of ships. +</p> + +<p> +When we entered the narrow strait, under full sail and gripped by a tremendous +tide, the rugged headlands of Tierra del Fuego dashed by with dizzying +swiftness. Close we were to them, and close we were to the jagged coast of +Staten Island on the opposite shore. It was here, in a wild bight, between two +black and precipitous walls of rock where even the snow could find no lodgment, +that Captain West paused in a casual sweep of his glasses and gazed steadily at +one place. I picked the spot up with my own glasses and was aware of an instant +chill as I saw the four masts of a great ship sticking out of the water. +Whatever craft it was, it was as large as the <i>Elsinore</i>, and it had been +but recently wrecked. +</p> + +<p> +“One of the German nitrate ships,” said Mr. Pike. Captain West +nodded, still studying the wreck, then said: +</p> + +<p> +“She looks quite deserted. Just the same, Mr. Pike, send several of your +best-sighted sailors aloft, and keep a good lookout yourself. There may be some +survivors ashore trying to signal us.” +</p> + +<p> +But we sailed on, and no signals were seen. Mr. Pike was delighted with our +good fortune. He was guilty of walking up and down, rubbing his hands and +chuckling to himself. Not since 1888, he told me, had he been through the +Straits of Le Maire. Also, he said that he knew of shipmasters who had made +forty voyages around the Horn and had never once had the luck to win through +the straits. The regular passage is far to the east around Staten Island, which +means a loss of westing, and here, at the tip of the world, where the great +west wind, unobstructed by any land, sweeps round and around the narrow girth +of earth, westing is the thing that has to be fought for mile by mile and inch +by inch. The Sailing Directions advise masters on the Horn passage: <i>Make +Westing</i>. <i>Whatever you do</i>, <i>make westing</i>. +</p> + +<p> +When we emerged from the straits in the early afternoon the same steady breeze +continued, and in the calm water under the lee of Tierra del Fuego, which +extends south-westerly to the Horn, we slipped along at an eight-knot clip. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was beside himself. He could scarcely tear himself from the deck when +it was his watch below. He chuckled, rubbed his hands, and incessantly hummed +snatches from the Twelfth Mass. Also, he was voluble. +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow morning we’ll be up with the Horn. We’ll shave it +by a dozen or fifteen miles. Think of it! We’ll just steal around! I +never had such luck, and never expected to. Old girl <i>Elsinore</i>, +you’re rotten for’ard, but the hand of God is at your helm.” +</p> + +<p> +Once, under the weather cloth, I came upon him talking to himself. It was more +a prayer. +</p> + +<p> +“If only she don’t pipe up,” he kept repeating. “If +only she don’t pipe up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire was quite different. +</p> + +<p> +“It never happens,” he told me. “No ship ever went around +like this. You watch her come. She always comes a-smoking out of the +sou’west.” +</p> + +<p> +“But can’t a vessel ever steal around?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The odds are mighty big against it, sir,” he answered. +“I’ll give you a line on them. I’ll wager even, sir, just a +nominal bet of a pound of tobacco, that inside twenty-four hours we’ll be +hove to under upper-topsails. I’ll wager ten pounds to five that +we’re not west of the Horn a week from now; and, fifty to fifty being the +passage, twenty pounds to five that two weeks from now we’re not up with +fifty in the Pacific.” +</p> + +<p> +As for Captain West, the perils of Le Maire behind, he sat below, his slippered +feet stretched before him, smoking a cigar. He had nothing to say whatever, +although Margaret and I were jubilant and dared duets through all of the second +dog-watch. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And this morning, in a smooth sea and gentle breeze, the Horn bore almost due +north of us not more than six miles away. Here we were, well abreast and +reeling off westing. +</p> + +<p> +“What price tobacco this morning?” I quizzed Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +“Going up,” he came back. “Wish I had a thousand bets like +the one with you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced about at sea and sky and gauged the speed of our way by the foam, but +failed to see anything that warranted his remark. It was surely fine weather, +and the steward, in token of the same, was trying to catch fluttering Cape +pigeons with a bent pin on a piece of thread. +</p> + +<p> +For’ard, on the poop, I encountered Mr. Pike. It <i>was</i> an encounter, +for his salutation was a grunt. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’re going right along,” I ventured cheerily. +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply, but turned and stared into the gray south-west with an +expression sourer than any I had ever seen on his face. He mumbled something I +failed to catch, and, on my asking him to repeat it, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s breeding weather. Can’t you see it?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“What d’ye think we’re taking off the kites for?” he +growled. +</p> + +<p> +I looked aloft. The skysails were already furled; men were furling the royals; +and the topgallant-yards were running down while clewlines and buntlines bagged +the canvas. Yet, if anything, our northerly breeze fanned even more gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me if I can see any weather,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Then go and take a look at the barometer,” he grunted, as he +turned on his heel and swung away from me. +</p> + +<p> +In the chart-room was Captain West, pulling on his long sea-boots. That would +have told me had there been no barometer, though the barometer was eloquent +enough of itself. The night before it had stood at 30.10. It was now 28.64. +Even in the pampero it had not been so low as that. +</p> + +<p> +“The usual Cape Horn programme,” Captain West smiled to me, as he +stood up in all his lean and slender gracefulness and reached for his long +oilskin coat. +</p> + +<p> +Still I could scarcely believe. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it very far away?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, and forebore in the act of speaking to lift his hand for me +to listen. The <i>Elsinore</i> rolled uneasily, and from without came the soft +and hollow thunder of sails emptying themselves against the masts and gear. +</p> + +<p> +We had chatted a bare five minutes, when again he lifted his head. This time +the <i>Elsinore</i> heeled over slightly and remained heeled over, while the +sighing whistle of a rising breeze awoke in the rigging. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s beginning to make,” he said, in the good old +Anglo-Saxon of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +And then I heard Mr. Pike snarling out orders, and in my heart discovered a +growing respect for Cape Horn—Cape Stiff, as the sailors call it. +</p> + +<p> +An hour later we were hove to on the port tack under upper-topsails and +foresail. The wind had come out of the south-west, and our leeway was setting +us down upon the land. Captain West gave orders to the mate to stand by to wear +ship. Both watches had been taking in sail, so that both watches were on deck +for the manoeuvre. +</p> + +<p> +It was astounding, the big sea that had arisen in so short a time. The wind was +blowing a gale that ever, in recurring gusts, increased upon itself. Nothing +was visible a hundred yards away. The day had become black-gray. In the cabin +lamps were burning. The view from the poop, along the length of the great +labouring ship, was magnificent. Seas burst and surged across her weather-rail +and kept her deck half filled, despite the spouting ports and gushing scuppers. +</p> + +<p> +On each of the two houses and on the poop the ship’s complement, all in +oilskins, was in groups. For’ard, Mr. Mellaire had charge. Mr. Pike took +charge of the ’midship-house and the poop. Captain West strolled up and +down, saw everything, said nothing; for it was the mate’s affair. +</p> + +<p> +When Mr. Pike ordered the wheel hard up, he slacked off all the mizzen-yards, +and followed it with a partial slacking of the main-yards, so that the +after-pressures were eased. The foresail and fore-lower- and-upper-topsails +remained flat in order to pay the head off before the wind. All this took time. +The men were slow, not strong, and without snap. They reminded me of dull oxen +by the way they moved and pulled. And the gale, ever snorting harder, now +snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could I glimpse the group on top the +for’ard-house. Again and again, leaning to it and holding their heads +down, the men on the ’midship-house were obliterated by the drive of +crested seas that burst against the rail, spouted to the lower-yards, and swept +in horizontal volumes across to leeward. And Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider +in a wind-tossed web, went back and forth along the slender bridge that was +itself a shaken thread in the blast of the storm. +</p> + +<p> +So tremendous were the gusts that for the time the <i>Elsinore</i> refused to +answer. She lay down to it; she was swept and racked by it; but her head did +not pay off before it, and all the while we drove down upon that bitter, iron +coast. And the world was black-gray, and violent, and very cold, with the +flying spray freezing to ice in every lodgment. +</p> + +<p> +We waited. The groups of men, head down to it, waited. Mr. Pike, restless, +angry, his blue eyes as bitter as the cold, his mouth as much a-snarl as the +snarl of the elements with which he fought, waited. The Samurai waited, +tranquil, casual, remote. And Cape Horn waited, there on our lee, for the bones +of our ship and us. +</p> + +<p> +And then the <i>Elsinore’s</i> bow paid off. The angle of the beat of the +gale changed, and soon, with dreadful speed, we were dashing straight before it +and straight toward the rocks we could not see. But all doubt was over. The +success of the manoeuvre was assured. Mr. Mellaire, informed by messenger along +the bridge from Mr. Pike, slacked off the head-yards. Mr. Pike, his eye on the +helmsman, his hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to +check the <i>Elsinore’s</i> rush into the wind as she came up on the +starboard tack. All was activity. Main- and mizzen-yards were braced up, and +the <i>Elsinore</i>, snugged down and hove to, had a lee of thousands of miles +of Southern Ocean. +</p> + +<p> +And all this had been accomplished in the stamping ground of storm, at the end +of the world, by a handful of wretched weaklings, under the drive of two strong +mates, with behind them the placid will of the Samurai. +</p> + +<p> +It had taken thirty minutes to wear ship, and I had learned how the best of +shipmasters can lose their ships without reproach. Suppose the <i>Elsinore</i> +had persisted in her refusal to payoff? Suppose anything had carried away? And +right here enters Mr. Pike. It is his task ever to see that every rope and +block and all the myriad other things in the vast and complicated gear of the +<i>Elsinore</i> are in strength not to carry away. Always have the masters of +our race required henchmen like Mr. Pike, and it seems the race has well +supplied those henchmen. +</p> + +<p> +Ere I went below I heard Captain West tell Mr. Pike that while both watches +were on deck it would be just as well to put a reef in the foresail before they +furled it. The mainsail and the crojack being off, I could see the men black on +the fore-yard. For half-an-hour I lingered, watching them. They seemed to make +no progress with the reef. Mr. Mellaire was with them, having direct +supervision of the job, while Mr. Pike, on the poop, growled and grumbled and +spat endless blasphemies into the flying air. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Two watches on a single yardarm and unable to put a reef in a +handkerchief like that!” he snorted. “What’ll it be if +we’re off here a month?” +</p> + +<p> +“A month!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“A month isn’t anything for Cape Stiff,” he said grimly. +“I’ve been off here seven weeks and then turned tail and run around +the other way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Around the world?” I gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“It was the only way to get to ’Frisco,” he answered. +“The Horn’s the Horn, and there’s no summer seas that +I’ve ever noticed in this neighbourhood.” +</p> + +<p> +My fingers were numb and I was chilled through when I took a last look at the +wretched men on the fore-yard and went below to warm up. +</p> + +<p> +A little later, as I went in to table, through a cabin port I stole a look +for’ard between seas and saw the men still struggling on the freezing +yard. +</p> + +<p> +The four of us were at table, and it was very comfortable, in spite of the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> violent antics. The room was warm. The storm-racks on +the table kept each dish in its place. The steward served and moved about with +ease and apparent unconcern, although I noticed an occasional anxious gleam in +his eyes when he poised some dish at a moment when the ship pitched and flung +with unusual wildness. +</p> + +<p> +And now and again I thought of the poor devils on the yard. Well, they belonged +there by right, just as we belonged here by right in this oasis of the cabin. I +looked at Mr. Pike and wagered to myself that half-a-dozen like him could +master that stubborn foresail. As for the Samurai, I was convinced that alone, +not moving from his seat, by a tranquil exertion of will, he could accomplish +the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +The lighted sea-lamps swung and leaped in their gimbals, ever battling with the +dancing shadows in the murky gray. The wood-work creaked and groaned. The +jiggermast, a huge cylinder of hollow steel that perforated the apartment +through deck above and floor beneath, was hideously vocal with the storm. Far +above, taut ropes beat against it so that it clanged like a boiler-shop. There +was a perpetual thunder of seas falling on our deck and crash of water against +our for’ard wall; while the ten thousand ropes and gears aloft bellowed +and screamed as the storm smote them. +</p> + +<p> +And yet all this was from without. Here, at this well-appointed table, was no +draught nor breath of wind, no drive of spray nor wash of sea. We were in the +heart of peace in the midmost centre of the storm. Margaret was in high +spirits, and her laughter vied with the clang of the jiggermast. Mr. Pike was +gloomy, but I knew him well enough to attribute his gloom, not to the elements, +but to the inefficients futilely freezing on the yard. As for me, I looked +about at the four of us—blue-eyed, gray-eyed, all fair-skinned and royal +blond—and somehow it seemed that I had long since lived this, and that +with me and in me were all my ancestors, and that their lives and memories were +mine, and that all this vexation of the sea and air and labouring ship was of +old time and a thousand times before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<p> +“How are you for a climb?” Margaret asked me, shortly after we had +left the table. +</p> + +<p> +She stood challengingly at my open door, in oilskins, sou’wester, and +sea-boots. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never seen you with a foot above the deck since we +sailed,” she went on. “Have you a good head?” +</p> + +<p> +I marked my book, rolled out of my bunk in which I had been wedged, and clapped +my hands for Wada. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you?” she cried eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“If you let me lead,” I answered airily, “and if you will +promise to hold on tight. Whither away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Into the top of the jigger. It’s the easiest. As for holding on, +please remember that I have often done it. It is with you the doubt +rests.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” I retorted; “do you lead then. I shall hold on +tight.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen many a landsman funk it,” she teased. “There are +no lubber-holes in our tops.” +</p> + +<p> +“And most likely I shall,” I agreed. “I’ve never been +aloft in my life, and since there is no hole for a lubber.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me, half believing my confession of weakness, while I extended my +arms for the oilskin which Wada struggled on to me. +</p> + +<p> +On the poop it was magnificent, and terrible, and sombre. The universe was very +immediately about us. It blanketed us in storming wind and flying spray and +grayness. Our main deck was impassable, and the relief of the wheel came aft +along the bridge. It was two o’clock, and for over two hours the frozen +wretches had laid out upon the fore-yard. They were still there, weak, feeble, +hopeless. Captain West, stepping out in the lee of the chart-house, gazed at +them for several minutes. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have to give up that reef,” he said to Mr. Pike. +“Just make the sail fast. Better put on double gaskets.” +</p> + +<p> +And with lagging feet, from time to time pausing and holding on as spray and +the tops of waves swept over him, the mate went for’ard along the bridge +to vent his scorn on the two watches of a four-masted ship that could not reef +a foresail. +</p> + +<p> +It is true. They could not do it, despite their willingness, for this I have +learned: <i>the men do their weak best whenever the order is given to shorten +sail</i>. It must be that they are afraid. They lack the iron of Mr. Pike, the +wisdom and the iron of Captain West. Always, have I noticed, with all the +alacrity of which they are capable, do they respond to any order to shorten +down. That is why they are for’ard, in that pigsty of a forecastle, +because they lack the iron. Well, I can say only this: If nothing else could +have prevented the funk hinted at by Margaret, the sorry spectacle of these +ironless, spineless creatures was sufficient safeguard. How could I funk in the +face of their weakness—I, who lived aft in the high place? +</p> + +<p> +Margaret did not disdain the aid of my hand as she climbed upon the pin-rail at +the foot of the weather jigger-rigging. But it was merely the recognition of a +courtesy on her part, for the next moment she released her mittened hand from +mine, swung boldly outboard into the face of the gale, and around against the +ratlines. Then she began to climb. I followed, almost unaware of the +ticklishness of the exploit to a tyro, so buoyed up was I by her example and by +my scorn of the weaklings for’ard. Where men could go, I could go. What +men could do, I could do. And no daughter of the Samurai could out-game me. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was slow work. In the windward rolls against the storm-gusts one was +pinned helplessly, like a butterfly, against the rigging. At such times, so +great was the pressure one could not lift hand nor foot. Also, there was no +need for holding on. As I have said, one was pinned against the rigging by the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +Through the snow beginning to drive the deck grew small beneath me, until a +fall meant a broken back or death, unless one landed in the sea, in which case +the result would be frigid drowning. And still Margaret climbed. Without pause +she went out under the overhanging platform of the top, shifted her holds to +the rigging that went aloft from it, and swung around this rigging, easily, +carelessly, timing the action to the roll, and stood safely upon the top. +</p> + +<p> +I followed. I breathed no prayers, knew no qualms, as I presented my back to +the deck and climbed out under the overhang, feeling with my hands for holds I +could not see. I was in an ecstasy. I could dare anything. Had she sprung into +the air, stretched out her arms, and soared away on the breast of the gale, I +should have unhesitatingly followed her. +</p> + +<p> +As my head outpassed the edge of the top so that she came into view, I could +see she was looking at me with storm-bright eyes. And as I swung around the +rigging lightly and joined her, I saw approval in her eyes that was quickly +routed by petulance. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you’ve done this sort of thing before,” she reproached, +calling loudly, so that I might hear, her lips close to my ear. +</p> + +<p> +I shook a denial with my head that brightened her eyes again. She nodded and +smiled, and sat down, dangling her sea-boots into snow-swirled space from the +edge of the top. I sat beside her, looking down into the snow that hid the deck +while it exaggerated the depth out of which we had climbed. +</p> + +<p> +We were all alone there, a pair of storm petrels perched in mid air on a steel +stick that arose out of snow and that vanished above into snow. We had come to +the tip of the world, and even that tip had ceased to be. But no. Out of the +snow, down wind, with motionless wings, driving fully eighty or ninety miles an +hour, appeared a huge albatross. He must have been fifteen feet from wing-tip +to wing-tip. He had seen his danger ere we saw him, and, tilting his body on +the blast, he carelessly veered clear of collision. His head and neck were +rimed with age or frost—we could not tell which—and his bright +bead-eye noted us as he passed and whirled away on a great circle into the snow +to leeward. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret’s hand shot out to mine. +</p> + +<p> +“It alone was worth the climb!” she cried. And then the +<i>Elsinore</i> flung down, and Margaret’s hand clutched tighter for +holding, while from the hidden depths arose the crash and thunder of the great +west wind drift upon our decks. +</p> + +<p> +Quickly as the snow-squall had come, it passed with the same sharp quickness, +and as in a flash we could see the lean length of the ship beneath us—the +main deck full with boiling flood, the forecastle-head buried in a bursting +sea, the lookout, stationed for very life back on top the for’ard-house, +hanging on, head down, to the wind-drive of ocean, and, directly under us, the +streaming poop and Mr. Mellaire, with a handful of men, rigging relieving +tackles on the tiller. And we saw the Samurai emerge in the lee of the +chart-house, swaying with casual surety on the mad deck, as he spoke what must +have been instructions to Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +The gray circle of the world had removed itself from us for several hundred +yards, and we could see the mighty sweep of sea. Shaggy gray-beards, sixty feet +from trough to crest, leapt out of the windward murky gray, and in unending +procession rushed upon the <i>Elsinore</i>, one moment overtoppling her slender +frailness, the next moment splashing a hundred tons of water on her deck and +flinging her skyward as they passed beneath and foamed and crested from sight +in the murky gray to leeward. And the great albatrosses veered and circled +about us, beating up into the bitter violence of the gale and sweeping grandly +away before it far faster than it blew. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret forbore from looking to challenge me with eloquent, questioning eyes. +With numb fingers inside my thick mitten, I drew aside the ear-flap of her +sou’wester and shouted: +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing new. I have been here before. In the lives of all my +fathers have I been here. The frost is on my cheek, the salt bites my nostrils, +the wind chants in my ears, and it is an old happening. I know, now, that my +forbears were Vikings. I was seed of them in their own day. With them I have +raided English coasts, dared the Pillars of Hercules, forayed the +Mediterranean, and sat in the high place of government over the soft sun-warm +peoples. I am Hengist and Horsa; I am of the ancient heroes, even legendary to +them. I have bearded and bitten the frozen seas, and, aforetime of that, ere +ever the ice-ages came to be, I have dripped my shoulders in reindeer gore, +slain the mastodon and the sabre-tooth, scratched the record of my prowess on +the walls of deep-buried caves—ay, and suckled she-wolves side by side +with my brother-cubs, the scars of whose fangs are now upon me.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed deliciously, and a snow-squall drove upon us and cut our cheeks, +and the <i>Elsinore</i> flung over and down as if she would never rise again, +while we held on and swept through the air in a dizzying arc. Margaret released +a hand, still laughing, and pressed aside my ear-flap. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know anything about it,” she cried. “It sounds +like poetry. But I believe it. It has to be, for it has been. I have heard it +aforetime, when skin-clad men sang in fire-circles that pressed back the frost +and night.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the books?” she queried maliciously, as we prepared to +descend. +</p> + +<p> +“They can go hang, along with all the brain-sick, world-sick fools that +wrote them,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +Again she laughed deliciously, though the wind tore the sound away as she swung +out into space, muscled herself by her arms while she caught footholds beneath +her which she could not see, and passed out of my sight under the perilous +overhang of the top. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<p> +“What price tobacco?” was Mr. Mellaire’s greeting, when I +came on deck this morning, bruised and weary, aching in every bone and muscle +from sixty hours of being tossed about. +</p> + +<p> +The wind had fallen to a dead calm toward morning, and the Elsinore, her +several spread sails booming and slatting, rolled more miserably than ever. Mr. +Mellaire pointed for’ard of our starboard beam. I could make out a bleak +land of white and jagged peaks. +</p> + +<p> +“Staten Island, the easterly end of it,” said Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +And I knew that we were in the position of a vessel just rounding Staten Island +preliminary to bucking the Horn. And, yet, four days ago, we had run through +the Straits of Le Maire and stolen along toward the Horn. Three days ago we had +been well abreast of the Horn and even a few miles past. And here we were now, +starting all over again and far in the rear of where we had originally started. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The condition of the men is truly wretched. During the gale the forecastle was +washed out twice. This means that everything in it was afloat and that every +article of clothing, including mattresses and blankets, is wet and will remain +wet in this bitter weather until we are around the Horn and well up in the +good-weather latitudes. The same is true of the ’midship-house. Every +room in it, with the exception of the cook’s and the sail-makers’ +(which open for’ard on Number Two hatch), is soaking. And they have no +fires in their rooms with which to dry things out. +</p> + +<p> +I peeped into Charles Davis’s room. It was terrible. He grinned to me and +nodded his head. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just as well O’Sullivan wasn’t here, sir,” +he said. “He’d a-drowned in the lower bunk. And I want to tell you +I was doing some swimmin’ before I could get into the top one. And salt +water’s bad for my sores. I oughtn’t to be in a hole like this in +Cape Horn weather. Look at the ice, there, on the floor. It’s below +freezin’ right now in this room, and my blankets are wet, and I’m a +sick man, as any man can tell that’s got a nose.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you’d been decent to the mate you might have got decent +treatment in return,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” he sneered. “You needn’t think you can lose me, +sir. I can grow fat on this sort of stuff. Why, sir, when I think of the court +doin’s in Seattle I just couldn’t die. An’ if you’ll +listen to me, sir, you’ll cover the steward’s money. You +can’t lose. I’m advisin’ you, sir, because you’re a +sort of decent sort. Anybody that bets on my going over the side is a sure +loser.” +</p> + +<p> +“How could you dare ship on a voyage like this in your condition?” +I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Condition?” he queried with a fine assumption of innocence. +“Why, that is why I did ship. I was in tiptop shape when I sailed. All +this come out on me afterward. You remember seein’ me aloft, an’ up +to my neck in water. And I trimmed coal below, too. A sick man couldn’t +do it. And remember, sir, you’ll have to testify to how I did my duty at +the beginning before I took down.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bet with you myself if you think I’m goin’ to +die,” he called after me. +</p> + +<p> +Already the sailors show marks of the hardship they are enduring. It is +surprising, in so short a time, how lean their faces have grown, how lined and +seamed. They must dry their underclothing with their body heat. Their outer +garments, under their oilskins, are soggy. And yet, paradoxically, despite +their lean, drawn faces, they have grown very stout. Their walk is a waddle, +and they bulge with seeming corpulency. This is due to the amount of clothing +they have on. I noticed Larry, to-day, had on two vests, two coats, and an +overcoat, with his oilskin outside of that. They are elephantine in their gait +for, in addition to everything else, they have wrapped their feet, outside +their sea-boots, with gunny sacking. +</p> + +<p> +It <i>is</i> cold, although the deck thermometer stood at thirty-three to-day +at noon. I had Wada weigh the clothing I wear on deck. Omitting oilskins and +boots, it came to eighteen pounds. And yet I am not any too warm in all this +gear when the wind is blowing. How sailors, after having once experienced the +Horn, can ever sign on again for a voyage around is beyond me. It but serves to +show how stupid they must be. +</p> + +<p> +I feel sorry for Henry, the training-ship boy. He is more my own kind, and some +day he will make a henchman of the afterguard and a mate like Mr. Pike. In the +meantime, along with Buckwheat, the other boy who berths in the +’midship-house with him, he suffers the same hardship as the men. He is +very fair-skinned, and I noticed this afternoon, when he was pulling on a +brace, that the sleeves of his oil-skins, assisted by the salt water, have +chafed his wrists till they are raw and bleeding and breaking out in sea-boils. +Mr. Mellaire tells me that in another week there will be a plague of these +boils with all hands for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +“When do you think we’ll be up with the Horn again?” I +innocently queried of Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +He turned upon me in a rage, as if I had insulted him, and positively snarled +in my face ere he swung away without the courtesy of an answer. It is evident +that he takes the sea seriously. That is why, I fancy, he is so excellent a +seaman. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The days pass—if the interval of sombre gray that comes between the +darknesses can be called day. For a week, now, we have not seen the sun. Our +ship’s position in this waste of storm and sea is conjectural. Once, by +dead reckoning, we gained up with the Horn and a hundred miles south of it. And +then came another sou’west gale that tore our fore-topsail and brand new +spencer out of the belt-ropes and swept us away to a conjectured longitude east +of Staten Island. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, I know now this Great West Wind that blows forever around the world south +of 55. And I know why the chart-makers have capitalized it, as, for instance, +when I read “The Great West Wind Drift.” And I know why the +<i>Sailing Directions</i> advise: “<i>Whatever you do</i>, <i>make +westing</i>! <i>make westing</i>!” +</p> + +<p> +And the West Wind and the drift of the West Wind will not permit the +<i>Elsinore</i> to make westing. Gale follows gale, always from the west, and +we make easting. And it is bitter cold, and each gale snorts up with a prelude +of driving snow. +</p> + +<p> +In the cabin the lamps burn all day long. No more does Mr. Pike run the +phonograph, nor does Margaret ever touch the piano. She complains of being +bruised and sore. I have a wrenched shoulder from being hurled against the +wall. And both Wada and the steward are limping. Really, the only comfort I can +find is in my bunk, so wedged with boxes and pillows that the wildest rolls +cannot throw me out. There, save for my meals and for an occasional run on deck +for exercise and fresh air, I lie and read eighteen and nineteen hours out of +the twenty-four. But the unending physical strain is very wearisome. +</p> + +<p> +How it must be with the poor devils for’ard is beyond conceiving. The +forecastle has been washed out several times, and everything is soaking wet. +Besides, they have grown weaker, and two watches are required to do what one +ordinary watch could do. Thus, they must spend as many hours on the sea-swept +deck and aloft on the freezing yards as I do in my warm, dry bunk. Wada tells +me that they never undress, but turn into their wet bunks in their oil-skins +and sea-boots and wet undergarments. +</p> + +<p> +To look at them crawling about on deck or in the rigging is enough. They are +truly weak. They are gaunt-cheeked and haggard-gray of skin, with great dark +circles under their eyes. The predicted plague of sea-boils and sea-cuts has +come, and their hands and wrists and arms are frightfully afflicted. Now one, +and now another, and sometimes several, either from being knocked down by seas +or from general miserableness, take to the bunk for a day or so off. This means +more work for the others, so that the men on their feet are not tolerant of the +sick ones, and a man must be very sick to escape being dragged out to work by +his mates. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot but marvel at Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs. Old and fragile as they +are, it seems impossible that they can endure what they do. For that matter, I +cannot understand why they work at all. I cannot understand why any of them +toil on and obey an order in this freezing hell of the Horn. Is it because of +fear of death that they do not cease work and bring death to all of us? Or is +it because they are slave-beasts, with a slave-psychology, so used all their +lives to being driven by their masters that it is beyond their mental power to +refuse to obey? +</p> + +<p> +And yet most of them, in a week after we reach Seattle, will be on board other +ships outward bound for the Horn. Margaret says the reason for this is that +sailors forget. Mr. Pike agrees. He says give them a week in the south-east +trades as we run up the Pacific and they will have forgotten that they have +ever been around the Horn. I wonder. Can they be as stupid as this? Does pain +leave no record with them? Do they fear only the immediate thing? Have they no +horizons wider than a day? Then indeed do they belong where they are. +</p> + +<p> +They <i>are</i> cowardly. This was shown conclusively this morning at two +o’clock. Never have I witnessed such panic fear, and it was fear of the +immediate thing—fear, stupid and beast-like. It was Mr. Mellaire’s +watch. As luck would have it, I was reading Boas’s <i>Mind of Primitive +Man</i> when I heard the rush of feet over my head. The <i>Elsinore</i> was +hove to on the port tack at the time, under very short canvas. I was wondering +what emergency had brought the watch upon the poop, when I heard another rush +of feet that meant the second watch. I heard no pulling and hauling, and the +thought of mutiny flashed across my mind. +</p> + +<p> +Still nothing happened, and, growing curious, I got into my sea-boots, +sheepskin coat, and oilskin, put on my sou’wester and mittens, and went +on deck. Mr. Pike had already dressed and was ahead of me. Captain West, who in +this bad weather sleeps in the chart-room, stood in the lee doorway of the +house, through which the lamplight streamed on the frightened faces of the men. +</p> + +<p> +Those of the ’midship-house were not present, but every man Jack of the +forecastle, with the exception of Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs, as I afterwards +learned, had joined in the flight aft. Andy Fay, who belonged in the watch +below, had calmly remained in his bunk, while Mulligan Jacobs had taken +advantage of the opportunity to sneak into the forecastle and fill his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter, Mr. Pike?” Captain West asked. +</p> + +<p> +Before the mate could reply, Bert Rhine snickered: +</p> + +<p> +“The devil’s come aboard, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +But his snicker was palpably an assumption of unconcern he did not possess. The +more I think over it the more I am surprised that such keen men as the +gangsters should have been frightened by what had occurred. But frightened they +were, the three of them, out of their bunks and out of the precious surcease of +their brief watch below. +</p> + +<p> +So fear-struck was Larry that he chattered and grimaced like an ape, and +shouldered and struggled to get away from the dark and into the safety of the +shaft of light that shone out of the chart-house. Tony, the Greek, was just as +bad, mumbling to himself and continually crossing himself. He was joined in +this, as a sort of chorus, by the two Italians, Guido Bombini and Mike +Cipriani. Arthur Deacon was almost in collapse, and he and Chantz, the Jew, +shamelessly clung to each other for support. Bob, the fat and overgrown youth, +was sobbing, while the other youth, Bony the Splinter, was shivering and +chattering his teeth. Yes, and the two best sailors for’ard, Tom Spink +and the Maltese Cockney, stood in the background, their backs to the dark, +their faces yearning toward the light. +</p> + +<p> +More than all other contemptible things in this world there are two that I +loathe and despise: hysteria in a woman; fear and cowardice in a man. The first +turns me to ice. I cannot sympathize with hysteria. The second turns my +stomach. Cowardice in a man is to me positively nauseous. And this fear-smitten +mass of human animals on our reeling poop raised my gorge. Truly, had I been a +god at that moment, I should have annihilated the whole mass of them. No; I +should have been merciful to one. He was the Faun. His bright, pain-liquid, and +flashing-eager eyes strained from face to face with desire to understand. He +did not know what had occurred, and, being stone-deaf, had thought the rush aft +a response to a call for all hands. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed Mr. Mellaire. He may be afraid of Mr. Pike, and he is a murderer; but +at any rate he has no fear of the supernatural. With two men above him in +authority, although it was his watch, there was no call for him to do anything. +He swayed back and forth in balance to the violent motions of the +<i>Elsinore</i> and looked on with eyes that were amused and cynical. +</p> + +<p> +“What does the devil look like, my man?” Captain West asked. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine grinned sheepishly. +</p> + +<p> +“Answer the captain!” Mr. Pike snarled at him. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it was murder, sheer murder, that leapt into the gangster’s eyes for +the instant, in acknowledgment of the snarl. Then he replied to Captain West: +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t wait to see, sir. But it’s one whale of a +devil.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s as big as a elephant, sir,” volunteered Bill Quigley. +“I seen’m face to face, sir. He almost got me when I run out of the +fo’c’s’le.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lord, sir!” Larry moaned. “The way he hit the house, +sir. It was the call to Judgment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your theology is mixed, my man,” Captain West smiled quietly, +though I could not help seeing how tired was his face and how tired were his +wonderful Samurai eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He turned to the mate. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pike, will you please go for’ard and interview this devil? +Fasten him up and tie him down and I’ll take a look at him in the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Pike; and Kipling’s line came to me: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared?” +</p> + +<p> +And as I went for’ard through the wall of darkness after Mr. Pike and Mr. +Mellaire along the freezing, slender, sea-swept bridge—not a sailor dared +to accompany us—other lines of “The Galley Slave” drifted +through my brain, such as: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in +gold—<br /> +We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold. . . ” +</p> + +<p> +And: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel,<br /> +By the welts the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +And: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled draughts of years gone by . +. . ” +</p> + +<p> +And I caught my great, radiant vision of Mr. Pike, galley slave of the race, +and a driver of men under men greater than he; the faithful henchman, the able +sailorman, battered and grizzled, branded and galled, the servant of the +sweep-head that made mastery of the sea. I know him now. He can never again +offend me. I forgive him everything—the whiskey raw on his breath the day +I came aboard at Baltimore, his moroseness when sea and wind do not favour, his +savagery to the men, his snarl and his sneer. +</p> + +<p> +On top the ’midship-house we got a ducking that makes me shiver to +recall. I had dressed too hastily properly to fasten my oilskin about my neck, +so that I was wet to the skin. We crossed the next span of bridge through +driving spray, and were well upon the top of the for’ard-house when +something adrift on the deck hit the for’ard wall a terrific smash. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever it is, it’s playing the devil,” Mr. Pike yelled in +my ear, as he endeavoured to locate the thing by the dry-battery light-stick +which he carried. +</p> + +<p> +The pencil of light travelled over dark water, white with foam, that churned +upon the deck. +</p> + +<p> +“There it goes!” Mr. Pike cried, as the <i>Elsinore</i> dipped by +the head and hurtled the water for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +The light went out as the three of us caught holds and crouched to a deluge of +water from overside. As we emerged, from under the forecastle-head we heard a +tremendous thumping and battering. Then, as the bow lifted, for an instant in +the pencil of light that immediately lost it, I glimpsed a vague black object +that bounded down the inclined deck where no water was. What became of it we +could not see. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike descended to the deck, followed by Mr. Mellaire. Again, as the +<i>Elsinore</i> dipped by the head and fetched a surge of sea-water from aft +along the runway, I saw the dark object bound for’ard directly at the +mates. They sprang to safety from its charge, the light went out, while another +icy sea broke aboard. +</p> + +<p> +For a time I could see nothing of the two men. Next, in the light flashed from +the stick, I guessed that Mr. Pike was in pursuit of the thing. He evidently +must have captured it at the rail against the starboard rigging and caught a +turn around it with a loose end of rope. As the vessel rolled to windward some +sort of a struggle seemed to be going on. The second mate sprang to the +mate’s assistance, and, together, with more loose ends, they seemed to +subdue the thing. +</p> + +<p> +I descended to see. By the light-stick we made it out to be a large, +barnacle-crusted cask. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s been afloat for forty years,” was Mr. Pike’s +judgment. “Look at the size of the barnacles, and look at the +whiskers.” +</p> + +<p> +“And it’s full of something,” said Mr. Mellaire. “Hope +it isn’t water.” +</p> + +<p> +I rashly lent a hand when they started to work the cask for’ard, between +seas and taking advantage of the rolls and pitches, to the shelter under the +forecastle-head. As a result, even through my mittens, I was cut by the sharp +edges of broken shell. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s liquor of some sort,” said the mate, “but we +won’t risk broaching it till morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where did it come from?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Over the side’s the only place it could have come from.” Mr. +Pike played the light over it. “Look at it! It’s been afloat for +years and years.” +</p> + +<p> +“The stuff ought to be well-seasoned,” commented Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving them to lash the cask securely, I stole along the deck to the +forecastle and peered in. The men, in their headlong flight, had neglected to +close the doors, and the place was afloat. In the flickering light from a small +and very smoky sea-lamp it was a dismal picture. No self-respecting cave-man, I +am sure, would have lived in such a hole. +</p> + +<p> +Even as I looked a bursting sea filled the runway between the house and rail, +and through the doorway in which I stood the freezing water rushed waist-deep. +I had to hold on to escape being swept inside the room. From a top bunk, lying +on his side, Andy Fay regarded me steadily with his bitter blue eyes. Seated on +the rough table of heavy planks, his sea-booted feet swinging in the water, +Mulligan Jacobs pulled at his pipe. When he observed me he pointed to pulpy +book-pages that floated about. +</p> + +<p> +“Me library’s gone to hell,” he mourned as he indicated the +flotsam. “There’s me Byron. An’ there goes Zola an’ +Browning with a piece of Shakespeare runnin’ neck an’ neck, +an’ what’s left of <i>Anti-Christ</i> makin’ a bad last. +An’ there’s Carlyle and Zola that cheek by jowl you can’t +tell ’em apart.” +</p> + +<p> +Here the <i>Elsinore</i> lay down to starboard, and the water in the forecastle +poured out against my legs and hips. My wet mittens slipped on the iron work, +and I swept down the runway into the scuppers, where I was turned over and over +by another flood that had just boarded from windward. +</p> + +<p> +I know I was rather confused, and that I had swallowed quite a deal of salt +water, ere I got my hands on the rungs of the ladder and climbed to the top of +the house. On my way aft along the bridge I encountered the crew coming +for’ard. Mr. Mellaire and Mr. Pike were talking in the lee of the +chart-house, and inside, as I passed below, Captain West was smoking a cigar. +</p> + +<p> +After a good rub down, in dry pyjamas, I was scarcely back in my bunk with the +<i>Mind of Primitive Man</i> before me, when the stampede over my head was +repeated. I waited for the second rush. It came, and I proceeded to dress. +</p> + +<p> +The scene on the poop duplicated the previous one, save that the men were more +excited, more frightened. They were babbling and chattering all together. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up!” Mr. Pike was snarling when I came upon them. “One +at a time, and answer the captain’s question.” +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t no barrel this time, sir,” Tom Spink said. +“It’s alive. An’ if it ain’t the devil it’s the +ghost of a drownded man. I see ’m plain an’ clear. He’s a +man, or was a man once—” +</p> + +<p> +“They was two of ’em, sir,” Richard Giller, one of the +“bricklayers,” broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“I think he looked like Petro Marinkovich, sir,” Tom Spink went on. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ the other was Jespersen—I seen ’m,” Giller +added. +</p> + +<p> +“They was three of ’em, sir,” said Nosey Murphy. +“O’Sullivan, sir, was the other one. They ain’t devils, sir. +They’re drownded men. They come aboard right over the bows, an’ +they moved slow like drownded men. Sorensen seen the first one first. He caught +my arm an’ pointed, an’ then I seen ’m. He was on top the +for’ard-house. And Olansen seen ’m, an’ Deacon, sir, +an’ Hackey. We all seen ’m, sir . . . an’ the second one; +an’ when the rest run away I stayed long enough to see the third one. +Mebbe there’s more. I didn’t wait to see.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain West stopped the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Pike,” he said wearily, “will you straighten this +nonsense out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” Mr. Pike responded, then turned on the men. “Come +on, all of you! There’s three devils to tie down this time.” +</p> + +<p> +But the men shrank away from the order and from him. +</p> + +<p> +“For two cents . . . ” I heard Mr. Pike growl to himself, then +choke off utterance. +</p> + +<p> +He flung about on his heel and started for the bridge. In the same order as on +the previous trip, Mr. Mellaire second, and I bringing up the rear, we +followed. It was a similar journey, save that we caught a ducking midway on the +first span of bridge as well as a ducking on the ’midship-house. +</p> + +<p> +We halted on top the for’ard-house. In vain Mr. Pike flashed his +light-stick. Nothing was to be seen nor heard save the white-flecked dark water +on our deck, the roar of the gale in our rigging, and the crash and thunder of +seas falling aboard. We advanced half-way across the last span of bridge to the +fore-castle head, and were driven to pause and hang on at the foremast by a +bursting sea. +</p> + +<p> +Between the drives of spray Mr. Pike flashed his stick. I heard him exclaim +something. Then he went on to the forecastle-head, followed by Mr. Mellaire, +while I waited by the foremast, clinging tight, and endured another ducking. +Through the emergencies I could see the pencil of light, appearing and +disappearing, darting here and there. Several minutes later the mates were back +with me. +</p> + +<p> +“Half our head-gear’s carried away,” Mr. Pike told me. +“We must have run into something.” +</p> + +<p> +“I felt a jar, right after you’ went below, sir, last time,” +said Mr. Mellaire. “Only I thought it was a thump of sea.” +</p> + +<p> +“So did I feel it,” the mate agreed. “I was just taking off +my boots. I thought it was a sea. But where are the three devils?” +</p> + +<p> +“Broaching the cask,” the second mate suggested. +</p> + +<p> +We made the forecastle-head, descended the iron ladder, and went for’ard, +inside, underneath, out of the wind and sea. There lay the cask, securely +lashed. The size of the barnacles on it was astonishing. They were as large as +apples and inches deep. A down-fling of bow brought a foot of water about our +boots; and as the bow lifted and the water drained away, it drew out from the +shell-crusted cask streamers of seaweed a foot or so in length. +</p> + +<p> +Led by Mr. Pike and watching our chance between seas, we searched the deck and +rails between the forecastle-head and the for’ard-house and found no +devils. The mate stepped into the forecastle doorway, and his light-stick cut +like a dagger through the dim illumination of the murky sea-lamp. And we saw +the devils. Nosey Murphy had been right. There were three of them. +</p> + +<p> +Let me give the picture: A drenched and freezing room of rusty, paint-scabbed +iron, low-roofed, double-tiered with bunks, reeking with the filth of thirty +men, despite the washing of the sea. In a top bunk, on his side, in sea-boots +and oilskins, staring steadily with blue, bitter eyes, Andy Fay; on the table, +pulling at a pipe, with hanging legs dragged this way and that by the churn of +water, Mulligan Jacobs, solemnly regarding three men, sea-booted and bloody, +who stand side by side, of a height and not duly tall, swaying in unison to the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> down-flinging and up-lifting. +</p> + +<p> +But such men! I know my East Side and my East End, and I am accustomed to the +faces of all the ruck of races, yet with these three men I was at fault. The +Mediterranean had surely never bred such a breed; nor had Scandinavia. They +were not blonds. They were not brunettes. Nor were they of the Brown, or Black, +or Yellow. Their skin was white under a bronze of weather. Wet as was their +hair, it was plainly a colourless, sandy hair. Yet their eyes were +dark—and yet not dark. They were neither blue, nor gray, nor green, nor +hazel. Nor were they black. They were topaz, pale topaz; and they gleamed and +dreamed like the eyes of great cats. They regarded us like walkers in a dream, +these pale-haired storm-waifs with pale, topaz eyes. They did not bow, they did +not smile, in no way did they recognize our presence save that they looked at +us and dreamed. +</p> + +<p> +But Andy Fay greeted us. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a hell of a night an’ not a wink of sleep with these +goings-on,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Now where did they blow in from a night like this?” Mulligan +Jacobs complained. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got a tongue in your mouth,” Mr. Pike snarled. +“Why ain’t you asked ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +“As though you didn’t know I could use the tongue in me mouth, you +old stiff,” Jacobs snarled back. +</p> + +<p> +But it was no time for their private feud. Mr. Pike turned on the dreaming +new-comers and addressed them in the mangled and aborted phrases of a dozen +languages such as the world-wandering Anglo-Saxon has had every opportunity to +learn but is too stubborn-brained and wilful-mouthed to wrap his tongue about. +</p> + +<p> +The visitors made no reply. They did not even shake their heads. Their faces +remained peculiarly relaxed and placid, incurious and pleasant, while in their +eyes floated profounder dreams. Yet they were human. The blood of their +injuries stained them and clotted on their clothes. +</p> + +<p> +“Dutchmen,” snorted Mr. Pike, with all due contempt for other +breeds, as he waved them to make themselves at home in any of the bunks. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike’s ethnology is narrow. Outside his own race he is aware of only +three races: niggers, Dutchmen, and Dagoes. +</p> + +<p> +Again our visitors proved themselves human. They understood the mate’s +invitation, and, glancing first at one another, they climbed into three +top-bunks and closed their eyes. I could swear the first of them was asleep in +half a minute. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have to clean up for’ard, or we’ll be having the +sticks about our ears,” the mate said, already starting to depart. +“Get the men along, Mr. Mellaire, and call out the carpenter.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<p> +And no westing! We have been swept back three degrees of easting since the +night our visitors came on board. They are the great mystery, these three men +of the sea. “Horn Gypsies,” Margaret calls them; and Mr. Pike dubs +them “Dutchmen.” One thing is certain, they have a language of +their own which they talk with one another. But of our hotch-potch of +nationalities fore and aft there is no person who catches an inkling of their +language or nationality. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire raised the theory that they were Finns of some sort, but this was +indignantly denied by our big-footed youth of a carpenter, who swears he is a +Finn himself. Louis, the cook, avers that somewhere over the world, on some +forgotten voyage, he has encountered men of their type; but he can neither +remember the voyage nor their race. He and the rest of the Asiatics accept +their presence as a matter of course; but the crew, with the exception of Andy +Fay and Mulligan Jacobs, is very superstitious about the new-comers, and will +have nothing to do with them. +</p> + +<p> +“No good will come of them, sir,” Tom Spink, at the wheel, told us, +shaking his head forebodingly. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret’s mittened hand rested on my arm as we balanced to the easy roll +of the ship. We had paused from our promenade, which we now take each day, +religiously, as a constitutional, between eleven and twelve. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what is the matter with them?” she queried, nudging me +privily in warning of what was coming. +</p> + +<p> +“Because they ain’t men, Miss, as we can rightly call men. They +ain’t regular men.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a bit irregular, their manner of coming on board,” she +gurgled. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it, Miss,” Tom Spink exclaimed, brightening +perceptibly at the hint of understanding. “Where’d they come from? +They won’t tell. Of course they won’t tell. They ain’t men. +They’re spirits—ghosts of sailors that drowned as long ago as when +that cask went adrift from a sinkin’ ship, an’ that’s years +an’ years, Miss, as anybody can see, lookin’ at the size of the +barnacles on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” Margaret queried. +</p> + +<p> +“We all think so, Miss. We ain’t spent our lives on the sea for +nothin’. There’s no end of landsmen don’t believe in the +Flyin’ Dutchman. But what do they know? They’re just landsmen, +ain’t they? They ain’t never had their leg grabbed by a ghost, such +as I had, on the <i>Kathleen</i>, thirty-five years ago, down in the hole +’tween the water-casks. An’ didn’t that ghost rip the shoe +right off of me? An’ didn’t I fall through the hatch two days later +an’ break my shoulder?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Miss, I seen ’em makin’ signs to Mr. Pike that +we’d run into their ship hove to on the other tack. Don’t you +believe it. There wasn’t no ship.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you explain the carrying away of our head-gear?” I +demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s lots of things can’t be explained, sir,” was +Tom Spink’s answer. “Who can explain the way the Finns plays +tom-fool tricks with the weather? Yet everybody knows it. Why are we +havin’ a hard passage around the Horn, sir? I ask you that. Why, +sir?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“Because of the carpenter, sir. We’ve found out he’s a Finn. +Why did he keep it quiet all the way down from Baltimore?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did he tell it?” Margaret challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t tell it, Miss—leastways, not until after them +three others boarded us. I got my suspicions he knows more about ’m than +he’s lettin’ on. An’ look at the weather an’ the delay +we’re gettin’. An’ don’t everybody know the Finns is +regular warlocks an’ weather-breeders?” +</p> + +<p> +My ears pricked up. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get that word <i>warlock</i>?” I questioned. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Spink looked puzzled. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong with it, sir?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. It’s all right. But where did you get it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never got it, sir. I always had it. That’s what Finns +is—warlocks.” +</p> + +<p> +“And these three new-comers—they aren’t Finns?” asked +Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +The old Englishman shook his head solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Miss. They’re drownded sailors a long time drownded. All you +have to do is look at ’m. An’ the carpenter could tell us a few if +he was minded.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, our mysterious visitors are a welcome addition to our weakened +crew. I watch them at work. They are strong and willing. Mr. Pike says they are +real sailormen, even if he doesn’t understand their lingo. His theory is +that they are from some small old-country or outlander ship, which, hove to on +the opposite tack to the <i>Elsinore</i>, was run down and sunk. +</p> + +<p> +I have forgotten to say that we found the barnacled cask nearly filled with a +most delicious wine which none of us can name. As soon as the gale moderated +Mr. Pike had the cask brought aft and broached, and now the steward and Wada +have it all in bottles and spare demijohns. It is beautifully aged, and Mr. +Pike is certain that it is some sort of a mild and unheard-of brandy. Mr. +Mellaire merely smacks his lips over it, while Captain West, Margaret, and I +steadfastly maintain that it is wine. +</p> + +<p> +The condition of the men grows deplorable. They were always poor at pulling on +ropes, but now it takes two or three to pull as much as one used to pull. One +thing in their favour is that they are well, though grossly, fed. They have all +they want to eat, such as it is, but it is the cold and wet, the terrible +condition of the forecastle, the lack of sleep, and the almost continuous toil +of both watches on deck. Either watch is so weak and worthless that any severe +task requires the assistance of the other watch. As an instance, we finally +managed a reef in the foresail in the thick of a gale. It took both watches two +hours, yet Mr. Pike tells me that under similar circumstances, with an average +crew of the old days, he has seen a single watch reef the foresail in twenty +minutes. +</p> + +<p> +I have learned one of the prime virtues of a steel sailing-ship. Such a craft, +heavily laden, does not strain her seams open in bad weather and big seas. +Except for a tiny leak down in the fore-peak, with which we sailed from +Baltimore and which is bailed out with a pail once in several weeks, the +<i>Elsinore</i> is bone-dry. Mr. Pike tells me that had a wooden ship of her +size and cargo gone through the buffeting we have endured, she would be leaking +like a sieve. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Mellaire, out of his own experience, has added to my respect for the +Horn. When he was a young man he was once eight weeks in making around from 50 +in the Atlantic to 50 in the Pacific. Another time his vessel was compelled to +put back twice to the Falklands for repairs. And still another time, in a +wooden ship running back in distress to the Falklands, his vessel was lost in a +shift of gale in the very entrance to Port Stanley. As he told me: +</p> + +<p> +“And after we’d been there a month, sir, who should come in but the +old <i>Lucy Powers</i>. She was a sight!—her foremast clean gone out of +her and half her spars, the old man killed from one of the spars falling on +him, the mate with two broken arms, the second mate sick, and what was left of +the crew at the pumps. We’d lost our ship, so my skipper took charge, +refitted her, doubled up both crews, and we headed the other way around, +pumping two hours in every watch clear to Honolulu.” +</p> + +<p> +The poor wretched chickens! Because of their ill-judged moulting they are quite +featherless. It is a marvel that one of them survives, yet so far we have lost +only six. Margaret keeps the kerosene stove going, and, though they have ceased +laying, she confidently asserts that they are all layers and that we shall have +plenty of eggs once we get fine weather in the Pacific. +</p> + +<p> +There is little use to describe these monotonous and perpetual westerly gales. +One is very like another, and they follow so fast on one another’s heels +that the sea never has a chance to grow calm. So long have we rolled and tossed +about that the thought, say, of a solid, unmoving billiard-table is +inconceivable. In previous incarnations I have encountered things that did not +move, but . . . they were in previous incarnations. +</p> + +<p> +We have been up to the Diego Ramirez Rocks twice in the past ten days. At the +present moment, by vague dead reckoning, we are two hundred miles east of them. +We have been hove down to our hatches three times in the last week. We have had +six stout sails, of the heaviest canvas, furled and double-gasketed, torn loose +and stripped from the yards. Sometimes, so weak are our men, not more than half +of them can respond to the call for all hands. +</p> + +<p> +Lars Jacobson, who had his leg broken early in the voyage, was knocked down by +a sea several days back and had the leg rebroken. Ditman Olansen, the +crank-eyed Norwegian, went Berserker last night in the second dog-watch and +pretty well cleaned out his half of the forecastle. Wada reports that it +required the bricklayers, Fitzgibbon and Gilder, the Maltese Cockney, and Steve +Roberts, the cowboy, finally to subdue the madman. These are all men of Mr. +Mellaire’s watch. In Mr. Pike’s watch John Hackey, the San +Francisco hoodlum, who has stood out against the gangsters, has at last +succumbed and joined them. And only this morning Mr. Pike dragged Charles Davis +by the scruff of the neck out of the forecastle, where he had caught him +expounding sea-law to the miserable creatures. Mr. Mellaire, I notice on +occasion, remains unduly intimate with the gangster clique. And yet nothing +serious happens. +</p> + +<p> +And Charles Davis does not die. He seems actually to be gaining in weight. He +never misses a meal. From the break of the poop, in the shelter of the weather +cloth, our decks a thunder and rush of freezing water, I often watch him slip +out of his room between seas, mug and plate in hand, and hobble for’ard +to the galley for his food. He is a keen judge of the ship’s motions, for +never yet have I seen him get a serious ducking. Sometimes, of course, he may +get splattered with spray or wet to the knees, but he manages to be out of the +way whenever a big graybeard falls on board. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + +<p> +A wonderful event to-day! For five minutes, at noon, the sun was actually +visible. But such a sun!—a pale and cold and sickly orb that at meridian +was only 90 degrees 18 minutes above the horizon. And within the hour we were +taking in sail and lying down to the snow-gusts of a fresh south-west gale. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Whatever you do</i>, <i>make westing</i>! <i>make westing</i>!—this +sailing rule of the navigators for the Horn has been bitten out of iron. I can +understand why shipmasters, with a favouring slant of wind, have left sailors, +fallen overboard, to drown without heaving-to to lower a boat. Cape Horn is +iron, and it takes masters of iron to win around from east to west. +</p> + +<p> +And we make easting! This west wind is eternal. I listen incredulously when Mr. +Pike or Mr. Mellaire tells of times when easterly winds have blown in these +latitudes. It is impossible. Always does the west wind blow, gale upon gale and +gales everlasting, else why the “Great West Wind Drift” printed on +the charts! We of the afterguard are weary of this eternal buffeting. Our men +have become pulpy, washed-out, sore-corroded shadows of men. I should not be +surprised, in the end, to see Captain West turn tail and run eastward around +the world to Seattle. But Margaret smiles with surety, and nods her head, and +affirms that her father will win around to 50 in the Pacific. +</p> + +<p> +How Charles Davis survives in that wet, freezing, paint-scabbed room of iron in +the ’midship-house is beyond me—just as it is beyond me that the +wretched sailors in the wretched forecastle do not lie down in their bunks and +die, or, at least, refuse to answer the call of the watches. +</p> + +<p> +Another week has passed, and we are to-day, by observation, sixty miles due +south of the Straits of Le Maire, and we are hove-to, in a driving gale, on the +port tack. The glass is down to 28.58, and even Mr. Pike acknowledges that it +is one of the worst Cape Horn snorters he has ever experienced. +</p> + +<p> +In the old days the navigators used to strive as far south as 64 degrees or 65 +degrees, into the Antarctic drift ice, hoping, in a favouring spell, to make +westing at a prodigious rate across the extreme-narrowing wedges of longitude. +But of late years all shipmasters have accepted the hugging of the land all the +way around. Out of ten times ten thousand passages of Cape Stiff from east to +west, this, they have concluded, is the best strategy. So Captain West hugs the +land. He heaves-to on the port tack until the leeward drift brings the land +into perilous proximity, then wears ship and heaves-to on the port tack and +makes leeway off shore. +</p> + +<p> +I may be weary of all this bitter movement of a labouring ship on a frigid sea, +but at the same time I do not mind it. In my brain burns the flame of a great +discovery and a great achievement. I have found what makes all the books go +glimmering; I have achieved what my very philosophy tells me is the greatest +achievement a man can make. I have found the love of woman. I do not know +whether she cares for me. Nor is that the point. The point is that in myself I +have risen to the greatest height to which the human male animal can rise. +</p> + +<p> +I know a woman and her name is Margaret. She is Margaret, a woman and +desirable. My blood is red. I am not the pallid scholar I so proudly deemed +myself to be. I am a man, and a lover, despite the books. As for De +Casseres—if ever I get back to New York, equipped as I now am, I shall +confute him with the same ease that he has confuted all the schools. Love is +the final word. To the rational man it alone gives the super-rational sanction +for living. Like Bergson in his overhanging heaven of intuition, or like one +who has bathed in Pentecostal fire and seen the New Jerusalem, so I have trod +the materialistic dictums of science underfoot, scaled the last peak of +philosophy, and leaped into my heaven, which, after all, is within myself. The +stuff that composes me, that is I, is so made that it finds its supreme +realization in the love of woman. It is the vindication of being. Yes, and it +is the wages of being, the payment in full for all the brittleness and frailty +of flesh and breath. +</p> + +<p> +And she is only a woman, like any woman, and the Lord knows I know what women +are. And I know Margaret for what she is—mere woman; and yet I know, in +the lover’s soul of me, that she is somehow different. Her ways are not +as the ways of other women, and all her ways are delightful to me. In the end, +I suppose, I shall become a nest-builder, for of a surety nest-building is one +of her pretty ways. And who shall say which is the worthier—the writing +of a whole library or the building of a nest? +</p> + +<p> +The monotonous days, bleak and gray and soggy cold, drag by. It is now a month +since we began the passage of the Horn, and here we are, not so well forward as +a month ago, because we are something like a hundred miles south of the Straits +of Le Maire. Even this position is conjectural, being arrived at by dead +reckoning, based on the leeway of a ship hove-to, now on the one tack, now on +the other, with always the Great West Wind Drift making against us. It is four +days since our last instrument-sight of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +This storm-vexed ocean has become populous. No ships are getting round, and +each day adds to our number. Never a brief day passes without our sighting from +two or three to a dozen hove-to on port tack or starboard tack. Captain West +estimates there must be at least two hundred sail of us. A ship hove-to with +preventer tackles on the rudder-head is unmanageable. Each night we take our +chance of unavoidable and disastrous collision. And at times, glimpsed through +the snow-squalls, we see and curse the ships, east-bound, that drive past us +with the West Wind and the West Wind Drift at their backs. And so wild is the +mind of man that Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire still aver that on occasion they +have known gales to blow ships from east to west around the Horn. It surely has +been a year since we of the <i>Elsinore</i> emerged from under the lee of +Tierra Del Fuego into the snorting south-west gales. A century, at least, has +elapsed since we sailed from Baltimore. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And I don’t give a snap of my fingers for all the wrath and fury of this +dim-gray sea at the tip of the earth. I have told Margaret that I love her. The +tale was told in the shelter of the weather cloth, where we clung together in +the second dog-watch last evening. And it was told again, and by both of us, in +the bright-lighted chart-room after the watches had been changed at eight +bells. Yes, and her face was storm-bright, and all of her was very proud, save +that her eyes were warm and soft and fluttered with lids that just would +flutter maidenly and womanly. It was a great hour—our great hour. +</p> + +<p> +A poor devil of a man is most lucky when, loving, he is loved. Grievous indeed +must be the fate of the lover who is unloved. And I, for one, and for still +other reasons, congratulate myself upon the vastitude of my good fortune. For +see, were Margaret any other sort of a woman, were she . . . well, just the +lovely and lovable and adorably snuggly sort who seem made just precisely for +love and loving and nestling into the strong arms of a man—why, there +wouldn’t be anything remarkable or wonderful about her loving me. But +Margaret is Margaret, strong, self-possessed, serene, controlled, a very +mistress of herself. And there’s the miracle—that such a woman +should have been awakened to love by me. It is almost unbelievable. I go out of +my way to get another peep into those long, cool, gray eyes of hers and see +them grow melting soft as she looks at me. She is no Juliet, thank the Lord; +and thank the Lord I am no Romeo. And yet I go up alone on the freezing poop, +and under my breath chant defiantly at the snorting gale, and at the graybeards +thundering down on us, that I am a lover. And I send messages to the lonely +albatrosses veering through the murk that I am a lover. And I look at the +wretched sailors crawling along the spray-swept bridge and know that never in +ten thousand wretched lives could they experience the love I experience, and I +wonder why God ever made them. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“And the one thing I had firmly resolved from the start,” Margaret +confessed to me this morning in the cabin, when I released her from my arms, +“was that I would not permit you to make love to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“True daughter of Herodias,” I gaily gibed, “so such was the +drift of your thoughts even as early as the very start. Already you were +looking upon me with a considerative female eye.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed proudly, and did not reply. +</p> + +<p> +“What possibly could have led you to expect that I would make love to +you?” I insisted. +</p> + +<p> +“Because it is the way of young male passengers on long voyages,” +she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Then others have . . . ?” +</p> + +<p> +“They always do,” she assured me gravely. +</p> + +<p> +And at that instant I knew the first ridiculous pang of jealousy; but I laughed +it away and retorted: +</p> + +<p> +“It was an ancient Chinese philosopher who is first recorded as having +said, what doubtlessly the cave men before him gibbered, namely, that a woman +pursues a man by fluttering away in advance of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wretch!” she cried. “I never fluttered. When did I ever +flutter!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a delicate subject . . . ” I began with assumed hesitancy. +</p> + +<p> +“When did I ever flutter?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +I availed myself of one of Schopenhauer’s ruses by making a shift. +</p> + +<p> +“From the first you observed nothing that a female could afford to miss +observing,” I charged. “I’ll wager you knew as quickly as I +the very instant when I first loved you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew the first time you hated me,” she evaded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know, the first time I saw you and learned that you were coming +on the voyage,” I said. “But now I repeat my challenge. You knew as +quickly as I the first instant I loved you.” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, her eyes were beautiful, and the repose and certitude of her were +tremendous, as she rested her hand on my arm for a moment and in a low, quiet +voice said: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I . . . I think I know. It was the morning of that pampero off the +Plate, when you were thrown through the door into my father’s stateroom. +I saw it in your eyes. I knew it. I think it was the first time, the very +instant.” +</p> + +<p> +I could only nod my head and draw her close to me. And she looked up at me and +added: +</p> + +<p> +“You were very ridiculous. There you sat, on the bed, holding on with one +hand and nursing the other hand under your arm, staring at me, irritated, +startled, utterly foolish, and then . . . how, I don’t know . . . I knew +that you had just come to know . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“And the very next instant you froze up,” I charged ungallantly. +</p> + +<p> +“And that was why,” she admitted shamelessly, then leaned away from +me, her hands resting on my shoulders, while she gurgled and her lips parted +from over her beautiful white teeth. +</p> + +<p> +One thing I, John Pathurst, know: that gurgling laughter of hers is the most +adorable laughter that was ever heard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +I wonder. I wonder. Did the Samurai make a mistake? Or was it the darkness of +oncoming death that chilled and clouded that star-cool brain of his, and made a +mock of all his wisdom? Or was it the blunder that brought death upon him +beforehand? I do not know, I shall never know; for it is a matter no one of us +dreams of hinting at, much less discussing. +</p> + +<p> +I shall begin at the beginning—yesterday afternoon. For it was yesterday +afternoon, five weeks to a day since we emerged from the Straits of Le Maire +into this gray storm-ocean, that once again we found ourselves hove to directly +off the Horn. At the changing of the watches at four o’clock, Captain +West gave the command to Mr. Pike to wear ship. We were on the starboard tack +at the time, making leeway off shore. This manoeuvre placed us on the port +tack, and the consequent leeway, to me, seemed on shore, though at an acute +angle, to be sure. +</p> + +<p> +In the chart-room, glancing curiously at the chart, I measured the distance +with my eye and decided that we were in the neighbourhood of fifteen miles off +Cape Horn. +</p> + +<p> +“With our drift we’ll be close up under the land by morning, +won’t we?” I ventured tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Captain West nodded; “and if it weren’t for the +West Wind Drift, and if the land did not trend to the north-east, we’d be +ashore by morning. As it is, we’ll be well under it at daylight, ready to +steal around if there is a change, ready to wear ship if there is no +change.” +</p> + +<p> +It did not enter my head to question his judgment. What he said had to be. Was +he not the Samurai? +</p> + +<p> +And yet, a few minutes later, when he had gone below, I noticed Mr. Pike enter +the chart-house. After several paces up and down, and a brief pause to watch +Nancy and several men shift the weather cloth from lee to weather, I strolled +aft to the chart-house. Prompted by I know not what, I peeped through one of +the glass ports. +</p> + +<p> +There stood Mr. Pike, his sou’wester doffed, his oilskins streaming +rivulets to the floor, while he, dividers and parallel rulers in hand, bent +over the chart. It was the expression of his face that startled me. The +habitual sourness had vanished. All that I could see was anxiety and +apprehension . . . yes, and age. I had never seen him look so old; for there, +at that moment, I beheld the wastage and weariness of all his sixty-nine years +of sea-battling and sea-staring. +</p> + +<p> +I slipped away from the port and went along the deck to the break of the poop, +where I held on and stood staring through the gray and spray in the conjectural +direction of our drift. Somewhere, there, in the north-east and north, I knew +was a broken, iron coast of rocks upon which the graybeards thundered. And +there, in the chart-room, a redoubtable sailorman bent anxiously over a chart +as he measured and calculated, and measured and calculated again, our position +and our drift. +</p> + +<p> +And I knew it could not be. It was not the Samurai but the henchman who was +weak and wrong. Age was beginning to tell upon him at last, which could not be +otherwise than expected when one considered that no man in ten thousand had +weathered age so successfully as he. +</p> + +<p> +I laughed at my moment’s qualm of foolishness and went below, well +content to meet my loved one and to rest secure in her father’s wisdom. +Of course he was right. He had proved himself right too often already on the +long voyage from Baltimore. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner Mr. Pike was quite distrait. He took no part whatever in the +conversation, and seemed always to be listening to something from +without—to the vexing clang of taut ropes that came down the hollow +jiggermast, to the muffled roar of the gale in the rigging, to the smash and +crash of the seas along our decks and against our iron walls. +</p> + +<p> +Again I found myself sharing his apprehension, although I was too discreet to +question him then, or afterwards alone, about his trouble. At eight he went on +deck again to take the watch till midnight, and as I went to bed I dismissed +all forebodings and speculated as to how many more voyages he could last after +this sudden onslaught of old age. +</p> + +<p> +I fell asleep quickly, and awoke at midnight, my lamp still burning, +Conrad’s <i>Mirror of the Sea</i> on my breast where it had dropped from +my hands. I heard the watches change, and was wide awake and reading when Mr. +Pike came below by the booby-hatch and passed down my hall by my open door, on +his way to his room. +</p> + +<p> +In the pause I had long since learned so well I knew he was rolling a +cigarette. Then I heard him cough, as he always did, when the cigarette was +lighted and the first inhalation of smoke flushed his lungs. +</p> + +<p> +At twelve-fifteen, in the midst of Conrad’s delightful chapter, +“The Weight of the Burden,” I heard Mr. Pike come along the hall. +</p> + +<p> +Stealing a glance over the top of my book, I saw him go by, sea-booted, +oilskinned, sou’westered. It was his watch below, and his sleep was +meagre in this perpetual bad weather, yet he was going on deck. +</p> + +<p> +I read and waited for an hour, but he did not return; and I knew that somewhere +up above he was staring into the driving dark. I dressed fully, in all my heavy +storm-gear, from sea-boots and sou’-wester to sheepskin under my oilskin +coat. At the foot of the stairs I noted along the hall that Margaret’s +light was burning. I peeped in—she keeps her door open for +ventilation—and found her reading. +</p> + +<p> +“Merely not sleepy,” she assured me. +</p> + +<p> +Nor in the heart of me do I believe she had any apprehension. She does not know +even now, I am confident, the Samurai’s blunder—if blunder it was. +As she said, she was merely not sleepy, although there is no telling in what +occult ways she may have received though not recognized Mr. Pike’s +anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +At the head of the stairs, passing along the tiny hall to go out the lee door +of the chart-house, I glanced into the chart-room. On the couch, lying on his +back, his head uncomfortably high, I thought, slept Captain West. The room was +warm from the ascending heat of the cabin, so that he lay unblanketed, fully +dressed save for oilskins and boots. He breathed easily and steadily, and the +lean, ascetic lines of his face seemed softened by the light of the low-turned +lamp. And that one glance restored to me all my surety and faith in his wisdom, +so that I laughed at myself for having left my warm bed for a freezing trip on +deck. +</p> + +<p> +Under the weather cloth at the break of the poop I found Mr. Mellaire. He was +wide awake, but under no strain. Evidently it had not entered his mind to +consider, much less question, the manoeuvre of wearing ship the previous +afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +“The gale is breaking,” he told me, waving his mittened hand at a +starry segment of sky momentarily exposed by the thinning clouds. +</p> + +<p> +But where was Mr. Pike? Did the second mate know he was on deck? I proceeded to +feel Mr. Mellaire out as we worked our way aft, along the mad poop toward the +wheel. I talked about the difficulty of sleeping in stormy weather, stated the +restlessness and semi-insomnia that the violent motion of the ship caused in +me, and raised the query of how bad weather affected the officers. +</p> + +<p> +“I noticed Captain West, in the chart-room, as I came up, sleeping like a +baby,” I concluded. +</p> + +<p> +We leaned in the lee of the chart-house and went no farther. +</p> + +<p> +“Trust us to sleep just the same way, Mr. Pathurst,” the second +mate laughed. “The harder the weather the harder the demand on us, and +the harder we sleep. I’m dead the moment my head touches the pillow. It +takes Mr. Pike longer, because he always finishes his cigarette after he turns +in. But he smokes while he’s undressing, so that he doesn’t require +more than a minute to go deado. I’ll wager he hasn’t moved, right +now, since ten minutes after twelve.” +</p> + +<p> +So the second mate did not dream the first was even on deck. I went below to +make sure. A small sea-lamp was burning in Mr. Pike’s room, and I saw his +bunk unoccupied. I went in by the big stove in the dining-room and warmed up, +then again came on deck. I did not go near the weather cloth, where I was +certain Mr. Mellaire was; but, keeping along the lee of the poop, I gained the +bridge and started for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +I was in no hurry, so I paused often in that cold, wet journey. The gale was +breaking, for again and again the stars glimmered through the thinning +storm-clouds. On the ’midship-house was no Mr. Pike. I crossed it, stung +by the freezing, flying spray, and carefully reconnoitred the top of the +for’ard-house, where, in such bad weather, I knew the lookout was +stationed. I was within twenty feet of them, when a wider clearance of starry +sky showed me the figures of the lookout, whoever he was, and of Mr. Pike, side +by side. Long I watched them, not making my presence known, and I knew that the +old mate’s eyes were boring like gimlets into the windy darkness that +separated the <i>Elsinore</i> from the thunder-surfed iron coast he sought to +find. +</p> + +<p> +Coming back to the poop I was caught by the surprised Mr. Mellaire. +</p> + +<p> +“Thought you were asleep, sir,” he chided. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m too restless,” I explained. “I’ve read until +my eyes are tired, and now I’m trying to get chilled so that I can fall +asleep while warming up in my blankets.” +</p> + +<p> +“I envy you, sir,” he answered. “Think of it! So much of all +night in that you cannot sleep. Some day, if ever I make a lucky strike, I +shall make a voyage like this as a passenger, and have all watches below. Think +of it! All blessed watches below! And I shall, like you, sir, bring a Jap +servant along, and I’ll make him call me at every changing of the +watches, so that, wide awake, I can appreciate my good fortune in the several +minutes before I roll over and go to sleep again.” +</p> + +<p> +We laughed good night to each other. Another peep into the chart-room showed me +Captain West sleeping as before. He had not moved in general, though all his +body moved with every roll and fling of the ship. Below, Margaret’s light +still burned, but a peep showed her asleep, her book fallen from her hands just +as was the so frequent case with my books. +</p> + +<p> +And I wondered. Half the souls of us on the <i>Elsinore</i> slept. The Samurai +slept. Yet the old first mate, who should have slept, kept a bitter watch on +the for’ard-house. Was his anxiety right? Could it be right? Or was it +the crankiness of ultimate age? Were we drifting and leewaying to destruction? +Or was it merely an old man being struck down by senility in the midst of his +life-task? +</p> + +<p> +Too wide awake to think of sleeping, I ensconced myself with <i>The Mirror of +the Sea</i> at the dining-table. Nor did I remove aught of my storm-gear save +the soggy mittens, which I wrung out and hung to dry by the stove. Four bells +struck, and six bells, and Mr. Pike had not returned below. At eight bells, +with the changing of the watches, it came upon me what a night of hardship the +old mate was enduring. Eight to twelve had been his own watch on deck. He had +now completed the four hours of the second mate’s watch and was beginning +his own watch, which would last till eight in the morning—twelve +consecutive hours in a Cape Horn gale with the mercury at freezing. +</p> + +<p> +Next—for I had dozed—I heard loud cries above my head that were +repeated along the poop. I did not know till afterwards that it was Mr. +Pike’s command to hard-up the helm, passed along from for’ard by +the men he had stationed at intervals on the bridge. +</p> + +<p> +All that I knew at this shock of waking was that something was happening above. +As I pulled on my steaming mittens and hurried my best up the reeling stairs, I +could hear the stamp of men’s feet that for once were not lagging. In the +chart-house hall I heard Mr. Pike, who had already covered the length of the +bridge from the for’ard-house, shouting: +</p> + +<p> +“Mizzen-braces! Slack, damn you! Slack on the run! But hold a turn! Aft, +here, all of you! Jump! Lively, if you don’t want to swim! Come in, +port-braces! Don’t let ’m get away! Lee-braces!—if you lose +that turn I’ll split your skull! Lively! Lively!—Is that helm hard +over! Why in hell don’t you answer?” +</p> + +<p> +All this I heard as I dashed for the lee door and as I wondered why I did not +hear the Samurai’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +Then, as I passed the chart-room door, I saw him. +</p> + +<p> +He was sitting on the couch, white-faced, one sea-boot in his hands, and I +could have sworn his hands were shaking. That much I saw, and the next moment +was out on deck. +</p> + +<p> +At first, just emerged from the light, I could see nothing, although I could +hear men at the pin-rails and the mate snarling and shouting commands. But I +knew the manoeuvre. With a weak crew, in the big, tail-end sea of a broken +gale, breakers and destruction under her lee, the <i>Elsinore</i> was being +worn around. We had been under lower-topsails and a reefed foresail all night. +Mr. Pike’s first action, after putting the wheel up, had been to square +the mizzen-yards. With the wind-pressure thus eased aft, the stern could more +easily swing against the wind while the wind-pressure on the +for’ard-sails paid the bow off. +</p> + +<p> +But it takes time to wear a ship, under short canvas, in a big sea. Slowly, +very slowly, I could feel the direction of the wind altering against my cheek. +The moon, dim at first, showed brighter and brighter as the last shreds of a +flying cloud drove away from before it. In vain I looked for any land. +</p> + +<p> +“Main-braces!—all of you!—jump!” Mr. Pike shouted, +himself leading the rush along the poop. And the men really rushed. Not in all +the months I had observed them had I seen such swiftness of energy. +</p> + +<p> +I made my way to the wheel, where Tom Spink stood. He did not notice me. With +one hand holding the idle wheel, he was leaning out to one side, his eyes fixed +in a fascinated stare. I followed its direction, on between the chart-house and +the port-jigger shrouds, and on across a mountain sea that was very vague in +the moonlight. And then I saw it! The <i>Elsinore’s</i> stern was flung +skyward, and across that cold ocean I saw land—black rocks and +snow-covered slopes and crags. And toward this land the <i>Elsinore</i>, now +almost before the wind, was driving. +</p> + +<p> +From the ’midship-house came the snarls of the mate and the cries of the +sailors. They were pulling and hauling for very life. Then came Mr. Pike, +across the poop, leaping with incredible swiftness, sending his snarl before +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ease that wheel there! What the hell you gawkin’ at? Steady her as +I tell you. That’s all you got to do!” +</p> + +<p> +From for’ard came a cry, and I knew Mr. Mellaire was on top of the +for’ard-house and managing the fore-yards. +</p> + +<p> +“Now!”—from Mr. Pike. “More spokes! Steady! Steady! And +be ready to check her!” +</p> + +<p> +He bounded away along the poop again, shouting for men for the mizzen-braces. +And the men appeared, some of his watch, others of the second mate’s +watch, routed from sleep—men coatless, and hatless, and bootless; men +ghastly-faced with fear but eager for once to spring to the orders of the man +who knew and could save their miserable lives from miserable death. +Yes—and I noted the delicate-handed cook, and Yatsuda, the sail-maker, +pulling with his one unparalysed hand. It was all hands to save ship, and all +hands knew it. Even Sundry Buyers, who had drifted aft in his stupidity instead +of being for’ard with his own officer, forebore to stare about and to +press his abdomen. For the nonce he pulled like a youngling of twenty. +</p> + +<p> +The moon covered again, and it was in darkness that the <i>Elsinore</i> rounded +up on the wind on the starboard tack. This, in her case, under lower-topsails +only, meant that she lay eight points from the wind, or, in land terms, at +right angles to the wind. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was splendid, marvellous. Even as the <i>Elsinore</i> was rounding to +on the wind, while the head-yards were still being braced, and even as he was +watching the ship’s behaviour and the wheel, in between his commands to +Tom Spink of “A spoke! A spoke or two! Another! Steady! Hold her! Ease +her!” he was ordering the men aloft to loose sail. I had thought, the +manoeuvre of wearing achieved, that we were saved, but this setting of all +three upper-topsails unconvinced me. +</p> + +<p> +The moon remained hidden, and to leeward nothing could be seen. As each sail +was set, the <i>Elsinore</i> was pressed farther and farther over, and I +realized that there was plenty of wind left, despite the fact that the gale had +broken or was breaking. Also, under this additional canvas, I could feel the +<i>Elsinore</i> moving through the water. Pike now sent the Maltese Cockney to +help Tom Spink at the wheel. As for himself, he took his stand beside the +booby-hatch, where he could gauge the <i>Elsinore</i>, gaze to leeward, and +keep his eye on the helmsmen. +</p> + +<p> +“Full and by,” was his reiterated command. “Keep her a good +full—a rap-full; but don’t let her fall away. Hold her to it, and +drive her.” +</p> + +<p> +He took no notice whatever of me, although I, on my way to the lee of the +chart-house, stood at his shoulder a full minute, offering him a chance to +speak. He knew I was there, for his big shoulder brushed my arm as he swayed +and turned to warn the helmsmen in the one breath to hold her up to it but to +keep her full. He had neither time nor courtesy for a passenger in such a +moment. +</p> + +<p> +Sheltering by the chart-house, I saw the moon appear. It grew brighter and +brighter, and I saw the land, dead to leeward of us, not three hundred yards +away. It was a cruel sight—black rock and bitter snow, with cliffs so +perpendicular that the <i>Elsinore</i> could have laid alongside of them in +deep water, with great gashes and fissures, and with great surges thundering +and spouting along all the length of it. +</p> + +<p> +Our predicament was now clear to me. We had to weather the bight of land and +islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked directly on shore. +The only way out was to drive through the water, to drive fast and hard, and +this was borne in upon me by Mr. Pike bounding past to the break of the poop, +where I heard him shout to Mr. Mellaire to set the mainsail. +</p> + +<p> +Evidently the second mate was dubious, for the next cry of Mr. Pike’s +was: +</p> + +<p> +“Damn the reef! You’d be in hell first! Full mainsail! All hands to +it!” +</p> + +<p> +The difference was appreciable at once when that huge spread of canvas opposed +the wind. The <i>Elsinore</i> fairly leaped and quivered as she sprang to it, +and I could feel her eat to windward as she at the same time drove faster +ahead. Also, in the rolls and gusts, she was forced down till her lee-rail +buried and the sea foamed level across to her hatches. Mr. Pike watched her +like a hawk, and like certain death he watched the Maltese Cockney and Tom +Spink at the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +“Land on the lee bow!” came a cry from for’ard, that was +carried on from mouth to mouth along the bridge to the poop. +</p> + +<p> +I saw Mr. Pike nod his head grimly and sarcastically. He had already seen it +from the lee-poop, and what he had not seen he had guessed. A score of times I +saw him test the weight of the gusts on his cheek and with all the brain of him +study the <i>Elsinore’s</i> behaviour. And I knew what was in his mind. +Could she carry what she had? Could she carry more? +</p> + +<p> +Small wonder, in this tense passage of time, that I had forgotten the Samurai. +Nor did I remember him until the chart-house door swung open and I caught him +by the arm. He steadied and swayed beside me, while he watched that cruel +picture of rock and snow and spouting surf. +</p> + +<p> +“A good full!” Mr. Pike snarled. “Or I’ll eat your +heart out. God damn you for the farmer’s hound you are, Tom Spink! Ease +her! Ease her! Ease her into the big ones, damn you! Don’t let her head +fall off! Steady! Where in hell did you learn to steer? What cow-farm was you +raised on?” +</p> + +<p> +Here he bounded for’ard past us with those incredible leaps of his. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be good to set the mizzen-topgallant,” I heard Captain +West mutter in a weak, quavery voice. “Mr. Pathurst, will you please tell +Mr. Pike to set the mizzen-topgallant?” +</p> + +<p> +And at that very instant Mr. Pike’s voice rang out from the break of the +poop: +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mellaire!—the mizzen-topgallant!” +</p> + +<p> +Captain West’s head drooped until his chin rested on his breast, and so +low did he mutter that I leaned to hear. +</p> + +<p> +“A very good officer,” he said. “An excellent officer. Mr. +Pathurst, if you will kindly favour me, I should like to go in. I . . . I +haven’t got on my boots.” +</p> + +<p> +The muscular feat was to open the heavy iron door and hold it open in the rolls +and plunges. This I accomplished; but when I had helped Captain West across the +high threshold he thanked me and waived further services. And I did not know +even then he was dying. +</p> + +<p> +Never was a Blackwood ship driven as was the <i>Elsinore</i> during the next +half-hour. The full-jib was also set, and, as it departed in shreds, the +fore-topmast staysail was being hoisted. For’ard of the +’midship-house it was made unlivable by the bursting seas. Mr. Mellaire, +with half the crew, clung on somehow on top the ’midship-house, while the +rest of the crew was with us in the comparative safety of the poop. Even +Charles Davis, drenched and shivering, hung on beside me to the brass +ring-handle of the chart-house door. +</p> + +<p> +Such sailing! It was a madness of speed and motion, for the <i>Elsinore</i> +drove over and through and under those huge graybeards that thundered +shore-ward. There were times, when rolls and gusts worked against her at the +same moment, when I could have sworn the ends of her lower-yardarms swept the +sea. +</p> + +<p> +It was one chance in ten that we could claw off. All knew it, and all knew +there was nothing more to do but await the issue. And we waited in silence. The +only voice was that of the mate, intermittently cursing, threatening, and +ordering Tom Spink and the Maltese Cockney at the wheel. Between whiles, and +all the while, he gauged the gusts, and ever his eyes lifted to the +main-topgallant-yard. He wanted to set that one more sail. A dozen times I saw +him half-open his mouth to give the order he dared not give. And as I watched +him, so all watched him. Hard-bitten, bitter-natured, sour-featured and +snarling-mouthed, he was the one man, the henchman of the race, the master of +the moment. “And where,” was my thought, “O where was the +Samurai?” +</p> + +<p> +One chance in ten? It was one in a hundred as we fought to weather the last +bold tooth of rock that gashed into sea and tempest between us and open ocean. +So close were we that I looked to see our far-reeling skysail-yards strike the +face of the rock. So close were we, no more than a biscuit toss from its iron +buttress, that as we sank down into the last great trough between two seas I +can swear every one of us held breath and waited for the <i>Elsinore</i> to +strike. +</p> + +<p> +Instead we drove free. And as if in very rage at our escape, the storm took +that moment to deal us the mightiest buffet of all. The mate felt that monster +sea coming, for he sprang to the wheel ere the blow fell. I looked +for’ard, and I saw all for’ard blotted out by the mountain of water +that fell aboard. The <i>Elsinore</i> righted from the shock and reappeared to +the eye, full of water from rail to rail. Then a gust caught her sails and +heeled her over, spilling half the enormous burden outboard again. +</p> + +<p> +Along the bridge came the relayed cry of “Man overboard!” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced at the mate, who had just released the wheel to the helmsmen. He +shook his head, as if irritated by so trivial a happening, walked to the corner +of the half-wheelhouse, and stared at the coast he had escaped, white and black +and cold in the moonlight. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire came aft, and they met beside me in the lee of the chart-house. +</p> + +<p> +“All hands, Mr. Mellaire,” the mate said, “and get the +mainsail off of her. After that, the mizzen-topgallant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” said the second. +</p> + +<p> +“Who was it?” the mate asked, as Mr. Mellaire was turning away. +</p> + +<p> +“Boney—he was no good, anyway,” came the answer. +</p> + +<p> +That was all. Boney the Splinter was gone, and all hands were answering the +command of Mr. Mellaire to take in the mainsail. But they never took it in; for +at that moment it started to blow away out of the bolt-ropes, and in but few +moments all that was left of it was a few short, slatting ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +“Mizzen-topgallant-sail!” Mr. Pike ordered. Then, and for the first +time, he recognized my existence. +</p> + +<p> +“Well rid of it,” he growled. “It never did set properly. I +was always aching to get my hands on the sail-maker that made it.” +</p> + +<p> +On my way below a glance into the chart-room gave me the cue to the +Samurai’s blunder—if blunder it can be called, for no one will ever +know. He lay on the floor in a loose heap, rolling willy-nilly with every roll +of the <i>Elsinore</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> + +<p> +There is so much to write about all at once. In the first place, Captain West. +Not entirely unexpected was his death. Margaret tells me that she was +apprehensive from the start of the voyage—and even before. It was because +of her apprehension that she so abruptly changed her plans and accompanied her +father. +</p> + +<p> +What really happened we do not know, but the agreed surmise is that it was some +stroke of the heart. And yet, after the stroke, did he not come out on deck? Or +could the first stroke have been followed by another and fatal one after I had +helped him inside through the door? And even so, I have never heard of a +heart-stroke being preceded hours before by a weakening of the mind. Captain +West’s mind seemed quite clear, and must have been quite clear, that last +afternoon when he wore the <i>Elsinore</i> and started the lee-shore drift. In +which case it was a blunder. The Samurai blundered, and his heart destroyed him +when he became aware of the blunder. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate the thought of blunder never enters Margaret’s head. She +accepts, as a matter of course, that it was all a part of the oncoming +termination of his sickness. And no one will ever undeceive her. Neither Mr. +Pike, Mr. Mellaire, nor I, among ourselves, mention a whisper of what so +narrowly missed causing disaster. In fact, Mr. Pike does not talk about the +matter at all.—And then, again, might it not have been something +different from heart disease? Or heart disease complicated with something else +that obscured his mind that afternoon before his death? Well, no one knows, and +I, for one, shall not sit, even in secret judgment, on the event. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +At midday of the day we clawed off Tierra Del Fuego the <i>Elsinore</i> was +rolling in a dead calm, and all afternoon she rolled, not a score of miles off +the land. Captain West was buried at four o’clock, and at eight bells +that evening Mr. Pike assumed command and made a few remarks to both watches. +They were straight-from-the-shoulder remarks, or, as he called them, they were +“brass tacks.” +</p> + +<p> +Among other things he told the sailors that they had another boss, and that +they would toe the mark as they never had before. Up to this time they had been +loafing in an hotel, but from this time on they were going to work. +</p> + +<p> +“On this hooker, from now on,” he perorated, “it’s +going to be like old times, when a man jumped the last day of the voyage as +well as the first. And God help the man that don’t jump. That’s +all. Relieve the wheel and lookout.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And yet the men are in terribly wretched condition. I don’t see how they +can jump. Another week of westerly gales, alternating with brief periods of +calm, has elapsed, making a total of six weeks off the Horn. So weak are the +men that they have no spirit left in them—not even the gangsters. And so +afraid are they of the mate that they really do their best to jump when he +drives them, and he drives them all the time. Mr. Mellaire shakes his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till they get around and up into better weather,” he +astonished me by telling me the other afternoon. “Wait till they get +dried out, and rested up, with more sleep, and their sores healed, and more +flesh on their bones, and more spunk in their blood—then they won’t +stand for this driving. Mr. Pike can’t realize that times have changed, +sir, and laws have changed, and men have changed. He’s an old man, and I +know what I am talking about.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you’ve been listening to the talk of the men?” I +challenged rashly, all my gorge rising at the unofficerlike conduct of this +ship’s officer. +</p> + +<p> +The shot went home, for, in a flash, that suave and gentle film of light +vanished from the surface of the eyes, and the watching, fearful thing that +lurked behind inside the skull seemed almost to leap out at me, while the cruel +gash of mouth drew thinner and crueller. And at the same time, on my inner +sight, was grotesquely limned a picture of a brain pulsing savagely against the +veneer of skin that covered that cleft of skull beneath the dripping +sou’-wester. Then he controlled himself, the mouth-gash relaxed, and the +suave and gentle film drew again across the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, sir,” he said softly, “that I am speaking out of a +long sea experience. Times have changed. The old driving days are gone. And I +trust, Mr. Pathurst, that you will not misunderstand me in the matter, nor +misinterpret what I have said.” +</p> + +<p> +Although the conversation drifted on to other and calmer topics, I could not +ignore the fact that he had not denied listening to the talk of the men. And +yet, even as Mr. Pike grudgingly admits, he is a good sailorman and second mate +save for his unholy intimacy with the men for’ard—an intimacy which +even the Chinese cook and the Chinese steward deplore as unseamanlike and +perilous. +</p> + +<p> +Even though men like the gangsters are so worn down by hardship that they have +no heart of rebellion, there remain three of the frailest for’ard who +will not die, and who are as spunky as ever. They are Andy Fay, Mulligan +Jacobs, and Charles Davis. What strange, abysmal vitality informs them is +beyond all speculation. Of course, Charles Davis should have been overside with +a sack of coal at his feet long ago. And Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs are only, +and have always been, wrecked and emaciated wisps of men. Yet far stronger men +than they have gone over the side, and far stronger men than they are laid up +right now in absolute physical helplessness in the soggy forecastle bunks. And +these two bitter flames of shreds of things stand all their watches and answer +all calls for both watches. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; and the chickens have something of this same spunk of life in them. +Featherless, semi-frozen despite the oil-stove, sprayed dripping on occasion by +the frigid seas that pound by sheer weight through canvas tarpaulins, +nevertheless not a chicken has died. Is it a matter of selection? Are these the +iron-vigoured ones that survived the hardships from Baltimore to the Horn, and +are fitted to survive anything? Then for a De Vries to take them, save them, +and out of them found the hardiest breed of chickens on the planet! And after +this I shall always query that phrase, most ancient in our +language—“chicken-hearted.” Measured by the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> chickens, it is a misnomer. +</p> + +<p> +Nor are our three Horn Gypsies, the storm-visitors with the dreaming, topaz +eyes, spunkless. Held in superstitious abhorrence by the rest of the crew, +aliens by lack of any word of common speech, nevertheless they are good sailors +and are always first to spring into any enterprise of work or peril. They have +gone into Mr. Mellaire’s watch, and they are quite apart from the rest of +the sailors. And when there is a delay, or wait, with nothing to do for long +minutes, they shoulder together, and stand and sway to the heave of deck, and +dream far dreams in those pale, topaz eyes, of a country, I am sure, where +mothers, with pale, topaz eyes and sandy hair, birth sons and daughters that +breed true in terms of topaz eyes and sandy hair. +</p> + +<p> +But the rest of the crew! Take the Maltese Cockney. He is too keenly +intelligent, too sharply sensitive, successfully to endure. He is a shadow of +his former self. His cheeks have fallen in. Dark circles of suffering are under +his eyes, while his eyes, Latin and English intermingled, are cavernously +sunken and as bright-burning as if aflame with fever. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Spink, hard-fibred Anglo-Saxon, good seaman that he is, long tried and +always proved, is quite wrecked in spirit. He is whining and fearful. So broken +is he, though he still does his work, that he is prideless and shameless. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll never ship around the Horn again, sir,” he began on me +the other day when I greeted him good morning at the wheel. “I’ve +sworn it before, but this time I mean it. Never again, sir. Never again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you swear it before?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“It was on the <i>Nahoma</i>, sir, four years ago. Two hundred and thirty +days from Liverpool to ’Frisco. Think of it, sir. Two hundred and thirty +days! And we was loaded with cement and creosote, and the creosote got loose. +We buried the captain right here off the Horn. The grub gave out. Most of us +nearly died of scurvy. Every man Jack of us was carted to hospital in +’Frisco. It was plain hell, sir, that’s what it was, an’ two +hundred and thirty days of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet here you are,” I laughed; “signed on another Horn +voyage.” +</p> + +<p> +And this morning Tom Spink confided the following tome: +</p> + +<p> +“If only we’d lost the carpenter, sir, instead of Boney.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not catch his drift for the moment; then I remembered. The carpenter was +the Finn, the Jonah, the warlock who played tricks with the winds and +despitefully used poor sailormen. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Yes, and I make free to confess that I have grown well weary of this eternal +buffeting by the Great West Wind. Nor are we alone in our travail on this +desolate ocean. Never a day does the gray thin, or the snow-squalls cease that +we do not sight ships, west-bound like ourselves, hove-to and trying to hold on +to the meagre westing they possess. And occasionally, when the gray clears and +lifts, we see a lucky ship, bound east, running before it and reeling off the +miles. I saw Mr. Pike, yesterday, shaking his fist in a fury of hatred at one +such craft that flew insolently past us not a quarter of a mile away. +</p> + +<p> +And the men are jumping. Mr. Pike is driving with those block-square fists of +his, as many a man’s face attests. So weak are they, and so terrible is +he, that I swear he could whip either watch single-handed. I cannot help but +note that Mr. Mellaire refuses to take part in this driving. Yet I know that he +is a trained driver, and that he was not averse to driving at the outset of the +voyage. But now he seems bent on keeping on good terms with the crew. I should +like to know what Mr. Pike thinks of it, for he cannot possibly be blind to +what is going on; but I am too well aware of what would happen if I raised the +question. He would insult me, snap my head off, and indulge in a +three-days’ sea-grouch. Things are sad and monotonous enough for Margaret +and me in the cabin and at table, without invoking the blight of the +mate’s displeasure. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h2> + +<p> +Another brutal sea-superstition vindicated. From now on and for always these +imbeciles of ours will believe that Finns are Jonahs. We are west of the Diego +de Ramirez Rocks, and we are running west at a twelve-knot clip with an +easterly gale at our backs. And the carpenter is gone. His passing, and the +coming of the easterly wind, were coincidental. +</p> + +<p> +It was yesterday morning, as he helped me to dress, that I was struck by the +solemnity of Wada’s face. He shook his head lugubriously as he broke the +news. The carpenter was missing. The ship had been searched for him high and +low. There just was no carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +“What does the steward think?” I asked. “What does Louis +think?—and Yatsuda?” +</p> + +<p> +“The sailors, they kill ’m carpenter sure,” was the answer. +“Very bad ship this. Very bad hearts. Just the same pig, just the same +dog. All the time kill. All the time kill. Bime-by everybody kill. You +see.” +</p> + +<p> +The old steward, at work in his pantry, grinned at me when I mentioned the +matter. +</p> + +<p> +“They make fool with me, I fix ’em,” he said vindictively. +“Mebbe they kill me, all right; but I kill some, too.” +</p> + +<p> +He threw back his coat, and I saw, strapped to the left side of his body, in a +canvas sheath, so that the handle was ready to hand, a meat knife of the heavy +sort that butchers hack with. He drew it forth—it was fully two feet +long—and, to demonstrate its razor-edge, sliced a sheet of newspaper into +many ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” he laughed sardonically. “I am Chink, monkey, damn +fool, eh?—no good, eh? all rotten damn to hell. I fix ’em, they +make fool with me.” +</p> + +<p> +And yet there is not the slightest evidence of foul play. Nobody knows what +happened to the carpenter. There are no clues, no traces. The night was calm +and snowy. No seas broke on board. Without doubt the clumsy, big-footed, +over-grown giant of a boy is overside and dead. The question is: did he go over +of his own accord, or was he put over? +</p> + +<p> +At eight o’clock Mr. Pike proceeded to interrogate the watches. He stood +at the break of the poop, in the high place, leaning on the rail and gazing +down at the crew assembled on the main deck beneath him. +</p> + +<p> +Man after man he questioned, and from each man came the one story. They knew no +more about it than did we—or so they averred. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’ll be chargin’ next that I hove that big +lummux overboard with me own hands,” Mulligan Jacobs snarled, when he was +questioned. “An’ mebbe I did, bein’ that husky an’ +rampagin’ bull-like.” +</p> + +<p> +The mate’s face grew more forbidding and sour, but without comment he +passed on to John Hackey, the San Francisco hoodlum. +</p> + +<p> +It was an unforgettable scene—the mate in the high place, the men, sullen +and irresponsive, grouped beneath. A gentle snow drifted straight down through +the windless air, while the <i>Elsinore</i>, with hollow thunder from her +sails, rolled down on the quiet swells so that the ocean lapped the mouths of +her scuppers with long-drawn, shuddering sucks and sobs. And all the men swayed +in unison to the rolls, their hands in mittens, their feet in sack-wrapped +sea-boots, their faces worn and sick. And the three dreamers with the topaz +eyes stood and swayed and dreamed together, incurious of setting and situation. +</p> + +<p> +And then it came—the hint of easterly air. The mate noted it first. I saw +him start and turn his cheek to the almost imperceptible draught. Then I felt +it. A minute longer he waited, until assured, when, the dead carpenter +forgotten, he burst out with orders to the wheel and the crew. And the men +jumped, though in their weakness the climb aloft was slow and toilsome; and +when the gaskets were off the topgallant-sails and the men on deck were +hoisting yards and sheeting home, those aloft were loosing the royals. +</p> + +<p> +While this work went on, and while the yards were being braced around, the +<i>Elsinore</i>, her bow pointing to the west, began moving through the water +before the first fair wind in a month and a half. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly that light air fanned to a gentle breeze while all the time the snow +fell steadily. The barometer, down to 28.80, continued to fall, and the breeze +continued to grow upon itself. Tom Spink, passing by me on the poop to lend a +hand at the final finicky trimming of the mizzen-yards, gave me a triumphant +look. Superstition was vindicated. Events had proved him right. Fair wind had +come with the going of the carpenter, which said warlock had incontestably +taken with him overside his bag of wind-tricks. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike strode up and down the poop, rubbing his hands, which he was too +disdainfully happy to mitten, chuckling and grinning to himself, glancing at +the draw of every sail, stealing adoring looks astern into the gray of snow out +of which blew the favouring wind. He even paused beside me to gossip for a +moment about the French restaurants of San Francisco and how, therein, the +delectable California fashion of cooking wild duck obtained. +</p> + +<p> +“Throw ’em through the fire,” he chanted. “That’s +the way—throw ’em through the fire—a hot oven, sixteen +minutes—I take mine fourteen, to the second—an’ squeeze the +carcasses.” +</p> + +<p> +By midday the snow had ceased and we were bowling along before a stiff breeze. +At three in the afternoon we were running before a growing gale. It was across +a mad ocean we tore, for the mounting sea that made from eastward bucked into +the West End Drift and battled and battered down the huge south-westerly swell. +And the big grinning dolt of a Finnish carpenter, already food for fish and +bird, was astern there somewhere in the freezing rack and drive. +</p> + +<p> +Make westing! We ripped it off across these narrowing degrees of longitude at +the southern tip of the planet where one mile counts for two. And Mr. Pike, +staring at his bending topgallant-yards, swore that they could carry away for +all he cared ere he eased an inch of canvas. More he did. He set the huge +crojack, biggest of all sails, and challenged God or Satan to start a seam of +it or all its seams. +</p> + +<p> +He simply could not go below. In such auspicious occasions all watches were +his, and he strode the poop perpetually with all age-lag banished from his +legs. Margaret and I were with him in the chart-room when he hurrahed the +barometer, down to 28.55 and falling. And we were near him, on the poop, when +he drove by an east-bound lime-juicer, hove-to under upper-topsails. We were a +biscuit-toss away, and he sprang upon the rail at the jigger-shrouds and danced +a war-dance and waved his free arm, and yelled his scorn and joy at their +discomfiture to the several oilskinned figures on the stranger vessel’s +poop. +</p> + +<p> +Through the pitch-black night we continued to drive. The crew was sadly +frightened, and I sought in vain, in the two dog-watches, for Tom Spink, to ask +him if he thought the carpenter, astern, had opened wide the bag-mouth and +loosed all his tricks. For the first time I saw the steward apprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +“Too much,” he told me, with ominous rolling head. “Too much +sail, rotten bad damn all to hell. Bime-by, pretty quick, all finish. You +see.” +</p> + +<p> +“They talk about running the easting down,” Mr. Pike chortled to +me, as we clung to the poop-rail to keep from fetching away and breaking ribs +and necks. “Well, this is running your westing down if anybody should +ride up in a go-devil and ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a wretched, glorious night. Sleep was impossible—for me, at any +rate. Nor was there even the comfort of warmth. Something had gone wrong with +the big cabin stove, due to our wild running, I fancy, and the steward was +compelled to let the fire go out. So we are getting a taste of the hardship of +the forecastle, though in our case everything is dry instead of soggy or +afloat. The kerosene stoves burned in our staterooms, but so smelly was mine +that I preferred the cold. +</p> + +<p> +To sail on one’s nerve in an over-canvassed harbour cat-boat is all the +excitement any glutton can desire. But to sail, in the same fashion, in a big +ship off the Horn, is incredible and terrible. The Great West Wind Drift, +setting squarely into the teeth of the easterly gale, kicked up a tideway sea +that was monstrous. Two men toiled at the wheel, relieving in pairs every +half-hour, and in the face of the cold they streamed with sweat long ere their +half-hour shift was up. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike is of the elder race of men. His endurance is prodigious. Watch and +watch, and all watches, he held the poop. +</p> + +<p> +“I never dreamed of it,” he told me, at midnight, as the great +gusts tore by and as we listened for our lighter spars to smash aloft and crash +upon the deck. “I thought my last whirling sailing was past. And here we +are! Here we are! +</p> + +<p> +“Lord! Lord! I sailed third mate in the little <i>Vampire</i> before you +were born. Fifty-six men before the mast, and the last Jack of ’em an +able seaman. And there were eight boys, an’ bosuns that was bosuns, +an’ sail-makers an’ carpenters an’ stewards an’ +passengers to jam the decks. An’ three driving mates of us, an’ +Captain Brown, the Little Wonder. He didn’t weigh a hundredweight, +an’ he drove us—he drove <i>us</i>, three drivin’ mates that +learned from him what drivin’ was. +</p> + +<p> +“It was knock down and drag out from the start. The first hour of +puttin’ the men to fair perished our knuckles. I’ve got the smashed +joints yet to show. Every sea-chest broke open, every sea-bag turned out, and +whiskey bottles, knuckle-dusters, sling-shots, bowie-knives, an’ guns +chucked overside by the armful. An’ when we chose the watches, each man +of fifty-six of ’em laid his knife on the main-hatch an’ the +carpenter broke the point square off.—Yes, an’ the little +<i>Vampire</i> only eight hundred tons. The <i>Elsinore</i> could carry her on +her deck. But she was ship, all ship, an’ them was men’s +days.” +</p> + +<p> +Margaret, save for inability to sleep, did not mind the driving, although Mr. +Mellaire, on the other hand, admitted apprehension. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s got my goat,” he confided to me. “It isn’t +right to drive a cargo-carrier this way. This isn’t a ballasted yacht. +It’s a coal-hulk. I know what driving was, but it was in ships made to +drive. Our iron-work aloft won’t stand it. Mr. Pathurst, I tell you +frankly that it is criminal, it is sheer murder, to run the <i>Elsinore</i> +with that crojack on her. You can see yourself, sir. It’s an after-sail. +All its tendency is to throw her stern off and her bow up to it. And if it ever +happens, sir, if she ever gets away from the wheel for two seconds and broaches +to . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what?” I asked, or, rather, shouted; for all conversation had +to be shouted close to ear in that blast of gale. +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders, and all of him was eloquent with the unuttered, +unmistakable word—“finish.” +</p> + +<p> +At eight this morning Margaret and I struggled up to the poop. And there was +that indomitable, iron old man. He had never left the deck all night. His eyes +were bright, and he appeared in the pink of well-being. He rubbed his hands and +chuckled greeting to us, and took up his reminiscences. +</p> + +<p> +“In ’51, on this same stretch, Miss West, the <i>Flying Cloud</i>, +in twenty-four hours, logged three hundred and seventy-four miles under her +topgallant-sails. That was sailing. She broke the record, that day, for sail +an’ steam.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are we averaging, Mr. Pike?” Margaret queried, while her +eyes were fixed on the main deck, where continually one rail and then the other +dipped under the ocean and filled across from rail to rail, only to spill out +and take in on the next roll. +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen for a fair average since five o’clock yesterday +afternoon,” he exulted. “In the squalls she makes all of sixteen, +which is going some, for the <i>Elsinore</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d take the crojack off if I had charge,” Margaret +criticised. +</p> + +<p> +“So would I, so would I, Miss West,” he replied; “if we +hadn’t been six weeks already off the Horn.” +</p> + +<p> +She ran her eyes aloft, spar by spar, past the spars of hollow steel to the +wooden royals, which bent in the gusts like bows in some invisible +archer’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re remarkably good sticks of timber,” was her comment. +</p> + +<p> +“Well may you say it, Miss West,” he agreed. “I’d never +a-believed they’d a-stood it myself. But just look at ’m! Just look +at ’m!” +</p> + +<p> +There was no breakfast for the men. Three times the galley had been washed out, +and the men, in the forecastle awash, contented themselves with hard tack and +cold salt horse. Aft, with us, the steward scalded himself twice ere he +succeeded in making coffee over a kerosene-burner. +</p> + +<p> +At noon we picked up a ship ahead, a lime-juicer, travelling in the same +direction, under lower-topsails and one upper-topsail. The only one of her +courses set was the foresail. +</p> + +<p> +“The way that skipper’s carryin’ on is shocking,” Mr. +Pike sneered. “He should be more cautious, and remember God, the owners, +the underwriters, and the Board of Trade.” +</p> + +<p> +Such was our speed that in almost no time we were up with the stranger vessel +and passing her. Mr. Pike was like a boy just loosed from school. He altered +our course so that we passed her a hundred yards away. She was a gallant sight, +but, such was our speed, she appeared standing still. Mr. Pike jumped upon the +rail and insulted those on her poop by extending a rope’s end in +invitation to take a tow. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret shook her head privily to me as she gazed at our bending royal-yards, +but was caught in the act by Mr. Pike, who cried out: +</p> + +<p> +“What kites she won’t carry she can drag!” +</p> + +<p> +An hour later I caught Tom Spink, just relieved from his shift at the wheel and +weak from exhaustion. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think now of the carpenter and his bag of tricks?” I +queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord lumme, it should a-ben the mate, sir,” was his reply. +</p> + +<p> +By five in the afternoon we had logged 314 miles since five the previous day, +which was two over an average of thirteen knots for twenty-four consecutive +hours. +</p> + +<p> +“Now take Captain Brown of the little <i>Vampire</i>,” Mr. Pike +grinned to me, for our sailing made him good-natured. “He never would +take in until the kites an’ stu’n’sails was about his ears. +An’ when she was blown’ her worst an’ we was half-fairly +shortened down, he’d turn in for a snooze, an’ say to us, +‘Call me if she moderates.’ Yes, and I’ll never forget the +night when I called him an’ told him that everything on top the houses +had gone adrift, an’ that two of the boats had been swept aft and was +kindling-wood against the break of the cabin. ‘Very well, Mr. +Pike,’ he says, battin’ his eyes and turnin’ over to go to +sleep again. ‘Very well, Mr. Pike,’ says he. ‘Watch her. +An’ Mr. Pike . . .’ ‘Yes, sir,’ says I. ‘Give me +a call, Mr. Pike, when the windlass shows signs of comin’ aft.’ +That’s what he said, his very words, an’ the next moment, damme, he +was snorin’.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +It is now midnight, and, cunningly wedged into my bunk, unable to sleep, I am +writing these lines with flying dabs of pencil at my pad. And no more shall I +write, I swear, until this gale is blown out, or we are blown to Kingdom Come. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h2> + +<p> +The days have passed and I have broken my resolve; for here I am again writing +while the <i>Elsinore</i> surges along across a magnificent, smoky, dusty sea. +But I have two reasons for breaking my word. First, and minor, we had a real +dawn this morning. The gray of the sea showed a streaky blue, and the +cloud-masses were actually pink-tipped by a really and truly sun. +</p> + +<p> +Second, and major, <i>we are around the Horn</i>! We are north of 50 in the +Pacific, in Longitude 80.49, with Cape Pillar and the Straits of Magellan +already south of east from us, and we are heading north-north-west. <i>We are +around the Horn</i>! The profound significance of this can be appreciated only +by one who has wind-jammed around from east to west. Blow high, blow low, +nothing can happen to thwart us. No ship north of 50 was ever blown back. From +now on it is plain sailing, and Seattle suddenly seems quite near. +</p> + +<p> +All the ship’s company, with the exception of Margaret, is better +spirited. She is quiet, and a little down, though she is anything but prone to +the wastage of grief. In her robust, vital philosophy God’s always in +heaven. I may describe her as being merely subdued, and gentle, and tender. And +she is very wistful to receive gentle consideration and tenderness from me. She +is, after all, the genuine woman. She wants the strength that man has to give, +and I flatter myself that I am ten times a stronger man than I was when the +voyage began, because I am a thousand times a more human man since I told the +books to go hang and began to revel in the human maleness of the man that loves +a woman and is loved. +</p> + +<p> +Returning to the ship’s company. The rounding of the Horn, the better +weather that is continually growing better, the easement of hardship and toil +and danger, with the promise of the tropics and of the balmy south-east trades +before them—all these factors contribute to pick up our men again. The +temperature has already so moderated that the men are beginning to shed their +surplusage of clothing, and they no longer wrap sacking about their sea-boots. +Last evening, in the second dog-watch, I heard a man actually singing. +</p> + +<p> +The steward has discarded the huge, hacking knife and relaxed to the extent of +engaging in an occasional sober romp with Possum. Wada’s face is no +longer solemnly long, and Louis’ Oxford accent is more mellifluous than +ever. Mulligan Jacobs and Andy Fay are the same venomous scorpions they have +always been. The three gangsters, with the clique they lead, have again +asserted their tyrrany and thrashed all the weaklings and feeblings in the +forecastle. Charles Davis resolutely refuses to die, though how he survived +that wet and freezing room of iron through all the weeks off the Horn has +elicited wonder even from Mr. Pike, who has a most accurate knowledge of what +men can stand and what they cannot stand. +</p> + +<p> +How Nietzsche, with his eternal slogan of “Be hard! Be hard!” would +have delighted in Mr. Pike! +</p> + +<p> +And—oh!—Larry has had a tooth removed. For some days distressed +with a jumping toothache, he came aft to the mate for relief. Mr. Pike refused +to “monkey” with the “fangled” forceps in the +medicine-chest. He used a tenpenny nail and a hammer in the good old way to +which he was brought up. I vouch for this. I saw it done. One blow of the +hammer and the tooth was out, while Larry was jumping around holding his jaw. +It is a wonder it wasn’t fractured. But Mr. Pike avers he has removed +hundreds of teeth by this method and never known a fractured jaw. Also, he +avers he once sailed with a skipper who shaved every Sunday morning and never +touched a razor, nor any cutting-edge, to his face. What he used, according to +Mr. Pike, was a lighted candle and a damp towel. Another candidate for +Nietzsche’s immortals who are hard! +</p> + +<p> +As for Mr. Pike himself, he is the highest-spirited, best-conditioned man on +board. The driving to which he subjected the <i>Elsinore</i> was meat and +drink. He still rubs his hands and chuckles over the memory of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” he said to me, in reference to the crew; “I gave +’em a taste of real old-fashioned sailing. They’ll never forget +this hooker—at least them that don’t take a sack of coal overside +before we reach port.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you think we’ll have more sea-burials?” I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +He turned squarely upon me, and squarely looked me in the eyes for the matter +of five long seconds. +</p> + +<p> +“Huh!” he replied, as he turned on his heel. “Hell +ain’t begun to pop on this hooker.” +</p> + +<p> +He still stands his mate’s watch, alternating with Mr. Mellaire, for he +is firm in his conviction that there is no man for’ard fit to stand a +second mate’s watch. Also, he has kept his old quarters. Perhaps it is +out of delicacy for Margaret; for I have learned that it is the invariable +custom for the mate to occupy the captain’s quarters when the latter +dies. So Mr. Mellaire still eats by himself in the big after-room, as he has +done since the loss of the carpenter, and bunks as before in the +’midship-house with Nancy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Mellaire was right. The men would not accept the driving when the +<i>Elsinore</i> won to easier latitudes. Mr. Pike was right. Hell had not begun +to pop. But it has popped now, and men are overboard without even the +kindliness of a sack of coal at their feet. And yet the men, though ripe for +it, did not precipitate the trouble. It was Mr. Mellaire. Or, rather, it was +Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed Norwegian. Perhaps it was Possum. At any rate, +it was an accident, in which the several-named, including Possum, played their +respective parts. +</p> + +<p> +To begin at the beginning. Two weeks have elapsed since we crossed 50, and we +are now in 37—the same latitude as San Francisco, or, to be correct, we +are as far south of the equator as San Francisco is north of it. The trouble +was precipitated yesterday morning shortly after nine o’clock, and Possum +started the chain of events that culminated in downright mutiny. It was Mr. +Mellaire’s watch, and he was standing on the bridge, directly under the +mizzen-top, giving orders to Sundry Buyers, who, with Arthur Deacon and the +Maltese Cockney, was doing rigging work aloft. +</p> + +<p> +Get the picture and the situation in all its ridiculousness. Mr. Pike, +thermometer in hand, was coming back along the bridge from taking the +temperature of the coal in the for’ard hold. Ditman Olansen was just +swinging into the mizzen-top as he went up with several turns of rope over one +shoulder. Also, in some way, to the end of this rope was fastened a sizable +block that might have weighed ten pounds. Possum, running free, was fooling +around the chicken-coop on top the ’midship-house. And the chickens, +featherless but indomitable, were enjoying the milder weather as they pecked at +the grain and grits which the steward had just placed in their feeding-trough. +The tarpaulin that covered their pen had been off for several days. +</p> + +<p> +Now observe. I am at the break of the poop, leaning on the rail and watching +Ditman Olansen swing into the top with his cumbersome burden. Mr. Pike, +proceeding aft, has just passed Mr. Mellaire. Possum, who, on account of the +Horn weather and the tarpaulin, has not seen the chickens for many weeks, is +getting reacquainted, and is investigating them with that keen nose of his. And +a hen’s beak, equally though differently keen, impacts on Possum’s +nose, which is as sensitive as it is keen. +</p> + +<p> +I may well say, now that I think it over, that it was this particular hen that +started the mutiny. The men, well-driven by Mr. Pike, were ripe for an +explosion, and Possum and the hen laid the train. +</p> + +<p> +Possum fell away backwards from the coop and loosed a wild cry of pain and +indignation. This attracted Ditman Olansen’s attention. He paused and +craned his neck out in order to see, and, in this moment of carelessness, the +block he was carrying fetched away from him along with the several turns of +rope around his shoulder. Both the mates sprang away to get out from under. The +rope, fast to the block and following it, lashed about like a blacksnake, and, +though the block fell clear of Mr. Mellaire, the bight of the rope snatched off +his cap. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike had already started an oath aloft when his eyes caught sight of the +terrible cleft in Mr. Mellaire’s head. There it was, for all the world to +read, and Mr. Pike’s and mine were the only eyes that could read it. The +sparse hair upon the second mate’s crown served not at all to hide the +cleft. It began out of sight in the thicker hair above the ears, and was +exposed nakedly across the whole dome of head. +</p> + +<p> +The stream of abuse for Ditman Olansen was choked in Mr. Pike’s throat. +All he was capable of for the moment was to stare, petrified, at that enormous +fissure flanked at either end with a thatch of grizzled hair. He was in a +dream, a trance, his great hands knotting and clenching unconsciously as he +stared at the mark unmistakable by which he had said that he would some day +identify the murderer of Captain Somers. And in that moment I remembered having +heard him declare that some day he would stick his fingers in that mark. +</p> + +<p> +Still as in a dream, moving slowly, right hand outstretched like a talon, with +the fingers drawn downward, he advanced on the second mate with the evident +intention of thrusting his fingers into that cleft and of clawing and tearing +at the brain-life beneath that pulsed under the thin film of skin. +</p> + +<p> +The second mate backed away along the bridge, and Mr. Pike seemed partially to +come to himself. His outstretched arm dropped to his side, and he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you,” he said, in a strange, shaky voice, blended of age +and passion. “Eighteen years ago you were dismasted off the Plate in the +<i>Cyrus Thompson</i>. She foundered, after you were on your beam ends and lost +your sticks. You were in the only boat that was saved. Eleven years ago, on the +<i>Jason Harrison</i>, in San Francisco, Captain Somers was beaten to death by +his second mate. This second mate was a survivor of the <i>Cyrus Thompson</i>. +This second mate’d had his skull split by a crazy sea-cook. Your skull is +split. This second mate’s name was Sidney Waltham. And if you ain’t +Sidney Waltham . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +At this point Mr. Mellaire, or, rather, Sidney Waltham, despite his fifty +years, did what only a sailor could do. He went over the bridge-rail side-wise, +caught the running gear up-and-down the mizzen-mast, and landed lightly on his +feet on top of Number Three hatch. Nor did he stop there. He ran across the +hatch and dived through the doorway of his room in the ’midship-house. +</p> + +<p> +Such must have been Mr. Pike’s profundity of passion, that he paused like +a somnambulist, actually rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and seemed +to awaken. +</p> + +<p> +But the second mate had not run to his room for refuge. The next moment he +emerged, a thirty-two Smith and Wesson in his hand, and the instant he emerged +he began shooting. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was wholly himself again, and I saw him perceptibly pause and decide +between the two impulses that tore at him. One was to leap over the bridge-rail +and down at the man who shot at him; the other was to retreat. He retreated. +And as he bounded aft along the narrow bridge the mutiny began. Arthur Deacon, +from the mizzen-top, leaned out and hurled a steel marlin-spike at the fleeing +mate. The thing flashed in the sunlight as it hurtled down. It missed Mr. Pike +by twenty feet and nearly impaled Possum, who, afraid of firearms, was wildly +rushing and ki-yi-ing aft. It so happened that the sharp point of the +marlin-spike struck the wooden floor of the bridge, and it penetrated the +planking with such force that after it had fetched to a standstill it vibrated +violently for long seconds. +</p> + +<p> +I confess that I failed to observe a tithe of what occurred during the next +several minutes. Piece together as I will, after the event, I know that I +missed much of what took place. I know that the men aloft in the mizzen +descended to the deck, but I never saw them descend. I know that the second +mate emptied the chambers of his revolver, but I did not hear all the shots. I +know that Lars Johnson left the wheel, and on his broken leg, rebroken and not +yet really mended, limped and scuttled across the poop, down the ladder, and +gained for’ard. I know he must have limped and scuttled on that bad leg +of his; I know that I must have seen him; and yet I swear that I have no +impression of seeing him. +</p> + +<p> +I do know that I heard the rush of feet of men from for’ard along the +main deck. And I do know that I saw Mr. Pike take shelter behind the steel +jiggermast. Also, as the second mate manoeuvred to port on top of Number Three +hatch for his last shot, I know that I saw Mr. Pike duck around the corner of +the chart-house to starboard and get away aft and below by way of the +booby-hatch. And I did hear that last futile shot, and the bullet also as it +ricochetted from the corner of the steel-walled chart-house. +</p> + +<p> +As for myself, I did not move. I was too interested in seeing. It may have been +due to lack of presence of mind, or to lack of habituation to an active part in +scenes of quick action; but at any rate I merely retained my position at the +break of the poop and looked on. I was the only person on the poop when the +mutineers, led by the second mate and the gangsters, rushed it. I saw them +swarm up the ladder, and it never entered my head to attempt to oppose them. +Which was just as well, for I would have been killed for my pains, and I could +never have stopped them. +</p> + +<p> +I was alone on the poop, and the men were quite perplexed to find no enemy in +sight. As Bert Rhine went past, he half fetched up in his stride, as if to +knife me with the sheath knife, sharp-pointed, which he carried in his right +hand; then, and I know I correctly measured the drift of his judgment, he +unflatteringly dismissed me as unimportant and ran on. +</p> + +<p> +Right here I was impressed by the lack of clear-thinking on any of their parts. +So spontaneously had the ship’s company exploded into mutiny that it was +dazed and confused even while it acted. For instance, in the months since we +left Baltimore there had never been a moment, day or night, even when preventer +tackles were rigged, that a man had not stood at the wheel. So habituated were +they to this, that they were shocked into consternation at sight of the +deserted wheel. They paused for an instant to stare at it. Then Bert Rhine, +with a quick word and gesture, sent the Italian, Guido Bombini, around the rear +of the half-wheelhouse. The fact that he completed the circuit was proof that +nobody was there. +</p> + +<p> +Again, in the swift rush of events, I must confess that I saw but little. I was +aware that more of the men were climbing up the ladder and gaining the poop, +but I had no eyes for them. I was watching that sanguinary group aft near the +wheel and noting the most important thing, namely, that it was Bert Rhine, the +gangster, and not the second mate, who gave orders and was obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +He motioned to the Jew, Isaac Chantz, who had been wounded earlier in the +voyage by O’Sullivan, and Chantz led the way to the starboard chart-house +door. While this was going on, all in flashing fractions of seconds, Bert Rhine +was cautiously inspecting the lazarette through the open booby-hatch. +</p> + +<p> +Isaac Chantz jerked open the chart-house door, which swung outward. Things did +happen so swiftly! As he jerked the iron door open a two-foot hacking butcher +knife, at the end of a withered, yellow hand, flashed out and down on him. It +missed head and neck, but caught him on top of the left shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +All hands recoiled before this, and the Jew reeled across to the rail, his +right hand clutching at his wound, and between the fingers I could see the +blood welling darkly. Bert Rhine abandoned his inspection of the booby-hatch, +and, with the second mate, the latter still carrying his empty Smith & +Wesson, sprang into the press about the chart-house door. +</p> + +<p> +O wise, clever, cautious, old Chinese steward! He made no emergence. The door +swung emptily back and forth to the rolling of the <i>Elsinore</i>, and no man +knew but what, just inside, with that heavy, hacking knife upraised, lurked the +steward. And while they hesitated and stared at the aperture that alternately +closed and opened with the swinging of the door, the booby-hatch, situated +between chart-house and wheel, erupted. It was Mr. Pike, with his .44 automatic +Colt. +</p> + +<p> +There were shots fired, other than by him. I know I heard them, like +“red-heads” at an old-time Fourth of July; but I do not know who +discharged them. All was mess and confusion. Many shots were being fired, and +through the uproar I heard the reiterant, monotonous explosions from the +Colt’s .44 +</p> + +<p> +I saw the Italian, Mike Cipriani, clutch savagely at his abdomen and sink +slowly to the deck. Shorty, the Japanese half-caste, clown that he was, dancing +and grinning on the outskirts of the struggle, with a final grimace and +hysterical giggle led the retreat across the poop and down the poop-ladder. +Never had I seen a finer exemplification of mob psychology. Shorty, the most +unstable-minded of the individuals who composed this mob, by his own +instability precipitated the retreat in which the mob joined. When he broke +before the steady discharge of the automatic in the hand of the mate, on the +instant the rest broke with him. Least-balanced, his balance was the balance of +all of them. +</p> + +<p> +Chantz, bleeding prodigiously, was one of the first on Shorty’s heels. I +saw Nosey Murphy pause long enough to throw his knife at the mate. The missile +went wide, with a metallic clang struck the brass tip of one of the spokes of +the <i>Elsinore’s</i> wheel, and clattered on the deck. The second mate, +with his empty revolver, and Bert Rhine with his sheath-knife, fled past me +side by side. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike emerged from the booby-hatch and with an unaimed shot brought down +Bill Quigley, one of the “bricklayers,” who fell at my feet. The +last man off the poop was the Maltese Cockney, and at the top of the ladder he +paused to look back at Mr. Pike, who, holding the automatic in both hands, was +taking careful aim. The Maltese Cockney, disdaining the ladder, leaped through +the air to the main deck. But the Colt merely clicked. It was the last bullet +in it that had fetched down Bill Quigley. +</p> + +<p> +And the poop was ours. +</p> + +<p> +Events still crowded so closely that I missed much. I saw the steward, +belligerent and cautious, his long knife poised for a slash, emerge from the +chart-house. Margaret followed him, and behind her came Wada, who carried my +.22 Winchester automatic rifle. As he told me afterwards, he had brought it up +under instructions from her. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike was glancing with cool haste at his Colt to see whether it was jammed +or empty, when Margaret asked him the course. +</p> + +<p> +“By the wind,” he shouted to her, as he bounded for’ard. +“Put your helm hard up or we’ll be all aback.” +</p> + +<p> +Ah!—yeoman and henchman of the race, he could not fail in his fidelity to +the ship under his command. The iron of all his years of iron training was +there manifest. While mutiny spread red, and death was on the wing, he could +not forget his charge, the ship, the <i>Elsinore</i>, the insensate fabric +compounded of steel and hemp and woven cotton that was to him glorious with +personality. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret waved Wada in my direction as she ran to the wheel. As Mr. Pike passed +the corner of the chart-house, simultaneously there was a report from amidships +and the ping of a bullet against the steel wall. I saw the man who fired the +shot. It was the cowboy, Steve Roberts. +</p> + +<p> +As for the mate, he ducked in behind the sheltering jiggermast, and even as he +ducked his left hand dipped into his side coat-pocket, so that when he had +gained shelter it was coming out with a fresh clip of cartridges. The empty +clip fell to the deck, the loaded clip slipped up the hollow butt, and he was +good for eight more shots. +</p> + +<p> +Wada turned the little automatic rifle over to me, where I still stood under +the weather cloth at the break of the poop. +</p> + +<p> +“All ready,” he said. “You take off safety.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get Roberts,” Mr. Pike called to me. “He’s the best +shot for’ard. If you can’t get ’m, jolt the fear of God into +him anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the first time I had a human target, and let me say, here and now, that +I am convinced I am immune to buck fever. There he was before me, less than a +hundred feet distant, in the gangway between the door to Davis’ room and +the starboard-rail, manoeuvring for another shot at Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +I must have missed Steve Roberts that first time, but I came so near him that +he jumped. The next instant he had located me and turned his revolver on me. +But he had no chance. My little automatic was discharging as fast as I could +tickle the trigger with my fore-finger. The cowboy’s first shot went wild +of me, because my bullet arrived ere he got his swift aim. He swayed and +stumbled backward, but the bullets—ten of them—poured from the +muzzle of my Winchester like water from a garden hose. It was a stream of lead +I played upon him. I shall never know how many times I hit him, but I am +confident that after he had begun his long staggering fall at least three +additional bullets entered him ere he impacted on the deck. And even as he was +falling, aimlessly and mechanically, stricken then with death, he managed twice +again to discharge his weapon. +</p> + +<p> +And after he struck the deck he never moved. I do believe he died in the air. +</p> + +<p> +As I held up my gun and gazed at the abruptly-deserted main-deck I was aware of +Wada’s touch on my arm. I looked. In his hand were a dozen little .22 +long, soft-nosed, smokeless cartridges. He wanted me to reload. I threw on the +safety, opened the magazine, and tilted the rifle so that he could let the +fresh cartridges of themselves slide into place. +</p> + +<p> +“Get some more,” I told him. +</p> + +<p> +Scarcely had he departed on the errand when Bill Quigley, who lay at my feet, +created a diversion. I jumped—yes, and I freely confess that I +yelled—with startle and surprise, when I felt his paws clutch my ankles +and his teeth shut down on the calf of my leg. +</p> + +<p> +It was Mr. Pike to the rescue. I understand now the Western hyperbole of +“hitting the high places.” The mate did not seem in contact with +the deck. My impression was that he soared through the air to me, landing +beside me, and, in the instant of landing, kicking out with one of those big +feet of his. Bill Quigley was kicked clear away from me, and the next moment he +was flying overboard. It was a clean throw. He never touched the rail. +</p> + +<p> +Whether Mike Cipriani, who, till then, had lain in a welter, began crawling aft +in quest of safety, or whether he intended harm to Margaret at the wheel, we +shall never know; for there was no opportunity given him to show his purpose. +As swiftly as Mr. Pike could cross the deck with those giant bounds, just that +swiftly was the Italian in the air and following Bill Quigley overside. +</p> + +<p> +The mate missed nothing with those eagle eyes of his as he returned along the +poop. Nobody was to be seen on the main deck. Even the lookout had deserted the +forecastle-head, and the <i>Elsinore</i>, steered by Margaret, slipped a lazy +two knots through the quiet sea. Mr. Pike was apprehensive of a shot from +ambush, and it was not until after a scrutiny of several minutes that he put +his pistol into his side coat-pocket and snarled for’ard: +</p> + +<p> +“Come out, you rats! Show your ugly faces! I want to talk with +you!” +</p> + +<p> +Guido Bombini, gesticulating peaceable intentions and evidently thrust out by +Bert Rhine, was the first to appear. When it was observed that Mr. Pike did not +fire, the rest began to dribble into view. This continued till all were there +save the cook, the two sail-makers, and the second mate. The last to come out +were Tom Spink, the boy Buckwheat, and Herman Lunkenheimer, the good-natured +but simple-minded German; and these three came out only after repeated threats +from Bert Rhine, who, with Nosey Murphy and Kid Twist, was patently in charge. +Also, like a faithful dog, Guido Bombini fawned close to him. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do—stop where you are,” Mr. Pike commanded, when +the crew was scattered abreast, to starboard and to port, of Number Three +hatch. +</p> + +<p> +It was a striking scene. <i>Mutiny on the high seas</i>! That phrase, learned +in boyhood from my Marryatt and Cooper, recrudesced in my brain. This was +it—mutiny on the high seas in the year nineteen thirteen—and I was +part of it, a perishing blond whose lot was cast with the perishing but lordly +blonds, and I had already killed a man. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike, in the high place, aged and indomitable; leaned his arm on the rail +at the break of the poop and gazed down at the mutineers, the like of which +I’ll wager had never been assembled in mutiny before. There were the +three gangsters and ex-jailbirds, anything but seamen, yet in control of this +affair that was peculiarly an affair of the sea. With them was the Italian +hound, Bombini, and beside them were such strangely assorted men as Anton +Sorensen, Lars Jacobsen, Frank Fitzgibbon, and Richard Giller—also Arthur +Deacon the white slaver, John Hackey the San Francisco hoodlum, the Maltese +Cockney, and Tony the suicidal Greek. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed the three strange ones, shouldering together and standing apart from +the others as they swayed to the lazy roll and dreamed with their pale, topaz +eyes. And there was the Faun, stone deaf but observant, straining to understand +what was taking place. Yes, and Mulligan Jacobs and Andy Fay were bitterly and +eagerly side by side, and Ditman Olansen, crank-eyed, as if drawn by some +affinity of bitterness, stood behind them, his head appearing between their +heads. Farthest advanced of all was Charles Davis, the man who by all rights +should long since be dead, his face with its wax-like pallor startlingly in +contrast to the weathered faces of the rest. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced back at Margaret, who was coolly steering, and she smiled to me, and +love was in her eyes—she, too, of the perishing and lordly race of +blonds, her place the high place, her heritage government and command and +mastery over the stupid lowly of her kind and over the ruck and spawn of the +dark-pigmented breeds. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Sidney Waltham?” the mate snarled. “I want +him. Bring him out. After that, the rest of you filth get back to work, or God +have mercy on you.” +</p> + +<p> +The men moved about restlessly, shuffling their feet on the deck. +</p> + +<p> +“Sidney Waltham, I want you—come out!” Mr. Pike called, +addressing himself beyond them to the murderer of the captain under whom once +he had sailed. +</p> + +<p> +The prodigious old hero! It never entered his head that he was not the master +of the rabble there below him. He had but one idea, an idea of passion, and +that was his desire for vengeance on the murderer of his old skipper. +</p> + +<p> +“You old stiff!” Mulligan Jacobs snarled back. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, Mulligan!” was Bert Rhine’s command, in receipt of +which he received a venomous stare from the cripple. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ho, my hearty,” Mr. Pike sneered at the gangster. +“I’ll take care of your case, never fear. In the meantime, and +right now, fetch out that dog.” +</p> + +<p> +Whereupon he ignored the leader of the mutineers and began calling, +“Waltham, you dog, come out! Come out, you sneaking cur! Come out!” +</p> + +<p> +<i>Another lunatic</i>, was the thought that flashed through my mind; another +lunatic, the slave of a single idea. He forgets the mutiny, his fidelity to the +ship, in his personal thirst for vengeance. +</p> + +<p> +But did he? Even as he forgot and called his heart’s desire, which was +the life of the second mate, even then, without intention, mechanically, his +sailor’s considerative eye lifted to note the draw of the sails and roved +from sail to sail. Thereupon, so reminded, he returned to his fidelity. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he snarled at Bert Rhine. “Go on and get +for’ard before I spit on you, you scum and slum. I’ll give you and +the rest of the rats two minutes to return to duty.” +</p> + +<p> +And the leader, with his two fellow-gangsters, laughed their weird, silent +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess you’ll listen to our talk, first, old horse,” Bert +Rhine retorted. “—Davis, get up now and show what kind of a spieler +you are. Don’t get cold feet. Spit it out to Foxy Grandpa an’ tell +’m what’s doin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“You damned sea-lawyer!” Mr. Pike snarled as Davis opened his mouth +to speak. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine shrugged his shoulders, and half turned on his heel as if to depart, +as he said quietly: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, if you don’t want to talk . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike conceded a point. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” he snarled. “Spit the dirt out of your system, +Davis; but remember one thing: you’ll pay for this, and you’ll pay +through the nose. Go on!” +</p> + +<p> +The sea-lawyer cleared his throat in preparation. +</p> + +<p> +“First of all, I ain’t got no part in this,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a sick man, an’ I oughta be in my bunk right now. I +ain’t fit to be on my feet. But they’ve asked me to advise +’em on the law, an’ I have advised ’em—” +</p> + +<p> +“And the law—what is it?” Mr. Pike broke in. +</p> + +<p> +But Davis was uncowed. +</p> + +<p> +“The law is that when the officers is inefficient, the crew can take +charge peaceably an’ bring the ship into port. It’s all law +an’ in the records. There was the <i>Abyssinia</i>, in eighteen +ninety-two, when the master’d died of fever and the mates took to +drinkin’—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” Mr. Pike shut him off. “I don’t want your +citations. What d’ye want? Spit it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—and I’m talkin’ as an outsider, as a sick man off +duty that’s been asked to talk—well, the point is our skipper was a +good one, but he’s gone. Our mate is violent, seekin’ the life of +the second mate. We don’t care about that. What we want is to get into +port with our lives. An’ our lives is in danger. We ain’t hurt +nobody. You’ve done all the bloodshed. You’ve shot an’ killed +an’ thrown two men overboard, as witnesses’ll testify to in court. +An’ there’s Roberts, there, dead, too, an’ headin’ for +the sharks—an’ what for? For defendin’ himself from murderous +an’ deadly attack, as every man can testify an’ tell the truth, the +whole truth, an’ nothin’ but the truth, so help ’m, +God—ain’t that right, men?” +</p> + +<p> +A confused murmur of assent arose from many of them. +</p> + +<p> +“You want my job, eh?” Mr. Pike grinned. “An’ what are +you goin’ to do with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be taken care of until we get in an’ turn you over to +the lawful authorities,” Davis answered promptly. “Most likely you +can plead insanity an’ get off easy.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment I felt a stir at my shoulder. It was Margaret, armed with the +long knife of the steward, whom she had put at the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got another guess comin’, Davis,” Mr. Pike +said. “I’ve got no more talk with you. I’m goin’ to +talk to the bunch. I’ll give you fellows just two minutes to choose, and +I’ll tell you your choices. You’ve only got two choices. +You’ll turn the second mate over to me an’ go back to duty and take +what’s comin’ to you, or you’ll go to jail with the stripes +on you for long sentences. You’ve got two minutes. The fellows that want +jail can stand right where they are. The fellows that don’t want jail and +are willin’ to work faithful, can walk right back to me here on the poop. +Two minutes, an’ you can keep your jaws stopped while you think over what +it’s goin’ to be.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned his head to me and said in an undertone, “Be ready with that +pop-gun for trouble. An’ don’t hesitate. Slap it into +’em—the swine that think they can put as raw a deal as this over on +us.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Buckwheat who made the first move; but so tentative was it that it got +no farther than a tensing of the legs and a sway forward of the shoulders. +Nevertheless it was sufficient to start Herman Lunkenheimer, who thrust out his +foot and began confidently to walk aft. Kid Twist gained him in a single +spring, and Kid Twist, his wrist under the German’s throat from behind; +his knee pressed into the German’s back, bent the man backward and held +him. Even as the rifle came to my shoulder, the hound Bombini drew his knife +directly beneath Kid Twist’s wrist across the up-stretched throat of the +man. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this instant that I heard Mr. Pike’s “Plug him!” +and pulled the trigger; and of all ungodly things the bullet missed and caught +the Faun, who staggered back, sat down on the hatch, and began to cough. And +even as he coughed he still strained with pain-eloquent eyes to try to +understand. +</p> + +<p> +No other man moved. Herman Lunkenheimer, released by Kid Twist, sank down on +the deck. Nor did I shoot again. Kid Twist stood again by the side of Bert +Rhine and Guido Bombini fawned near. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine actually visibly smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Any more of you guys want to promenade aft?” he queried in velvet +tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Two minutes up,” Mr. Pike declared. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ what are you goin’ to do about it, Grandpa?” Bert +Rhine sneered. +</p> + +<p> +In a flash the big automatic was out of the mate’s pocket and he was +shooting as fast as he could pull trigger, while all hands fled to shelter. +But, as he had long since told me, he was no shot and could effectively use the +weapon only at close range—muzzle to stomach preferably. +</p> + +<p> +As we stared at the main deck, deserted save for the dead cowboy on his back +and for the Faun who still sat on the hatch and coughed, an eruption of men +occurred over the for’ard edge of the ’midship-house. +</p> + +<p> +“Shoot!” Margaret cried at my back. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t!” Mr. Pike roared at me. +</p> + +<p> +The rifle was at my shoulder when I desisted. Louis, the cook, led the rush aft +to us across the top of the house and along the bridge. Behind him, in single +file and not wasting any time, came the Japanese sail-makers, Henry the +training-ship boy, and the other boy Buckwheat. Tom Spink brought up the rear. +As he came up the ladder of the ’midship-house somebody from beneath must +have caught him by a leg in an effort to drag him back. We saw half of him in +sight and knew that he was struggling and kicking. He fetched clear abruptly, +gained the top of the house in a surge, and raced aft along the bridge until he +overtook and collided with Buckwheat, who yelled out in fear that a mutineer +had caught him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> + +<p> +We who are aft, besieged in the high place, are stronger in numbers than I +dreamed until now, when I have just finished taking the ship’s census. Of +course Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself are apart. We alone represent the ruling +class. With us are servants and serfs, faithful to their salt, who look to us +for guidance and life. +</p> + +<p> +I use my words advisedly. Tom Spink and Buckwheat are serfs and nothing else. +Henry, the training-ship boy, occupies an anomalous classification. He is of +our kind, but he can scarcely be called even a cadet of our kind. He will some +day win to us and become a mate or a captain, but in the meantime, of course, +his past is against him. He is a candidate, rising from the serf class to our +class. Also, he is only a youth, the iron of his heredity not yet tested and +proven. +</p> + +<p> +Wada, Louis, and the steward are servants of Asiatic breed. So are the two +Japanese sail-makers—scarcely servants, not to be called slaves, but +something in between. +</p> + +<p> +So, all told, there are eleven of us aft in the citadel. But our followers are +too servant-like and serf-like to be offensive fighters. They will help us +defend the high place against all attack; but they are incapable of joining +with us in an attack on the other end of the ship. They will fight like +cornered rats to preserve their lives; but they will not advance like tigers +upon the enemy. Tom Spink is faithful but spirit-broken. Buckwheat is +hopelessly of the stupid lowly. Henry has not yet won his spurs. On our side +remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself. The rest will hold the wall of the poop +and fight thereon to the death, but they are not to be depended upon in a +sortie. +</p> + +<p> +At the other end of the ship—and I may as well give the roster, are: the +second mate, either to be called Mellaire or Waltham, a strong man of our own +breed but a renegade; the three gangsters, killers and jackals, Bert Rhine, +Nosey Murphy, and Kid Twist; the Maltese Cockney and Tony the crazy Greek; +Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Giller, the survivors of the trio of +“bricklayers”; Anton Sorensen and Lars Jacobsen, stupid +Scandinavian sailor-men; Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed Berserk; John Hackey +and Arthur Deacon, respectively hoodlum and white slaver; Shorty, the +mixed-breed clown; Guido Bombini, the Italian hound; Andy Fay and Mulligan +Jacobs, the bitter ones; the three topaz-eyed dreamers, who are unclassifiable; +Isaac Chantz, the wounded Jew; Bob, the overgrown dolt; the feeble-minded Faun, +lung-wounded; Nancy and Sundry Buyers, the two hopeless, helpless bosuns; and, +finally, the sea-lawyer, Charles Davis. +</p> + +<p> +This makes twenty-seven of them against the eleven of us. But there are men, +strong in viciousness, among them. They, too, have their serfs and bravos. +Guido Bombini and Isaac Chantz are certainly bravos. And weaklings like +Sorensen, and Jacobsen, and Bob, cannot be anything else than slaves to the men +who compose the gangster clique. +</p> + +<p> +I failed to tell what happened yesterday, after Mr. Pike emptied his automatic +and cleared the deck. The poop was indubitably ours, and there was no +possibility of the mutineers making a charge on us in broad daylight. Margaret +had gone below, accompanied by Wada, to see to the security of the port and +starboard doors that open from the cabin directly on the main deck. These are +still caulked and tight and fastened on the inside, as they have been since the +passage of Cape Horn began. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike put one of the sail-makers at the wheel, and the steward, relieved and +starting below, was attracted to the port quarter, where the patent log that +towed astern was made fast. Margaret had returned his knife to him, and he was +carrying it in his hand when his attention was attracted astern to our wake. +Mike Cipriani and Bill Quigley had managed to catch the lazily moving log-line +and were clinging to it. The <i>Elsinore</i> was moving just fast enough to +keep them on the surface instead of dragging them under. Above them and about +them circled curious and hungry albatrosses, Cape hens, and mollyhawks. Even as +I glimpsed the situation one of the big birds, a ten-footer at least, with a +ten-inch beak to the fore, dropped down on the Italian. Releasing his hold with +one hand, he struck with his knife at the bird. Feathers flew, and the +albatross, deflected by the blow, fell clumsily into the water. +</p> + +<p> +Quite methodically, just as part of the day’s work, the steward chopped +down with his knife, catching the log-line between the steel edge and the rail. +At once, no longer buoyed up by the <i>Elsinore’s</i> two-knot drag +ahead, the wounded men began to swim and flounder. The circling hosts of huge +sea-birds descended upon them, with carnivorous beaks striking at their heads +and shoulders and arms. A great screeching and squawking arose from the winged +things of prey as they strove for the living meat. And yet, somehow, I was not +very profoundly shocked. These were the men whom I had seen eviscerate the +shark and toss it overboard, and shout with joy as they watched it devoured +alive by its brethren. They had played a violent, cruel game with the things of +life, and the things of life now played upon them the same violent, cruel game. +As they that rise by the sword perish by the sword, just so did these two men +who had lived cruelly die cruelly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” was Mr. Pike’s comment, “we’ve saved +two sacks of mighty good coal.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Certainly our situation might be worse. We are cooking on the coal-stove and on +the oil-burners. We have servants to cook and serve for us. And, most important +of all, we are in possession of all the food on the <i>Elsinore</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike makes no mistake. Realizing that with our crowd we cannot rush the +crowd at the other end of the ship, he accepts the siege, which, as he says, +consists of the besieged holding all food supplies while the besiegers are on +the imminent edge of famine. +</p> + +<p> +“Starve the dogs,” he growls. “Starve ’m until they +crawl aft and lick our shoes. Maybe you think the custom of carrying the stores +aft just happened. Only it didn’t. Before you and I were born it was +long-established and it was established on brass tacks. They knew what they +were about, the old cusses, when they put the grub in the lazarette.” +</p> + +<p> +Louis says there is not more than three days’ regular whack in the +galley; that the barrel of hard-tack in the forecastle will quickly go; and +that our chickens, which they stole last night from the top of the +’midship-house, are equivalent to no more than an additional day’s +supply. In short, at the outside limit, we are convinced the men will be keen +to talk surrender within the week. +</p> + +<p> +We are no longer sailing. In last night’s darkness we helplessly listened +to the men loosing headsail-halyards and letting yards go down on the run. +Under orders of Mr. Pike I shot blindly and many times into the dark, but +without result, save that we heard the bullets of answering shots strike +against the chart-house. So to-day we have not even a man at the wheel. The +<i>Elsinore</i> drifts idly on an idle sea, and we stand regular watches in the +shelter of chart-house and jiggermast. Mr. Pike says it is the laziest time he +has had on the whole voyage. +</p> + +<p> +I alternate watches with him, although when on duty there is little to be done, +save, in the daytime, to stand rifle in hand behind the jiggermast, and, in the +night, to lurk along the break of the poop. Behind the chart-house, ready to +repel assault, are my watch of four men: Tom Spink, Wada, Buckwheat, and Louis. +Henry, the two Japanese sail-makers, and the old steward compose Mr. +Pike’s watch. +</p> + +<p> +It is his orders that no one for’ard is to be allowed to show himself, +so, to-day, when the second mate appeared at the corner of the +’midship-house, I made him take a quick leap back with the thud of my +bullet against the iron wall a foot from his head. Charles Davis tried the same +game and was similarly stimulated. +</p> + +<p> +Also, this evening, after dark, Mr. Pike put block-and-tackle on the first +section of the bridge, heaved it out of place, and lowered it upon the poop. +Likewise he hoisted in the ladder at the break of the poop that leads down to +the main deck. The men will have to do some climbing if they ever elect to rush +us. +</p> + +<p> +I am writing this in my watch below. I came off duty at eight o’clock, +and at midnight I go on deck to stay till four to-morrow morning. Wada shakes +his head and says that the Blackwood Company should rebate us on the +first-class passage paid in advance. We are working our passage, he contends. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret takes the adventure joyously. It is the first time she has experienced +mutiny, but she is such a thorough sea-woman that she appears like an old hand +at the game. She leaves the deck to the mate and me; but, still acknowledging +his leadership, she has taken charge below and entirely manages the commissary, +the cooking, and the sleeping arrangements. We still keep our old quarters, and +she has bedded the new-comers in the big after-room with blankets issued from +the slop-chest. +</p> + +<p> +In a way, from the standpoint of her personal welfare, the mutiny is the best +thing that could have happened to her. It has taken her mind off her father and +filled her waking hours with work to do. This afternoon, standing above the +open booby-hatch, I heard her laugh ring out as in the old days coming down the +Atlantic. Yes, and she hums snatches of songs under her breath as she works. In +the second dog-watch this evening, after Mr. Pike had finished dinner and +joined us on the poop, she told him that if he did not soon re-rig his +phonograph she was going to start in on the piano. The reason she advanced was +the psychological effect such sounds of revelry would have on the starving +mutineers. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The days pass, and nothing of moment happens. We get nowhere. The +<i>Elsinore</i>, without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and drifts +a lunatic course. Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at other times she +is directly before it; but at all times she is circling vaguely and hesitantly +to get somewhere else than where she is. As an illustration, at daylight this +morning she came up into the wind as if endeavouring to go about. In the course +of half an hour she worked off till the wind was directly abeam. In another +half hour she was back into the wind. Not until evening did she manage to get +the wind on her port bow; but when she did, she immediately paid off, +accomplished the complete circle in an hour, and recommenced her morning +tactics of trying to get into the wind. +</p> + +<p> +And there is nothing for us to do save hold the poop against the attack that is +never made. Mr. Pike, more from force of habit than anything else, takes his +regular observations and works up the <i>Elsinore’s</i> position. This +noon she was eight miles east of yesterday’s position, yet to-day’s +position, in longitude, was within a mile of where she was four days ago. On +the other hand she invariably makes northing at the rate of seven or eight +miles a day. +</p> + +<p> +Aloft, the <i>Elsinore</i> is a sad spectacle. All is confusion and disorder. +The sails, unfurled, are a slovenly mess along the yards, and many loose ends +sway dismally to every roll. The only yard that is loose is the main-yard. It +is fortunate that wind and wave are mild, else would the iron-work carry away +and the mutineers find the huge thing of steel about their ears. +</p> + +<p> +There is one thing we cannot understand. A week has passed, and the men show no +signs of being starved into submission. Repeatedly and in vain has Mr. Pike +interrogated the hands aft with us. One and all, from the cook to Buckwheat, +they swear they have no knowledge of any food for’ard, save the small +supply in the galley and the barrel of hardtack in the forecastle. Yet it is +very evident that those for’ard are not starving. We see the smoke from +the galley-stove and can only conclude that they have food to cook. +</p> + +<p> +Twice has Bert Rhine attempted a truce, but both times his white flag, as soon +as it showed above the edge of the ’midship-house, was fired upon by Mr. +Pike. The last occurrence was two days ago. It is Mr. Pike’s intention +thoroughly to starve them into submission, but now he is beginning to worry +about their mysterious food supply. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike is not quite himself. He is obsessed, I know beyond any doubt, with +the idea of vengeance on the second mate. On divers occasions, now, I have come +unexpectedly upon him and found him muttering to himself with grim set face, or +clenching and unclenching his big square fists and grinding his teeth. His +conversation continually runs upon the feasibility of our making a night attack +for’ard, and he is perpetually questioning Tom Spink and Louis on their +ideas of where the various men may be sleeping—the point of which always +is: <i>Where is the second mate likely to be sleeping</i>? +</p> + +<p> +No later than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof of his +obsession. It was four o’clock, the beginning of the first dog-watch, and +he had just relieved me. So careless have we grown, that we now stand in broad +daylight at the exposed break of the poop. Nobody shoots at us, and, +occasionally, over the top of the for’ard-house, Shorty sticks up his +head and grins or makes clownish faces at us. At such times Mr. Pike studies +Shorty’s features through the telescope in an effort to find signs of +starvation. Yet he admits dolefully that Shorty is looking fleshed-up. +</p> + +<p> +But to return. Mr. Pike had just relieved me yesterday afternoon, when the +second mate climbed the forecastle-head and sauntered to the very eyes of the +<i>Elsinore</i>, where he stood gazing overside. +</p> + +<p> +“Take a crack at ’m,” Mr. Pike said. +</p> + +<p> +It was a long shot, and I was taking slow and careful aim, when he touched my +arm. +</p> + +<p> +“No; don’t,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +I lowered the little rifle and looked at him inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“You might hit him,” he explained. “And I want him for +myself.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Life is never what we expect it to be. All our voyage from Baltimore south to +the Horn and around the Horn has been marked by violence and death. And now +that it has culminated in open mutiny there is no more violence, much less +death. We keep to ourselves aft, and the mutineers keep to themselves +for’ard. There is no more harshness, no more snarling and bellowing of +commands; and in this fine weather a general festival obtains. +</p> + +<p> +Aft, Mr. Pike and Margaret alternate with phonograph and piano; and +for’ard, although we cannot see them, a full-fledged +“foo-foo” band makes most of the day and night hideous. A squealing +accordion that Tom Spink says was the property of Mike Cipriani is played by +Guido Bombini, who sets the pace and seems the leader of the foo-foo. There are +two broken-reeded harmonicas. Someone plays a jew’s-harp. Then there are +home-made fifes and whistles and drums, combs covered with paper, extemporized +triangles, and bones made from ribs of salt horse such as negro minstrels use. +</p> + +<p> +The whole crew seems to compose the band, and, like a lot of monkey-folk +rejoicing in rude rhythm, emphasizes the beat by hammering kerosene cans, +frying-pans, and all sorts of things metallic or reverberant. Some genius has +rigged a line to the clapper of the ship’s bell on the forecastle-head +and clangs it horribly in the big foo-foo crises, though Bombini can be heard +censuring him severely on occasion. And to cap it all, the fog-horn machine +pumps in at the oddest moments in imitation of a big bass viol. +</p> + +<p> +And this is mutiny on the high seas! Almost every hour of my deck-watches I +listen to this infernal din, and am maddened into desire to join with Mr. Pike +in a night attack and put these rebellious and inharmonious slaves to work. +</p> + +<p> +Yet they are not entirely inharmonious. Guido Bombini has a respectable though +untrained tenor voice, and has surprised me by a variety of selections, not +only from Verdi, but from Wagner and Massenet. Bert Rhine and his crowd are +full of rag-time junk, and one phrase that has caught the fancy of all hands, +and which they roar out at all times, is: “<i>It’s a bear</i>! +<i>It’s a bear</i>! <i>It’s a bear</i>!” This morning Nancy, +evidently very strongly urged, gave a doleful rendering of <i>Flying Cloud</i>. +Yes, and in the second dog-watch last evening our three topaz-eyed dreamers +sang some folk-song strangely sweet and sad. +</p> + +<p> +And this is mutiny! As I write I can scarcely believe it. Yet I know Mr. Pike +keeps the watch over my head. I hear the shrill laughter of the steward and +Louis over some ancient Chinese joke. Wada and the sail-makers, in the pantry, +are, I know, talking Japanese politics. And from across the cabin, along the +narrow halls, I can hear Margaret softly humming as she goes to bed. +</p> + +<p> +But all doubts vanish at the stroke of eight bells, when I go on deck to +relieve Mr. Pike, who lingers a moment for a “gam,” as he calls +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Say,” he said confidentially, “you and I can clean out the +whole gang. All we got to do is sneak for’ard and turn loose. As soon as +we begin to shoot up, half of ’em’ll bolt aft—lobsters like +Nancy, an’ Sundry Buyers, an’ Jacobsen, an’ Bob, an’ +Shorty, an’ them three castaways, for instance. An’ while +they’re doin’ that, an’ our bunch on the poop is takin’ +’em in, you an’ me can make a pretty big hole in them that’s +left. What d’ye say?” +</p> + +<p> +I hesitated, thinking of Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, say,” he urged, “once I jumped into that +fo’c’s’le, at close range, I’d start right in, +blim-blam-blim, fast as you could wink, nailing them gangsters, an’ +Bombini, an’ the Sheeny, an’ Deacon, an’ the Cockney, +an’ Mulligan Jacobs, an’ . . . an’ . . . Waltham.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be nine,” I smiled. “You’ve only eight +shots in your Colt.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike considered a moment, and revised his list. “All right,” he +agreed, “I guess I’ll have to let Jacobs go. What d’ye say? +Are you game?” +</p> + +<p> +Still I hesitated, but before I could speak he anticipated me and returned to +his fidelity. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you can’t do it, Mr. Pathurst. If by any luck they got the +both of us . . . No; we’ll just stay aft and sit tight until +they’re starved to it . . . But where they get their tucker gets me. +For’ard she’s as bare as a bone, as any decent ship ought to be, +and yet look at ’em, rolling hog fat. And by rights they ought to a-quit +eatin’ a week ago.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> + +<p> +Yes, it is certainly mutiny. Collecting water from the leaders of the +chart-house in a shower of rain this morning, Buckwheat exposed himself, and a +long, lucky revolver-shot from for’ard caught him in the shoulder. The +bullet was small-calibre and spent ere it reached him, so that he received no +more than a flesh-wound, though he carried on as if he were dying until Mr. +Pike hushed his noise by cuffing his ears. +</p> + +<p> +I should not like to have Mr. Pike for my surgeon. He probed for the bullet +with his little finger, which was far too big for the aperture; and with his +little finger, while with his other hand he threatened another ear-clout, he +gouged out the leaden pellet. Then he sent the boy below, where Margaret took +him in charge with antiseptics and dressings. +</p> + +<p> +I see her so rarely that a half-hour alone with her these days is an adventure. +She is busy morning to night in keeping her house in order. As I write this, +through my open door I can hear her laying the law down to the men in the +after-room. She has issued underclothes all around from the slop-chest, and is +ordering them to take a bath in the rain-water just caught. And to make sure of +their thoroughness in the matter, she has told off Louis and the steward to +supervise the operation. Also, she has forbidden them smoking their pipes in +the after-room. And, to cap everything, they are to scrub walls, ceiling, +everything, and then start to-morrow morning at painting. All of which serves +to convince me almost that mutiny does not obtain and that I have imagined it. +</p> + +<p> +But no. I hear Buckwheat blubbering and demanding how he can take a bath in his +wounded condition. I wait and listen for Margaret’s judgment. Nor am I +disappointed. Tom Spink and Henry are told off to the task, and the thorough +scrubbing of Buckwheat is assured. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The mutineers are not starving. To-day they have been fishing for albatrosses. +A few minutes after they caught the first one its carcase was flung overboard. +Mr. Pike studied it through his sea-glasses, and I heard him grit his teeth +when he made certain that it was not the mere feathers and skin but the entire +carcass. They had taken only its wing-bones to make into pipe-stems. The +inference was obvious: <i>starving men would not throw meat away in such +fashion</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But where do they get their food? It is a sea-mystery in itself, although I +might not so deem it were it not for Mr. Pike. +</p> + +<p> +“I think, and think, till my brain is all frazzled out,” he tells +me; “and yet I can’t get a line on it. I know every inch of space +on the <i>Elsinore</i>, and know there isn’t an ounce of grub anywhere +for’ard, and yet they eat! I’ve overhauled the lazarette. As near +as I can make it out, nothing is missing. Then where do they get it? +That’s what I want to know. Where do they get it?” +</p> + +<p> +I know that this morning he spent hours in the lazarette with the steward and +the cook, overhauling and checking off from the lists of the Baltimore agents. +And I know that they came up out of the lazarette, the three of them, dripping +with perspiration and baffled. The steward has raised the hypothesis that, +first of all, there were extra stores left over from the previous voyage, or +from previous voyages, and, next, that the stealing of these stores must have +taken place during the night-watches when it was Mr. Pike’s turn below. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, the mate takes the food mystery almost as much to heart as he +takes the persistent and propinquitous existence of Sidney Waltham. +</p> + +<p> +I am coming to realize the meaning of watch-and-watch. To begin with, I spend +on deck twelve hours, and a fraction more, of each twenty-four. A fair portion +of the remaining twelve is spent in eating, in dressing, and in undressing, and +with Margaret. As a result, I feel the need for more sleep than I am getting. I +scarcely read at all, now. The moment my head touches the pillow I am asleep. +Oh, I sleep like a baby, eat like a navvy, and in years have not enjoyed such +physical well-being. I tried to read George Moore last night, and was +dreadfully bored. He may be a realist, but I solemnly aver he does not know +reality on that tight, little, sheltered-life archipelago of his. If he could +wind-jam around the Horn just one voyage he would be twice the writer. +</p> + +<p> +And Mr. Pike, for practically all of his sixty-nine years, has stood his +watch-and-watch, with many a spill-over of watches into watches. And yet he is +iron. In a struggle with him I am confident that he would break me like so much +straw. He is truly a prodigy of a man, and, so far as to-day is concerned, an +anachronism. +</p> + +<p> +The Faun is not dead, despite my unlucky bullet. Henry insisted that he caught +a glimpse of him yesterday. To-day I saw him myself. He came to the corner of +the ’midship-house and gazed wistfully aft at the poop, straining and +eager to understand. In the same way I have often seen Possum gaze at me. +</p> + +<p> +It has just struck me that of our eight followers five are Asiatic and only +three are our own breed. Somehow it reminds me of India and of Clive and +Hastings. +</p> + +<p> +And the fine weather continues, and we wonder how long a time must elapse ere +our mutineers eat up their mysterious food and are starved back to work. +</p> + +<p> +We are almost due west of Valparaiso and quite a bit less than a thousand miles +off the west coast of South America. The light northerly breezes, varying from +north-east to west, would, according to Mr. Pike, work us in nicely for +Valparaiso if only we had sail on the <i>Elsinore</i>. As it is, sailless, she +drifts around and about and makes nowhere save for the slight northerly drift +each day. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Pike is beside himself. In the past two days he has displayed increasing +possession of himself by the one idea of vengeance on the second mate. It is +not the mutiny, irksome as it is and helpless as it makes him; it is the +presence of the murderer of his old-time and admired skipper, Captain Somers. +</p> + +<p> +The mate grins at the mutiny, calls it a snap, speaks gleefully of how his +wages are running up, and regrets that he is not ashore, where he would be able +to take a hand in gambling on the reinsurance. But the sight of Sidney Waltham, +calmly gazing at sea and sky from the forecastle-head, or astride the far end +of the bowsprit and fishing for sharks, maddens him. Yesterday, coming to +relieve me, he borrowed my rifle and turned loose the stream of tiny pellets on +the second mate, who coolly made his line secure ere he scrambled in-board. Of +course, it was only one chance in a hundred that Mr. Pike might have hit him, +but Sidney Waltham did not care to encourage the chance. +</p> + +<p> +And yet it is not like mutiny—not like the conventional mutiny I absorbed +as a boy, and which has become classic in the literature of the sea. There is +no hand-to-hand fighting, no crash of cannon and flash of cutlass, no sailors +drinking grog, no lighted matches held over open powder-magazines. +Heavens!—there isn’t a single cutlass nor a powder-magazine on +board. And as for grog, not a man has had a drink since Baltimore. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Well, it is mutiny after all. I shall never doubt it again. It may be +nineteen-thirteen mutiny on a coal-carrier, with feeblings and imbeciles and +criminals for mutineers; but at any rate mutiny it is, and at least in the +number of deaths it is reminiscent of the old days. For things have happened +since last I had opportunity to write up this log. For that matter, I am now +the keeper of the <i>Elsinore’s</i> official log as well, in which work +Margaret helps me. +</p> + +<p> +And I might have known it would happen. At four yesterday morning I relieved +Mr. Pike. When in the darkness I came up to him at the break of the poop, I had +to speak to him twice to make him aware of my presence. And then he merely +grunted acknowledgment in an absent sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment he brightened up, and was himself save that he was too bright. +He was making an effort. I felt this, but was quite unprepared for what +followed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, as he put his leg over +the rail and lightly and swiftly lowered himself down into the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing I could do. To cry out or to attempt to reason with him would +only have drawn the mutineers’ attention. I heard his feet strike the +deck beneath as he let go. Immediately he started for’ard. Little enough +precaution he took. I swear that clear to the ’midship-house I heard the +dragging age-lag of his feet. Then that ceased, and that was all. +</p> + +<p> +I repeat. That was all. Never a sound came from for’ard. I held my watch +till daylight. I held it till Margaret came on deck with her cheery “What +ho of the night, brave mariner?” I held the next watch (which should have +been the mate’s) till midday, eating both breakfast and lunch behind the +sheltering jiggermast. And I held all afternoon, and through both dog-watches, +my dinner served likewise on the deck. +</p> + +<p> +And that was all. Nothing happened. The galley-stove smoked three times, +advertising the cooking of three meals. Shorty made faces at me as usual across +the rim of the for’ard-house. The Maltese Cockney caught an albatross. +There was some excitement when Tony the Greek hooked a shark off the jib-boom, +so big that half a dozen tailed on to the line and failed to land it. But I +caught no glimpse of Mr. Pike nor of the renegade Sidney Waltham. +</p> + +<p> +In short, it was a lazy, quiet day of sunshine and gentle breeze. There was no +inkling to what had happened to the mate. Was he a prisoner? Was he already +overside? Why were there no shots? He had his big automatic. It is +inconceivable that he did not use it at least once. Margaret and I discussed +the affair till we were well a-weary, but reached no conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +She is a true daughter of the race. At the end of the second dog-watch, armed +with her father’s revolver, she insisted on standing the first watch of +the night. I compromised with the inevitable by having Wada make up my bed on +the deck in the shelter of the cabin skylight just for’ard of the +jiggermast. Henry, the two sail-makers and the steward, variously equipped with +knives and clubs, were stationed along the break of the poop. +</p> + +<p> +And right here I wish to pass my first criticism on modern mutiny. On ships +like the <i>Elsinore</i> there are not enough weapons to go around. The only +firearms now aft are Captain West’s .38 Colt revolver, and my .22 +automatic Winchester. The old steward, with a penchant for hacking and +chopping, has his long knife and a butcher’s cleaver. Henry, in addition +to his sheath-knife, has a short bar of iron. Louis, despite a most sanguinary +array of butcher-knives and a big poker, pins his cook’s faith on hot +water and sees to it that two kettles are always piping on top the cabin stove. +Buckwheat, who on account of his wound is getting all night in for a couple of +nights, cherishes a hatchet. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of our retainers have knives and clubs, although Yatsuda, the first +sail-maker, carries a hand-axe, and Uchino, the second sail-maker, sleeping or +waking, never parts from a claw-hammer. Tom Spink has a harpoon. Wada, however, +is the genius. By means of the cabin stove he has made a sharp pike-point of +iron and fitted it to a pole. To-morrow be intends to make more for the other +men. +</p> + +<p> +It is rather shuddery, however, to speculate on the terrible assortment of +cutting, gouging, jabbing and slashing weapons with which the mutineers are +able to equip themselves from the carpenter’s shop. If it ever comes to +an assault on the poop there will be a weird mess of wounds for the survivors +to dress. For that matter, master as I am of my little rifle, no man could gain +the poop in the day-time. Of course, if rush they will, they will rush us in +the night, when my rifle will be worthless. Then it will be blow for blow, +hand-to-hand, and the strongest pates and arms will win. +</p> + +<p> +But no. I have just bethought me. We shall be ready for any night-rush. +I’ll take a leaf out of modern warfare, and show them not only that we +are top-dog (a favourite phrase of the mate), but <i>why</i> we are top-dog. It +is simple—night illumination. As I write I work out the +idea—gasoline, balls of oakum, caps and gunpowder from a few cartridges, +Roman candles, and flares blue, red, and green, shallow metal receptacles to +carry the explosive and inflammable stuff; and a trigger-like arrangement by +which, pulling on a string, the caps are exploded in the gunpowder and fire set +to the gasoline-soaked oakum and to the flares and candles. It will be brain as +well as brawn against mere brawn. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I have worked like a Trojan all day, and the idea is realized. Margaret helped +me out with suggestions, and Tom Spink did the sailorizing. Over our head, from +the jiggermast, the steel stays that carry the three jigger-trysails descend +high above the break of the poop and across the main deck to the mizzenmast. A +light line has been thrown over each stay, and been thrown repeatedly around so +as to form an unslipping knot. Tom Spink waited till dark, when he went aloft +and attached loose rings of stiff wire around the stays below the knots. Also +he bent on hoisting-gear and connected permanent fastenings with the sliding +rings. And further, between rings and fastenings, is a slack of fifty feet of +light line. +</p> + +<p> +This is the idea: after dark each night we shall hoist our three metal +wash-basins, loaded with inflammables, up to the stays. The arrangement is such +that at the first alarm of a rush, by pulling a cord the trigger is pulled that +ignites the powder, and the very same pull operates a trip-device that lets the +rings slide down the steel stays. Of course, suspended from the rings, are the +illuminators, and when they have run down the stays fifty feet the lines will +automatically bring them to rest. Then all the main deck between the poop and +the mizzen-mast will be flooded with light, while we shall be in comparative +darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Of course each morning before daylight we shall lower all this apparatus to the +deck, so that the men for’ard will not guess what we have up our sleeve, +or, rather, what we have up on the trysail-stays. Even to-day the little of our +gear that has to be left standing aroused their curiosity. Head after head +showed over the edge of the for’ard-house as they peeped and peered and +tried to make out what we were up to. Why, I find myself almost looking forward +to an attack in order to see the device work. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h2> + +<p> +And what has happened to Mr. Pike remains a mystery. For that matter, what has +happened to the second mate? In the past three days we have by our eyes taken +the census of the mutineers. Every man has been seen by us with the sole +exception of Mr. Mellaire, or Sidney Waltham, as I assume I must correctly name +him. He has not appeared—does not appear; and we can only speculate and +conjecture. +</p> + +<p> +In the past three days various interesting things have taken place. Margaret +stands watch and watch with me, day and night, the clock around; for there is +no one of our retainers to whom we can entrust the responsibility of a watch. +Though mutiny obtains and we are besieged in the high place, the weather is so +mild and there is so little call on our men that they have grown careless and +sleep aft of the chart-house when it is their watch on deck. Nothing ever +happens, and, like true sailors, they wax fat and lazy. Even have I found +Louis, the steward, and Wada guilty of cat-napping. In fact, the training-ship +boy, Henry, is the only one who has never lapsed. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, yes, and I gave Tom Spink a thrashing yesterday. Since the disappearance of +the mate he had had little faith in me, and had been showing vague signs of +insolence and insubordination. Both Margaret and I had noted it independently. +Day before yesterday we talked it over. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a good sailor, but weak,” she said. “If we let him go +on, he will infect the rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I’ll take him in hand,” I announced valorously. +</p> + +<p> +“You will have to,” she encouraged. “Be hard. Be hard. You +must be hard.” +</p> + +<p> +Those who sit in the high places must be hard, yet have I discovered that it is +hard to be hard. For instance, easy enough was it to drop Steve Roberts as he +was in the act of shooting at me. Yet it is most difficult to be hard with a +chuckle-headed retainer like Tom Spink—especially when he continually +fails by a shade to give sufficient provocation. For twenty-four hours after my +talk with Margaret I was on pins and needles to have it out with him, yet +rather than have had it out with him I should have preferred to see the poop +rushed by the gang from the other side. +</p> + +<p> +Not in a day can the tyro learn to employ the snarling immediacy of mastery of +Mr. Pike, nor the reposeful, voiceless mastery of a Captain West. Truly, the +situation was embarrassing. I was not trained in the handling of men, and Tom +Spink knew it in his chuckle-headed way. Also, in his chuckle-headed way, he +was dispirited by the loss of the mate. Fearing the mate, nevertheless he had +depended on the mate to fetch him through with a whole skin, or at least alive. +On me he has no dependence. What chance had the gentleman passenger and the +captain’s daughter against the gang for’ard? So he must have +reasoned, and, so reasoning, become despairing and desperate. +</p> + +<p> +After Margaret had told me to be hard I watched Tom Spink with an eagle eye, +and he must have sensed my attitude, for he carefully forebore from +overstepping, while all the time he palpitated just on the edge of +overstepping. Yes, and it was clear that Buckwheat was watching to learn the +outcome of this veiled refractoriness. For that matter, the situation was not +being missed by our keen-eyed Asiatics, and I know that I caught Louis several +times verging on the offence of offering me advice. But he knew his place and +managed to keep his tongue between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +At last, yesterday, while I held the watch, Tom Spink was guilty of spitting +tobacco juice on the deck. +</p> + +<p> +Now it must be understood that such an act is as grave an offence of the sea as +blasphemy is of the Church. +</p> + +<p> +It was Margaret who came to where I was stationed by the jiggermast and told me +what had occurred; and it was she who took my rifle and relieved me so that I +could go aft. +</p> + +<p> +There was the offensive spot, and there was Tom Spink, his cheek bulging with a +quid. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you, get a swab and mop that up,” I commanded in my harshest +manner. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Spink merely rolled his quid with his tongue and regarded me with sneering +thoughtfulness. I am sure he was no more surprised than was I by the +immediateness of what followed. My fist went out like an arrow from a released +bow, and Tom Spink staggered back, tripped against the corner of the +tarpaulin-covered sounding-machine, and sprawled on the deck. He tried to make +a fight of it, but I followed him up, giving him no chance to set himself or +recover from the surprise of my first onslaught. +</p> + +<p> +Now it so happens that not since I was a boy have I struck a person with my +naked fist, and I candidly admit that I enjoyed the trouncing I administered to +poor Tom Spink. Yes, and in the rapid play about the deck I caught a glimpse of +Margaret. She had stepped out of the shelter of the mast and was looking on +from the corner of the chart-house. Yes, and more; she was looking on with a +cool, measuring eye. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, it was all very grotesque, to be sure. But then, mutiny on the high seas in +the year nineteen-thirteen is also grotesque. No lists here between mailed +knights for a lady’s favour, but merely the trouncing of a chuckle-head +for spitting on the deck of a coal-carrier. Nevertheless, the fact that my lady +looked on added zest to my enterprise, and, doubtlessly, speed and weight to my +blows, and at least half a dozen additional clouts to the unlucky sailor. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, man is strangely and wonderfully made. Now that I coolly consider the +matter, I realize that it was essentially the same spirit with which I enjoyed +beating up Tom Spink, that I have in the past enjoyed contests of the mind in +which I have out-epigrammed clever opponents. In the one case, one proves +himself top-dog of the mind; in the other, top-dog of the muscle. Whistler and +Wilde were just as much intellectual bullies as I was a physical bully +yesterday morning when I punched Tom Spink into lying down and staying down. +</p> + +<p> +And my knuckles are sore and swollen. I cease writing for a moment to look at +them and to hope that they will not stay permanently enlarged. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, Tom Spink took his disciplining and promised to come in and be +good. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir!” I thundered at him, quite in Mr. Pike’s most +bloodthirsty manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” he mumbled with bleeding lips. “Yes, sir, I’ll +mop it up, sir. Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +I could scarcely keep from laughing in his face, the whole thing was so +ludicrous; but I managed to look my haughtiest, and sternest, and fiercest, +while I superintended the deck-cleansing. The funniest thing about the affair +was that I must have knocked Tom Spink’s quid down his throat, for he was +gagging and hiccoughing all the time he mopped and scrubbed. +</p> + +<p> +The atmosphere aft has been wonderfully clear ever since. Tom Spink obeys all +orders on the jump, and Buckwheat jumps with equal celerity. As for the five +Asiatics, I feel that they are stouter behind me now that I have shown +masterfulness. By punching a man’s face I verily believe I have doubled +our united strength. And there is no need to punch any of the rest. The +Asiatics are keen and willing. Henry is a true cadet of the breed, Buckwheat +will follow Tom Spink’s lead, and Tom Spink, a proper Anglo-Saxon +peasant, will lead Buckwheat all the better by virtue of the punching. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Two days have passed, and two noteworthy things have happened. The men seem to +be nearing the end of their mysterious food supply, and we have had our first +truce. +</p> + +<p> +I have noted, through the glasses, that no more carcasses of the mollyhawks +they are now catching are thrown overboard. This means that they have begun to +eat the tough and unsavoury creatures, although it does not mean, of course, +that they have entirely exhausted their other stores. +</p> + +<p> +It was Margaret, her sailor’s eye on the falling barometer and on the +“making” stuff adrift in the sky, who called my attention to a +coming blow. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as the sea rises,” she said, “we’ll have that +loose main-yard and all the rest of the top-hamper tumbling down on +deck.” +</p> + +<p> +So it was that I raised the white flag for a parley. Bert Rhine and Charles +Davis came abaft the ’midship-house, and, while we talked, many faces +peered over the for’ard edge of the house and many forms slouched into +view on the deck on each side of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, getting tired?” was Bert Rhine’s insolent greeting. +“Anything we can do for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, there is,” I answered sharply. “You can save your heads +so that when you return to work there will be enough of you left to do the +work.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you are making threats—” Charles Davis began, but was +silenced by a glare from the gangster. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it?” Bert Rhine demanded. “Cough it off your +chest.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s for your own good,” was my reply. “It is coming +on to blow, and all that unfurled canvas aloft will bring the yards down on +your heads. We’re safe here, aft. You are the ones who will run risks, +and it is up to you to hustle your crowd aloft and make things fast and +ship-shape.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if we don’t?” the gangster sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’ll take your chances, that is all,” I answered +carelessly. “I just want to call your attention to the fact that one of +those steel yards, end-on, will go through the roof of your forecastle as if it +were so much eggshell.” +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine looked to Charles Davis for verification, and the latter nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll talk it over first,” the gangster announced. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll give you ten minutes,” I returned. “If at the +end of ten minutes you’ve not started taking in, it will be too late. I +shall put a bullet into any man who shows himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, we’ll talk it over.” +</p> + +<p> +As they started to go back, I called: +</p> + +<p> +“One moment.” +</p> + +<p> +They stopped and turned about. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done to Mr. Pike?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +Even the impassive Bert Rhine could not quite conceal his surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ what have you done with Mr. Mellaire!” he retorted. +“You tell us, an’ we’ll tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +I am confident of the genuineness of his surprise. Evidently the mutineers have +been believing us guilty of the disappearance of the second mate, just as we +have been believing them guilty of the disappearance of the first mate. The +more I dwell upon it the more it seems the proposition of the Kilkenny cats, a +case of mutual destruction on the part of the two mates. +</p> + +<p> +“Another thing,” I said quickly. “Where do you get your +food?” +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine laughed one of his silent laughs; Charles Davis assumed an +expression of mysteriousness and superiority; and Shorty, leaping into view +from the corner of the house, danced a jig of triumph. +</p> + +<p> +I drew out my watch. +</p> + +<p> +“Remember,” I said, “you’ve ten minutes in which to +make a start.” +</p> + +<p> +They turned and went for’ard, and, before the ten minutes were up, all +hands were aloft and stowing canvas. All this time the wind, out of the +north-west, was breezing up. The old familiar harp-chords of a rising gale were +strumming along the rigging, and the men, I verily believe from lack of +practice, were particularly slow at their work. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be better if the upper-and-lower top-sails are set so that we +can heave to,” Margaret suggested. “They will steady her and make +it more comfortable for us.” +</p> + +<p> +I seized the idea and improved upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“Better set the upper and lower topsails so that we can handle the +ship,” I called to the gangster, who was ordering the men about, quite +like a mate, from the top of the ’midship-house. +</p> + +<p> +He considered the idea, and then gave the proper orders, although it was the +Maltese Cockney, with Nancy and Sundry Buyers under him, who carried the orders +out. +</p> + +<p> +I ordered Tom Spink to the long-idle wheel, and gave him the course, which was +due east by the steering compass. This put the wind on our port quarter, so +that the <i>Elsinore</i> began to move through the water before a fair breeze. +And due east, less than a thousand miles away, lay the coast of South America +and the port of Valparaiso. +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say, none of our mutineers objected to this, and after dark, as we +tore along before a full-sized gale, I sent my own men up on top the +chart-house to take the gaskets off the spanker. This was the only sail we +could set and trim and in every way control. It is true the mizzen-braces were +still rigged aft to the poop, according to Horn practice. But, while we could +thus trim the mizzen-yards, the sails themselves, in setting or furling, were +in the hands of the for’ard crowd. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret, beside me in the darkness at the break of the poop, put her hand in +mine with a warm pressure, as both our tiny watches swayed up the spanker and +as both of us held our breaths in an effort to feel the added draw in the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> speed. +</p> + +<p> +“I never wanted to marry a sailor,” she said. “And I thought +I was safe in the hands of a landsman like you. And yet here you are, with all +the stuff of the sea in you, running down your easting for port. Next thing, I +suppose, I’ll see you out with a sextant, shooting the sun or making +star-observations.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> + +<p> +Four more days have passed; the gale has blown itself out; we are not more than +three hundred and fifty miles off Valparaiso; and the <i>Elsinore</i>, this +time due to me and my own stubbornness, is rolling in the wind and heading +nowhere in a light breeze at the rate of nothing but driftage per hour. +</p> + +<p> +In the height of the gusts, in the three days and nights of the gale, we logged +as much as eight, and even nine, knots. What bothered me was the acquiescence +of the mutineers in my programme. They were sensible enough in the simple +matter of geography to know what I was doing. They had control of the sails, +and yet they permitted me to run for the South American coast. +</p> + +<p> +More than that, as the gale eased on the morning of the third day, they +actually went aloft, set top-gallant-sails, royals, and skysails, and trimmed +the yards to the quartering breeze. This was too much for the Saxon streak in +me, whereupon I wore the <i>Elsinore</i> about before the wind, fetched her up +upon it, and lashed the wheel. Margaret and I are agreed in the hypothesis that +their plan is to get inshore until land is sighted, at which time they will +desert in the boats. +</p> + +<p> +“But we don’t want them to desert,” she proclaims with +flashing eyes. “We are bound for Seattle. They must return to duty. +They’ve got to, soon, for they are beginning to starve.” +</p> + +<p> +“There isn’t a navigator aft,” I oppose. +</p> + +<p> +Promptly she withers me with her scorn. +</p> + +<p> +“You, a master of books, by all the sea-blood in your body should be able +to pick up the theoretics of navigation while I snap my fingers. Furthermore, +remember that I can supply the seamanship. Why, any squarehead peasant, in a +six months’ cramming course at any seaport navigation school, can pass +the examiners for his navigator’s papers. That means six hours for you. +And less. If you can’t, after an hour’s reading and an hour’s +practice with the sextant, take a latitude observation and work it out, +I’ll do it for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you know?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, from the little I know, that I know I can learn to know a +meridian sight and the working out of it. I mean that I can learn to know +inside of two hours.” +</p> + +<p> +Strange to say, the gale, after easing to a mild breeze, recrudesced in a sort +of after-clap. With sails untrimmed and flapping, the consequent smashing, +crashing, and rending of our gear can be imagined. It brought out in alarm +every man for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +“Trim the yards!” I yelled at Bert Rhine, who, backed for counsel +by Charles Davis and the Maltese Cockney, actually came directly beneath me on +the main deck in order to hear above the commotion aloft. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep a-runnin, an’ you won’t have to trim,” the +gangster shouted up to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Want to make land, eh?” I girded down at him. “Getting +hungry, eh? Well, you won’t make land or anything else in a thousand +years once you get all your top-hamper piled down on deck.” +</p> + +<p> +I have forgotten to state that this occurred at midday yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you goin’ to do if we trim?” Charles Davis broke +in. +</p> + +<p> +“Run off shore,” I replied, “and get your gang out in deep +sea where it will be starved back to duty.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll furl, an’ let you heave to,” the gangster +proposed. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head and held up my rifle. “You’ll have to go aloft to +do it, and the first man that gets into the shrouds will get this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she can go to hell for all we care,” he said, with emphatic +conclusiveness. +</p> + +<p> +And just then the fore-topgallant-yard carried away—luckily as the bow +was down-pitched into a trough of sea-and when the slow, confused, and tangled +descent was accomplished the big stick lay across the wreck of both bulwarks +and of that portion of the bridge between the foremast and the forecastle head. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine heard, but could not see, the damage wrought. He looked up at me +challengingly, and sneered: +</p> + +<p> +“Want some more to come down?” +</p> + +<p> +It could not have happened more apropos. The port-brace, and immediately +afterwards the starboard-brace, of the crojack-yard—carried away. This +was the big, lowest spar on the mizzen, and as the huge thing of steel swung +wildly back and forth the gangster and his followers turned and crouched as +they looked up to see. Next, the gooseneck of the truss, on which it pivoted, +smashed away. Immediately the lifts and lower-topsail sheets parted, and with a +fore-and-aft pitch of the ship the spar up-ended and crashed to the deck upon +Number Three hatch, destroying that section of the bridge in its fall. +</p> + +<p> +All this was new to the gangster—as it was to me—but Charles Davis +and the Maltese Cockney thoroughly apprehended the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand out from under!” I yelled sardonically; and the three of +them cowered and shrank away as their eyes sought aloft for what new spar was +thundering down upon them. +</p> + +<p> +The lower-topsail, its sheets parted by the fall of the crojack-yard, was +tearing out of the bolt-ropes and ribboning away to leeward and making such an +uproar that they might well expect its yard to carry away. Since this wreckage +of our beautiful gear was all new to me, I was quite prepared to see the thing +happen. +</p> + +<p> +The gangster-leader, no sailor, but, after months at sea, intelligent enough +and nervously strong enough to appreciate the danger, turned his head and +looked up at me. And I will do him the credit to say that he took his time +while all our world of gear aloft seemed smashing to destruction. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess we’ll trim yards,” he capitulated. +</p> + +<p> +“Better get the skysails and royals off,” Margaret said in my ear. +</p> + +<p> +“While you’re about it, get in the skysails and royals!” I +shouted down. “And make a decent job of the gasketing!” +</p> + +<p> +Both Charles Davis and the Maltese Cockney advertised their relief in their +faces as they heard my words, and, at a nod from the gangster, they started +for’ard on the run to put the orders into effect. +</p> + +<p> +Never, in the whole voyage, did our crew spring to it in more lively fashion. +And lively fashion was needed to save our gear. As it was, they cut away the +remnants of the mizzen-lower-topsail with their sheath-knives, and they loosed +the main-skysail out of its bolt-ropes. +</p> + +<p> +The first infraction of our agreement was on the main-lower-topsail. This they +attempted to furl. The carrying away of the crojack and the blowing away of the +mizzen-lower-topsail gave me freedom to see and aim, and when the tiny +messengers from my rifle began to spat through the canvas and to spat against +the steel of the yard, the men strung along it desisted from passing the +gaskets. I waved my will to Bert Rhine, who acknowledged me and ordered the +sail set again and the yard trimmed. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the use of running off-shore?” I said to Margaret, when +the kites were snugged down and all yards trimmed on the wind. “Three +hundred and fifty miles off the land is as good as thirty-five hundred so far +as starvation is concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +So, instead of making speed through the water toward deep sea, I hove the +<i>Elsinore</i> to on the starboard tack with no more than leeway driftage to +the west and south. +</p> + +<p> +But our gallant mutineers had their will of us that very night. In the darkness +we could hear the work aloft going on as yards were run down, sheets let go, +and sails clew up and gasketed. I did try a few random shots, and all my reward +was to hear the whine and creak of ropes through sheaves and to receive an +equally random fire of revolver-shots. +</p> + +<p> +It is a most curious situation. We of the high place are masters of the +steering of the <i>Elsinore</i>, while those for’ard are masters of the +motor power. The only sail that is wholly ours is the spanker. They control +absolutely—sheets, halyards, clewlines, buntlines, braces, and +down-hauls—every sail on the fore and main. We control the braces on the +mizzen, although they control the canvas on the mizzen. For that matter, +Margaret and I fail to comprehend why they do not go aloft any dark night and +sever the mizzen-braces at the yard-ends. All that prevents this, we are +decided, is laziness. For if they did sever the braces that lead aft into our +hands, they would be compelled to rig new braces for’ard in some fashion, +else, in the rolling, would the mizzenmast be stripped of every spar. +</p> + +<p> +And still the mutiny we are enduring is ridiculous and grotesque. There was +never a mutiny like it. It violates all standards and precedents. In the old +classic mutinies, long ere this, attacking like tigers, the seamen should have +swarmed over the poop and killed most of us or been most of them killed. +</p> + +<p> +Wherefore I sneer at our gallant mutineers, and recommend trained nurses for +them, quite in the manner of Mr. Pike. But Margaret shakes her head and insists +that human nature is human nature, and that under similar circumstances human +nature will express itself similarly. In short, she points to the number of +deaths that have already occurred, and declares that on some dark night, sooner +or later, whenever the pinch of hunger sufficiently sharpens, we shall see our +rascals storming aft. +</p> + +<p> +And in the meantime, except for the tenseness of it, and for the incessant +watchfulness which Margaret and I alone maintain, it is more like a mild +adventure, more like a page out of some book of romance which ends happily. +</p> + +<p> +It is surely romance, watch and watch for a man and a woman who love, to +relieve each other’s watches. Each such relief is a love passage and +unforgettable. Never was there wooing like it—the muttered surmises of +wind and weather, the whispered councils, the kissed commands in palms of +hands, the dared contacts of the dark. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, truly, I have often, since this voyage began, told the books to go hang. +And yet the books are at the back of the race-life of me. I am what I am out of +ten thousand generations of my kind. Of that there is no discussion. And yet my +midnight philosophy stands the test of my breed. I must have selected my books +out of the ten thousand generations that compose me. I have killed a +man—Steve Roberts. As a perishing blond without an alphabet I should have +done this unwaveringly. As a perishing blond with an alphabet, plus the +contents in my brain of the philosophizing of all philosophers, I have killed +this same man with the same unwaveringness. Culture has not emasculated me. I +am quite unaffected. It was in the day’s work, and my kind have always +been day-workers, doing the day’s work, whatever it might be, in high +adventure or dull ploddingness, and always doing it. +</p> + +<p> +Never would I ask to set back the dial of time or event. I would kill Steve +Roberts again, under the same circumstances, as a matter of course. When I say +I am unaffected by this happening I do not quite mean it. I am affected. I am +aware that the spirit of me is informed with a sober elation of efficiency. I +have done something that had to be done, as any man will do what has to be done +in the course of the day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +Yes, I am a perishing blond, and a man, and I sit in the high place and bend +the stupid ones to my will; and I am a lover, loving a royal woman of my own +perishing breed, and together we occupy, and shall occupy, the high place of +government and command until our kind perish from the earth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap47"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> + +<p> +Margaret was right. The mutiny is not violating standards and precedents. We +have had our hands full for days and nights. Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed +Berserker, has been killed by Wada, and the training-ship boy, the one lone +cadet of our breed, has gone overside with the regulation sack of coal at his +feet. The poop has been rushed. My illuminating invention has proved a success. +The men are getting hungry, and we still sit in command in the high place. +</p> + +<p> +First of all the attack on the poop, two nights ago, in Margaret’s watch. +No; first, I have made another invention. Assisted by the old steward, who +knows, as a Chinese ought, a deal about fireworks, and getting my materials +from our signal rockets and Roman candles, I manufactured half a dozen bombs. I +don’t really think they are very deadly, and I know our extemporized +fuses are slower than our voyage is at the present time; but nevertheless the +bombs have served the purpose, as you shall see. +</p> + +<p> +And now to the attempt to rush the poop. It was in Margaret’s watch, from +midnight till four in the morning, when the attack was made. Sleeping on the +deck by the cabin skylight, I was very close to her when her revolver went off, +and continued to go off. +</p> + +<p> +My first spring was to the tripping-lines on my illuminators. The igniting and +releasing devices worked cleverly. I pulled two of the tripping-lines, and two +of the contraptions exploded into light and noise and at the same time ran +automatically down the jigger-trysail-stays, and automatically fetched up at +the ends of their lines. The illumination was instantaneous and gorgeous. +Henry, the two sail-makers, and the steward—at least three of them +awakened from sound sleep, I am sure—ran to join us along the break of +the poop. All the advantage lay with us, for we were in the dark, while our +foes were outlined against the light behind them. +</p> + +<p> +But such light! The powder crackled, fizzed, and spluttered and spilled out the +excess of gasolene from the flaming oakum balls so that streams of fire dripped +down on the main deck beneath. And the stuff of the signal-flares dripped red +light and blue and green. +</p> + +<p> +There was not much of a fight, for the mutineers were shocked by our fireworks. +Margaret fired her revolver haphazardly, while I held my rifle for any that +gained the poop. But the attack faded away as quickly as it had come. I did see +Margaret overshoot some man, scaling the poop from the port-rail, and the next +moment I saw Wada, charging like a buffalo, jab him in the chest with the spear +he had made and thrust the boarder back and down. +</p> + +<p> +That was all. The rest retreated for’ard on the dead run, while the three +trysails, furled at the foot of the stays next to the mizzen and set on fire by +the dripping gasolene, went up in flame and burned entirely away and out +without setting the rest of the ship on fire. That is one of the virtues of a +ship steel-masted and steel-stayed. +</p> + +<p> +And on the deck beneath us, crumpled, twisted, face hidden so that we could not +identify him, lay the man whom Wada had speared. +</p> + +<p> +And now I come to a phase of adventure that is new to me. I have never found it +in the books. In short, it is carelessness coupled with laziness, or vice +versa. I had used two of my illuminators. Only one remained. An hour later, +convinced of the movement aft of men along the deck, I let go the third and +last and with its brightness sent them scurrying for’ard. Whether they +were attacking the poop tentatively to learn whether or not I had exhausted my +illuminators, or whether or not they were trying to rescue Ditman Olansen, we +shall never know. The point is: they did come aft; they were compelled to +retreat by my illuminator; and it was my last illuminator. And yet I did not +start in, there and then, to manufacture fresh ones. This was carelessness. It +was laziness. And I hazarded our lives, perhaps, if you please, on a +psychological guess that I had convinced our mutineers that we had an +inexhaustible stock of illuminators in reserve. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of Margaret’s watch, which I shared with her, was undisturbed. +At four I insisted that she go below and turn in, but she compromised by taking +my own bed behind the skylight. +</p> + +<p> +At break of day I was able to make out the body, still lying as last I had seen +it. At seven o’clock, before breakfast, and while Margaret still slept, I +sent the two boys, Henry and Buckwheat, down to the body. I stood above them, +at the rail, rifle in hand and ready. But from for’ard came no signs of +life; and the lads, between them, rolled the crank-eyed Norwegian over so that +we could recognize him, carried him to the rail, and shoved him stiffly across +and into the sea. Wada’s spear-thrust had gone clear through him. +</p> + +<p> +But before twenty-four hours were up the mutineers evened the score handsomely. +They more than evened it, for we are so few that we cannot so well afford the +loss of one as they can. To begin with—and a thing I had anticipated and +for which I had prepared my bombs—while Margaret and I ate a +deck-breakfast in the shelter of the jiggermast a number of the men sneaked aft +and got under the overhang of the poop. Buckwheat saw them coming and yelled +the alarm, but it was too late. There was no direct way to get them out. The +moment I put my head over the rail to fire at them, I knew they would fire up +at me with all the advantage in their favour. They were hidden. I had to expose +myself. +</p> + +<p> +Two steel doors, tight-fastened and caulked against the Cape Horn seas, opened +under the overhang of the poop from the cabin on to the main deck. These doors +the men proceeded to attack with sledge-hammers, while the rest of the gang, +sheltered by the ’midship-house, showed that it stood ready for the rush +when the doors were battered down. +</p> + +<p> +Inside, the steward guarded one door with his hacking knife, while with his +spear Wada guarded the other door. Nor, while I had dispatched them to this +duty, was I idle. Behind the jiggermast I lighted the fuse of one of my +extemporized bombs. When it was sputtering nicely I ran across the poop to the +break and dropped the bomb to the main deck beneath, at the same time making an +effort to toss it in under the overhang where the men battered at the +port-door. But this effort was distracted and made futile by a popping of +several revolver shots from the gangways amidships. One <i>is</i> jumpy when +soft-nosed bullets putt-putt around him. As a result, the bomb rolled about on +the open deck. +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, the illuminators had earned the respect of the mutineers for my +fireworks. The sputtering and fizzling of the fuse were too much for them, and +from under the poop they ran for’ard like so many scuttling rabbits. I +know I could have got a couple with my rifle had I not been occupied with +lighting the fuse of a second bomb. Margaret managed three wild shots with her +revolver, and the poop was immediately peppered by a scattering revolver fire +from for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +Being provident (and lazy, for I have learned that it takes time and labour to +manufacture home-made bombs), I pinched off the live end of the fuse in my +hand. But the fuse of the first bomb, rolling about on the main deck, merely +fizzled on; and as I waited I resolved to shorten my remaining fuses. Any of +the men who fled, had he had the courage, could have pinched off the fuse, or +tossed the bomb overboard, or, better yet, he could have tossed it up amongst +us on the poop. +</p> + +<p> +It took fully five minutes for that blessed fuse to burn its slow length, and +when the bomb did go off it was a sad disappointment. I swear it could have +been sat upon with nothing more than a jar to one’s nerves. And yet, in +so far as the intimidation goes, it did its work. The men have not since +ventured under the overhang of the poop. +</p> + +<p> +That the mutineers were getting short of food was patent. The <i>Elsinore</i>, +sailless, drifted about that morning, the sport of wind and wave; and the gang +put many lines overboard for the catching of mollyhawks and albatrosses. Oh, I +worried the hungry fishers with my rifle. No man could show himself +for’ard without having a bullet whop against the iron-work perilously +near him. And still they caught birds—not, however, without danger to +themselves, and not without numerous losses of birds due to my rifle. +</p> + +<p> +Their procedure was to toss their hooks and bait over the rail from shelter and +slowly to pay the lines out as the slight windage of the +<i>Elsinore’s</i> hull, spars, and rigging drifted her through the water. +When a bird was hooked they hauled in the line, still from shelter, till it was +alongside. This was the ticklish moment. The hook, merely a hollow and +acute-angled triangle of sheet-copper floating on a piece of board at the end +of the line, held the bird by pinching its curved beak into the acute angle. +The moment the line slacked the bird was released. So, when alongside, this was +the problem: to lift the bird out of the water, straight up the side of the +ship, without once jamming and easing and slacking. When they tried to do this +from shelter invariably they lost the bird. +</p> + +<p> +They worked out a method. When the bird was alongside the several men with +revolvers turned loose on me, while one man, overhauling and keeping the line +taut, leaped to the rail and quickly hove the bird up and over and inboard. I +know this long-distance revolver fire seriously bothered me. One cannot help +jumping when death, in the form of a piece of flying lead, hits the rail beside +him, or the mast over his head, or whines away in a ricochet from the steel +shrouds. Nevertheless, I managed with my rifle to bother the exposed men on the +rail to the extent that they lost one hooked bird out of two. And twenty-six +men require a quantity of albatrosses and mollyhawks every twenty-four hours, +while they can fish only in the daylight. +</p> + +<p> +As the day wore along I improved on my obstructive tactics. When the +<i>Elsinore</i> was up in the eye of the wind, and making sternway, I found +that by putting the wheel sharply over, one way or the other, I could swing her +bow off. Then, when she had paid off till the wind was abeam, by reversing the +wheel hard across to the opposite hard-over I could take advantage of her +momentum away from the wind and work her off squarely before it. This made all +the wood-floated triangles of bird-snares tow aft along her sides. +</p> + +<p> +The first time I was ready for them. With hooks and sinkers on our own lines +aft, we tossed out, grappled, captured, and broke off nine of their lines. But +the next time, so slow is the movement of so large a ship, the mutineers hauled +all their lines safely inboard ere they towed aft within striking distance of +my grapnels. +</p> + +<p> +Still I improved. As long as I kept the <i>Elsinore</i> before the wind they +could not fish. I experimented. Once before it, by means of a winged-out +spanker coupled with patient and careful steering, I could keep her before it. +This I did, hour by hour one of my men relieving another at the wheel. As a +result all fishing ceased. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret was holding the first dog-watch, four to six. Henry was at the wheel +steering. Wada and Louis were below cooking the evening meal over the big +coal-stove and the oil-burners. I had just come up from below and was standing +beside the sounding-machine, not half a dozen feet from Henry at the wheel. +Some obscure sound from the ventilator must have attracted me, for I was gazing +at it when the thing happened. +</p> + +<p> +But first, the ventilator. This is a steel shaft that leads up from the +coal-carrying bowels of the ship beneath the lazarette and that wins to the +outside-world via the after-wall of the chart-house. In fact, it occupies the +hollow inside of the double walls of the afterwall of the chart-house. Its +opening, at the height of a man’s head, is screened with iron bars so +closely set that no mature-bodied rat can squeeze between. Also, this opening +commands the wheel, which is a scant fifteen feet away and directly across the +booby-hatch. Some mutineer, crawling along the space between the coal and the +deck of the lower hold, had climbed the ventilator shaft and was able to take +aim through the slits between the bars. +</p> + +<p> +Practically simultaneously, I saw the out-rush of smoke and heard the report. I +heard a grunt from Henry, and, turning my head, saw him cling to the spokes and +turn the wheel half a revolution as he sank to the deck. It must have been a +lucky shot. The boy was perforated through the heart or very near to the +heart—we have no time for post-mortems on the <i>Elsinore</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Spink and the second sail-maker, Uchino, sprang to Henry’s side. The +revolver continued to go off through the ventilator slits, and the bullets +thudded into the front of the half wheel-house all about them. Fortunately they +were not hit, and they immediately scrambled out of range. The boy quivered for +the space of a few seconds, and ceased to move; and one more cadet of the +perishing breed perished as he did his day’s work at the wheel of the +<i>Elsinore</i> off the west coast of South America, bound from Baltimore to +Seattle with a cargo of coal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap48"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> + +<p> +The situation is hopelessly grotesque. We in the high place command the food of +the <i>Elsinore</i>, but the mutineers have captured her steering-gear. That is +to say, they have captured it without coming into possession of it. They cannot +steer, neither can we. The poop, which is the high place, is ours. The wheel is +on the poop, yet we cannot touch the wheel. From that slitted opening in the +ventilator-shaft they are able to shoot down any man who approaches the wheel. +And with that steel wall of the chart-house as a shield they laugh at us as +from a conning tower. +</p> + +<p> +I have a plan, but it is not worth while putting into execution unless its need +becomes imperative. In the darkness of night it would be an easy trick to +disconnect the steering-gear from the short tiller on the rudder-head, and +then, by re-rigging the preventer tackles, steer from both sides of the poop +well enough for’ard to be out of the range of the ventilator. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime, in this fine weather, the <i>Elsinore</i> drifts as she lists, +or as the windage of her lists and the sea-movement of waves lists. And she can +well drift. Let the mutineers starve. They can best be brought to their senses +through their stomachs. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And what are wits for, if not for use? I am breaking the men’s hungry +hearts. It is great fun in its way. The mollyhawks and albatrosses, after their +fashion, have followed the <i>Elsinore</i> up out of their own latitudes. This +means that there are only so many of them and that their numbers are not +recruited. Syllogism: major premise, a definite and limited amount of +bird-meat; minor premise, the only food the mutineers now have is bird-meat; +conclusion, destroy the available food and the mutineers will be compelled to +come back to duty. +</p> + +<p> +I have acted on this bit of logic. I began experimentally by tossing small +chunks of fat pork and crusts of stale bread overside. When the birds descended +for the feast I shot them. Every carcass thus left floating on the surface of +the sea was so much less meat for the mutineers. +</p> + +<p> +But I bettered the method. Yesterday I overhauled the medicine-chest, and I +dosed my chunks of fat pork and bread with the contents of every bottle that +bore a label of skull and cross-bones. I even added rough-on-rats to the +deadliness of the mixture—this on the suggestion of the steward. +</p> + +<p> +And to-day, behold, there is no bird left in the sky. True, while I played my +game yesterday, the mutineers hooked a few of the birds; but now the rest are +gone, and that is bound to be the last food for the men for’ard until +they resume duty. +</p> + +<p> +Yes; it is grotesque. It is a boy’s game. It reads like Midshipman Easy, +like Frank Mildmay, like Frank Reade, Jr.; and yet, i’ faith, life and +death’s in the issue. I have just gone over the toll of our dead since +the voyage began. +</p> + +<p> +First, was Christian Jespersen, killed by O’Sullivan when that maniac +aspired to throw overboard Andy Fay’s sea-boots; then O’Sullivan, +because he interfered with Charles Davis’ sleep, brained by that worthy +with a steel marlin-spike; next Petro Marinkovich, just ere we began the +passage of the Horn, murdered undoubtedly by the gangster clique, his life cut +out of him with knives, his carcass left lying on deck to be found by us and be +buried by us; and the Samurai, Captain West, a sudden though not a violent +death, albeit occurring in the midst of all elemental violence as Mr. Pike +clawed the <i>Elsinore</i> off the lee-shore of the Horn; and Boney the +Splinter, following, washed overboard to drown as we cleared the sea-gashing +rock-tooth where the southern tip of the continent bit into the storm-wrath of +the Antarctic; and the big-footed, clumsy youth of a Finnish carpenter, hove +overside as a Jonah by his fellows who believed that Finns control the winds; +and Mike Cipriani and Bill Quigley, Rome and Ireland, shot down on the poop and +flung overboard alive by Mr. Pike, still alive and clinging to the log-line, +cut adrift by the steward to be eaten alive by great-beaked albatrosses, +mollyhawks, and sooty-plumaged Cape hens; Steve Roberts, one-time cowboy, shot +by me as he tried to shoot me; Herman Lunkenheimer, his throat cut before all +of us by the hound Bombini as Kid Twist stretched the throat taut from behind; +the two mates, Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire, mutually destroying each other in +what must have been an unwitnessed epic combat; Ditman Olansen, speared by Wada +as he charged Berserk at the head of the mutineers in the attempt to rush the +poop; and last, Henry, the cadet of the perishing house, shot at the wheel, +from the ventilator-shaft, in the course of his day’s work. +</p> + +<p> +No; as I contemplate this roll-call of the dead which I have just made I see +that we are not playing a boy’s game. Why, we have lost a third of us, +and the bloodiest battles of history have rarely achieved such a percentage of +mortality. Fourteen of us have gone overside, and who can tell the end? +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, here we are, masters of matter, adventurers in the micro-organic, +planet-weighers, sun-analysers, star-rovers, god-dreamers, equipped with the +human wisdom of all the ages, and yet, quoting Mr. Pike, to come down to brass +tacks, we are a lot of primitive beasts, fighting bestially, slaying bestially, +pursuing bestially food and water, air for our lungs, a dry space above the +deep, and carcasses skin-covered and intact. And over this menagerie of beasts +Margaret and I, with our Asiatics under us, rule top-dog. We are all +dogs—there is no getting away from it. And we, the fair-pigmented ones, +by the seed of our ancestry rulers in the high place, shall remain top-dog over +the rest of the dogs. Oh, there is material in plenty for the cogitation of any +philosopher on a windjammer in mutiny in this Year of our Lord 1913. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Henry was the fourteenth of us to go overside into the dark and salty +disintegration of the sea. And in one day he has been well avenged; for two of +the mutineers have followed him. The steward called my attention to what was +taking place. He touched my arm half beyond his servant’s self, as he +gloated for’ard at the men heaving two corpses overside. Weighted with +coal, they sank immediately, so that we could not identify them. +</p> + +<p> +“They have been fighting,” I said. “It is good that they +should fight among themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +But the old Chinese merely grinned and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think they have been fighting?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“No fight. They eat’m mollyhawk and albatross; mollyhawk and +albatross eat’m fat pork; two men he die, plenty men much sick, you bet, +damn to hell me very much glad. I savve.” +</p> + +<p> +And I think he was right. While I was busy baiting the sea-birds the mutineers +were catching them, and of a surety they must have caught some that had eaten +of my various poisons. +</p> + +<p> +The two poisoned ones went over the side yesterday. Since then we have taken +the census. Two men only have not appeared, and they are Bob, the fat and +overgrown feebling youth, and, of all creatures, the Faun. It seems my fate +that I had to destroy the Faun—the poor, tortured Faun, always willing +and eager, ever desirous to please. There is a madness of ill luck in all this. +Why couldn’t the two dead men have been Charles Davis and Tony the Greek? +Or Bert Rhine and Kid Twist? or Bombini and Andy Fay? Yes, and in my heart I +know I should have felt better had it been Isaac Chantz and Arthur Deacon, or +Nancy and Sundry Buyers, or Shorty and Larry. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The steward has just tendered me a respectful bit of advice. +</p> + +<p> +“Next time we chuck’m overboard like Henry, much better we use old +iron.” +</p> + +<p> +“Getting short of coal?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded affirmation. We use a great deal of coal in our cooking, and when the +present supply gives out we shall have to cut through a bulkhead to get at the +cargo. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap49"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h2> + +<p> +The situation grows tense. There are no more sea-birds, and the mutineers are +starving. Yesterday I talked with Bert Rhine. To-day I talked with him again, +and he will never forget, I am certain, the little talk we had this morning. +</p> + +<p> +To begin with, last evening, at five o’clock, I heard his voice issuing +from between the slits of the ventilator in the after-wall of the chart-house. +Standing at the corner of the house, quite out of range, I answered him. +</p> + +<p> +“Getting hungry?” I jeered. “Let me tell you what we are +going to have for dinner. I have just been down and seen the preparations. Now, +listen: first, caviare on toast; then, clam bouillon; and creamed lobster; and +tinned lamb chops with French peas—you know, the peas that melt in +one’s mouth; and California asparagus with mayonnaise; and—oh, I +forgot to mention fried potatoes and cold pork and beans; and peach pie; and +coffee, real coffee. Doesn’t it make you hungry for your East Side? And, +say, think of the free lunch going to waste right now in a thousand saloons in +good old New York.” +</p> + +<p> +I had told him the truth. The dinner I described (principally coming out of +tins and bottles, to be sure) was the dinner we were to eat. +</p> + +<p> +“Cut that,” he snarled. “I want to talk business with +<i>you</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right down to brass tacks,” I gibed. “Very well, when are +you and the rest of your rats going to turn to?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cut that,” he reiterated. “I’ve got you where 1 want +you now. Take it from me, I’m givin’ it straight. I’m not +tellin’ you how, but I’ve got you under my thumb. When I come down +on you, you’ll crack.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hell is full of cocksure rats like you,” I retorted; although I +never dreamed how soon he would be writhing in the particular hell preparing +for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Forget it,” he sneered back. “I’ve got you where I +want you. I’m just tellin’ you, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” I replied, “when I tell you that I’m from +Missouri. You’ll have to show <i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +And as I thus talked the thought went through my mind of how I naturally sought +out the phrases of his own vocabulary in order to make myself intelligible to +him. The situation was bestial, with sixteen of our complement already gone +into the dark; and the terms I employed, perforce, were terms of bestiality. +And I thought, also, of I who was thus compelled to dismiss the dreams of the +utopians, the visions of the poets, the king-thoughts of the king-thinkers, in +a discussion with this ripened product of the New York City inferno. To him I +must talk in the elemental terms of life and death, of food and water, of +brutality and cruelty. +</p> + +<p> +“I give you your choice,” he went on. “Give in now, an’ +you won’t be hurt, none of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if we don’t?” I dared airily. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be sorry you was ever born. You ain’t a mush-head, +you’ve got a girl there that’s stuck on you. It’s about time +you think of her. You ain’t altogether a mutt. You get my drive?” +</p> + +<p> +Ay, I did get it; and somehow, across my brain flashed a vision of all I had +ever read and heard of the siege of the Legations at Peking, and of the plans +of the white men for their womenkind in the event of the yellow hordes breaking +through the last lines of defence. Ay, and the old steward got it; for I saw +his black eyes glint murderously in their narrow, tilted slits. He knew the +drift of the gangster’s meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“You get my drive?” the gangster repeated. +</p> + +<p> +And I knew anger. Not ordinary anger, but cold anger. And I caught a vision of +the high place in which we had sat and ruled down the ages in all lands, on all +seas. I saw my kind, our women with us, in forlorn hopes and lost endeavours, +pent in hill fortresses, rotted in jungle fastnesses, cut down to the last one +on the decks of rocking ships. And always, our women with us, had we ruled the +beasts. We might die, our women with us; but, living, we had ruled. It was a +royal vision I glimpsed. Ay, and in the purple of it I grasped the ethic, which +was the stuff of the fabric of which it was builded. It was the sacred trust of +the seed, the bequest of duty handed down from all ancestors. +</p> + +<p> +And I flamed more coldly. It was not red-brute anger. It was intellectual. It +was based on concept and history; it was the philosophy of action of the strong +and the pride of the strong in their own strength. Now at last I knew +Nietzsche. I knew the rightness of the books, the relation of high thinking to +high-conduct, the transmutation of midnight thought into action in the high +place on the poop of a coal-carrier in the year nineteen-thirteen, my woman +beside me, my ancestors behind me, my slant-eyed servitors under me, the beasts +beneath me and beneath the heel of me. God! I felt kingly. I knew at last the +meaning of kingship. +</p> + +<p> +My anger was white and cold. This subterranean rat of a miserable human, +crawling through the bowels of the ship to threaten me and mine! A rat in the +shelter of a knot-hole making a noise as beast-like as any rat ever made! And +it was in this spirit that I answered the gangster. +</p> + +<p> +“When you crawl on your belly, along the open deck, in the broad light of +day, like a yellow cur that has been licked to obedience, and when you show by +your every action that you like it and are glad to do it, then, and not until +then, will I talk with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Thereafter, for the next ten minutes, he shouted all the Billingsgate of his +kind at me through the slits in the ventilator. But I made no reply. I +listened, and I listened coldly, and as I listened I knew why the English had +blown their mutinous Sepoys from the mouths of cannon in India long years ago. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +And when, this morning, I saw the steward struggling with a five-gallon carboy +of sulphuric acid, I never dreamed the use he intended for it. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime I was devising another way to overcome that deadly ventilator +shaft. The scheme was so simple that I was shamed in that it had not occurred +to me at the very beginning. The slitted opening was small. Two sacks of flour, +in a wooden frame, suspended by ropes from the edge of the chart-house roof +directly above, would effectually cover the opening and block all revolver +fire. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner thought than done. Tom Spink and Louis were on top the chart-house +with me and preparing to lower the flour, when we heard a voice issuing from +the shaft. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s in there now?” I demanded. “Speak up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m givin’ you a last chance,” Bert Rhine answered. +</p> + +<p> +And just then, around the corner of the house, stepped the steward. In his hand +he carried a large galvanized pail, and my casual thought was that he had come +to get rain-water from the barrels. Even as I thought it, he made a sweeping +half-circle with the pail and sloshed its contents into the ventilator-opening. +And even as the liquid flew through the air I knew it for what it +was—undiluted sulphuric acid, two gallons of it from the carboy. +</p> + +<p> +The gangster must have received the liquid fire in the face and eyes. And, in +the shock of pain, he must have released all holds and fallen upon the coal at +the bottom of the shaft. His cries and shrieks of anguish were terrible, and I +was reminded of the starving rats which had squealed up that same shaft during +the first months of the voyage. The thing was sickening. I prefer that men be +killed cleanly and easily. +</p> + +<p> +The agony of the wretch I did not fully realize until the steward, his bare +fore-arms sprayed by the splash from the ventilator slats, suddenly felt the +bite of the acid through his tight, whole skin and made a mad rush for the +water-barrel at the corner of the house. And Bert Rhine, the silent man of +soundless laughter, screaming below there on the coal, was enduring the bite of +the acid in his eyes! +</p> + +<p> +We covered the ventilator opening with our flour-device; the screams from below +ceased as the victim was evidently dragged for’ard across the coal by his +mates; and yet I confess to a miserable forenoon. As Carlyle has said: +“Death is easy; all men must die”; but to receive two gallons of +full-strength sulphuric acid full in the face is a vastly different and vastly +more horrible thing than merely to die. Fortunately, Margaret was below at the +time, and, after a few minutes, in which I recovered my balance, I bullied and +swore all our hands into keeping the happening from her. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Oh, well, and we have got ours in retaliation. Off and on, through all of +yesterday, after the ventilator tragedy, there were noises beneath the cabin +floor or deck. We heard them under the dining-table, under the steward’s +pantry, under Margaret’s stateroom. +</p> + +<p> +This deck is overlaid with wood, but under the wood is iron, or steel rather, +such as of which the whole <i>Elsinore</i> is builded. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret and I, followed by Louis, Wada, and the steward, walked about from +place to place, wherever the sounds arose of tappings and of cold-chisels +against iron. The tappings seemed to come from everywhere; but we concluded +that the concentration necessary on any spot to make an opening large enough +for a man’s body would inevitably draw our attention to that spot. And, +as Margaret said: +</p> + +<p> +“If they do manage to cut through, they must come up head-first, and, in +such emergence, what chance would they have against us?” +</p> + +<p> +So I relieved Buckwheat from deck duty, placed him on watch over the cabin +floor, to be relieved by the steward in Margaret’s watches. +</p> + +<p> +In the late afternoon, after prodigious hammerings and clangings in a score of +places, all noises ceased. Neither in the first and second dog-watches, nor in +the first watch of the night, were the noises resumed. When I took charge of +the poop at midnight Buckwheat relieved the steward in the vigil over the cabin +floor; and as I leaned on the rail at the break of the poop, while my four +hours dragged slowly by, least of all did I apprehend danger from the +cabin—especially when I considered the two-gallon pail of raw sulphuric +acid ready to hand for the first head that might arise through an opening in +the floor not yet made. Our rascals for’ard might scale the poop; or +cross aloft from mizzenmast to jigger and descend upon our heads; but how they +could invade us through the floor was beyond me. +</p> + +<p> +But they did invade. A modern ship is a complex affair. How was I to guess the +manner of the invasion? +</p> + +<p> +It was two in the morning, and for an hour I had been puzzling my head with +watching the smoke arise from the after-division of the for’ard-house and +with wondering why the mutineers should have up steam in the donkey-engine at +such an ungodly hour. Not on the whole voyage had the donkey-engine been used. +Four bells had just struck, and I was leaning on the rail at the break of the +poop when I heard a prodigious coughing and choking from aft. Next, Wada ran +across the deck to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Big trouble with Buckwheat,” he blurted at me. “You go +quick.” +</p> + +<p> +I shoved him my rifle and left him on guard while I raced around the +chart-house. A lighted match, in the hands of Tom Spink, directed me. Between +the booby-hatch and the wheel, sitting up and rocking back and forth with +wringings of hands and wavings of arms, tears of agony bursting from his eyes, +was Buckwheat. My first thought was that in some stupid way he had got the acid +into his own eyes. But the terrible fashion in which he coughed and strangled +would quickly have undeceived me, had not Louis, bending over the +booby-companion, uttered a startled exclamation. +</p> + +<p> +I joined him, and one whiff of the air that came up from below made me catch my +breath and gasp. I had inhaled sulphur. On the instant I forgot the +<i>Elsinore</i>, the mutineers for’ard, everything save one thing. +</p> + +<p> +The next I know, I was down the booby-ladder and reeling dizzily about the big +after-room as the sulphur fumes bit my lungs and strangled me. By the dim light +of a sea-lantern I saw the old steward, on hands and knees, coughing and +gasping, the while he shook awake Yatsuda, the first sail-maker. Uchino, the +second sail-maker, still strangled in his sleep. +</p> + +<p> +It struck me that the air might be better nearer the floor, and I proved it +when I dropped on my hands and knees. I rolled Uchino out of his blankets with +a quick jerk, wrapped the blankets about my head, face, and mouth, arose to my +feet, and dashed for’ard into the hall. After a couple of collisions with +the wood-work I again dropped to the floor and rearranged the blankets so that, +while my mouth remained covered, I could draw or withdraw, a thickness across +my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The pain of the fumes was bad enough, but the real hardship was the dizziness I +suffered. I blundered into the steward’s pantry, and out of it, missed +the cross-hall, stumbled through the next starboard opening in the long hall, +and found myself bent double by violent collision with the dining-room table. +</p> + +<p> +But I had my bearings. Feeling my way around the table and bumping most of the +poisoned breath out of me against the rotund-bellied stove, I emerged in the +cross-hall and made my way to starboard. Here, at the base of the chart-room +stairway, I gained the hall that led aft. By this time my own situation seemed +so serious that, careless of any collision, I went aft in long leaps. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret’s door was open. I plunged into her room. The moment I drew the +blanket-thickness from my eyes I knew blindness and a modicum of what Bert +Rhine must have suffered. Oh, the intolerable bite of the sulphur in my lungs, +nostrils, eyes, and brain! No light burned in the room. I could only strangle +and stumble for’ard to Margaret’s bed, upon which I collapsed. +</p> + +<p> +She was not there. I felt about, and I felt only the warm hollow her body had +left in the under-sheet. Even in my agony and helplessness the intimacy of that +warmth her body had left was very dear to me. Between the lack of oxygen in my +lungs (due to the blankets), the pain of the sulphur, and the mortal dizziness +in my brain, I felt that I might well cease there where the linen warmed my +hand. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps I should have ceased, had I not heard a terrible coughing from along +the hall. It was new life to me. I fell from bed to floor and managed to get +upright until I gained the hall, where again I fell. Thereafter I crawled on +hands and knees to the foot of the stairway. By means of the newel-post I drew +myself upright and listened. Near me something moved and strangled. I fell upon +it and found in my arms all the softness of Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +How describe that battle up the stairway? It was a crucifixion of struggle, an +age-long nightmare of agony. Time after time, as my consciousness blurred, the +temptation was upon me to cease all effort and let myself blur down into the +ultimate dark. I fought my way step by step. Margaret was now quite +unconscious, and I lifted her body step by step, or dragged it several steps at +a time, and fell with it, and back with it, and lost much that had been so +hardly gained. And yet out of it all this I remember: that warm soft body of +hers was the dearest thing in the world—vastly more dear than the +pleasant land I remotely remembered, than all the books and all the humans I +had ever known, than the deck above, with its sweet pure air softly blowing +under the cool starry sky. +</p> + +<p> +As I look back upon it I am aware of one thing: the thought of leaving her +there and saving myself never crossed my mind. The one place for me was where +she was. +</p> + +<p> +Truly, this which I write seems absurd and purple; yet it was not absurd during +those long minutes on the chart-room stairway. One must taste death for a few +centuries of such agony ere he can receive sanction for purple passages. +</p> + +<p> +And as I fought my screaming flesh, my reeling brain, and climbed that upward +way, I prayed one prayer: that the chart-house doors out upon the poop might +not be shut. Life and death lay right there in that one point of the issue. Was +there any creature of my creatures aft with common sense and anticipation +sufficient to make him think to open those doors? How I yearned for one man, +for one proved henchman, such as Mr. Pike, to be on the poop! As it was, with +the sole exception of Tom Spink and Buckwheat, my men were Asiatics. +</p> + +<p> +I gained the top of the stairway, but was too far gone to rise to my feet. Nor +could I rise upright on my knees. I crawled like any four-legged +animal—nay, I wormed my way like a snake, prone to the deck. It was a +matter of several feet to the doorway. I died a score of times in those several +feet; but ever I endured the agony of resurrection and dragged Margaret with +me. Sometimes the full strength I could exert did not move her, and I lay with +her and coughed and strangled my way through to another resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +And the door was open. The doors to starboard and to port were both open; and +as the <i>Elsinore</i> rolled a draught through the chart-house hall my lungs +filled with pure, cool air. As I drew myself across the high threshold and +pulled Margaret after me, from very far away I heard the cries of men and the +reports of rifle and revolver. And, ere I fainted into the blackness, on my +side, staring, my pain gone so beyond endurance that it had achieved its own +anæsthesia, I glimpsed, dream-like and distant, the sharply silhouetted +poop-rail, dark forms that cut and thrust and smote, and, beyond, the +mizzen-mast brightly lighted by our illuminators. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Well, the mutineers failed to take the poop. My five Asiatics and two white men +had held the citadel while Margaret and I lay unconscious side by side. +</p> + +<p> +The whole affair was very simple. Modern maritime quarantine demands that ships +shall not carry vermin that are themselves plague-carriers. In the +donkey-engine section of the for’ard house is a complete fumigating +apparatus. The mutineers had merely to lay and fasten the pipes aft across the +coal, to chisel a hole through the double-deck of steel and wood under the +cabin, and to connect up and begin to pump. Buckwheat had fallen asleep and +been awakened by the strangling sulphur fumes. We in the high place had been +smoked out by our rascals like so many rats. +</p> + +<p> +It was Wada who had opened one of the doors. The old steward had opened the +other. Together they had attempted the descent of the stairway and been driven +back by the fumes. Then they had engaged in the struggle to repel the rush from +for’ard. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret and I are agreed that sulphur, excessively inhaled, leaves the lungs +sore. Only now, after a lapse of a dozen hours, can we draw breath in anything +that resembles comfort. But still my lungs were not so sore as to prevent my +telling her what I had learned she meant to me. And yet she is only a +woman—I tell her so; I tell her that there are at least seven hundred and +fifty millions of two-legged, long-haired, gentle-voiced, soft-bodied, female +humans like her on the planet, and that she is really swamped by the immensity +of numbers of her sex and kind. But I tell her something more. I tell her that +of all of them she is the only one. And, better yet, to myself and for myself, +I believe it. I know it. The last least part of me and all of me proclaims it. +</p> + +<p> +Love <i>is</i> wonderful. It is the everlasting and miraculous amazement. Oh, +trust me, I know the old, hard scientific method of weighing and calculating +and classifying love. It is a profound foolishness, a cosmic trick and quip, to +the contemplative eye of the philosopher—yes, and of the futurist. But +when one forsakes such intellectual flesh-pots and becomes mere human and male +human, in short, a lover, then all he may do, and which is what he cannot help +doing, is to yield to the compulsions of being and throw both his arms around +love and hold it closer to him than is his own heart close to him. This is the +summit of his life, and of man’s life. Higher than this no man may rise. +The philosophers toil and struggle on mole-hill peaks far below. He who has not +loved has not tasted the ultimate sweet of living. I know. I love Margaret, a +woman. She is desirable. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap50"></a>CHAPTER L.</h2> + +<p> +In the past twenty-four hours many things have happened. To begin with, we +nearly lost the steward in the second dog-watch last evening. Through the slits +in the ventilator some man thrust a knife into the sacks of flour and cut them +wide open from top to bottom. In the dark the flour poured to the deck +unobserved. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, the man behind could not see through the screen of empty sacks, but +he took a blind pot-shot at point-blank range when the steward went by, +slip-sloppily dragging the heels of his slippers. Fortunately it was a miss, +but so close a miss was it that his cheek and neck were burned with powder +grains. +</p> + +<p> +At six bells in the first watch came another surprise. Tom Spink came to me +where I stood guard at the for’ard end of the poop. His voice shook as he +spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“For the love of God, sir, they’ve come,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” I asked sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Them,” he chattered. “The ones that come aboard off the +Horn, sir, the three drownded sailors. They’re there, aft, sir, the three +of ’em, standin’ in a row by the wheel.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did they get there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bein’ warlocks, they flew, sir. You didn’t see ’m go +by you, did you, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I admitted. “They never went by me.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Tom Spink groaned. +</p> + +<p> +“But there are lines aloft there on which they could cross over from +mizzen to jigger,” I added. “Send Wada to me.” +</p> + +<p> +When the latter relieved me I went aft. And there in a row were our three +pale-haired storm-waifs with the topaz eyes. In the light of a +bull’s-eye, held on them by Louis, their eyes never seemed more like the +eyes of great cats. And, heavens, they purred! At least, the inarticulate +noises they made sounded more like purring than anything else. That these +sounds meant friendliness was very evident. Also, they held out their hands, +palms upward, in unmistakable sign of peace. Each in turn doffed his cap and +placed my hand for a moment on his head. Without doubt this meant their offer +of fealty, their acceptance of me as master. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head. There was nothing to be said to men who purred like cats, +while sign-language in the light of the bull’s-eye was rather difficult. +Tom Spink groaned protest when I told Louis to take them below and give them +blankets. +</p> + +<p> +I made the sleep-sign to them, and they nodded gratefully, hesitated, then +pointed to their mouths and rubbed their stomachs. +</p> + +<p> +“Drowned men do not eat,” I laughed to Tom Spink. “Go down +and watch them. Feed them up, Louis, all they want. It’s a good sign of +short rations for’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of half an hour Tom Spink was back. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, did they eat?” I challenged him. +</p> + +<p> +But he was unconvinced. The very quantity they had eaten was a suspicious +thing, and, further, he had heard of a kind of ghost that devoured dead bodies +in graveyards. Therefore, he concluded, mere non-eating was no test for a +ghost. +</p> + +<p> +The third event of moment occurred this morning at seven o’clock. The +mutineers called for a truce; and when Nosey Murphy, the Maltese Cockney, and +the inevitable Charles Davis stood beneath me on the main deck, their faces +showed lean and drawn. Famine had been my great ally. And in truth, with +Margaret beside me in that high place of the break of the poop, as I looked +down on the hungry wretches I felt very strong. Never had the inequality of +numbers fore and aft been less than now. The three deserters, added to our own +nine, made twelve of us, while the mutineers, after subtracting Ditman Olansen, +Bob and the Faun, totalled only an even score. And of these Bert Rhine must +certainly be in a bad way, while there were many weaklings, such as Sundry +Buyers, Nancy, Larry, and Lars Jacobsen. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you want?” I demanded. “I haven’t much +time to waste. Breakfast is ready and waiting.” +</p> + +<p> +Charles Davis started to speak, but I shut him off. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll have nothing out of you, Davis. At least not now. Later on, +when I’m in that court of law you’ve bothered me with for half the +voyage, you’ll get your turn at talking. And when that time comes +don’t forget that I shall have a few words to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he began, but this time was stopped by Nosey Murphy. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, shut your trap, Davis,” the gangster snarled, “or +I’ll shut it for you.” He glanced up to me. “We want to go +back to work, that’s what we want.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which is not the way to ask for it,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” he added hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s better,” I commented. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my God, sir, don’t let ’m come aft.” Tom Spink +muttered hurriedly in my ear. “That’d be the end of all of us. And +even if they didn’t get you an’ the rest, they’d heave me +over some dark night. They ain’t never goin’ to forgive me, sir, +for joinin’ in with the afterguard.” +</p> + +<p> +I ignored the interruption and addressed the gangster. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing like going to work when you want to as badly as +you seem to. Suppose all hands get sail on her just to show good +intention.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’d like to eat first, sir,” he objected. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to see you setting sail, first,” was my reply. +“And you may as well get it from me straight that what I like goes, +aboard this ship.”—I almost said “hooker.” +</p> + +<p> +Nosey Murphy hesitated and looked to the Maltese Cockney for counsel. The +latter debated, as if gauging the measure of his weakness while he stared aloft +at the work involved. Finally he nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, sir,” the gangster spoke up. “We’ll do it . +. . but can’t something be cookin’ in the galley while we’re +doin’ it?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t have that in mind, and I don’t care to change my +mind now. When every sail is stretched and every yard braced, and all that mess +of gear cleared up, food for a good meal will be served out. You needn’t +bother about the spanker nor the mizzen-braces. We’ll make your work +lighter by that much.” +</p> + +<p> +In truth, as they climbed aloft they showed how miserably weak they were. There +were some too feeble to go aloft. Poor Sundry Buyers continually pressed his +abdomen as he toiled around the deck-capstans; and never was Nancy’s face +quite so forlorn as when he obeyed the Maltese Cockney’s command and went +up to loose the mizzen-skysail. +</p> + +<p> +In passing, I must note one delicious miracle that was worked before our eyes. +They were hoisting the mizzen-upper-topsail-yard by means of one of the patent +deck-capstans. Although they had reversed the gear so as to double the +purchase, they were having a hard time of it. Lars Jacobsen was limping on his +twice-broken leg, and with him were Sundry Buyers, Tony the Greek, Bombini, and +Mulligan Jacobs. Nosey Murphy held the turn. +</p> + +<p> +When they stopped from sheer exhaustion Murphy’s glance chanced to fall +on Charles Davis, the one man who had not worked since the outset of the voyage +and who was not working now. +</p> + +<p> +“Bear a hand, Davis,” the gangster called. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret gurgled low laughter in my ear as she caught the drift of the episode. +</p> + +<p> +The sea-lawyer looked at the other in amazement ere he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“I guess not.” +</p> + +<p> +After nodding Sundry Buyers over to him to take the turn Murphy straightened +his back and walked close to Davis, then said very quietly: +</p> + +<p> +“I guess yes.” +</p> + +<p> +That was all. For a space neither spoke. Davis seemed to be giving the matter +judicial consideration. The men at the capstan panted, rested, and looked +on—all save Bombini, who slunk across the deck until he stood at +Murphy’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Under such circumstances the decision Charles Davis gave was eminently the +right one, although even then he offered a compromise. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll hold the turn,” he volunteered. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll lump around one of them capstan-bars,” Murphy said. +</p> + +<p> +The sea-lawyer made no mistake. He knew in all absoluteness that he was +choosing between life and death, and he limped over to the capstan and found +his place. And as the work started, and as he toiled around and around the +narrow circle, Margaret and I shamelessly and loudly laughed our approval. And +our own men stole for’ard along the poop to peer down at the spectacle of +Charles Davis at work. +</p> + +<p> +All of which must have pleased Nosey Murphy, for, as he continued to hold the +turn and coil down, he kept a critical eye on Davis. +</p> + +<p> +“More juice, Davis!” he commanded with abrupt sharpness. +</p> + +<p> +And Davis, with a startle, visibly increased his efforts. +</p> + +<p> +This was too much for our fellows, who, Asiatics and all, applauded with +laughter and hand-clapping. And what could I do? It was a gala day, and our +faithful ones deserved some little recompense of amusement. So I ignored the +breach of discipline and of poop etiquette by strolling away aft with Margaret. +</p> + +<p> +At the wheel was one of our storm-waifs. I set the course due east for +Valparaiso, and sent the steward below to bring up sufficient food for one +substantial meal for the mutineers. +</p> + +<p> +“When do we get our next grub, sir?” Nosey Murphy asked, as the +steward served the supplies down to him from the poop. +</p> + +<p> +“At midday,” I answered. “And as long as you and your gang +are good, you’ll get your grub three times each day. You can choose your +own watches any way you please. But the ship’s work must be done, and +done properly. If it isn’t, then the grub stops. That will do. Now go +for’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +“One thing more, sir,” he said quickly. “Bert Rhine is awful +bad. He can’t see, sir. It looks like he’s going to lose his face. +He can’t sleep. He groans all the time.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +It was a busy day. I made a selection of things from the medicine-chest for the +acid-burned gangster; and, finding that Murphy knew how to manipulate a +hypodermic syringe, entrusted him with one. +</p> + +<p> +Then, too, I practised with the sextant and think I fairly caught the sun at +noon and correctly worked up the observation. But this is latitude, and is +comparatively easy. Longitude is more difficult. But I am reading up on it. +</p> + +<p> +All afternoon a gentle northerly fan of air snored the <i>Elsinore</i> through +the water at a five-knot clip, and our course lay east for land, for the +habitations of men, for the law and order that men institute whenever they +organize into groups. Once in Valparaiso, with police flag flying, our +mutineers will be taken care of by the shore authorities. +</p> + +<p> +Another thing I did was to rearrange our watches aft so as to split up the +three storm-visitors. Margaret took one in her watch, along with the two +sail-makers, Tom Spink, and Louis. Louis is half white, and all trustworthy, so +that, at all times, on deck or below, he is told off to the task of never +letting the topaz-eyed one out of his sight. +</p> + +<p> +In my watch are the steward, Buckwheat, Wada, and the other two topaz-eyed +ones. And to one of them Wada is told off; and to the other is assigned the +steward. We are not taking any chances. Always, night and day, on duty or off, +these storm-strangers will have one of our proved men watching them. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Yes; and I tried the stranger men out last evening. It was after a council with +Margaret. She was sure, and I agreed with her, that the men for’ard are +not blindly yielding to our bringing them in to be prisoners in Valparaiso. As +we tried to forecast it, their plan is to desert the <i>Elsinore</i> in the +boats as soon as we fetch up with the land. Also, considering some of the +bitter lunatic spirits for’ard, there would be a large chance of their +drilling the <i>Elsinore’s</i> steel sides and scuttling her ere they +took to the boats. For scuttling a ship is surely as ancient a practice as +mutiny on the high seas. +</p> + +<p> +So it was, at one in the morning, that I tried out our strangers. Two of them I +took for’ard with me in the raid on the small boats. One I left beside +Margaret, who kept charge of the poop. On the other side of him stood the +steward with his big hacking knife. By signs I had made it clear to him, and to +his two comrades who were to accompany me for’ard, that at the first sign +of treachery he would be killed. And not only did the old steward, with signs +emphatic and unmistakable, pledge himself to perform the execution, but we were +all convinced that he was eager for the task. +</p> + +<p> +With Margaret I also left Buckwheat and Tom Spink. Wada, the two sail-makers, +Louis, and the two topaz-eyed ones accompanied me. In addition to fighting +weapons we were armed with axes. We crossed the main deck unobserved, gained +the bridge by way of the ’midship-house, and by way of the bridge gained +the top of the for’ard-house. Here were the first boats we began work on; +but, first of all, I called in the lookout from the forecastle-head. +</p> + +<p> +He was Mulligan Jacobs; and he picked his way back across the wreck of the +bridge where the fore-topgallant-yard still lay, and came up to me unafraid, as +implacable and bitter as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Jacobs,” I whispered, “you are to stay here beside me until +we finish the job of smashing the boats. Do you get that?” +</p> + +<p> +“As though it could fright me,” he growled all too loudly. +“Go ahead for all I care. I know your game. And I know the game of the +hell’s maggots under our feet this minute. ’Tis they that’d +desert in the boats. ’Tis you that’ll smash the boats an’ +jail ’m kit an’ crew.” +</p> + +<p> +“S-s-s-h,” I vainly interpolated. +</p> + +<p> +“What of it?” he went on as loudly as ever. “They’re +sleepin’ with full bellies. The only night watch we keep is the lookout. +Even Rhine’s asleep. A few jolts of the needle has put a clapper to his +eternal moanin’. Go on with your work. Smash the boats. ’Tis +nothin’ I care. ’Tis well I know my own crooked back is worth more +to me than the necks of the scum of the world below there.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you felt that way, why didn’t you join us?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I like you no better than them an’ not half so well. They +are what you an’ your fathers have made ’em. An’ who in hell +are you an’ your fathers? Robbers of the toil of men. I like them little. +I like you and your fathers not at all. Only I like myself and me crooked back +that’s a livin’ proof there ain’t no God and makes Browning a +liar.” +</p> + +<p> +“Join us now,” I urged, meeting him in his mood. “It will be +easier for your back.” +</p> + +<p> +“To hell with you,” was his answer. “Go ahead an’ smash +the boats. You can hang some of them. But you can’t touch me with the +law. ’Tis me that’s a crippled creature of circumstance, too weak +to raise a hand against any man—a feather blown about by the windy +contention of men strong in their back an’ brainless in their +heads.” +</p> + +<p> +“As you please,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“As I can’t help pleasin’,” he retorted, +“bein’ what I am an’ so made for the little flash between the +darknesses which men call life. Now why couldn’t I a-ben a butterfly, or +a fat pig in a full trough, or a mere mortal man with a straight back an’ +women to love me? Go on an’ smash the boats. Play hell to the top of your +bent. Like me, you’ll end in the darkness. And your darkness’ll +be—as dark as mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“A full belly puts the spunk back into you,” I sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis on an empty belly that the juice of my dislike turns to acid. +Go on an’ smash the boats.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whose idea was the sulphur?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not tellin’ you the man, but I envied him until it +showed failure. An’ whose idea was it—to douse the sulphuric into +Rhine’s face? He’ll lose that same face, from the way it’s +shedding.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor will I tell you,” I said. “Though I will tell you that I +am glad the idea was not mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” he muttered cryptically, “different customs on +different ships, as the cook said when he went for’ard to cast off the +spanker sheet.” +</p> + +<p> +Not until the job was done and I was back on the poop did I have time to work +out the drift of that last figure in its terms of the sea. Mulligan Jacobs +might have been an artist, a philosophic poet, had he not been born crooked +with a crooked back. +</p> + +<p> +And we smashed the boats. With axes and sledges it was an easier task than I +had imagined. On top of both houses we left the boats masses of splintered +wreckage, the topaz-eyed ones working most energetically; and we regained the +poop without a shot being fired. The forecastle turned out, of course, at our +noise, but made no attempt to interfere with us. +</p> + +<p> +And right here I register another complaint against the sea-novelists. A score +of men for’ard, desperate all, with desperate deeds behind them, and jail +and the gallows facing them not many days away, should have only begun to +fight. And yet this score of men did nothing while we destroyed their last +chance for escape. +</p> + +<p> +“But where did they get the grub?” the steward asked me afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +This question he has asked me every day since the first day Mr. Pike began +cudgelling his brains over it. I wonder, had I asked Mulligan Jacobs the +question, if he would have told me? At any rate, in court at Valparaiso that +question will be answered. In the meantime I suppose I shall submit to having +the steward ask me it daily. +</p> + +<p> +“It is murder and mutiny on the high seas,” I told them this +morning, when they came aft in a body to complain about the destruction of the +boats and to demand my intentions. +</p> + +<p> +And as I looked down upon the poor wretches from the break of the poop, +standing there in the high place, the vision of my kind down all its mad, +violent, and masterful past was strong upon me. Already, since our departure +from Baltimore, three other men, masters, had occupied this high place and gone +their way—the Samurai, Mr. Pike, and Mr. Mellaire. I stood here, fourth, +no seaman, merely a master by the blood of my ancestors; and the work of the +<i>Elsinore</i> in the world went on. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine, his head and face swathed in bandages, stood there beneath me, and +I felt for him a tingle of respect. He, too, in a subterranean, ghetto way was +master over his rats. Nosey Murphy and Kid Twist stood shoulder to shoulder +with their stricken gangster leader. It was his will, because of his terrible +injury, to get in to land and doctors as quickly as possible. He preferred +taking his chance in court against the chance of losing his life, or, perhaps, +his eyesight. +</p> + +<p> +The crew was divided against itself; and Isaac Chantz, the Jew, his wounded +shoulder with a hunch to it, seemed to lead the revolt against the gangsters. +His wound was enough to convict him in any court, and well he knew it. Beside +him, and at his shoulders, clustered the Maltese Cockney, Andy Fay, Arthur +Deacon, Frank Fitzgibbon, Richard Giller, and John Hackey. +</p> + +<p> +In another group, still allegiant to the gangsters, were men such as Shorty, +Sorensen, Lars Jacobsen, and Larry. Charles Davis was prominently in the +gangster group. A fourth group was composed of Sundry Buyers, Nancy, and Tony +the Greek. This group was distinctly neutral. And, finally, unaffiliated, quite +by himself, stood Mulligan Jacobs—listening, I fancy, to far echoes of +ancient wrongs, and feeling, I doubt not, the bite of the iron-hot hooks in his +brain. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do with us, sir?” Isaac Chantz demanded of +me, in defiance to the gangsters, who were expected to do the talking. +</p> + +<p> +Bert Rhine lurched angrily toward the sound of the Jew’s voice. +Chantz’s partisans drew closer to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Jail you,” I answered from above. “And it shall go as hard +with all of you as I can make it hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe you will an’ maybe you won’t,” the Jew retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, Chantz!” Bert Rhine commanded. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll get yours, you wop,” Chantz snarled, “if I +have to do it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +I am afraid that I am not so successfully the man of action that I have been +priding myself on being; for, so curious and interested was I in observing the +moving drama beneath me that for the moment I failed to glimpse the tragedy +into which it was culminating. +</p> + +<p> +“Bombini!” Bert Rhine said. +</p> + +<p> +His voice was imperative. It was the order of a master to the dog at heel. +Bombini responded. He drew his knife and started to advance upon the Jew. But a +deep rumbling, animal-like in its <i>sound</i> and menace, arose in the throats +of those about the Jew. +</p> + +<p> +Bombini hesitated and glanced back across his shoulder at the leader, whose +face he could not see for bandages and who he knew could not see. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a good deed—do it, Bombini,” Charles Davis +encouraged. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut your face, Davis!” came out from Bert Rhine’s bandages. +</p> + +<p> +Kid Twist drew a revolver, shoved the muzzle of it first into Bombini’s +side, then covered the men about the Jew. +</p> + +<p> +Really, I felt a momentary twinge of pity for the Italian. He was caught +between the mill-stones, “Bombini, stick that Jew,” Bert Rhine +commanded. +</p> + +<p> +The Italian advanced a step, and, shoulder to shoulder, on either side, Kid +Twist and Nosey Murphy advanced with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot see him,” Bert Rhine went on; “but by God I will +see him!” +</p> + +<p> +And so speaking, with one single, virile movement he tore away the bandages. +The toll of pain he must have paid is beyond measurement. I saw the horror of +his face, but the description of it is beyond the limits of any English I +possess. I was aware that Margaret, at my shoulder, gasped and shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +“Bombini!—stick him,” the gangster repeated. “And stick +any man that raises a yap. Murphy! See that Bombini does his work.” +</p> + +<p> +Murphy’s knife was out and at the bravo’s back. Kid Twist covered +the Jew’s group with his revolver. And the three advanced. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that I suddenly recollected myself and passed from dream +to action. +</p> + +<p> +“Bombini!” I said sharply. +</p> + +<p> +He paused and looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand where you are,” I ordered, “till I do some +talking.—Chantz! Make no mistake. Rhine is boss for’ard. You take +his orders . . . until we get into Valparaiso; then you’ll take your +chances along with him in jail. In the meantime, what Rhine says goes. Get +that, and get it straight. I am behind Rhine until the police come on +board.—Bombini! do whatever Rhine tells you. I’ll shoot the man who +tries to stop you.—Deacon! Stand away from Chantz. Go over to the +fife-rail.” +</p> + +<p> +All hands knew the stream of lead my automatic rifle could throw, and Arthur +Deacon knew it. He hesitated barely a moment, then obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Fitzgibbon!—Giller!—Hackey!” I called in turn, and was +obeyed. “Fay!” I called twice, ere the response came. +</p> + +<p> +Isaac Chantz stood alone, and Bombini now showed eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +“Chantz!” I said; “don’t you think it would be +healthier to go over to the fife-rail and be good?” +</p> + +<p> +He debated the matter not many seconds, resheathed his knife, and complied. +</p> + +<p> +The tang of power! I was minded to let literature get the better of me and read +the rascals a lecture; but thank heaven I had sufficient proportion and balance +to refrain. +</p> + +<p> +“Rhine!” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He turned his corroded face up to me and blinked in an effort to see. +</p> + +<p> +“As long as Chantz takes your orders, leave him alone. We’ll need +every hand to work the ship in. As for yourself, send Murphy aft in half an +hour and I’ll give him the best the medicine-chest affords. That is all. +Go for’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +And they shambled away, beaten and dispirited. +</p> + +<p> +“But that man—his face—what happened to him?” Margaret +asked of me. +</p> + +<p> +Sad it is to end love with lies. Sadder still is it to begin love with lies. I +had tried to hide this one happening from Margaret, and I had failed. It could +no longer be hidden save by lying; and so I told her the truth, told her how +and why the gangster had had his face dashed with sulphuric acid by the old +steward who knew white men and their ways. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +There is little more to write. The mutiny of the <i>Elsinore</i> is over. The +divided crew is ruled by the gangsters, who are as intent on getting their +leader into port as I am intent on getting all of them into jail. The first lap +of the voyage of the <i>Elsinore</i> draws to a close. Two days, at most, with +our present sailing, will bring us into Valparaiso. And then, as beginning a +new voyage, the <i>Elsinore</i> will depart for Seattle. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +One thing more remains for me to write, and then this strange log of a strange +cruise will be complete. It happened only last night. I am yet fresh from it, +and athrill with it and with the promise of it. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret and I spent the last hour of the second dog-watch together at the +break of the poop. It was good again to feel the <i>Elsinore</i> yielding to +the wind-pressure on her canvas, to feel her again slipping and sliding through +the water in an easy sea. +</p> + +<p> +Hidden by the darkness, clasped in each other’s arms, we talked love and +love plans. Nor am I shamed to confess that I was all for immediacy. Once in +Valparaiso, I contended, we would fit out the <i>Elsinore</i> with fresh crew +and officers and send her on her way. As for us, steamers and rapid travelling +would fetch us quickly home. Furthermore, Valparaiso being a place where such +things as licences and ministers obtained, we would be married ere we caught +the fast steamers for home. +</p> + +<p> +But Margaret was obdurate. The Wests had always stood by their ships, she +urged; had always brought their ships in to the ports intended or had gone down +with their ships in the effort. The <i>Elsinore</i> had cleared from Baltimore +for Seattle with the Wests in the high place. The <i>Elsinore</i> would +re-equip with officers and men in Valparaiso, and the <i>Elsinore</i> would +arrive in Seattle with a West still on board. +</p> + +<p> +“But think, dear heart,” I objected. “The voyage will require +months. Remember what Henley has said: ‘Every kiss we take or give leaves +us less of life to live.’” +</p> + +<p> +She pressed her lips to mine. +</p> + +<p> +“We kiss,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +But I was stupid. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the weary, weary months,” I complained. “You dear +silly,” she gurgled. “Don’t you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand only that it is many a thousand miles from Valparaiso to +Seattle,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t understand,” she challenged. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a fool,” I admitted. “I am aware of only one thing: I +want you. I want you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a dear, but you are very, very stupid,” she said, and as +she spoke she caught my hand and pressed the palm of it against her cheek. +“What do you feel?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Hot cheeks—cheeks most hot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am blushing for what your stupidity compels me to say,” she +explained. “You have already said that such things as licences and +ministers obtain in Valparaiso . . . and . . . and, well . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean . . . ?” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“Just that,” she confirmed. +</p> + +<p> +“The honeymoon shall be on the <i>Elsinore</i> from Valparaiso all the +way to Seattle?” I rattled on. +</p> + +<p> +“The many thousands of miles, the weary, weary months,” she teased +in my own intonations, until I stifled her teasing with my lips. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MUTINY OF THE ELSINORE ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 2415-h.htm or 2415-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/2415/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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