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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cruise of the Dry Dock, by T. S. Stribling
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Cruise of the Dry Dock
+
+Author: T. S. Stribling
+
+Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9547]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 8, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUISE OF THE DRY DOCK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin, David Garcia
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: They Were at Last Under the Overhang of the Mysterious
+Schooner.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Cruise of the Dry Dock
+
+By T.S. Stribling
+
+
+
+Illustrated by Herbert Morton Stoops
+
+
+
+1917
+
+
+_The Cruise of the Dry Dock_
+
+_Lovingly Dedicated to My Mother_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  I      The Dry Dock
+  II     Adventure Begins
+  III    The Last of the _Vulcan_
+  IV     An Interrupted Meeting
+  V      Sail Ho!
+  VI     The Cul de Sac
+  VII    Trapped
+  VIII   The Mystery Ship
+  IX     A Modern Columbus
+  X      The Strange End of the _Minnie B_
+  XI     Caradoc Shows His Mettle
+  XII    The Return of the _Vulcan_
+  XIII   The Sea Serpent
+  XIV    Caradoc Wins His Fight
+  XV     Towed!
+  XVI    Caradoc Takes Command
+  XVII   The Get-Away
+  XVIII  Nerve Versus Gunpowder
+  XIX    Chased by a Submarine
+  XX     The Lone Chance
+  XXI    The Battle
+  XXII   The Victoria Cross
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  They Were at Last Under the Overhang of the Mysterious Schooner
+
+  Out There Lay Adventure, Mystery--More Than Either Dreamed
+
+  Caradoc Stands the Acid Test
+
+  The Battle
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DRY DOCK
+
+
+"She's movin'!" cried a voice from the crowd on the wharf side. "Watch
+'er! Watch 'er!"
+
+A dull English cheer rippled over the waterfront.
+
+"Blarst if I see _why_ she moves!" marveled an onlooker. "That tug
+looks like a water bug 'itched to a 'ouse-boat--it's hunreasonable!"
+
+"Aye, but they're tur'ble stout, them tugs be," argued a companion.
+
+"It's hunreasonable, just the same, 'Enry!"
+
+"Everything's hunreasonable at sea, 'Arry. W'y w'en chaps put to sea
+they tell we're they're at by lookin' at th' _sun_."
+
+"Aw! An' not by lookin' at th' map?"
+
+"By lookin' at th' sun, 'pon honor!"
+
+"Don't try to jolly me like that, 'Enry, me lad; that's more
+hunreasonable than this."
+
+By this time the cheers had become general and the conversation broke
+off. An enormous floating dry dock, towed by an ocean-going tug, slowly
+drew away from the ship yards on the south bank of the Thames, just
+below London. The men on the immense metal structure, hauling in ropes,
+looked like spiders with gossamers. A hundred foot bridge which could be
+lifted for the entrance of ocean liners, spanned the open stern of the
+dock and braced her high side walls. These walls rose fifty or sixty
+feet, were some forty feet thick and housed the machinery which pumped
+out the pontoons and raised the two bridges, one at each end. The tug,
+the _Vulcan_, which stood some two hundred yards down stream,
+puffing monotonously at the end of a cable, did seem utterly inadequate
+to tow such a mass of metal. Nevertheless, to the admiration of the
+crowd, the speed of the convoy slowly increased.
+
+Tug and dock were well under way when the onlooking line was suddenly
+disrupted by a well-dressed youth who came bundling a large suit case
+through the press and did not pause until on the edge of the green
+moulded wharf.
+
+"Boat!" he hailed in sharp Yankee accent, gesticulating at a public
+dory. "Here, put me aboard that dry dock, will you? Hustle! the thing's
+gathering way!"
+
+"A little late," observed a voice at the newcomer's elbow.
+
+"Yes, I hung around London Tower trying to see the crown jewels, then I
+broke for St. Paul's for a glimpse of Nelson's Monument, then I ran down
+to Marshalsea, where Little Dorrit's father--make haste there, you
+slowpoke water-rat! Rotton London bus service threw me six minutes
+late!" he concluded.
+
+The American's explosive energy quickly made him a focus of interest.
+
+"What are you trying to do?" smiled the Englishman, "jump out of a
+Cook's tour into a floating dock?"
+
+The American turned on the joker and saw a tall, well-set-up young
+fellow with extraordinarily broad shoulders, long brown face, stubby
+blond mustache, who looked down on him with amused gray eyes.
+
+"In a way," grinned the man with the suit case. "I'm knocking about all
+over the map, trying to see if the world is really round. Got a job
+aboard that dock--going with her to Buenos Aires--Say, slow-boy, is that
+dory of yours anchored, or is it really coming this way?"
+
+"Coomin' that way, sor!" wheezed the waterman from below.
+
+"That's a coincidence," observed the stranger, twirling his pale
+mustache. "I had a berth on her, too." He indicated a huge English kit
+bag at his feet.
+
+"Then you'd better get a move on if you're going!" snapped the American,
+instantly taking charge of the whole affair. "Shoot your grip here!" He
+stood ready to receive and deliver it to the boatman who had landed
+below.
+
+"Had about decided not to go," frowned the Briton with an odd change of
+manner. "It looks--er--so nasty over there--still, if you can endure it
+I suppose I--" the final phrase was lost in the swing at his big kit
+bag.
+
+The American followed the luggage hurriedly; the tall fellow lowered
+himself calmly and with a certain precision into the stern of the dory.
+The boatman set out toward the gliding mass of iron.
+
+The blond youth surveyed their distance from the great dock and marked
+its deliberate but deceptive speed.
+
+"I doubt whether we catch it after all," he remarked with slight
+interest in his voice.
+
+"Then we'll take a train to Gravesend and get aboard boat there,"
+planned the American promptly.
+
+A smile glimmered on the long brown face for a moment. "That's very
+Yankee-like, I believe," he said complimentarily.
+
+With the brisk friendliness of his nation, the Yankee drew a morocco
+case from his pocket. "Leonard Madden is my name," he said as he offered
+a bit of engraved card.
+
+The Englishman started to reach inside his coat but paused. "I am
+Caradoc Smith," he replied gravely. Then, as an afterthought, he drew a
+small silver-mounted flask from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, poured it
+full of a liquor and offered it.
+
+"To a pleasant acquaintance and a profitable journey, Mr. Madden," he
+began ceremoniously.
+
+A slight flush reddened the white skin at Madden's collar, but did not
+show on his tanned face. It always embarrassed him to be forced to
+reject friendly overtures.
+
+"Sorry," he shook his head; "don't use it. But the wish goes."
+
+The Englishman looked his surprise. "Then, if you don't object--" he
+lifted pale brows.
+
+"Certainly not; do as you like."
+
+Smith tossed the capful down his throat. "You know, I've met several
+Americans," he commented more warmly, "and half of them don't use
+alcoholics. Strange thing--can't fancy why."
+
+Madden went into no explanation. They were nearing the dock by this time
+and their boatman began a hoarse calling for some one on board to toss a
+line.
+
+It was like shouting for a man in a city block. The basal pontoon rose
+twelve feet above their heads; beyond this towered the thick side walls
+spanned by the bridge. The waterline of the whole dock was painted a
+bright red, some four feet high, and above this rose an expanse of raw
+black iron, punctuated with long rows of shining rivet heads.
+
+The boatman was rowing at top speed and bellowing like an asthmatic fog
+horn. "We'll never git nobody," he wheezed. "Nobody seems to stay around
+this section of th' dock, sor."
+
+Madden raised a lusty shout; the great structure was slowly increasing
+her speed.
+
+"Yell, Smith, yell!" he counseled between shouts. "We may not be able to
+get a train to Gravesend in time!"
+
+"I'm not that eager to go," observed the Englishman with a shrug.
+
+The dory was falling behind. Madden leaped up, ran to the oars and began
+pushing as the boatman pulled. Their united efforts just kept the blunt
+little dory in the hissing wake of the dock.
+
+"Help! Line! Aboard dock! Lend a line!" the two of them roared
+discordantly.
+
+"We're not going to make it!" cried Madden desperately. "Lend a hand
+here, Smith!"
+
+At that moment a dark head with sharp black mustaches popped over the
+stern of the dock.
+
+"Ah-ha! A race!" cried the man above in a French accent. "Come, Mike,
+zee the English sporting speerit! Voila! What a race--a dory and a dry
+dock!"
+
+"Throw us a line!" shrieked Madden, "you blithering--think this is fun?"
+
+"Ah, pardon, a thousand pardons! I hasten!"
+
+He disappeared and a few seconds later a coil of rope came hurtling
+down. Madden caught it and his toil was over. A moment later another
+sailor, of distinct Irish physiognomy, dropped down a rope ladder to the
+boat. They paid the sweating boatman a double fare, climbed up and
+hoisted their bags with the line.
+
+Only when on board did the lads appreciate the enormous size of the
+dock. It would have been impossible to throw a baseball from one end to
+the other. The black sides rose above them like an iron canyon. Ranging
+down these precipices were innumerable huge iron stanchions for the
+shoring of ocean liners. Toward the forward end of the dock was a two
+hundred ton pile of coal, for the use of the tug, but it was dwarfed to
+the size of a kitchen supply by the black expanse around it. On the
+other side there were erected a few temporary wooden houses to serve as
+kitchen, dining room, and quarters for the crew on the voyage. There
+were a group of men loitering about these cabins.
+
+The newcomers still stared at their gigantic surroundings when the
+interested Frenchman said politely:
+
+"It ees large, beeg, yes?"
+
+"Where's the boss?" inquired Leonard. "We've got jobs aboard this
+craft."
+
+"He is making out the papers now, I think, and ees in a bad temper,
+too."
+
+With this discouraging information, the two young men started for the
+officers' cabin. As they entered the place they met a crew of typical
+London longshoresmen coming out. Inside, a stocky purple-cheeked cockney
+stood at a little desk and glowered at them with small red eyes.
+
+"'Ow's this?" he growled sharply, and in some surprise. "You are not in
+th' crew Hi picked hup."
+
+"No, we applied at the office--"
+
+"Hoffice, hoffice," snarled the man. "W'ot do they know about men,
+settin' hup there with their legs cocked hup? W'ot is it ye want
+anyway?"
+
+Leonard silently offered a paper he had received from the British Towing
+and Shipping Company. The mate wrinkled his half inch of knobbly brow as
+he read the paper in a low undertone, after the manner of illiterate
+men.
+
+"And by the way, my man," began Caradoc in stiff condescension, "we
+would like one of those cabins to ourselves."
+
+The mate flung up a club-like head and threw back his blocky shoulders.
+"_My man!_" he gasped. "Ye call me _my man_, ye little cigarette-suckin'
+silk-hatted Johnny--orderin' private cabins! W'ot ye think this is--a
+floatin' 'otel?"
+
+Madden bit his lip to keep from smiling at the odd play of anger and
+surprise on Smith's long expressive face.
+
+"No harm meant, Mr. ----" began the American soothingly.
+
+"Malone--Mate Malone!" stormed the angry officer by way of introduction.
+
+"You understand how friends prefer to bunk together instead of with
+strangers. We thought we would ask you about it."
+
+This soothed the irascible fellow somewhat. Still glowering, he
+spraddled out of the cabin with the boys after him, and presently
+indicated one of the small temporary cabins with a jerk of his thumb. As
+to whether his intentions were kindly or cruel, Madden could not
+determine, but their lodgment was a low kennel-like place, the smallest
+in the row. Nevertheless it was very clean and smelled of new lumber. It
+held four bunks, two on a side. The boys dropped their luggage inside
+with the pleasure of travelers reaching their destination.
+
+"Got no fire arms nor whiskey?" growled the mate, looking through the
+door at his new men.
+
+Both answered in the negative.
+
+"All right; step lively now. We want to raise that waterline 'igh enough
+to work in the waves before we reach th' Channel."
+
+The lads shut the door after them, then started under Malone's direction
+for whatever work he had.
+
+They found the whole crew swinging along the hundred foot front of the
+dock, broadening the brilliant red waterline with all possible dispatch.
+The reason for attacking the front first was obvious. In case of rough
+weather, the way of the dock would pile the waves higher ahead than
+anywhere else. Leonard and his new friend lowered themselves on a
+swinging platform over the twelve-foot pontoon and joined in the work.
+
+Tug and dock were now passing through the congested traffic of the lower
+Thames and the enormous English shipping spread in a panorama before
+them. Here were barges, smacks, scows, sailing vessels; big liners
+plowing through the press with hoarse whistles; rusty English tramps,
+that carried the Union Jack to the uttermost ends of the earth. Even a
+few dreadnoughts lay castled on the broadening waters. On both sides of
+the river, dull warehouses and factories stretched out rusty wharves,
+like myriad fingers, to receive the tonnage that converged on this
+center of the world's activities.
+
+American curiosity almost prevented Madden from working at all. He
+painted intermittently, between wonders, so to speak. As for Caradoc, he
+made no pretense to labor, but propped a broad shoulder against the
+supporting rope, stuck a cigarette under his white mustache and fell to
+regarding the waterscape in a serious, preoccupied fashion.
+
+"Say, old man," warned Leonard in an undertone, briskly plying his
+brush, "that mate looked down at us then. He'll raise a rough house if
+we don't get a move on and keep our section up."
+
+Caradoc came out of his muse, tossed his cigarette into the swirling
+water a few feet below him. "Impudent chap!" he snapped.
+
+Madden laughed. "His trade is to get work out of men and it requires
+impudence."
+
+Caradoc grunted something, perhaps an assent. The two fell briskly to
+work and soon made an impression on the blank iron wall. At first the
+American chatted of this and that, rehearsing his own aimless ramblings
+as men will, but presently he observed that Smith was painting away and
+paying no attention to his partner's chatter.
+
+"What's the worry, old man?" queried Madden lightly. "'Fraid the
+paint'll give out?"
+
+"I presume they have sufficient paint," answered Smith stiffly, as he
+flapped his brush across the bright head of a big rivet.
+
+"Why--yes," agreed Madden, a little taken aback, "but you look like you
+might be getting up a grouch at something--"
+
+"About time to pull up, isn't it?" interrupted Smith.
+
+The brusqueness in the speech grated on Madden, but they hauled up their
+platform without further remarks on either side. The Englishman seemed
+to work slower than the American, but somehow covered as much ground.
+
+The coat of red paint had risen considerably on the dock when the
+bosun's whistle gave a faint shrill from the deck. The whole string of
+painters facing the pontoon's bow began hauling up their platforms. The
+lads followed their example.
+
+Malone was hastily pulling his crew together in the mess room on the
+middle pontoon. He came by waving his short heavy arms in the direction
+of the long eating room.
+
+"Get along aft; you're to sign the ship's papers!" he bawled
+monotonously. "Get along!"
+
+Most of the men walked faster when the mate flung his arms at them.
+Leonard felt the impulse to step livelier but held himself to Caradoc's
+deliberate stride.
+
+In the mess room the boys found a compact, black-haired, serious-faced
+young man of unknown nationality reading the ship's articles in an
+expressionless tone. Nobody listened, although various penalties were
+prescribed for desertion, quitting ship without leave, disobedience of
+orders, each with its particular fine or punishment. When the reader
+finished, the men walked around one by one and signed the register.
+Then a copy of the articles was pointed out on the side of the mess
+room, and again no one observed.
+
+The performance was hardly completed when the gong rang for supper.
+There were not more than a dozen men at mess. Most were of stolid
+English navvy type, dirty uncouth men whose gross irregular features
+told of low birth and evil life. The foreign element comprised an
+Irishman named Mike Hogan and the Frenchman whom the boys had met when
+they first came aboard. The crowd called him Dashalong. Upon inquiry,
+Leonard found it to be Deschaillon. The young man who read the articles
+was named Farnol Greer. However, he proved a silent, taciturn youth, who
+seemed to converse with no one and to have no friends.
+
+In the long narrow eating cabin mingled the clean smell of newly sawed
+lumber and the odor of poor cookery. The meal proved rather worse than
+ordinary steerage food. After the first taste Smith put it by,
+grumbling. Leonard, who was hungry, consumed about half of his.
+
+Beef stew and boiled white fish formed the menu. Perhaps there is
+nothing quite so slippery and disheartening as boiled white fish grown
+luke warm or cold. The navvies ate ravenously enough, but Hogan and
+Deschaillon were not so wolfish.
+
+Mike speared a bit on his fork and regarded it sadly. "This fish reminds
+me uv a fun'ril," he observed, "an' yonder lad looks to be chief
+mourner," he nodded toward Farnol Greer.
+
+"He ees not mourning over the feesh," declared Deschaillon gayly. "He
+ees struck on heemself, and found his affection ees misplaced."
+
+Madden laughed. The spirits of the Celt and the Gaul seemed to improve
+as their fare grew worse.
+
+"Oh, av course a frog-atin' Frinchman loike you, Dashalong, would think
+any kind av fish a reg'lar feast."
+
+Deschaillon leaned over to inspect his portion. "Now eet does very
+well--to wax zee mustache, Mike." He twirled his own.
+
+Caradoc grunted disapproval of such doubtful table talk, arose and left
+the rough company and rough fare with supercilious condemnation.
+
+"Your friend's appetite sames as dilicate as his wor-rkin' powers,"
+observed Hogan as he watched the Englishman stoop and disappear through
+the doorway.
+
+Madden smiled. "We didn't work any too hard this afternoon, did we?"
+
+Mike and Pierre proved droll companions, ready to jibe at anyone or
+anything in perfect good nature, so that it was an hour before Leonard
+strolled outside. As he had no further duty, he climbed a long ladder to
+the top of the high dock wall and walked forward toward the bridge.
+
+By this time the sun had set and left the world filled with a luminous
+yellow afterglow. The estuary of the Thames had widened abruptly off
+Sheerness, and far to the south was the dim line of chalk cliffs that
+England thrusts toward France. Overhead stretched a translucent
+yellow-green sky with the long black line of the _Vulcan's_ smoke
+marking it.
+
+Leonard moved across the bridge slowly.
+
+There was almost perfect silence over the great structure below him,
+save for the slow creaking of new joints in the iron plates, the
+softened chough-choughing of the tug ahead.
+
+There were several paint barrels piled up on the bridge, slung there no
+doubt by machinery, to prevent the men having to toil up with it from
+below. The boy leaned against one of these barrels, gazing into the
+yellow flood of light that bathed everything in its own saffron. His
+heart beat high with a feeling of the hazard of the ocean. He tried
+to fancy what would happen to the huge dock as it adventured through
+tropic seas. His imagination readily conjured up a kaleidoscope of
+incidents--cannibal proas, shark fights, sea serpents, typhoons,
+mutinies, what not.
+
+And at every turn of the tug's propeller all this bright dashing world
+of adventure drew nearer and nearer. For some reason he recalled what
+the bystander on the dock had said--"Everything is unreasonable at sea,"
+and he laughed aloud.
+
+As a sort of gloomy echo of his laugh, his ear caught a groan from the
+other side of the paint barrels. With the utmost surprise and curiosity,
+he straightened up and moved silently around the pile.
+
+Then he saw the tall Englishman leaning across the bridge rail, face in
+hands, staring at the line of land silhouetted in black between the
+brazen sky and the reflecting water. Smith's whole attitude was so
+suggestive of trouble that Madden moved forward in generous sympathy.
+
+The Englishman heard the movement, straightened, looked around; his long
+face wore a look of suffering in the colored light.
+
+"Sorry you're so blue, old man," sympathized the American, making a
+guess at the cause of his bad spirits. "Let's have a turn around this
+old tub and forget homesickness."
+
+"Home!" echoed Caradoc gruffly. "It's--it's all England I'm leaving.
+It's England and honor and--" he stiffened suddenly and snarled out: "Do
+you think I climbed away up here on this bridge hunting your company?"
+
+Leonard was utterly nonplussed by this shift. "I'm sure I meant no
+harm--"
+
+"Certainly not," sneered Caradoc. "You Americans have the undesired
+friendliness of stray puppies--you have no conception of personal
+reserve--you turn your souls into moral vaudevilles."
+
+A flush of indignation swept over Madden. "That's no decent return for a
+friendly approach!" he declared hotly, "and I'd rather be a puppy than a
+hedgehog any day!"
+
+Caradoc made no reply, but seemed to erase Madden from his mind and
+shifted slowly around to his staring and his thoughts.
+
+This last bit of impudence fairly clanged on Madden's temper. He felt a
+desire to tell this coxcomb just what he thought of him. If Caradoc had
+remained facing the American, Madden might have done so, but it feels
+foolish to rail at a profile. Madden wheeled angrily, tramped across the
+bridge, then down the high side of the dock toward the ladder. From far
+below him came Hogan's voice, a concertina, and the sound of clacking
+feet. Apparently the Irishman had induced someone to dance a jig.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ADVENTURE BEGINS
+
+
+Fortunately for the British Towing and Shipping Company, the next few
+days were glassy calm, and as the _Vulcan_ coughed along the South
+England coast, the crew had fair opportunity to raise the coat of paint
+out of danger.
+
+They had finished the ends by this time and were now working on the high
+exterior sides of the dock. The labor was distasteful to Leonard, not
+within itself, but it is disagreeable to dangle in midair over a huge
+iron wall, blue water gurgling below, and sit beside a man who has
+affronted one by calling one's manners puppyish and one's soul a
+vaudeville. Even if one really be fond of puppies and enjoy vaudeville,
+the implication is unpleasant.
+
+On the third morning after, Caradoc wielded his brush listlessly and
+looked sick. His fine shoulders sagged and his eyes were hollow in his
+long face. Leonard, whose spirits naturally mounted with the sun, found
+it hard to continue the three days' silence. He wanted to talk about the
+splendid English coast with its gemlike villages set in green, the
+red-sailed fishing smacks, the social gulls feeding in the long trail
+behind the dock. It is difficult to be reserved under such conditions.
+Then, too, Caradoc was so obviously ill, Madden felt sorry for the
+fellow.
+
+As for the Englishman, he paid little attention to his working mate, but
+languidly splashed the iron wall, and himself, with red paint. After
+some two hours' work, he stood up on the platform as if sore, made an
+irresolute start, finally climbing the rope ladder to the top. Madden
+wondered about the queer fellow, but was rather relieved by his absence.
+Within twenty or thirty minutes, however, he was back, but in
+perceptibly better spirits. He worked briskly for a few minutes, then
+dropped brush in pail and turned to Leonard as if no shadow had crossed
+their acquaintance.
+
+"Well, Madden, we can hardly blame the old Phoenicians for guarding the
+secret of the Cassiterides, can we?"
+
+The American almost fell off the platform in surprise.
+
+"Why--er--no, I don't blame 'em," he blurted, not having a ghost of a
+notion what the Englishman was talking about. "No, I--I never blamed 'em
+a bit--never did."
+
+"Those were poetic days, Madden."
+
+The American stared, his mind as much at sea as his body.
+
+"Think of that Phoenician sailing his galley for the Isles of Tin. The
+Romans follow him, day after day, week after week. But does he betray
+the secret of Tyre's wealth?" Caradoc made a gesture. Madden was about
+to answer that he didn't know, when the orator went on.
+
+"He does not. Rather than expose the rich mines of Cornwall, he dashes
+his galley upon a reef and risks his life among the early English
+barbarians."
+
+"Was it here where that happened?" asked Madden interestedly, fishing
+some such tale from the bottom of his recollection.
+
+Caradoc stood upright on the swinging platform, hands thrust in jacket
+pockets, thumbs out, Oxford fashion. His tall form swayed slowly with
+the steady rise and fall of the dock.
+
+"Certainly, the Cassiterides is Cornwall, and that point of land just
+ahead is the spot where the Tyrian wrecked his ship, so the legend
+goes."
+
+Madden's eyes followed Caradoc's gesture. "I've read that story, but I
+never thought of seeing the place."
+
+"Cornwall is entrancing if you care for antiquities," went on Smith in
+the polished style of a collegiate. "Four or five miles up that cape are
+the Boskednan Circles and the Dawns-un, old Druidic stone temples. Just
+across the peninsula is St. Ives, where the virgin Hya appeared
+miraculously. It is really regrettable, Madden, that you are leaving
+England before you tour Cornwall. A wonderful little island, England. A
+land to live for--or to die for, God willing."
+
+Caradoc stared toward the coast, frowning, with the old familiar look of
+pain coming into his eyes. His hearer and his extemporaneous lecture
+plainly slipped out of his mind.
+
+"You've been along here before," suggested Madden with a hope of
+diverting Smith's mind.
+
+"Oh, yes," replied the Englishman gloomily.
+
+"Sailor, perhaps?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not another dry dock, I trust," laughed Madden, turning to work.
+
+"No."
+
+"Windjammer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Leonard nodded at his painting. "Fishing smack, I'll bet."
+
+The cross-questioning was interrupted by a raucous voice overhead, and
+both boys looked up to see the mate's thick torso hanging over the rail.
+He was shaking his fist at the tall Englishman.
+
+"W'ot you think we brought you along for?" he bawled savagely. "To give
+lectures? If you don't paint and quit blowin', you win' bag, I'll ship
+you at Penzance!"
+
+Caradoc's face went white, leaving threadlike purple veins showing on
+nose and cheeks. "I'm willing to do my duty," he said with a quiver in
+his tone. He glanced at his empty paint bucket. "If I'm to work, bring
+me paint--I'm out!"
+
+Caradoc seemed to be able to make the mate madder and do it quicker than
+anyone else.
+
+"Paint! Bring you paint!" roared Malone, apoplectic. "Git out an' git
+your paint, or I'll put a longer, uglier head than that on your
+shoulders."
+
+Caradoc gave a shrug, stooped for the bucket, then began composedly
+climbing the ladder straight at the sputtering officer.
+
+"Be careful there, Smith," warned Madden in an undertone; "he'd as soon
+as not slug you without giving you a dog's chance."
+
+Caradoc said nothing but continued his climbing. The men on the platform
+fore and aft ceased work, watching the mate and the climbing man
+intently. The silence following the usual drone of conversation was
+noticeable.
+
+Caradoc was just reaching up to climb into Malone, when at that moment
+something happened that drew and held everybody's attention.
+
+The whole face of the sea around the dock broke into a sort of
+sputtering. The ocean seemed to boil. To his astonishment, Madden saw
+the commotion was caused by millions of small fishes leaping and running
+along the surface.
+
+Cries came from all over the dock at once: "Pilchards! Pilchards are
+shoaling! Pilchards are shoaling!"
+
+The few gulls in the sky now seemed to multiply and settled in a
+fluttering cloud to strike such easily captured food. Among the press of
+little fish leaped cod, hake, dog fish, all feasting on the annual
+migration of the pilchards. The crew on the dock scrambled up and over
+the sides, flung down boxes, buckets, anything and scooped the fish from
+the sea.
+
+The diversion saved the Englishman from any bellicose intention of the
+mate, who hurried off to take a hand in the sport. Madden sat on his
+platform watching the fun, for it was a remarkable sight. Caradoc swung
+around on the ladder facing Leonard.
+
+"There, Madden," he cried, "is a sight characteristic of no other sea.
+Every season Cornish fisheries capture millions of these fish. They
+pickle 'em, can 'em. They even sell them to you Yankees for sardines.
+You are fortunate to have seen this phenomenon."
+
+Leonard studied the novel sight. Hundreds of fishing smacks converged on
+the area where the pilchards were breaking, their red sails glowing
+warmly against the green of the land and the blue of the sea. Gulls
+whirled about the tall dock, filling the air with thin creakings. Madden
+admired the sudden picturesque activity. Some of the smacks were so
+close now that he could see their long trawls stringing out behind, and
+little figures running about their decks, winding in nets, bringing in a
+flood of silver fishes.
+
+The metallic noise of the gulls grew so loud as to blanket all else. In
+the midst of this fluttering and shrieking, Leonard heard the shouting
+of human voices. He paid little attention. Then some of the men on top
+of the dock's side began yelling. At that moment, Caradoc shouted down
+Madden's name. Madden looked up. On the instant the swinging platform
+under him tipped violently.
+
+Next moment, Madden saw right beneath him a smack. The vessel was
+floating by, and the peak of its boom scraped the high iron wall of the
+dock. This boom had struck his platform.
+
+Madden clutched impotently at the blank iron wall, then flung an arm for
+one of the supporting ropes and missed.
+
+"Jump to me!" yelled Smith. The Englishman was still on the rope ladder,
+but had climbed down rapidly when he saw his mate in distress. The boom
+was tilting the platform straight up and down. The deck of the smack
+below promised to mash the American into a pulp. The fishermen were
+shouting. Leonard made a falling leap toward Caradoc's extended hand. He
+caught it in both his own. The Englishman's other hand gripped the rope
+rung. Unfortunately Madden's body flung out with a twisting motion, and
+he could feel Smith's arm grow tense in an effort to keep from being
+wrenched.
+
+Madden was scrambling with his legs for a foothold on the ladder when
+the boom dragged past the platform and the whole thing swung back on the
+distressed boys. A flying end caught Madden in the side. The blow
+sickened him. He clung desperately to Caradoc's hand, his grip
+weakening, his senses swimming with the feeling of an awful void beneath
+him. The strength in his fingers gave way, and he felt a chill sensation
+before the coming downward plunge. But even in his twisted, straining
+position, the Englishman's long fingers did not loose Madden's wrist. A
+moment later, Leonard had lost consciousness completely, swung in
+midair, limp as a bag.
+
+The American had a dim impression of being drawn to the top of the side
+wall, and the crew clustering about him. Someone splashed water in his
+face and the world cleared up before his eyes. The young fellow called
+Greer was whisking on the water, but when Madden opened his eyes, he set
+the bucket down and returned silently to his work.
+
+"There, ye're bether now," grinned Hogan stooping over the wounded man.
+"That platform caught yez a little love lick in the slats--break any of
+'em?"
+
+Leonard reached across and felt his side. "How came the smack there?" he
+inquired weakly. "Why didn't I see it?"
+
+"Ye was lookin' astern, an' th' vissil barely turned the bow of th' dock
+an' her boom kissed us all th' way down. I yilled at ye, so did
+Dashalong an' th' silent man. Thin I got so interested in l'arnin' he
+could say a worrd, I quit lookin' at you complately."
+
+"I couldn't hear for the gulls--I'll be all right in a minute."
+
+Leonard looked around and saw Caradoc massaging his twisted arm. He had
+an impulse to thank the Briton, but he changed it to, "I hope your arm
+isn't badly wrenched, Smith."
+
+"Quite all right," assured the tall fellow cheerfully.
+
+The men began to scatter to work again.
+
+That day at lunch the ship's fare was garnished with an abundance of
+delicious pilchards. The whole crew wore a holiday air. During the
+afternoon the men sang at their work and labored so merrily and so well
+that a broad wash of paint was added to the outside wall.
+
+Leonard, whose side was sore enough from the thump, did not work. Even
+the mate suggested that he take a leave of absence, and stay in his bunk
+if he would.
+
+The boy went at once to his cabin and began hunting in his suit case for
+a little medicine chest which he always carried. He wanted arnica for
+his bruised side. To his surprise he could not find it. He gave his bag
+a thorough search, tumbling garments, trinkets, souvenirs, curiosities,
+helter skelter over his bunk, but failed to find his case.
+
+The loss of the medical carry-all distressed Madden. It had proved
+useful in the past. However, he hunted up the mate and begged a
+liniment, which must have had a wonderful virtue if a powerful odor was
+any indication.
+
+Leonard rubbed the stuff on his side and turned into his bunk. His side
+grew so sore he wondered whether or not his ribs really were broken
+after all. In his dark den he could still hear the gulls wailing,
+although the tug had passed the major portion of the shoaling pilchards.
+There also came to him the constant creaking of the dock, the slow dull
+recurrence of the ground swell against her bow. The boy's mind centered
+fretfully on his lost medicine chest. No doubt it was stolen, and he
+began wondering which of the crew had taken it. His suspicion played
+idly over the crew, and then settled on the youth called Greer. His
+reason for this was that Greer said very little. Madden thought this
+must be the sign of a guilty conscience.
+
+He did not brood long, however, as the monotonous sounds exerted a
+hypnotic effect on his senses. Once or twice as he was almost falling
+asleep, he felt himself clinging desperately to Caradoc's hand, his grip
+weakening, the fearsome void gaping under him, then he would awake with
+a start that sent a knife of pain through his bruised ribs. After that
+he would be forced to feel once more to test his costal region for
+broken bones. Finally the vision failed to paint itself, or did not
+rouse him, and he slept.
+
+After an indeterminate interval, he was awakened by someone entering the
+room. It was fairly dark now and by lifting a head over the side of his
+berth, he saw the outline of the Frenchman standing by the door. Madden
+thought of the stolen medicine chest and remained silent.
+
+The Gaul was about to withdraw when Madden called out.
+
+"What is it, Deschaillon?"
+
+"I just came by to say your frien' ees in trouble. Zay play cards in zee
+salon. Smeeth he win _beaucoup_. Zay quarrel, perhaps zay fight. He
+ees your frien', and--"
+
+Leonard smiled when he heard the mess hall dignified into a salon; but
+at the latter end of the sentence he sat up suddenly in his bunk and
+began pulling on his jacket despite the twinges in his side.
+
+"Eh, how's that--fight?"
+
+At that instant Hogan lolled against the jamb and announced his entrance
+with a laugh.
+
+"What's this Deschaillon's telling me, Mike--the men fighting over
+cards?"
+
+"Sure now I heard him and told him not to be wakin' a sick man up for
+sich trifles. They was a few raymarks ixchanged, but nawthin' ser'us."
+He turned reproachfully on the Gaul. "Nixt time be advised by me and
+don't be wakin' a sick man for nawthin'."
+
+The two walked away and Leonard leaned back in his bunk, quite sleepless
+now. He stared into the blackness, his mind a moving picture show of the
+last three days. The Englishman was chief actor on this stage, and his
+disagreeably mixed character puzzled and disturbed the American.
+Caradoc's language and manners showed him to be a man of breeding, but
+he was full of contradictory habits. His uncosmopolitan moodiness, his
+vulgar quarreling over cards, were typical instances.
+
+Leonard almost regretted that he had formed an uncomfortable intimacy
+with the fellow, but he could not very well break it off now since Smith
+had saved him from a fall that might easily have proved fatal.
+
+Just then the Englishman entered the cabin silently. He lighted the
+bracket lamp quietly and looked about to satisfy himself that his mate
+was asleep. Later Madden heard him open his big kit bag and take
+something out. A moment after, the odor of alcohol scented the little
+cabin.
+
+Leonard lifted his head and saw the fellow under the lamp, just lifting
+the silver cap to his lips. A disagreeable smile moulded the long face,
+wrinkled the nostrils and slid away under the choppy blond mustache. The
+strong light from the overhead lamp brought out an almost sinister
+countenance.
+
+The thought that such a man had probably saved his life filled Madden
+with a kind of repulsion. He turned in his bunk with a little disgusted
+grunt.
+
+Caradoc dropped the little cap and came to the bunk.
+
+"Side hurt, old man?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Yes--no--nothing the matter."
+
+"Oh, maybe you don't like this odor--forgot you didn't drink." He
+stepped quickly to the kit bag, replaced the bottle and cap inside and
+closed it. Like many alcohol users he labored under the delusion that
+alcohol was not offensive on his _breath_.
+
+"Nervous shock you received seemed to upset you more than the punch," he
+diagnosed in a concerned voice. "You Americans are a high-strung
+nation." He paused a moment philosophically. "I daresay you're right
+about not drinking spirits. With your nervous organism, it would set you
+on fire. But our foggy English climate and stodgy people call for it.
+Sets our pulses going. A thought just here--Climate and Alcoholism. Not
+a bad subject for a scientific investigation, is it?"
+
+Madden grunted.
+
+"I'll blow out the light unless you'll have me rub some more of that
+villainous stuff on your ribs?"
+
+The patient declined this.
+
+"Need water or medicine during the night throw your boots at me--I'm
+hard to wake,"
+
+Then he puffed out the light.
+
+[Illustration: Out There Lay Adventure, Mystery--More Than Either
+Dreamed.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LAST OF THE _VULCAN_
+
+
+A temporary rudder had been installed on the unwieldy dry dock, and each
+twenty-four hours Mate Malone detailed seven men to stand watch, which
+gave the regulation dog watch, although there was no need of it with a
+double complement of men. Thanks to his bruised ribs, the American had
+thus far escaped duty at the wheel. About a week after the pilchard
+incident, he reported ready for this service, when a twist of
+circumstance rendered it unnecessary.
+
+A long stretch of fair weather had been enjoyed by the dock painters on
+a steadily dropping barometer. On this particular day a cold puffy wind
+developed out of the northeast, bringing with it a rack of clouds and
+spreading a choppy sea below.
+
+From where Madden painted on the corner of the dock, he had a good view
+of these chasing waves that rose a moment in the gray seascape, nodded a
+white cap, then dropped back into the waste of water.
+
+"Wonder if a storm would affect this old box much?" he queried of
+Caradoc.
+
+"Probably have a chance to see," opined Smith, looking out with a
+speculative eye. "By the by, what's that?"
+
+Caradoc pointed toward the _Vulcan_, which already exhibited the
+motion of the rollers.
+
+Madden looked. A sailor stood on the tug's round stern waving two flags
+toward the dock.
+
+The American arose from his work, funneled his hands before his lips and
+called to the man, but the spitting wind whisked away his words, and the
+sailor went on with his flag.
+
+Madden regarded it attentively a few moments. "He's wig-wagging--wants
+to speak to the mate. I'll go for him." He trotted aft.
+
+Leonard found the officer in his cabin and told his mission. The mate
+arose at once and came out with the lad. "Don't know w'ot 'e wants, do
+you?" he inquired.
+
+"I only spelled his message till I found he wanted you."
+
+"Huh--understand flag signals, do ye?" grunted Malone, shifting his
+inflamed eyes to Madden's face.
+
+"Learned it in my engineering course," explained the lad.
+
+The two passed on to the bow, when the sailor on the tug starting waving
+once more. Mate Malone watched the man until he had finished spelling
+out the message, then he turned to Leonard and asked:
+
+"Know w'ot 'e said?"
+
+"Parker's sick and they need you," translated the American.
+
+"Good," grinned the mate with more fellowship than he had ever shown
+before. "Now, lookee here, young chap. They're going to send a cutter
+for me to come and take Parker's place. You strike me as a decent sort,
+so I'll leave you in my berth till I get back. You won't have nothin' to
+do hexcept tell off th' watches an' keep th' boys paintin'. Softer'n
+your fo'cs'l job, though you won't git no hextra pay--wot about it?"
+
+"That goes with me," agreed Madden readily.
+
+"All right, you signal me about anything you don't understand. Make the
+men step, lively, same as if you was me."
+
+By this time the tug had slowed down a trifle and a boat put out from
+her. While it came bobbing over the water, Malone bawled his men
+together and briefly explained his transfer of authority.
+
+"Be back jest as soon as Parker's all right," he said as he climbed from
+dock to dancing boat below. "And, by the way, Mr. Madden, you will bunk
+in my cabin."
+
+That "Mister Madden" from the mate was the great seal of authority. The
+men looked at him with new eyes.
+
+Somehow, Malone's confidence pleased Madden. That uncouth, bullet-headed
+officer had not spent his whole life on the high seas, belaboring all
+classes of men into serviceableness, without being able to judge the
+genus homo pretty shrewdly.
+
+The navvies accepted the new officer in stolid submission, but Hogan
+clapped his hands. "Hey, a spache fr-rom th' new boss!" he grinned.
+
+Leonard laughed. "My speech is to get back to work, and I'll do the
+same," said the boy, returning to his bucket.
+
+This appealed to the cockneys, who gave a dull English cheer, and then
+everybody settled back to their tasks once more.
+
+"What's the use in your painting, Madden?" asked Caradoc, "You don't
+have to."
+
+Leonard was amused, "They tell me a chap whose work is no bigger than
+his contract, never gets a contract for bigger work."
+
+"What's that?" frowned Smith. "That sounds like Yankee smartness to
+me--seems to make a great deal more sense than it really does."
+
+"Anyway, I don't want to rat on you fellows, just because Malone left me
+in charge for a day or so."
+
+Caradoc made no answer, but stared after the rowboat which was just
+rounding into the tug. "If I'd played up to that officer a bit," he
+smiled dourly, "I could have had the mate's berth, Madden."
+
+The American glanced up. The Englishman's smile recalled the look
+Leonard had seen under the bracket lamp.
+
+"Well, there's very little in it for anyone, I'm thinking."
+
+"Certainly, certainly," Smith shrugged a broad shoulder and the subject
+was dismissed.
+
+The blustery weather increased steadily, and by lunch time the wind was
+blowing half a gale. Regiments of waves marched against the dock and
+snapped spray high up the red sides. Their constant blows rang through
+the big iron structure. A feeling of security came to Madden as he saw
+the gray-green waves break white, and yet not shake the huge barge
+sufficiently to tip the paint from the men's buckets. Certainly the dock
+was monstrous.
+
+The sea grew rougher as evening wore on and finally the boy went to the
+mate's cabin to pick out his men for the night's work. After his own
+cramped quarters, Malone's room proved delightful. Three glass ports
+admitted light. A table in the center of the room spread over with a
+Mercator's projection showed that Malone dutifully pricked the
+_Vulcan's_ course on the chart, although it was not required of
+him. A sextant and quadrant told the American that the stolid Briton
+worked out his own reckonings. The sight of these things filled the boy
+with a respect for the uncouth fellow. He understood how doggedly Malone
+must have labored to acquire mastery over the instruments of navigation.
+Beyond this there were a number of flaring chromos on the walls, a
+decanter of wine and glasses in a chest. He found what he was looking for
+in the desk drawer, a roll of men checked off for watches. The coming
+night was arranged for, but for morning, the names of Heck Mulcher, Ben
+Galton and Caradoc Smith stood in order. Madden was just marking these
+men when there was a tap at the door.
+
+Upon call, Gaskin, the cook, entered, bearing a big tray of dishes, "Yer
+dinner, sir," he said, very respectfully.
+
+Madden had not anticipated having the mate's meals served to him, and
+for a moment he came near asking the cook if he had not made a mistake;
+but the steaming tray and the pleasant odors kept the question unspoken.
+Only with this diet before him did he realize that he had been fairly
+starving on the poor ship's rations.
+
+When Gaskin placed the soup on the table, Madden became aware that the
+dock was rolling rather heavily, for the liquid spilled over the side of
+the plate, while dishes and tureens went coasting up and down the
+boards.
+
+"Getting rough outside," remarked the lad to the servant, who was
+lighting a lamp.
+
+"A bit 'eavier, sir," replied Gaskin self effacingly.
+
+Madden held the soup plate in his hand for steadiness, and sipped the
+hot, satisfying liquid while the great dock rose and fell. The fact that
+he was really in command of the vast iron fabric put the American in a
+serious humor. He ate dinner slowly, listening to the heavy clang of the
+waves against the iron hull, and to the wind whining and sobbing over
+the great metal sides.
+
+When he had finished his meal, the youth arose with the intention of
+going to the sailors' mess house to see about the watches. He had no
+sooner stuck his head out of the door, however, than a whisk of spray
+leaped at him out of the darkness and drove him inside. He was preparing
+to venture out again, when Gaskin opened a locker and brought out an
+oilskin.
+
+"Hit'll 'elp you keep dry, sir," holding up the garment.
+
+Swathed in its folds, Madden made a new start and walked out on the
+heaving, shifting pontoon.
+
+Outside a renewed noise smote his ears. The air was full of flying spume
+that whipped in through the stern of the dock. Malone had planked up
+this open gateway to a height of thirty feet, which made it forty-two
+feet above the salt water line, but the spray already leaped this
+barrier and pelted throughout the dark heavy iron canyon.
+
+The dock was made in three huge sections, in order that it might be
+self-docking when fouled. Now in the darkness, the groaning of these
+joints smote the blustering gale in a sort of vast distress. The many
+iron stanchions for the shoring of vessels began thrumming a devil's
+tattoo against the high iron walls, like a myriad giant fingers.
+
+In the corners of the bow pontoon, Madden could see the signal lights
+heaving and dropping with the motion of the vast fabric. Now and then he
+caught a glimmer of the tug's light, and its erratic motions told how
+the staunch little vessel fared.
+
+There was a faint radiance around the shut door of the mess hall, and
+Madden walked toward it rather unsteadily, with the spumy brine dashing
+into his face.
+
+A signal lantern was attached to one of the shoring stanchions near the
+mess hall, and as Madden moved into its dull glow, another bundled form
+entered from the other side. The figure stopped and saluted.
+
+"If you please, sor," he bawled in Madden's ear, "th' nixt watch is
+sick."
+
+"Sick! The whole watch sick? What do you mean, Mike?"
+
+The Irishman grinned in the dim light, "Yis, sor, they're in their bunks
+wishin' to die. They've niver been in a blow before. It's say-sick they
+ar-re."
+
+Both men were holding to the stanchion.
+
+"Seasick!" ejaculated Madden. "How about Heck Mulcher and Ben Galton?"
+he recalled the names on the list.
+
+"The whole sit of navvies, sor, ar-re down on their backs, not carin' at
+all, at all, whether we float, sink, swim, or go to Davy Jones' locker."
+
+"Well, Caradoc's next--come with me."
+
+They took hold of each other and went sliding and slipping along the
+iron deck, now skating down hill, now climbing a sharp tilt, shoulders
+hunched against the gusty spume, until they reached Smith's little cabin
+past the mess hall. Here they paused and rapped on the door. As this
+could not have been heard inside for the wind and the waves and the
+groaning of the dock, they pushed open the shutter.
+
+Madden no sooner entered than his nostrils caught a pervading odor of
+alcohol. The Englishman's long figure lounged fully dressed on a bunk; a
+demijohn was jammed behind his kit bag to keep it from rolling.
+
+"Smith!" called Madden, "I'll have to ask you to stand watch to-night;
+nearly all the navvies are sick."
+
+Caradoc lifted his head from the bunk and blinked at the two men in the
+door. "What?" he asked vacantly.
+
+"You're to stand watch to-night," Madden raised his voice.
+
+"Stand watch!" cried the Englishman, sitting up, his face flushing
+darkly under the bracket lamp. "You _have_ turned master, haven't
+you--bootlicker ordering me to stand watch!"
+
+"It's your turn on the list!" commanded Madden brusquely, with
+ill-concealed disgust that Smith should be maudlin just when needed.
+
+"My turn--Bah! I'd have been mate myself if I had toadied and flattered
+that upstart Malone as you did!" He laughed sarcastically. "Then I could
+have had decent dinners, been wearing the mate's sou'wester, been--"
+
+"Cut it out!" snapped Madden. "Will you do your duty or not?"
+
+The dock gave a great lurch that flattened both men against the door,
+juggled Caradoc in his berth and sent kit bag and demijohn sliding
+toward the visitors.
+
+"Not!" bawled Smith. "I, Caradoc Smith-Wentworth, can't think of going
+to stand watch for a gang of siz-seasick navvies an' a t-toady American
+Yankee--Not!" he reiterated and laughed in tipsy irony.
+
+A flush of anger went over Madden. He reached down suddenly and caught
+up the demijohn.
+
+"You--you bet' not drink th-that, y-you little bossy Yankee; it-it'll
+m-make _you_ d-drunk."
+
+"You sot!" trembled Madden. "Whiskey will not be your excuse next time!"
+He caught the Irishman's arm, "Come on!" And before Smith realized what
+had happened, the two men and his liquor were out of the door and gone.
+
+Madden slammed the shutter viciously, and the tilt of a wave helped give
+it a loud bang. Then he gave the jug a wrathful swing and smashed it
+against the nearest stanchion.
+
+"Smith'll have some sense when he can't get any more," he shouted in
+Hogan's ear. Then after a moment, "Is there nobody else to take the
+watch?"
+
+"There's Dashalong, sir," bellowed Mike, "but he stood last night."
+
+"How about you?" inquired Leonard.
+
+"All roight." The Celt was about to turn for the high bridge at the
+stern, when Madden stopped him.
+
+"When was your last watch, Mike?"
+
+"This afternoon, sor."
+
+"When did Greer stand watch?"
+
+"He's niver told anywan, sor; I think it must be a saycret."
+
+"Get to your cabin and turn in," directed Madden. "I'll take it myself
+till midnight, eight bells. Then send Greer."
+
+Hogan saluted in the darkness and turned about for his cabin. Madden
+began a careful journey aft toward the wheel.
+
+He fought his way to the ladder and climbed up into the night, sometimes
+clinging like a fly to the underside of the reeling wall, sometimes
+going up a steep slant. Gusts of spume and foam whipped him all the way
+up. Once on top of the wall, he clung to the inside rail and began
+pulling himself carefully around toward the rear bridge. At this height
+the full force of the wind almost tore him from his reeling anchorage.
+At last he turned onto the bridge and moved toward the binnacle light.
+
+"You'll find 'er a little 'ard, sir," remarked the steersman as he
+turned over the wheel to Madden. "Good night, sir."
+
+"Good night," returned the American, and he watched the fellow's form
+disappear in the darkness.
+
+Madden gripped the spokes of the wheel and fell to watching the signal
+light in the center of the forward bridge and the stern lantern of the
+distant tug. These two plunging spots in the black void of night he must
+keep aligned.
+
+The enormous dock leaped and shivered under his feet. Huge waves roared
+by, of such vastness that Madden could hear their crests crashing and
+thundering high above the level of the bridge. These moving mountains
+shook tons of black water into dim, ghostlike spray, and sent it hissing
+down into cavernous troughs. The weight of the wind-swept spume flashing
+out of darkness through the binnacle light almost took the boy off his
+feet. It pounded his oilskin, stung his face. The enormous iron dock
+groaned and clanged under the mad bastinado. The long arms of the
+shoring stanchions smote the walls in a kind of terrific anvil chorus to
+the blaring orchestra of the tempest. The joints of the three huge
+pontoons sounded as if they were being rent asunder every moment. One
+minute the great structure would rise dizzily, high into the black
+blast, a skyscraper flung up on a mountain Madden could look far below
+on the lights of the struggling _Vulcan_. Up there the storm yelled
+and screamed at every corner and brace of the weltering dock, and
+wrenched at the midget helmsman. Then came the sickening drop, down,
+down, down, into the profound, and the _Vulcan_ would swing far
+above her towering consort. For the instant the storm would be blanketed
+by the prodigious waves. Wild, formless ghosts of foam would stretch
+wide arms about the falling dock as if they were clasping it into the
+lowest crypts of the dead, and the night would be filled with a vast and
+dreadful whispering.
+
+For hours it seemed that every ascent, every descent, must mark the end.
+But the storm was so terrific, Madden's sense of personal fear was
+blotted out in the tremendous conflict about him. Indeed, there was
+something deeply moving, almost gratifying in this elemental rage. Then
+he discovered that he was taking a part in it. Mechanically he had been
+straining and pulling at the wheel to hold those signal lights in line.
+Now he realized that his tiny human force formed a third contender in
+this vast battle. As he eased the great dock down the rushing sheer of a
+wave so the shock would not break the straining cable, he had won a
+point over two violent antagonists. His puny arm, that could raise
+perhaps two hundred pounds, was lifted against enemies that could fling
+about billions of tons. Without his force, tug and dock would part
+company instantly. Each watery mountain that he climbed, each gulf that
+he fathomed, was a victory over infinite odds.
+
+However, if the man worked with subtlety, the sea likewise worked with
+subtlety. As the long hours of Madden's watch roared by, one thing was
+borne in on the youth: the rudder gradually was becoming harder to
+manage. Madden thought this was caused by the rising storm and strained
+more rigidly against the wheel.
+
+Then, in the latter part of his vigil, an odd thing happened. A blast of
+spray struck Madden with some slimy thing that whipped about his neck
+and chest and almost tore him from the wheel. With convulsive
+repugnance, he jerked it loose and held the clammy stuff toward the
+binnacle light. He saw it was seaweed. Presently more strands came
+beating down on the spume to sting him.
+
+The youth was crouching in his oilskins for protection, when he was
+surprised by a hand laid on his arm. He looked around and saw it was
+Deschaillon and the silent Farnol Greer.
+
+"Eet makes bad weather," remarked the Frenchman, peering at the dark
+rolling Alps about the dock.
+
+"Good thing both of you came," shouted Madden, turning the tiller over
+to the men. "It's as stiff as cold molasses--how are the sick ones?"
+
+The boy saw Deschaillon grin and twirl his pointed mustache in the faint
+illumination. "Zay are very numerous," he laughed. But the Gaul had no
+sooner swung his weight against the wheel than his grimace vanished.
+
+"Parbleu! Here, Greer, pull zis wheel with me!"
+
+The two men caught the spokes and set their weight to it. Greer remained
+silent.
+
+"Zis ees bad!" exclaimed Deschaillon. "Zis wheel will not go around!"
+
+"What's the matter, do you think?" cried Leonard.
+
+"Zee gear ees clogged, I think me."
+
+"Go get a lantern and some men, Hogan--anybody who isn't lifeless. We've
+got to do something!"
+
+The Frenchman obeyed, hurrying off into the darkness. Leonard resumed
+his place at the wheel with Greer to aid him. But both men could not
+swing the big dock around. The tiller was growing utterly unmanageable.
+Nearly every dash of foam brought with it biting bits of seaweed now.
+The silent Greer endured the whipping without wincing or speaking. Even
+in the midst of their work, Leonard found time to wonder why this fellow
+had stolen his medicine chest.
+
+Presently the two helmsmen could barely turn the wheel. Madden could
+feel the jerking of the cable even through the great mass of pitching
+iron. Then the wheel clamped viselike. The dock's headlight and the
+intermittent glow of the tug teetered, swung out of line, crossed each
+other, like dancing fires. In a sort of panic, the two strained at the
+solid wheel. A huger wave came roaring by, flung the enormous square
+prow high in air. As it fell off with a shock, Madden felt a little
+quiver pass over the lumbering pontoons. The dock ceased taking the
+upheaved water with her slow, constant, aggressive movement.
+
+The cable had parted!
+
+Madden wondered dully what sort of cataclysm had occurred on the little
+tug at that tremendous strain.
+
+Both men still hung to the hand-grips on the useless wheel as the dock
+rose and dropped, thundered and groaned. Now and then from the
+storm-swept wave tops Madden could catch the glimmer of the
+_Vulcan's_ light. This slipped farther and farther into the void,
+heaving night, then he saw it no more.
+
+A sense of vast desolation swept over the American, and he was still
+staring into the black pandemonium ahead when Deschaillon, Hogan and a
+third man came struggling toward him.
+
+"You may go back!" he yelled wearily above the uproar. "Go back--there's
+nothing to do. The cable's broke--the _Vulcan_ is gone."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN INTERRUPTED MEETING
+
+
+Convinced that there was nothing else to be done on the big dock, Madden
+went to his cabin, threw himself on the bunk, and there tumbled and
+tossed through the stormy night, sleeping brokenly and dreaming of the
+missing _Vulcan_.
+
+Finally a bleary dawn whitened his cabin ports and the lad scrambled
+into damp clothes, picked up the mate's battered telescope and went on
+deck.
+
+He fully expected to see the _Vulcan_ lying close by, but as he
+glanced around in the dull light, an extraordinary scene shunted all
+thoughts of the tug from his mind. The wind had lulled, but there still
+rolled high a most unusual ocean. As far as he could see moved a long
+solemn procession of hills covered with splotches and serpentine lines
+of grays, olives, yellows--an ocean in motley. The great waves wove
+these sinuous markings up and down, in and out, confusing the eye with
+changing mazes.
+
+Madden went forward and studied the nearer formations under the dock's
+prow. This astonishing effect was caused by seaweed. It was the seaweed
+spray of this seaweed ocean that had whipped him during the night.
+
+A glance toward the stern of the dock solved the mystery of the balky
+steering gear. The temporary sheathing was choked with the slimy stuff.
+Tons of it had beaten over into the dock so that there was a week's work
+of cleaning ahead. The whole interior of the pontoons looked gutted;
+empty kegs, barrels had gone overboard, boats had been washed away, the
+big coal pile was scattered like pebbles and some half of it lost. And
+one odd trifle gripped Madden's heart--the fresh paint over which the
+crew had toiled so patiently looked old and dingy.
+
+As he studied the scene, two seasick navvies tottered out on deck to
+sniff the clean air. They dismally surveyed the traces of the storm.
+Then they moved weakly toward the boy, who was now scrutinizing the
+horizon with his glass.
+
+"See any sign of 'er, sir?" asked Galton saluting.
+
+Madden took down the binoculars. "Not a trace--feel better?"
+
+"Some better, sir, but my stomach is still like th' hocean, sir, a bit
+unsettled. May I arsk where we are, sir? I never saw such streaky water
+before."
+
+"Sargasso Sea," replied Leonard.
+
+Galton grunted and stared at the spangled waves. Under its load of
+seaweed, the sea was falling rapidly, and presently other seasick
+navvies came on deck. A dismal lot they made, pasty and sick and
+draggled.
+
+"You fellows that are able," Madden addressed the group, "get buckets
+and shovels and pile up that scattered coal. The exercise will make you
+feel better. When the sea is smoother, we'll rig a jury mast on the
+forward bridge for a signal."
+
+A few of the men were still too sick, but most of the crowd shuffled off
+to work. Some of the laborers drew off their pea jackets as they went,
+for the murky day was filled with a rising humid warmth.
+
+Coal piling was just getting under way in the heaving dock, when the
+door to Caradoc's cabin swung open and the Englishman stepped out.
+
+A glance at the tall fellow told Madden how he fared. The narrow-set
+eyes were inflamed, the long bronze face had lost firmness and seemed
+inclined to sag in lines.
+
+"Smith," called Madden friendlily, "you may help pile coal if you feel
+like it."
+
+"I--that demijohn that you took last night," began the Briton nervously.
+
+"Yes," Madden became serious.
+
+"I want it, if you please."
+
+Madden looked at the unstrung fellow. "Can't get it, Smith; you've had
+too much already."
+
+"Can't get my own property?" demanded Caradoc, raising his voice so all
+the men could hear.
+
+"No," snapped Madden, "you know sailors are not allowed to keep liquor
+in their dunnage."
+
+"That's my demijohn and I'll----"
+
+"I smashed it, and the pieces washed overboard long ago."
+
+"Overboard!" cried the big fellow. He turned hot eyes seaward as if
+searching the waters, then for the first time noticed the fantastic
+ocean around him. He stared at it with a strange expression.
+
+"What--what is that--where are we, Madden?" he asked with a catch in
+his breath.
+
+The fellow's tremulous condition touched the American. "Tug broke away
+last night--we're adrift in the Sargasso."
+
+A look of relief came over the long face, but he still gazed at the
+serpentine patternings. "I--I thought I was seeing--ugh, isn't it
+horrible!"
+
+"You're unstrung, Caradoc; better go lie down," suggested Madden in
+considerate tones.
+
+The mood of the Briton underwent a characteristic quick shift. "Me lie
+down?" he rasped. "I'll have my property. You're grabbing authority fast
+enough, but you'll learn Englishmen don't submit to impositions. Threw
+it overboard!" he laughed with sour incredulity. "Bet you have it in
+your cabin."
+
+The men stopped work, gaping at the insubordination. Madden flushed
+under the implication. He stepped forward to smash the long insolent
+face and white mustache, but it was plain the Englishman was on the
+verge of a nervous breakdown.
+
+Madden caught himself, stood drawing short breaths through expanded
+nostrils. "Go to your bunk, Caradoc, and wait till you're sane," he
+ordered in fairly even tones, then turned abruptly, leaving the big
+fellow scowling and biting his choppy mustache.
+
+The navvies turned back to their work, distinctly disappointed; they had
+expected a fight.
+
+Within the next few days the crew dropped into the routine of derelict
+life. When the sky cleared and the sea flattened, it left the big dock
+amid breathless heat beneath a molten tropical sky.
+
+As far as the eye could reach, the castaways saw no signs of life, not a
+sail, not a smoke, not a gull, not even the ripple of a wave; nothing
+but gaudy, motionless markings from one flat horizon to the other, dead
+traceries that swiftly became uninteresting, then monotonous, then
+disagreeable, then maddening in the aching eyes of the crew.
+
+As much for the mental health of the men as anything else, Leonard
+worked them steadily. The day's work was divided into morning and
+evening watches, because during the midday the iron barge reached a
+temperature where labor was impossible. During the cooler watches, the
+men painted desperately to cover the black expanse of the dock with red
+in order to reflect part of the palpitating heat rays.
+
+Through the idle noon periods, the crew lay about on gunny sacks under
+improvised awnings, with a man posted on the forward bridge as lookout.
+
+The colorful mazes of the Sargasso were as irritating as flowered wall
+paper in a sickroom. Even Hogan's and Deschaillon's spirits sagged under
+the brilliant sweltering sameness. The navvies moved about half naked,
+and burned brown as nuts. The men fought over trifles. Caradoc became a
+raw mass of nerves. Once or twice Madden attempted to make things
+pleasanter for his former friend, but was repulsed rabidly.
+
+Near sunset one day, the American was in the mate's cabin trying to work
+out his daily reckoning. According to the lad's inexpert calculations,
+the dock was drifting southeast at the rate of some six or seven miles
+each day. The dock was a prisoner in that vast central swirl between the
+North and South Atlantic, that was swinging in stagnating circles when
+Columbus sailed for the new world; it lay exactly the same when the
+Norsemen beat down the coasts of Europe; it would continue as long as
+Africa, Europe, and the Americas deflected ocean currents to produce its
+motion. Its vast flaring dial was the clock of the world, marking the
+passing ages. In all that stretch of time the Sargasso must have
+received strange prey, triremes, caravels, galleons, schooners, men o'
+war, derelicts ancient and modern, but certainly never before had the
+art of man placed such a colossal and extraordinary fabric within its
+swing.
+
+Some such thoughts as these passed through Madden's mind as he pursued
+his reckoning through trigonometric tables. The light fell redder and
+dimmer through the ports and he hurried to finish his work before
+darkness required a lamp in the steamy cabin. A furnace-like breath,
+laden with malodorous ship smells, drifted in upon him. Madden's thin
+undershirt clung sweatily to the muscular ridges down his back and
+moulded the graceful deltoid at the shoulder.
+
+Madden pushed back his figures as Gaskin entered with a tray. The cook's
+face was scarlet and dripping.
+
+"How much provisions have we on board, Gaskin?"
+
+"Another month's supplies, sir--most of the stores was on the
+_Vulcan_, sir." Gaskin was dignified even in the heat.
+
+Leonard turned to his map showing the drift of the dock; she was
+swinging farther and farther out of the trade routes every day. The
+probability of a rescue steadily decreased.
+
+"In the future, Gaskin, cut rations one third."
+
+The cook covertly swabbed his fat jowl. "Yes, sir--are we about to--" he
+checked his question. "Yes, sir," he agreed instead.
+
+"Yes," said Leonard, answering the half question, "it's a very necessary
+precaution, and I hope this small reduction will be sufficient."
+
+"Thankee very much, sir." Gaskin made a little bob and withdrew
+ceremoniously. Madden knew that Gaskin would continue to bob and thank
+as long as he had strength to do either.
+
+Reducing the rations was not a sudden impulse with Madden. Ever since
+the first expectation of the _Vulcan's_ return had lost its
+immediate edge, the American knew that the hope of final rescue depended
+upon conserving their food supply.
+
+The Sargasso Sea is a great oblong whorl in the Atlantic some four
+hundred miles wide and fifteen hundred long. Trade routes cut along its
+northern boundaries, and skirt its southwestern boundary. The dock might
+very well traverse two thousand miles without seeing a sail. At a rate
+of six miles a day, it would take eleven months to reach waters in which
+a rescue might be hoped.
+
+In the meantime, the men grew more and more intractable and
+insubordinate. That day, when Madden had ordered Heck Mulcher to paint
+in a certain place, the navvy had grumbled out a "That's all very well
+for you, sir," and the rest was lost in a mutter.
+
+The uncertain discipline of his men made Madden hesitate to cut the
+rations more decidedly. He felt that his command was questioned by the
+sailors.
+
+As the boy gloomily dispatched his own supper, his ear caught a faint
+persistent tapping on the iron wall which faced the mate's cabin. At
+first he paid no attention to it, assuming it was the contraction of the
+iron in the cooling temperature of the oncoming night that made the
+popping. But as he ate it was at last borne in that these taps came in
+the irregular but orderly sequence of a telegraphic code.
+
+With this thought in mind, he listened attentively. In his work as
+engineer he had had occasion to study up Morse in heliographing.
+
+It proved one of the most senseless messages the boy had ever
+translated:
+
+"Tiny arm, men plan mu." Then it was repeated, "Tiny arm, men plan mu."
+This odd sentence was retapped four or five times and at last ceased. It
+was perhaps some beginner learning the code, but who in that crew could
+be working out the telegraphic code? Leonard thought over the men, one
+by one, but struck nobody who appealed to him as an incipient
+telegrapher.
+
+The American continued thinking over the incident idly, the odd time the
+telegrapher had chosen to practice his art, the queer message he had
+rapped out, when suddenly the message whirled around in his mind, and he
+perceived he had begun listening in the middle of a very alarming
+sentence, and had been reading from one middle to the next. The message
+was: "Men plan mutiny--Arm!" "Men plan mutiny--Arm!"
+
+Madden got to his feet with nervous quickness, and stood listening
+intently. The question of who sent the message now became of sharp
+importance. If the men planned mutiny, he could rely upon the
+telegrapher--perhaps.
+
+There was still enough light in the steamy cabin to discern objects. The
+American began rummaging through table drawers, lockers and racks for
+some effective weapon, preferably a revolver.
+
+At that moment he heard footsteps approaching his cabin door. An instant
+later the shutter swung open without the formality of a knock and two
+dark figures entered.
+
+"Well?" inquired the American sharply.
+
+"It's us!" put in two voices at once.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"It's a bit of a disthurbance, Mister Madden, that's----"
+
+"Zat Smeeth," put in a pinched French accent excitedly, "he says zare
+ees no mate, zat you----"
+
+"Be quiet, Dashalong; th' gintilman can't understhand yer brogue. Smith
+siz ye have no authority by rights; that we should run things as we
+plaze; that th' bhoys should have all they want to ate; that we should
+have rum with aitch male, sor."
+
+"And have you two fellows come to get these things?" inquired Leonard in
+a hard voice.
+
+"No, no, no," trilled out Deschaillon. "Eem-possible!"
+
+"We sthrolled around to till ye, and bide wid ye a bit, and whiniver th'
+romp starts, me and Dash here ar-re going to swing partners, eh, Dash?"
+
+"Oh, beg pardon," apologized Leonard frankly, "but I had just been
+warned and I was looking for trouble--"
+
+"Thot's all r-right, Misther Madden. We ar-re wid ye. I am always for
+law and ordher, Misther Madden, aven whin I am most disordherly,"
+
+"That ees true, he ees," nodded Deschaillon.
+
+"And I always fight on th' wakest side no matther whether it's roight or
+wrong."
+
+"Hogan ees a chevalier, no matter eef he does have to paint,"
+corroborated the Frenchman.
+
+"Are all the other boys in with Smith?"
+
+"In with him, sor? Fr-rum th' way they stick around him ye'd think he
+was a long-lost rilitive come back wid a million pounds."
+
+"I'm glad you fellows are with me, Mike. I was just looking for a gun,
+but if you'll stand by me--"
+
+"Oh, don't pull a pistol, Misther Madden. A man who would pull a gun in
+a free-for-all--why he would smash th' fiddles at a dance."
+
+"As you deed not fight zee day Smeeth said you stole zee whiskey, zee
+men--"
+
+"Think ye'll be aisy," finished Hogan.
+
+"I've just ordered a change in diet," observed Madden dryly.
+
+"Oh, thin ye're goin' to give in to th' spalpeens?"
+
+"No, I've cut rations one-third--and that goes!" There was a finality
+about the dictum that reassured his allies.
+
+"Uh-huh, Dashalong, I towld ye Misther Madden wasn't no----"
+
+The sentence was interrupted by more feet approaching outside, then a
+heavy knocking at the door. The two men automatically moved over to
+Madden's side and faced the entrance.
+
+"Light a lamp, Deschaillon," directed Madden crisply,
+
+"Yis, two of 'em--I want to watch 'em fall out o' th' tail o' me eye."
+
+The Frenchman struck a match for his task. Madden invited the men to
+enter.
+
+The whole crew came through the door in an orderly but somewhat
+embarrassed manner. A few of the men had on shirts, some undershirts,
+others were stripped to the waist, their torsos shining with moisture,
+Deschaillon's hand trembled slightly as he lighted two bracket lamps,
+Hogan's little eyes sparkled in anticipation.
+
+"What is it, Galton?" Madden picked out the nearest man bruskly.
+
+Gallon shuffled his bare feet on the hot boards. "We hev been thinkin',"
+he began in a throaty cockney voice, "that since ye was not mate to
+begin with----" he looked back over the crowd toward the real leader,
+Caradoc, for moral support.
+
+The men gave Smith an opening toward the American. In the oppressive
+heat of the crowded, lamp-lit room everyone was crimson and dripping
+except Caradoc, whose face was curiously bloodless beneath its sunburn.
+
+"If you are spokesman, Smith, what do you want?" demanded Leonard with
+rising inflection.
+
+"We are all workmen together," began Caradoc with an obvious effort,
+panting in the heat. "We're working together, living together, roasting
+together in this awful furnace. Your authority was only meant for a few
+days. Now the _Vulcan_ is gone. Nobody knows for how long. We think
+all men should share and share alike."
+
+"All this demonstration to tell me you want me to eat at the regular
+mess?"
+
+"No," quivered Caradoc, "it's not just eating. We are not pigs. We want
+a hand in running things, and we want a portion of rum served at meals,
+as every decent ship allows. We want--"
+
+"Oh, so it's drink, not eating," satirized Madden.
+
+"Rum's our right as sailormen," mumbled Galton.
+
+"Rum in this climate?" Ridicule tinctured the American's tone. "Smith, I
+believe you once proposed to write an article on Climate and
+Alcoholism." He turned to the men. "Do you fellows want to build a fire
+inside yourselves when your lungs and hearts are strained to breaking
+already?"
+
+"It cools you off in hot weather," answered a voice in the crowd.
+
+"Cools nothing! It heats you up." He leaned forward and tapped the table
+decisively at each word, "It won't be served, y'understand!" His last
+tap was a thump. "I'm boss here--no rum! And I'll tell you right now,
+I'm going to cut your rations one-third, too--hear? Now, get out, all
+of you--move out o' my cabin!"
+
+There was a shuffling among the navvies toward the arrowy lad who
+confronted them. Deschaillon balanced himself on one leg, French boxing
+fashion, ready to kick out with the deadly accuracy of an ostrich. Hogan
+gave a brief happy laugh, broken by his jump, the crack of his fist
+against some jaw and the stumbling of a man.
+
+As the fight flamed down the sweating line, Farnol Greer suddenly rushed
+through the door. "This is mutiny!" he shouted aloud. "Every man-jack
+will hang for it by the ship's articles! I'm for you, Mr. Madden!" and
+he made a surprising assault from the rear.
+
+Madden and Caradoc squared away at each other. The Englishman headed his
+men, his long face sinister in the lamplight. But he had hardly taken a
+step when an absolute pallor whitened his countenance, he halted,
+shaking, gasping, then flung back an arm to Galton.
+
+"I--I'm fizzled out!" he stammered with twitching lips. "Go
+ahead--fight!"
+
+"You'll hang--you'll hang for it!" bawled Greer, mauling at the men
+behind.
+
+Caradoc crumpled down on the floor. The navvies, with an English dread
+of legal authority, hesitated, thinking perhaps Caradoc had deserted
+them purposely to clear his own skirts in the mutiny.
+
+Madden instantly caught up the loose ends of his raveling authority.
+
+"Lay him on the bunk, Galton!" he commanded.
+
+Galton obeyed instinctively, half carrying the long sagging form to the
+bunk.
+
+"Hogan!" he thundered at the cyclone on his right, "you and Mulcher stop
+that! Stop it, Mulcher!" he turned to some of the men. "Part 'em there!
+Stop 'em!"
+
+Six navvies, three to the man, jumped and grabbed the combatants.
+
+"Just look, will you?" Madden pointed to Caradoc on the bunk. "You fools
+have followed a man half mad with a sunstroke! He has blown his nerves
+all to pieces with a rum bottle, and you bunch of mush-heads have
+mutinied to give him more rum so he could finish the job!"
+
+The leaderless insurgents stared at Caradoc's still form, then began
+filing out of the cabin.
+
+"Deschaillon, get that medicine chest out of my bag!"
+
+The Frenchman moved toward the bag indicated, when Madden remembered.
+
+"Here, come back, every one of you!" he cried.
+
+The mutineers flowed in again, entirely subdued now.
+
+Madden was loosening what few clothes Smith wore. He twisted about,
+facing the crew.
+
+"Some of you fellows stole my medicine chest," he accused boldly. "I
+want it! The man who has it bring it here!"
+
+The men stood very still, looking from one to the other uneasily.
+
+"Listen, men," repeated Leonard intensely, "I've got to have
+it--understand? I don't mind your stealing it. I won't say a word to you
+about that, but I'll manhandle the scoundrel that's keeping it now!"
+
+There was a growled chorus of protests. Madden quivered at his impotence
+to put his hand on the thief in the crowd.
+
+One of the navvies caught the expression on Madden's face, and blurted,
+"If I 'ad it, I'd bring it back--'onest!"
+
+Leonard suddenly recalled his suspicions. He looked at Farnol Greer,
+whose timely shouting and attack had practically quelled the rising. For
+a moment Madden's old friendship for Smith and his new gratitude for
+this silent unknown youth struggled, then he said:
+
+"Greer, do you know anything about that chest?"
+
+A look of blank surprise, then indignation went over Greer's heavy
+serious face, then he said bitingly:
+
+"You sure stand by your pal, all right," and moved out of the cabin
+without another word.
+
+Caradoc lay dry and burning on the hot bunk, his big hands pressed to
+his forehead, eyes clenched shut.
+
+"I don't know what to do!" cried Madden miserably. "Hogan, Deschaillon,
+for God's sake, if you know anything about that medicine chest, tell
+me--I'm not accusing anybody!"
+
+"Sure, sure," cried Hogan sympathetically, "Oi'm sorry Oi ain't got it.
+If Oi only had me chance again I'd stole it long ago!"
+
+"I'm sorree, but I never stole eet either, Meester Madden."
+
+"If I only had bromide!" growled the American, watching Smith's broad
+hairy chest lift and drop in short breaths.
+
+The Englishman opened his hot red eyes. "What's that to you, Madden?" he
+asked thickly. The choppy white mustache pulled down in a sneer. "I
+might as well die now--I'm nothing but a remittance man. A remittance
+man," he repeated the term with mingled self contempt and bravado. "My
+people have shipped me--flung me away, broken, no use," he flung out a
+long hot hand at Madden. "Why do you try to pick up the pieces?" He
+laughed thickly, which sent wild pains through his head and stopped him
+suddenly.
+
+Madden stared penetratingly at this outbreak.
+
+"Pour water over him, Deschaillon, Hogan," commanded the American
+briefly.
+
+As his two helpers hurried out after buckets, Leonard came close to the
+sufferer.
+
+"Where is it?" he asked shortly.
+
+"Where--what?"
+
+Madden stooped over him. "Where's that medicine chest? What did you do
+with it? You wouldn't have started that tirade unless you had it."
+
+"You Americans--very keen," panted Caradoc in the midst of his rackings.
+"Think you're d-deuced smart--it's in my bag's lining--there was some
+alcohol in it, so I took it--let it go--don't do anything--for--me."
+
+Deschaillon entered with a bucket of seawater. They stretched the sick
+man on the floor, and a moment later, the Englishman shuddered under the
+deluge.
+
+"This ought to be an ice pack," observed Madden, then: "I believe I
+remember laying that medicine case in my old cabin; I'll see," and he
+walked out of the mate's room into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SAIL HO!
+
+
+Caradoc lay stretched out in a deck chair, on top of the broad wall of
+the dock, a cool dawn breeze playing over him. He looked across the
+motley sea toward an opalescent sky reddening in the east.
+
+"No," replied Madden without great interest, from his seat on the rail,
+"I've no idea what you mean by a 'remittance man.'"
+
+The Englishman's eyes strayed wearily from the limpid dawn to the tiny
+image of a lion couchant on a small blue enameled shield which he used
+as a watch fob.
+
+"Among the English--" He paused and began again: "Among a certain class
+of English families," he proceeded in an impersonal tone, "when a member
+goes hopelessly astray, that member is sent abroad to travel
+indefinitely. Remittances are forwarded to him from place to place,
+wherever he wishes to go, but--" there was a scarcely noticeable
+pause--"he can't come back to England any more."
+
+"O-o-h!" dragged out Madden in a low voice, comprehending the man before
+him for the first time.
+
+"So they are called remittance men--always remitted to." Caradoc's long
+fever-worn face, that was filling out in convalescence, colored
+momentarily.
+
+"So that's what you were," said the American after a pause; "a
+remittance man, simply drifting over the face of the earth, supported by
+your family, boozing your life away, and always longing to see England
+again?"
+
+"You can put things so raw, Madden," responded Caradoc with a ghost of a
+smile. "I _am_, not _were_."
+
+"_Were_," insisted the American quickly. "Before your collapse you
+were a confirmed alcoholic, but you are slightly different now. Your
+eight days of fever, when Hogan and I had to hold you in bed, must have
+burned you out, cleaned up your whole system. You are nearer normal now
+than you were. You have a fresh start. It's up to you what you do with
+it."
+
+The Englishman looked at his friend with a sort of slow surprise on his
+face. "I hadn't noticed it, but I don't believe I do crave drink as
+keenly."
+
+"No, sickness is often not so bad a thing as folks think. It is nature's
+way of putting us right. Sometimes," he added thoughtfully, "we crumple
+up in the process, but we can hardly blame the old lady for that."
+
+"You're an odd fellow, Madden," laughed Caradoc, getting slowly out of
+his chair and stretching his arms. "Well, for some reason or other, I
+feel fine this morning--let's take a constitutional around the dock."
+
+The young men walked off, side by side, and began the circuit of the
+dock's quarter-mile outline. The breeze was such a rarity in the
+becalmed region that the two paused now and then to take long grateful
+breaths, and to watch the little wind waves ripple the glassy Sargasso
+lanes.
+
+As they walked, navvies came out with buckets brushes and set to work
+painting the maze of iron stanchions that lined the long interior of the
+dock.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll have to stop that painting," remarked Leonard after
+watching them a moment.
+
+"They'll be very glad of it--but why?"
+
+"It consumes too much energy. The men can live on less if they quit
+work."
+
+"Oh, I see."
+
+"I think I shall have to cut their food down to half rations. We've been
+adrift nearly sixteen days now and not a smoke plume from the
+_Vulcan_. She has lost us--if she didn't founder."
+
+"Any chance of meeting some other vessel?"
+
+"Here in the ocean's graveyard?"
+
+"Are we far in?" inquired Smith with rising concern.
+
+"Close to three hundred miles, and getting deeper every day."
+
+The two walked on mechanically, with the precise step of those who seek
+exercise. The rim of the sun cut the edge of the ocean and a long trail
+of light made the east difficult for their eyes.
+
+"Any danger of starving?" questioned Caradoc, staring moth-like at the
+blinding disc of flame.
+
+"Perhaps not," meditated Madden. "I've been thinking about it. As a last
+resort this seaweed is edible, at any rate certain species of it. The
+Chinese and Japanese eat it, but that isn't much of a recommendation to
+a European. Then the water is full of fish that come to nibble at the
+stuff."
+
+Caradoc was obviously inattentive to this consoling information. "Yes,"
+he murmured politely, "Japanese do nibble at the fish."
+
+Madden looked around at his abstracted friend, who was still staring
+into the molten sunrise.
+
+"When the Japanese come to nibble at the fish, we might get some food
+from them," suggested Madden with American delight in the ridiculous.
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"And fans, parasols, and little ivory curios--souvenirs of the Sargasso,
+when we roll up the dock and take it home."
+
+Smith nodded soberly, still gazing.
+
+"What are you looking at, Caradoc?" laughed the American.
+
+"I say, Madden, just look at that sun, will you? I thought I saw a
+little black fleck against it straightaway to the east right down on the
+horizon."
+
+"You're injuring your sight, that's all," the American was still
+smiling. "You know black specks will dance before your eyes if you stare
+at the sun too long."
+
+"But this was shaped like a sail," persisted Smith, staring again.
+
+"Illusion," diagnosed Madden promptly, but his eyes followed Caradoc's
+eastward nevertheless.
+
+As far as his sight could reach up the golden path, he saw the black
+markings of seaweed; then his vision became lost in a mist of
+illumination. However, in this region, he could distinguish things dimly
+and in flashes.
+
+Presently, in one of these clear instants, he saw flashed, like the
+single film of a moving picture, the tiny black silhouette of a ship's
+sail against the dazzling east. Next moment it was lost in light.
+
+"I told you!" cried Caradoc, getting his friend's expression. "It's
+there! We've both seen it! A ship, Madden!"
+
+Then he turned with more strength than Madden thought was in him. "Sail
+ho, men!" he sang out. "A sail!"
+
+"Come up, fellows, and take a look!" chimed in Madden just as eagerly.
+"We believe we see a sail!"
+
+The crew dropped work at once, and came climbing the ladder up the deep
+side of the canyon like a string of monkeys; then they came running
+across the red decking.
+
+"Where?" "Wot direction?" "Where ees eet?" came a chorus of inquiries.
+
+The two were pointing and soon the whole crew was lined up staring into
+the brilliance. Their fresh eyes caught the glimpse immediately and held
+it long enough to make sure.
+
+"A sail!" "There she is!" "Oi see her!" bellowed half a dozen voices.
+
+The whole crew fell into tense, happy confusion, laughing, staring,
+yelling, speculating, slapping backs.
+
+"Will she see us?" cried someone.
+
+"Do ye think she'd overlook the whole west half o' th' sea, Galton?"
+
+"She weel run against us eef she cooms thees way."
+
+"But she might not know we are in distress?"
+
+"Disthress, is it ye're sayin'? We're not in disthress, ye loon. This is
+th' happiest day o' me loife."
+
+Leonard turned to the Irishman. "Hogan, go dip that flag on the jury
+mast--wiggle it up and down--let 'em know something is wrong--make 'em
+think we have the rickets if nothing else."
+
+Two men ran off with Hogan to the forward bridge; the others stared,
+waved, shouted and let their excitement bubble down.
+
+"But I don't understand a sailing vessel in these waters," speculated
+Leonard.
+
+"Maybe it's a derelick?" surmised Galton. "I've 'card as 'ow this was a
+great place for derelicks."
+
+"'Ow could she be a derelick," argued Mulcher, "w'en she 'as so much
+canvas aloft? You run up on derelicks an' git sunk, ever' cove knows
+that."
+
+"I carn't think of hall these things at once!" retorted Galton.
+
+"Perhaps she ees the _Vulcan_ under sail with deesabled engines?"
+suggested Deschaillon.
+
+This explanation was accepted unanimously and joy broke out afresh.
+
+"Why sure, th' _Vulcan_, th' good old _Vulcan_! Now, lads,
+let's give three cheers and maybe it'll reach 'er!"
+
+Madden left the men trying to reach her with their bellows and went
+below after the mate's binoculars. When he returned the sun had swung up
+above the rim of the ocean and the sail was plainly discernible. He
+leveled his glasses and his eyes went searching among the distant
+markings of seaweed, until it finally rested on the sail. The vessel was
+hull down. There was nothing to see except a little canvas stretched
+neatly aloft and ship-shape masts and spars. He observed her attentively
+for some time. She seemed to be making very little headway. All in all,
+Madden made little of the craft, so he handed the glass to Smith. The
+Englishman was likewise puzzled, and the binoculars went down the line
+of curious men.
+
+There was something in the way the youth named Farnol Greer handled the
+instrument that caused Madden to ask:
+
+"What do you make out, Greer?"
+
+"She is lying to, sir. She's backing her tops'ls flat against the
+breeze, and her mains'l's reefed and drawing with it."
+
+"Lying to!" cried three or four voices. "W'ot does she mean by that?
+Looks as if she'd be bloomin' glad to get out o' such a bally place as
+this!"
+
+"Let me have another look." Madden resumed the binoculars.
+
+Now that Madden's attention was called to this unusual disposition of
+the sails, he could make out their position for himself.
+
+This started another tide of speculation buzzing among the castaways.
+Was the _Vulcan_ crippled? Had she run short of coal? But why
+should she voluntarily lay-to in the very sight of her quarry?
+
+"They're fishin'," surmised Deschaillon, "off in th' boats fishin';
+they're weethout food also."
+
+This wild surmise was the only reasonable hypothesis that had been
+struck on. Another group of men rushed for the jury mast to show the
+fishermen that their presence was desired. At any rate the faint breeze
+was very slowly bringing the two vessels together.
+
+If the men had been heretofore anxious that the cool breeze continue,
+now their anxiety was redoubled. At any moment it might die away and
+leave the _Vulcan_ stranded beyond communication. In painful
+uncertainty, they watched the tug drag her hull slowly into sight, then
+slowly eat her way down the long mazy lanes of the Sargasso.
+
+Then, when she was well in view, Farnol Greer said:
+
+"She is not the _Vulcan_, sir."
+
+By this time all the men had their brown faces wrinkled up against the
+glare of the sunshine. Now they redoubled their gaze on the distant
+vessel.
+
+"Faith, and sure enough she isn't!" cried Hogan.
+
+Greer was right; the strange vessel was not the tug. She had a funnel
+amidship and two masts, but there her resemblance to the _Vulcan_
+ceased.
+
+The crew stared, talked, speculated, until the sun swung up like a
+white-hot metal ball in the sky, and the quivering heat drove them below
+under the awnings. From here they could still view the stranger, but not
+to so good advantage. The breeze, by good fortune lasted till deep in
+the morning, but finally dropped down in the blanketing heat, with the
+unknown craft a good three miles distant.
+
+The dock's crew could make out no sign of life as they strained their
+eyes through the glare of tropical brilliance. The high-lights of the
+schooner's reversed topsails and the luminous shadows of her mainsail
+stood out vividly against the hot copper sky. The multi-colored markings
+of the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon finished a very picture
+of pitiless heat.
+
+The men stood beneath the awning, legs apart, arms held away from
+bodies, and stared from under dripping brows for some signs of
+recognition from the stranger.
+
+"'Asn't she got up a single rag to show us she sees us?" puffed Galton,
+swiping his hand across his forehead and flinging drops on the iron
+deck, where they evaporated the moment they hit.
+
+"Don't see none," replied the navvy who possessed the binoculars at that
+moment.
+
+"'Ave they any boats?"
+
+"One cleated down for'ard, one slung on the midship davits, and I think
+I make hout one on t'other side past the booby hatch."
+
+"And not a soul on deck?"
+
+"Not unless they're settin' on th' fur side o' th' superstructure."
+
+"Wot would they want to be settin' in th' sun for?" demanded Galton
+brusquely.
+
+"'Ow do I know? If they was Eth'opians, wouldn't they set in th' sun?"
+
+"This is as clost as we'll ever git," surmised another voice. "The night
+breeze'll blow 'er back where she come from."
+
+"Well, w'ere's that?" demanded Mulcher savagely.
+
+"Why, Eth'opia, I reckon, if she's got a crew of Eth'opians settin' on
+t'other side of 'er superstructure."
+
+"They ain't a man-jack aboard; and you know it," snarled Galton, "or
+'e'd be poppin' 'is eyes hout at such a 'orrible big sight as we must
+be."
+
+"Anyway, I'll bet she blows back w'ere she come from, to-night,"
+persisted the advocate of this theory.
+
+The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying,
+upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.
+
+In order to keep any sort of discipline, Leonard and Caradoc kept to
+themselves under a separate awning, for all sea-faring experience has
+shown that a separation of officers and men is necessary for the
+management of sailors.
+
+However, Madden heard most of the arguments that went on under the men's
+canvas, and he became convinced that the sailor was right; the evening
+breeze would carry the schooner away from the dock. He measured the long
+distance through the sea lanes from dock to schooner with his eyes.
+
+"Caradoc," he said to his friend, "if we ever reach that vessel now's
+our time."
+
+"How do you hope to do it?"
+
+For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy,
+will you?"
+
+Mulcher arose and started on his errand.
+
+Caradoc stared. "You don't intend to _swim_ that distance--through
+this heat?"
+
+"There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps."
+
+"And the crew?"
+
+"It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly
+becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening
+and morning breezes--it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work
+herself out of the Sargasso."
+
+"Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible."
+
+Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the
+navvy, on the _qui vive_ over this new undertaking.
+
+"Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir," suggested
+Hogan, "an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a
+dangerous swim."
+
+"An' the sharks, Meester Madden," warned Deschaillon.
+
+As Madden kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping
+likewise. Then Farnol Greer came running down the deck with another buoy
+and a big clasp knife.
+
+The American looked at these fellows. "Caradoc, you can't possibly hold
+out that distance; you're weak."
+
+"I've done ten miles in--at home."
+
+Greer said nothing, but rapidly undressed.
+
+All three kept on their hats and undershirts as protection against
+sunburn. As Madden walked from the awning through the stinging sun rays,
+crimping up his naked feet from the blistering deck, Galton called to
+him.
+
+"If we git a lot of grub, sir, couldn't it be hextra, and carn't we 'ave
+a spread to-night, sir?"
+
+"Something like that," agreed Madden, tossing his buoy into the water.
+The two other swimmers followed example, then all three dived off the
+twelve foot pontoon toward their floats. They came up shaking the water
+from ears and eyes. Madden was immersed in tepid water. His men were
+cheering stolidly. The schooner looked very, very far away now that he
+was at the surface of the water. Between him and his goal streaked mazes
+of sargassum. It suddenly struck the American that he might have trouble
+getting through those barriers.
+
+However, the three swimmers were progressing boldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE CUL DE SAC
+
+
+Madden thrust head and shoulders into his float, a round canvas-covered
+hoop of cork, and set off at an easy stroke. Now that he was flat on the
+water, he could no longer see the lanes of seaweed, and he would be
+forced to depend entirely upon signals from the dock.
+
+Alongside Madden came Greer, and after them Caradoc. Like all Americans,
+Leonard gradually increased his energy, and forged ahead at a rate
+considerably faster than that required for long distance swimming. Once
+or twice Caradoc warned the swimmers to go more slowly, and at each
+monition Madden slowed up a trifle, but within a few minutes he would
+again speed up unconsciously.
+
+The three swimmers could form little idea of the rate they were making
+in the lifeless sea. At the end of half an hour, when Leonard looked
+back at Hogan on the wall for signals, the dock still loomed above him,
+a vast glare of red in the dazzling sunshine. It seemed impossible to
+get away from it; the featureless red flare followed him as a mountain
+peak seems to follow a traveler.
+
+The sun beat oppressively on his head and blistered his shoulders
+through his net undershirt. The warm water soaked the energy out of
+limbs and arms. He changed from breast to over-arm stroke, then he
+shifted to the crawl and trudgen stroke.
+
+"Perhaps we'd better rest awhile, sir," suggested Greer, who came
+puffing close behind.
+
+"Beastly hot, this sun," Leonard ducked head and shoulders under water
+for relief. His hat floated off and he grudged the slight effort to
+retrieve it.
+
+"How far are we?"
+
+"Dock looks as close as ever--where's Smith?"
+
+Greer nodded toward a small head and shoulders bobbing behind a little
+white buoy.
+
+At that moment, they heard the Englishman's voice calling, "To the
+right!"
+
+The boys turned and struck out ahead once more. They regretted having to
+leave the straight line. As far as they could see there was no algae in
+sight, the water was one glassy blue. And the mysterious schooner, with
+its lights and shadows exaggerated in the tropical glare, seemed to the
+tired swimmers to be as remote as ever.
+
+As Madden pressed on and on, changing strokes after the fashion of
+tiring swimmers, the constant beat of the sun made his eyeballs ache;
+the ocean felt like a Turkish bath; the muscles in his shoulders, back
+and legs grew numb, with an occasional cramping twinge. And what
+irritated him as much as anything else was the fact that he was swimming
+toward the right quarter of the schooner, throwing away his energy.
+
+Just then Caradoc gave a distant call, "To the left."
+
+With deep relief, Madden rounded back toward his goal. He had swung
+about some unseen cape of algae. He looked back toward the dock. Hogan,
+a very tiny figure, held his flag straight up; that meant "dead ahead."
+
+In relief Madden turned over on his back, laid his hat across his face,
+then with hands resting on chest, he began sculling along with knees and
+feet.
+
+He did not know how long he swam in this fashion. Queer ideas drifted
+through the lad's mind. He recalled standing on the bridge of the dock
+as it went out of the Thames and wondering what would happen. He had
+never anticipated anything like this. It seemed that he had been
+swimming for days and weeks. He reminded himself of those little kicking
+toys that never get anywhere. He felt as if he were a June bug buzzing
+helplessly at the end of a string. He kicked, kicked, kicked under the
+broiling sun, in the hot water. The sweaty smell of his hat band
+disgusted his nostrils. The crown of his hat seemed to coop the heat
+over his face, sweat seeped into his closed eyelids and stung his eyes.
+He gave his head a little shake. The buoy slipped out and he bobbed
+under the tepid water head and ears.
+
+This jerked him out of his dreamy state. He whirled over, struck to the
+surface, spat out brine, blinked his eyes. Somebody was shouting
+something in an urgent voice. The noise buzzed in his waterlogged ears.
+
+"Hey, hello! What is it?" he cried, giving his head a shake and putting
+on his hat.
+
+"School of sharks!" shouted Greer, coming toward his leader at a foamy
+speed.
+
+"School of sharks!" echoed Madden with a sharp thrill. "Where? Which
+way?"
+
+"Must be toward the dock, sir!" panted Greer driving up.
+
+"Where's Caradoc?"
+
+"Yonder." He pointed toward a distant twinkle in the water.
+
+"We must get together--yell to him, warn him!"
+
+The two lads began a strenuous chorus that further used up their
+exhausted strength. Caradoc responded by a wave of his hand. Then when
+he understood "sharks" he gathered speed in their direction.
+
+By this time the dock seemed as far away as the schooner, and was in
+reality probably farther. On the wall of the dock, they could see
+Hogan's microscopic figure apparently having a fit, against the coppery
+sky. No doubt from his height he could make out the monsters. Perhaps
+Hogan could see the great fish shooting along with sinister,
+exertionless ease toward these clumsy adventurers--a school of trout
+striking at three awkward beetles.
+
+"Hey, Caradoc! Caradoc!" screamed Madden. "Straight for the schooner!"
+The American stared around with tense nerves for the little swishes on
+the surface that betray the attack of a shark.
+
+From something near middle distance, the Englishman raised a hand toward
+his comrades and motioned them forward.
+
+"Go on! Go on!" he gasped in a tired voice. "I'll catch you!"
+
+Indeed, there was little to be gained from waiting. Caradoc moved toward
+his friends with a long overhand stroke that gave him the queer
+appearance of some huge water bug striding along. Madden and Greer
+propelled themselves slowly toward the schooner, waiting for their
+friend to close up. They could not keep their eyes off the Englishman.
+Every moment they expected to see him jerked under, or they expected to
+see a huge shadowy form strike at themselves through the clear green
+water.
+
+Once Madden looked at the dock. Hogan on the rim of the red flaring wall
+was flinging out all kinds of despairing gestures.
+
+By this time Caradoc was in hailing distance.
+
+"Did you say sharks?" he called out in a dull voice.
+
+"Yes, sharks!"
+
+"Where a way?"
+
+"Don't know!"
+
+At that moment a trickling thrill went through the American. A long dark
+motionless shadow lay in the water straight in front of him. He stopped
+swimming suddenly.
+
+"Stop, Greer! Straight ahead!" he warned in a low tone, easing himself
+carefully up on his buoy for a better look.
+
+By this time the swimmers were nearly together and all three stared
+ahead with painful intentness.
+
+"That dark thing?" inquired Greer in an undertone,
+
+"Yes, we ought to have a knife apiece."
+
+"I never saw a shark lying still," panted Caradoc straining his eyes.
+
+"Say, that's a little streak of seaweed," decided Farnol, beginning to
+move toward it.
+
+Then all three perceived it was merely seaweed. The shark-like illusion
+disappeared completely the moment someone doubted it.
+
+"Who cried out sharks anyway?" demanded Smith of Madden.
+
+"Greer there warned me--he yelled 'school of sharks.'"
+
+"Where did you see them?" inquired Caradoc of Farnol.
+
+"You shouted school of sharks to me yourself," defended Greer.
+
+"I! I!" puffed Caradoc, whose spurt had blown him badly. "I said nothing
+about sharks!"
+
+"Well, what did you say?" demanded Greer.
+
+Caradoc thought back fretfully. "I said we were running into a _cul de
+sac_."
+
+"A cool de sock!" repeated Greer with irritation. "What did you want to
+say 'cool de sock' for?"
+
+"I was calling to a gentleman," panted Smith with an edge of temper in
+his tone, "and here you've swung us clear off our bearings because you
+didn't know a common French phrase----"
+
+"French! I'm no Frenchman! Why don't you talk English!"
+
+The two tired, worried, overheated men were rapidly brewing a quarrel,
+when Madden interrupted.
+
+"Look how close we are to that schooner! If somebody would raise another
+shark alarm, we'd land plump on her decks."
+
+"Yes, but this Zulu here has run us straight into a loop of seaweed
+it'll take two hours' swimming to get out of--_cul de sac_, school
+of sharks! Why the two phrases scarcely resemble each other!"
+
+Madden turned longing eyes toward the motionless schooner that was not
+more than three-quarters of a mile distant. "Say, it's too bad to turn
+around and swim away from that vessel!" he lamented wearily, "and this
+sun is fierce!"
+
+"I say let's try going through!" encouraged Greer.
+
+"It'll be--difficult," warned Caradoc.
+
+"Won't swimming clear around the earth be difficult?" demanded Greer
+hotly.
+
+"Proceed," agreed Caradoc tersely. "It's all one to me."
+
+The boys adjusted their floats and once more began their weary labor,
+all three disgruntled at the false alarm. As they worked their way
+forward, clumps of seaweed, similar to the first they had seen,
+thickened in their path. After a long swim in and out, they reached a
+point where these floating masses coalesced into an island, or a
+continent, that swung far back toward the barge in the segment of a
+great semicircle. Fortunately there were still open channels in this
+main field, and one of them led toward the schooner. They struck out up
+this estuary, which presently became so narrow that they were forced to
+travel single file. Occasionally their kicking feet would strike slimy
+filaments in the water, but for a while the channel cheered the
+swimmers, for they could now see they were making progress toward the
+ship.
+
+Ten minutes later, however, they reached the end, and an inexorable
+continent of slime lay between them and their goal. Madden paused in the
+last yard of clear water, hung to his buoy, his big biceps flattened on
+the canvas cover and slowly blistering in the sun.
+
+"All right, boys, close up," he panted; "let's stay in helping distance
+of each other."
+
+"Shall we try to take our buoys through, sir?" inquired Greer.
+
+"We'll start with them."
+
+"Don't try to use your legs in the weed," warned Caradoc. "Don't kick;
+you'll get tangled."
+
+"We'll experiment and work through the best way we can. If it turns out
+too bad, we can turn back, that's one consolation."
+
+Just then, under Madden's astonished eyes, a queer thing happened. The
+long open tongue of the sea which they had just entered, silently closed
+up. It seemed to close very slowly, and yet it was accomplished in an
+amazingly brief time. Some dull movement in the Sargasso current had
+blocked the adventurers with sinister precision. Madden felt the hot
+slimy mass close softly around him.
+
+It was now as easy to go forward as to return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+TRAPPED
+
+
+There was something so sinister in this silent closing of all avenue of
+retreat that for a moment Madden was dismayed, then he struck out toward
+the schooner with a certain bold weariness.
+
+As an experiment he threw his buoy ahead of him by a snap of wrist and
+forearm, then tried to swim to it. The long yielding growth slid under
+and around him, but it took all the dash out of his stroke. He pawed his
+way forward with his arms, legs stretched out idle. A thousand wet
+sticky fingers dragged their length over his body, retarding, clogging,
+holding him. It left him stranded like a bug in gelatine. His flesh
+crawled at this slimy swimming, he shrank from it, and it sapped his
+heart and strength.
+
+The only stroke possible was the overarm, and his hands fell with a
+gummy plop instead of the heartsome splash of open water. By the time he
+reached his buoy and threw it again, he regretted miserably that he had
+not swum the clean water route if it were five miles farther.
+
+By the time he had thrown his buoy twice, he could hardly advance it a
+yard beyond his reach; finally it simply slushed along the surface. The
+sun seemed much hotter in this congestion than in the open sea.
+
+Behind him came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping
+buoys and wriggling bodies. Ahead of them the seaweed stretched,
+apparently all the way to the schooner. As they worked their way through
+the scum of many seas, the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water
+blisters, and stewed saline odors out of the clammy life about them.
+
+Once Madden's hand struck a yellowish line of algae and a score or two
+of little jelly-like insects writhed into the grass below. One of these
+things touched the swimmer's arm and gave the boy a stinging sensation.
+He knocked it off desperately and pushed on.
+
+Presently his shoulder muscles ached and burned so keenly, he could no
+longer continue the overarm. Then he took the buoy in both hands, held
+it straight out, thrust it edge down into the oozy substance, used it as
+a kind of anchor and drew it to him. At first this technique seemed to
+advance him somewhat, but presently he appeared merely to disturb the
+viscous mass without going forward. He grew acutely discouraged; his
+back, shoulders, cramped, ached and burned. The brilliantly lighted
+schooner seemed to regress as he progressed. The sun was like an auger
+boring into the back of his head. His mind began to wander again, and a
+sudden fear came on him lest he should go insane out in this horrible
+slime.
+
+A fiery burning on his right foot jerked him back out of his half
+delirium, and he knew that an insect of the same kind he had seen a few
+minutes before had stung him. He kicked it off convulsively, but the
+thrust of his foot brought a wash of new stings.
+
+All of a sudden, his patience, endurance, pluck seemed to give out. This
+new torture made him as unreasonably frantic as a baby. He kicked
+furiously. He scraped the toe nails of one foot against the flesh of the
+other leg. As he did so the animalculae settled on the abraded skin,
+like streaks of melted steel. The boy doubled up, like a grub worm
+covered with ants, fighting, scraping, twisting, squirming. He writhed,
+beat, scratched, this great hundred and sixty pound animal fighting an
+enemy that would weigh about twenty to the gram.
+
+He heard a shout from Caradoc, a question from Greer, then his insane
+struggles carried him under the surface of the clammy seaweed. The
+seaweed, infested with stinging insects, closed over his form like a
+wave of fire.
+
+Only lack of breath stopped Leonard's mad struggles. Bursting lungs and
+the mere necessity to live at last made him disregard the attacks of
+these wasps of the Sargasso. He struck out for the surface again like a
+diver, reaching up arms, spreading legs with a stroke and a kick. But
+the gelatinous stuff simply quivered with his struggles and held him
+firm. He stuck like a fly in mucilage.
+
+The sliminess of the element utterly destroyed the mechanics of
+swimming. A forward stroke in pure water displaces portions of the water
+and the return stroke sends the body forward. In this mass the forward
+stroke merely compressed the weed in front of the arm, and left a cavity
+through which the return stroke received no power.
+
+Madden dared not open his eyes. In fiery blackness he kicked and struck
+in useless froglike movements. His heart was beating like a trip-hammer
+in his ears. Streaks of red fire played against the blackness of his
+eyelids. He knew that in a few more seconds his straining lungs would
+gulp in the stinging ooze, he knew his will could not prevent his
+drawing in some sort of breath.
+
+He clung desperately to the control of his diaphragm, as a falling man
+clings to a ledge of rock. His great chest muscles gave convulsive
+jerks. His control was going, going.
+
+Suddenly a human hand gripped his wrist. He was jerked upwards, perhaps
+a foot. A moment later he was gulping in great lungfuls of air.
+
+He had been suffocating ten or twelve inches beneath that repulsive
+slime, as securely captured as if he had been a thousand feet deep.
+
+It had taken Greer and Smith that length of time to wriggle a yard or
+two and fish him out.
+
+"Steady! Steady!" said Caradoc in a lifeless voice. "Steady there,
+Madden! Hold him tightly, Greer!"
+
+Greer made some sort of groaning reply, when Caradoc snarled, "Let 'em
+sting, you scullion! What if they do kill you! Is there any better way
+to die?"
+
+Madden felt a great pushing and jostling at his body. He raked the
+seaweed from his face and opened his eyes. The Englishman was shoving
+fiercely at the American's shoulder, Greer, ahead, pulling at an elbow.
+The burning insects had swarmed on both his rescuers. Caradoc's
+sun-baked face had a yellowish, bloodless hue, his lean jaws clenched
+under his choppy white mustache. In the midst of his burning pain he
+held his legs rigid, pushed Leonard with one hand and pawed furiously
+through the viscid tangle with the other.
+
+The constancy of his companions braced Madden like a dash of ice water.
+His own weakness had brought about this dangerous plight. The American
+caught up his buoy, and between great gasps of the blessed air, rapped
+out that he could go by himself, and began making his own way forward.
+
+So the three worked themselves over the oozy bed of fire. The
+Englishman's arms shot into the slime with the regularity of pistons. He
+appeared to make no haste, yet he made remarkable speed. Only his
+distended nostrils, pain-tightened mouth, grim eyes, showed that he was
+in torture.
+
+Even amid his own suffering Leonard felt a thrill of admiration for
+Smith's endurance and working power. He even found time to wonder dimly
+if Smith's people, that rich, cold, proud family, if they could see
+their remittance man now, would not stoop to claim him as a kinsman.
+
+All at once the poignant and disgusting attack of the insects ceased. A
+flood of ecstatic relief swept over the adventurers. Without a word, all
+three quit squirming, caught their floats under their armpits and swung
+down in a limp luxurious rest.
+
+Then they saw a marvelous thing had happened. The same slow swirl of the
+Sargasso current that had closed up their avenue on the west side, had
+opened another on the east. Their way toward the schooner lay
+unobstructed.
+
+The clean delightful seawater soothed the pain of their stinging flesh.
+
+"We'll be there in fifteen minutes," murmured Leonard weakly.
+
+"When you're ready, say so," said Greer with a frown still lingering on
+his heavy face.
+
+At that moment Madden heard a groan from Caradoc.
+
+"What's the matter?" aspirated the American.
+
+"Nothing--weak--don't bother." He closed his eyes, blew out his breath
+like a sick man. His face was bloodlessly sallow, and Madden could see
+his grip slipping on the canvas buoy.
+
+"You're all in!" gasped Madden in exhausted staccato, "I knew you
+oughtn't to--aren't you about to faint again?"
+
+The Englishman shook his head slightly. "Don't worry," he murmured, then
+his eyes closed, his hands slipped loose.
+
+With brusque directness, Madden caught the shock of tawny hair, jammed
+Caradoc's chin against the buoy and held him tight with little exertion
+for himself. Smith swung out as awkwardly as a turkey on a chopping
+block. The water was level with his lips, but his nose did not go under.
+
+"Petered at last," grunted Madden, staring at the corpselike face in
+dull speculation. "How in the world are we going to get him out of
+here?"
+
+"I guess we can tow him out, sir," growled Greer with dull indifference.
+"Mighty puny chap--always flopping over when he's in a tight place."
+
+"Come here, stick his arms through our buoys, put his own under his
+head!"
+
+The plan was quickly carried out and Smith's unconscious form was placed
+beyond immediate danger.
+
+The two youths took up their long swim once more. As they moved down the
+opening, they could see what slow progress they were making. Presently
+Madden explained in a low whispering tone:
+
+"His heart's bad... can't stand much... poisoned with alcohol."
+
+Another pause filled with slow weary swimming, then Greer said:
+
+"Said I was no gentleman... didn't know a French word... I keep sober."
+
+Madden made no defense to this reflection on the unconscious Englishman,
+but after a while he said:
+
+"We ought to overlook lots in him, Greer--unfortunate fellow... there's
+good in him, Greer... bad too."
+
+"I've got no call to please you," growled the sailor with astonishing
+frankness.
+
+"Then why did you come with us?" inquired Madden amazed.
+
+"Wanted to see the schooner."
+
+"And what have _I_ done to _you_?"
+
+"Called me a thief!" the sailor elevated his dull tone. "After I
+telegraphed ye about th' men... fought for ye... called me a thief!"
+
+"Was that you tapping on the dock?"
+
+Greer nodded resentfully. "And ye insulted me for it."
+
+"I'm sorry... I was almost wild that night. I'll apologize... before the
+crew."
+
+"I don't care nothing about that dull English crew." This strange
+fellow's tone carried in it an illiterate man's undying resentment.
+
+"Since you feel that way," panted Madden at last, "I think I ought to
+tell you--he took the medicine chest," Leonard nodded at the finely
+carved motionless face that lay on the float before them.
+
+"Him!" gasped Greer.
+
+Leonard nodded. "He wanted the alcohol in it."
+
+"And you call him a _gentleman_?"
+
+Leonard nodded again. "Somehow I still call him a gentleman. He's hurt,
+sick, bruised, but he's a gentleman."
+
+"Well I don't!"
+
+At that moment, the buoy under Caradoc's head bumped into a wooden wall
+and upset their swimming arrangements.
+
+They were under the overhang of the mysterious schooner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MYSTERY SHIP
+
+
+Waves from the exhausted swimmers sent bright streaks of watershine
+wavering up the green hull over Madden's head. Utter silence pervaded
+the vessel. There was no creaking of spar or block. Hot tar stood in her
+seams in the beating sunshine.
+
+The boys kicked wearily through the tepid water to the schooner's prow,
+where Greer succeeded in catching the bobstays and climbing aboard. A
+little later he lowered a rope to Madden with a double bight in it. The
+Yankee made the Englishman fast in the loops, climbed on deck himself
+and helped haul the unconscious fellow aboard.
+
+The two boys lugged the senseless man wearily across deck into the shade
+of the superstructure, then in default of any better restorative,
+Leonard began slapping the bottom of the Englishman's feet to revive
+him. Presently Caradoc groaned, drew up his legs.
+
+"He's coming around all right," said Greer, then he looked about him.
+"What do you make out of this anyway, Mr. Madden?"
+
+Leonard glanced around and did see a remarkable derelict. The schooner
+was as newly painted and trig as if fresh from the ways. Her deck was
+holystoned to man-o'-war cleanliness; every sheet, hawser, stay, tackle,
+pin, spike, was in place. Three small boats, her full complement, hung
+in davits. On the bow of these boats, on their oars and buoys, was
+painted the name of the schooner, "Minnie B."
+
+From the port side of the vessel there stretched a long cable patently
+leading to a sea anchor. All sails were brailed except mains'l and
+tops'l, which were reefed and set against each other to hold her steady
+in case of a blow. The funnel was freshly painted black with a red band
+at the top. Judging from her appearance, the desertion of the _Minnie
+B_ had been carefully planned. Yet why desert a new vessel? By what
+means did the crew leave the schooner, since all her small boats
+remained?
+
+What was their motive in anchoring the _Minnie B_ in the middle of
+the Sargasso?
+
+There appeared to be no easy answer to these questions.
+
+"I don't understand this," said Greer, in answer to Madden's unspoken
+perplexity. "Where did the crew go, sir, and how did they go?"
+
+"They might have deserted her for her insurance," suggested Madden
+tentatively.
+
+"Then why didn't they scuttle her--besides, a new vessel like this is
+worth more than her insurance."
+
+"Maybe it was her cargo. Perhaps they faked it, rated it away above its
+value."
+
+"Why she has no cargo, sir. She's riding light as a skiff; I noticed
+that as I climbed up."
+
+"Then what is your idea?" inquired the American.
+
+Greer glanced around with a trace of uneasiness. "The crew went by the
+board, sir, I'm thinking."
+
+"Overboard--all washed overboard! Why there isn't one chance in a
+million of such a thing hap--"
+
+"I didn't say 'washed overboard,' sir," corrected Greer heavily. "I
+think they got throwed overboard, one by one, sir."
+
+"One by one!" Madden stared at the solemn faced fellow.
+
+Farnol nodded stolidly. "Just so, sir."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"The plague, sir."
+
+"O-oh!" The American stared around the deck with new eyes. Greer's
+explanation struck home with a certain convincingness. The mere thought
+of disease-laden surroundings filled him with alarm. Could they have
+unwittingly wandered into a deserted pest-ship? A focus of death in
+these rotting seas? The very air he breathed, the wood he touched, might
+inoculate him with malignant germs. Then he began reasoning on it.
+
+"Even if it were the plague, there ought to be someone left aboard,
+Greer, a last corpse." The American sniffed the hot, breathless,
+tar-scented air.
+
+"He could well have gone crazy, sir, in this heat and followed his mates
+overboard--but we can look and see."
+
+At this moment, Caradoc stirred and pulled himself to a sitting posture
+on the burning deck.
+
+"You--you pulled me aboard?" he murmured weakly, looking about with the
+face of a corpse.
+
+"How do you feel--anything I can do?"
+
+"If I had a dr--" he broke off, drew a long breath. "Nobody aboard?"
+
+"If you're all right, Greer and I will take a turn below and see what we
+can find," suggested Madden.
+
+Caradoc nodded apathetically and stared seaward toward the cable sagging
+into the dead ocean.
+
+The two boys moved gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the
+forecastle. If disease had smitten the _Minnie B_ they hoped to get
+some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters. Greer stuck a nose
+down the ladder first. Beyond the usual close ship smells there seemed
+to be nothing wrong. Then they climbed down.
+
+Here again they found order. The bunks against the bulkheads and the
+curve of the prow were clean with neatly rolled blankets. The lockers
+were open and empty. The two searchers climbed out and walked aft to the
+lazaret. They were rapidly getting over their fright of the plague.
+Again Greer entered first, and this time Madden heard a loud snort of
+disgust.
+
+Half expecting some sinister sight, Madden ran down the three steps and
+entered the storeroom. But what had roused the sailor's dislike was that
+the lazaret contained no provisions. It was as empty as the forecastle;
+not a chest, not a canister, not even a spice box remained. Here again
+the lockers were open and empty. From one of the keyholes hung a bunch
+of keys. The steward had deserted his ring, knowing it could never be of
+service to him again.
+
+The little metal bunch hung straight down without the slightest
+oscillation. Such lack of motion and life amid the close stewing heat of
+the lazaret threw a glamor of unreality over the whole affair. The
+schooner might well have been warped to a dock in some port of the dead.
+The very newness of everything accentuated its amazing loneliness.
+
+"Doesn't seem real, does it?" said Greer in a low tone, drawing a long
+breath in the heat. "I keep listening."
+
+Madden shook himself. "It seems as if someone ought to be aboard." He
+broke away from the spell: "I wish they had left us some provisions--we
+need 'em."
+
+The hot heavy silence fell immediately after the remark, like a curtain
+that was heavy to lift.
+
+"Let's look through the hold and see if there _isn't_ someone
+here!" suggested Greer uneasily.
+
+With a feeling that they were likely to encounter some being, human or
+spectral, at every turn, they went below. The farther they went the more
+inexplicable became the _Minnie B's_ desertion. Her engines were in
+perfect order, her furnace so new that the grate bars were still
+unsealed from heat; the maker's name-plate was still bright on the
+boilers; her hull was quite dry, with less than six inches of water in
+her bilge. She had no cargo, except four or five tons of raw metal
+ingots used as ballast. The coal in her bunkers was nearly exhausted.
+Indeed she was riding so light that heavy weather would upset her like a
+chip. It seemed as if the crew had looted the _Minnie B_ in a
+thorough and extraordinary manner, and then had simply vanished. Every
+now and then in their search the two would find themselves standing
+motionless, open-mouthed, listening intently to the brooding silence.
+
+More puzzled than ever by these explorations, the two adventurers
+climbed into the chart room. Here, also, everything was intact, and in
+order. In a desk they found the ship's log and clearance papers. The
+captain's and the mate's licenses hung in frames against the wall. Near
+these was tacked the picture of a sunny-haired little girl and
+underneath it was written the name "Minnie." So the schooner was the
+little smiling-faced girl's namesake, this tragedy-haunted abandoned
+vessel. A Mercator's projection lay thumb-tacked on a table, and the
+last position of the schooner was indicated by a pin sticking in the
+map.
+
+Madden moved over to it eagerly, hoping this pin would give him some
+inkling as to where the disaster, if there had been one, occurred. He
+noted the latitude and longitude indicated by the marker, then turned
+excitedly to Greer.
+
+"Look here!" he cried, "this pin marks our position at this moment. We
+are right here!" he touched the point on the map.
+
+"How do you know it does?"
+
+"I calculated the dock's position this morning."
+
+"Well, what of that? She will probably lie here till she rots in this
+stagnant sea."
+
+"That's the point: This is not a stagnant sea. There is a current of
+about six miles a day in the Sargasso, very slow, but it will change a
+ship's reckoning."
+
+Greer remained unimpressed. "What do you make of that?"
+
+"Make of that! Why, man, the person who took this reckoning, took it
+_this morning_! That's the only way he could have got it. There was
+somebody on this schooner this morning when we sighted her."
+
+"This morning! This _morning_! Where in Davy Jones' locker----"
+
+Madden was leaning over the chart scrutinizing it with careful eyes. At
+last he raised up in complete bewilderment.
+
+"Farnol," he said in a queer tone, "the crew meant to come here! Meant
+to sail through the Sargasso--clear away from all trade
+routes--incomprehensible but--just look!"
+
+Both boys bent above the chart, and Madden silently pointed out a row of
+pin holes that marked the daily reckonings of the _Minnie B_. She
+had sailed from Portland, Maine, had swung up the northern route past
+Newfoundland Banks as if going to England. On this portion of her voyage
+her average run was a little less than two hundred knots a day. On the
+fifth day out, the _Minnie B_ inexplicably deserted the normal
+trade course, turned from "E. NE." and sailed directly "S. SW." At the
+same time her speed was accelerated to a trifle over three hundred knots
+a day. Her last reckoning left the pin sticking in the exact longitude
+and latitude which Leonard had worked out for the dock that morning.
+
+"They got in a hurry when they did turn south," said Greer vacuously.
+
+"They certainly burned coal from there to here."
+
+"But what could have put her in such a rush, sir?"
+
+"She must have sailed somewhere after a cargo, and later received a
+cancellation of the order. With that cancellation there must have come a
+new commission with a time limit, from some of the South American ports,
+I should judge by her course, say Caracas, or Paramaribo."
+
+"But she has no wireless, sir. She couldn't have changed her
+destination."
+
+"That would be fairly easy to explain. There are so many fast liners
+with wireless between New York and Liverpool, it would be a simple
+matter to get a message signaled to a sailing vessel in the trade
+route."
+
+"But I can't see why she sailed through the Sargasso?"
+
+"If the time factor had been urgent enough, she might have tried to
+shorten her journey by coming this way instead of following the usual
+course by Cuba and through the Caribbean."
+
+"That doesn't tell what happened to the men."
+
+Madden shook his head and wiped the sweat from his face on his
+undershirt sleeve. "Let's read the log. That ought to clear up things a
+bit."
+
+Both lads hurried over to the desk, drew out the greasy, well-thumbed
+book. In their excitement, they forgot rank and tried to read together.
+
+"Let me read it aloud," compromised Madden.
+
+Dripping with sweat, they leaned on the hot desk and went carefully over
+the log of the _Minnie B_.
+
+The record was simple. The _Minnie B_, of Leeds, England, sailed
+from Portland, Maine, for Liverpool on July thirtieth with a cargo of
+lake copper in bulk bound for Liverpool. For the first five days, her
+log was written in two heavy unscholarly hands, which alternated with
+each other, and were evidently those of the mate and the captain. These
+two handwritings were quite distinct from each other and contained the
+usual notes of prevailing winds, state of weather, speed, distance
+indicated by patent log, dead reckonings, vessels sighted and such like.
+
+From the sixth to the twentieth day, the log of the _Minnie B_ was
+written in a sharp, pointed, scholarly hand, and this record was
+confined to the mere relation of distances and reckonings. Then on
+the twenty-first day of August there appeared the following entry:
+
+"46 degrees 57' W. Long. 27 degrees 24' 11" N. Lat. No wind. Sargasso
+Sea. Current 9.463 kilometers per 24 hrs. W. SW. Cast sea anchor. Five
+hundred tons ingots reshipped."
+
+At this statement, Leonard turned and stared at Greer.
+
+"Reshipped! Reshipped! Holy cats, Farnol! Reshipped from here--right
+here!" He jabbed a finger downward to indicate the spot in the dead
+Sargasso Sea occupied by the _Minnie B_.
+
+Greer shook his head dully. "But this is all the wildest--" he made a
+helpless motion. "You oughtn't to think about it, sir, or you'll be
+going overboard, too. Reshipped!... This heat will get anybody in
+time.... The man who wrote that went and jumped overboard the next
+minute no doubt. Reshipped..... It ain't good for us to read it, sir."
+
+"But something's gone with her cargo, Greer!" declared Madden
+vehemently. "Something's gone with it. I don't care how crazy the crew
+became they surely wouldn't have dumped a hold full of copper into the
+sea. This log says 'reshipped' and blessed if I don't believe--"
+
+At this moment the boys seemed to hear the sound in the deathly silent
+vessel for which their ears had been all the time straining. Madden
+broke off abruptly and both stood listening with palpitating hearts. It
+was repeated. A repressed half groan, inarticulate, as if some human
+being were in distress. It was in the main cabin below them.
+
+Hardly daring to guess at what they would see, the adventurers crept
+silently out of the chart room, down a short hot passageway to a door.
+Leonard caught a breath, then opened it without noise.
+
+In the brilliant westering light that flooded the main cabin through the
+port holes, Madden saw a dining table, disordered as from a recent
+feast. On the floor around it were fragments of smashed glasses and
+bloody stains. A cut glass decanter, half full of wine, sat on the
+table, and in a corner of the cabin shrank the figure of a man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A MODERN COLUMBUS
+
+
+Hardly knowing what to expect the two advanced into the cabin, when the
+figure turned and looked at them with pallid countenance.
+
+"It's Caradoc!" cried Madden in great astonishment and relief. "Scots,
+Smith, you gave us a jolt! We thought--what's the matter, old chap? Heat
+again?"
+
+The Englishman's long face was strained. "Would you--take that decanter
+away, please!" he begged unsteadily.
+
+Instantly Leonard understood the temptation into which Caradoc had
+unwittingly wandered. A strong odor of wine pervaded the cabin, and
+Smith's knock-out had given his nerves a great craving for a stimulant.
+
+Without a word, Leonard walked to the table, took the wine bottle by its
+neck and heaved it through the open port. The three men in their half
+costumes stood listening intently until it chucked into the sea below.
+All three seemed to feel relief at the sound.
+
+"That's all right, Caradoc," said Madden with a note of comfort in his
+voice, "all right, old chap. It won't be like this always."
+
+"I was unstrung--rotten heat," grumbled the Englishman in acute
+self-disgust. "I thought I was getting over all--" he shifted the topic
+suddenly: "What do you make out of all this?"
+
+"Completest mystery I ever ran into--the crew deserted for some
+reason----"
+
+"And they had a feast and a celebration before they went. What cause of
+rejoicing they discovered in this place is more than I can fancy."
+
+An inspection showed Smith was correct. What the boys had taken for
+bloodstains in their first excitement were splashes of wine. The table
+was still laden with dishes and eatables. Broken glass around the table
+showed that the diners had followed the old custom of breaking their
+goblets after toasts.
+
+"They were having a last square meal before taking to their boats,"
+speculated Leonard.
+
+"But the boats are still here, sir," objected Greer.
+
+"There seems to be no explanation," gloomed Caradoc.
+
+"If we gathered this up and took it to the men, they would thank us
+heartily," suggested Greer.
+
+"That's a fact," agreed Madden, setting to work at once. "Here, pile
+these plates on trays and we'll load 'em in the small boat."
+
+The three adventurers set to work busily, carrying the provisions, which
+were still fresh and wholesome, to the port dinghy which lay toward the
+dock.
+
+As they worked they speculated further on what could have brought about
+such an extraordinary situation. Their guesses ranged from water spouts
+to savages. Presently Caradoc cut in with:
+
+"It's not so much how the _Minnie B_ got here, as it is how we are
+going to handle her."
+
+"We'll man her and sail home," said Greer.
+
+"We'll have to ballast her first," declared Leonard. "She won't run this
+way."
+
+"We have enough coal on the dock for that, sir."
+
+"In a flat sea like this," suggested Caradoc, "we can warp the schooner
+to the front of the barge and load the coal directly in her hold."
+
+By this time the dinghy was loaded and the three swung her out of the
+davits into the sea below. Then they threw down a rope ladder and
+climbed below. Greer went back to the stern, picked up an oar and began
+to scull.
+
+The sun sank as the little boat worked her way through the lanes of
+seaweed, and the great dock threw long purple shadows across the highly
+colored ocean. Caradoc looked at the great structure intently. The
+setting sun rimmed its great shape in brilliant red, but the bulk of it
+lay in deep wine-like shadow. The boys gazed at it musingly.
+
+"A fine structure to desert, isn't it?" said Caradoc in a low tone.
+
+"Just what I was thinking," sympathized Madden. "I suppose we could send
+a tug back and find her?"
+
+"Doubtful, in this fantastic place."
+
+"The current is fairly well charted; still, it may take us some time to
+reach port----" Both men fell into a musing silence as Greer nibbled the
+boat forward with the single oar.
+
+"The thing's worth over a million pounds," appraised Caradoc.
+
+Suddenly Madden straightened with an idea. "How about hitching that
+schooner to the dock and towing her?"
+
+"What an American idea!" Caradoc lifted his voice slightly.
+
+"Would we--make any--headway, sir, with the schooner's--light
+machinery?" asked Greer, his sentence punctuated by shoves at his oar.
+
+"We would have to try and see. Besides, we would have to do little else
+than help the current we are in. The Atlantic eddy sweeps through the
+Caribbean close to the South American coast. If we could control our
+direction slightly, we would perhaps make La Guayra or the Port of
+Spain."
+
+"With a seven or eight mile current that would take us months--years....
+What is the distance to La Guayra?" this from Smith.
+
+"Something around fifteen hundred miles. But that isn't the point. It
+isn't how long it takes us, it's can we _do_ it. Had you thought of
+the salvage end of this thing?"
+
+"Salvage, no. We'll get salvage on the schooner--a bagatelle."
+
+Madden shook his head, "No, I believe we ought to get salvage on the
+whole dock."
+
+"Salvage on the dock!" Caradoc opened his eyes. "We'd be jolly well near
+millionaires. No, that's impossible. A crew can't salve their own
+vessel."
+
+"Yes, but we are not the crew of the dock," insisted Madden, "at least
+not the navigating crew. The men of the _Vulcan_ were that. We are
+nothing but painters----"
+
+"Oh, that's a quibble--nothing but a quibble!" objected Caradoc.
+
+"Well, anyway, I think there is a rule that if a crew rescue their own
+craft under circumstances of extreme peril, they come in as salvors.
+I'll look it up in Malone's books when we get back."
+
+At that moment their ears caught a cheering from the dock, which came to
+them as a small sound almost lost over the immense flat sea. Greer
+paused in his work to wave a hand, which was extremely sociable for him.
+The men bunched on the forward pontoon, waved and shouted at the little
+boat. As the noise grew louder, questions shaped themselves in the
+uproar.
+
+"W'ot did ye make of 'er?" "Was there anywan aboard?" "W'ot ship is
+she?" "Can we git a berth hoff this bloomin' dock?"
+
+Madden held up his hands for silence and shouted a reply.
+
+"We have a meal for you--a dinner!"
+
+A great shouting and cheering broke out at this. It is strange how much
+more pressing is the small need of a dinner than the large need of a
+rescue. The mystery of the schooner was overlooked in a sight of the
+plates and victuals.
+
+"Oh, look, there it is--bread and meat!" "And, say, ain't that fish?"
+"And that goose or something!"
+
+Eager hands reached down as Madden and Caradoc handed up the platters.
+"To the mess room, to the mess room!" directed Leonard.
+
+"Sure, sure, we wouldn't touch a mouthful for hanything!" cried Mulcher
+earnestly.
+
+"Misther Madden, you're a wonder!" extolled Hogan.
+
+Then the three men climbed up and were received clamorously. Even the
+silent Greer found himself beset with a temporary bunch of admirers. All
+began talking of the _Minnie B_, asking questions. Caradoc unbent
+his dignity and explained what he had observed.
+
+Leonard went straight to the officer's cabin, eager to satisfy his
+curiosity about salvage. A whole fortune shimmered before his vision if
+law allowed the crew to salve the dock. He turned into the hot cabin,
+struck a light and ran his eyes over the mate's shelf of books. He soon
+found what he was hunting, "Abbot's Law of Merchant's Ships and Seamen."
+
+Leonard sat down at his desk, placed the light close by and began a
+sweating search for the legal rule applicable to salvage. It was
+Madden's intention to attempt to get the dock to port no matter what the
+law said, but he knew his best chance of getting the crew to cooperate
+was through possible prize money.
+
+Like all legal works, Abbott gave shading decisions on both sides of the
+topic. As the lad read on he discovered many questions were involved.
+
+What constitutes the crew of a vessel? Can a towed vessel have a
+navigating crew? Could a lawful crew be composed of ordinary laborers,
+or would it be necessary for them to be able seamen?
+
+All these points and many others were involved, but Leonard plodded
+patiently through the legal labyrinth, and finally decided that he and
+his crew were eligible for prize money. He then fell to estimating the
+probable amount the crew would receive. The dock was easily worth a
+million pounds, or say five million dollars. It would lack one or two
+hundred thousand totting up a full five million, but Leonard's
+imagination was in no mood to balk at a paltry two hundred thousand more
+or less. Say five million! The share of the salvors would amount to--say
+fifty per cent, two and a half million. Distribute this among twelve
+men. There he was, two hundred and eight thousand, three hundred and
+thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents. Or say two hundred thousand
+dollars.
+
+Madden drew a long breath and opened his eyes at his own figures. Was it
+possible? He doubted it! He believed it!
+
+He stared out of his open port onto the fantastic sea, amazed that a
+great fortune should drift in to him from such a place. What would he
+do? How should he live? He could go anywhere, do anything. There came to
+him suddenly the precepts of his old teacher in economics at college: "A
+fortune is a great moral responsibility. A rich man is a trustee of
+society." Did he have the brains to wield this money and make it mean
+something to the world? The thought of wealth always comes with a
+question. A man's answer to that question determines whether he is a man
+or a thing.
+
+Before Leonard could reach any sort of decision, Gaskin rang his gong
+for dinner. The boy arose and walked buoyantly towards the mess hall. He
+was hungry, too. Ever since he had cut rations, he had been eating the
+same fare as the men.
+
+The tropical night was falling as the men joyously entered to a
+full-fledged, satisfying, if secondhand, meal. They came in laughing,
+joking boisterously, wondering about the schooner.
+
+When the men had strung around the long table, Mike Hogan arose and the
+men became quiet as if at some preconcerted signal. The Irishman gave a
+slightly embarrassed bob toward Leonard and began in an extra rich
+brogue:
+
+"Misther Madden, sir----"
+
+Leonard glanced up in surprise. "What's worrying you, Mike?"
+
+"Th' bhoys, sir, have been thinkin' as how we would loike to ixpress our
+appreciation av what ye've done for us, sir, in a little spache,
+something loike a little spache av wilcome, sir, an' asked me to do it,
+if ye don't moind."
+
+"Go ahead," nodded Madden, "but don't expect much of a response from me.
+I'm no speaker and----"
+
+"Go on, Mike!" "Go to it, Mike!" "Take a sip of water, Mike, like a
+reg'lar one, and cut loose."
+
+With this encouragement, the Celt moistened his dry lips, thrust out his
+chest, and after a momentary fumble, stuck three fingers in his shirt
+front.
+
+"It's me pr-roud privilege, ladies and gintilmin, to wilcome to our
+midst, a gintilmin bearin' in wan hand a distinguished ancistry, a
+spirit av enterprise and a hear-rt av courage, while wid his other, he
+snatches a dinner for his starvin' min out o' th' middle av th' Sargasso
+Sea. Oi rayfer to our distinguished commander, Captain Leonard Madden of
+America."
+
+A burst of applause followed this period. Hogan beamed, bowed deeply to
+left and right; his voice went up an octave and he proceeded:
+
+"Ladies an' gintilmin, me mind runs back through th' pages av histh'ry,
+lookin' for a name fit to be compared with him but I don't find none.
+There is Columbus and Peary and Stanley and Amundsen, all av thim
+gr-reat min, but whin you come to compare thim with our hero, phwat have
+they done?
+
+"Look at Columbus. What is his claim to glory? Did Columbus iver swim
+out into th' stinkin' Sargasso and come back with a good dinner for his
+star-r-vin' min? Histh'ry does not say so. He discovered America,
+Columbus did. What is America? A whole continint. Anybody that was
+sailin' by would have noticed it. But, gintilmin, a dinner is a very
+small thing and they are har-rd to discover, as ivry wan of you lads
+very will know. Columbus wint out in thray ships, our gallant captain
+wint out in his undhershirt and a straw hat. I say thray cheers for our
+gallant captain!"
+
+The cheers were given with a hearty good will and the orator sat down
+smiling broadly and moistening his dry lips with his tongue. Then the
+diners desired a response.
+
+It struck Madden to propose salving the dock while the crowd was mellow.
+He arose when the noise subsided somewhat.
+
+"I thank you fellows very much for the kind opinion you entertain of me,
+and now I want to lay a proposition before you."
+
+"Hear! Hear the captain!" called two or three cockneys in hoarse good
+humor.
+
+"I want to say that to-morrow we are going to man the schooner and sail
+for home."
+
+The men were in a bubbling mood, and cheered this with cries of "Good!
+Good!"
+
+"What I wish you to decide is, whether we shall tow the dock, or sail
+with the schooner alone?"
+
+"With the schooner alone, sor!" "Schooner alone!" "We 'ave enough of th'
+dock!" came an instant chorus.
+
+Leonard held up a hand, "One moment. I want you to have a voice in this
+decision. An attempt to tow the dock will be highly adventurous, no
+doubt dangerous. You were not hired for any such service, and I wish to
+leave it to a vote."
+
+"Good, very good, sor! Let's 'ave th' question!"
+
+"Just one moment. You must consider the salvage involved in this matter.
+If we save the schooner, we will receive as prize money about one-half
+her value. If we save the dock, we will receive about half _her_
+value. The dock is worth a million pounds, about five million dollars.
+So each man would receive for his portion, in event we salved the dock
+about... two hundred thousand dollars... a fortune."
+
+A profound silence fell over the diners. They hunched forward, staring
+fixedly out of sunburned, gross, dissipated faces. Longshores-men, the
+scum of London, who had worked all their lives for half a pound a week,
+gaped at the idea of two hundred thousand dollars.
+
+Somebody repeated the sum hoarsely. Suddenly they raised an uproar.
+
+"We'll take 'er, sir!" "We'll tow th' dock, sor!" "We weel tow zee dock
+to zee moon for zat!" "Sphend our loives and die rich min!"
+
+The strong imagination of wealth ran around the table like wine.
+Deschaillon responded first.
+
+"Voila! One meellion francs! I weel buy a pond near Paris and raise bull
+frogs. I weel buy a decoration and be a knight. I weel----"
+
+"I'll start an undertaker shop!" glowed Galton, "and my old mother shall
+have a bit of ground to raise flowers."
+
+"Glory be!" chanted Hogan, "Oi'll wear a tall hat, a long-tailed coat
+and carry a silver-headed cane, and thin Susie Maloney and Bridget
+O'Malley and Peggy O'Brien will be sorry they iver tossed up their saucy
+noses at th' love o' an honest lad!"
+
+"I'll own a kennel of bulldogs," growled Mulcher, "and 'ave a fight
+hev'ry day."
+
+All this was given in chorus and much of it lost. Those who didn't speak
+aloud their heart's desires thought them. Fortune had shown her golden
+form to these crude men for a fleeting instant, and dreams, long hidden
+in their hearts, suddenly leaped to life. They were poor dreams, selfish
+dreams, foolish dreams, but for the moment they poised, like liberated
+fairies, for a flight to the land where dreams come true.
+
+"We sail in the morning," explained Madden, "for a South American port.
+Is there anyone in this crew who knows anything about running a marine
+engine?"
+
+The men fell silent and looked inquiringly at each other. Fortune was
+beginning to show herself elusive, even in the Sargasso, save to those
+who _know_.
+
+"I b'lieve not," said Mulcher.
+
+"We could raise steam, sir," suggested Galton, "and then pull all the
+levers and twist th' w'eels, sir and see w'ot'd 'appen."
+
+"W'ot 'ud 'appen!" cried two or three voices. "W'y, we'd hall be blowed
+galley west, 'at's w'ot'd 'appen!"
+
+"Sure Misther Madden can figger it out!" suggested Hogan cheerfully.
+
+"We might leave th' dock and run 'er 'ome by sail," suggested Galton.
+
+"No! No! Take th' dock!" "We'll run'er by steam!" "Steam's th' word!"
+A storm of determination cried down any such suggestion.
+
+"D'ye mean a dozin str-rong min can't run one little engine!" shouted
+Hogan; "r-rich min, too! It's a shame, lads, we haven't a dhrop o'
+something to dhrink the health av th' ixpedition."
+
+"Yes, Mister Madden, a drop o' something!" urged another voice.
+
+At that moment, Gaskin entered the door with suppressed excitement
+showing through his usually imperturbable manner.
+
+"Hi--Hi beg pardon, Mister Madden. Hi, don't want to interrupt, but--"
+he rubbed his hands with a little bob--"but would you 'ave th' goodness
+to step outside for a look, sir. Hi think th' _Minnie B_ is on
+fire."
+
+And the fairy dreams, evoked by a wave of Fortune's wand, crept silently
+back into the hearts of their owners.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE STRANGE END OF THE _MINNIE B_
+
+
+At Gaskin's announcement, bedlam broke loose among the diners. They
+leaped to their feet and rushed headlong from the messroom.
+
+"Get th' buckets!" "Man th' boat!" "We'll niver get there in toime!"
+"_Allons! Allons_!" "W'y didn't we put a guard on 'er!" "Hurry!
+Hurry! Hurry!" "Yes, 'urry! 'urry!"
+
+Out into the darkness to the forward pontoon rushed the howling mob.
+Some gave inarticulate cries, others bewailed their lost riches to the
+vast empty night.
+
+A strange sight met their eyes. The spars and sails of the _Minnie
+B_ stood out against the black heavens in a flickering brilliance
+that danced up through the rigging, but presently all saw it was a mere
+light shining from beneath.
+
+"Th' fire's in th' hold!" cried Galton hoarsely. "Did you men drop a
+match?"
+
+"'Ow could they drop a match, wearin' nothin' but undershirts?" flared
+back another navvy.
+
+"We could do no good in a small boat!" cried Galton.
+
+'She's afire from stem to stern!"
+
+"But smoke--w'ere's th' smoke?"
+
+Then, quite surprisingly, the light wavered out, leaving the schooner in
+stony blackness. A vague blur of complementary color swam in Madden's
+eyes. A gasp went up from the watchers.
+
+"Bhoys," faltered Hogan in an awed tone, "th' banshees ar-re dancin'
+to-night!"
+
+"Banshees!" sneered Mulcher. "Th' deck's caved in--it'll break out
+again!"
+
+"Th' engines must be ruint complately."
+
+"Wot do ye make of it, Mister Madden?" asked Galton, bewildered.
+"Look--there it is again!"
+
+Sure enough the mysterious light flamed up once more as suddenly as it
+disappeared. It flickered and wavered over hull and spars.
+
+"It might possibly be a phosphorescent display," hazarded Leonard,
+completely mystified.
+
+"Tropical seas grow very luminous when disturbed... a school of
+dolphins or sharks on the other side the schooner might----"
+
+"This must be a reg'lar fire!" cried Mulcher. "Nothin' but a furnace in
+th' hold----"
+
+"W'y don't hit smoke?"
+
+"'Ow do I know?"
+
+"Hit ain't a fire!"
+
+"W'ot is hit?"
+
+"Phosphescence, didn't you 'ear Mister Madden say!"
+
+"Will hit sink 'er?"
+
+Deschaillon gave a sharp laugh. "What _sauvages_!"
+
+By this time it became clear to everyone that it was not a fire. As the
+weird illumination continued its fantastic gambols, little points of
+light began moving about the deck.
+
+Just then Caradoc's grave voice hazarded: "That must be an extraordinary
+display of St. Elmo's fire. I should say a storm was brewing."
+
+"Would St. Elmo's fire 'urt th' vessel, sir?" asked a cockney.
+
+"Not at all," replied the Englishman.
+
+As Leonard stared a queer thought came into his head. He looked around
+at his companions. In the faint radiance from the mysterious schooner,
+he could make out their faces, pale blurs all fixed on the strange
+spectacle. He picked out the heavy form of Farnol Greer and moved over
+to his friend. Under the cover of excited talking and exclamations, he
+asked in a low tone.
+
+"There was somebody on that schooner this morning, Farnol?"
+
+"Just what I was thinking, sir."
+
+"He could have hidden from us. You thought he must be crazy--a crazy man
+would probably have secreted himself."
+
+"I had it in mind, sir, the very thing."
+
+"Now could he possibly make a light like this?"
+
+Greer remained silent. The queer fellow never said anything when he had
+nothing to say.
+
+"I'd like to go over and see," went on Leonard. "I want one man to row
+with me. We want to go light and fast."
+
+"That's me, sir."
+
+Greer moved instantly to the rope ladder where the dinghy was tied.
+Madden followed him. Caradoc was still explaining the theory of St.
+Elmo's fire to the listening men. Madden broke in on it.
+
+"Fellows," he called, "Greer and I are going to row over there. We'll
+let you know what we find."
+
+Amid warning protests the two climbed down the ladder for the small
+boat.
+
+"I wouldn't do it, sir." "Leckricity's liable to strike you, sir."
+"There's a storm comin', sir, and you won't get back, like th' mate
+did." "You can see just as well from 'ere."
+
+But the two clambered into the half-seen dinghy and pushed off. The
+moment they dipped oars into water, the mystery was partially explained.
+Every stroke they made created bright phosphorescent rings in the
+lifeless sea. Their blades drove through the water in a flame. The
+navvies cried out at this phenomenon. A sufficient disturbance of the
+sea beyond the schooner would almost explain the strange light dancing
+through the rigging. But what made that disturbance?
+
+Reflections of the shining spars made a wavering path over the
+weed-strewn water, and up this path the dinghy moved amid its own
+flashing fires. It formed a queer spectacle, a glowworm creeping up on a
+bonfire.
+
+The fact that the two boys had just traversed the Sargasso lanes a few
+hours before aided them greatly now in finding their way to the
+schooner. Presently they were skirting the drift of seaweed where Madden
+had come so near losing his life. As they rowed, the flashing of the
+water about their oars only half convinced Madden that a similar cause
+underlay the bizarre illumination on the schooner. The American's mind
+clung to the idea that there was somebody on board the _Minnie B_,
+a madman, possibly, who in some unknown way produced this amazing light.
+
+He groped for some theory to account for a maniac on a deserted schooner
+in these desolate seas. No doubt if a solitary man were left in these
+terrible painted seas he would go insane. Madden regretted that he had
+not searched the _Minnie B_ more thoroughly when he had the
+opportunity.
+
+Similar thoughts evidenly played in Greer's mind, for presently he
+puffed out, between oar strokes: "Did you bring along a pistol, sir?"
+
+"No, but there are two of us."
+
+"They say they are tremendously stout, sir."
+
+"We can use our oars; they'd made good clubs."
+
+"I'm with you, sir."
+
+By this time they had entered a long S-shaped rift that Madden recalled
+led straight to the schooner. By glancing over his shoulder, the
+American saw its two curving strokes drawn in pale light against the
+dark field of seaweed. As they drew nearer, wild notions of what they
+might encounter played through Madden's mind. What would be the outcome
+of this fantastic adventure?
+
+The dinghy was moving down the middle of the long "S" when a dull noise
+from the schooner caused both oarsmen to look around. Such an
+extraordinary sight met their eyes that they ceased rowing completely,
+and stood up in the boat to stare at their goal.
+
+The _Minnie B_ no longer lay at rest. Some strange and mighty
+convulsion was taking place in the schooner. The lights still played
+about the vessel, but her whole prow rose slowly out of the sea, while
+she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world
+was happening.
+
+The _Minnie B_ was foundering!
+
+In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken
+reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound
+as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty
+leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five
+minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told
+she was slowly settling.
+
+In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of
+clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright.
+Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very
+slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down
+over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in
+the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent
+waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire.
+A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and
+sucking and groaning, the _Minnie B_ fought for her last gasp of
+life. For several minutes she lay thus, on her side, every detail
+clearly delineated as liquid fire roared down her open hatches. At last,
+as she filled with water, the schooner straightened with a mighty
+effort, a last stand between sea and sky, then sank slowly out of sight
+in a scene of wild and ill-starred beauty. Her mainpeak disappeared in a
+shining maelstrom. The convulsed water flashed and hissed, and the
+circling waves here torches into the dead seaweed and moved the black
+fields to a whispered sighing.
+
+Toward the south the waves moved with great velocity and brilliance.
+Indeed something seemed to be rushing away from the wreck, clad in long
+winding sheets of flame. It might have been a continuation of the waves
+in that direction, or it might have been some dolphin or shark flying
+from the roaring vessel.
+
+In ghastly mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird
+gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy,
+raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly
+glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's
+mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little
+sunny-haired girl he had seen in the chart room.
+
+"Sunk," murmured Greer in a strange tone, "sunk--when she was as dry as
+a chip."
+
+"Heeled over," shivered Madden, "heeled over in a dead calm--God have
+mercy on us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE
+
+
+Heat, that grew more terrific as the dock drifted southward; hunger,
+that gnawed like rats at the empty stomachs of the crew; withering heat,
+aching hunger, growing despair--that was life on the floating dock.
+
+Of all the crew only Gaskin remained in good condition. It would have
+required more than a hero to cook food and go hungry, but the crew made
+no such allowances. They berated the dignified Gaskin, they eyed each
+other's scant portions jealously. Their quarrels over food at last
+forced Madden to weigh each man's allowance to the fraction of an ounce.
+
+The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid
+tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences
+under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of
+the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men
+endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes
+ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened
+with monotony and despair.
+
+The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates
+unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse
+lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would
+stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them.
+Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed
+aloud.
+
+The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and
+criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy,
+and energy consumes food.
+
+Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that
+Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol
+chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that
+repeated the same strain over and over.
+
+Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left
+his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to
+escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable
+distances.
+
+One day he said to Madden: "I don't see how you stand that Greer
+fellow's eternal whistling," and Leonard answered:
+
+"Does Greer whistle?"
+
+"Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably--one of those confounded
+American rags. He's at it now--what is that thing?"
+
+Madden had to listen very carefully before he caught the faint blowing
+between Farnol's lips. Presently he identified it.
+
+"That's 'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid.'"
+
+This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.
+
+"'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'--_sweet_ Indian Maid!" he snorted.
+"Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder
+each other by it, or with it?"
+
+Madden grinned with fagged appreciation, thinking the remark meant for
+humor, but Caradoc grimly chewed his blond mustache.
+
+It was noon, three days later when Caradoc's endurance broke down.
+
+"Greer!" he snapped with all his pent-up irritation in his voice, "will
+you never stop mouthing that beastly tune?"
+
+The stolid fellow looked around in the blankest surprise. "Tune?"
+
+"No, groaning, wheezing! You spew it out all day long! What do you think
+you are? A tree frog, a locust, a katydid? Doesn't your mouth get tired?
+Does that hideous tinkle go through your hollow head all day long?"
+
+The Englishman's long face was a dusky red. He had not intended to be
+insulting when he first spoke, but all the sarcastic and abusive
+epithets that he had _thought_ during the long super-heated days of
+nerve-racked listening, now rushed out like steam from a boiler.
+
+Farnol stared straight at the nervous fellow. "Are you insane?" he asked
+in wondering contempt,
+
+"A wonder I'm not--with that diabolical wheezy spewing boring in my
+brain--you never stop a minute--over and over----"
+
+"Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?" interrupted Greer with cool
+malice.
+
+The whole crew came to hushed attention.
+
+Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed
+from his face, leaving it the color of clay.
+
+"Stolen?" he asked in a contained voice. "Yes, isn't there another
+medicine case for you to steal?"
+
+"Greer!" cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger,
+heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.
+
+"I believe he said I was no gentleman," pronounced Greer sarcastically,
+"because I didn't know a little French. I say _he's_ a thief."
+
+Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. "Mr. Greer,"
+he said with cold evenness, "it is impossible to obtain swords or
+pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a
+second!"
+
+Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at
+Madden.
+
+The American shook his head. "I can't serve for either of you. I'm in
+command here. I'm impartial."
+
+"Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?" asked Smith with a set face.
+
+The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels.
+"Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!"
+
+Greer stared around dourly. "Hogan?"
+
+The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. "Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer,
+and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit
+Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine."
+
+All the men were up now circling about the principals.
+
+"You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan," explained Galton, "you simply
+stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds."
+
+"Rounds!" exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. "I thought they were
+choosin' sides for a free-for-all."
+
+Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed
+suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.
+
+"If you'll be so kind as to keep time," he suggested, "that's a neutral
+position. We fight four minutes and rest one."
+
+Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he
+ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke.
+However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch,
+which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.
+
+There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman
+was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic
+feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms,
+chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring
+action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their
+lives in play and luxury.
+
+Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog.
+His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his
+chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach
+muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew
+bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was
+plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his
+strength was simply wonderful.
+
+It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types
+of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and
+fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of
+music.
+
+"All ready!" called Leonard.
+
+The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically,
+Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters
+crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their
+guards.
+
+For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as
+light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet.
+Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the
+shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow,
+although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led
+another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through
+with a stinging left to the hairy chest.
+
+"Go afther him! Kill him!" cried Hogan to his principal. "Nixt toime he
+thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!"
+
+"Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!" advised two of the
+cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.
+
+Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his
+massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull
+thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's
+chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms
+working like pistons.
+
+The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself
+by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing
+himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers,
+and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's
+fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He
+had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of
+fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily--as a gentleman
+disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting
+was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system
+about it.
+
+"First round is over!" called Madden.
+
+"Phwat a shame!" cried Hogan.
+
+With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves
+impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu
+rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked
+Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a
+box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a
+vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At
+the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them
+facing each other like human game cocks.
+
+Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's
+sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at
+Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference
+punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving
+Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time
+and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.
+
+The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine.
+Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's
+mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.
+
+The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and
+stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.
+
+"Land on 'is nose there, Smith!" shouted Mulcher. "Don't let 'im to ye!
+Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!"
+
+On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, "Bore in, Greer! Bore
+in, me lad!" and Hogan, "G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his
+long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him
+out?"
+
+"Time's up!" announced Madden.
+
+During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English
+method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and
+his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and
+chest.
+
+The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with
+the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that
+massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up
+tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.
+
+Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that
+terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from
+alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had
+armored his body with hard flesh.
+
+The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and
+filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a
+ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final
+clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were
+a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.
+
+To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back
+of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed
+back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and
+fantastic.
+
+The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy,
+and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged
+furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but
+his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's
+right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening
+pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a
+knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer
+Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"You can't hit him while he's down!" he shouted in the bull's ear, and
+then the American began counting: "One, two, three..."
+
+Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down
+till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy.
+Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy
+lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but
+left-hand jabs.
+
+In an instant Smith saw what was the matter. That blow on the hip had
+ruined Greer's right hand, strained it, perhaps broken it. Greer's
+rushes had stopped, and Smith, who was a boxer, not a fighter, could
+stand off and peck at his man's eyes or jaw without danger to himself.
+
+He hitched wearily up to his enemy, blocked Greer's left hand and let
+his right have a full swing at his exposed body. Farnol went through the
+motion of striking, but his blow was a mere tap and caused the heavy
+fellow to cringe with pain.
+
+[Illustration: Caradoc Stands the Acid Test.]
+
+Caradoc swung a light blow to the neck. Greer countered fiercely with
+his left, but it was parried easily.
+
+Suddenly the crowd understood what had happened.
+
+"Put 'im out!" "Finish 'im!" "Put 'im to sleep!" bawled a chorus. "He
+hit you below th' belt w'en 'e broke 'is 'and!"
+
+Farnol continued his chopping one-armed fight. "Put me out! Put me out!"
+he bubbled furiously. "I said ye was a thief! You _are_ a thief!
+You're a thief!" and he accented his charges with stabs.
+
+Smith side-stepped the harmless attack, letting it slide first to one
+side then the other, men were so tired they could hardly keep their
+feet. The Englishman looked down on the stubborn fellow, with his
+chopped, bleeding face and blackened, defiant eyes. A hard swing at
+unprotected jaw would stretch him out in broiling heat, but he did not
+make the blow. Instead he pushed the frothing fellow away from him.
+
+"Go to your corner and cool off," he panted. "Yes, I'm a thief. Go on
+away; I don't want knock you out."
+
+He turned his back deliberately and walked to his own awning. The crowd
+stared, absolutely dumfounded by this unexpected turn of affairs. Greer
+himself stared, then moved forward automatically to continue his
+onslaught, when Hogan grabbed him.
+
+"Come on back," cried the Irishman. "Th' scoundrel has lift ye no ixcuse
+to fight him any more. He says he's a thafe, but I don't belave Come git
+a wash and let's wrap up yer hand."
+
+At that moment the dignified voice of Gaskin came from the forward
+pontoon. The crew hushed their hot comments on the fight to listen.
+
+"A sail," called the cook. "A sail to th' sou'west, sir!"
+
+Instantly every man moved forward. The fight was forgot in the great
+hope of a rescue. Even the gory looking principals hurried forward to
+see if such welcome news could be true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE RETURN OF THE _VULCAN_
+
+
+Etched against the horizon lay a stumpy masted vessel that seemed as
+still and dead as ocean that rotted around it. She had not a sail aloft
+nor a plume of smoke in her funnel. For the moment this lifelessness was
+not observed by the hungry castaways. A joyous medley arose from the
+dock.
+
+"Th' _Vulcan_! Hit's th' _Vulcan_! Th' good _Vulcan_!
+We'll 'ave full rations t'night, 'at will! Hurrah!"
+
+They fell to cheering. Voices arose in confusion.
+
+"_Vulcan_ ahoy! _Vulcan_ ah-o-oy!" they bellowed in an effort
+to span the miles with human ices.
+
+"Say, lads, she ain't movin'!" cried someone making the surprising
+discovery.
+
+"Faith and phwat's th' matter with _her_ now?" exclaimed Hogan in
+exasperated wonder.
+
+A silence fell over the boisterous group.
+
+"Out o' coal," hazarded Galton, "that's w'y she harsn't got back no
+sooner."
+
+"W'ere's 'er sails, then?"
+
+"A tug couldn't do nothin' with sails--she isn't made for sails!"
+
+"It ain't w'ot ye're made for, hit's w'ot ye can git in this blarsted
+sea!"
+
+"Maybe 'er machin'ry's broke?"
+
+"Maybe they're hall sick?"
+
+"Or dead?"
+
+"Maybe----"
+
+Madden hurried to his cabin and returned with binoculars. The men
+foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his
+eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute
+distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the
+swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could
+even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house. Her small
+boats were in place, but he saw neither life nor movement aboard. She
+appeared as deserted as a pile of scrap iron.
+
+"W'ot are they doin'?" queried Galton.
+
+"Nothing." Madden was puzzled over the strange condition of the tug.
+
+"Ain't they crowdin' to th' side, sir, lookin' at us and fixin' to come
+to us?"
+
+"Nobody's on her," replied Madden. "At least I don't see anyone."
+
+"W'ot! W'ot! Nobody on 'er! Is she deserted, too? Just like the
+_Minnie B_!" chorused apprehensive voices.
+
+"Seems so," frowned Madden, then he made up his mind quickly and moved
+over to the small boat which had been hauled up on the forward pontoon.
+
+"Fall to, men, lower that dinghy. We'll go over and see what's the
+trouble."
+
+The crew went about their task with a sudden slump of enthusiasm.
+
+"If the crew's gone, sir," mumbled one of the men, as he paid out the
+rope, "w'ot's the use goin' across?"
+
+"To get to the tug, of course."
+
+"An'w'ot'll we do?"
+
+Madden looked hard at the cockney. "Get the provisions aboard if nothing
+else."
+
+"There wasn't none on the _Minnie B_, sir."
+
+"What's the _Minnie B_ got to do with the _Vulcan_? We're
+going to run the tug and dock out of this sea, crew or no crew--ease
+away on that rope, Mulcher. Let go! Now climb down, Galton, loose the
+tackle and swing her in alongside the ladder."
+
+When the cockneys obeyed, Madden ordered the whole crew into the small
+boat. They climbed down the ladder one by one with a reluctance Madden
+did not quite understand at the time.
+
+Fifteen minutes later, the little boat, loaded down to her gunwales,
+set out for the tug. Four oarsmen rowed, one man to the oar. The slow
+clacking of shafts in tholes echoed sharply from the huge walls of the
+dock as the dinghy drew away through the burning sunshine.
+
+At some half-mile distance, the harsh outlines of the walls and pontoons
+changed subtly into a great wine-red castle, that lay on a colorful
+tapestry of seaweed, with a background of blue ocean and bronze sky.
+
+As he drew away, Madden had a premonition that the dock was vanishing
+out of his life and sight, that never again would he live in its great
+walls. Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely
+forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought
+from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay
+ahead.
+
+Half an hour later the dinghy drew alongside the silent _Vulcan_
+and the crew clambered aboard. As they had suspected, there was no sign
+of the tug's crew aboard.
+
+Although the binoculars had forewarned them of this, the adventurers
+bunched together on the deck with a qualmish feeling and began talking
+in low tones, as men converse in the presence of mystery, or death.
+
+"We'll search her first," directed Madden, in a tone he tried to make
+natural.
+
+"Yes," agreed Greer, "and, men, keep a sharp eye out for lunatics. Don't
+let anything jump on you----"
+
+"Lunatics!" gasped Mulcher.
+
+"Greer and I fancied someone scuttled the _Minnie B_," explained
+Madden with a frown, "but that's no sign such a person is aboard the
+_Vulcan_."
+
+"They are wonderful like, sir," observed Gaskin.
+
+"Anyway we'll look her over."
+
+The men agreed and began scattering away, two by two for companionship.
+Presently from the port side Hogan raised his voice guardedly.
+
+"Oh, Misther Madden, just stip this way a moment, if you plaze."
+
+The call instantly attracted several other men. They moved across deck.
+Hogan was pointing. "Jist th' same as th' other wan," he said gloomily
+and significantly. "We knew it would be this way, sir. It was th' same
+hand as done it"
+
+Leonard looked with rising dismay at the sinister parallel.
+
+The _Vulcan_ also was lying at sea anchor.
+
+In brief, here was conclusive proof that the tug had been abandoned
+deliberately and with forethought by Malone, Captain Black and the whole
+_Vulcan_ crew. Moreover, as in the case of the _Minnie B_, they
+had deserted their ship without taking a boat or even so much as a
+life buoy.
+
+The amazed group of men collected about them other members of the
+searching party, who stuck their heads out of ports and doors now and
+then to see that no evil magic had set the rigging in flames.
+
+"They all go th' same way," mumbled Hogan, staring at the anchor and
+wetting his dry lips. "Oi'm thinkin' it'll be our toime nixt."
+
+"Piffle," derided the American half-heartedly.
+
+"It makes no difference what happens," put in Caradoc, "we'll see the
+thing through."
+
+For some reason the men thought better of Smith since the fight and his
+crisp announcement cheered them somewhat.
+
+"She's got plenty o' coal," volunteered Galton.
+
+"'Er engines look all right," contributed Mulcher, "though I know
+bloomin' little about hengines."
+
+"I weesh I knew what happened to the men," worried Deschaillon in his
+filed-down accent.
+
+"My quistion ixactly, Frinchy," nodded Hogan emphatically. "Misther
+Madden says 'Piffle,' but Oi say where are they piffled to? Did they go
+over in a storm, or die of fever, or run crazy with heat?"
+
+"They didn't starve," declared Mulcher, "for some of th' fellows are in
+th' cook's galley now eatin'."
+
+Madden lifted his hand for attention, "There's no use speculating on
+what has happened. It's our job to get dock and tug to the nearest
+port."
+
+"But suppose--suppose----"
+
+"Suppose what?"
+
+"Suppose th' thing gits arfter us, sir?"
+
+Madden stared, "Thing--what thing?"
+
+The cockney frowned, looked glumly across deck. Galton answered,
+
+"W'y, sir, th' thing that run th' crew hoff the _Minnie B_ an' hoff
+th' _Vulcan_. Crews don't 'op hoff in th' hocean for amoosement,
+sir. Some'n' done hit an' that's sure."
+
+"Do you mean you object to sailing this tug on account of some imaginary
+_thing_?" demanded Madden in utter surprise.
+
+"Imaginary, sir!" protested Mulcher, "If you please, us lads on th'
+dock, the night th' _Minnie B_ sunk, saw something swim off to th'
+south wrapped hall over in fire, sir. Imaginary thing! It bit a 'ole in
+th' _Minnie B_ an' sunk 'er, sir!"
+
+This recalled to Leonard's mind the peculiar phenomenon he had witnessed
+at the sinking of the _Minnie B_.
+
+"What do you think the thing is?" he temporized.
+
+"A--A sea sorpint, sir," stammered a cockney embarrassed.
+
+"Sea serpent! Sea serpent!" scouted the American. "There is no such
+thing as a sea serpent!"
+
+"That's w'ot th' hofficers always say," growled Mulcher.
+
+"But it is a scientific fact--there's no such thing."
+
+The well-fed Gaskin, who formed one of the group, made a bob. "That may
+well be, sor," he said in solemn deference, "but w'ether there is or
+isn't such a thing, sor, it's 'orrible to see, either way."
+
+From the banding of the men against him, Madden became aware that they
+had decided on the real cause of the mystery behind his back, and he
+would have hard work to argue them out of the sea serpent idea.
+
+"You boys saw a shark or porpoise swimming away from that schooner," he
+began patiently. "I saw it myself. You recall, on that night anything
+that moved in the water burned like fire. The ship was brilliant, the
+oars of the dinghy shone. The thing you saw had nothing to do with the
+schooner."
+
+"Then w'ot sunk 'er, sor?"
+
+"Aye, an' w'ot come of 'er men, sor?"
+
+"Aye, an w'ot come of th' _Vulcan's_ crew?"
+
+"Could a sea serpent put out a sea anchor?" retorted Leonard.
+
+The men stared doggedly at their chief. "We don't know, sor."
+
+"You do know that it is impossible!"
+
+"If there ain't no such thing, sor, 'ow do we know w'ot it can do?"
+questioned Gaskin.
+
+"Then do you want to go back and stay on the dock and starve?" cried
+Madden at the end of his patience.
+
+There was a silence at the anger in his tone, then Gaskin began very
+placatingly, "Hi'm not wishin' to chafe ye, sor, but th' dock is so big
+th' lads 'ave decided the sorpint is afraid o' th' dock."
+
+At Leonard's impatient gesture he added hastily, "Not that Hi believe in
+such things, sor, but Hi carn't 'elp but notice that hever'body on th'
+dock is alive, an' hever'body on th' other two wessels is dead an' gone,
+sor."
+
+Madden turned sharply on his heel. "Anybody who knows anything about
+marine engines, follow me," he snapped. "We must study out a way to
+start the _Vulcan's_ machinery. We're going!"
+
+As he moved down to the doorway amidship that led below, he heard Galton
+mumble: "Yes, _we'll_ be going, Hi think, down some sea sorpint's
+scaly throat, but th' tug an' th' dock'll stay 'ere."
+
+If a view of the _Minnie B's_ auxiliary engines had put hopeful
+notions in Madden's head of puzzling out their control by mere
+inspection, a single glance at the huge machinery of the _Vulcan_
+filled him with despair.
+
+The tug's hull was practically filled with a maze of machinery. Her
+engines arose in a tower of bracings, wheels, gearing, pistons, steam
+pipes, steam valves, with a multitude of the eccentrics and trip
+gearings used on quadruple expansion engines.
+
+Although he had seen hundreds of steam engines, never before had Madden
+realized their complication until he faced the problem of running this
+difficult fabric. His proposed task made him realize that the engineer's
+apprentice, who serves four years amid oil and iron black, learning all
+the details of these mechanical monsters, is probably just as well
+educated, just as capable of exact and sustained thought, as the lad who
+spends four years in college construing dead tongues.
+
+Madden could construe dead tongues, or at least could when he left
+college a few months back, but now his life, the life of his crew, the
+salving of the dock, and the winning of a possible fortune, depended
+upon his answering the riddle of this Twentieth Century Sphinx. It was
+like attempting to understand all mathematics, from addition to
+celestial mechanics, at a glance.
+
+Nevertheless, Madden's training as a civil engineer gave him a certain
+aptitude for his formidable undertaking and he set about it with
+rat-like patience.
+
+He picked out the main steam pipe, larger than his body, covered with
+painted white canvas, and followed this till he discovered the throttle,
+a steel wheel with hand grips with which he could choke the breath out
+of the monster engines. Beside this were control levers. On the steam
+chest lay a half-smoked cigarette, as if the engineer had been called
+suddenly away from his post.
+
+Madden turned the throttle, pushed the levers back and forth, and
+listened to clicking sounds high up in the complexity of the engines. He
+knew that every lever threw long systems of vents and valves in and out
+of play. A wrong combination would easily wreck all this powerful
+machinery. He was tackling a delicate job--like juggling a car-load of
+dynamite.
+
+An oil can sat under the throttle. The amateur engineer picked up this
+and a handful of greasy tow. Engines require constant oiling. Madden had
+never watched an engineer ten minutes but that he went about poking a
+long crooked-necked oil can into all sorts of hidden inaccessible
+places.
+
+Madden thought if he tried to oil the engine, he might learn something
+about it. He glanced around for the usual myriad little shining brass
+oil cups stuck, one on each bearing. To his surprise, he saw none. The
+machinery of the _Vulcan_ was lubricated by a circulatory
+compression system, which used the same oil over and over. Madden did
+not know this, so it threw him off the track at his first step.
+
+No one had followed the boy into the engine room, so now he was about to
+go on deck and commandeer a squad, when, to his surprise, Galton
+appeared at the top of the circular stairs, whistling a rather cheerful
+tune. He leaned over the rail and called down heartily:
+
+"Do you want me, Mr. Madden?"
+
+"Yes, come along. I wish you knew something about machinery."
+
+Galton laughed buoyantly. "I'm not such a chump at hit, sor," he
+recommended.
+
+"You know something about it?" inquired Madden in surprise.
+
+"A bit, a bit, Mr. Madden. My brother Charley is chief engineer on the
+_Rajah_ in the P & O, sor."
+
+"Ever work under him?" asked the American hopefully.
+
+"Two years, only two years, sor. Never did finish my term an' get my
+papers. Often's the time 'e's begged me to do it, Mr. Madden. 'E'd say,
+''Enry, me boy, w'y don't ye finish your term and git a screw o' sixteen
+pun' per, but I was allus a----"
+
+"That's all right!" cried Leonard delightedly. "I don't care whether
+you're a full-fledged engineer or not. You're hired for this job.
+Understand? You'll get full wages, and then some. I'll----"
+
+"Oh! I can 'andle a little hengine like this, sor. That's th'
+inspirator, sor," he pointed. "That's th' steam chist. In th' other end
+is th' condensing chamber. That little hegg-shaped thing is----"
+
+"That's all right; I'm no examining board. Just so you can run it and
+keep it running. Now I'll get a gang at the furnace, if the boys have
+got over their sea-serpent scare by this time."
+
+"They're jolly well over that, sor. Me and Mulcher 'ave decided as 'ow
+we're goin' to kill that sea sorpint, if it comes a-bitin' into our tug,
+sor."
+
+Madden looked at his willing helper curiously. "Kill it--how are you
+going to kill it?"
+
+"Dead, sor, yes, kill it dead, sor." Galton nodded solemnly, "My brother
+Charley, cap'n o' th' _Cambria_, sir, in th' 'Amburg-American Line,
+'e learned me to kill sea sorpints, w'en I was jest a l-little bit of
+a--a piker, sor. An' I n-never forgot 'ow 'e told me to do it. You climb
+up th' mainmast, sor, w'ere you can git at their 'eads, cross your
+fingers for luck, an' blow tobacco smoke in their eyes. They 'ate
+tobacco smoke an----"
+
+Leonard stared at the fellow, with a sinking heart. He was drunk. As to
+whether he knew anything about marine engines or not, there was no way
+to find out.
+
+The effect of the long strain of heat, hunger and anxiety now told on
+Madden in a wave of unreasonable exasperation.
+
+"You boozy fool!" snapped the officer, "you haven't sense enough to run
+a go-cart. Go down and start a fire in the furnace--can you do that?"
+
+"Shertainly," nodded Galton gravely, "Mr. Madden, I can do anything. Go
+bring me th' furnace, and I'll put a fire in it _that_ quick. I'll
+start it now."
+
+Here he stooped unsteadily, picked up a piece of oily tow, and before
+Madden knew what he was about, drew out a match and set fire to the
+greasy mass.
+
+Leonard made a jump, planted a cracking blow between Galton's eyes. The
+fellow went down like a tenpin and lay still. The American stamped out
+the blazing tow before the fire spread on the oily floor.
+
+Just then he heard a yelling from the upper deck. Hardly knowing what to
+expect, he dived for the circular stairway and rushed up three steps at
+a jump.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SEA SERPENT
+
+
+When a new crew is shipped on an old vessel, the mate's first duty is to
+search the sailors' dunnage for whiskey; when an old crew is shipped on
+a new vessel, that officer would do well to search the vessel for rum.
+
+Madden had neglected this. While the American was in the engine room,
+the cockneys in the cook's galley had found intoxicants, had poured raw
+whiskey into their empty stomachs and the result was the quickest and
+most complete intoxication. When Madden regained the deck he found his
+crew singing, laughing, fighting, quarreling in an absurd medley.
+
+Deschaillon roared out a French song. Two cockneys quarreled bitterly
+over what words he was saying. Mike Hogan jigged to the Frenchman's
+tune, but shouted as he danced that he was spoiling for a fight. The
+smell of spirits reeked over the tug as if someone had sprinkled her
+deck with liquor.
+
+Madden looked with anxious eyes for Caradoc, but did not see him. Smith
+was probably stuck away in some hole, senseless with poison, his effort
+at sobriety frustrated, his moral courage shattered, his weeks of
+painful reform smashed.
+
+Whatever humor there might have been in the ill-starred situation was
+destroyed for Madden by his friend's moral relapse. It was much as if
+some invalid, nursing a broken leg, should fall and break it over again.
+
+Gaskin was the first man who came in reach of the wrathful American.
+Madden caught his arm, whirled him about.
+
+"You ladle rum out to these hogs?" he blazed.
+
+Gaskin revolved with dignity and considered his accuser. "You wouldn't
+think Hi'd do such a thing, sor!"
+
+"Then how did they get it?" Leonard shook the fat arm sharply.
+
+"In spite o' me, sor! In spite o' me!" defended the cook, shaking his
+fat jowls earnestly. "Hi rebooked 'em, sor. Says Hi, 'Gents, this is
+lootin', it is piratin', it is----'"
+
+"You should have refused them a drop!"
+
+"Refuse--Hi did refuse, sor! Hi did more. Hi blocked 'em! Hi--Hi fought
+hout, like a demon, sor! There were too many! Hoverpowered me, sor, they
+did! I was fightin' and blockin', fightin' and blockin', like a d-demon,
+sor, b-but--b-but----"
+
+Here Gaskin's utterance grew thicker, his fat head bobbed, then he
+slithered down by the rail in the hot sunshine; his face stared skyward
+and stewed sweat in the terrific heat. Madden gave a grunt of disgust.
+Gaskin was fast asleep.
+
+There was nothing to be done. The men were drunk and he would have to
+wait till they became sober before making an attempt to run the
+_Vulcan_. He stood a moment, staring disgustedly at his useless
+crew, then finally stooped and dragged Gaskin to the shady side of the
+superstructure. As he passed with his burden some of the men made clumsy
+tangle-footed efforts to salute.
+
+In the shade Leonard found a deck chair, perched himself on its arm so
+as not to touch its hot canvas, and sat brooding glumly. He banished the
+drunken uproar from his brain and began totting up his prospects for
+escape from this foully beautiful sea. His mind jumped from topic to
+topic in an exhausted fashion. He wondered whether or not Galton really
+knew anything of marine engines? If the dock would be discovered by a
+passing ship? If the tug's crew had really gone demented and leaped
+overboard? If there were any connection between the fate of the
+_Minnie B_ and the _Vulcan_?
+
+It seemed to Madden that he had been in the heat and brilliant
+garishness of the Sargasso for centuries. He wondered if the men would
+become so starved that they would draw lots to see who should be killed
+and eaten.
+
+Anything, everything, was possible in this isolated sea. Its normal
+happenings were unreasonable. It was a place of madness. He recalled the
+words of the navvy on the London dock, "Everything is unreasonable at
+sea." Certainly that was true of the vast stewing labyrinth of the
+Sargasso. He had lived abnormally so long that it seemed strange to him
+now to think that there were comfortable, well-ordered places on the
+face of the earth. Just as one cannot imagine snow and ice in the depth
+of summer, so Madden could not imagine the simple comforts of life. It
+seemed to him the whole world shriveled under a furnace heat.
+
+Such heat, such congestion, he thought, might well breed sea-monsters.
+After all, why should there not be a sea monster? Who could be sure that
+the old megalosauri, and megalichthys were extinct? Those monsters
+existed once upon a time, certainly. He was half persuaded that they
+still existed.
+
+A sea serpent!
+
+He wondered what a sea serpent would look like? One might well drive a
+man insane, cause him to leap overboard in utter horror.
+
+His feverish brooding was interrupted by a wild flood of abuse from the
+starboard deck. It was Galton's voice bellowing:
+
+"Were is 'e? Were is that bloody Hamerican? 'E 'it me! 'It me in th' eye
+for trying to 'elp 'im! You lads goin' to see me murdered for nothin'?"
+
+Came a medley of drunken questions:
+
+"W'ot's th' matter? Who bloodied your bloomin' eyes? W'ot 'appened?"
+
+"That Hamerican chap!" bawled Galton savagely. "'E 'it me for 'elpin'
+'im make a fire! Goin' to see me run over an' killed?"
+
+"Faith Oi didn't see nawthin'," panted Malone, fresh from his dance
+
+"Won't you stan' by a Hinglishman?" shouted the battered one.
+
+"Sure we will!"
+
+"We're Hinglish!"
+
+"Le's 'lect 'nother hofficer an' court martial 'im!" bawled the sailor
+venomously.
+
+"Sure, make 'im walk a plank!"
+
+"Son of a shark!"
+
+"Man-killin' crimp!"
+
+The whole crew came lurching around toward Madden, filled with the wordy
+anger of intoxicated men.
+
+The American arose to his feet with little emotion save a return of his
+old disgust. He knew he could defend himself from any assault the crew
+might make in that condition. But they made none. They stopped a little
+way from him, some drunkenly grave, others winking or leering, some
+abusive and threatening.
+
+"Go'n' tuh 'lect 'nother captain," announced Mulcher thickly. "You no
+reg'lar hofficer!"
+
+"You 'it a man for 'elpin' you, and 'urt 'is eye!"
+
+"Make 'im walk a plank!" flared out Galton, shaking a big fist at
+Leonard. "Make 'im walk a plank!" Leonard observed that the fellow's
+nose and forehead were badly bruised, and dark circles had settled under
+his eyes. He started for Madden, when Hogan caught him under the arms.
+
+"Phwat you talkin' about, old scout? Walk a plank--you have to court
+martial him first."
+
+"I don't b'lieve 'e can walk a plank," surmised a cockney gravely.
+"'E's too drunk; 'e'd fall hoff."
+
+"Where's Farnol Greer, Mulcher?" snapped Madden disgustedly. "Is he
+drunk, too?"
+
+"D-drunk--you don't think we're drunk, sor?"
+
+"We 'ave been drinkin' a little, sor, but we're not drunk."
+
+"Oi am," nodded Hogan, resting his chin on Galton's shoulder as if from
+deep affection.
+
+"Oi don't a--ack loike it, you--hic--you couldn't tell it on me, b-but
+Oi--Oi--Oi'm drunk, aw roight."
+
+"I theenk Greer ees in the cook's galley," smiled Deschaillon, who
+appeared to be rational; then he added coolly: "Eef there ees any
+fighting, I weel help you, Meester Madden."
+
+"Cook's galley!" sputtered Mulcher. "'E's drinkin' hit ever' drop, lads;
+come on!"
+
+"An' th' grub, too!" added Hogan.
+
+This news completely disorganized the court martial and election
+committee. Galton himself forgot his revenge in his thirst. They
+started aft pellmell in confused haste to help Greer finish the rum.
+
+Leonard made no objection. They were already drunk. They might as well
+dispose of the liquor once for all, and then it would trouble discipline
+no more.
+
+When the men and their turmoil had disappeared, Madden remained on deck,
+filled with a dull, heavy feeling of lassitude and bitterness. It was
+one of those moments when a man's hope is swamped in present
+difficulties.
+
+The sun swung slowly down into the western sea, and its reflections made
+long blinding streaks in the Sargasso. Its yellow light transformed the
+great red dock into an orange structure that rested on the sea as
+lightly as the pavilions of the evening clouds.
+
+The perpetual bizarre beauty of the scene was tiring to the youth. For
+some reason he thought again of the sea serpent. It occurred to Madden
+that an enormous scaly thing, in vivid spangling colors, embossed with
+sword-like spines, with a long convoluted tail, huge red-fanged mouth,
+would be in keeping with the scene before him, would indeed produce a
+gorgeously decorative effect, such as he had seen in Chinese pictures.
+
+His thoughts took all sorts of queer turns. He wondered what he would do
+if he should see such a creature? He walked over and stood by the rail,
+staring intently into the colorful west, half expecting to see some wild
+dragon of his imagination. If it should come, he wished for a camera--a
+moving picture camera. A moving picture of a dragon attacking a ship!
+
+Just then he caught a strange noise that seemed to emanate from the air
+above his head. He stood quite still, hands on rail, listening. It was
+repeated. It was a human noise. It seemed to come from the vacant
+bronze-colored sky above his head. He wondered if he were going insane?
+Just then he caught sight of Caradoc's torso thrust out from a barrel up
+in the shrouding of the foremast. The crew of the _Vulcan_ had run
+up the barrel like a whaler's lookout to post a watch. Into this barrel
+Caradoc had climbed.
+
+The face of Smith wore a strained, desperate look. Madden stared at him
+for several seconds, quite taken aback by finding him in such an
+unexpected place. One thing, however, filled the American with deep
+gratification. The man was not drunk.
+
+"What you doing up there?" called Madden in surprise.
+
+Caradoc's broad shoulders sagged drearily. "I don't know," he said
+dully. "I fancy I might as well jump overboard and be done with it."
+
+Madden became instantly alert. "Jump overboard! What for?" A sudden
+thought hit him. Maybe this was the way they all went? Then another fear
+entered his heart.
+
+"Say, have you seen anything up there, Smith?... A dragon, or... sea
+serpent, or..." Madden stared dumbfounded at his friend, marveling what
+manner of sight had put suicidal thoughts into Smith's head.
+
+"Heavens, yes... dragons, dragons, dragons!"
+
+A weak, watery feeling went through Madden's legs. He felt doddery.
+"Many dragons!" All idea of beauty was lost in grisly horror.
+
+"W-wait a m-minute!" he chattered. "D-don't j-jump--I'm coming up
+th-there!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CARADOC WINS HIS FIGHT
+
+
+Trembling all over, Madden gained the barrel and stepped through a niche
+in its side. He stared through the brilliant, hot colors, but no rushing
+horde of monsters met his eyes.
+
+"Which way?" he asked breathlessly.
+
+Caradoc looked around at him in uncomprehending misery. There was just
+room for the two in the barrel. Smith seemed to put his mind to Madden's
+question with an effort.
+
+"Which--what did you say?"
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"The dragons, man, the dragons!"
+
+"Dragons--right here!" Smith beat his broad chest, then waved his long
+arms about. "Everywhere--don't you smell it?"
+
+The idea of smelling dragons confused the American. "Smell what?"
+
+"The whiskey!" shivered Caradoc. "I came up here to get away from it."
+
+"Oh--so you didn't see--I understand!"
+
+"It's tantalizing--horrible!" he shivered again, as if the superheated
+air chilled him.
+
+The American's own foolish fancies vanished in the face of his friend's
+real trouble. Caradoc had met a dragon more terrible than the Sargasso
+could conjure up, and its fangs were in his heart. His flight to the
+crow's nest had been an effort to escape its fury, but it had followed
+him there. Leonard put a hand on his friend's shoulder. He was at a loss
+what to say. Indeed there was nothing to say.
+
+"Habit--queer thing, Leonard--I thought I was all right."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You see, in college I used to take an alcohol rub-down after my bouts,
+and a drink. And now, after my fight at noon--smelling this--you don't
+know how it brings it back, appetite, recollections, everything----" he
+waved his hands hopelessly again.
+
+"Don't think of it. Put your mind on something else."
+
+Caradoc gave a short mirthless laugh. "Stand in a fire--and consider the
+lilies?"
+
+"We've got to consider how we'll ever get out of here, if we can't run
+this tug's engines..."
+
+"We're stuck! We're stuck!" declared the Englishman miserably. "I don't
+see why I don't go down and be a hog again... we'll finally starve...
+Somehow I had a mind to die sober... God knows why I ever came on such a
+junket."
+
+"Starve nothing. We'll get out somehow. We can fish and eat seaweed and
+distill our own water. I can make a still. And you'll get over that
+appetite. Bound to--can't last always."
+
+Smith relapsed into silence, staring over the dying colors of the sea.
+Madden tried to think of simple remedies to abate a drunkard's appetite
+for alcohol. He had heard of apples, lemon juice, but both were as
+unobtainable as the gold cure itself.
+
+"How long have you been like this?" he asked at last.
+
+"Been bad two or three years. Drank some all my life. My governor taught
+it to me when I was a baby. Then when I got older if I went too far he
+kicked. Naturally I intended to stop in time, till I slipped in deep."
+
+Leonard nodded understandingly. "It always gets a nervous high-strung
+fellow. The better stuff you are the harder it hits you."
+
+Caradoc stared moodily seaward as he continued his recollections.
+
+"The governor kept warning me. I don't believe he'd ever have kicked me
+out, but he died. Then they cashiered me--took my commission--and my
+family let me go, too... Well, I can't blame 'em."
+
+"Your commission--in the army?"
+
+"Navy."
+
+"What were you?"
+
+"Second lieutenant."
+
+Madden looked at his friend curiously. Here was a queer pass for an
+English naval officer. This revelation explained a good deal about
+Smith, his autocratic manner, his many-sided education, his emotion at
+leaving England. It even explained why he had expected Malone to place
+him in charge of the dock.
+
+"Is there any hope of getting back in?" asked Leonard sympathetically.
+
+"Instauration! Never knew of such a thing in our navy. If I ever get out
+of here I'll go in trade somewhere."
+
+"In South America?"
+
+"I had British Honduras in mind, or Canada. I'd like to keep in the
+Empire."
+
+A noise below interrupted the conversation. The two youths looked down.
+The deck plan of the tug lay flat and empty save for the inert form of
+Gaskin. The noise came from inside the cabin and arose to a shouting. It
+was a drunken ribald sound. A suspicion flashed on Leonard's mind.
+
+"Those pigs below are wasting the stores," he declared.
+
+"They ought to be stopped."
+
+"I couldn't stop them without a fight. They were about to court martial
+me when they happened to think of something else."
+
+Caradoc stared down in the direction of the noise, "I might talk them
+into sense if Greer isn't drunk and wanting to fight again."
+
+"He said he never drank--I don't know."
+
+Caradoc nodded, "I'll go down and send them forward," he asserted with
+conviction, and started to climb out of the barrel.
+
+Madden looked at the Englishman with a certain apprehension, "Caradoc,
+if you go down there where they are drinking, won't you----"
+
+"No, I'm not going to drink."
+
+"It will be a temptation."
+
+"I have myself in hand now. This talk has done me good. No, I'm all
+right." He swung out of the barrel and started down the ratlines.
+
+Leonard watched him anxiously, not at all sure of the outcome of his
+mission, not at all sure that the hot smell of rum in the galley would
+not again overcome his resistance.
+
+The sun was just dipping into the sea and its last light spread out of
+the west to the zenith like a huge red-gold fan. Purplish shadows had
+already begun to dim the tug and dock and ocean.
+
+Fifteen or twenty degrees above the sunset shone a pale crescent moon in
+the burnished sky. The sight of the moon somehow cheered Madden. He
+recalled a childish superstition that it was good luck to see the new
+moon clear. At any rate, as the sky darkened, the clear new moon brought
+Leonard comfort and renewed hope.
+
+With a grateful feeling of the providence of an Almighty that hung out
+moon and stars, the youth glanced around the darkening horizon and
+presently observed a tiny light far to the south. He stared at it quite
+surprised, and then he chanced to see a star just above it. It was the
+reflection of Sirius in Canis Major.
+
+The beam of a star must lead any thoughtful soul into endless reveries.
+Beneath its calm and infinite light, all human troubles fade to the
+brief complaining of a child in the night. Death becomes a small,
+unfeared thing, and life itself, the trail of a finger writing an
+unknown message upon water.
+
+Filled with such musings, the American noted with surprise that the
+light on the sea which he had fancied to be the reflection of Sirius was
+moving. It was not the reflection of a star.
+
+It was a light moving in the gathering darkness.
+
+What sort of light could it be? A Will o' the Wisp? A Jack o' Lantern,
+some phosphoric phenomenon rising in the exhalations of rotting seaweed?
+
+Ten minutes before, his excited imagination would have conjured up
+hydras and dragons; now he scrutinized the mysterious illumination
+unexcitedly. It winked out occasionally, then presently reappeared. But
+it did not move in an aimless fashion, after the manner of gaseous or
+electrical phenomena. It pursued a straight line toward the
+_Vulcan_. That was why Madden had not observed its movement sooner.
+
+Although it had crept only a little way down from the horizon, the
+wondering boy could discern its progress plainly among the dark masses
+of seaweed that blotched the graying water. The light was moving toward
+the _Vulcan_ and at a high rate of speed.
+
+As he watched it, the enigmatical light suddenly disappeared. The youth
+blinked his eyes, looked again. It was gone. Then he became a little
+uncertain whether or not he had ever observed any such phenomenon. He
+glanced down on the dark deck and could faintly discern the form of the
+cook.
+
+"Gaskin!" he called sharply, "Gaskin!"
+
+To his surprise the drunken fellow stirred and made some mumbling reply.
+
+"Get up. I want to know whether or not you can see anything."
+
+Came a sluggish stirring from below, and then Gaskin's voice, in which
+deference struggled with a bad headache, "Yes, sor, I can see
+hever'thing as usual, sor."
+
+"I thought I saw a light to the south. Just take a look in that quarter,
+will you?"
+
+The dopy cook scuffled to his feet and stumbled over to the rail, hung
+there, peering intently southward. At that moment, there burst out of
+the sea a brilliant illumination that fairly blinded Madden. Shocked
+into spasmodic action, the American jumped from barrel to ratlines.
+
+He hardly knew how he got down, as much of a fall as a climb. Strange
+fearsome thoughts chased through his head. The men were right about
+something attacking the _Minnie B_. Now the same thing had attacked
+the _Vulcan_. The _Vulcan_ would be sunk. He must rush the men
+out of the galley into the small boat. He must race back to the dock.
+The dock apparently was safe. What the startling apparition was, he had
+no time to speculate. When he touched the deck he sprinted for the
+cabin.
+
+As he passed Gaskin the light vanished as mysteriously as it had
+appeared, and left the tug in inky darkness.
+
+Madden heard the cook give a deferential cough and then say, "Yes, sor,
+Hi saw it, Mr. Madden, saw it quite plainly, sor."
+
+A moment before Leonard reached the cabin door, someone flung the
+shutter open violently and shouted his name in the utmost alarm.
+
+"Mister Madden! Mister Madden! Come quick, sir!"
+
+The American lunged through the dark aperture straight into the fellow's
+arms. In the darkness he could not make out who it was.
+
+"Don't be afraid! Did you see it? Where are the rest of the men?"
+
+"In the galley, sir, with him!" stammered the sailor,
+
+"Are they in a funk?" gasped Madden, feeling that he himself was in one.
+
+"Oh, they are that, sir."
+
+"Why don't they come on out? We must get 'em out!"
+
+"They're with him, sir, 'fraid to touch 'im!"
+
+"With who?"
+
+"Mr. Caradoc, sir."
+
+"Afraid to touch him--why, what's the matter?"
+
+"'E's dead, sir."
+
+A feeling as if ice water had been dashed over his body shivered through
+Leonard. The black cabin seemed to swing under his feet. His arms
+dropped down and he stood perfectly still staring into the blackness
+from whence came the sailor's voice.
+
+"You--you don't mean he's _dead_?" he asked in a shocking whisper.
+
+"That I do, sir, dead as a lump o' seaweed."
+
+Madden turned and walked with a queer light feeling toward the galley.
+He was in no hurry now. If that strange light sank them, drowned them,
+it made little difference. An idea came into his mind.
+
+"Did--did you fellows kill him--murder, him?" he asked in a hard
+undertone.
+
+The tenseness of his voice seemed to scare the sailor, "No, sir, no,
+sir, no, sir!" repeated the cockney over and over.
+
+"For I'll shoot the man down like a dog! I'll hang him! I'll--I'll----"
+
+"We--we didn't touch 'im!" cried the sailor in hoarse alarm. "'E done
+it 'isself, sir. Went clean crazy, kilt hisself--'orrible!" As the
+sailor gasped out "horrible" they entered the cook's galley where a dim
+light burned and a group of silent, sobering men stood in a knot over
+some object.
+
+Madden shoved through to where two men stooped over a long body, dimly
+seen on the decking. The two men were Hogan and Deschaillon.
+
+With his strange feeling still strong upon him, Madden knelt between the
+two. Caradoc lay limp and motionless, with a dark stain slowly spreading
+on the boards under his head.
+
+"Tell me about this," commanded Leonard, thrusting a hand under the
+prostrate man's shirt and feeling for his heart. The request set loose a
+babble.
+
+"'E did it 'isself, sor!" "Split hopen 'is own 'ead, right enough!"
+"W'ack, 'e took 'isself, w'ack!" "Aye, that 'e did, sor!" "It sounds
+queer, an' it looked queerer, but 'e did, sor!"
+
+Madden made a sharp angry gesture for silence, "One at a time. Mulcher,
+what happened?"
+
+"'E comes in, Mr. Madden," began the cockney more composedly, "an' says,
+'Forward, men, lively now,' an' Galton 'e turns an' says, 'Ye may take
+that, ye--'"
+
+Again came the irrepressible chorus, "Aye, that 'e did, sor!"
+
+"If a man speaks before I address him, I'll brain him!" shouted Madden.
+"Hogan, what happened?"
+
+"If you plaze, Misther Madden, Misther Smith came in and asked iv'rybody
+to stip forward and quit atin' up th' grub. Galton was mad innyway, an'
+had a glass o' whiskey in his hand. 'Quit atin'!' yills Galton. 'A
+officer niver wants nobody to ate but himself.' Then, 'Take thot!' he
+yills, and flings his whiskey straight into Smith's face.
+
+"Av cour-rse, we ixpected to see him smash Galton to smithereens, him
+being dhrunk--Galton, I mane--but he stood still as a post, sir, and
+tur-rned white as a sheet. I filt sorry for th' gintilmin--him putting
+up sich a good foight this avening--so Oi thought if he didn't want to
+fight, I'd help him pass it off aisy. I had a glass o' liquor in me own
+hand. I offers it to him. Says I, 'Pay no attention to th' spalpeen at
+all, Misther Smith,' says I; 'he's a fool to be throwin' away good
+liquor loike that; and have this dhrink on me, and if he does it again
+Oi'll pitch him out o' the port.' With that I handed him me glass.
+
+"Well, sir, he took it, an' I belave there was niver another face on
+earth loike his, whin he hild up that glass to th' lamp. His hand shook
+so some of the sthuff shpilled. His face was loike a corpse. He shtarted
+to dhrink. Put it to his lips. Thin of a suddint, loike it had shtung
+him, he yills out, 'God 'a' mercy!' flings down th' glass, which smashes
+all over th' floor, lowers his head an' plunges loike a football tackle,
+head fir-rst, roight into th' sharp edge o' that locker there where ye
+see th' blood an' hairs stickin'. Down he wint, loike he's hit wid an
+axe, wid his skull broke in siv'ral pieces no doubt. Mad as a hatter,
+sir, fr-rom th' hate. Though it's sich an onrasonable tale, sir, I won't
+raysint it if ye call me a liar to me teeth."
+
+Madden had found the Englishman's heart still beating. He pressed his
+fingers in the long bloody wound on his head and the skull appeared
+sound enough under the long gash.
+
+"Get him out on deck," he ordered sharply, in an effort to keep his
+voice from choking in his throat.
+
+"Out on deck! He's not dead! Get him in fresh air!"
+
+Hogan, Deschaillon, and two navvies caught him by the legs and arms.
+Madden lifted the bleeding head from which the blood still ran in a
+steady trickle. The crowd gave back and the five men with their grewsome
+burden passed through the galley's door into the dark passage.
+
+Just then a sudden vibration went through the whole ship, as if the
+_Vulcan_ had been struck by some enormous force. The men carrying
+Smith staggered. There burst out a blare of confusion, amazed cries,
+shouts of terror. There was a stampede in the narrow passage. Flying men
+bumped into the bearers of the sick man. They were shrieking, "We're
+struck! We're foundering! Th' sea sorpint's got us!"
+
+"Launch the small boat and stand by till we get there!" bellowed Madden.
+
+All the carriers dropped Smith's body and bolted in the panic. Madden
+braced himself against the rush of the crew and held up the senseless
+man lest he be trampled on in the blackness. The uproar in the passage
+was terrific as the men tried to squeeze through all together. Every
+moment Madden expected a rush of sea water down the passageway. Just
+then, he felt someone else lift at Caradoc.
+
+"Go on," said Farnol Greer's voice. "Let's get him out, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+TOWED!
+
+
+When the American pushed outside with his burden, a breeze swept the
+deck of the _Vulcan_ with an unexpected coolness. The vibrations
+had almost ceased, but there was a slight hissing of water from
+somewhere, and a feeling of movement. The men were in a hubbub on the
+port side where the small boat lay tied.
+
+Filled with the idea that the ship was about to founder, Madden stared
+about. To his vast astonishment, he discovered the tug was not sinking,
+but moving. The _Vulcan_ was under way. The noise he heard was the
+swift displacement of water. For some unaccountable reason, the vessel
+glided southward at a speed of eight or ten knots.
+
+In the uproar forward, Madden heard the cries: "Th' dinghy's swamped!"
+"We carn't reach 'er!" "Cut 'er loose and jump!" "We couldn't right 'er
+in th' water!" "Cut 'er and jump! Quick! 'Eaven knows w'ot's got us!"
+
+"Steady! Steady, men!" bawled Madden, laying Caradoc down on the deck
+and hurrying across to his panicky crew. "What's moving us?"
+
+"We don't know, sir! Th' sea sorpint! Grabbed our cable and made off!"
+
+"Can you see it?"
+
+"Just make it out, sir, ahead!"
+
+"Cut th' cable!" cried another voice; "that'll get us loose!"
+
+"Yes, get an axe--Quick!"
+
+A dim figure came running aft past Madden for the axe. The American
+shouted at him: "Come back! Don't touch that towing line! Let things
+alone!"
+
+"Yes, but this'll drag us to the bottom!" chattered one of the men
+forward.
+
+"We'll get in the dinghy when the ship goes down!"
+
+"We might row to the dock from here!"
+
+The men stood in a string along the rail, below them in the hissing
+water the dinghy tossing topsy turvy.
+
+"What's towing us? I don't see it?" cried Madden.
+
+Several arms pointed forward. Leonard peered through the gloom. The
+crescent moon and the stars filtered down a tinsel light. The faint
+shine merely made the darkness more evident Madden seemed to catch a
+glimmer of a bulk at the end of the anchor line some hundred yards
+distant. He listened but heard only the gurgle of the _Vulcan's_
+wake and the creak of her plates.
+
+When the sheer panic of surprise had worn away somewhat, the weirdness
+of the uncanny voyage came upon the crew with tenfold force. They stood
+gripping the rail, staring ahead with the feeling of condemned prisoners
+on their way to the gallows.
+
+"We're 'eaded for the 'ole in th' sea!" muttered Mulcher.
+
+"We'll go down tug an' hall," mumbled Galton unsteadily. "Fish bait,
+that's w'ot we are!"
+
+"I've heard sea serpents can sting a man and numb him so he won't live
+or die," shivered Hogan, "like a spider stings a fly."
+
+They spoke in half whispers under the influence of the unknown terror.
+
+"If anything happens, I shall keel myself," declared Deschaillon, with
+nervous intensity, "but I shall see it first."
+
+"That's w'ot went with the other two crews--killed theirselves,"
+chattered Mulcher.
+
+Another silence fell. The cool breeze came as a sort of mockery of their
+unknown peril. For the first time since the storm every man was
+thoroughly comfortable physically.
+
+"Boys," planned Hogan, "whin th' thing comes aboard, we'll put up th'
+best foight we can!"
+
+"It don't come aboard--it bites a 'ole in th' 'ull."
+
+"Aye, like th' _Minnie B_."
+
+Just then a figure approached the men unsteadily, and Madden saw that
+Caradoc had recovered consciousness and was able to walk. As the tall,
+gaunt figure approached, the crew eyed him as if he were some new
+danger, then he asked.
+
+"What is this? Are we moving?"
+
+"Yes we're off," replied Madden.
+
+"Under our own power?" he inquired, turning around and staring at the
+smokeless funnel.
+
+"No, we're being towed."
+
+"Towed! Towed!" exclaimed Smith in a weak voice. "What's towing us?"
+
+"We don't know, sor," replied a cockney.
+
+There was a silence in which Caradoc stood tall and cadaverous as a
+ghost. "Am I dreaming this, Madden?" he muttered finally. "Did you say
+we were being _towed_?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"What's towing us--not--not the dry dock--don't say the dry dock's
+towing us!"
+
+"We don't know, sor," repeated the cockney.
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+"To be killed, sor."
+
+Caradoc moved slowly over to the rail and sat against it near Madden.
+
+"A cool breeze," he murmured gratefully.
+
+The American was lost amid the wildest speculations as to the mysterious
+agent that had the _Vulcan_ in tow. He was trying to think
+logically, but found it hard in that atmosphere of terror. The utter
+weirdness of the whole affair defied analysis. The towing of the
+_Vulcan_ by an unknown power was the very climax of the fantastic.
+No hypothesis he could form even remotely approached an explanation.
+
+It could not be some sea monster surging steadily at the tow line of
+the _Vulcan_. That theory was untenable. A monster might attack;
+it would never tow.
+
+But any other, attempt to account for the strange predicament fell
+equally as flat. What human agency would operate so mysteriously in this
+hot, stagnant sea? Why should any group of men entrap the helpless crew
+of the _Vulcan_ with such a display of mystery and power? It was
+useless. It was ridiculous. It was shooting a mosquito with a field gun.
+
+All his thoughts ended in utter absurdity. He felt that he had run up
+against some vast power. The schooner _Minnie B_, the tug
+_Vulcan_, were but trifling units in the enigma of this deserted,
+weed-clogged sea. It must be some power whose operations were
+ocean-wide.
+
+Why such a spot should be chosen?--Why a power that sank one ship out of
+hand and towed another mile after mile?--Why it operated only at
+night?--What lay at the heart of this brooding fabric of terror--he
+could not form the slightest conception. Outlawry, piracy, smugglery,
+were all goals too small for such operations.
+
+His thoughts seemed to be physical things trying to clamber up the
+smooth polished side of an enormous steel plate. They made not the
+slightest progress. The more he thought, the more unaccountable all
+phases of the question became.
+
+In absolute perplexity, he turned to the Englishman at his side. He
+could just make out the blur of Caradoc's face.
+
+"Have you a theory about this, Smith?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+The Englishman nodded in silence.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I--I got my head hurt awhile ago. I believe I'm delirious--dreaming."
+
+Leonard thought this over without any feeling of amusement. "That
+doesn't explain why I see it too," he objected gravely. "Nothing wrong
+with my head--that I know of." He tried the time honored experiment of
+pinching himself.
+
+"I shall assume that I am awake," he decided after he had felt his
+pinch. "I may not be, but I'm going to act as if I were."
+
+Madden had an impression that Caradoc was smiling in the darkness. Just
+then Gaskin began laughing shrilly in a queer metallic voice.
+
+"Quit that!" snapped half a dozen thick voices at once, as if his
+laughter had violently shocked their tense nerves.
+
+Gaskin pointed a stumpy arm off the starboard bow, "Look! Look!" he
+gasped. "It's that rotten whiskey! Whiskey done it! Whiskey made me see
+that! Look w'ot whiskey done!"
+
+Leonard had no idea that anything could be added to the nightmarish
+quality of the adventure, but there off the starboard arose a great
+bulk, blotting out the stars. It was not a ship; it was not a barge;
+there was not a light on it, but it seemed somehow dimly illuminated. It
+was as shapeless as death.
+
+"The Flyin' Dutchman!" shuddered Galton.
+
+"It burns a blue light!" corrected Hogan with chattering teeth.
+
+"Th' ship o' the dead!" shivered Mulcher.
+
+A sudden explanation flashed into Madden's head. "You fools are afraid
+of our own dry dock," he whispered briefly. "We've traveled in a circle
+and reached the dock again."
+
+"Oh, no, sor, it ain't that! Tain't th' dry-dock, sor!" aspirated
+several fear-struck voices.
+
+The crew held their breaths as if the apparition might vanish as
+suddenly as it appeared.
+
+By this time the moon lay flat on the sea, throwing a faint shining
+streak across the dark Sargasso. This vague light was enough to show
+Madden, when he took a close look, that it was not the dock.
+
+The thing he saw was an enormous mass without the severe angular shape
+of the great dock. Its outline rose crude and shapeless, as well as he
+could trace it among the canopy of stars, and gave not the slightest
+intimation as to what use it could be.
+
+As they stared, the speed of the _Vulcan_ slackened sensibly. The
+faint rippling of water under the prow ceased. The breeze fell away into
+a dead blanket of heat. It was as if a sweatbox had been cooped over the
+crew.
+
+"The thing's cut loose from us," said a weary voice.
+
+Hogan laughed shortly: "Everybody out--fifteen minutes for
+refrishmints."
+
+"Yonder goes that thing!" cried Galton. "Hi can see it!"
+
+Indeed, by peering carefully, Madden could follow the slender outline of
+the mysterious craft that had towed the _Vulcan_ to this uncanny
+spot. It had now left the tug and was gliding away to the great
+misshapen fabric that sprawled on the sea.
+
+Every eye strained to see the outcome of this strange maneuver, when
+suddenly from the gliding vessel there shot a dazzling light that spread
+over the bulky mass. Under the beating illumination every detail of the
+huge vessel stood out garishly. She was immense, with a broad flat prow
+like a railway ferryboat. She stood high in the water and seemed to have
+three promenade decks around her.
+
+There was no mast, no rigging, no outside gearing. One squat funnel
+amidship told that she used steam for some purpose, and out of this
+funnel black masses of smoke rose slowly in the motionless air. She
+resembled no craft Madden had ever seen.
+
+Notwithstanding her enormous size, everything about the vessel impressed
+Madden that she was built for secrecy. She was squat, considering her
+length and breadth. It was as if her designer were trying to make a
+craft invisible at sea. As near as Madden could determine in the strange
+light, she was painted a pale sky-blue. During the day, no doubt, she
+melted into the sky like a chameleon.
+
+As the smaller craft approached its huge mate, its circle of light
+contracted until it finally concentrated into a dazzling white spot
+centered on the prow of the monster. This spot diminished to an intense
+point, like an electric arc between carbons. A sharp reflection of this
+point streaked the water between the tug and the mysterious vessels.
+
+Then, under the unbelieving eyes of the crew, the little vessel ran
+completely into the larger one and was gone. The light vanished
+instantly. Utter blackness fell over the dazzled eyes of the watchers.
+
+There were gasps, explosive curses of bewilderment, amazement. The
+little boat had disappeared into the larger. Impossible! Gaskin began
+his shrill laughter again. Then he gurgled in the darkness as if
+somebody's fingers had clamped his windpipe.
+
+Madden's mind attacked more violently than ever the incomprehensible
+motives behind this inscrutable mystery. What was the key to this
+incredible affair? In the midst of his mental struggle, he felt a hand
+on his arm, Caradoc said in his ear,
+
+"What do you say we get in the small boat and pay them a visit?"
+
+"It's a big risk. I daresay we'll get our heads blown off."
+
+"I had thought of that," agreed Caradoc.
+
+"Come on," said the American, and the two moved across the deck to see
+if they could still use the dinghy, which had been trailing along all
+this time.
+
+Nearly an hour later, the two boys in the dinghy approached the puzzling
+craft with muffled oars. As Madden and Caradoc drew near, the vast size
+of the strange ship grew more striking. The faint impression of light
+which they had first received grew stronger and Madden saw that the
+decks were illuminated by long bands of diffused light, although he
+could not guess its origin.
+
+On the lowest deck, the American made out the small figure of a man
+marching back and forth with a gun.
+
+At this sight, both boys stopped rowing, lifted the oars from tholes and
+began paddling noiselessly, canoe-fashion.
+
+"That must be the accommodation ladder," whispered Madden, "where the
+guard is."
+
+"Who are they afraid will board them?" queried Caradoc. "Mermaids?"
+
+"It is a strange precaution to take in the Sargasso," agreed the
+American. "It is going to make our entrance difficult."
+
+They ceased paddling now and drifted silently toward the monster.
+
+"I wonder if they aren't smugglers," hazarded Caradoc,
+
+"Must be up-to-date, to use submarines--a submarine would defy
+detection, wouldn't it?"
+
+"And rich--nobody but millionaire smugglers could get together all this
+paraphernalia."
+
+"I'll venture insurance is at the bottom of this fraud, Caradoc,"
+hazarded Madden. "These swindlers insure a cargo, bring it to this
+place, reship it, sink the vessel, or repaint and rebuild it, then
+collect the insurance money--do you remember the log of the _Minnie
+B_?"
+
+"No, I didn't read it."
+
+"It stated her cargo had been reshipped--reshipped from the Sargasso.
+The entry may have been for the benefit of Davy Jones. Anyway, they are
+methodical scoundrels."
+
+The lads fell silent as the hugeness of this nefarious business
+gradually dawned on them. For insurance swindlers and smugglers to work
+on such a large scale, very probably the organization branched over the
+whole civilized world. This vast shapeless vessel was a spider at the
+center of a great network of criminality.
+
+"Say, the Camorras are mere infants in crime compared to these men,"
+shuddered Leonard. "I suppose they murder the crews--drown 'em."
+
+"They would have to get 'em out of the way somehow."
+
+"Then Malone and all the tug's crew are..."
+
+There was an expressive silence.
+
+After a while Caradoc whispered, "Well, shall we try to get aboard?"
+
+"Wouldn't do any good."
+
+"It won't do any good to stay here."
+
+"No, we can't hide on the tug always, and we can't run her engines.
+_You_ don't know anything about marine engines, do you, Caradoc?"
+
+"Very little. I couldn't run one."
+
+For several minutes, the two adventurers sat in silence, watching the
+small erect figure of the guard pace and repace his short path.
+Presently Madden said:
+
+"I've thought of one chance, Caradoc, to escape being starved or
+murdered."
+
+"Yes, what's that?"
+
+"It--it's almost too wild to propose, but it's all I can think of. As
+far as I know it's absolutely our last chance."
+
+"Go on, go on," urged the Englishman impatiently. "I don't know of any
+way out whatever."
+
+"If we could slip aboard there and--and--well, kidnap somebody who knows
+how to run our engines, bring him back to the tug, fire up and make a
+race to South America--but there's no sense to a scheme like that.
+Captain Kidd himself wouldn't be up to it."
+
+A long silence followed this ultimatum, then Caradoc said, "Oh, it's
+possible, I suppose. The mathematical formula of possibility would work
+out about ten million chances to one that we lose."
+
+"Yes, I know it's risky."
+
+"And how do you hope to get in past that guard?"
+
+"We'll have to climb up the ladder right under him, hang there until he
+is on his up-deck walk, then swing inside and when he turns around we
+could be simply strolling up the deck toward him. There must be a lot of
+fellows on such a big ship. Maybe he doesn't know them all."
+
+"Why do you want to stroll _toward_ him?"
+
+"Because if he saw us walking off in the other direction, he would know
+we had not passed him, and so we must have come up the ladder."
+
+Caradoc shook his head in the darkness. "I'm going to try to jump on
+that guard when he turns his back, and down him."
+
+"He'd give an alarm sure. We mustn't disturb him till we get ready to
+leave, then let him yell."
+
+"What you are planning, Madden, is simply impossible. I like to be as
+conservative as possible."
+
+"We can turn around and row back to the _Vulcan_--and starve."
+
+"Go ahead to the accommodation ladder. However, it's impossible."
+
+As the two moved silently nearer a murmur of machinery in the vast
+fabric came to them. As their tiny boat swung in beside the high hull,
+they could hear this noise quite plainly, and they trusted to this
+rumble to screen their operations somewhat. They ceased paddling and
+allowed the dinghy to drift against the iron side of the vessel. They
+could no longer see the deck and the guard, owing to the swell in the
+high metal wall. But presently they came to the rope ladder which they
+anticipated hung below the guard's station.
+
+Madden caught this and tied the dinghy to it with the crawly feeling of
+a man who expects to have a gun fired at him the next moment.
+
+Caradoc came up and the two adventurers stood in the boat's prow, both
+holding to the ladder.
+
+"I'll bet that scoundrel shoots down," whispered Leonard, "before we get
+halfway up."
+
+"Don't talk so loud--are you ready to try it?"
+
+"What are you going to do--jump on him?" breathed Leonard.
+
+"No, your plan. If you see he is going to shoot you before you get
+inside, jump backwards and dive."
+
+"And remember to go far enough out not to hit the dinghy."
+
+"Good."
+
+Madden stared up into the mysterious vessel, caught the ladder and swung
+himself silently onto the rungs. Caradoc mounted close behind him. They
+had mounted only two or three steps, when a sudden terrific report
+thundered above their heads.
+
+It was so unexpected, so violent, that the two boys almost tumbled into
+the sea. The next instant they found themselves wrapped in an atmosphere
+of hot, stifling steam. They clung to the rungs in a veritable
+steam-bath that roared and plunged around them. When Madden collected
+his senses, he realized that it was merely a safety discharge from the
+boilers. The main steam pressure did not strike them, but they swung in
+the hot wet fringe of the exhaust. Had they been ten feet farther aft,
+they would surely have been boiled to death. As it was they were
+immersed in uncomfortably hot vapor.
+
+They clung, rather unnerved by the uproar, enduring the heat for four or
+five minutes, when suddenly an idea occurred to Madden. He leaned down
+to Caradoc and shouted in his ear.
+
+"How about going up now? Couldn't see us in this steam."
+
+For reply, Caradoc shoved his friend upward, and so they scrambled aloft
+like two monkeys.
+
+Fortunately for them, the night was windless and the white steam drifted
+straight up and as it rose, it spread out in an impenetrable fog.
+Cloaked in this vapor, the two adventurers scrambled up some thirty-five
+feet to the first deck. The steam was thick inside the rail. Covered by
+the noisy shriek of the exhaust, they jumped inside the promenade
+without being heard or seen, and a moment later, they dropped arm in
+arm, like two casual strollers, and moved up deck.
+
+Two minutes later, when the roaring exhaust had ceased and the vapor had
+cleared away, the guard with the gun could never have guessed that the
+two men he saw slowly promenading the deck had drifted over the rail,
+out of the night, with the clouds of the noisy exhaust.
+
+Neither of the lads so much as glanced at the sentinel as they strolled
+past him. Caradoc was saying in the low tones men use when conversing in
+the darkness:
+
+"Do you suppose that fellow knows anything about engines?"
+
+And Madden replied just as confidentially, as he sized the gun man up
+out of the tail of his eye, "No, I'm sure he doesn't. An engineer never
+has to stand guard."
+
+"How are we ever going to spot an engineer?"
+
+For the first time since starting, a little thrill of the joy of
+adventure crept into Madden's heart. He felt like a ferret venturing
+into a rat's den.
+
+"Why you can tell an engineer easily," he murmured. "You've seen 'em,
+oily fellows, with black smudges."
+
+"That describes a fireman, too."
+
+"No, a fireman's not so oily and is more cindery--then we'll know one by
+his cap."
+
+"Certainly," breathed Smith. "I hadn't thought of that."
+
+Notwithstanding his danger, Madden could not help smiling as he moved
+along after the fashion of a careless stroller, when he was really
+keenly alert for a man with an engineer's cap.
+
+The two youths were walking up a long deck, dimly lighted by small
+incandescent bulbs placed on the inner surface of the outside stanchions
+about thirty feet apart. Each bulb was carefully blinded from the ocean
+by a sheath, which confined its glowworm radiance exclusively to the
+promenade. On the inboard side were a long series of port holes,
+likewise hooded from observation. Some were aglow, others dark.
+
+The deck, rails, cabin walls, ports, hoods, joists of the top-deck were
+newly washed and scrupulously clean. Fifty yards up-deck, where
+perspective and the sheer of the ship gave the promenade the appearance
+of a long, up-curved tunnel, the boys caught sight of a gang of men
+scrubbing down deck. A little beyond the scrubbing gang, some garments
+fluttered on a line drying in the night air.
+
+As they drew nearer, Madden perceived they were muscular men, with faces
+bronzed by tropic sunshine. Some of their necks and cheeks were peeling,
+as if from sunburn. On the whole they had a healthy, hearty appearance
+that fitted in badly with Madden's theory of murderers and thieves.
+Instead of a piratical aspect, the promenade bore a strong resemblance
+to a deck scene on some crack transatlantic liner, except for the
+blinded lights and ports and the armed guard.
+
+The wanderers passed the scrub gang without trouble and came to the
+drying laundry. The number of these shirts and trousers and under
+clothing suggested the hulk must contain a large number of men. If these
+men _were_ smugglers and insurance swindlers, they had systematized
+their life after rigid military discipline.
+
+They moved through the laundry with fading hopes of kidnapping an
+engineer from such a formidable institution, when they were startled by
+a human laugh. It sounded in their ears and was as unexpected as a
+shriek in church. For an instant they thought they were apprehended.
+Then they understood the sound came from one of the lighted ports.
+
+They moved softly among the shirts and trousers until they reached the
+suspected port. Inside they heard a very trivial conversation in
+English.
+
+"I'm after that jack of yours, Captain Cleghorne," declared a thick
+voice with a laugh.
+
+"I played low, remember that,"
+
+A silence, then a burst of laughter.
+
+"He ran that jick over your king!"
+
+Leonard stood beside the port blind making a tantalizing effort to
+recall something. Where had he heard the name "Cleghorne?" He repeated
+it mentally several times.
+
+"Cleghorne, Cleghorne----" of a sudden it came to him. He had never
+heard it, but had seen it framed in the license that hung in the chart
+room of the schooner, _Minnie B_.
+
+With a heart thumping against his ribs at this strange and amazing
+coincidence, the American ducked his head carefully under the port hood
+and looked in.
+
+For a moment his eyes were blinded by electric lights. Then he observed
+a group of men sitting around a table playing cards. They were in
+obviously comfortable spirits, nothing criminal or warlike. One was a
+long cadaverous figure that suggested to Madden, Cleghorne, the Yankee
+commander of the _Minnie B_.
+
+When his eyes strayed across the table to Cleghorne's partner, Leonard's
+knees almost crumpled in surprise. He was looking at the old commander
+of the floating dock, Mate Malone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CARADOC TAKES COMMAND
+
+
+Notwithstanding that Madden's head was under the hood, Caradoc sensed
+the fact that his friend had experienced some profound shock.
+
+"What's the matter? What's wrong?," he whispered from the outside.
+
+"The mate--the mate of the _Vulcan_ is in there!" gasped the
+American.
+
+"Impossible!" Smith dived under the hood for himself.
+
+Both heads just managed to squeeze in and the two men stared at Malone
+as if he were raised from the grave. The mate, however, was not
+funereal. He seemed in the pink of condition, rather fatter than he had
+been on the dock, and he wore the pleased expression of a man well
+content with life.
+
+As men will do when under a fixed stare, he presently glanced about and
+his eyes fell on the porthole. He looked at the dim port for several
+seconds intently, as if he could not quite make out their faces. Madden
+frowned, jerked his head up and down in a signal for Malone to approach.
+
+The mate's little eyes went round at the request. He made a surprised
+gesture to his partner, scrambled to his feet and drew near. The whole
+cabin followed his motions.
+
+"W'ot is it?" he whispered, still peering into the half-faces seen in
+the round hole.
+
+"Madden and Smith."
+
+"_W'ot_!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Great sharks! W'ot you lads doin' 'ere?"
+
+"Came off the tug--what is this?"
+
+"W'ot is w'ot?"
+
+"This ship we're on?"
+
+It seemed as if Malone's little eyes would pop out of his head.
+
+"W'ot--didn't they ketch you? You don't mean to say you--you jest
+straggled aboard?"
+
+"Sure we did. Catch us? Who is there to catch us?"
+
+Malone stared as if at two ghosts. "Say! Say!" he said hoarsely. "You
+don't mean to say you ain't caught? You don't mean you run th' tug up
+'ere an' boarded us! You don't mean----" He turned and whispered
+hoarsely inside: "It's th' lads off th' dock, though 'ow they got 'ere,
+an' w'ot they're--douse th' light, some o' you fellows."
+
+A stifled consternation seized the card players, who crowded up to the
+port. A moment later all the lights were snapped out one after another.
+
+"Tell us who there was to catch us," begged Leonard in a whisper.
+
+"Who? W'y a German warship, that's who! One caught us--an' Cap
+Cleghorne. Caught th' Cap away hup on th' Newfoundland Banks. Caught us
+first day----"
+
+"Why should a German warship capture _us_!" demanded Leonard in a
+voice that threatened to rise in excitement.
+
+"Quiet! Quiet! 'Eavens, lad! Don't you know? Ain't you 'eard? W'y it's
+war! War! War's broke out all over th' world! Everyw'ere! Ever'body!"
+
+"War!" gasped Madden.
+
+"War! What countries?" demanded Smith in an excited whisper.
+
+"Hall countries! Hingland, France, Rooshia, Japan, that's one side, an'
+Germany and Austria on th' other."
+
+"America in it?" demanded Madden.
+
+"Right enough. Canada is sendin' troops and----"
+
+"America! America! The United States of America!"
+
+"Oh, no, she's the only nootral in th' whole world among th' big powers!
+But she'll be in soon enough!"
+
+"What's this we're on?" inquired Caradoc. "It isn't a warship?"
+
+"Kind o' warship. It's a mother ship for submarines--sort of floatin'
+dry dock for the little sneakers. She takes 'em aboard, over'auls 'em,
+gives 'em new stores and torpedoes."
+
+"England at war!" repeated Caradoc in a maze. "I must get out of here!"
+
+"That's th' word, war!" whispered Malone thickly. "They say Hingland's
+got a tight blockade aroun' th' German ports, so th' German cruisers
+bring their prizes here in th' Sargasso, load all the prize stores they
+capture out o' Hinglish bottoms into submarines an' run it into Germany
+_under_ th' blockade. See? That's w'y this mother ship is 'ere. She
+fixes 'em up at this end for their run back."
+
+Malone told all this in a hoarse breath.
+
+"What do they do with their prisoners--keep them here?"
+
+"No, ship 'em to German East Africa an' intern 'em. The _Prince
+Eitel_ is due 'ere tomorrow to ship us."
+
+So that was the explanation of all this mystery--War!
+
+Madden fell silent with the sensation of a man who had lost his footing
+on earth. All his life he had been accustomed to peace. He thought of
+wars as small affairs that broke out now and then in South America or
+when the American Indians got hold of whiskey. But for Germany, France,
+England to fight, to hurl millions of men at each other! It was
+inconceivable!
+
+The boy's brain felt numb as if crushed beneath an enormous horror. The
+world was at war!
+
+Unless a person actually witness a murder, he cannot imagine the shock
+and dreadfulness of seeing one man shot down, writhe, gasp, grow pale
+and cease struggling. To picture ten men murdered simply stuns the mind.
+An effort to realize hundreds, thousands, millions of men mangled,
+wounded, bayoneted, crushed, blown to atoms by shells and mine--all this
+becomes vague, formless, a dim, dreadful picture that is as unreal as a
+dream, or history.
+
+"What caused it?" asked Madden in a strained tone.
+
+"I don't know," whispered the mate huskily. "They say it all started
+because an anarchist killed an Austrian prince, but I don't believe
+it--that sounds too onreasonable for me."
+
+"What has an Austrian prince to do with the rest of the nations?"
+
+"I told you I don't believe it!" repeated the mate.
+
+Madden felt impotent at the conclusion of the narrative. As long as he
+had conceived himself to be attacking a force of pirates and thieves, he
+was ready to board this great vessel, hunt for an engineer, or attempt
+any desperate scheme. But now when he learned that men were being
+murdered, goods stolen, ships scuttled, in accordance with a kind of
+wild law, called rules of war, he no longer knew what to do. The world
+was mad. Its people were murdering each other.
+
+He finally said aloud to Caradoc: "I suppose we may as well hunt up the
+commanding officer, surrender ourselves and sail for Africa with the
+others."
+
+"No," interrupted Smith, "don't do that." Then he called softly inside,
+"Malone!"
+
+"Well, w'ot is it?" inquired the mate gruffly, for he persevered in his
+dislike of Smith.
+
+"Look sharp, Malone! I am an officer in the English navy--it is my right
+and duty to assume command of all English seamen in case of war!"
+
+A blank silence followed this remarkable assumption of authority. The
+tone in which it was whispered prevented any doubts in the minds of his
+hearers.
+
+"Do you understand?" inquired Caradoc in a sharp undertone.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the mate doggedly.
+
+"How many men have you in there?"
+
+"Eleven Hinglishmen, sir."
+
+"I assume responsibility for those men. From now on accept orders from
+me!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Pass the word around. I am going to hand in some German uniforms
+through this port. Let every man put on a uniform!"
+
+"Very well, sir!" came the dismayed reply.
+
+Caradoc withdrew his head from the hood. In the faint gleam from the
+outside incandescents, he fell to untying the strings by which the suits
+were leashed to the lines. He handed eleven suits to Madden, who passed
+them under the hood and Malone received them inside. Then Smith
+deliberately stripped off his own clothes and drew on a pair of German
+trousers.
+
+"Get on a pair, Madden," he advised. "Civilian trousers will be
+conspicuous in a bright light. You are going to see this thing through,
+aren't you?"
+
+Madden nodded and followed his companion's example. Five minutes later
+the two, transformed into German sailors, walked out of the hanging
+laundry.
+
+"Don't seem, to observe anything," whispered Caradoc. "Appear to be
+going somewhere, on an errand. Walk just as if you belonged aboard."
+
+A moment later the Briton turned down a stairway that led to a shadowy
+deck, which was hung with long rows of hammocks with men sleeping in
+them. The air down here was remarkably cool, although Madden did not
+have time to give much thought to this. Caradoc pursued his way
+unhesitatingly among the sleeping sailors, and presently came to another
+hatchway, out of which poured the rumble of machinery and a stream of
+light.
+
+Down this flight of steps, Smith moved with certainty, and a moment
+later Madden saw they were entering a great machine shop. A full
+complement of men worked at every lathe, table, drill or saw. The clang
+of hammers, the guttering of drills, the whine of steel planes smote his
+ears in a cheerful din of labor. The laborers worked at their tasks with
+that peculiar flexibility of forearms, wrists, fingers that mark skilled
+machinists. The scent of lubricating oil the faint tang of metal dust
+filled the air. Strange to say, the air down here was even cooler than
+that in the sleeping deck above.
+
+All sorts of queer tasks were progressing. Here, men were working on
+gyroscopes that fitted into the shells of torpedoes; there, they
+fabricated little hot-air engines which propelled those instruments of
+destruction. They were repairing gauges, steam connections, electrical
+fittings, what not.
+
+Madden was tempted to pause and stare about this wondershop, when it
+occurred to him that if he and Caradoc were discovered they would be
+executed as spies. He had not thought of this before, and the mere
+suggestion somehow made him feel stiff and wooden. He was not
+frightened, but he felt clumsy, as a schoolboy does when he makes his
+first public speech. His arms and legs felt wooden; his head did not
+seem to sit in a natural manner on his neck. He felt that if anyone
+glanced at him, he would immediately betray himself. His walk, his looks
+showed it. He could not imagine why some workman did not leap out, seize
+his arm and yell "Spy!"
+
+After a long stage-frightened walk, Caradoc turned down another flight
+of stairs. Here Madden discovered the secret of the cool air. On this
+deck was a big refrigerating plant, with frost-covered pipes leading in
+all directions. The sight of this plant gave Madden some faint insight
+into the thorough preparation made by the German government to carry on
+their struggle by sea. Long before war was declared, Germany must have
+planned a naval base in the Sargasso, and have foreseen the use of her
+submarines in evading the blockade. She had chosen these untraveled seas
+as a depot, then established a refrigerated machine shop in order that
+the full-blooded German might work comfortably in the tropics. The plan
+seemed to have been worked out with infinite detail.
+
+From the refrigeration deck, they descended to still another deck into
+the very bowels of the ship. This descent brought them to a long gallery
+that was formed by a bulkhead running down the center of the ship. As
+they entered this passage, three workmen came out of a small steel door
+that opened into this central wall. One of the workmen carefully
+rebolted the door, yawned sleepily and followed his comrades toward the
+companionway. As he passed he grunted something to Caradoc. Madden's
+heart beat faster lest they should be discovered at this last hour. He
+had no idea what mission moved the Englishman, but he sensed that here
+was his destination. Smith made some reply in German, moved briskly
+ahead until he came to the small steel door. He laid his hand familiarly
+upon the bolts, shot them back, swung open the door. One of the men
+whirled about and stared back at this assured intruder. Smith stood
+aside and with a curt military gesture motioned Madden to enter. The
+American drew an uncertain breath, glanced at the three Germans out of
+the tail of his eye and stepped into the dark square. Caradoc followed
+him. The laborers went on updeck apparently satisfied.
+
+An electric wire was let in through the door. Caradoc reached for it,
+followed it with his hand and presently turned a switch. Next moment a
+bright flood of light bathed the tubular chamber in which they stood.
+
+Madden glanced about. He stood in a room whose roof formed a half circle
+over his head. The place seemed as full of machinery as a watch case.
+Fore and aft were circular partitions of steel, like drumheads. These
+were penetrated with sliding shutters, which stood open. Through the
+after shutter, Madden saw a large Deisel oil engine, flanked by a
+compact heavy dynamo. Looking forward, he could see steel cylinders
+trimmed in shining brass, and a maze of levers, gauges, dials, valves.
+
+The central compartment in which the two stood was dominated by a little
+spiral stairway leading up into a steel dome. On a shelf set in the
+bulkhead was a chart, a telephone receiver, speaking tubes, dials with
+red and black hands, an array of electrometers, pressure gauges.
+
+Glancing up the stairway into the little dome, Madden saw a pilot wheel,
+more levers and speaking tubes and telephone receivers, and a square of
+ground glass, that was lined off with delicate cross-lines.
+
+"Where are we?" asked Madden, amazed. "What do they do here? I never saw
+so much machinery before in so small a space."
+
+Caradoc was stooping over a heavy metal box down at the floor level at
+the side of the desk. It was one of a series of such boxes. "We're
+inside of that submarine you saw enter a few hours ago," explained the
+Englishman shortly.
+
+Leonard stared around with new eyes. "So this is a submarine! Do you
+know anything about them? What's that spirit level for?" He pointed at a
+horizontal gauge.
+
+"Measures air pressure--it's not a level."
+
+"What's in these steel tanks overhead?"
+
+"Compressed air."
+
+"What's that you are getting into?" Here Caradoc lifted the lid, and
+Madden got a view. "Say, that's a torpedo, isn't it?" he asked quickly
+as he saw a long needle-pointed steel cigar with propeller and rudder on
+the aft end.
+
+The Englishman made no reply. He leaned over and selected a small steel
+crowbar from a tool locker, drew it out with a quick nervous movement.
+
+"Say!" cried Madden catching the strange expression on the face of his
+friend, "are you going to try to launch this and escape on it--escape on
+a torpedo?"
+
+A mirthless smile flickered over the Englishman's gray face. "Nothing so
+fanciful."
+
+A sixteen foot torpedo lay in a steel frame on a runway, just ready to
+slide forward into the big expulsion tube that was the salient feature
+of the forward compartment. Caradoc walked quickly to the nose of the
+terrific missile. He looked at his friend and said in a strange voice:
+"Madden, I'm going to wipe this German ship-trap off the map!"
+
+A sort of spasm clutched the American's diaphragm. "You don't mean----"
+he managed to gasp.
+
+"Yes, this is for----" He swung up his crowbar.
+
+Madden on the other side the gasoline-scented chamber had a sensation as
+if someone had jabbed keen needles into his throat, breast, stomach.
+
+"Caradoc! Don't! Don't!" he screamed and leaped toward the desperate
+man.
+
+It was all done at once.
+
+"For England!" completed Caradoc Smith, and fetched down a furious
+doubled-handed blow on the primer of the big steel chamber packed with
+guncotton.
+
+The crowbar landed with a crash!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GET-AWAY
+
+
+Both lads leaned against the machinery, limp, dripping cold
+perspiration. Caradoc was the first to speak.
+
+"Didn't have its war head in!"
+
+Leonard mumbled something through the slime in his mouth.
+
+"I ought to find the connection and explode it," repeated Caradoc
+doggedly.
+
+Madden moved weakly over beside him. "No you won't. You aren't going to
+murder us all... not going to do it!"
+
+Caradoc remained motionless, his long face gray under the electric
+lights. "I fail--at everything," he mumbled.
+
+Leonard sat down on the edge of the torpedo case and looked at the long,
+slender destroyer. He had a watery feeling, as if just arising from a
+long illness.
+
+"Let's get out of here," he breathed.
+
+"Wait... we must seem normal. You--you look blue--spotted."
+
+"I feel blue and spotted. I was scared--never was so scared in all my
+life."
+
+"Sit here till you get over your j-jolt."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked the American apprehensively as Smith
+arose.
+
+"I must disable this machinery and give the tug a chance to escape."
+
+"Still got that in your head?"
+
+"I must do _something_--I ought to explode that torpedo!"
+
+"You're not going to do that, Caradoc. You're not! I have no--no
+appetite to be a martyr."
+
+The Englishman made no reply, but began moving around among the
+machinery with the crowbar. Leonard stirred himself to follow.
+
+"You--you're not up to anything--not going to blow us up?"
+
+"No, I'm not going to blow you up. That's my word."
+
+Oddly enough, Madden accepted it very simply, and went back and sat on
+the torpedo case. He fell to stroking the smooth steel flank of the
+thing as if it were some animal. The thing had, as it were, refused to
+blow him to bits at Smith's request.
+
+The Englishman walked about busily, thrusting his bar in among dial
+connections, snapping brass pipes, wrecking the telephone connections.
+He laid about him viciously, knocking, crashing, smashing. Then he
+hurried back into the rear compartment, knocked to pieces the bearings
+and valves of the Deisel engine, tangled up the wiring of the storage
+batteries and the dynamo, beat off her brushes, disrupted the clutch on
+the crank shaft.
+
+It was shocking to Madden to see Caradoc smash and destroy such delicate
+and costly machinery. He went about his task with a kind of bottled
+ferocity, and in a short time the submarine looked as if it had let
+loose a cyclone. Presently the youth paused in his vandalism and glanced
+about with satisfaction.
+
+"All right," he said in a more normal tone, "if you are ready to go, get
+a wrench and a cold-chisel, smudge your face with a little oil and iron
+black, and we'll get away from here."
+
+Madden saw the importance of completing his disguise in this manner. He
+splotched his face, found the tools indicated by Smith in the locker,
+then walked out through the manhole into the passageway once more.
+
+There was no one in sight as they came out. They passed up through the
+cool refrigerating room and through the machine shop with its contented
+workmen. Madden wondered how those men would feel if they knew that a
+few minutes past, they were hanging on the fringe of eternity.
+
+The two smudged tool-bearers, who walked rather shakily to the upper
+deck, did not even provoke a questioning glance from the workmen. A few
+minutes later the boys emerged once more from the sleeping deck onto the
+boat deck. It was still deserted save for the solitary guard who paced
+back and forth in stiff military fashion.
+
+Caradoc moved down to the hanging laundry and paused under the port
+hood. He tapped it gently. From the interior came Malone's thick
+whisper. Smith passed in the tools and whispered.
+
+"Force the door open gently. Walk out as if you were sailors. Close the
+door and pretend to lock it. Meet me out here at the head of the ship's
+ladder, where the guard is stationed."
+
+"Very well, sir," came a whisper.
+
+Then Madden and Smith strolled on down toward the man with the gun. As
+they walked, Smith whispered:
+
+"When you hear me clear my throat, get within striking distance. When I
+cough, silence him. I'll help you."
+
+Madden nodded slightly, and the two drew near the pacing guard. Caradoc
+lifted hand to forehead as they passed and a little later seated
+themselves on the rail near the ladder. Madden looked down curiously and
+thought he could make out the shape of the dinghy below, but was not
+certain.
+
+The American's nerves still tingled from the torpedo incident, and now
+he glanced out of the tail of his eye at the guard, whom he would
+probably have to fight.
+
+The fellow was a broad-chested, short-necked German, armed with rifle
+and bayonet. The bayonet had a bluish gleam under the incandescent.
+
+It was a queer thought to Madden to know that within the next fifteen
+minutes, he would perhaps be under rifle fire, rowing or swimming away
+through the black night, or he might be dead. Dead, and the world would
+end for him, and the war of the world or the peace of the world would be
+all the same for him.
+
+Madden shrugged his shoulders, drew a long breath and stared out in the
+direction of the _Vulcan_. He could see nothing of the tug. The
+moon had sunk and the stars burned with a more vivid fire. The musing
+boy noted the position of the Hydra, and fancied it might be somewhere
+near midnight. Just then his guess was confirmed by four double strokes
+of the bell. There would be a change of guards. Perhaps the next man
+would not be so unsuspecting.
+
+Just then Madden observed another deck gang coming up the promenade. He
+wondered how often they scrubbed deck on this vessel. He hoped this crew
+would soon pass, as it would make escape impossible if their men made a
+break while the sweepers were in hearing. Their slow approach made him
+nervous. Suppose one of them suspected something wrong?
+
+Just then Caradoc yawned and cleared his throat. Madden looked around at
+his friend with a slight start. The Englishman did not see the
+approaching sailors. Madden frowned conspicuously, but Smith's long face
+was placid, and he cleared his throat again.
+
+The guard was now about to pass Madden. The American shifted his legs
+slightly for a position to jump, nevertheless frowning warningly at
+Caradoc. The scrubbers were fairly close now. Caradoc arose negligently
+and coughed.
+
+In the teeth of the scrub gang, Madden leaped headlong at the guard and
+his fingers gripped the man's throat. At the same instant, Caradoc
+ducked under his legs. As the foremost of the scrub gang wrenched the
+rifle from the guard's hands, Madden saw with joy that they were Malone
+and his men. The three fell with a dull thumping on the deck. The guard
+tore at Madden's fingers which crushed in his throat. From underneath,
+Caradoc panted in sharp whispers:
+
+"Overboard! Down the ladder! Quick!"
+
+As he snapped out his orders, the Englishman was working his hold up
+past the floundering guard's waist. Madden's grip was about to break
+under the strain the Teuton put on it, but his fingers clung desperately
+to the fellow's throat, for one shout would bring a hornet's nest around
+the fugitives. Just then Malone whispered hoarsely:
+
+"They're all overboard, sir."
+
+Leonard caught the soft stir of oars in the water below.
+
+"Shall Hi stick 'im, sir?" whispered Malone, grabbing the guard's
+bayoneted rifle. "Yonder, comes the new guard!"
+
+Caradoc, who had been willing to blow up a whole shipful of men, panted
+out a sharp "No!" Just then the Englishman's long fingers slipped up on
+the tendons that ran down the guard's neck from his ears. He pinched
+them sharply. The struggling man suddenly gasped and lay still. Caradoc
+leaped to his feet. Madden scrambled up. Both were dripping with sweat.
+A man with a rifle was running down the deck toward them. The fellow
+raised his rifle.
+
+"Overboard!" gasped Caradoc and took a sudden leap over the rail into
+the night. Madden followed, trusting not to hit the dinghy and kill
+himself. Malone was already scrambling down the rope ladder as fast as
+he could go.
+
+While a dive of one or two hundred feet is not uncommon, still Madden's
+thirty-five foot drop sent chill tickly sensations through his chest and
+throat. It seemed as if he would never stop falling through the
+darkness, but at last he struck the water and went down, down, down.
+
+When he finally kicked himself back to the surface and thrust his head
+out, he heard a violent whispering among the excited boatmen. A moment
+later an oar struck him under the armpit. Madden seized it, whispered
+his own name and scuttled in over the gunwale. The men were shoving
+desperately at the ship's side in an effort to get the dinghy under way.
+
+From the deck overhead came guttural shouts in German and fainter
+answers. Fortunately the guard did not take upon himself the
+responsibility of shooting down into the boat, and in a minute or two
+the refugees had assembled the oars and were rowing furiously from the
+mother ship.
+
+In the dim zone of light that belted the promenade, Madden could see a
+number of hurrying figures. Then came a sharp command, and a rifle
+stabbed the darkness with a knife of fire and a keen report.
+
+Immediately came another, then another, then several. Bullets chucked
+viciously into the water about the dinghy.
+
+Under the straining arms of four oarsmen the little boat moved briskly
+out of its perilous position. Jammed between two sailors, the boy sat
+staring back at the men gathering on the promenade. The flashing of many
+rifles kept a constant streak of light along a considerable section of
+the deck. Bullets seemed to whine within an inch of his ears. The dinghy
+appeared to be retreating at a snail's pace, and the frightened boy
+gripped furiously at the gunwale in an absurd effort to speed it up. He
+twisted about, trying to keep his shoulders in a line with the flashing
+rifles so as to offer the thinnest target. A man in the stern of the
+dinghy groaned, and slumped down into the bottom.
+
+Just then a searchlight leaped into play from the top deck of the ship.
+Its long ray shot out in a trembling cone through the darkness. It
+switched here and there with appalling swiftness. The crew in the little
+boat stared at it, holding their breaths. When that leaping ray fell on
+the dinghy it would be followed by a rain of steel.
+
+The firing on the promenade deck ceased, Waiting for the searchlight to
+direct their aim. Just then the beam fell on the _Vulcan_ with
+dazzling brilliance. The tug stood out sharply against the night, and
+she proved to be much closer than Leonard had fancied. The little
+rowboat had been traveling faster than he thought.
+
+Then the brilliant circle left the tug and, began crawling carefully
+over the water toward the dinghy.
+
+The crew stared at the approaching light as stricken birds in a snake's
+cage. Just then Caradoc said in a low tone. "Let every man slide into
+the water and swim for the _Vulcan_."
+
+The men in the stern slipped into the sea first with muffled splashes.
+The men amidship climbed over the side and went in headfirst. The
+oarsmen shipped their oars and took the water. Madden made a long dive
+over the side and shot well away from the little boat. When he came up,
+he looked around. The fringe of light was just playing on the bow when
+Caradoc leaped. According to English traditions, he was the last man to
+leave his vessel, even though it were only a dinghy.
+
+An instant later, a queer metallic ripping sound broke out in the mother
+ship. Madden looked back quickly. From the top deck there was a jet of
+fire, as if someone were turning a hose of flame in the direction of the
+small boat. Leonard looked back at the dinghy. It appeared as if the ray
+of light were beating the little vessel into splinters. It seemed to
+crumble into itself, to wither, to go to dust, and the water beneath it
+beat up in a froth through its shattered hull.
+
+A head bobbed up near Madden, and Caradoc's voice observed collectedly.
+
+"They're chewing it up with a machine gun. You'd better dive
+again--travel most of the way to the tug under water. They'll be picking
+us up, one at a time, in a moment, with the same stream of steel."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+NERVE VERSUS GUNPOWDER
+
+
+Fifteen minutes later a dozen men were kicking exhaustedly in the water
+on the port side of the _Vulcan_, shouting in urgent voices for
+ropes. A few were already clambering up the bobstays. There was no reply
+from the utterly terrorized men on the tug, then came the whiz of
+missiles thrown through the air.
+
+"Hogan! Mulcher! Galton! Ropes! Give us your ladder!" bawled Madden at
+the top of his authority.
+
+"Is--is that you, Misther Madden?" chattered Hogan.
+
+"Yes, yes, ropes, before we drown!"
+
+"Was that you shootin' at us over there?"
+
+"They were shooting at _us_! They hit two or three of us! Hurry!"
+
+"And who's all that wid ye? Faith, the wather's alive wid min!"
+
+"We're the crew of th' _Vukan_!" "Throw down ropes!" "Shut up and
+throw down ropes, ye bloody Irishman!" howled an angry chorus.
+
+"Th' crew o' th' _Vulcan_, and thim all dead, these weeks ago! Sure
+if it's a lot o' ghosts----"
+
+But others of the crew summoned enough courage to fling down aid to
+their old comrades, and soon the men came crawling up the dark sides of
+the tug and dropped limply inboard.
+
+The utmost excitement played over the crew of the dock when they
+identified the former crew of the _Vulcan_. The air was full of
+excited questions and tired answers, but presently the word got out. It
+was "War." The news passed from mouth to mouth and grew in
+portentousness. War! Nations were at war! These men had escaped from a
+German warship!
+
+It was unbelievable. It was stunning. Presently Caradoc shouted out in
+the darkness for Malone, Mate Malone. The cockney answered.
+
+"Put your firemen at the furnace! Set your engineers to work on the
+engines. We must have steam up and be away in an hour!"
+
+The two crews fell into silence, and Malone ordered his men below. Some
+of the dock's crew hurried off with the others to cut down coal in the
+bunkers. Another gang fell to work; pulling in the sea anchor. But over
+all their various activities hovered the vast consternation of war.
+
+Caradoc had climbed to the bridge of the _Vulcan_ and stood staring
+silently at the bulk of the mother ship that was barely discernible
+through the night. The searchlight had been switched off. Neither ship
+showed a signal. From below came the muffled sounds of men working at
+the furnace, and in five or ten minutes a film of smoke trickled out of
+the _Vulcan's_ great funnel.
+
+Madden climbed up on the bridge beside Caradoc.
+
+"How long before the submarine will be out?" he asked in a low tone.
+
+"Small boats will come first," replied Smith. "That's why they shunted
+off the searchlight--to surprise us."
+
+"Will they try to board us?"
+
+"Certainly. We'll have to defend ourselves with anything we can pick up,
+sticks, knives, hand spikes--"
+
+At that moment Malone appeared from the other end of the bridge.
+
+"We'll have steam up in an hour," he announced, glancing up at the
+funnel.
+
+"An hour?" thought Madden. "That's time enough for us all to be killed."
+
+Caradoc said to the mate: "Go forward and tell the men to arm
+themselves, then take position along the rail to repel boarders. Tell
+them to look sharp for grappling hooks and throw them down."
+
+"And what will they arm with, sir?"
+
+"Use anything you can find, hand spikes, knives, sticks. They might
+throw lumps of coal. A cricket player ought to give a good account with
+a lump of coal."
+
+"Very well, sir," grunted Malone and he hurried down on deck.
+
+A few minutes later the men were scurrying around to their positions.
+One or two men had gone down for a sack of coal, a queer ammunition that
+might possibly effect something. On the other hand, Leonard knew the
+attacking force would come armed with mausers, rapid fire guns,
+grappling hooks, swords. A onesided fight was brewing.
+
+The American looked anxiously at the funnel; a ribbon of black smoke
+filtered out into the air.
+
+"Madden," said Caradoc, "they will make the hardest fight around the
+anchor ports and amidships. Which position do you prefer to defend?"
+
+"I believe I'll take the forecastle."
+
+"Good, I wish you luck."
+
+"Same to you."
+
+As Madden moved down the ladder to the deck, he heard, above the murmur
+of the busy men, the strong measured beat of a ship's cutter approaching
+the tug with deliberate swiftness.
+
+There were some good men stationed to defend the forecastle, Hogan,
+Mulcher, Greer and two or three of the _Vulcan's_ former crew whom
+Madden did not know. As the American approached in the gloom, two men
+came up, laden with sacks, and poured out a pile of coal on deck. Every
+lump was about the size of a baseball.
+
+Hogan recognized Madden in the darkness. He was exuberant now that he
+had learned his enemies were human beings and not ghouls.
+
+"Do ye think those Dutchmen will be able to put up a daycent foight,
+Misther Madden?" he inquired hopefully.
+
+"They have plenty of arms, Hogan."
+
+"Sure, that'll hilp 'em some. But Oi'm going to knock th' head off the
+spalpeen that firrust sticks his mug over that rail."
+
+"Your chance is coming," said Madden soberly, as he listened to the
+increasing noise of the oars.
+
+"Now, men," directed the American, "lie flat down behind the rail and
+use your sticks and hand pikes to prize off grapnels. They will shoot
+your hands."
+
+"Very well, sor," breathed several voices.
+
+The noise of the oars grew louder until it sounded immediately beneath
+the defenders. Hogan stood up suddenly, leaned over the rail with a lump
+of coal in each hand, and threw down viciously. There was a whack as one
+lump hit the boat, and a grunt as the other struck some man. In return
+came a terrific crash of rifles, and bullets spattered the iron plates
+of the _Vulcan_. Fortunately Hogan had flopped down on deck in
+time.
+
+At that instant, the searchlight of the mother ship swept the
+_Vulcan's_ deck with startling brilliance. The first volley had
+perhaps been the signal, and the fight was on.
+
+There came a clanging of grapnels on the rail over the crouching
+defenders. Madden flung down the one nearest him, but others came flying
+through the air to take its place. The prostrate men worked busily
+dislodging the flukes. The fusillade from below prevented their getting
+on their knees, and they were forced to lie on their backs as they
+worked at the hooks. It seemed some sort of queer game: the attackers
+flinging up scaling irons, the defenders flipping them down. Madden had
+dislodged two or three, when Mulcher cried out for help.
+
+The enemy had succeeded in catching a fluke on the rail, and putting so
+much weight on it that the cockney could not prize it off. Immediately
+Hogan and another defender crawled to Mulcher's aid like big lizards.
+They thrust in sticks and spikes and prized vigorously, while the
+bullets were drumming on the plates outside.
+
+It stuck and Leonard started to their aid, when a hook in his own
+territory demanded his attention. Just then a head came up over the rail
+just above Hogan and Mulcher. The German had turned his automatic on the
+defenders when Hogan's shillalah caught him on the temple. He reeled
+backwards, his pistol spitting into the air. He knocked down the whole
+line of men below him amid crashings, shoutings and splashings in the
+water below. The moment the weight was off, Mulcher loosed the grapnel
+and flung it down into the confusion.
+
+The hail of bullets was immediately renewed, and more hooks came flying
+over. The iron rails rang like a boiler shop, and the steel missiles
+glanced off whining like enormous mosquitoes. Madden whirled his head
+for a glance aft.
+
+The same sort of drama was taking place amidship, boarders were climbing
+over the rail and arms, sticks, and iron spikes snapped out of the inky
+shadows and smote them. The invaders fired blindly into the darkness
+that rimmed the deck. As to whether they were killing or maiming
+Caradoc's crew, Madden could not tell.
+
+One thing, however, he did observe, that aroused an anxious hope in the
+boy's heart. A heavy column of smoke ascended from the tug's funnel, and
+a tongue of steam played in its edge.
+
+A frenzy of impatience seized Madden. If the _Vulcan_ could only
+get under way and escape the fight! Why didn't they start at once! In
+the vivid light, he saw the steering wheel turning, apparently of its
+own accord, and he knew that someone was manipulating the hand grips
+from the bottom side.
+
+From those slight signs of preparation, Madden's attention was suddenly
+whipped back to his business, by the sight of two figures climbing on
+over the prow of the _Vulcan_. These men had no doubt caught a hook
+in the anchor port and had climbed up without opposition.
+
+The invaders stood clearly limned by the searchlight, trying to pick out
+a target for their fire, when Madden reached for the coal pile. The
+American had once been pitcher for his college team, and the lump of
+coal crashed under the first man's jaw and he dropped backwards as if
+hit by a piece of shrapnel. The second gunman banged at the shadow where
+Madden was hid. The bullets sang about the American's ears, when
+Deschaillon's ostrich-like kick flashed through the light and caught the
+sailor in the pit of the stomach. The automatic dropped from his hand,
+and he crimped up like a stuck grubworm.
+
+But while the defenders were occupied with this little flank attack,
+half a dozen hooks were firmly lodged on the rail, and at least eight
+men were mounting swiftly. At their head came an officer waving a sword.
+The firing from below suddenly ceased, lest they hit their own men. In
+the silence that followed, Madden heard the hiss of rising steam, and
+from somewhere the tinkle of a bell.
+
+Suddenly out of the shadows, the whole force of the defenders leaped at
+the Germans and attacked them as they strode over the rail. There was a
+clattering of revolvers, a thwacking of sticks and iron pins, and the
+smashing of thrown coal.
+
+Then the combatants grappled hand to hand on the rail of the tug,
+swinging eerily in and out like wrestlers, a strange sight in the
+beating searchlight.
+
+Madden closed with the officer, and by good fortune caught his right
+wrist, so the fellow could not shorten his sword and stab him. The
+American kept trying to twist the German's arm and make him drop his
+blade, but the fellow had thrust his left hand under Madden's arm pit
+and reached up and caught him about the forehead. The result was a back
+half nelson, and put Madden's neck under a terrific strain.
+
+In return he choked his adversary, but Madden's mastoid muscles slowly
+gave way before the German's punishing hold. His head bent back, while
+he clung desperately to the sword hand and crushed in the fellow's
+gullet. There was a roaring in Madden's ears that was not from the
+fighting men. His neck and back slowly curved backward under the strain.
+Had it not been for the menace of the sword, he could have wriggled out
+with a wrestler's shift, but if he loosed the right hand... Madden
+wondered if he could fall backwards and still maintain his hold on the
+sword. If he could ever get down without being stunned by his fall, his
+strangle hold would give him an immediate advantage. He swung backwards,
+but the fellow did not go with him, but began a furious struggle to
+loose his weapon. Madden clung grimly. His whole body dripped with
+sweat, as he held away the sword and tried to choke the fat neck of his
+antagonist. He shoved the fellow's throat with all his power, trying to
+break the nelson, but the pressure jammed his own head back till a hot
+pain streaked through the base of his skull.
+
+At that moment a tremor ran through the tug, and there came a
+chough-choughing in her stack. Immediately followed a great shouting and
+a frantic pelting of grapnels from the sea below. Madden knew that the
+_Vulcan_ had at last got under steam, and would probably escape.
+This came to him dimly as his left hand, which had been struggling to
+fend off the sword, gradually lost its grip on the German's sweaty
+slippery wrist.
+
+Along up and down the rail, he knew that the men battled with varying
+results. Came dimly to his roaring ears shouts, groans and blows. In
+another minute the sword would split his ribs.
+
+A breeze sprang up. The _Vulcan_ was gathering headway.
+
+He was bracing his last efforts against the force that was bending him
+double, when a long-legged figure rushed from amidship, seized the
+swordsman around the waist, and with a mighty heave, flung the fellow
+upward and outward into the sea, falling end over end--a grotesque
+gyrating figure in the searchlight, still waving his sword.
+
+"Down! Down! Everybody!" yelled Caradoc, as he waded up the rail,
+overthrowing the last of the boarders.
+
+Madden and the defenders fell prone on the deck, and it was not too
+soon. The moment the boarding party was definitely repulsed, there broke
+out a crashing volley from the long boat, and their bullets played a
+ringing tattoo over the ironwork. Then the tug drew steadily away from
+their assailants.
+
+The searchlight played over the steamer for several minutes in order to
+afford a target for the small boats, but the crew lay close, only
+trusting an eye over the sheer strake now and then for a glimpse of the
+enemy. Up on the bridge, Leonard could see the steering wheel still
+turning of its own accord this way and that as the _Vulcan_
+gathered speed.
+
+Presently the searchlight was switched off, leaving the deck in utter
+darkness. The cutters had given up the chase. Leonard sat up on deck and
+wriggled his sore neck this way and that. He could see nothing now save
+the stream of sparks that leaped out of the funnel and flowed aft into
+the black sea.
+
+"Men!" cried Caradoc's voice, "is anyone hurt?"
+
+"A few of us 'ave 'oles punched in us, sor!" came a reply.
+
+"All the wounded will report to Captain Black in the main cabin!" called
+Smith.
+
+There was a shuffling of feet on deck, as the men passed aft through the
+darkness.
+
+At that moment, out of the mother ship there flared another bright light
+that wavered about the horizon for a moment and finally settled on the
+_Vulcan_. The wounded men dodged below the rail again, but no
+bullets came.
+
+This light was not stationary. It crept down through the inky sea toward
+the fugitives and grew larger and brighter in their eyes.
+
+"W'ot is that?" cried several apprehensive voices.
+
+Caradoc stood erect by the rail, watching this new development.
+
+"Malone," he called to the man hidden on the bridge, "what speed can
+this boat make?"
+
+"Hi've got as 'igh as eighteen knots out of 'er, sir."
+
+"Signal 'full speed ahead' and call down to the firemen for all the
+steam we can carry."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+Caradoc looked at the light for a minute or two longer and then remarked
+to Madden.
+
+"They couldn't have repaired that submarine for several hours longer.
+They must have had two."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CHASED BY A SUBMARINE
+
+
+Wheezing, coughing, shaking in every plate, vomiting into the sky a
+trail of smoke that extended clear to the eastern horizon, the
+_Vulcan_ shouldered her way at top speed across the mazy lanes of
+the Sargasso. The tug had come a queer crooked path across that sea, and
+the lay of her smoke trail down the pearly glow of dawn still marked her
+tortuous course.
+
+Not a breath of air stirred, but the speed of the vessel sent a breeze
+whipping over the poop of the steamer where a group of battered men
+stared fixedly over the long frothing path of the screw. Several of the
+group wore bandages, two, unable to stand, sat in steamer chairs, all
+had the pale faces of all-night watchers, but every eye in the crowd
+scanned with feverish intensity the spangled ocean over which they fled.
+
+The wind snatched at the clothes and bandages of the intent men. Masses
+of seaweed swept like gray blurs down the sheer of the tug's wake. Just
+beneath them the propeller rushed with watery thunder.
+
+"Yonder she rises!" cried one of the watchers, pointing at two wireless
+masts that rose like the fins of a racing shark above the green surface
+of the Sargasso.
+
+"Yonder she rises!" repeated a voice amidship, and more faintly still
+came the repetition from the bridge, "Yonder she rises--hard a-port!"
+
+A sudden shift of the rudder shook the _Vulcan_ from peak to
+keelson. Next moment the tug was speeding squarely across a seaweed
+field, and another crook was added to the smoke mark in the sky. The
+_Vulcan's_ blunt prow drove through the seaweed at a great rate,
+while the clammy mass swung back together not sixty yards behind the
+churning screw.
+
+A strange race had developed between the tug and submarine. When both
+crafts were on the surface in open water, the submarine had a knot or
+two advantage of the _Vulcan_ and could have picked her up in four
+or five hours. But early in the night Caradoc had discovered that the
+powerful screw of the steamer, designed, as it was, to propel vast
+loads, could make the higher speed across the algae beds.
+
+On the other hand, if the submarine dived to escape the drag of the
+weed, she again became the faster craft. But, in this instance, when the
+submarine dived, the _Vulcan_ would immediately take to the open
+lanes and do more than preserve her distance. These constant shifts and
+turns explained the ricocheting course that was marked in smoke across
+the whitening dawn.
+
+The submarine stood well out of water and skimmed along in the pink
+gleam like a long, slender missile. Its flat deck, wireless masts and
+conning tower stood etched in black against the morning light. She was
+consuming a fairish stretch of open water at a high speed.
+
+"She's game for a long chase," observed Hogan, gently shifting a wounded
+arm in its sling.
+
+Leonard Madden replied without removing his eyes from the rushing boat,
+"She has to be. All of Germany's naval plans depend on her destroying
+us."
+
+"It does--and, faith, may Oi ask why?"
+
+"If we get to Antigua and report this to the British admiralty, how long
+would this Sargasso reshipping arrangement last?"
+
+"Right you are there, Misther Madden," agreed Hogan at once. "We'd woipe
+'em out, wouldn't we? We'll make it, too. If we stood off th' little
+didapper all night, you know we can all day."
+
+Madden considered the fleet little vessel. "No, I rather think she will
+capture us."
+
+"And how's that?"
+
+"The Sargasso doesn't extend indefinitely. In fact we are nearing the
+southern limit. Have you taken a look forward?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said Hogan, taking vague alarm at Madden's tone.
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"I don't see many more big seaweed fields ahead. If she gets us in open
+water----"
+
+"Why bad luck to it! Bad luck to it, Oi say!" cried Hogan as the wind
+whistled about him; "running us out o' the bushes loike a swamp rabbit."
+
+Just then the submarine veered off her straight course somewhat to
+extend her open water run for two or three miles up the edge of the
+field. A length view showed her to be a delicate looking craft. Her
+sharp prow cut the water with hardly a ripple, in sharp contrast to the
+_Vulcan_, which shouldered up a waterfall as she lunged forward.
+
+Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, the submarine porpoised. There was a
+swash of foam, and she was gone.
+
+The men on the poop stepped around to the side of the tug and stared
+anxiously southward. Bits of flotsam mottled the blue expanse, but it
+really appeared as if the saving drift weed were thinning to nothing.
+Hogan glanced back over the way he had come.
+
+"Sure it'll be a fair field and no favor, sweet Peggy O'Neal!" he hummed
+nonchalantly under his breath.
+
+At that moment a violent shaking went over the _Vulcan_, and the
+short boat swung her prow about with tug-like promptness. It was as if
+the stout little craft had swung around on her heel.
+
+"Faith and would ye shake a man's arrum off!" shouted Hogan at nobody in
+particular. "And are ye going back to meet the friendly little wasp?"
+
+That was exactly what Caradoc was doing. He had swung the _Vulcan_
+about in less than a hundred yard circle and was plowing straight back
+the way they had come.
+
+The crowd on the poop held their breath at the daring maneuver. Tug and
+submarine were now rushing at each other full tilt, only one ran under
+water, the other on the surface. Suppose the submarine should thrust up
+a periscope for an instant--a cough of the torpedo tube and the
+_Vulcan_ would be blown to scrap iron.
+
+The men on the poop ran forward, staring with frightened eyes over the
+gray-green soggy field through which the _Vulcan_ ripped her way.
+
+It seemed fantastic to think that somewhere under that lifeless weed
+human beings spun swiftly along, freighted with the most terrific engine
+of destruction. What strange warfare! Who could have fancied that when
+savages began to use clubs to maul each other it would end in this
+diabolical refinement! Weapons, weapons, weapons--the history of man's
+undying savagery working under new forms of civilization! The war
+submarine--what a monstrous offspring of genius!
+
+The sun rose like a white-hot ball in the brazen sky and the men held to
+the rails, mouths open, and stared ahead into the safe open water,
+expecting every moment for the _Vulcan_ to spatter skyward in a
+volcano of fire and steel.
+
+The boat itself rattled along with that insensibility of mechanism that
+sometimes astounds an apprehensive man. Twenty minutes later, she turned
+into the open lane, and was rushing westward again at full steam.
+
+An immense relief spread over the crew. Galton, who stood on the bridge
+at the wheel beside Caradoc, blew out a long breath and wiped the sweat
+from his face, Farnol Greer began a windy whistling of "Winona, Sweet
+Indian Maid." Madden felt as if a weight had been lifted off his brain.
+Hogan was humming a tune. But all eyes turned anxiously seaward, to see
+where the submarine would "blow."
+
+Ten minutes later, a distant ripple in the water caught their watchful
+eyes and the wireless masts popped up, on the opposite side of the great
+weed field, four or five miles distant.
+
+A spontaneous cheering broke out on the _Vulcan's_ decks.
+
+"Double crossed! Double crossed!" bellowed Hogan.
+
+"Back track! We put one over! Hurrah for Cap'n Smith!" they shouted
+above the pounding of the engines.
+
+Everyone but Caradoc wore the fixed exultant grin of the man who outwits
+his rival. The submarine had been thoroughly outgeneraled. North and
+west of the _Vulcan_ lay the whole Sargasso for an endless chase.
+The diving boat had lost the great advantage of having the steamer
+cornered.
+
+As the crew whistled and sang the _Vulcan_ kicked a frothy course
+down the long westward lane. To every one's surprise, the submarine did
+not dive immediately, but straightened herself on the other side of the
+seaweed field on a course parallel with her quarry.
+
+Madden climbed up on the bridge and found a pair of binoculars in the
+chart room. He took these outside and trained them on the little vessel.
+Apparently the submarine intended to remain at the surface for some
+time, for she had opened her hatches and an officer had come out on the
+slender deck, and stood looking at the _Vulcan_ through a
+telescope.
+
+At the distance, Madden could see the fellow plainly, and even the inky
+shadow he threw on the deck. The officer perused the tug for several
+minutes, then allowed his glass to wander around the horizon.
+
+"They've come up for air," observed Caradoc, who had approached his
+friend from behind. "I believe we'd best stop that. Good air is a luxury
+with those fellows." He turned to Galton, who was steering. "Swing her
+into the northwest, my man."
+
+The tug answered to her helm with a quiver, and in twenty minutes more
+was nosing her way again through the ooze of weed. The German officer
+calmly completed his survey, folded his telescope, then disappeared down
+the hatch. A few minutes later the submarine dived and the ocean lay
+empty in the burning sunshine.
+
+From below came the clanging of Gaskin's gong announcing dinner. It was
+odd how the little details of life went calmly on even when life itself
+was threatened with extinction. As Madden went below to his meal, he met
+Malone who came from below, looking as black as an Ethiopian. The mate
+had been directing the firing in this extreme necessity.
+
+The two fell in together as they walked to the wash room.
+
+"I daresay those fellows wish they had sunk the _Vulcan_ when they
+had her," observed the American.
+
+"They needed 'er theirselves," explained the mate in a matter-of-fact
+way. "Those German cruisers 'ave captured a whole flotilla of prizes
+lately, and they needed th' tug to 'andle 'em for 'em."
+
+"And they didn't need the _Minnie B_?"
+
+"Oh, no, not at all."
+
+"Why didn't they sink her at once?"
+
+"Her cap'n told me she carried more copper than one submarine could
+reship, so they 'ad to wait for another, as they didn't want to throw no
+copper away."
+
+Madden nodded. "It was the second submarine I saw on the night she
+foundered." He began smiling when he thought what a bewildering mystery
+the vessel had been, and how very simple was the explanation.
+
+By this time Caradoc had joined the two men, hoping to snatch a sandwich
+and a cup of coffee before he was needed again.
+
+"Have we plenty of coal, mate?"
+
+"Bunkers are 'arf full, sir."
+
+"What's she turning over now?"
+
+"Six, seventy-five to th' minute, sir." There was a pause, then Malone
+asked, "Is there any 'opes of _them_ running out o' fuel?"
+
+"Not likely; they make the trip to Hamburg, you know."
+
+They were just turning into the smelly galley, when a startled voice
+sang out forward:
+
+"Sail ahoy!"
+
+This stopped the trio instantly.
+
+"Where away?" called Caradoc.
+
+"Dead ahead, sor!"
+
+All three turned and went running back updeck. When they regained the
+bridge, Madden stared in the direction indicated. At first the western
+horizon looked empty, then along its level line his eye caught two tiny
+marks against the brilliant sky. As it was too small for his naked eyes,
+he resorted to the binoculars once more. Caradoc was doing the same
+thing.
+
+"W'ot is it, sir?" inquired Malone anxiously.
+
+When he had focused his glasses, Madden made out two fighting
+tops--steel baskets circling steel masts, thrust up menacingly over
+the slope of the world.
+
+"W'ot is it, sir?" repeated Malone uneasily.
+
+Just then Madden's eye caught the flag at the peak, as it fluttered
+under the drive of the distant ship. It was the black cross on the white
+ground, with the dark upper left quarter of the German navy.
+
+Caradoc took down his glass at the same time.
+
+"They've been using the wireless," he stated evenly, "to run us in a
+_cul de sac_. I might have known German cruisers were close
+around." He looked steadily at the distant fighting tops, then turned to
+Galton.
+
+"Steer due north, quartermaster."
+
+After a moment, he said to Malone:
+
+"When you go below, send me up coffee and a biscuit."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE LONE CHANCE
+
+
+Rushing up the slope of the world in a battle line that covered a wide
+sector of the southwestern horizon, steamed four German battle cruisers.
+They were four sea eagles dashing at a little water beetle of a tug--the
+hammer of Thor swinging forward to crush an insect. The submarine had
+signaled by wireless the whole German South Atlantic fleet to destroy
+the tug.
+
+Only in the face of this demonstration did Madden realize that a great
+German naval stratagem hinged upon the fate of the little English boat.
+The slow, clumsy little _Vulcan_ would decide the fate of millions
+of dollars worth of English shipping. The little vessel was freighted
+with huge consequences.
+
+At first glimpse of the battle line, the _Vulcan_ had sheered
+about, and now rushed northward, stringing her black smoke flat behind
+her. Up from the south, the submarine followed on the surface, although
+she could not make as good time through the weed as did the
+_Vulcan_. However, the burden of destroying the English craft had
+been transferred to the cruisers that came rushing forward at at least
+twenty-five knots an hour.
+
+As Madden stood on the bridge in the skirling wind, the little
+_Vulcan_, the seaweed drifts and the cruisers reminded him of
+nothing so much as a rabbit flying across cotton rows in front of four
+greyhounds; only here there were no friendly briar patches or fence
+corners in which to double or hide. Never had the Sargasso appeared so
+vast, so empty, so brilliant, so hot.
+
+"Any chance?" he shouted to Caradoc above the rumble of machinery and
+the whistling of the wind.
+
+"There's always a chance! They might foul in these weeds!" he nodded
+aft.
+
+"Improbable."
+
+"Lloyds would hardly insure us," admitted the commander dryly.
+
+At that moment, as if to lend point to the remark, came a sharp clap of
+thunder off their port bow. Madden whirled quickly. A ball of white
+smoke, the size of a balloon, drifted up in the air a quarter of a mile
+distant.
+
+The American stared at the smoke quite wonderstruck, then looked around
+at the distant ships that had not yet topped the horizon.
+
+"Did they shoot this far?"
+
+"A request to heave to."
+
+"Are you going to do it?"
+
+At the bursting of the shell, the men on deck came walking aft to the
+superstructure, with the apprehensive gait of men getting under shelter
+from blasting operations.
+
+Caradoc leaned over the rail of the bridge. "Greer!" he shouted, "go to
+the flag locker, get out a union jack and show our colors on the peak!"
+
+The men pulled up at this, and half a dozen men, two or three of them
+crippled, hurried to carry out the order. In a few minutes they came
+running back on deck with the flag. They tangled the sheets after the
+manner of landsmen, but finally the red pennant traveled skyward. There
+was a brief hoarse cheering from the cockneys.
+
+The flag was scarcely at the peak, when above the throb and rumble of
+the machinery, Madden's ear caught a queer droning noise, and a moment
+later came a deafening crash about two hundred yards to the starboard.
+The water beneath it was beaten to a foam, while another balloon of
+smoke slowly expanded and thinned in the breathless air. A long time
+after the bursting of the shell, Leonard heard the grumble of the cannon
+that had fired it."
+
+"Now, lads," shouted Caradoc, "go below and bring up some rockets!"
+
+The men set off with a will, but Madden viewed the situation without any
+thrill of patriotism to gild a death under the union jack. The cruisers
+were slowly coming into full view. Through his glasses he could now see
+their turrets and the black gun ports.
+
+"What's the idea, Smith? You can't fight with rockets?"
+
+"Some English vessel may see us," answered Caradoc shortly.
+
+Madden was still more astonished. "What good would that do?" he called
+above the wind. "She'd be captured, too."
+
+"Certainly," agreed the Englishman brusquely, "but if she had a
+wireless, she might report the situation to the Admiralty before they
+sank us."
+
+Madden removed his binoculars and stared at his friend. "Are you staking
+your life on as long a chance as _that_?"
+
+"My boy," said Smith, in an oddly matured tone, "when the safety of
+one's country is at stake, one man's life doesn't amount to
+_that_!" he snapped his fingers. "If there's a point to be gained,
+you accept any chance automatically--or no chance at all."
+
+The American returned no answer, but there flashed into his mind the
+legend of the Tyrian who beached his galley in order to save the secret
+of Cornwall. Caradoc's narrative was oddly prophetic of the fate of the
+_Vulcan_. And Madden wondered with a quirk of grim humor if there
+were a foreigner aboard that Tyrian's galley, and what _he_ thought
+about the sacrifice.
+
+There was another jagged report as a shell burst just aft the tug, then
+a missile of some thousands of pounds shrieked through the air just
+above the stumpy masts and filled the sky with fire and thunder a
+hundred yards ahead.
+
+Out of the cabin came the rocket bearers, quite over their fright by
+now, and acting with the nervous steadiness which acute danger brings.
+One of the sailors from the regular crew of the tug moved along the
+rail, mounting the fire signals one after the other for shooting.
+Immediately behind him came Hogan, using his one good hand to fish
+matches from his watch pocket and light the fuses.
+
+The first rocket lit with a sputter, for a moment its fiery blowing
+filled the deck with smoke, then it darted skyward, with a tremendous
+swis-s-sh! Up, in a long black column it went, into the very heart of
+the hot brazen sky, then it exploded with a faint pop, and a black head
+of smoke expanded at a prodigious height. In the midst of the
+smoke-filled deck, Hogan was applying his match to another. So as the
+tug plowed forward, tall slender pillars of smoke, crowned with swelling
+palm-like heads, arose to dizzy heights out of her path.
+
+By this time huge shells were bursting about the _Vulcan_ with
+crashing monotony. Sometimes the dodging little vessel ran through the
+pungent gases of the shells that were sent to destroy her. Now and then
+the giant missiles exploded under water and sent furious waterspouts
+leaping over her decks. Something touched the top of her steel mainmast
+and snapped it off as if it were a straw. A few minutes later the crew
+had cleared the union jack from the wreckage and had it flaunting
+defiantly from the forepeak.
+
+It was an odd defiance, a tugboat's challenge to a German battle line.
+The nibbling of a mouse once set a lion free. Here was a mouse
+endeavoring to net a whole herd of lions.
+
+The cruisers did not overhaul the little vessel as rapidly as Madden had
+anticipated. The _Vulcan_ skurried through the seaweed fields,
+dodging this way and that in order to take advantage of every lane of
+open water, but the unwieldy battleships could not accept small
+advantages, and were forced to plow straight ahead, through weed or wave
+as it came.
+
+Thus the cruisers still fired at extreme range, and the tug escaped
+destruction as a gnat might jiggle between raindrops and survive a
+summer's shower.
+
+Amid steady crashes, Madden awaited stoically for the shot that would
+erase the _Vulcan_ from the face of the sea. There came another
+splintering shock; the upper half of the foremast made a curious jump,
+and came down with its rigging and plunged overboard in the rushing
+water. The obstruction instantly choked down the tug's speed. Every man
+in the crew seized axe, saw, anything, and rushed forward in a fury of
+impatience, hacking, chopping, sawing, working through the wreckage and
+cutting the ropes with jackknives, in an effort to clear the tug of
+debris. After an intolerable while, the last ratlines snapped like
+pistol shots, the whizzing end of a rope struck a sailor and laid him
+out as if clubbed, then the foremast fell away and the _Vulcan_
+rushed forward again.
+
+"Look ahead, Madden!" shouted Caradoc in the uproar. "We've got to run
+among thicker fields than these!"
+
+By this time the tug's rockets were spent and the German cruisers were
+rushing down a line of gigantic smoke-palms that were planted by the
+little vessel.
+
+"You might as well surrender," called the American coolly. "You won't
+find a merchantman if you go in thicker fields--you know that."
+
+"Surrender!" bawled Smith. "Do you think they shall have this tug to
+haul their prizes? Let 'em sink us, and then pick us up in boats! Look
+ahead!"
+
+The American turned his binoculars obediently and scanned the west and
+north. His eyes traversed skein after skein of the brilliant colorful
+patternings, but he was unable to find a very closely netted region. He
+was about to announce his discovery to Caradoc when his lense focussed
+on another grim menace almost dead ahead.
+
+He stared at it with a curious dropping of hopes that he had not
+suspected were in his breast.
+
+What he saw was another fighting top. That pertinacious submarine had
+apparently surrounded the elusive _Vulcan_ with German fighting
+ships.
+
+Leonard removed his field glasses and stood for a full minute filled
+with a keen frustration. The splitting din about him roared on
+uninterruptedly, and yet somehow he had been hoping the _Vulcan_
+would escape.
+
+"What do you make of it?" bawled Smith, who had been watching the
+submarine, which was once more drawing dangerously close.
+
+"We can't go in this direction, Smith!" shouted Leonard hopelessly.
+"There are more ships in that direction."
+
+"Warships?" demanded Caradoc swinging his spyglass around.
+
+"Yes, fighting tops!"
+
+Both lads focused in the new direction.
+
+"Those Germans do everything thoroughly," shouted Leonard, "even to
+sinking a tug!"
+
+But instead of despairing, Caradoc, after a single glance, rushed over
+to the speaking tube to the boilers. He blew the whistle shrilly, then
+folded it back and screamed down.
+
+"Malone! Malone! Malone!"
+
+"Very well, sir!" came back the muffled voice through the pipe.
+
+"Give her all steam possible! Blow her up! Speed her, man, speed her!"
+
+"Very well, sir!" returned the same voice.
+
+"Caradoc! Caradoc! Are you insane!" bawled Leonard. "Do you imagine you
+can outrun two squadrons of German cruisers?"
+
+"German cruisers! That's England's line of battle, Madden! England! Old
+England! God let me get to them and tell 'em what I know, then I don't
+care what happens!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BATTLE
+
+
+"Th' signal book! Get the signal book!" bawled Greer amid the uproar.
+
+"W'ere is it?"
+
+"In the flag locker! Chuck the flags out, too! Scatter 'em out!"
+
+"W'ot you want to signal?"
+
+"Submarine--tell 'em to look out for submarines!"
+
+Hogan, who held the volume in the crook of his bandaged arm, licked his
+thumb and jabbed through the leaves in distracted attention. "There
+aren't no code letters for submarine!" he cried at last--"not in here!"
+
+"No," shouted Black, the _Vulcan's_ former captain, "that's an old
+code--wasn't any submarines then!"
+
+"Spell it out!" commanded Caradoc from the bridge. "Sharp about it!"
+
+The men worked in a clutter of buntings, assembling the flags in nervous
+haste. Black laid out the nine letters and the crew hurriedly hooked
+them together. Ten minutes later, they strung the signal between the two
+splintered masts with a queer drunken gala effect.
+
+The _Vulcan_ was no longer the German squadron's sole target. Down
+on the Teuton battle line thundered five English cruisers, filling the
+north with rolling smoke, their turrets spangled with cannon flashes,
+prows shearing white walls of foam.
+
+The sky above the _Vulcan_ was filled with the drone of hurtling
+shells. They sounded as thick as swarming bees. The cannon fire of the
+approaching English ships mounted to a ragged roar. When the on-coming
+line was less than five miles distant, Caradoc shouted an order to
+Galton and the little tug swung around broadside on, displaying her
+warning signal like a billboard. Through the battle smoke, Madden saw an
+answering flag go up on the nearest ship. A cheer broke out from the
+crew at this recognition of their work.
+
+"They'll pass it around among the fleet by wireless!" shouted Caradoc in
+Madden's ear.
+
+"Do you know that ship, Smith?" called Madden excitedly.
+
+"The _Panther_--held a commission on her once."
+
+"Is it possible?" Madden peered at her through his glasses with renewed
+scrutiny.
+
+They were so close now that the American could pick out the crew of
+range finders working in the fighting tops; he could glimpse the huge
+guns in the forward turrets as they flashed and roared amid shrouds of
+smokeless powder haze. Madden realized he was seeing what every landsman
+dreams of seeing: a naval battle. For some inscrutable reason, Caradoc
+had headed the _Vulcan_ clear around and now faced the enemy, like
+a rat terrier amid a battle of mastiffs.
+
+Madden turned aft as the tug swung around to follow the fortunes of the
+_Panther_. He could see German shells exploding now and then on her
+decks; sometimes they would strike the sea and send up typhoons of water
+and weed. As he gazed a small-calibre gun was struck, and there was
+nothing but a ragged smoking hole where the port had been. An instant
+later, the mizzen top was shrouded in an emerald flame, and when the
+smoke cleared, only a jagged stump of iron thrust skyward. The crew of
+range finders had been wiped out in an instant. Several hours later,
+Leonard learned that the whole German gunfire had been focussed for
+several minutes on the _Panther_.
+
+But now that gray, smoke-wreathed cruiser rushed on indomitably, flanked
+by her thundering consorts. The half-naked men on the _Panther's_
+decks looked curiously small in their huge rushing fortress. German
+shells battered her decks amid spangling green flames but could not stop
+her. As she overtook the _Vulcan_, the concussion of cannon fire
+and bursting shells grew so terrific it ceased to be noise. It resolved
+itself into blows, terrific air movements that smote Madden all over. It
+pounded his ear drums with physical blows; it tore at the bridge of his
+nose, jarred his teeth, sent shooting pains through his head, for he was
+not wise enough to stuff his ears with cotton and hold his mouth open.
+It shook the pit of his stomach and nauseated him. It was a sound
+cyclone. Added to this the sickening acrid smell of niter explosives
+filled the atmosphere.
+
+On came the _Panther_ through the green foam of German fire,
+mingling the mighty vibrations of her engines, the hiss of leaping walls
+of water, tempests of cannon fire and vindictive shriek of leaping
+shells.
+
+Caradoc leaned over to Madden and yelled something at the top of his
+voice. Madden shook his head as a signal that he could not hear. Smith
+repeated so loudly that his long face grew red with the strain. It was
+impossible to catch a word. Besides, Leonard's ears ached as if the
+drums were ruptured.
+
+Caradoc caught up a speaking trumpet and held it to his friend's ear.
+
+"Don't look at the _Panther_!" cried a drowned voice. "Watch ahead
+for the submarine!"
+
+The submarine! Sure enough, there was the submarine, silent stiletto,
+waiting beneath the sea to stab this fiery monster. Madden's heart
+leaped into his throat. Was it possible so slight an antagonist could
+engulf the battle cruiser?
+
+The American turned and stared ahead over the shell-beaten sea with all
+his eyes. The little _Vulcan_ was now racing along some half-mile
+in front of the English battle line, her warning signal still stretched
+between her splintered masts. She rushed at top speed, vibrating under
+the stress of her engines. Five or six miles ahead the German squadron
+had turned and was flying southward before the superior English force.
+Flashes of fire and dull thunder still belched from their after turrets.
+
+Leonard tried to confine his attention to the adjacent waters in careful
+search for the diving boat's periscope, but the terrific spectacle
+across the smoky spangled sea gripped his eyes beyond his control.
+
+The ship on the eastern wing of the Teuton line was in flames. The fire
+burst out of the gun deck ports, lapping up over the boat decks in long
+red curling tongues. Her cannon fire had ceased, and from what Leonard
+could see, he thought the English ships had quit firing at her. She
+still fled southward, however. Smoke began to roll out of her turrets,
+and her crew came swarming out on her deck like a disturbed ant's nest.
+Through his glasses, Madden saw them hunched against the fire, working
+to launch a boat, when of a sudden there was a blinding flare; a huge
+cloud of smoke leaped from the sea, and after four or five minutes, a
+thunder heavily audible even amid the roar of battle rumbled in Madden's
+ears. It was the solemn note of a battleship destroyed by its own
+magazines. When the smoke cleared away there was left nothing save
+tossing waves and bits of flotsam here and there.
+
+The horror of the tragedy was lost for Leonard in another, more
+appalling scene. The right central battleship had lost control of her
+steering gear, and now she ran wildly amuck in the fleeing line like a
+drunken giant of steel.
+
+Through accident, or by the last shift of seamanship, she veered about
+broadside on, her huge guns still belching defiance. In crazy flight,
+she barely missed one of her own squadron, then rounded back in a great
+circle for the English line. No doubt her crew did not try to stop her,
+hoping that her unguided charge might work some damage to the enemy.
+
+On she came, against the focussed storm of English cannon, her prow,
+forward turrets, bridge, masts, fairly disintegrated under a bastinado
+of twelve and fourteen-inch shells. Yet it seemed as if she would
+survive it all and ram some English cruiser, when a cloud of steam broke
+out of her hold. A lucky shot had exploded her boilers. Her wild charge
+ceased instantly, but her sub-calibre guns still chattered defiance at
+the crushing odds. Giant shells were now pounding her at point-blank
+range. At some stroke of a cruiser to the right of the _Panther_,
+the German ship heeled heavily on her starboard side.
+
+Through his glasses, Madden could see the
+sailors still struggling to work the guns, though
+scores of them were wiped from the deck at
+every English shell. Amid clouds of smoke the
+black cross of the German battle flag fluttered
+undaunted.
+
+In a few minutes the enemy listed until her guns were at such a high
+angle they could no longer be trained against the enemy. Her forward
+turret was completely blown away. Bursting shells kept a constant glare
+around her. Her boiler and furnace rendered her hold untenable, for her
+crew came out of the smoke and formed orderly platoons on her crippled
+deck. Shells swept gaps through their files, but they closed again in
+regular formation, standing oddly erect on the up-tilted deck. There
+was not a gun they could man, not a blow could they strike, yet the men
+stood firm in the steel cyclone sweeping across their shattered deck.
+Then Madden turned his lens on a group a little to one side of the main
+formation, and his eye caught the gleam of silver horns, the rise and
+fall of a drummer's arm, the fierce beating of a director with a baton.
+It was the ship's musicians. The band was playing, the men were chanting
+the battle hymn of the empire; out of the heart of the foundering
+cruiser, out of the souls of the passing warriors rose triumphantly,
+"_Die Wacht am Rhein_."
+
+Sudden tears filled the eyes of the American and dimmed the splendid
+sight. He turned impulsively to his friend.
+
+"Caradoc! My God!" he screamed in his ear, "why don't they quit firing!"
+
+"Their flag is still flying--no doubt the halyards are shot away!"
+
+Even while Smith screamed, a sudden and startling attack was launched
+from the _Panther's_ rapid fire and machine guns. They sounded
+a shrill treble amid the profound shaking bass of the giant cannon.
+The boys looked sharply about to see the object of this abrupt attack,
+when they suddenly heard the shrill whistling of steel all about their
+ears.
+
+With the utmost horror, Madden saw every tiny port spouting continuous
+flame in his direction. Steel frothed the sea all around the
+_Vulcan_. Missiles struck the little tug and glanced off with sharp
+musical twangs. The crew of the little boat, who swarmed on deck,
+wonderstruck at the battle of the giants, suddenly darted to cover with
+wild yells.
+
+"They're crazy! They're daft!" screamed Madden. "Shooting at us! What's
+the matter with 'em?"
+
+Caradoc, also, seemed to share the madness. He suddenly spun his wheel
+to the left, veered in a sharp circle, and dashed straight toward the
+course of the _Panther_ into the thickest of the hail. Leonard
+stood beside him, frozen stiff, when straight ahead, he suddenly saw a
+periscope show for an instant, then disappear in a little swirl of
+water. The submarine had come into the action.
+
+The tug rushed straight through the bullet-rumpled water to the point
+where the metal fin had disappeared, like a terrier dashing at a
+rathole.
+
+With the disappearance of the submarine's "eye," the fusillade ceased
+abruptly. The great cannon were firing more slowly now and there came
+short intervals of comparative silence in the battle.
+
+From the bridge Caradoc bellowed fiercely at his men: "Spread around the
+rail--keep a sharp lookout for the submarine!" The crew came back with a
+will now that they learned the bombardment had not been intended for
+them.
+
+In the meantime the tiny David had put the great Goliath to flight. The
+_Panther_ was endeavoring to save herself. She veered out of the
+thundering battle line and zigzagged easterly, in full flight from any
+enemy that she could almost drop down one of her smokestacks.
+
+And the little _Vulcan_ swung about in an effort to keep up with
+her principal. On she rushed, shaking and puffing like a locomotive, her
+bright flags flying the submarine warning, as if the speeding giant
+ahead of her were likely to forget it.
+
+Suddenly Hogan bawled out: "By th' port! By th' port, sir! There she
+rises!"
+
+Another shrill storm from the giant showed that the gunners aboard the
+_Panther_ also saw the periscope.
+
+Again the _Vulcan_ dashed at the diving terror as it disappeared
+and the cruiser swung clear around in a northerly tack. Her commander
+was trying to outguess the man under the sea.
+
+A strange game of blind-man's-buff the three dissimilar crafts were
+playing. Caradoc assumed the submarine pilot would guess that the
+_Panther_ had fled north, and he sent the tug spitting along a
+course that would lie between the cruiser and her enemy. The
+_Panther_ was forced to repass the _Vulcan_ in the new maneuver.
+The giant and pygmy were flying along at top speed, fairly abreast,
+scarcely five hundred yards apart.
+
+Leonard took his eyes off the starboard sea a moment to look at the lion
+which this mouse was trying to nibble free, when suddenly, not thirty
+yards on the _inside_ of the tug popped up the periscope.
+
+The American rushed to the wheel, jerked it to the starboard. "Yonder!
+Yonder!" he bellowed in Caradoc's ear, pointing.
+
+[Illustration: The Battle.]
+
+Again the guns shrilled forth; a steel sleet wailed about the
+_Vulcan_. Into the teeth of this blast, the tug circled and lunged.
+
+With fascinated eyes, Madden watched the periscope cut a swirling circle
+on the midst of the beaten water and straighten on the _Panther_.
+
+Now the metal eye was directly under their swaying starboard. A moment
+they sped side by side, toward the imperiled cruiser. Madden could
+almost have touched the wireless masts. A whine of bullets ripped one of
+their lifeboats like a saw and sputtered through the superstructure.
+
+The periscope, which thrust six or seven feet out of water, disappeared
+under the swell of the _Vulcan's_ hull. Suddenly the tug swung her
+blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went
+flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent
+tragedy.
+
+A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just
+as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up
+straight with the _Panther_. A great belching of bubbles wallowed
+up through the turbulent sea as a sign that the torpedo was launched.
+
+A heart-stopping moment, in which the diving boat, the darting shadow of
+the torpedo, the blocking prow of the _Vulcan_ was clear.
+
+A titanic upheaval of water; volcanic fires leaping out of the heart of
+the deep; a roar so absolutely appalling that it reduced the battle to a
+whisper!
+
+The prow of the _Vulcan_ reared up and bent back over the main
+deck. In the same instant, out of the cauldron sea, an enormous
+cigar-shaped object was flung end-over-end, as a child flings a spindle.
+There was one flashing glimpse of conning tower, smashed plates. Then a
+clap of surging air that seemed as solid as oak picked Madden up as if
+he had been thistledown. He felt himself whirling through space.
+Somehow, he caught a glimpse of a string of signals that had been blown
+from the wrecked masts of the shattered _Vulcan_. Then he felt a
+stinging blow of water as he hit the sea.
+
+The submarine had destroyed both herself and the tug with her first
+torpedo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE VICTORIA CROSS
+
+
+Shocked, stunned, half blinded, Madden found himself kicking in the
+water amidst a wreckage of spars, planks, buoys, with here and there a
+swimmer struggling to stay on the surface. The whole mass of flotsam
+swung slowly around the whirlpool where tug and submarine had sunk.
+
+The circling water was filmed with oil, the life-blood of the stricken
+submarine. Presently the concavity in the ocean mounted to level, and
+its rotation slowly died away. The American found that his arms had
+unwittingly clasped something which proved to be an empty tin canister
+with a screw top. He hung to it apathetically. His ears bled from the
+concussion of the torpedo, and it was with difficulty that he focussed
+his eyes on anything.
+
+Presently he became aware of a voice calling his name. It seemed a long
+way off, but when he looked around he saw Farnol Greer quite close to
+him. The thick-set black-headed fellow motioned for Madden to approach,
+and the American kicked himself and his float in that direction. A
+little later he saw that Malone was with Farnol, and that the two were
+supporting a third man.
+
+"Lend us a 'and, 'ere, Madden," called Malone; "our chap's knocked out."
+
+"Who is it? Oh, it's Caradoc!" Madden stared down into the still,
+upturned face with a dull emotionless feeling. He was too numb to feel
+or sympathize. "Is he dead?" he finally asked.
+
+"Wounded, sir," replied Greer.
+
+At that moment, the Englishman moved slightly, opened his eyes.
+"We--stopped it, Madden."
+
+"Are you badly hurt?" inquired the American, becoming more nearly normal
+himself.
+
+"Punch through my shoulder."
+
+"Were you hit in the explosion?"
+
+"One of the _Panther's_ machine guns--ricocheted, I think."
+
+"What rotten luck!" growled Madden.
+
+Smith reached his good arm to the float. "Had it all my life in little
+things, Madden, but the _Panther_--that torpedo----"
+
+"Boat ahoy!" called Farnol Greer suddenly.
+
+Leonard looked about and saw that the _Panther_ had laid to, a good
+two miles distant, and two of her cutters were coming back to pick up
+the survivors. A blue-jacket on the sharp bow of the little vessel waved
+an arm at Farnol's cry, and presently the rescuing party was alongside.
+Caradoc went up first, then Farnol, Malone and Madden, who automatically
+clung to his tin canister.
+
+The sailors from the warship were chattering excitedly over the
+miraculous preservation of the _Panther_.
+
+"If that tug had been 'arf a second later," declared one, "she'd 'ave
+'ad us, Sniper, sure--to th' port, there, Bobby, there's another chap
+kickin' in th' water."
+
+One of the sailors had a roll of bandages, and he now moved over to
+Caradoc and stooped over the wounded man.
+
+"You're pinked," he said in a tone of authority. "I'll take a turn o'
+this linen around your shoulder." Suddenly he paused as he glanced into
+the sufferer's face. "Why--why, hit's the Lieut'nant!" he stammered.
+Then he stood erect and saluted properly. "Would you 'ave a bandage,
+sir?" he asked in a different one.
+
+Caradoc assented wearily and shifted his shoulder for the band of linen.
+The fellow must have been a surgeon's helper, for he applied the strip
+rather dexterously as the cutter steamed about picking up the rest of
+the _Vulcan's_ crew who had survived the catastrophe.
+
+Half an hour later friendly hands helped the waifs up the
+_Panther's_ accommodation ladder, where a group of officers and men
+waited to be of service to the _Vulcan's_ crew.
+
+The deck of the cruiser was torn and blackened from the German fire;
+here and there were sailors in bandages. Stretchers were placed at the
+head of the ladder for the tug's wounded.
+
+The crew, of the _Panther_ showed the utmost cordiality and also
+the utmost curiosity toward their visitors. A dapper young midshipman
+gripped Madden's hand as he stepped on the broad deck.
+
+"Where did that tug come from?" he inquired at once. "Most extraordinary
+sight--whole fleet pounding away at a tug--Ponsonby is my name."
+
+Madden mentioned his own, and several brother officers, seeing that here
+was an intelligent fellow, gathered about the American. Two or three
+were introduced with English formality.
+
+"If you are not too bowled over, old chap," begged a middy named
+Gridson, "explain to us how a tug ever happened in the middle of the
+Sargasso in full flight from a hostile fleet."
+
+Some of the wounded were still coming up from the cutter, as Madden made
+a beginning of the tug's story. Just then he was interrupted by
+Ponsonby.
+
+"Pardon, Madden, but who is that chap coming up--Say, Gridson, that
+isn't--why that's Wentworth!" The middy suddenly dropped his voice.
+"That's Wentworth or his ghost, fellows--off of a _tug_!"
+
+Madden looked. Smith was coming on the deck under the solicitous escort
+of a surgeon.
+
+"That's Caradoc Smith," said Madden. "He assumed command of the tug when
+he found out war was declared."
+
+"Smith was part of his name," explained Gridson. "Caradoc
+Smith-Wentworth was the way he signed the register. He's of the Sussex
+Smith-Wentworths. His brother took the title, you know."
+
+"Just fancy!" marveled Ponsonby. "Cashiered six months ago, comes back
+chasing submarines on a tug, a hero, from boot strap to helmet--a bloody
+hero----"
+
+"Hold there, Ponsonby," cautioned another officer named Appleby. "The
+chap may be hurt seriously--you oughtn't to laugh."
+
+"Just look at the old man shaking his hand!" ejaculated Gridson, as a
+very erect gray-headed officer came down off the bridge and extended his
+hand. "You wouldn't think he had cashiered him six months ago."
+
+"I hope he gets his commission back," said Ponsonby, "but he will likely
+lose it again from tippling."
+
+"I believe he is cured," said Madden.
+
+Appleby made some reply as the little group moved forward to meet the
+wounded man. However, the surgeon and three senior officers were walking
+with him below to the ship's hospital.
+
+It required two full days to get the _Panther_ into shipshape
+condition, and during that time the entire fleet kept a sharp lookout
+for the German mother ship, but that huge mysterious vessel had
+disappeared as utterly as if the Sargasso had swallowed her up.
+
+Perhaps she did destroy herself to prevent capture, or perhaps her
+sky-blue hue allowed the fleet to sail under her very prow while she
+remained invisible. No doubt the two German warships which escaped had
+warned their consort of her danger, and she had sailed for some port in
+German Africa. At any rate she was never captured or destroyed.
+
+However, on the evening of the third day, the looming red walls of the
+floating dock appeared on the eastern horizon. It was so huge and vast
+that even the crew of the battleship burst into a cheer.
+
+Captain Ames of the _Panther_ immediately communicated with the
+admiralty and arrangements were made to tow the dock to Antigua, where
+she would be kept as a naval reserve until the end of the war and then
+allowed to proceed to Buenos Aires.
+
+The British Towing and Shipping Company was repaid for the loss of the
+_Vulcan_, and a prize of five hundred thousand dollars distributed
+among the tug's crew for sinking the submarine. Thus the dreams of
+wealth aroused by the ill-fated _Minnie B_ were realized in a small
+way by the dock's crew. No doubt Deschaillon has his frog pond, old Mrs.
+Galton her plot of flowers, and Hogan a tall hat, a long-tailed coat and
+a silver-headed cane.
+
+One week after the Battle of the Sargasso, a formal dinner was given in
+the officers' mess. At this affair two civilians were present, Leonard
+Madden and Caradoc Smith-Wentworth.
+
+Under the radiance of many electric lights, Caradoc appeared rather weak
+and bloodless. However, everyone seemed quite cheerful. The talk was
+naturally of the war. The officers were speculating upon the entrance of
+Italy and Turkey into the struggle.
+
+Presently Captain Ames touched an electric button and Gaskin, serene,
+deferential and wearing an added dignity along with his new uniform,
+entered the cabin with a basket full of ice and bottles on his arm.
+
+When his helpers had cleared the table, the fat fellow moved decorously
+from diner to diner, announcing each port of call by the subdued pop of
+a champagne cork muffled in his napkin. Madden shook his head when the
+solemn fellow bent solicitously over him. "Make mine water, Gaskin," he
+requested in an undertone, laying three fingers over his goblet.
+
+The cook changed almost imperceptibly from a straw colored bottle to a
+glittering carafe of water; then he moved to Caradoc.
+
+The Englishman hesitated a moment, glanced at Madden and said, "Same
+thing, Gaskin."
+
+Captain Ames must have observed his action, and showed his silent
+approval by requesting water for himself. A few moments later the
+captain arose.
+
+"Gentlemen," he began in his crisp military voice, "His Majesty, and all
+England, are greatly pleased at the work of the South Atlantic fleet. In
+the report of our recent victory, the commander of the _Panther_
+had an extremely cogent reason to commend very heartily the action of a
+former officer of this vessel. To be exact and fair, it was an act upon
+which the safety of this vessel and her crew depended."
+
+A little polite applause filled the slight interval in the speech.
+Caradoc colored somewhat and the captain continued.
+
+"It is pleasant to me to announce that His Majesty, through the
+Admiralty, has seen fit to reward this act by tendering Caradoc
+Smith-Wentworth his commission as first lieutenant in His Majesty's
+navy."
+
+A real outburst of applause greeted this announcement, but the captain
+held up his glass and raised his voice for silence.
+
+"And I have the further pleasure to tender to Mr. Smith-Wentworth, at
+his Majesty, George the Fifth's, express command, the Victoria Cross for
+conspicuous bravery upon the field of battle."
+
+"Let us drink his health!" he finished above the congratulatory uproar
+that broke out on the announcement.
+
+The men held their goblets at arm's length.
+
+"Here's to you, Wentworth!" "To your deserved honor, my boy!" "To your
+well-earned promotion, Wentworth!" they chorused heartily.
+
+In the lull of drinking, Madden lifted his water to his friend.
+
+"Here's to the _remittance_ man," he proposed solemnly, "who
+vanishes to-night and leaves a _Man_."
+
+Caradoc's long face was deeply moved as he looked into the eyes of the
+youth whose life Providence had so intimately entwined with his own.
+After a moment he responded steadily enough, "With all my heart, Madden.
+And here's to the land which you taught me how to serve, my country--my
+home--Old England!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cruise of the Dry Dock, by T. S. Stribling
+
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