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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40572 ***
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      http://archive.org/details/flyingbosunmyst00masoiala
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLYING BO'SUN
+
+A Mystery of the Sea
+
+by
+
+ARTHUR MASON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Henry Holt and Company
+1920
+
+Copyright, 1920
+By Henry Holt and Company
+
+
+
+
+         DEDICATED
+      TO THE MEMORY OF
+         MY MOTHER
+    WHOSE SYMPATHY MADE
+    IT POSSIBLE FOR ME
+       TO GO TO SEA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+        CHAPTER I. OFF FOR THE SOUTH SEAS, WITH FEW CLOTHES
+                   BUT A STOUT HEART                                   3
+
+       CHAPTER II. THE STORM--TATTERED AND TORN BUT STILL ON
+                   THE OCEAN                                          13
+
+      CHAPTER III. BEECHAM'S PILLS ARE WORTH A GUINEA THOUGH
+                   THEY COST BUT EIGHTEEN PENCE                       25
+
+       CHAPTER IV. PERSONALITIES--OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF
+                   OLD CHARLIE                                        33
+
+        CHAPTER V. THE SHARK--"TO HELL WITH SHARK AND SHIP"           44
+
+       CHAPTER VI. THE TIN-PLATE FIGHT--ONE-EYED RILEY TRIUMPHS       52
+
+      CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH THE CAPTAIN WOUNDS HIS HAND               61
+
+     CHAPTER VIII. THE BO'SUN LIGHTS--THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH             68
+
+       CHAPTER IX. THE SHOWDOWN--SWANSON TAKES THE COUNT              76
+
+        CHAPTER X. BURIAL AT SEA--IN WHICH RILEY OFFICIATES           83
+
+       CHAPTER XI. ASTRAL INFLUENCES--THE CREW'S VERSION OF
+                   THE UNKNOWN                                        91
+
+      CHAPTER XII. THE COOK'S WATCH--MATERIALISM VERSUS
+                   ASTRALISM                                         100
+
+     CHAPTER XIII. HIGHER INTELLIGENCE--A VISIT FROM OUT THE
+                   SHADOWS                                           107
+
+      CHAPTER XIV. CHRISTMAS DAY--OUR UNWILLING GUEST THE
+                   DOLPHIN                                           117
+
+       CHAPTER XV. CRIMP AND SAILOR--THE COOK'S MARXIAN EFFORT       123
+
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE MONTANA COWBOY--A HORSE-MARINE ADVENTURE      130
+
+     CHAPTER XVII. THE FRAGRANT SMELL OF THE ALLURING PALMS          141
+
+    CHAPTER XVIII. SUVA HARBOR--THE REEF AND THE LIGHTHOUSES         146
+
+      CHAPTER XIX. INTRODUCING CAPTAIN KANE, MRS. FAGAN AND
+                   MRS. FAGAN'S BAR                                  151
+
+       CHAPTER XX. REMINISCENCES OF OLD CLIPPER DAYS                 158
+
+      CHAPTER XXI. UNLOADING CARGO--AGAIN THE MASTER--NATIVE
+                   POLICE.                                           163
+
+     CHAPTER XXII. SHORE LEAVE--THE WEB-TOED SAILOR--THE
+                   MISSIONARY SHIP                                   173
+
+    CHAPTER XXIII. FIJI ROYALTY--LOCAL COLOR--VISITORS TO THE
+                   SHIP                                              187
+
+     CHAPTER XXIV. A DRIVE WITH CAPTAIN KANE--RAZORBACK
+                   RAMPANT                                           194
+
+      CHAPTER XXV. HOMEWARD BOUND--THE STOWAWAY                      202
+
+     CHAPTER XXVI. THE MYSTERIOUS HINDOO                             211
+
+    CHAPTER XXVII. THE HURRICANE                                     220
+
+   CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MASTER RETURNS                                228
+
+     CHAPTER XXIX. THE HOME PORT                                     238
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+
+Hardship is a stern master, from whom we part willingly.
+
+But it is often true that real men learn thereby to handle their
+fellow-men, to love them, and to make the most of their own manhood. In
+no class is this more marked than among those who have been formed by
+the training of the sea.
+
+Hundreds have lost their lives there, hundreds more have been coarsened
+through ignorance and because of rough living, but the survivors, who
+have used what God gave them of brain and muscle to the best advantage,
+are a lot of men to be trusted mightily.
+
+I am proud to have known such men, and to have lived the life that made
+them what they are, and, above all, proud to have sailed before the time
+when steam began to drive the square-rigger from the seas.
+
+Therefore I have ventured to set before the public a narrative of my
+own experience, somewhat condensed, but little changed, even in some
+parts that may seem hard to believe, but sailors are known to be
+superstitious. Should this book fall into the hands of other sailors, I
+think it will interest them, and landsmen may care for the truthful
+record of a day that is almost gone.
+
+
+A. M.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLYING BO'SUN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OFF FOR THE SOUTH SEAS, WITH FEW CLOTHES BUT A STOUT HEART
+
+
+Her name was the "Wampa," graceful to look at, with her tall and stately
+masts, rigged with fore and aft sails. She was known as one of the
+fastest schooners sailing to the Southern Seas.
+
+That afternoon in December found her loading lumber in a rather quaint
+saw-mill town on the Puget Sound. Her Captain, who was a Swede, was tall
+and handsome and had none of the earmarks of the old salt. He seemed to
+be very nervous as he walked up and down the poop deck. Once he called
+out, "Olsen, put one more truck load on, then get your deck lashings
+ready. She is down now, she has eight inches of water on the after
+deck." With that he jumped ashore saying, "If I can find a mate we will
+sail this evening."
+
+As I stood there viewing her yacht-like lines and noticing the shark's
+fin on her bowsprit, I was satisfied that she was in a class by
+herself.
+
+As he turned to go I said, "Captain, do you need a mate?"
+
+"Are you a mate? If you can get your trunk and bag on board we will sail
+within an hour."
+
+"But I have neither bag nor trunk. If you want me you will have to take
+me as I stand."
+
+"Have you a sextant?"
+
+"No, but I can borrow one from the tug boat captain. He never leaves
+sight of land. I am sure he will rent it to me for this voyage."
+
+"Very well," said he. "Get your sextant, and we will find some way of
+getting rubber boots and oil skins," and off he strolled up to the
+Company's office.
+
+Two hours later, with the deck lashings set up, tug boat alongside,
+everything ready for our voyage, our Captain sang out "Let go forward,
+starboard your helm, Murphy,"--the tug boat gave a "toot, toot," and we
+were off for the open sea.
+
+By this time I had a chance to size up the crew. The second mate was a
+short, thick, heavy-set Dane, seemingly a good sailor. Our cook was a
+greasy, dirty-looking German and, from what few words I had with him,
+showed that he was a Socialist. The sailors were Dagoes, Irish, Swedes
+and Russian Finns.
+
+With the wind freshening as we neared the open sea, the Captain sang
+out, "Mr. Mate, loose and set the foresail and main jib." With the
+gaskets off I gave the order to hoist away. I noticed one very large
+Swede hardly pulling a pound. I say "large"; he stood six feet or more
+and weighed upwards of two hundred. "What is your name?" said I.
+
+He looked me over and said, "Why?"
+
+I said "You must pull some more or you will never know what your name
+was."
+
+I decided that now was the time to take care of this sea lawyer. The
+foresail was about half up. I gave the order to make fast.
+
+I said to this big Swede, "Come here, I have something to say to you."
+
+"If you want me come and get me."
+
+"Very good," and with that I caught him with a strangle hold and dragged
+him across the deck. Then I released him. "Now tell me what your name
+is."
+
+He looked amazed and humiliated, and in a hoarse voice said, "Swanson."
+
+I said, "Swanson, I want you to work, and work your share."
+
+He said, "You ban good steerman."
+
+Steerman is the Swedish for mate.
+
+"Well then, Swanson, let us get those sails up."
+
+Just then the Captain came forward saying, "What in Hell is the matter?
+Why don't you get those sails on her?"
+
+"Captain," I replied, pointing to Swanson, "this man did not quite
+understand me. Hoist away on your throat and peak halyards."
+
+Up went the foresail as if by magic, then the main jib and inner jib,
+the tug boat gave three long whistles, signalling "let go your hawser."
+
+I heard the Captain sing out, "Mr. Mate, up with your mainsail and
+spanker."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+In a few minutes all sail was set.
+
+The Captain gave the course south one-half west and went down below. I
+immediately took my departure, and entered it in the log book. The wind
+was free, about two points abaft the beam. I put the taff-rail log over
+the side and settled down for our trip to the sunny south. As it was
+getting late in the evening, I went forward to talk to the second mate
+about picking our watches.
+
+It is always customary for the mate to take the ship out, and the
+captain to bring her home. This meant that I would have eight hours
+watch the first night out. The mate has always the privilege of choosing
+the first man, and by doing this the big Swede fell to the second mate.
+Because I was sure I would have trouble with him, I tossed him into the
+starboard watch. After the watches were set, and the wheel relieved, I
+heard the supper bell ring.
+
+As I was hungry I made for the cabin, and took a seat across from the
+Captain. Out of the pantry came the Socialist cook with two plates of
+soup.
+
+The Captain was not very talkative, thinking I was a low-grade mate,
+since I was minus trunk and bag. The cook eyed me rather curiously when
+I passed up the onion soup. I understood later that it was only on rare
+occasions he ever gave way to cooking so delicate a dish. Should any
+one be so misguided as to refuse to eat it they might count the galley
+their enemy forever. With supper over I went on deck to relieve the
+second mate. He looked to me as if there would be no trouble between him
+and the cook and onion soup. As it was now my watch from eight to
+twelve, I had the side lights lit and my watch came on deck to relieve
+the wheel and lookout.
+
+I may mention here some of the sailors in my watch. Well, Broken-Nose
+Pete took his turn at the wheel, and One-Eyed Riley took the lookout.
+Then there was Dago Joe and a Dane by the name of Nelson, who seemed
+rather quiet and unassuming. Also Charlie who was forever looking up at
+the clouds.
+
+The wind was freshening up and she was listing over with the lee rail in
+the water. I went aft to take a look at the log. She was doing ten knots
+and doing it easy. "Well," thought I, "if she can do ten with lower
+sails and topsails, she will do twelve with the fisherman's staysails
+on." So I gave the order to bend and hoist away and no sooner were they
+set and sheets flattened aft than she began to feel them. It seemed
+that those staysails were all that were holding her back to show me she
+was worthy of the shark's fin on the flying jib boom. The Captain was
+walking up and down the poop deck smoking a cigar, seemingly in good
+humor with his new mate. As I was going aft, I noticed that she had
+broached to somewhat. She seemed to want to shake herself clear of all
+her canvas. I ran to the man at the wheel: "What in Hell is the matter
+with you? Can't you steer?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, sir, I can steer very well, but since you put those staysails on
+her I can hardly hold her in the water."
+
+"Keep her on her course," I warned him, "or you will hear from me." I
+went to the rail to look at the log. It was getting dark, and I had to
+strike a match to see. Sure enough, she was making twelve and a quarter.
+
+Just then the Captain came up and told me to take in the staysails, as
+she was laboring too much. I was going to protest, but, on second
+thoughts, I bowed to the ways of deep-water captains: "Obey orders, if
+you break owners."
+
+"Captain, you have a pretty smart little ship here."
+
+"Yes," said he. "She passed everything on her last trip to Mayhew, New
+Caledonia, but one has got to know and understand her to get the best
+out of her."
+
+Right here I knew he was giving me a dig for daring to set the staysails
+without his orders.
+
+Tossing the butt of his cigar overboard, he started to go below saying
+"Call me if the wind freshens up or changes. But call me at eight bells
+anyway."
+
+The night grew brighter. A half moon was trying to fight her way out
+from behind a cloud, ever-hopeful of throwing her silver rays on the
+good ship "Wampa." With the sound of the wash on the prow, and the easy
+balanced roll, with occasional spray from windward, I felt that after
+all the sea was the place for me.
+
+Just then the lookout shouted, "Light on the starboard bow, sir."
+
+I said, "All right," and reached for the binoculars. A full rigged ship
+was approaching on the port tack.
+
+"Port your helm, let her come to." When we had her on the lee, I sang
+out, "Steady as she goes."
+
+As we passed under her quarter, what a beautiful living thing she seemed
+in the shadows of the night,--and in my dreaming I was near forgetting
+to keep our ship on her course again. By this time hunger, that familiar
+genius of those who walk the decks, was upon me again. Nothing tastes
+better than the time-honored lunch late during the watches at night. I
+found for myself some cold meat, bread and butter, and coffee in the
+pantry.
+
+I called the second mate as it was nearing eight bells, twelve o'clock.
+I felt tired and sleepy and knew that nothing short of a hurricane would
+awake me from twelve to four.
+
+Up on deck Dago Joe struck eight bells, I took the distance run on the
+log, and was turning around to go down and call the Captain, when
+Swanson came aft to relieve the wheel. He looked me over very critically
+and muttered something to himself. As I went down the companion way to
+report to the Old Man, I saw the Socialist cook standing in my room.
+
+"Here, Mr. Mate, is a blanket for you. I know you have no bedding."
+
+I thanked him and thought, "Well, the Socialist cook is kind and
+observant and Socialism is not bad after all."
+
+I called the Captain, then went to my room for a well-earned sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE STORM: TATTERED AND TORN BUT STILL ON THE OCEAN
+
+
+Olsen, the second mate, called me at four o'clock. When I came on deck
+the sky was overcast, and looked like rain. From the log I found that
+she had made thirty-eight miles during the middle watch.
+
+"If she keeps this up for forty-eight hours," I thought, "we shall be
+abreast of San Francisco." She could not travel fast enough for me,
+going South, for with only one suit of clothes and a Socialist blanket,
+latitude 46° north in December was no place for me.
+
+The cook came aft with a mug of coffee that had the kick of an army
+mule. It is seldom the cook on a wind-jammer ever washes the coffee pot.
+Pity the sailor, forward or aft, who would criticize the cooking! One
+must always flatter the pea-soup, and the salt-horse, and particularly
+the bread-pudding, if one expects any consideration.
+
+The Captain stuck his head out of the companion-way, and from his
+expression I knew that he was minus the mocha. "How is the wind?" said
+he.
+
+"It has hauled a little aft, sir, about northwest."
+
+"Get the staysails on and steer south," and he dived below, looking for
+the cook, I suppose.
+
+I went forward to see if any sails needed sweating up. I called
+Broken-Nosed Pete and Riley to take a pull on the main boom topinlift.
+
+"Pete, what happened to your nose?"
+
+"It is a long yarn," said he, "and some night in the tropics I shall
+spin it."
+
+It was now breaking day. The cook was coming forward to the galley,
+singing "Shall we always work for wages?" Behind him strolled Toby, the
+big black cat, who seemed very much in command of the ship. Seven bells,
+and breakfast, some of the same beefsteak, with the elasticity of a
+sling-shot, and other trimmings.
+
+The Captain seemed more talkative. "I understand that we are bound for
+Suva, Fiji Islands," said I.
+
+"Yes, and I expect to make it in about fifty days, for with this breeze
+and a smooth sea, we shall be with the flying-fish before long."
+
+"That will be very convenient for me, Sir."
+
+("No, no more coffee, thank you, Steward.")
+
+("Steward" is more appropriate than "Cook," and gives him a dignity
+befitting his position in the presence of officers, while forward he is
+pleased to be called "Doctor." But that title is seldom used, as it
+depends upon the good-nature of the crew.)
+
+"Warm sailing will indeed be convenient for you," said the Captain. "How
+did you lose your clothes? Shipwrecked? Here, Steward, take away this
+Bourbon brand," (handing him the condensed milk). "I see the flies have
+found it."
+
+"No, sir, not shipwrecked. My last trip, from Guaymas, was full of
+incidents, especially in the Gulf of California. It took us six days,
+with light, baffling winds and thunder-storms, to make Cape St. Lucas.
+While we were rounding the Cape, lightning struck the mizzen-top,
+destroying the mutton-leg spanker and setting fire to the chafing gear.
+Luckily for us, the sails were damp. As it was the lightning ran forward
+on the tryatic stay, and broke our forestay at the night-head."--
+
+"Steward," interrupted the Captain anxiously, "don't feed Toby too much.
+That old lime-juicer that was lying next to us at the loading dock was
+alive with rats, and I am afraid that we have our share. You say,"
+turning to me, "that the forestay was carried away?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and that was not all. When she pitched aft, the spring-stays
+buckled, and snapped our topmast clean out of her. We let all the
+halyards go by the run. I have been going to sea for many years, but
+never have I seen a mess like the old 'Roanoke.' With the topmast
+hanging in the cross-trees, sails, booms and gaffs swinging all over the
+deck, she looked as if she had been through a hurricane. But after
+cutting away the topmast rigging, and letting the topmast go by the run
+(watching the roll, of course, so that they would be sure to clear the
+bulwark rail), we got a ten-inch hawser from the lazarette to replace
+the one that had been carried away. With the deck cleared, and lower
+sails set, she was able to lay her course again, and after thirty-two
+days we crippled into port.
+
+"While lying in Bellingham, our port of discharge, I was relating my
+experience to a few old salts, men with whom I had sailed in other seas.
+There happened to be a land-lubber who questioned my story. He called me
+a liar. I said, 'You beat it.' He reached for his hip pocket. Instantly
+I swung for his jaw. He went down and I walked away. Later I met the
+night policeman. 'You had better get across the line till this blows
+over,' he said. 'The doctor says that he has a broken jaw.'
+
+"In Vancouver shipping was light, so I took a job in a logging-camp
+running an old ship's donkey-engine hauling logs. Wells, the logging
+company went broke, and I with them, and that is my reason for not
+having any clothes."
+
+"What became of the man with the broken jaw?" asked the Captain.
+
+"I heard that he bought a gas motor cycle; they were new in the East
+then. He had one shipped to Bellingham, and ran it without a muffler. It
+made such a noise that horses ran away, and chickens flew about, and
+eventually the townspeople ran him out of town."
+
+It was now past eight bells, and from the angry sound of Olsen's feet on
+the deck above, I knew that he could take care of what steak was left.
+
+"Well," said the Captain, "that reminds me of an experience I once had
+on the 'Glory of the Seas,' off River Plate. Not an electrical storm,
+but worse, a squall without warning. You have to relieve Olsen now, so I
+will finish some other time in your watch below."
+
+The cook was in the pantry, humming his favorite song, omitting the
+words.
+
+It was my watch below, but I remained long enough on deck for Olsen to
+finish his breakfast. Away towards the eastward the sky was blood red,
+and the northwest wind was dying out. If the old sailor's adage holds
+good, then "A red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." I had been
+familiar with those signs in the Northern Pacific for years. In the
+winter time it usually meant a gale. When Olsen returned, I laid out the
+work to be done during the forenoon. "Get together your reef-earrings,
+have your halyards coiled down ready for running," I said. "We may have
+a blow before long."
+
+"Yaw," said the Dane, "I don't like the sky to the eastward."
+
+In the cabin, the Captain was sorting over some old letters. "Here,"
+said he, "is a picture of my two boys. They are living in Berkeley.
+Their mother died two years ago while I was in South America. The doctor
+said it was T. B." With tears in his eyes he said, "I suppose it had to
+be, but don't you know, they are quite happy. They are living with their
+aunt. Oh, children forget so soon, so soon." Picking up the pictures,
+and with a look of hatred in his eyes he said, "The sea is no place for
+a married man."
+
+At seven bells I came on deck to take the meridian altitude of the sun.
+It was now partly cloudy, and hard to get a clear horizon, as the sun
+would dive in and out from behind the clouds. What little wind there was
+came from the southeast.
+
+"I guess we shall have to rely on your dead reckoning," said the
+Captain, "the barometer is dropping, and it looks as if we are in for a
+gale."
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon it commenced to blow from the
+southeast. We took in staysails, topsails and flying-jib. She was
+close-hauled and headed southwest. In the first dog-watch the wind
+increased.
+
+"Call all hands," said the Captain, "we must reef her down."
+
+The spanker-boom projected over the stern about twenty feet. It was no
+easy matter reefing this sail, with the wind and sea increasing and her
+shipping an occasional sea. There was some danger of one's being washed
+overboard and very little chance of saving a life. But now was the time
+to find out if our sailors were from the old school. I loved the storms,
+and the wild raging seas and angry skies,--no sea gull ever enjoyed the
+tempest more than I.
+
+"Here you, Johnson, Nelson and Swanson, lay out on the boom, haul out
+and pass your reef-earring, and be quick about it."
+
+Swanson said: "I'll not go out there. The foot-rope is too short."
+
+"By God, you'll go out there if I have to haul you with a handy billy."
+
+"Yes, damn you, get out there," roared the Captain. "You call yourself a
+sailor; it is a beachcomber you are!" The Captain worked himself into a
+rage. "By Heavens, we will make sailors of you before this trip is
+over."
+
+Swanson with a look of rage, decided that an alternative of the boom-end
+with an occasional dip into the raging sea underneath and elevation on
+high as she rolled, was much preferable to what he could expect should
+he refuse to obey orders. With the spanker and mainsail close-reefed we
+were pretty snug.
+
+"If the wind increases it will be necessary to heave her to; that will
+do; the watch below," said I.
+
+Old Charlie was coiling down ropes. "Mr. Mate, look out for Swanson, I
+just heard him say that this ship is too small for you and him. He is
+very disagreeable in the foc'sle. He and One-Eyed Riley came near having
+a scrap over the sour beans at noon today."
+
+Three hours later the wind increased to a living gale. Before we could
+let go the halyards it blew our foresail away.
+
+"My God," cried the Captain, "and brand new. Just begged my owners for
+it. Six hundred dollars gone to Hell! Get the mainsail and inner jib
+off lively. Heave her to under the main jib." Speaking to the man at the
+wheel: "Don't let her go off, damn you, let her come to, and put your
+wheel in 'midships."
+
+Throughout the night the wind kept up, with the seas battering our
+deck-load, until there was danger of having it washed overboard. But
+about seven o'clock in the morning it abated some. The old ship had the
+expression of a wet water-spaniel coming out of the water before shaking
+himself. Defiant as she was to race away from storm and strife, she was
+hopelessly crippled by the mountainous sea that was trying to swallow
+her up in its angry roll.
+
+"Never mind about anything," said the Captain, "get the damned old spare
+foresail up anyway, we will have to patch it and get it onto her. Olsen,
+how do the stores and flour look? Yes, it is aft on the port side."
+
+"The rats have torn two sacks of flour open, sir."
+
+"Great God, have they gotten in there already? Run and get Toby, and put
+him down there, I will attend to the lazarette hatch myself from now
+on."
+
+So saying, he walked, to the rail and levelled his glass at an
+approaching ship.
+
+Out of the murky horizon loomed up the U. S. transport "Dix," with
+troops bound for Manila to aid in the capture of Aguinaldo. As she
+passed us to windward Old Charlie remarked, "There will be few aboard of
+her to eat breakfast this morning, the way she pitches and rolls."
+
+It was plain to be seen that the Captain was in no mood for comedy this
+particular morning. With the loss of his new foresail, and rats in the
+flour, and worst of all forgetting to wind the chronometer, a fatal
+result of his preoccupation with the storm, he was the picture of a man
+doomed to despair, and I, for one, approached him very gingerly.
+
+With a look of disdain at Old Charlie, he said, "To Hell with breakfast!
+All you beachcombers think of is eating. Haul the gaff to windward. Bend
+on the old foresail, or we shall be blown clear across to Japan."
+
+Towards noon the wind let up a little, enough to carry lower sails. Even
+with a heavy sea we were able to make five and one-half knots, but were
+off our course four points, as the wind was still south southeast.
+
+"Mr. Mate, the Captain wants to see you."
+
+"All right, Olsen."
+
+In the cabin the Captain was walking in a circle. "Damn it all," he
+cried, "why couldn't _you_remind me to wind the chronometer?"
+
+"I did not know that you had one on board, sir."
+
+"Hell and damnation! Go to sea without a chronometer? Who ever heard of
+such a thing!" Swinging his arms wildly over his head, he said, "Where
+in blazes did you go to sea?"
+
+"Captain," said I, "I have made a twenty-thousand mile trip without a
+chronometer with old Captain Sigelhorst in the bark "Quickstep," not so
+long ago. We can surely get our position from a passing ship, and if
+not, we can make land, say off San Diego, and easily correct our
+position for Greenwich time."
+
+"Well, it is a damned poor business, anyway."
+
+Just then we were interrupted by Olsen, who reported to the Captain that
+Swanson was sick and refused to come on deck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BEECHAM'S PILLS ARE WORTH A GUINEA THOUGH THEY COST BUT EIGHTEEN PENCE
+
+
+In those days, twenty years ago, sailing schooners had few men before
+the mast, and every man was called upon to do a man's work. If one of
+the crew were sick, it usually caused a great deal of trouble both fore
+and aft. In bad and stormy weather it was not uncommon for the old and
+seasoned sailor to play sick, provided he could get away with it. The
+usual symptom was lame back, so that the appetite might not be
+questioned. When the ship would emerge into fine weather, marvel of
+marvels, the sailor would recover in a moment.
+
+"Sick, is he?" said the Captain, and pointed to me, saying: "Go forward
+and see what the trouble is."
+
+"I am sure," I replied, "that he will be on deck before long, sir."
+
+"All I have in the medicine chest is pills, yes, damn it, pills," and he
+waved me forward.
+
+In the forecastle Swanson was lying in his bunk with the blankets pulled
+up over his head, sound asleep, and beside him, lying on a bench, was
+all that remained of a breakfast piece of hardtack, and a large bone,
+with teethmarks in the gristle.
+
+"Well," thought I, "if he is getting as close to the bone as this, he
+can't be very sick." I awoke him, saying: "What is the matter with you,
+Swanson? Why aren't you on deck? This is not your watch below."
+
+He rolled over as if in great agony.
+
+"Mr. Mate, I ban very sick man."
+
+"Where are you sick?"
+
+"I ban sick on this side," pointing to the right side.
+
+"Stick out your tongue. Yes, indeed, you are a very sick man. Can't eat,
+I suppose." He answered me with a grunt as if in mortal pain.
+
+I went aft and asked the Captain for a few pills. "Give me five."
+
+"Hell, take ten. How is he?"
+
+"I will have him on deck in a few hours, sir."
+
+After Swanson had swallowed the last pill I said, "You are feeling much
+easier now, aren't you? Of course, this treatment will relieve you, but
+only temporarily. I am positive that you have a very bad case of
+appendicitis."
+
+This seemed to please the Swede very much. "But," said I, "it is very
+unfortunate that we are running into another storm, the pitching and
+rolling of the ship will be bad for you."
+
+He looked me fair in the eye, saying, "Why?"
+
+"Well, it may be either death or an operation for you very soon."
+
+"I tank de pain go down," pointing to his hip.
+
+"Yes, Swanson, that is the most pronounced symptom of all," I said,
+pathetically. "You lie still while I go aft and see what kind of cutlery
+the Captain has."
+
+"Captain," I asked, when I was once more on deck, "what kind of pills
+were those that you just gave me for Swanson?"
+
+"Beecham's pills, and five is a very large dose. I have had them by me
+for years. As a boy I was introduced to them by the North Sea
+fishermen," he proceeded solemnly. "You know they advertise them on the
+sails of luggers, smacks and sloops, in fact, wherever you look in the
+North Sea, Irish Sea or English Channel you can always see Beecham's
+Pills go sailing by."
+
+Towards evening the weather broke clear with the wind hauling towards
+the northeast and eastward, and the prospects looked good for better
+weather. About nine o'clock the cook came running aft, crying, "Mr.
+Mate, Swanson is very sick, and the crew think that he is going to die."
+
+"What is the matter with him now?" said I, very coolly.
+
+"He has terrible cramps. Russian-Finn John and Broken-Nosed Pete have
+all they can do to hold him in the bunk."
+
+"You go to the galley, steward, and get a quart of warm water. You can
+give it to him while John and Pete hold him, and I have no doubt that in
+this case Riley will be glad to help. Is that he groaning?"
+
+"Yes," said the Steward, trembling, "he is in terrible agony."
+
+"Have you given him anything to eat for supper?"
+
+"My God, yes, he has gorged himself on corned beef and cabbage."
+
+"Well," thought I, "he has reason to roll and groan."
+
+"Get that hot water," I continued aloud, "and be quick about it. If
+anything happens to him after this you will be to blame. The idea of
+feeding corned beef and cabbage to a man with a high fever!" The cook
+waited to hear no more. All I could see was the dirty apron flying for
+the galley.
+
+The Captain, hearing us talking from the cabin, shouted out, "What is
+all that noise up there?"
+
+"Nothing much, sir; she is now laying her course with the wind free."
+This was hoping to distract him with weather conditions from asking whom
+I dared to talk with on the poop deck. Discipline must be adhered to on
+windjammers. Mates and second mates give their orders in whispers, but
+never loud enough to awaken His Majesty the Captain. The mates are held
+in high esteem by the crew when they see the Captain conversing with
+them, but for one of the crew to come and carry on a conversation with
+an officer when he is aft in his sacred precinct, the poop deck, is
+considered a crime, and ranks almost next to mutiny. Evidently he
+thought that I was giving some orders to the crew, for he closed the
+porthole, and did not ask me the question.
+
+On my way forward to see how the steward was getting along with his
+mission, and while abreast the forerigging, Old Charlie tapped me on the
+shoulder and pointed toward the forecastle saying: "Mr. Mate, Swanson is
+a very sick man. He thinks that you have given him poison, sir,
+and"--stepping close to me, "I feel that something is going to happen on
+this ship."
+
+"What makes you think that?" said I.
+
+Pulling his old hairy cap down around his ears, and settling down for a
+long yarn, he said: "In the winter of 1875 I was in a ship off the Cape
+of Good Hope. We lost three sailors overboard--"
+
+"I am in a hurry, Charlie, you will be too long--"
+
+"I have had queer dreams lately, sir," he interrupted.
+
+"Tell me some other time," said I, "I must see the Swede."
+
+Down in the forecastle Riley was comforting Swanson in the uncertain
+language of the sea, while the cook held his head, eyeing me, and saying
+very softly, "I don't think that it is the cabbage, sir."
+
+"What is it then," said I, "I only gave two grains of quinine to reduce
+his fever. Stand back, there, so that I can get a look at him. How are
+you now, Swanson?" As I said this, the words of the advertisement
+occurred to me, "Beecham's Pills are worth a guinea, though they cost
+but eighteen pence."
+
+There was no bluffing with the Swede. He was sick in good earnest now.
+"I think I ban poisoned, Mr. Mate."
+
+"No, Swanson, you have not been poisoned. You must be operated on, and
+at once."
+
+"Begob, sir," said Riley, with a wink at me, "and sure it is myself that
+knows how to carve. I will be after helping you, sir."
+
+"Thank you, Riley, it is a dirty job, and I should much prefer that you
+would do it."
+
+"Let me up," yelled the Swede.
+
+"Hold him down, men," said I. "You know that he is out of his head from
+fever, and it would be dangerous for him to get up until after the
+operation." It now dawned upon Swanson that I was in earnest about the
+operation. For a one-eyed Irishman and his enemy to cut a hole in him
+was more than he could bear. With a wild plunge that hurled his captors
+to right and left, he jumped from his bunk, and raced for his life up
+the ladder that led to the deck.
+
+Seven bells in the morning, and with a fine sailing breeze, we were
+leaving behind the sleet and storms for those who sail the northern
+latitudes.
+
+"I saw Swanson on deck this morning," said the Captain.
+
+"Yes, sir, he is better. I don't think that we shall have any more
+trouble from him in that direction."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OMENS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF OLD CHARLIE
+
+
+Four days later a tramp steamer hove in sight. We signaled him, and
+asked for his position. He signaled back, giving latitude and longitude.
+He was about a mile to the eastward of us. We set and wound our
+chronometer, and considered this luck indeed, as the Captain expressed
+it. He seemed quite happy, and, with an expression of confidence on his
+face, remarked:
+
+"Well, we are all right again. You know I was very much worried about
+forgetting to wind the chronometer. I have been master for fourteen
+years, and this is the first time that I have neglected to do it. I have
+heard from old-timers that it is considered a bad omen."
+
+"I don't believe in any such superstitions," said I.
+
+Here he called to the cook, who was throwing slop overboard from the
+galley: "Have you given Toby any water today?"
+
+"Yessir," said the cook, and cursed a large black and white gull for
+eating more than his share of the scraps that were floating by. "Toby
+wants for nothing, sir. In fact, he has been getting out of the
+lazarette lately."
+
+The Captain did not hear this last remark. He was watching the remains
+from the galley to see if there was any waste. Old sailors say they can
+tell how ships feed by the number of gulls who follow in her wake.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+(Now follow some extracts from my diary, kept during a portion of this
+trip.)
+
+For the last week we have been having fine weather. The cook and crew
+seem to be very friendly. I notice that during the dog-watch from six to
+eight they gather around the mainmast. There the cook has a barrel in
+which he freshens salt meat. In this watch he puts it to soak. This
+evening he must have been carried away with his subject, for he was
+talking loudly and very excitedly, exclaiming:
+
+"That is it exactly, and here we are. What are we getting? Nothing. And
+to think that we are the slaves of the owners--"
+
+Some one interrupted, I believe that it was the Russian-Finn, saying:
+"I'll bet they," meaning the owners of our ship, "don't have to eat this
+old salt horse three times a day."
+
+Riley voiced in with: "Begorra, and it's crame in their tay they are
+having, and divil a thimbleful do we get here."
+
+This last expression from the Irishman pleased the cook, who brought his
+fist down sharply on the pork-barrel, crying: "And, men, your only
+salvation lies in the ballot-box."
+
+The cook's ballot-box amused me. Who ever heard of a sailor voting? Out
+of ten of our crew, we had not one American citizen!
+
+Our position at noon today was 17°.24 north latitude,--longitude 142°.10
+west. The wind has been steady from the northeast for the last
+forty-eight hours. I am satisfied that this is the commencement of the
+trade-winds.
+
+During the middle watch I was very sleepy, and decided to walk on the
+deck load as far forward as the mainmast, and back again, and so on. I
+noticed one of the crew standing against the weather main-rigging. As
+the night was dark, I could not make him out, and, remembering Old
+Charlie warning about the big Swede having it in for me, I stepped over
+to the fife rail and pulled out a belaying-pin, thinking that it might
+come in handy in case this ghost-like figure started anything. But just
+then he lit his pipe, and from the rays of the match I could make out
+the features of Old Charlie himself.
+
+"Charlie," I said, "you scared me."
+
+"I have been standing here thinking, sir. Have you noticed the Bo'sun
+flying low lately, sir?"
+
+The "Bo'sun" Old Charlie alluded to is a tropical bird, snow-white with
+an exquisite tail, and flies very fast and usually very high. It is a
+common tradition among sailors that this beautiful bird is the
+embodiment of the souls of drowned sailors.
+
+"No, Charlie," said I, "I haven't noticed them."
+
+Taking a puff from his old pipe, and buttoning his overcoat around his
+neck as if expecting a squall, then looking around the horizon to make
+sure that we would not be interrupted by any wind-jammer:
+
+"Yes, sir, at noon today one came near alighting on the end of the
+jibboom."
+
+"You must have mistaken it for a sea-gull," said I.
+
+"No, sir; it was no sea-gull. I have been sailing the seas for
+thirty-four years, and I have seen and heard strange things."
+
+"Well, suppose it did light on the jibboom; it has to get a rest
+sometimes."
+
+"They have their island homes and never come near a ship, unless,"
+speaking very softly, "unless some one is going to die."
+
+"Nonsense, Charlie. Surely you don't believe in such foolishness."
+
+"I started to tell you some time back about an old ship I was in off the
+Cape of Good Hope. Maybe you remember her, she was called 'The Mud
+Puddler,'" and Charlie continued with a grin, "she was never in the mud
+while I was on her."
+
+"Yes," said I, "I remember her. She sailed from Liverpool, didn't she?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that's her; four-masted and bark-rigged. Well, as I was
+saying, we left Calcutta bound for Hamburg. One night, off the Cape, it
+was my lookout. It was a fine night with a fresh breeze, and we were
+ploughing along about eight knots. I heard two bells go aft, and in that
+ship we had to answer all bells on the foc's'le head."
+
+"Is it one o'clock so soon?" thought I.
+
+"You know," speaking to me, "where the fish-tackle davit is?"
+
+"I know where it should be," said I.
+
+"Well, that is where I was standing." (A lookout is very important on
+all ships, especially at night, when they see a light or a sail they
+report to the officer on watch.) "As I was in a hurry to answer the
+bell, not wanting the mate to think I was napping, I rushed to ring it,
+and, standing there, sir, was a man I had never seen!"
+
+"It was one of the crew playing a joke on you," said I.
+
+"Oh, no, Mr. Mate, not at all, not at all. I knew every man on board of
+her, sir, and this man was not of this world. He had a pair of
+Wellington boots on, you know the kind, all leather, to just below the
+knee."
+
+"Yes," said I, "I know the kind."
+
+"He also had a sou'wester with a neat-fitting pea-jacket. And, sir, it
+was his face that frightened me. His eyes were fiery, his beard was dark
+and thick, with heavy, bushy eyebrows."
+
+All this time I was getting very much interested in Old Charlie's story.
+"What did you do? What did you say to him?" I asked, very impatiently.
+
+"I reached in front of him to answer the bell. He spoke very mournfully,
+saying: 'You shall have a visit from the Bo'sun tomorrow;' and he
+instantly disappeared and left me with my hand still stretched out for
+the bell-rope...."
+
+I could smell the smoke from a cigar, and knew that the Captain was
+pacing the poop. I walked aft slowly, anxious to hear what happened on
+the bark "Mud Puddler." Sure enough, there was the Captain, walking up
+and down, and occasionally glancing at the compass. Evidently the ship
+was off her course when he came up from the cabin. He spoke to me rather
+harshly, saying: "Don't let these fellows," pointing to the man at the
+wheel, "steer her all over the ocean."
+
+"Very well, sir. I was just forward seeing if the side-lights were
+burning brightly."
+
+"Well, keep your eye on them, they are not to be trusted too long. And
+by the way, have the second mate get up the old spare sails in his
+morning watch; we have some roping and patching to do before we bend
+them. They are all right for this kind of weather. This breeze will
+carry us near the Equator."
+
+"Very good, sir. I will have Olsen get them up."
+
+He took one more look at the compass and went below. I went to the
+binnacle more to see the time than the compass. I was surprised to see
+that it was twenty minutes past three. I was anxious to go forward and
+have Charlie finish his story, but, seeing a light in the Captain's
+room, I was doomed to finish the watch around the man at the wheel.
+
+My rather troubled sleep was ended by a rap at the door. It was the
+cook. "It has gone seven bells. Breakfast will be ready in a few
+minutes, sir." Dressing was easy for me. In fact, all it required was
+washing and putting on my cap, for in the tropics one has little use
+for clothes, which was indeed fortunate for me.
+
+"Steward," said I, as I perfected my toilet, "what have you for
+breakfast this morning?" He hesitated before answering, and well I knew
+what was passing in his mind. "How does he dare to ask me what I am
+going to have for breakfast! I who have befriended him. What have I for
+breakfast indeed!"
+
+"Tongues and sounds," said the Emancipator, very sharply.
+
+"A breakfast fit for a king," I replied cheerfully.
+
+The word "king" was a red flag to a bull to him. The presence of the
+Captain coming down the companion-way was all that saved me from the
+fate of all reigning monarchs.
+
+Tongues and sounds of the Alaska codfish come pickled in brine and
+packed in firkins, and are sold principally to marine shipping. All that
+is required in the process of cooking is to freshen them overnight, boil
+and serve with drawn butter. They are an enviable breakfast delicacy on
+land and sea.
+
+The cook, although upset by my reference to kings, lost none of the
+dignity of serving the byproduct of the Alaska cod. The Captain had
+little to say during the morning meal, and seemed worried about
+something.
+
+On my leaving the table he remarked: "Get your palm and needle. I want
+you to work with me on the spare sails, they are in bad shape."
+
+The spare sails were indeed much in need of repair. Where they were not
+worn threadbare, they had been chewed by the rats. While we were sitting
+side by side sewing, this afternoon, we talked of many things--ships and
+shipping, and foreign ports.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "that trip that took me to South America when my
+wife died was going to be my last trip." He stopped sewing. "You see,
+she would never complain of being sick. Of course, I was away most of
+the time, spending about two weeks a year at home with her and the
+children. It was while I was home that trip, that I noticed how poorly
+she looked, and that cough, and realized how much she must have
+suffered. The doctor told me she might live for years with proper care
+and right climatic conditions. She and I talked it over and decided that
+on my return trip I would give up the sea for good, and devote my time
+to her and the children on a farm in Southern California. When I
+returned from Valparaiso and found that poor Bertha was dead, and the
+boys living with their aunt, it was more than I could stand."
+
+With tears streaming from his eyes, unconscious of the vast Pacific, the
+ship he was in, or even the crew around him, he murmured softly to
+himself:
+
+"My wife, my wife,--gone, gone." In this intense moment a ball of sewing
+twine rolled from his knee, and, reaching for it, he said: "Do you know
+that sometimes I think she is with me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SHARK--"TO HELL WITH SHARK AND SHIP"
+
+
+I was so overcome by the Captain's tears and his great love for his
+deceased wife, that I failed to hear Old Charlie calling me from the
+wheel until he attracted my attention by pointing over the stern.
+
+"What is wrong?" I asked, thinking that perhaps the log line had carried
+away.
+
+"A black fin on the starboard quarter, sir."
+
+"What is that?" said the Captain, throwing the sail aside and walking
+aft.
+
+"It is a shark, sir," said I, "and a black one."
+
+Instantly all love and human kindliness left him. Jumping down onto the
+poop deck and looking over the rail.
+
+"By Heavens, you are right," he cried, "he must be twenty feet long. Run
+to the pork barrel and get a chunk of meat while I get the shark hook."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir." In the excitement it did not take me long to reach the
+cook's salt pork barrel, and grabbing about ten pounds of salt horse I
+was aft again in a minute. The Captain was bending a three-inch rope
+into a swivel on a chain. The chain is about six feet from the hook.
+When the shark comes down with his six rows of teeth on each jaw, it
+takes more than manila rope to stop him, hence the quarter-inch chain.
+
+The Captain was very much excited. "Here, damn it. No, he will nibble it
+off the hook if you put it there. That is it. The center. Now over the
+side with it. Slack away on your line there. That is enough. Make fast."
+
+"All fast, sir," said I.
+
+In our excitement of the morning we had forgotten to take our
+observation for latitude. It was now past eight bells with the cook
+ringing the bell for dinner. The black fin was swimming around the salt
+horse, and it was easy to decide between them.
+
+"By God, there," pointing astern, "is another one," said the Captain.
+"Why in blazes don't he take the bait?"
+
+No sooner said than done. The big black fin turned over on his back and
+swallowed meat and hook, then righting himself and feeling grateful for
+so small a morsel, and starting to swim away, he found that he was fast
+to the end of a rope.
+
+No one realized it more than the Captain. With a shout that could be
+heard all over the schooner: "Lay aft, all hands," he cried, "and lend a
+hand to pull in this black cannibal."
+
+With all hands aft, including the cook,--his presence is always needed
+in emergencies like this,--"Get that boom tackle from off the main
+boom," he continued, "and you," pointing to Olsen, "get a strop from the
+lazarette and fasten it up in the mizzen-rigging."
+
+"If I go down there," said Olsen, pointing to the lazarette hatch, "the
+cat may get out."
+
+"To Hell with the cat," said the Captain, "this is no time to stand on
+technicalities. Get the strop and get it up damned lively."
+
+Meantime the cook forgot that he was the humble dispenser of salt horse
+and pea soup. He who had fought the land sharks for years, he who had
+stood hour after hour in the sweltering sun declaiming against the
+crimps and other parasites of the Barbary coast, was it not befitting
+that he should lead the charge on this black monster of the deep?
+
+The Ballot-Box Cook, for this is the name I gave him, was standing abaft
+the mizzen-rigging, with unkempt iron-gray hair waving in the wind, a
+greasy apron, and bare feet. His large red nose had never lost any of
+its cherry color, as one would expect it to, under the bleaching
+influence of long voyages. His large supply of extract of lemon, with
+its sixty per cent of alcohol, is not to be deprecated in these times,
+when diluted to a nicety with water and sugar.
+
+On this particular day he had not neglected his midday tonic. Tucking
+his dirty apron into the belt that supported his overalls, and jumping
+down from the deck-load to the poop deck, he exclaimed with the wildest
+gestures:
+
+"Holy Moses, men, don't let him get away."
+
+From the way that the shark was thrashing and beating the water, one
+would think that the three-inch rope would part from the strain at any
+minute.
+
+"Stop the ship!" cried the cook.
+
+"Stop hell," retorted the Captain.
+
+"You will never land him," insisted the cook; "she has too much bloody
+way on her."
+
+"I'll attend to this ship; I am master here," said the Captain angrily.
+
+"Master, you are?" here discipline between master and cook was fused
+away into the northeast trades. The cook, coming to attention with all
+the dignity of a newly-made corporal, said: "Captain, I'll have you
+understand that I have no masters, and"--shaking his fist at the
+Captain, and slapping himself on the breast, "do you think that I have
+always been a sea-cook?"
+
+Under other conditions the Captain would have had him put in irons, but
+there was now too much at stake for him to even think of such a thing.
+For is not time the essence of all things? With this demon of the sea
+dangling on the end of a sixty-foot line, every minute seemed a century
+with the chance that hook, meat and line might sail away into fathomless
+depths.
+
+"Get to Hell forward to your galley! I will send for you when I need
+you"--Here the cook, with rage interrupted:
+
+"To Hell with you, shark and ship! The American Consul shall hear about
+this!" With this parting shot he slouched forward to the galley.
+
+"Here, damn you, here," continued the Captain, forgetting him on the
+instant. "Here, you, Nelson, put a sheep-shank in the shark-line--now
+hook your block in. That's the way. Hoist away on your tackle." After
+giving these orders he hopped up on the deck-load to direct the course
+of the incoming shark. With the crew pulling all their might, we could
+not get him in an inch.
+
+"If we wait a little while, Captain," said Olsen, "he may drown."
+
+"Drown be damned, who ever heard of a shark drowning? Get a
+snatch-block, hook it into the deck-lashing, take a line forward, and
+heave him in with the capstan."
+
+Leaving the second mate with the crew to heave in the shark, I walked
+aft to join the Captain. While passing the galley I could hear the cook
+singing, "Marchons, marchons,"--I knew it would be dangerous to
+interrupt him.
+
+After heaving about twenty minutes the shark was alongside with the head
+about three feet out of water.
+
+"Belay!" roared the Captain, "come aft, here, a couple of you. Slip a
+running bowline over his head, we must not lose him. That is the way.
+Take a turn around the mast. All right aft. Heave away on your capstan."
+
+As the enemy of every sailor who sails the seas came alongside, with him
+came the strains of the old capstan chantey:
+
+    "Sally Brown, I love your daughter,
+      Heave, ho, roll and go,
+    For seven long years I courted Sally,
+      I spent my money on Sally Brown."
+
+Before the second verse of the aged Sally was finished, Black Fin was
+ours to do and dare.
+
+"Make fast forward," shouted the Captain, "and bring your capstan bars
+aft. One of you get the crowbar from the donkey-room."
+
+If there is anything in this world that a sailor loves, it is to kill a
+shark. We secured him safely on the deck-load, for they are not to be
+trusted out of water, especially if one gets too near to the head or
+tail. This monster measured seventeen feet, six inches. With capstan
+bars, crowbar and sharp knives it didn't take long to take the fight out
+of him.
+
+After being cut up, the choice parts were given to members of the crew,
+such as the backbone for a walking-stick, the gall for cleaning shoes
+and so forth. The eyeballs, when properly cured in the sunlight resemble
+oyster pearls. I took the most coveted part, the jaw, and when it was
+opened, it measured twenty-two inches. The Captain ordered what was left
+of him thrown overboard, and turning to me said, "Have the steward serve
+dinner."
+
+"How about the other shark, sir?"
+
+"Oh, we will leave him until after we eat."
+
+After dinner there was no shark to be seen. "We have made a sad
+mistake," lamented the Captain. "We should not have thrown the first
+shark overboard. By doing that we have fed him to the second."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TIN-PLATE FIGHT--ONE-EYED RILEY TRIUMPHS
+
+
+It was my watch below, and only one hour and a half left to sleep.
+Taking off my cap, I hopped into the bunk, and was just dozing off to
+sleep when the Cook opened the door saying: "Have you anything to read?"
+
+"No, I have not," I replied, impatiently.
+
+"Well," said he, unheeding, "I wish you would read this book. It is 'The
+Superman,' by Nietzsche. I also want you to read Karl Marx, in three
+volumes. Then you will understand why I hate sharks and masters." With
+the last remark he slammed the door behind him.
+
+The watch from eight to twelve was wonderfully fascinating, and full of
+romance. A full moon hung in the clear tropical sky. The waters rippled,
+and the Southern Cross glimmered in the distant horizon. Occasionally a
+block or boom squeaked, as if to say, "I, too, lend enchantment to the
+night."
+
+At ten-thirty the light went out in the Captain's room. I knew that,
+tired by the excitement of the day, it would not be long before he would
+be asleep. With instructions to the wheel-man to keep her on her course,
+I went forward to see Old Charlie, and hear from him what happened next
+aboard the bark "Mud Puddler."
+
+"As I was saying last night, there I stood with my hand stretched out to
+ring the bell, and, sir, I could not move a muscle."
+
+"Charlie," said I, "you were just dozing and dreaming, and thought that
+you heard the bell aft."
+
+"Not at all, sir, not at all. For the mate came forward cursing and
+swearing and telling me that if I slept again on watch he would dock me
+a month's pay. I have sailed under flags of many nations, sir, and never
+have I been caught dozing at the wheel or on the lookout."
+
+"What about the Flying Bo'sun, did he visit your ship?"
+
+Old Charlie was too solemn for one to think lightly of his story.
+
+"Wait, sir, don't go too fast. At breakfast the next morning I was
+telling my shipmates about the strange man on the foc's'le. In
+describing how he looked and the clothes he wore, one old sailor seemed
+much interested.
+
+"You say he wore Wellington boots and a pea-jacket? What color did you
+say his beard was?"
+
+"Black and bushy," said I.
+
+"That's very strange, very strange," said the old sailor.
+
+One member of the crew laughed at the old man's last remark, and said:
+"What is strange about it? One would really believe that you thought
+that Charlie was awake. Ha, ha, the joke is on you."
+
+Old John, for that was his name, pushed his hook-pot and plate over on
+the bench and rising very slowly to his feet said, "Shipmates, I am
+sixty-two years old. I have sailed the seas since I was fourteen. I want
+to say that the apparition that Charlie saw last night is not a joke,
+but a stern reality, and, shipmates, some one of us is going on the Long
+Voyage."
+
+Here Charlie stopped to fill and light his pipe.
+
+"What happened next?" I asked.
+
+"Well, sir, in the afternoon watch I was out on the jibboom reeving off
+a new jib downhaul, and, sir, as true as I stand here, there, almost
+within arm's length, sat the Flying Bo'sun. Three days later we ran into
+a storm off the Cape,--you know the short, choppy, ugly sea we get off
+there? It was during this storm that we lost three men, and one of them
+was old Sailor John. So you see I have reason to believe in coming
+disaster. With the Bo'sun waiting to alight, and sharks following the
+ship, I tell you that something is going to happen soon."
+
+As Charlie finished his story, the man at the wheel struck one bell, a
+quarter to twelve. It is always customary to give the crew fifteen
+minutes for dressing, that when eight bells is rung the watcher may be
+promptly relieved. I called the second mate, got a sandwich, and went on
+deck again to take the distance run by the log.
+
+While I was waiting for Olsen to relieve me Old Charlie came running
+aft. "They are killing each other in the foc's'le, sir."
+
+"Who is it?" I asked.
+
+"One-Eyed Riley and Swanson, sir."
+
+"Who is getting the best of it?"
+
+"Swanson, sir. He has Riley down, and is beating him over the head with
+a tin plate."
+
+Looking down into the forecastle I could see Swanson stretched out with
+Riley standing over him, a marline-spike in his hand, cursing and
+swearing.
+
+"Bad luck to you for a big squarehead. It's trying to tear me good eye
+out, you are. Mother of God, look at me tin plate that he bate me with,
+it is all crumbled in. Sure and I can't use that agin, and divil another
+this side of San Francisco."
+
+"Riley," said I, "have you killed this man?"
+
+"Begorra, sir, me intintions was well-meanin'. I broke me spike on him."
+
+"Turn him over," I commanded, "and see if there is any life in him."
+
+"Now, throw some water on him."
+
+"The divil a drop will I throw on him, sir, but if you will say the
+word, I'll pitch him into the sea."
+
+In a few minutes Swanson came to, terribly bruised about the head, and
+no more fight in him.
+
+"Riley," said I, "you beat this man, now you must bandage him up and
+take care of him."
+
+"Ah, sure, sir; it's murdher you'd be after wantin' me to do and it's
+bandage him up you want. Heavenly Father, with me new tin plate all
+spoiled, what in the divil am I going to ate off of?"
+
+"Eight bells!" sang out the man on the lookout. It was Swanson's lookout
+watch, and the Finn's wheel.
+
+"Riley, you will have to keep the Swede's lookout this watch. He is
+dazed and stupid from the beating you gave him. There is danger of him
+walking overboard."
+
+Swanson crawled over to the bench as if in terrible pain, muttering: "I
+will get this Irish dog, and when I do, look out, I will kill him."
+
+The other members of the watch below were too busy dressing to pay much
+attention to the fight, but one could see that they were proud of
+Riley's work.
+
+"Ha, ha, an' it's kill me you would, me fine bucko, an' sure you might
+if I had no eyes in me head. You dirty baste. Let me finish him, sir."
+
+"Riley," said I, severely, "get up on deck, and relieve the man on the
+lookout, or I will place you both in irons."
+
+Riley went on duty very reluctantly, saying, "Begorra, sir, and it's
+sorry you'll be for not letting me finish him."
+
+"Swanson," I said, "you will be all right in the morning. You have a few
+bad bumps on your head, but a hard and tough man like you should not
+mind that."
+
+I left him grumbling and whining and swearing vengeance, saying to
+himself: "By Jiminy, I get even mit dem all."
+
+On the forecastle head Riley was pacing up and down, evidently very
+happy and pleased with the night's work. He was humming an old ditty,
+and sometimes breaking out singing:
+
+    "Blow you winds while sails are spreading,
+      Carry me cheerily o'er the sea.
+    I'll go back, de dom, de dido,
+      To my sweetheart in the old countree."
+
+In the cabin the Captain was looking through the nautical almanack to
+find a star that was crossing our meridian.
+
+"You know," speaking to me, "we must not allow sharks nor anything else
+to interfere with the progress of the ship. I want to cross the Equator
+about in 150° west. I believe that I shall have to keep her a little to
+the westward now. Ah, here I have it, the star Draconis, it crosses our
+meridian at 1 hr. 15 min. Just give me your latitude by dead reckoning."
+
+"Here you are, sir," handing him the latitude. "With this moderate
+breeze she has made 110 miles since noon today."
+
+"It looks," said he, "as if she were going to beat her last trip to the
+Equator. But, of course, there's the doldrums. One can never tell.
+Sometimes a ship will run through and into the southeast trades, and
+escape the doldrums. But that seldom happens to me."
+
+The next few days were spent sewing sails, the crew rattling her down,
+cleaning brass-work and chipping iron rust from the anchor chain. A ship
+is like a farm, there is always work to be done, and a sailor must never
+be idle. It is the mate's duty to find work to keep them going. A mate's
+ability is usually measured by the amount of work that he gets out of
+the crew, especially when she sails into her home port.
+
+There the owners come aboard, and if they do not wring their hands, and
+tear their hair, and sometimes tramp on their hats or caps, the mate is
+indeed to be complimented. They will sometimes walk up to you and say:
+
+"Well, you had a fine voyage, I see," looking around at the masts, and
+yards, and paint-work. "Do you smoke? Here is a very fine cigar, three
+for a dollar." (More often it is three for ten cents.)
+
+I remember the old barque "Jinney Thompson." We were three weeks
+overdue. When we finally arrived the owner was there on the dock and
+fired every man aboard her. It seems that every day for three weeks he
+had never failed to make his appearance at the wharf. On this day while
+the tug-boat was docking us there he stood, white with rage.
+
+"Get off my ship, you damned pirates, every man, woman and child of you!
+To think that I should have lost one hundred and fifty dollars on this
+trip. Get off, damn you, get off!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN WHICH THE CAPTAIN WOUNDS HIS HAND
+
+
+"No, sir, he won't stay down there," said the cook. "He caught a
+flying-fish the other night; it lit on the deck forward. Since then he
+just sits in the main rigging watching. When I get near him he runs up
+aloft."
+
+"I must tell the mate," said the Captain, "to move the flour into the
+spare room. Those damned rats will eat us out yet. Why don't you tie
+Toby with the stores?"
+
+"I can't, sir, he won't let me near enough."
+
+This conversation was going on in the cabin while I was trying to read
+Henry George. I went to sleep wondering how a single tax could be
+applied to city property. I was not asleep long before I was awakened by
+loud tapping on my door. "Come in," said I. The door opened. There stood
+the Captain, pale and excited.
+
+"Would you mind tying up this hand for me? I stuck a marline spike
+through here," pointing to the fleshy part between the thumb and
+fore-finger of the right hand.
+
+"Just one minute, sir, I'll get some hot water."
+
+Fortunately there was hot water in the galley.
+
+"There you are, sir, put your hand in the bucket. No, it is not too hot.
+There, see, I hold my hand in it."
+
+Satisfied that there was no danger of cooking it, he pulled the rag off,
+and thrust his hand into the bucket. I noticed that there was no blood
+to speak of. I said, "Captain, did the spike go through your hand?"
+
+"Hell, yes, man, about three inches."
+
+I suggested many remedies, such as washing it with saline solution and
+bandaging with oakum and so on. But he would have none of them, and
+insisted on having the rag tied around, assuring me that it would be
+well in a day or so. He kept on deck most of the first watch, but was
+evidently in great pain.
+
+"I think that we are running into the doldrums from the look of those
+clouds to the eastward," said he.
+
+"We have one thing in our favor," I replied; "we should have a
+three-knot current to the southward according to the pilot chart."
+
+"You should not rely on what those fellows in Washington put onto paper.
+If you do you will never get anywhere."
+
+At five o'clock in the morning it was raining. There is no place in the
+world where it rains as it does around the Equator; it seems as if the
+celestial sluice-gates had gotten beyond control. We were becalmed, and
+in the doldrums, with not a breath of air. Usually this lasts for five
+or six days.
+
+During this time every one on board is very busy, catching water,
+filling barrels, washing clothes, and working ship. The latter work is
+hard on the crew, for you are always trimming ship for every puff of
+wind that comes along. Pity the weak-kneed mate in the doldrums. There
+are times when you tack and wear, and boxhaul ship every fifteen
+minutes. The crew resent this kind of work, and while doing it they
+curse and swear, and will do the opposite to what they are told.
+
+Here is where the old-school mate comes in. Obey orders. He sees that
+they do obey. Lazy sailors breed discontent, and discipline must be
+stern. If a member of the crew happens to be idle, he must by no means
+appear to be. He must at least act very seriously, and look to windward,
+as if beckoning for a breeze. There is an old saying among
+sailing-ship-men:
+
+    "When the wind is fair the money comes in over the stern,
+    When the wind is ahead the money comes in over the bow."
+
+so a sailor must never show that the unfavorable weather is making pay
+for him. He must never whistle a tune, nor sing a song, but he is
+privileged at all times during a calm to whistle as if he were calling a
+dog, for if you don't get wind with the dog-whistling, you are not to
+blame. I have seen captains standing for hours whistling for wind. Pity
+the man who would smile or crack a joke on so serious an occasion. One
+captain I was with, after whistling off and on all day without avail,
+threw three of his hats overboard, one after the other, crying in rage,
+"There, now, damn you, give us a gale."
+
+The wise mate knows his place in trying times like these. He never goes
+aft, thereby avoiding serious discussions. He always makes it his
+business to be very busy in the forepart of the ship. The worst time for
+him is meal-time. It is not uncommon to finish eating without a word
+being spoken. The cook is not exempt. Should the captain count more than
+ten raisins in the bread-pudding, look out for a squall!
+
+At breakfast I ate alone. The Captain was walking around in his room.
+
+"How is your hand, sir?" I inquired.
+
+"It is very painful. I have just been washing it with a little carbolic
+acid I found in a drawer."
+
+"I have taken off staysails, topsails and inner and outer jib, sir."
+
+He did not answer, but shut his door with a slam. I was worried about
+his condition, but was helpless to do anything for him. He was the
+stubborn type, with tight lips, and projecting cheek-bones. He believed
+that what he could not do for himself no other could do for him. I think
+that this applied only to strangers. As captain of a ship you are always
+dealing with new faces, and never have much confidence in any one. For
+instance if, in taking the altitude of the sun or a star, his reckoning
+should differ from yours by a mile or so, you would always be wrong. The
+same with longitude by chronometer in time.
+
+The loneliness of the sea must be responsible for this. And yet in their
+home life, they are ruled and dominated by their wives and children. I
+remember one old captain I sailed with in the China Seas. Fight? He
+loved it, ashore and afloat, and was very proud of his ability, claiming
+that he never took the count. The latter I know to be true. We left
+ports while I was sailing with him, where much furniture was easily
+adaptable for firewood.
+
+When in the home port where his wife was, if he had spent more than she
+allowed him, I would have to make up the difference. She would come down
+to the ship and say: "Herman, come here, I want you to do so and so." He
+would look at me, but never ashamed, and say, "Well, what in Hell can I
+do?"
+
+"But, Captain, I want your advice on so and so."
+
+"Never mind now," he would say, "till I steer her away. You know she
+don't like you too well anyhow. She heard all about the fight we had in
+Yokohama with the rickshaw men." Away they would go, arm in arm, a very
+happy couple.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE BO'SUN LIGHTS--THE CAPTAIN'S DEATH
+
+
+I was so worried about the Captain that I had no desire to sleep during
+the forenoon watch. About eleven o'clock he came to my room saying:
+
+"I can't stand this pain, it is driving me wild. You take charge of the
+ship. Take every possible advantage you can, until we run out of the
+doldrums. Here are charts covering the South Sea Isles, and here,"
+pointing to a small box, "is the Manifest, and Bill of Health." While
+looking at the latter I came into contact with his right hand. I was
+surprised to find that he was burning with fever.
+
+"Captain, may I look at your hand?"
+
+He eyed me with the same suspicion as when I was suggesting treatments
+on the previous day. But the stubborn nature of him was giving way to a
+feeling of friendship and sympathy, a sympathy so noticeable in all
+living creatures when their material existence is in danger.
+
+"Yes, you can look at it, if it will do you any good," holding the hand
+out for me to take the bandage off. "I don't mind the hand so much as I
+do this lump under my arm, it is so painful."
+
+With the bandage off I was horrified to see the condition of the wound.
+It was turning black, and a fiery red stripe ran up the arm. He must
+have guessed what was going on in my mind.
+
+"Yes," said he, "it is blood-poisoning, and a damned bad case. Don't
+tell me what to do for it. I have tried everything I can think of to
+prevent this condition."
+
+"Let us cut it open and keep it in hot water," said I.
+
+"Tie it up again," he replied angrily, "you are only adding insult to
+injury." He turned to his wife's picture which hung at the head of the
+bed, saying, "You understand, you understand. We may soon sail away
+through the silvery seas to our Land of the Midnight Sun."
+
+I went on deck thoroughly alarmed at the Captain's condition and aware
+that, unless a miracle should happen within the next forty-eight hours,
+he would be dead of septicæmia.
+
+We were still becalmed;--not a breath to curl the blue roll. With booms
+and sails swinging and wailing as she rolled and pitched in the trough
+of the sea, the angry gods of the Celestial World belched forth their
+wrath in thunder and lightning. This, coupled with the condition of the
+Captain, made me feel, as never before, the utter lonesomeness of the
+sea. It was useless, with the clouded skies, to try to get a position of
+the ship for drift. She had made no progress by log for twenty hours. I
+was anxious to know the course and speed of the current.
+
+In going forward to see what the crew was doing, I met Olsen coming aft,
+holding a wet rag over his eye.
+
+He said, "I have had trouble with Swanson, he refuses to work ship. He
+thinks it is not necessary to tack and boxhaul, he wants to wait for the
+wind."
+
+Olsen had the real thing, if black eyes count in the performance of
+one's duty.
+
+"Are you afraid of him?" said I. "If you are, keep away from him. You
+will only spoil him, and make him believe that he is running the ship.
+Here," and I pulled a belaying-pin out from the fife-rail, "Go forward
+and work this on him."
+
+"No," said Olsen, "he is too big and strong for me. He told me that
+there is no one on board big and strong enough to make him work. I
+understand that he almost killed a mate named Larsen--"
+
+Here the cook interrupted, saying: "Mr. Mate, the Captain wants you in
+the cabin."
+
+"Do you want me, sir?"
+
+"Yes, this pain is killing me, killing me, don't you realize how I am
+suffering? Why did you leave me? Why don't you do something to relieve
+me of this burning Hell?"
+
+I did realize that the poison was general, and that he was becoming
+delirious. The unshaven face, the ruffled hair, the dry parched lips,
+the wild staring. It was plain that for him Valhalla lay in the offing.
+
+"Yes, Captain," said I, "you are suffering, but strong men like you must
+be brave. You, who for years weathered the storms of Seven Seas, must
+now keep off the lee shore. The wind will soon be off the land. Then ho!
+for the ocean deep."
+
+"You are very kind," he said, collecting himself to try to cheer me up,
+"but it is no use. For I can see the lee shore with its submerged and
+dangerous reefs, I can hear the billows roar, and watch the thunderous
+sea pour its defiance on the ragged crags of granite. Yes, I am
+drifting, drifting there."
+
+After cutting open the hand and arm, and bathing in salt solution, he
+felt somewhat relieved, and decided that he would try to sleep. Leaving
+him in charge of the cook, with instructions to keep him in bed, I went
+on deck with a heavy heart, realizing that soon I should be responsible
+for the crew and cargo.
+
+Old Charlie was at the wheel. "How is the Captain, sir?"
+
+"He is a very sick man, Charlie."
+
+"Look, look," he cried, "there he comes, lower and lower," and he
+pointed to the maintopmast truck. "Great Heavens, he is going to alight!
+Yes, yes; there he sits," and there, sure enough, sat the most beautiful
+bird in the tropics, the Flying Bo'sun.
+
+I spent the afternoon sitting with the Captain, who was still sleeping.
+At five o'clock I tried to arouse him, but found that he had lapsed
+into a state of coma. I left Olsen and the cook looking after him while
+I went to see to the ship.
+
+About eleven o'clock I felt very sleepy, having then been without sleep
+for eighteen hours. In order to keep awake, I decided to walk on the
+deck-load until Olsen relieved me. It was while thus walking that I went
+asleep, and fell, or walked, overboard.
+
+The deck-load of lumber is always stowed with the shear of the ship and
+flush with the sides or bulwarks. There is no rail or lifeline, and
+hence the sudden plunge. Coming to the surface I was very much awake,
+and swimming to the chain plates, I easily pulled myself out of the
+water, and into the rigging, and up onto the deck. While I was wringing
+out my pants, Old Charlie came creeping aft, saying: "Mr. Mate,
+something is going to happen from his visit today."
+
+"To Hell with your Flying Bo'sun," I snapped, "you are always predicting
+death and ghosts and so on."
+
+I was sorry that I had spoken to the old sailor this way, but after
+falling fifteen feet into the ocean, and just, by the chance of a calm,
+saving my life, I was in no mood to tolerate the re-incarnated souls of
+drowned sailors that were living in Old Charlie's Flying Bo'sun.
+
+Charlie, much distressed at having the omens he loved so dearly so
+lightly disregarded, slunk away in the shadow of the mainsail.
+
+Riley, the man on the lookout, was true to his trust, and no object in
+the hazy horizon would escape the vigilance of his squinty left eye.
+Evidently he was not carried away by the supernatural things of life,
+but very much in the material, judging from his song:
+
+    "Better days are coming to reward us for our woe,
+    And we'll all go back to Ireland when the landlords go."
+
+When Olsen relieved me on deck, I took his place with the Captain, who,
+although unconscious, was still hanging to the delicately spun threads
+of life. As I was sponging the dry and parched lips, I glanced at the
+picture of her whom he loved so well. How beautiful it would be, if it
+should come to pass as he believed, and she should pilot him away in
+their astral ship to the shades of Valhalla!
+
+While my thoughts ran thus, I was suddenly conscious of a desert
+stillness. Then creaking booms gave way to a gentle lullaby. The ship no
+longer rolled and pitched in the trough of the sea. Everything below was
+peaceful and calm. I could hear Olsen calling:
+
+"Slack away on the boom-tackle, and haul in on your spanker-sheet!"
+
+I knew then that at last we had the long-looked-for southeast
+trade-winds. With the wind came taut sheets and steady booms, and on the
+face of the dead Captain there was a smile as if saying:
+
+"Away with you to the tall green palms!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE SHOWDOWN--SWANSON TAKES THE COUNT
+
+
+I dimmed the swivel light in the Captain's room, locked the door and
+went on deck. Above, there was a fair breeze, and the sky was clear and
+glittering with millions of stars.
+
+"What course are you steering?" said I to the man at the wheel.
+
+"South-southwest, sir."
+
+"Let her go off to southwest." I was anxious to take advantage of the
+wind by getting all sail on her.
+
+"Where is the second mate?"
+
+"He is forward, sir, setting the jibs."
+
+Going forward, I shouted to Olsen: "Get the topsails and staysails on
+her as fast as you can."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir. I am short-handed; Swanson refuses to come on deck. I
+sent Russian-Finn John down to tell him that we had a fine breeze, and
+wanted him to come up and trim ship. Do you know, sir, he kicked him out
+of the fo'c'sle?"
+
+I took stock of myself. I was twenty-four years old, and weighed one
+hundred and eighty pounds. The big brute in the forecastle, refusing to
+work, whipping the second mate, and kicking his shipmates about, was
+getting too much for me. I made up my mind that there would be two dead
+captains or one damned live one.
+
+Going aft to my room, I got a pair of canvas slippers that I had made,
+for with this brute I should be handicapped in bare feet. With the
+slippers on, and overalls well cinched up around me, I went to the
+forecastle, past Olsen, who was sheeting home the fore-topsail.
+
+Calling down the forecastle, I said: "Swanson, come on deck." When he
+appeared: "I suppose you know that you are guilty of a crime on the high
+seas?"
+
+He answered me back, saying: "I tank about it," and took his stand
+obstinately at the foot of the ladder.
+
+The anger and passion of thousands of years was upon me. I forgot the
+ship, forgot the dead captain. I skidded down the scuttle-hatch into the
+forecastle, where he stood, awaiting me with a large sheath-knife in his
+hand.
+
+"Are you going on deck?" I shouted.
+
+"You ----, ----, ----," flourishing the knife; "kap avay from me, I kill
+you!"
+
+I noticed an oilskin coat hanging on the bulkhead. I must say that my
+mind was working overtime. My height was five feet eleven, and he
+towered above me like a giant. I was aware of the powerful legs and arms
+of this brute, conveying the suggestion of second money to me. If I were
+to trim this gorilla, it would require tact and skill. Otherwise I felt
+that the dead Captain would not have much start on me. He took a step
+toward me, saying:
+
+"You get on deck damn quick, or by Jiminy I cut your heart out!"
+
+Quick as a flash I seized the oilskin coat. As he raised his arm to stab
+me I threw it over his head and arm, then jumped for him. After some
+minutes' hard work I succeeded in wresting the knife from him, but not
+without marks on my legs, arms and hands. The forecastle was so small it
+was hard to do much real fighting. It was more rough and tumble, and
+this kind of a battle favored the Swede.
+
+While slashing with the knife, he cut the belt that held up my overalls.
+I was handicapped by these hanging around my feet, but fortunately
+landed a right on his jaw, which sent him falling into his bunk. This
+gave me a chance to kick free from the pants, and in so doing I kicked
+one of the canvas shoes off. I can't remember when I lost the shirt, but
+what was left of it was lying by the bench. He pulled himself from the
+bunk saying, "I tank I go on deck."
+
+"Well," thought I, "there is not much fight in him after all."
+
+It was about twelve feet from the forecastle to the deck. When he
+reached the deck I started up after him. When my head was even with the
+deck, he stepped from behind the scuttle and kicked me in the forehead,
+knocking me back to the forecastle. Had he followed up the blow I should
+have indeed joined the dead Captain.
+
+But no, he thought that he had finished me for good.
+
+When I came to, I could hear strange noises around me. Some one was
+washing my face, and saying: "And begorra, it is far from being
+finished you are, me good man." It was Riley.
+
+Old Charlie voiced in, saying: "That is a bad cut on his forehead."
+
+Riley had no use for pessimists. "Ah, go wan with you, sure an it is
+only a scratch he has. Now when I had me eye knocked out--"
+
+Here I got upon my feet, dazed, but with no broken bones. "Where is
+Swanson?"
+
+"He is aft by the mainmast, sur, and be Hivins, it is a sight he is,
+sur."
+
+"Riley," said I, "come on deck and throw a few buckets of salt water on
+me." There is nothing so invigorating as salt water when one is
+exhausted.
+
+After the bath, with its salty sting in my cuts and scratches, I was
+ready for the cur again. He saw me coming up on the deck-load, and
+straightened up as if he thought that there was still some fight left in
+me. I noticed that he had a wooden belaying-pin in his hand. I took my
+cue from that.
+
+Stalling that I was all in, and crawling aft to my room, I gave him this
+impression until I was abreast of him, and then I was on him with a
+vengeance. I snatched the pin from him, and finished him in a hurry.
+When he cried for mercy, and promised that he would work, and work with
+a will, I decided that he had had as good a trimming as I could give
+him, and let him up.
+
+"Now, I want you to stay on deck, and work until I tell you that you can
+have a watch below."
+
+Calling all hands, I said, "Men, our Captain died during the middle
+watch. We will bury him at nine o'clock this morning."
+
+With the surprised and solemn look of the crew as they heard my
+announcement, was mingled no mirth at my scant attire of one canvas
+shoe. That was lost in their sympathy for him who was taking the long
+sleep, and I doubt if they noticed it at all.
+
+Death on board a ship creates a hushed stillness. Amongst the crew Old
+Charlie looked up at the mast as if expecting another Bo'sun to appear.
+He seemed satisfied with his predictions. But Riley took a different
+view.
+
+"Mother of God! It's fighting there has been going on with the poor dead
+Captain laying aft there. Be Heavens, sir," pointing, "it's bad luck we
+will be having for carrying on like this in the presence iv th' dead."
+
+Sending him after my overalls and shoe, I went to my room to look myself
+over. My eyes were black, face cut, arms, hands and body cut and
+scratched, and worst of all, was my forehead where the brute had kicked
+me. I still carry this scar. I was somewhat alarmed with these open
+wounds, and knew that I must be careful of handling the Captain.
+
+Hot breakfast, with its steaming coffee, did much to revive me, and for
+the second time I was aware that the Socialist cook was a friend in
+need.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BURIAL AT SEA--AT WHICH RILEY OFFICIATES
+
+
+At eight o'clock I called Riley and Old Charlie aft to the cabin.
+"Riley," said I, opening the door to the Captain's room, "I want you and
+Charlie to sew the Captain's body in this tarpaulin, while I go and find
+something to sink it with. Roll him over towards the partition, then
+roll him back onto the hatch-cover, then gather it in at both ends."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir, and shure it is meself that has sewed many av thim up."
+
+In the boatswain's locker I found plenty of old chain bolts and
+shackles. I had one of the crew carry them to the weather main rigging.
+While going down the companion-way to see how Riley and Charlie were
+getting along with their sewing, I thought, by a sudden noise, that they
+had begun to quarrel.
+
+"Where the divil did you ever sew up a dead man?" came in Riley's voice,
+and "Damn you, pull that flap down over his face." Then I could hear
+boots and glasses being thrown around. "Get out of here, you black
+divil, it's eating your master you would be doing, pss-cat, pss-cat, you
+dirty, hungry-looking tiger!"
+
+Then all was still for a few seconds. Then Old Charlie's voice saying,
+"Mike Riley, this is a terrible calamity that has happened to us, the
+loss of our captain. And Riley, this is not all. I am afraid there will
+be more."
+
+"Ah, go wan wit your platting," said Riley, "Pull the seam tight around
+his neck. That is the way. Now sew it with a herring-bone stitch. Hould
+on a minute, Charlie, till I get me last look at him. Faith, and be my
+sowl, he wasn't a very bad-looking man."
+
+Here I walked into the room, saying: "When you are finished I will get
+you more help to carry him on deck. But leave a place open at the head
+so that we can put the weights in."
+
+"Sinking him by the head is it you are, sir? Glory be to God, don't do
+that. Let him go down feet first, sir. Be Hivins, if you put him down be
+the head we will have the divil's own luck! I remember wan time on the
+auld lime-juicer 'King of the Seas,' the second mate died. We weighed
+him down by the head--begob, and it wasn't a week till ivery man av us
+had the scurvy."
+
+"Riley," I laughed, "you are a very superstitious man."
+
+"It's you that are mistaken, sir. Sure an I'm anything but that, sir."
+
+The cook interrupted us to ask if he could help in any way. I told him
+to help Charlie and Riley carry the body up on deck. Riley at once took
+command. "Charlie, you take the head, I will take the feet, and,
+Steward, you can help in the middle. Are you all ready? Up wit him,
+then,--be Hivins isn't he heavy?"
+
+Charlie started towards the door so as to take the body out head first.
+Riley promptly objected to this move, and propped the feet on the edge
+of the berth while he asserted his authority.
+
+"And it's take him out be the head ye'd be after doing? Where in blazes
+did you come from? Oh, you poor auld divil you! Whoever heard of takin'
+a corpse out head first. Turn him around, bad luck to you, with his feet
+out. Sure, an it's walk out on his feet he would, if he were on thim.
+Niver do that, Charlie, me boy, if ye want to prosper in this life."
+
+We pulled two planks from the deck-load, and spiked cross-pieces on,
+while Riley supervised the weighing-down. Then all was ready to commit
+the body to the deep blue sea.
+
+While the second mate was back-filling the foresail and hauling the
+main-jib to windward, to stop the ship for sea-burial, I fell to
+thinking of our Captain. Here he was, in the prime of life, about to be
+cast into the sea. No one to love him, no one to care, none but the
+rough if kindly hands of sailors to guide him to his resting-place. As I
+glanced around the horizon, and the broad expanse of the Pacific, I was
+overcome by loneliness. Ships might come and ships might go, and still
+there would be no sign of his last resting-place, no chance to pay
+respects to the upright seaman, the devoted husband and father. The
+silent ocean currents, responsible to no one, would be drifting him
+hither and thither.
+
+The last few days and the terrible fight were telling upon me.
+
+I was astonished to look around and find that I was alone with the
+dead. The only other person on deck was Broken-Nosed Pete at the wheel.
+
+I went forward and sung out: "Come forward, some of you, and lend a hand
+here."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir; we are coming," answered Riley's brogue.
+
+There was something about Riley, in his simple seriousness and appeal to
+my humor, that was a great help to me just now. They came aft, every one
+of them, in their best clothes, with shined and squeaky shoes, looking
+very solemn. "Here," said I, "take a hand and shove the planks out so
+that the body will clear the bulwark rail when she rolls to windward." I
+was about to give the order to tip the plank, when I was interrupted by
+Riley saying excitedly: "Lord God, sir, aren't you going to say
+something over him?"
+
+"Riley," I said as the crew gathered around, "I have nothing to say,
+except that I commit this body to the sea. Up with the plank."
+
+"Hould on, hould on," cried Riley in despair. "Sure I wouldn't send a
+dog over like that! I will read the Litany of the Blissed Virgin Mary,
+and it don't make a damned bit av diffrunce whether he belaves it or
+not. Hould on, me boy, till I get my prayer book."
+
+Riley returned from the forecastle cursing and swearing.
+
+"Howly Mother av Moses, they have ate the Litany out av me prayer-book,
+and the poor sowl about to be throwed overboard."
+
+"What is the matter, Riley?" I asked.
+
+"Ah, the dirty divils! The rats has made a nest av me Holy Prayer-book!"
+
+"Sanctified rats--" I was beginning profanely, when fortunately the cook
+interrupted me.
+
+"What good will a prayer-book do him now? Your prayer-books, and flowers
+and beautiful coffins are only advertisements of ignorance. The man of
+thought today throws those primitive things away, or sends them back to
+the savages. You men will in time come to believe in a Creative Power of
+Organization, or a Material Force, but in your present state of
+ignorance you are carried away by a supernatural power destined for the
+poor and helpless."
+
+While the cook was talking Riley was taking off his coat, and rolling up
+his sleeves. "It is poor and helpless we are, are we? You durty, fat,
+Dutch hound. Take back what you were saying," as he grabbed him by the
+neck, "or be me sowl it's over you go before the Owld Man. It is
+ignorant we are, and savages we are. Take that," hitting him on the jaw.
+"Be Hivins and I'll not sail wit a heathen. Come on, me boys. Over wit
+him."
+
+"Here, Riley," I said, "this must stop. Don't you know that you are in
+the presence of the dead? Every one has the privilege of believing what
+he wants to."
+
+"He has that, sir, but begorra, he wants to keep it to himself."
+
+"Men," said I, "we will raise the plank. While we are doing it let us
+sing, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee.'"
+
+While we were singing the beautiful hymn, the old ship we loved so well
+seemed to feel this solemn occasion. Although held in irons by having
+her sails aback, she did salute to her former captain by some strange
+freak of the sea, coming up in the wind, and shaking her sails.
+
+Before we finished the singing the cook was leading in a rich tenor
+voice, and by the time that the last sound had died away, our Captain
+had slid off into the deep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Let go your main jib to windward, haul in the fore-boom sheet." To the
+man at the wheel, "Let her go off to her course again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ASTRAL INFLUENCE--THE CREW'S VERSION OF THE UNKNOWN
+
+
+With these orders the crew, although silent and solemn, went about their
+various duties in their shiny and squeaky shoes, the only remaining sign
+of what had come to pass.
+
+I told the steward to throw all of the Captain's clothing overboard. He
+protested, saying, "Surely, sir, you won't destroy his blankets?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Steward, there are enough germs in those blankets to destroy
+all of Coxey's Army."
+
+This mention of Coxey's Army was a mistake indeed. He changed at once
+from the comparative refinement that the hymn had wrought in him, to the
+fiery rage of the soap-box orator.
+
+"They were the men," he thundered, "who make life possible for you and
+me. Otherwise we should be ground in the mill of the lust and greed of
+capitalism."
+
+He started to lead off on the subject of equal distribution, when I
+interrupted:
+
+"Steward, this is no place to expound your theories of Socialism. You
+have done much harm since you came aboard this ship. Here," pointing to
+Swanson, who was slowly recovering from his battle for supremacy, "is a
+man who was led to believe from listening to your radical doctrines that
+work was not a necessary element in his life. Living in your world of
+thought, he gained the impression that refusing to work and disobeying
+orders was a perfectly natural thing to do. Now let me impress you with
+this thought--while you are aboard this ship with me, I'll not tolerate
+any more of your ill-advised teachings to the crew."
+
+Later, while he was throwing the Captain's bedding overboard, I could
+hear him say:
+
+    "... To the vile dust from whence they sprung,
+    Unwept, unhonored and unsung."
+
+December 20th, 1898. Our position of ship at noon today was four miles
+north latitude, longitude 147° 19" west. In looking over the chart I
+found that the course had been laid out by the Captain before his death.
+Although now seventy miles to the eastward of it, I decided with
+favorable winds to follow this line to the South Sea Isles.
+
+It was while doing this work that I fell to pondering my
+responsibilities to the owners, the crew and the consignees. We were
+carrying about five hundred thousand feet of select lumber to Suva, Fiji
+Islands. I had never visited these islands, but had read of their
+submerged reefs and tricky currents. Up to this time I had taken my
+responsibilities negatively, being of the age when one is not taken
+seriously, and I must say being rather inclined to lean on those higher
+up. This latter is, I believe, very destructive to one's self-confidence
+and determination, those qualities so necessary in fitting one for
+leadership both by land and sea.
+
+In cleaning up the Captain's cabin I was deeply impressed with his
+remarkable sense of order. His best clothes were lashed to a partition
+to keep from chafing by the roll of the ship. The ash-tray was fastened
+to the floor across the room and opposite the bed, and there also stood
+tobacco, matches, cigars and spittoon. When using these things he would
+have to get up and move clear across the room from his writing-desk or
+bed, which seemed out of place for a sailorman.
+
+(Captains whom I sailed with usually disregarded any and all sense of
+order, preferring not to interfere with the laws of gravity,
+particularly when chewing tobacco. But if these same white shirts
+happened to leave the hand of the sailor who washed them with any
+remnant of stain, His Majesty could be heard swearing all over the
+ship.)
+
+For the past three days everything has been going beautifully, with the
+wind free and fair. We are clipping it off at ten knots an hour.
+
+Tonight I noticed that the man at the wheel acted rather queerly, and
+was not steering at all well. The men looked continually from left to
+right, acting as if they feared that some one was going to strike them.
+
+It was during the middle watch that I heard a conversation in the
+forecastle between Riley, Old Charlie and Broken-Nosed Pete. Charlie was
+trying to convince Pete by saying:
+
+"You may not understand, but it is true, none the less. Look at me in
+the 'Mud Puddler.'"
+
+The suspense of this argument was evidently getting on Riley's nerves.
+He interrupted with, "Damn it all, man, I tell you he is back on the
+ship. Haven't we all heard him prancing around in his room? Upon my
+sowl, I have felt him looking into the compass. Oh, be Hivins, me good
+man, you will see him soon enough."
+
+Here Old Charlie once more took the floor. "Riley," said he, "I believe
+that he has come back to warn us of some danger."
+
+"Divil a bit av danger we will be having." This with bravado.
+
+"You know he may have come back to find his knife. You remember when you
+sewed him up you found it in his bed."
+
+"Ah, go wan, you durty ape, didn't I throw it overboard with him?"
+
+"It may be he wants to talk with some one."
+
+"Be Hivins, shure I don't want to talk wit him. Why sure'n I don't know
+the man at all. I niver shpoke a wurd to him on this ship."
+
+"Well, it does seem that he is trying to manifest himself to you more
+than to any one on this ship. Why not ask him if you can help him in any
+way?" Evidently this conversation was getting too creepy for Riley for
+he changed the subject, declaring with great feeling that he had never
+seen a more beautiful night, and so near Christmas too.
+
+But Charlie was not to be put off that way.
+
+"Riley," he said, "can't you feel him around here at this moment?"
+
+"Ah, go wan, to Hell wit you, sure'n you will have him keepin' the
+lookout wit you the next we hear."
+
+I was so much interested in what I had heard that I jumped up onto the
+forecastle head. I came upon them so suddenly that Riley jumped back
+exclaiming, "Hivinly Father, and what is this?"
+
+He seemed greatly relieved when I spoke and said artfully:
+
+"Isn't this a beautiful night? See how large and bright those stars are
+there," pointing to the Southern Cross. "You men seem to have some
+secret about this ship,--what is it?" I continued, as my remark met with
+no response.
+
+Old Charlie cleared his throat, and, looking towards Riley as if for an
+approval, said solemnly: "Things are not as they should be aft."
+
+"What is it? Aren't you being treated well? Aren't you getting enough to
+eat?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't that at all, sir," broke in Riley.
+
+"Hold on, Riley, let me explain," and Old Charlie once more cleared his
+throat.
+
+"As I was saying, we believe that the ghost of the Captain is back on
+board," tapping the deck with his foot.
+
+I felt that a word of encouragement was necessary if I expected to be
+let in on the mystery. "Well," said I, "that is nothing. Men who have
+been taken suddenly out of this life may perhaps have left some
+important business unfinished, and the most natural thing in the world
+is for them to find some one whom they can converse with."
+
+"That's just what I was telling Riley, sir, that very same thing, and
+you know Riley seems to have more influence with him than any one so
+far."
+
+"Influence is it?" said Riley, "and shure, sir, he is a stranger
+intirely to me."
+
+"Tell me about it, Riley."
+
+"It's a damned strange thing, sir. Well, it was me watch from ten to
+twelve. I was just after striking six bells, when I takes a chew of me
+tobacco, and ses I to myself I had better be careful where I spit
+around here. I know, sir, you don't like tobacco juice on the
+paint-work. Reaching down to locate the spit-box to make sure that I
+could do it daycently, be me sowl, sur, something flipped by me.
+Shtraitening up, ses I to meself, ses I, 'Be Hivins, and it must be the
+blood running to me head.' I took a look at the compass, and she was one
+point to windward of her course. You were forward, sir, taking a pull on
+the forestaysail-halyards, and I ses to meself, 'Sure an if he comes aft
+and catches me with her off her course he will flail me like he did the
+big Swede.' Ah, an shure it is the fine bye he is now. There's the
+Squarehead so rejuced he even offers to wash me tin plate for me. Well,
+I got her back on her course, when all of a sudden I heard the divil's
+own noise in the Captain's room. Ses I to myself, ses I, 'Mike Riley,
+don't be a damned fool and belave iverything you hear.' But look as I
+would I could not keep my eyes from the window of the Captain's room,
+whin lo and behold, I got a glimpse of his face looking out at me.
+'Hivenly Father,' ses I, 'give me strenk and faith in yous to finish me
+watch.' Glory be to God, sir, I lost me head, and it's hard up wit me
+helm I was doing, when you shouted, 'Where in Hell are you going with
+her?' Be Hivins, and I was going straight back with her."
+
+During this story Broken-Nosed Pete kept edging closer, seemingly
+impressed, and about to become a convert to Riley's sincerity, while Old
+Charlie was just revelling in the details of the apparition, and at
+times, thinking that Riley was not doing justice to his subject in
+creating the proper amount of enthusiasm, would interrupt by saying,
+"There you are now. Just as I was saying. One couldn't expect anything
+else,"--and so forth.
+
+These remarks seemed to resolve any doubts that may have existed in
+Riley's mind of the genuineness of the face at the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE COOK'S WATCH--MATERIALISM VERSUS ASTRALISM
+
+
+I had the key to the Captain's room in my pocket and knew that no one
+was in there, but Riley's story had taken such a serious trend that I
+decided to withhold the news from them.
+
+"Well, Riley," I said carelessly, "you are easily frightened, when Toby
+can scare you like this."
+
+Here they all jumped toward me, and started to talk at once. Charlie,
+calling for order, decided that now was the time to fix me forever. He
+introduced Broken-Nosed Pete, who had always been inclined to be
+skeptical, to put the finishing touches on Riley's story.
+
+Pete, I may state, when he was rational, was unaffected in his speech by
+the rather unusual list of his nose. But tonight, moved by powerful
+feelings, he threw convention to the winds, and spoke in loud nasal
+tones, and with gestures befitting an orator.
+
+"Go on," said Charlie, pushing him forward, "tell him, Pete."
+
+"I had just called the watch below," he began, "and was taking my smoke
+and a bite of lunch. By that time it was eight bells. I was pulling down
+my blankets about to turn in, when I sees Riley coming down the scuttle
+with his cap in his hand and very warm looking. 'Is Toby in here?' ses
+Riley. 'He is,' ses I. 'He is over in Russian-Finn John's bunk.' 'Holy
+Mother of God,' ses Riley, 'get me a drink of water, 'tis fainting I
+am.' 'What's wrong, Riley?' I asks. 'Oh, be Hivins,' ses he, 'I have
+made the mistake of me life by ever shipping on this dirty old
+graveyard.' As for the rest, sir, you have heard it from Riley."
+
+"Was Riley scared when he came into the forecastle?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, sir, he swore horribly, and threatened to kill anybody who put out
+the light."
+
+"Well, we will all have some fun catching this ghost of yours. I will
+give an extra day's leave in Suva to the man who helps me. What do you
+say to that, men?" Charlie volunteered willingly. Pete was rather shy.
+
+"Riley, let us hear from you."
+
+"What is it you want us to do, sir?"
+
+"I want each of you to take one hour watches in the Captain's room from
+twelve to four." This was too much for Riley.
+
+"Be Hivins, sir, if ye offered me a year's leaf in a Turkish Harem to
+stay five minutes in the auld haunted room, I wouldn't take it, for as
+sure as me name is Michael Dennis Riley he is rummaging around there."
+
+The news of the ghost soon spread over the ship, and formed the sole
+topic of conversation of the crew. Even the second mate, whom I thought
+immune, was going around the decks looking bewildered, as if
+anticipating the immediate destruction of ship and crew.
+
+The Socialist cook was much interested in our astral visitor, and I
+thought how happy it would make him to sail away on the wings of a new
+law that would revolutionize both physics and chemistry.
+
+"Yes," he said, "you can trust me to keep watch from twelve to two
+tonight in the Captain's room. I am very much pleased indeed to have
+the opportunity. I have for years been fighting the mechanical and cheap
+manifestations of mediums and seers." He picked up his apron and wiped
+his mouth, to interrupt the line of march of tobacco juice which, having
+broken the barriers, was slowly wending its way down his chin.
+
+"Let me tell you," he said. "A material law gives us life. The same law
+takes it away. All material life," stamping the deck, "ends here. From
+the clay there is no redemption."
+
+At one o'clock in the morning the cook called me.
+
+"What do you want, Steward?" said I.
+
+"There is something in the Captain's room. Something I can't understand.
+When I am in the room with the light out, I am conscious of some one
+with me. And yet when I turn on the light that feeling leaves me. Then
+when I turn out the light and lock the door and sit here by the
+dining-table I would swear I could hear the sound of footsteps walking
+around, and the moving of chairs. I tell you, sir, it is mighty
+strange."
+
+"Are you sure that the sounds you heard were not made by the second mate
+walking on the deck above?"
+
+"No, sir, not at all. He agreed to stay forward on the deck-load till
+four bells."
+
+"How about the man at the wheel?" said I. "He could walk around on the
+steering platform and produce such sounds as you heard in the Captain's
+room."
+
+"Again you are mistaken. The man at the wheel is too scared to make any
+move but a natural one, such as turning the wheel, and that movement
+produces no sound down here in fair weather like we are having."
+
+The cook was truly mystified. He was anxious for me to realize the
+importance of his investigations in the Captain's room, yet with it all
+he held fast to his materialistic ideals.
+
+"Cook," said I, "you are taking this thing too seriously. I am certain
+that I have solved this mystery. Riley is certain that it is not Toby,
+the cat. Now you come along and are ready to prove that the sounds or
+walking you have observed were not produced by a material power from the
+deck above."
+
+"I mean," replied he, "that this walking in here was not produced by any
+action of the second mate or the man at the wheel."
+
+I told him that nevertheless I had the mystery solved, and I would prove
+it to him. "We have in the lower hold one hundred thousand feet of
+kiln-dried spruce boards one-half inch thick, and twenty-six to thirty
+inches wide. They vary in length from eighteen to thirty-six feet. The
+after bulkhead does not run flush with the deck above, and there are
+ends of boards that project over and into the runway. With the easy
+movement of the ship, this will produce a metallic sound that will cause
+vibration at a distance, and more distinctly under the Captain's room."
+
+At this the cook became very indignant, and told me that my theory was
+not correct at all.
+
+"Haven't I spent a half hour in the lazarette looking and listening for
+just such sounds as you describe?"
+
+"Are you sure that there are no rats in his room?"
+
+"If there are, I fail to find them. I have placed cheese around the room
+to convince myself. On examination of the cheese I couldn't find a
+tooth mark."
+
+"But why are there no sounds of walking in there now?"
+
+"That is what baffles me," said the cook. "Since we have been talking
+there has not been a sound from that room."
+
+I sent him to turn in, assuring him that I would sit in the room for an
+hour or so to see what would happen, and to try to solve a mystery that
+was beginning to try even my seasoned nerves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HIGHER INTELLIGENCE--A VISIT FROM OUT THE SHADOWS
+
+
+When the steward had gone forward to his bunk, I got a lunch, and was
+about to sit down by the dining-table to eat it, when I saw the door of
+the Captain's room open wide.
+
+Then, to my utter amazement, I saw the chair that the dead Captain had
+sat in for years swing around upon its pivot ready to receive a visitor.
+I was so startled by the wonderful unseen force that I forgot my lunch
+and was starting to close the door in the hope of another uncanny
+experience, when I was halted by a cry from the deck above.
+
+"Hard to starboard, you damned fool. Are you trying to cut her in two
+amidship?" shouted the second mate.
+
+"Hard over she is," rang out from the man at the wheel.
+
+Instantly I was on deck. The second mate was over in the lee
+mizzen-rigging. "What is it, Olsen?" I asked.
+
+"A full-rigged ship away two points on the starboard bow."
+
+To the man at the wheel I said: "Put your helm down and pass to windward
+of him before you jibe the spanker over, or you will knock Hell out of
+these old sails." Then to the second mate: "Why do you have to sail all
+over the ocean to get by that old pea-soup hulk? Don't you see that he
+has the wind free? Luff her up half a point," I ordered the wheel-man.
+
+We passed so close to windward that we took the wind out of his lower
+sails. The moon was in the last quarter, and we could see plainly the
+watch on her deck, and hear the officer swear at the helmsman, saying:
+
+"Keep her off, you damned sheep-herder, or you will cut that mud-scow in
+two." Then he shouted over to me: "It is the captain of an Irish
+locomotive you ought to be, you thick-headed pirate, trying to run us
+down! What's the name of your ship, anyway?"
+
+"Hardship loaded with Poverty," I replied with sarcasm.
+
+As we passed each other the voice of the angry officer grew fainter and
+fainter, then was lost in the stilly night under Southern skies.
+
+I was amused at the expression of the officer on board of the Yankee
+clipper, when he spoke of me as the captain of an Irish locomotive.
+There could be no greater insult to a self-respecting sailorman than
+this phrase. It means that you would do much better carrying a hod or
+wheeling a wheelbarrow than handling a ship. I had sailed in those
+down-east ships and knew their language. They never intend to give one
+inch on land or sea. Hard luck indeed for the sailor who does not know
+how to fight, or who shows a yellow streak!
+
+While thus meditating on the cruelties of the old oak ships and thinking
+what wonderful tales they could tell, my thoughts were suddenly
+interrupted by a consciousness of fear. Something warm was moving about
+my feet. On looking down I beheld Toby rubbing his black fur against my
+feet and legs....
+
+On getting my position of ship at noon today, I noticed the crew
+tiptoeing around as if they were afraid of disturbing some sleeping
+baby. I spoke to Riley, asking what all the hush was about.
+
+"Oh, be the Lord, sir, it is getting turrible on this auld graveyard of
+a ship. Begorra, we are shure av it now. Auld Charlie seen him prancing
+up and down the poop deck wid a poipe in his mouth. 'Tis turrible days
+we be having. The cook said that he proved it himself beyond a question
+of a doubt that the old bye himself is back on her."
+
+"Well, Riley, I am going to make the Old Man show down tonight. It is
+put up or shut up for him." Laughing a little at my own fancies, I went
+aft to the Captain's room, and sat down to watch, to continue to
+investigate this mystery that was so upsetting the morals of the crew as
+to endanger their efficiency.
+
+I left the door to the dining-room half open so that the light hung from
+the center of the ceiling threw its sickly rays into the room. I could
+hear the man at the wheel make an occasional move with his feet. Then
+all would be still again. One bell rang,--half-past twelve.
+
+Suddenly the door slammed with a terrible bang. I knew that there was
+no draught in the Captain's room to close it in this manner, and I must
+confess that I was considerably startled. Then I was conscious of some
+one moving a small stool that stood across from me, over towards the
+safe at the foot of the bed. I put out my hands to catch the visitor,
+and not finding anything but air, I reached out and pulled the door
+open.
+
+To my amazement, the stool had been moved to the safe. I was so unnerved
+by this that my one thought was to get away, and I went into the
+dining-room, and unconsciously lit my pipe. When my thoughts sorted
+themselves it became clear to me that I had been singled out by Destiny
+to have the privilege of meeting a great and new and unseen Force. If
+this were so great as to be able to move furniture at will, why, thought
+I, could it not be harnessed to our material uses? Why could it not be
+developed to get sails and discharge cargoes? Surely, it would
+revolutionize the forces of the air and earth, as we know them now.
+
+While these thoughts were taking shape in my mind, I was brought up
+with a start by hearing three loud and distinct raps on the door of the
+Captain's room.
+
+I shook the ashes out of the old corn cob pipe, and entered the room,
+closing the door behind me. This time I beheld still greater marvels. At
+the head of the Captain's bed appeared a small light, giving forth no
+rays, but moving around in the direction of the safe at the foot of the
+bunk. There it stopped about a minute, then moved over to the desk and
+gradually disappeared.
+
+"Ah," said I, "you are getting too much for me. Move some more furniture
+or that safe around this room so that I may alight upon a plan to
+harness your great power to hand down to future ages."
+
+At that I must have gone to sleep, for I was conscious of nothing more
+until I heard the cook coming aft with coffee. He was anxious to hear my
+experience during the middle watch. I told him that there had been no
+occurrence that was not natural, but that I might have news for him
+soon.
+
+"Steward," said I, "tomorrow is Christmas Day. I want you to prepare a
+good dinner for all hands."
+
+"Oh, yes," he replied, "I have had plum pudding boiling since yesterday.
+I am going to open a few cans of canned turkey. That, with the cove
+oyster soup and canned carrots will make a good dinner. I have had a
+little hard luck with my cake. I forgot to put baking powder in it. But
+I think that they can get away with it, as there is an abundance of
+raisins in it."
+
+Christmas morning at half-past twelve found me waiting in the Captain's
+room listening to rappings on the desk. At times these were loud and
+then again very weak. I opened the door and turned up the light in the
+dining-room so that there might be more brightness in the Captain's
+room. I wanted to see and hear whatever vibrations might be caused from
+the rappings. As I drew near the writing desk the rapping was centered
+on the middle drawer. Then it would move to a smaller drawer on the
+right-hand side and tap very hard. With a shout of joy I sprang to the
+light at the head of the bed, and lit it.
+
+"At last," I cried, "at last!"
+
+I was satisfied that there were rats in these drawers, and in order that
+they should not get away I armed myself with a club. I started to pull
+out the smaller drawer very carefully so that the rodent should not make
+his escape. To my astonishment I found it locked. I held my ear close to
+it, but could not hear a sound. Then I proceeded to open the middle
+drawer with the same caution, but found it open, and nothing in it but a
+small bunch of keys. My curiosity being aroused, I decided to look for
+the key on this ring that would open the smaller drawer. After many
+trials I found one that would fit the lock and on opening it I found,
+neither the animal, which in spite of my senses' evidence I half
+expected to see there, nor any other expected alternative, but, most
+surprising of all, a pair of tiny baby-shoes with a lock of yellow hair,
+tied with pink ribbon, in each of them.
+
+Back of the shoes was a jewel box, and in it a wedding-ring. Also,
+wrapped up in paper, was a will made by our late Captain two days before
+his death. This stated that he had an equity in an apartment house in
+San Francisco, which he wanted his boys to have. Evidently he had
+acquired this equity during his last visit to San Francisco. It also
+stated that there should be no delay in forwarding this will to the
+above address in West Berkeley, California, U. S. A.
+
+With the discovery of the Captain's treasures, this essence of his
+personality so revealed, I was carried out of my skepticism for the
+moment, into feeling his presence beside me, waiting for my word as a
+friend awaits the voice of a friend. Half unconsciously I spoke aloud:
+"You have shown me, and I shall obey. You have only to call upon me. Do
+not be anxious for your ship. I will tell your boys."
+
+"A lonely, lonely Christmas," echoed back vaguely, whether from Beyond
+or from the storehouse of my imagination, I do not know.
+
+As I replaced his things and started for the deck, the cook's words
+echoed and re-echoed in my memory, "Does it end here?"
+
+On deck Old Charlie was steering. Looking over the rail at the log, I
+found that she was cutting the distance to Suva at the rate of nine
+knots an hour. The breeze was warm, the turquoise sky studded with
+diamond stars; the three especially bright ones known as the Sailors'
+Yard were shining in all their splendor.
+
+Away to the south the Southern Cross twinkled and glittered, and was so
+majestic in its position, that it seemed to command obedience from all
+other celestial bodies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+CHRISTMAS DAY--OUR UNWILLING GUEST THE DOLPHIN
+
+
+While gazing into the Infinite, analyzing the experience through which I
+had just passed, and wondering where lay the Land of Shadows, my
+dreaming was suddenly changed to material things by hearing a terrible
+fight in the fore part of the ship. Jumping up on the deck-load, and
+running forward, I could hear Riley shout:
+
+"Club him, you old hen-catcher, you, before he goes through the
+hawsepipe. That's the way, that's the way. Shure, bad luck to you, you
+have missed him. Stand back there, stand back there, let me have at him.
+There he goes again under the lumber. Get me the bar, Pete. Look out, me
+byes. Shure and be Hivins out he comes again. Strike him between the
+eyes, Pete. Give me the bar, Pete. Shure'n you couldn't shtrike the
+sheep barn you was raised in."
+
+"What's all this row about?" I asked.
+
+"Ah, shure, sir, it's me auld friend Neptune would be after sendin' us a
+Christmas present. He is as fine a bonita as iver greased a mouth, but
+it's the divil's own toime we have had sub-duin' him."
+
+"Bring him up on the deck-load and let us look him over."
+
+"Riley," said I, when they had the great fish stretched out before us,
+"that is a dolphin, and no bonita,--notice the wedge-shaped head, and
+broad tail. No doubt he was cornered by a school of sword fish, and this
+fastest fish that swims the ocean had to make a leap for life by jumping
+aboard our ship. Bring the lantern here, and you will see him change to
+all colors of the rainbow while he is dying, another proof that he is a
+dolphin, that is, if he is not already dead."
+
+"Be Hivins, and it's far from dead he is, look at the gills moving."
+Surely enough, we watched and the beautiful colors came, brilliant blue
+and green and shaded red, and again I wondered, and it seemed to me that
+in the passing of the human life there might be just such a color
+change, invisible to those who are left behind.
+
+Dismissing these thoughts once and for all from my mind, I entered into
+the long discussion incident to the settlement of claims on the dead
+dolphin, as to who had discovered him, etc., etc. Broken-Nosed Pete was
+sure that he had seen him first, very much to the disgust of Riley, who,
+however, could not deny that his one eye was usually cocked to windward.
+
+I then turned to the men and told them that they need no longer be
+afraid of the ghost in the Captain's cabin.
+
+Riley spoke up: "And, shure, sir, you wasn't thinking that it was meself
+that was scared?"
+
+"Why do you carry the belaying-pin aft to the wheel with you, if you are
+not scared?" said Pete.
+
+"Go wan, you broken-nosed heathen, it's the likes of me that knows the
+likes av you. You degraded auld beachcomber, haven't I slept in ivery
+graveyard from Heath Head in Ireland to Sline Head in Galway? Divil a
+thing did I see only Mulligan's goat."
+
+Riley was about to launch away with Mulligan's goat when I interrupted,
+reassuring them and telling them that there was no need of carrying
+belaying-pins to kill the ghost, for it had departed for shores unknown.
+
+"Good luck to it," said Riley, highly pleased, "and more power to it.
+And shure it is sinsible it is to lave on this howly Christmas morning.
+I remimber one time on an auld side-wheeler running between Dublin and
+London, it was twelve o'clock--"
+
+Riley's story was cut short by the man at the wheel ringing eight bells,
+four o'clock. Pete went off to clean the fish, and the others to their
+watch below, while I turned in, leaving Riley alone with his
+side-wheeler.
+
+The sentiment of Christmas amongst sailors on the sea makes it a day of
+strict observances. No work is done outside the working of ship, which
+is steering or keeping lookout. There is no mat-making, model-making nor
+patching old clothes in their watch below. They dress in their best
+clothes, and for those that shave a great deal of time is spent in this
+operation. No stray bristle has a chance to escape the religious hand of
+a sailor on a day like this.
+
+It is also a day of letter-writing, with good intentions of forwarding
+them at the first port, but somehow in the general confusion when in
+port, they are lost in a whirlpool of excitement. Considering a sign
+between the ship and the post office reading "Bass' Ale," "Black and
+White" or "Guinness's Stout," imagine any poor sailor doing his duty to
+the folks at home! For the moment those glaring and fascinating signs
+are home to him.
+
+But today is too full of sentiment for him to think of alluring public
+houses and pretty barmaids. It is given up to religious thoughts with a
+firm resolution to sin no more.
+
+The spirit of the day had even taken hold of the Socialist cook. In
+serving dinner I noticed that he had on a clean apron and a white
+jacket, a great concession for him. I was much attracted by his brogans,
+which were much too large, and had a fine coating of stove polish to
+enhance their charm.
+
+"Why have you set a place for the Captain, Steward?" said I.
+
+"Oh, just out of respect for him. You know he wasn't such a bad man
+after all. Beside, it will make the table look more like a real
+Christmas dinner. You can just suppose that your invited guest has been
+delayed, and you can go on with your dinner."
+
+I was beginning to like our cook more and more. It seemed that beneath
+the hard crust of materialism, there was something very like love and
+loyalty.
+
+The German noodle soup, the canned turkey, and the plum pudding to top
+off with was a very befitting dinner at sea. Of course, one must not
+indulge too freely in plum pudding, especially when its specific gravity
+exceeds that of heavy metals. This hypothesis was proven to me later in
+the day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CRIMP AND SAILOR--THE COOK'S MARXIAN EFFORT
+
+
+The cook was pleased with my investigation of the Captain's room. "Don't
+you know," said he, "I was impressed with the unusual sounds there? I
+was beginning to relinquish my hold on the Material, and to give way
+more to the unknown and unseen things of life. But you can see that we
+are all creatures of imagination. There are no limitations to it,
+especially with those who are superstitious. Now I can plainly
+understand how such sounds could be produced by rats, just as you say."
+
+He took his stand in the pantry, and continued, from this point of
+vantage. "It is a shame," he shouted, "that there is so much
+superstition in the world. If there were not so much, the capitalist
+would not have the opportunity to exploit his ill-gotten goods on the
+highways and byways of our economic system."
+
+Stirring something in a glass, no doubt extract of lemon, he tipped it
+to his lips and swallowed it with a grunt of satisfaction.
+
+"With such ignorance in the world," he said, "how are we to combat this
+scourge of humanity? Let me say here," shaking his fist at me, "the only
+solution is education without discrimination. With this useful weapon we
+can equalize the scales of justice. Without it we continue to be slaves
+to the old and new masters. Take, for instance, the ignorance and
+superstition of our crew forward. While they are hunting for ghosts the
+parasites are picking their pockets. What can society expect of them? No
+wonder they are a prey to apparitions at sea and crimps ashore. Once we
+were homeward bound from New Zealand to Frisco. The crew, as usual,
+consisted of many nationalities. She carried twenty-four seamen forward.
+I frequently talked to these men evenings about joining the Socialist
+Labor Party, much to the disgust of the Captain. Well, they all agreed
+that when they should reach San Francisco they would join the
+organization. I believe that they really intended to, but you know the
+sailorman ashore scents the rum barrel, and becomes an easy prey to the
+crimp and boarding-house runner. Two days after our arrival in that
+wicked city we were paid off by the U. S. Government. I waited until the
+last man had his money. 'Men,' said I, 'come with me to our hall and
+join the one organization that is going to redeem the world.'
+
+"The crimp runners were pretty well represented, as they usually are
+when a ship pays off. They tried every possible means to entice the men
+away, telling them that they would not have to pay for room or board,
+and that furthermore they could pick their own ship when they felt like
+going to sea again. The latter is considered a great concession to a
+sailor. But the crimps do not stop there. They have old sailors who are
+kept with them for years, who make it their business to know as many as
+possible of the men who follow the sea. We had an Irishman in the crew,
+and this lost the day for me. Just as we started for the hall, out of
+the crowd strolled a seasoned veteran of the sea. With a shout of joy he
+fell upon one of our crew, crying:
+
+"'If me eyes don't deceive me, I see Jamey Dugan. Dead or alive, I shake
+hands with you.'
+
+"Whether Dugan knew the greasy beachcomber or not, I knew that the bunko
+steering talk would get him. It was very flowery.
+
+"'Why, certainly, you remember me. In Valparaiso. You were in the good
+old ship so-and-so.'
+
+"I could see that there was no time to lose if I expected to reach the
+hall with all of them. I mounted a fire-hydrant near by, and pleaded
+with them, telling them that this crook who had hold of them was nothing
+but a hireling of the crimp, and tomorrow, all of their money being
+spent, they would most likely be shipped off to sea in any old tub whose
+master offered the most money to the boarding-house keeper.
+
+"My pleading was in vain. They kept edging away as if I were a wild
+beast of the jungle. The influence of the gangster was getting stronger.
+Again I beseeched and implored these men of the sea to come with me.
+They only started to move away. It was with a sickened heart that I
+stepped down from the hydrant. I had no chance with this barnacle of the
+sea, for they were already starting in his wake for Ryan's saloon across
+the street."
+
+The cook, lamenting his loss, started to stir up another lemon-de-luxe.
+Taking advantage of the opportunity, I stole up on deck to relieve the
+second mate for dinner. He must have thought that I had foundered on the
+noodle soup and plum-pudding.
+
+The cook and I may not altogether have agreed on the social things of
+life, but I was with him heart and soul in his fight for better and
+cleaner conditions for sailors ashore. I, too, know the crimps, and had
+suffered more than once from their dastardly methods of making money.
+
+They were always on the lookout for anything that resembled a sailor
+when a ship was ready to sail, and a short-handed captain would offer
+one of them fifty or a hundred dollars a head blood-money. With that
+would go from one to two months' advance in wages to the unfortunate
+victim, which eventually fell into the crimp's hands also. He would not
+stop even at murder if necessary to fill the required quota.
+
+What if he did ship a dead man or two? They were not supposed to awake
+for at least twenty-four hours after they were brought aboard. By that
+time they were under way, and the curses of the captain were lost in
+sheeting home the upper topsails.
+
+The mate, on the other hand, took a lively interest in restoring the
+sleeper to life. After he had spent some time clubbing him, and trying
+every method known to the hard-boiled mates of former times, he would
+find a belaying-pin, and beat the drugged man on the soles of his shoes.
+This was the final test. If he did not respond to it, the officer would
+report to the captain that one of the crew who had just come aboard was
+dead. Cursing and swearing, the captain would say: "How do you know that
+he is dead?"
+
+"Well, Captain, I have awakened a great many of them in my time, and
+there isn't a kick in this fellow."
+
+"Did you try the mirror?"
+
+Holding the mirror at his mouth, to see whether by chance there might be
+precipitation was the last act. It would never occur to them to feel for
+the pulse, probably because their hands were too heavily calloused to
+permit of it. Furthermore, it would never do to lower the mate's
+dignity in the presence of the crew by so gracious an act.
+
+"No, sir, I have not tried the mirror yet. I am thinking that you have
+booked a losing."
+
+"Booked Hell," the captain would shout, "Here, take this drink of brandy
+and pour it into him, then hold the mirror over his mouth. If that
+doesn't work, throw him overboard."
+
+Those who were shanghaied were not usually sailors. One would find
+tailors, sheep-herders, waiters and riff-raff of the slums, who had
+fallen prey to the greed of the boarding-house keeper.
+
+When one did respond to the mate's treatment, he would awake to a living
+Hell, until the next port was reached, which would take three, four or
+even five months.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MONTANA COWBOY--A HORSE-MARINE ADVENTURE
+
+
+There are instances where the Captain and mates of the old time sailing
+ships have had cause to regret their methods of procuring sailors from
+the crimps.
+
+When a drugged and shanghaied sailor comes on board the mate looks him
+over for dangerous weapons.
+
+If he has a sheath knife the mate breaks the point off. If a gun, he
+takes it aft to the Captain. When the drug-crazed man comes to he is
+easy to handle. If he should show fight, a crack over the head with a
+belaying-pin will send him down and out. When the stars disappear and he
+comes back to earth again, he is very responsive, and willing to scrub
+decks or anything else that is desired of him.
+
+A Montana cowboy, seeing the sights in a Pacific port, fell a prey to
+the crimps. Blood money was high. One hundred and fifty dollars was not
+to be laughed at, when it could be had so easily. The cowboy was given
+the usual dose of knock-out drops, then thrown into a boat, and rowed
+off to the ship, which was lying at anchor. When the boat came alongside
+the ship, the crimp shouted: "Ahoy, Mr. Mate, I have a good sailor for
+you."
+
+The mate never expected shanghaied men to walk up the gangway. He knew
+what to expect, and usually gave them the allotted time, about
+twenty-four hours, to sleep the drug off.
+
+"Are you sure he is a good sailor?" said the mate.
+
+"Oh, yes," replied the crimp, "he is an old-time sailor, we have known
+him for years. He has been sailing to this port in some of the best
+ships afloat."
+
+The mate called some members of the crew to get the tackle over the side
+and yank him aboard. The cowboy was heavy, and he did not yank aboard as
+easily as some of the other drugged men, very much to the astonishment
+of the old-time sailors.
+
+They know by the weight on the tackle fall how to guess what the
+vocation ashore has been of this latest addition to their number. If the
+drugged man is a light-weight, he is proclaimed a tailor, if medium
+weight he is a sheep-herder, and so on.
+
+But they could not find a suitable vocation for this cowboy who was so
+damned heavy. After long, long pulls, and strong, strong pulls, he
+landed on deck as limp as a rag. The mate rolled him over with his foot,
+and seeing that he had no weapons of any kind ordered him thrown on the
+hatch to sleep it off.
+
+The crimp had relieved him of the cowboy hat, but not the riding shoes,
+very much to the disgust of the mate, who remarked:
+
+"I have sailed in many ships and with all kinds of sailors, but I will
+go to Hell if I ever saw a sailor with as long heels on his boots as
+this fellow has."
+
+Nevertheless he impressed the mate as being a sailor. He had the desert
+and mountain ruggedness and complexion, and not the sallow dyspeptic
+look of the tailor, which mates and crew despise so. When the anchor was
+up, and they were standing out to sea, the mate undertook to awake the
+cowboy with a force pump.
+
+After the salt water had been played on him about five minutes, he
+awoke, and realized that he was on board of a ship. He inquired of the
+mate how he got aboard, and where he was going. The mate answered him
+very sharply, saying:
+
+"You get up, damn quick, and loose the main-upper-topgallant-sail if you
+want to get along well and happy in this ship."
+
+He might have been talking the dead languages for all the cowboy knew
+about upper-topgallant-sails. He rubbed his eyes, and pulling himself
+together realized that this was not a dream after all, but a stern
+reality. After looking over the ship and feeling the roll, he eyed the
+mate with suspicion, saying: "See here, stranger, haven't you made a
+mistake? Tell me how I came aboard this here ship."
+
+The mate thought the new sailor was having a joke at his expense.
+Stepping up to him he said, "Damn you, don't you dare to joke with me,
+or I will break every bone in your body."
+
+"Let me tell you, stranger," said the cowboy, "I want you to turn this
+here thing around 'cause I must be a hitting the trail."
+
+This was too much for any good mate to stand, especially when the
+members of the crew were highly pleased with the new sailor's remark.
+The mate pulled off his pea-jacket, and tightening his belt, remarked:
+
+"I guess I will teach you how to respect your superiors while you are on
+board this ship."
+
+The cowboy, seeing that the mate meant business, pulled off his wet coat
+and vest, also the black silk handkerchief that was tied in a very
+fashionable knot around his neck and remarked, "Stranger, you be mighty
+keerful how many bones you break in my body."
+
+Here the mate made a lunge for him, which the boy ducked, and with an
+upper-cut he sent the mate to the deck in a heap. The mate got up and
+started for a belaying pin. The crafty range rider was upon him in a
+second with a left hook to the jaw. The mate went down, and stayed down
+for some time. Then the second mate, third mate and captain came to the
+rescue of their first mate. The mates were knocked down as fast as they
+could get up. The Captain called the crew saying, "Arrest this man and
+put him in irons for mutiny on the high seas."
+
+This the crew refused to do, because the way this new sailor could use
+his hands was not at all to their liking, and they were not anxious to
+take on any rough stuff so early on the voyage.
+
+The Captain, flushed with rage, ran to the cabin shouting:
+
+"I will get my gun and kill this mutineer." The mates picked themselves
+up and the two went after guns. The cowboy, turning to the sailors,
+said:
+
+"Here, you critters, get behind a sage bush or something,--get out of
+range and get out damned quick, for there is going to be Hell shot out
+of this here ship in about a minute." Reaching down in his riding boots
+he pulled out two forty-fives and backed over to the starboard bulwarks
+to await the signal from the cabin.
+
+He did not have to wait long. The Captain came roaring up the
+companion-way, thinking that the new sailor at the sight of the gun
+would run and get under cover. But not so with this one, far from it.
+There he stood, a plain and visible target for the Captain's and mate's
+guns. While the Captain was running along the lee alleyway of the
+bridge-deck, the cowboy called to him, saying:
+
+"Can you kill from the hip, Mister? If you can't you'd better get close
+and shoot straight."
+
+The Captain was too angry to utter a sound. It was bad enough to knock
+his three mates down and out, without heaping insult upon insult by
+asking if he could shoot straight. The blow he had got on the jaw from
+this untamed sailor he considered enough to justify him in killing on
+sight anyway, for it would be days before he could bring his jaws
+together on anything harder than pea soup or bread pudding.
+
+With these maddening thoughts twitching his nautical brow, he swung from
+the bridge-deck onto the main deck. There in front of him stood the new
+mariner leaning against the bulwarks with his hands behind his back. The
+Captain's gun was swinging at arm's length in the right hand, but not
+pointed toward the cowboy.
+
+This code of ethics pleased the cowboy, for he remarked to the Captain:
+"Remember you draw first, and if you have any message for the folks at
+home now is the time to send it."
+
+Hearing the mates coming, the Captain took courage, and raised his gun
+as if to shoot, when a shot rang out and his right arm fell limply to
+his side. With a spring of a wild animal the cowboy changed for a new
+position. He jumped onto the main hatch, where he could command a view
+of the ship fore and aft. No sooner had he changed to his new position,
+than the mates appeared on the main deck and ordered him in the King's
+name to surrender or take the consequences.
+
+"I don't know anything about your kings," remarked the cowboy, "but I do
+know I'm going back to my ole horse and I'm going mighty quick. Let me
+tell you, strangers, I want you to turn this here ship back. I'll give
+you five minutes to make up your minds."
+
+The Captain broke the silence by ordering the ship back to port, saying,
+to save his dignity, that he could never go to sea wounded as he was,
+and was also anxious to bring this sailor to the bar of justice for
+mutiny and attempted murder on the high seas.
+
+"Before you obey the orders of your boss here," said the cowboy,
+addressing the crew, "I want your guns. You know it is dangerous for
+children like you to be handling something you don't know much about."
+
+Evidently the Captain was in great pain, for he commanded the mates to
+give up their weapons, which they did very reluctantly after the ship
+had tacked and stood in for port again. To make matters worse, the
+cowboy walked the weather side of the bridge-deck, and practically
+commanded the ship until she dropped anchor.
+
+Then the police boat came off and took captain, mates and cowboy ashore
+to the hall of justice, where the new sailor put a kink in the crimp,
+sending him for five years to the penitentiary for drugging and
+shanghaing him. He also caused the Captain and first mate to exchange
+their comfortable quarters aboard ship for uneasy cells in jail; six
+months for the mate and a year for the Captain....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The old Hell Ships have passed away into the murky horizon, to be seen
+no more, and with them have gone the old sailors, some to the Land of
+Shadow, others to pass their remaining years working ashore, and many to
+that most coveted place on earth, Snug Harbor. A new age has dawned
+upon the mariner of today. He sails on ocean greyhounds, where there are
+no yards to square, no topsails, no tiller ropes to steer with. He
+doesn't have to sail four years before the mast to learn how to become a
+sailor. Steam, the simplified, has made it pleasant and easy for him. He
+no longer requires the tin plate and hook pot, nor has he any place for
+the donkey's breakfast. (The latter used to be supplied by the crimp and
+consisted of a handful of straw tucked into a cheap bed tick; that was
+the sailor's bed in the old days.)
+
+Today he is supplied with everything necessary for his comfort, even to
+five hundred cubic feet of air space, and food as good as he was likely
+to get ashore.
+
+The cracker or hardtack hash was an art years ago, and required the
+skill of a French chef. It is even possible that the French chef would
+not have scorned what the old sailor discarded in making this sumptuous
+repast. The first process of this delicious dish was to economize for
+days to save enough hardtack. Secondly, it was necessary for it to soak
+at least forty-eight hours. By that time you were sure that all living
+creatures had forsaken their pleasant abode for a breath of fresh air or
+a swim around the hook pot.
+
+When you were satisfied that the hardtack was malleable, you would mix
+in what salt horse you could spare without stinting yourself too much,
+and anything else that happened to be around. Then came the supreme
+task, getting a concession from the cook to bake it. It required much
+study as to how to approach the "Doctor," for this was his title in
+important functions. Should he be so generous with you as to grant an
+interview for this noble concession, you were to be complimented, and
+considered in line for promotion to the black pan. It is only a brother
+in death that could share the remnants from the Captain's table. Hence
+the black pan.
+
+The sailor of today no longer need covet the crumbs from the captain's
+table, he is fed à la carte and waited on by uniformed waiters; even his
+salary is more than captains received twenty to thirty years ago in
+sailing ships.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE FRAGRANT SMELL OF THE ALLURING PALMS
+
+
+Away to the westward the sun was sinking into the deep, with small
+fleecy clouds guarding the last bright quivering rays as if giving a
+signal to make ready for the lovely night. So Christmas had come and
+departed with the setting of the sun.
+
+I was thinking of him who had also departed so suddenly to the land of
+eternal rays, and wondered if the great Nazarene should not have said,
+"Peace to those who have passed away, and good will to those whom they
+have left behind."
+
+For the next ten days the wind held steady, and one could see from the
+restlessness of the crew, particularly Dago Joe, that we were nearing
+land. I had sent a man aloft to see if he could pick up Wallingallala
+Light. I was sure that if our chronometer was right we should pick it up
+about two o'clock in the morning. I decided to sail through Namuka
+Passage, thereby cutting off the distance to Suva about three hundred
+and fifty miles. Otherwise it would be necessary to sail to the
+southward of the Archipelago, and the danger of the latter course was
+the southeast trades, which usually die out twenty degrees south of the
+Equator.
+
+As Suva lay 18° 22', I was sure I could hold the wind through the
+Passage, if I could keep away from the uncharted coral reefs which are
+so dangerous to navigation among those islands. At half-past three in
+the morning Broken-Nosed Pete sang out from the foretop, "A light on the
+port bow." I took the binoculars and ran up the mizzen-rigging. There
+was the long-looked-for light.
+
+I changed the course after getting bearings on the light, and headed her
+for Namuka Passage. After entering the Passage it was necessary to
+change our course from time to time, and this had to be done by log and
+chart, in order to avoid the projecting reefs which jutted out from the
+island. Many of these reefs extend from three to five miles from each
+island. The navigator never loses his position of ship, and great care
+must be taken in making allowances for currents.
+
+About six o'clock we were well into the Passage and abreast of Boscowen
+Island, better known as Cap Island. Away to the southwest lay Vite Vuva,
+which was the island we were bound for. The wind was freshening, and
+when passing an island great gusts of wind would swoop on us, which made
+it necessary to take in our staysails.
+
+The fragrant smell of the alluring palms was beginning to fascinate the
+crew, with the exception of Riley, who wore a rather troubled look. When
+I asked him if he was sick he replied in the negative, "Sick would you
+have me? Shur'n the divil a bit is it sick I am. Auld Charlie has been
+telling me it's cannibals there are on these islands, but shure I don't
+belave a wurd that old wharf rat says."
+
+"Well, Riley," said I, "Charlie may be right. No doubt somewhere in
+these islands there may lurk a few sturdy savages who wouldn't hesitate
+a moment to recommend that a man like you be cooked and served table
+d'hôte at one of their moonlight festivals. They much prefer the white
+meat to the dark, and you will admit there are some choice pieces in
+you."
+
+"There are, me bye, but I'll be keeping meself intact and the divil a
+man-eater will iver lay a tooth in me, if Michael Dennis Riley knows
+anything."
+
+"Stay close to the ship," said I, "and don't wander too far afield and I
+doubt if there is much danger, as long as you keep sober and have your
+eye peeled to windward."
+
+"Be Hiven, sor, and that is what I will be doing. As for keeping sober,
+shure and that is aisy for me. It is only on rare occasions that I ever
+take a drop of the crayture. Begorra, and it's the pledge I'll be taking
+while I'm amongst these heathen."
+
+The speed we were making did not encourage me in the least. We were
+logging eleven knots, and if she kept this up we would be off Suva
+Harbor about two-thirty in the morning; then it would be necessary to
+lie off Suva till the pilot came aboard some time during the forenoon.
+The chart showed it was about seven miles from the entrance of the
+channel between the coral reefs to the harbor. As there were no
+tug-boats here, I figured that by the time the pilot rowed off to where
+I should be in the offing, it would indeed be late in the morning. But I
+was much worried at having to spend a night dodging these dangerous
+reefs which were not even marked by a bell-buoy.
+
+Towards evening, while passing between two islands, the wind fell very
+light. The channel was narrow, and it looked for a time as if we were in
+danger of drifting onto the south reef of Vite Vuva Island. What little
+breeze there was carried to our ears the enchanting voices of the
+natives singing their island songs. The cook was coaxing Toby to indulge
+in age-old brisket, but without success, and turning to me he said,
+"What a pity it is that our world isn't full of song and laughter like
+that of these happy natives. Their day of toil is over, and with it
+comes the song of happiness. There are no landlords here to dispossess
+you, no licensed thugs hired by crooked corporations to club you while
+you are working for the interest of the downtrodden. I tell you that
+some day the world will be just such a place to live in as these isles,
+no worries, no troubles and damned little work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SUVA HARBOR--THE REEF AND THE LIGHTHOUSES
+
+
+As we nosed by the reef, and got the island on our beam, the wind came
+to our rescue, and with staysails set I laid a course for Suva Harbor.
+At one o'clock we picked up Suva lights, the two lighthouses which
+marked the entrance to the harbor. One light is about on sea level, the
+other has an altitude of some two hundred feet, being back and up the
+hill and in direct line with the first. When these two lights bear due
+north you have the channel course into Suva Harbor.
+
+When I had these lights in range I decided to run in and take a chance,
+rather than stay out and wait for the pilot. Another reason why I was
+anxious to get in was that the barometer was falling and it looked like
+rain. This being the hurricane season, I was not at all pleased with
+the mackerel skies of the early morning. The channel is very narrow
+between the reefs, and great care must be taken in steering one's
+course.
+
+After jibing her over and pointing her into the channel, I had
+Broken-Nosed Pete take the wheel, with instructions that if he got off
+the course his neck would be twisted at right angles to his nose. Pete
+was a good helmsman, and could be trusted in close quarters like those
+we were about to sail through.
+
+Until we passed into the harbor my interest in the schooner "Wampa"
+could be had for a song. With waves breaking on either side of us as we
+were passing through, and expecting every moment to strike the reef,
+moments seemed like centuries, and not to me alone. The only sound that
+came from the crew was from Riley, and he did not intend it for my ears.
+
+The noise of the breakers to windward was not so bad for Riley and his
+one eye, but to have it repeated on his blind side was asking too much
+of an honest sailor. He shouted to Old Charlie, "Glory be to God,
+Charlie, and it's drowned we will be in sight of land. In the name of
+the Father, what made him attempt it on a night like this? Look, look,
+Holy Saint Patrick, look at the breakers. Ah, and it's high and dry
+we'll be. Bad luck to the day I ever set foot on this auld barge! She
+isn't fit for a dog to sail in."
+
+The harbor end of the reef was marked by a light on a small cutter,
+which was so dim that one would almost have to have a light to find it.
+After rounding this insignificant light we had deep water and a large
+harbor.
+
+Just as day was breaking we dropped anchor, after an eventful voyage of
+fifty-four days from Puget Sound. At eight o'clock an East Indian doctor
+came on board, and lining the crew up for inspection, required every man
+to put out his tongue. From the looks of the above-mentioned he seemed
+pleased with the health of the crew. He left, after looking over the
+official log book to make sure that the Captain had not been murdered.
+
+The customs men followed him aboard, and being assured that we were not
+pirates, departed to where the brandy and soda offered a more tempting
+interest. As I expected, the pilot came alongside about nine-thirty,
+very much disgusted to think that I should dare to run the channel
+without the guidance of his steady head and hand.
+
+Had he not been here for fifteen years doing this work which required
+skill and courage, piloting ships of all nations into and out of this
+dangerous channel? What was it to him (with a clinking glass), whether
+the conversation took the shape of the battle of Balaclava or the
+bombardment of Alexandria? Let the ships lay in the offing and await his
+pleasure. They were helpless without him, and must await his guidance to
+reach safe anchorage.
+
+He scrambled over the side, and adjusting his monocle to look me over,
+said in an accent that would make a cockney cab-driver take to honest
+toil, "Ahem, ahem, where is your captain?"
+
+"He is somewhere around the Equator in 145° west longitude," I said.
+"Ow, ow, I see. He abandoned the ship, I suppose."
+
+"Yes," said I, "he left much against his will. It is rather strange, is
+it not?"
+
+"Well, I'll be blowed to think he should have departed in this manner."
+
+Riley, who was coiling down the main boom tackle fall, was more
+interested in the English pilot than in coiling ropes. The last remark
+of the pilot re-echoed back from him in words not befitting this high
+command.
+
+"Shur'n it's more av them that ought to be laying at the bottom of the
+sea with a mill stone around their neck."
+
+The way Riley's one eye would alternate from the pilot to the little
+town across the harbor, and the way his lips twitched suggested to me
+what was going on in his mind. To think he had sailed seventy-five
+hundred miles to find a specimen like this! "To hell with the pledge and
+Cannibal Isles, isn't the sight of this enough to drive any poor
+Irishman into swearing allegiance to John Barleycorn for the rest of his
+life?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+INTRODUCING CAPTAIN KANE, MRS. FAGAN AND MRS. FAGAN'S BAR
+
+
+After convincing the pilot of the Captain's death, I was given a severe
+reprimand for coming into the harbor alone. When he went ashore I had
+the small boat lowered, and, putting on a pair of the dead Captain's
+shoes, also his shirt and pants, I had Broken-Nosed Pete row me to the
+landing place on the wharf.
+
+I wanted to look up the consignee and see where he wanted the cargo of
+lumber. There were a few cutters anchored in the harbor, but no ships.
+As we neared the wharf, I noticed a neat and clean little steam cutter
+lying along the south side of the wharf, and judged from the three-pound
+gun on her deck that she was a revenue cutter. On the wharf stood many
+natives, male and female. I was particularly attracted to the native
+men, who were wonderful types of physical development, standing six
+feet or more, with broad shoulders and deep chests. The muscles ran
+smoothly in their arms and legs, and their tapering thighs and agile
+feet made a picture seldom seen in the northern latitudes. They had no
+worries and troubles in dealing with the tailors and dressmakers. Adam
+and Eve fashions still prevailed here, although some of the more
+prominent wore a yard or two of white linen instead of the fig leaves.
+This, contrasted with the shiny dark skin and the white-washed hair,
+which had a vertical pitch, rather distinguished them in appearance from
+their more humble brethren.
+
+Broken-Nosed Pete was so fascinated by "the female of the species," that
+he forgot to moor the boat. As the latter was drifting away from the
+wharf I gave him instructions to be more prudent,--to make fast the
+boat, and remain there until my return. Evidently Pete was not looking
+for this rebuke, for he answered in a voice that could be heard the
+width of the harbor saying, "Aye, aye, there seems to be a hellish
+current, sir."
+
+As I started to walk up the wharf I was met by a young man wearing a
+Palm Beach suit. "You are the Captain of the 'Wampa,' I believe," said
+he, "I represent Smith & Company here, and your cargo is consigned to
+us." After showing me where the lumber was to go, he told me that I
+would have to raft it ashore. This was rather discouraging to me, as the
+distance was about one mile from the ship and I had never had any
+experience with work of this kind, but on account of shallow water at
+the dock I had no other alternative and decided to raft the cargo ashore
+as he directed.
+
+He invited me to his office, telling me that he believed there was mail
+there for the ship. In passing a hotel at the end of the wharf he
+suggested a highball, which was served in due course by a red-headed
+Irish barmaid. I was then introduced to a number of Hibernians,
+noticeable among whom was a very fat and blubbery looking creature with
+an unusually large nose. His black beard was streaked with gray, his
+mouth had a sort of an angular twist, and in opening it one could see a
+few stray tusks, so solitary that it seemed they must be quite conscious
+of the old surroundings. The shirt, with its nicotine and other stains,
+was open at the neck, displaying a black and long-haired breast. This he
+seemed to be very proud of.
+
+After telling me that his name was Captain Kane, and that he was the
+Captain of the "Pongon," the revenue cutter which I had noticed lying
+alongside the wharf, he put his hand to his breast and began to twist
+the black hair. This was probably an act of official dignity as Captain
+of the "Pongon," and representative of the British Government in the
+Fiji Archipelago. I got the mail, which consisted of three letters, one
+for the cook, and one for me from the owners, instructing me to proceed
+home in ballast to San Francisco. The other was addressed to Nelson, the
+Dane. When I got back aboard the ship it was noon, and raining as it
+knows how to rain in this country. It was not dropping down, but a
+continuous stream as if running through a sprinkler.
+
+The afternoon was given to taking off deck-lashings and getting a line
+ashore in order to be able to pull the raft to the wharf. This operation
+used up almost all the rope on the ship.
+
+About seven o'clock the crew came aft to say that they were going
+ashore and wanted some money to spend. Oh, no, not at all for whiskey,
+just a few necessary things such as socks, tobacco and handkerchiefs.
+(Whoever heard of a sailor buying a handkerchief while the ready oakum
+is to be had for the asking!) I assured them that tomorrow I would draw
+on the owners, and give them one pound each to spend on these luxuries.
+They went forward growling and grumbling, and not at all pleased with
+this proposition. I believe that Broken-Nosed Pete's description of what
+he had seen at the wharf weighed heavy on their minds.
+
+In the morning we started the raft by taking four long two-by-sixes and
+lashing them at the ends, thus forming a square, then launching it over
+the side, and making it fast to the ship. We started to stow the lumber
+on the ship, running the boards fore and aft, then athwart ships. After
+having stowed a few tiers, the raft took shape, but great care had to be
+taken in starting it, as it was hard to keep the first boards from
+floating away. The raft could not draw over six feet, otherwise we could
+not float it ashore, but with this draft we could raft twenty thousand
+feet ashore and escape the shallow places in the harbor.
+
+I went ashore towards noon to hire ten natives to help unload cargo.
+Much to my surprise, the native Fijian is a man of leisure and not of
+toil. Shell-fishing is good, and the yams and bananas are within easy
+reach, so this gentleman prefers to bask in the sunshine rather than to
+work for a paltry shilling.
+
+I was about to go to the office of Smith & Company to see what they
+could do for me about getting help, when I espied Captain Kane strolling
+up the wharf. From the way his legs were spread apart one could see that
+his cargo was something different from lumber. As he approached me I
+noticed the cigar was so short that it was singeing his black beard and
+mustache. He greeted me warmly, saying, "How's she heading, sonny?" and
+insisted that I join him in a glass, as he usually took one about this
+time of day.
+
+On the way to the hotel I told him how hard it was going to be for me to
+get help. He stopped suddenly, and, turning around to look at the harbor
+as if to make sure that there were no blockade runners in the offing,
+he fanned himself with his cheese-cutter cap, then turned towards me
+saying, "Why, man alive, I can load your ship down with coolies. Do you
+see those," pointing to a couple of small men, "they are our workers
+here. They come in from the Solomon group. I will get you as many as you
+want for two shillings a day and meals. As for these natives, they are
+damned lazy scoundrels, that's what they are, they won't work at all if
+they can help it."
+
+Mrs. Fagan greeted us with a smile, asking us in the good old Irish way
+what our pleasure might be. Her red hair was much in need of combing and
+lacked the delicate wave of the tonsorial artist. We were joined by the
+pilot, who was on his way to give his boat's crew a little excursion
+around the harbor. "One must keep them in practice, you know. Goodness
+knows when a coolie ship may heave in sight, and I must be there to
+guide her in. Oh, yes, I must do my duty rain or shine."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+REMINISCENCES OF OLD CLIPPER DAYS
+
+
+One could see from the yawn and grunt that Captain Kane gave, that if
+the pilot went on talking he would disregard all rules of the road and
+make it a head-on collision. How could he respect this thing, that
+called itself captain and pilot, when all he commanded was an open boat
+with a few black oarsmen; "It is practice you want," said Captain Kane,
+raising his glass and draining the last dregs from Mrs. Fagan's
+highball, setting the glass down on the bar with a bang that seemed to
+further derange Mrs. Fagan's red hair.
+
+She turned around exclaiming, "May the Lord save us and what was that?"
+
+"Let me tell you," said Captain Kane to the pilot, wiping his mouth,
+"that I don't think you know Hell about doing your duty. Here's a
+man"--patting me on the shoulder--"that squared away and ran the reef
+while you were asleep, yes, damn you, asleep. You talk about duty!" The
+little wisp of hair on Captain Kane's head no longer lay in quiet
+repose, but started to ascend as if controlled by the angular motions of
+his hands and feet. The illuminating light in his bleary eyes continued,
+and he said in a voice that sounded like the rolling surf, "Fifty years
+ago, running between Ceylon and the United Kingdom, in the old tea
+clippers where our topsails and top-gallant sheets were locked with a
+padlock, and where we got a bonus from the owners whenever we carried
+away a sail. Those were the days!"
+
+He brought his clubbed fist down on the bar with such force that he
+jarred many of the glasses that were arranged around the beer pump
+handles. Mrs. Fagan whispered to me that the Captain was not himself
+today at all, at all, that he seldom gave way like this. "You talk about
+duty to me," Captain Kane continued, "but I've seen the time when every
+damned man of us were tied to the rigging during a typhoon. Never a reef
+nor a furled sail, while the Captain held the padlock keys. Oh, boys,
+those were the days, and you come around here talking to me about your
+duty. Go on with you now before I forget that I am Captain of His
+Majesty's ship 'Pongon.'"
+
+The pilot was much distressed by this outburst of anger from Captain
+Kane. As he adjusted his monocle with trembling fingers before replying,
+a side door opened and Mr. Tim Fagan, proprietor of the Pier Hotel,
+greeted us with a grin, saying, "'Tis a foine day we be havin', men, and
+how are you all this morning?"
+
+The contrast between Mr. and Mrs. Fagan was interesting, and one could
+see that the eugenic situation had not yet reached south of
+twenty-three.
+
+His costume was that which is worn by the English lodge gate-keeper. He
+stood about five feet four, in the long stockings and the knee pants,
+the spiral legs, the number ten boots. This rig was coupled with the
+fringe of a beard extending from ear to ear, partly displaying a small
+chin and upper lip. Such an upper lip is seldom seen outside South
+Africa, but with him it had assumed such vast proportions that there was
+little to see of the face. The wart or button that was intended for a
+nose was pushed up the face and in line with the gray eyes. The mouth
+was in contrast to the upper lip, but its expansion was lost in the
+sandy stubble of the side whiskers.
+
+Mrs. Fagan looked adoringly at her beloved spouse and said, "Tim, it's
+yourself that will treat the gintlemen."
+
+It was with great difficulty that Captain Kane reached a small shack
+made of bamboo poles and palm leaves. On entering we were confronted
+with a sight long to be remembered, for there, sitting around in a
+circle were fourteen natives of the Solomon Islands chewing kara root,
+which, after much masticating, they spit into a large earthen-ware dish.
+The kara root when properly masticated is then collected, put through a
+sort of churning process and made into a drink which is known as Fiji
+grog. It resembles oatmeal water, which is a familiar drink among our
+northern harvest hands, but lacks its obvious peculiarities. The natives
+greeted the Captain with a salaam-san and proffered him a cup of the
+thick and slimy substance. The Captain refused, saying that it was near
+his lunch hour and he preferred not to indulge on an empty stomach,
+which I was pleased to see, for if he had taken aboard some of this
+mysterious looking cargo and mixed it in his watertight compartment
+there would have been a vacant chair at lunch on board His Majesty's
+ship "Pongon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+UNLOADING CARGO--AGAIN THE MASTER--NATIVE POLICE
+
+
+I had no difficulty in hiring ten of the little men, and took them off
+to the ship to work cargo. In the afternoon we hauled a raft of lumber
+ashore. I was greatly encouraged with this process of unloading; of
+course it lacked the noise of the steam winch and the occasional
+profanity of the Frisco longshoremen, but this was the South Sea Isles
+where work was a pleasure.
+
+I drew thirty pounds (a hundred and fifty dollars), remembering that the
+crew had some "purchases" to make that evening. After supper they came
+aft, dressed in their best clothes, and repeated their demands of the
+evening before.
+
+After giving each member of the crew forward one pound, and the second
+mate and cook two pounds, they got in the boat and pulled ashore,
+leaving me and Toby, the black cat, to guard the ship. I remained long
+after sunset on deck listening to the natives singing and playing their
+guitars. The sound, mingled with the noise of the surf breaking on the
+reefs beyond the purring of Toby, created a lullaby that would soothe
+the wildest intellect.
+
+Leaving Toby on deck to play with the cockroaches, I went aft to the
+cabin to make the report of the day. While thus working I was
+interrupted by a strange noise in the Captain's room. I thought it was
+Toby going his rounds, but upon investigation I found that he was on
+deck and sitting by the galley door. I was busy with an example in
+proportion. If it took one day to unload twenty thousand feet of lumber
+how many days would it take to unload five hundred thousand? I seated
+myself at the table again, but was brought up with a sudden start on
+hearing three loud and distinct knocks on the dead Captain's door. I
+found myself saying, "Yes, Captain, I will attend to it at once."
+
+In my excitement of the past few days I had forgotten to mail the dead
+Captain's last will to Berkeley, California. I jumped up and opened the
+door leading to his room. Lighting the light and going to a small
+drawer in the desk, I took out the will, also the little shoes, and the
+pink ribbons, and yellow curls, and started ashore to mail them to the
+above address in the U. S. A. I did not stop now to write the letter,
+which I knew must also go, and which would be so very hard for me to
+write.
+
+I made the small boat fast at the landing, and hurried to where I could
+get stamps, for I was bound that these packages should leave on the next
+north-bound steamer.
+
+As I neared the Pier Hotel I was surprised to see Riley standing outside
+the door talking in a loud and profane voice. In passing him I could
+hear him say, "Ah go-wan, you dirty Connemara crook, shur'n I knew your
+father, he used to eat swill out of the swill barrels."
+
+With this a chair came bouncing through the door, which increased my
+speed for the Post Office. Evidently, Mr. Fagan and Riley had been
+having some political argument, for in the distance he was shouting,
+"Parnell was a gintleman and a scholar!"
+
+Riley's shouting was evidently disturbing the peace of the harbor, for a
+great many of the natives, men and women, were running towards the Pier
+Hotel where he was holding forth.
+
+As I walked to the more thickly settled part of the town I stopped and
+asked a white man where the Post Office was. On being told it was down
+by the Club Hotel, the anxiety to relieve my mind of this obligation
+caused me to put on more speed, and I shoveled along in the Captain's
+heavy and much too large boots. Arriving at the Club Hotel I was
+informed that the Post Office was closed. The genial host, a thick
+heavy-set Australian, supplied me with stamps, paper and envelopes, and
+I wrote to the owners telling them of the Captain's death, and sent the
+package in their care, with instructions to forward it to the proper
+address.
+
+I felt greatly relieved of my responsibility to the Captain and owners
+when the host assured me that he would take care of the postage in the
+morning. Becoming suddenly conscious of the real picturesqueness of
+these islands and anxious to see the natives at closer range, I called
+up all the old beach combers in the hotel to have a drink. This seemed
+to please the proprietor, for he shouted, "Come on, men, breast the
+bar!"
+
+I noticed Broken-Nosed Pete in the corner having a very confidential
+chat with a villainous-looking man. They were so occupied that they
+failed to hear the cheery command of the proprietor. The attractive
+barmaid was very much annoyed at my ordering ginger ale, turning around
+and looking at herself in the glass and adjusting her white crocheted
+cap as if to make sure that she was really awake and not dreaming.
+"Whoever heard of a sailor drinking ginger ale," she might have said,
+"haven't they come here from the four corners of the earth always
+thirsty for the rum that makes them merry and gay? Besides, you can
+never loosen up a man on ginger ale."
+
+His spendings in the rum shops in this case are not at all to the liking
+of the pretty barmaids, who flatter themselves that they get the last
+penny from the sailor just off the sea. I was reminded of the time by
+seeing an old-fashioned clock hanging to the right of the bar, when
+suddenly a trap door on top of the old clock opened, and a cuckoo hopped
+out cooing the hour of eleven o'clock. So absorbed had I been in meeting
+with the old shell-backs, who were lined along the bar at my expense
+drinking Old Tom and soda that I became oblivious both of the flight of
+time and the slow trickling away of my money. I made a hasty getaway for
+the open.
+
+Outside the night was warm and everything peaceful and tranquil. The
+rolling hills to the eastward were illuminated by the silvery rays of a
+rising moon. The occasional hum of the disgusted mosquito who had missed
+his mark was all that seemed to disturb the peace of this quaint Fijian
+town. The moon took flight, squeezing and pushing her way through the
+far-off stately palms. As she began to throw ghostly shadows from the
+native house tops, I felt the fascination of these islands as never
+before. The soft trade winds, the silvery rippling waters, the lullaby
+from the reef beyond, the cooing and gurgling of the surf as it played
+upon the coral beach below, were enchanting.
+
+The distant call of the native boatman shoving off with his cargo of
+vegetables and fruits for early market, caused silvery threads of sound
+in the night, and a parrakeet chattered as he gave way to a more worthy
+rival. The tune of the sea-gull reached me as he dove from on high and
+missed his wiggling fish.
+
+While listening to these strange and interesting sounds, I was rudely
+interrupted by boisterous laughter coming from the direction of the Pier
+Hotel. I thought of Riley, and hastened there, thinking that his
+political argument must have taken a serious trend.
+
+Much to my surprise Riley was not to be seen, but there stood the
+Socialist cook, perched high on a dry goods box with a large mug of ale
+in one hand and a black cigar in the other. There were a few native men
+and women standing around, evidently much amused by the cook's gestures.
+Back of him, beside a sickly and yellow oil lamp, stood two natives
+dressed in loose tunics, whose sleeves were cut off at the elbow. They
+also wore short skirts coming down to the knee, and below that was
+nature's own. What attracted me most was the coloring of this strange
+uniform.
+
+As I edged closer I noticed that this kilty-look-costume was a very dark
+blue, but the trimmings were getting on my nerves. The wearers were
+standing with one side to the oil lamp, and from this angle I could see
+that the dresses were trimmed with red borders about three inches wide
+above the neck. The cut-off sleeves also had their share of this Satanic
+display. The short petticoat was more conspicuous. This, contrasted with
+large feet and yellow legs, showing the blood-red border on the indigo
+skirt, was a coloring seldom seen in any man's country.
+
+As they whispered to each other I noticed that they had long clubs
+belted onto their hands. The cook, between a puff on the black cigar and
+a drink of Bass' Famous was decrying the British government for making
+slaves of them. After much persuasion I took the cook in tow for the
+ship. I did not like the look of His Majesty's Fijian policeman,
+especially since I was so much dependent on early breakfasts for both
+the crew and natives.
+
+At the row-boat the cook hesitated, saying: "Just one more before we
+part." When I answered him in the negative he straightened up and
+squared his shoulders, saying: "To Hell with monarchies; I shall give
+them the ballot to do with as they may." The ginger ale in this
+instance was more powerful than the famous Bass' ale and I shouldered
+the cook easily up the gangway. I noticed as I did so that the cat-boat
+was not alongside. Evidently the crew was still enjoying Fiji
+hospitality. This was proven on reaching the deck, for the only sound
+that greeted us was Toby purring and wagging his black tail, happy in
+the knowledge that even a drunken cook was preferable to the lonely
+swinging anchor light on the forestay.
+
+I left the cook, after assuring him that I would lend my assistance in
+starting a socialist colony on one of these islands. From the way he
+tumbled into the bunk there would be little time consumed in making his
+toilet in the morning. Perhaps it was just as well if one denies the
+claims of bedbugs, cockroaches and mosquitoes. They had waited patiently
+for the past six hours for just this event. What a wonderful opportunity
+they would find in this fat and blubbery creature lying there in an
+ecstasy of bliss, with not a groan to disturb their peaceful recreation.
+Only a matter of a slight incision on a choice part, then insert the
+valve and turn on the centrifugal pump and all would be done to their
+great satisfaction. But this slumbering animal was now done up in
+impenetrable strata of clothes, which ruined their sport.
+
+Removing the hat and loosing the black and red tie from around his neck,
+I blew out the light, and left him to determine a battle for the
+survival of the fittest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+SHORE LEAVE--THE WEB-TOED SAILOR--THE MISSIONARY SHIP
+
+
+I was wondering whether to go ashore to look for the crew, when I heard
+the second mate's voice saying: "Easy on your port oars. Give away hard
+on your starboard." As they came alongside the gangway I could see Riley
+and the Russian-Finn asleep in the bow of the cat-boat. Dago Joe was
+missing, and the others had had about all the rum they could stand. I
+gave the second mate orders to leave Riley and the Russian-Finn in the
+boat, as it was dangerous to try to get them on board while they were so
+drunk. Swanson spoke up, saying: "To Hell with you, we do what we damned
+please."
+
+I was rather upset by this remark coming from the big Swede. I should
+have thought that he would have had enough of fighting on the trip
+south. Evidently the booze was working on him and he was intending
+revenge. I stepped over to the pin-rail and pulled out a wooden
+belaying-pin. Booze or no booze, I was going to make this brute respect
+me if I had to resort to old-time methods. Running down the gangway, I
+ordered all that could walk up to get there damned quick and pointed to
+Swanson, saying: "You will be the first to leave the boat." As the ship
+swung with the outgoing current, the moon revealed the expression
+of hatred on Swanson's face. The high cheek bones, the knitted
+viking-brows, the large cruel mouth, showing the irregular and
+vicious-looking tusks, the eyes no longer blue, whose pupils were so
+enlarged that the color had disappeared,--all this gave him just the
+look of a wild animal at bay.
+
+Swanson jumped from the stern-sheets to the center of the boat,
+shouting: "Shove her off and we will go ashore again, and you may go to
+Hell." As he reached for the boat hook to shove her off or to use it on
+me if it should come handy, I did not wait for him to decide. Jumping
+into the boat, I knocked him down and ordered the others aboard.
+
+Whether my sudden irruption amongst them with the belaying-pin was a
+counter-irritant for the booze they had within them or not I don't
+know. But the boat was cleared in two minutes, leaving Swanson, Riley
+and the Finn lying in the bottom. The second mate, although trying with
+a thick tongue to proclaim his innocence of having had even a glass of
+ale, was making heavy weather of it while going up the gangway. I
+reached for the water dipper and poured the salt, but warm, sea water
+over Swanson. After a few applications of this stimulating treatment he
+arose to his feet saying, "I tank I go on board now." I followed him up
+the gangway and forward to his bunk to make sure there would be no
+tricking from this brute. I remembered the cowardly kick on my forehead
+and resolved if there was any kicking to be done I would do it.
+
+Walking aft, I heard splashing as if some one was overboard. On reaching
+the gangway I discovered that the Finn was missing from the boat. Ahead
+of the cat-boat lay a raft of lumber, and on the outside of it I could
+plainly see bubbles coming up, and wondered if this could not be the
+action of a vegetable gas.
+
+But to my horror the Russian's head popped out of the water, and with it
+came a blood-curdling scream as he writhed about in his death
+struggles. Instead of making for the raft, he was fanning and kicking
+the water away from it.
+
+I dropped the belaying-pin, and, slashing the shoe strings of the
+Captain's boots, jumped out of them and overboard after the drowning
+Finn. As I swam near him his hands went up and with a shriek he sank
+below. After several attempts at diving, I finally caught him by the
+arm, and arose to the surface. Swimming over to the gangway, I caught
+hold of the boat painter, and, throwing his arms over the rope, I
+managed to crawl onto the lower platform, then pulling and struggling
+with this dead burden, I gradually made my way to the deck.
+
+I dumped him down on the break of the poop and ran for the cook's pork
+barrel. It wasn't that I was so terribly interested in this lifeless
+thing, but I was interested in knowing that should I lose him I would be
+forced to sail short-handed, as there were no sailors here who cared to
+stray far away from the cocoanuts and yams.
+
+When it came to rolling I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I rolled
+him under the barrel and over it, and stimulated him with artificial
+respiration. After about one hour he began to show signs of life. I then
+carried him forward to his bunk, taking off his shoes and stockings.
+
+My attention was caught by his feet, for he had one large toe on each
+foot, and in place of the smaller toes all that remained was a thin
+tissue or web, extending from the large toe to where the smaller one
+should be. Then it dawned upon me that the reason this man never went
+barefooted was his bashfulness of these duck-like feet. After covering
+him over in the bunk, I hurried to where Riley was lying in the boat,
+finding him cuddled up with his head between his legs.
+
+I decided to leave him there, but secured him fast with a rope, in such
+a way that when he became sober it would be necessary for some one to
+come to his rescue; I was not going to take any chances on having to be
+the pearl diver to fish Riley from the depth of Suva Harbor.
+
+Away to the eastward the faint rays of a new day were shown in an amber
+sky streaked with brilliant pink. Taking the cook's alarm clock, I went
+below to secure some sleep before five o'clock. While fixing the
+mosquito net over the port hole in my room I was startled by hearing a
+cry which resolved itself into, "Murder, murder, begorra it's tied they
+have me. Hivenly Father, to think I should be ate up by those damned
+cannibals and not a soul in sight to see the last of Michael Dennis
+Riley."
+
+I would gladly have left Riley tugging and pulling at the diamond hitch
+that bound him, but I was afraid that his cries of murder would attract
+the Fiji policemen ashore. It required tact and skill and diplomacy to
+untie Riley. He was snapping and kicking, and dangerous to get near. He
+was calling on all the angels in Heaven to witness the terrible crime he
+was about to be subjected to. I assured him that his old tough and tarry
+hide was not even fit for a shark to eat, let alone a decent Fiji
+cannibal.
+
+He seemed to scent a kindly influence, but was rather inclined to resent
+the idea of having a tarry hide. After his hands and feet were free he
+wanted to fight it out there, and then saying that it did not matter a
+tinker's damn who called him this name, but there was no man that could
+get away with an insulting remark like calling him a tarry-hide or an
+old shell-back.
+
+"Be Hivins, the cannibals are bad enough," he said, "but to call a
+dacent man a name like this is too much for the pride of Ireland to
+stand."
+
+As he struggled to his feet I stepped over to the blind side of him and
+tightened the clove hitch around his neck. I had no desire to let this
+drunk-crazed Irishman loose on the boat. After much coaxing and
+reassuring he finally recognized me and offered an apology. I took the
+hitch off his neck, and let him up to the deck, where he begged for one
+more hour's sleep. I called the cook to get breakfast, as it was nearly
+five o'clock, and had a look at the Finn, who seemed none the worse for
+his plunge in the harbor. The freaky and webby toes were sticking out
+over the bunk and I wondered if it were possible to drown a man with
+feet like these, since they had all the characteristics of a duck's
+foot.
+
+There were yet two hours left before it was time to start work for the
+day, so I hastened to my room and was soon asleep. After breakfast it
+was a sickly-looking crew that came on deck, some of them very much
+ashamed, others complaining about not having ice on board, as the fresh
+water was too warm and did not have the soothing effect it otherwise
+would have.
+
+The ten Solomon Islanders ate their beans and hardtack as if nothing had
+happened, much to the disgust of the sailors, who seemed to feel the
+nauseating effect of this act. The work of moving the lumber was going
+slowly. It seemed that the sailors could not get enough oatmeal water.
+Nothing pleased them, everything was wrong. The lumber was too long. It
+was too heavy. It was not sawed right at the mill. Why did they have to
+work, and so on and so on?
+
+I realized that if this kept up it would be many weeks before we would
+be ready to sail for home. With this thought in mind, I jumped into the
+small boat and pulled ashore to get three quarts of Black and White
+Scotch whiskey. I felt that after they had had a drink of this famous
+brand the lumber would move with a will. After giving each one a drink
+of this murky liquor the lumber seemed to move as if by magic. No longer
+was it too large and heavy. Each one was trying to outdo the other. The
+Solomon Islanders were in great danger from the flying two-by-fours, and
+even the cook was wielding the axe with greater skill as he drove it
+into the fibrous yams. This was a new departure in the handling of
+sailors, but so far it was working well. If it was necessary for Scotch
+whiskey to enter into the discharging of this cargo, I was going to see
+that each man had enough to stimulate him to even greater results.
+
+While ashore in the afternoon ordering fresh meat and vegetables, I met
+Captain Kane, who insisted that I pay a visit to His Majesty's ship
+"Pongon." In walking down the wharf, the Captain noticed a ship in the
+offing. He seemed interested as he hurried along to the cutter.
+
+"You know," said he, "my eyes are not as good as they should be, and
+I'll be damned if I know whether she is a coolie or a missionary ship."
+
+Contract labor is used here in working the rice fields and sugar
+plantations. The coolies sign a five-year contract for sixpence (twelve
+cents) per day, and all the rice they can eat. They live by themselves
+and don't associate with the natives, as they consider them unclean
+because they eat pig. They are very devout in their worship of Allah and
+adhere strictly to fish and vegetables as a food. They are the type seen
+in Bombay and Calcutta. Many of them, after being here for a few years,
+form a company and buy a small sloop of five to ten tons to haul cobra
+from the different islands to Suva, the capital of the Fijis. The latter
+town is a distributing center for the Archipelago, and here is where
+ships of many nations come and load this dried cocoanut for the foreign
+markets of the world. It is one of the chief industries of these
+islands.
+
+On boarding the revenue cutter, I noticed the native crew standing
+around the gangway. They all came to a salute, as their proud Captain
+swung over the rail. Their uniform resembled that of the policemen, but
+instead of a red border in a blue field, it was white. This white border
+with the white-washed hair gave them a clean and wholesome look, very
+different from the policemen.
+
+Captain Kane led the way to the bridge, and, picking up a pair of
+binoculars, he made out the strange craft to be a missionary ship. "You
+will notice," said he as he handed the glasses to me, "that she has
+painted ports,--damn them painted ports, I know what it means, not a
+blasted drink as long as she is here. And that's not all, when them
+missionaries come ashore, especially the older women, all a person sees
+around here is Hell's burning fires."
+
+The coming of the missionary ship held no charm for Captain Kane. His
+proud and dignified bearing gave way to that of a child, or one who has
+lost a near and dear friend. "It is too damned bad," he shouted, "that
+she should come here at this time; I and a few old friends were about to
+have a little party." Here he pulled his cheese-cutter cap down with a
+jerk, so that the bleary eyes were no longer visible.
+
+"And now I suppose I'll have to be converted again. Yes, Hell and
+damnation, I have been converted to every religion that was ever heard
+of. Oh, yes, they commercialize it down here, and we all chip in to keep
+the brass work shining on the missionary ships."
+
+Here Captain Kane made a hasty exit from the good ship "Pongon" and laid
+out a course for the Pier Hotel, saying: "Little does the world know
+the troubles that some people have who are trying to do their duty to
+their God and their King."
+
+At half-past four in the afternoon the missionary ship dropped anchor
+about a cable's length off our starboard bow. Her crew were dressed in
+man-o'-war uniforms. They lowered a boat, and as they pulled ashore I
+could see five portly-looking dames sitting in the stern. They were
+discussing our ship, and, from the scowling glances they gave us, I felt
+that we were safe in standing by to repel boarders. They cast loving
+glances at His Majesty's ship "Pongon," perhaps consulting as to what
+form of baptism would be most impressive for Captain Kane.
+
+The crew had no desire to go ashore this evening. The last strenuous
+night and a hard day's work, had left them in a rather sullen mood. Even
+Old Charlie and Riley were not on speaking terms. Swanson's jaw showed
+the mark of a belaying-pin, and he seemed quite conscious of it as he
+chewed his evening meal. The web-toed Russian-Finn looked as if the hum
+of the mosquito would be a welcome lullaby to the land of dreams.
+
+The cook, though silent and morose, would lift his head occasionally
+from the dishes to listen to the natives singing their evening hymn,
+"Shall We Gather at the River Where Bright Angels' Feet Do Tread."
+Anything with angels in it was displeasing to our cook. He even seemed
+to take a sudden dislike to Toby as he kicked him out of the galley
+door, exclaiming, "Get out of here, damn you; I suppose they will be
+putting wings on you before long."
+
+The Solomon Islands workmen, although tired from the day's work, were
+laughing and chatting in their native tongue as they circled around a
+large dishpan of Mulligan stew.
+
+Knives and forks were not much in evidence, the natives preferring to
+use their hands to eat with. Although trained for centuries to eat in
+this manner, I must say that the cook's Mulligan stew kept them
+guessing. I decided that tomorrow, if perchance the cook should arise
+under the refining influence of a good night's rest, I would ask him to
+thicken the Mulligan stew in the interest of the Solomon Islanders.
+
+The discharging of cargo was progressing satisfactorily, since we now
+had the deck load off, and were commencing on the hold. In a few days I
+had hopes of clearing from Suva and starting on our long voyage home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+FIJI ROYALTY--LOCAL COLOR--VISITORS TO THE SHIP
+
+
+Today I met the royal family of the Fiji Islands. The King, although
+old, was a very impressive figure, with his long white kinky hair and
+massive bushy eyebrows. His color was that of a mulatto, a higher type
+than that of the native Fijians. He wore a loose white tunic cut off at
+the elbows, and girdled around him was what looked like a homespun
+sheet. This garment was twisted and tucked tight around the hips, the
+lower folds falling loosely above the knee; the legs were muscular and
+strong, and the calves bulged out as if inflated with air. The feet were
+ugly, long and broad, and the toes resembled those of a starfish. No
+matter what the angle from which one viewed them, there would always be
+a toe pointing towards one.
+
+The two princesses were gaily attired in blue checked Mother Hubbards.
+This long and flowing garment made them look like our North American
+squaws. In features they resembled the Samoan type of women.
+
+The Prince, of stately bearing, wore a costume similar to that of his
+royal father, but his most distinguishing characteristic was the number
+twelve boots he wore. He seemed particularly interested in those massive
+hides, as he told me how he came to be their proud possessor. There was
+no last large enough on the island, and again there was a shortage of
+leather, so it came to pass that some local astronomer measured the
+altitude of his Highness' feet, and this measure, sealed in a conch
+shell, was cast adrift and floated away to an Australian port, where it
+finally drifted into the hands of one of Dickens' migrating cobblers,
+who filled the order and waxed them together.
+
+While discussing with the King the starry banner as it floated from the
+mast head of the "Wampa," my attention was attracted to the silent and
+lonesome figure of a man, descending the hill beyond the town. As this
+melancholy figure wended its way among the palms, I could make out the
+pea jacket and cheese-cutter cap of Captain Kane. As he approached he
+wore a troubled and anxious look as if in fear, but when he recognized
+the royal family, his expression gave way to a more pleasing one. He
+spat out a large chew of tobacco, and slapping the King on the shoulder,
+"How in Hell did you know the missionary ship was in?"
+
+"Oh," replied the King, "we see flag on hill."
+
+Captain Kane explained to me that when a missionary ship puts in to Suva
+they raise a flag on one of the largest hills back of the town. That
+signals to the natives for miles around that there are big doings in
+Suva. Captain Kane and the royal family evidently did not have much in
+common, for he grabbed me by the arm and led the way to the Pier Hotel,
+leaving the royal family gazing and wondering if they could not have
+made a better bargain with the Stars and Stripes than with the Union
+Jack of old England.
+
+At the Pier Hotel, Mrs. Fagan greeted us with a smile. As she passed the
+Old Tom to Captain Kane she remarked, "Sure'n me eyes haven't rested
+upon you for days, Captain Kane. 'Tis sick I thought you were." Here she
+gave me a roguish wink.
+
+Before replying, Captain Kane filled his bumper, leaving very little
+room for the soda, and took a step toward the door to see if the coast
+were clear. Satisfied that everything was in his favor, he reached for
+the glass of Old Tom, and with one gulp and a gurgling sound as if
+running over pebbles, the Old Tom disappeared to its last resting place.
+He pulled out a much worn bandana handkerchief, and wiping his mouth and
+beard he said to Mrs. Fagan, "No, I have not been sick, I have been a
+very busy man of late. But if this incessant singing and praying keeps
+up I am pretty damned sure I will get sick." Mrs. Fagan interrupted,
+saying: "Captain, how long are the missionaries going to remain?" "They
+will stay here until they have every one of us converted again," moaned
+the Captain.
+
+Mrs. Fagan adjusted a large tortoise-shell comb in her hair, and
+straightening out her hand-embroidered flounces in her white dress,
+remarked, "Shur'n it's poor business we do be having when the missionary
+ship comes in."
+
+"Mrs. Fagan," said I, "give us another drink. And won't you join us?"
+
+"Ah, and it's seldom I ever touch it, but I will take a little drop of
+Burke's Irish just to be sociable with you."
+
+After Captain Kane had three bumpers of Old Tom the world had a
+different aspect for him; even the old gray-haired missionaries weren't
+so bad after all. They had to make a living like the rest of us. But at
+times they were objectionable, especially when the gin was awash in the
+bilges.
+
+On the way down to the wharf Captain Kane promised to take me for a
+drive in the country, as he felt it would be a great relief to be away
+at least one day from the missionaries. While pulling off to the
+"Wampa," I was amused, as a canoe glided past me, to see a native make
+use of his breech-cloth for a sail. He unwound about two yards of cloth
+from around his waist and fastened it to two bamboo poles that were
+about three feet apart. After tying this calico wrapping at the top and
+bottom of the poles he had a square sail. The square sail with a fair
+wind made it easy for the native; he leaned back on his steering oar,
+evidently well pleased with such favorable conditions.
+
+When I came alongside, I noticed that the crew looked me over very
+critically, as if wondering why I stayed away so long. As it was now
+one hour past grog time they wore anxious looks. A growl here and a
+grunt there were all that greeted me. But after each getting a jolt of
+Scotch, their expressions changed to a smacking of lips, and a heave-aho
+on the six-by-sixes.
+
+After supper the missionary boat came alongside, and two elderly women
+came aboard and asked if there were any Christians among the crew. I
+informed these sanctified-looking ladies that I had my "doots," but
+would be pleased to escort them to the crew's quarters where they could
+make their own diagnosis. I left them to go down the scuttle hatch
+leading to the forecastle and beat a hasty retreat to the cabin, fearing
+that I might have to share some of Captain Kane's misery.
+
+While entering in the log book the events and progress of the day, I
+realized from the sounds coming from the fore part of the ship, that the
+old ladies were making some headway with the crew. As the sound took
+volume, I could hear them singing, "Pull for the shore, sailors, pull
+for the shore, heed not the tempest's roar but bend to the oar."
+
+The cook, putting away his clean dishes, said, "What in Hell has got
+into those fellows this evening?"
+
+I told him that they were having a very sociable visit from the ladies
+who ran the missionary ship, and that no doubt they would be pleased to
+pay him a friendly visit. The cook threw the dishes to the pantry shelf,
+and slamming the pantry door exclaimed, "Keep them away from me; I'm in
+no mood to discuss religious philosophy tonight."
+
+After giving each member of the crew a small Bible, and praying for our
+souls in the safe passage home, the old missionary women shoved off for
+the shore, apparently not at all pleased with their evening's work.
+
+If they had brought about four quarts of Scotch whiskey on board they
+would have had no trouble in converting the crew, for even the cook
+could be reconciled to any form of religion, old or new, as long as the
+Scotch flowed freely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A DRIVE WITH CAPTAIN KANE--RAZORBACK RAMPANT
+
+
+The next day Captain Kane and I started for our drive into the island
+with an old battered two-seated rig. The horse, though old in years, had
+a look of being well taken care of, and was rather inclined to shy as he
+gazed at an unfamiliar palm or cocoanut tree. I hesitatingly offered to
+spell the Captain off, and asked him to let me drive awhile. He turned
+on me very angrily and said, "There is no damned ship that ever sailed
+the seas that required more careful steering than this horse does. One
+has got to know just how much helm to give him. If you should put it
+hard over and get him on the home tack all Hell couldn't stop him until
+he reached the stable. Oh, I know him," continued the Captain, "he has a
+mouth on him that will hold like the devil's claw on a windlass."
+
+As we drove through the rice fields, I noticed that Hindoos were doing
+the work; here and there could be seen the lazy natives asleep under the
+trees. "My object," said the Captain, as he coaxed the old horse past a
+flying turban that seemed to be coming unfastened from its wearer, "my
+object in taking you on this trip is to show you the result of a
+hurricane that happened here twelve years ago. It will not be necessary
+for me to discuss the velocity of the hurricane, you'll be able to judge
+for yourself when we pass that village ahead. But," continued the
+Captain, "for God's sake don't talk above a whisper while I steer
+Timbuctoo" (for this was the horse's name) "through the palm village.
+You can see by the action of his head that he is about to make heavy
+weather of it."
+
+I must say that the old horse had taken a new lease of life; he did not
+seem to be conscious of his cocked ankles or the spavins or other
+conspicuous growths that covered his legs. With head erect, arched neck
+and ears pitched forward, he was not at all particular about using his
+front feet, but rather inclined to do the cake walk, and always waiting
+a chance to turn and bolt for home. This was worrying the Captain, for
+he said anxiously, "I have driven him many times, but never have I seen
+him act like this. It's these hellish Fijian huts with their
+palm-covered roofs that are getting on his nerves."
+
+Things were going along about as well as could be expected until we were
+about at the center of the straggling village. Then it happened that
+from out a palm-covered hut strolled a razorback hog, seemingly
+unconcerned as to our presence and not inclined to observe the rules of
+the road. The Captain smelled danger, as he warped an extra turn of the
+lines around his hands, and remarked rather nervously, "There's going to
+be Hell here in about a minute."
+
+Timbuctoo felt as uncomfortable as his driver; he too sensed the danger
+of this razor-backed hog. Captain Kane relaxed his hold on the reins to
+adjust his cheese-cutter cap to a more seaworthy position. While doing
+so the hog stopped in front of Timbuctoo. All would even then have been
+well had it not been for the curiosity of this hungry-looking razorback.
+I suggested to the Captain that I get out and drive the hog away. "Hell
+and damnation, no," roared the Captain, "keep your seat, I will pass
+under his quarter."
+
+Timbuctoo veered to starboard under the steady hand of Captain Kane.
+This move was in accordance with the rules of the road, but
+unfortunately it proved fatal, for it exposed Timbuctoo's warty legs to
+the hungry hog. He evidently thought that this was a new kind of crop
+that did not require rooting, which, to judge from the two large rings
+in his nose, was a lost art with him.
+
+Before the Captain could brace his clubby boots against the dash-board
+the razor-backed hog reached out with his long mouth and took hold of
+Timbuctoo's most conspicuous wart, which was dangling on the right hind
+leg. When Timbuctoo felt this smarting insult he decided not to await
+orders from his venerable driver. Grasping the bit in his mouth, he
+started full speed ahead. "There he goes," roared the Captain, "and God
+knows when he will stop."
+
+Dan Patch had nothing on Timbuctoo. The cocoanut trees looked like
+telephone poles as one sees them while riding on the Twentieth Century
+Limited. "I would not care a damn how far he would run," sang out the
+Captain as if shouting to a man on the topsail yard in a gale of wind,
+"if I had not promised to make a speech at the missionary meeting
+tonight."
+
+"Let me try him, Captain?" said I.
+
+"You try him," said he, "what in Hell do you know about animals? There
+is no living man could do anything with him now, he has too much damn
+steam up, all we can do is to trust to luck and keep our helm in midship
+and let him run before it."
+
+After running about two miles he seemed to realize that the Captain was
+still with him and not, as he expected, back with the razor-backed hog.
+Very much disappointed, he broke into a dog trot, much to the relief and
+satisfaction of the Captain. As he withdrew his number tens, which had
+perforated through the dash-board, he said, "Well, I have never come
+through a storm and lost as little canvas as on this here passage."
+
+Timbuctoo had no desire to set the fisherman's staysails, he was content
+to slow down to a walk.
+
+"Now," said the Captain, "let me get my bearings. Before we met the
+razorback, I was going to show you the results of a hurricane as we
+know them in the Fijis."
+
+After Captain Kane had read the various logarithms in regard to his
+position, he decided that with the hypotenuse over the base the sine lay
+ahead and after driving about one-half mile, we came to a large boulder
+alongside the narrow road. "How much does that boulder weigh?" sniffed
+the Captain.
+
+"Oh," said I, "about four tons."
+
+"Would you believe," said he, "that during the hurricane of twelve years
+ago this boulder was carried a distance of three miles?" The Captain was
+somewhat injured at my not showing more enthusiasm. I must say that the
+boulder story was hard to absorb, although from its present position on
+the surface of the ground it showed that it had been moved there
+recently by some force other than the hand of man.
+
+Taking a chew of tobacco and damning Timbuctoo for daring to rub his
+foaming mouth on his pea jacket, he said, "You may not believe that this
+was moved by the hurricane. By God, I can prove it and prove it I will
+when we reach Suva." Evidently he hoped to invoke the testimony of some
+of the worthies who drink their Scotch to the lullaby of the sad sea
+waves. On our way back to Suva I was impressed by the scenery of the
+interior of the island, the rolling hills, the native timber resembling
+California redwood in color, the tall cocoanut trees, the frequent smell
+of the pineapple, an occasional glimpse of a date palm trying to rear
+its head from amongst the tropical foliage, claiming a riparian right to
+the native shrubbery.
+
+Timbuctoo, on the way back to Suva, was slipping it off as well as he
+could after his recent flight. The razorback hog recalled early memories
+to me of the country I knew when I was a boy. The rings in their noses
+were no new things to me in that far-off country. The coming of the new
+potato crop held much charm for the Irish hog, but unfortunately the
+English landlord claimed a prior right in lieu of rent, and poor Barney
+was subjected to the cruel and unmerciful treatment of having horseshoe
+nails twisted in his nose.
+
+The Captain was in a rather sullen mood as we drove back. Having had
+nothing to drink but the milk from the cocoanut, he exclaimed:
+
+"Why in Hell don't some one start a half-way house out here for the
+benefit of those who admire and travel these islands?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+HOMEWARD BOUND--THE STOWAWAY
+
+
+Having cleared the English customs and with a clean bill of health, we
+were ready to sail. The pilot was on board and his boat's crew had a
+line fast through the stern chalk so that we could tow them with us
+clear of the channel reef. Once clear of the reef all that remained to
+do was to haul the pilot boat alongside and have this servant of His
+Majesty climb down the Jacob's ladder and into the boat which would bear
+him away to the spot where the sound of the surf merged into the music
+of the clinking glass.
+
+While giving orders to rig out slip lines for him I heard a familiar
+voice on the wharf sing out "Bon voyage, bon voyage." I looked up to see
+the portly figure of Captain Kane. He looked as if he had slept in his
+clothes. His pea jacket had many wrinkles in the back and in front it
+was inclined to roll up toward his chin. I jumped ashore to say
+good-bye to this kind, if groggy old sea dog, shook him by the hand, and
+thanked him for my trip to the interior of the island, saying that I
+hoped to see him again.
+
+"You know," he said, "I am getting old, but the smell of the Stockholm
+tar, the white flowing sails, the squeaking blocks, the clink of the
+capstan, bring back memories of long ago, and, damn it all, it makes me
+young again."
+
+Captain Kane laid great stress on the hurricane season, as January,
+February and March were the months to be dreaded in the South Seas.
+After seeing the boulder that had been hurled by the last hurricane on
+these islands, I was hoping that I should be well enough to the
+northward, so that if one should come I would be out of the storm
+center, and therefore out of danger. The pilot was nervously pacing up
+and down the main deck anxious to get me away from the wharf and out to
+sea. Possibly a game of chess had been left unfinished. I jumped aboard
+and ordered the foresail and main jib set. With this done and the slip
+lines hauled aboard, the "Wampa" glided away from the wharf as if
+propelled by steam.
+
+With the aftersails spread and set to the southeast trades, and sheets
+trimmed to the wind, we were not long in clearing the channel reef and
+getting out into open water. After the pilot left I ordered the topsails
+set. The breeze was fair, and I was anxious to clear Bangor Island and
+get to the westward of it before darkness set in.
+
+The crew looked happy even after their night's debauch, some were
+whistling, others humming familiar ditties. Riley could be heard singing
+"Rolling Home Across the Sea" from his position on the foretopmast, as
+he changed the topsail to windward, a job which is usually done with
+very little sentiment of home or any other place.
+
+Distance was shutting out the tall green palms around Suva, and the town
+itself was just a speck on the horizon. Taking careful cross-bearings of
+Bangor Island, so as to avoid the dangers and submerged coral reefs that
+project from it, I ordered the staysails set to increase our speed so
+that with darkness I would be well to the westward.
+
+Our staysails were put away and stowed in the fore peak when we came
+into port. The second mate went forward to get them up, and Swanson
+went down to bend a line around them before hauling them on deck. He had
+been down in the fore peak only a minute before he came up the ladder
+running very excitedly and saying that there was a dead man lying on the
+staysails. The crew, much upset by this remark, slunk away from the fore
+peak hatch as if deadly fumes were coming from within, so I got a
+lantern and went down to see the supposed dead man. I was confronted by
+a Hindoo stowaway.
+
+He was so weak from the heat of the fore peak and thirst that he seemed
+to have little life left in him. I called up to the deck above for a
+couple of men to come down and give me a hand to carry him. Old Charlie
+and Riley cautiously felt their way down, Riley giving orders to the
+crew above not to stand too close to the small hatch, as it might be
+necessary for him to ascend with all possible speed and he did not care
+to have any obstruction to his flight. Old Charlie approached with his
+usual forebodings. The finding of the dead Hindoo, in his estimation,
+meant nothing less than doom and destruction to all on board.
+
+Riley was more cheerful when he found that there was little chance of
+physical danger from the supposed dead man. Bending the rope around him
+and carrying him to the mouth of the hatch, I shouted to the crew on
+deck to haul away very gently. We steered him up the hatch and landed
+him on deck without any serious bumps. The cool breeze restored him, and
+when we forced some water down his throat he began to show signs of
+life.
+
+I went aft to get a glass of Scotch whiskey, knowing that this would
+stimulate the heart action. After taking a teaspoonful, his moaning
+changed to some kind of Hindoo gibberish. This change seemed to amuse
+the crew. They no longer looked gloomy and down in the mouth, but seemed
+very willing to help him in his fight for life. As he lay there I was
+seized with a very inhuman and selfish impulse. The night shades of the
+tropical evening were becoming conspicuous in the western horizon, the
+run on the log showed the "Wampa" sixteen miles to the southward and
+westward of Suva harbor, with the southeast point of Bangor Island
+bearing two points on the starboard bow.
+
+Should the Hindoo stowaway come back to life, it would be necessary to
+tack ship and put back to Suva in order to put him ashore.
+
+U. S. alien laws are well known to sea-faring men. This stowaway had no
+money, no position, and all that he had in the way of clothes was a thin
+pair of pants. Should unfavorable conditions prevent my putting him
+ashore, I would be forced to carry him to San Francisco. Once there I
+knew what the immigration authorities would do to me or to the owners.
+More than likely I should have to pay his passage back by steamboat to
+the Fiji Islands. With darkness approaching it was not my intention to
+put back to Suva and run the risk of striking the reef at the entrance
+of the harbor. For these reasons, I should much prefer a sea burial for
+the Hindoo stowaway.
+
+While these hard and unsympathetic thoughts were passing before the
+visible horizon of my mind, I was nevertheless attracted by his delicate
+and artistic form. The long and straight black hair, the finely molded
+ears, the aquiline nose, the perfect profile, the well-rounded chin, the
+sensual mouth with its uniform white teeth were truly oriental of high
+caste. An unusual type for a Fijian contract laborer.
+
+I was deeply impressed with his boyish figure as he lay struggling for
+breath on the deck. Suddenly I was seized with an impulse of sympathy
+for this frail-looking creature. Grasping the bottle of Scotch I pressed
+it to his lips and poured some down his throat. This act caused him to
+strangle. After fighting for breath he opened his eyes and sat up
+against the hatch combings.
+
+His eyes were bright and fiery and seemed to penetrate through one like
+an X-ray. They took in the situation at a glance. He realized that he
+was out at sea. His gaze alternated from the flowing sail to the members
+of the crew. His eye finally rested on Swanson, he being the most
+brutish looking sailor of those who were standing around, and therefore
+the most to be feared. I spoke to the Hindoo and said, "How long have
+you been on board?"
+
+"Oh," said he, "I have been down there," pointing to the fore peak, "for
+three days." He spoke English without an accent. Then he told how he had
+swam off to the ship, while we were still lying at anchor, and said
+that he had no idea that we would have been delayed so long before
+putting to sea.
+
+I then told him that it would be impossible to carry him to the United
+States of America. Although weak from heat and hunger, he staggered to
+his feet and kissed my hand, crying, "Oh, please, Captain, take me along
+with you. I cannot live there under these horrible conditions, working
+for sixpence a day with nothing to eat but curry and rice. I will work
+for you, I will do anything, only take me away from here."
+
+I deeply resented my previous thought of disposing of this intelligent
+Hindoo. The picture this outcast made standing there trembling, with
+tears streaming down his boyish face, pleading as though his heart would
+break, was getting the best of me. Very few men of the sea can stand
+tears and emotion. Although hardened by years of kicks and knocks, the
+old-time sailor would much prefer a knock-down and drag-out to any signs
+of agitation. Many of the crew themselves consciously looked to windward
+and wiped away a rusty tear.
+
+While the Hindoo was still pleading, Swanson stepped up to me and
+between sobs said, "I wish you would take him along, sir, I have no one
+in the world to care for, and I can easily spare the forty dollars that
+you say will be necessary for him to enter the United States." With this
+offer coming from a man like Swanson, I was as much overcome as the
+Hindoo was, in his pleading for liberty to be taken away from the low
+and dirty castes of Bombay and Calcutta which furnish labor for the Fiji
+Islands. He thanked Swanson by gracefully bowing and said, turning to
+me, "I am sure you can make some use of me on your voyage home." This
+statement proved true, for had it not been for the stowaway, this
+narrative would never have been written.
+
+The Socialist cook was standing with his back up against the galley,
+deeply impressed with this new possibility. From the way he ran to make
+milk toast for the Hindoo, one would think that at last he had
+discovered a new clay to mold and construct and pattern after his own
+impressions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS HINDOO
+
+
+With the Hindoo question solved and the fisherman's staysails set, Suva
+was lost in the distance and remained but a memory. By the time the
+studded diamonds in their azure setting were twinkling in all the
+splendor of a Southern sky, we were well to the westward of Bangor
+Island. We had nothing to fear from coral reefs until we neared the
+Gilbert group, which lay east of the 180th meridian and north and south
+of the Equator.
+
+After the Hindoo had eaten the milk toast and found that he was in the
+midst of friends, sailing away to a country where opportunity knocks on
+the door of hovels, he no longer looked the slave to his master. He
+refused to bunk in the forecastle, preferring to sleep under the
+forecastle head. The tropical nights were warm, and for the time being
+this was a comfortable part of the ship in which to sleep. The crew
+were kind enough to furnish blankets for him, in fact, were willing to
+give him anything they had, for they considered him an unusual guest.
+
+At ten o'clock I turned in and left orders with the second mate to call
+me at midnight. By that time I knew that if we held our present rate of
+eleven knots per hour, we should be far enough to the westward to change
+the course, and haul her more northerly. Coming on deck at eight bells
+and getting the distance run on the log, I went back to my room to
+measure the distance on the chart before changing the course. I decided
+to run one more hour before changing to the northward.
+
+Old Charlie was at the wheel, and it seemed from the way he was clearing
+his throat that he was anxious for a chat. But discipline forbade. I
+walked forward to look at the sails, and see if they needed sweating up.
+While looking around I ran into Riley, who as usual was smoking his clay
+pipe, with its black bowl and short stem. It was strong enough of
+nicotine to drive a wharf-rat to suicide.
+
+"Riley," said I, "no doubt you are happy that we are on the last leg of
+our voyage."
+
+Before answering he gave a few heavy puffs on the old dudeen to insure
+its not going out. While he was doing this I immediately changed for a
+new position to windward, for to be caught to leeward of these deadly
+fumes was to share the fate of the wharf-rat.
+
+"Well," said Riley, "I am, and I am not."
+
+"Come," I replied, "what is it that troubles you?" Thinking that I had
+found the source of his discontent, I added,--"Surely, you can't expect
+me to feed you on Scotch whiskey all the passage home? What little there
+is on board must be kept for medicine. Just think what might have
+happened to the poor Hindoo had I not had a little Scotch left on
+board."
+
+At the mention of the Hindoo's name Riley stepped up close to me,
+saying, "Whisht, and it is that what is troubling me, it is that damned
+coolie," and he pointed to the forecastle.
+
+"Surely," I protested, "you are not afraid of that poor weak creature."
+
+Riley fastened down the tin cover to his pipe so as to secure the
+remains of the tobacco for future use. Economy of tobacco is strictly
+observed on long voyages. Even the ashes have an intrinsic value among
+sailors, like the kindling wood of a coal stove. Tucking the pipe away
+in the folds of his breeches, he said:
+
+"Ho, ho, and it is afraid you would have me! Shure'n I am afraid of
+nothing in the say, and I will be damned if I will be afraid of anything
+on top of it."
+
+"Well, what about the Hindoo, what harm can he do to you?"
+
+"Oh, it's the divil a bit he will be doing me. It's his snaky movements
+and his ferret eyes that is getting on me nerves. During the dog-watch,"
+continued Riley, "we fixed a place under the foc's'le head for the
+coolie, giving him what blankets we could spare. At eight o'clock our
+watch below turned in. Says I to Dago Joe, 'Turn down the glim.' 'I will
+blow it out,' says he. 'Not by a damn sight,' says I. 'Shur'n we are
+liable to scrape our bottom on an auld coral reef around here, and it
+isn't Mike Riley that is going to get caught like a rat in a trap.' The
+Dago is a reasonable man to talk to, and with that he turns the light
+very low. About eleven o'clock I woke up along the hearing Broken-Nosed
+Pete snoring. After throwing me auld shoe at him, I rolled over with me
+face to the scuttle hatch, to get meself another nap before eight bells,
+when I see the Hindoo standing there at the bottom of the ladder. I
+rubbed me eye to make sure it wasn't desayving me. Pulling meself
+together, I says to meself, says I, 'Whativer he is, he is there for no
+good purpose.' Begob, the strangest thing about the coolie was that he
+did not move a muscle, but stood there like a statue, staring straight
+into me eye.
+
+"I shouted to the Dago to turn up the light, which is within easy reach
+of him. Says I, 'Things are not as they should be down here.' With me
+eye still on the Hindoo, Dago Joe turned up the light. I declare to me
+Maker when the light was turned up the Hindoo had disappeared.
+
+"'That's damned strange,' says I to Dago Joe. 'Be Hivens he was standing
+there not a minute ago,' and when I comes up on deck at eight bells I
+looked under the foc's'le head and there he is, fast asleep. So I lights
+me poipe, and takes a look over the sea to leeward of the foresail, to
+see if we are still in sight of land. While I am standing there humming
+a bit av an auld ditty, all of a sudden I felt meself in the presence
+of something uncanny, and turning around quick-like, there stood the
+coolie. Ses I to him, ses I:
+
+"'What are you up to, me boy?'
+
+"'Oh,' says the coolie, 'the wash on the prow is disturbing to my
+peaceful slumbers. I should much prefer being crooned to sleep by the
+waving branches of a Himalayan evergreen.'
+
+"Ses I, 'Me coolie friend, no more of your palavering. Back to bed with
+you, and stay there.' I looked at him again, and, shure, Howly St.
+Patrick, he disappears like he did in the foc's'le."
+
+"Where is he now, Riley?"
+
+"Begobs, and I don't know, sir."
+
+I went forward to see the strange visitor who seemed to be causing Riley
+so much misery. There, under the forecastle head, the Hindoo lay,
+wrapped in his blankets, sound asleep.
+
+"Riley," said I, "you drank too much Scotch last night; be careful that
+you don't get the Jimmies and jump overboard. If you feel yourself
+slipping just tie a gasket around you. We need you to work ship on the
+voyage home."
+
+These insults were too much for Riley. He slunk away to the lookout
+where Broken-Nosed Pete would lend a willing ear to his story of the
+Hindoo and his abuse of me.
+
+At one o'clock, feeling sure of the reefs, I changed the course to N. N.
+W.
+
+The next morning the Hindoo was eating his breakfast off the forehatch
+and looking much better than he had on the preceding evening. He rose
+and thanked me kindly for the interest we had taken in him, saying:
+
+"I feel the pleasure of liberty after my prison term, among those
+terrible people. As for last night, I was quite comfortable. I can
+easily adapt myself to the new environment. But although I could not
+quite understand what the one-eyed man meant when he bent over me in the
+night, exclaiming, 'There he is, and the divil a move out of him,' I
+feel nevertheless, that I am in the midst of friends, and I shall do my
+best to entertain their friendship."
+
+These quaint expressions were pleasing to me, and I continued the
+conversation. He said that he had had no sea experience. That while
+going from Bombay to the Fiji Islands he was battened down in the hold
+with the rest of the coolie labor, and only allowed to walk the deck a
+short time in the evenings. He was anxious to work and help in any way
+that he could. The second mate put him to work scrubbing paint-work.
+There is always plenty of this kind of work to be done on every ship.
+The Hindoo went to work with a will, as if glad to have the opportunity.
+
+For the next four days the southeast trades held fair, until we were
+well to the northward of the Fiji group. I was hoping to get east of the
+180th meridian before crossing the Equator, This would give me a better
+slant before I struck the northeast trades. Then in latitude about 30°
+north we would encounter the westerly winds, which would be fair for the
+Pacific coast.
+
+I was well pleased with the progress we had made since we left Suva, and
+I anticipated making a sailing record from the Fijis to San Francisco.
+
+Events had favored us since our departure. The crew were willing and the
+good ship herself seemed to feel that she was homeward bound. But our
+outward peace was somewhat broken by the sudden and mysterious illness
+of the Hindoo, who, after the second day out from Suva refused to eat,
+complaining of a headache, and later remaining for hours in what
+appeared to be almost a state of coma.
+
+I was worried by this new disease, and hoped that it would not prove to
+be contagious. As a precautionary measure, I removed the Hindoo aft to
+the deceased Captain's cabin. For two days it was with a great effort
+that he was even aroused to drink a cup of bouillon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE HURRICANE
+
+
+At two o'clock in the morning of our fifth day from Suva, I was awakened
+by hearing the booms and gaffs swinging as if in a calm. I thought this
+very strange, as the southeast trades should have held until we were
+well across the Equator. Rushing up on deck, I was indeed surprised to
+find the sails hanging in midships, and not a breath from any quarter of
+the compass.
+
+I ordered the staysails down and the topsails clewed up and made fast,
+also the flying-jib and outer jib. (These lighter sails in a calm
+usually flop to pieces, especially where there is a rolling swell.) Away
+to the eastward I noticed a heavy bank of clouds, but considered this of
+minor importance, as we were nearing the Equator. It usually means heavy
+rain, but seldom wind.
+
+Yet this morning there was something out of the ordinary, because of the
+long swell coming from the northeast, and the sickly and suffocating
+atmosphere. The unusual stillness was intensified by the murmuring and
+talking of the crew. The men who were making fast the headsails on the
+flying jibboom could be heard plainly from the poop deck, growling and
+swearing as they passed the gaskets around the sails. Such was the
+funereal quietness of the morning that even the stars were hidden in
+halos of a yellowish color.
+
+Giving instructions to haul in the log line, I went below to look at the
+barometer. I was surprised to find it falling. I next consulted a
+Pacific directory, and found that these unusual conditions preceded a
+hurricane. This information upset me greatly. I had never experienced a
+hurricane, but well knew that their force and destructive power was very
+great.
+
+Before going on deck again, I looked in on the Hindoo in the Captain's
+room. As usual, he was in a stupor, and looked as if he had not moved
+since being fed the preceding evening. I did notice from the heaving of
+the skeleton-like breast, that the breathing was regular, and not
+intermittent as it had been on the preceding evening.
+
+On deck, I had all the reef-earrings brought up from the lazarette, and
+got everything in readiness for any emergency.
+
+I was well to the westward of the Gilbert group, but still to the
+eastward of the 180th Meridian. Should the hurricane come out of the
+east, I could heave to and ride it out without any danger of fetching up
+on one of the Gilbert Islands.
+
+In the cabin the barometer was falling so fast that it now showed
+hurricane weather. I knew that it was only a question of a few hours
+before we should feel its fury. My experience was limited in the laws of
+storms. If we were in the storm center it would be necessary to put her
+into the port tack. By doing this I should be forced south, and back
+onto the northern isles of the Fiji group, while on a starboard tack I
+should be driven onto a lee shore of the Gilbert Islands. Either course
+meant destruction.
+
+With daylight and hot coffee this gloomy situation assumed a more
+cheerful aspect. While the old sailor has the light of day to guide him
+over storm-tossed decks, he becomes more tolerant of ship and crew.
+
+At half-past five the white caps could be seen coming from the
+northeast, and before we got the spanker down the gale struck us, about
+six points on the starboard bow. The old ship reeled to leeward, with
+the lee rail under water. The decks were almost perpendicular. It seemed
+that no power on earth could right her to an even keel again. There were
+two men at the wheel, trying to keep her off before the gale, but it was
+of no avail, for she refused to answer her helm, and lay throbbing as if
+undecided whether to seek a watery grave, or to continue her fight for
+victory.
+
+Swanson, by a heroic effort, cut the fore and main sheet, and then let
+go by the run. The tense situation was relieved as the booms flew
+seaward over the lee rail. We then kept her off before the gale with the
+wind on the starboard quarter, immediately setting to work to reef the
+fore and main sail.
+
+By nine o'clock, three hours and a half later, it was no longer a gale,
+but a hurricane. With three reefs in the foresail and a goose-wing
+spanker, we ran before it. It was too late to heave to. With such a
+tremendous sea running it would mean destruction to ship and crew to
+try the latter move. As it was, the ship was awash fore and aft from
+seas breaking over her. Should the hurricane hold out for ten or twelve
+hours more with our present rate of speed we should be dashed to pieces
+against one of the Gilbert group.
+
+At four bells the velocity of the hurricane was so great that one was in
+danger of being blown off the schooner. We rigged life-lines on the fore
+and main decks, also on the poop deck, and by their help the crew
+managed to keep from being washed or blown overboard. The sea looked
+like an immense waterfall, one enormous roaring mass of foam.
+Occasionally from out of this terrible cataract a Himalayan sea would
+gain in momentum and dash itself against our starboard quarter,
+submerging the vessel. At such times all that would be identifiable of
+the "Wampa" would be her rocking spiral masts.
+
+Like a struggling giant she would raise her noble head and shake herself
+clear of this octopus, shivering, but never spent.
+
+About noon the hurricane jumped suddenly from the northeast to east
+southeast, without losing any of its velocity. In order to keep running
+before it, and keep the wind on our starboard quarter we hauled more to
+the northward and westward, although to do this it was necessary to
+drive into a beam sea, which made it all the more dangerous. Also the
+sea was driving from the east southeast and this formed a cross sea.
+
+When these two seas came together, the "Wampa" would rise and poise on
+them as if on a pivot. In this position, and with the gale blowing on
+the starboard quarter, her head would be thrown into the beam sea. It
+looked as if we could not survive. There was constant danger of our
+being broken up into small pieces. We dropped the peak of the spanker
+that formed the goose-wing sail, put it into gaskets, and ran with a
+three-reefed foresail.
+
+We then put the oil-bags over the stern in the hope of quieting these
+angry seas. But this was useless. While we were fastening the lines that
+held the oil-bags in the water, a crushing comber came whistling along
+and filled our stanch little ship again from stem to stern. When she
+shook herself clear of the boiling foam I noticed that our oil-bags
+were gone, and with them the Captain's boat which hung from davits over
+the stern.
+
+Old Charlie and Dago Joe were steering. Old Charlie had a faraway look
+in his watery eyes as he spoke and said:
+
+"I am afraid, sir, this will be my last trick at this wheel."
+
+I spoke harshly to this old sailor, saying, "To Hell with sentiment,
+this is no place for it. Watch your steering and don't feel sorry for
+yourself." Had I known what was so soon to happen I should not have so
+upbraided this poor harmless old soul. I have often regretted it.
+
+Riley, who was taking no chances, was seemingly not all handicapped by
+his one eye. Always alert and as agile as a tiger, he went about the
+decks as if nothing were out of the ordinary, although to hear him
+talking to himself one would think that he expected to be extinguished
+by every sea that came. He had about twenty feet of manila rope tied
+about his waist with the end held in his hand. When a sea would hit us
+Riley would see it coming, and would pass the rope end around a
+belaying-pin or anything that he thought would hold his weight.
+
+It was while she cleared herself from the sea that carried away the
+Captain's boat that I found Riley twisted around the spanker sheet like
+an eel. It took him some time to extricate himself, always watching the
+progress of the stern sea, and not seeming to notice his number ten
+brogans, which had woven themselves into the spanker-sheet falls. The
+hurricane was raising havoc with Riley's mustache. Having blown all over
+his face, it looked as if the only way to quiet it would be to put it
+into a plaster of Paris cast. He finally pulled himself clear of the
+sheet, exclaiming:
+
+"Be Hivins, and wasn't that a close call--"
+
+Just then Swanson came running aft and reported that the martingale guy
+had carried away on the flying-jibboom. It was then that my heart sank
+within me. I knew what to expect. Dismantled,--then to perish at sea!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE MASTER RETURNS
+
+
+The thought of our dead captain came to me, of what his will would have
+been in this crisis of life and death, and I paused to wonder why he had
+not rested until he was assured that I would not carry his precious
+treasures back with me. Did he expect this situation, and doubt my
+ability to cope with it? Action followed thought, and I ordered the
+second mate and the crew forward to see what could be done with the
+martingale guy.
+
+Still the humor of the moment appealed to me. As Riley left the poop he
+shouted, "Be the Holy St. Patrick, it has blown the buttons off me
+oilskin coat." There was no question about its blowing, but it was also
+possible that his snakelike position on the spanker-sheet had something
+to do with the lost buttons.
+
+It was now past noon. None of the crew cared to eat, preferring the
+wave-swept deck to anything the cook had to offer. The murderer who
+pays for his crime on the gallows and enjoys his ham and eggs on the
+morn of execution may be happy indeed, but this does not apply to the
+sailor. When there is a life and death battle on with the elements, he
+is there to grab the one last chance if there be one. If not, he prefers
+a watery grave to claim him with his stomach empty.
+
+The seas kept coming larger, and every time one would break and spend
+itself on the decks I thought it would be the last, and that she could
+not arise. But she shook herself clear as she climbed the waves; then
+again the sea, and again the dread.
+
+I could not leave the poop nor the two men at the wheel. A wrong turn at
+this howling, raging time, would mean quick despatch to the land of no
+awakening. Sometimes even the helmsmen grew afraid, but a word of
+encouragement sufficed to quiet them.
+
+While I was standing to windward of the men at the wheel, watching her
+every move as she was pitched hither and thither on this crazy spiral
+sea, she shipped a green sea that shook her from stem to stern. It was
+with great difficulty that she raised her black hull to the raging storm
+again. I shouted to the men at the wheel. It was too late. She had
+broached to with the stern sea on the beam, and the beam sea right
+ahead.
+
+Then the beam sea submerged her, and by it I was carried across the poop
+deck, and found myself held under the wheel-box, with both legs pinned
+in a vise-like grip by the tiller, which extended forward of the
+rudder-head. Although dazed and strangled by the terrible impact of the
+water, I managed to twist the upper part of my body towards the wheel
+and to murmur, "For God's sake keep her off."
+
+My weakened voice was lost in the tempest. There were no ears to hear my
+pleadings. The men at the wheel were gone. Gone, indeed, to a watery
+grave, and perhaps the others also. With me it would not take long. Just
+another raking like the last one, and then the finish. Again the cook's
+words echoed louder than the raging storm, "Do we finish here?"
+
+As I lay there pinned to the deck, too helpless to even call aloud, and
+as it seemed waiting, waiting, for the executioner to spring the deadly
+trap, I was conscious that the door of the companion-way had closed with
+a bang so terrific that it sounded above the storm. I twisted my head
+and shoulders around to see if I dared to hope. There before me stood
+the Hindoo stowaway. He did not notice me lying there pinned under the
+wheel-box, nor could I manage to attract his attention.
+
+With opal eyes glowing green and fiery red, he sprang to the wheel, and
+with magnificent strength pulled on the spokes till they screeched
+louder than the storm as they were dislodged from their oxidized
+fittings. Harder and harder he pulled on the wheel. He didn't even
+notice the seas breaking over him. The mysterious thing about him was
+that he seemed to know what he was doing. He was keeping her off before
+it.
+
+In doing this he removed the tiller from my legs. At last I was free. As
+I struggled and crawled to the weather-rail for support, the Hindoo
+shouted in clear and ringing tones, in true seamanlike fashion, looking
+neither to the right nor left, but straight ahead, as if staring into a
+land-locked harbor. He repeated his order for the second time in a high
+tenor voice:
+
+"Get an axe out of the donkey-room and cut away the lee martingale guy.
+Your flying-jibboom is gone overboard and is still held by the lee guy.
+It is plowing a hole in the port bow."
+
+I knew but one law. The law of self-preservation. My arms were locked
+tight around the stanchion that supported the weather-rail. That quick
+command of the Hindoo brought me sharply to the realization that I was
+not yet given that quick despatch to the land of nowhere, but was still
+in the flesh, and very much alive. My first rational thought was, "What
+in Hell is the Hindoo doing at the wheel?" My pride as a sailor resented
+the affront put upon my ability as a sailor by a stowaway who was daring
+to assume the command of my ship, and daring to issue orders to me.
+
+Letting go my hold on the stanchion, I cautiously made for the Hindoo
+helmsman. While in the act, she shipped another drencher. I was carried
+off my feet and washed away to the lee scuppers. But I managed, by some
+interposition of Divine Providence, to fasten my arms around the
+mooring-bitt, thus saving myself from an angry and cruel sea, which
+seemed to delight in playing with me as a cat does with a mouse, only to
+swallow me up in its fathomless depths.
+
+Once again she wrenched herself free of the mad swirl and her stern went
+down until we were in a valley between mountains of water. I realized as
+I looked up at the bows which seemed to be towering above me, that the
+flying-jibboom, like a clipped wing, was missing. Like a flash I
+wondered how the Hindoo knew that the jibboom was gone.
+
+As her stern ascended high into the air, I jumped for the wheel and with
+an exclamation of joy I shouted, "God in Heaven, the Captain!"
+
+There he stood beside the Hindoo. The dead Captain. The same heavy
+mustache covered the lower lip. The same fiery eyes that knew no defeat.
+He was looking straight ahead with muscle-set jaws. He appeared as if in
+the flesh and ready as of yore to battle with the elements.
+
+Then, like a flash, he vanished, and the Hindoo stood alone, pulling and
+tugging on the wheel with his supple arms.
+
+He spoke, and his usually high-pitched tenor voice rang out piercingly
+clear. "Cut away your jibboom, you have no time to lose. Have no fear."
+
+I knew that her former Captain was in command of the ship, and that his
+masterly seamanship wrought through the Hindoo. I crept forward with new
+courage to do his bidding.
+
+Huddled together beneath the forecastle-head stood what remained of the
+crew, who seemed not to know that two of their number were gone. The
+second mate was praying, and helpless from fear to be of any use in
+handling the schooner. Riley had his three-inch sailor's rope fast to
+the windlass with one extra turn around his body. He was taking no
+chances. Swanson was the only one without fear. When I called for a
+volunteer to cut away the flying jibboom he made for the axe and rushed
+onto the sea-swept forecastle-head. As the schooner arose high in the
+air, he swung over the lee bow and with one stroke of the axe cut away
+the hemp lanyard that was holding the massive spar from its freedom.
+
+For five hours more we battled with the hurricane. The foretopmast went
+overboard, and all our boats were smashed into firewood. The lee
+bulwarks, between the mizzen and mainmast, were washed away, and still
+the Hindoo held the wheel and issued his orders. Many times I offered to
+take the wheel, and ordered him to go below. He would wave me away with
+his hand, saying:
+
+"Not yet,--soon, soon."
+
+About six o'clock, twelve hours and a half after the hurricane struck
+us, the wind let up some. We then went to work with a will to patch up
+what was left of the "Wampa," and for the first time since half-past
+five o'clock that morning, we realized how hungry we were. It was while
+giving orders to the cook that I looked towards the wheel and saw that
+the Hindoo was missing.
+
+Calling Swanson to take the wheel as I ran, I rushed to find him. There
+by the wheel he lay, where he had fallen, limp as a rag,--unconscious.
+Gathering him easily into my arms, I carried him to the Captain's room,
+laying him in the bunk as carefully as if he were a babe newborn. For
+two hours we worked over him, the crew unchidden tiptoeing back and
+forth in clumsy ministrations, the Socialist cook refusing to leave
+him. As he finally came back to earth from those astral regions he so
+easily frequented, a sigh of relief, almost hysterical, went up from the
+whole ship. Surely there had been enough of tragedy!
+
+Along about eight o'clock the wind fell very light. As there was still a
+heavy swell running, it would be dangerous to put sail on her for she
+would shake it into threads.
+
+While walking up and down the poop deck I could hear Riley and the cook
+working over the stowaway. My thoughts turned to old Charlie and to Dago
+Joe, who were sleeping their last sleep out there at sea. Had it not
+been for Him, for Him who had loved his ship, we would all have shared
+the same merciless fate. What might have happened had I followed my
+first impulse to cast the Hindoo overboard?
+
+The cook came running up the companion-way very much excited, and said
+"Come down quick, the Hindoo is showing signs of life." In the Captain's
+room, under the sickly and only lamp, the frail body was moving from
+side to side, sometimes making a feeble effort to sit up, often
+swinging his arms as if to ward off some impending danger. Then he asked
+for a drink of water and gradually became rational.
+
+When I told him what a wonderful service he had performed, he smiled and
+said, "Surely you can't mean me." I insisted, telling him in detail how,
+when two men had been washed overboard, he had seized the wheel and
+saved the ship. "You must be mistaken," he protested, "I have not been
+on deck, and I cannot steer, I know nothing whatever about a ship as a
+sailor. But I have just awakened from a dream that was worse than your
+Christian Hell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE HOME PORT
+
+
+"The wind is from the south-southeast, sir," sang out Swanson from the
+wheel. Riley gave voice to my impulse when he said, "Thank God, it is
+the southeast trades again, sir."
+
+The days that followed brought us fine weather and a gentle breeze. We
+were fortunate enough to escape the doldrums. The southeast trades
+carried us into the northeast trade winds. In latitude 30° north we
+struck the westerly winds that blow fair for the Pacific coast of the U.
+S. A. Fifty-six days from Suva we rounded Lime Point, sailed up Frisco
+Bay, and dropped the hook off Goat Island.
+
+The owner welcomed me at his office, and was pleased indeed to know that
+his favorite schooner was once again in her home port.
+
+Later, when we were towed alongside the wharf, the good ship "Wampa" was
+the object of much speculation among the old hard-shelled water-front
+men, not so much from her battered condition, although she was minus
+port bulwarks, foretopmast and flying jibboom, as from some air of
+mystery which in a conscious way seemed to emanate from the very hull of
+her. Veterans of the deep who were in port loading new cargoes, would
+come and go, walking in silence like pallbearers.
+
+Possibly this was due to the appearance of the Hindoo stowaway, or it
+may have been that the occult voyage of the "Wampa" had been aired in
+Rooney's Steam Beer Joint which was at the end of the wharf. Yet with
+all this hushed solemnity, I do believe that it was I who most sincerely
+mourned our Captain and the two honest, simple sailormen whose lives had
+been so unprotestingly given to their duty. Many a voyage have I had
+since then, but at no time have I ever felt at once so near to Humanity,
+and to the Infinite. The Hindoo, who had picked up and grown fat on the
+cook's pea-soup and salt-horse, went to a home which I found for him
+with a hotel man, who advanced the entry-fee, and put him to work as a
+porter. He saved his money and, after familiarizing himself with the
+customs and conventions of the Western people, he moved north to the
+State of Oregon, where he went into the real estate business, acquiring,
+up to eight years ago, a goodly sum of money.
+
+The Socialist cook exchanged his greasy dungarees for a pair of
+hand-me-down creaseless serge pants. With these and a much-worn
+broadcloth coat that had long withstood gales from the critics of equal
+distribution, he entered once more the harness of Socialism. With him he
+took Toby, the black cat, to a life ashore. I believe, though, that his
+voyage on the "Wampa" had changed his materialistic ideas.
+
+Riley swore that he had made his last trip on windjammers, but that
+should necessity compel him to take again to the sea, he would sail in a
+gentleman's yacht. There he would be sure of frequent home ports, each
+with its black-eyed Susan reigning supreme. But conditions were not as
+Riley had planned. The steam beer was as plentiful as ever, but the
+dinero was running low, and he had to take the first thing that offered
+that would reef and steer. Since then I have met him many times.
+
+Swanson, the most daring and best sailor of the "Wampa's" crew, went to
+a navigation school in San Francisco. With his second mate's papers he
+put off on a long Southern voyage, and after a few years he became
+captain.
+
+For my services the owner of the "Wampa" promised me the command of a
+vessel that was overdue from South America, and which was expected any
+day. After two weeks had passed without news from the South American
+wanderer, I headed North. The Yukon was calling for men of endurance and
+men of red blood to come and uncover her hidden treasures.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40572 ***