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[Illustration: Cover art]



[Frontispiece: ADMIRAL SIR RICHARD DUNNE]



  The Promotion of
  the Admiral

  And Other Sea Comedies


  By

  Morley Roberts

  Author of
  "The Colossus," "The Fugitives," etc.


  _Illustrated_



  _BOSTON_ * L. C. PAGE
  & COMPANY * _Publishers_




  _Copyright, 1902, 1903_
  By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY

  _Copyright, 1903_
  By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
  (INCORPORATED)


  _All rights reserved_


  _Third Impression_


  Published August, 1903




  THE WORKS OF
  MORLEY ROBERTS

  The Idlers
  Lady Penelope
  Rachel Marr
  The Promotion of the Admiral


  L. C. PAGE COMPANY
  New England Building
  Boston, Mass.




CONTENTS


I. The Promotion of the Admiral

II. The Settlement with Shanghai Smith

III. The Policy of the _Potluck_

IV. The Crew of the _Kamma Funder_

V. The Rehabilitation of the _Vigia_

VI. Three in a Game

VII. The Man from Abo

VIII. The Scuttling of the _Pandora_




THE PROMOTION OF THE ADMIRAL.

Mr. Smith, who ran a sailors' boarding-house in that part of San
Francisco known as the Barbary Coast, was absolutely _sui generis_.
If any drunken scallawag of a scholar, who had drifted ashore on his
boarding-house mud-flats, had ventured in a moment of alcoholic
reminiscence to say so in the classic tongue, Shanghai Smith would
have "laid him out cold" with anything handy, from a stone-ware
match-box to an empty bottle.  But if that same son of culture had
used his mother tongue, as altered for popular use in the West, and
had murmured: "Jerusalem but Mr. Smith's the daisy of all!" Smith
would have thrown out his chest and blown through his teeth a windy
oath and guessed he was just so.

"Say it and mean it, that's me," said Smith.  "I'm all right.  But
call me hog and I am hog; don't you forget it!"

Apparently all the world called him "hog."  For that he was no better
than one, whether he walked, or ate, or drank, or slept, was obvious
to any sailor with an open eye.  But he was hard and rough and tough,
and had the bull-headed courage of a mad steer combined with the
wicked cunning of a monkey.

"Don't never play upon me," he said often.  "For 'get even' is my
motter.  There ain't many walkin' this earth that can say they bested
me, not from the time I left Bristol in the old dart till now, when
I'm known the wide world over."

So far as ships and sailormen were concerned he certainly spoke the
truth.  He was talked of with curses in the Pacific from the
Prybiloffs to the Horn, from San Francisco to Zanzibar.  It was long
odds at any given time in any longitude that some seaman was engaged
in blaspheming Shanghai Smith for sending him on board drunk and
without a chest, and with nothing better to propitiate his new
shipmates with than a bottle of vinegar and water that looked like
rum till it was tasted.  Every breeze that blew, trade wind or
monsoon, had heard of his iniquities.  He got the best of every one.

"All but one," said Smith in a moment of weakness, when a dozen men,
who owed so much money that they crawled to him as a Chinaman does to
a joss, were hanging upon his lips--"all but one."

"Oh, we don't take that in," said one of the most indebted; "we can
'ardly believe that, Mr. Smith."

Sometimes this unsubtle flattery would have ended in the flatterer
being thrown out.  But Smith was now gently reminiscent.

"Yes, I was done brown and never got the best of one swine," said the
boarding-house keeper.  "I don't ask you to believe it, for I own it
don't sound likely, me being what I am.  But there was one swab as
give me a hidin', and he give it me good, so he did."

He looked them over malignantly.

"I kin lick any of you here with one hand," he swore, "but the man as
bested me could have taken on three of you with both hands.  And I
own I was took aback considerable when I run against him on the pier
at Sandridge when I was in Australia fifteen years ago.  He was a
naval officer, captain of the _Warrior_, and dressed up to kill,
though he had a face like a figure-head cut out of mahog'ny with a
broad-axe.  And I was feelin' good and in need of a scrap.  So when
he bumped agin me, I shoved him over--prompt, I shoved him.  Down he
went, and the girls that know'd me laughed.  And two policemen came
along quick.  I didn't care much, but this naval josser picks himself
up and goes to 'em.  Would you believe it, but when he'd spoke a bit
I seed him donate them about a dollar each and they walked off round
a heap of dunnage on the wharf, and the captain buttoned up his coat
and came for me.  I never seen the likes of it.  He comes up dancin'
and smilin', and he kind of give me half a bow, polite as you like,
and inside of ten seconds I knew I'd struck a cyclone, right in the
spot where they breed.  I fought good--(you know me)--and I got in
half a dozen on his face.  But I never fazed him none, and he
wouldn't bruise mor'n hittin' a boiler.  And every time he got back
on me I felt as if I'd been kicked.  He scarred me something cruel.
I could see it by the blood on his hands.  Twarn't his, by a long
sight, for his fists was made of teak, I should say.  And in the end,
when I seemed to see a ship's company of naval officers around me,
one of them hit me under the ear and lifted me up.  And another hit
me whilst I was in the air, and a third landed me as I fell.  And
that was the end of it, so far's I remember.  When I came to, which
was next day in a kind of sailors' hospital, I reached up for a card
over my head, and I read 'concussion of the brain' on it.  What's
more, I believed it.  If the card had let on that I'd been run over
by a traction engine and picked up dead, I'd have believed it.  And
when I reely came to my senses, a med'cal student says as Captain
Richard Dunn, of the _Warrior_, had bin to inquire when the funeral
was, so's he could send a wreath.  They said he was the topside
fighter in the hull British Navy.  And I'm here to say he was."

He breathed fierce defiance and invited any man alive to tell him he
was lying.

"And you never got even?" asked the bar-tender, seeing that no one
took up the challenge.

"Never set eyes on him from that day to this," said his boss
regretfully.

"And if you did?"

Smith paused, took a drink.

"So help me, I'd Shanghai him if he was King of England!"

And one of the crowd, who had put down the _San Francisco Chronicle_
in order to hear this yarn, picked it up again.

"S'elp me," he said, in a breathless excitement, "'ere's a bally
cohincidence.  'Ere's a telegram from 'Squimault, saying as how the
flagship _Triumphant_, Hadmiral Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., is comin'
down to San Francisco!"

"Holy Moses, let's look!" said Shanghai Smith.

He read, and a heavenly smile overspread his hard countenance.  He
almost looked good, such joy was his.

"Tom," he said to the bar-tender, "set up the drinks for the crowd.
This is my man, for sure.  And him an admiral, too!  Holy sailor,
ain't this luck?"

He went out into the street and walked to and fro rubbing his hands,
while the men inside took their drink, and looked through the
uncleaned windows at the boss.

"Holy Mackinaw," said Billy, who had drifted West from Michigan, "I
reckon never to hev seen Mr. Smith so pleased since he shipped a
crowd in the _Harvester_, and got 'em away that night and shipped 'em
in the _Silas K. Jones_."

"He's struck a streak o' luck in his mind," said one of the seamen;
"and it's this 'ere hadmiral.  Now mark me, mates, I wouldn't be that
'ere hadmiral for the worth of California.  Mr. Sir Blooming
Hadmiral, K.C.B., et setterer, is going to 'ave a time."

He shook his head over the melancholy fate of a British admiral.

"Rot!" said one of the younger men; "'tain't possible to do nothin'
to the likes of an admiral.  Now, if 'twas a lieutenant or even a
captain, I'm not sayin' as Mr. Smith mightn't do somethin'.  But an
admiral----"

"You mark me," said the older man, "I'd rather be as green as grass
and ship as an able-bodied seaman with Billy Yates of the _Wanderer_,
than be in that hadmiral's shoes.  What do you say, Tom?"

Tom filled himself up a drink and considered.

"Wa'al," he answered after a long pause, "it's my belief that it
won't necessary be _all_ pie to be an admiral if the boss is half the
man he used to be.  For you see 'tis quite evident he has a special
kind of respect for this admiral, and when Mr. Smith has been done by
any one that he respects, he don't ever forget.  Why, you know
yourselves that if one of you was to do him, he'd forgive you right
off after he'd kicked the stuffing out of you."

This clear proof that Mr. Smith did not respect them and was kind was
received without a murmur.  And as the boss did not return, the tide
of conversation drifted in the narrower more personal channels of the
marvels that had happened in the "last ship."  And in the meantime
H.M.S. _Triumphant_, known familiarly on the Pacific Coast station as
"the _Nonsuch_, two decks and no bottom," was bringing Rear-Admiral
Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., to his fate in San Francisco.

"Was there ever such luck--was there ever such luck?" murmured Mr.
Shanghai Smith.  "To think of him turnin' up, all of his own accord,
on my partic'lar stampin' ground!  And I'll lay odds he's clean
forgot me.  I'll brighten up his memr'y with sand and canvas and
souji-mouji, so I will!  Holy sailor, was there ever such luck?"

The morning of the following day H.M.S. _Triumphant_ lay at her
anchors off Saucelito in San Francisco Bay, and was glad to be there.
For this was in the times when the whole British fleet was not
absolutely according to Cocker.  She leaked not a little and she
rolled a great deal, and she would not mind her helm except upon
those occasions when the officer in charge of the deck laid his money
and his reputation on her going to starboard when, according to all
rules, she should have altered her course to port.  But though she
was a wet ship with a playful habit of trying to scoop the Pacific
Ocean dry, and though her tricks would have broken the heart of the
Chief Naval Constructor had he seen her at them, she was the flagship
in spite of her conduct, because at that time she was half the whole
Pacific Squadron.  The other half was lying outside Esquimault Dry
Dock waiting for it to be finished.  And when the _Chronicle_ said
that "Dicky Dunn" was the admiral, it had not lied.  If any of that
paper's reporters had known "Dicky" as his men knew him, he would
have spread himself in a column on the admiral's character and
personal appearance.

"He's the dead-spit of a boson's mate, to be sure," said the crew of
the _Triumphant_ when they received him at Esquimault.  "An 'ard nut
he looks!"

And a "hard nut" he certainly was.  Though he stood five feet nine in
height, he looked two inches less, for he was as broad as a door and
as sturdy as the fore-bitts.  His complexion was the colour of the
sun when it sets in a fog for fine weather: the skin on his hands
shone and was as scaly as a lizard's hide.  His teeth were white and
his eyes piercing.  He could roar like a fog-horn, and sing, as the
crew said, "like any hangel."  There wasn't the match of "Dicky" on
any of the seas the wide world over.  The only trouble was that he
looked so much like the traditional sailor and buccaneer that no one
could believe he was anything higher than a warrant officer at the
most when he had none of his official gear about him.

Though the admiral did not know it, one of the very first to greet
him when he set his foot on dry land at the bottom of Market Street
was the man he had licked so thoroughly fifteen years before in
Melbourne.

"Oh, it's the same," said Smith to his chief runner, who was about
the "hardest case" in California.  "He ain't changed none.  Just so
old he was when he set about me.  Why, the galoot might be immortal.
Mark him, now; will you know him anywhere?"

"It don't pay me ever to forget," replied the runner.  He had to
remember the men who owed him grudges.

"Then don't forget this one," said Smith.  "Do you find me a
considerate boss?"

"Oh, well----" said the runner ungraciously.

"You've got to do a job for me, Billy."

"And what?"

"I'm goin' to have this hyer admiral shipped before the stick on the
toughest ship that's about ready to go to sea," replied Smith.

Billy flinched.

"Sir, it's the penitentiary!"

"I don't care if it's lynchin'," said Smith.  "Help--or get.  I'm
bossin' this job.  Which is it?"

And Billy, seeing that he was to play second fiddle, concluded to
help.

"And," he said to himself, "if we get nailed I'll split.  Calls
himself a 'considerate boss.'  Well, Shanghai Smith has a gall!"

"Which do you reckon is the worst ship inside the Gate now?" asked
Smith, after he had savoured his cunning revenge for a few minutes.

"The _Harvester_ ain't due for a month, sir."

Smith looked melancholy.

"No, she ain't, that's a fact.  It's a solid pity.  Sant would have
suited this Dunn first class."  He was the most notorious blackguard
of a shipmaster yet unhung, and the fact that Smith and he were
bitter enemies never blinded Shanghai to the surpassing merits of his
brutality.

"There's the _Cyrus G. Hake_."

Smith shook his head contemptuously.

"D'ye think I want to board this admiral at the Palace Hotel?  Why,
Johnson hasn't hurt a man serious for two trips."

"Oh, well, I thought as he'd sure break out soon," said Bill; "but
there's the President.  They do say that her new mate is a holy
terror."

"I won't go on hearsay," said Smith decidedly.  "I want a good man
you and I know--one that'll handle this Dicky Dunn from the start.
Now, what's in the harbour with officers that can lick me?"

"Well, I always allowed (as you know, Mr. Smith) that Simpson of the
_California_ was your match."

Smith's face softened.

"Well, mebbe he is."

At any other time he would never have admitted it.

"And the _California_ will sail in three days."

"Righto," said Smith.  "Simpson is a good tough man and so is old
Blaker.  Bill, the _California_ will do.  But it's an almighty pity
the _Harvester_ ain't here.  I never knew a more unlucky thing.  But
we must put up with the next best."

"But how'll you corral the admiral, sir?" asked Bill.

"You leave that to me," replied his boss.  "I've got a very fruitful
notion as will fetch him if he's half the man he was."

Next evening Smith found occasion to run across a couple of the
_Triumphant's_ crew, and he got them to come into his house for a
drink.

"Are these galoots to be dosed and put away?" asked the bar-tender.

"Certainly not," said Smith.  "Fill 'em up with good honest liquor at
my expense."

The bar-tender hardly knew where good honest liquor was to be found
in that house, but he gave the two men-o'-war's men the slowest
poison he had, and they were soon merry.

"Is the admiral as dead keen on fightin' with his fists as he was?"
asked Smith.

"Rather," said the first man.

"Oh no, he's tired," said the second.  "'E allows 'e can't find no
one to lick 'im.  'E never could."

"Oh, that's his complaint, is it?" said Smith.  "And is he as good as
he was?"

"I heerd him tell the first luff on'y the other day as 'e reckoned to
be a better man now than he was twenty years ago.  And I believes
'im.  'Ard?  Oh my!  I do believe if 'e ran agin a lamp-post he'd
fight through it."

It was enough for Smith to know that the admiral was still keen on
fighting.  To draw a man like that would not be so difficult.  When
he had turned the two naval seamen into the street, he called for the
runner.

"Have you found out what I told you?"

"Yes," replied Bill.  "He mostly comes down and goes off at eleven."

"Is he alone?"

"Mostly he has a young chap with him.  I reckon they calls him the
flag-lieutenant: a kind of young partner he seems to be.  But that's
the only one so far.  And the _California_ sails day after
ter-morrer, bright and early."

"Couldn't be better," said Smith.  "After waitin' all these years I
can't afford to lose no time.  Thishyer racket comes off to-night.
Look out, Mr. Bully Admiral!  I'm on your track."

And the trouble did begin that night.

Mr. 'Say-it-and-mean-it' Smith laid for Admiral Sir Richard Dunn,
K.C.B., etc., etc., from ten o'clock till half-past eleven, and he
was the only man in the crowd that did not hope the victim would come
down with too many friends to be tackled.

"It's a penitentiary job, so it is," said Bill.  And yet when the
time arrived his natural instincts got the better of him.

The admiral came at last: it was about a quarter to twelve, and the
whole water-front was remarkably quiet.  The two policemen at the
entrance to the Ferries had by some good luck, or better management,
found it advisable to take a drink at Johnson's, just opposite.  And
the admiral was only accompanied by his flag-lieutenant.

"That's him," said Smith.  "I'd know the beggar anywhere.  Now keep
together and sing!"

He broke into "Down on the Suwannee River," and advanced with Bill
and Bill's two mates right across the admiral's path.  They pretended
to be drunk, and as far as three were concerned, there was not so
much pretence about it after all.  But Smith had no intention of
being the first to run athwart the admiral's hawse.  When he came
close enough, he shoved the youngest man right into his arms.  The
admiral jumped back, and landed that unfortunate individual a
round-arm blow that nearly unshipped his jaw.  The next moment every
one was on the ground, for Bill sandbagged the admiral just as he was
knocked down by the lieutenant.  As Sir Richard fell, he reached out
and caught Smith by the ankle.  The boarding-house master got the
lieutenant by the coat and brought him down too.  And as luck would
have it, the youngster's head hit the admiral's with such a crack
that both lay unconscious.

"Do we want the young 'un too?" asked Bill when he rose to his feet,
swinging his sand-bag savagely.  And Smith for once lost his head.

"Leave the swine, and puckarow the admiral," he said.  And indeed it
was all they could do to carry Sir Richard without exciting any more
attention than four semi-intoxicated men would as they took home a
mate who was quite incapacitated.

But they did get him home to the house in the Barbary Coast.  When he
showed signs of coming to, he was promptly dosed and his clothes were
taken off him.  As he slept the sleep of the drugged, they put on a
complete suit of rough serge toggery and he became "Tom Deane, A.B."

"They do say that he is the roughest, toughest, hardest nut on
earth," said Bill; "so we'll sec what like he shapes in the
_California_.  I dessay he's one of that lot that lets on how
sailormen have an easy time.  It's my notion the _California_ will
cure him of that."

By four o'clock in the morning, Tom Deane, who was, as his new
shipmates allowed, a hard-looking man who could, and would, pull his
weight, lay fast asleep in a forward bunk of the _California's_
foc'sle as she was being towed through the Golden Gate.  And his
flag-lieutenant was inquiring in hospital what had become of the
admiral, and nobody could tell him more than he himself knew.  So
much he told the reporters of the _Chronicle_ and the _Morning Call_,
and flaring headlines announced the disappearance of a British
admiral, and the wires and cables fairly hummed to England and the
world generally.  At the same time the San Francisco police laid
every waterfront rat and tough by the heels on the chance that
something might be got out of one of them.

"What did I tell you?" asked Bill in great alarm, as he saw several
intimate friends of his being escorted to gaol.

"Are you weakenin' on it?" said Smith savagely.  "If I thought you
was, I'd murder you.  Give me away, and when I get out, I'll chase
you three times round the world and knife you, my son."

And though Bill was so much of a "terror," he could not face Smith's
eyes.

"Well, I ain't in it, anyhow," he swore.

But certainly "Tom Deane, A.B." was in it, and was having a holy time.

When the admiral woke, which he did after half an hour's shaking
administered in turns by three of the _California's_ crew, who were
anxious to know where he had stowed his bottle of rum, he was still
confused with the "dope" given him ashore.  So he lay pretty still
and said:

"Send Mr. Selwyn to me."

But Selwyn was his flag-lieutenant, and was just then the centre of
interest to many reporters.

"Send hell; rouse out, old son, and turn to," said one of his new
mates.  And the admiral rose and rested on his elbow.

"Where am I?"

"On board the _California_, to be sure."

"I'm dreaming," said the admiral, "that's what it is.  To be sure,
I'm dreaming."

There was something in his accent as he made this statement that
roused curiosity in the others.

"No, you ain't--not much," said the first man who had spoken; "and
even if you was, I guess Simpson will wake you.  Rouse up before he
comes along again.  He was in here an hour back inquiring for the
trumpet of the Day of Judgment to rouse you.  Come along, Deane!  Now
then!"

"My name's Dunn," said the admiral, with contracted brows.

"Devil doubt it," said his friend; "and who done you?  Was it
Shanghai Smith?"

The admiral sat up suddenly, and by so doing brought his head into
violent contact with the deck above him.  This woke him thoroughly,
just in time to receive Mr. Simpson, mate of the _California_, who
came in like a cyclone to inquire after his health.

"Did you ship as a dead man?" asked Mr. Simpson, "for if you did,
I'll undeceive you."

And with that he yanked the admiral from his bunk, and dragged him by
the collar out upon the deck at a run.  Mr. Simpson was "bucko" to
his finger-tips, and had never been licked upon the high seas.  But
for that matter Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., had never
hauled down his flag either to any man.  It surprised him, as it
would have surprised any of his crew, to find that he took this
handling almost meekly.  But then no one knows what he would do if
the sky fell; and as far as the admiral was concerned, the entire
world was an absurd and ridiculous nightmare.  He rose at the end of
his undignified progress and stared at the mate.

"Who--who are you?" he said.

Mr. Simpson gasped.

"Who am I--oh, who am I?  Well, I'll oblige you by statin' once for
all that I'm mate of this ship, and you're my dog."

But the "dog" shook his head.

"Nothing of the sort," he said, as he staggered with the remains of
the opiate.  "I'm a British admiral, and my name's Sir Richard Dunn.
Where's my ship?"

Any ordinary kind of back-answer or insubordination received only one
kind of treatment on board the _California_, and when a man had been
beaten to a jelly, he rarely recovered enough spirit to inquire why
he had been hammered.  But this was a new departure in back-talk.

"Oh, you're an admiral--an admiral, heh?" said Simpson.

"Of course," said Sir Richard, and a sudden gust of rage blew the
last opium out of him.  "Why, damn it, sir, what the devil do you
mean by laying your filthy paws on me?  Where's your captain, sir?
By all that's holy, I'll smash you if you so much as look at me
again."

Now it is a remarkable fact that the utterly and entirely unexpected
will sometimes shake the courage of the stoutest heart.  It is
possible that a tiger would itself turn tail if a lamb rushed at him
with open mouth.  And though Mr. Simpson would have tackled a
prize-fighter, knowing he was a prize-fighter, the fact that one of
the kind of men whom he was accustomed to wipe his boots on now
turned upon him with entirely strange language and a still stranger
air of authority, for a moment daunted him utterly.  He stood still
and gasped, while the admiral strode aft and went up the poop ladder.
He was met there by the captain, who had been the terror of the seas
as a mate.  A narrow escape of a conviction for murder had partially
reformed him.  He had also become religious, and usually went below
when Simpson or the second "greaser" was hammering any one into
oblivion and obedience.

"What is this?" asked Captain Blaker mildly, yet with a savage eye.
"Mr. Simpson, what do you mean by allowing your authority (and mine
delegated to you) to be disregarded?"

"Sir," said Mr. Simpson, and then the admiral turned on him.

"Hold your infernal tongue, sir," he roared.  "And, sir, if you are
the master of this vessel, as I suppose, I require you to put about
for San Francisco.  I am a British admiral, sir; my name is Sir
Richard Dunn."

"Oh, you're an admiral and you 'require'?" said Blaker.  "Wa'al, I do
admire!  You look like an admiral: the water-front is full of such.
Take that, sir."

And the resurgent old Adam in Blaker struck the admiral with such
unexpected force that Dunn went heels over head off the poop and
landed on Simpson.  The mate improved the opportunity by kicking him
violently in the ribs.  When he was tired, he spoke to the admiral
again.

"Now, you lunatic, take this here ball of twine and go and overhaul
the gear on the main.  And if you open your mouth to say another word
I'll murder you."

And though he could not believe he was doing it, Sir Richard Dunn
crawled aloft, and did what he was told.  He was stunned by his fall
and the hammering he had received, but that was nothing to the utter
and complete change of air that he experienced.  As he overhauled the
gear he wondered if he was an admiral at all.  If he was, how came he
on the maintopgallant-yard of a merchant ship?  If he wasn't, why was
he surprised at being there?  He tried to recall the last day of his
life as an admiral, and was dimly conscious of a late evening
somewhere in San Francisco at which he had certainly taken his share
of liquor.  A vague sense of having been in a row oppressed him, but
he could recall nothing till he had been yanked out of his bunk by
that truculent devil of a mate then patrolling the poop.

"I--I must be mad," said the admiral.

"Now then, look alive there, you dead crawling cat," said Mr.
Simpson, "or I'll come up and boot you off the yard.  Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," said the admiral quickly, and as he put a new mousing on
the clip-hooks of the mizzen-topmast-staysail-tripping-line block, he
murmured: "I suppose I never was an admiral after all.  I don't seem
to know what I am."  And the hardest nut among the admirals of the
Active List wiped away a tear with the sleeve of his coat as he
listened to the sacred Commination Service with all its blessings,
intoned in a down-east twang by the eminent Mr. Simpson.

"He's crazy," said Simpson to the second greaser.  "Says he's an
admiral.  I've had the Apostle Peter on board, and a cook who said he
was St. Paul, but this is the first time I've run against an admiral
before the mast."

"Does he look like it, sir?" asked Wiggins, laughing.

"He looks the toughest case you ever set eyes on," said Simpson.
"But you'd have smiled to see the way the old man slugged him off the
poop.  And yet there's something about him I don't tumble to.  I
guess that's where his madness lies.  Guess I'll cure him or kill him
by the time we get off Sandy Hook.--Now then, you admiral, come down
here and start up the fore rigging, and do it quick, or I'll know the
reason why."

And the Knight Commander of the Bath came down as he was bid, and
having cast a perplexed eye over Simpson and Wiggins, who sniggered
at him with amused and savage contempt, he went forward in a hurry.

"This is a nightmare," he said; "I'm dreaming.  Damme, perhaps I'm
dead!"

When he had overhauled the gear at the fore--and being a real seaman,
he did it well--Wiggins called him down to work on deck, and he found
himself among his new mates.  By now they were all aware that he
believed he was an admiral, and that he had spoken to Simpson in a
way that no man had ever done.  That was so much to his credit, but
since he was mad he was a fit object of jeers.  They jeered him
accordingly, and when they were at breakfast the trouble began.

"Say, are you an admiral?" asked Knight, the biggest tough on board
except Simpson and Wiggins.

And the admiral did not answer.  He looked at Knight with a gloomy,
introspective eye.

"Mind your own business," he said, when the question was repeated.

And Knight hove a full pannikin of tea at him.  This compliment was
received very quietly, and the admiral rose and went on deck.

"Takes water at once," said Knight; "he ain't got the pluck of a
mouse."

But the admiral went aft and interviewed Mr. Simpson.

"May I have the honour of speaking to you, sir?" he said, and Simpson
gasped a little, but said he might have that honour.

"Well, sir," said Sir Richard Dunn, "I don't know how I got here, but
here I am, and I'm willing to waive the question of my being a
British admiral, as I can't prove it."

"That's right," said Simpson.  "Ah, I'll have you sane enough
by-and-by, my man."

The admiral nodded.

"But I wish to have your permission to knock the head off a man
called Knight for'ard.  It was always my custom, sir, to allow fights
on board my own ship when I considered them necessary.  But I always
insisted on my permission being asked.  Have I yours, sir?"

Simpson looked the admiral up and down.

"Your ship, eh?  You're still crazy, I'm afraid.  But Knight can kill
you, my man."

"I'm willing to let him try, sir," said the admiral.  "He hove a
pannikin of tea over me just now, and I think a thrashing would do
him good and conduce to the peace and order of the foc'sle."

"Oh, you think so," said Simpson.  "Very well, you have my permission
to introduce peace there."

"I thank you, sir," said the admiral.

He touched his hat and went forward.  He put his head inside the
foc'sle and addressed Knight:

"Come outside, you bully, and let me knock your head off.  Mr.
Simpson has been kind enough to overlook the breach of discipline
involved."

And Knight, nothing loth, came out on deck, while Simpson and Wiggins
stood a little way off to enjoy the battle.

"I'd like to back the admiral," said Wiggins.

"I'll have a level five dollars on Knight," said Simpson, who
remembered that he had, on one occasion, found Knight extremely
difficult to reduce to pulp.

"Done with you," said Wiggins.

And in five minutes the second mate was richer by five dollars, as
his mates carried Knight into the foc'sle.

"I don't know when I enjoyed myself more," said Simpson, with a
sigh--"even if I do lose money on it.  While it lasted it was real
good.  Did you see that most be-ewtiful upper cut?  And the
right-handed cross counter that finished it was jest superb.  But
I'll hev to speak to the victor, so I will."

And he addressed the admiral in suitable language.

"Don't you think, because you've licked him, that you can fly any
flag when I'm around.  You done it neat and complete, and I overlook
it, but half a look and the fust letter of a word of soss and I'll
massacre you myself.  Do you savvy?"

And the admiral said:

"Yes, sir."

He touched his cap and went forward to the foc'sle to enter into his
kingdom.  For Knight had been "topside joss" there for three voyages,
being the only man who had ever succeeded in getting even one pay-day
out of the _California_.  The principle on which she was run was to
make things so hot for her crew that they skipped out at New York
instead of returning to San Francisco, and the fresh crew shipped in
New York did the same when they got inside the Golden Gate.

"I understand," said the admiral, as he stood in the middle of the
foc'sle, "that the gentleman I've just had the pleasure of knocking
into the middle of next week was the head bully here.  Now I want it
thoroughly understood in future that if any bullying is to be done,
I'm going to do it."

All the once obedient slaves of the deposed Knight hastened to make
their peace with the new power.  They fairly crawled to the admiral.

"You kin fight," said one.

"I knew it jest so soon as you opened yer mouth," said another.  "The
tone of yer voice argued you could."

"It's my belief that he could knock the stuffin' out o' Mr. Simpson,"
said the third.

"'Twould be the best kind of fun," said another admirer of the powers
that be, "for Blaker would kick Simpson in here, and give the admiral
his job right off.  He's got religion, has Blaker, but he was an old
packet rat himself, and real 'bucko' he was, and believes in the best
men bein' aft."

And though the admiral said nothing to this, he remembered it, and
took occasion to inquire into its truth.  He found that what he knew
of the sea and its customs was by no means perfect.  He learnt
something every day, and not least from Knight, who proved by no
means a bad sort of man when he had once met his match.

"Is it true," asked the admiral, "what they say about Captain Blaker
giving any one the mate's job if he can thrash him?"

"It used to be the custom in the Western Ocean," said Knight, "and
Blaker was brought up there.  He's a real sport, for all his bein'
sort of religious.  Yes, I'll bet it's true."  He turned to the
admiral suddenly.  "Say, you wasn't thinkin' of takin' Simpson on,
was you?"

"If what's you say's true, I was," said the admiral.  "It don't suit
me being here."

"Say now, partner," put in Knight, "what's this guff about your being
an admiral?  What put it into your head?"

And Sir Richard Dunn laughed.  As he began to feel his feet, and find
that he was as good a man in new surroundings as in the old ones, he
recovered his courage and his command of himself.

"After all, this will be the deuce of a joke when it's over," he
thought, "and I don't see why I shouldn't get a discharge out of her
as mate.  Talk about advertisement!"

He knew how much it meant.

"Look here, Knight," he said aloud, "I am an admiral.  I can't prove
it, but my ship was the _Triumphant_.  I don't want to force it down
your throat, but if you'd say you believe it, I should be obliged to
you."

Knight put out his hand.

"I believes it, sonny," he said, "for I own freely that there's
suthin' about you different from us; a way of talk, and a look in the
eye that ain't formiliar in no foc'sle as I ever sailed in.  And if
you was lyin', how come you to lie so ready, bein' so drunk when
Simpson hauled you out o' yer bunk?  No, I believe you're speakin'
the trewth."

And Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., shook hands with Charles Knight, A.B.

"I won't forget this," he said huskily.  He felt like Mahomet with
his first disciple.  "And now, in confidence," said the admiral, "I
tell you I mean to have Simpson's job by the time we're off the Horn."

"Good for you," cried Knight.  "Oh, he kicked me somethin' cruel the
time him and me had a turn-up.  Give it him, old man.  And here's a
tip for you.  If you get him down, keep him down.  Don't forget he
kicked you, too."

"I don't forget," said Sir Richard--"I don't forget, by any means."

Yet he did his duty like a man.  Though many things were strange to
him, he tumbled to them rapidly.  One of his fads had been doing
ornamental work even when he was an admiral, and he put fresh
"pointing" on the poop ladder rails for Blaker in a way that brought
every one to look at it.  There was no one on board who could come
within sight of him at any fancy work, and this so pleased Simpson
that the admiral never had a cross word till they were south of the
Horn.  Then by chance the mate and the captain had a few words which
ended in Simpson getting much the worst of the talk.  As luck would
have it, the admiral was the handiest to vent his spite on, and
Simpson caught him a smack on the side of his head that made him see
stars.

"Don't stand listenin' there to what don't concern you, you damned
lazy hound," he said.  And when the admiral picked himself off the
deck, Simpson made a rush for him.  The admiral dodged him and shot
up the poop ladder.  He took off his cap to the captain, while
Simpson foamed on the main-deck and called him in vain.  At any other
time Blaker would have gone for the seaman who dared to escape a
thrashing for the moment by desecrating the poop, but now he was
willing to annoy Simpson.

"Well, what do you want?" he roared.

The admiral made a really elegant bow.

"Well, sir, I wanted to know whether Western Ocean custom goes here.
I've been told that if I can thrash your mate, I shall have his job.
They say forward that that's your rule, and if so, sir, I should like
your permission to send Mr. Simpson forward and take his place."

There was something so open and ingenuous in the admiral that Captain
Blaker, for the first time on record, burst into a shout of laughter.
He went to the break of the poop and addressed the mate.

"Do you hear, Mr. Simpson?" he inquired genially.

"Send him down, sir," said Simpson.

"Are you sure you can pound him?"

Simpson gritted his teeth and foamed at the mouth.

"Kick him off the poop, sir."

The admiral spoke anxiously.

"I'm a first-class navigator, sir.  Is it a bargain?"

And Blaker, who had never liked Simpson, laughed till he cried.

"Are you willing to stake everything on your fightin' abilities, Mr.
Simpson?"

And when Simpson said "Aye" through his teeth, the admiral jumped
down on the main-deck.

Now, according to all precedents, the fight should have been long and
arduous, with varying fortunes.  But the admiral never regarded
precedents, and inside of ten seconds Mr. Simpson was lying totally
insensible under the spare topmast.  To encounter the admiral's right
was to escape death by a hair's-breadth, and it took Charles Simpson,
Able Seaman (_vice_ Mr. Simpson, Chief Officer), two hours and a
quarter to come to.

"And I thot he could fight," said the disgusted skipper.  "Come right
up, Mr. What's-your-name; you're the man for me.  There ain't no
reason for you to trouble about my second mate, for Simpson could lay
him out easy.  All I ask of you is to work the whole crowd up good.
And I don't care if you are an admiral, you are the right sort all
the same.  I guess that Simpson must have reckoned he struck a
cyclone."

And Blaker rubbed his hands.  Like Simpson at the fight between the
admiral and Knight, he did not know when he had enjoyed himself more.
He improved the occasion by going below and getting far too much to
drink, as was his custom.  And the promoted admiral took charge of
the deck.

"Ability tells anywhere," said Sir Richard Dunn.  "I didn't rise in
the service for nothing.  Ship me where you like, and I'll come to
the top.  If I don't take this hooker into New York as captain and
master, I'll die in the attempt."

He had quite come to himself and was beginning to enjoy himself.  His
natural and acquired authority blossomed wonderfully when he took on
the new job, and as Blaker never swore, the admiral's gift of
language was a great vicarious satisfaction to him.  Wiggins accepted
the situation without a murmur.  Even Simpson himself bore no malice
when his supplanter not only showed none, but after knocking the
boson's head against a bollard, gave his place to the former mate.
Though he kept the men working and got the last ounce out of them,
none of them were down on him.

"I tell you he's an admiral, sure," they said.

"He's got all the ways of one, I own," said Bill, an old man-o'-war's
man.  "I spoke to an admiral myself once, or rather he spoke to me."

"What did he say?" asked the rest of his watch.

"He said," replied Bill proudly--"he upped and said, 'You cross-eyed
son of a dog, if you don't jump I'll bash the ugly head off of you.'
And you bet I jumped.  Oh, he's all the ways of some admirals, he
has."

"Well, admiral or none," said the rest of the crowd, "things goes on
pleasanter than they done when you was mate, Simpson."

And Simpson grunted.

"And he gets more work out of us than you done either, Simpson, for
all your hammerin' of us."

"I'll likely be hammerin' some of you again shortly," said Simpson.
And as he was cock of the walk in the foc'sle, whatever he was in the
ship, the others dried up.

Nothing of great interest happened till they were well east of the
Horn and hauled up for the northward run.  And then Blaker took to
religion (or what he called religion) and rum in equally undiluted
doses.

"I'm a miserable sinner, I am," he said to the admiral, "but all the
same, I'll do my duty to the crowd."

He called them aft and preached to them for two hours.  And when one
man yawned, he laid him out with a well-directed belaying pin.  The
next day, when it breezed up heavily and they were shortening sail,
he called all hands down from aloft on the ground that their souls
were of more importance than the work in hand.

"Come down on deck, you miserable sinners," said Blaker through a
speaking trumpet.  His voice rose triumphantly above the roar of the
gale.  "Come down on deck and listen to me.  For though I'm a
miserable sinner too, there's some hopes for me, and for you there's
none unless you mend your ways, in accordance with what I'm telling
you."

Even with the speaking trumpet he could hardly make himself heard
over the roar of the increasing gale and the thunderous slatting of
the topsails in the spilling-lines.

"Don't you think, sir, that they'd better make the topsails fast
before you speak to them?" said the admiral.

"No, I don't," replied Blaker--"not much I don't, not by a jugful.
For if one of 'em went overboard, I'd be responsible before the
throne.  And don't you forget it."

"Damme, he's mad," said Sir Richard--"mad as a march hare.  She'll be
shaking the sticks out of her soon."

He leant over the break of the poop, and called up Wiggins.

"Mr. Wiggins, one word with you."

Wiggins came up, as Blaker roared his text through the trumpet.

"Will you stand by me, Mr. Wiggins, if I knock him down and take
command?"

"I will; but mind his gun," said Wiggins.  "When he's very bad, he'll
shoot."

It was not any fear of Blaker's six-shooter that made the admiral
hesitate.  To take the command, even from a madman, at sea is a
ticklish task and may land a man in gaol, for all his being a
Shanghaied admiral.

"I tell you, Mr. Wiggins, that Simpson is a good man.  I'll bring him
aft again."

And Wiggins made no objection when Simpson was called up by the
admiral.

"Mr. Simpson," said the mate, "this is getting past a joke.  Have you
any objection to taking on your old job if I secure this preaching
madman and take command?"

Simpson was "full up" of the foc'sle, and as he had a very wholesome
admiration for the admiral, he was by no means loth to return to his
old quarters.

"I'm with you, sir.  In another quarter of an hour we shall have the
sticks out of her."

And still Blaker bellowed scripture down the wind.  He was still
bellowing, though what he bellowed wasn't scripture, when Simpson and
Wiggins took him down below after five minutes of a row in which the
deposed captain showed something of his ancient form as the terror of
the Western Ocean.  As they went, the admiral, now promoted to being
captain of a Cape Horner, picked up the battered speaking trumpet and
wiped some blood from his face, which had been in collision.

"Up aloft with you and make those topsails fast," he roared.  "Look
alive, men, look alive!"

And they did look alive, for "Dicky" Dunn never needed a speaking
trumpet in any wind that ever blew.  When things were snugged down
and the _California_ was walking north at an easy but tremendous
gait, he felt like a man again.  He turned to Simpson and Wiggins
with a happy smile.

"Now we're comfortable, and things are as they should be, Mr.
Simpson, let the men have a tot of grog.  And how's Mr. Blaker?"

"Wa'al," said Simpson cheerfully, "when we left him he warn't exactly
what you would call religious nor resigned."

But if Blaker was not happy, the admiral was thoroughly delighted.

"Now you see what I said was true," he declared at dinner that night;
"if I hadn't been an admiral and a man born to rise, how could I have
been shipped on board this ship as a foremast hand and come to be
captain in six weeks?  I'll be bound you never heard of a similar
case, Mr. Simpson."

And Simpson never had.

"Was it Shanghai Smith, do you think, as put you here?" he asked.

The admiral had heard of Shanghai Smith in the foc'sle.

"When I get back I'll find out," he said.  "And if it was, I'll not
trouble the law, Mr. Simpson.  I never allow any man to handle me
without getting more than even."

"You don't," said Simpson.  If his manner was dry, it was sincere.

"But I don't bear malice afterwards.  Your health, Mr. Simpson.  This
kind of trade breeds good seamen, after all.  But you are all a
trifle rough."

Simpson explained that they had to be.

"When the owners' scheme is to have one man do three men's work, they
have to get men who will make 'em do it.  And when the owners get a
bad name and their ships a worse, then men like Shanghai Smith have
to find us crews.  If you could get back to San Francisco and hammer
an owner, some of us would be obliged to you, sir."

"Ah, when I get back!" said the admiral.  "This will be a remarkable
yarn for me to tell, Mr. Simpson.  I still feel in a kind of dream.
Would you oblige me by going to Mr. Blaker and telling him that if he
continues to hammer at that door I'll have the hose turned on him."

And when Simpson went to convey this message, the admiral put his
feet on the table and indulged in a reverie.

"I'll make a note about Shanghai Smith, and settle with him in full.
But I shall rise higher yet.  I know it's in me.  Steward!"

"Yes, sir," said the steward.

"I think I'll have some grog."

He drank to the future of Admiral Sir Richard Dunn, master of the
_California_.




THE SETTLEMENT WITH SHANGHAI SMITH.

It is easy to understand that there was something more than a flutter
in shipping circles in San Francisco, to say nothing of the sailors'
boarding-houses, when a telegram reached that city from New York
which was expanded as follows:--


"_THE LOST ADMIRAL._

"_Admiral Sir Richard Dunn, whose mysterious disappearance in San
Francisco three months ago caused such great excitement, has arrived
at New York in command of the ship _California_.  He was, it appears,
assaulted, and drugged, and put on board that vessel, and owing to a
series of exciting incidents during the passage, finally took charge
of her.  The admiral is in good health.  He states that he has no
idea who was responsible for the outrage._"


The bar-tender at Shanghai Smith's house was the first to spot this
cable.  He put his hand on the bar and vaulted it.

"Say, Billy, see this."

He shook up the runner who was taking a caulk on a hard bench, having
been engaged between four and six in getting three drunken men on
board the _Wanderer_.  It is often easier to get a dozen amenable to
reason than three, just as it is easier to handle many sheep than
few.  He was very tired and sulky.

"Well, wo'd's up now?" he grunted.

"Hell is up, and flamin'," said Tom.  "You ain't forgot the admiral
by any chance, now?"

Billy woke as suddenly as if he had been sleeping on the look-out and
had been found hard and fast by the mate.

"Eh, what, has the _California_ turned up?"

"You bet she has," said Tom.  And he burst into laughter.  "What d'ye
reckon he was on board of her when she came to N' York?"

"Cook's mate?"

"No, captain, captain!  Think of that.  And he says he don't know who
laid him out and put him aboard of her."

Billy rose.

"Here, gimme the paper.  You're drunk."

He read the telegram with protruding eyes.

"By the holy frost, but he must be a dandy, Say, Smith must know
this."

He marched to Smith's bedroom and induced his boss to sit up and hear
the news, after Smith had used more bad language with his eyes shut
than most men in San Francisco could lay their tongues to when wide
awake.

"Don't I tell you it's about the admiral," expostulated Billy; "it's
about Dunn, as you shoved on the _California_."

But now Shanghai was wide awake.  He looked at Billy with wicked eyes.

"As _I_ shoved in the _California_, eh?  Say that again and I'll get
up and knock the corners off of you.  You miserable Tarhead, if I
hear you whisper that I had the last joint of the little finger of my
left hand in the game, I'll murder you."

Billy fell back from the bed in alarm.  Though he looked big enough
to have eaten Shanghai Smith, he lacked the "devil" which had made
his boss what he was--the terror of the "coast" and of sailormen, and
a political power in his quarter of the city.

"Oh, very well then, Mr. Smith, but who done it?"

"Understand that no one knows who done it, you dog," said Smith,
reaching for what he called his "pants," "but if any one done it, it
was you.  And don't you forget it.  I hire you to do the work, and
I'll see you does it.  Don't get me mad, or you'll be runnin' to the
penitentiary howlin' for ten years to get away from me."

And Billy went back to Tom.

"He's fair luny, that's what he is.  But if he reckons I'm goin' to
the calaboose for him, he'll run up agin a snag."

And presently Smith came out to breakfast with a face as black as a
near cyclone.  Billy and Tom jumped when he spoke, and all those men
in his house who were in a lee shore, as regards dollars, got away
from him and adorned a neighbouring fence.

"What's wrong wiv Shang'ai?" asked a Londoner; "'es a black 'un, but
I never seed 'im so rorty as this!"

And no one answered him.  They were a sick crowd at any time, and
now, when their slave-owner roared, their hearts were in their boots.

But Smith was only trying to keep up his own courage.  Not once, but
many times since he had got even with the man who had given him a
thrashing, he had regretted his method of revenge.

"I'd best have bashed him and left him laying on the Front," said
Smith, "and here's Tom and Bill know the whole racket.  I've half a
mind to have them put out of the way.  In such a place as this, who
_can_ a man trust?  Bah, it sickens me, it does.  It fair sickens me."

He was virtuously indignant with an ungrateful world.  Even his
revenge had been a failure.  How in the name of all that was holy and
unholy had the admiral managed to rise from the foc'sle to the
command of the _California_?

"And I thought Blaker and Simpson was both men!" said Smith with
disgust.  "There ain't any trustin' to appearances, nor to reputation
neither.  But how could the swine have done it?"

An early evening paper had the whole story, and as Shanghai was still
up town, all his crowd of crimps and slaves roared over the yarn.

"He fo't the mate and was give 'is billet," said one.  "I say, but
old Blaker was a sport.  That's real old Western Ocean packet law.
And then Blaker went luny with psalm singing and the hadmiral locked
'im up.  'Strewth, but it must 'ave bin a picnic!  I'd 'ave give a
month's wages to see the show.  But 'oo was it shang'aied a hadmiral?"

He spoke with bated breath.

"Who'd it be but Smith?" asked the speaker's mate sulkily.  "He's a
devil, a notorious devil, as _we_ know.  He'd shanghai his father for
a quarter, if he was dry.  And a month back my own brother that
shipped in the _Cyrus J. Brown_ told me as Shanghai had a down on
this very man."

"Then I wouldn't be Smith for all 'is money.  This'll be a Government
business."

It would have been if the admiral had been any other kind of man.
But Admiral Sir Richard Dunn was one of those, and they get rarer
every day, who prefer handling their own affairs.  He had a gift of
humour, too, and was mightily pleased with himself.

"Whoever it was that laid for me, he never meant to make me master of
the _California_," he said, as he came west on the cars.  "And
whoever he was, I will fix him.  The mate was pretty certain it was
this Shanghai Smith.  If it was----"

If it was, it seemed a healthy thing for Mr. Smith to leave San
Francisco and hide somewhere in the Islands.  But all his interests
kept him where he was, even when H.M.S. _Triumphant_ came down again
from Esquimault and lay waiting for the admiral off Goat Island.

The crew of the _Triumphant_, being very proud of their own special
admiral, were in so furious a rage against any one connected with
crimping in the city, that no "liberty" was granted to any one of
them.

"It's hall very fine," said the _Triumphants_ unanimously, "but these
'ere Americans are too smart by 'alf.  Them and hus'll part
brass-rags one of these fine days.  But ain't it fine to think that
Dicky went to sea as a man before the stick, and come out right on
top?"

They chortled with exceeding pleasure,--with pleasure founded on his
achievements and on the unexpected experiences he had had of sea-life.

"To think of Dicky bunking it among a crowd of merchant Jacks," said
the crew.  "We'd give a lot to 'ave seen him shinning up aloft for
dear life."

But all the same, they loved him dearly, and when he came alongside
five days later, not all their sense of discipline prevented their
breaking into a storm of cheers that rang out across the bay and was
almost heard at Oakland.  Hard as Dicky Dunn was, he went to his
cabin rather in a hurry.  For once in his life he could hardly trust
himself to speak.  But he received the congratulations of the captain
and officers, including young Selwyn, who had been with him when he
had been kidnapped, with the greatest calm.

"Yes, I've had some experience," he said, "and I don't know that it
has done me any harm.  I know more of the conditions on board
merchant vessels than I did before."

"And what do you propose to do, Sir Richard?" asked Selwyn an hour
later.  "The authorities and the police seemed very anxious to do
what they could."

The admiral lighted one of his own cigars, and found it more to his
taste than the ship's tobacco of the _California_.

"I don't propose to trouble the police," he said, "nor need there be
any international correspondence so far as I'm concerned.  I'll play
my own game.  I think, Selwyn, that I know who laid for us that
night.  And from what I learnt in the _California_ (I learnt a lot,
by the way) I've a notion that ordinary justice would never get hold
of the man, at least not in San Francisco, not even if I paid for it."

"Then what----"

But Dicky Dunn interrupted him.

"I've a notion," he said significantly.

And that afternoon he sent Selwyn ashore with a very polite note to
the chief of the San Francisco police, saying that Rear-Admiral Sir
Richard Dunn would be very glad to see that gentleman on board the
_Triumphant_ late that evening, if he could make it convenient to
come.

"Let the band begin to play!" said Mr. Peter Cartwright; "it looks as
if I'd better face the music.  I wonder if he has any kinkle as to
the man who did it?  It's more than I have, unless it was Smith, or
Sullivan."

As he drew his five thousand dollars a year and pickings partly
through the grace of both the notorious boarding-house keepers that
he mentioned, he did not relish running against them.  Nevertheless,
it was better to do that than run against a mightier snag.  He
looked, with a groan, at the pile of correspondence which had
accumulated since the admiral's disappearance.

"And here's the British Consul wants to see me to-morrow!" he cried.
"They'll cinch me if they can get no one else."

And he went on board the _Triumphant_ feeling as if he was out of a
job.

The admiral received him courteously, and was alone.

"This has been a bad business, admiral, sir," said Mr. Cartwright,
"and as chief of police of this city I feel it as a personal slur.
Your request to see me anticipated me by no more than twelve hours.
I proposed to seek an interview with you to-morrow morning."

"I am obliged to you," said the admiral.  "Will you have anything to
drink?"

"It _was_ rather cold on the water," replied Cartwright.

And when the chief of police had a tumbler of hot whiskey and water
in both hands, the admiral opened up.

"I've sent for you, Mr. Cartwright," he began, "to tell you that I
don't want any proceedings taken about this matter."

Cartwright opened his mouth and stared at the admiral in surprise.
Then he began to imagine he understood.  Sir Richard Dunn had
evidently been somewhere on the night of his disappearance which
would not suit him to have known.

"Ah, I see," said Cartwright, with a subtle smile.

"I've my own notions as to the brand of justice dispensed in this
State, Mr. Cartwright.  It is considerably milder than the native
liquors.  I want your assistance in doing without the law, and in
administering justice myself.  Have you any notion of the gentleman
who shipped me in the _California_?"

"It was probably a boarding-house master," said Cartwright.

"Of course."

"It might have been Sullivan, or the Sheeny, or Williams, or Smith."

"Is that the scoundrel they know here as Shanghai Smith?" asked the
admiral.

And Cartwright nodded.

"The crew of the _California_ put it down to him at once."

"I don't know that it was necessary him," said Cartwright pensively;
"though he has the worst name, he's no worse than the others.  For my
own part, I reckon the Sheeny--he's a Jew boy, of course--is a deal
tougher than Smith."

And just then Selwyn, who knew the chief of police was on board, put
his head into the admiral's cabin.

"Could I speak to you a moment, Sir Richard?"

And Dicky Dunn went outside.

"I thought as you had this Cartwright with you, sir," said Selwyn,
"that I ought to tell you a queer yarn that has just been brought me
by one of the quartermasters.  It seems that one of the men has a
story that you once had a fight with Shanghai Smith and hurt him
badly.  It was in Australia I believe--in Melbourne."

"Stay a minute," said the admiral; "let me think.  Yes, by Jove, I
did have a row on Sandridge Pier years ago, and I broke the man up so
that he had to go to a hospital.  And his name--yes, it _was_ Smith.
Thanks, Selwyn, I'll see if this man ever was in Australia."

He went back to Cartwright

"Now as to the Sheeny, admiral," said Cartwright, who was beginning
to feel comfortable.

"Never mind the Sheeny, Mr. Cartwright," said his host; "do you know
Smith's record?  Where did he come from?"

"He came from Melbourne," replied the chief.

And the admiral slapped his leg.

"That's the man, I believe."

"Why?"

"Never mind why," said Dunn.  "But supposing it was, could we prove
it against him?"

"I doubt it," said Cartwright cheerfully.  "Probably no one would
know it but his runner.  And Bill Haines would perjure himself as
easy as drink lager."

"But if we did prove it?"

"There'd be an appeal, and so on," said the chief.

He indicated large and generous delay on the part of the merciful
American law by a wave of his hand.

"You see we couldn't prove, anyhow, that he knew you was you," said
Cartwright, "and if I know my own business, it would come down to a
matter of assault and so many dollars."

"That's what I imagined," said the admiral.  "So I propose to take
the matter in hand myself and relieve you of it.  For though Smith,
or the real man, might come off easily, if I choose to have it made
an international business some one will have to pay who is not
guilty."

"That's likely enough," said Cartwright uneasily.  "On the whole,
admiral, I'd rather you took the job on yourself, provided it was put
through quietly.  What do you propose?"

Dunn put his hands in his pockets, and "quarter-decked" his cabin.

"I want to be sure it's Smith--morally sure.  How can I be made sure?
I'll tell you now what I know about him."

He repeated what Selwyn had said, and told him the story of his
having fought a man on Sandridge Pier at Melbourne fifteen years
before.

"His name was Smith."

"It fits as neat as a pair of handcuffs," said the chief of police.
"I'll think over it and let you know.  Stay, sirree, I've got it now.
Look here, admiral, now you mark me.  This is a scheme.  It'll work,
or my name's Dennis.  I'll have it put about in the right quarter
that though there ain't evidence to touch the real man who worked the
racket on you, it is known who actually corralled you and shoved you
on the _California_.  I'll get the proper man to give it away that a
warrant is being made out.  And next day I'll have all the runners of
all the chief boarding-houses arrested.  Do you see?"

"No, I don't," said the admiral.

"Oh, come," cried Cartwright.  "The man we don't arrest will be the
man who done it."

"Yes, but----"

"Well," said Cartwright, "I understood you didn't particularly hanker
to catch the under-strapper."

"Ah," said the admiral, "of course I see.  You mean----"

"I mean the boarding-house boss will shove the runner that did it out
of sight.  And then you'll know him by reason of the very means he
takes not to be given away.  For of course he'd reckon that the
runner on being held would squeal."

"It's a good plan," said the admiral.  "And when I know, what kind of
punishment would Mr. Smith like least of all?"

"Provided you remember he's an American citizen, I don't care what
you do," replied the chief.  "But if you asked me, I should get him
served the way he's served you.  Shanghai Smith among a crowd of
sailormen in an American ship, such as the _Harvester_ (and the
skipper of the _Harvester_ hates him like poison)--and _she_ sails in
three days--would have a picnic to recollect all his life.  For you
see, they know him."

"I'll think it over," said the admiral.  "Your plan is excellent.

"So it is," said Cartwright, as he was rowed ashore, "for Smith ain't
no favourite of mine, and at the same time it will look as if I gave
him the straight racket, anyhow."

He sent an agent down to the water front that very night.  The man
dropped casual hints at the boarding-houses, and he dropped them on
barren ground everywhere but at Shanghai Smith's.

"Jehoshaphat," said Smith, "so that's the game!"

Peter Cartwright had, in his own language, "reckoned him up to
rights"; for the very first move that Smith played was to make a
break for Billy's room.  As the runner had been up most of the night
before enticing sailormen off a Liverpool ship just to keep his hand
in, he was as fast asleep as a bear on Christmas Day, and he was
mighty sulky when Smith shook him out of sleep by the simple process
of yanking his pillow from under his head.

"Ain't a man to get no sleep that works for you?" he demanded.
"What's up now?"

"Hell is up, and fizzling," replied Smith.  "I've had word from Peter
Cartwright that you'll be arrested in the mornin' if you don't skin
out.  It's the admiral.  I wish I'd never set eyes on him.  Come,
dress and skip: 'twon't do for you to be gaoled; mebbe they'd hold
you on some charge till you forgot all you owe to me.  There ain't no
such thing as real gratitude left on earth."

Billy rose and shuffled into his clothes sullenly enough.

"And where am I to skip to?"

"To Portland," said Smith; "the _Mendocino_ leaves in the mornin' for
Crescent City and Astoria, don't she?  Well, then, go with her and
lie up with Grant or Sullivan in Portland till I let you know the
coast is clear.  And here's twenty dollars: go easy with it."

He sighed to part with the money.

"I'd sooner go down to Los Angeles," grunted Billy.

But Smith explained to him with urgent and explosive blasphemy that
he was to get into another State in order to complicate legal matters.

"You've the brains of a Flathead Indian, you have," said Smith, as he
turned Billy into the street on his way to find the _Mendocino_.
"What's the use of havin' law if you don't use it?"

And in the morning, when Smith heard that ten runners at least had
been urgently invited to interview Mr. Peter Cartwright, he was glad
to be able to declare that Billy was not on hand.

"He's gone East to see his old man," he said drily.  "And as his
father is a millionaire and lives in the Fifth Avenue, N' York, he
couldn't afford to disregard his dyin' desire to see him."

"You are a daisy, Smith," said the police officer who had come for
Billy.  "Between you and me, what have you done with him?"

Smith shook his head.

"I shot him last night and cut him up and pickled him in a cask," he
said with a wink.  "And I've shipped him to the British Ambassador at
Washington, C.O.D."

"You're as close as a clam, ain't you, Smith?  But I tell you Peter
is havin' a picnic.  This admiral's game was playin' it low down on
Peter, whoever did it.  There are times when a man can't help his
friends."

Smith lied freely.

"You can tell Peter I had nothin' to do with it."

"Yes, I can _tell_ him!" said the police officer.  And he did tell
him.  As a result the chief of police wrote to the admiral:--


"SIR,--

"I have interrogated all the runners but one belonging to the chief
boarding-houses, and have succeeded in obtaining no clue.  The one
man missing was runner to Mr. William Smith, commonly known as
'Shanghai' Smith.  Under the circumstances, and considering what you
said to me, I am inclined to wait developments.  If you will inform
me what you wish me to do, I shall be glad to accommodate you in any
way."

  "Yours truly,
      "PETER CARTWRIGHT.

"P.S.--If you could write me a letter saying you are quite satisfied
with the steps I have taken to bring the offender to justice, I
should be obliged.

"P.S.--If you wish to meet Mr. John P. Sant, captain of the
_Harvester_, now lying in the bay and sailing the day after
to-morrow, I can arrange it."


But both the postscripts were written on separate pieces of paper.
Mr. Cartwright was not chief of police in a land of justice for
nothing.  He knew his way about.

Dicky Dunn, on receiving Peter's letter, called in his
flag-lieutenant.

"When they shanghaied me, they knocked you about rather badly, didn't
they, Selwyn?"

Selwyn instinctively put his hand to the back of his head.

"Yes, Sir Richard.  They sand-bagged me, as they call it, and kicked
me too."

"I'm pretty sure I know who did it," said the admiral, "and I'm
proposing to get even with the man myself.  It seems that it will be
a difficult thing to prove.  Besides, I'm not built that way.  I
don't want to prove it and send the man to gaol.  I like getting even
in my own fashion.  What would you do if I could tell you who it was
that laid the plot against us that night?"

Selwyn was a clean-skinned, bright-eyed, close-shaven young fellow,
as typical an Anglo-Saxon salted in the seas as one could meet.  His
eyes sparkled now.

"I--I'd punch his head, sir."

The admiral nodded.

"I believe I did punch his head, years ago, Selwyn.  But he was
looking for a fight and found it, and ought to have been satisfied.
Between you and me and no one else, the chief of police here and I
have fixed this matter up between us.  He says that he has no
evidence, and the only man who might have given the affair away has
been shipped off somewhere.  I'm going to show Mr. Smith that he
didn't make a bucko mate of me for nothing.  And I want you to help.
I've got a scheme."

He unfolded it to Selwyn, and the young lieutenant chuckled.

"He used to be a seaman," said the admiral, "but for twelve years
he's been living comfortably on shore, sucking the blood of sailors.
And if I know anything about American ships--and I do--he'll find
three months in the fo'castle of this _Harvester_ worse than three
years in a gaol.  Now we're going to invade the United States quite
unofficially, with the connivance of the police!"

He lay back and laughed.

"Oh, I tell you," said the admiral, "he ran against something not
laid down in his chart when he fell in with me.  You can come ashore
with me now and we'll see this Cartwright.  American ways suit me,
after all."


"Then I understand, Mr. Cartwright," said the admiral, an hour later,
"that there won't be a policeman anywhere within hail of this Smith's
house to-morrow night?"

"I've got other business for them," said Peter.

"And I can see Mr. Sant here this afternoon?"

"I'll undertake to have him here if you call along at three."

He spent the interval at lunch with the British Consul.

"I tell you what, Stanley," said the admiral, "I don't care what they
did to me, for it's done me no harm.  But after this you should be
able to make them enforce the laws.  If they would only do that, the
Pacific Coast wouldn't stink so in the nostrils of shipmasters and
shipowners."

The consul explained the local system of politics.  It appeared that
every one with any business on the borders of crime insured against
the results of accidents by being in politics.

"And if the thieving politicians appoint the man to control them,
what's the result?"

"The result is--Shanghai Smith," said the admiral.  "Well, I'll see
you later.  I've an appointment with Mr. Sant, of the _Harvester_."

The consul stared.

"What, with Sant?  Why, he got eighteen months' hard labour for
killing a man six months ago."

"But he's not in prison?"

"Of course not," said the consul.  "He was pardoned by the Governor."

"He's just the man I wish to see," cried Dicky Dunn.

He found Sant waiting at Cartwright's office.  He was a hard-bitted,
weather-beaten gentleman, and half his face was jaw.  That jaw had
hold of a long cigar with his back teeth.  He continued smoking and
chewing, and did both savagely.  What Peter had said to him did not
come out, but by agreement the admiral was introduced as Mr. Dunn.

"You have reason not to like Shanghai Smith?" said Peter.

"That's so," nodded Sant.

"Mr. Dunn does not like him either.  Could you make any use of him on
board the _Harvester_?"

"I could," said Sant, grinning; "he'd be a useful man."

"If you imagined you missed a man to-morrow morning just as you were
getting up your anchor, and some one hailed you and said they had
picked one up, you would take him aboard?"

"Wet or dry," said Sant.

"I'll undertake he shall be wet," said the admiral.  "Eh?"  And he
turned to Selwyn.

"Yes, sir," replied the lieutenant, "that could be arranged."

"Very well, Mr. Sant," said the admiral.

"And it's understood, of course," said Peter, "that you gentlemen
never saw each other and don't know each other when you meet, it
being a matter of mutual obligation."

"I agree," said Sant.  And the admiral shook hands with a gentleman
who had been pardoned by an amiable Governor.

"And of course," Cartwright added as he escorted the admiral and
Selwyn into the passage, "if there _should_ be a shindy at Smith's
and any of your men are in it, we shall all explain that it was owing
to your having been put away.  And two wrongs then will make it
right.  I guess the newspapers will call it square."

"Exactly so," said the admiral.

And when he reached the _Triumphant_ he had very nearly worked out
the plan by which the row at Shanghai Smith's was to occur.

"I'll just go over it with you, Selwyn," he said, when he reached his
cabin again.  "Now you must remember I rely on your discretion.  A
wrong step may land us in trouble with the authorities and the
Admiralty.  There never was a Government department yet which
wouldn't resent losing a fine chance of a paper row, and if they
catch me settling this matter out of hand, my name is Dennis, as the
Americans say.  And I don't want your name to be Dennis either."

"Well, what do you propose, Sir Richard?" asked Selwyn.

"This is rightly your show and mine," said the admiral.  "I won't
have any one else in it, that I can help.  I ought to speak to
Hamilton, but I won't.  I'll keep him out of the trouble"--for
Hamilton was the captain of the _Triumphant_.  "I suppose the men
here _are_ really fond of me?" said the admiral interrogatively.

"They have no monopoly of that," said Selwyn.

"Is there any one of them you could drop a hint to, that you could
trust?"

"Of course," said Selwyn; "there's Benson, whose father works for
mine as gardener.  We used to fight in the toolhouse at home, and now
he would jump overboard if I asked him."

"Do you mean Benson, my coxs'n?"

"Yes, sir."

"He's the very man.  You might let him know that if he should get
into any trouble, he will be paid for it.  I leave the rest to you.
You can go ashore now, with this note to Stanley.  That will give you
a chance to take Benson with you and speak to him on the quiet.  I
don't know that I care particularly to hear any more about it till
the day after to-morrow, unless I have to.  Ultimately all the
responsibility is mine, of course."

And by that Selwyn understood rightly enough that Dicky Dunn, for all
his cunning, had no intention of shirking trouble if trouble came.
He went ashore and took Benson up town with him.

"Do the men think it was Shanghai Smith that laid for us, and put the
admiral away, Benson?" he asked as they went up Market Street.

"There ain't the shadder of a doubt 'e done it, sir," said Benson.

"And they don't like it?"

"Lord bless you, sir.  It's very 'ard 'avin' all liberty stopped, but
between you and me it was wise to stop it.  They would 'ave rooted
'is 'ouse up and shied the wreckage into the bay."

"It's a pity that you and about twenty more couldn't do it," said
Selwyn.  "And if one could only catch hold of the man himself and put
him on board an outward-bound ship, it would do him good."

Benson slapped his leg.

"Oh, sir, there ain't a man on board the _Triumphant_ that wouldn't
do six months with pleasure to 'ave the 'andlin' of 'im."

"No?"

"For sure, sir."

 "I was lying awake last night thinking of it,"
said Selwyn; "at least, I believe I was awake--perhaps I was
dreaming.  But I seemed to think that a couple of boats' crews were
ashore, and that you went to Shanghai's place for a drink."

"I've done that same, sir," said Benson, "and the liquor was cruel
bad."

"And I dreamed--yes, I suppose it was a dream--that you started a row
and made hay of his bar and collared him, and took him in the cutter
and rowed him round the bay till about four in the morning."

"You always was very imaginary and dreamy as a boy, sir, begging your
pardon, sir," said Benson.

"And I dreamed you came to the _Harvester_----"

"Her that's lying in the bay--the ship with the bad name among
sailormen?"

"That's the ship," said Selwyn; "and you hailed her and asked the
captain if a man had tried to escape by swimming.  And he said 'Yes,'
and then you said you'd picked him up."

Benson looked at him quickly.

"But he wouldn't be wet, sir."

"Oh yes, he would, Benson.  You could easily duck him over-board."

Benson stared very hard at the lieutenant.

"Of course.  I could very easy duck him--and love to do it, too.  And
did the captain of the _Harvester_ own to him, sir?"

Selwyn nodded.

"He would, Benson--I mean he did, of course."

"I suppose," asked Benson, with his eyes on the pavement, "that it
had been arranged so?"

"In the dream, yes," said the lieutenant.

"Was it for to-morrow evening, sir?"

"I thought so," said Selwyn.  "And the curious thing about it was
that the whole thing was done as quietly as possible.  All you men
went to work in silence without as much as a hurrah.  And one of the
boats brought me ashore and the other brought the admiral.  And it
was only after you had put the man on board the _Harvester_ that you
came back for the admiral at five in the morning, Benson."

"And what about the boat as brought you, sir?"

"I came back at twelve and went on board with them, after the fight,
and while you were rowing Mr. Smith about the bay, cheering him up."

"Was there anything else, sir?"

"Nothing," said Selwyn, "only that I forget whether it came out.  If
it did, the men said it was a game all of their own.  And I
think--no, I'm sure--that if any one got into trouble it paid him
well, after all."

"Of course it would, sir," said Benson warmly.  "I wish it could
really come off.  You never know your luck, sir."

"I think Mr. Smith doesn't," said Selwyn.

And when Benson went on board again and had a long confabulation with
two boats' crews, there was a unanimous opinion among them that Mr.
Smith had piled his ship up with a vengeance when he ran against a
British admiral.

"There ain't to be no weepons," said Benson--"nothin' worse nor more
cuttin' than a stay-sail 'ank as a knuckle-duster, and even that I
don't recommend.  An odd stretcher or two and the bottles there will
do the job.  And the word is silence, now and then."

"Mum's the word," said the men.  And like the children that they
were, they wrought the whole ship's company into a frenzy of
excitement, by dropping hints about as heavy as a half-hundredweight
on every one who was not in the game.  Had there been much longer to
wait than twenty-four hours, they must have told, or burst.  And if
they had not burst, the others would have finally reached the truth
by the process of exhaustion.


It was nine o'clock on the following evening that the admiral went on
shore to dine with the British consul.  He told Benson that he might
be later than eleven.  And as Benson touched his cap he took the
liberty of believing he might be as late as five in the morning.  And
just about eleven Selwyn came ashore in another boat with papers
which had to go to the admiral.  That is what he said to the first
lieutenant.  Captain Hamilton was sleeping the night at the house of
a cousin of his in San Francisco.

"I shall be back in an hour, Thomas," said Selwyn.  And the two
coxs'ns were left in command of the cutting-out expedition.  The
whole business was nearly wrecked at the outset by the settlement of
the question as to who was to be left in charge of the boats.
Finally Thomas and Benson ordered two men to stay, and the defrauded
men sat back and growled most horribly as the rest moved off towards
Shanghai Smith's in loose order.

"Look 'ere," said Billings to Graves as they were left alone, "it's
hobvious one must stay with the boats; but one's enough, and on an
hexpedition like this, horders ain't worth a damn.  I'll howe you a
quid, a whole quid, and my grog for a month if you'll be the man to
stay."

"No, I'll toss you, the same terms both sides."

And the spin of coin sent Billings running after the rest.  He was
received by Benson with curses, but he stuck to the party all the
same.

"Very well, you report me!  You know you can't," he said defiantly.
"And I've give Graves a thick 'un and my grog for a month to be let
come."

This awful sacrifice appealed even to Benson.

"All right," he said.  "But if I can't report you for this, I can the
next time."

"Next time be damned," cried Billings; "'oo cares about next time,
now?"

And they hove in sight of Shanghai Smith's.

It was the first time a bluejacket had been near the place since a
day or two before the admiral's disappearance.  And at first when
Shanghai saw them come in he regretted that Billy, his best fighting
man, was by now well on his way to Portland.  But for at least ten
minutes the _Triumphants_ behaved very well.  Benson had a good head
and had arranged matters very neatly.

"You look 'ere," he had said; "the thing to look out for is the
barman.  He keeps a gun, as they calls it 'ere, on a shelf under the
bar.  Smith, 'e'll 'ave one in his pocket.  So when I says, 'This rum
would poison a dog,' don't wait for no back answer, but lay the
bar-keeper out quick, with a stone matchbox or anything 'andy.  And
the nearest to Smith does the same to 'im.  He'll likely not be
be'ind, but if 'e is, bottle 'im too, and not a word of jaw about it
first or last."

They stood up to the bar, and Benson ordered drinks for himself and
three particular pals of his.

"Ain't this Mr. Smith's?" he asked.

"I'm Smith," said Shanghai.

"'Ere's to you.  I've often heard of you," said Benson.  And three or
four merchant seamen sitting about the room sniggered and passed a
few sneering remarks among themselves about "Liberty Jack."

Smith, who had taken enough that night to make him rash, referred to
the admiral.

"So your admiral has come back, has he?"

"He has," said the _Triumphants_.  "And Dicky Dunn is lookin' for the
man that played that dirty game on him."

And Smith shrugged his shoulders as he half turned away.

"'Tain't half so dirty as this rum," said Benson; "it would poison a
dog."

And as the words left his mouth the ball opened with a sudden and
tremendous crash.  Two heavy matchboxes went for Tom behind the bar:
one laid him out as quietly as if he had been hocussed; the other
smashed a bottle which held a liquor known on the Barbary Coast as
brandy, and starred the mirror behind the shelves.  Thomas at the
same moment stooped and caught Shanghai Smith by the ankles and
pitched him on his head.  He never had time to reach for his "gun."
The merchant seamen jumped to their feet and made for the door.

"Stop them!" said Benson, and half a dozen bluejackets hustled them
back again.  "No you don't, Johnnies; you can stay and 'ave free
drinks, and look after the man behind the bar.  Drag out that Smith
and get 'im in the open air."  And Thomas dragged Smith into the
darkness by his collar.

"There's to be no drinkin' for us," said Benson.  "Smash what you
like, and taste nothin'."  And in less than a minute Shanghai's place
was a lamentable and ghastly spectacle.

"Sarves him right," said one of the merchant seamen, as he salved a
bottle of poison.  "Oh, ain't he a sailor-robbing swine?"

"Fetch him in and let him look at it," said Benson, with a wink.

Thomas had been primed.

"He's come to and run like billy-oh!" he cried.

But Smith was incapable of running.  He was being carried by two
bluejackets.

"After 'im, after 'im," said Benson; and in another moment the whole
house was dear.

When Tom came to, he found the place a wreck, and four boarders too
far gone in free liquor to offer any useful explanation of what had
occurred since the rum had been pronounced fit to poison a dog.

"All I know is," said the soberest, "that he fit and we fit and fit
and fit, and then 'e run."

And when Tom sought for the police, it was very odd that there was
not one to be found in the quarter of San Francisco which most needs
clubbing to keep it in order.  There was not even one to bear witness
that a crowd of bluejackets and an American citizen had come along
the water front at midnight.  But five minutes after midnight a
British lieutenant could have taken his oath that both crews were in
their boats and at least moderately sober.

"I've seen the admiral, Benson," said Selwyn, as he stepped into his
boat and sat down, "and he may be later than he said."

"Very well, sir," replied Benson.

And as soon as Selwyn had disappeared into the darkness, the boat
with Mr. Shanghai Smith in followed suit.  And the bay of San
Francisco is not so well policed that they had any one inquiring what
they were doing as they pulled across to Saucelito, and laid up
quietly till three o'clock.

"He ain't dead, we hopes," said the crew of the boat.

"Not 'e," said Benson; "'is 'eart beats all to rights, and 'is head
is perfectly sound, bar a lump the size of a 'en's egg.  That
up-endin' dodge of Thomas's is very fatal in a row--oh, it's very
fatal."

It was nearly two o'clock before Shanghai made any motion.  But when
he did begin to get conscious, he found his mind and his tongue with
surprising rapidity.

"That 'ead of yourn must be made of five-eighths boiler-plate, Mr.
Smith," said Benson, as Smith sat up suddenly.

"What am I doin' here?" asked Smith.

"'Ow do we know?" asked the delighted crew.  "You _would_ come.  It
warn't no good excusin' of ourselves."

Smith put his hand to his head.

"Who hit me?" he demanded savagely.

"No one," said the crew unanimously; "you tried to stand on your
'ead."

"Put me ashore," said Smith.  "What are you goin' to do?"

"We're waitin' to see the _'Arvester_ yonder 'eave 'er anchor up,"
replied Benson.  "We're in the sailor-supplyin' line, we are, same as
you was."

"He don't like to hear that," said Billings; "we're cutting him out
of a job.  And this time we ain't supplyin' admirals."

"No, we ain't.  Yah, you man-buyin', sailor-robbin' swine!  And 'twas
you dared touch our admiral.  Oh, you dog, you!"

They all took a turn at him, and Smith saw he was in the tightest
corner he had ever occupied.  This was satisfactorily expressed for
him.

"Say, Shanghai, did you ever hear of Barney's bull?"

And when Smith refused to answer, they answered for him.

"He was jammed in a clinch, and so are you.  You're goin' to 'ave the
finest time of all your life.  Did you ever 'ear of Sant of the
_'Arvester_?"

And Smith, for all his brutal courage, shook in his boots.

"I'll give you chaps a hundred dollars to put me ashore," he cried.
"I never touched Sir Richard Dunn."

"Dry up," said Benson, "and don't lie.  We wouldn't part with you, my
jewel, not for a thousand.  What made you desert from the
_'Arvester_, a comfortable ship like that, with sich a duck of a
skipper?"

"I'll give you a thousand," said Smith desperately.

"At four o'clock you're goin' on the _'Arvester_--and 'tis nigh on
three now.  Sant wouldn't miss a man like you, so smart and 'andy,
for all the gold in Californy.  Own up as you shanghaied the admiral?"

Smith grasped at any chance of avoiding the _Harvester_.  For Sant
had a dreadful name, and both his mates were terrors.

"If I own I put him away, will you take me ashore and hand me over to
the police?"

He was almost in a state of collapse.

Benson looked at the man, and in the faint light of far-off day still
below the horizon the boat's crew saw him wink.

"We'll vote on it, if you owns up.  What d'ye say, chaps?"

"Aye, we'll vote," said the men.  "Say, did you do it?"

But Smith saw how the voting would go, and refused to speak.  They
heard six bells come across the water from many ships.  And then they
heard seven.  There was a grey glint in the east.  The sand-dunes on
the verge of the Ocean Park whitened as they pulled for the
_Harvester_.  They heard the clank of her windlass brakes and the
bull voice of her mate, as he encouraged his men to do their best by
threatening them with three months of hell afloat.

Smith offered Benson two thousand dollars.

"I wouldn't part with you except to Sant for all you ever robbed men
of," said Benson--"and what that is, on'y you knows.  Pull, boys; her
cable's up and down.  No, hold on a moment; he must be wet, of
course."

In spite of his struggles they put him over the side and soused him
thoroughly.  When they pulled him on board again, he sat cursing.

"Now, boys, bend your backs."

And when he came up alongside the _Harvester_ she was just moving
under the draught of her loosed topsails.

"_Harvester_, ahoy!" cried Benson.

"Hallo!" said Sant.  "What is it?"

"You don't happen to have lost one of your crew, tryin' to desert by
swimmin', sir?"

"Have you picked him up?  What's his name, does he say?"

"It's Smith, sir."

"That's the man," said Sant.  "I want him badly."

But Smith cried out:

"This is kidnappin', Mr. Sant.  I refuse to go."

"Oh, Smith," said Sant, "I'll take all the chances of it's bein'
anythin' you like.  Throw them a rope."

And the _Triumphants_ towed alongside.

"Up you go," said Benson.

"I won't," said Smith.

"Won't you?" asked Benson.  "We'll see about that.  Hook on there,
Billings."

And the next moment Smith was jammed in a running bowline round his
waist.

"Sway him up," said Benson; and the crew of the _Harvester_ hoisted
the notorious robber with about the only feelings of pleasure they
were likely to know till they reached New York.  And the
_Triumphants_ pushed off as they heard the mate address Mr. Smith in
language which did his reputation and the reputation of the ship most
ample justice.

"There's talk and there's a fore-topsail-yard-ahoy voice for you,"
said Benson.  "Oh, Mr. Smith will be looked after, he will.  Now,
chaps, pull for it, or the admiral will be waitin', and if that
'appens, 'twill be 'Stand from under.'"




THE POLICY OF THE _POTLUCK_.

Concerning the permanent and immutable characteristics of ships, the
unhappy man who has never had his limited range of vision broadened
by a trip in a sailing ship must of necessity know little.  He
probably falls into the fallacy, common even among those who follow
the sea, that a partial or entire clearance of her "crowd" will quite
alter her nature; whereas sailors being sailors--that is, people of
certain fairly definite attributes--any given environment makes them
much the same as those who preceded them.

But entire changes in the _personnel_ of a vessel rarely take place.
The officers change, but the crew remains: the crew goes, but
officers stay.  Or more frequently some few men are favourites of one
or two of the officers, and they mingle with the new crew like yeast,
till the ancient fermentation is visible once more.

Ships (to speak thus of their companies) talk of the same subjects
over a million miles of changing seas: they have a permanent stock of
subjects.  These include all which are perennially of interest to
seafaring men, such as homes _versus_ boarding-houses, but they
include also something more individual, something more intimately
connected with the essence of that particular vessel.  And the one
unending topic of interest on board the _Potluck_ was foreign
politics.

How this came about no one knew, though many theories were set afloat
and sunk again every Sunday afternoon.  Some said that the first
captain of the _Potluck_ was called Palmerstone, and that he
introduced the subject of England _versus_ the world as soon as he
came on board.  Others swore that they had been told by a clerk in
the employ of the firm that there had been a discussion over her very
keel concerning the introduction into her frame of foreign oaks.

"This was the way of it," said Jack Hart, who was the chief upholder
of this particular theory, and the son of a little shipbuilder--"the
lot that built her at Liverpool was the mixedest crowd of forsaken
cranks as ever handled timber.  So the clerk said.  And one had a
hankerin' for teak and another for hoak (with odd leanin's now and
agin for Hafrican and Portugee and French hoak), and another he said
'Cuban Sabicu,' and another's word was 'Hackmatack' and 'chestnut'
hevery time.  So they shoved in bits here and bits there till she was
a reg'lar junk-shop o' samples.  And that's the reason she's a
foreign talking argument ship.  And a mighty good reason too."

The crowd listened in silence.

"If you knew as much about arguin' as you know (_seemin'ly_) about
timbers as no man ever heerd of, your argument might stand," said
Mackenzie, a withered old foc'sle man.  "But it ain't to reason as
the natur' of the woods in a ship should make us talk this way or
that.  If so be a ship was built o' teak, d'ye think we'd talk the
'jildy jow,' you black 'son of a gun' lingo?"

Hart shook his head.

"No ship ain't never built all of teak as I ever heerd of, and so
your eye's out, Mac.  But a man with 'arf an eye could see the
knowledge of her bein' so built might lead right hup to talk about
the stren'ths of the countries as well of the vally of their timbers."

"So they might," said the almost convinced crowd.  "Now Jack Hart 'as
the gift, so to speak, of seein' through things."

"And once started, who'd stop it?" asked Jack triumphantly.  "I
knowed a ship as 'ad fresh crowd after fresh crowd in her, but she
for ever 'ad a black cat aboard.  And they talked 'cat' to make you
sick.  And I knowed another as 'ad from launch to her hultimate
pilin' up in the Bermudas the fashion of calling the skipper the
'Guffin.'  And hevery skipper was the 'Guffin,' new and old, go or
stay.  But when we broke hoff to hargue, why, we was talkin' about
them French jossers and whether Sallis-bury was a-goin' to let 'em
chip into our game and straddle the Nile."

"That's so," said the crowd, and the House was rough.

Meanwhile, the skipper, or "old man" (who henceforward, by the way,
was called the "Guffin"), and his two mates were discussing the
latest aspect of world politics, as they drank whiskey and water.

"What's wrong with Salisbury," said the Guffin, who was as stout as a
barrel and as sturdy, "is, that he ain't got a backbone.  He just
lets 'em blow him about like so much paper.  What he wants is
stiffenin': he's like a sprung spar.  That's what he's like."

The mate, a tough-looking dog with hair like anæmic tussac grass in
patches on his face, shook his head.

"I've a greater opinion of him, captain, than you have.  All his
double shuffle is cunning.  It's getting back so's to lead them
French on.  Mark me, he'll play them yet a fair knock-out."

The Guffin sneered.

"He may have cunnin', Lampert, but he ain't no real tact.  Now,
diplomatic tact, I take it, is not givin' way into the gutter, but
just showin' as you're a nice pleasant-spoken chap as don't mean to
be put on.  It's my good opinion as these foreigners don't yearn to
fight us.  And men like you and me, Lampert, gets to learn the way of
handlin' foreigners.  Who has so much experience with 'em as them in
command of English ships?"

"That's so," said the second mate, who had been listening.  "Now last
v'y'ge in the _Battleaxe_, there was a Dago in my watch as come from
the betwixt and between land where Spain jines France.  And he was
the Dagoest Dago I ever sailed with.  But I knew the breed, and the
first time he opens his garlicky mouth I hauled off and hit him.  And
then I took his knife away and snapped the point off.  And I says to
him, 'Now, you black beggar, every time at muster you'll show me that
knife, and there'll be peace in the land.'  And he done so, and there
was peace."

The captain (or "Guffin") smote his thigh.

"You're right, Simcox, you're right, and if Salisbury was to take a
leaf out of your log-book in respects of handlin' Dagoes, 'twould be
better for all concerned.  But no, not him.  He goes on seein' them
French make a fleet and he lets 'em!  He actually sees 'em with their
fleet sharpenin' on the grindstone and never says from the poop,
'Chuck that overboard, you swine, or I'll come and 'andle you so's
you'll be glad to die.'"

The second mate was much gratified, as was obvious by his standing
first on one foot and then on another.  But Lampert was not so
pleased.

"Why, you talk--you, captain and you, Simcox--as if they had a fleet.
Why, it's my opinion--and experts say 'ditto' to me there--that a
string o' band-boxes with crackers in 'em, and all on a mud-flat,
would do as much harm as the French fleet--unless they blows up when
we takes 'em."

The Guffin shook his head.

"Well, you know, Lampert, as I never 'ad no opinion of their fleet.
But that ain't the question.  Salisbury may have 'is reasons for not
takin' it away, though I fails to see 'em; but the real question is,
why we don't have a man with guts and go in command.  It's my firm
belief as there's many a merchant captain as could work the
diplomatic game to better hadvantage.  Look at the experience we has,
dealing with owners contrary as hell, and with consignees and with
'arbour-masters and pilots.  Where Salisbury is wrong, is in his not
goin' about and freshin' up his mind.  And he works by rule o' thumb
and dead reckoning.  It ain't no wonder we can see where's his eye's
out."

"It ain't," said the compliant Simcox.

"Well," sighed Lampert, "I owns freely as I don't feel that sure I'd
like to run his show."

The Guffin laughed.

"But you ain't 'ad my experience yet, Lampert.  Now, I'd hundertake
to come right down into the harena, and make them French and Germans
sit up like monkeys on a horgan while I played the tune."

"I believe you," said Simcox, rubbing his hard hands.

"Look at the difficulties we 'as to contend with," said the skipper,
with a rapidly thickening utterance and an increasing loss of
aspirates--"look at the vig'lance we 'as to use.  Rocks _and_ shoals
_and_ hother ships.  It's 'igh education to be a master-mariner, and
the Board of Trade knows it--knows it well.  This 'ere crowd's all
English except that one Dutchman, but if so be we'd English and
Dagoes, and Dutchmen and Calashees, I'd 'ave showed you and Salisbury
'ow to 'andle mixed sweets.  Vig'lance, difficulties, bright
look-out, and the rule o' the road.  And look at the chart!  That's
me!"

And very shortly afterwards the triple conversation ceased, for the
captain lay snoring in his cabin.

The _Potluck_ was a barque of eleven hundred tons' register, and was
bound for Adelaide, with a general cargo of all mixed things under
heaven and on earth.  Now she was engaged in running down her
easting, and, as her skipper believed, was somewhere about Lat. 44°
30' S., Long. 50° E., and not far off the Crozets.  The westerly
winds were blowing hard, but had the worst chill of winter off, for
the month was September.  Nevertheless, as old Jones, the skipper,
was on a composite track, with a maximum latitude of 45° S., and was
bound farther south still it might have been to the advantage of all
concerned if he had drunk less, talked little, and minded his own
business instead of arguing foreign politics.

But to each man Fate often gives his chance of proving what he boasts
to be his particular skill in the universe.

When Lampert relieved Simcox at midnight, the weather was thick, and
neither man's temper was of the sweetest, so they had a bit of a
breeze.

"What kind of a relief d'ye call this?' growled Simcox.

"I call it a very good relief," replied Lampert, "and a darned sight
better one than you deserve.  You owe me ten minutes even now."

He looked down the scuttle at the clock.

"Why, you owe me twenty."

Simcox flew out with pretended politeness.

"Oh, make it half an hour!  Don't let's haggle about such a trifle.
What's it matter if I stand here waiting?  Can't I keep the whole
bloomin' watch for you?"

"Go to hell," said Lampert sulkily.

And Simcox went below.

"To be a sailor is to be a natural born fool," said Lampert,
addressing the bitter and unkindly elements at large, "and to be on
board a ship with such a windy gassing crowd, from the old man down
to the cook, is very trying.  It's very trying."

The wind took off a little later, but the weather was still thickish.

"It's like lookin' through a haystack," grunted Lampert, "but there,
bar an island or so there's nothing to speak of in our way.  And if
the skipper will crack on, and it a week since we saw the sun, it's
the owners' look out, not mine."

He spoke with a certain bitterness, as though he would really enjoy
being wrecked, in the trust that the _Potluck_ was not insured, and
that old Jones would get his certificate cancelled, or at least
suspended.

"'Twould give the old ass time to study foreign politics," sneered
Lampert, as it breezed up again.

And five minutes' later, while Lampert was lighting his pipe half-way
down the cabin stairs, he heard a bellow forward which made him drop
thoughts of tobacco.

"Breakers ahead!"

The watch came out on deck and ran aft; and were followed by the
watch below in various articles of attire, not calculated to keep
them very warm.

The _Potluck_ had been running with the wind nearly dead aft.

"Starboard, starboard!" roared Lampert.  "Oh, steady; hold her there!"

The vessel ran off to port at a sharp angle to her wake.

"Up here some," yelled the mate, "and set the spanker!  Stand by
the----  My God!"

And, as old Jones and Simcox came on deck, the _Potluck_ was hard and
fast ashore.  With one simultaneous crack the three topmasts went
over the side, and as the men and officers jumped under the shelter
of the weather rail, Lampert and those of the watch who were with him
came tumbling down from the poop.  They reckoned on a boiling sea
coming after and sweeping them away.  But though the malignity native
to matter had set the _Potluck_ ashore, by good luck she was hard and
fast in the one sheltered cove on the island.  When Lampert by
instinct altered her course to port, as he heard the coast breakers
at the starboard bow, he had run her in between two ledges of rock,
of which the outer or more westerly one acted as a complete
breakwater.

The skipper, who had been lying flat when the others jumped for the
main deck, got up and crawled forward to the break of the poop.  He
was half-paralysed with a mixture of funk and rage.  He addressed
himself and his remarks to the sky, the sea, and the island, but
above all to Lampert.

"You man-drowning, slop-built caricature of a sailorman, what 'ave
you bin and done with my ship?" he bellowed.  "Oh, Lord, I'm a ruined
man; by gosh, I'll murder you!"

He tumbled down on the main deck and made for Lampert, who easily
dodged him.

"Shut up, you old idiot!" said the mate contemptuously.  "Who but me
told you that if you drove her in thick weather, and no sun seen for
a week, you'd pile her up?"

Simcox caught Jones and held him.

"Good lord, sir," said the second greaser, "it's no time to fight."

"No, it ain't," said Jack Hart boldly.

That a foremast hand should dare to shove his oar in, almost cowed
the poor old Guffin.  It was something out of nature.

"It ain't no time for jawbation," insisted Hart, about whom the
others had gathered.  "It's time for thinkin' out the politics of the
situation, and if I'm not mistaken we shall be able to walk ashore by
the morning, and there won't be no ship for any one to command--so
what's the use of jaw?  I say get up stores, eh, Mackenzie?"

"Don't ask me," said old Mac.  "I was thinkin' that mighty soon we'd
be able to settle that question about the buildin' of the _Potluck_."

And as by this time Jones was calming down and was rather inclined to
cry, Lampert came up to the restive crowd.

"You dry up, Hart," he said roughly.  "Until the ship's broken up,
you're on the articles.  Say another word and I'll break your jaw."

"Yes, sir," said Hart respectfully.

Until dawn they loafed about the deck and in the cabin and foc'sle,
discussing whether they were on one of the Crozets or what, and
whether they would stay long there, and if so what, and so on.

And just as the dawn broke over the island they got an awful
surprise.  They saw a man standing on the low cliff on about a level
with the jagged splinters of the fore-topmast where it had gone short
in the cap.

"The bloomin' hisland's in'abited," cried a foremast hand, and every
one rushed forward to interview the gesticulating stranger.

"Wod's the bloke say?" asked the crowd.  "Oh, say it again!"  And the
stranger said it again.

But the crowd shook a unanimous head.

"I believe the silly galoot don't talk English," cried Hart; "'ere,
where's Dutchy?"

They shoved their one "Dutchman" forward, and after some interchange
of utter un-intelligibilities, listened to by every one with bated
breath, Hermann turned round.

"I not versteh, captain.  I denk him ein French."

The Frenchman was joined by two or three more, and then by a dozen.

"Why, they're all French," said the disgusted crowd.  "What's
Frenchmen doin' on any island of ours?"

And until the sea went down, which it did sufficiently to allow them
to get ashore at about ten o'clock, they discussed the question as to
whether the Crozets were English or not.  It was settled by old
Mackenzie.

"All islands as don't belong to any one belongs to us," he said; "it
was arranged so by Disraeli."

They got ashore with some risk, and were greeted by the Frenchman in
the most amiable way.

"Poor beggars!" said the crew; "it must be 'ard on a soft lot of
things like them to be on a des'late hisland.  Ain't it a wonder
Froggies ever goes to sea?  But does they belong 'ere, or was they
piled hup same's hus?"

Hart found himself alongside a Frenchman with a long red Liberty cap
on, and a big pair of ear-rings in his ears.

"Goddam," said the Frenchman.

"That's what we say," cried Hart.  "Here, you chaps, he speaks
English."

"Hurrah!" said the crowd.

"I spike Engelish," nodded the stranger.

"How'd you come 'ere?" asked the eager chorus.

The Frenchman nodded.

"Goddam!" he said, smiling.  "Ship!  Por'smout'--London!  I spick
En'lish."

"Well, then," said Hart desperately, "just dry up with your mixed
hogwash, and spit it all out free as to 'ow you came 'ere, and wot
the name o' this bally rock is, and who's its in'abitants.  Now, give
it lip!"

"Hart's a nateral born speaker, and 'as a clear 'ead," said the
crowd.  "'E puts it in a nutshell, and don't run to waste in words."

But the Frenchman looked puzzled.

"Comb wiz," he said; "spik En'lish besser," and he pointed over the
low rise.

"Steady!" said Hart; "boys, I'm not clear as to whether we hain't
bein' led hinto a hambush.  It hain't nateral for shipwrecked
Englishmen to find Frenchies shipwrecked too!"

"It ain't," said the crew suspiciously.

"And even if it's all right, we bein' strangers might be led into
makin' a treaty without knowin' all there is to know.  I vote waitin'
till the officers comes up."

They squatted down on rocks and on the lumps of tussac grass till the
captain and the two mates came along with the rest of the Frenchmen.
Hart communicated his suspicions to the skipper, who was decidedly
under the influence of alcohol.

"That's all right," said the Guffin thickly.  "_We_ can manage
Frenchmen.  They ain't goin' to make no French Shore question on no
more of our islands.  One Newfoundland's enough for me.  I'll show
you n'gotiations--'gotiashuns is my forte!"  And he led the way over
the hill.  Below them they saw the wreck of a French barquantine.

"Blimy," said the crowd, with a frown, "if they 'aven't got the best
part of our hisland!"


It was not to be endured by any lot of Englishmen under the sun, that
the best part of this rock should be occupied by their natural foes,
and soon there was evidence that in any attempt to turn the Frenchmen
out the British leader would have a united nation at his back.

The Guffin and the two mates argued it, and Lampert was the
Opposition.

"W'y, wot's this you're sayin'?" asked the disgusted skipper; "did I
think to 'ave shipped a Verning 'Arcourt among my lot?  You're a
Little Englander, and nothin' but it, Lampert."

"They was here first," said Lampert obstinately.

"But the hisland is British ground," urged Simcox, "and where our
flag flies no Frenchman can have the best.  We gives 'em liberty to
trade, and they can take what's left.  What for have we always beat
'em if we're to give in now?"

"Continuosity of foreign politics is my motter," said the skipper.
"With continuosity and joodishus firmness, and a polite 'hout o'
this,' you'll see 'em listen to reason, and evacuate.  I shall send
hin my hultimatum this very afternoon.  And you, Simcox, shall be
hambassador."

Simcox looked anxious.

"Well, captain, I was thinking it would be judicious policy to send
in the Dutchman.  It will remind them that Europe is more or less
agin them, and to have a Dutchman here will make 'em think twice
afore they elects for war."

The skipper shook his head.

"No, Simcox, it looks judicious on the surface, but takin' deeper
thought it ain't.  It would aggerawate them, and that ain't policy.
We fights if we must, but don't start it by doin' anythin' unpleasin'
more'n askin' for our rights.  And in n'gotiashuns it ain't policy to
remind 'em deliberate of the time the Prooshians beat 'em.  And
moreover it's accordin' to no tradition I've heard of to send a
furriner as hambassador.  No, Simcox, you shall go.  I'll draw up the
hultimatum at once."

He returned on board the wreck of the _Potluck_, and in company with
a bottle of brandy strove with the situation, while the crowd and
their spokesman, Hart, argued like a House of Commons.

"It ain't any good talkin'," said Jack, "and hevery one knows that
give a Frenchman the chance of hargument he'll talk a government
mule's 'ind leg off.  'Hout of this,' is the on'y hargument a
Frenchman hunderstands."

"But they seems to be a good many more of 'em than us," suggested the
crowd.

"Come to that," said Hart, "it's the on'y just ground we 'as to go
for 'em.  For if they was on'y ekal numbers, it'd be cowardly to
whack 'em, and I for one would be on the side of just goin' down
there and shovin' them out peaceful.  I'm for the hultimatum right
off.  I wonder 'ow the Guffin will put it.  Say, boys, 'ere 'e comes!"

The "old man" staggered up with a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Have you done it, sir?" asked Simcox.  "Let's hear it."

"Yes, read it out," said Lampert, with half a sneer, which the
skipper did not notice.

The crowd gathered round as the captain squatted on a rock.


"On board the British barque _Potluck_, belonging to the British port
Liverpool; owners, McWattie & Co.; Captain Abednego Jones.

"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir----"


"Eh, what?" said the astounded Simcox.

"It's addressed to you, Simcox," said the skipper blandly.

"Why?" asked Simcox.

The skipper shook his head impatiently.

"I thought you'd 'ave knowed, Simcox.  You're the hambassador, and
you've to communicate this to 'em."

"Oh, go on, sir," said the crowd.

The skipper resumed:


"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir, you'll be so good as to be so kind as to
communicate the contents of this 'ere letter to them French of the
wreck we don't know the name of, and tell them to clear.  For there
ain't no reasonable grounds for supposin' this ain't a British
hisland (seeing that mostly all hislands is) and they've by comin'
'ere first got and taken possession of the best bit of it, which
can't be allowed, as it's contrary to law in such case made and
purvided.  So you'll inform 'em it ain't goin' to be put up with, and
they must evacuate immejit and resume the _statues quo_----"


"What's that?" asked Simcox.

"It's Latin, you unutterable ass," said the skipper, with a look of
withering contempt.

"I don't know Latin," said the poor second mate.

"And who expected it of you?" asked the skipper.  "It means that
things are to go on as they was afore they come:


"----resume the _statues quo_, and don't stand no hargument.  You are
to tell 'em it will be considered an unfriendly hact, and that we 'as
cleared for haction in consequence of not believing them such cowards
as to quit.  But quit they must, and no mistake, or we resort without
delay to the arbitrage and general haverage of war.  Given this day
on board the British barque _Potluck_ by me,

"CAPTAIN ABEDNEGO JONES."


"First rate!" said the crew.  "That'll give 'em the jumps."

"And how am I to translate it?" asked the miserable Simcox.

"That's your look-out," said the Guffin, with a hiccup.  "Shall I
keep a dog and bark myself?  Now, 'urry and get it hover.  And let
hevery one 'ave a weapon, 'andspikes and belayin' pins.  Now go,
Simcox!"

"Hart, come along with me," said Simcox.

And as the "old man" was engaged in keeping his balance, he made no
objection.

"I think this is a herror of judgment, sir," said Hart; "my hidea of
a hultimatum was jumpin' on 'em unexpected, and givin' 'em toko afore
they know'd where they was.  My notion of fightin' (and it pays
hevery time) is to haggravate your man till he's ready to 'it, but to
'it 'im fust.  An' if I thinks a cove will 'it me in five minutes, I
lets no time go by in hanticipatin' 'im.  But this will warn 'em."

"But they have no one who really knows English, Hart," groaned
Simcox; "and I don't know the first word of French."

"Never mind, sir," said Hart encouragingly.  "I've 'ad many a row
with a Frenchy, and I never knowed my 'avin' not the least notion of
what 'e meant ever stopped the fight from comin' off.  If so be I see
you get stuck, I'll come in, sir."

And they were met by the French sailor who thought he spoke English.

"I spik En'lish, goddam," said the Frenchman.  "Leaverpool,
Por'smout'; mais le capitaine spik besser."

"Good-mornin'," said Simcox meekly to the French captain, a long
unhappy looking man, who might have been the skipper of a
_chasse-marée_ for all the style he put on.

"Mais, oui----" said the captain.

"This 'ere paper is for you," said Simcox, "and by the powers I hope
you can't read it."

He handed the ultimatum to the Frenchman, who studied it while his
crew came round.

"Je ne peux pas le lire, monsieur," he said at length.

Simcox turned to Hart.

"There, now what the blazes am I to do when he talks that way?"

"Just hexplain it," said Hart, as he helped himself to a chew.  "Say,
'Hout o' this!'"

"It means you've got to go," said Simcox; "you can't be allowed to
stay in the best part of our island."

"Goddam," cried the Frenchman, with his hand in his hair.  "I spik
English, two, tree word: pilote, feesh, shannel, owaryo!"

"Owaryo?" asked Simcox.

"That's his way o' sayin' 'How are you?'" interjected Hart, who was
contemptuously sizing up the French sailors.

"Ah, how are you?" said Simcox.

"Owaryo," replied the French captain, smiling.

"Very well, thanks," said Simcox; "but I'm the ambassador."

"Ma foi, ambassadeur!  You spik Français?"

"And you've just got to get," added Simcox.

"March!" cried Hart.

The Frenchmen "jabbered" a bit among themselves.

"Quoi donc?  Marcher?" asked their skipper.

"We, old son," said Hart; "marshay if you like.  Just pack up and
quit.  We gives you an hour to gather up your dunnage.  Now do you
understand?"

Whether the Frenchmen understood or not it was tolerably obvious they
did not like the tone with which Hart spoke, or the looks of evident
disfavour he cast at them.  The captain turned away.

"Stop!" said Hart, and he went in for a dumb pantomime, in which he
vaguely suggested that over yonder hill was an army of Englishmen.

"And we mean 'avin' our rights," he ended with.  And just then old
Jones appeared in sight.

"Are they jossers goin' to evacuate or not?" he bellowed.  "What's
their captain say to the _statues quo_?  Don't they know the first
thing about diplomatics?  Tell 'em that to prepare for peace we makes
war."

"War it is," said Hart, and he launched himself at a crowd of
Frenchmen, as his mates came tumbling down the hill.

The fight was short, sharp, and pretty decisive, for the _Potluck's_
crowd numbered ten able seamen, one ordinary seaman, and two boys, or
with the captain and the two mates, sixteen in all.  Against this
array there were twenty-one Frenchmen, and though Hart, in his first
onslaught, knocked down two, he was himself stretched out by a third
armed with a broken hand-spike.  And Simcox fled with the infuriated
foreigners at his heels.  The true battle (for this was but an affair
of outposts) joined on the crest of the rise, and in five minutes the
English were in flight for the shelter of the piled-up _Potluck_.
Old Jones was keeled over once, but Lampert and Mackenzie dragged him
away and got him down to the ship.  He swore most terribly.

"'Ere's a pretty kettle o' fish," said he at last; "a pretty lot I
'as to my back to let a few Frenchies lick 'em this way.  What's the
good o' diplomatics if my men 'asn't the guts to support me?  Where's
that Simcox?"

"Here, sir," said the ambassador.

"Who told you to start a row?" demanded the skipper.  "Don't you know
your duty?  You was to give 'em the hultimatum and retire dignified.
Do you call it retirin' dignified to run and beller like a bull-calf?"

Simcox looked sulky and injured.

"How was I to look dignified with six of 'em after me--and two with
knives and one with a meat-chopper?" he asked.  "And as for startin'
a rough house, 'twas Hart as done it."

"Where's Hart?" yelled the Guffin.

"'Ere, 'Art, where are you?" said the crowd.

"I believe he's a prisoner," said Lampert.

"Oh, Lord," said the crowd, "but Jack never 'ad no discretion."

"We must 'ave him liberated," said the skipper firmly.  "No man of
mine must be in the 'ands of them mutilatin' French.  Simcox, you'll
'ave to go to 'em again and open n'gotiashuns!"

"No, sir," said Simcox, "if you'll excuse me, I'll do nothin' of the
sort.  I've had my fill up of bein' ambassador."

"This is mut'ny," said the skipper; "but under the painful national
circumstances I shan't do nothin' but order you to your cabin, where
you'll consider yourself in custody."

Simcox looked greatly relieved, and went without delay.

"Mr. Lampert, you'll be hambassador," said the old man, after a drink
of brandy.

The mate looked the skipper up and down.

"I'll see you further first," he cried.  "'Twas you that started the
row and the trouble, and you can get out of it as you like."

"This is rank mut'ny," said the skipper, "and you could be 'ung for
refusin' duty.  But under the painful nash'nal circumstances you can
retire to your cabin and be your own bloomin' policeman till peace is
restored, when I'll try you and sentence you, you run and scuttle
swine you."

"Oh, that's all right," said the mate contemptuously.

"Now, men," said the skipper thickly, "what I wants is 'earty
support.  Who'll volunteer for to be hambassador?"

The crew looked at each other and shook their heads.  They scuffled
with uneasy feet on the lopsided deck.

"They're standin' upon the 'ill as thick as pea-sticks," said one of
the boys.

"Speak hup," roared the skipper.

The crew shoved old Mac in front.

"We've revolved the notion up and over," said Mac, "and we've come to
the conclusion, sir, there ain't nothin' to be got by sendin'
ignorant men like we on such errands."

The skipper hiccupped angrily.

"Who asted you to think?  But I ain't the man to press unwilling
lubbers into goin' aloft, _I_ can lead the way.  Go into the
fo'castle, you dogs, and consider yourselves under arrest.  Go!"

"Blimy," said the crowd, "but we're all in our own custody, so we
are.  Now what's the old man goin' to do?"

They watched him from the fo'castle as he staggered into his own part
of the ship.

"I'll be my own hambassador," said Jones.  "I'll show 'em 'ow to work
things with dignity; I'll show that ass Lampert what's o'clock.  What
you wants in such cases made and provided is tact, and go, and
innerds.  Innerds is the chief need.  Why fight if palaver'll do?
Where I was wrong was to send a galoot like Simcox.  But what could I
do but work the best with the tools I 'ad?  If I'd gone myself, we'd
'ave made peace afore there was a row."

He came staggering out of the cabin with a case of brandy and laid it
on the after capstan.

"I guess I'll have a boy," said Jones.  "'Ere, you scum, send me
Billy."  And Billy came aft.

"I releases you temp'ry without bail," said the skipper fiercely, "so
puckalow that case and foller me.  No, you wait till I gets a
tablecloth as a signal I'm willin' to 'ave peace."

When he came out with a cloth he went ashore and stumbled up the
hill, followed by the boy Billy, bearing the case of brandy.  He
found the crew of the Frenchmen lining the crest, and heard them talk.

"Say, Johnny French," said old Jones, "if you wants war, prepare for
peace.  Who's the captain?"

"Sapristi!" said the French captain.

Jones nodded.

"Give it up, old son.  It warn't my fault, if relyin' on the
discretion of ambassadors ain't a fault: and maybe you can swaller
the hultimatum with some real good brandy throwed in.  And is your
name Sapristi?"

"Nom de Dieu----" began the Frenchman, but Jones waved his hand with
dignity.

"Call yourself what you like, but 'ave you got anythin' in the way of
a marlinspike or a splice bar as'll open this yer case?"

The foreigners, perceiving that the Englishman was on an errand of
peace, gathered about the case, and soon discovered from the
stencilled inscription that it at any rate pretended to come from
Cognac.

"Goddam," said the little red-capped Frenchman who had first
discovered them.  "Cognac!  I spik English--brandee, Por'smout',
Lon-don!"

Jones made signs that he presented the case to them.

"I ain't above makin' a concession or two," he remarked
confidentially to the French captain; "but if I'd listened to my lot
on board, it would 'ave been blood up to the neck."

The Frenchman shook his head.

"You bet it would 'ave bin," said Jones earnestly, "but what d'ye say
to 'avin' a drink?  Billy, gimme your knife."

And with it he started opening the case, while the Frenchmen's eyes
gleamed in pleasing anticipation.  They had not had a drink for
weeks.  And as they carried the case down to the ship with Jones and
their own captain in the rear, they concluded that the English were
not such bad chaps after all.

"But where's my man 'Art!" asked Jones, when he came to the French
camp.

"'Ere I be," cried Hart, who was lashed hard and fast to a round
rock.  "Lord, captain, but I've 'ad a time.  Can't you cut me adrift,
sir?"

Jones shook his head.

"You interferin' galoot, it serves you right.  And as for that, the
'ole crew's under arrest, where I put 'em for mut'ny, and I don't see
as I should so pick and choose among 'em as to use my hinfluence to
'ave you let go.  At any rate, bide a bit, and I'll see."

For it was obvious that the drinking was going to begin.  The French
captain served the liquor out in a small glass to every one, and
presently some of his melancholy disappeared.  He gave an order to
one of his men who brought two more glasses, one for the English
captain, and one for himself.

"I looks towards you," said Jones.

"À votre santé," cried the Frenchman.  "Monsieur, vous êtes un homme
de coeur quand mêne."

"I don't savvy, but I dessay you means well," said the captain.
"Now, if I'd thought to bring along the signal book we might 'ave 'ad
quite a talk.  But time enough; I dessay afore we're took off I shall
patter your lingo like blazes.  Shall I cut my man loose there?"

He pointed to Hart, and though two of the Frenchmen, who had black
eyes, remonstrated against the deed of mercy, Hart was unlashed and
given a drink.

"Here's to you, old cocklywax," said Hart, with a scrape of his leg.
"I bears no grudge, not me."

And very soon the French and English skippers were talking to each
other at the rate of knots, while Hart sat in a crowd of Frenchmen
and told them all about everything.


It was close on sundown when Jones returned to the _Potluck_.  He had
to be helped up the side by some of the crew.

"Ain't we under arrest?" they asked.  "Does we dare come out?"

Jones hiccupped.

"I releases you on your own recognition," he said.  "So down you come
and 'elp."

When he put his foot on the deck, he mustered all hands aft.

"And you, Lampert, and you, Simcox!"

The two mates came out of their cabins.

"And where's Hart?"

"If you please, sir, he's drunk," said Billy.

"Arrest 'im," said the skipper; "what's 'e mean by it?  Now, look
'ere, you bally lot, what does you think of yourselves?"

The crew appeared uneasy.

"I went all by my lone," said the skipper, hanging on to the poop
ladder, "all by my lone I went, and I brings back peace!  Do you
'ear?  But when I sent you, what use was you?  I released 'Art, who's
repaid me by bein' unable to see an 'ole in a ladder; and I've
concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the French.  Next
time (if so be a German ship comes ashore) I'll go out as my own
hambassador.  No, Simcox, never more!  No, Lampert, never, never
more!  I just speaks to that French crowd, and they are civil and
drink fair.  They recognised they'd met their match.  Their skipper
says, says he, 'Captain Jones, I owns fair and square I'm not your
ekal at diplomatics.'  He adds, moreover, 'Captain Jones, damn me if
I believe your match is to be found.'  And I says, with dignity (with
dignity, Simcox), 'Right you are!'  That's what I says.  And as for
you, you ratty galoots, you'll treat 'em when you meets 'em just the
same as if they wasn't French.  Do you 'ear me?  That's my
hultimatum.  Now you can go.  That'll do the watch."

He turned to the mates.

"I thought better of you two, so I did," he remarked sadly.  "But
there, you 'aven't 'ad my experience, and when I gets 'ome I shall
see as them that is in power at the Furrin Office 'ears 'ow I done
it.  Salisbury ain't my stiffness of backbone, and 'e ain't my tact.
If so be as 'e was to invite them Frenchmen to dinner, it would be
different.  They knows (as the French captain owned to me; fair and
square 'e owned it) they don't 'ave no nat'ral right to hislands and
col'nies.  Make the Frenchmen's 'omes 'appy and they'll stay at 'ome.
Think it hout; you'll see 'ow it could be done.  There now, that'll
do you.  I disarrest you!"

And the "old man" rolled cheerfully for his cabin.

"By my lone I done it!" said the Guffin.




THE CREW OF THE _KAMMA FUNDER_.

The stars of European science, who had been shining in a wonderful
constellation over Quebec, were just about to leave Canada in that
well-known comfortable liner, the _Nipigon_, when a most annoying
thing happened.  The cattle-ship _Abbitibbe_, never famous at any
time for minding her helm, got her steam steering gear jammed as she
was passing the _Nipigon_, and took a wide sheer to port when she
should have altered her course to starboard.  The peaceful
preparations of the passenger boat were broken up, and her crew
received the wild charge of the _Abbitibbe_ with curses, which,
though effectual in heating the atmosphere, were no use as a fender.
The _Nipigon_ was cut down to the water's edge, and the scientific
lights of Europe were much put out.  They hurried ashore in the most
irregular and unscientific manner, and, having sent others for their
baggage, began to make preparations for going to New York, as no
other good passenger boat was leaving the St. Lawrence for a week.

But Nature, possibly out of revenge for the unseemly curiosity
evinced by all men of science, was beforehand with them.
Misfortunes, as was once observed by an intelligent, if pessimistic,
anthropoid ape, never come singly.  It was the twelfth of November,
and a sudden blizzard, bringing all the snow it could carry, broke up
communication with the south.  If the men of science were to keep
their appointments with their universities, it was necessary to sail
from Canada at once.  They shipped themselves under protest upon the
_Nemagosenda_, of 2,900 tons register, which was little better than a
tramp, and was commanded by Captain Joseph Prowse.

"Immortal Jehoshaphat!" said Captain Prowse; "here's a go!  What, we
with passengers?  Oh, get out!"

"You've got to take 'em," said the agent philosophically; "maybe
they'll teach you something, and it'll be a good advertisement."

"Gah'n!" said Prowse; "carryin' scientific jossers won't bring better
freight next season.  I wish you'd get me chock up with cattle.  I
can't stand scientists; my sister married one that was an 'erbalist
in the Old Kent Road--and since he went to chokey I've lost conceit
with science.  However, if it must be--why, send 'em along!"

Captain Prowse was not a popular skipper with sailors.  They said
that he was a "hard nut" and a "sailor-robber," and that his American
experience had made him nearly as deadly as any American captain with
a belaying-pin.  But sailors' experience only works backward: they
are good at reminiscence only, and the _Nemagosenda_ got a crew in
spite of the captain's reputation.  It is possible they would not
have shipped if they had known that men of European light and leading
were to come with them.  Those who follow the sea have a great
respect for knowledge, but they despise men in soft hats and
spectacles.  And it cannot be denied that scientific men are as a
rule too simple and gentle to look as if they could take care of
themselves.  According to Jack, that is the first duty of man, though
he premises naturally that even the toughest courage and the greatest
skill may come to grief about women.

"A thunderin' measly lot," said Simpkins A.B. to his particular mate,
when the scientific passengers came on board; "why, they've all soft
'ats but one!  And long beards!  And three out of four with specs!
Holy sailor, what a gang!"

Harris nodded.

"Why, there's twenty of 'em, Bill, but I'll bet a plug of the best to
an old chew that me and you goin' for 'em with belayin'-pins could do
up the 'ole crowd in five minutes."

"You've sized 'em up," said Simpkins, with a sneer, and then the
captain roared.

"Aye, aye, sir," said the mate.  "Let go!  All gone, sir!  Now then,
haul in."  And the _Nemagosenda_ went out into the stream.

It took some three days or so for the men of science to settle down.
For during the first few days the pathology of sea-sickness occupied
all their attention; they had no time for other things.  But when
their last all-night session was over, and they were seen again upon
deck, the affairs of the _Nemagosenda_ became interesting.  The mate
and the port watch developed long-threatened divergencies, and
Captain Prowse came to the assistance of his chief officer with a
brass belaying-pin.  As the result of this the pathologist indulged
in a little practical surgery, and a division arose in the scientific
ranks.  The political economist argued with the statistician.

"Statistics prove that the common sailor must be treated with
sternness," said the authority in figures, "and it is our duty to
support authority."

"The captain is a brute," said the political economist, "and for two
pins I would tell him so.  You cannot neglect the human factor----"

"Says political economy," sneered the statistician.

And then the geologist, who was a man of sense, said they were both
talking rot.  The discussion on the poop was broken up by the
captain, who came on deck with a face like the north-west moon in a
fog.  Having demanded the presence of the crew aft, he gave them an
address on their duties to their superiors.

"You think yourselves a fine lot of chaps," said the captain
fiercely, "but my opinion of you is that you are a scaly crowd of
wharf-rats, and all your relations of both sexes are no better than
they should be.  So look here, you swine, I'll have you know I'm
Captain Joseph Prowse, and the man that gives any slack jaw to any
officer of mine gives it to me.  And the man that gives it to me will
wish he was dead before he sees Liverpool.  That's me.  I'm Captain
Joseph Prowse, so I am, and any crew under me has got to know it.
I'm king here, and I'll wade in blood before I get off my throne.
Mr. Watts, put this crawling lot to holy stoning the deck!"

And Captain Joseph Prowse rejoined his scientific passengers.

"All crews is the same, gentlemen," he said thickly; "there's
something deep and dark in the nature of things as makes 'em so.
Those that do the rough work on board ships are just so necessarily,
and if I was to ship a crew of angels, though they might be handy for
going aloft, they'd turn devils by the time they'd ate a pound of
beef and biscuit."

"Have you ever tried kindness and persuasion?" asked the
meteorologist.

The captain looked him up and down.

"Ever tried it!" he ejaculated scornfully; "'ave I ever tried
anything else?  It's kindness to sailormen to let 'em know who's
boss.  Spare the belayin'-pin and the 'andspike and you'll spoil the
sailor.  Oh, Solomon know'd his business when he used them words.  He
didn't sail to Ophir for nothin'."

"But, Captain Prowse," said the meek gentleman, whose great subject
was cannibalism, "isn't it very unpleasant work rubbing the decks
with stones this cold weather?"

"Unpleasant!" said the skipper, "and what do you think?  Was I
proposin' to reward 'em?"

"I suppose not," said the ethnologist, "but I'm sure it's awful work.
I could never do it."

Captain Prowse snorted.

"Oh yes, you could, if you was in my crew," he remarked.  "If one of
you gents was captain, you'd find this crowd couldn't do nothing but
sit in the foc'sle and drink 'ot coffee.  It's all accordin' where
you are, and what kind of a man's on top."

"In other words, circumstance creates character," said the
statistician.

"That's a ridiculous exaggeration," said the authority on heredity.
"A man is what he is born."

Captain Joseph Prowse laughed scornfully.

"Not he--he's what I makes of him, and if you gents was under me I'd
make you sailors long afore you suspected it.  By the way, could you
tell me what branch of science an 'erbalist belongs to?"

And the conversation followed more pleasant lines.

The _Nemagosenda_, although little better than a tramp in her
appearance, could do her ten knots an hour on less than twenty tons
of coal a day, and she soon got out to the Banks, where the men of
science discussed fishing, and the colour of sea-water, and icebergs.

"Yes," said the geologist, "an iceberg swims on an average
seven-eighths below and an eighth above."

"Gammon!" said Captain Prowse rudely; "why, any sailor knows better.
I'm surprised at a scientific josser like you bein' so ignorant.
It's one-third above and two below.  You ask my mate if it isn't so."

"Ah, thanks, I will," said the geologist pleasantly.  "Mr. Watts is a
well-informed man?"

"Rather," said Prowse, nodding; "there's not a den o' thieves in any
port in Europe he can't find blindfold.  And 'e knows more about
icebergs than me, for he once went a trip in a Dundee whaler.  He
ain't proud of it, and don't talk of it much, for whalers is no
class, as you may guess.  But he's keen on knowledge, is Watts, I'll
say that for him.  You might do worse than ask him for some ackerate
information.  He's a perfect whale on fogs, too!"

If Mr. Watts was the authority on fogs that his captain made out, he
soon had an opportunity of showing it, for half-way across the Banks
it was impossible to see farther than one could throw half a
hundredweight, and the _Nemagosenda_ went tooting in darkness.  But
every now and again in this dim world the men of science were alarmed
and entertained by sudden battles in blasphemy between Captain
Prowse, or the well-informed Mr. Watts, and the crew of a Bank
fisherman.  For fog blankets sound in the oddest, most erratic way,
and the throb of a screw cannot always be heard even in the calmest
foggy weather.  Such swearing matches between the _Nemagosenda_ and a
smack were, when apparently good for three minutes or so, sometimes
sliced right in two by the sudden dropping down of what the
meteorologist called an "anacoustic" wall of fog.  Like the last
words of Don Whiskerandos in _A Tragedy Rehearsed_, a speech was cut
off in the very flower of its youth.

"Where the blue blinding blazes are you coming to?" asked a faint
nocturne.  And when Captain Prowse had expended his last carefully
prepared oration, the right of maritime reply only conferred an
audible "Oh, you dog----"

"We have to thank the anacoustic properties of that fog-bank for the
sudden conclusion," said the meteorologist, "for if I'm any judge of
human nature, that smacksman is still firing red-hot words into
space."

"Yes, sir," said Prowse indignantly, "they're a foul-mouthed lot.
It's as much as I can do to keep even with 'em.  But I'll slow down
no more."

He telegraphed "Full speed ahead" and left Mr. Watts with awfully
worded instructions to sink anything, from a battleship to the
meanest brig afloat.  In the saloon he sat at the head of the table,
and drank rum hot.

"Science proves that rum 'ot is the sailor's drink," said Captain
Prowse, "and the correct drink.  For we all drink it, and flourish on
it.  And the reason is that it goes by contraries.  It's cold work
bein' at sea, and so we takes it 'ot; and the sea is salt, so we
takes it sweet: and it comes from the West Indies."

"And that proves it," said the geologist warmly.  "What a head you
have, Captain Prowse!"

The skipper nodded.

"You may well say so," he affirmed; "a phrenologist gave me a chart
of my 'ead once, a scientific chart with the soundings wrote out
plain, and what proved him right was his sayin' that 'ere and there I
was too deep for him.  And I paid him a guinea.  Well worth it, it
was, for he said, 'You get married,' and I done so, and Mrs. Prowse
hasn't her living equal.  I wish I'd brought that chart with me.  It
would 'ave interested you gents to know what a brother scientist
thought of me."

"It would indeed," said the pathologist.

"But there, I'll tell you what I am," said Prowse, "I'm a
down-righter, that's me.  I'm captain of my boat, I am, and if I was
afloat on a hencoop with all its crew I'd like to see the cock as
would crow before I gave him orders.  Authority comes nat'ral to me.
I'll be boss wherever I am--(Hancocks, more rum!)--and I would have
succeeded in whatsoever I took hold of.  Phrenology told me so, wrote
out plain.  And I've a kind of leanin' towards science ever since
that phrenologist put 'is 'and on my 'ead and said with a start of
surprise, 'Captain, you're a wonder.'  But I've always wondered what
it was made scientific chaps look so 'elpless.--(Hancocks, more
rum.)--But don't you fret, gents; I'm Captain Joseph Prowse, and I'll
put you safe ashore, or die in the attempt."

And as he again ejaculated "Hancocks, more rum," he fell asleep upon
the table.

"Gentlemen," said the geologist, "as our interests are now secure, I
vote we go to bed."

But it was still a heavy fog, and the _Nemagosenda_ was doing her ten
knots an hour.  Other steamers were doing the same, or even more.
Some twenty-knot liners slowed down (in order that they might say
that they had slowed down) to about nineteen knots and a half; and
some, acting on the theory that the sooner they went through the
fog-belt, the better for every one, gave their engines all the steam
they could make, and stepped out for America or England at the pace
of an indolent torpedo-boat.  And the result of this was that at
about four bells in the middle watch, when the mate's aching eyes
could see forty imaginary steamers where there were none, he omitted
to observe that there was a real one coming for him till it was too
late.  The _Nemagosenda_ uttered one long horrid wail, which was
answered in vain, and the next minute the men of science were shot
out of their bunks, and their steamer was taking in the Atlantic
through a hole about the size of a dock gate.

What became of the lucky, or unlucky, boat, which got her blow in
first, the crew of the sinking steamer did not inquire.  They heard
her toot in the distance, and in answer they blew their whistle for
help.  But though a whistle in a fog may be evidence of good faith,
it is not necessarily for wide publication, and it is quite possible
that the stranger, if she did not sink, lost her bearings in the fog,
and went off in the wrong direction.  At any rate the crew and
passengers of the _Nemagosenda_ found themselves adrift in three
boats, and in less than a quarter of an hour they heard, though they
could not see, their steamer blow her deck out and disappear.

"All up with the _Goose-ender_," said the crew sulkily, "and now of
course it will blow."

As ill-luck and hurry would have it, in the last rush for life most
of the crew had tumbled into the mate's and second mate's boats.
With the lights of science were the captain and Simpkins, A.B.

"Immortal Jehoshaphat!" said Mr. Joseph Prowse, "this is a pretty
state of affairs.  That man-drowning swine of a liner!  I 'ope she's
gone down!  I hope the codfish are sizing her captain up, and sayin'
what they think of him.  Simpkins, keep holloaing!  Where's them
other boats?"

"I can't holler no more, sir," whispered Simpkins hoarsely, "my
throat's give out."

And as the wind rose the three boats drifted apart.  Four eminent
scientific persons at the oars kept their boat head on to sea, and
six other eminent persons lay on the bottom boards and wished they
were dead, until the dawn crawled into the east and showed them that
they were alone.

It was a chill and watery dawn, and as the boat topped the cold green
waves on the edge of the Bank the prospect was eminently unkind.  The
wind was not heavy, but it blew hard enough to bring the spray of
each curling wave inboard, and every one was soaked to the skin.  The
sky was lowering and overcast, and though the fog was dissipated, a
mist covered the sun till it looked, as Simpkins remarked, about as
warm as a new tin plate.

It must be said for Captain Joseph Prowse that he retained in some
measure those characteristics of authority which he claimed for
himself, and by a forced optimism, which the nature of his crew made
him adopt, he endeavoured to cheer them up.

"My luck's temporary out," he declared, with some show of
cheerfulness, "but it ain't the first time I've been run down, and
with God's 'elp, gents, it won't be the last.  And it's clean against
the nature of things for so many learn'd men to come to grief at one
fell blow.  'Ere or there a scientific josser may come to grief in a
crowd, but so many bein' together is the best of insurances.  I'll
pull you through; you mind me.  All I ask you to remember is that I'm
captain, and what I says goes now and always."

"It's all very well," said the meteorologist, whose temper was going
with the skin of his hands, "but we all thought you had no right to
run so fast in a fog."

Captain Prowse gasped, and then recovered himself.

"Didn't I tell you I was captain here, same as on the steamer?"

"You did," said the sulky man of science.

"Then hold your jaw," said Captain Prowse; "when you, or the likes of
you, is asked for criticism, it'll be time for you to give it.  Till
then you'll give your captain no lectures on the running of his
vessel.  God and the Queen's enemies 'as sunk my ship, but neither
one nor the other has took away my natural gift of authority, so shut
up!"

And though the meteorologist choked with rage, he said no more.
Simpkins and the captain consulted.

"We're right in the track of steamers more or less," said Captain
Prowse, "and it bein' so damp we can hang out without much drink for
a day or so.  And biscuit we 'ave plenty."

Simpkins nodded.

"Yes, sir, but this 'ere's a sulky useless lot, sir."

"So they are," said Prowse, "but they'll 'ave to shape themselves as
I bid 'em.  The first crooked word and there'll be a man of science
missing out of this bright gal-acksy of talent.  I don't care where I
am, but there I'll be captain.  I don't care if they was my owners,
I'd run 'em all the same.  They ain't passengers no more, they're my
crew."

He took a drink out of a flask and sank back in the stern-sheets.

"I want you men to keep your eyes skinned," he said presently.
"Which of you is the astronomer?"

"I am," answered the bow oar, who was a long, thin man, in a
wideawake and spectacles.

"Then keep a bright look-out or you'll see stars," said Prowse.  "And
while I'm on it, I want you jossers to know that you ain't passengers
no more, but a boat's crew, and my boat's crew, and you'll have to
look lively when I sing out.  So the sooner we get a bit farther
south the better it will be.  That will do."

And muttering that he meant being captain whether he was on an
ice-floe or a mud-barge, he fell asleep and snored.

"This brute is coming out in his true colours," said the astronomer.
"What did he mean by saying I should see stars?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Simpkins, "he meant he'd plug you."

"Plug me?"

"Bung your eye up," explained Simpkins, "and Lor' bless you, he'd do
it.  Oh, a rare chap is the captain; why, some years half his money
goes in fines."

"I wish to heaven I was ashore," said the poor astronomer, "and when
I get there I'll see he never gets another job."

Simpkins eyed the sleeping skipper in alarm.

"Best not let him 'ear you, matey," he cried.  "He'd haze you to
death."

"Haze me?"

"Work you up," explained the seaman.

"What's that?"

"And I thot you was all learn'd!" said Simpkins, with great contempt.
"I mean he'd just sock it to you till you was fair broke up."

The day passed without any incident of vital importance.  It is true
they sighted the smoke of a steamer hull down on the southern
horizon, but they saw nothing else across the waste of heaving water.
Every now and again the captain woke up and made a few remarks on the
nature of authority, and what he proposed doing to those who did not
"knuckle under."  But the night fell without any signs of mutiny on
the part of the scientific crew.

In the very early dawn the astronomer, who had slept in uneasy
snatches, woke up for the tenth time and changed his position.
Simpkins and the geologist were keeping the boat before the sea,
which was running south-east, and they were both half-blind with
fatigue.

"I believe I see something out there," said the astronomer feebly.

"You are always seein' suthin'," said Simpkins crossly, but as he
spoke he looked round and almost dropped his oar.

"Wake up, captain!" he shouted.  "Here's a barque almost so near we
could touch her."

The skipper roused up, and with him the rest.  They jumped to their
feet.

"Sit down, sit down, you gang of idiots," said the captain; "d'ye
want to capsize us?"

"Oh, we are saved, we are saved!" said the ethnologist, for within
half a mile of them a vessel lay with her main-topsail aback.  There
was nothing odd about her to the uneducated eye, but the skipper
looked at Simpkins, and Simpkins looked at the skipper.

"Derelict," said both.

For with such a light breeze it was absurd to see a barque with
nothing set but a close reefed main-topsail, and a fore-topmast
staysail hanging in hanks like a wet duster.

"She has seen us," said the geologist.

"Seen your grandmother," said the skipper rudely.  "There ain't a
soul aboard her, and she's water-logged and loaded with lumber out of
Halifax, and she's a northerner, and about six hundred tons register.
Get the oars out.  If her decks are awash, she'll be better than this
boat."

By the time they came within a cable's length of her, it was broad
daylight, and the least maritime member of any European scientific
society was able to form an opinion as to her being derelict.  As she
rolled, the water came out of her scuppers, for her main-deck was
almost level with the sea.  Part of the gear was let go, and most of
the yards were chafing through their parrals, the main-top-gallant
yard, indeed, was only hanging by the tie and the lifts, and came
crash against the mast every time the sea lifted the vessel's bows.
Half the bulwarks were gone, and the remains of the displaced deck
cargo showed through the gaps.  As they got up to her she went right
aback and came round slowly on her heel.

"Row up close, sir," said Simpkins, "and I'll jump."

"No," said Captain Prowse, "not with this lot.  I wouldn't go near
her with a crew of misfits like these, not for money.  We'll go a bit
closer, and you must swim."

And in ten minutes Simpkins was on board.  He threw the end of a vang
across the boat, and they brought her astern.

"Thank Heaven," said the men of science as they trod the slippery
decks of the _Kamma Funder_, belonging to Copenhagen.

But their troubles were only just beginning.

The skipper walked aft on the slippery deck, and climbed upon the
poop by way of the rail, for some of the loose lumber had dislodged
and smashed the poop ladder.  When he found his foot upon his native
heath, he was once more Captain Joseph Prowse in all his glory; and
turning about, he addressed his crew.

"Simpkins," he said, "you are chief officer, second officer and
bo'son, and don't you forget it.  As for you others, I'll have you
know that you're the crew.  Just drop any kind of heightened notion
that you are passengers, and we'll get along easy; but if you don't,
look out for squalls.  Simpkins, turn this useless lot to throwin'
the remains of the deck cargo overboard, and try a couple of 'em at
the pumps; maybe her seams may have closed up again by now."  And
going aft to the scuttle, he disappeared from view.

"Well," said the geologist, "of all the infernal----"

"Oh, stow that," cried Simpkins, "and turn to.  You're here, ain't
you, and lucky you should consider yourself.  And the captain's a man
of his word, as I know; so look slippy and pass this bloomin' truck
over the side."

The miserable crew looked at each other in despair.

"Come now," said Simpkins impatiently, "do you want me to report you
chaps as refusin' duty?"

The geologist, who was the youngest and sturdiest man in the crowd,
said that he did; but the astronomer and the entomologist
remonstrated with him.

"I think we'd better," said the unhappy insect man.  "This Prowse
seems a regular brute."

"He is," said the astronomer, "and I pray to Heaven that he doesn't
find any rum on board."

But Heaven did not listen, and the captain presently came on deck
with a flushed face.

"Simpkins," roared Prowse, as his head appeared over the edge of the
scuttle.

"Yes, sir," said the new mate.

"Is that lumber over the side yet?"

"Quick, for Gawd's sake," said Simpkins, and the reluctant men of
science commenced sliding the boards over.

"It's going, sir," answered Simpkins.

"Goin'!" said Prowse, when he got his hands on the after poop rail.
"Goin'!  I should say so!  What a crowd!  Oh, you miserable things,
I'll shape you; I'll get you into condition; I'll make sailors of
you.  Get two of these hoosiers on to the pumps and see if she's
leakin' very bad, and then we'll make sail.  This 'ere _Kamma Funder_
won't make a quick passage, but by the time we're picked up, or sail
'er 'ome, I'll make you chaps fit to ship in the worst Cape Horner
that ever sailed."

He turned away, but stopped.

"And when the deck's clear, Simpkins, you can let 'em eat what they
can get.  There's plenty of biscuit, but mighty little else.  Now
then, you Stars, pump!"

And the astronomer and entomologist pumped for their lives, while the
sea round about the waterlogged barque was whitening rapidly with
many thousand feet of Nova Scotian lumber.  For when the captain was
out of sight, Simpkins was encouraging, and talked what he told them
was "horse" sense.

"You wants to get back 'ome to your families, don't you," he asked,
"and to your instruments and your usual ways of livin'?  Why, of
course you does.  Then buck up, and pitch in, and learn to do your
dooty.  I'm not a hard man.  I can make allowances.  I know you
didn't ship to do this.  But it's your luck, and you must.  Now then,
that'll do the deck.  Just lay into this pump all of you, and I'll
sound 'er again."

And as good luck would have it, there soon appeared some reason for
hoping that the leaks in the _Kamma Funder_ had closed.

"Blimy," said Simpkins, "we'll 'ave 'er sailin' like a witch yet.
Chuck yerselves into it, and I'll call the captain."

But the captain was fast asleep in the bunk of the late skipper.

"What's become of her crew?" asked the new crew, as they sat round
the deck and ate their biscuit.

"Took off by a steamer," said Simpkins; "you see they've left their
boats, and the captain says the ship's papers 'as gone, so they was
took off, for sure."

"I wish we were taken off," said the weary astronomer.

"That'll come, I dessay," replied the consolatory Simpkins, "but if
we sails 'er 'ome, we'll get salvage, and your time won't be wasted.
So cheer up, and let's make sail, while a couple of you keeps the
pumps a-goin'."

The wind by now was a light north-westerly breeze, and though the
barque worked heavily and wallowed in the sea, Simpkins took her as
she went round and put the geologist at the helm.

"Keep the wind in the back o' your neck," said Simpkins to the
nervous helmsman, "and I'll loose the foresail."

He jumped up aloft and loosed the foresail and two fore-topsails.
Coming down, he got the scientific crew to work.

"Here you, ketch hold of this and pull.  There, that will do.  Belay!
Tie the thing up, I mean, on that thing, you silly ass!"

And the member of the Royal Society, who was thus addressed for the
first time since he had left school, made the starboard fore-sheet
fast to the cleat.

"You ain't such an ass as you wants to make out," said Simpkins, as
he watched him critically; "me and the captain will soon put you
chaps in shape.  Now then, all of you!  Fore-topsail 'alliards!
Stretch it out and lay back.  Which of you can sing?"

They declared that none of them could.

"Then I must," said Simpkins; and he gave them the chanty "Handily,
boys, so handy," until he had the topsail well up.  And just as the
crew were looking aloft with a strange new feeling of actual pleasure
in seeing results grow under their hands, a sudden row arose aft.
The captain was interviewing the geologist.

"Steer small," said Captain Prowse; "don't work the bally wheel as if
you was workin' a chaff-cutter."

"I'm doin' my best," said the furious man of science, "and I beg you
will speak to me civilly."

"I'll speak to you how I like," said Prowse; "didn't I tell you a
while back as you wasn't a passenger no more, but one of my crew?"

"Sir," said the geologist, "I beg that you will be so good as to
refrain from speaking to me.  I am not accustomed to be talked to in
that tone."

Captain Prowse gasped, and, walking hurriedly to the side,
endeavoured to pull a fixed belaying-pin from the rail.  After three
or four trials he came to a loose one.  By this time the _Kamma
Funder_ was yawing all abroad, and when Captain Prowse came towards
the wheel again, the geologist let go, and in his turn sought for a
weapon.  The captain caught the wheel in time to prevent the vessel
getting right aback, and roared:

"Mutiny, mutiny!"

Simpkins and the scientific association came running aft.

"Simpkins," shrieked Prowse, "ketch hold of that geological chap."

"I dare either of you to touch me," said the geologist; "the first
one that does, I'll brain him!"

He held the iron pin firmly, and looked desperate.

"Come and ketch hold of the wheel," said Prowse, in a choking voice.

"No, don't let him," said the offender, and a violent argument arose.

"This is perfectly scandalous," said the meek astronomer, "and----"

"We won't put up with it," cried the entomologist.

"I must obey orders," said Simpkins.

"Or I'll murder you," screamed the skipper.

"If he lets go she'll be took aback," said Simpkins, "and it'll be a
lot of trouble."

"We don't care," said the men of science, and then the captain let go
and rushed for the geologist.  Simpkins broke from the astronomer and
caught the spinning wheel just as the geologist knocked the captain
down.

"Oh," cried the pathologist, "I believe you've killed him."

"I hope so," said the hero of the occasion, with rather a pale face,
"I'm not going to be bullied by any coarse brute of a sailor."

"But he's the captain," said Simpkins.

But mutiny was in their hearts.  They all talked at once, and the
pathologist felt the captain's skull to see whether it was still
sound.

"Will he die?"

"No," said the doctor, "he has a skull like a ram's.  Take him below."

"And lock him in," said the astronomer.  "And we can argue with him
through the door."

It was a happy thought, and even Simpkins, in spite of his ingrained
respect for the lawful authority of the most lawless skipper,
approved the suggestion.

"You ain't all so soft as you look," said Simpkins, "but the sea does
bring the devil out in a man if so be he's got any."

And they carried Captain Joseph Prowse down below.  As his cabin door
would not lock, they jammed short pieces of sawed lumber between it
and the other side of the alley way.

"It's mutiny," said Simpkins, "but it's done, and maybe he'll cool
off when he comes to and finds his 'ead aching."

But nevertheless the situation was not pleasant, and no one was quite
certain as to what should be done.

"Hold a committee meeting," said the entomologist.

The others said that was nonsense.  Simpkins, who now looked on the
geologist as captain of the mutineers, touched his hat to him, and
begged leave to speak.

"Well," said the geologist, "what is it?"

"Ain't some of you gents good at instruments?" asked Simpkins.  "For
if you are, and if you could get hold of a sextant, it would be doin'
things regular if you was to take a sight of the sun."

The ethnologist turned to the astronomer.

"How humanity yearns for a certain regularity!" he said; "it would
really comfort Simpkins if you would squint at the sun through a
gaspipe."

"You find me the sextant," said the astronomer, "and I'll do it."

"What, you?" said Simpkins.  "I'd never ha' thought it."

Though he could not be induced to say in public why he would never
have thought it, in private he revealed to the inquisitive
ethnologist that the astronomer looked "the measliest of the whole
gang, sir."

The discussion, which had been held on deck, with Simpkins at the
wheel, was broken up by the captain hammering furiously on his jammed
door.

"Go down and soothe him," said Simpkins nervously, "and mind you tell
him I done nothin' but give in to superior overwhelmin' odds.  For so
I did, gentlemen, so I did, as you know, bein' those as done it."

The committee went below, with the geologist leading.  He carried his
belaying-pin in his pocket.  As they marched, the uproar was
tremendous.

"What a skull he must have!" said the ethnologist.  "I wish I had it
in my collection."

"So do I," said the pathologist

And the authority on philology pressed to the front rank, for Captain
Joseph Prowse was doing his best.

"Lemme out," he roared; "oh, when I do get out, I'll show you what I
am."

"Shut up!" said the young geologist, with firmness.

The captain gave an audible gasp.

"Shut up?" he inquired weakly.

"Yes," said the leader, "and give us your sextant, if you have one."

"Well, I'm damned," said Prowse, after a long and striking pause.
"May I inquire if you've took command?  For if so, and you require my
services to peel pertaters and sweep the deck, just say so, and let
me out."

"Will you be civil if we let you out?" asked the astronomer kindly.

"Civil?" said Prowse, choking; "what do you think?"

"We don't think you will be," replied the astronomer, "from the tone
of your voice."

"I'm sure he won't be," said the geologist.

"I think we'd better keep him where he is," said the rest anxiously;
"why, the man's nothing but a raging lunatic."

"Oh!" said Prowse from within.  "Look here, you mutineers, is
Simpkins in this?"

"No," said the geologist, who showed a little humour occasionally,
"he's out of it.  He tried to rescue you, so we hung him.  But he
came to again, and is now at the wheel.  What about that sextant?"

"I ain't got no sextant," said Prowse sulkily.  He recognised it was
no use kicking, and the rum was dying out of his aching head.

"Then let's go on deck," said the men of science.  "What's the use of
talking to him."

"Oh, please," said the subdued skipper; but they paid no attention,
and returned to Simpkins.

At various intervals during the day Prowse made more and more pitiful
appeals to be let out.  But as the weather was clear and bright,
Simpkins and his "overwhelming odds" were at work on deck, and paid
little or no attention.  Simpkins now did not take his line from the
skipper, but, feeling that the command was in commission, adopted the
manner of the sergeant-instructor at a gymnasium.

"Now, if a couple or four of you gentlemen would keep the pumps
going," he urged from his station at the wheel, "we should get along
a deal better.  And if you, sir, would come and take the wheel agin
for two shakes of a lamb's tail, I don't see no reason I shouldn't
loose the upper main-topsail."

So the geologist took the wheel while Simpkins went aloft and loosed
the upper main-topsail.

"Supposing you wanted to have less sail presently," said the
astronomer to Simpkins, when the topsail was set, "what would you do?"

"You gents would 'ave to 'elp stow it," said Simpkins.

"What, go aloft?" asked the astronomer.

"And why not?" demanded Simpkins.  "It's easy, going aloft--as easy
as fallin' from the side of an 'ouse."

"So I should think," cried the astronomer, shivering.  "I hope the
weather will remain fine."

"You know it's really remarkable how useful such an uneducated man
can be," he said presently to some of the others.  "Now, what use am
I?"

Simpkins was passing and heard this.  He paused and eyed the
astronomer.

"Well, to speak the truth, sir," he said sympathetically, "you ain't
much; but you do what you can at the end of a rope.  And I shouldn't
be surprised if you're all right at 'ome."

"All of which is good against vanity," said the astronomer, as the
barque under most of her plain sail steered east-south-east into the
track of the Atlantic liners.  "And do you know, absurd as it may
seem, I am beginning to feel very well indeed--better than I have
done for years."

As the night fell, the captain, who had by that time lost all his
alcoholic courage, appealed for mercy.  He shouted his petition to
those on deck through the cabin port-hole.  But he tried Simpkins
first.

"Simpkins," he yelled.

"Yes, sir," said Simpkins, with his head over the rail.

"Come and let me out."

"I darn't, sir," said Simpkins; "they're all very fierce and savage
agin you, especial about your using bad language, and each of 'em 'as
a belayin'-pin and is a-watchin' of me.  It's more than my life's
worth to let you out.  And----"

"Yes," said the skipper.

"It's more'n yours is worth too.  You must ask 'em civil."

"_And give your word of honour,_" suggested the ferocious geologist
in a whisper.

"And give your word of honour----"

"_To act civilly and quietly to every one._"

"To act civil and quiet, sir," said Simpkins.

"_And not to talk too much about authority, or drink any more rum,_"
prompted the savage astronomer.

"And not to be too rumbumptious, or to get squiffy again," said
Simpkins.

"For," said the brutal geologist, "if you will agree to these terms,
we shall be glad of your advice and assistance, Captain Prowse."

"I'll think of it," returned the skipper sulkily.

"All right," said the rude geologist, "take a day or two to think it
over."

"Oh, Lord," said Prowse hastily.  "I've thought of it, and I agree."

And when he came on deck the savage and ferocious scientific captains
remarked in a friendly manner that it was a fine evening.

"Damme," said the one-time skipper, "I'm blowed if _I_ ain't the crew
of the _Kamma Funder_."




THE REHABILITATION OF THE VIGIA.

The mate or the _Palembang_ walked the weather side of the poop, and
felt just then that he was full up to the back teeth of the mighty
sea and all its works.  He yearned for Leith Walk or Wapping; to lie
on a hot dry beach would be heaven, for the hot wet south-west
monsoon was blowing the _Palembang_ towards Bombay, and the Maldivhs
were on the starboard beam.

Jack Wilson propped his eyes open and cursed the slow passage of time
towards midnight.  As he peered down below at the lighted clock he
was inclined to swear that the second mate had come out and stopped
it.  But presently it was five minutes to twelve, and to his disgust
sleepiness passed away as his relief stumbled up the poop ladder and
came aft.  "Jerusalem, but it's dark," said the second greaser, as he
looked up aloft and round about him.

"Have the gas lit," growled Wilson, as he was going forward.

"Sulky devil!" replied the second.  "When do you have a civil word
for any one?"

This was all in the night's work, and no one was a penny the worse.
Civility at midnight is often too dear to be bought from any one but
an inferior; and Wilson and Green knew each other very well.

The _Palembang_ was running with the wind on the port quarter, and
for a quiet life the old lady was under shortened canvas.  She went
at it like an old dame in wind and snow; a reefed foresail
represented picked-up petticoats; the stowed royals and
topgallant-sails suggested that a hat with feathers had been replaced
by a handkerchief.  For the monsoon was blowing stiff that July night
seven degrees to the north of the Line, and threatened to blow
stiffer yet.

As it was getting towards two o'clock, or four bells, the captain
came on deck, and nodded at the binnacle when Green said:
"Good-morning, sir."  Then he spread his legs out and considered the
dark universe for awhile.

"It has waked up a bit since I went below, Mr. Green," he said
presently; and, wanting no answer, he got none.  The song of the wind
in the rigging and the draught under the foot of the foresail were
answer sufficient.  There was a pleasing hiss alongside as the
_Palembang_ shoved through the Indian Ocean and left a lighter wake
behind.

"There's a vigia marked on the chart for hereabouts," said Captain
Spiller presently; "it got there through that old fool Banks of the
_Simoom_.  He reported it years ago, but it warn't never confirmed.
Rocks, he said, and one like Cleopatra's Needle."

"Then you don't credit it either, sir?" asked Green presently.

"I know Banks," replied Spiller, snorting, "and never was such a man
for imagination and want of judgment.  I'd take it as proof positive
as nothing was, if he said it stood to reason it must be.  And I'm a
man as likes a clean and decent chart.  A chart is the character give
to an ocean by them as has employed it, a bundle of _chits_, as the
Hindoo beggars say, and to go an' lump in a suspicion agin' the
character of an ocean on the word of a man like Banks, why, I've no
patience.  I've a notion that the law of libel ought to have a say in
it."

"Aye, sir," said Green.  "The Indian Ocean _versus_ Banks."

"And I'd believe it of Banks that he done it just to get his name
mentioned, and to rise a bit of a palaver about him.  He's a most
conceited chap is Banks, and not by any means the seaman he'd like to
be thought.  And they actually sent a man-o'-war down to look up his
_Simoom_ Rocks and they came back and never seen 'em."

"And nobody else ever did, sir?"

"Of course not," said Spiller; "they might as well set traps to catch
the rats that a man sees when he's got the jimjams.  And nothing
makes Banks angrier than to throw out a hint you don't believe in
them rocks.  I always gets him on it, by asking for a clean chart and
proved shoals, and what not, and giving it him hot and heavy on
vigias and the like.  Bah, I ain't no patience."

And Spiller tramped the deck for a bit.  Presently he came back to
where Green stood.

"He'll be in Bombay before us," he said gloomily.  "I have to own the
_Simoom's_ faster than the _Palembang_, but if she was sailed by a
better man she'd make quicker passages.  Why, an engineer in a
steamer can pass a thorough sailor in a scow."

His heart was bitter, but the thought that Her Majesty's cruiser
_Amphion_ had discredited the _Simoom_ vigia was balm to his inmost
soul, as he turned to go below.

"Keep a bright look-out," he growled, and he left Green to consider
the matter of vigias in general, and the _Simoom_ vigia in particular.

For these vigias, the terror of seamen, are like malicious spirits.
Some man has seen them, or has imagined them, and for ever after they
bear sway in the minds of those who sail upon the great deep.
Perhaps they are but a floating mass of wreck, on which the sea
breaks; in the south, what was seen was, it may be, a drifting berg;
on the shores of West Africa, perchance a river has sent out a
floating island.  Any accident of imagination may create them;
alcohol bears them on its tide: they are the rats and ghosts and
terrible creeping things of the delirium of the sea that is born of
rum.  A heavy heeled spar as it floats becomes a pinnacle of rock;
the boat that bears dead men in it is for ever after to be avoided.
Here a rip of currents, and there a heavy overfall, become fixed
terrors and are given names.

For this is the sea that is unknown yet, and shall for ever be
unknown.  It works upon the mind of man very subtly, and yet again
with tremendous strength.  Under the sea are earthquakes, and in it
volcanoes.  Of these islands are born, and again they pass away,
while the little creature man skims upon the surface of the ocean
like a water-beetle, and may be seen no more.

When Green was left alone upon the poop of the _Palembang_, save for
the presence of the man at the wheel, something of the wonderful
majesty of the sea came down upon him, and for a moment touched his
nerves.  Trust in the captain he had none, for Spiller was of the
usual alcoholic order; so he got out the chart and looked at it.
There stood the vigia marked "Simoom Rock."  Perhaps it existed after
all.  He remembered the history of the Aurora Islands to the cast of
the Falklands.  Even now, some old sailors believe there are such
islands, real land, not ice grounded on deep soundings.  And the
Simoom vigia was close at hand, if it existed at all.  Allowing for
sufficient uncertainty in its supposed position, it might be anywhere
within a degree.  He stared out into the darkness and imagined he saw
it.  It was here, it was there, it was nowhere: it was a wraith of
the mind, and dissolved.  He put back his night-glasses, and
whistled, till he remembered there was quite enough wind, and that he
had no desire to turn the hands up to shorten sail.

"Jerusalem, it is dark," he said again, and he recalled Wilson's
reply, "Have the gas lit."  Aye, that would be pleasant.  For a
moment he saw the streets of London town with a diminuendo in lamps,
and then he pulled himself together.  It breezed up a bit and was
four bells.  He hove the log, and went along the lee side to go below
to enter it on the slate.  She made a biggish weather roll, and the
decks being slippery, he steadied himself and put his head outside
the rail to take a look ahead.  And at that moment, as he says, he
saw the Simoom vigia.  His heart stood still, and then thumped
furiously.  In spite of the hiss of the seas, and the windy roar of
the rigging, the sound of his pulse in his ears was like the sound of
a pump.  He was paralysed, and yet he knew that the _Palembang_ was
rushing on destruction.

"Hard a starboard!" he said coolly, but in a choking voice.

"Sir?" said the astounded man at the wheel.

"Hard a starboard, damn you," said Green fiercely.

And the helmsman ground the wheel hard down with the air of a
surprised martyr.  As the _Palembang_ bowed and came round almost at
right angles to her former course, Green swears he saw broken water,
though he lost the sharp pinnacle of rock he had seen at first.

Old Spiller, who was not asleep, came up on deck in a hurry.

"What's she off her course for?"

Green told him, and Spiller swore.

"You saw nothing, you damn fool."

"I did."

"You didn't, you imaginative ass."

Green wanted to plant his fist between Spiller's eyes, but did not;
for he was a married man and hated to lose a job.  He ground his
teeth and turned away.  The _Palembang_ was put on her course again,
and after interrogating the man on the look-out and the man at the
wheel, who acknowledged they had seen nothing, the skipper swore
promiscuously at everything, and went below to lay his soul in soak.

"What one man sees another'll look for, and what a fool looks for a
fool will see," he cried, without knowing what a neat addition he had
made to the subject of suggestion.  And by the time that Wilson
relieved him at four o'clock Green was curiously uncertain as to
whether he had seen straight or not.

"Now, did you?" asked Wilson.

"Two hours ago I'd have sworn to it," said the second mate,
scratching his head.

"Well, I've a notion you did," cried Wilson.  "Between you and me and
the mizzen-mast, I think Banks is a right smart man."

"I believe I can swear I saw it," said young Green, much encouraged.
"Yes, there were at least three rocks, one of them a pinnacle like an
obelisk."

And with Wilson secretly on his side, he was quite sure of it before
they reached Bombay, though Spiller was for ever jeering at him, and
making the ship as uncomfortable as he could.

"Mebbe you can see ghosts, too," he was constantly suggesting.

"I'll quit at Bombay if he'll give me my discharge," said Green.

And sure enough Spiller did, when he met Green on the Apollo Bunda in
a confidential yarn with Banks, who, for a seaman of the old class,
was a very gentlemanly man with neat white whiskers.

"You've been encouraging him about that vigia," roared Spiller, and
when he wrote out Green's discharge, he offered to give him a special
character for seeing ghosts.

"But not rats!" said Green nastily, as he put his discharge into his
pocket; for the last time Spiller overdrank himself he had a very bad
time with rodents.

It was the best of luck for Green that he got out of the _Palembang_,
for Banks's mate fell ill, and the second had no mate's ticket.  So
Green, being in great favour, through having seen the poor
discredited Simoom vigia, got the job, for he had passed for mate
just before signing as second in the _Palembang_.

Banks took him round with him, and again tackled the captain of the
_Amphion_ about that vigia, showing his new witness; but Captain
Melville shook his head.

"The old man is crazy about those rocks," was all he said, as he
refused to discuss the matter.

But Banks and Spiller went at it hammer and tongs when they met
ashore.

"He saw nothing," said Spiller.

"Only what I saw."

"I told the fool about it and he imagined the rest, as you did."

Banks fumed.

"Lucky you didn't run the _Palembang_ on my imagination.  Slow as she
goes, she'd have slammed herself into matchwood."

Spiller choked with rage.

"Look here, I'll sail all over your blooming rocks, as I have done
afore.  You just made this up to get notoriety, and have your ship's
name on the chart, and be put in the Directory.  I know you, Banks,
and I don't think much of you, and never did.  To get yourself talked
about you'd report that you'd seen the _Flying Dutchman_.  Vigias,
indeed!  A disfigurement on any chart!  You'll have the chart of the
Indian Ocean as big a disgrace as the North Atlantic if you have your
way.  Didn't you find nothing new to report this time?"

Banks rose up in a towering rage.

"You're no gentleman, Captain Spiller, and I'll speak no more with
you, not till you own that the Simoom Rocks are real.  And may you
never have occasion to rue finding them out as such.  I'll let you
know I've as great a respect for the chart as you have, and if you
ever run your old tub on my rocks, you can call 'em Spiller's Reef,
for all I care, so there," and he perspired off to his vessel.

In shipping circles opinion was divided between the master of the
_Simoom_ and the master of the _Palembang_.  And it being the fashion
of the sailorman, or, for that matter, of human-kind in general, to
decide matters that admit of doubt according to personal prejudice
and ancient opinion, there were more on Spiller's side than on
Banks's.  For one thing, it is the perpetual ambition of all true
sons of the ocean to discover something new and have his ship's name
tagged on to it, and every one was jealous of Banks.  When the
_Amphion_ looked for the rocks without success, they threw out dark
hints about a dead whale or a tree stump having been seen, and some
said "Rum," just as others said "Rats," contemptuously.

Others, with a very fine contempt for the Navy, were of opinion that
Captain Melville of H.M.S. _Amphion_ considered he owned half the
Indian Ocean and all the Arabian Sea, and would be as much put out at
finding an unmarked rock or shoal in either as if he slipped upon an
old chew on his own quarterdeck.  These were on Banks's side, of
course.  And some who disliked Spiller said they believed in this new
set of rocks to annoy him, ending very naturally in holding the
opinion they argued for.

When old Banks got on the high horse and swore he would not speak
again to the disbeliever in the vigia, he meant it, and added details
to his statement.

"Not if I found him in a boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean," he
swore excitedly.

The quarrel was as bitter as polemic theology.  Spiller was a rank
atheist, a scorner, a scoffer, a pagan, a heathen.  If Banks had
written a new creed, he would have begun it: "I believe in the
_Simoom_ Rocks to the west of the Maldivhs."  He clung to their
existence pathetically, and when an impecunious skipper of a
storm-disgruntled tramp wanted to borrow a couple of hundred rupees
from him, and remarked incidentally that he had seen broken water in
the supposed position of the discredited reef, Banks forked out with
enthusiasm and took down a lying statement joyfully.

But when the _Simoom_ was ready for sea again, that same tramp
skipper, who was a wild disgrace to the respectable mystery of the
sea, executed a few manoeuvres which let the _Palembang_ get ahead of
her.  For the tramp (_Julius Cæsar_ was her name) had engines of an
obstinate and eccentric character.  Sometimes they worked, and
sometimes they didn't, and on this particular occasion they refused
to be reversed at any price.  As the _Julius Cæsar_ wouldn't go
astern, her captain shoved her at the crowded shipping ahead and put
her through, whooping on the bridge like a maniac.  He grazed three
other steamers, took a bumpkin off a sailing vessel, slipped between
two others, and in one last complicated evolution smashed the jibboom
of the _Simoom_, brought down her fore-topgall'n'-mast, and escaped
to sea in a cyclone of curses of which the calm centre was the
_Palembang_.

"I'll report you," said Spiller to Banks, when he left Bombay.

"Go to hell," cried Banks, who rarely swore save in a gale of wind.

"After you," said Spiller, with what is popularly known as truly
Oriental politeness; and as a parting taunt he sang out, "What about
them rocks?"

"You're an ungrammatical, uneducated man," screamed Banks, dancing
furiously.

But Green and Wilson waved their caps to each other.  For all their
way of passing compliments when one gave the other a Western Ocean
relief at midnight, they were good friends.

The _Simoom_ got to sea inside of forty-eight hours, for Banks lost
no time.  He had made up his mind to waste some on the next chance he
had of looking for his blessed rocks, unless the monsoon blew too
hard.

They had a fairly decent show running down the coast on the inside of
the Laccadivhs, and, taking the usual circumbendibus to the eastward
between Keeling and the Chagos Archipelago, picked up beautiful
"passage" winds and south-east trades, and went home booming.  Green
found Banks a first-class "old man," and the _Simoom_ as comfortable
as a good bar parlour, compared with the sorry old bug-haunted
_Palembang_, where a man's toes got sore with the pedicuring work of
cockroaches.  He made up his mind to stick to her, as he evidently
suited Banks.  They both got cracked a little on the _Simoom_ Rocks,
and gradually talked themselves into the belief of a shark's-tooth
reef a mile long with one special fang that rivalled a young peak of
Teneriffe.

The _Palembang_ came into Liverpool River about three weeks after the
_Simoom_, and Green, back at work after ten days at home, had a high
time with Wilson.  But the skippers passed each other with their
noses in the air as high as squirrels' tails, and never swopped a
word in a fortnight.

As luck would have it, they were both for Bombay again, only to give
Spiller a chance of getting there first, the _Simoom_ was to call at
the Cape.  Just before the _Palembang_ cleared, Banks and Spiller
fell up against each other on the landing stage, and as Spiller was
full up to his back-teeth and uvula, he broke silence and went for
the upholder of the vigia in high style.  He could have taken a
first-class in bad language at any Australian back-blocks academy of
cursing--and what they don't know in blasphemy there can only be
learnt from a low-class Spaniard.  So the air was blue from Liverpool
to Manchester, and to the Isle of Man, and Banks got up and left.
For when he was ashore he was very religious.  Even at sea he carried
a prayer-book and an odd volume of virulent sermons, of the kind
which indicate that no man need forgive any enemy who is not of the
same persuasion.  But to tell the truth, Banks could have forgiven
anything but an insult to his beloved rocks.

"Such a man oughtn't to live," he cried angrily, as he went off in a
tremulous rage.  "He's predestined to the pit!"

And he trusted that Providence might one day yield him a chance of
getting even.  His prayers were fervent towards that end, and if
Providence works, as it sometimes appears to do, through rum and
ignorance and a good conceit in a man, there was a chance of his
appeals being attended to.

On the passage out to the Cape they saw nothing of the _Palembang_.
But there she was heard of as having being seen somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the Agulhas Bank, having a real good time in that
native home of the god of the winds, where fifty per cent. of all the
breezes that do blow are gales that dance in and out and about like a
cooper round a cask.

But the _Simoom_ had luck, and slipped through as if Æolus never
spotted her.  And old Banks chortled happily, and sang an extra hymn
on Sunday, compensating the men (otherwise disposed to growl at the
innovation) with an extra lot of grog.  For your true sailorman is
the real conservative, and things that don't happen in the first week
of a new ship have no business to happen afterwards--which is a hint
some young second mates may find handy to remember.  And remembering
this will enable you to see why no true old shellback will ship in a
steamboat, any more than the guard of a coach would let himself to
any beastly new railroad.

The south-west monsoon had backed down to the Line about the time
they crossed it; and the _Simoom_ sweated up to the Maldivhs very
comfortably.

"We've made a good passage--a ripping good passage," said old Banks,
rubbing his hands, "and I'm condemned if I don't shape a course for
my rocks, Mr. Green."

As he had been shaping for them ever since he had deliberately gone
out of his way to take the route east of Madagascar, instead of the
Inner or Mozambique route, Green winked the other eye and said
nothing.  To tell the truth, he himself had a hankering to set his
mind at rest on the subject, for he felt his credit involved with the
skipper's.

The man at the wheel overheard what Banks said, and when he stumped
for'ard the whole crew knew that the _Simoom_ was looking for a
needle in the Indian Ocean.

"A life's job, my bullies," said their informant.  "We'll be like the
crew of the _Flying Dutchman_ yet."

"I'm wondering whether Spiller came up this way, now," said old Banks
presently, with an interrogative cock of his head.

"And not by the channel?" asked Green.

Banks turned about.

"Mr. Green, may the Lord forgive me, but I just hate that Spiller
with an unholy hatred.  Every time he gets a show he brags he's run
right over where I located my rocks, and not only that, but
criss-cross in the latitude where they might be.  And he set about
that he'd herring-boned a course on the chart on the longitude, going
back and forth on it like a dog in a turnip field.  So now he'll be
up here again to have another shy for it.  If he saw 'em, he'd swear
he never.  And why he hates me so I can't tell, unless it was I did
my duty once, and let him know what a God-fearing man thought of a
blasphemer."

Green nodded.

"That's likely it, sir."

"So it is, so it is," cried Banks pensively; "he has no grace in him,
and he set it about, I know, that I soak at sea if I'm sober ashore.
He said my rocks were delirium tremens; and I'm a discredited man,
wounded in a tender spot."

It was just four bells in the forenoon watch then, and soon after
they snugged her down, as the wind was very heavy in puffs and the
sky low and dark.  Just before eight bells Green spotted a vessel on
the starboard bow, and called the old man.  He came on deck like a
whiteheaded Jack-in-the-Box.

"Keep her away," he cried.  "I'll bet she's the _Palembang_.  Shake
out them reefs and hoist the main-t'gall'n's'l again."

His grammar failed in excitement.

"We're overhauling her hand over hand, anyhow," suggested Green.

"If I can pass him going two foot for his one, I'd run the _Simoom_
under," screamed the skipper.  "And when we come up with him, if my
voice in a trumpet can carry, I'll tell him what I think of him.  He
thinks I'm soft because I sing hymns on Sunday.  I'll let him know
before I sang hymns I was the biggest tough on the Australian coast.
God's truth I was!  And I wish I was now--oh, how I wish it, and him
ashore with me!"

And Green believed it, because he had to!  There was something in the
old man's eye as he walked to and fro, an unregenerate blood-thirsty
snap, that was very convincing.  So the reefs were shaken out of the
topsails, and even that did not satisfy the skipper.

"I'll let him know that a saved and repentant Christian isn't
necessary a worm," said Banks.  "Mr. Green, set the mainsail!"

The _Simoom_ was snoring through it now, and Green stared.

"What she can't carry she may drag," said the skipper, with flashing
eyes.

And the _Simoom_ lost her courtesy with the sea under the influence
of the mainsail, for the monsoon was a stiff one.  She shouldered the
Indian Ocean aside like a policeman shoving through a crowd; she
scooped up tons of it as a scraper team scoops sand, and ran at any
extra sea like a bull at a hedge.  The men were under the break of
the t'gallant foc'sle, sheltering from the cataract.  They knew the
_Palembang_ was ahead, and were as eager as the skipper to overhaul
her.  Through the bos'on and his mate it had leaked out that the old
man was keen for a palaver with Spiller.

"He's like a bull whale in a flurry," said one who had been whaling.
"Now my notion is that the skipper kin blaspheme if he wants to."

The _Palembang_ was visibly herself and no other vessel by this time,
and she carried all she could stand.

"I've half a notion to have the t'gall'n-sails set," said Banks,
looking up aloft.  "And if we weren't overhauling her twenty-three to
the dozen, damme, but I would!"

For the _Palembang_ showed nothing above her reefed topsails, and the
foresail had a reef in it, and the _Simoom_ came after her like the
inside edge of a cyclone.

"Gimme my trumpet," cried Banks.  "Mr. Green, take the wheel, and run
her as close as maybe."

And the second mate stood at the main-topsail halliards.

"_Palembang_ ahoy!" yelled Banks through his trumpet as he came
tearing up on the weather side of his enemy's ship.

"Where the blue blazes are you coming to?" shrieked Spiller, who was
both drunk and angry.

"Passing you as if you was standing still, you low, uneducated
swine," said Banks.  "And I could do it under jury rig."

"What about them rocks?" jeered Spiller through his trumpet.  "What's
the price of vigias, you notorious old liar, you disgrace to the
perfession?"

They were close alongside now, not half a cable's length apart; a
good cricketer could have shied a cricket ball the distance easily.

"Leggo the main-topsail halliards," said Banks, and then to the
surprise of his crew and the utter astonishment of Spiller he poured
out a torrent of the most blood-curdling abuse which had ever defiled
the Indian or any other ocean.

"You think I'm soft, you dog," he boomed through his spurt of
blasphemy, "and reckon because I've got notions of decency I'm to be
trod on.  Run on my rocks and sink and burn."

His voice rose to a scream and cracked.  He tried to speak, but tried
in vain.

"Mr. Green, here," he whispered, and leaving the wheel to the man he
had displaced, the mate jumped to the lee poop rail.

"Tell him he's no sailor; my voice is gone.  Say he's a--oh, tell him
anything you feel."

Green did so, and satisfied himself and Banks and the entire crew.
And then, seeing Wilson, he gave him a friendly bellow.

"What cheer, Wilson!"

And hoisting the topsails, they ran on, leaving Spiller choking with
helpless rage.

As it grew darker and they dropped the _Palembang_ they picked up the
mainsail, and shortened down for the night.

"We ain't in no hurry," whispered Banks, "and to-morrow we'll be up
with my rocks, if I've hit it off right."

He was now sombre and dignified, and spoke with particular
grammatical and moral accuracy.  Not the ghost of a damn issued from
his lips.  He reproved Green for swearing, and held a service in the
cabin, much to the disgust of the entire ship, as it wasn't Sunday.
Perhaps to punish himself, for he always liked to stand well with the
crowd, he gave them no grog after it.

In the morning he sent a man on the fore-topgallant-yard looking for
his rocks, and as he gave notice that any one who sighted them first
should have five pounds, the entire watch, which should have been
below snoring, sat like crows up aloft and strained their eyes all
round the horizon.

At ten Banks was jovial and got his voice back.  At noon he was
anxious.  By four o'clock he shortened sail again.

"We've overrun 'em," he said sadly.  "If they're still about, we're
to the west of 'em.  Mr. Green, during the night we'll stand under
easy sail to the eastward.  I'm set on seeing those rocks again, if I
lose a week."

And the night fell darkly.

No matter whose watch it was, mate's or second mate's, the
white-whiskered skipper was on deck every ten minutes, peering into
the black darkness with his glasses.  The old chap's nerves were on
edge; his imagination flamed; he saw reefs and pinnacles of islands
every moment, and heard the boom of breakers.

When Green relieved his subordinate at midnight, the second mate
whispered to him:

"The old man's as nervous as a cat.  To hear him jaw you'd think the
bottom of the sea was rising up.  Mind you ain't high and dry on a
new continent by daylight."

"We'll whack it out fair among the lot of us," said Green.
"Jeewhillikins, what's that?"

He spoke suddenly, in an altered voice, and Milton jumped.

"What?"

"I thought I saw a flare to the southward."

"Lordy, you've got them too," said Milton.  "Let's go ashore, and
have a walk on the Apollo Bunda."

"Stow it," cried Green, and holding on to the mizzen-topgallant
backstay, he jumped upon the rail.

"Look, look!" he cried, and Milton, looking, saw a faint glow to the
southward--or fancied he saw it.

"Call the old man," said Green, and in two and three-fifths seconds
by any man's chronometer, Banks was on deck, and saw nothing.

"But did ye see it, man?" he yelled; "and if so, what's it mean?"

"Some one struck a match in Colombo," said the second mate
irreverently.  For he had sailed with Banks for years, and at times
took liberties.

"I only trust to Providence that it isn't that wicked man's ship in
any trouble," said the skipper viciously.  "Mr. Green, we'll stand to
the south'ard for a while."

"Lay aft the watch," sang out Milton, and they braced her up to
within two points of the wind.

Both watches stayed on deck in the little excitement, and in the
course of the next hour they reported all kinds of non-existent
things.  "Rocks on the starboard bow" were varied by "A vessel on the
port bow," and a planet low down in a break of cloud was "A steamer's
head-light, sir."

"Collision with Venus," cried Milton.

But just in the 'twixt and 'tween of earliest dawn, when the grey
ghost of day walked in the east, a man up aloft sang out with
startling energy:

"Two dark rocks right ahead, sir."

The main-deck hummed suddenly, and a patter of bare feet told that
the entire crew had run for the foc'sle head.  The skipper nipped
into the mizzen rigging quick as a chipmunk.

"Keep her away a point or two," he cried.

"Away a point or two, sir," echoed the helmsman.

"I see 'em, Mr. Green," yelled the old chap; "and just where I
figured them out to be.  There'll be three, there'll be three."

He paused and looked down on Green.

"But--but two will do me," he added cautiously.  "I never pinned my
faith to three."

Green climbed alongside him, and even a bit higher.

"Lord, sir, they're boats," he cried.

"No, rocks," said the skipper.

"Boats," repeated the mate, obstinately.

"So they are!  Damn!" cried the skipper.

And then the same verdict came from aloft, and was confirmed by the
entire sea jury.

The disappointed captain dropped back on deck.

"Now, if they were the _Palembang's_ boats," suggested Green.

"No such luck," said the skipper.  "Is there any one in 'em, and do
they see us?"

"By the same token they see us now!" shouted Green, and in a quarter
of an hour the boats were alongside, and the _Simoom_ lay to.

"What boats are those?" squealed Banks.

"The _Palembang's_," replied a voice from the tumbling cockleshells.

The skipper and the mates said "Whew!" and Banks was fairly dancing.

"And where's your ship?"

"Bottom of the Indian Ocean," said a voice that Banks recognised as
Spiller's.

"Is that you, Captain Spiller?" he inquired, with much exaggerated
courtesy.

"It is," growled Spiller.

"Did you by any chance come across my rocks as you sailed along so
pleasant?"

Spiller swore in a muffled voice.

"Not by your description of 'em: far from it," he replied at last.

"We'll see about that," said Banks.  "Now then, come under the lee
quarter, and we'll have some of you aboard; the captain of the
_Palembang_ last."

"Whad yer mean?" cried Spiller sulkily.

"What I say," said Banks softly.

And when every one was out of the boats but Spiller, he stood by the
line.

"Now, captain, were they my rocks or not?"

"No," said Spiller.

"Then stay in your damned boat," cried Banks.  "Cast that line off,
Spiller.  You won't?  Then cut it, Mr. Green."

Green smiled but didn't move.  The skipper borrowed a knife from the
nearest seaman by taking it out of its sheath.

"Now, was they or not?"

"No," cried Spiller.

"One, two, and at three I cut," said Banks.  "One--two----"

"Very well, they was, then," shrieked Spiller; and the next minute he
was on deck.

"I'll have you sign a paper to that effect," said Banks, "and if you
don't, the whole of your crew will, including your mate."

Wilson, who was standing by Green, said that he would willingly, and
when Spiller scowled, he scowled back.

"And now, Mr. Green," cried Banks cheerfully, "since we know where
they are, and can find 'em any time, you may put her on her course
again.  And we'll have a little thanksgiving service for all this."

He did not explain whether the service was for the established
character of the Simoom Rocks, or for the rescue of the shipwrecked
crew, but when he got them all below he handed round hymn books.

"First of all we will sing hymn No. 184 of Hymns Ancient and Modern,"
he said softly, and when Spiller looked it up he was very much
annoyed.




THREE IN A GAME.

Things were quiet in San Francisco--that is to say, though the usual
blackguards spouted on the Sand-Lot on Sundays, there was no great
political row on.  The President of the United States had still three
years to run before any chance of a second term, and local politics
had quietened.  The Governor of the State, though an angel to one
side and a devil to the other, had been "let up on" at last, and the
reporters for the daily papers had to invent "stories" to keep
themselves going.  That only kept their hand in.  It was a blessing
to them without any disguise when the rivalry between young Jack Hunt
and Sibley Gawthrop for the hand and the money and the affections of
Edith Atherton became public property.  It was most of all a blessing
to Gardiner, the smartest new man on the San Francisco _Chronicle_,
who knew both of the boys well.

For how could any "story" fail to pay dividends when two of the
swagger "Anglo-Franco-Californians," the most beautiful girl on the
coast, and Shanghai Smith, the most scoundrelly boarding-house keeper
on the Pacific, played leading parts in the drama?  And when one
reflects that San Francisco, the Pacific itself and the Atlantic, and
the Sailors' Home in Well Street, London, came into the newspaper
play quite naturally, it seems obvious there was meat for any
reporter's teeth.

Gardiner, of course, was not in the high-toned gang to which Hunt and
Gawthrop belonged, but he knew them both very well, although he had
only been in California a short year.  He knew every one in San
Francisco, from the biggest toughs on Telegraph Hill, and the
political bosses, to the big pots and their womankind.  He knew Miss
Atherton too.  He wanted to know her better.  Though he was on the
staff of the _Chronicle_, it was his own fault.  If he could have
only got on with his father in New York, he might have been as rich
as Hunt himself.  But the boy who cannot differ on vital points with
his father before he is sixteen is no true American, and Gardiner was
U.S. to his fingertips.

"I'll get there yet," said Gardiner.  His chance was coming.  There
are more ways of succeeding than one.

"How is it you bow to a reporter on the _Chronicle_, my dear?" asked
a friend of Edith Atherton's.  "I understand that is what he is."

"I do it because he might have been my brother," said Edith Atherton.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that his father nearly married my mother," said Edith; "but
he was too autocratic, and he married an Englishwoman.  I don't
wonder George Gardiner could not hit it off with him.  Poor boy!  I
wish he could."

Certainly he was far finer-looking than either Hunt or Gawthrop--that
is the way her friend interpreted the girl's sigh.

"And he's cleverer too," said the older woman acutely,
"nevertheless----"

And "nevertheless" was very easy to interpret.

"Which will it be, I wonder?" said her friend.

The solution lay on the knees of the gods, and in the hands of
Shanghai Smith.

That night Hunt met Gardiner at the club by chance, and stayed with
him all the evening.

"What are you looking so down about?" asked the newspaper man.  "You
are drinking too much.  Ease up on it."

Indeed, Hunt was drinking too much.  He drank enough to loosen his
tongue.

"Damn that Gawthrop," he said.

"Ah, I see," cried Gardiner; "is that it?"

And Hunt nodded sulkily.  Then he wept.

"If he was only out of the way," he moaned, "I believe I could work
the racket with her."

Gardiner shrugged his shoulders.

"Ah, well, buck up.  Come on.  I'm going to the office."

They walked into Kearney Street and turned east towards the
_Chronicle_ offices.  As they passed Bush Street a very hard-looking
citizen nodded to Gardiner.

"Who's that?" asked Hunt.

"Don't you know him?  That's Shanghai Smith, the biggest scoundrel
unhung.  He's a sailors' crimp, and a daylight robber, and a man with
a 'pull.'"

Certainly Smith had some political power.  In the United States it is
impossible to avoid politics and the police at the same time, except
by lavish bribery.

"And why do they call him 'Shanghai'?" asked Hunt.

"Because he 'shanghais' men," answered Gardiner, "and nowadays that
means drugging a man and putting him aboard some ship.  Oh, he's a
daisy.  He'd ship your dad to New York round the Horn if there was
money in it.  When a man disappears in this city we look first in the
morgue, and then make inquiries at Smith's."

"I wish Gawthrop was in the morgue, I do," said Hunt "And here I'll
say good-night.  You're a good chap, Gardiner, if you are a newspaper
man, and it's been a relief to talk to you, so it has."

They shook hands and parted, but Gardiner had not walked ten yards
before he turned and came back.  His eyes glittered curiously.
Hunt's were blurred and fishy.  He had certainly taken a little too
much.  Gardiner wondered if he had taken too much to remember in the
morning what happened now.

"You wish he was in the morgue, eh?"

"I do," said Hunt firmly.  "I do."

"Why not get him shanghaied?" asked Gardiner, and he walked away very
swiftly, and did not return when Hunt called to him.

"By the Great Horn Spoon and the tail of the Sacred Bull, I'll not
give her up," said Gardiner; "certainly not to a man like Hunt, or to
a dude like Gawthrop.  Sooner than that I'll write to the old man and
squeal.  He'll rub it in, but after all he is the dad, and she----"

Ah, she was everything.

"Let the best man win.  I'm in the game, after all," said Gardiner.
"And to think if she hadn't recognised me to-day I'd have thrown it
up!"

He was not surprised to see Hunt the next afternoon, though every one
else in the office was astonished to see him looking for a mere
reporter.

"Do you remember what you said to me last night?" asked Hunt rather
nervously.

"About what?"

"About somebody called Shanghai Smith?"

He stared out of the window as he spoke.

"I remember, Hunt."

"Can it be done?"

"Can what be done?"

"Could I get rid of that Gawthrop for a month or two?"

"I shouldn't be surprised, if you put up the dollars."

"Will you help me?"

"And get myself--disliked?"

He was going to say--"get myself in the penitentiary," but on
reflection he did not desire to frighten Hunt.  After all, the affair
would cause so much laughter that legal proceedings were not likely
to rise out of it.

"I don't want you to show.  Only give me a pointer.  Could you bring
this Smith to me?"

Gardiner stabbed his desk with a pen-knife, and considered the matter
for a moment.

"Look here," he said, "I want to deal as squarely as I can with you.
I don't want either you or Gawthrop to marry this particular lady."

Hunt stared at him.

"You don't?  Oh!  I say, Gardiner----" and he burst into laughter,
which Gardiner apparently did not resent.

"Yes, I know I'm a newspaper dog, and so on; let that be.  If I chose
to crawl down and go East, I could stack dollar for dollar with half
of you in time.  What I'm telling you is this: I think Gawthrop has
more show than you, and I'd be glad to get him out of the way, just
as he'd no doubt be glad to get you out.  I'll help if you'll hold
your tongue about me, whatever happens."

"Very well," said Hunt; "I give you my word."

"Whatever happens?"

"Whatever happens."

"Of course I shall do everything I can to win."

"That's only natural," said Hunt; "but I'll bet you a thousand
dollars that if I get Gawthrop out of the way I'll marry Miss
Atherton inside of three months."

"Whatever happens?"

"Whatever happens."

"Then I take that bet," said Gardiner, "and to-morrow you shall meet
Shanghai."

But when Hunt had gone, Gardiner winked steadily at nothing and
stroked his chin.

"Great Scott, this _is_ a game," he said.  "I wonder where Gawthrop
is?"

But before he found out he sat down and wrote a letter to the elder
Gardiner in New York.  It was late that evening before he went down
to that undesirable quarter of San Francisco known as the Barbary
Coast, where Shanghai Smith had his sailor-robbing den located.

As he went along the water-front and saw the ships lying at the
wharves, it was "plumb" dark.  Though he knew every tough in the
city, he walked some way from the edge of the wharves and kept his
hand on his six-shooter in the right-hand pocket of his coat.  There
is never any knowing what may happen in the low quarters of that sink
of the Pacific, where all the scum of the world gathers, and it is
well to keep one's eyes skinned lest worse may befall.  Gardiner had
no desire to turn up on a trestle at the morgue as his next public
appearance.  But though he was careful, he went cheerfully, and could
not help laughing.

"Great Scott, to think of Sibley Gawthrop as an able seaman on board
the _Harvester_ or the _Wanderer_!  But won't it do him good?  These
young Californians are a rotten crowd."

He came at last to Smith's house, and stepped upon the verandah floor
boldly.

"Why, it's Mr. Gardiner of the _Chronicle_, so it is," said Billy,
who was Smith's runner, and, next to his boss and a few politicians,
the hardest case in California.  "Is it Mr. Smith you want to see,
sir?"

"I'm only just doing a run around, and thought I'd look in, Billy,"
said Gardiner carelessly.

"Ay, just a _cultus nannitch_, as they say in Chinook," replied
Billy.  "But we're always glad to see you."

Gardiner doubted that.  But Smith was always civil to newspaper men.
He hadn't Gardiner bought, as he had the police, and he knew that a
true column and a bit on his doings might bring down an avalanche any
day.

"And here is Mr. Smith," said Billy.

"How are you makin' it?" asked Smith, "and what'll you drink?"

But Gardiner was not drinking.  It was so notoriously unhealthy to
drink at Shanghai's place that few sober men were reckless enough to
take a cocktail there.

"How are you off for men?" asked Gardiner.  "Is business good?"

Smith shook his head.

"Men?  There are too many of 'em!  Now hell ain't fuller of devils,
Mr. Gardiner, than what San Francisco is of sailors, and you know as
well as me that with sailormen a drug in the market, I don't come out
on top."

"To be sure," said Gardiner, "but I was thinking, as I came along,
that you might get a ship for a young friend of mine."

"I'll be glad to do anythin' for any friend of yours," said Smith,
"but as I'm tellin' you, 'tis as easy to be President of the United
States as to do business with the streets full of men that lets on to
be sailors.  What kind of a job is your friend lookin' for?"

Gardiner laughed.

"I want him to go a voyage before the mast.  It will do him good."

"Ah," said Smith quickly, "what's the game?  But whatever it is with
you, I'm on!  Say it and mean it!--that's me."

Gardiner edged him up to the quiet end of the verandah.

"Smith, can you hold your tongue and earn a thousand dollars?"

"Can I do what?" asked Smith.  "Look here, so help me, I'd cut my
tongue out for a thousand.  I tell you, things are tough.  What's the
game?"

And Gardiner, after looking round, whispered in his ear.

"Whew!" whistled Smith; "you don't mean it.  Young Sibley Gawthrop!
Holy sailor, I'd rather not touch him.  His father is a power in the
land."

Gardiner shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, very well, there are others.  And in any case, who need know you
took a hand in it?  Now, will you or won't you?  Yes or no, or I quit
right here."

"You don't quit.  I'll do it," said Smith.  "I'll do it for you,
C.O.D."

It can be judged how much he did it for Gardiner when C.O.D. is
translated "Cash on Delivery."

"Right!" said Gardiner, "and pick him a nice easy ship.  A good old
English limejuicer will be the thing.  I want him to go to Europe."

He went up town, and curiously enough found himself having supper in
the swagger restaurant of the city at the next table to Hunt's victim.

"Gawthrop, I want to have a talk with you on very special business,"
he said.  "Can you spare me half an hour to-morrow morning if I call
on you?"

And when they parted next morning, after their talk on "very special
business," Sibley Gawthrop was in a high state of excitement.

"If I can only get that Hunt out of the way for three months, I
believe I can work the racket with her.  But what I can't understand
is Gardiner's notion that he has any chance.  I suppose that's what
he meant by keeping on saying, 'Don't think I do this for you.  I'm
not in it for friendship or for my health.  I'll do you if I can.'
Poor beggar, he hasn't the least show.  Oh, but isn't this a game!
To think of old Hunt turning up in the London Docks!"

He actually drove along the water-front that morning in order to
gloat over the ships in the harbour, and when he saw men working up
aloft he burst into laughter.  The notion was splendid, whatever
motive Gardiner had in putting him up to it.  It was odd that he had
never taken any interest in the seafaring trade of the city before.
Gawthrop eyed the very loafers on the wharves with new feelings.
Though he did not know it, he saw Shanghai Smith and his runner Billy
at the bottom of Spear Street.

"Jehoshaphat," said Smith, "now this is a queer coincī-dence.  Billy,
that's the young feller I've been telling you about.  See him?"

"Rather," growled Bill.  "When do you want him shipped, and how am I
to get him?"

"I'll tell you when it's fixed up," said Smith.  "I've got to see the
chap that's runnin' the show."

"There'll be a holy row on about it," grunted Bill.  "It ain't
exackly legitimate business, Mr. Smith.  It's all mighty well doin'
what I know.  I can get a crew out of a ship in the bay with any man;
but shanghain' sons of millionaires----"

"You're a forsaken fool," said Smith.  "If you do it neatly, who's to
know till he comes back?  And who knows then you or I done it?  And
ain't I reckonin' to allow you a bonus of ten dollars extra?  With
times as they is now, ten dollars is ten dollars, lemme tell you.
And you've taken to growlin' lately in a way I'm not goin' to stand,
Bill.  I don't want any slack-jaw from you, so there."

"Who's givin' any slack-jaw?" expostulated the runner.  "I suppose a
man can hev an opinion?"

"And he can keep it till called for, too," said his boss.  "I can
lick you any time."

And Bill growled, "Who says you can't?  Would I be workin' for you if
you couldn't?"  The inference was not exactly obvious.

That afternoon Gardiner came down again to the Barbary Coast, and had
another talk with Shanghai Smith.

"What, another of 'em?" asked Shanghai.  "I say, Mr. Gardiner, this
is a bit thick!"

"Yes, it's two thousand dollars thick," said Gardiner; "if you could
only ship a whole crew on such terms, you might retire and go in for
politics."

"And who's the man this time?"

"It's Jack Hunt."

"Him as is payin' for Gawthrop?"

Gardiner nodded.

"And who's payin' for Hunt?"

Gardiner took him by the greasy lapel of his coat.

"I'll tell you--it's Gawthrop!"


Gardiner, who was doing the dramatic criticism for the _Chronicle_
that night, saw Gawthrop and Hunt in Miss Atherton's box at the Opera
House.  They appeared to be on very good terms, and were both in an
excellent humour.  For all that he had planned, George Gardiner was
in no great good temper when he imagined that Edith showed more
favour to Sibley than to his rival.

"He's not a bad sort, but he's not the sort to marry a girl like
that," said Gardiner; "if she only knew the life he has led, she'd
give him the mitten right off.  And I could let her know.  It's doing
him a favour to send him to sea.  And as for Hunt, he's really mean.
Life won't be all pie to him as he's laid it out to be.  She'll think
they've shied off, and will be mad, and more ready to listen to a man
who has loved her for years, as she knows.  If she'd only take me
while I'm poor, I'd be the proudest man in California.  And wouldn't
it make all California sick!"

Though he did not know it, both Gawthrop and Hunt played into his
hands.  Each was quite convinced that he was the favoured lover, and
as they both had a secret they used it when they got a chance.

"Gawthrop is a very nice fellow," said Jack Hunt condescendingly;
"but he never knows his own mind, Miss Atherton.  I should never be
surprised to hear he had gone to Europe.  He's fond of travel, and
very, very inconstant."

"Indeed," said Edith.  She had found him fairly persevering.  It was
strange when Hunt was called outside for a few minutes that Gawthrop,
who this night had shown no jealousy, threw out a dark hint that Hunt
was no true Californian.

"I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear he had gone to
Europe," he said.  "He's very flighty.  I suppose that is the reason
he didn't marry while he was young."

Hunt was thirty, and his rival was twenty-six.

"And don't you want to see Europe?" asked Edith, who wondered what
was in the wind.

"Ah, some day, but not alone," answered Sibley.  "I shall never go
without a companion."

"You should go with Jack Hunt," said Edith mischievously.  "I
certainly wonder none of you travel more.  Now, Mr. Gardiner down
there has been all over the world."

"Ah, poor Gardiner!" said Sibley.  "How is it so clever and
good-natured a man should be doing what he is?"

And much to Sibley's astonishment, Edith Atherton turned on him with
an odd question.

"Well--and what are you doing?"

Perhaps if Gardiner had heard her ask that question, he might have
considered that Shanghai Smith need not intervene after all.

But Smith did intervene that night.

When Gawthrop left the theatre he went straight down Market Street to
the water-front, and found his way to Shanghai Smith's without any
difficulty.  He had plenty of pluck, and plenty of ignorance of the
real conditions of life in San Francisco.  What he heard and what he
read about the matter did not touch him; he lived in security in
quite another world from the scoundrels at the bottom of Clay Street
and the toughs of the "Coast."  Life there was a theatrical
representation.  He sat in the stalls and said, "Poor devils, do they
really live that way?"  He was Sibley Gawthrop, the son of a big man:
he was a power himself: he had no fear, and went into the trap
smiling.  If he carried in his hip pocket what Westerners call a
"gun," it was on account of Western traditions.  He showed no
caution, though he walked whistling in the middle of the road.  He
had no chance to use any weapon, and he never saw Smith.  He never
even saw Billy, Smith's runner, till Billy sand-bagged him on the
back of the head.  For Smith was not to be found at his house.  He
was with Gardiner, and they were both waiting till they heard from
the runner that Gawthrop was safely disposed of.

"I ain't goin' to show in it," said Smith, "and why should I?  The
_Hampshire_ is short of two hands as I shipped in her myself.  They
don't go aboard when they should, and they turns up drunk at my
house, and Billy puts them on board.  Can I help it if he puts the
wrong ones on her?  Of course I cayn't.  And if Billy finds the cash
agreed on on 'em and hands it to me, why, I'll keep it till it's
claimed by the owners of it!"

He winked his eye at Gardiner, and the journalist burst into laughter.

"They'll not touch me," he said, "and if they do, I shall either have
the laugh on them or shan't care."

As he spoke, there was a message sent up from the street.  A boy
wanted to see Mr. Gardiner.

"A printer's devil, of course," said Gardiner.  But he knew the word
came from Billy.

"Billy, Mr. Smith's runner, gimme a quarter to run up to you, sir,
and say it's all right," said the young hoodlum.  "And _he_ said you
was to gimme another quarter."

Billy had said nothing of the kind, but the boy got it all the same.

And half an hour later Jack Hunt interviewed Billy the runner in
about the same place in the dark road that Gawthrop had met him.  The
runner went through his pockets eagerly.

"Two thousand in the one night," said Billy.  "Oh, ain't Smith doin'
well?  And two first-class guns as belongs to me.  I'll shove 'em on
board the _Hampshire_ bright and early.  Oh, I done it clean and
neat."

He had great professional pride, and when he came alongside the
_Hampshire_ at four o'clock in the morning, and found all hands
getting up the anchor, he felt that the thing was going to finish
itself without a hitch.

"Once at sea and the job's complete.  Hallo, there, send down a whip
into the boat," he cried.  "I've got them two as skipped.  And good
men, too, when they're sober."

He heard the first mate bellow:

"Mr. Jones, get these swine on board quick.  Drunk, are they?  We'll
sober 'em.  Up aloft and loose the topsails."

And the two lights of San Francisco society were carried into the
foc'sle.

"Blimy, but I'd give sumfink to be as blind speechless as this," said
one cockney, "and there ain't no chance of it till we gets to London."

But the mate was roaring overhead.  They dropped Hunt and Gawthrop
into two empty bunks and went on deck.

"Can't you turn those men to?" asked the chief mate, Mr. Ladd, of
Jones.  And Jones went into the foc'sle and punched both of these
gentlemen in the ribs.

"Wake up, you drunken galoots," said Jones.

In answer they both sighed and snored, and turned peaceably to rest.
Jones, who knew a bit, unhooked the lamp from the sweating beam
overhead, and lifting Hunt's eyelid with his thumb, saw that the
man's pupil was down to a pin-point.  It was the same with Gawthrop.

"Hocussed, of course," he said.  And he reported aft that not even
putting them under the hose would wake them for some hours.

"Confound all California and its manners and customs," said Ladd.

But the manners and customs of Shanghai Smith at any rate saved Hunt
and Gawthrop from eight hours of the finest education in the world.
It was noon, and the _Hampshire's_ crowd was at dinner when Gawthrop
showed signs of animation.

"Ah, humph!" said Gawthrop, and without opening his eyes he reached
out and pressed the head of a small bolt with his thumb.

"What's the josser doin' of?" asked Tom, the cockney who had sighed
over the fact that there was no chance of getting intoxicated until
they reached London.

"Johnson, give me some tea," said Gawthrop.  He believed that his man
had answered the electric bell.  But there was a Johnson, or more
properly a Johanssen, among the crew.

"Here, Dutchy, give him some tea."

Gawthrop opened his eyes and yawned.  He shut his eyes again, but did
not shut his mouth in time to prevent Bill Yardley, who was the joker
of the crowd, dropping a piece of soaked biscuit into it.  Gawthrop
spluttered, coughed violently, and sat up.  As he did so he of course
hit his head a smart crack on the deck above him.  He sat up again on
his elbow, and stared about him stupidly.

"'Ere, come out, matey, and 'ave yer grub," cried the kindly crew
with one voice.

"You've 'ad a rare good caulk," said Tom encouragingly.

"Eh, eh, what?" asked Gawthrop.  He blinked at the men, and with a
fallen jaw wagged his head from side to side.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"On board the _'Ampshire_, sonny," said Tom.  "Come, show a leg!"

"Humph!" said Gawthrop, and he rolled a dry tongue against his teeth.
"Am I asleep?"

"I'll lay odds you won't be in ten minutes," said Tom.  "What's the
game you're playin'?"

Gawthrop stared at him and rolled his eyes round the foc'sle.  He saw
fifteen grinning faces in the light from the scuttle above.  Outside
the open foc'sle door he beheld the foremast, with its rail and the
gear coiled on the pins.

"It's a ship," said Gawthrop, "it's obviously a ship!"

The men looked at each other.

"D'ye think he's a greenhorn?"

"Hocussed!"

"Shanghaied!"

The word "Shanghai" fetched Gawthrop clean out of his dream.

It hit him fair and square, and though it half-stunned him, it woke
him, all the same.

"Where am I?"

"In the _Hampshire_ and at sea," said all hands eagerly.  They saw
what had happened quicker than he did.  For reasons which he did not
yet understand they believed him a seaman, but they saw he had been
shipped against his will.

"D'ye think it was Shanghai Smith as done it?"

"Ah," said Gawthrop.  "Why, where's Hunt?"

"D'ye mean your mate as come aboard wid you?" asked Tom.  "There 'e
is, 'ard and fast asleep.  Wake 'im up, chaps: I say, 'ere's a game."

Gawthrop put a leg out and dropped on deck just as Tom got Hunt by
the hair and gave it a yank that nearly raised his scalp, but did not
wake him.

"Is this 'im?"

In the half-light Gawthrop saw a face which was the colour of dark
mahogany, and did not recognise his rival.

"No," he said.  He did not know that Billy, with a professional
ardour that did him credit, had coloured Hunt and himself with walnut
juice on their faces and hands till they appeared to have been tanned
the three skins deep.

And just as Gawthrop denied that he knew Hunt, the boson's whistle
blew.

"You'd best come on deck.  They're goin' to pick the watches," said
Tom.  And Gawthrop, still in a maze, followed the rest.  When the
fresh air blew on him, his mind cleared as suddenly as if a fog had
rolled up.

"By the Lord, I've been done," he said, and he knew it was Gardiner
who had done him.  "All right," he said, "I'll get even.  The captain
must put back.  I'll pay him to do it."

His knowledge of the sea was limited.  Though he was the citizen of a
republic, he had been accustomed to deference.  That was when he was
Sibley Gawthrop.  He was now a nameless man in dungaree trousers and
a blue shirt, in a ship bound for London with a fine fair wind.  He
walked aft with the defiant yet shamed air of a man who has been at a
fancy ball and finds himself surprised by daylight.

"I want to see the captain," he said to the first man whom he met
aft.  It happened to be Jones, the second "greaser."

"That's him on the poop," said Jones, staring at him; "take a good
look at him, you drunken swab.  Why the blue blazes didn't you come
on board before?"

"My good fellow," said Gawthrop haughtily, "there has been a mistake.
I must be put on shore immediately."

"Oh," said Jones, "oh, indeed!  There has been a fatal error, has
there?  And I'm your good fellow, am I?  Take that, you swine."

And what Gawthrop took caused him to sit down very suddenly on a hard
teak deck.

"What's the matter, Mr. Jones?" asked the captain, coming to the
break of the poop.

"Nothing, sir, nothing," said Jones, foaming at the mouth, "only this
ratty hoodlum isn't sober yet.  I'll have him in my watch if Mr. Ladd
hasn't any fancy for him."

"Sir," said Gawthrop, still in a sitting position, "I'm not a sailor,
and have been put on board against my will.  My name's
Gawthrop--Sibley Gawthrop of Menlo Park.  I'm well known in San
Francisco."

"Dry up!" said Jones; "known to the police, I should say.  And your
name's either Fisher or Bates.  And where's that other josser?  I'll
soon see if he's one of the same sort."

He shot forward, and was presently seen emerging from the foc'sle
holding the astounded Hunt by the nape of the neck.  He ran him aft
and discharged him like a catapult right among the men.  He fell down
alongside Gawthrop.

"Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones," said the skipper mildly.  But if he was going
to remonstrate with Jones on his American methods, the two hands who
had caused the fuss put him off.  For Hunt and Gawthrop, on
recognising each other, as they did now in spite of their high
colouring, lost no time in speech, but went for each other without a
word.  They locked together and rolled headlong into the starboard
scuppers; for though the ship was on an even keel with a fine
northerly breeze, the deck had a big camber to it.  Then Captain
Singleton lost all his mildness at this outrageous insult to his high
authority.

"Pull them apart," he roared, as Jones dived for Gawthrop's ankle,
and two of the crew got Hunt by the legs.  "What the devil does this
mean?"

"It means he's had me shanghaied," said Hunt.  "I know it."

"And you--oh, I'll kill you," spluttered Gawthrop.

"Send them both up here," said the captain.  He stared at them like a
fury when they stood before him.  No two harder looking cases ever
had an interview with a skipper, for Gawthrop was bleeding from the
nose, and Hunt had lost all his shirt but the neck-band.  They glared
at each other, and Jones stood between them ready.

"Now then," said Singleton, "before I put you in irons I'd like to
know what you mean by daring----"

It was paralysing to both Gawthrop and Hunt to be looked at as the
captain looked at them.  They felt like the scum of the earth.

"It's a mistake, a dreadful mistake," said Hunt; "if you will put me
ashore, I'll give you five thousand dollars."

And the eager crowd on the main-deck sniggered.

"Lord, he's very big in drink, ain't 'e?" said Tom.

The skipper frowned, and shook his fist right against Hunt's face.

"You hound, don't joke with me.  What's this man's name, Mr. Jones?"

"It's either Bates or Fisher," said Jones.

"No, my name's Hunt," cried Hunt.  And one of the men on deck, an
insinuating beggar who liked to curry favour with the powers, cried:

"His name's Fisher, sir.  I've seed him often about the front."

"It's not, it's not," said Hunt furiously.  "I'm a man well known in
San Francisco."

"Shut up!" said Jones; "the other joskin said that."

"I won't shut up," roared Hunt, quite losing his temper.  "I warn you
all to put me ashore, or I'll ruin the lot of you."

"Oh," said the captain, "indeed, well, we'll see.  Mr. Jones, you can
have the one there--Bates, I think.  Mr. Ladd, look after this
sailorman with the five thousand dollars.  Now if there's another
word comes out of either of you, or if you start fighting again and I
hear of it, I'll make the pair of you wish you'd died before you saw
me."

And Jones shoved both of them down on the main-deck.  The two
unfortunates recognised that their only chance, and that the
faintest, lay in speaking together.

"But we're neither of us sailors, sir," they said piteously.

"This is where we manufacture sailors," said Captain Singleton, who
was not without humour.  "Mr. Jones, Mr. Ladd, you hear that I hope
they won't be able to say as much for themselves this day three
months."

And the crew laughed, as in duty bound.  But Hunt and Gawthrop did
not laugh.

"D'ye think there's any truth in what those two men said?" asked
Captain Singleton of his mate.

"Likely enough, sir," replied Ladd.  "Aren't we out of San Francisco?"

"I certainly don't seem to remember their faces," said the skipper,
"but they'll have to do.  Make what you can of them.  If it's any
ways true, it's no good telling them we think so."

"Certainly not, sir," said Ladd.  "But what's their remedy?"

He knew perfectly well that there was no practical remedy against the
ship.  And Hunt and Gawthrop were well aware they had none against
their friend Shanghai Smith, or against Gardiner.

They had no chance of speaking to each other till the second
dog-watch, and then only in the presence of the whole crowd, who were
very anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery.

"They ain't sailormen, not they," growled the oldest man on board,
who came from Brook Street, Shadwell, and was known as "Shadwell,"
though his real name was Shaw, "and a nice thing for hus.  Two less
to take the wheel.  I calls it a bally shime."

He looked at Hunt with an air of unutterable contempt, and sniffed
every time the man spoke.  Gawthrop, who was younger and more
elastic, sat on the other side of the foc'sle, and presently
addressed Hunt.

"I suppose we must make the best of it, Hunt."

"Don't speak to me, sir," said Hunt, and the crew roared.

"Tell us 'ow it 'appened, do," said Tom.  "Oh, ain't your friend
'aughty?  Tell us, 'as 'e got that five thousand dollars?"

"Not on him," replied Gawthrop.

"Look 'ere," said Tom, "if you'll tell us the troof, I'll stand you a
drop of rum.  I've a nip left.  And this is a teetotal ship, this is."

He could not conceive any man refusing such a bribe.  And Gawthrop,
in spite of everything, could hardly help laughing at Hunt's face.
He took the rum partly to have an excuse for telling the story.  It
was the wisest thing to be friends with every one, and after all, if
he was out of the running for a time, so was Hunt.

"Well," said Gawthrop, "I and my cheerful friend over there are very
great friends indeed.  But I wanted him out of San Francisco for a
time, for reasons.  And I got Shanghai Smith to arrange it."

"_We_ know him," said the crowd eagerly.  "Oh yes, we know him!"

"I stayed in 'is 'ouse."

"So did I."

"Shut up and let him tell us."

And Hunt by now was all alone on the starboard side.  Even old
Shadwell came across to hear the yarn.

"Another friend of mine suggested it," said Gawthrop, "and fixed it
up for me."

 "That was Gardiner," said Hunt.

"It was," said Gawthrop, "and I paid a thousand dollars to have Mr.
Hunt put here."

"That's what _I_ paid to have you put here," said Hunt.  "A friend of
mine put me up to it."

"That was Gardiner," said Gawthrop.

"It was," said Hunt.

"And that's why we're both here," said Gawthrop, and his aspect was
at once so melancholy and so comic that all hands shrieked with
laughter.  Old Shadwell creaked like the cheep of a block.

"But what'd this hyer Gardiner to do with the show?" asked the only
American in the crew.  "It looks like as if he played the pair of you
for suckers."

"You hear that, Hunt?"

"I hear," said Hunt sulkily.  "Wait till I see him."

"You ain't told us hall," said Shadwell, with a gloomy air of
suspicion.  "I knows somethin' of life, and somethin' about women;
and there was a woman in this."

"Mr. Shadwell is right," said Gawthrop.

"I was to have taken her for a drive this morning," said Hunt; "and a
pretty sort of a man I shall look, not turning up."

"Never mind," said Gawthrop.  "I was to have taken her out this
afternoon."

Old Shadwell nodded gloomily.

"What 'ave I often told you about 'em, boys!" he said.  "This proves
it.  A woman's like a cat with nine lives, and nine sorts of
dispositions, and if she don't satisfy 'em with nine sort of man fool
she ain't happy.  I've know them as nine wouldn't satisfy.  And
they're all the same; there's different nations of men, but women is
all one nation.  You can bet your boots, you two fellers, that your
girl is out with some one else.  This here v'yge will do you good if
it rams that into you."

He turned to the others.

"D'ye believe what this young feller has told you?"

They said they did.  Shadwell turned again to Gawthrop.

"It's 'ard lines on men as is sailormen, and ships so short-'anded as
they always is with greedy owners, to 'ave ship-mates as can't do
their work.  But you look bright, young feller, and if you skips
quick and does your best, there ain't no reason as you shouldn't be
some kind of use in the world before we're off the Horn.  And I say
the same to you over there."

"Go to the devil," replied Hunt sulkily.

"Sailormen don't go there.  _They_ goes to Fidler's Green," said
Shadwell.  "And mark me!  Put the girl out of your minds.  This was a
put-up job, and _she_ was in it.  She'll marry this here Gardiner!"

"He hasn't a cent," said Gawthrop contemptuously.

"It don't follow," said Shadwell stubbornly, "that because woman is
wicked by nature they ain't silly by choice.  I tell you Gardiner 'as
gone to wind'ard of you!  He's laughin' this very minute!"

And so he was.  But Edith Atherton was by no means amused at the
sudden disappearance of the two men who were supposed to stand
highest in her favour.  Whether she cared much or little for either
of them, or not, it was unpleasant to have them fail to keep their
appointments, and to leave San Francisco without a word of
explanation.  Her first and very natural impulse was to let every one
infer that she had rejected both of them.  But when old Mr. Gawthrop
called on her during the second day she had to own that she
understood the mystery as little as the newspapers did.  And all the
papers were very keen on any scent.

"But, Mr. Gawthrop, they both said something that I could not
understand.  Mr. Hunt said that he was sure that your son would soon
go to Europe, and not ten minutes after Sibley said the same of Mr.
Hunt."

The explanation seemed easy to the old man.  Both of them imagined
that his rejected rival would travel.  The rest must be a
coincidence.  He went away to the police, and the police invented
many hypotheses.  They were learned in the matter of disappearances
in San Francisco.  But none of the hypotheses seemed to fit.  Both
the young men were wealthy, and it seemed certain that one or the
other of them was bound to succeed with the lady in question.
Nevertheless, old Gawthrop learnt some things about his son which
surprised him.

There was one newspaper which suggested that they might have been
shanghaied.  It was the _Chronicle_, on which Gardiner worked.  For
though he had made up his mind to do very little more work on any
paper, he was loyal to his flag so long as he hoisted it, and meant
that the _Chronicle_ should be able to sail in at the last and say,
"We told you so."  And when every one else on the paper failed in
getting an interview with Miss Atherton, he volunteered to try.

"You must understand, however," he said to his editor, "that even if
I see her I don't promise to write anything about it.  You see, I
knew her a little when she was in New York two years ago, and though
I'm not in the gilt-edged crowd she adorns here, I owe her something."

And Edith Atherton saw him, although she did consider a man on a
newspaper little, if anything, higher than a deck-hand in a Bay
ferry-boat.  She had never understood what he was doing in California
at all.  He went to interview her, and she interviewed him.

"I'm here as a man from the _Chronicle_, Miss Atherton," said
Gardiner.  He spoke almost timidly.  It was the first time he had
ever been alone with her.

"You are not here as a man from the _Chronicle_" said Edith.

"You mean----?" said Gardiner eagerly.

"I mean that," said Edith--"just that.  You are here as the Mr.
Gardiner I met in New York."

Gardiner's eyes sparkled.  He looked at her, smiled, and then laughed.

"But mayn't I ask you anything about the--mystery?" he asked.

"I don't see what it has to do with me," replied Edith.  "But I see
your paper says they have been shanghaied?  Tell me what that means."

He explained: no man knew better.

"You mean they have gone to sea as common sailors?" she exclaimed.

"That is the theory of the _Chronicle_" said Gardiner drily.  "If we
are right, it will do them both good."

"I'm rather sorry for Sibley Gawthrop," she said; but Gardiner was
not so young as to be discouraged by her sympathy for Sibley.

"May I be sorry for him too?" asked Gardiner, boldly.

Edith Atherton stared at him and dropped her eyes.

"How is your father?" she asked irrelevantly.  "He was a very nice
old man."

"So he is," replied Gardiner, "the only trouble was that he believed
he owned me.  He came from the South, and was one of the few
Southerners, who, on losing their slaves, played their own game on
the men from the North.  He and I quarrelled about a subject in which
I considered he had no right to interfere."

There were no obvious implications in the way he spoke, and Edith
Atherton saw none.

"What was that?" she asked, innocently enough.

"His view was that I shouldn't marry until he let me.  I wanted to
marry you."

Edith gasped a little and took hold of her chair as she bent forward.

"Indeed, Mr. Gardiner."

"And I still want to, Miss Atherton.  And as the lady whom he wished
me to marry was married a month ago, I think he will forgive me, if I
ask him.  It was always understood, even when we parted, that he
would reinstate me as his partner if I succeeded for myself."

"And have you succeeded?" asked Edith with bent head.

Gardiner rose from his chair and went towards her.

"That is for you to say," he cried.

And when he returned to the office he handed in no more than a
paragraph.  It was considered in some quarters an adequate
explanation of the disappearance of Hunt and Gawthrop.  Yet it was
not adequate for Edith.  It was only when she became Mrs. Gardiner,
and they were on their way East, that her husband told her the truth.

"I'm really very sorry now," said Gardiner.  "Nevertheless, it will
do them lots of good.  They required it.  You never really liked
either of them, Edith?"

"No-o, not that way," said his wife.  But she said to herself, "Next
day I should have accepted Mr. Gawthrop!"

They ran into Laramie Junction, that horrible centre of sage-brush
and alkali.  A bitter wind drove dust against the windows of their
car.

"It's a ghastly prospect," said Gardiner, as he looked out on the
prairie.

"It would have been," replied his wife absently.

"It would have been?" asked her husband in surprise.

"I mean it is, of course," said Edith hastily.




THE MAN FROM ABO

William, or, as he was usually called, Bill, Noyes, was a citizen of
the United States, and, like most citizens of that part of the
Western Continent, he was accustomed to do as he "darned pleased."
But besides being an American citizen, he was an American shipmaster,
and such are accustomed to having their own way and giving no one
else a chance.  He explained this to the crowd in the _State of
Oregon_, bound from San Francisco to Bordeaux, with wine which was
going to be converted into claret.  For this was some time ago,
before the wine-growers there had it all their own way in the French
Republic.

"You're dogs, and I'm the man with the whip.  You're hogs, and I'm
your driver.  I'm boss, and captain, and governor, and congress, and
the senate, and the president, and don't any of you forget it!  If I
hadn't been brought up religious I'd go a step farther still.  Let me
hear a growl out of you, and I'll make you wish you were in hell.  Do
your duty, and I'll make this ship paradise.  It shall be as sweet to
you as a full roost of chickens to a buck nigger on a dark night.
I'm a good man, I am, and I know it.  You'll know it, too.  I'll see
to that.  Now then, Mr. Bragg, start them to.  D'ye see that damned
Dutchman?  He looks as if he didn't understand 'United States.'  Jolt
him on the jaw for me!"

And the unfortunate Dutchman, who was really a Finn from Abo, got a
crack with a closed fist that made him see more stars than even the
American flag of liberty can boast.

"What for?  I done nuttin'," he yelled, as he put his hand to his
head; but never another man opened his mouth.

"Say another word," said Bragg, "and I'll ram a belaying-pin
crossways down your throat," and this was the beginning.

"Very good indeed," said Noyes.  "Now every one understands, Mr.
Bragg, and no one can say everything warn't explained to them
clearly.  Work the drink out of 'em.  I'm for a holy, healthy, happy
crew."

And Noyes went below for a drink.  He was, as he often said, a sober
man.

"One tot every time the bell strikes, and two at eight-bells, and as
a man can't sleep and drink, I take what I should take before I turn
in."

But none of the men for'ard got as much as a teaspoonful even after
shortening sail, or on Saturday nights.

"We've struck it rich," said the crowd, when they got together in the
second dog-watch.  "We've struck it rich.  There's no fatal error
about that.  You can see it with half an eye a mile off.  The
skipper's a holy terror!"

"Ya! ya! we've got to yoomp!" said a real Dutchman, and he was put in
the place proper to a Dutchman at once.

"Speak when you are spoken to," said the English and American seamen
all at once.  "These Dutchmen are getting past a joke, bullies."

"So they are," said old Mackenzie, a shellback of the briniest
description.  "When I was a boy, if one of them opened his mouth too
wide we used to put something in it."

"What did you put in?" asked the eager Anglo-Saxons.

"Oh, anything as he couldn't eat," said Mac.  "A ball o' twine or a
swab.  I remember one Dutchy as _would_ talk----"

But just then the man from Abo came in, and though the crowd was not
really sympathetic, they asked him how his jaw felt.  It appeared
after all that he understood "United States" sufficiently well when
it was to the point: that is, when it concerned his duty or the talk
that goes on in a foc'sle.  A word beyond these limits opened his
eyes and shut his mouth.  He was then like a waiter fresh from the
Continent, who can talk in English about food, and food only.

"Never you mind, Dutchy," said one of his own watch.  "Mebbe, after
all, it'll do you good.  If Bragg hammers you, we won't."

Even such consolation was better than none, and Dutchy was truly
grateful.  The lot of a "Dutchman" at sea is not always beer and
skittles.  But even an Anglo-American crowd can have sympathy when
they are like to want it themselves.  They certainly found that Billy
Noyes's notion of a paradise made Tophet look cool, even as depicted
to a sad and sober sailor in a waterside Bethel.  They wanted
Bordeaux badly, and under the influence of that desire and the
stimulation supplied by the officers they lost no time in getting
there.  And as they were a fine lot as men go, few of them came in
for actual hammering.  The slowest got that always, and the man from
Abo was the man to get it.

It was marvellous to observe how much he got and how little it seemed
to hurt him.  He was knocked down once a day and twice on Sundays.
Even when he got a chance to be first up aloft he never seemed to
know it.  The only way he had of getting down first was to fall.  And
once when he did so without seriously damaging himself Bragg hammered
him for doing it.

"What you're after is to be laid up; I see that," said Bragg.  "But
let me catch you at it."

And Hans shook his head under Bragg's heavy hand till he forgot he
had bruises on him the size of a soup-plate.

"Dutchy's a fair wonder," said the crowd, rejoicing in their own
freedom; "he's taking the whack of all us and never turns a hair.
We'll have to get up a subscription for him.  Ain't he just tough?
Say, Dutchy, suppose you and Bragg or you and the old man was to have
a fair set-to, d'ye think you could down either of 'em?"

"Ya," said Hans from Abo very soberly, "neider of 'em can't hurt me
mooch."

"He's made of teak," said the admiring crowd.  "Now, there ain't one
of us wouldn't be bunged up if we'd been hit about like him, and he
ain't got a mark."

"It reminds me of a Chinky I fo't once," said one of the men.  "I
knocked him down seven times, and then two other chaps chucked him
out.  And next morning he was as cheerful as you please and never
fazed; not a mark to him.  I give him ten cents for a drink to let me
look at him close.  Dutchy's just such another, he's a real tough, so
he is."

Hans's marvellous capacity for being hammered was soon noted aft.

"Why don't you take a pillow to him?" said Noyes, with a sneer.  "To
see you hit him, Bragg, makes me tired, and you used to be a hard
man, too."

The mate was injured in his tenderest point.

"I done my best," he said suddenly.  "I carn't help it if the swine
is made of injy-rubber.  I pretty near skinned my knuckles on him
yesterday, and he's as fresh as paint to-day.  Try him yourself, sir."

"I hired you," retorted Noyes; "but if I do get at him you'll see
something fly."

They were well to the nor'ard and eastward of the Horn before Noyes
happened to try, and it was blowing a snorter from the south-west.
As the men came down on the poop after stowing the lower
mizzen-topsail, Hans, having gum-boots on, slipped and fell against
the skipper.  The next moment Hans was on his back and Noyes had his
knuckles to his own mouth.

"Great Scott!" said Noyes, with a face like a comic door-knocker or a
Japanese grotesque, and he turned about and went below.

"It serves him right," said Hans.  "Oh, no, I ain't hurt.  It is
nuttin'."

And though he showed nothing, not even a slight puffiness on his high
cheek-bone, the skipper wore a mitten on his right hand for days.
Noyes even conceived a certain respect for the Finn.

"I thought I'd hit a bollard," he said.  "I ought to have hit him on
the jaw, or where he keeps his wind."

By dint of these object-lessons Hans gradually got an easier time.
If Bragg ever went for him he kicked him, and the marks he made, if
he made any, did not show, for Hans came on board clothed, and never
undressed till they reached the Line in the Atlantic.  There he took
a bath.  As he said, he always made a point of having some buckets of
water thrown over him every time he crossed the equator homeward
bound; perhaps he thought it kept him fresh.  But by then Bragg was
even tired of kicking him.  Nothing made him go slower or faster.  He
went at the pace he had been born to, and he never learnt anything
more than he had known at seventeen.  If there is any truth in the
transmigration of souls, Hans must have been a tortoise and was
destined to "jump up" again as a sloth.  But once, after a long slow
month of provocation, he hit the real Dutchman from Amsterdam, and
that native of Holland "went to sleep" for two hours.

"He's the on'y Dutchman I ever had any real respect for," said the
crowd each for himself.  But of course he was a Finn, and, as every
one knows, a Finn triumphs over his disabilities as a Dutchman by
virtue of strange gifts.

"No, I don't believe none of that jaw about Finns and witchcraft,"
said old Mackenzie, "but I own there's always somethin' strange about
a Finn.  Now, all Hans's nature seems to 'ave run to 'ardness.  What
a saddle 'is skin would make!"  For Mac had spent two years in the
Australian bush, and was never tired of relating his strange
experiences on horseback.

And presently the _State of Oregon_ began, as the men said, to smell
land.  It was off Finisterre that Noyes proved the man from Abo could
bleed; for the skipper never forgot that he had been knocked out in
one round by knocking down a 'Dutchman.'  The thought rankled, and
when Hans was at the wheel when the wind was light out of the
north-east the skipper's temper, ragged at a contrary wind when he
had made a record passage so far, led him a little astray.  For, as
he often said, "It's all right marking men when one's bound home and
when they've time to get well bound to Yewrope, but I like to leave
'em without no visible sign to say you've larrupped 'em when I'm
bound East."

In the United States there is very little respect for a man who can't
take care of himself, but some Europeans have silly notions.  It's
not uncommon even to find a consul who doesn't understand that
sailors are no good unless they are in a state of mutiny or near it.
There is no end to the foolishness of some consuls, as Captain Noyes
often complained with natural bitterness.  So when, after he had
cursed Hans twice for his steering, he jammed the brass end of his
telescope right between the man's eyes and cut him badly, he was
quite sorry for it.  You see, he had almost got to believe that the
man from Abo couldn't be hurt.  But a brass telescope properly
applied makes four neat little cuts, one on the forehead, one on the
bridge of the nose, and one on each eyebrow, as a little
consideration of the human race and the nature of a circle will show.
The blood ran down into Hans's eyes, and Bragg had to walk to the
break of the poop and bellow:

"Relieve the wheel!"

And two days afterwards the _State of Oregon_, owing to a favourable
change of wind, lay at Bordeaux.  As soon as she did, the entire crew
got too much to drink, and not even Noyes and Bragg could handle
them, though the skipper was, as he had averred at the beginning of
the passage, captain and congress and president all rolled in one.
The only people who could handle them were the French police, and
they had their work cut out.  The next day, as it is the habit of
Frenchmen and Spaniards and the like to let the consuls fix up all
difficulties with foreign crews if they can, the American Consul was
called on to arbitrate in the matter.  And for the nonce the American
Consul was the English one, for Mr. Schuyler had gone to Paris on
what he described as business, but what no Puritan would have called
such.  And this is where the man from Abo came home, as one may say.

Mr. Johnson, then British Consul at Bordeaux, was a fine man with a
clear skin, a merry eye, a knowledge of the world, and a hard fist.
As a young man he had been amateur champion of the middle-weights in
England, and though he was now a heavy-weight, he was almost as quick
as he had been at twenty-two.  He had a sense of fair play which was
almost disgusting to masters of merchantmen, and a sense of humour
which sometimes got him into trouble with the Foreign Office.  For it
may have been noticed that among the English Civil Service the only
humour, which is, one has to own, rather sardonic, is to be found in
that part of it which deals with the Income Tax.  The very moment the
consul had the shamefaced crew before him, and saw the officers, he
knew where the trouble lay, and he thought of the boxing gloves with
which he often whiled away an idle hour when the vice-consul felt
"good."

"Well, now, well, what's the trouble?" asked the consul.

And Noyes told him where he thought it lay.  Noyes was as smooth as
bad butter, and had a heartiness about him which would have made a
child cry for its mother.  All the time he was talking, and the men
were muttering that he was a liar, the consul was taking the crowd
in.  He spotted many marks and bruises on them, all come by honestly
among themselves or given them without malice by the gensd'armes; but
when his eye lighted on the man from Abo it stayed there.

"A comfortable ship, yes, yes," said the consul, "of course, of
course!  And a tough crowd to be sure.  Here you, come here!"

And as the others saw that he meant Hans, they shoved him forward.

"That's a nice face you've got," said Mr. Johnson.  "God bless my
soul you've been running against something.  Now I should say--I
should say--yes, by Jove, you've been running against a telescope?"

And Hans nodded.

"Who gave you that?"

Noyes looked as black as his coat, but the Finn pointed at him with
his finger.

"The cap'en, sir."

The consul looked at them both.  He noted that they were both of a
size, both probably of the same weight, and both looked as hard as
nickel steel.  His eye sparkled with a certain joy.

"Did you, Mr. Noyes?"

It enraged Noyes to be given his proper handle.

"And he deserved it," he said angrily.

"If you wanted to hit him you should have done it with your hand.
But perhaps he would have been too much for you without a weapon,"
suggested the consul suavely.

"Not he," retorted Noyes incautiously.

Mr. Johnson looked at them both, and shrugged his shoulders.

"I believe he would lick you in a fair fight," he said with a slight
sniff, and Noyes exploded.

"I could pound him to almighty smash in two minutes," he roared.

And the crowd began to see fun "sticking out a foot."  They edged up
closer and lost their shamefaced look.

"He could knock hell out of you," said one of them from behind, and
the consul said:

"Hush, hush!"

Then he turned to Hans.

"Could he lick you, my man?"

"Not mooch," said Hans defiantly, and a subdued cheer rose from the
men behind.

"Do you hear that, Mr. Noyes?" asked the consul.  "Oh yes, you hear
it.  Well, it's all highly irregular, of course, but you understand
you did wrong to hit him with a telescope, or with anything for the
matter of that, and as the ship seems to have been anything but a
comfortable one, I suggest that you apologise to this man at any
rate, and pay him off."

"Ya, ya," said Hans, who at any rate understood the last three words.

"I apologise?" gasped Noyes.  "By God, I'll lick him first and do
that after!  Apologise!"

"Either that, or I shall back him up in proceeding against you.
Unless you would like to settle it with him now in my courtyard, with
a couple of pairs of boxing gloves," said Mr. Johnson persuasively,
and the crowd behind hummed applause.

"Lick him," said Bragg, "and lick him good."

He was not anxious for the job himself, but was as eager to see the
scrap as the consul.  It is so seldom that an officer gets a chance
of seeing a real fight, and besides, he did not love Noyes at all.

And inside of two minutes the inner court saw the skipper of the
_State of Oregon_ and the man from Abo stripped to their waists and
singlets.

"Pick your own seconds," said the consul gleefully, "and I'll be
referee and timekeeper."

He forgot there was such a thing as the Foreign Office; but he did
not forget some of the habits and customs of Western America.

"There's to be no biting, or gouging or kicking," he said, "and when
a man goes down he'll have ten seconds to get up in."

The next moment Noyes sailed in.  He was not a bad fighter; he could
hit hard at any rate, and sometimes stopped a blow.  His previous
acquaintance with Hans's head led him to go for his body, and that
was perhaps a little in his favour, for the Finn was all abroad all
the time.  At first Hans hit so slowly that when he first got there
Noyes was gone, but he gradually got a little quicker.  When I was
eleven stone weight I used sometimes to box with a man who weighed
seventeen.  In the first round I used to hit him when and where I
pleased; in the second I had to look out; in the third he used to get
there once and finish me for the day.  Like Hans, he grew quicker as
he grew warmer, and yet Hans never touched the skipper at all in the
first round.  He was knocked all over the place, and to any outsider
it looked a thousand to one on Authority.  But the odd thing was that
Hans's ribs seemed as hard as his head, and his wind was
invulnerable.  Twice he went down, but he rose quick enough, and when
time was called no one puffed but the skipper.

In the second round they clinched, and when the consul called on them
to break away Hans fairly threw Noyes from him.

"He'll lick him yet," said Johnson, and now Noyes had to defend
himself.  Any one of Hans's blows would have killed a cow if it had
fairly landed.  The skipper, half in despair, hit at his opponent's
head, and got there.  He stopped Hans, but was jarred to the
shoulder.  When he recovered he landed, and Hans went down to rise
again like a fives ball on a hard court, and though Noyes jabbed him
again and again straight in the face, he never left any mark or blood
behind him.  And every blow of the Finn's came nearer, quicker, more
fiercely.  Time was called in time to save the captain.

"I believe he'll do me," said Noyes.

"I believe it, too," said Bragg.  It was not an encouraging remark to
get from one's second, and Noyes felt hurt.  While he was sitting on
Bragg's knee Hans was walking round feeling his arms and talking.

"Ya, ya, I lick him goot," he said.  "I lick him goot."

And now he was warm and like a flail.  Both arms were equally good;
he went at his man round arm, and missed him ten times by a mere
shave.  In the middle of the round Noyes, who knew he was going,
worked his glove off in a close rally, and before the consul could
intervene he struck Hans full in the face with his bare fist.  It was
a timed blow that ought to have stopped a rhinoceros, and Hans threw
his head up, as the consul jumped in.

"Nein, nein," cried Hans, "take de oder off.  I fight him so.  I
fight goot now."

And so he did, for though the glove was put on again, there was no
sign of his having been hit, and Noyes's right hand was useless.  A
left-hander finished it, and Noyes went off his feet.  When he came
to he was tired and weary and found himself in the hospital with a
bandaged jaw.

"I tell _you_ there's always suthin' queer about a Finn," said the
crowd.  "It took brass to draw blood from him, now didn't it?"

And the man from Abo was paid off.

"I fights goot that day," he said, when he got his money, and the
consul, who is now a magistrate at home, says there wasn't a bruise
on him.




THE SCUTTLING OF THE _PANDORA_.

There are ships with good and evil reputations, independent of the
men who own or sail them.  Some, it would seem, had their keels laid
on a lucky day, others were assuredly--

  Built i' th' eclipse and rigged with curses dark.


Many have furrowed all the seas of ocean and have lost no lives, and
have cost neither owner nor underwriters money.  But some there are
(and those who follow the sea will know them) which have never
achieved a single passage without being nearly cast away, without
killing or maiming men.  For such a ship the very shoals themselves
decrease in depth through the unlucky set of some abnormal tide: for
them the 'trades' spring up far south and die in premature calm ten
degrees from the Line.  They are well built and highly classed, and
yet spring leaks.  Derelicts lie in wait for them: they are chased
through every sea by cyclones and tornadoes.  In them the luck of
lucky men is finally of no avail: seamen fall from aloft in calms;
the gear gives without notice; stores rot in spite of care.  They
break the heart of all who have to do with them: in them blood is
suddenly spilt: in them strong men waste and die.

Such a ship was the _Pandora_, and, as she lay off Sandridge, at
anchor in Hobson's Bay, there was not a sailorman in Australia who
would have shipped in her from choice.

"I've heerd the skipper of one ship I was in talk about the nature of
vessels," said Jack Marchmont, as he sat with his mate on the end of
the pier, "and _he_ allowed that ships was like men, launched with
nat'ral dispositions.  He talked a lot of scientific guff about
deviation, and what he said was as ships had this or that deviation
all according how their heads was p'inted on the stocks.  If she
p'inted sou-west, she played quite a different game with the compass
to what she would have done if she had laid nor'-east.  And I believe
him.  The _Pandora_ must have p'inted straight for hell, Joe."

"She is a bad 'un, I own," said his mate, "but it ain't a matter of
ch'ice.  Ships is few, and men is plenty, and it's a case of 'John,
get up and let Jack sit down' with you and me.  If she was a wuss
ship than she is, and a wetter (though this ain't a wetter), and if
she killed as many as the plague, I ain't goin' to work Tom Cox's
traverse ashore any more.  And there ain't no _beer_ in the
scuttle-butt neither, and Bailey looks at us as black as black.  I'm
goin' to ship," and Joe Rennet rose.

"I ain't got a farden to jingle of a tombstone," he said.

"Mark me," said Jack gloomily, "you'll never have no tombstone if we
ships in the _Pandora_.  'Tain't her way to run any man's relatives
into _that_ expense."

But Joe shrugged his shoulders.

"Mebbe this trip'll break her luck; and you've got to ship along.
'Cause why?  We've on'y one chest atween the two of us.  Cheer up,
old son.  Why, I'd ship in the _Leander_, and they say she killed and
drownded seventy men in five years.  Blow me, I've got to the p'int
that I'd ship in a blooming diving-bell!"

And three days later the two men, with twelve others who were just as
deep in debt to the boarding-house keepers, signed on for the
_Pandora_, bound for London.  They went on board that very night.
The mates kept a keen eye on them: they knew the ship's reputation
and more than once men who had come on board at night had disappeared
by the morning.  The first few hours in any ship, as in any other
kind of work, are the most trying, and the first sight of a damp and
empty foc'sle is for ever discouraging.  For all the _Pandora's_
crowd from London had "skipped" in Melbourne.

"And right they was," said more than one of the new crowd, "for one
of them was killed, and two was drowned, and another will walk lame
for the rest of his life."

But when the sun came up over the low brown hills to the eastward,
and the daylight danced upon the landlocked waters of the great bay,
they turned to with more cheerful hearts.  The summer had spent two
of its golden months, but the sky was clear, and a warm north wind
blew.  The ship was clean, and yet not too clean.  It did not suggest
the interminable intolerable labour of an American ship, all brass
and bright-work.  And as the new crew hove up the anchor they found
the windlass was no heart-breaker.

"Give it her, boys," said the mate, and they slapped the brakes up
and down with a will.

"I reckon the crowd aft are pretty decent," said Joe, as he jumped up
aloft to loosen the fore-topsail.  "Oh, I dessay she ain't 'arf bad."

And as the crew allowed, there was little to complain of about the
way the _Pandora_ was found.

"She ain't like our last ship," was Joe's comment.  "Every time she
'it a sea out o' the common she'd shake shearpoles off of 'er, as a
dog shakes water."

But Jack Marchmont was not consoled.

"I ain't denyin' that the owners and the old man do their best," he
said, "but if they rove silk gear and bent silk sails, they'd not
alter the nature of her.  I'll feel safe when I grinds gravel under
my heels, and not till then."

They told each other dolorous tales of the ship when they ate, and in
the second dog-watch, which was all their own.  And yet the wind was
fair and put them through Bass's Strait, and well to the south and
east, day by day.

"It's too good to last," said Jack.

Aft much the same feeling existed, though no one knew it for'ard.
Yet Captain Rayner was a melancholy man, and seemed very soft to
those whom luck had ever sent to sea with American ship-masters.  He
had sailed three voyages in the _Pandora_ and had read the burial
service every passage.  Once he had read it to the devouring sea as a
grave, when five men had gone at once from the foc'sle head; but he
never spoke of the ship and her ways, even if he always came on deck
with the air of a man who expects bad news.  Though he never knew it,
his look at last got upon the men's nerves.  But their nerve was
shaken from the first; superstition had hold of them.  They called
him 'Jonah.'

"It's a black look out with such a skipper," said some, and though
the evil history of the _Pandora_ ran far back beyond Rayner's time,
they attributed her present ill-luck to him.

The mind of the seaman is a limited mind.  He is a child, a creature
of arrested development.  The infinite sameness of the sea, its dull
and at times appalling lack of interest, do not move him to growth.
The romance of it is for those who know it not, or for those who pass
beyond the borders of its great roads of travel.  For the merchant
seaman the ocean is a method of toil; only disaster or the fear of it
gives it savour.  And the work is the same for ever.  They dwell on
little things, are easily pleased, easily hurt.  In such minds grows
superstition, in such panic fears flourish if they are not held in a
strong hand.  Though both the mates were good men, they were young,
and Rayner was weak.

The very fairness of the weather, though fair weather is common
enough off the Horn in summer, got on the crew's minds, when they
came in sight of the Diego Ramirez Islands and presently hauled up
for the north.

"None of us ever passed these 'ere Daggarammarines in weather like
this," they said, as they shook their heads.  "Why, it might be a
mill-pond!"

And when, three days later, a change of weather sent a south-west
gale howling after them, they shook their heads again.

"Ah, she's goin' to get it now.  This'll make up for it.  Who's goin'
first?"

They found out now what the _Pandora_ could do to make their lives
unhappy.  She was both weatherly and fast, but her lines for'ard were
such that she never rose to any sea she struck till green water
poured over the top-gallant foc'sle two feet deep.  She shipped one
sea at midnight that ripped off the scuttle-hatch and poured solid
water into the foc'sle that washed the men out of the lower bunks.
The hatch went overboard, and it was morning before any one dared go
on the foc'sle head to spike planks down in place of it.  All night
long a cataract poured down on them, and water spurted in through the
plugged hawse pipes.  Soon there was not a dry blanket in their den;
steam rose from the wet-packed sleepers.  It was 'all hands' at four
bells in the middle watch, and they went on deck to shorten sail.
Not a man wore oilskins; they had nothing to keep from getting wet.
Even Joe, who was the most cheerful man for'ard, fell to growling.

"Call this a ship?" he said.  "She's scared of the top of the sea and
wants to dive so's to get out o' the wet.  Stow the foresail, is it?
I reckon the old man is goin' to heave her to while he can.  He can't
have much heart to do it with a fair wind."

And perhaps Rayner had little heart.  But if he had little, the mate
was cheery enough.  He bellowed loudly, and the men jumped.

"Now then, haul taut the lifts," he roared.  "That'll do.  Weather
clew-garner!  Ease off the sheet a bit!"

They slacked away the tack and hauled up the weather-gear.

"Now then, lee-gear, and jump aloft and furl it."

The night was black and the wind heavy in increasing squalls.  Even
with the foresail hanging in the gear, and bellying out in great
white bladders, she still cut the seas like a knife, and scooped the
seas in over her head.  Blankets and bags washed out on deck, for
there was no door to the men's quarters, only a heavy canvas screen
from the break of the foc'sle.  And from aloft dull foam gleamed as
the _Pandora_ drove the seas asunder.  The men sprang into the
weather-rigging with the second mate leading.  As he came to the
futtock shrouds, he laid hold of the foremost shroud with his right
hand, and jumped for the band of the yard-truss.  His foot slipped
and his hand-hold gave.  He snatched with a yell at the top-gallant
sheet leading through the top, but was too late to grasp and hold it.

"By God, the _Pandora's_ luck," said the men in the rigging as they
heard him reach the deck.  And when the foresail was stowed and they
went down they heard the man was dead.  They found the _Pandora_ made
heavy weather still, when she was brought to the wind, and she only
lay to decently when she was stripped to the goose-winged
main-topsail.  The men went into their wet and devastated den in
gloomy silence.

"'Ere's a bloomin' pretty general average," said Joe, as he found his
chest, which was also his chum's, staved in by the impact of an
iron-bound one which had fetched away from its lashings.  But no one
growled, and no one answered him.  The young second "greaser" had
been liked by them.  They sat and smoked in gloomy silence, and only
half of the watch below turned into the driest bunks.  They thought
that the _Pandora_ had begun, and though she lay to easily enough,
few slept.  They were afraid of their ship; she was unlucky,
accursed, an evil personality.  About her was the odour of death.

"Case was a good boy," they said, "and would have been a fine officer
by-and-by.  Well, our turn next."

Every time the _Pandora_ bowed a wave the hawse-holes still spurted;
the foc'sle deck ran wet and glimmered darkly in the feeble light
from the stinking lanterns swinging on both port and starboard sides.
The air was saturated with moisture, rank sweat ran down the beams,
dripping blankets swayed from the edges of unoccupied bunks; the men
were damp, subdued, unhappy.  Now, as the ship lay to, the wind no
longer swept into the foc'sle under the flapping screen by the
windlass, but still eddies of swift cold air shook it, and the men
shivered under their oilskins, that they wore now for warmth.

"I wish I'd never seed her," said Jack Marchmont, and Joe did not
answer his mate.  Not ten words were spoken till the wheel and
look-out were relieved at four o'clock.  Both were idle jobs, for the
night was still as dark as death, and the wheel with a grummet over
its spokes looked after itself.

"Oh, it's all solid comfort, this is," said Jack.  "I wonder whose
wet clothes will be for sale next?"

They buried the second mate in the grey waste of sea before they put
the _Pandora_ before the moderating gale.  The mate read the burial
service, for Captain Rayner stayed below.  The steward told the men
in a whisper that he was ill.

"He's all broke up," he said, "I seed him cryin' like a child.  And
no wonder; this is a wicked ship.  I wish I'd left her in Melbourne."

And some of the men frowned.  They did not like to hear him call the
_Pandora_ wicked.  For the ship was, in its way, alive; it was
possessed.  They wished to propitiate it; superstition had them by
the throat.

But they were easier when the body was committed to the deep.  And
the mate assumed a more cheerful air when he had carried the Prayer
Book into his berth and came on deck again.  They put the ship before
the wind and loosed the foresail.  But though the wind had taken off,
the sea was very heavy, and the _Pandora_ wallowed riotously.  She
took in seas over both rails.  Thrice that day she filled the
main-deck, and but for the life-lines rigged right from the foc'sle
to the poop many men would have been washed overboard.  As she ran
with the wind on the port quarter, she sometimes dived as if she
would never come up.  The galley fire was out, and could not be
lighted; the men drank water and ate biscuit.

"Hogs, dogs, and sailors," they said.  Every time the vessel dived
they held their breath.

The mate had a hard time, for Rayner was incapable of work, and she
carried no apprentices.  Forward there was no one capable of an
officer's work; there was no broken skipper whom drink had destroyed,
no young fellow with a second mate's "ticket."  So Mr. Gamgee
practically slept on deck in snatches till he slept almost as he
stood under the weather-cloth in the mizzen rigging.  He prayed for
moderate weather, for a sight of the sun.  But though the gale was
less, it still blew hard, and the sky was black and the racing scud
low, and the sun was not seen by day or a star by night.  On the
third day Gamgee staggered as he walked.

"If the old man can't come on deck soon I'll have to cave in," he
thought.  He shook his fist at the ship.  "I wish I'd never seen her.
She's a man-killer."

That night when the starboard watch was called at twelve the wind
took off suddenly, and the _Pandora_ pounded in the wallow of the sea
like a bull-buffalo in a bog.  She shipped seas over both rails; the
racing waves astern came and slapped their crests at the man at the
wheel; she scooped up the sea forward every stagger she made.  She
had been running under the reefed foresail and the fore and main
topsails close reefed.  Now they shook the reefs out.  Gamgee was
alert and alive, but his nerves half-betrayed him.  He jumped from
the poop to the main-deck, and back again.  He wanted to be mate and
second mate and skipper too.  And as the fresh canvas took hold of
her, she slapped at the rising sea, dived into it, and as the wind
bellowed almost as keen as ever, the man at the wheel lost his nerve,
gave her too much helm, snatched at her, gave her too much again, and
almost broached her to.  And then the mate was again on the main-deck.

Some one heard him say "O God!" as the Atlantic fell on board; but no
one ever heard him say anything again.

The water filled her from rail to rail.  She shuddered, and then
lifted slowly, and as she ran once more before the wind and rolled,
she poured out the sea on either side.  The main-deck ports were
burst outward, the gear floated in inextricable tangles, a
four-hundred-gallon tank, lashed under the poop ladders, broke from
its lashings and took charge of the deck.  In the black darkness and
the imminent danger men cried out.  Some cried to their mates and
were answered, some were not answered.  With the mate three other men
had gone.

And then she cleared herself once more, and the men came together
under the break of the poop.  Joe asked for Jack Marchmont; but Jack
had saved any one from the expense of a tombstone.

"And I over-persuaded 'im to ship in her.  Oh, she's a bloody ship."

Then one man said:

"Where's Mr. Gamgee?"

Joe ran up to the poop.

"Mr. Gamgee! sir!"

"He ain't here," said the man at the wheel.  "Oh, Joe, what is it?"

"'Twas your doin'," cried Joe.  "There's two gone, and Jack with 'em,
and Mr. Gamgee!"

And the man at the wheel fell all ashake.  His face was ashy in the
feeble glimmer of the binnacle light.

"Come and take her, Joe," he implored.  "Oh, the swine she is.  I'm
in a tremble, Joe.  She's too much for me."

And tragedy heaped itself on tragedy.  The steward came on deck, and
heard that the mate was gone.  He lost his head and ran in to the
captain crying; he was ludicrous, horrible, speechless.  And Rayner
sat up in his bunk, and fell back without knowing what had happened.
He never knew, for though the steward shook him feebly, his failing
heart had failed, and brandy never brought him to.  The steward ran
on deck blubbering.

"I believe the captain's dead," he sobbed.

And the two boldest of the men took off their caps and went into the
cabin humbly.  A greater than their commander was there.  They stood
in silence, fiddling with their caps, and stared at the quiet white
face upon its pillow.

"Oh yes, he's dead," they whispered.  They backed out respectfully;
they were stunned, and were adrift; they were all masterless men;
authority had been removed; they faced the unknown with dread.  They
saw now that they had rested on others' knowledge.  What did they
know of the sea after all?

They gathered on the poop.

"What?" said Joe, who was at the wheel.  "Him gone too.  And we----"

They all understood.  They were in peculiar isolation, in danger.
And what would be said if they saved themselves and the ship?

"'Twill look as if we'd mutinied," said Joe.  But he had a touch of
natural authority in him.  "As soon as it gets light we'll write out
a true account of it and sign it, all of us.  And we'll make for the
nearest port."

They were all quiet men, Englishmen and Dutchmen, and there was no
more drink in the ship than that in the medicine chest.  The steward
drank what remained of it.  And in the morning all the remainder of
the crew met on the poop.  At first they had a certain natural
reluctance to use that portion of the ship, but if they did not meet
there the steersman could not take his share in the talk.  But Joe
did most of the talking.

"I reckon the nearest port is Buenos Ayres," he said.  "This mornin'
I took the liberty of lookin' at the chart, and there ain't nothin'
'andier as is common talk with sailormen.  If we stand north we'll
about 'it it off; or any ways, we'll 'it on the track of steamers
makin' for it, and we might get the lend of a hofficer to take us in.
What do you say, mates?"

Some nodded, some shrugged their shoulders, and some said, "Buenos
Ayres?  Oh yes, that'll do as well as another."

"And I've took the liberty," said Joe solemnly, "of borrowin' the
log-book from down below, and I've wrote out a plain account of all
this 'ere, as I said last night.  For it's best put down, and it's
ships' law as everythin' serious should be wrote out in the log-book,
and nowheres else.  Shall I read it?"

And he read out what he had written:--


"Three days back, as told in the log, Mr. Case, the second mate, fell
from the foreyard as we was goin' to take in the foresail, and was
killed.  He was buried accordin' the next day, while we was 'ove to.
And last night in the middle watch, as all 'ands was makin' sail, the
wind 'avin' fallen light sudden and the sea bein' very 'eavy, we
shipped an 'eavy sea over the port rail as washed Mr. Gamjy overboard
with Jack Marchmont, A.B., Andrew Anderson, A.B., and Thomas Griggs,
boy.  And the captain bein' ill, as the log says, died sudden on
'earing it, and is now lyin' dead in 'is cabin.  Whereas, there bein'
no officer in the ship, all 'ands assembled as aforesaid, declares
this is the truth, the 'ole truth, and nothin' but the truth, so 'elp
us Gawd.  And we intends makin' for bonus airs, or monty Vidyo."


And one by one the crew signed this simple statement, as it was held
down on the top of the signal locker by its author.  Those who could
not write--and there were three who could not--made their marks when
Joe signed for them.

"Whatever 'appens to this blasted 'ooker, we must keep 'old of this
log," said Joe.  "For supposin' any hother disaster befell us, as
seems likely enough, and we took to the boats, it would look very bad
for us, without a single officer."

It was a cold and unhappy day for them as they drove to the
north-east, still under short canvas.  But the weather broke a
little, and they set the topgallant-sails at last.

"So long as we don't pile her up on the Falklands we should do," said
the one other man on board beside Joe who seemed capable of taking
responsibility.  He was from Newcastle, and was, of course, known as
Geordie.  Naturally enough he and Joe divided the watches between
them, and the remainder of the crowd sheltered their uneasy minds
under their strength.

"I suppose if we bring her in we might get something extra," said
Geordie, the day they buried the captain.

But Joe took him by the arm and led him for'ard from the wheel, at
which a patient Swede stood.

"Geordie, old man, do you want to bring her in?" he asked.

"Why, yes, I suppose so," said Geordie.  He stared at Joe.  "What do
you mean?"

Joe broke out strangely and struck his fist upon the rail.

"I want to see 'er sink," he said savagely.  "I want to see 'er go
where she's put so many good men.  What right 'as we to save 'er to
do more 'arm?  It ain't alone as she's drownded my chum or the
others, but she 'as a black record that ain't finished unless we
finish it.  She's strong, and will go on killin' for twenty years,
Geordie.  She'll make money for them as doesn't care, but what of the
likes of us?"

He was greatly moved.

"She's caulked with men's lives, and painted with their blood!" he
cried passionately.  "I'd rather she sunk with me than sailed the
seas any more."

And Geordie fidgeted uneasily

"That's true, mate, but----"

"Aye," said Joe, "I know.  If we scuttled 'er 'twould look bad, and
it's bad enough as it is; but 'tis a good deed, if we done it, and it
should be done, and I'll tell you 'ow to do it."

He leant upon the rail and spoke earnestly, in a low voice.

"It won't do, I own, to scuttle 'er at sea, not even if we let on she
leaked and logged it day by day.  But if we sunk 'er in the Plate or
in the bay at Monte Video, 'twould do right enough, and I've a plan
for that.  I made it out in the morning watch.  'Tis as easy as
eatin', and easier a deal than eatin' ship's biscuit.  Down below in
the lazareet I'll bore 'oles in her, three or four, and plug 'em on
the inside, about a foot below the water-line.  And I'll over the
side and plug 'em outside, then I'll draw the inside plugs.  D'ye
see?"

And Geordie saw.

"You needn't know it.  I can do it my lone," said Joe.  "And do it I
will.  If we gets off 'er safe she shan't kill no more.  When we're
out of her--and none of us will stay, as you know--she'll lie at
anchor waitin' for a new crowd, and I'll come out to her in a boat
and sink the murderin' old 'ooker right there."

"There'll be a ship-keeper on her," said Geordie.

"As like as not 'e'll on'y be a Spaniard," replied Joe simply.  "And
even if not----"

Even if not, one more was but one.

The next day the weather moderated, and the _Pandora_, being then, as
they reckoned, well clear of the Falklands, stood due north for Cape
Corrientes with the wind almost on the port beam.  That night Joe
went down into the lazaret with an auger, and bored three holes in
her weather side.

"Good stuff and sound," he said, as he sweated over his task.  "She
might 'ave floated for hever."

When he drew out his auger he found that the sea raced past the hole
and sometimes flipped water into it.

"On a level keel she'll have 'em about two foot under," he said.  He
plugged that hole and bored two others.  When he had plugged these,
he went on deck again.  There was not a soul awake on her but Geordie
and the man at the wheel.  She was going now very sweetly, and making
ten knots: they were running into fair weather.  But she lay over far
enough to make it easy for Joe to go over the side, while Geordie
slacked him down from a pin in the rail.

"It's done," said Joe, as he came on board.  "She'll kill no more."

It seemed to him that he was doing a good deed, for the _Pandora_ was
cruel.

And a week later, though they had sighted no land, the colour of the
water had changed curiously, and looked a little reddish.  When they
drew some on board it was evidently not so salt as the sea, and they
knew they were in the flood of the mighty Plate.  The airs were now
light and westerly; they hauled their wind and stood for the
north-west.  But still the man on the look-out on the main-royal-yard
saw no land.  In the afternoon they sighted the smoke of a steamer
heading about west by south on their starboard beam.  They laid their
main-topsail to the mast and hoisted the Jack, union down.

That night they were at anchor off Monte Video, and in the morning
they told their story to the British Consul.  But one and all refused
at any price and at all costs to go on board of the _Pandora_ again.
Joe spoke for all of them.

"We'll go to gaol sooner, sir," he said, as he stepped in front of
his mates, twiddling his cap nervously, "though we wishes to say so
respectfully, sir.  She's a man-killer, and it's better a sight to be
in the jug, or on the beach, than to be drownded.  She's killed my
own mate, and more than 'im.  And so far back as hany of us ever
'eard of 'er, she's been at the same job.  If you please, sir, we'd
rather go to gaol."

They slept that night ashore, but not in gaol, and next day the
owners cabled from England for a new crew to be shipped in her at any
price.  But no price could induce men to go in her.  And on the third
night she sank at her moorings in fifteen fathoms of water, and
carried her ship-keeper to the bottom.

"I told you she'd kill another man yet," said Geordie.

But Joe shook his head.

"I done what was right.  And after all, 'e was on'y a Spaniard, as I
said."

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68919 ***