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Cappy Ricks Retires: But That Doesn't Keep Him from Coming Back Stronger Than Ever

by Peter B. Kyne · English · Gutenberg #6020 · 652,360 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cappy Ricks Retires: But That Doesn't Keep Him from Coming Back Stronger Than Ever

Author: Peter B. Kyne


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6020]
                Most recently updated: March 12, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPPY RICKS RETIRES: BUT THAT DOESN'T KEEP HIM FROM COMING BACK STRONGER THAN EVER ***




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Online Distributed Proofreading Team







CAPPY RICKS RETIRES

_But that doesn't keep him from coming back stronger than ever_

By Peter B. Kyne


[Illustration: But, in time, Cappy would find her a rich husband]



THE ILLUSTRATIONS


But, in time, Cappy would find her a rich husband

_(Excerpt from the log of Capt. Matt Peasley:)_ “I am alone on the
ship--all the rest are now dead--”

He always shouted when telephoning

“Two million dollars!” cried J. Augustus Redell






CAPPY RICKS RETIRES



CHAPTER I


If you have read previous tales of the Blue Star Navigation Company and
the various brisk individuals connected therewith, you will recall one
Michael J. Murphy, who first came to the attention of Cappy Ricks at the
time he, the said Murphy, was chief kicker of the barkentine _Retriever_
under Captain Matt Peasley. Subsequently, when Matt Peasley presented
in his person indubitable evidence of the wisdom of the old saw that
you cannot keep a good man down, Michael J. became skipper of the
_Retriever_. This berth he continued to occupy with pleasure and profit
to all concerned, until a small financial tidal wave, which began with
Matt Peasley's purchase, at a ridiculously low figure, of the Oriental
Steamship Company's huge freighter, _Narcissus_, swept the cunning
Matthew into the presidency of the Blue Star Navigation Company;
whereupon Matt designed to take Murphy out of the _Retriever_ and have
him try his hand in steam as master of the _Narcissus_.

The same financial tidal wave had swept Cappy Ricks out of the
presidency of the Blue Star Navigation Company--presumably far up the
beach to a place in the sun, where he was to bask for the remainder
of his old age as president emeritus of all his companies. However, if
there was one thing about Cappy you could depend upon absolutely it
was the consistency of his inconsistency. For, having announced his
retirement, his very next move was to bewail his inability to retire.
He insisted upon clinging to the business like a barnacle to a ship,
and was always very much in evidence whenever any deal of the slightest
importance was about to be consummated. Indeed, he was never so
thoroughly in command as when, his first burst of enthusiasm anent the
acquisition of the _Narcissus_ at fifty per cent. of her value having
passed, he discovered that his son-in-law planned to order Mike
Murphy off the quarter-deck of the _Retriever_ onto the bridge of the
_Narcissus_, while an unknown answering to the name of Terence Reardon
had been selected for her chief engineer.

Cappy listened to Matt Peasley's announcement; then with a propitiatory
“Ahem! Hum! Harump-h-h-h!” he hitched himself forward in his chair and
gazed at Matt over the rims of his spectacles.

“Tell me, Matt,” he demanded presently, “who is this man Reardon? I do
not recall such an engineer in our employ--and I thought I knew them
all.”

“He is not in our employ, sir. He has been chief engineer of the
_Arab_ for the past eight years, and prior to that he was chief of the
_Narcissus_. It was Reardon who told me what ailed her. She's a hog on
coal, and the Oriental steamship people used to nag him about the fuel
bills. Their port engineer didn't agree with Reardon as to what was
wrong with her, so he left. He assures me that if her condensers are
retubed she'll burn from seven to ten tons of coal less per day.”

“Hum! So you're going to give him the job for telling you something our
own port engineer would have told us after an examination.”

“No, sir, I'm going to give him the job because he has earned it. He
gave me some very valuable information about the wretched condition of
her electric-light plant and a crack, cunningly concealed, in the after
web of her crank shaft--”

“Oh, by thunder,” piped Cappy, “that's worth knowing! Ship a new crank
shaft, Matt, and save the Blue Star a salvage bill sooner or later.”

“All that inside information will not only save us money in the future,”
 Matt continued, “but it enabled me to drive a closer bargain
when dealing with MacCandless, of the Oriental Steamship Company.
Consequently Terence Reardon gets the job. He's only making a hundred
and fifty dollars a month in the _Arab_, and as he is a rattling
good man--I've looked him up, sir--I've promised him a hundred and
seventy-five a month in the _Narcissus_.”

“Oh, you've already promised him the job, eh? Mistake, Matt, serious
mistake. You say you looked him up, but I'll bet you a new hat there is
one thing about him that you failed to investigate, and that is: What
kind of Irish is he?”

“Why, regular Irish, of course--mighty good Irish, I should say. Keen,
observing, not too talkative, a hard worker, temperate in his habits and
a crackajack engineer to boot.”

Cappy settled back wearily in his chair and favored his youthful partner
with a glance of tolerant amusement.

“Matt,” he announced, “those are the qualifications we look for in an
engineer, and it's been my experience that the Irish and the Scotch
make the best marine engineers in the world. But when you've been in the
shipping game as long as I have, young man, you'll know better than
to pick two Irishmen as departmental chiefs in the same ship! I did
it--once. There was a red-headed scoundrel named Dennis O'Leary who went
from A.B. to master in the _Florence Ricks_. That fellow was a bulldog.
He made up his mind he was going to be master of the _Florence_ and
I couldn't stop him. Good man--damned good! And there was a black
Irishman, John Rooney, in the _Amelia Ricks_. Had ambitions just like
O'Leary. He went from oiler to first assistant in the _Amelia_.
Fine man--damned fine! So fine, in fact, that when the chief of the
_Florence_ died I shifted Rooney to her immediately. And what was the
result? Why, riot, of course. Matt, the Irish will fight anybody and
anything, but they'll fight quicker, with less excuse and greater
delight, among themselves, than any other nationality! The _Florence
Ricks_ carried a million feet of lumber, but she wasn't big enough for
Rooney and O'Leary, so I fired them both, not being desirous of playing
favorites. Naturally, each blamed the other for the loss of his job, and
without a word having been spoken they went out on the dock and fought
the bloodiest draw I have ever seen on the San Francisco waterfront.
After they had been patched up at the Harbor Hospital, both came and
cussed me and told me I was an ingrate, so I hired them both back again,
put them in different ships, slipped each of them a good, cheerful
Russian Finn, and saved funeral expenses. That's what I got, Matt, for
not asking those two what kind of Irish they were. Now, then, sonny,
once more. What kind of Irish is Terence Rearden?”

“Why, I don't know, I tell you. He's just Irish.”

Cappy lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if praying for the great gift of
patience.

“Listen to the boy,” he demanded of an imaginary bystander. “He doesn't
know! Well, stick your head down over his engine-room grating some day,
sing The Boyne Wather--and find out! Now, then, do you happen to know
what kind of Irish Mike Murphy is? You ought to. You were shipmates with
him in the _Retriever_ long enough.”

“Oh, Mike's from Galway. He goes to mass on Sunday when he can.”

“Hum! If he's from Galway, where did he leave his brogue? He runs to the
broad _a_ like an Englishman.”

“That's easily explained. Mike left his brogue in Galway. He came to
this country when he was six years old and was raised in Boston. That's
where he picked up his broad _a_.”

“That doesn't help a bit, Matt. He's Irish just the same, and what a
Yankee like you don't know about the Irish would fill a book. You
know, Matt, there are a few rare white men that can handle Chinamen
successfully; now and then you'll run across one that can handle
niggers; but I have never yet met anybody who could figure the mental
angles of the Irish except an Irishman. There's something in an Irishman
that drives him into the bandwagon. He's got to be the boss, and if he
can't be the boss he'll sit round and criticize. But if I want a man to
handle Chinamen, or niggers, or Japs, or Bulgarians I'll advertise for
an Irishman and take the first one that shows up. A young man like you,
Matt, shouldn't monkey with these people. They're a wonderful race and
very much misunderstood, and if you don't start 'em right on the job
you'll always be in trouble. Now, Matt, I've always done the hiring and
firing for the Blue Star Navigation Company, and as a result I've
had blamed little of it to do, considering the size of our fleet;
consequently I'll just give these two Harps the Double-O. Have Murphy
and Reardon at the office at nine o'clock to-morrow morning and I'll
read them the riot act before turning them to.”




CHAPTER II


Cappy Ricks was at his office at eight-fifty the following morning.
At eight-fifty-two Mr. Terence Reardon, plainly uncomfortable in a
ready-made blue-serge Sunday suit purchased on the Embarcadero for
twenty-five dollars, came into the office. He was wearing a celluloid
collar, and a quite noticeable rattle as he shook hands with Cappy
Ricks betrayed the fact that he also was wearing celluloid cuffs; for,
notwithstanding the fact that he bathed twice a day, Mr. Reardon's
Hibernian hide contained much of perspiration, coal dust, metal grit and
lubricating oil, and such substances can always be washed off celluloid
collars and cuffs. To his credit be it known that Terence Reardon knew
his haberdashery was not _au fait_, for his wife never failed to remind
him of it; but unfortunately he was the possessor of a pair of grimy
hands that nothing on earth could ever make clean, and even when he
washed them in benzine they always left black thumb prints on a linen
collar during the process of adjustment. He had long since surrendered
to his fate.

At eight-fifty-four Mike Murphy arrived. Murphy was edging up into the
forties, but still he was young enough at heart to take a keen interest
in his personal appearance, and a tailor who belonged to Michael's
council of the Knights of Columbus had decked him out in a suit of
English tweeds of the latest cut and in most excellent taste.

“Good morning, captain,” Cappy Ricks greeted him. “Ahead of time as
usual. Meet Mr. Terence Reardon, late chief of the _Arab_. He is to be a
shipmate of yours--chief of the _Narcissus_, you know.

“Mr. Reardon, shake hands with Captain Mike Murphy. Captain Murphy has
been in our employ a number of years as master of sail. The _Narcissus_
will be his first command in steam.”

“Terence Reardon, eh?” echoed Mike Murphy pleasantly. “That sounds like
a good name. Glad to meet you, chief. What part of the old country are
you from? The West?”

The wish was father to the thought, since Mike was from the West
himself.

“I'm from the Nort'--from Belfast,” Mr. Reardon replied in a deep Kerry
brogue, and extended a grimy paw upon the finger of which Mike Murphy
observed a gold ring that proclaimed Mr. Terence Reardon--an Irishman,
presumably a Catholic--one who had risen to the third degree in
Freemasonry.

Cappy Ricks saw that ring also, and started visibly. A Knight Templar
himself, Terence Reardon was the last person on earth in whom he
expected to find a brother Mason. He glanced at Mike Murphy and saw that
the skipper was looking, not at Mr. Reardon, but at the Masonic emblem.

“Sit down, chief,” Cappy hastened to interrupt. “Have a chair, captain.
Mr. Reardon, my son-in-law, Captain Peasley here, tells me you were
chief of the _Narcissus_ when she was on the China run for the Oriental
Steamship Company.”

Mr. Reardon sat down heavily, set his derby hat on the floor beside him
and replied briefly: “I was.”

Captain Murphy excused himself and drew Matt Peasley out of the room.
“God knows,” he whispered hoarsely, “religion should never enter into
the working of a ship, and I suppose I'll have to get along with that
fellow; but did you mark the Masonic ring on the paw of the Far-Down?
And on the right hand, too! The jackass don't know enough to wear it on
his left hand.”

“Why, what's wrong about being a Mason?” Matt protested. “Cappy's a
Mason and so am I.”

“Nothing wrong about it--with you and Cappy Ricks. That's your
privilege. You're Protestants.”

“Well, maybe the chief's a Protestant, too,” Matt suggested, but Mike
Murphy silenced him with a sardonic smile.

“With that name?” he queried, and laughed the brief, mirthless laugh of
the man who knows. “And he says he's from Belfast! Man, I could cut that
Kerry brogue with a belaying pin.”

“Why, Mike,” Matt interrupted, “I never before suspected you were
intolerant of a shipmate's private convictions. I must say this attitude
of yours is disturbing.”

“Why, I'm not a bigot,” Murphy protested virtuously. “Who told you
that?”

“Why, you're a Catholic, and you resent Reardon because he's a
Protestant.”

“Not a bit of it. You're a Protestant, and don't I love you like a
brother?”

Matt thought he saw the light. “Oh, I see,” he replied. “It's because
Reardon is an Irish Protestant.”

“Almost--but not quite. God knows I hate the Orangemen for what they did
to me and mine, but at least they've been Protestant since the time of
Henry VIII. But the lad inside there has no business to be a Protestant.
The Lord intended him for a Catholic--and he knows it. He's a renegade.
I don't blame you for being a Protestant, Matt. It's none of my
business.”

Matt Peasley had plumbed the mystery at last. He had been reading a
good deal in the daily papers about Home Rule for Ireland, the Irish
Nationalists, the Ulster Volunteers, the Unionists, and so on, and in
a vague way he had always understood that religious differences were at
the bottom of it all. He realized now that it was something deeper than
that--a relic of injustice and oppression; a hostility that had come to
Mike Murphy as a heritage from his forbears--something he had imbibed at
his mother's breast and was, for purposes of battle, a more vital issue
than the interminable argument about the only safe road to heaven.

“I see,” Matt murmured. “Reardon, being Irish, has violated the national
code of the Irish--”

“You've said it, Matt. They're Tories at heart, every mother's son of
them.”

“What do you mean--Tories?”

“That they're for England, of course.”

“Well, I don't blame them. So am I. Aren't you, Mike?”

“May God forgive you,” Mike Murphy answered piously. “I am not. I'm for
their enemies. I'm for anything that's against England. Ireland is not a
colony. She's a nation. Man, man, you don't understand. Only an Irishman
can, and he gets it at his mother's or his grandmother's knee--the
word-of-mouth history of his people, the history that isn't in the
books! Do you think I can forget? Do you think I want to forget?”

“No,” Matt Peasley replied quietly; “I think you'll have to forget--in
so far as Terence Reardon is concerned. This is the land of the free and
the home of the brave, and even when you're outside the three-mile limit
I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship _Narcissus_ is under
the American flag. The _Narcissus_ needs all her space for cargo, Mike.
There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose
into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the
purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss
politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about the
only opportunity you two will have to discuss anything; and if Reardon
wants to talk religion or politics you change your feeding time and
avoid meeting him. I've taken you out of the old _Retriever,_ Mike,
where you've been earning a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month, to
put you in the _Narcissus_ at two hundred and fifty. That is conclusive
evidence that I'm for you. But Terence Reardon is a crackajack chief
engineer, and I want you to remember that the Blue Star Navigation
Company needs him in its business quite as much as it needs Michael J.
Murphy, and if you two get scrapping I'm not going to take the trouble
to investigate and place the blame. I'll just call you both up on the
carpet and make you draw straws to see who quits.”

“Fair enough,” replied the honest Murphy. “If I can't be good I'll be as
good as I can.”

At that very instant Cappy Ricks was just discovering what kind of Irish
Mr. Terence Reardon was.

The most innocent remark brought him the information he sought.

“Captain Murphy, whom you have just met, is to be master of the
_Narcissus,_ chief,” he explained. “He's a splendid fellow personally
and a most capable navigator, and like you he's Irish. I'm sure you'll
get along famously together.”

Cappy tried to smile away his apprehension, for a still small voice
whispered to him and questioned the right of Terence Reardon to call him
brother.

Mr. Reardon's sole reply to this optimistic prophecy was a noncommittal
grunt, accompanied by a slight outthrust and uplift of the chin, a
pursing of the lips and the ghost of a sardonic little smile. Only
an Irishman can get the right tempo to that grunt--and the tempo is
everything. In the case of Terence Reardon it said distinctly: “I
hope you're right, sir, but privately I have my doubts.” However, not
satisfied with pantomime, Mr. Reardon went a trifle farther--for reasons
best known to himself. He laved the corner of his mouth with the tip
of a tobacco-stained tongue and said presently: “I can't say, Misther
Ricks, that I quite like the cut av that fella's jib.”

That was the Irish of it. A representative of any other race on earth
would have employed the third person singular when referring to the
absent Murphy; only an Irishman would have said “that fella,” and only
a certain kind of Irishman could have managed to inject into such simple
words such a note of scorn supernal. Cappy Ricks got the message--just
like that.

“Then stay off his bridge, Reardon,” he warned the chief. “Your job is
in the engine-room, so even if you and Captain Murphy do not like each
other, there will be no excuse for friction. The only communication you
need have with him is through the engine-room telegraph.”

“Then, sor,” Terence Reardon replied respectfully, “I'll take it kindly
av you to tell him to keep out av me engine-room. I'll have no skipper
buttin' in on me, tellin' me how to run me engines an' askin' me why
in this an' that I don't go aisy on the coal. Faith, I've had thim do
it--the wanst--an' the wanst only. Begorra, I'd have brained thim wit' a
monkey wrench if they tried it a second time.”

“On the other hand,” Cappy remarked, “I've had to fire more than one
chief engineer who couldn't cure himself of a habit of coming up on the
bridge when the vessel got to port--to tell the skipper how to berth
his ship against a strong flood tide. I suppose that while we have
steamships the skippers will always wonder how the vessel can possibly
make steerage way, considering the chief engineers, while the chiefs
will never cease marvelling that such fine ships should be entrusted to
a lot of Johnny Know-Nothings. However, Reardon, I might as well tell
you that the Blue Star Navigation Company plays no favorites. When the
chief and the skipper begin to interfere with the dividends, they look
overside some bright day and see Alden P. Ricks waiting for them on the
cap of the wharf. And when the ship is alongside, the said Ricks comes
aboard with five bones in his pocket, and the said skipper and the said
chief are invited into the dining saloon to roll the said bones--one
flop and high man out. Yes, sir. Out! Out of the ship and out of the
Blue Star employ--for ever.”

“I hear you, sor. I hearrd you the first time,” Terence Reardon replied
complacently and reached for his pipe. “All I ask from you is a square
deal. I'll have it from the captain wit'out the askin'.”

Thus the Reardon breathing his defiance.

“I'm glad we understand each other, chief. Just avoid arguments,
political or religious, and treat the skipper with courtesy. Then you'll
get along all right. Now with reference to your salary. The union scale
is one hundred and fifty dollars a month--”

“Beggin' yer pardon for the intherruption, sor, but the young man
promised me a hundhred an' siventy-five.”

“That was before the Blue Star Navigation Company took over the young
man and his ship _Narcissus._ Hereafter you'll deal with the old man in
such matters. I'm going to give you two hundred a month, Reardon, and
you are to keep the _Narcissus_ out of the shop. Hear me, chief--out of
the shop.”

“No man can ordher me to do me djooty,” said Terence Reardon simply.
“Tell the fine gintleman on the bridge to keep her out av the kelp, an'
faith, she'll shtay out av the shop. Thank you kindly, sor. When do I go
to wurrk?”

“Your pay started this morning. The _Narcissus_ goes on Christy's ways
in Oakland Harbor at the tip of the flood this afternoon. Get on the
ship and stay on her. It's a day-and-night rush job to get her in
commission, and you'll be paid time and a half while she's repairing.
Good-day and good luck to you, chief. Come in and see me whenever you
get to port.” And Cappy Ricks, most democratic of men, extended his hand
to his newest employee. Terence Reardon took it in his huge paw that
would never be clean any more, and held it for a moment, the while he
looked fearlessly into Cappy's eyes.

“'Tis a proud man I am to wurrk for you, sor,” he said simply. “Tip-top
serrvice for tip-top pay, an' by the Great Gun av Athlone, you'll get it
from me, sor. If ever the ship is lost 'twill be no fault of mine.”

Mr. Reardon's manner, as he thus calmly exculpated himself from the
penalty for future disaster, indicated quite clearly that Cappy Ricks,
in such a contingency, might look to the man higher up--on the bridge,
for instance.

When Terence Reardon had departed Cappy Ricks called Mike Murphy into
the room.

“Now, captain,” he began, “there are a few things I want to tell you.
This man Reardon is a fine, loyal fellow, but he's touchy--”

“I know all about him,” Murphy interrupted with a slight emphasis on the
pronoun. Unlike Mr. Reardon he employed the third person singular and
did not say “that fella,” for he had been raised in the United States of
America.

“I have already given the captain his instructions,” Matt Peasley
announced. “He understands the situation perfectly and will conduct
himself accordingly.”




CHAPTER III


A small army of men swarmed over, under and through the huge _Narcissus_
for the next three weeks, and the hearts of Cappy Ricks and Matt Peasley
were like to burst with pride as they stood on the bridge with Captain
Mike Murphy, while he ran the vessel over the measured course to test
her speed, and swung her in the bay while adjusting her compass. She
was as beautiful as money and paint could make her, and when Terence
Reardon, in calm disregard of orders, came up on the bridge to announce
his unbounded faith in the rejuvenated condensers and to predict a
modest coal bill for the future, Mike Murphy so far forgot himself as
to order the steward to bring up a bottle of something and begged
Mr. Reardon to join him in three fingers of nepenthe to celebrate the
occasion.

“T'ank you, sor, but I never dhrink--on djooty,” Mr. Reardon retorted
with chill politeness, “nor,” he added, “wit' me immejiate superiors.”

A superficial analysis of this remark will convince the most sceptical
that Mr. Reardon, with true Hibernian adroitness, had managed to convey
an insult without seeming to convey it.

“Isn't that a pity!” the skipper replied. “We'll excuse you to attend
to your duty, Mr. Reardon;” and he bowed the chief toward the companion
leading to the boat deck. The latter departed, furious, with an
uncomfortable feeling of having been out-generaled; and once a good
Irishman and true has undergone that humiliation it is a safe bet that
the Dove of Peace has lost her tail feathers.

“That's an unmannerly chief engineer,” Mike Murphy announced blandly,
“but for all that he's not without his good points. He'll not waste
money in his department.”

“A virtue which I trust you will imitate in yours, captain,” Cappy Ricks
snapped dryly. “Is Reardon working short-handed?”

“Only while we're loading, when he'll need just enough men to keep steam
up in the winches. When we go to sea, however, he'll have a full crew,
but the fun of it is they'll be non-union men with the exception of
the engineers and officers. The engineers will all belong to the Marine
Engineers' Association and the mates to Harbor 15, Masters' and Pilots'
Association.”

“He'll do nothing of the sort,” Matt Peasley declared quietly. “We have
union crews in all our other steamers, and the unions will declare a
strike on us if we put non-union men in the _Narcissus_.”

“Of course--if they find out. But they'll not. Besides, we're going to
the Atlantic Coast, so why should we bring a high-priced crew into a
low-priced market, Mr. Ricks? Leave it to me, sir. I'll load the ship
with longshoremen entirely, and we'll sail with the crew of that German
liner that came a few days ago to intern in Richardson's Bay until the
European war is over.”

“I'm not partial to the German cause,” Matt Peasley announced. “So I'll
just veto that plan right now, Mike.”

“Matt, we're neutral,” Cappy declared.

“And it pays to ship those Germans, Matt,” Murphy continued. “I confess
I'm for the Germans, although not to such an extent that I'd go round
offering them jobs just because they _are_ Germans. But the minute I
heard about that interned boat I said to myself: 'Now, here's a chance
to save the _Narcissus_ some money. The crew of that liner will all be
discharged now that she is interned. However, the local unions will not
admit them to membership and they cannot work on any Pacific Coast
boat unless they hold union cards. Consequently they must seek other
occupations, and as the chances are these fellows do not speak English,
they're up against it. Also, they are foreigners who have paid no head
tax when coming into the country, because they are seamen. They have
the right to land and stay ashore three months, if they state that it is
their intention to ship out again within that period; but if they do not
so ship, then the immigration authorities may deport them as paupers
or for failure to pay the head tax; and in that event they will all be
returned to the vessel that brought them here, and the owners of the
vessel will be forced to intern them and care for them.' Under the
circumstances, therefore, I concluded they would jump at a job in an
American vessel, for the reason that under the American flag they would
be reasonably safe; and even if the _Narcissus_ should be searched by
a British cruiser, she would not dare take these Germans off her.
Remember, we had a war with England once for boarding our ships and
removing seamen!”

“By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet,” said Cappy Ricks, “there's something in
that, Matt.”

“There's a splendid saving in the pay roll, let me tell you,” the proud
Murphy continued. “I took the matter up at once with the German skipper
and he fixed it for me, and mighty glad he was to get his countrymen off
his hands. We get all that liner's coal passers, oilers, firemen, six
deckhands and four quartermasters at the scale of wages prevailing in
Hamburg. I know what it is in marks, but I haven't figured it out in
dollars and cents, although whatever it is it's a scandal! It almost
cuts our pay roll in half.”

“Do you speak German, captain?” Cappy queried excitedly.

“I do not, sir--more's the pity. But the four quartermasters speak fair
English, and I have engaged two good German-American mates who speak
German. Reardon has shipped German-American engineers and some of his
coal passers and firemen speak fair English. I've got two Native Son
Chinamen in the galley and a Cockney steward. We'll get along.”

“And a rattling fine idea, too,” Cappy Ricks declared warmly. “Mike, my
boy, you're a wonder. That's the spirit. Always keep down the overhead,
Matt. That's what eats up the dividends.”

“Well, I wouldn't agree to it if the _Narcissus_ wasn't going to be
engaged in neutral trade, or if she was carrying munitions of war to the
Allies,” Matt declared. “I'd be afraid some of Mike's Germans might blow
up the ship.”

“Believe me,” quoth Michael J. Murphy, “if she was engaged in freighting
munitions to England, it'd be a smart German that would get a chance to
blow her up. I think I'd scuttle her myself first.”

“Well, Mike, if your courage failed you,” Cappy Ricks replied
laughingly, “I think we could safely leave the job to Terence Reardon.”




CHAPTER IV


On that first voyage the _Narcissus_ carried general cargo to northern
ports on the West Coast. Then she dropped down to a nitrate port and
loaded nitrate for New York, and about the time she passed through the
Panama Canal the Blue Star Navigation Company wired its New York agent
to provide some neutral business for her next voyage. Freights were
soaring by this time, due to the scarcity of the foreign bottoms which
formerly had carried Uncle Sam's goods to market, and Cappy Ricks and
Matt Peasley knew the rates would increase from day to day, and that
in consequence their New York agents would experience not the slightest
difficulty in placing her--hence they delayed as long as they could
placing her on the market.

On the other hand, the New York agents, realizing that higher freight
rates meant a correspondingly higher commission for them on the charter,
held off until the _Narcissus_ had almost finished discharging at
Hoboken before they closed with a fine old New York importing and
exporting house for a cargo of soft coal from Norfolk, Virginia, to
Manila, or Batavia. The charterers were undecided which of these two
cities would be the port of discharge, and stipulated that the vessel
was to call at Pernambuco, Brazil, for orders. The New York agents
marvelled at this for--to them--very obvious reasons; but inasmuch as
the charterers had offered a whopping freight rate and declined to do
business on any other basis, and since further the agent concluded it
was no part of his office to question the motives of a house that never
before had been subjected to suspicion, he concluded to protect himself
by leaving the decision to the owners of the _Narcissus_. Accordingly he
wired them as follows:

“Blue Star Navigation Company,

“258 California St., San Francisco, Cal.

“Have offer _Narcissus_, coal Norfolk Batavia or Manila, charterers
undecided, Pernambuco for orders, ten dollars per ton. Shall we close?
Answer.

“SEABORN”

2 boards, 1” x 8” and up, and too great a percentage of 4” x 6”-20' No.
1 clear. And there were mighty few clear twenty-foot logs coming into
the boom these days.

“Well, will a cat eat liver?” declared Cappy Ricks. “I should say we do
accept. Why, man, she'll make forty thousand dollars on the voyage,
and whether she goes to Batavia or Manila, we're certain to get a cargo
back.”

“All right, I'll wire acceptance,” Skinner replied, and paused long
enough to make a notation on the message: “O.K.--Ricks.” Mr. Skinner
meant nothing in particular by that. He was a model of efficiency, and
that was his little way of placing the responsibility for the decision
in the event that the wisdom of said decision should, at some future
time, be questioned. Mr. Skinner never took unnecessary chances. He
always played a safe game.

It is necessary to state here also that Matt Peasley was not in the
office when that telegram arrived from Seaborn & Company. If he had been
this story would never have been written. He was down at Hunter's Point
drydock, superintending the repairs to the steam schooner Amelia Ricks,
which recently on a voyage to Seattle had essayed the overland route via
Duxbury Reef. When Matt reached home that night he found his ingenious
father-in-law fairly purring with contentment.

“Well, Matt, old horse,” Cappy piped, “I've chartered the Narcissus.
Norfolk to Batavia or Manila with coal. Got a glorious price--ten
dollars a ton. That's what we get for holding off until the last
minute.”

“That's encouraging,” Matt answered pleasantly, and asked no further
questions. He was obsessed with the engines of the _Amelia Ricks_. It
was going to cost a lot of money to put them in condition again, and
he remarked as much to Cappy. Thus it happened that they entered into
a discussion of other matters, and the good ship _Narcissus_, having
finished discharging her cargo of nitrate, dropped down to Norfolk,
where Captain Michael J. Murphy proceeded to let a stream of coal into
her at a rate that promised to load her fully in less than four days.

It is worthy of remark, at this juncture, that Mike Murphy and
Terence Reardon had, by this time, cast aside all appearance of
even shirt-sleeve diplomacy. Diplomatic relations had, in fact, been
completely severed. Crossing the Gulf Stream, Murphy had called the
engine-room on the speaking-tube and politely queried if Mr. Reardon
didn't think he could get a few more revolutions out of her. To this Mr.
Reardon had replied passionately that if such a thing were possible he
would have done it long ago without waiting to be told. He desired to
inform Captain Murphy that he knew his business; whereupon Murphy
had replied that he never would have guessed Mr. Reardon was that
intelligent, judging by the face of him. In disgust Mr. Reardon had
replied: “Aw, go to--” and then tried to close the speaking-tube before
the captain would have the opportunity to retort. However, Michael J.
knew his own mind, and, like all the Irish, was a marvel at repartee.
Quick as was Terence Reardon, therefore, Michael J. Murphy was quicker.
Perhaps all of his message had not been delivered before Reardon closed
the tube, but the chief got enough of it for all practical purposes.

He caught one word--“Renegade”; a word so terrible that it left the
chief engineer speechless with fury, and before he could call the
skipper a baboon, the golden opportunity was gone. He closed the tube
with a sigh.




CHAPTER V


While the _Narcissus_ was loading, the Fates were keeping in reserve for
Cappy Ricks, Matt Peasley and Mr. Skinner a blow that was to stun them
when it fell. About the time the _Narcissus_, fully loaded, was snoring
out to sea past Old Point Comfort, Matt Peasley came across Seaborn &
Company's telegram in the unanswered-correspondence tray on his desk.
Five times he read it; and then, in the language of the poet, hell began
to pop!

Cappy Ricks came out of a gentle doze to find his big son-in-law waving
the telegram under his nose.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Matt Peasley bawled, for all the world as if
Cappy was a very stupid mate and all the canvas had just been blown out
of the bolt-ropes.

“Why didn't you ask me, you big stiff?” shrilled Cappy. He didn't know
what was coming, but instinct told him it was awful, so he resolved
instantly to meet it with a brave front. “Don't you yell at me, young
feller. Now then, what do you want to find out?”

“Why didn't you tell me the _Narcissus_ was to drop in at Pernambuco for
orders?” roared Matt wrathfully.

Cappy pursed his lips and calmly rang for Mr. Skinner. He eyed the
general manager over the rims of his spectacles for fully thirty
seconds. Then:

“Skinner, what the devil's wrong with you of late? It's getting so I
can't trust you to do anything any more. Tut, tut! Not a peep out of
you, sir. Now then, answer me: Why didn't you tell me, Skinner, that the
_Narcissus_ was to call in at Pernambuco for orders?”

“I read you the telegram, sir,” Mr. Skinner replied coldly, and pointed
to the notation: “O.K.--Ricks,” the badge of his infernal efficiency. “I
read that telegram to you, sir,” he repeated, “and asked you if I should
close. You said to close. I closed. That's all I know about it. You and
Matt are in charge of the shipping and I decline to be dragged into any
disputes originating in your department. All I have to say is that if
you two can't run the shipping end and run it right, just turn it over
to me and I'll run it--right!”

Completely vindicated, Mr. Skinner struck a distinctly defiant attitude
and awaited the next move on the part of Cappy. The latter,
thoroughly crushed--for he knew the devilish Skinner never made any
mistakes--looked up at his son-in-law.

“Well,” he demanded, “what's your grouch against Pernambuco?”

“Forgive me for bawling you out that way,” Matt replied, “but I guess
you'd bawl, too, if somebody who should have known better had placed a
fine ship in jeopardy for you. It just breaks me all up to think you
may have lost my steamer _Narcissus_--the first steamer I ever owned
too--and to be lost on her second voyage under the Blue Star flag--”

“Our _Narcissus_, if you please,” Cappy shrilled. “You gibbering
jackdaw! Out with it! Where do you get that stuff--lose your steamer on
her second voyage! Why, she's snug in Norfolk this minute.”

“If she only is,” Matt almost wailed, “she'll never be permitted to
clear with that German crew aboard. Pernambuco for orders! Suffering
sailor! And you, of all men, to put over a charter like that!
Pernambuco! Pernambuco! Pernambuco--for--orders! Do you get it?”

“No, I don't. It's over my head and into the bleachers.”

“I must say, my dear Matt,” Mr. Skinner struck in blandly, “that I also
fail to apprehend.”

“Didn't you two ever go to school?” Matt raved. “Didn't you ever study
geography? Why under the canopy should we waste our time and burn up our
good coal steaming to Pernambuco, Brazil, South America, for orders?
Let me put it to you two in words of one syllable: The _Narcissus_ is
chartered to carry a cargo of coal from Norfolk, Virginia, to Batavia
or Manila. At the time of charter--and sailing--the charterers are
undecided which port she is to discharge at, so they ask us to step
over to Pernambuco and find out. Now, whether the vessel discharges at
Batavia or Manila, her course in the Atlantic Ocean while en route to
either port is identical! She passes round the Cape of Good Hope, which
is at the extreme south end of Africa. If her course, on the contrary,
was round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan there might be
some sense in sending her over to the east coast of South America
for orders. But whether she is ordered to Manila or Batavia, the fact
remains that she must put in to Durban, South Africa, for fuel to
continue her voyage; so why in the name of the Flying Dutchman
couldn't the charterers cable the orders to Mike Murphy at Durban?
The _Narcissus_ is worth a thousand dollars a day, so you waste a few
thousand dollars worth of her time, at the very least, sending her to
Pernambuco when a ten-dollar cablegram to Durban would have done the
business! I suppose all you two brilliant shipping men could see was a
ten-dollar-a-ton freight rate. Eh? You--landlubbers! A-a-g-r-r-h! I was
never so angry since the day I was born.”

While Matt ranted on, Mr. Skinner's classic features had been slowly
taking on the general color tones of a ripe old Edam cheese, while at
the conclusion of Matt's oration Cappy Ricks' eyes were sticking out
like twin semaphores. He clasped his hands.

“By the Twelve Ragged Apostles!” he murmured in an awed voice. “There's
a nigger in the woodpile.”

“I very greatly fear,” Mr. Skinner chattered, “that you are mistaken,
Mr. Ricks. Something tells me it's a German!”

“Well, well, well!” Matt Peasley sneered. “Skinner, take the head of the
class. Really, I believe I begin to pick up signs of human intelligence
in this sea of maritime ignorance.”

“Oh, Matt, quit your jawing and break the news to me quickly,” Cappy
pleaded.

“Haven't you been reading the papers, sir? Australian and Japanese
warships have been hunting for the German Pacific fleet for the past few
weeks, and the Germans have been on the dodge. Therefore, they've
been burning coal. They are only allowed to remain in a neutral port
twenty-four hours, and can only take on sufficient coal and stores to
enable them to reach the nearest German port. Consequently, since they
have been afraid to enter a neutral port, for fear of giving away their
position, it follows that they've had to stay at sea--and naturally they
have run short of coal. A few steamers have cleared from San Francisco
with coal, ostensibly for discharge at Chilean or Mexican ports, but in
reality for delivery to the German fleet at sea, but even with these few
deliveries, there is a coal famine. And now that the Pacific is getting
too hot for it, the general impression is that the German fleet will try
to get through the Straits of Magellan, for, once in the Atlantic, coal
will be easier to get. More ships, you know; more ship-owners willing
to take a chance for wartime profits--and they say Brazil is rather
friendly to the German cause. We will assume, therefore, that the German
secret agents in this country realize it is inevitable that Von Spee's
fleet must be forced into the Atlantic; hence, in anticipation of that
extremity, they are arranging for the delivery of coal to those harassed
cruisers. The agent in Pernambuco is probably in constant communication
with the fleet by wireless; the fleet will probably come ranging up
the coast of South America, destroying British commerce, or some of the
ships may cross over to the Indian Ocean and join the _Emden_,
raiding in those waters. So the German secret agents charter our huge
_Narcissus_, load her with ten thousand tons of coal--”

Matt Peasley paused and bent a beetling glance, first at Cappy Ricks and
then at Skinner.

“Was she to carry soft coal or anthracite?” he demanded.

“I don't know,” Mr. Skinner quavered.

“Search me!” Cappy Ricks piped up sourly.

“I thought so. For the sake of argument we'll assume it's soft coal,
because anthracite has not as yet become popular as steamship fuel.
Well, we will assume our vessel gets to Pernambuco. If, in the meantime,
the German admiral wirelesses his Pernambuco agent, 'Send a jag of coal
into the Indian Ocean,' to the Indian Ocean goes the _Narcissus_, and
presently she finds a German warship or two or three ranging along in
her course. They pick her up, help themselves to her coal, give Mike
Murphy a certificate of confiscation for her cargo, to be handed to the
owners, who in this case will be good, loyal sons of the Fatherland and
offer no objection--”

“I see,” Cappy Ricks interrupted. “And if, on the other hand, the German
admiral says, 'Send a jag of coal to meet us in a certain latitude and
longitude off the River Plate,' and Mike Murphy objects, that German
crew on our _Narcissus_ will just naturally lock Mike Murphy up in his
cabin and take the vessel away from him! When they're through with her
they'll give her back--”

“I'm not so certain they'll have to lock him up in his cabin in order
to get the ship,” Mr. Skinner struck in, a note of alarm in his voice.
“Mike Murphy is so pro-German--”

“Ow! Wow! That hurts,” Cappy wailed. “So he is! I never thought of that.
And now that you speak of it, I recall it was his idea, getting that
crew of Germans aboard! He said it would cut down expenses. Holy
mackerel, Matt; do you think it was a frameup?”

“Certainly I do, but--Mike Murphy wasn't in on it. You can bank on that.
No piratical foreigner will ever climb up on Mike Murphy's deck except
over Mike Murphy's dead body. According to the president emeritus there
is more than one kind of Irish, but I'll guarantee Mike Murphy isn't the
double-crossing kind.”

A boy entered with a telegram. It was a day letter filed by Mike Murphy
in Norfolk that morning, and Matt Peasley read it aloud:

“Sailing at noon. Regret your failure take me into your confidence when
deciding withdraw vessel from neutral trade. If orders send me to either
of ports named in charter party and I am overhauled _en route_, that is
your funeral. If orders conflict with charter party, as I suspect they
may, that may be my funeral. Regretfully I shall resign at Pernambuco.
You know your own business, and I cannot believe you would go it blind;
if you change your mind before arrival Pernambuco, cable care American
Consul and will do my best for you.

“M. J. M.”

Gappy Ricks sprang into the air and tried to crack his aged ankles
together.

“Saved!” he croaked. “By the Holy Pink-toed Prophet! Saved! Bully for
Mike Murphy! Say, when that fellow gets back, if I don't do something
handsome for him--”

Matt Peasley's scowls had been replaced by smiles.

“God bless his old Mickedonian heart!” he said fervently. “He thinks
the coal is for that British fleet reported to be _en route_ across
the Atlantic to give battle to the German Pacific fleet; or for Admiral
Craddock's Pacific fleet in case the Germans chase it back into the
Atlantic. He knows that we know he is pro-German and for anything that's
against England--and if he makes up his mind the coal is for the British
fleet he'll resign before delivering it! By Judas, this would be funny
if it wasn't so blamed serious.”

“To be forewarned is to be forearmed,” Mr. Skinner quoted sagely. “It is
most fortunate for us that Murphy's suspicions do us a grave injustice.
We know now that he will call on the American consul at Pernambuco and
ask for a cablegram.”

“Yes, and by thunder! we'll send it,” Cappy declared joyously. “Cable
him, Skinner, to fire that German crew so fast one might play checkers
on their coat tails as they go overside.”

“I wish to heaven I could wireless him to put back to New York and ship
a new crew,” Matt Peasley mourned. “There's just a possibility that
German crew of his may take over the ship on the high seas and not put
into Pernambuco at all!”

“We can only wait and pray,” said Mr. Skinner piously.

Cappy Ricks slid out to the edge of his chair and, pop-eyed with horror,
gazed at his son-in-law over the rims of his spectacles.

“Matt,” he declared, “you're as cheerful as a funeral. Here we have this
thing all settled, and you have to go to work and rip the silver lining
out of our cloud of contentment. And the worst of it is, by golly, I
think there's something in that theory of yours after all.”

“We should always be prepared to meet the worst, Mr. Ricks,” Mr.
Skinner admonished the president emeritus. “While piracy as a practice
practically perished prior to the--”

“Skinner! In the fiend's name, spare us this alliteration and humbug,”
 Cappy fairly shrieked. “You're driving me crazy. If it isn't platitude,
it's your dog-gone habit of initialing things!” He placed his old elbows
on his knees and bowed his head in his hands. “If I'm not the original
Mr. Tight Wad!” he lamented. “But you must forgive me, Matt. I got in
the habit of thinking of expense when I was young, and I've never gotten
over it. You know how a habit gets a grip on a man, don't you, Matt? Oh,
if you had only overruled me when I decided to save money by cutting
out the wireless on the _Narcissus!_ I remember now you wanted it, and
I said: 'Well, what's the use? The _Narcissus_ hasn't any passenger
license and she doesn't have to have wireless--so why do something we
don't have to do?' Skinner, you should have known enough--”

“I am managing the lumber end of the business, Mr. Ricks,” Skinner
retorted icily.

“Never mind what you're managing. You're my balance wheel. I've raised
you for that very purpose. I've been twenty-five years breaking you in
to your job of relieving me of my business worries--and you don't do it.
No, you don't, Skinner. Don't deny it, now. You don't. I pay you to
boss me, but do you do it? No, sir. You let me have my own way--when
I'm round you're afraid to say your soul's your own. You two boys know
blamed well I'm an old man and that an old man will make mistakes. It
is your duty to watch me. I pay the money, but I don't get the service.
When Matt argued with me about the wireless you sided in with me,
Skinner. You've got that infernal saving habit, too--drat you! Don't
deny it, Skinner. I can see by the look in your eye you're fixing to
contradict me. You're as miserable a miser as I am--afraid to spend five
cents and play safe--you penurious--er--er--fellow! Skinner, if you ever
forget yourself long enough to give three hoots in hell you'll want one
of them back. See now what your niggardly policy has done for us? At a
time when we'd hock our immortal souls for a wireless to talk to Mike
Murphy and tell him things, where are we?” Cappy snapped his fingers.
“Up Salt Creek--without a paddle!”

“Come, come,” Matt said soothingly, “As Skinner says, we can only wait
and pray--”

“All right. You two do the praying. I'm going to sit here and cuss.”

“Well, we'll hope for the best, Mr. Ricks. No more crying over spilled
milk now. I'll figure out when the _Narcissus_ is due at Pernambuco and
cable Mike to let his crew go. And you know, sir, even if he should
not receive our cablegram, we have still one hope left. True, it is a
forlorn one, but it's worth a small bet. The crew of the _Narcissus_ is
not all German. There are--”

“Two pro-German Irishmen, two disinterested Native Son Chinamen and a
little runt of a Cockney steward,” Cappy sneered. “And she carries a
crew of forty, all told. Matt, those odds are too long for any bet
of mine. Besides, Reardon and Murphy hate each other. A house divided
against itself, you know--”

“They might bang each other all over the main deck,” Matt replied
musingly, “but I'll bet they'll fight side by side for the ship. Of
course we haven't known Terence Reardon very long; he may be a bad one
after all; but Mike Murphy will go far. He's as cunning as a pet fox,
and he may make up in strategy what he lacks in numbers.”

“The Irish are so filled with blarney--” Skinner began, but Cappy cut
him short with a terrible look.

“There goes some more of our silver lining,” he rasped. “Skinner, what
are you? A kill-joy? Now, just for that, I'm going to agree with Matt. A
man has got to believe something in this world or go crazy, and I prefer
to believe that the ship is safe with those two Hibernians aboard--win,
lose or draw. And I want you two to quit picking on me; I don't want the
word '_Narcissus_' mentioned in my presence until the ship is reported
confiscated by the British, if her coal is for the Germans, or by the
Germans, if her coal is for the British--which it isn't--or until Mike
Murphy reports at Manila or Batavia and cables us for orders.”

“I'm with you there, sir,” Matt Peasley declared. “I'm going to bank
on the Irish, and refuse to believe it possible for the _Nar_--for a
certain vessel flying our house-flag to be caught by the wrong warship,
a couple of thousand miles off her course and with coal, or evidences of
coal, in her cargo space. Buck up, Skinner. A little Christian Science
here, boy. Just make up your mind no man in authority is going to come
over the rail of the--of a certain vessel--and ask Mike Murphy or his
successor _pro tem._, for a look at his papers!”

“If she ever is confiscated on an illegal errand,” Skinner mourned, “and
Mike Murphy has nothing more tangible than a dime-novel tale of coercion
as an excuse for being in that latitude and longitude--well, we'll never
get our bully big ship back again!”

And for the first time in his life the efficient Mr. Skinner so far
forgot himself as to swear in the office!




CHAPTER VI


Throughout the long, lazy days that the _Narcissus_ rolled into the
South, Captain Michael J. Murphy's alert brain was busy every spare
moment, striving to discover, in the incomprehensible charter his owners
had made for him, what the French call _la raison d'etre._ Not having
any wireless, he was unable to keep in touch with the stirring events
being enacted in Europe and on the high seas, as news of the said events
filtered by him through space. While on the West Coast, where all the
newspapers are printed in Spanish, he had been equally barred from
keeping in touch with the war, although _en route_ through the Panama
Canal he did his best to buy up all the old newspapers on the Zone.

Upon arrival in New York with his cargo of nitrate, his anxiety to make
a record in his first command in steam caused him to stay on the job
every moment the _Narcissus_ was discharging, for Cappy Ricks had
impressed upon him, as he impressed upon every skipper in the Blue
Star employ, the fact that a slow boat is slow paying dividends.
Consequently, the worthy captain had had no time to acquaint himself
with the movements of the various fleets, and when he sent his day
letter to his owners on the morning of the day he sailed from Norfolk
for Pernambuco, his action was predicated, not on what he knew, but on
what he felt. The sixth sense that all real sailors possess warned him
that his cargo of coal was not destined for Batavia nor yet Manila, but
for delivery at sea to the warships of some foreign nation. Devoutly
Michael J. hoped it wasn't for the British fleet, since in such
a contingency he would be cruelly torn between his love and duty.
Consequently he resolved that, should the choice of alternatives be
forced upon him, he would steer a middle course and resign his command.

On the other hand, Mike Murphy knew Matt Peasley and Cappy Ricks to
be intensely pro-Ally in their sympathies, despite the President's
proclamation of neutrality and the polite requests of the motion-picture
houses for their audiences to remain perfectly quiet while Field-Marshal
von Hindenburg, Sir John French and General Joffre came on the screen
and bowed. Under the circumstances, therefore, Murphy found it very
difficult to suspect his owners of conspiring to deliver a cargo of coal
to the German fleet at sea. No, indeed! Matt Peasley and Cappy Ricks
were too intensely American for that; indeed, Cappy was always saying he
hoped to see an American mercantile marine established before he should
be gathered to the bosom of Abraham.

From whatever angle the doughty skipper viewed it, therefore, the tangle
became more and more incomprehensible. Cappy and Matt knew full well
the rules of the game as promulgated by their Uncle Samuel, and the dire
penalties for infraction. However, granted that they knew they could
scheme successfully to evade punishment at the hands of their own
government, Mike Murphy knew full well that no man could guarantee
immunity from the right of a belligerent warship to visit and search, or
from confiscation or months of demurrage in a prize court in the event
that his ship's papers and the course the vessel was travelling failed
to justify her presence in that particular longitude and latitude.
And with the huge profits to be made in neutral trade, it seemed
incomprehensible that a sound business man like Cappy Ricks should
assume all these risks for the sake of a little extra money. Surely
he must realize that if he sent her on an illegal errand her war-risk
insurance would not hold.

On the other hand, it appeared to Murphy that the charter must have
been consummated with the full knowledge and consent of the Blue Star
Navigation Company, for the veriest tyro in the shipping business could
not have failed to be suspicious of that clause in the charter party,
stipulating a call at Pernambuco for orders. Of course there was the
possibility that this acquiescence had been due to misrepresentation
on the part of the New York agents or rank stupidity on the part of the
Blue Star Navigation Company. But Seaborn & Company were above a shady
deal. In putting through the charter for the Blue Star Navigation
Company it might have occurred to them that all was not as it should
be, but that was none of their business. If they spread their hand and
permitted Cappy Ricks an unobstructed view, it was up to Cappy to decide
and order them to close or reject the charter. As for stupidity on the
part of the Blue Star Navigation Company, Murphy knew full well that
stupidity was the crime Cappy Ricks found it hardest to forgive. Even
had Cappy overlooked that suspicious clause in the charter, because of
his age, Matt Peasley's youth and practical maritime knowledge should
have offset Cappy's error; and even if both had erred, there still
remained the matchless Skinner, as suspicious as a burglar, as keen as a
razor, as infallible as a chronometer.

No, it just didn't seem possible that the Blue Star Navigation Company
had gone into the deal with eyes wide open; on the contrary, it seemed
equally impossible that they had gone into it with their eyes shut.
Consequently Michael J. decided to wake them up--provided they slept on
the job--and to give them an opportunity to repent before it should be
too late.

He felt very much better after sending that telegram, but as the
_Narcissus_ ploughed steadily south at the rate of two hundred and
thirty miles a day, he began to grieve because he had no wireless to
bring him a prompt reply; he berated himself for not waiting at the dock
in Norfolk until his owners should have had an opportunity to answer;
he abused himself for his timidity in questioning the judgment of his
owners, for indeed he had been content to hint when more decisive action
was demanded.

How Michael J. Murphy yearned to discuss his problem with some one as
loyal and devoted to the Blue Star Navigation Company as himself! His
dignity as master of the _Narcissus_, however, bade him refrain from
discussing the integrity of his owners with his mates--particularly
with new mates, to whom the house-flag stood for naught but a symbol of
monthly revenue. In fact, of the forty-one men under him, there was but
one with whom he could, with entire dignity, discuss the matter. That
man was Terence Reardon. But even here he was barred, for since he had
called the chief engineer a renegade, the only possible discussion
that could obtain between them now must be anything but academic;
in consequence of which Michael J. Murphy was forced to hug his
apprehensions to himself until the _Narcissus_ steamed slowly into the
outer harbor of Pernambuco. Ten minutes after she dropped her big hook
the skipper's suspicions were crystallized into certainty.

Just as she came to anchor the steward appeared on deck, vociferously
beating his triangle to announce supper--for at sea dinner is always
supper.

“Mr. Schultz,” the captain called from the bridge, “as soon as your men
have had their supper clear away the working boat. I'm going ashore.”

“Very vell, sir,” Mr. Schultz replied heartily, and the captain went
below to supper. He was scarcely seated before Mr. Schultz stuck his
head in the dining saloon window and announced that a gentleman who
claimed to represent the charterers was alongside in a launch and
desired to come aboard and speak with him.

“Let down the accommodation ladder, Mr. Schultz, and when the gentleman
comes aboard, show him round to my state-room,” the skipper answered.
“I'll meet him there in a pig's whisper. It is probable he has come
aboard with our orders, Mr. Schultz, so never mind clearing away the
boat until I speak to you further about it. Steward, set an extra cover
at my right. We may have a guest for supper.”

He hurried round to his state-room and donned a uniform coat to receive
his visitor. Mr. Schultz came presently, bearing a visiting-card upon
which was engraved the name: Mr. August Carl von Staden. Behind the mate
a sailor with a bulging suitcase stood at attention; two more sailors
stood behind the first, a steamer trunk between them, and as Captain
Murphy stepped out on deck to greet his visitor he observed a tall,
athletic, splendid-looking fellow coming leisurely toward him along the
deck. The stranger carried a large Gladstone bag.

The captain bowed. “I am the skipper of this big box,” he announced
pleasantly. “Murphy is my name.”

Herr von Staden shook hands and in most excellent English, without
the slightest trace of a German accent, expressed his pleasure in the
meeting. The captain cast a glance of frank curiosity at the bag von
Staden carried and at the baggage the sailors had in tow. Von Staden
interpreted the glance and smiled.

“I have brought you your orders, Captain Murphy. They are contained in
this envelope;” and he handed a blank envelope to the captain. “However,
I happened to know that one of the orders is to provide a berth for me.
I'm to go with you as supercargo.”

“I hadn't heard anything about such a possibility,” Mike Murphy replied,
with just a shade of formality in his tones. He turned to the first
mate: “Mr. Schultz, will you be good enough to see to it that Mr. von
Staden's baggage is stowed in the owners' suite. Then tell the steward
to see that our guest's quarters are put in order. Mr. von Staden, will
you kindly step into my stateroom here while I read these orders?”

Von Staden nodded. Entering the captain's room he sat down on the
settee and lighted a gold-tipped cigarette, while Murphy tore open the
envelope. It contained a cablegram reading as follows:

“Von Staden & Ulrich,--Pernambuco, Brazil,--Ornillo Montevideo.

“BLUESTAR.”

The captain reached for his telegraphic-code book. When decoded the
message read:

“Instruct captain to proceed to Montevideo and there await further
orders.

“BLUE STAR NAVIGATION COMPANY.”

The cablegram had been filed at San Francisco two days before. Murphy
looked keenly at his guest, who smoked tranquilly and returned the look
without interest.

“Mr. von Staden,” the captain announced, “these are strange orders, in
view of the fact that I cleared from New York for Manila or Batavia,
via the Cape of Good Hope. It would be a sure sign of bad luck to the
steamer _Narcissus_ if a British cruiser should pick her up off the
coast of Uruguay.”

Von Staden smiled. “You are very direct, captain--very blunt indeed.
This is a characteristic more Teutonic than Celtic, I believe, so I
shall experience no embarrassment in being equally frank with you. Your
cargo of coal is designed for our German Pacific fleet.”

“I guessed as much, sir. Nevertheless, my owners did not see fit to take
me into their confidence in this illegal undertaking, Mr. von Staden--”

“They did not think it necessary,” von Staden interrupted smilingly.
“In fact, Captain Peasley assured our people in New York that your
sympathies are so overwhelming in favor of our cause we need anticipate
no worry as to the course you would pursue. Moreover, in the event of a
judicial inquiry it would be an advantage if you could say that you had
had no voice in the matter, but had been instructed to obey the orders
of the charterers--of whom we are the agents in Pernambuco. Perhaps this
cablegram will allay your fears,” and he drew an unopened cablegram from
his pocket and handed it to Murphy. It was a code cablegram, signed by
the Blue Star Navigation Company and addressed to Murphy in care of von
Staden & Ulrich. When decoded it read:

“Execute the orders of supercargo if possible. It may lead to further
business. Charterers must take the risk. We do not think there is any
risk. Please remain.”

This cablegram was signed “Matt.”

“Well, captain?” von Staden queried politely.

“I don't like this business at all,” the captain replied. “My owners may
think there is no risk, but I'm afraid. England controls the seas--”

“We are in possession of the secret code of the British Navy, Captain
Murphy. We know the approximate location of every British warship in the
Atlantic and Pacific--and I assure you there is no risk.”

“Well, my boss informs me the charterers assume the risk, so I suppose
I shouldn't worry over the Blue Star Navigation Company's end of the
gamble. They know their own business, I dare say. Evidently they feared
I might want to resign, so I have been asked to remain; and when Captain
Peasley says 'please' to me, Mr. von Staden, I find it very, very hard
to refuse.”

“I am glad, for the sake of our selfish interests, my dear captain, to
find you so loyal to your owners' financial interests,” the supercargo
replied heartily. “Now that you have decided to remain, I need not point
out to you the danger of a resignation at this time. It might lead
to some unlooked-for developments which might prejudice your owners,
although I think they have covered their tracks very effectually.
Nevertheless, it is not well to take the slightest risk--”

“Without being well paid for it,” Murphy interrupted sneeringly. “My
owners have been well paid for their risk, but where do I come in? I
haven't been promised double my usual salary, or a split on the profits
of the voyage; and I know if I were to command a vessel loaded with
munitions of war I would not be asked to take her into the North Sea at
the customary skipper's wages. I'd be offered a large bonus.”

“You forget, my dear captain, that your charterers assume all the risks.
One of them was the risk that you might resign unless you received
adequate compensation. I came aboard prepared to insure that risk,” and
he touched with his toe the Gladstone bag. “What do you say to $5,000?”

Michael J. Murphy smiled. “It is pleasant, sir,” he said, “to be paid
$5,000 for doing something one yearns to do for nothing. I am not a hog.
Five thousand dollars is sufficient. How do I get it--and when?”

“In gold coin of the United States, or gold certificates of the same
interesting country, my dear captain, and you may have it immediately.”
 Again Herr von Staden kicked the Gladstone bag.

“I'll take it in gold certificates. And in order that my dear old
father and mother may have the benefit of my rascality in case anything
unforeseen should arise to prevent my return, I suggest you hand over
the boodle this minute, and I'll go ashore and express it home.”

“Captain Murphy, you are a man after my own heart--”

“I am not a born fool, sir,” Murphy interrupted. “I'm accepting this
money to be a fool, well knowing it is foolish to do it, for still I
am taking a risk. I am thirty-eight years old, Mr. von Staden, and a
skipper as young as that has his future all before him. Set him down on
the beach, however, with his ticket revoked for all time--and his future
is behind him.”

“In that event,” the supercargo replied, “you might accept my assurance,
without questioning my authority for such assurance, that you would have
no difficulty in procuring a remunerative position ashore. The firm of
von Staden & Ulrich could use you very handily.”

“Thank you, sir. Consider the matter settled. Will you come ashore with
me, sir, and dine, or would you prefer to have supper aboard?”

“I beg of you to be excused from going ashore, captain. I have much to
do to-night. The launch which brought me alongside has a knocked-down
wireless plant aboard, and I am anxious to have it set up on your good
ship _Narcissus_--a task I shall have to oversee personally. I shall
probably work all night.”

“Praise be!” Michael J. Murphy answered heartily. “We'll have some
interest in life now. We can get all the war news, going and coming,
can't we? Have you brought along an operator?”

“I am an operator,” the supercargo answered. “By the by, can you fix me
up with a wireless room?”

“There are two staterooms and a bath in the owners' suite which you will
occupy. You can take your choice.”

“Good. I shall want to sleep close to my instrument.”

He opened the bag, counted out five one-thousand-dollar gold
certificates of the United States of America and handed them to the
captain.

“The grand old rag,” Michael J. murmured. “How many rascals fight under
the flag of old King Spondulics!”

“I believe you have an Irish chief engineer,” von Staden continued.
“While I understand his sympathies are with us, still it seems only
right to compensate--”

“Suit yourself, Mr. von Staden.”

“What kind of a man is he, captain?”

“I'd hate to tell you. I've had little to do with him, but that little
was enough. We avoid each other as much as possible and never speak
except in the line of duty. I make no bones of the fact that I think
he's a scrub.”

Mr. von Staden nodded sagely. “Perhaps I'd better wait and get
acquainted with him,” he suggested, and closed his bag. Murphy
showed him to his quarters, which the steward, under the first mate's
supervision, was already setting in order; and, having decided to set
up the wireless in the sleeping-room, von Staden accompanied the skipper
round to superintend the taking on board of the wireless plant from
the gasoline launch bobbing alongside. When the equipment was finally
hoisted to the deck of the _Narcissus_, Michael J, Murphy boarded the
launch and was whisked ashore for the avowed purpose of sending to his
aged parents the fruits of his elastic conscience.

Herr August Carl von Staden stood at the head of the accommodation
ladder and smiled as the launch disappeared into the tropic twilight.
Then he said something in German to Mr. Schultz, who laughed. Evidently
it was very good news, for even the quartermaster at the companion
ladder smiled covertly. It is possible they would not have felt so
cheerful had they known that Michael J. Murphy's “dear old father and
mother” had been sleeping in a Boston cemetery some fifteen years, and
that their last words to Michael had been an exhortation to remember
that manliness and honor must be his only heritage. And as the launch
bore him shoreward, he looked back and grinned at the dim, duck-clad
figure of von Staden.

“Your agents looked me up, my hearty,” he soliloquized, “and if they did
their work half well, they told you I was an honest man. Only a crook
comes with a bag of gold to talk illegitimate business with an honest
man. I'm banking you're as crooked as a bed spring, and that there's
something fishy about this enterprise. Cappy Ricks isn't fully informed,
otherwise he wouldn't be doing business with a crook!”




CHAPTER VII


Arrived ashore, Captain Murphy hurried to the cable office, registered
his cable address, borrowed a code book and sent a code telegram to
his owner. Then, having subsidized the operator liberally to rush it,
Michael J. Murphy set out for a stroll among the limited attractions
of Pernambuco. His cablegram would get through in two hours at the very
most, and though the captain figured the Blue Star offices would
be closed when the message reached San Francisco, still he was not
discouraged. He knew the cable company always telephoned to Mr. Skinner,
at his home, all Blue Star and Ricks Lumber & Logging messages arriving
after office hours and before midnight. Naturally Skinner could be
depended upon to have a copy of the code at home, and if he didn't
Murphy knew he would rush down to the office, no matter what the hour,
and decode it there. Of course he would cable his reply immediately, in
which event it might be that the captain would have an answer shortly
after midnight or by breakfast at the latest.

He decided, therefore, to return to the cable office about midnight and
await the reply to his cablegram. He had proceeded but a few blocks from
the cable office, however, before a disturbing thought struck him with
such force as to bring him to an abrupt pause.

_His owners had cabled him in care of von Staden & Ulrich, when in the
telegram sent just before sailing from Norfolk he had instructed them
to cable him in care of the American consul._ Murphy's native shrewdness
had made him suspicious of von Staden the instant the latter had so
nonchalantly offered him a bribe of five thousand dollars, for
the proffer of a bribe of that magnitude, without any preliminary
bargaining, did not co-ordinate with Michael's idea of business.
Certainly if the charterers had his owners “fixed,” five thousand
dollars was too much money to give their captain, particularly since
there were available any number of capable rascals eager to do the job
for twenty-five hundred, and the devil take the consequences.

At the time von Staden had handed him the two cablegrams from the Blue
Star Navigation Company, no suspicion that they were forgeries had
entered the captain's mind; indeed, Matt Peasley's cablegram to him
appeared at first blush to be an answer to the telegram which Murphy had
sent his owners from Norfolk. In that telegram Murphy had mentioned his
suspicions and hinted at unwarranted risks and the possibility of
the circumstances attending the delivery of his cargo forcing his
resignation. Matt's cablegram handed him by von Staden urged him to
remain in the ship and assured him there were no risks; that if there
were, the charterers assumed them. For the nonce, therefore, the
master's mind did not dwell on any doubts as to the genuineness of
the orders he had received, even though he decided instantly as a
precautionary measure to confirm them before proceeding to carry them
out. This, however, was merely because he was suspicious of von
Staden and desired to obviate the possibility of that individual's
double-crossing the Blue Star Navigation Company.

Under the circumstances, therefore, he had considered it good policy to
appear to fall readily in line, and, the better to disarm von Staden's
watchfulness, he had demanded extra compensation. The ease with which
the bribe had been secured having crystallized his suspicions, instantly
he had cast about in his ingenious brain for a good sound excuse for
going ashore and cabling his owners. To demand his bribe in advance and
then announce that he would go ashore and express it to those dependent
upon him, in case he failed to return and enjoy it himself, seemed to
present a reason that would not be questioned and accordingly he had
done so.

Michael J. Murphy removed his uniform cap and thoughtfully scratched his
head. “Now why,” he demanded of the scented night, “did Matt cable me
in care of that German firm when he must have known I would call on the
American consul in the expectation of finding a cablegram there?” He
shook his head. “They've got us winging, Michael,” he soliloquized, “so
I suppose the only thing to do is to play safe, call upon the American
consul immediately if not sooner, and ask if he has a cablegram for us.”

And without further ado the worthy fellow sprang into a cab and was
whirled away to the residence of the American consul. Yes, the consul
had a cablegram for him, but it was at his office. Could Captain Murphy
not wait until morning?

Most emphatically Captain Murphy could not. That cablegram was
important; it meant a great deal of money and possibly life or death--

Regretfully the consul entered the cab with the captain, drove to the
consulate and delivered the cable-gram to the eager mariner, who swore
when he discovered it was in cipher and not code, for this necessitated
immediate return to the _Narcissus_ in order to obtain the key to the
cipher. He thanked the consul and sent the latter home in the cab, while
he hurried for the harbor front and the nearest boat landing. He was
filled with apprehension, for indeed there was something radically
wrong when his owners cabled him in the secret cipher of the Blue Star
Navigation Company--something the company had, doubtless, never found
occasion to do before. For while each vessel of the Blue Star fleet
had a copy of the A.L. code aboard, with the cipher key typewritten and
pasted on the second fly-leaf, not a single Blue Star skipper knew why
it had been pasted there or why the company should have gone to the
trouble of getting up any one of the hundreds of secret ciphers possible
to be developed from the A. L. Telegraphic Code. This was a secret that
lay locked in the breast of Mr. Skinner. It is probable, however, that
it had occurred to him in an idle moment that a secret cipher might
come in handy some day, and Mr. Skinner believed in being prepared for
emergencies.

The captain bade the launch wait for him at the accommodation ladder,
while he hurried round to his state-room and promptly fell to work on
Mr. Skinner's cipher cablegram. When he had laboriously deciphered it
this is what he read:

“Unaccountably failed note suspicious clause charter. Something rotten.
We are playing square game. Think plot deliver coal German fleet South
Atlantic. Discharge your German crew immediately, first notifying
Brazilian authorities and American consul. Have help when you notify
them game is off, otherwise may take vessel away from you. They will
stop at nothing; fleet desperate for coal. Cable acknowledgment these
orders; also cable when orders fulfilled. Very anxious. 'BLUE STAR
NAVIGATION COMPANY.'”

“Ah-h-h!” breathed Michael J. Murphy softly, but very distinctly. “So
that's the game, eh?” His big square chin set viciously; subconsciously
he clenched his hard fist and shook it at his enemies. “The cunning
Dutch devils!” he murmured very audibly, and at that precise instant
Herr August Carl von Staden stood in the open doorway. He coughed, and
Murphy glanced up from the translation of the cipher message just in
time to note a swift shadow pass over the supercargo's face, a shadow
composed of equal parts of suspicion, embarrassment and desperation.

“You have returned very promptly, captain,” he remarked smoothly, and
then his restless glance fell on the cablegram and beside it the scratch
pad and the two parallel columns of words scrawled on it. A man of far
less intelligence than von Staden possessed would, have realized as
quickly that the first column was composed of cipher words, while the
second column was the translation. From this tell-tale evidence his
suspicious glance lifted to the skipper's face, and he read in Michael
J. Murphy's black eyes the wild rage which no Irishman could have
concealed--which the majority of his race would not even have taken the
trouble to endeavor to conceal.

In that glance each learned the other's secret; each realized that the
success of his plans depended on the silence of the other; each resolved
instantly to procure that silence at any cost. Von Staden reached for
his hip pocket, but before he could draw his automatic pistol and cover
the skipper, Michael J. Murphy had hurled ten pounds of code book into
the geometric centre of the supercargo's face. It was the first weapon
his hand closed over, and he did not disdain it. The instant it landed
and von Staden reeled before the blow, Murphy came out of his state-room
with a scuttering rush and von Staden fired as he came. The captain felt
the sting of the bullet as it creased the top of his left shoulder;
then his right fist came up in a blow that started at his hip and landed
fairly under the supercargo's heart. Von Staden grunted once, the pistol
dropped clattering to the deck and he folded up like an accordion. For
him the battle was over.

Not so, however, with Mike Murphy. Gone to the winds now was the caution
he would have exercised had the attack been delayed two seconds longer;
forgotten was the shrewd advice of his owners to have help standing by
when the ship cleaning should commence. Michael J. Murphy thought of
nothing but blood, for the fight had started now and he was loath to
have it cease.

“You bloody murderer!” he growled. “You'd kill me and steal my ship,
would you?” And with the reckless abandon of a sailor he planted the
broad toe of a number nine boot in Herr von Staden's short ribs, hoping
to break a few, for in the process of working his way up from the bottom
Michael had fought under deep-sea rules too often to be squeamish now.
So he kicked Herr von Staden again, after which a glimmer of reason
penetrated his hot head and he walked to pick up the supercargo's
automatic pistol. Then something landed on him from above and he went
down backward. His head struck the deck with a resounding thump,
and Michael J. Murphy had a through ticket to the Land of Nod and no
stop-over privileges.

The something which had thus inopportunely dropped on Michael was Mr.
Henckel, the second mate. He had gone up on the bridge to see if
the canvas jacket had been dropped over the brightly polished brass
engine-room telegraph apparatus at each end of the bridge, in order to
protect it from the tropical dew. While thus engaged he had heard the
shot which von Staden fired at the captain, and forthwith had run across
the top of the house and peered over to discover what was happening
on the deck below. Discovering the captain in the act of kicking a
distinguished son of the Fatherland in that fragile section of the human
anatomy frequently referred to as the “slats,” the second mate had stood
a moment, immobile with horror, the while he gazed upon the fearful
scene. Then the captain walked to a spot on the deck directly beneath
the position occupied by his subordinate, and stooped to pick something
up.

Even their enemies are proud of the dash and gallantry, the utter
contempt for consequences, which animate the German going into battle,
and Mr. Henckel, second mate of the S.S. _Narcissus_, was as fine a
German as one could find in a day's travel. The instant Michael J.
Murphy stooped to recover von Staden's automatic pistol, therefore, Mr.
Henckel saw his duty and, in the language of the elect, “he went an'
done it”--the which was absurdly simple. He merely leaped down off
the house on top of the captain, and forthwith deep peace and profound
silence brooded over the good ship _Narcissus_, of San Francisco.

It is worthy of remark here that Mr. Terence Reardon who, had he been
present, might have had something to say--not that his action would
indicate that he despised Mike Murphy the less, but that he loved his
owners more--was unfortunately down in the engine-room. Consequently he
failed to hear the shot, and when he came up on deck the victims of
the affray had been collected and taken thence, a seaman with a mop
had removed the profuse evidence which Mike Murphy's rich red blood had
furnished and Mr. Schultz, the first mate, was on the bridge, while Mr.
Henckel was up on the forecastle head with his gang, waiting for the
order to break out the anchor.

Presently a seaman came up on the bridge and reported that the light in
Mr. Reardon's state-room had been out fifteen minutes. So Mr. Schultz
waited an hour longer to make certain the chief engineer would be
asleep; whereupon commenced a harsh, discordant tune--the music of
the anchor chain paying in through the hawse pipe. When it ceased Mr.
Schultz stepped to the marine telegraph; a bell jingled in the bowels of
the _Narcissus_; an instant later all the lights aboard her went out as
the first assistant engineer threw off the switch, and silently in the
heavy velvet gloom the great vessel slipped out of Pernambuco harbor and
headed south.




CHAPTER VIII


Just about the time the _Narcissus_ was kicking ahead at nine knots, in
distant San Francisco the cable company was getting Mr. Skinner out
of bed to dictate to him over the telephone a message which had just
arrived from Pernambuco.

“Ah!” murmured the incomparable Skinner as he donned a dressing gown and
slippers and descended to his library to decode the cablegram. “The
luck of the Blue Star flag still holds. That belligerent and highly
intelligent fellow Murphy has received our cablegram, sent him in care
of the American consul, and in accordance with my instructions he is
acknowledging its receipt. Hum-m-m! The first word is 'oriana.' Let
me turn to 'oriana.' Hum-m! 'I have an order presumably emanating from
blank.' Ah, yes, the next word is 'Buestar,' the cable address of the
Blue Star Navigation Company. Well, well, well, the foxy fellow! After
wiring us to cable him, he gets our cable and then cables us to confirm
it! Caution is a virtue, but this brand is too high-priced. The next
word is 'osculo'.”

Mr. Skinner turned to “osculo” and discovered that it meant “I am
ordered to--” The next word in the cablegram was “Montevideo.”

“Good heavens!” Mr. Skinner gasped. “He has received orders, presumably
emanating from us, ordering him to Montevideo! Can it be possible that
Mr. Ricks or Matt Peasley has sent him a cablegram without my knowledge?
I must read further.”

He did, and having done so he discovered that, in addition to being
ordered to Montevideo, Mike Murphy wanted to know if it was all right
and if von Staden and Ulrich--presumably German--were to be trusted;
that he would remain in command at the company's request, although
he considered such request unreasonable, even if it could be granted
without risk. Also, he wanted these instructions confirmed and was
anxiously awaiting an answer.

“Well, I'm certain of one thing,” Mr. Skinner soliloquized after
reading this extraordinary message: “Murphy has not been to the American
consul's office for the cablegram I sent him several days ago. Evidently
there is mischief afoot. However, there is nothing to be gained by
cabling him again in care of the American consul, so I'll just assume
that he has registered his cable address with the cable company; hence,
if I cable him to his cable address the message will be delivered to him
aboard the _Narcissus_. And since he says he is anxiously awaiting an
answer, I'll relieve his anxiety with all possible speed and send him an
answer immediately.”

Whereupon Mr. Skinner wasted several dollars cabling Mike Murphy that
the Blue Star Navigation had not, to his knowledge, cabled him any
instructions save those sent in care of the American consul; that von
Staden and Ulrich were unknown to him, and to be very careful not to
lose the ship. This message Mr. Skinner dictated over the telephone to
the telegraph office and asked them to rush it. Evidently they did so,
for just as Cappy Ricks arrived in the office the following morning,
word was received from the telegraph company that owing to the departure
of the _Narcissus_ from Pernambuco the night before, the Blue Star
Navigation Company's cablegram had not been delivered.

“Well, Skinner,” Cappy chirped as he sat in at his desk and lighted a
cigar, “what's the news around the shop this fine morning? Any word from
Murphy?”

“Yes--and no,” Mr. Skinner replied, and laid his information before
Cappy for perusal. Cappy read it all twice, then slid out to the edge of
his chair, placed his hands on his knees and looked at Mr. Skinner over
the rims of his spectacles.

“Skinner, my dear boy,” he said solemnly, “this is certainly hell! Cable
the American consul in Pernambuco and ask him if Murphy received the
cablegram we sent in care of the consulate. And, in the meantime, don't
whisper a word of this disquieting information to Matt Peasley. Time
enough to cross a bridge, Skinner, when you come to it.”

Mr. Skinner promptly filed a cablegram to the American consul, and just
before the office closed they got about forty dollars' worth of reply,
informing them that Captain Murphy had appeared at the consulate greatly
excited the night previous; that he had declared the cablegram awaiting
him might mean life or death--certainly a large sum of money; that he
had been given the cablegram and had gone aboard ship to look up his
cipher key. He had not returned and the ship was not in the harbor.

“Let me see the carbon copy of the cablegram you sent Murphy in care of
the American consul,” Cappy demanded. Mr. Skinner with a sinking heart
obeyed.

“Skinner,” said Cappy, “do I understand you sent this message in cipher,
which necessitated on the part of our captain a trip back to his ship
before he could decipher it? Why didn't you send him the message in
regular code? He would then have decoded it right in the consulate, or
at best he could have gone to the cable office and borrowed a code book
from them.”

“I sent it in our secret cipher,” Mr. Skinner faltered. “It was delicate
business--quite--er--an international complication, as it were, and in
the event of unpleasant developments--Well, how did I know but that some
German might be on the key at the cable office when the message arrived
there for Murphy--”

“Quite right, Skinner, my boy, quite right,” Cappy interrupted
sadly. “The only trouble with you, Skinner, is that you're too danged
efficient. You look so far into the future you're always gumming up the
present.” He sighed.

“Why, what do you think--” Skinner began, but Cappy silenced him with an
autocratic finger.

“I do not think, Skinner, I know. Had it not been for your damnable
cipher message, Murphy would have got your warning ashore instead of
being forced to go back to the ship for it. Having got it ashore he
would have taken care to warn the Brazilian authorities and they would
have been on watch and prevented the ship from leaving. As I view the
situation, Mike went aboard, deciphered your message and got ripping
mad. Von Staden and Ulrich were probably aboard, and hot-headed Mike
probably undertook to throw them overboard single-handed--and failed.
His body is doubtless feeding the fishes in Pernambuco harbor this
minute, and our lovely--big--_Narcissus_--the pride of--the Blue Star
fleet--”

“Shall I tell Captain Peasley?” Mr. Skinner faltered.

“Yes, tell him. He's bound to find out sooner or later. Skinner, I could
stand the loss of the ship, but what breaks me all up is the thought
that after forty years of honorable business my friends and my enemies
might suspect me of being a filibuster. I, Alden P. Ricks, whose
great-grandfather died at Yorktown, whose grandfather was killed at
Lundy's Lane, whose father won a medal of honor at Chapultepec--I,
Alden P. Ricks, who had to belong to the Home Guard because I was such
a little runt they wouldn't take me in the Civil War--to think that I
should attain to seventy years and even be suspected of staining the
flag of my country for the sake of a few dirty dollars--after all the
Ricks blood that has been shed for that flag! Horrible!”

Mr. Skinner turned away for, man and boy, he had spent twenty-five years
under Cappy Ricks, and he loved him. He could not bear to see the old
man suffer.




CHAPTER IX


When Michael J. Murphy returned to consciousness he found himself in his
berth, although for all the effort he made to verify this fact it might
have been Mr. Reardon's. For fully half an hour he lay there, gradually
straightening out the tangle in his intellect, and presently he was
aware that the back of his head was very sore and ached, so he put up
his hand to rub it and found a lump as large as a walnut. His right
shoulder was numb and he was unable to move it, although this would not
have surprised him had he been aware that a hundred and eighty pounds
of Teutonic masculinity had landed on that shoulder with both feet and
dislocated it. As it was, the skipper wondered vaguely if the ship's
funnel had fallen over on him. His right side ached externally, and when
he sighed it ached internally. That was a broken rib tickling his lung,
for, while he was in blissful ignorance of the reason therefor, the
chronicler of this tale can serve no good purpose by concealing the true
facts in the case. Immediately upon regaining consciousness, Herr August
Carl von Staden had insisted upon returning Michael J. Murphy's kicks
with compound interest.

“Holy mackerel!” the skipper murmured. “I feel like I've been fed into
a concrete mixer. The only injury I can account for is my left shoulder,
where that supercargo shot me.”

After spending another half hour in mild speculation on these phenomena
he was aware of an added impediment in breathing, so he put his hand
up to his nose and found it clogged with blood. His luxuriant black
mustache prevented an extended examination of his upper lip, but
nevertheless, something told him it was split. A hard foreign substance
lying between his right cheek and the inferior maxillary he concluded
must be the pit of an olive left over from dinner. Subsequently,
however, he discovered it was one of his own teeth. So he swore a mighty
oath and felt considerably better.

“This is certainly mutiny on the high seas and punishable by hanging,”
 he soliloquized. “I wonder if Cappy Ricks would know me now;” and he
reached up to turn the switch of the electric light over his berth.
He turned the switch, but the light did not come on, and while he lay
considering this state of affairs, he was aware that something that was
not his head was throbbing in the ship. He decided presently that it was
her engines. From the steady rhythmic pulsations he realized the vessel
was being driven full speed ahead; and since he could not recall having
given any orders to that effect, he was not long in arriving at the
correct answer to the riddle--whereupon Michael J. Murphy did what
every shipmaster does when he loses the ship he loves and finds himself
ravished of his reputation as a sane and careful skipper. He wept!

Those who know the breed will bid you beware the Irish when they weep
from any cause save grief or sympathy.




CHAPTER X


Cappy Ricks, who claimed to know Mike Murphy's kind of Irish, doubtless
would have been extremely gratified had he been granted a peep at the
battered, bleeding, weeping wreck of his faithful Michael as the pride
of the Blue Star fleet rolled south to meet the grey sea rovers of the
Fatherland and deliver the cargo of coal that meant so much to them. The
sight might have aroused some hope in Cappy's heavy heart, he being by
nature inconsistent and always seeing a profit where others found naught
but a deficit. However, though Cappy was variously gifted he was not
a clairvoyant, in consequence of which he spent a very sleepless night
following the receipt of that windy cablegram from the American consul.
He dined at his club, and when it was time for him to leave and his
daughter sent her car for him, he lacked the courage to go home and face
his son-in-law. So he spent the night at the club and came down to the
office about noon, hoping Matt Peasley would have recovered from the
shock by that time. The latter was waiting for him, and came into
Cappy's sanctum immediately to hold a post-mortem.

“Matthew, my dear boy,” said Cappy miserably, “this is terrible.”

“I think we should take the matter up immediately with the State
Department,” Matt replied. “There may be a United States warship in
those waters, and she could be instructed by wireless to endeavor to
intercept the _Narcissus._ We can prove a clean bill of health with
those cablegrams, and get back our ship.”

“Yes--from our own Government, of course. But, oh, Matt, if old Johnny
Bull ever gets his horns into her we can kiss her good-bye. We can't
bring forward any evidence to alibi that German crew on a ship so far
off her course and loaded with contraband.”

“Well, I know if I were skippering a British warship and picked up the
_Narcissus,_ her owners would find I was born and bred in Missouri,” the
honest Matt admitted. “By the way, have you read this morning's papers?”

“No, Matt. I've felt too blamed miserable about this _Narcissus_
affair.”

“Well, the _Scharnhorst_, the _Gneisenau_, the _Leipzig,_, the _Dresden_
and the _Nurnberg_ met a British fleet under Admiral Craddock, away down
off Coronel, Chile. The British were cleaned for fair.”

“You don't tell me!”

“I do tell you. And I'll bet my immortal soul that German fleet is
heading for the entrance to Magellan this minute. If I were a religious
man I'd be praying for clear weather so they'll find the entrance
without any trouble.”

“I hope they run ashore and drown every man Jack!” cried Cappy fiercely.

“I do not. You will note that our charterers tried to induce Mike to go
to Montevideo for orders. That was because they expected to lie snug at
Montevideo and be within striking distance of a designated meeting place
in the South Atlantic when the German fleet should pass through Magellan
from the Pacific. Remember that for several weeks the German fleet has
managed to lose itself in the Pacific, but now that the British fleet
has stumbled onto it and forced an engagement, the Australian and
Japanese cruisers will all be headed for the south coast of Chile to
make reprisal. We know the Germans are short of coal; doubtless some of
the fleet have suffered in the engagement with Admiral Craddock's
ships, so it's a safe bet they'll run into the Atlantic now and raid the
Falkland Islands--by the way, a British possession. They will hope to
find coal and stores there, which, with the cargo of the _Narcissus,_
will enable them to continue raiding.

“Of course they will try to accomplish this before England sends a fleet
to avenge Craddock--and I'm hoping the Germans will succeed, for, if
they do, they will surely be decent enough to run our _Narcissus_ into
some South American port and give us an opportunity to get her back
again. On the other hand, if the Germans delay their departure from the
Pacific, the British will surely get wind of the _Narcissus_ waiting at
Montevideo; and when she comes out they'll just naturally grab her.”

“I guess you're right,” Cappy replied gloomily; “so for the present
we're pro-German. Still, I find that a hard dose to swallow, in view of
the fact that our German crew in the _Narcissus_ has evidently taken the
vessel away from Mike Murphy.”

“I am sure they have done just that, sir; otherwise Mike would have
obeyed our orders. We know he received the orders; hence the only reason
he did not carry them out was because he wasn't permitted to do so. My
only hope is that they haven't killed him, for if he is alive and free,
he and Reardon, with the assistance of the cockney steward and the two
Chinese cooks, might--”

“Might what?”

“Might steal her back again.”

“Matt! It isn't possible, is it?”

“I'll bet Mike Murphy and I could steal her back if we had half a
chance. The odds would be forty to two against our succeeding, but a
little strategy is sometimes to be preferred to great horsepower. I
think I could do it, and I think Murphy will do it--if he only thinks of
it.”

“How? Tell me how you'd steal her back.”

“What's the use?” Matt replied wearily. “I'd have to have help. So will
Mike--and I've just remembered Mike Murphy and Terence Reardon are the
wrong kind of Irish to have together in the same ship. We did our best
to prevent it, but the odds are too long for us; the coal is for the
Germans and we hate England, so why worry? I know Mike Murphy will not
take that view of it; for my sake he'll fight to the last gasp, but he
must have help, and Reardon owes me no such allegiance as Murphy.”

“Well, he owes me something,” Cappy spoke up. “You promised him a
hundred and seventy-five dollars a month and I raised the ante to two
hundred. It was an investment, pure and simple. I was buying loyalty,
and by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I think I'll get it. Come to think
of it, there was a look in Reardon's eyes that I liked, when he took my
hand in those greasy paws of his and said he was a proud man to work for
me. Matt, that fellow is full of bellicose veins. He may not fight
for me, but he'll fight for Mrs. Reardon and the children and that
two-hundred-dollar-a-month job, for it's the first he's ever had and
if he loses out it'll be the last he'll ever get. He was telling me all
about his family and how much the job meant to him, that day we had the
_Narcissus_ out on her trial trip.”

Matt Peasley's face brightened. “By Jupiter, that puts a different face
on the situation. If Reardon is alive they might get together for mutual
protection.”

“Well,” Cappy piped up, greatly relieved to discover Matt was facing the
tragedy so optimistically, “we might do worse than hope. Wire the State
Department, Matt; and in the meanwhile, cheer up, sonny, and trust in
the luck of Alden P. Ricks. I remember Captain Noah Kendall--peace to
his ashes--used to say to me: 'Mr. Ricks, if you ever fell into Channel
Creek at low tide you'd come up with a pearl necklace wrapped round your
ankle, and you'd be smelling like a spray of lemon verbena.' Cheer up,
Matt! What though the cause be lost, the _Narcissus_ is not lost--yet.
The Celtic troops remain, and from now on my war cry is going to be--”

“Ireland uber Alles,” Matt Peasley suggested.

“You're blamed whistlin'!” said Cappy Ricks.

So Mr. Skinner was called into consultation, and he and Matt Peasley and
Cappy drew up a heart-rending telegram to the Secretary of State,
who consulted with the Secretary of the Navy, who wired the Blue Star
Navigation Company that he was sorry but he didn't have as much as a
rowboat in the South Atlantic to save their steamer _Narcissus,_ and
would they please keep still about it, since a noise like that, unless
absolutely based on facts--and he understood their wail to be based on
suspicion--would tend to create additional friction in an international
complication already strained to the breaking point. Whereupon Cappy
Ricks flew into a rage and immediately dictated a long letter to his
congressman and his senator, urging them to battle to the last trench in
the campaign for a two-power navy.

Time passed. Then suddenly the world rocked with the news of the
annihilation of the German Pacific fleet off the Falkland Islands. Cappy
Ricks and Matt Peasley read the horrid tale in the morning papers as
they sat at breakfast, and immediately both lost all interest in food.
Like two mourners about to set out for the morgue to identify the corpse
of a loved one recently killed by a taxicab, they drove down to the Blue
Star offices, where immediately upon arrival something terrible in Mr.
Skinner's face brought on palpitation of Cappy Ricks' heart.

“Skinner, my dear boy,” he chattered, “Have you any news?”

“Not yet, sir,” murmured Mr. Skinner brokenly, “but soon! The British
consul wants you to ring him up. He says he's had a wireless from
H.M.S. _Panther,_ off the Falkland Islands, and he thinks it will be of
interest to you.”

“Is my _Narcissus_ confiscated?” Cappy and Matt cried in chorus.

“I--I don't know,” Skinner faltered. “I just didn't have the courage to
pursue the matter further. The British consul said she was captured but
as for con--”

“Idiot! Bonehead!” rasped Cappy. “My _Narcissus_ is gone--gone! Oh,
Lord! Matt, you ring up the British consul--I'm an old man--Skinner, my
dear chap, forgive my harsh language. Have you a little drop of whisky
in the office?”




CHAPTER XI


Capt. Michael J. Murphy's futile tears of rage having dried almost as
quickly as they came, he crawled painfully out of his berth and lighted
a match, to discover he was a prisoner in his own state-room. He turned
another electric switch, but still the room remained in darkness.

“Sneaking out of Pernambuco with the lights doused,” he soliloquized.
Then he remembered a little stump of candle he kept in his desk for use
when heating sealing wax, so he lighted the candle and by its meager
rays took inventory of his features in the little mirror over his
washstand.

“By the Toe Nails of Moses,” he soliloquized, “somebody's sea-boots did
that, and if I ever find out who was wearing them at the time there'll
be a fight or a footrace. I'm a total wreck and no insurance--yes, thank
God! here's the ship's medicine chest.”

Having spent the greater portion of an adventurous career far
from medical aid in time of bodily stress, Michael J. was, as most
shipmasters are, rather adept in rough-and-tumble surgery. His compact
little library contained a common-sense treatise on the care of burns,
scalds, cuts, fractures and the few minor physical diseases that sailors
are heir to, and in accordance with immemorial custom he, as master of
the ship, was the custodian of the medicine chest. So he washed the gore
from his face, disinfected his split lip and patched himself up after
a fashion. The bullet wound in his left shoulder proved to be a flesh
wound, high up, so he cleaned that and decided his left wing would be
in fair fighting order within a few days. Then he undressed and said his
prayers, with a special invocation for help from his patron saint,
holy Saint Michael, the archangel. Evidently Saint Michael inclined a
friendly ear, for it is a curious fact that no sooner had his namesake
risen from his marrow bones than a curious sense of peace and comfort
stole over him. As in a vision he saw Herr August Carl von Staden
standing on the bridge, bound at ankle, knee and hand and with a rope
round his neck. From the supercargo's neck the rope led aloft through a
small snatch-block fastened to the end of a cargo derrick and thence to
the drum of the forward winch--a device which had been known to hoist
with a jerk objects several tons heavier than Herr August Carl von
Staden! This picture thus conjured in Murphy's imagination was so real
he was almost tempted to recite the litany for the dying!

“'Twould have been better for them had they killed me dead and hove my
carcass overboard,” he decided. “The fact that they didn't, but took the
trouble to carry me to my own bed and lock me in, is proof that they'll
not murder me now--so I'll not worry. I'll have every beer-drinking,
sausage-making son of a seacook begging me for mercy before the week is
out. I'll just lie low and rest up a bit, and by the time we're off Rio
I'll drop on them like a top-mast in a typhoon. Then with the help of
the two Chinamen, the steward and Reardon 'twill not be hard to run her
into Rio. I wonder if that pirate frisked me of my five thousand.” He
searched through his clothing and was amazed to discover that the bills
were still in his possession.

“I'll give them back in the morning,” he concluded. “I had a pistol in
the drawer of my desk and a rifle in that locker;” and in the wild hope
that his luck still held, he searched eagerly for both. They were gone.

Nevertheless, Michael J. Murphy smiled as he wrapped a wet towel round
his throbbing head, for he had already decided upon his plan of campaign
for regaining command of his ship, a _coup_ for which he required no
weapon more formidable than his native intelligence. As he sank groaning
into the arms of Morpheus, however, even a Digger Indian would have
realized that for the next two weeks the master of the _Narcissus_ would
be unable to defend himself against an old lady armed with a slipper.
Nevertheless, the indomitable fellow, with the amazing optimism of
his race, had already decided to attack and subdue, within four
days, thirty-six husky male enemies; which lends some color to the
oft-repeated declaration that an Irishman fights best when he is on his
back with his opponent feeling for his windpipe.

When Michael J. Murphy awoke it was broad daylight and Herr August
Carl von Staden was standing over him. The supercargo was clad in an
immaculate suit of white flannels and was looking as fresh as new paint.

“Can it be possible?” Murphy queried in amazement. “Upon my word, friend
pirate, I had flattered myself I'd tucked you away for a couple of days
at least.”

“The excellent Mr. Henckel tells me I was out for ten minutes from
that solar-plexus blow you landed,” Mr. von Staden replied in tones of
mingled admiration and friendliness. “And of course you cannot see how
sore my ribs feel. I take it rather ill of you to have kicked me.”

“Kicked you! I wish I'd killed you! And, speaking of kicks, somebody
certainly kicked me. Who was it?”

“Upon recovering consciousness,” the supercargo replied with some
embarrassment, “I was overcome with fury. You were lying on the floor of
your stateroom, where Mr. Schultz and Mr. Henckel had hurriedly tossed
you--so I came in and kicked you.”

“I never kicked you in the face,” Murphy complained.

“No, but you flattened my nose with your code book.”

“Well, I'll admit a good smack on the nose does make a man mad. But
you shot me in the shoulder. By the way, do your lungs hurt when you
breathe, Dutchy?”

“No. Do yours?”

“A slight tickle. I think you caved in my super-structure. Who jumped on
me from the top of the house?”

“The second mate.”

“He dislocated my shoulder. I can wiggle my fingers, so I know it isn't
a fracture. Suppose you take off your shoe, sit at the foot of my bed,
put your foot under my right armpit and press, and at the same time pull
on my right arm.”

“Delighted, I'm sure,” declared Herr von Staden in his charming Oxford
accent, and forthwith snapped Michael J. Murphy's shoulder into place
with great dexterity.

“Thank you,” the skipper answered, and wiped the beads of agony from his
white face. “If you'll frisk my trousers over there on the settee you'll
find the five thousand dollars you gave me to sell out my owners. I
don't want it. I never intended to keep it. I was suspicious of you and
your confounded cablegrams, and I had to have a reasonable excuse to go
ashore and cable my owners for confirmation. The bribe furnished that
excuse. I suppose you thought I'd fallen for your game.”

“I must confess your attitude completely deceived me.”

“Thanks for the compliment. And now, if you don't mind, suppose you
tell me something: Was it a German agent who put the bug in my ear about
hiring the crew of that interned German liner in San Francisco?”

“I greatly fear it was,” von Staden answered smilingly. “There is an
old man who presides over the destinies of the Blue Star Navigation
Company--”

“You mean Cappy Ricks?”

“I believe that is the name. He has a reputation for being at once the
most reckless spendthrift and the most painstaking money saver in the
world. He is always preaching economy--”

“And well I know it. If he hadn't preached it, Captain Peasley would
never have stood for this rabble your friends wished on me.”

The supercargo chuckled. “We wanted the largest vessel we could find,”
 he explained; “and when it was reported to us that the Blue Star
Navigation Company's _Narcissus_ was going from San Francisco to the
West Coast and thence to New York with nitrate, we decided to get her.
We investigated you. Your name is Michael J. Murphy; naturally we knew
you were Irish; and the Irish--your kind of Irish--are not sympathetic
toward the cause of Merry England. The same held true of your chief
engineer, Mr. Reardon. We knew of the passion of this interesting
person, Cappy Ricks, for cutting down expenses. We knew you and Reardon
were new to your jobs and would be likely to consider any reasonable
plan for eliminating expense in your respective departments, in the hope
of pleasing your employer. So the suggestion that you ship our people
was made to you and Reardon, and you accepted it with alacrity. The rest
was very easy. We got in touch with your New York agents through some
friends of ours in very good standing there, and they were enabled to
charter the ship merely by offering an extraordinary freight rate. They
purchased the cargo of coal and sold it to us at a nice profit, and we
depended on your national animosity and racial sympathy, seasoned with a
liberal cash subsidy, to enable us to deliver it. We preferred to do
the decent thing, but in the event that you proved unreasonable, we
concluded it would be wise to have our own people aboard and take the
vessel away from you. I admit we tried to trick you with the cablegrams.
Why attempt to conceal the fact now? That was unsportsmanlike. However,
if the fat is in the fire, as you Americans would say, you have put it
there by forcing my hand.”

“Very cleverly done,” quoth Michael J. Murphy. “I always admire brains
wherever I find them.”

“Men in my line of endeavor are trained to provide for all conceivable
emergencies, captain. I think I provided for all of them in the case
under discussion. Who, for instance, would conceive that you would
have taken the trouble to call upon the American consul for the
cipher message that has caused all this unpleasant row and facial
disfigurement?”

“You have read the translation, of course?”

“Naturally.”

“It is self-explanatory. You intend delivering my cargo somewhere
off the south coast of Uruguay. May I be pardoned for expressing some
curiosity as to your plans thereafter, my piratical friend?”

“Please do not call me your piratical friend.”

“Well, you're a pirate, aren't you?”

“Legally--yes. Morally--no. In times of national necessity one's
patriotism--one's duty to one's country--excuses, in the minds of all
fair men, the commission of acts which ordinarily would bring about the
deepest condemnation. I assure you that if we had had the faintest hope
of doing business in a businesslike way with your owners, we should have
been happy to pay almost any price for their ship, for she carries ten
thousand tons of coal; and you surely must realize, Captain Murphy,
how limited is the number of ships suitable for our purpose under the
American flag. We were desperate--”

“I believe Bethmann-Hollweg said something of the same nature with
regard to Belgium,” Murphy replied blandly. “A nation fighting for its
life is a law unto itself, eh?”

“Self-preservation is the first law of human nature,” the supercargo
replied.

“All right. Then we understand each other. While I decline to terminate
the war between August Carl von Staden and Michael Joseph Murphy,
nevertheless under the law you have just cited I believe I'm entitled
to breakfast. I'm starved. I figured on having supper ashore last night,
but after I received that cablegram from my owners I forgot all about
food. Now I'm remembering. I wish you'd send the steward in with about
forty dollars' worth of spoon victuals. My grinders are very loose.”

“Captain Murphy,” his jailer declared, “do you know you are a very
wonderful man?”

“All the Murphys are. It runs in the blood, like a wooden leg.”

“I really regret that you are such a wonderful man. If you were not
I'd give you the liberty of the ship. As it is, I crave your pardon for
keeping you a prisoner in your state-room. The exigencies of war, you
know.”

“Don't mention it, Dutchy. For the second time I ask you: When you have
delivered this cargo of coal, what do you intend to do with my ship?”

“We will, in all probability, give you a new crew, and the present crew
of the _Narcissus_ will go aboard one of our warships and thus remove
themselves from the reach of a possible indictment for piracy and mutiny
on the high seas.”

“Where will you get a new crew for me?”

“Our fleet has sunk a few British tramps in mid-ocean during the past
sixty days. Naturally they removed the crews first. These prisoners are
in our way, and the admiral will welcome an opportunity to load them all
aboard the empty _Narcissus_, for even prisoners of war must eat,
and the stores aboard our fleet are more valuable than these captured
seamen. In obedience to that first law of human nature they will not
object to working the _Narcissus_ into the nearest South American port.”

“Well, that's comforting; but for heaven's sake don't be too much of a
hog with my cargo. Leave me enough of it to carry my ship to the
nearest port. She burns about thirty-five tons a day--you might get the
statistics from Reardon.”

“By all means, captain. Our capture of the _Narcissus_ is merely
a deplorable national necessity. We would not lose her for you for
anything.”

“How about a British cruiser picking her up before we make connections
with your fleet?”

Herr von Staden shrugged. “That,” he replied, “would be the fortune of
war.”

“It would look like the picture of misfortune to me. And how about the
freight on this cargo you've stolen? Don't my owners get something out
of this deal to help pay expenses? You're going to play as fair as you
can with me, aren't you, Dutchy?”

“By all means. However, you are evidently in doubt as to the real
situation. Your charterers are responsible to your owners for the
freight money. If they do not pay it Mr. Cappy Ricks can sue them. As
for the cargo, we have not stolen it, since one cannot steal that which
one owns. We paid cash for this cargo before you cleared from Norfolk,
for our go-between would take no risks whatsoever.”

“I see. Well, I suppose I'll have to grin and bear it. By the way, don't
forget to take back your blood money. It's in my trousers pocket.”

Von Staden was genuinely distressed. “Are you quite certain you want
me to do that?” he queried. “Five thousand dollars is quite a sum for a
poor sea captain to toss aside so contemptuously. Why not accept it as
compensation for that broken rib, and that bullet I put through your
left shoulder, the dislocated right shoulder, the loose teeth and the
split lip? In fact, I am so certain five thousand dollars will not cover
your personal injuries I am willing to be a sport and add something to
the sum.”

Michael J. Murphy grinned--rather a horrible grin it was, owing to his
swollen lip and jaw.

“Dutchy,” he said, “listen to me: All the money in the world couldn't
make me be untrue to my salt. And if you have any lingering notion that
I'm not going to collect a million dollars' worth of satisfaction
for the way you've acted aboard my ship, I can only say that as a
fortune-teller you'll never earn enough money to keep yourself in
cigarettes. You say you have been trained to provide for all conceivable
emergencies, so I'm advising you, as a friend, to brace yourself for the
surprise of your life before you're a week older. Have you pondered the
possibility of sudden death aboard the S.S. _Narcissus?_”

“Certainly. Should we be overhauled by a British cruiser I should take
a short cut to eternity. One naturally dislikes the thought of being
hanged for a pirate. It would be a reflection on one's family. As for
sudden death by violence at the hands of any member of the crew of this
steamship, I should be willing to risk quite a sum of money that no such
tragedy will be enacted.”

“Just why?”

“Well, you'll be safe in this stateroom until I am ready to turn your
command back to you, and a man with two shoulders in the condition
of yours is hardly likely to try battering down this stout state-room
door.”

“Correct. And I'm a trifle too thick in the middle to think of crawling
through the state-room window.”

“And if,” the supercargo continued, “you have any idea of calling the
engine-room on that speaking tube and soliciting aid from Mr. Reardon,
please be advised that for the present Mr. Reardon has been relieved
from duty in the engine-room.”

“So you've got Reardon locked up, too?” Murphy queried. “Well! Well! I'd
hate to think of being locked up and that man Reardon free. However, you
need not have worried. I'd die before I'd ask that fellow for help--and
he'd die before he'd give it.”

“So I understand from the first mate. However, I thought it prudent
to guard against a temporary truce and an alliance for the common
interest.”

“Dutchy,” said the skipper, “you're pretty smart.”

Von Staden smiled most companionably. “I also took the precaution to
remove some weapons from your apartment.”

“Take anything from me, Dutchy, except my honor, my pipe and tobacco,
and my ship. Take any one of those four, however, and may the Lord
have mercy on your soul. Please hand me that book entitled _Backwood's
Surgery_ till I see what's good for a broken rib; then send the steward
for my breakfast order. After that--well, after that you might make your
will, Dutchy.”

“I did that in Pernambuco,” the delightful Herr von Staden replied, “so
your advice is wasted.”

He handed the skipper the book on surgery and went out, carefully
locking the door behind him. He returned presently and stood beside the
steward, who thrust his head through the state-room window and desired
to know the captain's choice of breakfast.

“A bowl of mush and milk, three soft-boiled eggs and a pot of coffee. No
toast. Hurry!”

When the steward returned with the order he was accompanied by Mr.
Schultz, the first mate. The sight of the traitor threw Mike into a
furious rage.

“Mr. Schultz,” he said ominously, “the things I'm going to do to you
would make the devil blush.”

“So?” Mr. Schultz replied soothingly.

“I'm going to hang von Staden. He's a pirate, and the rule of the Seven
Seas is that a skipper hangs a pirate whenever he can lay hands on him.
And you know me, Mr. Schultz. I'm a devil for etiquette aboard ship.
As for you, you're only guilty of mutiny, so I'll content myself with
tricing you up to the shrouds and flogging you with a cat soaked in
brine.”

And so on, _ad libitum, ad infinitum_.

Mr. Schultz was frankly mystified. Being a German, he did not understand
the Irish, although in view of the fact that during the war he had room
in his head for but one thing--the Fatherland--perhaps the skipper might
have pardoned his mate the glance of contempt and utter disgust which
the latter now bent upon him. Here was a man, Mr. Schultz told himself,
who, having stipulated his price and struck a bargain, had demonstrated
beyond cavil that he was not a gentleman, for he had refused to stay
bought. More, he had basely attacked his benefactor.

“So?” he repeated.

“Out, you blackguard, and leave me alone!” Murphy yelled.

“It iss an order dot I stay und see dot der steward shall mayg no
conversations vatsoefer,” Mr. Schultz declared firmly.

“Verboten, eh?” sneered the skipper. He had once been to Hamburg, and
naturally he had acquired the word most commonly used in the German
language.

“_Ja_,” Mr. Schultz replied placidly, but with an air of finality that
left no room for further argument.




CHAPTER XII


In the course of the afternoon, having chewed the bitter cud of
reflection and reviewed his situation from every possible angle, Mike
Murphy came to the conclusion that, for all Terence Reardon's religious
backsliding, he might be fairly honest in money matters and possessed
of a sense of loyalty where his owners' interests were concerned. Also,
having found Herr von Staden bluffing in one instance it occurred to the
captain he might be discovered bluffing in another--so he resolved to
investigate. Accordingly at an hour when he knew Terence should be in
the engine room he took up the speaking-tube at the head of his bed and
blew into it. But no shrill whistle signalled his desire in the engine
room, and though Michael blew until he was red in the face and his lips
hurt him cruelly, reluctantly he came to the conclusion that Herr August
Carl von Staden had the situation very well in hand and Terence Reardon
in the latter's state-room under lock and key.

He was right in one particular: von Staden had the situation very well
in hand, but he did not have Terence Reardon under lock and key. Murphy
had been balked in making connections with the unsuspecting Terence for
the reason that a little ball of cotton waste had very carefully been
tucked into the engine-room howler a few inches at the back of the
whistle at the chief's end of the tube. Hence, in the event that one
sought to whistle up the other, he merely wasted his breath. Having
learned, on the very excellent authority of both men in the case, that
they despised each other and were not on speaking terms, von Staden
decided that the chance of Terence Reardon's listening to Michael
J. Murphy's tale of piracy and mutiny was so vague as to be almost
negligible. However, he was painstaking and careful in all things and
never ran any unnecessary risks; consequently, just to be on the safe
side, he had instructed the first assistant to plug the speaking-tube
leading to the skipper's room. And in order to discourage the captain
from, seeking an interview with the chief, von Staden had told the
former that the chief was a prisoner.

Mr. Reardon was too important a personage to be deprived of his liberty
when nothing was to be gained by such action. If he could be kept in
ignorance of the state of affairs aboard the _Narcissus_, he would
continue to attend to business; if the worst came to the worst
his friendship would be a better asset than his hatred. If he grew
suspicious and demanded a showdown, Herr von Staden would give it to him
without reservation and stuff his mouth with gold; then, if the chief
declined to listen to reason, it would be time enough to lock him up.
While the supercargo would not hesitate to sacrifice his life, his
liberty, or his honor for his country, he was nevertheless desirous of
being a gentleman if accorded the opportuniby. And it must be admitted
he had found Mr. Reardon amusing and vastly entertaining, for the very
first night aboard, after Mr. Schultz had introduced him to the chief
and he had presented the latter with a good cigar, Mr. Reardon, under
the spell of the witchery cast by the sea and the night, had sat on
deck and told the German wonderful tales of the fairies in Ireland--this
while the skipper was ashore. In particular he told von Staden the tale
of the fairy queen with the iron hand.

“Her hand,” said Terence, “was as beautiful as ye'd find in a day's
thravel, an' 'twas herself that'd dhrive men crazy afther wan look at
her. An' she was good to the poor, but divii a bit av love did she have
for a redcoat. Whin she'd take human form an' a bowld buck av a British
dragoon would come making love to her, 'tis herself would say to him:
'Captain, alannah, would ye oblige me wit' a dhrink av wather?' An'
whin he turrned to dhraw the wather, she'd breathe on her hand--like
that--an' immejiately 'twould turn to iron an' wit' wan blow she'd knock
his brains out. Sure they found the bodies all over Ireland, but divil
a man, woman, or child could they ever convict av the murrder. For why?
Why, sure, the minute she'd killed a redcoat she'd breathe on her hand
ag'in, an' immejiately 'twas flesh an' blood ag'in!”

No, decidedly it would not do to imprison this excellent fellow. Von
Staden had read fairy tales as a boy, but never had he met a man who
could tell them like Terence Reardon. A hard-headed, highly intelligent
chief engineer of a big tramp steamer telling tales of the fairies! Von
Staden couldn't understand it. It was so childish--and yet there was
nothing childish about Terence Reardon. The German wondered if Terence
Reardon believed in the fairies and finally he asked him point-blank if
he did; whereupon Terence turned a solemn eye upon him and replied:

“Why, av course I do not. Do you think I'm a blubber-jack av a bhoy? But
isn't it pleasant to talk about thim whilst wan has nothing betther to
do? Sure, whin I'm lonely at night I think up new fairy tales to tell to
the childhren whin I come home from a v'yage.”

So that was the Irish of it! Strangely enough it did not occur to the
practical German that an individual with an imagination like that,
on such an expedition as the present, was the most dangerous person
imaginable to be given the freedom of the ship.

So passed twelve days and nights. Mr. Schultz kept in his pocket the key
to the captain's state-room, and consequently was always present when
the little cockney steward brought the prisoner his meals, tidied up the
state-room and made up the captain's bed. The captain spent most of
his time lying on his uninjured side and remained very quiet, for the
fractured rib, which had received no attention, was causing him a great
deal of suffering. Neither did the bullet wound in his shoulder heal
cleanly, for the reason, unknown to the captain, that the bullet had
carried with it into the muscle a fragment of Michael J.'s undershirt.

However, his physical sufferings were as nothing compared with those
he experienced mentally. He had hoped to be in fair fighting condition
within a week at the latest. Wrapped in paper and tucked away in the
back of the ship's safe he had a silver-hilted stiletto he had taken
away from a cutthroat who had tried to rob him once in Valparaiso--and
with this weapon he had planned to cut away the lock on the state-room
door. And once outside--

What Michael J. Murphy did not know was that when one has dislocated
one's shoulder one will do very little wood-carving during the three
subsequent weeks. It almost broke the skipper's heart to think he had
made a threat in good faith, and was balked from making it good.

During this entire period Mr. Reardon was going about his duties as
usual, in absolute ignorance of the state of affairs about the ship, for
he was an innocent, trustful sort of fellow, and to a born romanticist
like Terence the fairy tale which Mr. Schultz had spun at breakfast
the morning after leaving Pernambuco was not at all difficult of
assimilation. It appeared--according to Mr. Schultz--that the skipper
had gone ashore for a night of roystering, and upon returning to
the ship about midnight, in a wild state of intoxication, had become
involved in an altercation with the launchman over the fare. In the
resultant battle the skipper, in his helpless condition, was being
terribly beaten by the vicious Pernambucan; hence one could scarcely
blame him for drawing a pistol and shooting the launchman--fatally,
according to Mr. Schultz. Of course, after that, to have lingered longer
inside the three-mile limit would have been sheer insanity, so Mr.
Schultz, taking matters into his own hands, had uphooked and skipped
with doused lights from the jurisdiction of the Pernambuco police.

“And how did the skipper come out of all this?” Mr. Reardon had inquired
anxiously.

“He iss in rodden shape,” Mr. Schultz had declared. “Von of hiss angles
vos brogen, und he vos cut mid a knive--preddy deeb, but noddings to
worry aboud. Der only drouble iss der dooty of navigading der shib falls
double on der segond mate und me.”

“Make him pay ye over-time out av his own wages, the wurthless
vagabone!” Mr. Reardon had urged. “May he walk wit' a limp for the
rest av his days--bad cess to him! I've a notion, Misther Schultz, that
lad'll never comb his hair grey.”

Mr. Schultz nodded lugubriously; then he glanced up and caught the
little cockney steward staring at him so balefully, that he realized he
must have speech in private with the steward. Consequently he lingered
at table until Mr. Reardon finished his breakfast and went below;
whereupon Mr. Schultz intimated to the steward, in his direct blunt
fashion, that for the remainder of the voyage, Riggins--for that was
the steward's name--was to consider himself deaf, dumb and blind; the
penalty for reconsideration within the hearing of Mr. Reardon being a
swift and immediate excursion, personally conducted by Mr. Schultz, to
Davy Jones's locker! Following this earnest exhortation, Riggins, never
a robust person mentally or physically, came abruptly to the conclusion
that this was one of those occasions where silence, if not exactly
golden, was at least to be preferred to great riches.




CHAPTER XIII


IT may appear strange that during the days and nights Michael J. Murphy
lay on his bed of pain Terence Reardon did not once pass the little
open window of the skipper's state-room. Not, however, that the latter
watched for him, for he did not. He believed that Reardon, like himself,
was a prisoner; although, had the chief passed the window and had the
captain observed his passing, the complacence of Herr von Staden and his
patriotic company would have received a jar much earlier in the voyage.

Unfortunately, however, for Murphy's plans, the chief's stateroom was
located in the after part of the house and on the side opposite the
skipper's, and following their brief spat through the speaking-tube,
Terence Reardon had confined himself exclusively to his engine-room
and that portion of the ship along which he must of necessity pass when
going to and from his state-room. He told himself it was the part of
wisdom for one of his ferocious temper to avoid the occasions of sin.
Certainly it would be hard to pass the skipper's state-room without
looking in, particularly since in these warm latitudes the door would
probably be open; for should the skipper be within at the time, they
would peradventure scowl at each other, and he is a fool indeed who
cannot foretell the future when a thousand generations of natural
enemies exchange “the black look.” Terence remembered his boy Johnny, a
youth who, according to Mrs. Reardon, should never be a marine engineer,
but the finest lawyer that ever pouched a fat fee. And there was Mary
Agnes and Catherine Bertram. Next year they would begin taking piano
lessons, and in the fullness of time, no matter how hard the pull, both
should go to the state university and acquire the education made to fit
their father's head, but by force of circumstances denied him. And
at the thought Terence looked at his hard black hands and set himself
resolutely to face a life sentence of rattling ash hoists, roaring
furnaces and the soft sucking sounds of the pistons. Two hundred dollars
a month--and the union scale was a hundred and fifty! Ah, no, he dared
not trifle with that job. He must, at all hazard, avoid friction with
the skipper, for what would Mrs. Reardon say if Cappy Ricks forced
him to roll the bones with Mike Murphy--one flop and high man out? Mr.
Reardon could close his eyes and see Mike Murphy roll out a “stiff,”
 while with trembling hand the Reardon rolled five sixes!

The _Narcissus_ had been out of Pernambuco harbor four days before
Mr. Reardon, upon comparing the sun--which all are agreed rises in
the east--with the direction in which the ship was headed, and then
extracting the cube root of the resultant product, and subtracting it
from the longtitude and latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, decided that
there must be something wrong with Mr. Schultz's navigation. So he spoke
to Mr. Schultz about it, and was laughingly informed that they were
traveling on a great circle. Thereupon Mr. Reardon remembered that at
sea a ship traveling on the arc of a great circle, for some mysterious
reason repudiates the old geometrical theorem that a straight line
is the shortest distance between two points. He recalled that vessels
plying between San Francisco and Yokohama describe a great circle which
brings them well up toward the Aleutian Islands, So he was satisfied
with the explanation, this being his first voyage into the South
Atlantic anyhow; but he continued to observe the sun each morning, and
still the vessel's head held far to the south. A suspicion that all was
not as it should be slowly settled in Mr. Reardon's head, and though
he said nothing, he used his ejes and ears. A dozen times a day, as the
ship rolled steadily south, he was tempted to take down the speaking
tube and confide his suspicions to the master, confined in his
state-room by reason of deep--but not serious-knife wounds. Each time
he was on the point of yielding, however, he remembered that Mike Murphy
had called him a renegade--so he refrained.

The installation of the wireless plant and the presence aboard the ship
of Herr von Staden had failed to arouse his suspicions the first day
out. True, the wireless could not have been connected with the electric
light plant below without Mr. Reardon's knowledge and consent, but when
he asked Mr. Schultz about it the latter replied that Cappy Ricks must
have changed his mind about installing wireless on the _Narcissus_, for
he had cabled to the agents of the charterers in Pernambuco to have
a wireless plant and a competent operator waiting for the vessel upon
arrival. It was Mr. Schultz's opinion that the owners had evidently
arrived at the conclusion that it was wise to have a wireless aboard
during war times. Personally, Mr. Schultz approved of the innovation.

So did Terence Reardon, for that matter. He found the new wireless
operator a charming fellow, possessed of talents far superior to those
of the young men who ordinarily pound the brass at sea. Indeed, after
the second day out, Mr. Reardon would have been heartbroken had anything
happened to that wireless. For Herr August Carl von Staden sat at the
key almost continuously, eavesdropping on the war news, and Mr. Reardon
never came to the wireless room that the operator did not have some news
of an overwhelming British defeat!

As the voyage proceeded, however, and Mr. Reardon's mind grew a trifle
uneasy, reluctantly he began to view Herr von Staden and the wireless
with apprehension. He asked the affable operator how much the Marconi
company charged the _Narcissus_ for his services and the rental of the
wireless plant, and von Staden, momentarily stumped, replied that the
tariff was two hundred dollars a month; whereupon Reardon knew he lied,
for the charge is one hundred and forty. The German, realizing instantly
that he was not on the target, added: “That is, for a first-grade
operator and a plant like this. Of course we furnish cheaper operators
and less powerful plants, Mr. Reardon.”

“Oh! So that's the way av it?” the chief replied, and immediately went
to his state-room for the purpose of thinking it over. Eventually he
came to the conclusion that all was not as it should be, but that,
nevertheless, it was no affair of his. He was paid to obey signals given
him from the bridge.

“'Tis no business av mine, afther all,” he soliloquized. “For why should
I be puttin' dogs in windows? He's paid to navigate the ship, an' didn't
Cappy Ricks tell me to mind me own business? And yet, there's something
wrong in this ship. I feel it in me bones.”

He felt it with a force that was almost violent when Mr. Schultz called
down through the speaking-tube late one afternoon and told him to put
her under a dead-slow bell. That meant they were practically heaving to,
and steamers only heave to at sea in fine weather when they have reached
a certain longitude and latitude and plan to keep an appointment. On the
instant there was a strong odor of rat in Terence Reardon's engine
room, but his “Very well, sir,” contained no hint of his surprise and
suspicion. He gave his orders to the firemen to bank the fires, and when
this had been done he informed his engine-room crew that they might
all go on deck for five minutes and get a breath of fresh air. Nothing
loath, they scrambled up the steel stairway--and the instant the last
man was out of earshot Terence Reardon sprang to the speaking-tube to
whistle up the skipper in his room.

Now, undoubtedly the cool and calculating Herr August Carl von Staden
had been carefully trained to take into consideration, when planning his
strategy, every conceivable contingency that might possibly arise. It is
probable that the German secret service never turned out a more finished
graduate than Herr von Staden; but the fact remains, nevertheless, that
there are certain contingencies over which no human being has control.
One of these is Newton's law of gravitation; another, an equally
immutable law to the effect that water will seek its own level; a third,
the vindictiveness of an outraged Irishman; and a fourth, the very
natural tendency of any man, not excepting Mr. Terence Reardon, to be
profoundly surprised and intensely curious when certain phenomena, which
we shall now proceed to explain, take place in the engine room where he
is chief.

Michael J. Murphy, having only the day before again essayed the task
of whistling up the engine room, and having, by reason of the ball of
cotton waste with which the tube had been plugged by the first assistant
engineer, again failed to receive the courtesy of a reply from any one,
had, to put it mildly, been annoyed.

“Very well, my bullies,” he soliloquized as he hung up the tube, “you
wouldn't speak to me when I wanted to speak to you; so now the first
time one of you wants to speak to me I'll hand you a surprise, and
I'll hand it to you right in the mouth.” And forthwith Michael J. had
carefully poured down the speaking tube the contents of the basin in
which he had just made his morning ablutions! He longed to do something
nasty, and he succeeded admirably.

As we have already remarked, water seeks its own level. It ran down the
speaking-tube until it encountered the cotton waste plug; whereupon, due
to the hydrostatic pressure, the plug gave way and was forced down to
the tightly closed mouth of the tube, and the suds backed up behind
it. It was pretty warm in the engine room, and most of the water had
evaporated by the time Terence Reardon took down the looped tube and
opened it for the purpose of putting his lips to the mouthpiece and
blowing heartily through it. However, there was about a gill of water
left in the tube.

Now, as everybody knows, water running down a slope of seventy-five or
eighty degrees comes rather fast. Consequently Mr. Reardon had no time
to dodge.

Why be squeamish? He got a mouthful and was very nauseated for half a
minute. Also he cursed, we regret to record, and was very, very angry.
Carefully he drained the devilish tube, wiped it clean with some fresh
waste, and racked his brain for the right thing to say to Michael J.
Murphy. Finally he hit upon something he concluded would about fill the
bill, so he put his lips to the mouthpiece once more and whistled up
the skipper. To his surprise, however, his breath didn't seem to get
anywhere: in fact, it was directed back in his face rather forcefully;
so he investigated and discovered the mouthpiece was only half open.
Upon endeavoring to open it fully he sensed an obstruction in the back
of it, so he unscrewed the mouthpiece and drew forth a ball of dirty,
sour-smelling cotton waste.

He gazed a moment in speechless wonder. Then: “I'll whistle that dirrty
Tomfool, until he answers me in self-defense,” he announced'to the main
motor, and forthwith blew a mighty blast. Almost instantly Michael J.
Murphy yelled: “Hullo!”

“Murphy,” Terence Reardon announced calmly and very distinctly, “you're
a contimptible dhrunken ape!”

“Holy Moses! Reardon, is that you?” the astounded Murphy demanded.

“It is-as you'll discover whin you're able to come on deck an' give me
the satisfaction I'll demand for the dirrty dab av wather an' cotton
waste you put in the tube, knowin' that the firrst time I took it down
to spheak to you, ye blackguard, in the line av djooty--which is the
only reason I would spheak to you--I'd get it full in the mouth. Ye
dirrty, lyin', schamin', dhrunken murrderer!”

He paused to let that stream of adjectival opprobrium sink in. Silence.
Then:

“I poured the contents of my washbasin in the tube, I'll admit, but
I did not plug it with cotton waste. One of your assistants did that,
chief, and as for the water, as God is my judge, I didn't intend it for
you--”

“Who else would ye be afther insultin' if it wasn't me? Are ye not
friendly wit' me assistants?”

“Forgive me, Reardon, and listen to what I'm going to tell you.”

And then the tale was told. When it was done Terence Reardon grunted.

“I knew it!” he said. “I knew it! I felt in me bones there was something
wrong aboard this ship. An' so ye were not dhrunk an' disordherly at
Pernambuco?”

“The liars! Did they tell you that? Reardon, it's only the mercy of
heaven they didn't murder me. I'm lying here, helpless and crippled in
my state-room, with the key turned in the lock. They've stolen my ship
from me, and I can tell by the roll of her she's practically hove to
under a dead-slow bell this minute. We've reached the rendezvous--we're
waiting for the German fleet to deliver the coal; and oh, man, man,
if we're caught by a British cruiser we'll lose the ship! They'll
confiscate her, chief. Wirra! Wirra!” he cried, breaking into the
forgotten wail of his childhood. “How can I ever face Matt Peasley and
Cappy Ricks after this? Reardon, man, they'll think we stood in with
the Germans and let them do it. We're both Irish--they know we're both
pro-German--”

“What's that you said?” Terence demanded sharply. “Me pro-German. Me? I
_was_ pro-German--yis--wanst!”

Fell a silence.

Now, for the benefit of the uninitiated, be it known that there is
a certain curse employed by the Irish and by no other race on earth.
Whenever you hear an Irishman employ it, you know instantly--provided,
of course, you are Irish yourself--just what kind of Irish that Irishman
is. You cannot mistake it. There is no possible chance. It is only
brought forth with the dust of the centuries on it, so to speak, to
grace a fitting occasion. Terence Reardon felt that such an occasion
was now at hand. As naturally, as inevitably, therefore, as the suds ran
down the speaking-tube, that curse climbed up it--softly, distinctly,
and with a wealth of feeling in the back of it:

“God put the curse av Crummle on thim!”

Mr. Reardon, of course, referred to the late Oliver Cromwell. Any one
who has ever read the sorry history of Erin knows what the amiable
Oliver did to the Irish. Consequently such an one will have no
difficulty in estimating the precise proportions of bad luck Terence
Reardon prayed might be the immediate heritage of the crew of the S.S.
_Narcissus_.

Michael J. Murphy blinked rapidly, for all the world as if Mr. Schultz
had entered at that moment and struck him a terrific blow on top of
the head. A more dazed Irishman than he never threw an ancient egg or
a defunct cat at an alleged Celtic comedian with green whiskers. He
was absolutely staggered--but not for long. The Irish come back very
quickly.

“Shame on you, Terence Reardon!” he declared. “And you with a Masonic
ring on your finger.”

“Glory be!” cried the delighted Terence. “Sure are you wan av us?”

“One of you!” Mike Murphy fairly shrieked. “The minute I'm out of this
room you'll apologize or fight for thinking I'm a renegade.”

“_Naboclish!_” laughed Terence Reardon, slipping into the Gaelic and out
again. “The divil a Mason am I! Sure that ring ye saw on me finger that
day in the office av the owners belonged to me second assistant in the
_Arab_. He'd lost it in the engine room, an' a mont' afther he'd left
I found it. Not knowin' what ship he was in, 'twas me intintion to take
the ring over to the Marine Engineers' Association an' lave it for him
wit' the secreth'ry; and to make sure I wouldn't forget it I put it on
me finger--”

“Well, you knew, Terence, that with the likes of me round you'd not be
liable to forget it,” Mike Murphy laughed.

“As for you, ye divil,” Terence continued, “faith, what wit' yer English
tweeds an' the fancy cut av thim, an' yer lack av the brogue an' the
broad _a_ av ye, I thought, begorra, ye were a dirrty Far Down! God love
ye, Michael, but 'tis the likes av you I'm proud to be ship-mates wit'.”

“But you said you were from Belfast, Terence.”

“So I am. I was borrn there, but me parents--the Lord 'a' merrcy on
their sowls--moved back to Kerry.”

“Terence!”

“What is it, Michael, me poor lad?”

“Do you ever drink on duty? I don't mean with your superiors--”

The chief chuckled. He knew what Murphy was alluding to.

“I do,” he replied, “wit' me equals.”

“'Tis a pity, Terence, that man Schultz has the key to my state-room
in his pocket. Now if you could manage to tap that Dutchman on the head
with something hard and heavy, take the key out of his pocket and throw
him overheard, you could let me out of this purgatory I'm in. Then I
wouldn't be surprised if the sight of me and the absence of Mr. Schultz
would put a bit of heart in that little cockney steward--and maybe he'd
bring a drink to hearten you for what's ahead of you this night.”

“An' what might that be, avic?” Terence demanded.

“I want you to steal the ship back from them, Terence.”

“Very well, Michael. 'Tis not a small thing ye ask me to do, but the
divil a more willin' man could ye find to ask. Have ye figured out the
plan av campaign? Sure what wit' the suddenness av it all I'm all in a
shweat wit' excitement.”

“You may be cold enough before morning, Terry, my boy.”

“Bad luck to you, Michael! Dyin' is wan thing I cannot afford to do,
although be the same token they tell me ould Ricks has a kind shpot in
the heart av him for the widow an' the orphan--particularly av thim that
dies in his service! As I say, I cannot afford to get kilt, but in
back av that ag'in I cannot afford to lose the best job I ever had.
An' afther all, 'tis a poor man that won't fight for a fine, kind
gentleman--”

“Damn the fine, kind gentleman! It serves him right for letting us
get into this fix. He can afford the loss of the ship, but you and I,
Terence Reardon, cannot afford the loss of our honor and self-respect.
For the sake of the blood that's in us we can't afford to let a lot of
Dutchmen steal our ship and cargo.”

“Whist!” Reardon warned. “Hurry up. Me crew is comin' below ag'in.”

“Make it a point to pass by my state-room window after dark. You'll find
a scrap of paper on the sill. Help yourself to it.”

“Faith, I will,” Mr. Reardon promised fervently, and the tube closed
with a click.




CHAPTER XIV


TERENCE Reardon's preparations for the night's work began the instant
he hung up the speaking-tube. The _Narcissus_ carried three assistant
engineers, in consequence of which Mr. Reardon was not required to stand
a watch unless he so elected; although from force of habit acquired
in the days when he had been chief of the _Arab_--a little
three-thousand-ton tramp--and perforce had to stand a regular watch,
he found it very difficult not to spend at least eight hours in
every twenty-four in the engine room. When, eventually, he came to a
realization that his job was not to make the engines behave, but to see
that they behaved properly, he spent more of his time on deck, and
put in only a few hours below during the watch of the third assistant
engineer--the third assistant being a young man in whom the chief
reposed exactly that degree of confidence a chief engineer should always
repose in a third assistant. Mr. Reardon, therefore, was at liberty to
leave the engine-room whenever he felt so disposed; and following his
illuminating conversation with the captain he felt very much disposed to
leave immediately.

He went first to his state-room, where he bathed, changed into new
under-clothes and socks, donned a freshly laundered suit of faded
dungarees--old, faded, well-washed dungarees, by the way, always
appearing neater and cleaner than new ones--and shaved; for if
Providence willed it that lie should die to-night. Mr. Reardon was
resolved to be in such a highly sanitary condition that “those upon whom
should devolve the melancholy duty of laying him out”--which phrase, in
the Hibernian sense, means those who should dispose his limbs, close his
eyes, tie up his black jowls with a towel and fold his hands--alas,
so white in death, at last! across his still breast--might be moved to
remark that, notwithstanding the nature of the deceased's vocation, they
could not recall ever having seen a cleaner corpse.

Having attended to his pre-dissolution toilet, Mr. Reardon next sat
in at his littered desk, swept a space clear of tobacco crumbs, ashes,
pipes and some old copies of the _Cork Eagle_, and sat down to write a
farewell letter to his wife, hoping that, even though his enemies should
slay him, yet would they have sufficient respect for the dead to mail
that letter to Mrs. Reardon. And, in order that he might not anger his
posthumous benefactors, he mentioned nothing of the state of affairs
aboard the ship. He merely stated that she might never see him again, in
which event she was to call upon the owners and ask them to invest for
her the proceeds of his life insurance policy, since they could and
would invest it to better advantage than she. Then he spoke of his grief
at the thought of the children being forced to forego their college
education and suggested that she ask Cappy Ricks to give Johnny a place
in his office; also, should the owners offer anything as compensation
for the loss of her husband, she was to accept it, for, as God was
his judge, she would be entitled to it! This last sentence Terence
underscored for emphasis; that was as close as he came to saying that
if he died it would be in defense of his owner's interest. Then he
commended her to the comfort of her religion and subscribed himself:
“Your loving and devoted husband, Terence P. Reardon, Chief Engineer
S.S. _Narcissus_.”

Having set his small affairs in order against a hasty exit from this
vale of hatreds, Mr. Reardon, in unconscious imitation of all the
condemned men who had preceded him on the voyage across the Styx,
repaired to the dining saloon and partook of a hearty meal. He realized
he had undertaken a contract that would require the employment of
weapons more formidable than his hard fists, and devoutly he
wished that, like the fairy queen, he had but to breathe on them to
metamorphose them into pig iron. He pictured the slaughter aboard the
_Narcissus_ when he should wade into the conflict. Finally he made up
his mind that, in lieu of an iron hand or two, he would use his favorite
monkey wrench, for he had no firearms whatsoever; although, had somebody
presented him with a one-man machine gun with full directions for using,
Mr Reardon would have recoiled in horror from it. Firearms were highly
dangerous. They killed so many people!

He left the table long before the others had finished. There was no one
on deck as he emerged from the dining saloon, so he walked leisurely
round past the captain's cabin, whistling the “Cruiskeen Lawn” to let
Mike Murphy know who was coming. Evidently Michael assimilated the hint,
for there was an envelope on the little window sill as Terence hove
abreast of it. He snatched it swiftly away and continued round to his
own state-room.

The envelope contained Michael J. Murphy's plan for campaign worked out
to the most minute detail, by reason of his absolute knowledge of the
customs aboard the ship. Mr. Reardon read the remarkable document and
sat lost in admiration; a twinkle leaped to his eyes and a cunning,
rather deadly little smile came sneaking round the corners of his broad
chin.

“Arrah, but 'tis a beautiful schame,” he soliloquized. “Who but that
lad could have t'ought av it? An' here I've been shpendin' the past two
hours borrowin' trouble.”

He read and reread the plan of attack, in order to familiarize himself
with the details; then he held a match to the document and destroyed
it. He considered a moment, and then performed a similar service to
his farewell letter to Mrs. Reardon, for the chief engineer of the
S.S. _Narcissus_, of San Francisco, had made up his mind not to
die--to-night!




CHAPTER XV


Mr. Schultz, the first assistant, and Mr. von Staden were engaged in
coffee and repartee when Terence Reardon thrust his head in at the
dining saloon window. He was mildly excited.

“Be the Great Gun av Athlone!” he declared. “I've just been bit be a
bedbug--an' I t'ought there wasn't a bedbug in the ship!”

Mr. Schultz looked up, horrified. “Chieve,” he said, “dot is rodden
news. Bedbugs! _Ach!_”

“An' well you may '_Ach_,' Misther Schultz. Let a colony av bedbugs move
into the _Narcissus_ an' Terence P. Reardon will move out. There's
only wan thing to do, Misther Schultz, an' that is to tackle the divils
before we're overwhelmed be the weight av numbers. Have ye a bit av
sulphur in yer shtore-room, Misther Schultz--the kind that comes in
balls an' is used to burrn in shtate-rooms to kill bedbugs?”

When Terence Reardon put that innocent query to the first mate he knew
very well Mr. Schultz would reply in the negative--which he did--for the
reason that Michael J. Murphy had privately informed Mr. Reardon
that the little cockney steward, Riggins, had charge of the bedbug
ammunition. Riggins, who had been standing with his back against the
wall, eyeing Mr. Schultz sourly, now spoke up and said he had some
sulphur.

“More power to ye, Riggins!” Mr. Reardon declared heartily. “Then do ye,
like the good lad, give me two or three balls av it. I'll burn them
in me shtate-room to-night, wit' the door an' window locked, an' be
morrnin' sorra bedbug will be left alive.”

“Very well, sir,” Riggins replied. “Might Hi arsk, Mr. Reardon, where
you hintend passin' the night?”

“I'll shleep in me auld aisy-chair abaft the house an' next the funnel,
where I'll be snug an' warrm,” Mr. Reardon replied, for he desired an
excuse to be on deck all night without arousing the suspicions of Mr.
Schultz or von Staden.

The steward, having finished serving those who ate in the dining saloon,
stepped out on deck and started for his own room. Mr. Reardon remained
by the window a minute, discoursing on the curse of bedbugs aboard a
ship, and then with a sigh followed the steward leisurely. Mr. Schultz
appeared undecided whether or not to accompany him in the capacity of
censor, but finally concluded to remain and finish his coffee, for if
Riggins had decided to enlighten the chief as to the real reason for the
skipper's indisposition he had had frequent opportunity to do so during
the past ten days. It did not seem likely, therefore, that he would run
any risks at this late date. To Mr. Schultz, Riggins appeared to be
a man who could be depended upon to remember which side his bread was
buttered on and who supplied the butter.

Arrived at the steward's state-room, Mr. Reardon helped himself to the
entire box of bedbug exterminator and addressed Riggins very briefly:

“Riggins, ye're a child av Johnny Bull, are ye not?”

Riggins, without the slightest trace of embarrassment, admitted his
disgrace.

“An' bein' what ye are,” Mr. Reardon continued, “would ye do somethin'
av great binifit to England?”

Riggins replied that inasmuch as he had lost two brothers at the Battle
of the Marne, that ought to indicate bally well where the Riggins tribe
stood on the subject of defense of the realm.

“Good!” Mr. Reardon murmured. “Even if misguided in their pathriotic
motives, shtill yer brothers were brave min, an' for that I respect
thim. Now, thin, Riggins, ye rabbit, listen to me: In a momint av
surpassin' innocince Captain Murphy an' mesilf swallowed a cute
suggestion from a lad whose back I'll break in two halves whin the
_Narcissus_ gets back to San Francisco. 'Why not save expinse,' says
he, 'an' ship the crew av this German liner that's interned over in
Richardson's Bay?' Riggins, to make a long shtory short, we have thim
this minute, an' the dear God knows that even if shipped at the
German scale av wages that gang'll prove a dear crew to the Blue Star
Navigation Company if you an' I, Riggins, fail to do our djooty. They've
half murdered the captain, shtolen the ship an' cargo from him, an' run
her t'ousands av miles off her course to deliver the coal to the German
fleet.”

“Oh, my bloody ol' Aunt Maria!” gasped the horrified Riggins.

“What I want to know from you, Riggins, is this: Will ye help me
shteal the ship back to-night? We're runnin' almost due south, an' that
good-for-nothin' von Staden has been in communication wit' the fleet all
day long. I feel it in me bones. If we get the ship back we'll head due
west for the coast av South America an' hug the three-mile limit-an' the
devil scoort them thin. Riggins, ye gossoon, what for the cause av Merry
England? They wouldn't take ye for a gift in the British Arrmy, for I
doubt if ye'd weigh ninety pounds soakin' wet an' a rock in yer hand,
but for all that, here's an iligant opporchunity for ye to serrve yer
counthry, an' should worrd av yer brave action reach the king--bad cess
to him--he may call ye Sir Thomas Riggins an' make ye consul-general av
the Cannibal Islands.

“Out wit' it, Riggins. Yer king an' counthry calls ye, an' be the same
token so do Michael J. Murphy an' Terence P. Reardon. What'll ye give,
Riggins, to preserve the seas to Britain?”

“Me 'eart's blood, that's wot!” Riggins replied quietly.

“I accept the sacrifice in the name av His Majesty, King Jarge! Be on
deck at ten o'clock sharp, waitin' close undher the shtarboard companion
leadin' to the bridge. Whin I come out on the shtarboard ind av the
bridge an' whistle 'O'Donnell Abu,' do ye--”

“S'help me, chief, I never 'eard of the blighter before,” Riggins
interrupted.

“God forgive me!” Mr. Reardon murmured _sotto voce_. “I'll have to do
it. Well, thin, Riggins, whin I come out on the shtarboard ind av the
bridge an' whistle 'God Save the King'--troth, I'll gamble that's one
blighter ye've hearrd tell av--do ye run up into the pilot-house an'
take the wheel. I'll not whistle until we have the deck to ourselves,
wit'out fear av intherruption, an' ye must come quick an' take the
wheel, else the vessel'll fall off into the trough av the sea an'
commince to wallow--which same'll wake up the second mate an' bring him
an' von Staden on deck to see what's wrong wit' her. An' until I'm ready
to call on those lads I'm not wishful to have them call on me! Remimber,
Riggins: Wan jump an' ye're into the pilot-house; then howld her head
up to the sea--an' lave the rest to me. Gwan wit' ye now, or that skut,
Schultz, will be gettin' suspicious av us.”

When Mr. Schultz came along ten minutes later he found Mr. Reardon very
busy calking with oakum the cracks round the door and window of his
state-room, through which little wisps of yellow smoke were curling.
Mr. Schultz was so completely deceived that he hurried round to his own
quarters and pawed over his own mattress and bedding in a vain search
for bedbugs.




CHAPTER XVI


At eight o'clock Mr. Schultz relieved the second mate on the bridge,
and five minutes later Terence Reardon, for the first time invaded that
forbidden territory. “Bad cess to me!” he complained plaintively. “I'm
the picthur av bad luck. I've a leaky connection below an' divil a bit
av red lead. Could ye lind me a dab av red lead from yer shtore-room,
Misther Schultz?”

Mr. Schultz marvelled that any man could force his mind to dwell on red
lead, leaky pipe connections, sulphur and bedbugs in a ship like the
_Narcissus_ at a time like this. He had met a few innocents in his day,
but this Irish engineer was most innocent of all.

“Sure, Mike!” he replied, and grinned at his feeble play on words.
“_Und_ as I gannot leave der bridge yet, here iss der key to der
store-room. Helb yourself, mine _Freund, und_ den gif me der key back.”

“Ye addie-pated son of sin!” Mr. Reardon soliloquized as he took the key
and departed. “Faith, a booby birrd has more sinse nor you! D'ye suppose
I didn't wait until ye were on djooty before axin' ye, well knowin' ye'd
lind me the key an' I'd be alone in yer shtore-room!”

Mr. Reardon was in the store-room less than two minutes. When he emerged
he carried a daub of red lead on an old spoon, as Mr. Schultz, looking
down on the dimly lighted main deck, observed. What he did not observe,
however, was the chief's action in tossing the spoon overboard the
instant he passed beyond the range of Mr. Schultz's vision. It is
probable, also, that the mate would have been disturbed could he have
seen Mr. Reardon in his state-room, with the door locked, removing from
beneath his dungaree jumper several fathoms of light, strong, cotton
signal halyard, two five-foot lengths of half-inch steel chain, and a
strip of canvas. His pockets also gave up two padlocks, with keys to
fit. This loot Mr. Reardon very carefully hid in the space under
his settee, after which, with due thanks, he returned the key to Mr.
Schultz.

The remainder of the evening until nine-thirty Terence spent in the
wireless room with Herr von Staden. Then he retired, very low in
spirits, to his state-room, to make his preparations for wholesale
assault with a deadly weapon--possibly wholesale murder! He cut the
signal halyard into short lengths; then he cut the piece of canvas into
strips about two inches wide and secreted the halyard and canvas strips
here and there about his person. Then he descended to the engine room
and selected his monkey wrench from the tool rack on the wall, helped
himself to a handful of cotton waste, and returned to his state-room
mournfully keening “The Sorrowful Lamentation of Callaghan, Greally and
Mullen, killed at the Fair of Turloughmore.”

“Wirra,” he murmured presently, “but 'tis a terrible thing to hit an
unsuspectin' man wit' a monkey wrench! An' that divil von Staden,
for all his faults, is not a bad lad at all at all. An' I'd give five
dollars--yes, seven an' a half--if he were bald an' shiny on any other
shpot save an' exceptin' the shpot I have to hit him. Ochone!


   “'Come tell me, dearest mother, what makes me father shtay
    Or what can be th' reason that he's so long away?'
   'Oh, howld yer tongue, me darlin' son, yer tears do grieve me sore,
    I fear he has been murdhered in the fair av Turloughmore!'


“Sure, I haven't got the heart to dhrive the head av this monkey wrench
into that bald shpot. If he'd hair there I wouldn't mind.” Mr. Reardon
sighed dismally. “I'll have to wrap a waddin' av waste around me weapon,
so I'll neither kill nor mangle but lay thim out wit' wan good crack--


   “'It is on the firrst av August, the truth I will declare,
    Those people they assimbled that day all at the fair,
    But little was their notion that evil was in shtore,
    All by the bloody Peelers at the fair av Turloughmore.'


“I must practice crackin' the divils! Sure, 'twould be an awful thing
to have the sin av murrder on me sowl--not that 'tis murrder to kill a
Dutchman that's a self-confessed pirate into the bargain. Shtill, 'tis a
terrible t'ought to carry to the grave--”

Wham! Mr. Reardon brought his padded wrench down on his defenseless bed.
“Too harrd,” he told himself. “Sure a blow like that on top av the
head would knock out the teeth av the divil himself! Less horse-power,
Terence!”

Wham! He tried it again, this time with better results. For five minutes
he beat the bedclothes; then his spirits rose and, like the mercurial
Celt that he was, he chanted blithely a verse from “The Night Before
Larry Was Stretched”:


   “'Though, sure 'tis the best way to die,
        Oh, the divil a betther a-livin'!
    For sure whin the gallows is high,
        Your journey is shorter to heaven;
    But what harasses Larry the most,
        An' makes his poor sowl melancholy,
    Is to think av the time whin his ghost
        Will come in a sheet to sweet Molly!
            Oh, sure, 'twill kill her alive!'”


He slipped the short, heavy monkey wrench up his right sleeve, walked
out on deck and stood at the corner of the house, smoking placidly and
gazing down on the main deck forward. The look-out on the forecastle
head was not visible in the darkness, but Mr. Reardon was not worried
about that. “For why,” he argued to himself, “should I go lookin' for
the skut whin if I wait a bit he'll come fluttherin' into me hand?”

He did. At five minutes after ten Mr. Schultz hailed the look-out in
German, and although Mr. Reardon spoke no German, yet did he understand
that order. Mr. Schultz, a victim of habit, desired the look-out to go
to the galley and bring up some hot coffee for him and the helmsman. It
was the custom aboard the _Narcissus_, as it is in most Pacific Coast
boats, for the cook, just before retiring, to brew a pot of coffee,
drain off the grounds and leave it to simmer on the galley range where,
at intervals of two hours during the night, the watch could come and
help itself.

Terence Reardon knew that the look-out, after heating the coffee and
bringing a few cups up on the bridge, would return to the galley and
partake of a cup and a bite himself.

The man came down off the forecastle head, crossed the main deck and
disappeared in the galley. In about ten minutes Mr. Reardon saw him
climb up the port companion to the bridge; a minute later he came down.
Mr. Reardon waited until he was certain the fellow was sipping his
coffee in the galley; then with the utmost nonchalance he went up on the
bridge and hailed Mr. Schultz, who was standing amidships blowing on a
cup of coffee.

“Begorra,” he complained, “Divil a wink can I shleep to-night. I've been
sittin' wit' the wireless operator all evenin', an' now, thinks I,
he's weary listenin' to me nonsinse, so I'll go up on the bridge an'
interview Misther Schultz. If I--be the Rock av Cashel! What was that?”

“Vot? Vere?” Mr. Schultz exclaimed, and set down his cup of coffee.
He was all excitement, for he had been looking for the flash of a
searchlight for the past hour and he wondered now if the unsuspecting
Reardon had seen it first.

“Over that way.” Mr. Reardon pointed off the port bow. “Did ye not see
that light?”

“A light. _Gott im Himmel!_”

“Ye can't see it now,” Mr. Reardon replied soothingly. He stepped round
to the back of the mate and permitted his trusty monkey wrench to slip
down into his hand. “But if ye continue to look in that direction,
Misther Schultz, ye'll see not wan light but several.”

“_Donnerwetter!_ I gannot see dem,” Mr. Schultz protested, wondering if
there might not be some defect in his eyesight.

“Have no fear. Keep lookin' that way an' ye'll see thim,” Mr. Reardon
reassured him. “Ha-ha, ye divil!” he crooned--and struck.

“I'll gamble ye saw the lights I promised ye,” he breathed into the ear
of the unconscious mate as he deftly caught the falling body and
eased it noiselessly to the deck to avoid calling the attention of the
helmsman to the interesting tableau going on behind him. Quickly he
gagged Mr. Schultz with a strip of canvas; then he tied his hands behind
him and bound him at ankle and knee with the short lengths of signal
halyard. As a final attention he “frisked” the mate and removed his keys
and a heavy automatic pistol.

“Lie there now, me jewel,” he said, and trotted out to the starboard
end of the bridge, whistling shrilly “God Save the King.” When the swift
patter of feet along the deck warned him that the steward was coming, he
walked back amidships and opened the little sliding trap in the roof of
the pilot-house, which on the _Narcissus_ was set just below the bridge.
The quartermaster's head was directly beneath the trap. “Oh-ho, me
laddybuck!” Mr. Reardon murmured, and dropped his padded monkey wrench
on that defenseless head. Instantly the quartermaster staggered and hung
limply to the wheel.

“Bad luck to me, I'll have to hit ye agin,” Mr. Reardon complained--and
did it. Then he slid through the trap into the pilot-house, steadied the
wheel with one hand and unlocked the pilot-house door with the other to
admit the steward.

“Strike me pink!” that astounded functionary exclaimed as he gazed at
the quartermaster lying beside the wheel.

“I will--if ye don't take howld av this wheel an' do less talkln',” Mr.
Reardon replied evenly. “Bring her round very slowly, me lad, an' in the
intherval I'll wrap up me little Baby Bunting on the floor forninst ye.”

When the quartermaster had been duly wrapped _a la_ Mr. Schultz and
dragged clear of the wheel, Mr. Reardon returned to the bridge and with
brazen impudence set the handle of the marine telegraph over to full
speed ahead. He hummed “Colleen Dhas Cruthin Amoe” as with a light heart
he skipped down to the galley and found the look-out eating bread soaked
in coffee. Mr. Reardon nodded and said “Good nicht, _amigo_” for his
voyages had taken him to many ports and he was naturally quick at
picking up foreign languages. The fellow, concluding Mr. Reardon desired
a cup of coffee also, turned to the rack to get him a cup.

“How dare ye ate up the owners' groceries in this shameful manner?” Mr.
Reardon demanded. “Do ye not get enough at mess that ye must be atin'
between meals? Shame on you--”

One tap did the trick. “'Tis a black way to repay a kind t'ought,” Mr.
Reardon observed to his victim as he bound and gagged him; “but war is
war, an' a faint heart an' a weak stomach never shtole a ship back from
forty German pirates!”

He closed the galley door on the unfortunate look-out and climbed up
on the boat deck to get Michael J. Murphy out of prison. Cautiously he
unlocked the state-room door with the key taken from Mr. Schultz, and
the skipper came forth. Mr. Reardon led him under an electric light and
gazed upon him wonderingly.

“Begorra, Michael, me poor lad,” he whispered, “be the look av the white
face of you I'm thinkin' ye ought to be in bed instid av out raisin'
ructions.”

“I'm weak; I have a fever,” Murphy replied. “Still, half that fever may
be plain lunatic rage. Did you find a gun on the mate?”

“I did. Take it, Michael, I'll have nothin' to do wit' it.”

The skipper grasped the weapon eagerly. “The ship is headed due west
undher full speed,” Terence explained, “an' the mate, the quarter-master
an' the look-out have all received evidence av me affectionate regard.
Next!”

“Von Staden. He kicked me and broke my ribs, Terence.”

“Wit' the greatest joy in life, Michael. The skut's busy in the wireless
room.”

So they went to the wireless room. Von Staden was taking a message as
they entered; at sound of their footsteps he turned carelessly and found
himself looking down the muzzle of the captain's automatic.

“Will ye take it peaceably, ye gossoon, or must I brain ye wit' this
monkey wrench?” Mr. Reardon queried fiercely.

“And take your hand off that key, you blackguard. No S O S,” Murphy
ordered.

The supercargo stared at them impudently. “This,” he said presently, “is
one of those inconceivable contingencies.”

“Your early education was neglected, Dutchy. However, don't complain and
say I didn't give you warning. Terence!”

“What is it, Michael?”

“All well-regulated ships carry a few sets of handcuffs and leg irons.
If you will put your hand in my right hip pocket, Terence, lad,
you'll find a pair for present emergencies. They were in my desk and I
concluded to bring them along.”

“An' a pious t'ought it was, Michael.”

So they handcuffed Herr August Carl von Staden and gagged him, after
which Mr. Reardon, leaving the skipper to guard his prisoner, ran round
to his own room and got the two lengths of chain and the padlocks. When
he returned, Michael J. Murphy kicked his unwelcome supercargo to the
mate's store-room and Mr. Reardon locked him in among the paint pots,
pipe, old iron and other odds and ends which accumulate in a mate's
store-room.

They went next to the door of the forecastle. It was open--and, what was
better, it opened inward. Also, it was of steel with a stout brass ring
on the lock, this ring taking the place of what on a landsman's door
would have been a knob.

Terence Reardon and Michael J. Murphy listened. From within came a
medley of gentle sighs, snores and the slow, regular breathing of
sleeping men. Softly Mr. Reardon closed the door, turned the ring until
the latch caught, drew a section of chain through the ring in such a
manner as to prevent the latch from being released, passed the ends of
his chain round the steel handrail along the front of the forecastle and
padlocked them there.

“Now, thin,” Mr. Reardon announced, “that takes care av the carpenter,
the bos'n, four seamen, two waiters an' the mess bhoy. Do ye wait here
a minute, Michael, lad, whilst I run up on the bridge and give that
unmintionable Schultz the wanst over.”

The weak, half-dead Murphy sat down on the hatch coaming and waited.
The chief was away about ten minutes and the captain was on the point of
investigating when Mr. Reardon appeared.

“That unfortunate divil had come to, an' was lookin' an' feelin' cowld
whin I wint up on the bridge,” he explained, “so I wint to me room an'
got a pair av blankets to wrap round him where he lay. It's wan thing
to tap a man on the head, but 'tis another to let him catch his death av
cowld.”

Captain Murphy smiled. Ordinarily he would have laughed at the whimsical
Terence, but he didn't have a good laugh left in him. His lung was
hurting, so he suspected an abscess.

They returned to the boat deck, and with his rule Mr. Reardon carefully
measured the exact distance between the ship's rail and the center
of the doors of the state-rooms occupied by the mates and assistant
engineers. This detail attended to, they went to the carpenter's
little shop and cut two scantlings of a length to correspond to the
measurements taken, and in addition Mr. Reardon prepared some thin
cleats with countersunk holes for the insertion of screws. He worked
very leisurely, and it was eleven o'clock when he had everything in
readiness.

“There's nothin' to do now until midnight, whin the watch in the ingine
room is changed,” Mr. Reardon suggested, “so lave us go to the galley.
Wan av me brave lads is in there, an' if he's not dead intirely, faith,
I'm thinkin' I might injoy a cup av coffee!”

So they went to the galley and found the look-out glaring at them. He
made inarticulate noises behind his gag, so Mr. Reardon, much relieved,
found seats for each of them and poured coffee. Then he filled his pipe,
crossed his right leg over his left knee and puffed away. He was the
speaking likeness of Contentment. And well he might be.

The first assistant engineer had been driving the _Narcissus_ for an
hour at full speed at right angles to the course he believed she was
pursuing. He would, being totally ignorant of the change of masters,
continue to drive her at full speed until midnight, when he would come
off watch, tired and sleepy, and go straight to his state-room. The
second assistant would go direct from his state-room to duty in the
engine-room and continue to drive the _Narcissus_ at full speed until
four o'clock, and inasmuch as it would be quite dark still when the
third assistant came on at four o'clock to relieve the engineer on
watch, there was not the slightest doubt in the minds of Murphy and the
chief but that the deception could go on until breakfast. However, that
would interfere with their plans. Long before that hour the men locked
in the forecastle would have discovered their plight, and the noise of
the discovery might reach below decks and bring up, to investigate,
just a few more husky firemen and coal passers than even the redoubtable
Terence Reardon could hope to cope with successfully.

“By four o'clock we'll be more than fifty miles off the course Schultz
was holding her on,” the captain suggested. “In all likelihood the
German admiral wirelessed his last position and the course he was
steering, and von Staden gave Schultz his course accordingly.”

“Faith, we're not a moment too soon at that,” Mr. Reardon replied.
“Schultz was lookin' for searchlights whin I tapped him. Be the Toe
Nails av Moses ye're right, Michael. We'll be so far off that course be
daylight they won't even see our shmoke. D'ye think that little handful
av bones, Riggins, can manage the wheel until we've claned up the
ingine-room gang? We can relieve him wit' wan av the Chinamen then.”

“Tell him he'll have to stick it out. And by the way, Terence, come to
think of it, you had better run forward and remove the sidelights; then
unscrew all of the incandescent lamps on deck until the contact is lost.
You can screw them in again just before the watch is changed, so they
won't suspect anything, and unscrew them again after we have the watch
under lock and key. The fleet may be too far away to see our smoke by
daylight, but they may be close enough to see our lights to-night! Tell
Riggins to darken the pilot-house. The binnacle light is enough to keep
him company.”

“Thrue for ye,” Terence replied, and hurried away to carry out Murphy's
instructions.




CHAPTER XVII


At twelve o'clock the second assistant engineer, hurrying along the deck
to relieve the first assistant on watch, found Mr. Reardon leaning
over the rail meditatively puffing his old briar pipe. In answer to the
former's query as to what kept the chief up so late, the latter replied
that he was burning sulphur in his room to kill bedbugs.

“The good Lord forgive me the lie,” he prayed when a few minutes later
he was called upon by the first assistant, hurrying off watch, to repeat
the same tale.

The first assistant and his watch had a shower-bath and turned in. They
were not interested in the workings of the deck department in the dark;
they could not know that the vessel's course had been changed; they
thought only of getting to sleep. Mr. Reardon waited until one-thirty
A. M. to provide against possible sleepless ones, and then crept aft on
velvet feet. The _Narcissus_ had very commodious quarters in her stern,
where her coolie crew had been housed in the days when she ran in the
China trade; and when the Blue Star Navigation Company took her over
these quarters had been fitted up to accommodate the engine room crew.
In the same manner, therefore, that he had imprisoned the men of the
deck department in the forecastle, Mr. Reardon now proceeded to imprison
the men of the engine department in the sterncastle. This delicate
mission accomplished, he went up top-side and measured the diameter
of the ventilators, in order to make certain that the thinnest of his
German canaries could not fly the cage via that difficult route. Having
satisfied himself that he had no need to worry on this score, he made
his way forward again.

“Well, Michael, me poor lad,” he announced as he rejoined the skipper,
“I'll tell you wan thing--an' it isn't two. The crew av the _Narcissus_
off watch at this minute will never come on watch ag'in--in the
_Narcissus_.”

The skipper smiled wanly. “I'm sorry you must take all the risks and do
all the work, Terence,” he replied.

“Gwan wit' ye, Michael. Sure if I had a head on me like you, an' a
college edication in back av that ag'in, I'd be out playin' golf this
minute wit' Andhrew Carnegie an' Jawn D. Rockefeller--ayther that, or
I'd have been hung for walkin' away wit' the Treasury Buildin'.”

They discussed the remaining details of that portion of the ship
cleaning still before them. “Remember, Terence,” Mike Murphy warned the
chief, “when the blow-off comes at four o'clock and the uproar commences
fore and aft, we have the means to keep them quiet. I'll go forward
and you go aft. When we threaten to throw burning sulphur down the
ventilators and suffocate them, they'll sing soft and low!”

Mr. Reardon chuckled. “An' Schultz t'ought I was afther bedbugs whin
I asked the shteward for the sulphur,” he replied. “Shtill an' all,
Michael,” he added, a trifle wistfully, “I could wish for a bit more
excitement, considerin' the size av the job.”

“Don't worry, Terry, you may get it yet. I'm dizzy and weak, chief; I'm
fearful I'll not be able to last out the night--and these Germans are
desperate. Suppose we go forward now, while I'm able, and awaken Mr.
Henckel. It's high time he relieved Mr. Schultz, and he'll be waking
naturally if we let him oversleep much longer.”

The subjugation of Mr. Henckel was accomplished without the slightest
excitement or bloodshed. Mr. Reardon rapped at his door and Mr. Henckel
replied sleepily in German. The skipper and the chief merely lurked,
one on each side of his state-room door, until he stepped briskly out;
whereupon the captain jabbed him with the gun while Mr. Reardon shook
the monkey wrench under his nose. Indeed, Mr. Reardon had the gag in the
second mate's mouth even while it hung open in surprise. They bound him
hand and foot, and Mr. Reardon picked him up and tucked him gently in
his berth, for, as the chief remarked to him, he was as safe there as
anywhere and far more comfortable, although Mike Murphy objected and was
for putting him in the mate's store-room with von Staden, whom they had
put in the dirtiest and most unwholesome spot aboard the _Narcissus_,
for two reasons: In the first place, he had kicked Michael J. Murphy
and shot him through the shoulder; and in the second place, he was the
cleanest German and the most wholesome pirate they had ever seen,
and they figured the contrast would annoy him. Mr. Reardon, however,
objected to this plan. He argued that von Staden would be glad of Mr.
Henckel's company, and was it not their original intention to keep that
laddybuck von Staden in solitary confinement? It was. They closed the
state-room door on Mr. Henckel, and left him to meditate on his sins
while they repaired to the carpenter's little shop, to return to the
boat deck presently with the scantlings and cleats Mr. Reardon had
prepared.

With the scantling the chief shored up the doors to the state-room
occupied respectively at the time by the first and third assistant
engineers; then he screwed the cleats into place at top and bottom, so
the scantling could not slip. Not for worlds would he have used a hammer
to nail them into place, for that would have spoiled the surprise for
the objects of his attentions. Throughout the entire operation he was
as silent as a burglar, although by way of additional precaution the
captain stood by with drawn pistol.

“Now thin, Michael,” Mr. Reardon whispered as they pussy-footed away,
“there are six fine Germans below in the ingine room, an' two Irishmen
an' half an Englishman on deck. The Chinee cooks don't count, for sure
the poor heathens would only get excited and turrn somebody loose if
we asked them to do anything desperate. And, as ye know, wan good
Irishman--and bad luck to the man that says I am not that--can keep a
hundhred Germans from comin' up out av that ingine room. Go to yer bed,
Michael, an' lie down until I call ye.”

“Better take this automatic,” Murphy suggested, and showed him how to
use it.

But Mr. Reardon resolutely refused to abandon his monkey wrench,
although he consented to carry the automatic to Riggins in the
pilot-house. The estimable Riggins had been steering a somewhat erratic
course, for he found it impossible to keep his eye on the lubber's mark
while the bound quartermaster glared balefully at him from the floor.
Indeed Riggins had been pondering his fate should that husky Teuton ever
get the upper hand again; hence, when he found himself in a state of
preparedness and was informed that he must stick by the wheel until
relieved, the prospect did not awe him in the least. The present odds
were counterbalanced by the strategic position held by the minority, and
Riggins was content.

On his way back to his state-room, there to rest until the final call
to arms, Michael J. Murphy concluded it would be well to search the
quarters of the second mate and Herr von Staden for contraband of war.
So he did, with the result that he unearthed in von Staden's room the
rifle and revolver which belonged to the _Narcissus_, and under the
second mate's pillow he found another automatic pistol. He confiscated
all three weapons by right of discovery, and hid the rifle in the
galley, the last place anybody would think of looking for it.

In the meantime Mr. Reardon proceeded further to strengthen his position
by closing the port entrance to the engine room and shoring up the door
with a stout scantling, cleated at top and bottom to hold it securely in
place. Then he donned Mr. Schultz's heavy watchcoat, dragged round
from the lee of the house the upholstered easy-chair Mrs. Reardon had
insisted upon his taking to sea with him for use in his leisure moments,
placed this chair on deck just outside the starboard entrance to the
engine room, loaded his pipe, laid his trusty monkey wrench across his
knee and gave himself up to the contemplation of this riot we call life.
He resembled a cat watching beside a gopher hole. By half-past three
o'clock he had finished figuring out approximately the amount of
money Mrs. Reardon would have in the Hibernia Bank at the end of five
years--figuring on a monthly saving of fifty dollars and interest
compounded at the rate of four per cent. So, having satisfied himself
that Johnny would yet be a lawyer and the girls learn to play the piano,
Mr. Reardon heaved a sigh and reluctantly went to call Michael J. Murphy
for the final accounting.




CHAPTER XVIII


At ten minutes to four Mr. Uhl, the second assistant, a man of some
thirty years and ordinarily possessed of a disposition as placid as that
of a little Jersey heifer, ordered one of his firemen to go and call the
watch to relieve them. Mr. Reardon, his monkey wrench firmly grasped in
his right hand, knew that at exactly ten minutes to four Mr. Uhl would
issue that order--so he was on the spot to receive the fireman as
the latter came leisurely up the greasy steel stairway. As the fellow
emerged on deck he paused to wipe his heated brow with a sweat rag
and draw in a welcome breath of cool fresh air. He did not succeed in
getting his lungs quite full, however, for Michael J. Murphy, lurking
beside the door, thrust the barrel of his gun in the fireman's ribs,
effectually curtailing the process of respiration practically at once.
From the other side of the door the chief engineer stepped out and
wagged his bludgeon under the fireman's nose.

“_Ach!_” Mr. Reardon coughed, and grimaced pleasantly. “_Schmierkase und
Sauerkraut_, ye big shtiff! _Vat wilse du haben_, eh? _Zwei bier?_ Damn
the weather, as Misther Schultz would say.”

He laid his finger on his lips, enjoining silence; then with the same
finger he pointed sternly onward, and the fireman took the hint. In the
clear space aft the house and next to the funnel Mr. Reardon bound and
gagged him and laid him tenderly on his back to await developments.

“Now thin, Michael,” he said to the skipper, “lave us go back an' see
can we catch another. At four o'clock, whin this lad fails to return,
Misther Uhl, the omadhaun, will sind up another man to see what the
divil ails the firrst man.”

And it was even so. This time it was the oiler.

At five minutes after four a coal passer came up the stairs, and he was
swearing at the delay in being relieved. Something told Mr. Reardon this
fellow would make trouble, so without warning he hit the coal passer a
light rap “to take the conceit out av him.” Two minutes later the coal
passer had joined his fellows beside the funnel.

At a quarter after four Mr. Uhl scratched his head and said something
very explosive in German. He started up the stairs, got halfway up--and
came down. It had occurred to him very suddenly that three men had
already gone up the stairs and had failed to return. He called a fireman
and gave him some very explicit orders in German; whereupon the man
disappeared in the shaft alley. Five minutes later he returned, pop-eyed
with excitement and the bearer of a tale that caused Mr. Uhl to arch his
blond eyebrows and murmur dazedly “_So?_”

Ten minutes passed. Mr. Reardon glanced interrogatively at Michael J.
Murphy. “I think the divils are suspicious,” he whispered. “We should
have had another be now. Have a care now, Michael. Whin they come they
come wit' a rush an'--”

A pistol shot echoed through the ship. It came up from forward. Three
more followed in rapid succession--a scream--a shout!

“May the divil damn me!” Terence Reardon cried in a horrified voice. “I
clane forgot the little companion hatch at the ind av the shaft alley.
They've crawled down the shaft alley an' up on deck at the very sterrn
av the ship!”

He dashed aft towards the spot where his prisoners were laid out close
to the funnel. As he turned the corner of the house he observed that the
electric lamp which he had so carefully screwed out of its socket had
been screwed in again, and by its light Terence beheld no less a person
than Mr. Uhl cutting the halyards that bound the oiler. The fireman had
already been cut loose, but the potent effects of Terence Reardon's blow
with the wrench still remained; though conscious, the man was unfit for
combat. The coal passer, evidently the first man to be rescued by Mr.
Uhl, was standing by.

“Gower that, ye divils!” Mr. Reardon shrieked, and charged, swinging his
monkey wrench with all his horsepower. He missed his first stroke at
Mr. Uhl, who very deftly stabbed him high up on the hip for his
carelessness; then the chief swung again, and Mr. Uhl was out of the
fight.

Not so the big coal passer, however. He planted in Terence Reardon's
face as pretty a left and right--hay-makers both--as one could hope to
see anywhere outside a prize-ring; whereupon the chief took the count
with great abruptness. The fireman reached for the monkey wrench--and at
that instant the weak, pale-faced skipper lurched around the corner of
the house and his automatic commenced to bark.

It was not a time for sentiment. Michael J. Murphy glanced once at
Terence Reardon's bloody, upturned face, and the glazed eyes thrilled
him with horror. The chief engineer was dead! That meant that Michael J.
Murphy would soon be dead, too. Well, they had fought a good fight and
lost, so nothing now remained for him to do save slaughter as many of
the enemy as possible and go to his accounting like a gentleman.

He turned his back on the heap of bloody, prostrate men, stepped over a
little rivulet of gore that ran rapidly toward the scupper as the
ship heeled to port, then hesitated and started back as she heeled
to starboard. He was vaguely conscious that Mr. Uhl had shut down his
engines before coming on deck and that in consequence the ship had lost
headway and was beginning to wallow. In his weak state her plunging
caused him to stagger like a drunken man. As he crossed to the port side
of the ship and gazed down the deck he noticed that the incandescent
lamps had all been screwed back in their sockets, and by their brilliant
light he beheld one of the firemen in the act of removing the scantling
from before the first assistant's door. Just as the door swung open the
captain fired, but evidently missed, for the man sprang nimbly into the
state-room for safety.

If the great European War has proved nothing else to date, it has
demonstrated one comforting thing about the German people: one does not
grow impatient waiting for them to carry the fight to him. The fireman
had no sooner entered the first assistant's state-room than the first
assistant came out. He was wearing his pajamas and a piece of young
artillery, and without the slightest embarrassment he commenced shooting
at Michael J. Murphy, who, not to be outdone in politeness while he
could stand and see, promptly returned the compliment.

The first assistant's first shot nipped a neat little crescent out of
Mike Murphy's large red right ear; his second ripped clean through the
inside of the skipper's left leg.

“High and then low,” was the thought that capered through Mike Murphy's
brain. “God grant he don't get me through the middle! That's what comes
of fast shooting--so I guess I'll go slow.”

The electric lamp over his head was shattered and the fragments
scattered round him as he leaned against the corner of the house and
took careful aim at the first assistant, who missed his next shot by a
whisker and died in his tracks with two cartridges still in his gun.

Dazedly Michael J. Murphy advanced along the deck, stepped over the body
and entered the state-room. In the corner the fireman crouched, hands
uplifted in token of surrender, so the skipper closed the door and
shored it up again with the scantling. Mechanically he picked up the
first assistant's huge revolver, broke it, removed the cartridges and
threw them overboard. Then he slipped a clip of seven cartridges into
his automatic and staggered round to Mr. Henckel's state room.

The door was open. The bird had flown.

Michael J. Murphy went in and sat down on Mr. Henckel's settee, for
he was very weak and dizzy; and at least nobody could shoot at him in
there. “Come, come, Michael,” he croaked, “no going out this voyage. You
have work ahead of you. Pull yourself together and let us count noses.
Now then, there were two firemen, two coal passers, one oiler and Mr.
Uhl on watch. Terence killed Mr. Uhl with the monkey wrench, I killed
the big coal passer, I think I killed the oiler, and one fireman was out
of the scrap from the beginning. Then I killed the first assistant and
locked the other fireman in his room. That leaves Mr. Henckel and a coal
passer to be reckoned with. Now there was some shooting up forward and
somebody was hit. That means Riggins shot somebody or somebody shot
Riggins. The second mate probably went forward to let the men out of the
forecastle, while the fireman went aft to let the engine-room gang out
of the sterncastle. They haven't had time to do it yet; they'll have to
pry those rings out of the door with a crowbar. I'll go aft and drive
the fireman forward; when I have them bunched I'll argue with them.”

He arrived at the break of the house and looked down on the deck aft.
The lights had been turned on and a man was just raising a short crowbar
to attack the door, from behind which came shouts and cries of anger and
consternation.

Mike Murphy rested his automatic on the deck rail and fired twice at the
man in front of the sterncastle door. The fellow fled at once dashing
along the deck, zigzag fashion, to distract the skipper's aim, and
disappeared in the dark entrance to the starboard alleyway. So Michael
J. Murphy slid down the companion and followed into the alleyway, firing
two shots for luck as he came.

Scarcely had he disappeared into the murk amidships when Terence Reardon
rolled groggily down the companion after him. Terence had no means of
ascertaining which alleyway the skipper had charged into--and he did not
care. Blind with fury he lurched into the port alleyway; in consequence
of which the fugitive, fleeing ahead of the captain down the starboard
alleyway and thinking to turn down the port alleyway and double back to
complete his labors at the sterncastle door, bumped squarely into the
chief engineer.

Mr. Reardon said no word, but wrapped his arms round the man and held
the latter close to his breast.

Thus for a moment they stood, gripping each other, each wondering
whether the other was friend or foe.

Then Mr. Reardon decided that even if his nose was bloody he could not
possibly be mistaken in the odor of a fireman just come off watch. He
had lost his monkey wrench in the _melee_ on the upper deck--the defunct
Mr. Uhl having fallen upon it, thereby obscuring it from Mr. Reardon's
very much befogged vision, but his soul was still undaunted, for Mr.
Reardon, in common with most chief engineers still in their prime,
firmly believed that he could trounce any fireman he saw fit to employ.
He bit suddenly into the fireman's cheek just where the flesh droops
in a fold over the lower jaw, and was fortunate enough to secure a
grip that bade fair to hold; then he crooked his leg at the back of his
opponent's and slowly shoved the fellow's head backward. They came
down together, Mr. Reardon on top, content for once to hold his man
helpless--and rest--while his enemy's shrieks of pain and rage resounded
through the ink-black alleyway.

Michael J. Murphy heard that uproar and halted. After listening a few
seconds he came to the conclusion that a German was in deep distress,
and that hence it was no part of his business to interfere. Besides, he
had business of his own to attend to. He could hear a chain rattling
up forward, and while it was too dark to see who or what was doing the
rattling, he found Mr. Henckel guilty on mere suspicion, and fired
at the sound; whereupon somebody said “_Ach, Gott!_” in tones of deep
disgust, two little flashes of fire cut the dark, and two bullets
whispered of death as they flew harmlessly down the alleyway.

Instantly Mike Murphy returned the salute, firing at the other's
flashes; then he fell to the deck and rolled over into the scupper to
escape the return fire, which was not slow in coming.

“I wonder where the devil he got that gun,” was Murphy's comment. “Mr.
Uhl must have had it in his pocket and lent it to him.”

There was profound silence within the forecastle, and pending the
destruction of his attacker Mr. Henckel judged it imprudent to make any
further attempts at a delivery. He required time to 

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