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The Mutineers

by Charles Boardman Hawes · English · Gutenberg #9657 · 421,266 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Mutineers

Author: Charles Boardman Hawes


        
Release date: January 1, 2006 [eBook #9657]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9657

Credits: Produced by Paul Hollander, Lazar Liveanu and the PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MUTINEERS ***




Produced by Paul Hollander, Lazar Liveanu and the PG
Distributed Proofreaders










THE MUTINEERS



_A tale of old days at sea and of adventures in the Far East as Benjamin
Lathrop set it down some sixty years ago_



by Charles Boardman Hawes





_Illustrated_




_To_ D.C.H.




_TO PAY MY SHOT_


_To master, mate, and men of the ship Hunter, whose voyage is the backbone
of my story; to Captain David Woodard, English mariner, who more than a
hundred and twenty years ago was wrecked on the island of Celebes; to
Captain R.G.F. Candage of Brookline, Massachusetts, who was party to the
original contract in melon seeds; and to certain blue-water skippers who
have left sailing directions for eastern ports and seas, I am grateful for
fascinating narratives and journals, and indebted for incidents in this
tale of an earlier generation._

_C.B.H._





CONTENTS


I
IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR CANTON, CHINA

    I My Father and I Call on Captain Whidden
   II Bill Hayden
  III The Man Outside the Galley
   IV A Piece of Pie
    V Kipping


II
IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER AN ARAB SHIP

   VI The Council in the Cabin
  VII The Sail with a Lozenge-Shaped Patch
 VIII Attacked
   IX Bad Signs
    X The Treasure-Seeker



III
WHICH APPROACHES A CRISIS

   XI A Hundred Thousand Dollars in Gold
  XII A Strange Tale
 XIII Trouble Forward
  XIV Bill Hayden Comes to the End of His Voyage



IV
IN WHICH THE TIDE OF OUR FORTUNES EBBS

   XV Mr. Falk Tries to Cover His Tracks
  XVI A Prayer for the Dead
 XVII Marooned
XVIII Adventures Ashore



V
IN WHICH THE TIDE TURNS

  XIX In Last Resort
   XX A Story in Melon Seeds
  XXI New Allies
 XXII We Attack
XXIII What We Found in the Cabin



VI
IN WHICH WE REACH THE PORT OF OUR DESTINATION

 XXIV Falk Proposes a Truce
  XXV Including a Cross-Examination
 XXVI An Attempt to Play on Our Sympathy
XXVII We Reach Whampoa, but Not the End of Our Troubles



VII
OLD SCORES AND NEW AND A DOUBTFUL WELCOME

XXVIII A Mystery Is Solved and a Thief Gets Away
  XXIX Homeward Bound
   XXX Through Sunda Strait
  XXXI Pikes, Cutlasses, and Guns
 XXXII "So Ends"




ILLUSTRATIONS


"_At 'em, men! At 'em! Pull, you sons of the devil, pull_!"

_Suddenly, in the brief silence that followed the two thunderous reports, a
pistol shot rang out sharply, and I saw Captain Whidden spin round and
fall_.

_We helped him pile his belongings into his chest ... and gave him a hand
on deck_.

"_Sign that statement, Lathrop," said Captain Falk_.

_He cut from the melon-rind a roughly shaped model of a ship and stuck in
it, to represent masts, three slivers of bamboo_.




[Illustration: "_At 'em, men! At 'em! Pull, you sons of the devil, pull_!"]




I

IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR CANTON, CHINA



CHAPTER I

MY FATHER AND I CALL ON CAPTAIN WHIDDEN


My father's study, as I entered it on an April morning in 1809, to learn
his decision regarding a matter that was to determine the course of all my
life, was dim and spacious and far removed from the bustle and clamor of
the harbor-side. It was a large room paneled with dark wood. There were
books along the walls, and paintings of ships, and over the fireplace there
stood a beautiful model of a Burmese junk, carved by some brown artist on
the bank of the Irawadi.

My father sat by the open window and looked out into the warm sunshine,
which was swiftly driving the last snow from the hollows under the
shrubbery.

Already crocuses were blossoming in the grass of the year before, which was
still green in patches, and the bright sun and the blue sky made the study
seem to me, entering, dark and sombre. It was characteristic of my father,
I thought with a flash of fancy, to sit there and look out into a warm, gay
world where springtime was quickening the blood and sunshine lay warm on
the flowers; he always had lived in old Salem, and as he wrote his sermons,
he always had looked out through study windows on a world of commerce
bright with adventure. For my own part, I was of no mind to play the
spectator in so stirring a drama.

With a smile he turned at my step. "So, my son, you wish to ship before the
mast," he said, in a repressed voice and manner that seemed in keeping with
the dim, quiet room. "Pray what do you know of the sea?"

I thought the question idle, for all my life I had lived where I could look
from my window out on the harbor.

"Why, sir," I replied, "I know enough to realize that I want to follow the
sea."

"To follow the sea?"

There was something in my father's eyes that I could not understand. He
seemed to be dreaming, as if of voyages that he himself had made. Yet I
knew he never had sailed blue water. "Well, why not?" he asked suddenly.
"There was a time--"

I was too young to realize then what has come to me since: that my father's
manner revealed a side of his nature that I never had known; that in his
own heart was a love of adventure that he never had let me see. My sixteen
years had given me a big, strong body, but no great insight, and I thought
only of my own urgent desire of the moment.

"Many a boy of ten or twelve has gone to sea," I said, "and the Island
Princess will sail in a fortnight. If you were to speak to Captain
Whidden--"

My father sternly turned on me. "No son of mine shall climb through the
cabin windows."

"But Captain Whidden--"

"I thought you desired to follow the sea--to ship before the mast."

"I do."

"Then say no more of Captain Whidden. If you wish to go to sea, well and
good. I'll not stand in your way. But we'll seek no favoritism, you and I.
You'll ship as boy, but you'll take your medicine like a man."

"Yes, sir," I said, trying perversely to conceal my joy.

"And as for Captain Whidden," my father added, "you'll find he cuts a very
different figure aboard ship from that he shows in our drawing-room."

Then a smile twinkled through his severity, and he laid his hand firmly on
my shoulder.

"Son, you have my permission ungrudgingly given. There was a time--well,
your grandfather didn't see things as I did."

"But some day," I cried, "I'll have a counting-house of my own--
some day--"

My father laughed kindly, and I, taken aback, blushed at my own eagerness.

"Anyway," I persisted, "Roger Hamlin is to go as supercargo."

"Roger--as supercargo?" exclaimed a low voice.

I turned and saw that my sister stood in the door.

"Where--when is he going?"

"To Canton on the Island Princess! And so am I," I cried.

"Oh!" she said. And she stood there, silent and a little pale.

"You'll not see much of Roger," my father remarked to me, still smiling. He
had a way of enjoying a quiet joke at my expense, to him the more pleasing
because I never was quite sure just wherein the humor lay.

"But I'm going," I cried. "I'm going--I'm going--I'm going!"

"At the end of the voyage," said my father, "we'll find out whether you
still wish to follow the sea. After all, I'll go with you this evening,
when supper is done, to see Joseph Whidden."

The lamps were lighted when we left the house, and long beams from the
windows fell on the walk and on the road. We went down the street side by
side, my father absently swinging his cane, I wondering if it were not
beneath the dignity of a young man about to go to sea that his parent
should accompany him on such an errand.

Just as we reached the corner, a man who had come up the street a little
distance behind us turned in at our own front gate, and my father, seeing
me look back when the gate slammed, smiled and said, "I'll venture a guess,
Bennie-my-lad, that some one named Roger is calling at our house this
evening."

Afterwards--long, long afterwards--I remembered the incident.

When my father let the knocker fall against Captain Whidden's great front
door, my heart, it seemed to me, echoed the sound and then danced away at a
lively pace. A servant, whom I watched coming from somewhere behind the
stairs, admitted us to the quiet hall; then another door opened silently, a
brighter light shone out upon us, and a big, grave man appeared. He
welcomed us with a few thoughtful words and, by a motion of his hand, sent
us before him into the room where he had been sitting.

"And so," said Captain Whidden, when we had explained our errand, "I am to
have this young man aboard my ship."

"If you will, sir," I cried eagerly, yet anxiously, too, for he did not
seem nearly so well pleased as I had expected.

"Yes, Ben, you may come with us to Canton; but as your father says, you
must fill your own boots and stand on your own two feet. And will you,
friend Lathrop,"--he turned to my father,--"hazard a venture on the
voyage?"


My father smiled. "I think, Joe," he said, "that I've placed a considerable
venture in your hands already."

Captain Whidden nodded. "So you have, so you have. I'll watch it as best I
can, too, though of course I'll see little of the boy. Let him go now. I'll
talk with you a while if I may."

My father glanced at me, and I got up.

Captain Whidden rose, too. "Come down in the morning," he said. "You can
sign with us at the Websters' counting-house.--And good-bye, Ben," he
added, extending his hand.

"Good-bye? You don't mean--that I'm not to go with you?"

He smiled. "It'll be a long time, Ben, before you and I meet again on quite
such terms as these."

Then I saw what he meant, and shook his hand and walked away without
looking back. Nor did I ever learn what he and my father talked about after
I left them there together.



CHAPTER II

BILL HAYDEN


More than two-score years and ten have come and gone since that day when I,
Benjamin Lathrop, put out from Salem harbor, a green hand on the ship
Island Princess, and in them I have achieved, I think I can say with due
modesty, a position of some importance in my own world. But although
innumerable activities have crowded to the full each intervening year,
neither the aspirations of youth nor the successes of maturity nor the
dignities of later life have effaced from my memory the picture of myself,
a boy on the deck of the Island Princess in April, 1809.

I thought myself very grand as the wind whipped my pantaloons against my
ankles and flapped the ribbons of the sailor hat that I had pulled snugly
down; and I imagined myself the hero of a thousand stirring adventures in
the South Seas, which I should relate when I came back an able seaman at
the very least. Never was sun so bright; never were seas so blue; never was
ship so smart as the Island Princess.

On her black hull a nicely laid band of white ran sheer from stem to stern;
her bows swelled to meet the seas in a gentle curve that hinted the swift
lines of our clippers of more recent years. From mainmast heel to truck,
from ensign halyard to tip of flying jib-boom, her well-proportioned masts
and spars and taut rigging stood up so trimly in one splendidly
coördinating structure, that the veriest lubber must have acknowledged her
the finest handiwork of man.

It was like a play to watch the men sitting here and there on deck, or
talking idly around the forecastle, while Captain Whidden and the chief
mate conferred together aft. I was so much taken with it all that I had no
eyes for my own people who were there to see me off, until straight out
from the crowded wharf there came a young man whom I knew well. His gray
eyes, firm lips, square chin, and broad shoulders had been familiar to me
ever since I could remember.

As he was rowed briskly to the ship, I waved to him and called out, "O
Roger--ahoy!"

I thought, when he glanced up from the boat, that his gray eyes twinkled
and that there was the flutter of a smile on his well-formed lips; but he
looked at me and through me and seemed not to see me, and it came over me
all at once that from the cabin to the forecastle was many, many times the
length of the ship.

With a quick survey of the deck, as if to see who had spoken, yet seeming
not to see me at all, Roger, who had lived all his life within a cable's
length of the house where I was born, who had taught me to box the compass
before I learned my ABC's, whose interest in my own sister had partly
mystified, partly amused her younger brother--that very Roger climbed
aboard the Island Princess and went on into the cabin without word or sign
of recognition.

It was not the first time, of course, that I had realized what my chosen
apprenticeship involved; but the incident brought it home to me more
clearly than ever before. No longer was I to be known as the son of Thomas
Lathrop. In my idle dreams I had been the hero of a thousand imaginary
adventures; instead, in the strange experiences I am about to relate, I was
to be only the ship's "boy"--the youngest and least important member of
that little isolated community banded together for a journey to the other
side of the world. But I was to see things happen such as most men have
never dreamed of; and now, after fifty years, when the others are dead and
gone, I may write the story.

When I saw that my father, who had watched Roger Hamlin with twinkling eyes
ignore my greeting, was chuckling in great amusement, I bit my lip. What if
Roger _was_ supercargo, I thought: he needn't feel so big.

Now on the wharf there was a flutter of activity and a stir of color; now a
louder hum of voices drifted across the intervening water. Captain Whidden
lifted his hand in farewell to his invalid wife, who had come in her
carriage to see him sail. The mate went forward on the forecastle and the
second mate took his position in the waist.

"Now then, Mr. Thomas," Captain Whidden called in a deep voice, "is all
clear forward?"

"All clear, sir," the mate replied; and then, with all eyes upon him, he
took charge, as was the custom, and proceeded to work the ship.

While the men paid out the riding cable and tripped it, and hove in the
slack of the other, I stood, carried away--foolish boy!--by the thought
that here at last I was a seaman among seamen, until at my ear the second
mate cried sharply, "Lay forward, there, and lend a hand to cat the
anchor."

The sails flapped loose overhead; orders boomed back and forth; there was
running and racing and hauling and swarming up the rigging; and from the
windlass came the chanteyman's solo with its thunderous chorus:--

    "Pull one and all!
      Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
    On this catfall!
      Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
    Answer the call!
      Hoy! Hoy! Cheery men.
    Hoy! Haulee!
      Hoy! Hoy!!!
        Oh, cheery men!"

As the second anchor rose to the pull of the creaking windlass, we sheeted
home the topsails, topgallantsails and royals and hoisted them up, braced
head-yards aback and after-yards full for the port tack, hoisted the jib
and put over the helm. Thus the Island Princess fell off by the head, as we
catted and fished the anchor; then took the wind in her sails and slipped
slowly out toward the open sea.

Aft, by the lee rail, I saw Roger Hamlin watching the group, a little apart
from the others, where my own people had gathered. My father stood half a
head above the crowd, and beside him were my mother and my sister. When I,
too, looked back at them, my father waved his hat and I knew his eyes were
following me; I saw the flutter of white from my mother's hand, and I knew
that her heart was going out with me to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Then, almost timidly, my sister waved her handkerchief. But I saw that she
was looking at the quarter-deck.

As land fell astern until it became a thin blue line on the western
horizon, and as the Island Princess ran free with the wind full in her
sails, I took occasion, while I jumped back and forth in response to the
mate's quick orders, to study curiously my shipmates in our little kingdom.
Now that we had no means of communication with that already distant shore,
we were a city unto ourselves.

Yonder was the cook, a man as black as the bottom of his iron pot, whose
frown, engraved deeply in his low forehead, might have marked him in my
eyes as the villain of some melodrama of the sea, had I not known him for
many years to be one of the most generous darkies, so far as hungry small
boys were concerned, that ever ruled a galley. The second mate, who was now
in the waist, I had never seen before--to tell the truth, I was glad that
he held no better berth, for I disliked the turn of his too full lips.
Captain Whidden and the chief mate, Mr. Thomas, I had known a long time,
and I had thought myself on terms of friendship with them, even
familiarity; but so far as any outward sign was concerned, I might now have
been as great a stranger to either as to the second mate.

We were twenty-two men all told: four in the cabin--Captain  Whidden, Mr.
Thomas, Mr. Falk, and Roger, whose duties included oversight of the cargo,
supervision of matters purely of business and trade in foreign ports, and a
deal of clerical work that Captain Whidden had no mind to be bothered with;
three in the steerage--the cook (contrary, perhaps, to the more usual
custom), the steward, and the carpenter; and fourteen in the forecastle.

All in all I was well pleased with my prospects, and promised myself that I
would "show them a thing or two," particularly Roger Hamlin. I'd make a
name for myself aboard the Island Princess. I'd let all the men know that
it would not take Benjamin Lathrop long to become as smart a seaman as
they'd hope to see.

Silly lad that I was!

Within twenty minutes of that idle dream the chain of circumstances had
begun that was to bring every man aboard the Island Princess face to face
with death. Like the small dark cloud that foreruns a typhoon, the first
act in the wild drama that came near to costing me my own life was so
slight, so insignificant relatively, that no man of us then dreamed of the
hidden forces that brought it to pass.

On the forecastle by the larboard rigging stood a big, broad-shouldered
fellow, who nodded familiarly at the second mate, cast a bit of a leer at
the captain as if to impress on the rest of us his own daring and
independence, and gave me, when I caught his eye, a cold, noncommittal
stare. His name, I shortly learned, was Kipping. Undeniably he was
impudent; but he had, nevertheless, a mild face and a mild manner, and when
I heard him talk, I discovered that he had a mild voice; I could find no
place for him in the imaginary adventures that filled my mind--he was quite
too mild a man.

I perceived that he was soldiering at his work, and almost at the same
moment I saw the mate come striding down on him.

"You there," Mr. Thomas snapped out, "bear a hand! Do you think you're
waiting for the cows to come home?"

"No-o-o, sir," the mild man drawled, starting to walk across the deck.

The slow reply, delivered with a mocking inflection, fanned to sudden
laughter chuckles that the mate's words had caused.


Mr. Thomas reddened and, stepping out, thrust his face close to the
other's. "You try any of your slick tricks on me, my man," he said slowly
and significantly, "you try any of your slick tricks on me, and so help me,
I'll show you."

"Ye-e-es, sir," the man replied with the same inflection, though not so
pronounced this time.

Suddenly the deck became very still. The listeners checked their laughter.
Behind me I heard some one mutter, "Hear that, will you?" Glancing around,
I saw that Captain Whidden had gone below and that Mr. Thomas was in
command. I was confident that the mild seaman was mocking the mate, yet so
subtle was his challenge, you could not be sure that he actually was
defiant.

Although Mr. Thomas obviously shared the opinion of the men, there was so
little on which to base a charge of insubordination or affront that he
momentarily hesitated.

"What is your name?" he suddenly demanded.

"Kipping, sir," the mild man replied.

This time there was only the faintest suggestion of the derisive
inflection. After all, it might have been but a mannerism. The man had such
a mild face and such a mild manner!

"Well, Kipping, you go about your work, and after this, let me warn you,
keep busy and keep a civil tongue in your head. We'll have no slick tricks
aboard this ship, and the sooner you men realize it, the easier it will be
for all hands."

Turning, the mate went back to the quarter-deck and resumed his station by
the weather rail.

While his back was toward us, however, and just as I myself, who had
listened, all ears, to the exchange of words between them, was turning to
the forecastle, I saw--or  thought I saw--on Kipping's almost averted face
just such a leer as I had seen him cast at the captain, followed, I could
have taken my oath, by a shameless wink. When he noticed me gazing at him,
open-mouthed, he gave me such another cold stare as he had given me before
and, muttering something under his breath, walked away.

I looked aft to discover at whom he could have winked, but I saw only the
second mate, who scowled at me angrily.

"Now what," thought I, "can all this mean?" Then, being unable to make
anything of it, I forgot it and devoted myself industriously to my own
affairs until the hoarse call of "All hands on deck" brought the men who
were below tumbling up, to be summoned aft and addressed by the captain.

Apparently Captain Whidden was not aware that there was a soul on board
ship except himself. With his eyes on the sea and his hands clasped behind
him, he paced the deck, while we fidgeted and twisted and grew more and
more impatient. At last, with a sort of a start, as if he had just seen
that we were waiting, he stopped and surveyed us closely. He was a fine
figure of a man and he affected the fashions of a somewhat earlier day.
A beaver with sweeping brim surmounted his strong, smooth-shaven face, and
a white stock, deftly folded, swathed his throat to his resolute chin. Trim
waistcoat, ample coat, and calmly folded arms completed his picture as he
stood there, grave yet not severe, waiting to address us.

What he said to us in his slow, even voice was the usual speech of a
captain in those times; and except for a finer dignity than common, he did
not deviate from the well-worn customary phrases until he had outlined the
voyage that lay before us and had summed up the advantages of prompt,
willing obedience and the penalties of any other course. His tone then
suddenly changed. "If any man here thinks that he can give me slovenly work
or back talk and arguing," he said, "it'll be better for that man if he
jumps overboard and swims for shore." I was certain--and I still am--that
he glanced sharply at Kipping, who stood with a faint, nervous smile,
looking at no one in particular. "Well, Mr. Thomas," he said at last,
"we'll divide the watches. Choose your first man."

When we went forward, I found myself, as the green hand of the voyage, one
of six men in the starboard watch. I liked the arrangement little enough,
for the second mate commanded us and Kipping was the first man he had
chosen; but it was all in the day's work, so I went below to get my jacket
before eight bells should strike.

The voices in the forecastle suddenly stopped when my feet sounded on the
steps; but as soon as the men saw that it was only the boy, they resumed
their discussion without restraint.

"I tell you," some one proclaimed from the darkest corner, "the second
mate, he had it all planned to get the chief mate's berth this voyage, and
the captain, he put him out no end because he wouldn't let him have it.
Yes, sir. And he bears a grudge against the mate, he does, him and that sly
friend of his, Kipping. Perhaps you didn't see Kipping wink at the second
mate after he was called down. I did, and I says to myself then, says I,
'There's going to be troublous times ere this voyage is over.' Yes, sir."

"Right you are, Davie!" a higher, thinner voice proclaimed, "right you are.
I was having my future told, I was, and the lady--"

A roar of laughter drowned the words of the luckless second speaker, and
some one yelled vociferously, "Neddie the fortune-teller! Don't tell me
he's shipped with us again!"

"But I tell you," Neddie persisted shrilly, "I tell you they hit it right,
they do, often. And the lady, she says, 'Neddie Benson, don't you go
reckless on this next voyage. There's trouble in store,' she says.
'There'll be a dark man and a light man, and a terrible danger.' And I paid
the lady two dollars and I--"

Again laughter thundered in the forecastle.

"All the same," the deep-voiced Davie growled, "that sly, slippery--"

"Hist!" A man raised his hand against the light that came faintly from on
deck.

Then a mild voice asked, "What are you men quidding about anyway? One of
you's sitting on my chest."

"Listen to them talk," some one close beside me whispered. "You'd think
this voyage was all of life, the way they run on about it. Now it don't
mean so much to me. My name's Bill Hayden, and I've got a little wee girl,
I have, over to Newburyport, that will be looking for her dad to come home.
Two feet long she is, and cute as they make them."

Aware that the speaker was watching me closely, I perfunctorily nodded. At
that he edged nearer. "Now I'm glad we're in the same watch," he said. "So
many men just cut a fellow off with a curse."

I observed him more sharply, and saw that he was a stupid-looking but
rather kindly soul whose hair was just turning gray.

"Now I wish you could see that little girl of mine," he continued. "Cute?
there ain't no word to tell you how cute she is. All a-laughing and
gurgling and as good as gold. Why, she ain't but a little old, and yet she
can stand right up on her two little legs as cute as you please."

I listened with mild interest as he rambled on. He seemed such a friendly,
homely soul that I could but regard him more kindly than I did some of our
keener-witted fellow seamen.

Now we heard faintly the bell as it struck, _clang-clang, clang-clang,
clang-clang_. Feet scuffled overhead, and some one called down the hatch,
"Eight bells, starbow-lines ahoy!"

Davie's deep voice replied sonorously, "Ay-ay!" And one after another we
climbed out on deck, where the wind from the sea blew cool on our faces.

I had mounted the first rung of the ladder, and was regularly signed as a
member of the crew of the Island Princess, bound for Canton with a cargo of
woolen goods and ginseng. There was much that puzzled me aboard-ship--the
discontent of the second mate, the perversity of the man Kipping (others
besides myself had seen that wink), and a certain undercurrent of
pessimism. But although I was separated a long, long way from my old
friends in the cabin, I felt that in Bill Hayden I had found a friend of a
sort; then, as I began my first real watch on deck at sea, I fell to
thinking of my sister and Roger Hamlin.



CHAPTER III

THE MAN OUTSIDE THE GALLEY


Strange events happened in our first month at sea--events so subtle as
perhaps to seem an unimportant part of this narrative of a strange voyage,
yet really as necessary to the foundation of the story as the single bricks
and the single dabs of mortar at the base of a tall chimney are necessary
to the completed structure. I later had cause to remember each trivial
incident as if it had been written in letters of fire.

In the first dog watch one afternoon, when we were a few days out of port,
I was sitting with my back against the forward deck-house, practising
splices and knots with a bit of rope that I had saved for the purpose. I
was only a couple of feet from the corner, so of course I heard what was
going on just out of sight.

The voices were low but distinct.

"Now leave me alone!" It was Bill Hayden who spoke. "I ain't never troubled
you."

"Ah, so you ain't troubled me, have you, you whimpering old dog?"

"No, I ain't troubled you."

"Oh, no! You was so glad to let me take your nice dry boots, you was, when
mine was filled with water."

The slow, mild, ostensibly patient voice could be none other than
Kipping's.

"I had to wear 'em myself."

"Oh, had to wear 'em yourself, did you?"

"Let go o' my arm!"

"So?"

"Let go, I tell you; let go or I'll--I swear I'll hammer you good."

"Oh, you'll hammer me good, will you?"

"Let go!"

There was a sudden scuffle, then out from the corner of the deck-house
danced Kipping with both hands pressed over his jaw.

"You bloody scoundrel!" he snarled, meek no longer. "You wait--I'll get
you. I'll--" Seeing me sitting there with my bit of rope, he stopped short;
then, with a sneer, he walked away.

Amazed at the sudden departure of his tormentor, Bill Hayden stuck his own
head round the corner and in turn discovered me in my unintentional
hiding-place.

Bill, however, instead of departing in chagrin, joined me with a puzzled
expression on his kind, stupid face.

"I don't understand that Kipping," he said sadly. "I've tried to use him
right. I've done everything I can to help him out and I'm sure I don't want
to quarrel with him, yet for all he goes around as meek as a cat that's
been in the cream, he's always pecking at me and pestering me, till just
now I was fair drove to give him a smart larrup."

Why, indeed, should Kipping or any one else molest good, dull old Bill
Hayden?

"I'm a family man, I am," Bill continued, "with a little girl at home. I
ain't a-bothering no one. I'm sure all I want is to be left alone."

For a time we sat in silence, watching the succession of blue waves through
which the Island Princess cut her swift and almost silent passage. A man
must have been a cowardly bully to annoy harmless old Bill. Yet even then,
young though I was, I realized that sometimes there is no more dangerous
man than a coward and a bully, "He's great friends with the second mate,"
Bill remarked at last. "And the second mate has got no use at all for Mr.
Thomas because he thought he was going to get Mr. Thomas's berth and
didn't; and for the same reason he don't like the captain. Well, I'm glad
he's only _second mate_. He ain't got his hands out of the tar-bucket yet,
my boy."

"How do you know he expected to get the mate's berth?" I asked.

"It's common talk, my boy. The supercargo's the only man aft he's got any
manner of use for, and cook says the steward says Mr. Hamlin ain't got no
manner of use for him. There you are."

"No," I thought,--though I discreetly said nothing,--"Roger Hamlin is not
the man to be on friendly terms with a fellow of the second mate's
calibre."

And from that time on I watched Mr. Falk, the second mate, and the
mild-voiced Kipping more closely than ever--so closely that one night I
stumbled on a surprising discovery.

Ours was the middle watch, and Mr. Falk as usual was on the quarter-deck.
By moonlight I saw him leaning on the weather rail as haughtily as if he
were the master. His slim, slightly stooped figure, silhouetted against the
moonlit sea, was unmistakable. But the winds were inconstant and drifting
clouds occasionally obscured the moon. Watching, I saw him distinctly;
then, as the moonlight darkened, the after part of the ship became as a
single shadow against a sea almost as black. While I still watched, there
came through a small fissure in the clouds a single moonbeam that swept
from the sea across the quarter-deck and on over the sea again. By that
momentary light I saw that Mr. Falk had left the weather rail.

Certainly it was a trifling thing to consider twice, but you must remember,
in the first place, that I was only a boy, with all a boy's curiosity about
trifles, and in the second place that of the four men in the cabin no other
derived such obvious satisfaction from the minor prerogatives of office as
Mr. Falk. He fairly swelled like a frog in the sun as he basked in the
prestige that he attributed to himself when, left in command, he occupied
the captain's place at the weather rail.

Immediately I decided that under the cover of darkness I would see what had
become of him. So I ran lightly along in the shelter of the lee bulwark,
dodging past the galley, the scuttle-butt, and the cabin in turn. At the
quarter-deck I hesitated, knowing well that a sound thrashing was the least
I could expect if Mr. Falk discovered me trespassing on his own territory,
yet lured by a curiosity that was the stronger for the vague rumors on
which it had fed.

On hands and knees I stopped by the farther corner of the cabin. Clouds
still hid the moon and low voices came to my ears. Very cautiously I peeked
from my hiding-place, and saw that Mr. Falk and the helmsman had put their
heads together and were talking earnestly.

While they talked, the helmsman suddenly laughed and prodded Mr. Falk in
the ribs with his thumb. Like a flash it came over me that it was Kipping's
trick at the wheel. Here was absolute proof that, when the second mate and
the mild man thought no one was spying upon them, they were on uncommonly
friendly terms. Yet I did not dream that I had stumbled on anything graver
than to confirm one of those idle rumors that set tongues wagging in the
forecastle, but that really are too trifling to be worth a second thought.

When the crew of a ship is cut off from all communication with the world at
large, it is bound, for want of greater interests, to find in the
monotonous daily round something about which to weave a pretty tale.

At that moment, to my consternation, the bell struck four times. As the two
dark figures separated, I started back out of sight. Kipping's trick at the
wheel was over, and his relief would come immediately along the very route
that I had chosen; unless I got away at once I should in all probability be
discovered on the quarterdeck and trounced within an inch of my life. Then
suddenly, as if to punish my temerity, the cloud passed and the moonlight
streamed down on deck.

Darting lightly back to the companion-ladder, I slipped down it and was on
the point of escaping forward when I heard slow steps. In terror lest the
relief spy me and reveal my presence by some exclamation that Kipping or
the second mate would overhear, I threw myself down flat on the deck just
forward of the scuttle-butt, where the moon cast a shadow; and with the
fervent hope that I should appear to be only a heap of old sail, I lay
without moving a muscle.

The steps came slowly nearer. They had passed, I thought, when a pause set
my heart to jumping madly. Then came a low, cautious whisper:--

"You boy, what you doin' dah?"

It was not the relief after all. It was the good old villainous-looking
black cook, with a cup of coffee for Mr. Falk.

"Put yo' head down dah," he whispered, "put yo' head down, boy."

With a quick motion of his hand he jerked some canvas from the butt so that
it concealed me, and went on, followed by the quick steps of the real
relief.

Now I heard voices, but the only words I could distinguish were in the
cook's deep drawl.

"Yass, sah, yass, sah. Ah brought yo' coffee, sah, Yass, sah, Ah'll wait
fo' yo' cup, sah."

Next came Kipping's step--a mild step, if there is such a thing; even in
his bullying the man was mild. Then came the slow, heavy tread of the
returning African.

Flicking the canvas off me, he muttered, "All's cleah fo' you to git away,
boy. How you done come to git in dis yeh scrape sho' am excruciatin'. You
just go 'long with you while dey's a chanst."

So, carrying with me the very unimportant discovery that I had made, I ran
cautiously forward, away from the place where I had no business to be.

When, in the morning, just before eight bells, I was sent to the galley
with the empty kids, I found the worthy cook in a solemn mood.

"You boy," he said, fixing on me a stare, which his deeply graven frown
rendered the more severe, "you boy, what you think you gwine do, prowlin'
round all hours? Hey? You tell dis nigger dat. Heah Ah's been and put you
onto all de ropes and give you more infohmative disco'se about ships and
how to behave on 'em dan eveh Ah give a green hand befo' in all de years Ah
been gwine to sea, and heah you's so tarnation foolish as go prowlin' round
de quarter-deck whar you's like to git skun alive if Mistah Falk ketches
you."

I don't remember what I replied, but I am sure it was flippant; to the day
of my death I shall never forget the stinging, good-natured cuff with which
the cook knocked my head against the wall. "Sho' now," he growled, "go
'long!"

I was not yet ready to go. "Tell me, doctor," I said, "does the second mate
get on well with the others in the cabin?"

The title mollified him somewhat, but he still felt that he must uphold the
dignity of his office. "Sho' now, what kind of a question is dat fo' a
ship's boy to be askin' de cook?" He glanced at me suspiciously, then
challenged me directly, "Who put dose idea' in yo' head?"

By the tone of the second question, which was quite too straightforward to
be confused with the bantering that we usually exchanged, I knew that he
was willing, if diplomatically coaxed, to talk frankly. I then said
cautiously, "Every one thinks so, but you're the only man forward that's
likely to know."

"Now ain't dat jest like de assumptivity of dem dah men in de forecastle.
How'd Ah know dat kind of contraptiveness, tell me?"

Looking closely at me he began to rattle his pans at a great rate while I
waited in silence. He was not accomplishing much; indeed, he really was
throwing things into a state of general disorder. But I observed that he
was working methodically round the galley toward where I stood, until at
last he bumped into me and started as if he hadn't known that I was there
at all.

"You boy," he cried, "you still heah?" He scowled at me with a particularly
savage intensity, then suddenly leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder.
"You's right, boy," he whispered. "He ain't got no manner of use foh dem
other gen'lems, and what's mo', dey ain't got no manner of use foh him.
Ah's telling you, boy, it's darn lucky, you bet, dat Mistah Falk he eats at
second table. Yass, sah. Hark! dah's de bell--eight bells! Yo' watch on
deck, hey?" After a short pause, he whispered, "Boy, you come sneakin'
round to-morrow night when dat yeh stew'd done gone to bed, an' Ah'll jest
gadder you up a piece of pie f'om Cap'n's table--yass, sah! Eight bells is
struck. Go 'long, you." And shoving me out of his little kingdom, the
villainous-looking darky sent after me a savage scowl, which I translated
rightly as a token of his high regard and sincere friendship.

In my delight at the promised treat, and in my haste to join the watch, I
gave too little heed to where I was going, and shot like a bullet squarely
against a man who had been standing just abaft the galley window. He
collapsed with a grunt. My shoulder had knocked the wind completely out of
him.

"Ugh!--" he gasped--"ugh! You son of perdition--ugh! Why in thunder don't
you look where you're running--ugh!--I'll break your rascally young
neck--ugh--when I get my wind."

It was Kipping, and for the second time he had lost his mildness.

As he clutched at me fiercely, I dodged and fled. Later, when I was hauling
at his side, he seemed to have forgotten the accident; but I knew well
enough that he had not. He was not the kind that forgets accidents. His
silence troubled me. How much, I wondered, had he heard of what was going
on in the galley?



CHAPTER IV

A PIECE OF PIE


At two bells there sounded the sonorous call, "Sail ho!"

"Where away?" cried Mr. Falk.

"One point off the larboard bow."

In all the days since we had lost sight of land, we had seen but one other
sail, which had appeared only to disappear again beyond the horizon. It
seemed probable, however, that we should speak this second vessel, a brig
whose course crossed our own. Captain Whidden came on deck and assumed
command, and the men below, getting wind of the excitement, trooped up and
lined the bulwarks forward. Our interest, which was already considerable,
became even keener when the stranger hove out a signal of distress. We took
in all studding-sails and topgallantsails fore and aft, and lay by for her
about an hour after we first had sighted her.

Over the water, when we were within hailing distance, came the cry: "Ship
ahoy!"

Captain Whidden held the speaking trumpet. "Hullo!"

"What ship is that, pray?"

"The ship Island Princess, from Salem, bound to Canton. Where are you
from?"

"The brig Adventure, bound from the Straits to Boston. Our foretopmast was
carried away four hours ago. Beware of--"

Losing the next words, the Captain called, "I didn't hear that last."

"Beware,"--came again the warning cry, booming deeply over the sea while
one and all we strained to hear it--"beware of any Arab ship. Arabs have
captured the English ship Alert and have murdered her captain and fifteen
men."

Squaring her head-yards, the brig dropped her mainsail, braced her cross
jack-yard sharp aback, put her helm a-weather and got sternway, while her
after sails and helm kept her to the wind. So she fell off from us and the
two vessels passed, perhaps never to meet again.

Both forward and aft, we aboard the Island Princess were sober men. Kipping
and the second mate were talking quietly together, I saw (I saw, too, that
Captain Whidden and some of the others were watching them sharply) Mr.
Thomas and Roger Hamlin were leaning side by side upon the rail, and
forward the men were gathering in groups. It was indeed an ominous message
that the brig had given us. But supper broke the tension, and afterwards a
more cheerful atmosphere prevailed.

As I was sweeping down the deck next day, Roger, to my great surprise,--for
by now I was accustomed to his amused silence,--came and spoke to me with
something of the old, humorous freedom that was so characteristic of him.

"Well, Bennie," said he, "we're quite a man now, are we not?"

"We are," I replied shortly. Although I would not for a great deal have
given him the satisfaction of knowing it, I had been much vexed, secretly,
by his rigidly ignoring me.

"Bennie," he said in a low voice, "is there trouble brewing in the
forecastle?"

I was startled. "Why, no. I've seen no sign of trouble."

"No one has talked to you, then?"

"Not in such a way as you imply."

"Hm! Keep your eyes and ears open, anyway, and if you hear anything that
sounds like trouble, let me know--quietly, mind you, even secretly."

"What do you mean?"

"We are carrying a valuable cargo, and we have very particular orders. All
must be thus and so,--exactly thus and so,--and it means more to the
owners, Bennie, than I think you realize. Now you go on with your work. But
remember--eyes and ears open."

That night, as I watched the restless sea and the silent stars, my
imagination was stirred as never before. I felt the mystery and wonder of
great distances and far places. We were so utterly alone! Except for the
passing hail of some stranger, we had cut ourselves off for months from all
communication with the larger world. Whatever happened aboard ship, in
whatever straits we found ourselves, we must depend solely upon our own
resources; and already it appeared that some of our shipmates were scheming
and intriguing against one another. Thus I meditated, until the boyish and
more natural, perhaps more wholesome, thought of the cook's promise came to
me.

Pie! My remembrance of pie was almost as intangible as a pleasant dream
might be some two days later. With care to escape observation, I made my
way to the galley and knocked cautiously.

"Who's dah?" asked softly the old cook, who had barricaded himself for the
night according to his custom, and was smoking a villainously rank pipe.

"It's Ben Lathrop," I whispered.

"What you want heah?" the cook demanded.

"The pie you promised me," I answered.

"Humph! Ain't you fo'got dat pie yet? You got de most miraculous memorizer
eveh Ah heared of. You wait."

I heard him fumbling inside the galley; then he opened the door and stepped
out on deck as if he had just decided to take a breath of fresh air. Upon
seeing me, he pretended to start with great surprise, and exclaimed rather
more loudly than before:--

"What you doin' heah, boy, at dis yeh hour o' night?"

But all this was only crafty by-play. Having made sure, so he thought,
that no one was in sight, he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into
the galley, at the same time shutting the door so that I almost stifled in
the rank smoke with which he had filled the place.

Scowling fiercely, he reached into a little cupboard and drew out half an
apple pie that to my eager eyes seemed as big as a half moon on a clear
night.


"Dah," he said. "Eat it up. Mistah Falk, he tell stew'd he want pie and he
gotta have pie, and stew'd he come and he say, 'Frank,' says he, 'dat
Mistah Falk, his langwidge is like he is in liquo'. He _gotta_ have pie.'
'All right,' Ah say, 'if he gotta have pie, he gotta wait twill Ah make
pie. Cap'n, he et hearty o' pie lately.' Stew'd he say, 'Cap'n ain't had
but one piece and Mistah Thomas, he ain't had but one piece, and Mistah
Hamlin, he ain't had any. Dah's gotta be pie. You done et dat pie yo'se'f,'
says he. 'Oh, no,' says Ah. 'Ah never et no pie. You fo'get 'bout dat pie
you give Cap'n foh breakfas'.' Den stew'd he done crawl out. He don' know
Ah make two pies yestidday. Dat's how come Ah have pie foh de boy. Boys dey
need pie to make 'em grow. It's won'erful foh de indignation, pie is."

I was appalled by the hue and cry that my half-circle of pastry had
occasioned, and more than a little fearful of the consequences if the truth
ever should transpire; but the pie in hand was compensation for many such
intangible difficulties in the future, and I was making great inroads on a
wedge of it, when I thought I heard a sound outside the window, which the
cook had masked with a piece of paper.

I stopped to listen and saw that Frank had heard it too. It was a scratchy
sound as if some one were trying to unship the glass.

"Massy sake!" my host gasped, taking his vile pipe out of his mouth.

Although it was quite impossible for pallor to make any visible impression
on his surpassing blackness, he obviously was much disturbed.

"Gobble dat pie, boy," he gasped, "gobble up ev'y crumb an' splinter."

Now, as the scratchy noise sounded at the door, the cook laid his pipe on a
shelf and glanced up at a big carving-knife that hung from a rack above his
head.

"Who's dah?" he demanded cautiously.

"Lemme in," said a mild, low voice, "I want some o' that pie."

"Massy sake!" the cook gasped in disgust, "ef it ain't dat no 'count
Kipping."

"Lemme in," persisted the mild, plaintive voice. "Lemme in."

"Aw, go 'long! Dah ain't no pie in heah," the cook retorted. "You's
dreamin', dat's what you is. You needs a good dose of medicine, dat's what
you needs."

"I'm dreaming, am I?" the mild voice repeated. "Oh, yes, I'm dreaming I am,
ain't I? I didn't sneak around the galley yesterday morning and hear you
tell that cocky little fool to come and get a piece of pie tonight. Oh, no!
I didn't see him come prowling around when he thought no one was looking.
Oh, no! I didn't see you come out of the galley like you didn't know there
was anybody on deck, and walk right under the rigging where I was waiting
for just such tricks. Oh, no! I was dreaming, I was. Oh, yes."


"Dat Kipping," the cook whispered, "he's hand and foot with Mistah Falk."

"Lemme in, you woolly-headed son of perdition, or I swear I'll take the
kinky scalp right off your round old head."

"He's gettin' violenter," the cook whispered, eyeing me questioningly.

Saying nothing, I swallowed the last bit of pie. I had made the most of my
opportunity.

Kipping now shook the door and swore angrily. Finally he kicked it with the
full weight of his heel.

It rattled on its hinges and a long crack appeared in the lower panel.

"He's sho' coming in," the African said slowly and reflectively. "He's sho'
coming in and when he don't get no pie, he's gwine tell Mistah Falk, and
you and me's gwine have trouble." Putting his scowling face close to my
ear, the cook whispered, "Ah's gwine scare him good."

Amazed by the dramatic turn that events were taking, I drew back into a
corner.

From the rack above his head the cook took down the carving-knife. Dropping
on hands and knees and creeping across the floor, he held the weapon
between his even white teeth, sat up on his haunches, and noiselessly
drew the bolt that locked the door. Then with a deft motion of an
extraordinarily long arm he put out the lantern behind him and threw the
galley into darkness.



CHAPTER V

KIPPING


I thought that Kipping must have abandoned his quest. In the darkness of
the galley the silence seemed hours long. The coals in the stove glowed
redly, and the almost imperceptible light of the starry sky came in here
and there around the door. Otherwise not a thing was visible in the
absolute blackness that shrouded my strange host, who seemed for the moment
to have reverted to the savage craft of his Slave Coast ancestors. Surely
Kipping must have gone away, I thought. He was so mild a man, one could
expect nothing else. Then somewhere I heard the faint sigh of indrawn
breath.

"You blasted nigger, open that door," said the mild, sad voice. "If you
don't, I'm going to kick it in on top of you and cut your heart out right
where you stand."

The silence, heavy and pregnant, was broken by the shuffling of feet.
Evidently Kipping drew off to kick the door a second time. His boot struck
it a terrific blow, but the door, instead of breaking, flew open and
crashed against the pans behind it.

Then the cook, who so carefully had prepared the simple trap, swinging the
carving-knife like a cutlass, sprang with a fierce, guttural grunt full in
Kipping's face. Concealed in the dark galley, I saw it all silhouetted
against the starlit deck. With the quickness of a weasel, Kipping evaded
the black's clutching left hand and threw himself down and forward. Had the
cook really intended to kill Kipping, the weapon scarcely could have failed
to cut flesh in its terrific swing, but he gave it an upward turn that
carried it safely above Kipping's head. When Kipping, however, dived under
Frank's feet, Frank, who had expected him to turn and run, tripped and
fell, dropping the carving-knife, and instantly black man and white
wriggled toward the weapon.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been so dramatic. The two men
sprawled on their bellies like snakes, neither of them daring to take time
to stand, each, in the snap of a finger, striving with every tendon and
muscle to reach something that lay just beyond his finger-tips. I found
myself actually laughing--they looked so like two fish just out of water.

But the fight suddenly had become bitter earnest, Kipping unquestionably
feared for his life, and the cook knew well that the weapon for which they
fought would be turned against him if his antagonist once got possession of
it.

As Kipping closed his fingers on the handle, the cook grabbed the blade.
Then the mate appeared out of the dark.


"Here, what's this?" he demanded, looming on the scene of the struggle.

I saw starlight flash on the knife as it flew over the bulwark, then I
heard it splash. Kipping got away by a quick twist and vanished. The cook
remained alone to face the mate, for you can be very sure that I had every
discreet intention not to reveal my presence in the dark galley.

"Yass, sah," said the cook, "yass, sah. Please to 'scuse me, sah, but Ah
didn't go foh no premeditation of disturbance. It is quite unintelligible,
sah, but one of de men, sah, he come round, sah, and says Ah gotta give him
a pie, sah, and of co'se Ah can't do nothin' like dat, sah. Pies is foh de
officers and gen'lems, sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah,
not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah,
fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and
he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two
of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh Mistah Falk, sah, and
he--"

Unwilling to listen longer, the mate turned with a grunt of disgust and
walked away.

After he had gone, the cook stood for a time by the galley, looking
pensively at the stars. Long-armed, broad-shouldered, bullet-headed, he
seemed a typical savage. Yet in spite of his thick lips and protruding
chin, his face had a certain thoughtful quality, and not even that deeply
graven scowl could hide the dog-like faithfulness of his dark eyes.

After all, I wondered, was he not like a faithful dog: loyal to the last
breath, equally ready to succor his friend or to fight for him?

"Boy," he said, when he came in, "Ah done fool 'em. Dey ain' gwine believe
no gammon dat yeh Kipping tells 'em--leastwise, no one ain't onless it's
Mistah Falk. Now you go 'long with you and don't you come neah me foh a
week without you act like Ah ain't got no use foh you. And boy," he
whispered, "you jest look out and keep clear of dat Kipping. Foh all he
talk' like he got a mouth full of butter, he's an uncommon fighter, he is,
yass sah, an uncommon fighter."

He paused for a moment, then added in such a way that I remembered it long
afterward, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

I reached the forecastle unobserved, and as I started to climb into my
bunk, I felt very well satisfied with myself indeed. Not even Kipping had
seen me come. But a disagreeable surprise awaited me; my hand encountered a
man lying wrapped in my blankets.

It was Kipping!

He rolled out with a sly smile, looked at me in silence a long time, and
then pretended to shake with silent laughter.

"Well," I whispered, "what's the matter with you?"

"There wasn't any pie," he sighed--so mildly. "How sad that there wasn't
any pie."

He then climbed into his own bunk and almost immediately, I judged, went to
sleep.

If he desired to make me exceedingly uncomfortable, he had accomplished his
purpose. For days I puzzled over his queer behavior. I wondered how much he
knew, how much he had told Mr. Falk; and I recalled, sometimes, the cook's
remark, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

Of one thing I was sure: both Kipping and Mr. Falk heartily disliked me.
Kipping took every occasion to annoy me in petty ways, and sometimes I
discovered Mr. Falk watching me sharply and ill-naturedly. But he always
looked away quickly when he knew that I saw him.

We still lacked several days of having been at sea a month when we sighted
Madeira, bearing west southwest about ten leagues distant. Taking a fresh
departure the next day from latitude 32° 22' North, and longitude 16° 36'
West of London, we laid our course south southwest, and swung far enough
away from the outshouldering curve of the Rio de Oro coast to pass clear of
the Canary Islands.


       *       *       *       *       *


"Do you know," said Bill Hayden one day, some five weeks later, when we
were aloft side by side, "they don't like you any better than they do me."

It was true; both Kipping and Mr. Falk showed it constantly.

"And there's others that don't like us, too," Bill added. "I told 'em,
though, that if they got funny with me or you, I'd show 'em what was what."

"Who are they?" I asked, suddenly remembering Roger Hamlin's warning.

"Davie Paine is one."

"But I thought he didn't like Kipping or Mr. Falk!"

"He didn't for a while; but there was something happened that turned his
mind about them."

I worked away with the tar-bucket and reflected on this unexpected change
in the attitude of the deep-voiced seaman who, on our first day aboard
ship, had seen Kipping wink at the second mate. It was all so trivial that
I was ready to laugh at myself for thinking of it twice, and yet stupid
old Bill Hayden had noticed it. A new suspicion startled me. "Bill, did
any one say anything to you about any plan or scheme that Kipping is
concerned in?" I asked.

"Why, yes. Didn't they speak to you about it?"

"About what?"

"Why, about a voyage that all the men was to have a venture in. I thought
they talked to every one. I didn't want anything to do with it if Kipping
was to have a finger in the pie. I told 'em 'No!' and they swore at me
something awful, and said that if ever I blabbed I'd never see my little
wee girl at Newburyport again. So I never said nothing." He looked at me
with a frightened expression. "It's funny they never said nothing to you.
Don't you tell 'em I talked. If they thought I'd split, they'd knock me in
the head, that's what they' d do."

"Who's in it besides Kipping and Davie Paine?"

"The two men from Boston and Chips and the steward. Them's all I know, but
there may be others. The men have been talking about it quiet like for a
good while now."

As Mr. Falk came forward on some errand or other, we stopped talking and
worked harder than ever at tarring down the rigging.

Presently Bill repeated without turning his head, "Don't you tell 'em I
said anything, will you, Bennie? Don't you tell 'em."

And I replied, "No."

We then had passed the Canaries and the Cape Verdes, and had crossed the
Line; from the most western curve of Africa we had weathered the narrows of
the Atlantic almost to Pernambuco, and thence, driven by fair winds, we had
swept east again in a long arc, past Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha,
and on south of the Cape of Good Hope.

The routine of a sailor's life is full of hard work and petty detail. Week
follows week, each like every other. The men complain about their duties
and their food and the officers grow irritable. There are few stories worth
telling in the drudgery of life at sea, but now and then in a long, long
time fate and coincidence conspire to unite in a single voyage, such as
that which I am chronicling, enough plots and crimes and untoward incidents
to season a dozen ordinary lifetimes spent before the mast.

I could not, of course, even begin as yet to comprehend the magnitude that
the tiny whirlpool of discontented and lawless schemers would attain. But
boy though I was, in those first months of the voyage I had learned
enough about the different members of the crew to realize that serious
consequences might grow from such a clique.

Kipping, whom I had thought at first a mild, harmless man, had proved
himself a vengeful bully, cowardly in a sense, yet apparently courageous
enough so far as physical combat was concerned. Also, he had disclosed an
unexpected subtlety, a cat-like craft in eavesdropping and underhanded
contrivances. The steward I believed a mercenary soul, tricky so far as his
own comfort and gain were concerned, who, according to common report, had
ingratiated himself with the second mate by sympathizing with him on every
occasion because he had not been given the chief mate's berth. The two men
from Boston I cared even less for; they were slipshod workmen and
ill-tempered, and their bearing convinced me that, from the point of view
of our officers and of the owners of the ship, they were a most undesirable
addition to such a coterie as Kipping seemed to be forming. Davie Paine and
the carpenter prided themselves on being always affable, and each, although
slow to make up his mind, would throw himself heart and body into whatever
course of action he finally decided on. But significant above all else was
Kipping's familiarity with Mr. Falk.

The question now was, how to communicate my suspicions secretly to Roger
Hamlin. After thinking the matter over in all its details, I wrote a few
letters on a piece of white paper, and found opportunity to take counsel
with my friend the cook, when I, as the youngest in the crew, was left in
the galley to bring the kids forward to the men in the forecastle.

"Doctor," I said, "if I wanted to get a note to Mr. Hamlin without
anybody's knowing,--particularly the steward or Mr. Falk,--how should I go
about it?"

The perpetually frowning black heaped salt beef on the kids. "Dah's enough
grub foh a hun'erd o'nary men. Dey's enough meat dah to feed a whole
regiment of Sigambeezel cavalry--yass, sah, ho'ses and all. And yet Ah'll
bet you foh dollahs right out of mah pay, doze pesky cable-scrapers fo'ward
'll eat all dat meat and cuss me in good shape 'cause it ain't mo', and
den, mah golly, dey'll sot up all night, Ah'll bet you, yass, sah,
a-kicking dey heads off 'cause dey ain't fed f'om de cabin table. Boy, if
you was to set beefsteak and bake' 'taters and ham and eggs down befo' dem
fool men ev'y mo'ning foh breakfas', dey'd come heah hollerin' and cussin'
and tellin' me dey wah n't gwine have dey innards spiled on all dat yeh
truck jest 'cause dem aft can't eat it."

Turning his ferocious scowl full upon me, the savage-looking darky handed
me the kids. "Dah! you take doze straight along fo'ward." Then, dropping
his voice to a whisper, he said, "Gimme yo' note."

Knowing now that the cook approached every important matter by an
extraordinarily indirect route, I had expected some such conclusion, and I
held the note ready.

"Go long," he said, when I had slipped it into his huge black hand. "Ah'll
do it right."

So I departed with all confidence that my message would go secretly and
safely to its destination. Even if it should fall into other hands than
those for which it was intended, I felt that I had not committed myself
dangerously. I had written only one word: "News."


[Illustration]




II

IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER AN ARAB SHIP

[Illustration]



CHAPTER VI

THE COUNCIL IN THE CABIN


Sometimes in the night I dream of the forecastle of the Island Princess,
and see the crew sitting on chests and bunks, as vividly as if only
yesterday I had come through the hatchway and down the steps with a kid of
"salt horse" for the mess, and had found them waiting, each with his pan
and spoon and the great tin dipper of tea that he himself had brought from
the galley. There was Chips, the carpenter, who had descended for the
moment from the dignity of the steerage; calmly he helped himself to twice
his share, ignoring the oaths of the others, and washed down his first
mouthful with a great gulp of tea. Once upon a time Chips came down just
too late to get any meat, and tried to kill the cook; but as the cook
remarked to me afterwards, "Foh a drea'ful impulsive pusson, he wah n't
ve'y handy with his fists." There was Bill Hayden, who always got last
chance at the meat, and took whatever the doubtful generosity of his
shipmates had left him--poor Bill, as happy in the thought of his little
wee girl at Newburyport as if all the wealth of the khans of Tartary were
waiting for him at the end of the voyage. There was the deep-voiced Davie,
almost out of sight in the darkest corner, who chose his food carefully,
pretending the while to be considerate of the others, and growled amiably
about his hard lot. Also there was Kipping, mild and evasive, yet amply
able to look out for his own interests, as I, who so often brought down the
kids, well knew.

When, that evening, Bill Hayden had scraped up the last poor slivers of
meat, he sat down beside me on my chest.

"If I didn't have my little wee girl at Newburyport," he said, "I might
be as gloomy as Neddie Benson. Do you suppose if I went to see a
fortune-teller I'd be as gloomy as Neddie is? I never used to be gloomy,
even before I married, and I married late. I was older than Neddie is
now when I married. Neddie ought to get a wife and stop going to see
fortune-tellers, and then he wouldn't be so gloomy."

Bill would run on indefinitely in his stupid, kindly way, for I was almost
the only person aboard ship who listened to him at all, and, to tell the
truth, even I seldom more than half listened. But already he had given me
valuable information that day, and now something in the tone of his
rambling words caught my attention.

"Has Neddie Benson been talking about the fortuneteller again?" I asked.

"He's had a lot to say about her. He says the lady said to him--"

"But what started him off?"

"He says things is bound to come to a bad end."

"What things?"

As I have said before, I had a normal boy's curiosity about all that was
going on around us. Perhaps, I have come to think, I had more than the
ordinary boy's sense for important information. Roger Hamlin's warning had
put me on my guard, and I intended to learn all I could and to keep my
mouth shut where certain people were concerned.

"It's queer they don't say nothing to you about what's going on," Bill
remarked.

For my own part I understood very well why they should say nothing of any
underhanded trickery to one who ashore was so intimately acquainted with
Captain Whidden and Roger Hamlin. But I kept my thoughts to myself and
persisted in my questions.

"What is going on?"

"Oh, I don't just make out what." Bill's stupidity was exasperating at
times. "It's something about Mr. Falk. Kipping, he--"

"Yes?" said that eternally mild voice. "Mr. Falk? And Kipping? What else
please?"

Both Bill and I were startled to find Kipping at our elbows. But before
either of us could answer, some one called down the hatch:--

"Lathrop is wanted aft."

Relieved at escaping from an embarrassing situation, I jumped up so
promptly that my knife fell with a clatter, and hastened on deck, calling
"Ay, ay," to the man who had summoned me. I knew very well why I was wanted
aft.

Mr. Falk, who was on duty on the quarter-deck, completely ignored me as I
passed him and went down the companionway.

"At least," I thought, "he can't come below now."

The steward, when I appeared, raised his eyebrows and almost dropped his
tray; then he paused in the door, inconspicuously, as if to linger. But
Captain Whidden glanced round and dismissed him by a sharp nod, and I found
myself alone in the cabin with the captain, Mr. Thomas, and Roger Hamlin.

"I understand there's news forward, Lathrop," said Captain Whidden.

Roger looked at me with that humorous, exasperating twinkle of his eyes,--I
thought of my sister and of how she had looked when she learned that he was
to sail for Canton,--and Mr. Thomas folded his arms and leaned back in his
chair.

"Yes, sir," I replied, "although it seems pretty unimportant to be worth
much as news."

"Tell us about it."

To all that I had gathered from Bill Hayden I added what I had learned by
my own observations, and it seemed to interest them, although for my own
part I doubted whether it was of much account.

"Has any one approached you directly about these things?" Captain Whidden
asked when I was through.

"No, sir."

"Have you heard any one say just what this little group is trying to
accomplish, or just when it is going to act?"

"No, sir."

"Do you, Lathrop, know anything about the cargo of the Island Princess? Or
anything about the terms under which it is carried?"

"Only in a general way, sir, that it is made up of ginseng and woolen goods
shipped to Canton."

Captain Whidden looked at me very sharply indeed. "You are positive that
that is all you know?"

"Yes, sir--except, in a general way, that the cargo is uncommonly
important."

The three men exchanged glances, and Roger Hamlin nodded as if to
corroborate my reply.

"Lathrop," Captain Whidden began again, "I want you to say nothing about
this interview after you leave the cabin. It is more important that you
hold your peace than you may ever realize--than, I trust, you ever _will_
realize. I am going to ask you to give me your word of honor to that
effect."

It seemed to me then that I saw Captain Whidden in a new light. We of the
younger generation had inclined to belittle him because he continued to
follow the sea at an age when more successful men had established their
counting-houses or had retired from active business altogether. But twice
his mercantile adventures had proved unfortunate, and now, though nearly
sixty years old and worth a very comfortable fortune, he refused to leave
again for a less familiar occupation the profession by which he had amassed
his competence. I noticed that his hair was gray on his temples, and that
his weathered face revealed a certain stern sadness. I felt as if suddenly,
in spite of my minor importance on board his ship, I had come closer to the
straightforward gentleman, the true Joseph Whidden, than in all the years
that I had known him, almost intimately, it had seemed at the time, in my
father's house.

"I promise, sir," I said.

He took up a pencil and with the point tapped a piece of paper.

"Tell me who of all the men forward absolutely are not influenced by this
man Kipping."

"The cook," I returned, "and Bill Hayden, and, I think, Neddie Benson.
Probably there are a number of others, but only of those three am I
absolutely sure."

"That's what I want--the men you are absolutely sure of. Hm! The cook,
useful but not particularly quick-witted. Hayden, a harmless, negative
body. Benson, a gloomy soul if ever there was one. It might be better
but--" He looked at Mr. Thomas and smiled. "That is all, Lathrop; you may
go now. Just one moment more, though: be cautious, keep your eyes and ears
open, and if anything else comes up, communicate with Mr. Hamlin or,--" he
hesitated, but finally said it,--"or directly with me."

As I went up on deck, I again passed Mr. Falk and again he pretended not to
see me. But although he seemed to be intent on the rolling seas to
windward, I was very confident that, when I had left the quarter-deck, he
turned and looked after me as earnestly as if he hoped to read in my step
and carriage everything that had occurred in the cabin.



CHAPTER VII

THE SAIL WITH A LOZENGE-SHAPED PATCH


It was not long before we got another warning even more ominous than the
one from the captain of the Adventure. On Friday, July 28, in latitude
19° 50' South, longitude 101° 53' East,--the log of the voyage, kept beyond
this point in Mr. Thomas's own hand, gives me the dates and figures to the
very day for it still is preserved in the vaults of Hamlin, Lathrop &
Company,--we sighted a bark to the south, and at the captain's orders wore
ship to speak her. When she also came about, we served out pikes and
muskets as a precaution against treachery, and Mr. Falk saw that our guns
were shotted. But she proved to be in good faith, and in answer to our hail
she declared herself the Adrienne of Liverpool, eight days from the
Straits, homeward bound. Her master, it appeared, wished to compare notes
on longitude, and a long, dull discussion followed; but in parting Captain
Whidden asked if there was news of pirates or marauders.

"Yes," was the reply. "Much news and bad news." And the master of the
Adrienne thereupon launched into a tale of piracy and treachery such, as I
never had heard before. Leaning over the taffrail, his elbows out-thrust
and his big hands folded, he roared the story at us in a great booming
voice that at times seemed to drown the words in its own volume. Now, as
the waves and the wind snatched it away, it grew momentarily fainter and
clearer; now it came bellowing back again, loud, hoarse, and indistinct.

It was all about an Arab ship off Benkulen; Ladronesers and the havoc they
had wrought among the American ships in the China Sea; a warning not to
sail from Macao for Whampoa without a fleet of four or five sail; and
again, about the depredations of the Malays. The grizzled old captain
seemed to delight in repeating horrible yarns of the seas whence he came,
whither we were going. He roared them after us until we had left him far
astern; and at the last we heard him laughing long and hoarsely.

"What dat yeh man think we all am? He think we all gwine believe dat yeh?
Hgh!" the cook growled.

But Neddie Benson dolefully shook his head.

Parting, the Adrienne and the Island Princess continued, each on her
course, the one back round the Cape of Good Hope and north again to
Liverpool, the other on into strange oceans beset with a thousand dangers.

We sailed now a sea of opalescent greens and purples that shimmered and
changed with the changing lights. Strange shadows played across it, even
when the sky was cloudless, and it rolled past the ship in great, regular
swells, ruffled by favoring breezes and bright beneath the clear sun.

At daylight on August 3 we saw land about nine miles away, bearing from
east by south to north, a long line of rugged hills, which appeared to be
piled one above another, and which our last lunar observations indicated
were in longitude 107° 15' East; and we made out a single sail lying off
the coast to the north.

The sail caught and held our attention--not that, so far as we then could
see, that particular sail was at all remarkable: any sail, at that time and
in that place, would have interested us unusually. Mindful of the warnings
we had received, we paused in our work to watch it. Kipping, with a sly
glance aft, left the winch with which he was occupied and leaned on the
rail. Here and there the crew conversed cautiously, and on the quarter-deck
a lively discussion, I could see, was in progress.

We were so intent on that distant spot of canvas which pricked the horizon,
that a fierce squall, sweeping down upon us, almost took us aback.

The cry, "All hands on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks
below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The
foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to
ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the
captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!--Meet her!--Ease her
off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush of wind
and rain.

I had been well drilled long since in furling the royals, for on them the
green hands were oftenest practised; and now, from his post on the
forecastle, Mr. Thomas spied me as I slipped and fell half across the deck.
I alone at that moment was not hard at work, and, in obedience to the
captain's orders, during a lull that gave us a momentary respite, he sent
me aloft.

It was quite a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When
I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts
and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the
blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with
greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it done. This he did. Then,
casting the yard-arm gaskets off from the tye and laying them across
between the tye and the mast, I stretched out on the weather yard-arm and,
getting hold of the weather leech, brought it in to the slings taut along
the yard. Mind you, all this time I, only a boy, was working in a gale of
wind and driven rain, and was clinging to a yard that was sweeping from
side to side in lurching, unsteady flight far above the deck and the angry
sea. Hauling the sail through the clew, and letting it fall in the bunt, I
drew the weather clew a little abaft the yard, and held it with my knee
while I brought in the lee leech in, the same manner. Then, making up my
bunt and putting into it the slack of the clews, the leech and footrope and
the body of the sail, I hauled it well up on the yard, smoothed the skin,
brought it down abaft, and made fast the bunt-gasket round the mast.
Passing the weather and lee yard-arm gaskets round the yard in turn, and
hauling them taut and making them fast, I left all snug and trim.

From aft came faintly the clear command, "Full and by!" And promptly, for
by this time the force of the squall was already spent, the answer of the
man at the wheel, "Full and by, sir."

In this first moment of leisure I instinctively turned, as did virtually
every man aboard ship, to look for the sail that had been reported to the
north of us. But although we looked long and anxiously, we saw no sail, no
trace of any floating craft. It had disappeared during the squall, utterly
and completely. Only the wild dark sea and the wild succession of mountain
piled on mountain met our searching eyes.

A sail there had been, beyond all question, where now there was none.
Driven by the storm, it had vanished completely from our sight.

As well as we could judge by our lunar observations, the land was between
Paga River and Stony Point, and when we had sailed along some forty miles,
the shore, as it should be according to our reckoning, was less
mountainous.

It was my first glimpse of the Sunda Islands, of which I had heard so much,
and I well remember that I stood by the forward rigging watching the
distant land from where it seemed on my right to rise from the sea, to
where it seemed on my left to go down beyond the horizon into the sea
again, and that I murmured to myself in a small, awed voice:--

"This is Java!"

The very name had magic in it. Already from those islands our Salem
mariners had accumulated great wealth. Not yet are the old days forgotten,
when Elias Hasket Derby's ships brought back fortunes from Batavia, and
when Captain Carnes, by one voyage in Jonathan Peele's schooner Rajah to
the northern coast of Sumatra for wild pepper, made a profit of seven
hundred per cent of both the total cost of the schooner itself and the
whole expense of the entire expedition. I who lived in the exhilarating
atmosphere of those adventurous times was thrilled to the heart by my first
sight of lands to which hundreds of Salem ships had sailed.

It really was Java, and night was falling on its shores. Far to the
northeast some tiny object pricked above the skyline, and a point of light
gleamed clearly, low against the blue heavens in which the stars had just
begun to shine.

"A sail!" I cried.

Before the words had left my lips a deep voice aloft sonorously
proclaimed:--

"Sa-a-ail ho!"

"Where away?" Mr. Thomas cried.

"Two points off the larboard bow, sir."

The little knot of officers on the quarter-deck already were intent on the
tiny spot of almost invisible canvas, and we forward were crowding one
another for a better sight of it. Then in the gathering darkness it faded
and was gone. Could it have been the same that we had seen before?

There was much talk of the mysterious ship that night, and many strange
theories were offered to account for it. Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling
voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by
dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in
the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's
account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about
Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by
contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the
prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our
mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark
man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But
Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished our gloom, and the
forecastle reechoed with hoarse laughter, which grew louder and louder when
Neddie once again narrated the lady's charms, and at last cried angrily
that she was as plump as a nice young chicken.

"If you was to ask me," Bill Hayden murmured, "I'd say it was just a sail."
But no one asked Bill Hayden, and with a few words about his "little wee
girl at Newburyport," he buried himself in his old blankets and was soon
asleep.

During the mid-watch that same night, the cook prowled the deck forward
like a dog sneaking along the wharves. Silently, the whites of his eyes
gleaming out of the darkness, he moved hither and thither, careful always
to avoid the second mate's observation. As I watched him, I became more and
more curious, for I could make nothing of his veering course. He went now
to starboard, now to larboard, now to the forecastle, now to the steerage,
always silently, always deliberately. After a while he came over and stood
beside me.

"It ain't right," he whispered. "Ah tell you, boy, it ain't right."

"What's not right?" I asked.

"De goin's on aboa'd dis ship."

"What goings on?"

"Boy, Ah's been a long time to sea and Ah's cooked foh some bad crews in my
time, yass, sah, but Ah's gwine tell you, boy, 'cause Ah done took a fancy
to you, dis am de most iniquitous crew Ah eveh done cook salt hoss foh.
Yass, sah."

"What do you mean?"

The negro ignored my question.

"Ah's gwine tell you, boy, dis yeh crew am bad 'nough, but when dah come a
ha'nt boat a-sailin' oveh yondeh jest at dahk, boy, Ah wish Ah was back
home whar Ah could somehow come to shoot a rabbit what got a lef'
hind-foot. Yass, sah."

For a long time he silently paced up and down by the bulwark; but finally I
saw him momentarily against the light of his dim lantern as he entered his
own quarters.

Morning came with fine breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we
saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in
all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails.
So another day passed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in
the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six
bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine
o'clock to the minute.

We now faced Sunda Strait, the channel that separates Java from Sumatra and
unites the Indian Ocean with the Java Sea. From the bow of our ship there
stretched out on one hand and on the other, far beyond the horizon, Borneo,
Celebes, Banka and Billiton; the Little Sunda Islands--Bali and Lombok,
Simbawa, Flores and Timor; the China Sea, the Philippines, and farther and
greater than them all, the mainland of Asia.

While we were still intent on Java Head there came once more the cry, "Sail
ho!"

This time the sail was not to be mistaken. Captain Whidden trained on it
the glass, which he shortly handed to Mr. Thomas. "See her go!" the men
cried. It was true. She was running away from us easily. Now she was hull
down. Now we could see only her topgallant-sails. Now she again had
disappeared. But this time we had found, besides her general appearance and
the cut of her sails, which no seaman could mistake, a mark by which any
landsman must recognize her: on her fore-topsail there was a white
lozenge-shaped patch.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, with Prince's Island bearing from north
to west by south, we entered the Straits of Sunda. At noon we were due east
of Prince's Island beach and had sighted the third Point of Java and the
Isle of Cracato.

Fine breezes and a clear sky favored us, and the islands, green and blue
according to their distance, were beautiful to see. Occasionally we had
glimpses of little native craft, or descried villages sleeping amid the
drowsy green of the cocoanut trees. It was a peaceful, beautiful world
that met our eyes as the Island Princess stood through the Straits and up
the east coast of Sumatra; the air was warm and pleasant, and the leaves of
the tufted palms, lacily interwoven, were small in the distance like the
fronds of ferns in our own land. But Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas
remained on deck and constantly searched the horizon with the glass; and
the men worked uneasily, glancing up apprehensively every minute or two,
and starting at slight sounds. There was reason to be apprehensive, we
all knew.

On the evening of Friday, August 11, beyond possibility of doubt we sighted
a ship; and that it was the same which we already had seen at least once,
the lozenge-shaped patch on the foresail proved to the satisfaction
of officers and men.



CHAPTER VIII

ATTACKED


In the morning we were mystified to see that the sail once again had
disappeared. But to distract us from idle speculations, need of fresh water
now added to our uneasiness, and we anchored on a mud bottom while the
captain and Mr. Thomas went ashore and searched in vain for a
watering-place.

During the day we saw a number of natives fishing in their boats a short
distance away; but when our own boat approached them, they pulled for the
shore with all speed and fled into the woods like wild men. Thus the day
passed,--so quietly and uneventfully that it lulled us into confidence that
we were safe from harm,--and a new day dawned.

That morning, as we lay at anchor, the strange ship, with the sun shining
brightly on her sails, boldly reappeared from beyond a distant point, and
hove to about three miles to the north-northeast. As she lay in plain sight
and almost within earshot, she seemed no more out of the ordinary than any
vessel that we might have passed off the coast of New England. But on her
great foresail, which hung loose now with the wind shaken out of it, there
was a lozenge-shaped patch of clean new canvas.

Soon word passed from mouth to mouth that the captain and Mr. Falk would go
in the gig to learn the stranger's name and port.

To a certain extent we were relieved to find that our phantom ship was
built of solid wood and iron; yet we were decidedly apprehensive as we
watched the men pull away in the bright sun. The boat became smaller and
smaller, and the dipping oars flashed like gold.

With his head out-thrust and his chin sunk below the level of his
shoulders, the cook stood by the galley, in doubt and foreboding, and
watched the boat pull away.

His voice, when he spoke, gave me a start.

"Look dah, boy! Look dah! Dey's sumpin' funny, yass, sah. 'Tain't safe foh
to truck with ha'nts, no sah! You can't make dis yeh nigger think a winkin'
fire-bug of a fly-by-night ship ain't a ha'nt."

"Ha'nts," said Kipping mildly, "ha'nts is bad things for niggers, but they
don't hurt white men."

"Lemme tell you, you Kipping, it ain't gwine pay you to be disrespectable
to de cook." Frank stuck his angry face in front of the mild man's. "Ef you
think--ha!"--He stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on something far beyond
Kipping, over whose shoulder he now was looking. "Look dah! Look dah! What
Ah say? Hey? What Ah say? Look dah! Look dah!"

Startled by the cook's fierce yell, we turned as if a gun had been fired;
but we saw only that the boat was coming about.

"Look dah! Look dah! See 'em row! Don' tell me dat ain't no ha'nt!" Jumping
up and down, waving his arms wildly, contorting his irregular features till
he resembled a gorilla, he continued to yell in frenzy.

Although there seemed to be no cause for any such outburst, the rest of us
now were alarmed by the behavior of the men in the boat. Having come about,
they were racing back to the Island Princess as fast as ever they could,
and the captain and Mr. Falk, if we could judge by their gestures, were
urging them to even greater efforts.

"Look dah! Look dah! Don't you tell me dey ain't seen a ha'nt, you
Kipping!"

As they approached, I heard Roger Hamlin say sharply to the mate, "Mr.
Thomas, that ship yonder is drifting down on us rapidly. See! They're
sheeting home the topsail."

I could see that Mr. Thomas, who evidently thought Roger's fear groundless,
was laughing, but I could not hear his reply. In any case he gave no order
to prepare for action until the boat came within earshot and the captain
abruptly hailed him and ordered him to trip anchor and prepare to make
sail.

As the boat came aboard, we heard news that thrilled us. "She's an Arab
ship," spread the word. "They were waiting for our boat, with no sign of
hostility until Mr. Falk saw the sunlight strike on a gun-barrel that was
intended to be hidden behind the bulwark. As the boat veered away, the man
with the gun started to fire, but another prevented him, probably because
the distance was so great."

Instantly there was wild activity on the Island Princess. While we loosed
the sails and sheeted them home and, with anchor aweigh, braced the yards
and began to move ahead, the idlers were tricing up the boarding nettings
and double-charging our cannon, of which we carried three--a long gun
amidships and a pair of stern chasers. Men to work the ship were ordered to
the ropes. The rest were served pikes and loaded muskets.

We accomplished the various preparations in an incredibly short time, and,
gathering way, stood ready to receive the stranger should she force us to
fight.

For the time being we were doubtful of her intentions, and seeing us armed
and ready, she stood off as if still unwilling to press us more closely.
But some one aboard her, if I guess aright, resented so tame an end to a
long pursuit and insisted on at least an exchange of volleys.

[Illustration: Suddenly, in the brief silence that followed the two
thunderous reports, a pistol shot rang out sharply and I saw Captain
Whidden spin around and fall.]

Now she came down on us, running easily with the wind on her quarter, and
gave us a round from her muskets.

"Hold your fire," Captain Whidden ordered. "They're feeling their way."

Emboldened by our silence, she wore ship and came nearer. It seemed now
that she would attempt to board us, for we spied men waiting with
grapnels, and she came steadily on while our own men fretted at their
guns, not daring to fire without the captain's orders, till we could see
the triumphant sneer on the dark face of her commander.

Now her muskets spoke again. I heard a bullet sing over my head and saw one
of our own seamen in the waist fall and lie quite still. Should we never
answer her in kind? In three minutes, it seemed, we should have to meet her
men hand to hand.

Now our helmsman luffed, and we came closer into the wind, which gave our
guns a chance.

"Now, then," Captain Whidden cried, "let them have the long gun and hold
the rest."

With a crash our cannon swept the deck of the Arab, splintering the cabin
and accomplishing ten times as much damage as all her muskets had done to
us. But she in turn, exasperated by the havoc we had wrought, fired
simultaneously her two largest guns at point-blank range.

I ducked behind the bulwark and looked back along the deck. One ball had
hit the scuttle-butt and had splashed the water fifteen feet in every
direction. Another had splintered the cross jack-yard. Suddenly, in the
brief silence that followed the two thunderous reports, a single
pistol-shot rang out sharply and I saw Captain Whidden spin round and fall.

Our own guns, as we came about, sent an answer that cut the Arab's lower
sail to ribbons, disabled many men and, I am confident, killed several. But
there was no time to load again. Although by now we showed our stern to the
enemy, and had a fair--chance to outstrip her in a long race, her greater
momentum was bringing her down upon us rapidly. From aft came the order--it
was Mr. Thomas who gave it,--"All hands to the pikes and repel boarders!"

There was, however, no more fighting. Our assailants took measure of the
stout nets and the strong battery of pikes, and, abandoning the whole
unlucky adventure, bore away on a new course.

One man forward was killed and four were badly hurt. Mr. Thomas sat with
his back against the cabin, very white of face, with streams of red running
from his nostrils and his mouth; and Captain Whidden lay dead on the deck.
An hour later word passed through the ship that Mr. Thomas, too, had died.



CHAPTER IX

BAD SIGNS


It was strange that, while some of us in the forecastle were much cast down
by the tragic events of the day, others should seem to be put in really
good humor by it all. Neddie Benson soberly shook his head from time to
time; old Bill Hayden lay in his bunk without even a word about his "little
wee girl in Newburyport," and occasionally complained of not feeling well;
and various others of the crew faced the future with frank hopelessness.

For my own part, it seemed to me as unreal as a nightmare that Captain
Joseph Whidden actually had been shot dead by a band of Arab pirates. I was
bewildered--indeed, stunned--by the incredible suddenness of the calamity.
It was so complete, so appallingly final! To me, a boy still in his 'teens,
that first intimate association with violent death would have been in
itself terrible, and I keenly felt the loss of our chief mate. But Captain
Whidden to me was far more than master of the ship. He had been my father's
friend since long before I was born; and from the days when I first
discriminated between the guests at my father's house, I had counted him as
also a friend of mine. Never had I dreamed that so sad an hour would darken
my first voyage.

Kipping, on the other hand, and Davie Paine and the carpenter seemed
actually well pleased with what had happened. They lolled around with an
air of exasperating superiority when they saw any of the rest of us looking
at them; and now and then they exchanged glances that I was at a loss to
understand until all at once a new thought dawned on me: since the captain
and the first mate were dead, the command of the ship devolved upon
Mr. Falk, the second mate.

No wonder that Kipping and Davie and the carpenter and all the rest of that
lawless clique were well pleased. No wonder that old Bill Hayden and some
of the others, for whom Kipping and his friends had not a particle of use
were downcast by the prospect.

I was amazed at my own stupidity in not realizing it before, and above all
else I now longed to talk with someone whom I could trust--Roger Hamlin by
preference; as second choice, my friend the cook. But for the time being I
was disappointed in this. Almost immediately Mr. Falk summoned all hands
aft.

"Men," he said, putting on a grave face that seemed to me assumed for the
occasion, "men, we've come through a dangerous time, and we are lucky to
have come alive out of the bad scrape that we were in. Some of us haven't
come through so well. It's a sad thing for a ship to lose an officer, and
it is twice as sad to lose two fine officers like Captain Whidden and Mr.
Thomas. I'll now read the service for the burial of the dead, and after
that I'll have something more to say to you."

One of the men spoke in an undertone, and Mr. Falk cried, "What's that?"

"If you please, sir," the man said, fidgeting nervously, "couldn't we go
ashore and bury them decently?"

Others had thought of the same thing, and they showed it by their faces;
but Mr. Falk scowled and replied, "Nonsense! We'd be murdered in cold
blood."

So we stood there, bareheaded, silent, sad at heart, and heard the droning
voice of the second mate,--even then he could not hide his unrighteous
satisfaction,--who read from a worn prayer-book, that had belonged to
Captain Whidden himself, the words committing the bodies of three men to
the deep, their souls to God.

When the brief, perfunctory service was over, Mr. Falk put away the
prayer-book,--I verily believe he put away with it all fear of the
Lord,--folded his arms and faced us arrogantly.

"By the death of Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas," he said, "I have become
the rightful master of this ship. Now I've got a few things to say to you,
and I'm going to have them understood. If you heed them and work smartly,
you'll get along as well as you deserve. If you don't heed them, you'd
better be dead and done with it. If you don't heed them--" he sneered
disagreeably--"if you don't heed them I'll lash the skin off the back of
every bloody mother's son of ye. This voyage from now on is to be carried
out for the best interests of all concerned." He stopped and smiled and
repeated significantly, "_Of_ ALL _concerned_." After another pause, in
which some of the men exchanged knowing glances, he went on, "I have no
doubt that the most of us will get along as well as need be. So far, well
and good. But if there's those that try to cross my bows,"--he swore
roundly,--"heaven help'em! They'll need it. That's all. Wait! One thing
more: we've got to have officers, and as I know you'll not be bold to pick
from among yourselves, I'll save you the trouble. Kipping from this time on
will be chief mate. You'll take his things aft, and you'll obey him from
now on and put the handle to his name. Paine will be second mate. That's
all. Go forward."

Kipping and Davie Paine! I was thunderstruck. But some of the men exchanged
glances and smiles as before, and I saw by his expression that Roger,
although ill pleased, was by no means so amazed as I should have expected
him to be.

For the last time as seaman, Kipping, mild and quiet, came to the
forecastle. But as he packed his bag and prepared to leave us, he smiled
constantly with a detestable quirk of his mouth, and before going he
stopped beside downcast old Bill Hayden. "Straighten up, be a man," he said
softly; "I'll see that you're treated right." He fairly drawled the words,
so mildly did he speak; but when he had finished, his manner instantly
changed. Thrusting out his chin and narrowing his eyes, he deliberately
drew back his foot and gave old Bill one savage kick.

I was right glad that chance had placed me in the second mate's watch.

As for Davie Paine, he was so overcome by the stroke of fortune that had
resulted in his promotion, that he could not even collect his belongings.
We helped him pile them into his chest, which he fastened with trembling
fingers, and gave him a hand on deck. But even his deep voice had failed
him for the time being, and when he took leave of us, he whispered
piteously, '"Fore the Lord, I dunno how it happened. I ain't never learned
to figger and I can't no more than write my name."

What was to become of us? Our captain was a weak officer. Our present chief
mate no man of us trusted.

Our second mate was inexperienced, incompetent, illiterate. More than ever
I longed to talk with Roger Hamlin, but there was no opportunity that
night.

Our watch on deck was a farce, for old Davie was so unfamiliar with his new
duties and so confused by his sudden eminence that, according to the men at
the wheel, he didn't know north from south or aloft from alow. Evading his
confused glances, I sought the galley, and without any of the usual
complicated formalities was admitted to where the cook was smoking his rank
pipe.

Rolling his eyes until the whites gleamed, he told me the following
astounding story.

"Boy," he said, "dis am de most unmitigated day ol' Frank ever see. Cap'n,
he am a good man and now he's a dead un. Mistah Thomas he am a good man and
now _he's_ a dead un. What Ah tell you about dem ha'nts? Ef Ah could have
kotched a rabbit with a lef' hind-leg, Ah guess we'd be better off. Hey?
Mistah Falk, he am cap'n--Lo'd have mercy on us! Dat Kipping, he am chief
mate--Lo'd have mercy on us mis'able sinners! Davie Paine, he am second
mate--Lo'd perserve ou' souls! Ah guess you don't know what Ah heah Mistah
Falk say to stew'd! He says, 'Stew'd, we got ev'ything--ev'ything. And we
ain't broke a single law!' Now tell me what he mean by dat? What's stew'd
got, Ah want to know? But dat ain't all--no, sah, dat ain't all."

He leaned forward, the whites of his eyes rolling, his fixed frown more
ominous than ever. "Boy, Ah see 'em when dey's dead, Ah did. Ah see 'em
all. Mistah Thomas, he have a big hole in de middle of his front, and dat
po' old sailo' man he have a big hole in de middle of his front. Yass, sah,
Ah see 'em! But cap'n, he have a little roun' hole in the back of his
head.--Yass, sah--_he was shot f'om behine_!"

The sea that night was as calm and as untroubled as if the day had passed
in Sabbath quiet. It seemed impossible that we had endured so much, that
Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas were dead, that the space of only
twenty-four hours had wrought such a change in the fortunes of all on
board.

[Illustration: We helped him pile his belongings into his chest
and gave him a hand on deck.]

I could not believe that one of our own men had shot our captain. Surely
the bullet must have hit him when he was turning to give an order or to
oversee some particular duty. And yet I could not forget the cook's words.
They hummed in my ears. They sounded in the strumming of the rigging, in
the "talking" of the ship:--

"A little roun' hole in the back of his head--yass, sah--he was shot f'om
behine."

Without the captain and Mr. Thomas the Island Princess was like a strange
vessel. Both Kipping and Davie Paine had been promoted from the starboard
watch, leaving us shorthanded; so a queer, self-confident fellow named
Blodgett was transferred from the chief mate's watch to ours. But even so
there were fewer hands and more work, and the spirit of the crew seemed to
have changed. Whereas earlier in the voyage most of the men had gone
smartly about their duties, always glad to lend a hand or join in a
chantey, and with an eye for the profit and welfare of the owners as well
as of themselves, now there came over the ship, silently, imperceptibly,
yet so swiftly and completely that, although no man saw it come, in
twenty-four hours it was with us and upon us in all its deadening and
discouraging weight, a spirit of lassitude and procrastination. You would
have expected some of the men to find it hard to give old Davie Paine quite
all the respect to which his new berth entitled him, and for my own part I
liked Kipping less even than I had liked Mr. Falk. But although my own
prejudice should have enabled me to understand any minor lapses from the
strict discipline of life aboard ship, much occurred in the next
twenty-four hours that puzzled me.

For one thing, those men whom I had thought most likely to accord Kipping
and Mr. Falk due respect were most careless in their work and in the small
formalities observed between officers and crew. The carpenter and the
steward, for example, spent a long time in the galley at an hour when they
should have been busy with their own duties. I was near when they came out,
and heard the cook's parting words: "Yass, sah, yass, sah, it ain't
neveh no discombobilation to help out gen'lems, sah. Yass, sah, no, sah."

And when, a little later, I myself knocked at the door, I got a reception
that surprised me beyond measure.

"Who dah," the cook cried in his usual brusque voice. "Who dah knockin' at
mah door?"

Coming out, he brushed past me, and stood staring fiercely from side to
side. I knew, of course, his curiously indirect methods, and I expected him
by some quick motion or muttered command to summon me, as always before,
into his hot little cubby-hole. Never was boy more taken aback! "Who dah
knockin' at mah door?" he said again, standing within two feet of my elbow,
looking past me not two inches from my nose. "Humph! Somebody knockin' at
mah door better look at what dey doin' or dey gwine git into a peck of
trouble."

He turned his back on me and reentered the galley.

Then I looked aft, and saw Kipping and the steward grinning broadly.
Before, I had been disconcerted. Now I was enraged. How had they turned old
black Frank against me, I wondered? Kipping and the steward, whom the negro
disliked above all people on board! So the steward and the carpenter and
Kipping were working hand in glove! And Mr. Falk probably was in the same
boat with them. Where was Roger Hamlin, and what was he doing as supercargo
to protect the goods below decks? Then I laughed shortly, though a little
angrily, at my own childish impatience.

Certainly any suspicions of danger to the cargo were entirely without
foundations. Mr. Falk--Captain Falk, I must call him now--might have a
disagreeable personality, but there was nothing to indicate that he was not
in most respects a competent officer, or that the ship and cargo would
suffer at his hands. The cook had been companionable in his own peculiar
way and a very convenient friend indeed; but, after all, I could get along
very well on my own resources.

The difference that a change of officers makes in the life and spirit of a
ship's crew is surprising to one unfamiliar with the sea. Captain Whidden
had been a gentleman and a first-class sailor; by ordering our life
strictly, though not harshly or severely, he had maintained that efficient,
smoothly working organization which is best and pleasantest for all
concerned. But Captain Falk was a master whose sails were cut on another
pattern. He lacked Captain Whidden's straightforward, searching gaze. From
the corners of his mouth lines drooped unpleasantly around his chin. His
voice was not forceful and commanding. I was confident that under ordinary
conditions he never would have been given a ship; I doubted even if he
would have got a chief mate's berth. But fortune had played into his hands,
and he now was our lawful master, resistance to whom could be construed as
mutiny and punished in any court in the land.

Never, while Captain Whidden commanded the ship, would the steward and the
carpenter have deserted their work and have hidden themselves away in the
cook's galley. Never, I was positive, would such a pair of officers as
Kipping and old Davie Paine have been promoted from the forecastle. To be
sure, the transgressions of the carpenter and the steward were only petty
as yet, and if no worse came of our new situation, I should be very foolish
to take it all so seriously. But it was not easy to regard our situation
lightly. There were too many straws to show the direction of the wind.



CHAPTER X

THE TREASURE-SEEKER


It was a starlit night while we still lingered off the coast of Sumatra for
water and fresh vegetables. The land was low and black against the steely
green of the sky, and a young moon like a silver thread shone in the west.
Blodgett, the new man in our watch, was the centre of a little group on the
forecastle.

He was small and wrinkled and very wise. The more I saw and heard of him,
the more I marveled that he had not attracted my attention before; but up
to this point in the voyage it was only by night that he had appeared
different from other men, and I thought of him only as a prowler in the
dark.

In some ways he was like a cat. By day he would sit in corners in the sun
when opportunity offered, or lurk around the galley, shirking so brazenly,
that the men were amused rather than angry. Even at work he was as slow and
drowsy as an old cat, half opening his sleepy eyes when the officers called
him to account, and receiving an occasional kick or cuff with the same mild
surprise that a favorite cat might show. But once darkness had fallen,
Blodgett was a different man. He became nervously wakeful. His eyes
distended and his face lighted with strange animation. He walked hither and
yon. He fairly arched his neck. And sometimes, when some ordinary incident
struck his peculiar humor, he would throw back his head, open his great
mouth, and utter a screech of wild laughter for all the world like the yowl
of a tom-cat.

On that particular night he walked the forecastle, keeping close to the
bulwarks, till the rest of us assembled by the rigging and watched him with
a kind of fascination. After a time he saw us gathered there and came over
to where we were. His eyes were large and his wrinkled features twitched
with eagerness. He seemed very old; he had traveled to the farthest lands.

"Men," he cried in his thin, windy voice, "yonder's the moon."

The moon indeed was there. There was no reason to gainsay him. He stood
with it over his left shoulder and extended his arms before him, one
pointing somewhat to the right, the other to the left. "The right hand is
the right way," he cried, "but the left we'll never leave."

We stared at the man and wondered if he were mad.

"No," he said, smiling at our puzzled glances, "we'll never leave the
left."

"Belay that talk," said one of the men sharply. "Ye'll have to steer a
clearer course than that if you want us to follow you."

Blodgett smiled. "The course is clear," he replied. "Yonder"--he waved his
right hand--"is Singapore and the Chinese Sea and Whampoa. It's the right
course. Our orders is for that course. Our cargo is for that course. It's
the course that will make money for the owners. It's the right--you
understand?--my right hand and the right course according to orders. But
yonder"--this time he waved his left hand--"is the course that won't be
left. And yet it's the left you know--my left hand."

He explained his feeble little joke with an air of pride.

"Why won't it be left?" the gruff seaman demanded.

"Because," said Blodgett, "we ain't going to leave it. There's gold there
and no end of treasure. Do you suppose Captain Falk is going to leave it
all for some one else to get? He's going to sail through Malacca Strait and
across the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta. That's what he's going to do. I've
been in India myself and seen the heaps of gold lying on the ground by the
money-changer's door and no body watching it but a sleepy Gentoo."

"But what's this treasure you're talking about," some one asked.

"Sure," said Blodgett in a husky whisper, "it's a treasure such as never
was heard of before. There's barrels and barrels of gold and diamonds and
emeralds and rubies and no end of such gear. There's idols with crowns of
precious stones, and eyes in their carved heads that would pay a king's
ransom. There's money enough in gold mohurs and rupees to buy the Bank of
England."

It was a cock-and-bull story that the little old man told us; but, absurd
though it was, he had an air of impressive sincerity; and although every
one of us would have laughed the yarn out of meeting had it been told of
Captain Whidden, affairs had changed in the last days aboard ship.
Certainly we did not trust Captain Falk. I thought of the cook's dark
words, "A little roun' hole in the back of his head--he was shot f'om
behine!" As we followed the direction of Blodgett's two hands,--the right
to the northeast and the Chinese shore, the left to the northwest and the
dim lowlands of Sumatra that lay along the road to Burma,--anything seemed
possible. Moon-madness was upon us, and we were carried away by the mystery
of the night.

Such madness is not uncommon. Of tales in the fore-castle during a long
voyage there is no end. Extraordinary significance is attributed to trivial
happenings in the daily life of the crew, and the wonders of the sea and
the land are overshadowed completely by simple incidents that superstitious
shipmates are sure to exaggerate and to dwell upon.

After a time, though, as Blodgett walked back and forth along the bulwark,
like a cat that will not go into the open, my sanity came back to me.

"That's all nonsense," I said--perhaps too sharply; "Mr. Falk is an honest
seaman. His whole future would be ruined if he attempted any such thing as
that."

"Ay, hear the boy," Blodgett muttered sarcastically. "What does the boy
think a man rich enough to buy all the ships in the king's navy will care
for such a future as Captain Falk has in front of him? Hgh! A boy that
don't know enough to call his captain by his proper title!"

Blodgett fairly bristled in his indignation, and I said no more, although I
knew well enough--or thought I did--that such a scheme was quite too wild
to be plausible. Captain Falk might play a double game, but not such a
silly double game as that.

"No," said Bill Hayden solemnly, as if voicing my own thought, "the captain
ain't going to spoil his good name like that." Poor, stupid old Bill!

Blodgett snorted angrily, but the others laughed at Bill--silly old butt of
the forecastle, daft about his little girl!--and after speculating at
length concerning the treasure that Blodgett had described so vaguely, fell
at last into a hot argument about how far a skipper could disobey the
orders of his owners without committing piracy.

Thus began the rumor that revealed the scatterwitted convictions so
characteristic of the strange, cat-like Blodgett, which later were to lead
almost to death certain simple members of the crew; which served, by a
freak of chance, to involve poor Bill Hayden in an affair that came to a
tragic end; and which, by a whim of fortune almost as remote, though
happier, placed me in closer touch with Roger Hamlin than I had been since
the Island Princess sailed from Salem harbor.

An hour later I saw the cook standing silently by his galley. He gave me
neither look nor word, although he must have known that I was watching him,
but only puffed at his rank old pipe and stared at the stars and the hills.
I wondered if the jungle growth reminded him of his own African tropics; if
behind his grim, seamed face an unsuspected sense of poetry lurked, a sort
of half-beast, half-human imagination.

Never glancing at me, never indicating by so much as a quiver of his black
features that he had perceived my presence, he sighed deeply, walked to the
rail and knocked the dead ashes from his pipe into the water. He then
turned and went into the galley and barricaded himself against intruders,
there to stay until, some time in the night, he should seek his berth in
the steerage for the few hours of deep sleep that were all his great body
required. But as he passed me I heard him murmuring to himself, "Dat Bill
Hayden, he betteh look out, yass, sah. He say Mistah Captain Falk don't
want to go to spoil his good name. Dat Hay den he betteh look out."

With a bang of his plank door the old darky shut himself away from all of
us in the darkness of his little kingdom of pots and pans.


[Illustration]




III

WHICH APPROACHES A CRISIS

[Illustration]



CHAPTER XI

A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN GOLD


Unquestionably the negro had known that I was there. Never otherwise could
he have ignored me so completely. I was certain too, that his cryptic
remarks about Bill Hayden were intended for my ears, for he never acted
without a reason, obscure, perhaps, and far-fetched, but always, according
to his own queer notions, sufficient.

Sometimes it seemed as if he despised me; sometimes, as if he were
concealing a warm, friendly regard for me.

An hour later, hearing the murmer of low voices, I discovered a little
group of men by the mainmast; and moved by the curiosity that more than
once had led me where I had no business to go, I silently approached.

"Ah," said one of the men, "so you're keeping a weather eye out for my good
name, are you?" It was Captain Falk.

I was startled. It seemed as if the old African were standing at my
shoulder, saying, "What did Ah told you, hey?" The cook had used almost
those very words. Where, I wondered, had he got them? It was almost
uncanny.

"No, sir," came the reply,--it was poor Bill Hayden's voice,--"no, sir, I
didn't say that. I said--"

"Well, what _did_ you say? Speak up!"

"Why, sir, it--well, it wasn't that, I know. I wouldn't never ha' said
that. I--well, sir, it sounded something like that, I got to admit--I--I
ain't so good at remembering, sir, as I might be."

The shadowy figures moved closer together.

"You'll admit, then, that it _sounded_ like that?" There was the thud of a
quick blow. "I'll show you. I don't care what you _said_, as long as that
was what you _meant_. Take that! I'll show you."

"Oh!--I--that's just it, sir, don't hit me!--It may have sounded like that,
but--Oh!--it never meant anything like that. I can't remember just how the
words was put together--I ain't so good at remembering but--Oh!--"

The scene made me feel sick, it was so brutal; yet there was nothing that
the rest of us could do to stop it.

Captain Falk was in command of the ship.

I heard a mild laugh that filled me with rage. "That's the way to make 'em
take back their talk, captain. Give him a good one," said the mild voice.
"He ain't the only one that 'll be better for a sound beating."


There was a scuffle of footsteps, then I heard Bill cry out, "Oh--oh!--oh!"

Suddenly a man broke from the group and fled along the deck.

"Come back here, you scoundrel!" the captain cried with vile oaths; "come
back here, or I swear I'll seize you up and lash you to a bloody pulp."

The fugitive now stood in the bow, trembling, and faced those who were
approaching him. "Don't," he cried piteously, "I didn't go to do nothing."

"Oh, no, not you!" said the mild voice, followed by a mild laugh. "He
didn't do nothing, captain."

"Not he!" Captain Falk muttered. "I'll show him who's captain here."

There was no escape for the unfortunate man. They closed in on him and
roughly dragged him from his retreat straight aft to the quarter-deck, and
there I heard their brief discussion.

"Hadn't you better call up the men, captain?" asked the mild voice. "It'll
do 'em good, I'll warrant you."

"No," the captain replied, hotly. "This is a personal affair. Strip him and
seize him up."

I heard nothing more for a few minutes, but I could see them moving about,
and presently I distinguished Bill's bare back and arms as they
spread-eagled him to the rigging.

Then the rope whistled in the air and Bill moaned.

Unable to endure the sight, I was turning away, when some one coming from
the cabin broke in upon the scene.

"Well," said Roger Hamlin, "what's all this about?"

Roger's calm voice and composed manner were so characteristic of him that
for the moment I could almost imagine myself at home in Salem and merely
passing him on the street.

"I'll have you know, sir," said Captain Falk, "that I'm master here."

"Evidently, sir."

"Then what do you mean, sir, by challenging me like that?"

"From what I have heard, I judge that the punishment is out of proportion
to the offense, even if the steward's yarn was true."

"I'll have you know, that I'm the only man aboard this ship that has any
judgment," Falk snarled.

"Judgment ?" Roger exclaimed; and the twist he gave the word was so funny
that some one actually snickered.

"Yes, judgment !" Falk roared; and he turned on Roger with all the anger of
his mean nature choking his voice. "I'll--I'll beat you, you young upstart,
you! I'll beat you in that man's place," he cried, with a string of oaths.

"No," said Roger very coolly, "I think you won't."

"By heaven, I will!"

The two men faced each other like two cocks in the pit at the instant
before the battle. There was a deathly silence on deck.

Such a scene, as I saw it there, if put on the stage in a theatre, would be
a drama in itself without word or action. The sky was bright with stars;
the land lay low and dark against the horizon; the sea whispered round the
ship and sparkled with golden phosphorescence. Over our heads the masts
towered to slender black shafts, which at that lofty height seemed far too
frail to support the great network of rigging and spars and close-furled
canvas. Dwarfed by the tall masts, by the distances of the sea, and by the
vastness of the heavens, the small black figures stood silent on the
quarter-deck. But one of those men was bound half-naked to the rigging, and
two faced each other in attitudes that by outline alone, for we could
discern the features of neither, revealed antagonism and defiance.

"No," said Roger once more, very coolly, "I think you won't."

As the captain lifted his rope to hit Bill again, Roger stepped forward.

The captain looked sharply at him; then with a shrug he said, "Oh, well,
the fellow's had enough. Cut him down, cut him down."

So they unlashed Bill, and he came forward with his clothes in his arms and
one long, raw welt across his back.

"Now, what did I say?" he whimpered. "What did I say to make 'em do like
that?"

What had he said, indeed? Certainly nothing culpable. Some one had twisted
his innocent remarks in such a way as to irritate the captain and had
carried tales to the cabin. With decent officers such a thing never would
have happened. Affairs had run a sad course since Captain Falk had read the
burial service over Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas, both of whom had been
strict, fair, honorable gentlemen. There was a sober time in the forecastle
that night, and none of us had much to say.

Next day we sent a boat ashore again, and got information that led us to
sail along five miles farther, where there was a settlement from which we
got a good supply of water and vegetables. This took another day, and on
the morning of the day following we made sail once more and laid our course
west of Lingga Island, which convinced us for a time that we really were
about to bear away through Malacca Strait and on to Burma, at the very
least.

I almost believed it myself, India seemed so near; and Blodgett, sleepy by
day, wakeful by night, prowled about with an air of triumph. But in the
forenoon watch Roger Hamlin came forward openly and told me certain things
that were more momentous than any treasure-hunting trip to India that
Blodgett ever dreamed of.

Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping--I suppose they must be given their titles
now--watched him, and I could see that they didn't like it. They exchanged
glances and stared after him suspiciously, even resentfully; but there
was nothing that they could do or say. So he came on slowly and
confidently, looking keenly from one man to another as he passed.

By this time the two parties on board were sharply divided, and from the
attitude of the men as they met Roger's glance their partisanship was
pretty plainly revealed. The two from Boston, who were, I was confident,
on friendly and even familiar terms with Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping, gave
him a half-concealed sneer. There was no doubt where their sympathies would
lie, should Roger cross courses with our new master. The carpenter, working
on a plank laid on deck, heard him coming, glanced up, and seeing who it
was, continued at his labor without moving so much as a hair's breadth to
let him by; the steward looked him in the eye brazenly and impersonally;
and others of the crew, among them the strange Blodgett, treated him with a
certain subtle rudeness, even contempt. Yet here and there a man was glad
to see him coming and gave him a cordial nod, or a cheerful "Ay, ay, sir,"
in answer to whatever observation he let fall.

The cook alone, as I watched the scene with close interest, I could not
understand. To a certain extent he seemed surly, to a certain extent,
subservient. Perhaps he intended that we--and others--should be mystified.

One thing I now realized for the first time: although the crew was divided
into two cliques, the understanding was much more complete on the side of
Captain Falk. Among those who enjoyed the favor of our new officers there
was, I felt sure, some secret agreement, perhaps even some definite
organization. There seemed to be a unity of thought and manner that only a
common purpose could explain, whereas the rest drifted as the wind blew.

"Ben," Roger said, coming to me where I sat on the forecastle, "I want to
talk to you. Step over by the mast."

I followed him, though surprised.

"Here we can see on all sides," he said. "There are no hiding-places within
earshot. Ben"--He hesitated as if to find the right words.

All were watching us now, the captain and the mate from the quarter-deck,
the others from wherever they happened to be.

"I am loath to draw your sister's younger brother into danger," Roger
began. His adjective was tactfully chosen. "I am almost equally reluctant
to implicate you in what seems likely to confront us, because you are an
old friend of mine and a good deal younger than I am. But when the time
comes to go home, Ben, I'm sure we want to be able to look your sister and
all the others squarely in the eyes, with our hands clean and our
consciences clear--if we go home. How about it, Ben?"


I was too bewildered to answer, and in Roger's eyes something of his old
twinkle appeared.

"Ultimately," he continued, grave once more and speaking still in enigmas,
"we shall be vindicated in any case. But I fear that, before then, I, for
one, shall have to clasp hands with mutiny, perhaps with piracy. How would
you like that, Ben, with a thundering old fight against odds, a fight that
likely enough will leave us to sleep forever on one of these green islands
hereabouts?"

Still I did not understand.

Roger regarded me thoughtfully. "Tell me all that you know about our
cargo."

"Why," said I, finding my tongue at last, "it's ginseng and woollen goods
for Canton. That's all I know."

"Then you don't know that at this moment there is one hundred thousand
dollars in gold in the hold of the Island Princess?"

"What?" I gasped.

"One hundred thousand dollars in gold."

I could not believe my ears. Certainly, so far as I was concerned, the
secret had been well kept.

Then a new thought came to me, "Does Captain Falk know?" I asked.

"Yes," said Roger, "Captain Falk knows."



CHAPTER XII

A STRANGE TALE


Roger Hamlin's words were to linger a long time in my ears, and so far as I
then could see, there was little to say in reply. A hundred thousand
dollars in gold had bought, soul and body, many a better man than Captain
Falk. At that very moment Falk was watching us from the quarter-deck with
an expression on his face that was partly an amused smile, partly a sneer.
Weak and conceited though he was, he was master of that ship and crew in
more ways than one.

But Roger had not finished. "Do you remember, Ben," he continued in a low
voice, but otherwise unmindful of those about us, "that some half a dozen
years ago, when Thomas Webster was sore put to it for enough money to
square his debts and make a clean start, the brig Vesper, on which he had
sent a venture, returned him a profit so unbelievably great that he was
able to pay his creditors and buy from the Shattucks the old Eastern
Empress, which he fitted out for the voyage to Sumatra that saved his
fortunes?"

I remembered it vaguely--I had been only a small boy when it happened--and
I listened with keenest interest. The Websters owned the Island Princess.

"Not a dozen people know all the story of that voyage. It's been a kind of
family secret with the Websters. Perhaps they're ashamed to be so deeply
indebted to a Chinese merchant. Well, it's a story I shouldn't tell under
other conditions, but in the light of all that's come to pass, it's best
you should hear the whole tale, Ben; and in some ways it's a fine tale,
too. The Websters, as you probably know, had had bad luck, what with three
wrecks and pirates in the West Indies. They were pretty much by the head in
those days, and it was a dark outlook before them, when young Webster
signed the Vesper's articles as first officer and went aboard, with all
that the old man could scrape together for a venture, and with the future
of his family hanging in the balance. At Whampoa young Webster went up to
the Hong along with the others, and drove what bargains he could, and
cleared a tidy little sum. But it was nowhere near enough to save the
family. If only they could get the money to tide them over, they'd weather
the gale. If not, they'd go on a lee shore. Certain men--you'd know their
names, but such things are better forgotten--were waiting to attach the
ships the Websters had on the ways, and if the ships were attached there
would be nothing left for the Websters but stools in somebody's
counting-house.

"As I've heard the story, young Webster was waiting by the river for his
boat, with a face as long as you'd hope to see, when a Chinese who'd been
watching him from a little distance came up and addressed him in such
pidgin English as he could muster and asked after his father. Of course
young Webster was taken by surprise, but he returned a civil answer, and
the two fell to talking together. It seemed that, once upon a time, when
the Chinese was involved, head and heels, with some rascally down-east
Yankee, old man Webster had come to the rescue and had got him out of the
scrape with his yellow hide whole and his moneybags untapped.

"The Chinaman seemed to suspect from the boy's long face that all was not
as it should be, and he squeezed more or less of the truth out of the
young fellow, had him up to the Hong again, gave him various gifts, and
sent him back to America with five teak-wood chests. Just five ordinary
teak-wood chests--but in those teak-wood chests, Ben, was the money that
put the Websters on their feet again. The hundred thousand dollars below
is for that Chinese merchant."

It was a strange tale, but stranger tales than that were told in the old
town from which we had sailed.

"And Captain Falk--?" I began questioningly.

"Captain Falk was never thought of as a possible master of this ship."

"Will he try to steal the money?"

Roger raised his brows. "Steal it? Steal is a disagreeable word. He thinks
he has a grievance because he was not given the chief mate's berth to begin
with. He says, at all events, that he will not hand over any such sum to a
yellow heathen. He thinks he can return it to the owners two-fold. Although
he seldom reads his Bible, I believe he referred to the man who was given
ten talents."

"But the owners' orders!" I exclaimed.

"The owners' orders in that respect were secret. They were issued to
Captain Whidden and to me, and Captain Falk refuses to accept my version of
them."

"And you?"

Roger smiled and looked me hard in the eye. "I am going to see that they
are carried out," he said. "The Websters would be grievously disappointed
if this commission were not discharged. Also--" his eyes twinkled in the
old way--"I am not convinced that Captain Falk is in all respects an
honest--no, let us not speak too harshly--let us say, a _reliable_ man."

"So there'll be a fight," I mused.

"We'll see," Roger replied. "In any case, you know the story. Are you with
me?"

After fifty years I can confess without shame that I was frightened when
Roger asked me that question, for Roger and I were only two, and Falk, by
hook or by crook, had won most of the others to his side. There was Bill
Hayden, to be sure, on whom we could count; but he was a weak soul at best,
and of the cook's loyalty to Roger and whatever cause he might espouse I
now held grave doubts. Yet I managed to reply, "Yes, Roger, I am with you."

I thought of my sister when I said it, and of the white flutter of her
handkerchief, which had waved so bravely from the old wharf when Roger and
I sailed out of Salem harbor. After all, I was glad even then that I had
answered as I did.

"I'll have more to say later," said Roger; "but if I stay here much longer
now, Falk and Kipping will be breaking in upon us." And, turning, he coolly
walked aft.

Falk and Kipping were still watching us with sneers, and not a few of the
crew gave us hostile glances as we separated. But I looked after Roger with
an affection and a confidence that I was too young fully to appreciate. I
only realized that he was upright and fearless, and that I was ready to
follow him anywhere.

More and more I was afraid of the influence that Captain Falk had
established in the forecastle. More and more it seemed as if he actually
had entered into some lawless conspiracy with the men. Certainly they
grumbled less than before, and accepted greater discomforts with better
grace; and although I found myself excluded from their councils without any
apparent reason, I overheard occasional snatches of talk from which I
gathered that they derived great satisfaction from their scheme, whatever
it was. Even the cook would have none of me in the galley of an evening;
and Roger in the cabin where no doubt he was fighting his own battles, was
far away from the green hand in the forecastle. I was left to my own
devices and to Bill Hayden.

To a great extent, I suppose, it counted against me that I was the son of a
gentleman. But if I was left alone forward, so Roger, I learned now and
then, was left alone aft.

Continually I puzzled over the complacency of the men. They would nod and
smile and glance at me pityingly, even when I was getting my meat from the
same kids and my tea from the same pot; and chance phrases, which I caught
now and then, added to my uneasiness.

Once old Blodgett, prowling like a cat in the night, was telling how he was
going to "take his money and buy a little place over Ipswich way. There's
nice little places over Ipswich way where a man can settle snug as you
please and buy him a wife and end his days in comfort. We'll go home by way
of India, too, I'll warrant you, and take each of us our handful of round
red rubies. Right's right, but right'll be left--mind what I tell you."
Another time--on the same day, as I now recall it--I overheard the
carpenter saying that he was going to build a brick house in Boston up on
Temple Place. "And there'll be fan-lights over the door," he said, "their
panels as thin as rose-leaves, and leaded glass in a fine pattern." The
carpenter was a craftsman who aspired to be an artist.

But where did old Blodgett or the carpenter hope to get the money to
indulge the tastes of a prosperous merchant? I suspected well enough the
answer to that question, and I was not far wrong.

The cook remained inscrutable. I could not fathom the expressions of his
black frowning face. Although Captain Falk of course had no direct
communication with him openly, I learned through Bill Hayden that
indirectly he treated him with tolerant and friendly patronage. It even did
not surprise me greatly to be told that sometimes he secretly visited the
galley after dark and actually hobnobbed with black Frank in his own
quarters. It was almost incredible, to be sure; but so was much else in
which Captain Falk was implicated, and I could see revealed now in the game
that he was playing his desire to win and hold the men until they had
served his ends, whatever those ends might be.

"Yass, sah," black Frank would growl absently as he passed me without a
glance, "dis am de most appetizin' crew eveh Ah cooked foh. Dey's got no
mo' bottom to dey innards dan a sponge has. Ah's a-cookin' mah head off to
feed dat bunch of wuthless man-critters, a-a-a-a-h!" And he would stump to
the galley with a brimming pail of water in each hand.

I came sadly to conclude that old Frank had found other friends more to his
taste than the boy in the forecastle, and that Captain Falk, by trickery
and favoritism, really was securing his grip on the crew. In all his petty
manoeuvres and childish efforts to please the men and flatter them and make
them think him a good officer to have over them, he had made up to this
point only one or two false steps.

Working our way north by west to the Straits of Singapore, and thence on
into the China Sea, where we expected to take advantage of the last weeks
of the southwest monsoon, we left far astern the low, feverous shores of
Sumatra. There were other games than a raid on India to be played for
money, and the men thought less and less now of the rubies of Burma and the
gold mohurs and rupees of Calcutta.



CHAPTER XIII

TROUBLE FORWARD


In the starboard watch, one fine day when there was neither land nor sail
in sight, Davie Paine was overseeing the work on the rigging and badly
botching it. The old fellow was a fair seaman himself, but for all his deep
voice and big body, his best friend must have acknowledged that as an
officer he was hopelessly incompetent. "Now unlay the strands so," he would
say. "No, that ain't right. No, so! No, that ain't right either. Supposing
you form the eye so. No, that ain't right either."

After a time we were smiling so broadly at his confused orders that we
caught the captain's eye.

He came forward quickly--say what you would against Captain Falk as an
officer, no one could deny that he knew his business--and instantly he took
in the whole unfortunate situation. "Well, _Mister_ Paine," he cried,
sarcastically stressing the title, "are n't you man enough to unlay a bit
of rope and make a Flemish eye?"

Old Davie flushed in hopeless embarrassment, and even the men who had been
chuckling most openly were sorry for him. That the captain had reason to be
dissatisfied with the second mate's work, we were ready enough to admit;
but he should have called him aside and rebuked him privately. We all, I
think, regarded such open interference as unnecessary and unkind.

"Why--y-yes, sir," Davie stammered.

"To make you a Flemish eye," Captain Falk continued in cold sarcasm, "you
unlay the end of the rope and open up the yarns. Then you half-knot some
half the inside yarns over that bit of wood you have there, and scrape the
rest of them down over the others, and marl, parcel, and serve them
together. That's the way you go to make a Flemish eye. Now then, _Mister_
Paine, see that you get a smart job done here and keep your eyes open, you
old lubber. I thought you shipped for able seaman. A fine picture of an
able seaman you are, you doddering old fool!"

It is impossible to reproduce the meanness with which he gave his little
lecture, or the patronizing air with which he walked away. Old Davie was
quite taken aback by it and for a time he could not control his voice
enough to speak. It was pitiful to see him drop all the pretensions of his
office and, as if desiring only some friendly word, try to get back on the
old familiar footing of the forecastle.

"I know I ain't no great shakes of a scholar," he managed to mutter at
last, "and I ain't no great shakes of a second mate. But he made me second
mate, he did, and he hadn't ought to shame me in front of all the men, now
had he? It was him that gave me the berth. If he don't like me in it, now
why don't he take it away from me? I didn't want to be second mate when he
made me do it, and I can't read figures good nor nothing. Now why don't he
send me forrard if he don't like the way I do things?"

The old man ran on in a pathetic monologue, for none of us felt exactly at
liberty to put in our own oars, and he could find relief only in his
incoherent talk. It had been a needless and unkind thing and the men almost
unanimously disapproved of it. Why indeed should Captain Falk not send
Davie back to the forecastle rather than make his life miserable aft? The
captain was responsible only to himself for the appointment, and its tenure
depended only on his own whims; but that, apparently, he had no intention
of doing.

"'Tain't right," old Blodgett murmured, careful not to let Captain Falk see
him talking. "He didn't ought to use a man like that."

"No, he didn't," Neddie Benson said in his squeaky voice, turning his face
so that neither Davie nor Captain Falk should see the motion of his lips.
"I didn't ought to ship for this voyage, either. The fortune teller--she
was a lady, she was, a nice lady--she says, 'Neddie, there'll be a dark man
and a light man and a store of trouble.' She kind of liked me, I think. But
I up and come. I'm always reckless."

A ripple of low, mild laughter, which only Kipping could have uttered,
drifted forward, and the men exchanged glances and looked furtively at old
Davie.

The murmur of disapproval went from mouth to mouth, until for a time I
dared hope that Captain Falk had quite destroyed the popularity that he had
tried so hard to win. But, though Davie was grieved by the injustice and
though the men were angry, they seemed soon to forget it in the excitement
of that mysterious plot from which Roger and I were virtually the only ones
excluded.

Nevertheless, like certain other very trivial happenings aboard the Island
Princess, Captain Falk's unwarrantable insult to Davie Paine--it seems
incongruous to call him "mister"--was to play its part later in events that
as yet were only gathering way.

We had not seen much of Kipping for a time, and perhaps it was because he
had kept so much to himself that to a certain extent we forgot his sly,
tricky ways. His laugh, mild and insinuating, was enough to call them to
mind, but we were to have a yet more disagreeable reminder.

All day Bill Hayden had complained of not feeling well and now he leaned
against the deck-house, looking white and sick. Old Davie would never have
troubled him, I am sure, but Kipping was built by quite another mould.

Unaware of what was brewing, I turned away, sorry for poor Bill, who seemed
to be in much pain, and in response to a command from Kipping, I went aloft
with an "Ay, ay sir," to loose the fore-royal. Having accomplished my
errand, I was on my way down again, when I heard a sharp sound as of
slapping.

Startled, I looked at the deck-house. I was aware at the same time that the
men below me were looking in the same direction.

The sound of slapping was repeated; then I heard a mild, gentle voice
saying, "Oh, he's sick, is he? Poor fellow! Ain't it hard to be sick away
from home?" Slap--slap. "Well, I declare, what do you suppose we'd better
do about it? Shan't we send for the doctor? Poor fellow!" Slap--slap. "Ah!
ah! ah!" Kipping's voice hardened. "You blinking, bloody old fool. You
would turn on me, would you? You would give me one, would you? You would
sojer round the deck and say you're sick, would you? I 'll show you--take
that--I'll show you!"

Now, as I sprang on deck and ran out where I could see what was going
forward, I heard Bill's feeble reply. "Don't hit me, sir. I didn't go to do
nothing. I'm sick. I've got a pain in my innards. I _can't_ work--so help
me, I _can't_ work."

"Aha!" Again Kipping laughed mildly. "Aha! _Can't_ work, eh? I'll teach you
a lesson."

Bill staggered against the deck-house and clumsily fell, pressing his hands
against his side and moaning.

"Hgh!" Kipping grunted. "Hgh!"

At that moment the day flashed upon my memory when I had sat on one side of
that very corner while Kipping attempted to bully Bill on the other side of
it--the day when Bill had turned on his tormentor. I now understood some of
Kipping's veiled references, and a great contempt for the man who would use
the power and security of his office to revenge himself on a fellow seaman
who merely had stood up bravely for his rights swept over me. But what
could I or the others do? Kipping now was mate, and to strike him would be
open mutiny. Although thus far, in spite of the dislike with which he and
Captain Falk regarded me, my good behavior and my family connections had
protected me from abuse, I gladly would have forfeited such security to
help Bill; but mutiny was quite another affair.

We all stood silent, while Kipping berated Bill with many oaths, though
poor Bill was so white and miserable that it was almost more than we could
endure. I, for one, thought of his little girl in Newburyport, and I
remember that I hoped she might never know of what her loving, stupid old
father was suffering.

Enraged to fury by nothing more or less than Bill's yielding to his
attacks, Kipping turned suddenly and reached for the carpenter's mallet,
which lay where Chips had been working nearby. With a round oath, he
yelled, "I'll make you grovel and ask me to stop."

Kipping had moved quickly, but old Bill moved more quickly still. Springing
to his feet like a flash, with a look of anguish on his face such as I hope
I never shall see again, he warded off a blow of the mallet with his hand
and, running to the side, scrambled clean over the bulwark into the sea.

We stood there like men in a waxwork for a good minute at the very least;
and if you think a minute is not a long time, try it with your eyes shut.
Kipping's angry snarl was frozen on his mean features,--it would have been
ludicrous if the scene had not been so tragic,--and his outstretched hand
still held the mallet at the end of the blow. The carpenter's mouth was
open in amazement. Neddie Benson, the first to move or break the silence,
had spread his hands as if he were about to clutch at a butterfly or a
beetle; dropping them to his side, he gasped huskily, "She said there'd be
a light man and a dark man--I--oh, Lord!"

It was the cook, as black as midnight and as inscrutable as a figurehead,
who brought us to our senses. Silently observing all that had happened, he
had stood by the galley, without lifting his hand or changing the
expression of a single feature; but now, taking his pipe from his mouth, he
roared, "Man ovehboa'd!" Then, snatching up the carpenter's bench with one
hand and gathering his great body for the effort, he gave a heave of his
shoulders and tossed the bench far out on the water.

As if waking from a dream, Mr. Kipping turned aft, smiling scornfully, and
said with a deliberation that seemed to me criminal, "Put down the helm!"

So carelessly did he speak, that the man at the wheel did not hear him, and
he was obliged to repeat the order a little more loudly. "Didn't you hear
me? I say, put down the helm."

"Put down the helm, sir," came the reply; and the ship began to head up in
the wind.

At this moment Captain Falk, having heard the cook's shout, appeared on
deck, breathing hard, and took command. However little I liked Captain
Falk, I must confess in justice to him that he did all any man could have
done under the circumstances. While two or three hands cleared away a
quarter-boat, we hauled up the mainsail, braced the after yards and raised
the head sheets, so that the ship, with her main yards aback, drifted down
in the general direction in which we thought Bill must be.

Not a man of us expected ever to see Bill again. He had flung himself
overboard so suddenly, and so much time had elapsed, that there seemed to
be no chance of his keeping himself afloat. I saw that the smile actually
still hovered on Kipping's mean, mild mouth. But all at once the cook, near
whom I was standing, grasped my arm and muttered almost inaudibly, "If dey
was to look behine, dey'd get ahead, yass, sah."

Taking his hint, I looked astern and cried out loudly. Something was
bobbing at the end of the log line. It was Bill clinging desperately.

When we got him on board, he was nearer dead than alive, and even the stiff
drink that the captain poured between his blue lips did not really revive
him. He moaned continually and now and then he cried out in pain.
Occasionally, too, he tried to tell us about his little girl at
Newburyport, and rambled on about how he had married late in life and had a
good wife and a comfortable home, and before long, God willing, he would be
back with them once more and would never sail the seas again. It was all so
natural and homely that I didn't realize at the time that Bill was
delirious; but when I helped the men carry him below, I was startled to
find his face so hot, and presently it came over me that he did not
recognize me.

Poor old stupid Bill! He meant so well, and he wished so well for all of
us! It was hard that he should be the one who could not keep out of harm's
way.

But there were other things to think of, more important even than the fate
of Bill Hayden, and one of them was an extraordinary interview with the
cook.

I heard laughter in the galley that night, and lingered near as long as I
dared, with a boy's jealous desire to learn who was enjoying the cook's
hospitality. By his voice I soon knew that it was the steward, and
remembering how black Frank once was ready to deceive him for the sake of
giving me a piece of pie, I was more disconsolate than ever. After a while
I saw him leave, but I thought little of that. I still had two more hours
to stand watch, so I paced along in the darkness, listening to the sound of
the waves and watching the bright stars.

When presently I again passed the galley I thought I heard a suspicious
sound there. Later I saw something move by the door. But neither time did I
go nearer. I had no desire for further rebuffs from the old negro.

When I passed a third time, at a distance of only a foot or two, I was
badly startled. A long black arm reached out from the apparently closed
door; a black hand grasped me, lifted me bodily from the floor, and
silently drew me into the galley, which was as dark as Egypt. I heard the
cook close the door behind me and bolt it and cover the deadlight with a
tin pan. What he was up to, I had not the remotest idea; but when he had
barricaded and sealed every crack and cranny, he lighted a candle and set
it on a saucer and glared at me ferociously.

"Mind you, boy," he said in a very low voice, "don't you think Ah'm any
friend of yo's. No, sah. Don't you think Ah'm doing nothin' foh you. No,
sah. 'Cause Ah ain't. No, sah. Ah'm gwine make a fo'tune dis yeh trip, Ah
am. Yass, sah. Dis yeh nigger's gwine go home putty darn well off. Yass,
sah. So don't you think dis yeh nigger's gwine do nothin' foh you. No,
sah."

For a moment I was completely bewildered; then, as I recalled the darky's
crafty and indirect ways, my confidence returned and I had the keenest
curiosity to see what would be forthcoming.

"Boys, dey's a pest," he grumbled. "Dey didn't had ought to have boys
aboa'd ship. No, sah. Cap'n Falk, he say so, too."

The negro was looking at me so intently that I searched his words for some
hidden meaning; but I could find none.

"No, sah, boys am de mos' discombobulationest eveh was nohow. Yass, sah.
Dey's been su'thin' happen aft. Yass, sah. Ah ain't gwine tell no boy,
nohow. No, sah. 'Taint dis nigger would go tell a boy dat Mistah Hamlin he
have a riot with Mistah Cap'n Falk, no sah. Ah ain't gwine tell no boy dat
Mistah Hamlin, he say dat Mistah Cap'n Falk he ain't holdin' to de right
co'se, no, sah; nor dat Mistah Cap'n Falk he bristle up like a guinea
gander and he say, while he's swearin' most amazin', dat he know what co'se
he's sailin', no, sah. Ah ain't gwine tell no boy dat Mistah Hamlin, he say
he am supercargo, an' dat he reckon he got orders f'om de owners; and
Mistah Cap'n Falk, he say he am cap'n and he cuss su'thin' awful 'bout dem
orders; and Mistah Roger Hamlin he say Mistah Cap'n Falk his clock am a
hour wrong and no wonder Mistah Kipping am writing in de log-book dat de
ship am whar she ain't; and Mistah Kipping he swear dre'ful pious and he
say by golly he am writer of dat log-book and he reckon he know what's what
ain't. No, sah, Ah ain't gwine tell a boy dem things 'cause Ah tell stew'd
Ah ain't, an' stew'd, him an' me is great friends, what's gwine make a
fo'tune _when Mistah Cap'n Falk git dat money_!"

He said those last words in a whisper, and stared at me intently; in that
same whisper, he repeated them, "When Mistah Cap'n Falk git dat money_!"

Then, in a strangely meditative way, as if an unfamiliar process of thought
suddenly occupied all his attention, he muttered absently, letting his eyes
fall, "Seem like Ah done see dat Kipping befo'; Ah jes' can't put mah
finger on him." It was the second time that he had made such a remark in my
hearing.

The candle guttered in the saucer that served for a candlestick, and its
crazy, wavering light shone unsteadily on the black face of the cook, who
continued to stare at me grimly and apparently in anger. A pan rattled as
the ship rolled. Water splashed from a bucket. I watched the drops falling
from the shelf. One--two--three--four--five--six--seven! Each with its
_pht_, its little splash. They continued to drip interminably. I lost all
count of them. And still the black face, motionless except for the wildly
rolling eyes, stared at me across the galley stove.



CHAPTER XIV

BILL HAYDEN COMES TO THE END OF HIS VOYAGE


I was ejected from the galley as abruptly and strangely as I had been drawn
into it. The candle went out at a breath from the great round lips; the big
hand again closed on my shoulder and lifted me bodily from my chair. The
door opened and shut, and there was I, dazed by my strange experience and
bewildered by the story I had heard, outside on the identical spot from
which I had been snatched ten minutes before.

In my ears the negro's parting message still sounded, "Dis nigger wouldn't
tell a boy one word, no sah, not dis nigger. If he was to tell a boy jest
one leetle word, dat boy, he might lay hisself out ready foh a fight. Yass,
sah."

For a long time I puzzled over the whole extraordinary experience. It was
so like a dream, that only the numbness of my arm where the negro's great
fist had gripped it convinced me that the happenings of the night were
real. But as I pondered, I found more and more significance in the cook's
incoherent remarks, and became more and more convinced that their
incoherence was entirely artful. Obviously, first of all, he was trying to
pacify his conscience, which troubled him for breaking the promise of
secrecy that he probably had given the steward, from whom he must have
learned the things at which he had hinted. Also he had established for
himself an alibi of a kind, if ever he should be accused of tattling about
affairs in the cabin.

That Captain Falk had promised to divide the money among the crew, I long
had suspected; consequently that part of the cook's revelations did not
surprise me. But the picture he gave of affairs in the cabin, disconnected
though it was, caused me grave concern. After all, what could Roger do to
preserve the owners' property or to carry out their orders? Captain Falk
had all the men on his side, except me and perhaps poor old Bill Hayden.
Indeed, I feared for Roger's own safety if he had detected that rascally
pair in falsifying the log; he then would be a dangerous man when we all
went back to Salem together. I stopped as if struck: what assurance had I
that we should go back to Salem together--or singly, for that matter? There
was no assurance whatever, that all, or any one of us, would ever go back
to Salem. If they wished to make way with Roger, and with me too, for that
matter, the green tropical seas would keep the secret until the end of
time.

I am not ashamed that I frankly was white with fear of what the future
might bring. You can forgive in a boy weaknesses of which a man grown might
have been guilty. But as I watched the phosphorescent sea and the stars
from which I tried to read our course, I gradually overcame the terror that
had seized me. I think that remembering my father and mother, and my
sister, for whom I suspected that Roger cared more than I, perhaps, could
fully realize, helped to compose me; and I am sure that the thought of the
Roger I had known so long,--cool,  bold, resourceful, with that twinkle in
his steady eyes--did much to renew my courage. When eight bells struck and
some one called down the hatch, "Larbowlines ahoy," and the dim figures of
the new watch appeared on deck, and we of the old watch went below, I was
fairly ready to face whatever the next hours might bring.

"Roger and I against them all," I thought, feeling very much a martyr,
"unless," I mentally added, "Bill Hayden joins us." At that I actually
laughed, so that Blodgett, prowling restlessly in the darkness, asked me
crossly what was the matter. I should have been amazed and incredulous if
anyone had told me that poor Bill Hayden was to play the deciding part in
our affairs.

He lay now in his bunk, tossing restlessly and muttering once in a while to
himself. When I went over and asked if there was anything that I could do
for him, he raised himself on his elbow and stared at me more stupidly than
ever. It seemed to come to him slowly who I was. After a while he made out
my face by the light of the dim, swinging lantern, and thanked me, and said
if I would be so good as to give him a drink of water--He never completed
the sentence; but I brought him a drink carefully, and when he had finished
it, he thanked me again and leaned wearily back.

His face seemed dark by the lantern-light, and I judged that it was still
flushed. Muttering something about a "pain in his innards," he apparently
went to sleep, and I climbed into my own bunk. The lantern swung more and
more irregularly, and Bill tossed with ever-increasing uneasiness. When at
last I dozed off, my own sleep was fitful, and shortly I woke with a start.

Others, too, had waked, and I heard questions flung back and forth:--

"Who was that yelled?"

"Did you hear that? Tell me, did you hear it?"

Some one spoke of ghosts,--none of us laughed,--and Neddie Benson whimpered
something about the lady who told fortunes. "She said the light man and the
dark man would make no end o' trouble," he cried; "and he--"

"Keep still," another voice exclaimed angrily. "It was Bill Hayden," the
voice continued. "He hollered."

Getting out of my bunk, I crossed the forecastle. "Bill," I said, "are you
all right?"

He started up wildly. "Don't hit me!" he cried. "That wasn't what I said--
it--I don't remember _just_ what I said, because I ain't good at
remembering, but it wasn't that--don't-oh! oh!--I _know_ it wasn't that."

Two of the men joined me, moving cautiously for the ship was pitching now
in short, heavy seas.

"What's that he's saying?" one of them asked.

Before I could answer, Bill seemed suddenly to get control of himself.
"Oh," he moaned. "I've got such a pain in my innards! I've got a rolling,
howling old pain in my innards."

There was little that we could do, so we smoothed his blankets and went
back to our own. The Island Princess was pitching more fiercely than ever
now, and while I watched the lantern swing and toss before I went to sleep,
I heard old Blodgett saying something about squalls and cross seas. There
was not much rest for us that night. No sooner had I hauled the blankets to
my chin and closed my eyes, than a shout came faintly down to us,
"All-hands--on deck!"

Some one called, "Ay, ay," and we rolled out again wearily--all except Bill
Hayden whose fitful tossing seemed to have settled at last into deep sleep.

Coming on deck, we found the ship scudding under close-reefed maintopsail
and reefed foresail, with the wind on her larboard quarter. A heavy sea
having blown up, all signs indicated that a bad night was before us; and
just as we emerged from the hatch, she came about suddenly, which brought
the wind on the starboard quarter and laid all aback.

In the darkness and rain and wind, we sprang to the ropes. Mr. Kipping was
forward at his post on the forecastle and Captain Falk was on the
quarter-deck. As the man at the wheel put the helm hard-a-starboard, we
raised the fore tack and sheet, filled the foresail and shivered the
mainsail, thus bringing the wind aft again, where we met her with the helm
and trimmed the yards for her course. For the moment we were safe, but
already it was blowing a gale, and shortly we lay to, close-reefed, under
what sails we were carrying.

In a lull I heard Blodgett, who was pulling at the ropes by my side, say to
a man just beyond him, "Ay, it's a good thing for _us_ that Captain Falk
got command. We'd never make our bloody fortunes under the old officers."

As the wind came again and drowned whatever else may have been said, I
thought to myself that they never would have. Plainly, Captain Falk and
Kipping had won over the simple-minded crew, which was ready to follow them
with never a thought of the chance that that precious pair might run off
with the spoils themselves and leave the others in the lurch.

But now Kipping's indescribably disagreeable voice, which we all by this
time knew so well, asked, "Has anybody seen that sojering old lubber,
Hayden?"

"Ay, ay, sir," Blodgett replied. "He's below sick."

"Sick?" said the mild voice. "Sick is he? Supposing Blodgett, you go below
and bring him on deck. He ain't sick, he's sojering."

"But, sir,--" Blodgett began.

"But what?" roared Kipping. His mildness changed to fierceness. "_You go_!"
He snapped out the words, and Blodgett went.

Poor stupid old Bill!

When he appeared, Blodgett had him by the arm to help him.

"You sojering, bloody fool," Kipping cried; "do you think I'm so blind I
can't see through such tricks as yours?"

A murmur of remonstrance came from the men, but Kipping paid no attention
to it.

"You think, do you, that I ain't on to your slick tricks? Take that."

Bill never flinched.

"So!" Kipping muttered. "So! Bring him aft."

Though heavy seas had blown up, the squalls had subsided, and some of the
men, for the moment unoccupied, trailed at a cautious distance after the
luckless Bill. We could not hear what those on the quarterdeck said; but
Blodgett, who stood beside me and stared into the darkness with eyes that I
was convinced could see by night, cried suddenly, "He's fallen!"

Then Captain Falk called, "Come here, two or three of you, and take this
man below."

Old Bill was moaning when we got there. "Sure," he groaned, "I've got a
rolling--howling--old Barney's bull of a pain in my innards." But when we
laid him in his bunk, he began to laugh queerly, and he seemed to pretend
that he was talking to his little wee girl; for we heard him saying that
her old father had come to her and that he was never going to leave her
again.

To me--only a boy, you must remember--it was a horrible experience, even
though I did not completely understand all that was happening; and to the
others old Bill's rambling talk seemed to bring an unnamed terror.

All night he restlessly tossed, though he soon ceased his wild talking and
slept lightly and fitfully. The men watching him were wakeful, too, and as
I lay trying to sleep and trying not to see the swaying lantern and the
fantastic shadows, I heard at intervals snatches of their low conversation.

"They hadn't ought to 'a' called him out. It warn't human. A sick man has
got _some_ rights," one of the men from Boston repeated interminably. He
seemed unable to hold more than one idea at a time.

Then Blodgett would say, "Ay, it don't seem right. But we've all got to
stand by the skipper. That's how we'll serve our ends best. It don't do to
get too much excited."

I imagined that Blodgett's voice did not sound as if he were fully
convinced of the doctrine he was preaching.

"Ay," the other would return, "but they hadn't ought to 'a' called him out.
It warn't human. A sick man has got _some_ rights, and he was allers
quiet."

They talked on endlessly, while I tried in vain to sleep and while poor
Bill tossed away, getting no good from the troubled slumber that the Lord
sent him.

No sooner, it seemed to me, did I actually close my eyes than I woke and
heard him moaning, "Water--a--drink--of--water."

The others by then had left him, so I got up and fetched water, and he
muttered something more about the "pain in his innards." Then my watch was
called and I went on deck with the rest.

For the most part it was a day of coarse weather. Now intermittent squalls
from the southwest swept upon us with lightning and thunder, driving before
them rain in solid sheets; now the ship danced in choppy waves, with barely
enough wind to give her steerage-way and with a warm, gentle drizzle that
wet us to the skin and penetrated into the forecastle, where blankets and
clothing soon became soggy and uncomfortable. But the greater part of the
time we lurched along in a gale of wind, with an occasional dash of rain,
which we accepted as a compromise between those two worse alternatives, the
cloudbursts that accompanied the squalls, and the enervating warm drizzle.

That Bill Hayden did not stand watch with the others, no one, apparently,
noticed. The men were glad enough to forget him, I think, and the officers
let his absence pass, except Davie Paine, who found opportunity to inquire
of me secretly about him and sadly shook his gray head at the tidings I
gave.

Below we could not forget him. I heard the larboard watch talking of it
when they relieved us; and no sooner had we gone below in turn than
Blodgett cried, "Look at old Bill! His face is all of a sweat."

He was up on his elbow when we came down, staring as if he had expected
some one; and when he saw who it was, he kept his eyes on the hatch as if
waiting for still another to come. Presently he fell back in his bunk. "Oh,
I've got such a pain in my innards," he moaned.

By and by he began to talk again, but he seemed to have forgotten his pain
completely, for he talked about doughnuts and duff, and Sundays ashore when
he was a little shaver, and going to church, and about the tiny wee girl on
the bank of the Merrimac who would be looking for her dad to come home, and
lots of things that no one would have thought he knew. He seemed so natural
now and so cheerful that I was much relieved about him, and I whispered to
Blodgett that I thought Bill was better. But Blodgett shook his head so
gravely that I was frightened in spite of my hopes, and we lay there, some
of us awake, some asleep, while Bill rambled cheerily on and the lantern
swung with the motion of the ship.

To-day I remember those watches below at
that time in the voyage as a succession of short unrestful snatches of
sleep broken by vivid pictures of the most trivial things--the swinging
lantern, the distorted shadows the muttered comments of the men, Bill
leaning on his elbow at the edge of his bunk and staring toward the hatch
as if some one long expected were just about to come. I do not pretend to
understand the reason, but in my experience it is the trifling unimportant
things that after a time of stress or tragedy are most clearly remembered.

When next I woke I heard the bell--_clang-clang, clang-clang, clang-clang,
clang_--faint and far off. Then I saw that Blodgett was sitting on the edge
of his bunk, counting the strokes on his fingers. When he had finished he
gravely shook his head and nodded toward Bill who was breathing harder now.
"He's far gone," Blodgett whispered. "He ain't going to share in no
split-up at Manila. He ain't going to put back again to India when we've
got rid of the cargo. His time's come."

I didn't believe a word that Blodgett said then, but I sat beside him as
still as the grave while the forecastle lantern nodded and swung as
casually as if old Bill were not, for all we knew, dying. By and by we
heard the bell again, and some one called from the hatch, "Eight bells!
Roll out!"

The very monotony of our life--the watches below and on deck, each like
every other, marked off by the faint clanging of the ship's bell--made
Bill's sickness seem less dreadful. There is little to thrill a lad or
even, after a time, to interest him, in the interminable routine of a long
voyage.

When we came on deck Davie Paine looked us over and said, "Where's Bill?"

Blodgett shook his head. Even this simple motion had a sleepy quality that
made me think of a cat.

"I'm afraid, sir," he replied, "that Bill has stood his last watch."

"So!" said old Davie, reflectively, in his deep voice, "so!--I was afraid
of that." Ignorant though Davie was, and hopelessly incompetent as an
officer, he had a certain kindly tolerance, increased, perhaps, by his own
recent difficulties, that made him more approachable than any other man in
the cabin. After a time he added, "I cal'ate I got to tell the captain."
Davie's manner implied that he was taking us into his confidence.

"Yes," Neddie Benson muttered under his breath, "tell the captain! If it
wasn't for Mr. Kipping and the captain, Bill would be as able a man this
minute as any one of us here. It didn't do to abuse him. He ain't got the
spirit to stand up under it."

Davie shuffled away without hearing what was said, and soon, instead of
Captain Falk, Mr. Kipping appeared, bristling with anger.

"What's all this?" he snapped, with none of the mildness that he usually
affected. "Who says Bill Hayden has stood his last watch? Is mutiny
brewing? I'll have you know I'm mate here, legal and lawful, and what's
more I'll show you I'm mate in a way that none of you won't forget if he
thinks he can try any more of his sojering on me. I'll fix him. You go
forward, Blodgett, and drag him out by the scalp-lock."

Blodgett walked off, keeping close to the bulwark, and five minutes later
he was back again.

Mr. Kipping grew very red. "Well, my man," he said in a way that made my
skin creep, "are you a party to this little mutiny?"

"N-no, sir," Blodgett stammered. "I--he-it ain't no use, he _can't_ come."

The mate looked sternly at Blodgett, and I thought he was going to hit
him; but instead, after a moment of hesitation, he started forward alone.

We scarcely believed our eyes.

By and by he came back again, but to us he said nothing. He went into the
cabin, and when next we saw him Captain Falk was by his side.

"I don't like the looks of it," Kipping was saying, "I don't at all."

As the captain passed me he called, "Lathrop, go to the galley and get a
bucket of hot water."

Running to the deck-house, I thrust my head into the galley and made known
my want with so little ceremony that the cook was exasperated. Or so at
least his manner intimated.

"You boy," he roared in a voice that easily carried to where the others
stood and grinned at my discomfiture, "you boy, what foh you come
promulgatin' in on me with 'gimme dis' and 'gimme dat' like Ah wahn't ol'
enough to be yo' pa? Ain't you got no manners nohow? You vex me, yass, sah,
you vex me. If we gotta have a boy on boa'd ship, why don' dey keep him out
of de galley?"

Then with a change of voice that startled me, he demanded in an undertone
that must have been inaudible a dozen feet away, "Have things broke? Is de
fight on? Has de row started?"

Bewildered, I replied, "Why, no--it's only Bill Hayden."

Instantly he resumed his loud and abusive tone. "Well, if dey gwine send a
boy heah foh wateh, wateh he's gotta have. Heah, you wuthless boy, git! Git
out of heah!"

Filling a bucket with boiling water, he thrust it into my hand and shoved
me half across the deck so roughly that I narrowly escaped scalding myself,
then returned to his work, muttering imprecations on the whole race of
boys. He was too much of a strategist for me.

When I took the bucket to the forecastle, I found the captain and Mr.
Kipping looking at poor old Bill.

"Dip a cloth in the water," the captain said carelessly, "and pull his
clothes off and lay the cloth on where it hurts."

I obeyed as well as I could, letting the cloth cool a bit first; and
although Bill cried out sharply when it touched his skin, the heat eased
him of pain, and by and by he opened his eyes for all the world as if he
had been asleep and looked at Captain Falk and said in a scared voice, "In
heaven's name, what's happened?"

The captain and Mr. Kipping laughed coldly. It seemed to me that they
didn't care whether he lived or died.

Certainly the men of the larboard watch, who were lying in their bunks at
the time, didn't like the way the two behaved. I caught the word
"heartless" twice repeated.

"Well," said Captain Falk at last, "either he'll live or he'll not. How
about it, Mr. Kipping?"

The mate laughed as if he had heard a good joke. "That's one of the truest
things ever was said aboard a ship," he replied, in his slow, insincere
way. "Yes, sir, it hits the nail on the head going up and coming down."

"Well, then, let's leave him to make up his mind."

So the two went aft together as if they had done a good day's work. But
there was a buzz of disapproval in the forecastle when they had gone, and
one of the men from Boston, of whom I hitherto had had a very poor opinion,
actually got out of his blankets and came over to help me minister to poor
Bill's needs.

"It ain't right," he said dipping the cloth in the hot water; "they never
so much as gave him a dose of medicine. A man may be only a sailor, but
he's worth a dose of medicine. There never come no good of denying poor
Jack his pill when he's sick."

"Ay, heartless!" one of the others exclaimed. _"I could tell things if I
would."_

That remark, I ask you to remember. The man who made it, the other of the
two from Boston, had black hair and a black beard, and a nose that
protruded in a big hook where he had broken it years before. It was easy to
recognize his profile a long way off because of the peculiar shape of the
nose. The remark itself is of little importance, of course; but a story is
made up of things that seem to be of little importance, yet really are more
significant by far than matters that for the moment are startling.

It was touching to see the solicitude of the men and the clumsy kindness of
their efforts to help poor Bill when the captain and the mate had left him.
They crowded up to his bunk and smoothed out his blankets and spoke to him
more gently than I should have believed possible. So angry were they at the
brutality of the two officers, that the coldest and hardest of them all
gave the sick man a muttered word of sympathy or an awkward helping hand.

We worked over him, easing him as best we could, while the bell struck the
half hours and the hours; and for a while he seemed more comfortable. In a
moment of sanity he looked up at me with a sad smile and said, "I wish,
lad, I surely wish I could do something for _you_." But long before the
watch was over he once more began to talk about the tiny wee girl at
Newburyport--"Cute she is as they make 'em," he reiterated weakly,
"a-waiting for her dad to come home." And by and by he spoke of his wife,
--"a good wife," he called her,--and then he made a little noise in his
throat and lay for a long time without moving.

"He's dead," the man from Boston said at last; there was no sound in the
forecastle except the rattle of the swinging lantern and the chug-chug of
waves.

I was younger than the others and more sensitive, so I went on deck and
leaned on the bulwark, looking at the ocean and seeing nothing.

 [Illustration]




IV

IN WHICH THE TIDE OF OUR FORTUNES EBBS

[Illustration]



CHAPTER XV

MR. FALK TRIES TO COVER HIS TRACKS


How long I leaned on the bulwark I do not know; I had no sense of passing
time. But after a while some one told me that the captain wished to see me
in the cabin, and I went aft with other tragic memories in mind. I had not
entered the cabin since Captain Whidden died--"_shot f'om behine_." The
negro's phrase now flashed upon my memory and rang over and over again in
my ears.

The cabin itself was much as it had been that other day: I suppose no
article of its furnishings had been changed. But when I saw Captain Falk in
the place of Captain Whidden and Kipping in the place of Mr. Thomas, I felt
sick at heart. All that encouraged me was the sight of Roger Hamlin, and I
suspected that he attended uninvited, for he came into the cabin from his
stateroom at the same moment when I came down the companionway, and there
was no twinkle now in his steady eyes.

Captain Falk glanced at him sharply. "Well, sir?" he exclaimed testily.

"I have decided to join you, sir," Roger said, and calmly seated himself.

For a moment Falk hesitated, then, obviously unwilling, he assented with a
grimace.

"Lathrop," he said, turning to me, "you were present when Hayden died, and
also you had helped care for him previously. Mr. Kipping has written a
statement of the circumstances in the log and you are to sign it, Here's
the place for your name. Here's a pen and ink. Be careful not to blot or
smudge it."

He pushed the big, canvas-covered book over to me and placed his finger on
a vacant line. All that preceded it was covered with paper.

"Of course," said Roger, coldly, "Lathrop will read the statement before
signing it." He was looking the captain squarely in the eye.

Falk scowled as he replied, "I consider that quite unnecessary."

"A great many of the ordinary decencies of life seem to be considered
unnecessary aboard this ship."

"If you are making any insinuations at me, Mr. Hamlin, I'll show you who's
captain here."

"You needn't. You've done it sufficiently already. Anyhow, if Lathrop were
foolish enough to sign the statement without reading it, I should know that
he hadn't read it and I assure you that it wouldn't pass muster in any
court of law."

As Captain Falk was about to retort even more angrily, Kipping touched his
arm and whispered to him.

"Oh, well," he said with ill grace, "as you wish, Mr. Kipping. There's
nothing underhanded about this. Of course the account is absolutely true
and the whole world could read it; only I don't intend a silly young fop
shall think he can bully me on my own ship. Show Lathrop the statement."

Kipping withdrew the paper and I began to read what was written in the log,
but Roger now interrupted again.

"Read it aloud," he said.

"What in heaven's name do you think you are, you young fool? If you think
you can bully Nathan Falk like that, I'll lash you to skin and pulp."

"Oh, well," said Roger comically, in imitation of the captain's own air of
concession, "since you feel so warmly on the subject, I'm quite willing to
yield the point. It's enough that Lathrop should read it before he signs."
Then, turning to me suddenly, he cried, "Ben, what's the course according
to the log?"

The angry red of Captain Talk's face deepened, but before he could speak, I
had seen and repeated it:--

"Northeast by north."

Roger smiled. "Go on," he said. "Read the statement."

The statement was straightforward enough for the most part--more
straightforward, it seemed to me, than either of the two men who probably
had collaborated in writing it; but one sentence caught my attention and I
hesitated.

"Well," said Roger who was watching me closely, "is anything wrong?"

"Why, perhaps not exactly wrong," I replied, "though I do think most of the
men forward would deny it."

"See here," cried Captain Falk, cutting off Kipping, who tried to speak at
the same moment, "I tell you, Mr. Hamlin, if you thrust your oar in here
again I'll thrash you within an inch of your life! I'll keelhaul you, so
help me! I'll--" He wrinkled up his nose and twisted his lips into a sneer
before he added, almost in a whisper, "I'll do worse than that."

"No," said Roger calmly, "I don't think you will. What's the sentence,
Benny?"

Without waiting for another word from anyone I read aloud as follows:--

"'And the captain and the chief mate tended Hayden carefully and did what
they might to make his last hours comfortable.'"

"Well," said Falk, "didn't we?"

"No, by heaven, you didn't," Roger cried suddenly, taking the floor from
me. "I know how you beat Hayden. I know how you two drove him to throw
himself overboard. You're a precious pair! And what's more, all the men
forward know it. While we're about it, Captain Falk, here's something else
I know. According to the log, which you consistently have refused to let me
see the course is northeast by north. According to the men at the wheel,--I
will not be still! I will not close my mouth! If you assault me, sir, I
will break your shallow head,--according to the men at the wheel, of whom I
have inquired, according to the ship's compass when I've taken a chance to
look at it, according to the tell-tale that you yourself can see at this
very minute and--" Roger laid on the table a little box of hard wood bound
with brass--"according to this compass of my own, which I know is a good
one, our course is now and has been for two days east-northeast. Captain
Falk, do you think you can make us believe that Manila is Canton?"

"It may be that I do, and it may be that I do not," Falk retorted hotly.
"As for you, Mr. Hamlin, I'll attend to your case later. Now sign that
statement, Lathrop."

Falk was standing. His hands, a moment before lifted for a blow, rested on
the table; but the knuckles were streaked with red along the creases, and
the nails of his fingers, which were bent under, he had pressed hard
against the dull mahogany. When he had finished speaking, he sat down
heavily.

"Sign it, Ben," said Roger; "but first draw your pen through that
particular sentence."

Quick as thought I did what Roger told me, leaving a single broad line
through the words "and did what they might to make his last hours
comfortable"; then I wrote my name and laid the pen on the table.

[Illustration: "Sign that statement, Lathrop," said Captain Falk.]

Leaning over to see what I had done, Falk leaped up white with passion.
"Good God!" he yelled, "that's worse than nothing."

"Yes," said Roger coolly, "I think it is."

"What--" Falk stopped suddenly. Kipping had touched his sleeve. "Well?"

Kipping whispered to him.

"No," Falk snarled, glancing at me, "I'm going to take that young pup's
hide off his back and salt it."

Again Kipping whispered to him.

This time he seemed half persuaded. He was a weak man, even in his
passions. "All right," he said, after reflecting briefly. "As you say, it
don't make so much odds. Myself, I'm for slitting the young pup's ears--but
later on, later on. And though I'd like to straighten out the record as far
as it goes--Well, as you say."

For all of Captain Falk's bluster and pretension, I was becoming more and
more aware that the subtle Kipping could twist him around his little
finger, and that for some end of his own Kipping did not wish affairs to
come yet to a head.

He leaned back in his chair, twirling his thumbs behind his interlocked
fingers, and smiled at us mildly. His whole bearing was odious. He fairly
exhaled hypocrisy. I remembered a dozen episodes of his career aboard the
Island Princess--the wink he had given Captain Falk, then second mate; his
coming to the cook's galley for part of my pie; his bullying poor old Bill
Hayden; his cold selfishness in taking the best meat from the kids, and
many other offensive incidents. Was it possible that Captain Falk was not
at the bottom of all our troubles? that Captain Falk had been from the
first only somebody's tool?

We left the cabin in single file, the captain first, Kipping second, then
Roger, then I.



CHAPTER XVI

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD


In the last few hours we had sighted an island, which lay now off the
starboard bow; and as I had had no opportunity hitherto to observe it
closely, I regarded it with much interest when I came on deck. Inland there
were several cone-shaped mountains thickly wooded about the base; to the
south the shore was low and apparently marshy; to the north a bold and
rugged promontory extended. Along the shore and for some distance beyond it
there were open spaces that might have been great tracts of cleared land;
and a report prevailed among the men that a fishing boat had been sighted
far off, which seemed to put back incontinently to the shore. Otherwise
there was no sign of human habitation, but we knew the character of the
natives of such islands thereabouts too well to approach land with any
sense of security.

Captain Falk and Kipping were deep in consultation, and the rest were
intent upon the sad duty that awaited us. On the deck there lay now a shape
sewed in canvas. The men, glancing occasionally at the captain, stood a
little way off, bare-headed and ill at ease, and conversed in whispers. For
the moment I had forgotten that we were to do honor for the last time--and,
I fear me, for the first--to poor Bill Hayden. Poor, stupid Bill! He had
meant so well by us all, and life had dealt so hardly with him! Even in
death he was neglected.

As time passed, the island became gradually clearer, so that now we could
see its mountains more distinctly and pick out each separate peak. Although
the wind was light and unsteady, we were making fair progress; but Captain
Falk and Mr. Kipping remained intent on their conference.

I could see that Roger Hamlin, who was leaning on the taffrail, was
imperturbable; but Davie Paine grew nervous and walked back and forth,
looking now and then at the still shape in canvas, and the men began to
murmur among themselves.

"Well," said the captain at last, "what does all this mean, Mr. Paine? What
in thunder do you mean by letting the men stand around like this?"

He knew well enough what it meant, though, for all his bluster. If he had
not, he would have been ranting up the deck the instant he laid eyes on
that scene of idleness such as no competent officer could countenance.

Old Davie, who was as confused as the captain had intended that he should
be, stammered a while and finally managed to say, "If you please, sir, Bill
Hayden's dead."

"Yes," said the captain, "it looks like he's dead."

We all heard him and more than one of us breathed hard with anger.

"Well, why don't you heave him over and be done with it?" he asked shortly,
and turned away.


The men exchanged glances.


"If you please, sir,--" it was Davie, and a different Davie from the one we
had known before,--"if you please, sir, ain't you goin' to read the service
and say the words?"

I turned and stared at Davie in amazement. His voice was sharper now than
ever I had heard it and there was a challenge in his eyes as well.

"What?" Falk snapped out angrily.

"Ain't you goin' to read the Bible and say the words, sir?"

I am convinced that up to this point Captain Falk had intended, after
badgering Davie enough to suit his own unkind humor, to read the service
with all the solemnity that the occasion demanded. He was too eager for
every prerogative of his office to think of doing otherwise. But his was
the way of a weak man; at Davie's challenge he instantly made up his mind
not to do what was desired, and having set himself on record thus, his
mulish obstinacy held him to his decision in spite of whatever better
judgment he may have had.

"Not I!" he cried. "Toss him over to suit yourself."

When an angry murmur rose on every side, he faced about again. "Well," he
said, "what do you want, anyway? I'm captain here, and if you wish I'll
_show_ you I'm captain here. I'll read the service or I'll not read it,
just as I please. If any man here's got anything to say about it, I'll do
some saying myself. If any man here wants to read the service over that
lump of clay, let him read it." Then, turning with an air of indifference,
he leaned on the rail with a sneer, and smiled at Kipping.

What would have happened next I do not know, so angry were the men at this
wretched exhibition on the part of the captain, if Roger had not stepped
forward.

"Very well, sir," he said facing the captain, "since you put it that way,
_I'll read the service_." And without ceremony he took from the captain's
hand the prayer-book that Falk had brought on deck.

Disconcerted by this unexpected act and angered by the murmur of approval
from the men, Falk started to speak, then thought better of it and sidled
over beside Kipping, to whom he whispered something at which they both
laughed heartily. Then they stood smiling scornfully while Roger went down
beside poor Bill's body.

Roger opened the prayer-book, turned the pages deliberately, and began to
read the service slowly and with feeling. He was younger and more slender
than many of the men, but straight and tall and handsome, and I remember
how proud of him I felt for taking affairs in his own hands and making the
best of a bad situation.

"We therefore commit his body to the deep," he read "looking for the
general Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come,
through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty
to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible
bodies of those who sleep in Him shall be changed and made like unto his
glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby He is able to subdue
all things unto Himself."

Then Blodgett, Davie Paine, the cook, and the man from Boston lifted the
plank and inclined it over the bulwark, and so passed all that was mortal
of poor Bill Hayden.

Suddenly, in the absolute silence that ensued when Roger closed the
prayer-book, I became aware that he was signaling me to come nearer, and I
stepped over beside him. At the same instant the reason for it burst upon
me. Now, if ever, was the time to turn against Captain Falk.

"Men," said Roger in a low voice, "are you going to stand by without
lifting a hand and see a shipmate's dead body insulted?"

The crew came together in a close group about their supercargo. With stern
faces and with the heavy breathing of men who contemplate some rash or
daring deed, they were, I could see, intent on what Roger had to say.

He looked from one to another of them as if to appraise their spirit and
determination. "I represent the owners," he continued tersely. "The owners'
orders are not being obeyed. Mind what I tell you--_the owners' orders are
not being obeyed._ You know why as well as I do, and you remember this:
though it may seem on the face of it that I advocate mutiny or even piracy,
if we take the ship from the present captain and carry out the voyage and
obey the owners' orders, I can promise you that there'll be a fine rich
reward waiting at Salem for every man here. What's more, it'll be an honest
reward, with credit from the owners and all law-abiding men. But enough of
that! It's a matter of ordinary decency--of common honesty! The man who
will conspire against the owners of this ship is a contemptible cur, a fit
shipmate with the brute who horsed poor Bill to death."

I never had lacked faith in Roger, but never before had I appreciated to
the full his reckless courage and his unyielding sense of personal honor.

He paused and again glanced from face to face. "What say, men? Are you with
me?" he cried, raising his voice.

Meanwhile Captain Falk, aware that something was going on forward, shouted
angrily, "Here, here! What's all this! Come, lay to your work, you sons of
perdition, or I'll show you what's what. You, Blodgett, go forward and
heave that lead as you were told."

In his hand Blodgett held the seven-pound dipsey lead, but he stood his
ground.

"Well?" Falk came down on us like a whirlwind. "Well? You, Hamlin, what in
Tophet are you backing and hauling about?"

"I? Backing and hauling?" Roger spoke as calmly as you please. "I am merely
advocating that the men take charge of the ship in the name of the lawful
owners and according to their orders."

As Captain Falk sprang forward to strike him down, there came a thin, windy
cry, "No you don't; no, you don't!"

To my amazement I saw that it was old Blodgett.

"It don't do to insult the dead," he cried in a voice like the yowl of a
tom-cat. "You can kill us all you like. It's captain's rights. But, by the
holy, you ain't got no rights whatsoever to refuse a poor sailor a decent
burial."

With a vile oath, Captain Falk contemplated this new factor in the
situation. Suddenly he yelled, "Kipping! It's mutiny! Help!" And with a
clutch at his hip he drew his pistol.

"'Heave the lead' is it?" Blodgett muttered. "Ay, I'll heave the lead." He
whipped up his arm and hurled the missile straight at Captain Falk's head.

The captain dodged, but the lead struck his shoulder and felled him.

Seeing Kipping coming silently with a pistol in each hand, I ducked and
tried to pull Roger over beside Blodgett; but Roger, instantly aware of
Kipping's move, spun on his heel as the first bullet flew harmlessly past
us, and lithely stepped aside. With a single swing of his right arm he cut
Kipping across the face with a rope's end and stopped him dead.

As the welt reddened on his face, Kipping staggered, leveled his other
pistol point-blank and pulled the trigger.

For the moment I could not draw breath, but the pistol missed fire.

"Flashed in the pan!" Roger cried, and tugged at his own pistol, which had
caught inside his shirt where he had carried it out of sight. "That's not
all--that's flashed in the pan!"

"Now then, you fools," Kipping shrieked. "Go for 'em! Go for'em! The bell's
struck! Now's the time!"

So far it all had happened so suddenly and so extraordinarily swiftly, with
one event fairly leaping at the heels of another, that the men were
completely dazed.

Captain Falk sat on the deck with his hand pressed against his injured
shoulder and with his pistol lying beside him where he had dropped it when
he fell. Kipping, the red bruise showing across his face, confronted us
with one pistol smoking, the other raised; Blodgett, having thrown the
lead, was drawing his knife from the sheath; Roger was pulling desperately
at his own pistol; and for my part I was in a state of such complete
confusion that to this day I don't know what I did or said. In the moments
that followed we were to learn once and for all the allegiance of every man
aboard the Island Princess.

One of the men from Boston, evidently picking me out as the least
formidable of the trio, shot a quick glance back at Kipping as if to be
sure of his approval, and springing at me, knocked me flat on my back. I
felt sure he was going to kill me when he reached for my throat. But I
heard behind me a thunderous roar, "Heah Ah is! Heah Ah is!" And out of the
corner of my eye I saw the cook, the meat-cleaver in his hand, leaping to
my rescue, with Roger, one hand still inside his shirt, scarcely a foot
behind him.

The man from Boston scrambled off me and fled.

"Ah's with you-all foh one," the cook cried, swinging his cleaver. "Ah
ain't gwine see no po' sailor man done to death and me not say 'What foh!'"

"You fool! You black fool!" Chips shrieked, shaking his fist, "Stand by and
share up! Stand by and share up!"


Neddie Benson jumped over beside the cook. "Me too!" he called shrilly.
"Bad luck or good luck, old Bill he done his best and was fair murdered."

Poor Bill! His martyrdom stood us in good stead in our hour of need.

On the other side of the deck there was a lively struggle from which came
fierce yells as each man sought to persuade his friends to his own way of
thinking:

"Stand by, lads, stand by--"

"----the bloody money!--"

"Hanged for mutiny--"

"I know where my bed's made soft--"

The greater part of the men, it seemed, were lining up behind Kipping and
Captain Falk, when a scornful shout rose and I was aware that some one else
had come over to our side. It was old Davie Paine. "He didn't ought to
shame me in front of all the men," Davie muttered. "No, sir, it wa'n't
right. And what's more, there's lots o' things aboard this ship that ain't
as they should be. I may be poor and ignorant and no shakes of a scholar,
but I ain't goin' to put up with 'em."

So we six faced the other twelve with as good grace as we could
muster,--Roger, the cook, Blodgett, Neddie Benson, Davie, and I,--and there
was a long silence. But Roger had got out his pistol now, and the lull in
the storm was ominous.



CHAPTER XVII

MAROONED


That it was important to control the after part of the ship, I was well
aware, and though we were outnumbered two to one, I hoped that by good
fortune we might win it.

I was not long in doubt of Roger's sharing my hope. He analyzed our
opponents' position at a single glance, and ignoring their advantage in
numbers, seized upon the only chance of taking them by surprise. Swinging
his arm and crying, "Come, men! All for the cabin!" he flung himself
headlong at Falk. I followed close at his heels--I was afraid to be left
behind. I heard the cook grunt hoarsely as he apprehended the situation and
sprang after us. Then the others met us with knives and pistols.

Our attack was futile and soon over, but while it lasted there was a merry
little fight. As a man slashed at Roger with a case-knife, laying open a
long gash in his cheek, Roger fired a shot from his pistol, and the fellow
pitched forward and lay still except for his limbs, which twitched
sickeningly. For my own part, seeing another who had run aft for a weapon
swing at me with a cutlass, I threw myself under his guard and got my arms
round both his knees. As something crashed above me, I threw the fellow
back and discovered that the cook had met the cutlass in full swing with
the cleaver and had shattered it completely. Barely in time to escape a
murderous blow that the carpenter aimed at me with his hammer, I scrambled
to my feet and leaped back beside Roger, who held his cheek with his hand.

I believe it was the cook's cleaver that saved our lives for the time
being. Falk and Kipping had fired the charges in their pistols, and no one
was willing to venture within reach of the black's long arm and brutal
weapon. So, having spent our own last charge of powder, we backed away into
the bow with our faces to the enemy, and the only sounds to be heard were
flapping sails and rattling blocks, the groans of the poor fellow Roger had
shot, and the click of a powder-flask as Falk reloaded and passed his
ammunition to Kipping.

"So," said Falk at last, "we have a fine little mutiny brewing, have we?"
He looked first at us, then at those who remained true to him and his
schemes. "Well, Mr. Kipping, with the help of Chips here, we can make out
to work the ship at a pinch. Yes, I think we can dispense with these young
cocks altogether. Yes,--" he raised his voice and swore roundly--"yes, we
can follow our own gait and fare a damned sight better without them. We'll
let them have a boat and row back to Salem. A voyage of a few thousand
miles at the oars will be a rare good thing to tone down a pair of young
fighting cocks." Then he added, smiling, "If they meet with no Ladronesers
or Malays to clip their spurs."

Captain Falk looked at Kipping and his men, and they all laughed.

"Ay, so it will," cried Kipping. "And old Davie Paine 'll never have a
mister to his name again. You old lubber, you, your bones will be rotting
at the bottom of the sea when we're dividing up the gold."

Again the men laughed loudly.

Davie flushed and stammered, but Blodgett spoke out bitterly.

"So they will, before you or Captain Falk divide with any of the rest. Ah!
Red in the face, are ye? That shot told. Davie 'd rather take his chances
with a gentleman than be second mate under either one o' you two. He may
not know when he's well off, but he knows well when he ain't."

For all Blodgett spoke so boldly, I could see that Davie in his own heart
was still afraid of Kipping. But Kipping merely smiled in his mean way and
slowly looked us over.

"If we was to walk them over a plank," he suggested, deferentially, to the
captain, "there would be an end to all bother with them."

"No," said Falk, "give them a boat. It's all the same in the long run, and
I ain't got the stomach to watch six of them drown one after another."

Kipping raised his eyebrows at such weakness; then a new thought seemed to
dawn on him. His accursed smile grew broader and he began to laugh softly.
For the moment I could not imagine what he was laughing at, but his next
words answered my unspoken question. "Ha ha ha! Right you are, captain!
Just think of 'em, a-sailing home in a ship's boat! Oh, won't they have a
pretty time?"

The predicament of six fellow men set adrift in an open boat pleased the
man's vile humor. We knew that he believed he was sending us to certain
death, and that he delighted in it.

"This fine talk is all very well," said Roger, "and I've no doubt you think
yourselves very witty, but let that be as it may. As matters stand now,
you've got the upper hand--though I wish you joy of working the ship.
However, if you give us the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and
bread, we'll ask nothing more."

"Ah," said Falk, with a leer at Kipping who was smiling quietly, "the
long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread! Ay, next they'll be
wanting us to set 'em up in their own ship." He changed suddenly from a
leer to a snarl. "You'll take what I give you and nothing more nor less.
Now then, men, we'll just herd these hearties overboard and bid them a gay
farewell."

He stood there, pointing the way with a grand gesture and the late
afternoon sun sparkled on the buttons of his coat and shone brightly on the
fine white shirt he wore, which in better days had belonged to Captain
Whidden. "Murderer and thief!" I thought. For although about Captain
Whidden's death I knew nothing more than the cook's never-to-be-forgotten
words, "a little roun' hole in the back of his head--he was shot f'om
behine," I laid Bill Hayden's death at Captain Falk's door, and I knew well
by now that our worthy skipper would not scruple at stealing more than
shirts.

When Falk pointed to the quarter-boat, the men, laughing harshly, closed in
on us and drove us along by threatening us with pistols and pikes, which
the bustling steward by now had distributed. And all the while Kipping
stood just behind the captain, smiling as if no unkind thought had ever
ruffled h

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