"No. Who?"
"That," replied the deck-hand with an air of almost proprietary pride, "is Noddy Kinahan."
"Oh! And who may he be?"
"Gee! (Sorry! One picks up these rotten Yankee expressions somehow.) I mean, I am surprised you haven't heard of him. He's rather a big manhere. In fact, to be explish—explicit,"—Mr. Allerton was fast arriving at that stage of intoxication which cannot let well alone, but must tempt Providence by dragging in unnecessarily hard words,—"he is my employer."
"Anything else."
"Political boss of sorts.Inter alia—that's good! I'm glad I remembered that.Inter aliarhymes with Australia, doesn't it? We'll make up a Limerick on it some time—let me see, where was I? Oh, yesh—yes, I mean—inter alia, he owns the Orinoco and about a dozen more mouldy old coffins; and very well he does out of them, too! Buys them cheap, and—but excuse further details at present, ole man. To tell you the truth I'm getting so screwed that I'm afraid of saying something that in my calmer moments I shall subsequently regret. A cigar? I thank you. You're a white man, Marrable. Chin chin!"
After this burst of discretion Mr. Allerton returned to the joint worship of Bacchus and Vesta, the difficulty which he experienced in keeping the lighted end of the cigar out of his mouth increasing as the evening advanced, but leaving his cheerfulness unimpaired. His condition was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness of his accommodation for the same; and strong-headed Hughie, as he surveyedthe weak chin and receding forehead on the other side of the table, mused not altogether without envy upon the strange inequality of that law of nature which decrees that what is a toothful for one man shall be a skinful for another and an anæsthetic for a third.
He was recalled from these musings by the remembrance of the girl at the piano, and turned to see what was happening now.
Mr. Noddy Kinahan was returning from an expedition to the bar, carrying a bottle of champagne and a long tumbler. These accessories to conviviality he placed on the top of the piano, and departed on a second trip, returning shortly with a wine-glassful of brandy. The girl, though she probably observed more of his movements than her low-drooping lashes would seem to allow, made no sign, but continued to play the ragtime tune with a mechanical precision which caused the tumbler on the top of the piano to tread a lively and self-accompanied measure round its more stolid and heavily weighted companion.
Mr. Kinahan next proceeded to pour himself out a tumblerful of champagne, liberally lacing the foaming liquid with brandy. Then, with an ingratiating gesture toward the shrinking girl, he proceeded to swallow the mixture with every appearance of enjoyment.
"King's peg!" commented Hughie to himself."Wonder how much ofthathe can stand? I'd back him against friend Allerton, though, if it came—Hallo! The hound! This must stop!"
He half rose to his feet. Mr. Kinahan, having satisfied his present needs, had refilled the tumbler with champagne, added the rest of the brandy, and was now proffering the potion, in the self-same vessel which he had just honoured with his own august lips, to the girl at the piano.
The girl turned crimson and shook her head, but kept on playing.
Noddy Kinahan was not accustomed to bestow favours in vain. He walked round behind the piano, and, taking the girl firmly by the shoulders with his left arm, held the sizzling tumbler to her lips. She uttered a strangled cry, left off playing, and struggled frantically to seize the glass with her hands.
Now Hughie Marrable had a healthy prejudice in favour of minding his own business. He had witnessed scenes of this description before, and he knew that, place and company considered, the girl at the piano was probably not unaccustomed to accept refreshment at the hands of gentlemen, even when the gentleman was half-drunk, the hands dirty, and the refreshment (after allowing a generous discount for spillings) sufficiently potent to deprive any ordinary woman, within ten minutes, of any sort of control over her ownactions or behaviour. Moreover, Hughie had a truly British horror of a scene.But—
He was surprised to feel himself leap from his chair and bound toward the piano. His surprise, however, was nothing to that experienced a moment later by Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who, having succeeded in pinning the desperately resisting girl's arms to her sides, was now endeavouring to prise her lips open with the edge of the tumbler. But there are slips even after the cup has reached the lip. Just as success appeared to be about to crown Mr. Kinahan's hospitable efforts, a large and sinewy hand shot over his right shoulder and snatched away the glass, which it threw under the piano. Simultaneously an unseen force in the rear shook him till his teeth rattled, and then, depressing his head to the level of the keyboard, began to play a lively if staccato tune thereon with the point of Mr. Kinahan's rubicund and fleshy nose.
These operations were more or less screened from the public view by the body of the piano, which was an "upright" of the cottage variety. But the sudden cessation of "The Washington Post" in favour of what sounded like "The Cat's Polka" played by a baby with its feet, brought the proprietor of the establishment hurrying across the room. He arrived just in time to be present at the conclusion of a florid chromaticscale of about four octaves, executed under the guidance of Hughie Marrable's heavy hand by Mr. Kinahan's somewhat abraded nasal organ.
The instrumental part of the entertainment now terminated in favour of a vocal interlude. Hughie released his grip of Mr. Noddy Kinahan's collar, and stood back a pace waiting for a rush. He was confident that, given a clear floor and no interference, he could offer his burly opponent a lesson in manners which he would never forget.
But Mr. Kinahan, being a mover in high political altitudes, was not in the habit of doing his own dirty work. He reviled his opponent, it is true, in terms which an expert could not but have admitted were masterly, but it was obvious to the unruffled Hughie that he was doing so chiefly to keep his courage up and "save his face." There was a cunning, calculating look in his piggy eyes which did not quite fit in with the unrestrainedabandonof his utterances, and Hughie began to realise that there are deeper schemes of retaliation than mere assault and battery.
Once or twice Mr. Kinahan, in pausing for breath, turned and looked over his shoulder toward the curious crowd which was gathering behind him. Presently Hughie noticed a couple of "toughs" of the most uncompromisingly villainous appearance advancing in a leisurely fashion from a corner by the door, where they had beensupping. They kept their eyes on Kinahan, as if for an order. Evidently that great man never took his walks abroad without his jackals.
Things were beginning to look serious. The Hebraic proprietor, half crazy with fright at the gratuitous advertisement which the fracas was conferring upon his establishment,—an advertisement which was receiving a gratifying response from an influx of curious sightseers,—was frantically begging people to go away. The girl, the source (as ever!) of all the trouble, was still sitting on the music-stool, trembling like a fluttered bird, with Hughie, feeling slightly self-conscious, standing over her. In the middle distance, Mr. Allerton, gloriously oblivious to the ephemeral and irrelevant disturbance around him, sat contentedly before two empty bottles, endeavouring with erratic fingers to adorn the lapel of his blue pea-jacket with a silver-plated fork (the property of the establishment), upon which he had impaled a nodding banana of pantomimic proportions.
Suddenly Hughie heard himself addressed in casual tones by some one standing close behind him.
"Say, Johnny Bull, you'd best get out of here, right now. Skip! Those two toughs of Noddy's won't touch you till they get the word, but when they do you'll be sorry. Get out this way, bythe side of the stage. It leads around to the back door."
Having delivered himself of this undoubtedly sound piece of advice, the unhealthy-looking young gentleman from behind the bar picked up the champagne bottle and broken glass, and lounged back to his base of operations.
Hughie, realising the wisdom of his words, and making a hasty note that one should never judge even a mottle-faced bar-tender by his appearance, reluctantly abandoned his half-projected scheme of hurling Noddy Kinahan into the arms of his two sinister supporters and then knocking their collective heads together, and turned to the small door behind him. Suddenly he caught sight of the piano-girl. He paused and surveyed her thoughtfully.
"You'd better come with me," he said.
Without a word, the girl rose and preceded him to the door. Hughie opened it for her, and they both passed through and hurried down a narrow passage, which gave direct into the alley at the back of the establishment.
Once outside, Hughie took the girl's arm and fairly ran, never pausing till they reached the brightly lighted sea-front. He had an idea that a cheerful and crowded thoroughfare would prove more salubrious than deserted and ill-lit byways.
Once clear of their late surroundings the twoslackened pace, and Hughie surveyed his charge with comical perplexity.
"Now what am I to do withyou?" he inquired.
"Take me home," said the girl, sobbing.
Her pluck and fortitude, having brought her dry-eyed through the worst of the conflict, had now taken their usual leave of absence, and she was indulging very properly in a few reactionary and comforting tears.
"Where do you live?" asked Hughie.
"Brooklyn."
"That's a matter for a trolley-car. Come along."
He took her arm again, rather diffidently this time,—his old masculine self-consciousness was returning,—and hurried off to what the Coney Islanders call a "deepo." Here they ensconced themselves in the corner of a fairly empty car, and started on their twenty-mile run,viâSheepshead Bay and other delectable spots, to Brooklyn Bridge.
As soon as the car started, Hughie turned to his companion.
"Look here," he said bluntly. "I know a lady when I meet one. What were you doing in that place at all? You are English, too."
"Yes. I can't blame you for wondering. I'll tell you. I come from London. My father wasa small schoolmaster in Sydenham. He—he was unfortunate, and died three years ago, and I was left alone in the world, with hardly two sixpences to rub together. Just as things were looking none too promising for me, I met and married"—she flushed proudly—"one of the best men that ever stepped—Dennis Maclear. He is an electrical engineer. We came out here together to make our fortunes, and settled in New York. We were beginning to do fairly well after a long struggle, when one day Dennis crushed his left arm and leg in a cog-wheel arrangement of some kind, and for three months he has not been able even to get out of bed without help. Bad luck, wasn't it? He is getting better slowly, and some day, the doctor says, he will be able to get about again. But—well, savings don't last for ever, you know; so I—"
"I see," said Hughie; "the upkeep of the establishment has devolved on you in the meanwhile?"
"Yes. Piano-playing is about the only accomplishment I possess. A girl friend of mine told me she was giving up her billet at old Bercotti's, and asked if I would like it. She wouldn't recommend it to most girls, she said, but perhaps it would suit me all right, being married. I took it; but as you saw, my being married wasn't sufficient protection after all."
She shuddered, for she was very young, and badly shaken; but presently she smiled bravely.
"What did you get?" asked Hughie.
"Dollar a night."
"It's not much."
"It's better than starvation," said practical little Mrs. Maclear.
"And what are you going to do next?"
"I'm not going back to old Bercotti's again—that's flat."
"Can you get another berth?"
"Well, if there happens to be anybody in this simple and confiding country who is willing to take on as accompanist or teacher a young woman of shabby-genteel appearance, who is unable to mention a single soul as a reference, and has no character to show from her former employer—it ought to be easy!" said the girl.
Hughie regarded her reflectively.
"You take it well. I admire your pluck," he said.
"A married woman with a husband to keep has no time to worry about pluck," replied Mrs. Maclear; "she justhasto do things. Besides, all the pluck in the world can't save a woman when Noddy Kinahan is about. If it hadn't been for you—by the way, would you mind telling me your name? You know mine."
Hughie told her. Presently they left the trolley-car—anglicè,electric-tram—and struck off down a street in Brooklyn. The girl turned in at a doorway, and paused at the foot of a stair.
"Won't you come up and see my husband, Mr. Marrable?" she said. "It's ten flights up, and we don't run to an elevator; but I know Dennis would like to thank you himself."
Hughie had intended to refuse,—he hated being thanked as much as most matter-of-fact people,—but, a flash of unusual insight revealing to him the fact that the true object of the invitation was not to exhibit him to the husband, but to enable this proud little lady to exhibit her husband to him, he felt reassured, and allowed himself to be borne aloft to the Maclear eyrie. Here a gigantic and impulsive son of Kerry, gaunt and hollow-eyed through long bed-keeping, wrung his hand in a manner which made him feel glad he was not a refractory terminal, what time Mrs. Maclear, in a sort of up-to-date version of the song of Miriam, described Hughie's glorious triumph over Noddy Kinahan, laying special stress upon the ecstatic period during which Mr. Kinahan, at the instance of Hughie, had enacted the part of a human pianola.
He left them at last, wondering in his heart, as he tramped home under the stars to his hotel in West Forty-Second Street, what the plucky couple were going to live on during the next twoor three months. The man was still practically a cripple,—he must have been badly mangled,—and it is hard work fighting for time in a country whose motto, as regards human as well as other machinery, is: "Never repair! Scrap, and replace!"
Hughie had solved the problem to his satisfaction by the time he crossed Brooklyn Bridge.
For the rest of the way home he thought of other things. A bachelor, however ungregarious, is at heart a sentimental animal, and during his walk Hughie was contemplating with his mind's eye the picture that he had left behind him as he said good-night,—the picture of "a snug little kingdom up ten pair of stairs," tenanted by a little community of two, self-contained and self-sufficient, dauntless in the face of grim want and utter friendlessness,—and, despite his own health and wealth, he experienced a sudden feeling of envy for the crippled and impecunious Dennis Maclear.
"I suppose," he mused to himself, "it doesn't really matterhowrotten a time you have in this world so long as you have it in the right company." Then he added, apparently as a sort of corollary: "By gad, when I get home next week, I'llstaythere!"
But, however carefully (or carelessly) we handle the tiller on life's voyage, it is the little casualcurrents and unexpected side winds that really set our course for us. As Hughie rolled into bed that night he reflected, rather regretfully, that the incident of that evening was closed for ever. He had definitely cut himself off from the Maclears, at any rate, for the very simple reason that he had just posted to them a hundred one-dollar notes, as a temporary loan until their "ship came in," carefully omitting to mention that his own was due to go out in twenty-four hours, and giving no address for purposes of repayment.
But for all that, the incident had definitely altered his course for him, or at any rate was destined to send him round by an alternative route.
THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE
Hermost ardent admirers—and they had never been very numerous—could hardly have described the Orinoco as a rapid or up-to-date vessel. She could average a fair eight knots in ordinary weather (except when the Chief Engineer was not sober; and then she had been known to do as much as eleven), and she had faced with tolerable credit seven strenuous years of North Atlantic weather, winter and summer alike. But she was no flier.
She had not always ploughed the ocean at the behests of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, her present owner. As a matter of fact, she dated back to the early sixties. She had been built on the Clyde, in days when people were not in such a hurry as they are now, for steady and reliable cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland; and the crinolined young lady who had blushingly performed the christening ceremony as the brand-new steamer slipped down the ways had named her the Gareloch.
After fifteen years of honest buffeting betweenthe Kish and the Cloch the little Gareloch had been pronounced too slow, and sold to the proprietor of a line of coasting steamers which plied between Cardiff and London. In this capacity, with a different-coloured funnel and a slightly decayed interior, she had served for nine years as the Annie S. Holmes. After that an officious gentleman from the Board of Trade happened to notice the state of her boilers, and unhesitatingly declined to renew her certificate until various things were done which her present owner was not in the habit of doing. Consequently she had lain rusting in Southampton Water for six months, until an astute Scot, who ran a sort of Dr. Barnardo's home for steamers which had been abandoned by their original owners, stepped in and bought her, at the rate of about a pound per ton; and having refitted her with some convenient boilers which he had picked up at a sale, and checked her fuel-consumption by reducing her grate-area, set her going again in a humble but remunerative way as a pig-boat between Limerick and Glasgow. During this period of her career she was known as the Blush Rose—and probably smelt as sweet.
The maritime Dr. Barnardo sold her three years later (at a profit) to a gentleman who required a ship for some shady and mysterious operations amid certain islands in the Southern Pacific. Thenature of the poor Blush Rose's occupation may be gathered from the fact that in the space of three months she made those already tropical regions too hot to hold her; and, with her name painted out, a repaired shot-hole in her counter, and a few pearl oyster-shells sticking out here and there in the murky recesses of her hold, was knocked down for a song at Buenos Ayres to a Spanish-American who desired her for the fulfilment of some rather private contracts, into which he had entered with a Central American State, for a consignment of small arms and ammunition delivered immediately—terms, C. O. D. and no questions asked. Her captain on this occasion was a Lowland Scot of disreputable character but inherent piety, who endeavoured to confer a rather spurious sanctity upon a nefarious enterprise by christening his nameless vessel the Jedburgh Abbey. But, alas! the Jedburgh Abbey was confiscated a year later by the United States government, and having disgorged a most uncanonical cargo, was knocked down by Dutch auction, without benefit of clergy, to the highest bidder. Competition for her possession was not keen, and she ultimately became the property of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who at that time was beginning to pile up a considerable fortune by purchasing old steamers on their way to the scrap-heap and running them as tramp-freighters untilthey sank. The Jedburgh Abbey, with a new propeller,—she had gone short of a blade for years,—her rusty carcase tinkered into something like sea-worthiness, and her engines secured a little more firmly to their bed-plates, had re-established her social status by creeping once more into Lloyd's list—the Red Book of the Mercantile Marine—and, disguised as the Orinoco, of the "River" Line of freight-carrying steamships, had served Mr. Noddy Kinahan well for seven years. This grey morning, with Sandy Hook well down below the western horizon, she clambered wearily but perseveringly over the Atlantic rollers, like a disillusioned and world-weary old cab-horse which, having begun life between the shafts of a gentleman's brougham, is now concluding a depressing existence by dragging a funereal "growler" up and down the undulations of a London suburb.
Her redeeming feature was a certain purity of outline and symmetry of form. She boasted a flush deck, unbroken by any unsightly waist amid-ships; and not even her unscraped masts, her scarred sides, and her flaked and salt-whitened funnel could altogether take away from her her pride of race,—the right to boast, in common with many a human derelict of the same sex and a very similar history, that she had "been a lady once."
She had now been at sea for well over twenty-four hours, and her crew, who had to a man been brought on board in what a sympathetic eyewitness on a similar occasion once described as "a state of beastly but enviable intoxication," were once more beginning to sit up and take notice. Their efforts in this direction owed much to the kind assistance of Messrs. Gates and Dingle, the first and second mates, who with cold douche and unrelenting boot were sparing no pains to rouse to a sense of duty those of their flock who had not yet found or recovered their sea-legs.
The crew consisted of two Englishmen and a Californian, together with a handful of Scandinavians, Portuguese, and Germans, divided by sea-law (which, like its big brother,non curat de minimis) into "Dagoes" and "Dutchmen" respectively, representatives of the Romance races being grouped under the former and of the Anglo-Saxon under the latter designations. With one exception none of them had sailed on the ship before, and in all probability would never do so again. They had been purveyed to Captain Kingdom by a Tenderloin boarding-house keeper, and had signed a contract for the voyage to Bordeaux and back, wages for both trips to be paid at the end of the second. If sufficiently knocked about, they would in all probability desert at Bordeaux, preferring to forego their pay ratherthan stand a second dose of the home comforts of the Orinoco. This was one of the ways in which Captain Kingdom saved his employer money and in which Mr. Noddy Kinahan made the "River" Line a profitable concern. There were also others, which shall be set forth in due course.
Captain Kingdom had just appeared on the bridge. He was a furtive and sinister-looking individual, resembling rather a pawnbroker's assistant than one who occupied his business in great waters. But he was a useful servant to Noddy Kinahan.
"Got all the hands to work, Mr. Gates?" he called down to the mate.
"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Mr. Gates, knocking the heel of his boot on the deck to ease his aching toes.
The captain ran his eye over the crew, who were huddling together forward of the bridge. He cleared his throat.
"Now, you scum," he began genially, "attend to me, while I tell you what you've got to do on board this ship."
The scum, stagnant and unresponsive, listened stolidly to his harangue, the substance of which did not differ materially,mutatis mutandis, from one of Mr. Squeers's inaugural addresses to his pupils on the first morning of term at DotheboysHall. Captain Kingdom's peroration laid particular stress upon the fact that Messrs. Gates and Dingle had been requested by him as a particular favour to adopt the policy of the thick stick and the big boot in the case of those members of the crew who refrained from looking slick in executing their orders.
The crew received his remarks with sheepish grins or sullen scowls; and the orator concluded:
"Pick watches, Mr. Gates, and then we'll pipe down to dinner. Are all hands on deck?"
"Aye, aye, sir," replied Mr. Gates, looking over his list.
"I sawsomebodydown below a few minutes ago," drawled a voice, proceeding from a figure seated upon a bollard.
It was Mr. Allerton, who, with characteristic contentment with (or indifference to) his lot, had performed the unprecedented feat of signing on for a second voyage in the Orinoco. He wore his usual air of humorous tolerance of the cares of this world, and spoke in the composed and unruffled fashion which stamps the high-caste Englishman all over the globe. His lot on board the Orinoco had been lighter than that of most, for his companions, finding him apparently impervious to ill-usage and philosophically genial under all circumstances, had agreed to regard him as a species of heavily decayed and slightly demented"dude," and had half-affectionately christened him "Percy,"—a term which sums up the typical Englishman for the New Yorker almost as vividly as "Rosbif" and "Godam" perform that office for the Parisian.
The captain descended from the bridge, walked across the deck, and dispassionately kicked Mr. Allerton off the bollard.
"Stand up, you swine, when you speak to me!" he shouted. "Where did you see anybody?"
Mr. Allerton rose slowly and painfully from the scuppers. There are moments when therôleof a Democritus is difficult to sustain.
"I'm sorry you did that, captain," he remarked, "because I know you didn't mean it personally. You had to make some sort of demonstration, of course, to put the fear of death into these new hands, but I regret that you should have singled me out as thecorpus vile,—you don't know what that means, I daresay: never mind!—because you have shaken up my wits so much, besides nearly breaking my hip-bone, that I shall have to pause and consider a minute before I remember where Ididsee the gentleman."
If the captain had been Mr. Gates he would probably have felled Allerton to the deck a second time. As it was, he shuffled his feet uncomfortably and glared. The broken man before him, when all was said and done, was his superior;and the captain, who was of sufficiently refined clay to be sensitive to social distinctions, was angrily conscious of that sense of sheepish uneasiness which obsesses the cad, however exalted, in the presence of a gentleman, however degraded.
Allerton continued:—
"I remember now, captain. The man was lying in the alley-way leading to the companion. I'll go and see how he is getting on. Keep your seats, gentlemen."
He dived down the fore-hatchway, just in time to escape the itching boot of the unimpressionable Mr. Gates, and proceeded between decks toward the stern. Presently he came to the alley-way in question. The man was still there, but had slightly shifted his position since Allerton had last seen him. He was now reclining across the passage, with his head sunk on his chest. His feet were bare, and he was attired in a blue jumper and a pair of trousers which had once belonged to a suit of orange-and-red pyjamas. His appearance was not impressive.
Allerton stirred him gently with his foot.
"Wake up, old man," he remarked, "or there'll be hell—Well, I'm damned!"
For the man had drowsily lifted his heavy head and displayed the features of Hughie Marrable.
They gazed at each other for a full minute. Then Allerton said feebly:—
"You've preferred the Orinoco to the Apulia after all, then?"
Hughie did not reply. He was running his tongue round his cracked and blackened lips, and tentatively sucking his palate.
"I know that taste," he remarked. "It reminds me of a night I once spent in Canton. I have it—opium!"
Then he tenderly fingered the back of his head, and nodded with the interested air of one who is acquiring a new item of experience.
"I've been filled up with opium before," he said, "but this is the first time I've been sand-bagged. I suppose I was sand-bagged first and hocussed afterwards. Yes, that's it."
He looked almost pleased. He was a man who liked to get to the bottom of things. Presently he continued:—
"Could you get me a drink of water? I've got a tongue like a stick of glue."
Allerton departed as bidden, presently to return with a pannikin. Hughie was standing up in the alley-way, swaying unsteadily and regarding his attire.
"I say," he said, after gulping the water, "would you mind telling me—you see, I'm a little bit wuzzy in the head at present—where the devil I am, and whether I came on board in this kit or my own clothes?"
"Steamship Orinoco," replied Allerton precisely, "out of New York, for Bordeaux."
"Let me think," said Hughie,—"Orinoco? Ah! now I'm beginning to see daylight. What's the name of the owner, our friend from Coney Island?"
Allerton told him. "But he's more than your friend now," he added; "he's your employer."
Hughie whistled long and low.
"I see," he said. "Shanghaied—eh? Well, I must say he owed me one: I fairly barked his nose for him that night. But now that he has had me knocked on the head and shipped on board this old ark, I think he has overpaid me. I owe him one again; and, with any luck, he shall have it."
"Do you remember being slugged?" said Allerton.
"Can't say I do precisely. Let me see. I recollect coming along Forty-second Street on my way to the Manhattan. I'd been dining at the Lambs, and I stopped a minute on the sidewalk under an L railway-track to light my pipe, when—yes, it must have happened then."
"I expect you had been shadowed all day," said Allerton. "But I'm forgetting my duties. You are wanted on deck."
"Who wants me? Noddy Kinahan?"
"Not much! He doesn't travel by his own ships. It's the captain. I understand that youare to be presented to the company as a little stowaway, and great surprise and pain will be officially manifested at your appearance on board."
"All right. Come along and introduce me."
Captain Kingdom's method of dealing with stowaways—natural and artificial—was simple and unvarying. On presentation, he first of all abused them with all the resources of an almost Esperantic vocabulary, and then handed them over to Mr. Gates to be kicked into shape.
On Hughie Marrable's appearance on deck, the captain proceeded with gusto to Part One of his syllabus. Hard words break no bones, and Hughie, who was breathing in great draughts of sea-air and feeling less dizzy and more collected each minute, set no particular store by the oratorical display to which he was being treated. In fact, he was almost guilty of the discourtesy of allowing his attention to wander. He set the crown upon his offence by interrupting the captain's peroration.
"Look here, skipper," he said, brusquely breaking in upon a period, "you can drop that. My name is Marrable. I am not a stowaway, and I have been dumped on board this ship by order of—"
"Your name," said Captain Kingdom with relish, "is anything I choose to call you; and as you stowed yourself away on board—"
"Look here," said Hughie, "I want a word with you—in your own cabin for choice. All right," he continued with rising voice, as the captain broke out again, "I'll have it here instead. First of all, what is Mr. Noddy Kinahan paying you for this job?"
The captain turned to the mate.
"Sock him, Mr. Gates!" he roared.
Mr. Gates, whose curiosity—together with that of the rest of the crew—had been roused, as Hughie meant it to be, by the latter's reference to Mr. Noddy Kinahan's share in the present situation, moved forward to his task with less alacrity than usual, and paused readily enough when Hughie continued:—
"If you'll put back, captain, and land me anywhere within a hundred miles of New York, I'll give you double what Kinahan is paying you for this job."
"Youlooklike a man with money, I must say!" replied Kingdom. "Now then, Mr. Gates!"
"It's to be no deal, then?" said Hughie composedly. "Very well. The next question is, if I am coming with you, how am I going to be treated? Cabin or steer—"
"I'll show you," roared the incensed skipper. "Knock him silly, Mr. Gates!"
Mr. Gates came on with a rush. But Hughie, who all this time had been taking his bearings,leapt back lightly in his bare feet and snatched a capstan-bar from the rack behind him.
"Keep your distance for a moment, Mr. Gates," he commanded, "if you don't want your head cracked. I haven't finished interviewing this captain of yours yet. Happy to obligeyoulater, for any period you care to specify."
"'Nother Percy!" commented Mr. Dingle dejectedly, expectorating over the side. He was a plain man, was Mr. Dingle, and loved straight hitting and words of one syllable.
Mr. Gates paused, and Hughie, leaning back against the bulwarks and toying with the capstan-bar, continued to address the fulminating mariner on the bridge.
"Now, captain, I'm going to be brief with you—brief and business-like. You've been paid by Kinahan to shanghai me and take me for a long sea-voyage. Very good. I'm not kicking. I wanted to get to Europe anyhow, and I rather like long sea-voyages, especially before the mast. In fact, I'd rather sail before the mast on board this ship than in the cuddy. (Keep still, Mr. Gates!) As I'm here, I've no particular objection to working my passage, always reserving to myself the right to make things hot for your employer when I get ashore. I'll work as an A.B. or deck-hand if you like, though personally I would rather do something in the engine-room. I'mpretty well qualified in that direction. But I must be decently treated, and there must be no more sand-bagging or knockabout variety business. Is it a deal?"
Captain Kingdom surveyed the sinewy stowaway before him thoughtfully. He saw that until Hughie gave up the capstan-bar Mr. Gates would have little chance of enforcing discipline. He must temporise.
"I can give you a job in the engine-room," he said, in what he imagined was a more conciliatory tone. "Second engineer's down with something this morning. You can take his watch. Drop that capstan-bar of yours, and go and see Mr. Angus, the chief."
"That should suit me," replied Hughie. "But as a guarantee of good faith, and to avoid disappointing the assembled company, I'm quite willing to stand up and have a turn with Mr. Gates here, or that gentleman over by the funnel-stay, or any one else you may appoint. But I shouldpreferMr. Gates," he added, almost affectionately. "I'm not in first-class form at present, as my head has got a dint in it behind; but I'll do my best. Are you game, Mr. Gates?"
"Go on, Mr. Gates, learn him!" commanded the highly gratified skipper.
"Drop that bar," shouted the genial Mr. Gates, "and I'll kill you!"
"Half a minute, please," said Hughie, as unruffled as if he were putting on the gloves for a ten-minute spar in a gymnasium. "I'm not going to fight a man in sea-boots in my bare feet. Can any gentleman oblige me with—Thank you, sir! You are a white man."
A pair of oily canvas tennis shoes, with list soles, pattered down on the deck beside him. Their donor, the "white man,"—a coal-black individual attired chiefly in cotton-waste,—was smiling affably from the engine-room hatchway.
"They'll dae ye fine," he observed unexpectedly, and disappeared below.
In a moment Hughie had slipped on the shoes. Then, casting away the bar, he hurled himself straight at the head of Mr. Gates.
In the brief but exhilarating exhibition which followed Mr. Gates realised that a first mate on the defensive is a very different being from a first mate on the rampage. He had become so accustomed to breaking in unresisting dock-rats and bemused foreigners, taking his own time and using his boots where necessary, that a high-pressure combat with a man who seemed to be everywhere except at the end of his fist—to his honour he never once thought of employing his foot—was an entire novelty to him. He fought sullenly but ponderously, wasting his enormous strength on murderous blows which never reachedtheir mark, and stolidly enduring a storm of smacks, bangs, and punches that would have knocked a man of less enduring material into a pulp. But there is one blow which no member of the human family can stand up to, glutton for punishment though he be. Hughie made a sudden feint with his left at his opponent's body, just below the heart. Gates dropped his guard, momentarily throwing forward his head as he did so. Instantaneously a terrific upper-cut from Hughie's right took him squarely under the chin. Mr. Gates described a graceful parabola, and landed heavily on his back on deck, striking his head against a ring-bolt as he fell. The whole fight had lasted less than four minutes.
Hughie was about to assist his fallen opponent to rise, when he heard a warning cry from half-a-dozen voices. He swung round, to find the captain making for him, open-mouthed, with the capstan-bar. He sprang lightly aside—a further blessing on those list shoes!—and his opponent charged past him, bringing down the bar with a flail-like sweep upon the drum of a steam windlass. Next moment Hughie, grasping the foremast shrouds, leaped on the bulwarks and pulled himself up to the level of the bridge, which was unoccupied save by the man at the wheel, who had been an enthusiastic spectator of the scene below.
Having climbed upon the bridge, and so securedthe upper ground in case of any further attack, Hughie leaned over the rails and parleyed. In his hand he held a pair of heavy binoculars, which he had taken out of a box clamped to the back of the wind-screen.
"The first man who attempts to follow me up here," he announced, when he had got his breath back, "will get this pair of glasses in the eye. Captain, I don't think you are a great success as an employer of labour. You haven't got the knack of conciliating your men. Can't we come to terms? Mine are very simple. I want some clothes—my own, for choice. If you haven't got them, anything quiet and unobtrusive will do. But I decline to go about in orange-and-red pyjama trousers in mid-Atlantic to please you or anybody else. For one thing they're not warm, and for another they're not usual. If you will oblige me in this matter, I am quite willing to live at peace with you. I don't see that you can really suppress me except by killing me, and that is a thing which I don't think you have either the authority or the pluck to do. Why not give me a billet in the engine-room and cry quits?"
Captain Kingdom looked up at the obstreperous mutineer on the bridge, and down at the recumbent Mr. Gates on the deck, and ground his teeth. Then he looked up to the bridge again.
"All right," he growled. "Come down!"
A BENEFIT PERFORMANCE
Hughie,having been relieved to a slight extent from sartorial humiliation, entered upon his engine-room duties forthwith.
The society in which he found himself consisted of Mr. Angus, the chief,—engineers, like gardeners, editors, and Cabinet Ministers, are practically all Scotsmen,—Mr. Goble, the acting-second (viceMr. Walsh, sick), and a motley gang of undersized, half-mutinous, wholly vile sweepings of humanity in the form of firemen. Mr. Walsh was suffering from an intermittent form of malaria contracted years ago in an up-river trip to the pestilential regions round Saigon. Mr. Angus, a hoary-headed and bottle-nosed Dundonian, who could have charmed a scrap-heap into activity, received Hughie with native politeness, and paid him the compliment of working him uncommonly hard. He explained (with perfect truth) that the only reason why he was not at that moment driving a Cunarder was a habit of his, viewed by certain owners with regrettable narrowness of vision, of "takin' a drap, whiles." The concluding adverb Hughie correctly estimatedto mean "whenever I can get anything to drink."
"I canna see what for they should be sae partic'lar aboot it," mused Mr. Angus in recounting the circumstance, "for I haundle her jist as weel drunk as sober. However, here I am, and there's an end o't. Aiblins it's jist as weel. I could rin the engines o' ony Cunarder afloat, but I ken fine there's not hauf-a-dozen men in their hale fleet could knock eight knots oot o' the auld Orinoco. There's a kin' o' divinity aboot it, I doot. A man's pit whaur he's maist wantit."
John Alexander Goble, the acting-second, proved to be a man of greater depth and more surprises than his superior. He it was who had thrown the list shoes to Hughie before the battle with Mr. Gates, which showed that he was at heart a Sportsman; he had taken the first opportunity of asking for the return of the same, which showed that he was a Scotsman; but he had found Hughie a better pair of shoes in their stead, together with some garments more suitable than the blue jumper and the orange-and-red pyjama trousers, which showed that he was a good Samaritan: and a man who is a Sportsman and a Scot and a good Samaritan all rolled into one is an addition to the society of any engine-room.
His face wore an expression of chastened gloom; and if washed and set ashore in his native Caledonia,he would probably have received a unanimous invitation to come and glower over the plate in the doorway of the nearest Wee Free conventicle. His speech was slow and unctuous: one could imagine him under happier circumstances conducting family worship, and pausing to elucidate in approved fashion some specially obvious passage in the evening's "portion," thus: "From the expression, 'a michty man o' valour,' we may gather that the subject of this reference was a person of considerable stature and undoubted physical courage."
He was habitually and painfully sober, for reasons which Hughie learned from him at a period when they had more leisure to study each other's characters. He was ignorant of the first principles of mechanics, but could be trusted to keep the Orinoco's propeller-shaft revolving at a steady seventy-two to the minute; and he had a gentle compelling way with refractory firemen which made for sweet reasonableness and general harmony below stairs, what time Mr. Angus was recovering from one of those sudden and regrettable attacks of indisposition which usually coincided with the forgetfulness of the steward to lock up the cabin whisky-bottle.
Hughie berthed in the foc'sle, and was regarded by the Dagoes, Dutchmen,et hoc genus omne, with mingled admiration for the manner in which hehad settled Mr. Gates, and mystified surprise that a man capable of such a feat should be content to live on his own rations and sleep in his allotted bunk, without desiring to make researches into the respective succulence and comfort of his neighbours'.
On the whole Hughie found his life tolerable enough, as the Orinoco butted and grunted her way across the Newfoundland Banks; and he experienced no pang when the Apulia, spouting smoke from her four funnels and carrying his luggage in one of her state-rooms, swept past them on the rim of the southern horizon on their third day out. He was accustomed to rough quarters, and any new experience of things as they are was of interest to him. Moreover, he possessed the priceless possession of a cast-iron digestion; and a man so blessed can afford to snap his fingers at most of the sundry and manifold changes of this world.
Captain Kingdom and Mr. Gates for the time being held him severely aloof. The taciturn Mr. Dingle conveyed to him, by means of a surprisingly ingenious code of grunts and expectorations, that provided he, Hughie,—or Brown, as he was usually called,—was content to go his way without hunting for trouble, he, Mr. Dingle, was content to go his without endeavouring to supply it. Altogether there seemed to be no reasonfor doubting that the Orinoco, provided she did not open up and sink like a basketen route, would ultimately reach the port of Bordeaux, bringing her sheaves, in the form of Hughie and some unspeakable claret, with her.
But there is more than one way of making money out of the shipping trade.
One night Hughie was leaning over the taffrail behind the wheel-house at the stern. It was two o'clock, and the darkness was intensified by a heavy mist. There was almost no wind, and the Orinoco, like a draught-horse which feels the wheels of its equipage upon a tram-line, slid gratefully up and down the lazy rollers with the nearest approach to comfort that she had experienced that voyage.
Hughie was idly watching the phosphorescent wake of the propeller, wondering whether Captain Kingdom had orders to land him in France in his shirt and trousers or throw him overboard before they got there, when a figure rose up out of the darkness beside him. It was the easy-going Mr. Allerton.
"Hallo, Percy!" said Hughie. He had soon dropped into the nomenclature of the foc'sle.
"Look here," said Allerton, in a more purposeful voice than usual; "come along and look at this boat."
The largest of the three boats carried by theOrinoco lay close by them. She was swung inboard and rested on deck-chocks below the davits. A canvas cover, one end of which fluttered intermittently in the breeze, roofed her over. Allerton lifted this flap and inserted his hand. Presently there was a splutter and a glimmer, and it became plain that he was holding a lighted match under the canvas.
"Look!" he whispered.
Hughie peered under the flap. He saw water-barrels, a spirit-keg, and various bags and boxes. Then the match went out, and Allerton withdrew his hand.
The pair retired once more to their shelter behind the wheel-house.
"You saw that?" said Allerton.
"I did. Do they usually keep the boats provisioned on this ship? If so, I don't blame them."
"Not they. Somebody is going for a water-picnic shortly—that's all."
Hughie mused.
"AmIthe man, do you think?" he said at length.
"No, I don't think so. There's too much grub for one. Besides the other boats are provisioned too. It looks as if the ship were to be abandoned."
"But why? There's no reason why she shoulddrop to bits for a long time yet. Rust is very binding, you know. Probably they keep her provisioned just in case—"
Allerton wagged his head sagaciously.
"There's more in this than meets the eye," he said. "It is my pleasure and privilege, as you know, to act as steward at present during the regretted retirement of the regular holder of that office, owing to eczema of the hands. (Even Mr. Gates shies at eczema sea-pie!) Now there's some mischief brewing in the cuddy, and they're all in it—Kingdom, Gates, and Angus. I'm not quite sure about Dingle, because he berths forward; but I think he is too. What's more: it's something they can't afford to have given away. Kingdom, who usually keeps Angus very short of drink at sea, now lets him have it whenever he wants it, and generally speaking is going out of his way to keep him sweet. That shows he can't afford to quarrel with him. And when a captain can't afford to quarrel with a chief engineer whom he hates, it usually means that he and the engineer are in together over some hanky-panky which has its roots in the engine-room. You mark my words, one of these fine nights that hoary-headed old Caledonian will open a sea-cock or two and rush up on deck and say the ship is sinking. It'll be a case of all hands to the boats; the Orinoco will go to her long-overdue and thoroughly deservedrest at the bottom, and the insurance people will pay up and look pleasant."
"H'm," said Hughie; "there seems to be something in what you say. I wish I could keep an eye on the old sinner in the engine-room; but since Walsh came back to duty I've no excuse for going there at all now. It might almost be worth while to warn Goble. He's a decent chap."
"Who is on duty in the engine-room now?"
"Walsh, I should think. Angus usually makes way for him about eight bells. But I'm not sure. Hark! Do you notice anything about the beat of the engines?"
"Not being an expert, can't say I do. They sound a trifle more asthmatic than usual, perhaps. What's up?"
"Somebody has got the donkey-pump at work," said Hughie. "It may be Angus, after all, monkeying with the water-ballast. Hallo!" He leaned over the stern-rail and peered down. "Do you notice anything unusual about the propeller?"
"It seems to be kicking up a bit of a dust," said Allerton. "Is it going round faster, or getting nearer the surface?"
"It's half out of the water," said Hughie. "That means that the old man has pumped out the after double-bottom tank. Look, we're all down by the head!"
The two stepped out from behind the wheelhouseand gazed forward. The flush deck of the Orinoco was undoubtedly running downhill towards the bows.
"What's the game?" inquired Allerton excitedly.
Hughie was thinking. Presently he said:—
"I'm not sure, but his next move should tell us. Either he is trying to drive her nose under and sink her by manipulating the water-ballast, which seems a hopeless job in a flat calm like this, and suicidal if it comes off; or else he is working up for a scare of some kind, which will frighten the crew into—Hallo? what's that?"
There was a warning cry from Mr. Dingle, who was standing right forward in the bows.
"Something right ahead, sir! Looks like—"
There was an answering shout from the bridge, where the captain was standing by the wheel, followed by a jangling of telegraph-bells. Next moment the Orinoco gave a jar and a stagger, and Hughie and Allerton pitched forward on to their noses.
There were shouts and cries all over the ship, and men came tumbling up the hatchways.
"We've struck something," gasped Allerton.
"Struck your grandmother!" grunted Hughie, who was sitting up rubbing his nose tenderly. "That jar came from directly underneath us. It was caused by Angus reversing his engineswithout giving the ship time to slow down. I daresay he never even shut off steam. Likely enough he's lifted the engines off their beds. Well, perhaps he had finished with them anyway. Come along forward."
By this time a frightened crowd had assembled on the deck of the Orinoco, which, lying motionless on the silent sea, artistically tilted up by the stern,—Hughie began to grasp the inwardness of Mr. Angus's manœuvres with the water-ballast,—presented a sufficiently alarming appearance even on that calm night.
Mr. Dingle and the captain, the one hanging over the bows and the other standing in an attitude of alertness on the bridge, were sustaining between them a conversation which vaguely suggested to Hughie a carefully rehearsed "cross-talk" duologue between two knockabout artistes of the Variety firmament—say the Brothers Bimbo in one of their renowned impromptu "patter scenes." The resemblance was enhanced by the fact that the "patter" was deliveredfortissimoby both performers, and each repeated the other's most telling phrases in tones which made it impossible for the audience to avoid hearing them.
"What was it?" shouted Bimbo Senior (as represented by Captain Kingdom).
"Lump of wreckage!" roared Bimbo Junior,from a prolonged scrutiny of the ship's forefoot.
"Lump of wreckage?" bellowed Bimbo Senior.
"Lump of wreckage!" corroborated Bimbo Junior.
"Of course itmighthave been ice," suggested Number One, at the top of his voice.
"Might have been ice," replied the conscientious echo.
"Pairsonally I'm inclined tae believe it was jist a wee bit coral island," interpolated a third voice, with painful and stunning distinctness. The Chief Engineer had suddenly made his appearance on the bridge.
The captain was obviously much put out. In the first place, coral islands are not plentiful in the North Atlantic, and there are limits even to the gullibility of an audience composed of foreign deck-hands and half-civilised firemen. Secondly, the axiom that two is company and three none applies even to cross-talk duologues. Thirdly, Mr. Angus was excessively drunk, and consequently the laboriously planned comedietta at present in progress might, owing to his inartistic and uncalled-for intrusion upon the scene, take a totally unrehearsed turn at any moment.
The captain lost no time.
"What report have you from the engine-room, Mr. Angus?" he inquired loudly and pointedly.
Mr. Angus, suddenly recognising his cue, and realising almost with tears that he had been imperilling the success of the entire piece by unseemly "gagging," pulled himself together, returned to his text, and announced that the ship was badly down by the head and the stokehold awash.
"There's nothing else for it," yelled the captain resignedly, "but to leave her. Clear away the boats, Mr. Gates!"
Having thus established a good working explanation of the disaster, and incidentally enlisted the entire audience—those members of it, that is, who were not already doing service in theclaque—as unbiassed witnesses for the defence in case the insurance company turned nasty, the intrepid commander descended from the bridge to his cabin, to collect a few necessaries pending the abandonment of his beloved vessel.
Hughie and Allerton surveyed each other.
"Which boat are you going in?" inquired Allerton.
"None," said Hughie.
"Going to stay on board?"
Hughie nodded.
"But she'll sink under our feet."
"I don't believe she's as badly damaged as all that. There's some game on here."
"I don't suppose she's damaged at all," saidAllerton, "but you can be sure they won't be such blamed fools as to leave the ship floating about to be picked up. Old Angus will let water into her before he leaves, if he hasn't started the process already."
"Well, I'm not going in any of those boats," said Hughie. "If the Orinoco sinks, I'll float to Europe on a hen-coop."
"May I have half of it?" said Allerton.
"You may," said Hughie.
And so the S. S. Orinoco Salvage Company, Limited, was floated, and the Board of Directors entered upon their new duties at once.
By this time the boats had been swung outboard and their provisioning completed. They were now lowered from the davits, and the men began to take their places. There was no panic, for the night was calm, and the Orinoco showed no signs of settling deeper. Messrs. Gates and Dingle were already at their respective tillers. Captain Kingdom and Mr. Angus were standing by the davits to which the whale-boat was still shackled. Mr. Goble, apparently in no hurry, was leaning over the bulwarks in the darkness not far from Hughie and Allerton, dispassionately regarding the crew's preparations for departure. He approached nearer.
"There's a wheen fowk in thae boats," he observed. "I doot we'd be safer on board."
Hughie turned to him and nodded comprehendingly.
"That's my opinion too," he said, "and Percy's. We're thinking of staying here."
Mr. Goble regarded him reflectively.
"Is that a fact?" he said. "Weel, I'll bide too."
And so a third member was co-opted on to the Board of Directors.
"We'd better get out of sight," said Hughie. "They won't like leaving us behind. I think I know a good place to wait. Come along."
The trio slipped round behind the chart-house, passed along a deserted stretch of the deck, and disappeared down the engine-room hatchway.
The engine-room was illuminated by a couple of swinging lanterns. A black and greasy flood of water glistened on the iron floor below, filling the crank-pits and covering the propeller-shaft. The doors leading to the stokehold were standing open, and they could see that the floors there too were flooded, though the water had not reached the level of the fire-bars. Owing to the immobility of the ship, its oily surface was almost unruffled, and the engine-room itself was curiously quiet after the turmoil on deck. The fires were burning low, but occasionally a glowing clinker slipped from between the bars into the blood-red flood beneath, with a sizzling splash. The steam was hissing discontentedly in the gauges.
The Salvage Board stood knee-deep in the water of the engine-room.
Hughie picked up a smoky inspection-lamp,—a teapot-like affair with a wick in the spout,—lit it, and peered about.
"Now look here," he said, "I don't quite know where this water came from, and it doesn't much matter, as no more is coming in at present. If the old man means to sink the ship he will have to come down here to do it. He has probably got some dodge arranged by which he can just turn a wheel and open a valve and send her to the bottom. Isn't that the idea, Goble? (I'll explain to you afterwards, Allerton.) My impression is that he'll pop down and turn the valve on just before he leaves. In that case one of us must stand by and turn it off again. You two go through into the stokehold. He's not likely to come in there. If he does, you must use your own discretion. I'll wait here, on the far side of the cylinders, up against the condenser. He's not likely to see me, but I shall be able to watch him and see which valve-wheel he turns on."
The other two obeyed, and Hughie, scrambling across the bed-plates of the engines, ensconced himself behind a convenient cross-head, with his feet in a flooded crank-pit and his body squeezed back as far as possible into the shadow of the condenser.
He had not long to wait. Presently cautious feet were heard descending the iron ladder, and Mr. Angus, comparatively sober, stepped heavily into the flood on the floor.
His first proceeding was to wade to the stokehold end of the engine-room,—Hughie thought at first that he was going right through into the arms of Allerton and Goble, and wondered what they would do with him,—where he began to manipulate the great valve-wheel which kept the steam imprisoned in the boilers; and presently Hughie could hear the roar of the escape far above his head. This was a purely precautionary measure, and could do no harm to any one.
Then Mr. Angus splashed his way to the corner by the donkey-pump, where the machinery for controlling the bilge and water-ballast valves was situated, and began to twist over another wheel. Presently there was a gurgling bubbling sound in the bowels of the ship, followed by a slight hissing and whispering on the surface of the water on the engine-room floor. The valve was open.
Mr. Angus turned and lurched heavily through the rising flood to the iron ladder. Thirty seconds later a glistening figure crawled out of the crank-pit and vigorously turned the wheel in the opposite direction. The gurgling and hissing ceased. The valve was closed.