Out of the middle of these spectators jumped the mild, delicate Hamilton.
But one of the mates, who had followed his captain down on to the lighter to bear a hand, took a quick method of stopping the scuffle. He picked up a cargo-sling, slipped it round Cranze's waist, hooked on the winch chain, and passed the word to the deck above. Somebody alive to the jest turned on steam, and of a sudden Cranze was plucked aloft, and hung there under the derrick-sheave, struggling impotently, like some insane jumping-jack.
Amid the yells of laughter which followed, Hamilton laughed also, but rather hysterically. Kettle put a hand kindly on his wet shoulder. "Come on board again," he said. "If you lie down in your room for an hour or so, you'll be all right again then. You're a bit over-done. I shouldn't like you to make a fool of yourself."
"Make a fool of myself," was the bitter reply. "I've made a bigger fool of myself in the last three minutes than any other man could manage in a lifetime."
"I'll get you the Royal Humane Society's medal for that bit of a job, anyway."
"Give me a nice rope to hang myself with," said Hamilton ungraciously, "that would be more to the point. Here, for the Lord's sake let me be, or I shall go mad." He brushed aside all help, clambered up the steamer's high black side again, and went down to his room.
"That's the worst of these poetic natures," Kettle mused as he, too, got out of the lighter; "they're so highly strung."
Cranze, on being lowered down to deck again, and finding his tormentors too many to be retaliated upon, went below and changed, and then came up again and found solace in more king's pegs. He was not specially thankful to Hamilton for saving his life; said, in fact, that it was his plain duty to render such trifling assistance; and further stated that if Hamilton found his way over the side, he, Cranze, would not stir a finger to pull him back again.
He was very much annoyed at what he termed Hamilton's "unwarrantable attack," and still further annoyed at his journey up to the derrick's sheave in the cargo-sling, which he also laid to Hamilton's door. When any of the ship's company had a minute or so to spare, they came and gave Cranze good advice and spoke to him of his own unlovableness, and Cranze hurled brimstone back at them unceasingly, for king's peg in quantity always helped his vocabulary of swear-words.
Meanwhile theFlamingosteamed up and dropped cargo wherever it was consigned, and she abased herself to gather fresh cargo wherever any cargo offered. It was Captain Kettle who did the abasing, and he did not like the job at all; but he remembered that Birds paid him specifically for this among other things; and also that if he did not secure the cargo, some one else would steam along, and eat dirt, and snap it up; and so he pocketed his pride (and his commission) and did his duty. He called to mind that he was not the only man in the world who earned a living out of uncongenial employment. The creed of the South Shields chapel made a point of this: it preached that to every man, according to his strength, is the cross dealt out which he has to bear. And Captain Owen Kettle could not help being conscious of his own vast lustiness.
But one morning, before theFlamingohad finished with her calls on the ports of the Texan rivers, a matter happened on board of her which stirred the pulse of her being to a very different gait. The steward who brought Captain Kettle's early coffee coughed, and evidently wanted an invitation to speak.
"Well?' said Kettle.
"It's about Mr. Hamilton, sir. I can't find 'im anywheres."
"Have you searched the ship?"
"Hunofficially, sir."
"Well, get the other two stewards, and do it thoroughly."
The steward went out, and Captain Kettle lifted the coffee cup and drank a salutation to the dead. From that very moment he had a certain foreboding that the worst had happened. "Here's luck, my lad, wherever you now may be. That brute Cranze has got to windward of the pair of us, and your insurance money's due this minute. I only sent that steward to search the ship for form's sake. There was the link of poetry between you and me, lad; and that's closer than most people could guess at; and I know, as sure as if your ghost stood here to tell me, that you've gone. How, I've got to find out."
He put down the cup, and went to the bathroom for his morning's tub. "I'm to blame, I know," he mused on, "for not taking better care of you, and I'm not trying to excuse myself. You were so brimful of poetry that you hadn't room left for any thought of your own skin, like a chap such as I am is bound to have. Besides, you've been well-off all your time and you haven't learned to be suspicious. Well, what's done's done, and it can't be helped. But, my lad, I want you to look on while I hand in the bill. It'll do you good to see Cranze pay up the account."
Kettle went through his careful toilet, and then in his spruce white drill went out and walked briskly up and down the hurricane deck till the steward came with the report. His forebodings had not led him astray. Hamilton was not on board: the certain alternative was that he lay somewhere in the warm Gulf water astern, as a helpless dead body.
"Tell the Chief Officer," he said, "to get a pair of irons out of store and bring them down to Mr. Cranze's room. I'm going there now."
He found Cranze doctoring a very painful head with the early application of stimulant, and Cranze asked him what the devil he meant by not knocking at the door before opening it.
Captain Kettle whipped the tumbler out of the passenger's shaking fingers, and emptied its contents into the wash-basin.
"I'm going to see you hanged shortly, you drunken beast," he said, "but in the mean while you may as well get sober for a change, and explain things up a bit."
Cranze swung his legs out of the bunk and sat up. He was feeling very tottery, and the painfulness of his head did not improve his temper. "Look here," he said, "I've had enough of your airs and graces. I've paid for my passage on this rubbishy old water-pusher of yours, and I'll trouble you to keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll report you to your owners. You are like a railway guard, my man. After you have seen that your passengers have got their proper tickets, it's your duty to--"
Mr. Cranze's connective remarks broke off here for the time being. He found himself suddenly plucked away from the bunk by a pair of iron hands, and hustled out through the state-room door. He was a tall man, and the hands thrust him from below, upward, and, though he struggled wildly and madly, all his efforts to have his own way were futile. Captain Owen Kettle had handled far too many really strong men in this fashion to even lose breath over a dram-drinking passenger. So Cranze found himself hurtled out on to the lower fore-deck, where somebody handcuffed him neatly to an iron stanchion, and presently a mariner, by Captain Kettle's orders, rigged a hose, and mounted on the iron bulwark above him, and let a three-inch stream of chilly brine slop steadily on to his head.
The situation, from an onlooker's point of view, was probably ludicrous enough, but what daunted the patient was that nobody seemed to take it as a joke. There were a dozen men of the crew who had drawn near to watch, and yesterday all these would have laughed contemptuously at each of his contortions. But now they are all stricken to a sudden solemnity.
"Spell-o," ordered Kettle. "Let's see if he's sober yet."
The man on the bulwarks let the stream from the hose flop overboard, where it ran out into a stream of bubbles which joined the wake.
Cranze gasped back his breath, and used it in a torrent of curses.
"Play on him again," said Kettle, and selected a good black before-breakfast cigar from his pocket. He lit it with care. The man on the bulwark shifted his shoulder for a better hold against the derrick-guy, and swung the limp hose in-board again. The water splashed down heavily on Cranze's head and shoulders, and the onlookers took stock of him without a trace of emotion. They had most of them seen the remedy applied to inebriates before, and so they watched Cranze make his gradual recovery with the eyes of experts.
"Spell-o," ordered Kettle some five minutes later, and once more the hose vomited sea water ungracefully into the sea. This time Cranze had the sense to hold his tongue till he was spoken to. He was very white about the face, except for his nose, which was red, and his eye had brightened up considerably. He was quite sober, and quite able to weigh any words that were dealt out to him.
"Now," said Kettle judicially, "what have you done with Mr. Hamilton?"
"Nothing."
"You deny all knowledge of how he got overboard?"
Cranze was visibly startled. "Of course I do. Is he overboard?"
"He can't be found on this ship. Therefore he is over the side. Therefore you put him there."
Cranze was still more startled. But he kept himself in hand. "Look here," he said, "what rot! What should I know about the fellow? I haven't seen him since last night."
"So you say. But I don't see why I should believe you. In fact, I don't."
"Well, you can suit yourself about that, but it's true enough. Why in the name of mischief should I want to meddle with the poor beggar? If you're thinking of the bit of a scrap we had yesterday, I'll own I was full at the time. And so must he have been. At least I don't know why else he should have set upon me like he did. At any rate that's not a thing a man would want to murder him for."
"No, I should say £20,000 is more in your line."
"What are you driving at?"
"You know quite well. You got that poor fellow insured just before this trip, you got him to make a will in your favor, and now you've committed a dirty, clumsy murder just to finger the dollars."
Cranze broke into uncanny hysterical laughter. "That chap insured; that chap make a will in my favor? Why, he hadn't a penny. It was me that paid for his passage. I'd been on the tear a bit, and the Jew fellow I went to about raising the wind did say something about insuring, I know, and made me sign a lot of law papers. They made out I was in such a chippy state of health that they'd not let me have any more money unless I came on some beastly dull sea voyage to recruit a bit, and one of the conditions was that one of the boys was to come along too and look after me."
"You'll look pretty foolish when you tell that thin tale to a jury."
"Then let me put something else on to the back of it. I'm not Cranze at all. I'm Hamilton. I've been in the papers a good deal just recently, because I'd been flinging my money around, and I didn't want to get stared at on board here. So Cranze and I swapped names, just to confuse people. It seems to have worked very well."
"Yes," said Kettle, "it's worked so well that I don't think you'll get a jury to believe that either. As you don't seem inclined to make a clean breast of it, you can now retire to your room, and be restored to your personal comforts. I can't hand you over to the police without inconvenience to myself till we get to New Orleans, so I shall keep you in irons till we reach there. Steward--where's a steward? Ah, here you are. See this man is kept in his room, and see he has no more liquor. I make you responsible for him."
"Yes, sir," said the steward.
Continuously the dividends of Bird, Bird and Co. outweighed every other consideration, and theFlamingododged on with her halting voyage. At the first place he put in at, Kettle sent off an extravagant cablegram of recent happenings to the representative of the Insurance Company in England. It was not the cotton season, and the Texan ports yielded the steamer little, but she had a ton or so of cargo for almost every one of them, and she delivered it with neatness, and clamored for cargo in return. She was "working up a connection." She swung round the Gulf till she came to where logs borne by the Mississippi stick out from the white sand, and she wasted a little time, and steamed past the nearest outlet of the delta, because Captain Kettle did not personally know its pilotage. He was getting a very safe and cautious navigator in these latter days of his prosperity.
So she made for the Port Eads pass, picked up a pilot from the station by the lighthouse, and steamed cautiously up to the quarantine station, dodging the sandbars. Her one remaining passenger had passed from an active nuisance to a close and unheard prisoner, and his presence was almost forgotten by every one on board, except Kettle and the steward who looked after him. The merchant seaman of these latter days has to pay such a strict attention to business, that he has no time whatever for extraneous musings.
TheFlamingogot a clean bill from the doctor at the quarantine station, and emerged triumphantly from the cluster of craft doing penance, and, with a fresh pilot, steamed on up the yellow river, past the white sugar-mills, and the heavy cypresses behind the banks. And in due time the pilot brought her up to New Orleans, and, with his glasses on the bridge, Kettle saw his acquaintance, Mr. Lupton, waiting for him on the levee.
He got his steamer berthed in the crowded tier, and Mr. Lupton pushed on board over the first gang-plank. But Kettle waved the man aside till he saw his vessel finally moored. And then he took him into the chart-house and shut the door.
"You seem to have got my cable," he said. "It was a very expensive one, but I thought the occasion needed it."
His visitor tapped Kettle confidentially on the knee. "You'll find my office will deal most liberally with you, Captain. But I can tell you I'm pretty excited to hear your full yarn."
"I'm afraid you won't like it," said Kettle. "The man's obviously dead, and, fancy it or not, I don't see how your office can avoid paying the full amount. However, here's the way I've logged it down"--and he went off into detailed narration.
The New Orleans heat smote upon the chart-house roof, and the air outside clattered with the talk of negroes. Already hatches were off, and the winch chains sang as they struck out cargo, and from the levee alongside, and from New Orleans below and beyond, came tangles of smells which are peculiarly their own. A steward brought in tea, and it stood on the chart-table untasted, and at last Kettle finished, and Lupton put a question.
"It's easy to tell," he said, "if they did swap names. What was the man that went overboard like?"
"Little dark fellow, short sighted. He was a poet, too."
"That's not Hamilton, anyway, but it might be Cranze. Is your prisoner tall?"
"Tall and puffy. Red-haired and a spotty face."
"That's Hamilton, all the way. By Jove! Skipper, we've saved our bacon. His yarn's quite true. They did change names. Hamilton's a rich young ass that's been painting England red these last three years."
"But, tell me, what did the little chap go overboard for?"
"Got there himself. Uneasy conscience, I suppose. He seems to have been a poor sort of assassin anyway. Why, when that drunken fool tumbled overboard amongst the sharks, he didn't leave him to be eaten or drowned, is more than I can understand. He'd have got his money as easy as picking it up off the floor, if he'd only had the sense to keep quiet."
"If you ask me," said Kettle, "it was sheer nobility of character. I had a good deal of talk with that young gentleman, sir. He was a splendid fellow. He had a true poetical soul."
Mr. Lupton winked sceptically. "He managed to play the part of a thorough-paced young blackguard at home pretty successfully. He was warned off the turf. He was kicked out of his club for card-sharping. He was--well, he's dead now, anyway, and we won't say any more about him, except that he's been stone-broke these last three years, and has been living on his wits and helping to fleece other flats. But he was only the tool, anyway. There is a bigger and more capable scoundrel at the back of it all, and, thanks to the scare you seem to have rubbed into that spotty-faced young mug you've got locked up down below, I think we can get the principal by the heels very nicely this journey. If you don't mind, I'll go and see this latest victim now, before he's had time to get rid of his fright."
Captain Kettle showed his visitor courteously down to the temporary jail, and then returned to the chart-house and sipped his tea.
"His name may really have been Cranze, but he was a poet, poor lad," he mused, thinking of the dead. "That's why he couldn't do the dirty work. But I sha'n't tell Lupton that reason. He'd only laugh--and--that poetry ought to be a bit of a secret between the lad and me. Poor, poor fellow! I think I'll be able to write a few lines about him myself after I've been ashore to see the agent, just as a bit of an epitaph. As to this spotty-faced waster who swapped names with him, I almost have it in me to wish we'd left him to be chopped by those sharks. He'd his money to his credit anyway--and what's money compared with poetry?"
The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, and Captain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to complete wakefulness.
"There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five miles off."
The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head. "Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're heading for it, eh?"
"Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so."
"Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, and tell him to get port and starboard lifeboats ready for lowering in case they're wanted. I'll be on the bridge in a minute."
"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, and withdrew into the darkness outside.
Captain Owen Kettle's toilet was not of long duration. Like most master mariners who do business along those crowded steam lanes of the Western Ocean, he slept in most of his clothes when at sea as a regular habit, and in fact only stripped completely for the few moments which were occupied by his morning's tub. If needful, he could always go out on deck at a second's notice, and be ready to remain there for twenty-four hours. But in this instance there was no immediate hurry, and so he spent a full minute and a half over his toilet, and emerged with washed hands and face, sprucely brushed hair and beard, and his person attired in high rubber thigh-boots and leather-bound black oilskins.
The night was black and thick with a drizzle of rain, and a heavy breeze snored through theFlamingo'sscanty rigging. The second mate on the bridge was beating his fingerless woollen gloves against his ribs as a cure for cold fingers. The first mate and the third had already turned out, and were on the boatskids helping the carpenter with the housings, and overhauling davit falls. On that part of the horizon against which theFlamingo'sbows sawed with great sweeping dives was a streaky, flickering yellow glow.
Kettle went on to an end of the bridge and peered ahead through the bridge binoculars. "A steamer," he commented, "and a big one too; and she's finely ablaze. Not much help we shall be able to give. It will be a case of taking off the crew, if they aren't already cooked before we get there." He looked over the side at the eddy of water that clung to the ship's flank. "I see you're shoving her along," he said to the second mate.
"I sent word down to the engine-room to give her all they knew the moment we raised the glow. I thought you wouldn't grudge the coal, sir."
"No, quite right. Hope there aren't too many of them to be picked off, or we shall make a tight fit on board here."
"Funny we should be carrying the biggest cargo the old boat's ever had packed into her. But we shall find room to house a few poor old sailormen. They won't mind much where they stow, as long as they're picked up out of the wet. B-r-r-rh!" shivered the second mate, "I shouldn't much fancy open-boat cruising in the Western Ocean this weather."
Captain Kettle stared on through the shiny brass binoculars. "Call all hands," he said quietly. "That's a big ship ahead of us, and she'll carry a lot of people. God send she's only an old tramp. At those lifeboats there!" he shouted. "Swing the davits outboard, and pass your painters forward. Hump yourselves, now."
"There's a lot of ice here, sir," came a grumbling voice out of the darkness, "and the boats are frozen on to the chocks. We've got to hammer it away before they'll hoist. The falls are that froze, too, that they'll not render--"
"You call yourself a mate and hold a master's ticket, and want to get a ship of your own!"--Kettle vaulted over the rail on to the top of the fiddley, and made for his second in command. "Here, my man, if your delicate fingers can't do this bit of a job, give me that marlinspike. By James! do you hear me? Give up the marlinspike. Did you never see a boat iced up before? Now then, carpenter. Are you worth your salt? Or am I to clear both ends in this boat by myself?"
So, by example and tongue, Captain Kettle got his boats swung outboard, and theFlamingo, with her engines working at an unusual strain, surged rapidly nearer and nearer to the blaze.
On shore a house on fire at any hour draws a crowd. At sea, in the bleak cold wastes of the water desert, even one other shipload of sympathizers is too often wished for vainly. Wind, cold, and breakdowns of machinery the sailor accepts with dull indifference; shipwrecks, strandings, and disease he looks forward to as part of an inevitable fate; but fire goes nearer to cowing him than all other disasters put together; and the sight of his fellow-seamen attacked by these same desolating flames arouses in him the warmest of his sympathy, and the full of his resourcefulness. Moreover, in Kettle's case, he had known the feel of a ship afire under his own feet, and so he could appreciate all the better the agony of these others.
But meanwhile, as theFlamingomade her way up wind against the charging seas, a fear was beginning to grip the little shipmaster by the heart that was deep enough to cause him a physical nausea. The burning steamer ahead grew every minute more clear as they raced toward her. She was on fire forward, and she lay almost head-on toward them, keeping her stern to the seas, so that the wind would have no help in driving the flames aft, and making her more uninhabitable.
From a distance it had been hard to make out anything beyond great stacks of yellow flame, topped by inky, oily smoke, which drove in thick columns down the wind. As they drew nearer, and her size became more apparent, some one guessed her as a big cargo tramp from New Orleans with cotton that had overheated and fired, and Kettle took comfort from the suggestion and tried to believe that it might come true.
But as they closed with her, and came within earshot of her syren, which was sending frightened useless blares across the churning waters, there was no being blind to the true facts any longer. This was no cargo boat, but a passenger liner; outward bound, too, and populous. And as they came still nearer, they saw her after-decks black and wriggling with people, and Kettle got a glimpse of her structure and recognized the vessel herself.
"TheGrosser Carl," he muttered, "out of Hamburg for New York. Next to no first-class, and she cuts rates for third and gets the bulk of the German emigrant traffic. She'll have six hundred on her this minute, and a hundred of a crew. Call it seven hundred all told, and there's hell waiting for them over yonder, and getting worse every minute. Oh, great James! I wonder what's going to be done. I couldn't pack seventy of them on the oldFlamhere, if I filled her to bursting."
He clapped the binoculars to his eyes again, and stared diligently round the rim of the night. If only he could catch a glimpse of some other liner hurrying along her route, then these people could be saved easily. He could drop his boats to take them till the other passenger ship came up. But the wide sea was empty of lights; theFlamingoand theGrusser Carlhad the stage severely to themselves; and between them they had the making of an intolerable weight of destiny.
The second mate broke in upon his commander's brooding. "We shall have a nice bill for Lloyds this journey."
Kettle made no answer. He continued staring moodily at the spouting flames ahead. The second mate coughed. "Shall I be getting derricks rigged and the hatch covers off?"
Kettle turned on him with a sudden fierceness. "Do you know you're asking me to ruin myself?"
"But if we jettison cargo to make room for these poor beggars, sir, the insurance will pay."
"Pay your grandmother. You've got a lot to learn, my lad, before you're fit to take charge of a ship, if you don't know any more than that about the responsibility of the cargo."
"By Jove! that's awkward. Birds would look pretty blue if the bill was handed in to them."
"Birds!" said Kettle with contempt. "They aren't liable for sixpence. Supposing you were travelling by train, and there was some one else's portmanteau in the carriage, and you flung it out of the window into a river, who do you suppose would have to stand the racket?"
"Why, me. But then, sir, this is different."
"Not a bit. If we start in to jettison cargo, it means I'm a ruined man. Every ton that goes over the side I'll have to pay for."
"We can't leave those poor devils to frizzle," said the second mate awkwardly.
"Oh, no, of course we can't. They're a pack of unclean Dutchmen we never saw before, and should think ourselves too good to brush against if we met them in the street, but sentiment demands that we stay and pull them out of their mess, and cold necessity leaves me to foot the bill. You're young, and you're not married, my lad. I'm neither. I've worked like a horse all my life, mostly with bad luck. Lately luck's turned a bit. I've been able to make a trifle more, and save a few pounds out of my billets. And here and there, what with salvage and other things, I've come in the way of a plum. One way and another I've got nearly enough put by at home this minute to keep the missis and me and the girls to windward of the workhouse, even if I lost this present job with Birds, and didn't find another."
"Perhaps somebody else will pay for the cargo we have to put over the side, sir."
"It's pretty thin comfort when you've got a 'perhaps' of that size, and no other mortal stop between you and the workhouse. It's all very well doing these things in hot blood; but the reckoning's paid when you're cold, and they're cold, and with the Board of Trade standing-by like the devil in the background all ready to give you a kick when there's a spare place for a fresh foot." He slammed down the handle of the bridge-telegraph, and rang off theFlamingo'sengines. He had been measuring distances all this time with his eye.
"But, of course, there's no other choice about the matter. There's the blessed cause of humanity to be looked after--humanity to these blessed Dutch emigrants that their own country doesn't want, and every other country would rather be without. Humanity to my poor old missis and the kids doesn't count. I shall get a sludgy paragraph in the papers for theGrosser Carl, headed 'Gallant Rescue,' with all the facts put upside down, and twelve months later there'll be another paragraph about a 'case of pitiful destitution.'"
"Oh, I say, sir, it won't be as bad as all that. Birds will see you through."
"Birds will do a fat lot. Birds sent me to work up a connection in the Mexican Gulf, and I've done it, and they've raised my screw two pound a month after four years' service. I jettison the customers' cargo, and probably sha'n't be able to pay for half of it. Customers will get mad, and give their business to other lines which don't run foul of blazing emigrant packets."
"Birds would never dare to fire you out for that."
"Oh, Lord, no! They'd say: 'We don't like the way you've taken to wear your back hair, Captain. And, besides, we want younger blood amongst our skippers. You'll find your check ready for you in the outer office. Mind the step!'"
"I'm awfully sorry, Skipper. If there's anything I can do, sir--"
Captain Kettle sighed, and looked drearily out at the blazing ship and the tumbled waste of sea on which she floated. But he felt that he had been showing weakness, and pulled himself together again smartly. "Yes, there is, my lad. I'm a disappointed man, and I've been talking a lot more than's dignified. You'll do me a real kindness if you'll forget all that's been said. Away with you on to the main deck, and get hatches off, and whip the top tier of that cargo over the side as fast as you can make the winches travel. If the oldFlamingois going to serve out free hospitality, by James! she shall do it full weight. By James! I'd give the beggars champagne and spring mattresses if I'd got 'em."
Meanwhile, those on the German emigrant steamer had seen the coming of the shabby little English trader with bumping hearts. Till then the crew, with (so to speak) their backs up against a wall, had fought the fire with diligence; but when the nearness of a potential rescuer was reported, they discovered for themselves at once that the fire was beyond control. They were joined by the stokehold gangs, and they made at once for the boats, overpowering any officer who happened to come between them and their desires. The limp, tottery, half-fed, wholly seasick emigrants they easily shoved aside, and these in their turn by sheer mass thrust back the small handful of first-class passengers, and away screamed out the davit tackles, as the boats were lowered full of madly frightened deck hands and grimy handlers of coal.
Panic had sapped every trace of their manhood. They had concern only for their own skins; for the miserables remaining on theGrosser Carlthey had none. And if for a minute any of them permitted himself to think, he decided that in the Herr Gott's good time the English would send boats and fetch them off. The English had always a special gusto for this meddling rescue work.
However, it is easy to decide on lowering boats, but not always so easy to carry it into safe fact if you are mad with scare, and there is no one whom you will listen to to give the necessary simple orders. And, as a consequence, one boat, chiefly manned by the coal interest, swamped alongside before it could be shoved clear; the forward davit fall of another jammed, and let it dangle vertically up and down when the after fall overhauled; and only one boat got away clear.
The reception which this small cargo of worthies met with surprised them. They pulled with terrified haste to theFlamingo, got under her lee, and clung desperately to the line which was thrown to them. But to the rail above them came the man who expected to be ruined by this night's work, and the pearls of speech which fell from his lips went home through even their thick hides.
Captain Kettle, being human, had greatly needed some one during the last half-hour to ease his feelings on--though he was not the man to own up to such a weakness, even to himself--and the boat came neatly to supply his want. It was long enough since he had found occasion for such an outburst, but the perfection of his early training stood him in good stead then. Every biting insult in his vocabulary, every lashing word that is used upon the seas, every gibe, national, personal, or professional, that a lifetime of hard language could teach, he poured out on that shivering boat's crew then.
They were Germans certainly, but being an English shipmaster, he had, of course, many a time sailed with a forecastle filled with their nationality, and had acquired the special art of adapting his abuse to the "Dutchman's" sensibilities, even as he had other harangues suited for Coolie or Dago mariners, or even for that rare sea-bird, the English sailorman. And as a final wind-up, after having made them writhe sufficiently, he ordered them to go back whence they came, and take a share in rescuing their fellows.
"Bud we shall trown," shouted back one speaker from the wildly jumping boat.
"Then drown, and be hanged to you," shouted Kettle. "I'm sure I don't care if you do. But I'm not going to have cowards like you dirtying my deck-planks." He cast off the line to which their boat rode under the steamer's heaving side. "You go and do your whack at getting the people off that packet, or, so help me James! none of you shall ever see your happy Dutchland again."
Meanwhile, so the irony of the fates ordered it, the two mates, each in charge of one of theFlamingo'slifeboats, were commanding crews made up entirely of Germans and Scandinavians, and pluckier and more careful sailormen could not have been wished for. The work was dangerous, and required more than ordinary nerve and endurance and skill. A heavy sea ran, and from its crests a spindrift blew which cut the face like whips, and numbed all parts of the body with its chill. The boats were tossed about like playthings, and required constant bailing to keep them from being waterlogged. But Kettle had brought theFlamingoto windward of theGrosser Carl, and each boat carried a line, so that the steam winches could help her with the return trips.
Getting a cargo was, however, the chief difficulty. All attempt at killing the fire was given up by this time. All vestige of order was swamped in unutterable panic. The people on board had given themselves up to wild, uncontrollable anarchy. If a boat had been brought alongside, they would have tumbled into her like sheep, till their numbers swamped her. They cursed the flames, cursed the sea, cursed their own brothers and sisters who jostled them. They were the sweepings from half-fed middle Europe, born with raw nerves; and under the sudden stress of danger, and the absence of some strong man to thrust discipline on them, they became practically maniacs. They were beyond speech, many of them. They yammered at the boats which came to their relief, with noises like those of scared beasts.
Now theFlamingo'sboats were officered by two cool, profane mates, who had no nerves themselves, and did not see the use of nerves in other people. Neither of them spoke German, but (after the style of their island) presuming that some of those who listened would understand English, they made proclamation in their own tongue to the effect that the women were to be taken off first.
"Kids with them," added the second mate.
"And if any of you rats of men shove your way down here," said the chief mate, "before all the skirt is ferried across, you'll get knocked on the head, that's all. Savvy that belaying-pin I got in my fist? Now then, get some bowlines, and sway out the ladies."
As well might the order have been addressed to a flock of sheep. They heard what was said in an agonized silence. Then each poor soul there stretched out his arms or hers, and clamored to be saved--and--never mind the rest. And meanwhile the flames bit deeper and deeper into the fabric of the steamer, and the breath of them grew more searching, as the roaring gale blew them into strength.
"You ruddy Dutchmen," shouted the second mate. "It would serve you blooming well right if you were left to be frizzled up into one big sausage stew together. However, we'll see if kindness can't tame you a bit yet." He waited till the swirl of a sea swung his boat under one of the dangling davit falls, and caught hold of it, and climbed nimbly on board. Then he proceeded to clear a space by the primitive method of crashing his fist into every face within reach.
"Now then," he shouted, "if there are any sailormen here worth their salt, let them come and help. Am I to break up the whole of this ship's company by myself?"
Gradually, by ones and twos, theGrosser Carl'sremaining officers and deck hands came shamefacedly toward this new nucleus of authority and order, and then the real work began. The emigrants, with sea sights and sea usage new to them, were still full of the unreasoning panic of cattle, and like cattle they were herded and handled, and their women and young cut out from the general mob. These last were got into the swaying, dancing boats as tenderly as might be, and the men were bidden to watch, and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the scorching fire drew more near, they were beaten savagely; theGrosser Carl'screw, with the shame of their own panic still raw on them, knew no mercy; and the second mate of theFlamingo, who stood against a davit, insulted them all with impartial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil, this young man, of that master of ruling men at the expense of their feelings, Captain Owen Kettle.
Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky journey after another, being drawn up to their own ship by a chattering winch, discharging their draggled freight with dexterity and little ceremony, and then laboring back under oars for another. The light of the burning steamer turned a great sphere of night into day, and the heat from her made the sweat pour down the faces of the toiling men, though the gale still roared, and the icy spindrift still whipped and stung. On theFlamingo, Captain Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what represented the savings of a lifetime, provision for his wife and children, and an old-age pension for himself.
TheGrosser Carlhad carried thirty first-class passengers, and these were crammed into theFlamingo'sslender cabin accommodation, filling it to overflowing. The emigrants--Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles, filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial Armenians, humandebriswhich even soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected--these were herded down into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, and given to the thankless sea to make space for them.
"Kindly walk up," said Kettle, with bitter hospitality, as fresh flocks of them were heaved up over the bulwarks. "Don't hesitate to grumble if the accommodation isn't exactly to your liking. We're most pleased to strike out cargo to provide you with an elegant parlor, and what's left I'm sure you'll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, long-haired cattle! Did none of you ever wash?"
Fiercely theGrosser Carlburned to the fanning of the gale, and like furies worked the men in the boats. TheGrosser Carl'sown boat joined the other two, once the ferrying was well under way. She had hung alongside after Kettle cast off her line, with her people madly clamoring to be taken on board; but as all they received for their pains was abuse and coal-lumps--mostly, by the way, from their own fellow-countrymen, who made up the majority of theFlamingo'screw--they were presently driven to help in the salving work through sheer scare at being left behind to drown unless they carried out the fierce little English Captain's orders.
TheFlamingo'schief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and though every soul that was transshipped might be said to have had ten narrow escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and good seamanship carried the day, and none was lost. And on theGrosser Carlthe second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and commended to the nether gods all who suggested ousting him from that position. "I don't care a red what your official post was on this ship before I came," said the second mate to several indignant officers. "You should have held on to it when you had it. I've never been a skipper before, but I'm skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I'm going to stay on at that till the blooming old ship's burnt out. If you bother me, I'll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-to there and pass down another batch of those squalling passengers into the boats. Don't you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the Big Mischief, I'll just step down and teach you handiness."
The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left theGrosser Carl, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor gratings of a boat.
TheGrosser Carlhad fallen away before the wind, and was spouting flame from stem-head to poop-staff by the time the last of the rescuers and the rescued were put on theFlamingo'sdeck, and on that travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors that somehow or other had to be provided for.
The detail of famine now became of next importance. They were still five days' steam away from port, and their official provision supply was only calculated to last theFlamingosthemselves for a little over that time. Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages to scheduled time. So there was no sentimental waiting to see theGrosser Carlfinally burn out and sink. The boats were cast adrift, as the crews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and theFlamingo'snose was turned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to half a ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in with empty bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of the burning ship, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation made them regard their visitors less than ever in the light of men and brothers.
But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next day, a hurrying ocean greyhound overtook them in her race from New York toward the East, and the bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial code from the wire span between theFlamingo'smasts. Fresh quartettes of flags flicked up on both steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced by others; and when the liner drew up alongside, and stopped with reversed propellers, she had a loaded boat ready swung out in davits, which dropped in the water the moment she had lost her way. The bunting had told the pith of the tale.
When the two steamers' bridges were level, the liner's captain touched his cap, and a crowd of well-dressed passengers below him listened wonderingly. "Afternoon, Captain. Got 'em all?"
"Afternoon, Captain. Oh, we didn't lose any. But a few drowned their silly selves before we started to shepherd them."
"What ship was it? The French boat would be hardly due yet."
"No, the oldGrosser Carl. She was astern of her time. Much obliged to you for the grub, Captain. We'd have been pretty hard pushed if we hadn't met you. I'm sending you a payment order. Sorry for spoiling your passage."
The liner captain looked at his watch.
"Can't be helped. It's in a good cause, I suppose, though the mischief of it is we were trying to pull down the record by an hour or so. The boat, there! Are you going to be all night with that bit of stuff?"
The cases of food were transshipped with frantic haste, and the boat returned. The greyhound leaped out into her stride again the moment she had hooked on, and shot ahead, dipping a smart blue ensign in salute. TheFlamingodipped a dirty red ensign and followed, and, before dark fell, once more had the ocean to herself.
The voyage home was not one of oppressive gayety. The first-class passengers, who were crammed into the narrow cabin found the quarters uncomfortable, and the little shipmaster's manner repellent. Urged by the precedent in such matters, they "made a purse" for him, and a presentation address. But as they merely collected some thirty-one pounds in paper promises, which, so far, have never been paid, their gratitude may be said to have had its economical side.
To the riffraff in the hold, for whose accommodation a poor man's fortune had been jettisoned, the thing "gratitude" was an unknown emotion. They plotted mischief amongst themselves, stole when the opportunity came to them, were unspeakably foul in their habits, and, when they gave the matter any consideration at all, decided that this fierce little captain with the red torpedo beard had taken them on board merely to fulfil some selfish purpose of his own. To the theorist who has sampled them only from a distance, these off-scourings of Middle Europe are downtrodden people with souls; to those who happen to know them personally, all their qualities seem to be conspicuously negative.
TheFlamingopicked up the landmarks of the Southern Irish coast, and made her number to Lloyd's station on Brow Head, stood across for the Tuskar, and so on up St. George's Channel for Holyhead. She flew a pilot jack there, and off Point Lynus picked up a pilot, who, after the custom of his class, stepped up over the side with a hard felt hat on his head, and a complete wardrobe, and a selection of daily papers in his pocket.
"Well, pilot, what's the news?" said Kettle, as the man of narrow waters swung himself up on to the bridge, and his boat swirled away astern.
"You are," said the pilot. "The papers are just full of you, Captain, all of them, from theShipping Telegraphto the LondonTimes. The Cunard boat brought in the yarn. A pilot out of my schooner took her up."
"How do they spell the name? Cuttle?"
"Well, I think it's 'Kattle' mostly, though one paper has it 'Kelly.'"
"Curse their cheek," said the little sailor, flushing. "I'd like to get hold of some of those blowsy editors that come smelling round the dock after yarns and drink, and wring their necks."
"Starboard a point," said the pilot, and when the quartermaster at the wheel had duly repeated the course, he turned to Kettle with some amusement. "Blowsy or not, they don't seem to have done you much harm this journey, Captain. Why, they're getting up subscriptions for you all round. Shouldn't wonder but what the Board of Trade even stands you a pair of binoculars."
"I'm not a blessed mendicant," said Kettle stiffly, "and as for the Board of Trade, they can stick their binoculars up their trousers." He walked to the other end of the bridge, and stood there chewing savagely at the butt end of his cigar.
"Rum bloke," commented the pilot to himself, though aloud he offered no comment, being a man whose business it was to keep on good terms with everybody. So he dropped his newspapers to one of the mates, and applied himself to the details of the pilotage.
Still, the pilot was right in saying that England was ringing with the news of Kettle's feat. The passengers of the Cunarder, with nothing much else to interest them, had come home thrilled and ringing with it. A smart New Yorker had got a "scoop" by slipping ashore at Queenstown and cabling a lavish account to the American Press Association, so that the first news reached London from the States. Followed Reuter's man and the Liverpool reporters on Prince's landing-stage, who came to glean copy as in the ordinary course of events, and they being spurred on by wires from London for full details, got down all the facts available, and imagined others. Parliament was not sitting, and there had been no newspaper sensation for a week, and, as a natural consequence, the papers came out next morning with accounts of the rescue varying from two columns to a page in length.
It is one of the most wonderful attributes of the modern Press that it can, at any time between midnight and publishing hours, collate and elaborate the biography of a man who hitherto has been entirely obscure, and considering the speed of the work, and the difficulties which hedge it in, these lightning life sketches are often surprisingly full of accuracies. But let the frillings in this case be fact or fiction, there was no doubt that Kettle and his crew had saved a shipload of panic-stricken foreign emigrants, and (to help point the moral) within the year, in an almost similar case, another shipload had been drowned through that same blind, helpless, hopeless panic. The pride of race bubbled through the British Daily Press in prosaic long primer and double-leaded bourgeois. There was no saying aloud, "We rejoice that an Englishman has done this thing, after having it proved to us that it was above the foreigner's strength." The newspaper man does not rhapsodize. But the sentiment was there all the same, and it was that which actuated the sudden wave of enthusiasm which thrilled the country.