I do not say that I assumed my new duties without misgivings at the future, or that I wholly justified myselftomyself in regard to my killing the mate; but I won the skipper's approval at once; and, as Fred got the whiskey out of him, slept well in my watch below, seeing neither monsters northings.
For a few days, Fred was more of a third mate than a first, as the skipper stood watch with him, until, under his tutelage, Fred had mastered the merchant-ship rig. Then he proved competent, and the men, respecting his position, if not him, gave him no trouble.
He and I agreed very well. I was more amused than irritated at his quarter-deck airs; and a quiet hint from the skipper that I study up on navigation, with the loan of an "Epitome," a nautical almanac, and an old log book, gave promise that our positions might some time be reversed. And, so adjusted, we sailed out into the broad Atlantic.
So far I have said nothing of the weather. As a fact, it blew a gale from the west or northwest continually from the first day out until we hit the Gulf Stream, by which time, though fair, the wind forced us to heave the ship to—that is, to bring her up on the starboard tack under short sail. We performed the maneuver successfully, and the darkness had come when the gear was coiled up, and the watch sent below. The ship took it easily, plunging up and down in the same hole, and taking very little water on board. But the change from the long, swinging heave and roll of a ship running free, to the short, jerky lifts and dives of a ship hove to, was too sudden for the steward in the cabin. I had the deck, and from my position in the weather alley could hear the crashing of dishes sent to the floor, and the scraping and bumping of cabin furniture. Also, I heard a scream, and wondered if Fred had the jumps again; but before I could even speculate on the matter, the after companion opened, and the steward appeared, his face twisting in excitement. He was German, and he stammered; and, while wondering what he had on his mind, as he endeavored to speak, I noticed a cloud of smoke floating away to leeward from one of the lee cabin windows. I sprang aft to the steward, and he found voice.
"Fire!" he said explosively. "Der lamp f-f-fell der t-t-t-table off."
"Call all hands forward there," I sang out. "Bring the deck pump aft, and bear a hand." Then I tumbled down into the smoke-filled after cabin, followed by the steward.
"In der s-s-s-storeroom," he stammered.
"Where's the captain?" I asked, as I groped my way through the smoke.
"Der c-c-cappen is fall down by der storeroom," he answered.
A stifled scream came out of the smoke, and a slim figure in a dressing gown staggered into view, falling helplessly into my arms. It was a girl, and by the dim light from the swinging lamp above, I saw that she was young, pale, and sweet of face.
"In God's name, what's this?" I said. "Here, steward, take her on deck; then come back, and get something warm to cover her."
He took the fainting girl from me, and went up the companion. Then I sought my way through the choking fumes to the door leading into the forward cabin, off which was the steward's storeroom. Taking a good breath of the best air available—near the floor—I plunged through and stumbled over a prostrate body.
Grabbing it by the collar and stooping low, in case I had to take a new breath, I dragged it swiftly back through the door and up to the companion, where the air was somewhat sweeter. I recognized the captain, and as men were overhead on the poop, waiting for orders, I had them haul him up, and lead the deck hose into the forward companion. Then, to get there the more quickly, and thinking of Fred, possibly suffocating in his room, I took another blind dash into the forward cabin, and found sweeter air, also more light. And there was Fred, who had opened the forward door for air, coolly playing the stream from a fire extinguisher into the blazing storeroom.
"Never mind your hose," he said. "I'll have it out in a jiffy."
But the men were already crowding into the cabin with the hose; and, directing me to go on deck and watch the ship, he ordered the men to drag out on deck all half-consumed articles, as fast as they could handle them. Angry and jealous that this young prig should have proved himself the man of the hour, I obeyed him, and found the skipper and the young lady aft near the wheel, both conscious, but weak. I reported that the fire was out, thanks to the first mate and a fire extinguisher.
"Yes, it was in his room, ready for such an emergency," said the captain. "Josie, this is the second mate, Mr. Winters; my niece, Mr. Winters. She has been very seasick, so far, and has not shown herself. Do you know, Mr. Winters, I have hopes of our first officer. He is young, but efficient."
"Of course he is, sir," I answered hypocritically. "His education is a valuable asset."
"Oh, but it was not his education, in this case. Why, he went down in that stifling smoke, and rescued this little girl, just as she was fainting away; then he went on into the forward cabin, and hauled me out to safety. I honor that young man."
"Yes," said the girl. "I saw him, just as my senses were leaving me. He seemed a demigod, so big, and broad-shouldered, and fearless. I knew I was safe at that moment."
Before I could speak, Fred appeared, and I backed away. I knew that the matter was too trifling of itself to make a point of—to assert that I was the heroic individual that went down into the smoke; yet, when I looked on and listened, while that apology for a seaman responded politely to their thanks for saving their lives, I escaped the scene. I went forward of the house, where I soon met the steward.
"Look here, you animated frankfurter," I said, as I collared him. "Did you tell the skipper that the mate went down the after companion, and pulled him out?"
"Sure," he answered earnestly. "You're a mate, ain'dt it?"
"Get out," I rejoined, pushing him from me. "If it wasn't for the shame of it, I'd hit you. The 'mate' aboard ship is the first mate, always—not the second, or the third."
"But I will tell him, all right, sir," he said.
"Don't trouble yourself," I responded angrily. "Let the matter drop. The mate put the fire out, and that's all that's important."
So the matter dropped. It was my watch below from eight to twelve that night, and I slept well, in spite of my anger and chagrin. It was my watch on deck from twelve to four, and I stood it in the tranquil poise of mind that usually comes to men after a sleep. I forgave the poor, vain weakling, knowing that I was the stronger. But in my watch below, from four to half-past seven in the morning, I fought monsters and fled from the horriblething, and awoke weak, shaken, and nerveless. I had never tasted whiskey in my life, but in my half-conscious condition there seemed to be the thought that I had tasted it—a thought which merged into the mental query as to whether it would not be better to stupefy myself, like drunkards, rather than endure such torture when asleep and helpless. Then came full awakening, and a return to my normal self.
As second mates eat at the second table, I went on deck and relieved Fred. He seemed anxious to avoid direct conversation with me, and after giving me the course and the happenings of the watch, hurried below. When he came up, at eight bells, he was more friendly.
"Stunning fine girl," he said. "Just able to make a pretense at breakfast, but she thinks I'm all right."
I mentally consigned him to the lower regions, and went to my breakfast; but there was no sign of the young lady.
The wind died away that morning, and I made sail. For the first time since sailing, the ship wore royals and skysails, sliding along with a quartering breeze over a sea that was just a little too heavy for seasick folk. Yet, about eleven, the girl came up, escorted by the skipper. And as I looked at the pale, pure, clean-cut little face and big, luminous eyes, I lost what philosophy my last nightmare had left me. I knew that from that moment this girl was to be everything to me. And I cursed the mock hero who had stolen my vantage. She went down soon, and the wind seemed to blow colder.
At seven bells, the sun being in sight, Fred was roused, to take meridian observations; and, as he stood in a patch of sunlight, I noticed that he wabbled unsteadily, and that his eyes were sunken and glassy. But I thought nothing of this until eight bells, when the skipper informed me that, on overhauling the burned-out storeroom, he had found a small keg of whiskey missing. As the men had assisted in putting out the fire, he thought it advisable to have an overhaul of the two forecastles, as whiskey in bulk was an unwise stimulant for sailors at sea. So, while he and Fred were at dinner, I searched the crew's quarters, but found nothing. In fact, remembering those glassy eyes, I did not expect to. I so reported to the skipper, and when I had finished my dinner I made a quick, unofficial, yet thorough, inspection of Fred's room, and found nothing there. But I made no report of this. He had hidden it.
From this on, Fred's condition was apparent to anyone who cared to observe. I so cared, but do not think that the skipper did. He talked with him, counseled him, and tutored him, glad, evidently, to be in a position to aid so promising a young man.
Fred received it all with sodden gravity, too drunk to question, yet sober enough to listen. I would have taken him in hand, bullied and coerced him into giving up that store of whiskey, had I not been maddened by jealousy and the sight of the girl's eyes, never resting upon me, but following Fred about the deck, with the adoring gaze of devotee. He was an exceptionally handsome youngster; and, to her, I suppose, was a demigod, who had heroically saved her life, while I was a person to be tolerated because necessary.
"Well," I said, between my teeth, "let him work out his own salvation—or damnation."
He worked out the latter. In the lower berth in my room, just across the passage from Fred's, was a living, wheezing, half-alive dead man—the disabled second mate, whose place I was filling. At first, he had glared unspeakable hatred at me, but as I had responded with a few kindly acts born of pity, this look left his eyes, and gave way to inquiry and interest. He could not speak, and could barely breathe, but about this time seemed anxious to say something to me. Every day he tried, and at last, somewhat distressed at his painful efforts, I advised him to wait until he could talk, and not bother me like this. So he stopped his efforts, and, as I had not thought to give him paper and pencil, his message was deferred until too late. But in every watch below I saw thething.
We soon picked up the trade wind, and under the influence of mild blue skies, racing white clouds, and warm weather, the young niece of the captain recovered her health and spirits. There was color in her cheeks and light in her eyes that bespoke a happy disposition; but she seldom noticed me—in fact, she spoke to the man at the wheel much oftener, and I could only grit my teeth, keep my clothing as neat as possible, and study navigation in my watch below.
As I progressed, I was surprised to find how easy it was, and soon I felt competent, if need arose, to take chronometer sights, lay out a traverse, and keep the log.
As for Fred, he steadily grew worse. Not even the influence of that beautiful little girl could keep him from tapping his secret store; and soon his condition became such as to attract the skipper's attention.
Fred tumbled down the poop stairs one dog-watch, when all hands were on deck, and in going forward to execute some task, zigzagged back and forth.
"Mr. Winters," said the captain to me, "is that young man drunk?"
"I don't know, sir," I answered, resolved not to have a hand in his undoing.
"My whiskey never was found. Do you think that he has secreted it?"
"Oh, uncle!" said the girl, who had listened. "What are you thinking of? He is a perfect gentleman; he could not be a drunkard."
The captain still looked at me, waiting for my answer. I was half resolved to give it truthfully, when a commotion forward forestalled it. "Git aft where ye b'long, you drunken son of a boardin' master," shouted an Irishman of the crew, "an' sind the second mate, if you want things done shipshape."
He had Fred by the collar, and was marching him ahead at the end of his extended arm. With a final shove, and a kick, he sent Fred from him, and went forward.
Fred fell in a heap; then arose, and, with a solemn scowl on his face, climbed the steps, and joined us at the wheel. The girl looked at him wonderingly, the skipper disdainfully. Fred's eyes were bleary, and his walk unsteady; he had assisted his progress aft by leaning on the rail.
"Go down to your room, sir," said the captain sternly, "and remain there. You are drunk. Get yourself out of sight of my crew."
"Yeth, thir," lisped Fred, stumbling forward along the alley to the steps, down which he floundered.
"I will stand his watch, Mr. Winters," said the captain to me. "Go below, if you like, Josie; go down, and forget your interest in that young wretch. I am disappointed in him, and am through with him."
When I saw the look on the girl's face, I was glad that I had not denounced him. I have seen that look in the face of a mother at the coffin of her child.
I went to my room, and saw through Fred's open door that he had climbed into his berth, and was already asleep. I still had an hour of my watch below, and to steady my mind got out the "Epitome" and a pad of paper, to figure out a few problems in navigation. And now my sick roommate made a sound; his speech was returning, though it was not yet articulate. Yet he made me understand by his grimaces and gestures that he wanted the pad of paper. I understood at last, and gave him both pad and pencil. He wrote, and I read, as follows:
"On the night of the fire he filled the empty fire extinguisher with whiskey from a keg, and has tippled ever since."
"On the night of the fire he filled the empty fire extinguisher with whiskey from a keg, and has tippled ever since."
I nodded my understanding of his message; and, going over to Fred's room, lifted the fire extinguisher off its hook, and shook it. It was empty. I hung it up, and went back.
"He's used it up," I said, to the dumb brute, who, caught foul in a wrestling trick beyond his comprehension, hated his enemy more than I did. He smiled and closed his eyes. He felt, no doubt, that his revenge was nearly due.
I had the deck during the first watch that night, and heard no sounds from below. No doubt, Fred slept soundly. At midnight, I called the skipper, and went down. Fred was quiet, and my roommate asleep, so I turned in, hoping for a few hours of sleep. But it was denied me. I wakened in an hour, frenzied with fear of thethingthat was pursuing me, and as consciousness came to me I heard Fred's mutterings. Then I saw him, through the opened doors, rise from his berth, and approach the empty fire extinguisher. He lifted the empty flask, put the tube to his lips, then hung it up, and crept into his berth. His mutterings became words, his words oaths and maledictions, which soon took on the nature of screams and shrieks. I turned out, and examined him. He was sitting up, waving his hands toward the fire extinguisher, hanging on its hook near the door.
"What ails you?" I demanded. "What do you see now?"
"Oh, Jim, Jim!" he gasped. "Drive it away! See it! There on the bed!"
I grasped an imaginary dragon at his feet, and flung it out.
"There, it's gone," I said soothingly. "All right, now?"
His answer was a scream.
"But that—that—that!" he choked. "That thing without legs, or eyes, or mouth. There—there! See it! Take it away!" He was looking at the fire extinguisher.
It was a cylindrical tube about two feet long and six inches in diameter. I looked at it, and suddenly there came to my mind the physical resemblance to the weird and uncannythingthat had tormented me in my dreams. Not knowing that I was right, yet obeying a sympathetic impulse, born of my own dream terrors, I took the innocent cylinder off its hook, and said: "I will throw it overboard, and drown it. It will never come back."
Then I went on deck, and tossed it over. It must have filled before long through its rubber tube, and gone to the bottom. Going back, with a faint hope that I had solved Fred's problem and my own, I found him a raving maniac, screaming and shouting for whiskey.
By this time, the skipper and his niece were aroused, and they appeared in the passage between the rooms. Ignoring them for the moment, I endeavored to soothe the demented creature in his berth. To no avail. Springing out, with twitching features and convulsive movements of arms and legs, he upbraided me for throwing overboard the whiskey. I told him that it was all gone, and that I had simply thrown away thething. He would not accept. Shrieking his maledictions upon me, he bounded through the door, reached the deck, and led us in pursuit up the poop steps to the alley. Along this he raced, gained the taffrail, and before the surprised man at the wheel could make a move to stop him, he had sprung overboard.
We backed the mainyards, lowered a boat, and searched for two hours before giving him up. He had gone to find the demon that had cursed him—the cylindrical thing of two-feet-and-six-inch dimensions.
I am an old man now, old and content in the love and companionship of a sweet-faced little woman, who, thanks to the testimony of the German steward, came to me before the end of the passage.
Since the death of Fred, I have never dreamed of monsters and cylindricalthings. But in later years I have studied deeply of psychology and the occult. And these problems remain unsolved. Did I, who dreamed of monsters before Fred was born, obsess him and drive him to the drink that killed him?
Or did Fred, after he had begun drinking, obsess me with the dream vision of thething, which found physical manifestation in an innocent fire extinguisher in which he kept the whiskey?
The new boy sat, quiet, shy, and abashed, in the seat given him that morning by the principal. His seat mate was a stranger to him, and, being well up in front, right under the desk of the principal, there had been no communication between them. During the morning recess he had made no friends, standing close against the fence that divided the boys from the girls, timidly watching the rough games of the others; and at noon he had run to the new home to which his parents had taken him, with boyish disapproval of the school and the pupils. But now, at three o'clock of this Friday afternoon, he was compelled to change his opinion. The weekly exercises had begun, and, as his last school held no such entertainment, he was intensely interested.
A girl of sixteen played a very pretty march on the piano, and moderate applause was permitted. A boy delivered "Bingen on the Rhine," and received no applause whatever; but the next boy won a little compulsory approval, led by the principal, for declaiming the Declaration of Independence. Then followed more recitation, music, and essay reading, lukewarmly received; but when the principal rose and said, "And last, we shall have a song by Zenie Malcolm," a suppressed commotion went through the school, and each boy sat straighter.
The new boy started, and an unknown thrill surged from heart to brain. He seemed to know that name, but could not recall where he had heard it. The girl called to sing approached from the rear of the school, and he was too well versed in school-room etiquette to turn and look; but when she came into view, crossing the space between the front desks and the low stage, he rose half out of his seat, his eyes wide open, and the delicious thrill of recognition again tingling through him. He had known her; but where, and when? He could not remember, and sat down under the principal's disapproving frown, staring hard at the girl at the piano.
She was about his age—eleven—a rather pretty child, with dark blue eyes, and a wealth of golden hair, confined only by a ribbon, and hanging loosely down her back. And she sang, in a sweet, trembling voice, a lullaby the music of which the boy seemed to know—that is, he anticipated the coming notes of the tune before they left her lips—but he could not recall where or when he had heard it. She went to her seat at the end of it, applauded by the whole school, and unaware of the silent worship of the new boy. All his life he had imagined the angels as having hair of this hue; but he had never seen it on a human being. Dark blue eyes he was familiar with; his mother had them—and the angels, too.
That night he hummed the tune to his mother; but she had never heard it, and with motherly intuition advised him not to think of girls at his age, and to attend to his studies. The boy racked his brains for a few days, trying to remember where he had seen this girl and heard this song, then gave it up. Later, with a larger acquaintance among the pupils, he learned that her parents had moved from a neighboring town only a month prior to his advent in the school. Coincidence was a large word to him at his age, and meant nothing; so he remembered his emotions at first seeing her.
But the strenuous life of a healthy schoolboy is such as to preclude investigation of mental phenomena. He made friends and joined the games of the others. From being shy and embarrassed, he grew to be confident and plucky. He had his fights and won his victories; but never at a time when his small goddess could witness—she was always somewhere else, and other girls applauded his prowess. But she must have learned from these other girls; nothing else could explain the shy little smile she gave him as he came into school one day, both eyes blackened and his coat torn almost in half. She had never even looked him in the eyes before, and he went forward at the stern call of the principal with a glorified joy in his soul that carried him triumphantly through the pain of his punishment.
With his enterprise in playground friction came an enterprise in study. He easily distanced the rest, winning prizes and standing near the head in all classes. With his advancement came a change of seat, and he found himself near her; in a position where, by a slight turning of his head, he could catch a glimpse of the pure, clean-cut little face in its gold-hued framing. But she never returned these glances. He never dared hope that she would; so he never tried to make her acquaintance.
After school he would follow her, at a distance of half a block, until she entered her gateway, and then return to the boys. She lived in a large, well appointed house among others equally well appointed, and, satisfied that her parents were very wealthy, he gave her the additional prestige that riches always carry in the minds of children. He worshiped her more while actually seeking her less. Yet he could not bear too long an absence from her vicinity. He would play truant occasionally, with other boys; but invariably he would be dragged by a longing and a hunger to be near her that was irresistible; and against the derision of his fellows—which he would silence when he met them again—he would shamefacedly sneak into school, bear his punishment for being tardy, and cheerfully make up his studies, satisfied with the one glimpse he could get as he passed her on the way to his seat.
There came a severe winter and an epidemic of sickness among the children of the town; but this school escaped except for these two. She was first to succumb, and for two weeks her place was vacant—two weeks of utter wretchedness and misery for the boy, during which he could not study, nor recite, nor even remember on call the lessons he had learned. He could feel and suffer to the utmost; but, unformed, untrained, unschooled in tact, diplomacy, or any of the amenities of adult life, he could not even arouse himself to ask of her, or to take his mother into his confidence and obtain the relief of knowing the worst. It was not that his emotions took the form of anxiety so much as they crystallized into a sense of loss—a sense of something taken from him, that he could neither find nor name. One morning he saw her in her seat, pale and wan and thin, and the sense of loss left him. He was content now that she was near him, and fretted no more, even suppressing a curiosity as to the nature of her sickness.
Then came his turn; two weeks in bed, fevered and delirious at times, thinking of her in lucid moments, talking of her to a puzzled mother when the delirium gripped him, and surviving at last through careful nursing, to return to his seat in school as pale and thin as was the girl. One glance he took, and his content came back. She paid him no attention, not even joining the others in the friendly looks of welcome he received, and he took up his studies at the foot of all the classes—with his divinity just above him.
"It is rather funny," commented one class teacher, with a smile, "that the two best scholars are at the foot. Johnny Bridge went behind when Zenie Malcolm was sick, and Zenie Malcolm went behind when Johnny Bridge was sick. You two must study and catch up."
He felt a curious elation, but did not look at her; so he did not notice that her cheeks were flaming red.
And now there came to him a real, or at least a tangible, sense of loss. A small sister, his pet, whose dolls he had mended and whose tears he had dried, fell heir to the sickness that he had survived, and he followed her little body to the grave. His grief was normal, untortured by boyish remorse, and lasted long enough to serve as buffer to a deeper grief that followed. The mother who had nursed him so lovingly followed the sister. He shed no tears now, only his strained look of dumb and helpless pain indicated that he suffered. He could not analyze his emotions—could not think, much less question the decree of Fate that had robbed him of something he was accustomed to, something he needed. But, as he took his seat at school on the day following the funeral, he found an immediate cessation of pain that he ascribed to her silent sympathy. He knew she sympathized—he had seen her at the crowded doorway of the house when they were taking his mother out—and the cheer and the charm of his daily proximity to her soon wore out the grief, and in another year he was again a lively boy, light-hearted, studious, and combative, following his divinity home each day, and still worshiping at a distance.
But the Fates had not yet presented the whole of his problem. She was not in her seat one morning, and he spent a futile day, wondering and longing, then went near her house after school hours. A boy passed, and said:
"Zenie Malcolm's dead. Come on up to the ball ground!"
He did not go. The sky had grown suddenly darker, and the summer air was cold. He walked nearer her home than he had ever gone before, and there on the doorknob was a black and white drapery, such as they had hung out for his sister.
"Dead!" he said to himself, and repeated the word again and again; but he could not understand. He wandered the streets alone, trying to realize, to accept; but he could not adjust himself to this. Why should she be dead? He knew his mother was dead, and his sister; but this could not be! His consciousness refused it. His mental horizon was close to him, and crowded. This thing could not find entrance.
He did not go home to supper—only when bodily fatigue overcame him did he creep into the house and up to his bed. He went to sleep easily, with the word "dead" on his lips, but the realization hammering vainly at his brain. In the morning, still unawake from the shock, he ate what breakfast he could force down his throat, and went to school. Her place was still vacant, and at recess he left the playground, going near to her home again. The crepe was still on the door, and he walked the streets as before, muttering, "Dead, dead!" He was absent from the midday meal; but arrived before supper time, still in a daze. An angry stepfather read him a note from the principal, reporting the truancy, and took him out to the woodshed.
"I've had enough of this!" said the man, as he doubled a clothes line. "You were not home to supper last night; but I said nothing at breakfast, because I wanted to think it out. I'm going to give you what you need. Your mother spoiled you, and I always knew it."
He struck the impassive boy round the legs. Partly from this, partly from the mention of his mother, the tears welled into his eyes, and, the barriers removed, the uprush overwhelmed him. Down on his face in the ash heap he fell, sobbing convulsively, while the unrestrained tears streamed through his fingers.
"Dead!" he said in a choked voice. "Dead, dead! Oh, father, she's dead! She's dead!"
The abashed stepfather stayed his hand. "I can't very well whip you, boy, if you feel like this," he said kindly. "I never thought you cared for your mother. You didn't take on like this when she died, nor for your sister. Come into the house when you're through crying. I don't like to hear you." The man went in, troubled in mind at having misjudged the boy.
The boy sobbed his aching heart dry on the ashes, then lifted his face, drawn, tear stained, and old—very old, for a boy. "Zenie!" he called softly. "Zenie, Zenie!" The voice rose to a wail. "Come back! Zenie, come back! Come back! Oh, God, send her back! Please send her back! Zenie, come back!" It ended in a cry of utter despair.
Then, close beside him, so close that it seemed almost within his ear, he heard a voice, clear and distinct, yet without sound or volume, say, "Yes, I will come."
He stood up and looked around. No one was there. He went out of the shed; but the back yard was empty. He went back to the ash heap, marveling to the extent that his benumbed faculties would permit; and as he sat there, a peace, a tranquillity, and a content that he had known only in her presence, came to him, and the dragging pain at his heart passed away.
Peace, tranquillity, and content are poor attributes with which to fight the battle of life. Being a boy, he soon worked clear of the shadow of death; but, without the helpful influences of his life he relapsed into the old shyness and indifference. Deprived of all that he had loved, he found nothing new to love; and, thus unreceptive, he ceased to respond to it when given and became unlovable. He lost ground in study, became sullen, suspicious, and at last incorrigible. When he had worn out his teachers' and his stepfather's patience, he left school ungraduated, with a scant knowledge of the lower studies to his credit. He went to work at driving a delivery wagon, and failed. Again and again he obtained work of this character, but could not hold his place.
Then his stepfather, after repeated advice and punishments, gave him up, furnished him with a suit of clothes and a sum of money, and turned him out. He sold papers for a time; but lost his money in this venture. He blacked boots at the few hotels of the small town, until this too proved a failure. He went off with a circus, and learned of real hardship and ill treatment; which embittered him the more. He drifted to New York, a newly fledged hobo, found the Bowery and its adjuncts, and, seventeen now, and grown nearly to full stature, he was in due time shanghaied aboard an outbound deep-water ship. At the end of the voyage he had learned to steer, to loose and furl a royal, and to get out of the way, which is all that is required of an ordinary seaman, and thus equipped the crimps saw to it that he signed again. Lacking in ambition and initiative, he remained at sea, and, compelled to learn, went through the grades of ordinary and able seaman, becoming in five years a competent boatswain of square-rigged ships.
Physically he developed into a man of iron, tall, straight, and symmetrical, brown as a Moor, and with his sullen stare changed to a meaningless frown. Mentally, except for the growth of a splendid professional courage, he remained at a standstill. He did not go backward. He read an occasional book, and the correctness of diction he had acquired at school remained with him, unspoiled by the associations of the forecastle. But he was a drifter, an ethical bankrupt, signing in ships picked by the boarding masters, robbed by them of his money, lending it when asked, or spending it with hopeless indifference, as resigned to the life he lived as any fatalist, and unable to realize that there might be a better within his reach; until, starved into a mental activity by a long passage on short rations, he moved himself sufficiently to secure a berth in one of the Atlantic liners, where good food was plentiful. Here his acquirements were of little use to him—he scrubbed paint by day and decks by night. But he came in contact with passengers.
Engaged with bucket and swab on a section of the after saloon one day, in the dull, apathetic frame of mind that was now natural with him, he noticed the approach of two passengers, a bewhiskered, peppery looking man of middle age, and an elderly woman with an unusually kind and sympathetic face.
"Look there!" said the man, in tones that Bridge could hear. "See what seamanship amounts to in these floating blast furnaces! That fellow's a sailor, if I know one, from his head to his heels. But they've made him a scrubwoman."
"I should think he would try to do better," answered the old lady, after a searching look at Bridge's expressionless face. "Notice his bearing. He is Othello, off the stage. There are unlimited possibilities in such a nature."
They halted near the rail for a further inspection of him. Bridge, swabbing industriously, pretended not to hear. He had not attracted so much attention for years.
"See the slumbering fire in those dark eyes," went on the innocent old lady—"the reserve power, the strength to do, and dare, and die—the tremendous will of a strong man, who lets nothing baffle him when aroused. That man has not been aroused. See his hair—"
"Nonsense! A stiff drink'll arouse him."
"There you are again, skeptic," laughed the old lady. "But, I tell you, eyes and hair indicate character! His hair is the very opposite of Zaza's, but equally rare and matchless in hue. Each indicates temperament."
They went on, and Bridge dropped his swab and watched them till they were out of sight. He had never seen them, to his knowledge, and their comment on himself and his work had not greatly disturbed him. But the name Zaza, the name of someone they knew, had seemed familiar. It had brought the same thrill of recognition that he had experienced years before at school, when the little girl was called up to sing—the little girl that died, and whom he had almost forgotten.
"Zaza, Zaza," he repeated to himself. It was a strange name. Where had he heard it?
It was his lookout at the bow that night from eight to ten, and he took his place clad in sou'wester and oilskins; for a fog thick as darkness had settled down on the ship. He could see the stem in front of him, but little farther in the smudge. Aft was the dim outline of the windlass, and beyond the dimmer outline of the V-shaped breakwater. To starboard and port were the two mighty anchors, magnified by the fog. Eyes were of little use on such a night; but he dutifully kept his ears open for sound of foghorn or steam whistle, and paced up and down, thinking of matters unthought of for years—his old home and school days, his mother and sister, and little golden-haired Zenie who had died. Step by step he reviewed his life of failure and incompetence. Voyage after voyage, event after event, men and influences—all came under the criticism of his aroused faculties, until they ended with the comment of the old lady on the after deck. "That man has not been aroused," she had said. Where was the reserve power, the strength, the will to do, that she had seen in him?
The review went backward, man after man, happening after happening, to the meeting with his stepfather at the ash pile, and back of this to the boy in the street, who had told him a casual piece of news and asked him to the ball ground. Here was where it went out of him—the courage to do, and strive, and work, and win. He now realized that it was not the passing away of his mother and his sweet little sister, nor the mis-judgment of his stepfather and the ill treatment of men, that had unnerved him; it was the losing of Zenie, who had never looked at him but once, but whose presence on earth had made him a strong, victorious boy and a good scholar. And the heart hunger and pain that had left him at the ash pile came to him again.
"Zenie!" he called almost inaudibly into the fog. "Zenie, come back! Come back to me!"
A patter of footsteps on the wet deck aroused him, and he looked around. A small cloaked figure had just clambered over the breakwater, and it ran up to him, peering into his face with wide-open, wondering eyes. And they were the eyes of Zenie, set in the same clean-cut little face fringed with the same golden-hued tresses.
"Did you call me, sir?" she asked. "Oh, I beg pardon. I thought I knew you, and that you called me. I don't know—" she stepped back. "My name is Zaza Munson."
"Zaza!" called an anxious voice from the breakwater, and she left him.
The bewhiskered man showed faintly through the fog. "Come along, kid, and go to bed. You mustn't bother the man on lookout. 'Tisn't shipshape."
"Papa," said the child as he lifted her over the barrier, "was my name ever Zenie? Did you call me Zenie when I was little?"
And Bridge, with his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth, and somewhat unsteady on his feet, could just hear the receding voice of the man as he answered:
"No, kid; but your aunt's name was Zenie. She died the day before you were born. You're the dead image of her."
Bridge did not see the child again. He thought of her, of course, marveling at the resemblance and relationship, which he ascribed to coincidence—that now had a meaning to him—but marveling the more at his change of heart, which he ascribed to the kindly thought and comment of the old lady. It began as a furious disgust at his waste of time and energy, but became a serious, practical ambition.
He finished the voyage, and for the first time since going to sea chose his boarding house—the Sailors' Home—and here he talked with second mates and a better class of seamen. He borrowed an Epitome of Navigation, looked it over, and bought one in a second-hand shop, with other books that appealed to him. He stopped drinking, and, with money in his pocket, was able to choose his next ship, an English deep-water craft, whose rules were such as to give him his afternoon watch below and time for study. He furbished up his unused knowledge of arithmetic, and in this ship found a kindly disposed first mate, who lent him an old sextant to puzzle over and become familiar with. He reached for the theory of seamanship as distinct from navigation, and, procuring such textbooks as he could find in foreign ports, mastered the reasons of the various evolutions which so far he had helped perform under orders. When able to, he applied for and passed a second mate's examination, and won a Board of Trade certificate. Then he bought himself a sextant.
He made two voyages in this ship, when a sick and dying second mate left a vacancy, and this vacancy was filled by Bridge, who had attracted the captain's attention by his intelligence and energy. An officer now, his progress was more rapid. He reached farther, laying in for private use magazines and standard works of the world's literature, and gave himself that quiet self-confidence so valuable in conversation, and so difficult for a seaman to acquire. His voice, while losing none of its power to be heard against the wind, became softer and evenly modulated. Few could have told, from his manner and personality that he had not gone through the usual course of an English apprentice, with a capital of good home influences to start with, and a protection from bad as he advanced. No captious shipowner's wife would have said he was not a gentleman.
In seven years from the birth of his ambition, with an English master's certificate and an American ocean license to his credit, he shipped first mate of a large sky-sailyard American ship at New York, and at the orders of the agent who had engaged him took her down to the Horseshoe to await the captain, who was also the owner, he said, and was to join her on the day of sailing. The captain came on the tug that was to tow them to sea, and stepped aboard, brisk, bewhiskered, and peppery, and with him was a young woman who, as Bridge was introduced, he said was his daughter, who would make the voyage with them.
Bridge, after seeing them below, went forward to the windlass, with his brain reeling as it had reeled on the forecastle deck of the liner. The captain was the breezy person who had noticed him scrubbing paint, the daughter the child that had come to him on lookout—whom he still imagined as a child, but now grown to womanhood, and with the same pure, clean-cut face, the same wealth of golden hair, and dark wondering blue eyes—the living, breathing, matured, and perfected image of the little girl that had gone to the angels twenty years ago. He felt, as he supervised the weighing of the anchor, as he had felt when this little girl had come forward to sing to the school, the glorified sense of recognition, and, added to it, the uplift of victory and achievement, the content that comes of long search and the finding of the thing sought. He knew this woman, knew her well, though she had not spoken a word. He knew her now as part of himself, that he had missed, and found. And she was here, in the same ship with him! He would see her daily!
But, as a matter of fact, he saw very little at first. He was a watch officer, who slept part of each day; and a suspicious and peppery father, with an eye out for good looks in an otherwise efficient and valuable first mate, saw to it that she took her meals with him in his own after cabin, and also that she took her daily exercise on deck when Bridge was asleep and the ship in charge of the second mate, an unbeauteous and beauty proof old sea dog. In the exercise of this watchful function of fatherhood, the old man grew more and more peppery in his manner toward Bridge and his crew, and finally took no pains to conceal an actual dislike for the first mate, which no amount of professional care and forethought on his part could offset.
And it was all wasted energy as far as Bridge was concerned, for a more inoffensive and non-progressive lover never loved. Try as he might, he could not bring himself to address her when they occasionally met, unless she spoke to him first. She seemed to carry in her personality an inhibition on his thought, speech, and action that prevented an overture. And this continued until the ship had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed along the fortieth parallel to the vicinity of St. Paul, by which time the father, having worried himself into insomnia, was compelled to relax his vigilance by the physical necessity of sleeping as long as he could, night or day, whenever sleep came to him, and the daughter, intent upon matters far removed from love and lovers, unconsciously placed herself in the way of a better acquaintance with Bridge.
She came on deck alone one night in the first watch, when the ship was tearing along before a quarterly breeze that she could barely carry the kites under, and from the break of the poop watched Bridge on the main deck giving the last orders toward the setting of a main royal staysail; then, as he mounted the poop steps, she accosted him.
"Mr. Bridge," she said, holding up her father's sextant, "will you please point out to me the Magellan Clouds and the Coal Sacks?"
"Why, certainly," said Bridge, all his shyness vanishing. "Come around to the lee quarter, Miss Munson. I've noticed you before with the sextant. Studying navigation?"
"Yes, as I can. Father has tutored me, and I've got as far as meridian observations and chronometer time; but I want to go farther, and father is a bad teacher. He's somewhat cross, and, Mr. Bridge, do you know I think I'm going beyond him!" She smiled a little roguishly.
"That ought to be easy," answered Bridge. "You are young, with a fresh mind. It is hard for men to study."
"But so easy to do other things—to command ships, to fight, to shoot, to ride horses, to swim. I'm a swimmer, though it took me years to learn. I swam a mile once."
"You can beat me," answered Bridge simply. "I cannot swim at all."
"I am ambitious," she said, "to do what men do. My present fad is navigation. I shall never be satisfied until I have an ocean license."
"It is a great force in you, Miss Munson," said Bridge earnestly. "It is rare in women; but men feel it now and then. It gripped me seven years ago, and lifted me from the forecastle to the cabin. Do you remember?"
"What?" she asked.
"The man on lookout in theUmbria, on the night you came forward, when you thought I had called to you? Remember, it was foggy, and your father came after you."
"Was that you?" she asked. "Oh, now I understand. Oh, Mr. Bridge! No, I don't understand. I thought I knew you then, and I have thought since I came aboard that I knew you, that I had met you somewhere; but father—"
"Never mind, Miss Munson. These things are inexplicable. I thought, as the years went on, that it was a certain, curious sort of praise of myself, from an old lady I saw with your father that day, when I was aft scrubbing paintwork."
"My grandmother. She died last year."
"I thought it was her good opinion of me," went on Bridge earnestly; "but now I know it was your visit on the forecastle. Miss Munson, you were then the exact duplicate of a little girl who died at thirteen—a little girl that I worshipped as one of God's angels, and who went to the angels. Her name was Zenie. I have read of reincarnation. I wonder if it is possible that her soul returned—in you."
The girl stiffened and drew back, while her eyes opened in the old wonder of the night on the forecastle. Bridge, looking forward, went on gravely:
"What right have we—poor wretched human souls!—to say that we will do this or that thing, that we will strive and succeed, when there are forces within us past our understanding, that decide the matter for us? I loved that little girl Zenie. She made me a plucky, ambitious boy. She died, and I became a wreck, a tramp, a scrubwoman on a liner. I saw you, and went to work; and here I am—as a sailor a practical success. I once read a poem that I liked. I forget the title and the author; but one verse ran like this: