Out There Lay Adventure, Mystery--More Than Either Dreamed.
Out There Lay Adventure, Mystery--More Than Either Dreamed.
THE LAST OF THEVULCAN
THE LAST OF THEVULCAN
A temporary rudder had been installed on the unwieldy dry dock, and each twenty-four hours Mate Malone detailed seven men to stand watch, which gave the regulation dog watch, although there was no need of it with a double complement of men. Thanks to his bruised ribs, the American had thus far escaped duty at the wheel. About a week after the pilchard incident, he reported ready for this service, when a twist of circumstance rendered it unnecessary.
A long stretch of fair weather had been enjoyed by the dock painters on a steadily dropping barometer. On this particular day a cold puffy wind developed out of the northeast, bringing with it a rack of clouds and spreading a choppy sea below.
From where Madden painted on the corner of the dock, he had a good view of these chasing waves that rose a moment in the gray seascape, nodded a white cap, then dropped back into the waste of water.
"Wonder if a storm would affect this old box much?" he queried of Caradoc.
"Probably have a chance to see," opined Smith, looking out with a speculative eye. "By the by, what's that?"
Caradoc pointed toward theVulcan, which already exhibited the motion of the rollers.
Madden looked. A sailor stood on the tug's round stern waving two flags toward the dock.
The American arose from his work, funneled his hands before his lips and called to the man, but the spitting wind whisked away his words, and the sailor went on with his flag.
Madden regarded it attentively a few moments. "He's wig-wagging—wants to speak to the mate. I'll go for him." He trotted aft.
Leonard found the officer in his cabin and told his mission. The mate arose at once and came out with the lad. "Don't know w'ot 'e wants, do you?" he inquired.
"I only spelled his message till I found he wanted you."
"Huh—understand flag signals, do ye?" grunted Malone, shifting his inflamed eyes to Madden's face.
"Learned it in my engineering course," explained the lad.
The two passed on to the bow, when the sailor on the tug starting waving once more. Mate Malone watched the man until he had finished spelling out the message, then he turned to Leonard and asked:
"Know w'ot 'e said?"
"Parker's sick and they need you," translated the American.
"Good," grinned the mate with more fellowship than he had ever shown before. "Now, lookee here, young chap. They're going to send a cutter for me to come and take Parker's place. You strike me as a decent sort, so I'll leave you in my berth till I get back. You won't have nothin' to do hexcept tell off th' watches an' keep th' boys paintin'. Softer'n your fo'cs'l job, though you won't git no hextra pay—wot about it?"
"That goes with me," agreed Madden readily.
"All right, you signal me about anything you don't understand. Make the men step, lively, same as if you was me."
By this time the tug had slowed down a trifle and a boat put out from her. While it came bobbing over the water, Malone bawled his men together and briefly explained his transfer of authority.
"Be back jest as soon as Parker's all right," he said as he climbed from dock to dancing boat below. "And, by the way, Mr. Madden, you will bunk in my cabin."
That "Mister Madden" from the mate was the great seal of authority. The men looked at him with new eyes.
Somehow, Malone's confidence pleased Madden. That uncouth, bullet-headed officer had not spent his whole life on the high seas, belaboring all classes of men into serviceableness, without being able to judge the genus homo pretty shrewdly.
The navvies accepted the new officer in stolid submission, but Hogan clapped his hands. "Hey, a spache fr-rom th' new boss!" he grinned.
Leonard laughed. "My speech is to get back to work, and I'll do the same," said the boy, returning to his bucket.
This appealed to the cockneys, who gave a dull English cheer, and then everybody settled back to their tasks once more.
"What's the use in your painting, Madden?" asked Caradoc, "You don't have to."
Leonard was amused, "They tell me a chap whose work is no bigger than his contract, never gets a contract for bigger work."
"What's that?" frowned Smith. "That sounds like Yankee smartness to me—seems to make a great deal more sense than it really does."
"Anyway, I don't want to rat on you fellows, just because Malone left me in charge for a day or so."
Caradoc made no answer, but stared after the rowboat which was just rounding into the tug. "If I'd played up to that officer a bit," he smiled dourly, "I could have had the mate's berth, Madden."
The American glanced up. The Englishman's smile recalled the look Leonard had seen under the bracket lamp.
"Well, there's very little in it for anyone, I'm thinking."
"Certainly, certainly," Smith shrugged a broad shoulder and the subject was dismissed.
The blustery weather increased steadily, and by lunch time the wind was blowing half a gale. Regiments of waves marched against the dock and snapped spray high up the red sides. Their constant blows rang through the big iron structure. A feeling of security came to Madden as he saw the gray-green waves break white, and yet not shake the huge barge sufficiently to tip the paint from the men's buckets. Certainly the dock was monstrous.
The sea grew rougher as evening wore on and finally the boy went to the mate's cabin to pick out his men for the night's work. After his own cramped quarters, Malone's room proved delightful. Three glass ports admitted light. A table in the center of the room spread over with a Mercator's projection showed that Malone dutifully pricked theVulcan'scourse on the chart, although it was not required of him. A sextant and quadrant told the American that the stolid Briton worked out his own reckonings. The sight of these things filled the boy with a respect for the uncouth fellow. He understood how doggedly Malone must have labored to acquire mastery over the instruments of navigation. Beyond this there were a number of flaring chromos on the walls, a decanter of wine and glasses in a chest. He found what he was looking for in the desk drawer, a roll of men checked off for watches. The coming night was arranged for, but for morning, the names of Heck Mulcher, Ben Galton and Caradoc Smith stood in order. Madden was just marking these men when there was a tap at the door.
Upon call, Gaskin, the cook, entered, bearing a big tray of dishes, "Yer dinner, sir," he said, very respectfully.
Madden had not anticipated having the mate's meals served to him, and for a moment he came near asking the cook if he had not made a mistake; but the steaming tray and the pleasant odors kept the question unspoken. Only with this diet before him did he realize that he had been fairly starving on the poor ship's rations.
When Gaskin placed the soup on the table, Madden became aware that the dock was rolling rather heavily, for the liquid spilled over the side of the plate, while dishes and tureens went coasting up and down the boards.
"Getting rough outside," remarked the lad to the servant, who was lighting a lamp.
"A bit 'eavier, sir," replied Gaskin self effacingly.
Madden held the soup plate in his hand for steadiness, and sipped the hot, satisfying liquid while the great dock rose and fell. The fact that he was really in command of the vast iron fabric put the American in a serious humor. He ate dinner slowly, listening to the heavy clang of the waves against the iron hull, and to the wind whining and sobbing over the great metal sides.
When he had finished his meal, the youth arose with the intention of going to the sailors' mess house to see about the watches. He had no sooner stuck his head out of the door, however, than a whisk of spray leaped at him out of the darkness and drove him inside. He was preparing to venture out again, when Gaskin opened a locker and brought out an oilskin.
"Hit'll 'elp you keep dry, sir," holding up the garment.
Swathed in its folds, Madden made a new start and walked out on the heaving, shifting pontoon.
Outside a renewed noise smote his ears. The air was full of flying spume that whipped in through the stern of the dock. Malone had planked up this open gateway to a height of thirty feet, which made it forty-two feet above the salt water line, but the spray already leaped this barrier and pelted throughout the dark heavy iron canyon.
The dock was made in three huge sections, in order that it might be self-docking when fouled. Now in the darkness, the groaning of these joints smote the blustering gale in a sort of vast distress. The many iron stanchions for the shoring of vessels began thrumming a devil's tattoo against the high iron walls, like a myriad giant fingers.
In the corners of the bow pontoon, Madden could see the signal lights heaving and dropping with the motion of the vast fabric. Now and then he caught a glimmer of the tug's light, and its erratic motions told how the staunch little vessel fared.
There was a faint radiance around the shut door of the mess hall, and Madden walked toward it rather unsteadily, with the spumy brine dashing into his face.
A signal lantern was attached to one of the shoring stanchions near the mess hall, and as Madden moved into its dull glow, another bundled form entered from the other side. The figure stopped and saluted.
"If you please, sor," he bawled in Madden's ear, "th' nixt watch is sick."
"Sick! The whole watch sick? What do you mean, Mike?"
The Irishman grinned in the dim light, "Yis, sor, they're in their bunks wishin' to die. They've niver been in a blow before. It's say-sick they ar-re."
Both men were holding to the stanchion.
"Seasick!" ejaculated Madden. "How about Heck Mulcher and Ben Galton?" he recalled the names on the list.
"The whole sit of navvies, sor, ar-re down on their backs, not carin' at all, at all, whether we float, sink, swim, or go to Davy Jones' locker."
"Well, Caradoc's next—come with me."
They took hold of each other and went sliding and slipping along the iron deck, now skating down hill, now climbing a sharp tilt, shoulders hunched against the gusty spume, until they reached Smith's little cabin past the mess hall. Here they paused and rapped on the door. As this could not have been heard inside for the wind and the waves and the groaning of the dock, they pushed open the shutter.
Madden no sooner entered than his nostrils caught a pervading odor of alcohol. The Englishman's long figure lounged fully dressed on a bunk; a demijohn was jammed behind his kit bag to keep it from rolling.
"Smith!" called Madden, "I'll have to ask you to stand watch to-night; nearly all the navvies are sick."
Caradoc lifted his head from the bunk and blinked at the two men in the door. "What?" he asked vacantly.
"You're to stand watch to-night," Madden raised his voice.
"Stand watch!" cried the Englishman, sitting up, his face flushing darkly under the bracket lamp. "Youhaveturned master, haven't you—bootlicker ordering me to stand watch!"
"It's your turn on the list!" commanded Madden brusquely, with ill-concealed disgust that Smith should be maudlin just when needed.
"My turn—Bah! I'd have been mate myself if I had toadied and flattered that upstart Malone as you did!" He laughed sarcastically. "Then I could have had decent dinners, been wearing the mate's sou'wester, been—"
"Cut it out!" snapped Madden. "Will you do your duty or not?"
The dock gave a great lurch that flattened both men against the door, juggled Caradoc in his berth and sent kit bag and demijohn sliding toward the visitors.
"Not!" bawled Smith. "I, Caradoc Smith-Wentworth, can't think of going to stand watch for a gang of siz-seasick navvies an' a t-toady American Yankee—Not!" he reiterated and laughed in tipsy irony.
A flush of anger went over Madden. He reached down suddenly and caught up the demijohn.
"You—you bet' not drink th-that, y-you little bossy Yankee; it-it'll m-makeyoud-drunk."
"You sot!" trembled Madden. "Whiskey will not be your excuse next time!" He caught the Irishman's arm, "Come on!" And before Smith realized what had happened, the two men and his liquor were out of the door and gone.
Madden slammed the shutter viciously, and the tilt of a wave helped give it a loud bang. Then he gave the jug a wrathful swing and smashed it against the nearest stanchion.
"Smith'll have some sense when he can't get any more," he shouted in Hogan's ear. Then after a moment, "Is there nobody else to take the watch?"
"There's Dashalong, sir," bellowed Mike, "but he stood last night."
"How about you?" inquired Leonard.
"All roight." The Celt was about to turn for the high bridge at the stern, when Madden stopped him.
"When was your last watch, Mike?"
"This afternoon, sor."
"When did Greer stand watch?"
"He's niver told anywan, sor; I think it must be a saycret."
"Get to your cabin and turn in," directed Madden. "I'll take it myself till midnight, eight bells. Then send Greer."
Hogan saluted in the darkness and turned about for his cabin. Madden began a careful journey aft toward the wheel.
He fought his way to the ladder and climbed up into the night, sometimes clinging like a fly to the underside of the reeling wall, sometimes going up a steep slant. Gusts of spume and foam whipped him all the way up. Once on top of the wall, he clung to the inside rail and began pulling himself carefully around toward the rear bridge. At this height the full force of the wind almost tore him from his reeling anchorage. At last he turned onto the bridge and moved toward the binnacle light.
"You'll find 'er a little 'ard, sir," remarked the steersman as he turned over the wheel to Madden. "Good night, sir."
"Good night," returned the American, and he watched the fellow's form disappear in the darkness.
Madden gripped the spokes of the wheel and fell to watching the signal light in the center of the forward bridge and the stern lantern of the distant tug. These two plunging spots in the black void of night he must keep aligned.
The enormous dock leaped and shivered under his feet. Huge waves roared by, of such vastness that Madden could hear their crests crashing and thundering high above the level of the bridge. These moving mountains shook tons of black water into dim, ghostlike spray, and sent it hissing down into cavernous troughs. The weight of the wind-swept spume flashing out of darkness through the binnacle light almost took the boy off his feet. It pounded his oilskin, stung his face. The enormous iron dock groaned and clanged under the mad bastinado. The long arms of the shoring stanchions smote the walls in a kind of terrific anvil chorus to the blaring orchestra of the tempest. The joints of the three huge pontoons sounded as if they were being rent asunder every moment. One minute the great structure would rise dizzily, high into the black blast, a skyscraper flung up on a mountain Madden could look far below on the lights of the strugglingVulcan. Up there the storm yelled and screamed at every corner and brace of the weltering dock, and wrenched at the midget helmsman. Then came the sickening drop, down, down, down, into the profound, and theVulcanwould swing far above her towering consort. For the instant the storm would be blanketed by the prodigious waves. Wild, formless ghosts of foam would stretch wide arms about the falling dock as if they were clasping it into the lowest crypts of the dead, and the night would be filled with a vast and dreadful whispering.
For hours it seemed that every ascent, every descent, must mark the end. But the storm was so terrific, Madden's sense of personal fear was blotted out in the tremendous conflict about him. Indeed, there was something deeply moving, almost gratifying in this elemental rage. Then he discovered that he was taking a part in it. Mechanically he had been straining and pulling at the wheel to hold those signal lights in line. Now he realized that his tiny human force formed a third contender in this vast battle. As he eased the great dock down the rushing sheer of a wave so the shock would not break the straining cable, he had won a point over two violent antagonists. His puny arm, that could raise perhaps two hundred pounds, was lifted against enemies that could fling about billions of tons. Without his force, tug and dock would part company instantly. Each watery mountain that he climbed, each gulf that he fathomed, was a victory over infinite odds.
However, if the man worked with subtlety, the sea likewise worked with subtlety. As the long hours of Madden's watch roared by, one thing was borne in on the youth: the rudder gradually was becoming harder to manage. Madden thought this was caused by the rising storm and strained more rigidly against the wheel.
Then, in the latter part of his vigil, an odd thing happened. A blast of spray struck Madden with some slimy thing that whipped about his neck and chest and almost tore him from the wheel. With convulsive repugnance, he jerked it loose and held the clammy stuff toward the binnacle light. He saw it was seaweed. Presently more strands came beating down on the spume to sting him.
The youth was crouching in his oilskins for protection, when he was surprised by a hand laid on his arm. He looked around and saw it was Deschaillon and the silent Farnol Greer.
"Eet makes bad weather," remarked the Frenchman, peering at the dark rolling Alps about the dock.
"Good thing both of you came," shouted Madden, turning the tiller over to the men. "It's as stiff as cold molasses—how are the sick ones?"
The boy saw Deschaillon grin and twirl his pointed mustache in the faint illumination. "Zay are very numerous," he laughed. But the Gaul had no sooner swung his weight against the wheel than his grimace vanished.
"Parbleu! Here, Greer, pull zis wheel with me!"
The two men caught the spokes and set their weight to it. Greer remained silent.
"Zis ees bad!" exclaimed Deschaillon. "Zis wheel will not go around!"
"What's the matter, do you think?" cried Leonard.
"Zee gear ees clogged, I think me."
"Go get a lantern and some men, Hogan—anybody who isn't lifeless. We've got to do something!"
The Frenchman obeyed, hurrying off into the darkness. Leonard resumed his place at the wheel with Greer to aid him. But both men could not swing the big dock around. The tiller was growing utterly unmanageable. Nearly every dash of foam brought with it biting bits of seaweed now. The silent Greer endured the whipping without wincing or speaking. Even in the midst of their work, Leonard found time to wonder why this fellow had stolen his medicine chest.
Presently the two helmsmen could barely turn the wheel. Madden could feel the jerking of the cable even through the great mass of pitching iron. Then the wheel clamped viselike. The dock's headlight and the intermittent glow of the tug teetered, swung out of line, crossed each other, like dancing fires. In a sort of panic, the two strained at the solid wheel. A huger wave came roaring by, flung the enormous square prow high in air. As it fell off with a shock, Madden felt a little quiver pass over the lumbering pontoons. The dock ceased taking the upheaved water with her slow, constant, aggressive movement.
The cable had parted!
Madden wondered dully what sort of cataclysm had occurred on the little tug at that tremendous strain.
Both men still hung to the hand-grips on the useless wheel as the dock rose and dropped, thundered and groaned. Now and then from the storm-swept wave tops Madden could catch the glimmer of theVulcan'slight. This slipped farther and farther into the void, heaving night, then he saw it no more.
A sense of vast desolation swept over the American, and he was still staring into the black pandemonium ahead when Deschaillon, Hogan and a third man came struggling toward him.
"You may go back!" he yelled wearily above the uproar. "Go back—there's nothing to do. The cable's broke—theVulcanis gone."
AN INTERRUPTED MEETING
AN INTERRUPTED MEETING
Convinced that there was nothing else to be done on the big dock, Madden went to his cabin, threw himself on the bunk, and there tumbled and tossed through the stormy night, sleeping brokenly and dreaming of the missingVulcan.
Finally a bleary dawn whitened his cabin ports and the lad scrambled into damp clothes, picked up the mate's battered telescope and went on deck.
He fully expected to see theVulcanlying close by, but as he glanced around in the dull light, an extraordinary scene shunted all thoughts of the tug from his mind. The wind had lulled, but there still rolled high a most unusual ocean. As far as he could see moved a long solemn procession of hills covered with splotches and serpentine lines of grays, olives, yellows—an ocean in motley. The great waves wove these sinuous markings up and down, in and out, confusing the eye with changing mazes.
Madden went forward and studied the nearer formations under the dock's prow. This astonishing effect was caused by seaweed. It was the seaweed spray of this seaweed ocean that had whipped him during the night.
A glance toward the stern of the dock solved the mystery of the balky steering gear. The temporary sheathing was choked with the slimy stuff. Tons of it had beaten over into the dock so that there was a week's work of cleaning ahead. The whole interior of the pontoons looked gutted; empty kegs, barrels had gone overboard, boats had been washed away, the big coal pile was scattered like pebbles and some half of it lost. And one odd trifle gripped Madden's heart—the fresh paint over which the crew had toiled so patiently looked old and dingy.
As he studied the scene, two seasick navvies tottered out on deck to sniff the clean air. They dismally surveyed the traces of the storm. Then they moved weakly toward the boy, who was now scrutinizing the horizon with his glass.
"See any sign of 'er, sir?" asked Galton saluting.
Madden took down the binoculars. "Not a trace—feel better?"
"Some better, sir, but my stomach is still like th' hocean, sir, a bit unsettled. May I arsk where we are, sir? I never saw such streaky water before."
"Sargasso Sea," replied Leonard.
Galton grunted and stared at the spangled waves. Under its load of seaweed, the sea was falling rapidly, and presently other seasick navvies came on deck. A dismal lot they made, pasty and sick and draggled.
"You fellows that are able," Madden addressed the group, "get buckets and shovels and pile up that scattered coal. The exercise will make you feel better. When the sea is smoother, we'll rig a jury mast on the forward bridge for a signal."
A few of the men were still too sick, but most of the crowd shuffled off to work. Some of the laborers drew off their pea jackets as they went, for the murky day was filled with a rising humid warmth.
Coal piling was just getting under way in the heaving dock, when the door to Caradoc's cabin swung open and the Englishman stepped out.
A glance at the tall fellow told Madden how he fared. The narrow-set eyes were inflamed, the long bronze face had lost firmness and seemed inclined to sag in lines.
"Smith," called Madden friendlily, "you may help pile coal if you feel like it."
"I—that demijohn that you took last night," began the Briton nervously.
"Yes," Madden became serious.
"I want it, if you please."
Madden looked at the unstrung fellow. "Can't get it, Smith; you've had too much already."
"Can't get my own property?" demanded Caradoc, raising his voice so all the men could hear.
"No," snapped Madden, "you know sailors are not allowed to keep liquor in their dunnage."
"That's my demijohn and I'll——"
"I smashed it, and the pieces washed overboard long ago."
"Overboard!" cried the big fellow. He turned hot eyes seaward as if searching the waters, then for the first time noticed the fantastic ocean around him. He stared at it with a strange expression.
"What—what is that—where are we, Madden?" he asked with a catch in his breath.
The fellow's tremulous condition touched the American. "Tug broke away last night—we're adrift in the Sargasso."
A look of relief came over the long face, but he still gazed at the serpentine patternings. "I—I thought I was seeing—ugh, isn't it horrible!"
"You're unstrung, Caradoc; better go lie down," suggested Madden in considerate tones.
The mood of the Briton underwent a characteristic quick shift. "Me lie down?" he rasped. "I'll have my property. You're grabbing authority fast enough, but you'll learn Englishmen don't submit to impositions. Threw it overboard!" he laughed with sour incredulity. "Bet you have it in your cabin."
The men stopped work, gaping at the insubordination. Madden flushed under the implication. He stepped forward to smash the long insolent face and white mustache, but it was plain the Englishman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Madden caught himself, stood drawing short breaths through expanded nostrils. "Go to your bunk, Caradoc, and wait till you're sane," he ordered in fairly even tones, then turned abruptly, leaving the big fellow scowling and biting his choppy mustache.
The navvies turned back to their work, distinctly disappointed; they had expected a fight.
Within the next few days the crew dropped into the routine of derelict life. When the sky cleared and the sea flattened, it left the big dock amid breathless heat beneath a molten tropical sky.
As far as the eye could reach, the castaways saw no signs of life, not a sail, not a smoke, not a gull, not even the ripple of a wave; nothing but gaudy, motionless markings from one flat horizon to the other, dead traceries that swiftly became uninteresting, then monotonous, then disagreeable, then maddening in the aching eyes of the crew.
As much for the mental health of the men as anything else, Leonard worked them steadily. The day's work was divided into morning and evening watches, because during the midday the iron barge reached a temperature where labor was impossible. During the cooler watches, the men painted desperately to cover the black expanse of the dock with red in order to reflect part of the palpitating heat rays.
Through the idle noon periods, the crew lay about on gunny sacks under improvised awnings, with a man posted on the forward bridge as lookout.
The colorful mazes of the Sargasso were as irritating as flowered wall paper in a sickroom. Even Hogan's and Deschaillon's spirits sagged under the brilliant sweltering sameness. The navvies moved about half naked, and burned brown as nuts. The men fought over trifles. Caradoc became a raw mass of nerves. Once or twice Madden attempted to make things pleasanter for his former friend, but was repulsed rabidly.
Near sunset one day, the American was in the mate's cabin trying to work out his daily reckoning. According to the lad's inexpert calculations, the dock was drifting southeast at the rate of some six or seven miles each day. The dock was a prisoner in that vast central swirl between the North and South Atlantic, that was swinging in stagnating circles when Columbus sailed for the new world; it lay exactly the same when the Norsemen beat down the coasts of Europe; it would continue as long as Africa, Europe, and the Americas deflected ocean currents to produce its motion. Its vast flaring dial was the clock of the world, marking the passing ages. In all that stretch of time the Sargasso must have received strange prey, triremes, caravels, galleons, schooners, men o' war, derelicts ancient and modern, but certainly never before had the art of man placed such a colossal and extraordinary fabric within its swing.
Some such thoughts as these passed through Madden's mind as he pursued his reckoning through trigonometric tables. The light fell redder and dimmer through the ports and he hurried to finish his work before darkness required a lamp in the steamy cabin. A furnace-like breath, laden with malodorous ship smells, drifted in upon him. Madden's thin undershirt clung sweatily to the muscular ridges down his back and moulded the graceful deltoid at the shoulder.
Madden pushed back his figures as Gaskin entered with a tray. The cook's face was scarlet and dripping.
"How much provisions have we on board, Gaskin?"
"Another month's supplies, sir—most of the stores was on theVulcan, sir." Gaskin was dignified even in the heat.
Leonard turned to his map showing the drift of the dock; she was swinging farther and farther out of the trade routes every day. The probability of a rescue steadily decreased.
"In the future, Gaskin, cut rations one third."
The cook covertly swabbed his fat jowl. "Yes, sir—are we about to—" he checked his question. "Yes, sir," he agreed instead.
"Yes," said Leonard, answering the half question, "it's a very necessary precaution, and I hope this small reduction will be sufficient."
"Thankee very much, sir." Gaskin made a little bob and withdrew ceremoniously. Madden knew that Gaskin would continue to bob and thank as long as he had strength to do either.
Reducing the rations was not a sudden impulse with Madden. Ever since the first expectation of theVulcan'sreturn had lost its immediate edge, the American knew that the hope of final rescue depended upon conserving their food supply.
The Sargasso Sea is a great oblong whorl in the Atlantic some four hundred miles wide and fifteen hundred long. Trade routes cut along its northern boundaries, and skirt its southwestern boundary. The dock might very well traverse two thousand miles without seeing a sail. At a rate of six miles a day, it would take eleven months to reach waters in which a rescue might be hoped.
In the meantime, the men grew more and more intractable and insubordinate. That day, when Madden had ordered Heck Mulcher to paint in a certain place, the navvy had grumbled out a "That's all very well for you, sir," and the rest was lost in a mutter.
The uncertain discipline of his men made Madden hesitate to cut the rations more decidedly. He felt that his command was questioned by the sailors.
As the boy gloomily dispatched his own supper, his ear caught a faint persistent tapping on the iron wall which faced the mate's cabin. At first he paid no attention to it, assuming it was the contraction of the iron in the cooling temperature of the oncoming night that made the popping. But as he ate it was at last borne in that these taps came in the irregular but orderly sequence of a telegraphic code.
With this thought in mind, he listened attentively. In his work as engineer he had had occasion to study up Morse in heliographing.
It proved one of the most senseless messages the boy had ever translated:
"Tiny arm, men plan mu." Then it was repeated, "Tiny arm, men plan mu." This odd sentence was retapped four or five times and at last ceased. It was perhaps some beginner learning the code, but who in that crew could be working out the telegraphic code? Leonard thought over the men, one by one, but struck nobody who appealed to him as an incipient telegrapher.
The American continued thinking over the incident idly, the odd time the telegrapher had chosen to practice his art, the queer message he had rapped out, when suddenly the message whirled around in his mind, and he perceived he had begun listening in the middle of a very alarming sentence, and had been reading from one middle to the next. The message was: "Men plan mutiny—Arm!" "Men plan mutiny—Arm!"
Madden got to his feet with nervous quickness, and stood listening intently. The question of who sent the message now became of sharp importance. If the men planned mutiny, he could rely upon the telegrapher—perhaps.
There was still enough light in the steamy cabin to discern objects. The American began rummaging through table drawers, lockers and racks for some effective weapon, preferably a revolver.
At that moment he heard footsteps approaching his cabin door. An instant later the shutter swung open without the formality of a knock and two dark figures entered.
"Well?" inquired the American sharply.
"It's us!" put in two voices at once.
"What do you want?"
"It's a bit of a disthurbance, Mister Madden, that's——"
"Zat Smeeth," put in a pinched French accent excitedly, "he says zare ees no mate, zat you——"
"Be quiet, Dashalong; th' gintilman can't understhand yer brogue. Smith siz ye have no authority by rights; that we should run things as we plaze; that th' bhoys should have all they want to ate; that we should have rum with aitch male, sor."
"And have you two fellows come to get these things?" inquired Leonard in a hard voice.
"No, no, no," trilled out Deschaillon. "Eem-possible!"
"We sthrolled around to till ye, and bide wid ye a bit, and whiniver th' romp starts, me and Dash here ar-re going to swing partners, eh, Dash?"
"Oh, beg pardon," apologized Leonard frankly, "but I had just been warned and I was looking for trouble—"
"Thot's all r-right, Misther Madden. We ar-re wid ye. I am always for law and ordher, Misther Madden, aven whin I am most disordherly,"
"That ees true, he ees," nodded Deschaillon.
"And I always fight on th' wakest side no matther whether it's roight or wrong."
"Hogan ees a chevalier, no matter eef he does have to paint," corroborated the Frenchman.
"Are all the other boys in with Smith?"
"In with him, sor? Fr-rum th' way they stick around him ye'd think he was a long-lost rilitive come back wid a million pounds."
"I'm glad you fellows are with me, Mike. I was just looking for a gun, but if you'll stand by me—"
"Oh, don't pull a pistol, Misther Madden. A man who would pull a gun in a free-for-all—why he would smash th' fiddles at a dance."
"As you deed not fight zee day Smeeth said you stole zee whiskey, zee men—"
"Think ye'll be aisy," finished Hogan.
"I've just ordered a change in diet," observed Madden dryly.
"Oh, thin ye're goin' to give in to th' spalpeens?"
"No, I've cut rations one-third—and that goes!" There was a finality about the dictum that reassured his allies.
"Uh-huh, Dashalong, I towld ye Misther Madden wasn't no——"
The sentence was interrupted by more feet approaching outside, then a heavy knocking at the door. The two men automatically moved over to Madden's side and faced the entrance.
"Light a lamp, Deschaillon," directed Madden crisply,
"Yis, two of 'em—I want to watch 'em fall out o' th' tail o' me eye."
The Frenchman struck a match for his task. Madden invited the men to enter.
The whole crew came through the door in an orderly but somewhat embarrassed manner. A few of the men had on shirts, some undershirts, others were stripped to the waist, their torsos shining with moisture, Deschaillon's hand trembled slightly as he lighted two bracket lamps, Hogan's little eyes sparkled in anticipation.
"What is it, Galton?" Madden picked out the nearest man bruskly.
Gallon shuffled his bare feet on the hot boards. "We hev been thinkin'," he began in a throaty cockney voice, "that since ye was not mate to begin with——" he looked back over the crowd toward the real leader, Caradoc, for moral support.
The men gave Smith an opening toward the American. In the oppressive heat of the crowded, lamp-lit room everyone was crimson and dripping except Caradoc, whose face was curiously bloodless beneath its sunburn.
"If you are spokesman, Smith, what do you want?" demanded Leonard with rising inflection.
"We are all workmen together," began Caradoc with an obvious effort, panting in the heat. "We're working together, living together, roasting together in this awful furnace. Your authority was only meant for a few days. Now theVulcanis gone. Nobody knows for how long. We think all men should share and share alike."
"All this demonstration to tell me you want me to eat at the regular mess?"
"No," quivered Caradoc, "it's not just eating. We are not pigs. We want a hand in running things, and we want a portion of rum served at meals, as every decent ship allows. We want—"
"Oh, so it's drink, not eating," satirized Madden.
"Rum's our right as sailormen," mumbled Galton.
"Rum in this climate?" Ridicule tinctured the American's tone. "Smith, I believe you once proposed to write an article on Climate and Alcoholism." He turned to the men. "Do you fellows want to build a fire inside yourselves when your lungs and hearts are strained to breaking already?"
"It cools you off in hot weather," answered a voice in the crowd.
"Cools nothing! It heats you up." He leaned forward and tapped the table decisively at each word, "It won't be served, y'understand!" His last tap was a thump. "I'm boss here—no rum! And I'll tell you right now, I'm going to cut your rations one-third, too—hear? Now, get out, all of you—move out o' my cabin!"
There was a shuffling among the navvies toward the arrowy lad who confronted them. Deschaillon balanced himself on one leg, French boxing fashion, ready to kick out with the deadly accuracy of an ostrich. Hogan gave a brief happy laugh, broken by his jump, the crack of his fist against some jaw and the stumbling of a man.
As the fight flamed down the sweating line, Farnol Greer suddenly rushed through the door. "This is mutiny!" he shouted aloud. "Every man-jack will hang for it by the ship's articles! I'm for you, Mr. Madden!" and he made a surprising assault from the rear.
Madden and Caradoc squared away at each other. The Englishman headed his men, his long face sinister in the lamplight. But he had hardly taken a step when an absolute pallor whitened his countenance, he halted, shaking, gasping, then flung back an arm to Galton.
"I—I'm fizzled out!" he stammered with twitching lips. "Go ahead—fight!"
"You'll hang—you'll hang for it!" bawled Greer, mauling at the men behind.
Caradoc crumpled down on the floor. The navvies, with an English dread of legal authority, hesitated, thinking perhaps Caradoc had deserted them purposely to clear his own skirts in the mutiny.
Madden instantly caught up the loose ends of his raveling authority.
"Lay him on the bunk, Galton!" he commanded.
Galton obeyed instinctively, half carrying the long sagging form to the bunk.
"Hogan!" he thundered at the cyclone on his right, "you and Mulcher stop that! Stop it, Mulcher!" he turned to some of the men. "Part 'em there! Stop 'em!"
Six navvies, three to the man, jumped and grabbed the combatants.
"Just look, will you?" Madden pointed to Caradoc on the bunk. "You fools have followed a man half mad with a sunstroke! He has blown his nerves all to pieces with a rum bottle, and you bunch of mush-heads have mutinied to give him more rum so he could finish the job!"
The leaderless insurgents stared at Caradoc's still form, then began filing out of the cabin.
"Deschaillon, get that medicine chest out of my bag!"
The Frenchman moved toward the bag indicated, when Madden remembered.
"Here, come back, every one of you!" he cried.
The mutineers flowed in again, entirely subdued now.
Madden was loosening what few clothes Smith wore. He twisted about, facing the crew.
"Some of you fellows stole my medicine chest," he accused boldly. "I want it! The man who has it bring it here!"
The men stood very still, looking from one to the other uneasily.
"Listen, men," repeated Leonard intensely, "I've got to have it—understand? I don't mind your stealing it. I won't say a word to you about that, but I'll manhandle the scoundrel that's keeping it now!"
There was a growled chorus of protests. Madden quivered at his impotence to put his hand on the thief in the crowd.
One of the navvies caught the expression on Madden's face, and blurted, "If I 'ad it, I'd bring it back—'onest!"
Leonard suddenly recalled his suspicions. He looked at Farnol Greer, whose timely shouting and attack had practically quelled the rising. For a moment Madden's old friendship for Smith and his new gratitude for this silent unknown youth struggled, then he said:
"Greer, do you know anything about that chest?"
A look of blank surprise, then indignation went over Greer's heavy serious face, then he said bitingly:
"You sure stand by your pal, all right," and moved out of the cabin without another word.
Caradoc lay dry and burning on the hot bunk, his big hands pressed to his forehead, eyes clenched shut.
"I don't know what to do!" cried Madden miserably. "Hogan, Deschaillon, for God's sake, if you know anything about that medicine chest, tell me—I'm not accusing anybody!"
"Sure, sure," cried Hogan sympathetically, "Oi'm sorry Oi ain't got it. If Oi only had me chance again I'd stole it long ago!"
"I'm sorree, but I never stole eet either, Meester Madden."
"If I only had bromide!" growled the American, watching Smith's broad hairy chest lift and drop in short breaths.
The Englishman opened his hot red eyes. "What's that to you, Madden?" he asked thickly. The choppy white mustache pulled down in a sneer. "I might as well die now—I'm nothing but a remittance man. A remittance man," he repeated the term with mingled self contempt and bravado. "My people have shipped me—flung me away, broken, no use," he flung out a long hot hand at Madden. "Why do you try to pick up the pieces?" He laughed thickly, which sent wild pains through his head and stopped him suddenly.
Madden stared penetratingly at this outbreak.
"Pour water over him, Deschaillon, Hogan," commanded the American briefly.
As his two helpers hurried out after buckets, Leonard came close to the sufferer.
"Where is it?" he asked shortly.
"Where—what?"
Madden stooped over him. "Where's that medicine chest? What did you do with it? You wouldn't have started that tirade unless you had it."
"You Americans—very keen," panted Caradoc in the midst of his rackings. "Think you're d-deuced smart—it's in my bag's lining—there was some alcohol in it, so I took it—let it go—don't do anything—for—me."
Deschaillon entered with a bucket of seawater. They stretched the sick man on the floor, and a moment later, the Englishman shuddered under the deluge.
"This ought to be an ice pack," observed Madden, then: "I believe I remember laying that medicine case in my old cabin; I'll see," and he walked out of the mate's room into the darkness.