SAIL HO!
SAIL HO!
Caradoc lay stretched out in a deck chair, on top of the broad wall of the dock, a cool dawn breeze playing over him. He looked across the motley sea toward an opalescent sky reddening in the east.
"No," replied Madden without great interest, from his seat on the rail, "I've no idea what you mean by a 'remittance man.'"
The Englishman's eyes strayed wearily from the limpid dawn to the tiny image of a lion couchant on a small blue enameled shield which he used as a watch fob.
"Among the English—" He paused and began again: "Among a certain class of English families," he proceeded in an impersonal tone, "when a member goes hopelessly astray, that member is sent abroad to travel indefinitely. Remittances are forwarded to him from place to place, wherever he wishes to go, but—" there was a scarcely noticeable pause—"he can't come back to England any more."
"O-o-h!" dragged out Madden in a low voice, comprehending the man before him for the first time.
"So they are called remittance men—always remitted to." Caradoc's long fever-worn face, that was filling out in convalescence, colored momentarily.
"So that's what you were," said the American after a pause; "a remittance man, simply drifting over the face of the earth, supported by your family, boozing your life away, and always longing to see England again?"
"You can put things so raw, Madden," responded Caradoc with a ghost of a smile. "Iam, notwere."
"Were," insisted the American quickly. "Before your collapse you were a confirmed alcoholic, but you are slightly different now. Your eight days of fever, when Hogan and I had to hold you in bed, must have burned you out, cleaned up your whole system. You are nearer normal now than you were. You have a fresh start. It's up to you what you do with it."
The Englishman looked at his friend with a sort of slow surprise on his face. "I hadn't noticed it, but I don't believe I do crave drink as keenly."
"No, sickness is often not so bad a thing as folks think. It is nature's way of putting us right. Sometimes," he added thoughtfully, "we crumple up in the process, but we can hardly blame the old lady for that."
"You're an odd fellow, Madden," laughed Caradoc, getting slowly out of his chair and stretching his arms. "Well, for some reason or other, I feel fine this morning—let's take a constitutional around the dock."
The young men walked off, side by side, and began the circuit of the dock's quarter-mile outline. The breeze was such a rarity in the becalmed region that the two paused now and then to take long grateful breaths, and to watch the little wind waves ripple the glassy Sargasso lanes.
As they walked, navvies came out with buckets brushes and set to work painting the maze of iron stanchions that lined the long interior of the dock.
"I'm afraid I'll have to stop that painting," remarked Leonard after watching them a moment.
"They'll be very glad of it—but why?"
"It consumes too much energy. The men can live on less if they quit work."
"Oh, I see."
"I think I shall have to cut their food down to half rations. We've been adrift nearly sixteen days now and not a smoke plume from theVulcan. She has lost us—if she didn't founder."
"Any chance of meeting some other vessel?"
"Here in the ocean's graveyard?"
"Are we far in?" inquired Smith with rising concern.
"Close to three hundred miles, and getting deeper every day."
The two walked on mechanically, with the precise step of those who seek exercise. The rim of the sun cut the edge of the ocean and a long trail of light made the east difficult for their eyes.
"Any danger of starving?" questioned Caradoc, staring moth-like at the blinding disc of flame.
"Perhaps not," meditated Madden. "I've been thinking about it. As a last resort this seaweed is edible, at any rate certain species of it. The Chinese and Japanese eat it, but that isn't much of a recommendation to a European. Then the water is full of fish that come to nibble at the stuff."
Caradoc was obviously inattentive to this consoling information. "Yes," he murmured politely, "Japanese do nibble at the fish."
Madden looked around at his abstracted friend, who was still staring into the molten sunrise.
"When the Japanese come to nibble at the fish, we might get some food from them," suggested Madden with American delight in the ridiculous.
"Perhaps so."
"And fans, parasols, and little ivory curios—souvenirs of the Sargasso, when we roll up the dock and take it home."
Smith nodded soberly, still gazing.
"What are you looking at, Caradoc?" laughed the American.
"I say, Madden, just look at that sun, will you? I thought I saw a little black fleck against it straightaway to the east right down on the horizon."
"You're injuring your sight, that's all," the American was still smiling. "You know black specks will dance before your eyes if you stare at the sun too long."
"But this was shaped like a sail," persisted Smith, staring again.
"Illusion," diagnosed Madden promptly, but his eyes followed Caradoc's eastward nevertheless.
As far as his sight could reach up the golden path, he saw the black markings of seaweed; then his vision became lost in a mist of illumination. However, in this region, he could distinguish things dimly and in flashes.
Presently, in one of these clear instants, he saw flashed, like the single film of a moving picture, the tiny black silhouette of a ship's sail against the dazzling east. Next moment it was lost in light.
"I told you!" cried Caradoc, getting his friend's expression. "It's there! We've both seen it! A ship, Madden!"
Then he turned with more strength than Madden thought was in him. "Sail ho, men!" he sang out. "A sail!"
"Come up, fellows, and take a look!" chimed in Madden just as eagerly. "We believe we see a sail!"
The crew dropped work at once, and came climbing the ladder up the deep side of the canyon like a string of monkeys; then they came running across the red decking.
"Where?" "Wot direction?" "Where ees eet?" came a chorus of inquiries.
The two were pointing and soon the whole crew was lined up staring into the brilliance. Their fresh eyes caught the glimpse immediately and held it long enough to make sure.
"A sail!" "There she is!" "Oi see her!" bellowed half a dozen voices.
The whole crew fell into tense, happy confusion, laughing, staring, yelling, speculating, slapping backs.
"Will she see us?" cried someone.
"Do ye think she'd overlook the whole west half o' th' sea, Galton?"
"She weel run against us eef she cooms thees way."
"But she might not know we are in distress?"
"Disthress, is it ye're sayin'? We're not in disthress, ye loon. This is th' happiest day o' me loife."
Leonard turned to the Irishman. "Hogan, go dip that flag on the jury mast—wiggle it up and down—let 'em know something is wrong—make 'em think we have the rickets if nothing else."
Two men ran off with Hogan to the forward bridge; the others stared, waved, shouted and let their excitement bubble down.
"But I don't understand a sailing vessel in these waters," speculated Leonard.
"Maybe it's a derelick?" surmised Galton. "I've 'card as 'ow this was a great place for derelicks."
"'Ow could she be a derelick," argued Mulcher, "w'en she 'as so much canvas aloft? You run up on derelicks an' git sunk, ever' cove knows that."
"I carn't think of hall these things at once!" retorted Galton.
"Perhaps she ees theVulcanunder sail with deesabled engines?" suggested Deschaillon.
This explanation was accepted unanimously and joy broke out afresh.
"Why sure, th'Vulcan, th' good oldVulcan! Now, lads, let's give three cheers and maybe it'll reach 'er!"
Madden left the men trying to reach her with their bellows and went below after the mate's binoculars. When he returned the sun had swung up above the rim of the ocean and the sail was plainly discernible. He leveled his glasses and his eyes went searching among the distant markings of seaweed, until it finally rested on the sail. The vessel was hull down. There was nothing to see except a little canvas stretched neatly aloft and ship-shape masts and spars. He observed her attentively for some time. She seemed to be making very little headway. All in all, Madden made little of the craft, so he handed the glass to Smith. The Englishman was likewise puzzled, and the binoculars went down the line of curious men.
There was something in the way the youth named Farnol Greer handled the instrument that caused Madden to ask:
"What do you make out, Greer?"
"She is lying to, sir. She's backing her tops'ls flat against the breeze, and her mains'l's reefed and drawing with it."
"Lying to!" cried three or four voices. "W'ot does she mean by that? Looks as if she'd be bloomin' glad to get out o' such a bally place as this!"
"Let me have another look." Madden resumed the binoculars.
Now that Madden's attention was called to this unusual disposition of the sails, he could make out their position for himself.
This started another tide of speculation buzzing among the castaways. Was theVulcancrippled? Had she run short of coal? But why should she voluntarily lay-to in the very sight of her quarry?
"They're fishin'," surmised Deschaillon, "off in th' boats fishin'; they're weethout food also."
This wild surmise was the only reasonable hypothesis that had been struck on. Another group of men rushed for the jury mast to show the fishermen that their presence was desired. At any rate the faint breeze was very slowly bringing the two vessels together.
If the men had been heretofore anxious that the cool breeze continue, now their anxiety was redoubled. At any moment it might die away and leave theVulcanstranded beyond communication. In painful uncertainty, they watched the tug drag her hull slowly into sight, then slowly eat her way down the long mazy lanes of the Sargasso.
Then, when she was well in view, Farnol Greer said:
"She is not theVulcan, sir."
By this time all the men had their brown faces wrinkled up against the glare of the sunshine. Now they redoubled their gaze on the distant vessel.
"Faith, and sure enough she isn't!" cried Hogan.
Greer was right; the strange vessel was not the tug. She had a funnel amidship and two masts, but there her resemblance to theVulcanceased.
The crew stared, talked, speculated, until the sun swung up like a white-hot metal ball in the sky, and the quivering heat drove them below under the awnings. From here they could still view the stranger, but not to so good advantage. The breeze, by good fortune lasted till deep in the morning, but finally dropped down in the blanketing heat, with the unknown craft a good three miles distant.
The dock's crew could make out no sign of life as they strained their eyes through the glare of tropical brilliance. The high-lights of the schooner's reversed topsails and the luminous shadows of her mainsail stood out vividly against the hot copper sky. The multi-colored markings of the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon finished a very picture of pitiless heat.
The men stood beneath the awning, legs apart, arms held away from bodies, and stared from under dripping brows for some signs of recognition from the stranger.
"'Asn't she got up a single rag to show us she sees us?" puffed Galton, swiping his hand across his forehead and flinging drops on the iron deck, where they evaporated the moment they hit.
"Don't see none," replied the navvy who possessed the binoculars at that moment.
"'Ave they any boats?"
"One cleated down for'ard, one slung on the midship davits, and I think I make hout one on t'other side past the booby hatch."
"And not a soul on deck?"
"Not unless they're settin' on th' fur side o' th' superstructure."
"Wot would they want to be settin' in th' sun for?" demanded Galton brusquely.
"'Ow do I know? If they was Eth'opians, wouldn't they set in th' sun?"
"This is as clost as we'll ever git," surmised another voice. "The night breeze'll blow 'er back where she come from."
"Well, w'ere's that?" demanded Mulcher savagely.
"Why, Eth'opia, I reckon, if she's got a crew of Eth'opians settin' on t'other side of 'er superstructure."
"They ain't a man-jack aboard; and you know it," snarled Galton, "or 'e'd be poppin' 'is eyes hout at such a 'orrible big sight as we must be."
"Anyway, I'll bet she blows back w'ere she come from, to-night," persisted the advocate of this theory.
The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying, upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.
In order to keep any sort of discipline, Leonard and Caradoc kept to themselves under a separate awning, for all sea-faring experience has shown that a separation of officers and men is necessary for the management of sailors.
However, Madden heard most of the arguments that went on under the men's canvas, and he became convinced that the sailor was right; the evening breeze would carry the schooner away from the dock. He measured the long distance through the sea lanes from dock to schooner with his eyes.
"Caradoc," he said to his friend, "if we ever reach that vessel now's our time."
"How do you hope to do it?"
For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy, will you?"
Mulcher arose and started on his errand.
Caradoc stared. "You don't intend toswimthat distance—through this heat?"
"There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps."
"And the crew?"
"It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening and morning breezes—it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work herself out of the Sargasso."
"Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible."
Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the navvy, on thequi viveover this new undertaking.
"Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir," suggested Hogan, "an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a dangerous swim."
"An' the sharks, Meester Madden," warned Deschaillon.
As Madden kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping likewise. Then Farnol Greer came running down the deck with another buoy and a big clasp knife.
The American looked at these fellows. "Caradoc, you can't possibly hold out that distance; you're weak."
"I've done ten miles in—at home."
Greer said nothing, but rapidly undressed.
All three kept on their hats and undershirts as protection against sunburn. As Madden walked from the awning through the stinging sun rays, crimping up his naked feet from the blistering deck, Galton called to him.
"If we git a lot of grub, sir, couldn't it be hextra, and carn't we 'ave a spread to-night, sir?"
"Something like that," agreed Madden, tossing his buoy into the water. The two other swimmers followed example, then all three dived off the twelve foot pontoon toward their floats. They came up shaking the water from ears and eyes. Madden was immersed in tepid water. His men were cheering stolidly. The schooner looked very, very far away now that he was at the surface of the water. Between him and his goal streaked mazes of sargassum. It suddenly struck the American that he might have trouble getting through those barriers.
However, the three swimmers were progressing boldly.
THE CUL DE SAC
THE CUL DE SAC
Madden thrust head and shoulders into his float, a round canvas-covered hoop of cork, and set off at an easy stroke. Now that he was flat on the water, he could no longer see the lanes of seaweed, and he would be forced to depend entirely upon signals from the dock.
Alongside Madden came Greer, and after them Caradoc. Like all Americans, Leonard gradually increased his energy, and forged ahead at a rate considerably faster than that required for long distance swimming. Once or twice Caradoc warned the swimmers to go more slowly, and at each monition Madden slowed up a trifle, but within a few minutes he would again speed up unconsciously.
The three swimmers could form little idea of the rate they were making in the lifeless sea. At the end of half an hour, when Leonard looked back at Hogan on the wall for signals, the dock still loomed above him, a vast glare of red in the dazzling sunshine. It seemed impossible to get away from it; the featureless red flare followed him as a mountain peak seems to follow a traveler.
The sun beat oppressively on his head and blistered his shoulders through his net undershirt. The warm water soaked the energy out of limbs and arms. He changed from breast to over-arm stroke, then he shifted to the crawl and trudgen stroke.
"Perhaps we'd better rest awhile, sir," suggested Greer, who came puffing close behind.
"Beastly hot, this sun," Leonard ducked head and shoulders under water for relief. His hat floated off and he grudged the slight effort to retrieve it.
"How far are we?"
"Dock looks as close as ever—where's Smith?"
Greer nodded toward a small head and shoulders bobbing behind a little white buoy.
At that moment, they heard the Englishman's voice calling, "To the right!"
The boys turned and struck out ahead once more. They regretted having to leave the straight line. As far as they could see there was no algae in sight, the water was one glassy blue. And the mysterious schooner, with its lights and shadows exaggerated in the tropical glare, seemed to the tired swimmers to be as remote as ever.
As Madden pressed on and on, changing strokes after the fashion of tiring swimmers, the constant beat of the sun made his eyeballs ache; the ocean felt like a Turkish bath; the muscles in his shoulders, back and legs grew numb, with an occasional cramping twinge. And what irritated him as much as anything else was the fact that he was swimming toward the right quarter of the schooner, throwing away his energy.
Just then Caradoc gave a distant call, "To the left."
With deep relief, Madden rounded back toward his goal. He had swung about some unseen cape of algae. He looked back toward the dock. Hogan, a very tiny figure, held his flag straight up; that meant "dead ahead."
In relief Madden turned over on his back, laid his hat across his face, then with hands resting on chest, he began sculling along with knees and feet.
He did not know how long he swam in this fashion. Queer ideas drifted through the lad's mind. He recalled standing on the bridge of the dock as it went out of the Thames and wondering what would happen. He had never anticipated anything like this. It seemed that he had been swimming for days and weeks. He reminded himself of those little kicking toys that never get anywhere. He felt as if he were a June bug buzzing helplessly at the end of a string. He kicked, kicked, kicked under the broiling sun, in the hot water. The sweaty smell of his hat band disgusted his nostrils. The crown of his hat seemed to coop the heat over his face, sweat seeped into his closed eyelids and stung his eyes. He gave his head a little shake. The buoy slipped out and he bobbed under the tepid water head and ears.
This jerked him out of his dreamy state. He whirled over, struck to the surface, spat out brine, blinked his eyes. Somebody was shouting something in an urgent voice. The noise buzzed in his waterlogged ears.
"Hey, hello! What is it?" he cried, giving his head a shake and putting on his hat.
"School of sharks!" shouted Greer, coming toward his leader at a foamy speed.
"School of sharks!" echoed Madden with a sharp thrill. "Where? Which way?"
"Must be toward the dock, sir!" panted Greer driving up.
"Where's Caradoc?"
"Yonder." He pointed toward a distant twinkle in the water.
"We must get together—yell to him, warn him!"
The two lads began a strenuous chorus that further used up their exhausted strength. Caradoc responded by a wave of his hand. Then when he understood "sharks" he gathered speed in their direction.
By this time the dock seemed as far away as the schooner, and was in reality probably farther. On the wall of the dock, they could see Hogan's microscopic figure apparently having a fit, against the coppery sky. No doubt from his height he could make out the monsters. Perhaps Hogan could see the great fish shooting along with sinister, exertionless ease toward these clumsy adventurers—a school of trout striking at three awkward beetles.
"Hey, Caradoc! Caradoc!" screamed Madden. "Straight for the schooner!" The American stared around with tense nerves for the little swishes on the surface that betray the attack of a shark.
From something near middle distance, the Englishman raised a hand toward his comrades and motioned them forward.
"Go on! Go on!" he gasped in a tired voice. "I'll catch you!"
Indeed, there was little to be gained from waiting. Caradoc moved toward his friends with a long overhand stroke that gave him the queer appearance of some huge water bug striding along. Madden and Greer propelled themselves slowly toward the schooner, waiting for their friend to close up. They could not keep their eyes off the Englishman. Every moment they expected to see him jerked under, or they expected to see a huge shadowy form strike at themselves through the clear green water.
Once Madden looked at the dock. Hogan on the rim of the red flaring wall was flinging out all kinds of despairing gestures.
By this time Caradoc was in hailing distance.
"Did you say sharks?" he called out in a dull voice.
"Yes, sharks!"
"Where a way?"
"Don't know!"
At that moment a trickling thrill went through the American. A long dark motionless shadow lay in the water straight in front of him. He stopped swimming suddenly.
"Stop, Greer! Straight ahead!" he warned in a low tone, easing himself carefully up on his buoy for a better look.
By this time the swimmers were nearly together and all three stared ahead with painful intentness.
"That dark thing?" inquired Greer in an undertone,
"Yes, we ought to have a knife apiece."
"I never saw a shark lying still," panted Caradoc straining his eyes.
"Say, that's a little streak of seaweed," decided Farnol, beginning to move toward it.
Then all three perceived it was merely seaweed. The shark-like illusion disappeared completely the moment someone doubted it.
"Who cried out sharks anyway?" demanded Smith of Madden.
"Greer there warned me—he yelled 'school of sharks.'"
"Where did you see them?" inquired Caradoc of Farnol.
"You shouted school of sharks to me yourself," defended Greer.
"I! I!" puffed Caradoc, whose spurt had blown him badly. "I said nothing about sharks!"
"Well, what did you say?" demanded Greer.
Caradoc thought back fretfully. "I said we were running into acul de sac."
"A cool de sock!" repeated Greer with irritation. "What did you want to say 'cool de sock' for?"
"I was calling to a gentleman," panted Smith with an edge of temper in his tone, "and here you've swung us clear off our bearings because you didn't know a common French phrase——"
"French! I'm no Frenchman! Why don't you talk English!"
The two tired, worried, overheated men were rapidly brewing a quarrel, when Madden interrupted.
"Look how close we are to that schooner! If somebody would raise another shark alarm, we'd land plump on her decks."
"Yes, but this Zulu here has run us straight into a loop of seaweed it'll take two hours' swimming to get out of—cul de sac, school of sharks! Why the two phrases scarcely resemble each other!"
Madden turned longing eyes toward the motionless schooner that was not more than three-quarters of a mile distant. "Say, it's too bad to turn around and swim away from that vessel!" he lamented wearily, "and this sun is fierce!"
"I say let's try going through!" encouraged Greer.
"It'll be—difficult," warned Caradoc.
"Won't swimming clear around the earth be difficult?" demanded Greer hotly.
"Proceed," agreed Caradoc tersely. "It's all one to me."
The boys adjusted their floats and once more began their weary labor, all three disgruntled at the false alarm. As they worked their way forward, clumps of seaweed, similar to the first they had seen, thickened in their path. After a long swim in and out, they reached a point where these floating masses coalesced into an island, or a continent, that swung far back toward the barge in the segment of a great semicircle. Fortunately there were still open channels in this main field, and one of them led toward the schooner. They struck out up this estuary, which presently became so narrow that they were forced to travel single file. Occasionally their kicking feet would strike slimy filaments in the water, but for a while the channel cheered the swimmers, for they could now see they were making progress toward the ship.
Ten minutes later, however, they reached the end, and an inexorable continent of slime lay between them and their goal. Madden paused in the last yard of clear water, hung to his buoy, his big biceps flattened on the canvas cover and slowly blistering in the sun.
"All right, boys, close up," he panted; "let's stay in helping distance of each other."
"Shall we try to take our buoys through, sir?" inquired Greer.
"We'll start with them."
"Don't try to use your legs in the weed," warned Caradoc. "Don't kick; you'll get tangled."
"We'll experiment and work through the best way we can. If it turns out too bad, we can turn back, that's one consolation."
Just then, under Madden's astonished eyes, a queer thing happened. The long open tongue of the sea which they had just entered, silently closed up. It seemed to close very slowly, and yet it was accomplished in an amazingly brief time. Some dull movement in the Sargasso current had blocked the adventurers with sinister precision. Madden felt the hot slimy mass close softly around him.
It was now as easy to go forward as to return.
TRAPPED
TRAPPED
There was something so sinister in this silent closing of all avenue of retreat that for a moment Madden was dismayed, then he struck out toward the schooner with a certain bold weariness.
As an experiment he threw his buoy ahead of him by a snap of wrist and forearm, then tried to swim to it. The long yielding growth slid under and around him, but it took all the dash out of his stroke. He pawed his way forward with his arms, legs stretched out idle. A thousand wet sticky fingers dragged their length over his body, retarding, clogging, holding him. It left him stranded like a bug in gelatine. His flesh crawled at this slimy swimming, he shrank from it, and it sapped his heart and strength.
The only stroke possible was the overarm, and his hands fell with a gummy plop instead of the heartsome splash of open water. By the time he reached his buoy and threw it again, he regretted miserably that he had not swum the clean water route if it were five miles farther.
By the time he had thrown his buoy twice, he could hardly advance it a yard beyond his reach; finally it simply slushed along the surface. The sun seemed much hotter in this congestion than in the open sea.
Behind him came his two men in a queer snakelike procession of plopping buoys and wriggling bodies. Ahead of them the seaweed stretched, apparently all the way to the schooner. As they worked their way through the scum of many seas, the noon sun broiled their backs into thin water blisters, and stewed saline odors out of the clammy life about them.
Once Madden's hand struck a yellowish line of algae and a score or two of little jelly-like insects writhed into the grass below. One of these things touched the swimmer's arm and gave the boy a stinging sensation. He knocked it off desperately and pushed on.
Presently his shoulder muscles ached and burned so keenly, he could no longer continue the overarm. Then he took the buoy in both hands, held it straight out, thrust it edge down into the oozy substance, used it as a kind of anchor and drew it to him. At first this technique seemed to advance him somewhat, but presently he appeared merely to disturb the viscous mass without going forward. He grew acutely discouraged; his back, shoulders, cramped, ached and burned. The brilliantly lighted schooner seemed to regress as he progressed. The sun was like an auger boring into the back of his head. His mind began to wander again, and a sudden fear came on him lest he should go insane out in this horrible slime.
A fiery burning on his right foot jerked him back out of his half delirium, and he knew that an insect of the same kind he had seen a few minutes before had stung him. He kicked it off convulsively, but the thrust of his foot brought a wash of new stings.
All of a sudden, his patience, endurance, pluck seemed to give out. This new torture made him as unreasonably frantic as a baby. He kicked furiously. He scraped the toe nails of one foot against the flesh of the other leg. As he did so the animalculae settled on the abraded skin, like streaks of melted steel. The boy doubled up, like a grub worm covered with ants, fighting, scraping, twisting, squirming. He writhed, beat, scratched, this great hundred and sixty pound animal fighting an enemy that would weigh about twenty to the gram.
He heard a shout from Caradoc, a question from Greer, then his insane struggles carried him under the surface of the clammy seaweed. The seaweed, infested with stinging insects, closed over his form like a wave of fire.
Only lack of breath stopped Leonard's mad struggles. Bursting lungs and the mere necessity to live at last made him disregard the attacks of these wasps of the Sargasso. He struck out for the surface again like a diver, reaching up arms, spreading legs with a stroke and a kick. But the gelatinous stuff simply quivered with his struggles and held him firm. He stuck like a fly in mucilage.
The sliminess of the element utterly destroyed the mechanics of swimming. A forward stroke in pure water displaces portions of the water and the return stroke sends the body forward. In this mass the forward stroke merely compressed the weed in front of the arm, and left a cavity through which the return stroke received no power.
Madden dared not open his eyes. In fiery blackness he kicked and struck in useless froglike movements. His heart was beating like a trip-hammer in his ears. Streaks of red fire played against the blackness of his eyelids. He knew that in a few more seconds his straining lungs would gulp in the stinging ooze, he knew his will could not prevent his drawing in some sort of breath.
He clung desperately to the control of his diaphragm, as a falling man clings to a ledge of rock. His great chest muscles gave convulsive jerks. His control was going, going.
Suddenly a human hand gripped his wrist. He was jerked upwards, perhaps a foot. A moment later he was gulping in great lungfuls of air.
He had been suffocating ten or twelve inches beneath that repulsive slime, as securely captured as if he had been a thousand feet deep.
It had taken Greer and Smith that length of time to wriggle a yard or two and fish him out.
"Steady! Steady!" said Caradoc in a lifeless voice. "Steady there, Madden! Hold him tightly, Greer!"
Greer made some sort of groaning reply, when Caradoc snarled, "Let 'em sting, you scullion! What if they do kill you! Is there any better way to die?"
Madden felt a great pushing and jostling at his body. He raked the seaweed from his face and opened his eyes. The Englishman was shoving fiercely at the American's shoulder, Greer, ahead, pulling at an elbow. The burning insects had swarmed on both his rescuers. Caradoc's sun-baked face had a yellowish, bloodless hue, his lean jaws clenched under his choppy white mustache. In the midst of his burning pain he held his legs rigid, pushed Leonard with one hand and pawed furiously through the viscid tangle with the other.
The constancy of his companions braced Madden like a dash of ice water. His own weakness had brought about this dangerous plight. The American caught up his buoy, and between great gasps of the blessed air, rapped out that he could go by himself, and began making his own way forward.
So the three worked themselves over the oozy bed of fire. The Englishman's arms shot into the slime with the regularity of pistons. He appeared to make no haste, yet he made remarkable speed. Only his distended nostrils, pain-tightened mouth, grim eyes, showed that he was in torture.
Even amid his own suffering Leonard felt a thrill of admiration for Smith's endurance and working power. He even found time to wonder dimly if Smith's people, that rich, cold, proud family, if they could see their remittance man now, would not stoop to claim him as a kinsman.
All at once the poignant and disgusting attack of the insects ceased. A flood of ecstatic relief swept over the adventurers. Without a word, all three quit squirming, caught their floats under their armpits and swung down in a limp luxurious rest.
Then they saw a marvelous thing had happened. The same slow swirl of the Sargasso current that had closed up their avenue on the west side, had opened another on the east. Their way toward the schooner lay unobstructed.
The clean delightful seawater soothed the pain of their stinging flesh.
"We'll be there in fifteen minutes," murmured Leonard weakly.
"When you're ready, say so," said Greer with a frown still lingering on his heavy face.
At that moment Madden heard a groan from Caradoc.
"What's the matter?" aspirated the American.
"Nothing—weak—don't bother." He closed his eyes, blew out his breath like a sick man. His face was bloodlessly sallow, and Madden could see his grip slipping on the canvas buoy.
"You're all in!" gasped Madden in exhausted staccato, "I knew you oughtn't to—aren't you about to faint again?"
The Englishman shook his head slightly. "Don't worry," he murmured, then his eyes closed, his hands slipped loose.
With brusque directness, Madden caught the shock of tawny hair, jammed Caradoc's chin against the buoy and held him tight with little exertion for himself. Smith swung out as awkwardly as a turkey on a chopping block. The water was level with his lips, but his nose did not go under.
"Petered at last," grunted Madden, staring at the corpselike face in dull speculation. "How in the world are we going to get him out of here?"
"I guess we can tow him out, sir," growled Greer with dull indifference. "Mighty puny chap—always flopping over when he's in a tight place."
"Come here, stick his arms through our buoys, put his own under his head!"
The plan was quickly carried out and Smith's unconscious form was placed beyond immediate danger.
The two youths took up their long swim once more. As they moved down the opening, they could see what slow progress they were making. Presently Madden explained in a low whispering tone:
"His heart's bad... can't stand much... poisoned with alcohol."
Another pause filled with slow weary swimming, then Greer said:
"Said I was no gentleman... didn't know a French word... I keep sober."
Madden made no defense to this reflection on the unconscious Englishman, but after a while he said:
"We ought to overlook lots in him, Greer—unfortunate fellow... there's good in him, Greer... bad too."
"I've got no call to please you," growled the sailor with astonishing frankness.
"Then why did you come with us?" inquired Madden amazed.
"Wanted to see the schooner."
"And what haveIdone toyou?"
"Called me a thief!" the sailor elevated his dull tone. "After I telegraphed ye about th' men... fought for ye... called me a thief!"
"Was that you tapping on the dock?"
Greer nodded resentfully. "And ye insulted me for it."
"I'm sorry... I was almost wild that night. I'll apologize... before the crew."
"I don't care nothing about that dull English crew." This strange fellow's tone carried in it an illiterate man's undying resentment.
"Since you feel that way," panted Madden at last, "I think I ought to tell you—he took the medicine chest," Leonard nodded at the finely carved motionless face that lay on the float before them.
"Him!" gasped Greer.
Leonard nodded. "He wanted the alcohol in it."
"And you call him agentleman?"
Leonard nodded again. "Somehow I still call him a gentleman. He's hurt, sick, bruised, but he's a gentleman."
"Well I don't!"
At that moment, the buoy under Caradoc's head bumped into a wooden wall and upset their swimming arrangements.
They were under the overhang of the mysterious schooner.