CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE
CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE
Heat, that grew more terrific as the dock drifted southward; hunger, that gnawed like rats at the empty stomachs of the crew; withering heat, aching hunger, growing despair—that was life on the floating dock.
Of all the crew only Gaskin remained in good condition. It would have required more than a hero to cook food and go hungry, but the crew made no such allowances. They berated the dignified Gaskin, they eyed each other's scant portions jealously. Their quarrels over food at last forced Madden to weigh each man's allowance to the fraction of an ounce.
The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened with monotony and despair.
The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them. Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed aloud.
The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy, and energy consumes food.
Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that repeated the same strain over and over.
Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable distances.
One day he said to Madden: "I don't see how you stand that Greer fellow's eternal whistling," and Leonard answered:
"Does Greer whistle?"
"Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably—one of those confounded American rags. He's at it now—what is that thing?"
Madden had to listen very carefully before he caught the faint blowing between Farnol's lips. Presently he identified it.
"That's 'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid.'"
This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.
"'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'—sweetIndian Maid!" he snorted. "Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder each other by it, or with it?"
Madden grinned with fagged appreciation, thinking the remark meant for humor, but Caradoc grimly chewed his blond mustache.
It was noon, three days later when Caradoc's endurance broke down.
"Greer!" he snapped with all his pent-up irritation in his voice, "will you never stop mouthing that beastly tune?"
The stolid fellow looked around in the blankest surprise. "Tune?"
"No, groaning, wheezing! You spew it out all day long! What do you think you are? A tree frog, a locust, a katydid? Doesn't your mouth get tired? Does that hideous tinkle go through your hollow head all day long?"
The Englishman's long face was a dusky red. He had not intended to be insulting when he first spoke, but all the sarcastic and abusive epithets that he hadthoughtduring the long super-heated days of nerve-racked listening, now rushed out like steam from a boiler.
Farnol stared straight at the nervous fellow. "Are you insane?" he asked in wondering contempt,
"A wonder I'm not—with that diabolical wheezy spewing boring in my brain—you never stop a minute—over and over——"
"Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?" interrupted Greer with cool malice.
The whole crew came to hushed attention.
Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed from his face, leaving it the color of clay.
"Stolen?" he asked in a contained voice. "Yes, isn't there another medicine case for you to steal?"
"Greer!" cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger, heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.
"I believe he said I was no gentleman," pronounced Greer sarcastically, "because I didn't know a little French. I sayhe'sa thief."
Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. "Mr. Greer," he said with cold evenness, "it is impossible to obtain swords or pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a second!"
Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at Madden.
The American shook his head. "I can't serve for either of you. I'm in command here. I'm impartial."
"Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?" asked Smith with a set face.
The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels. "Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!"
Greer stared around dourly. "Hogan?"
The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. "Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer, and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine."
All the men were up now circling about the principals.
"You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan," explained Galton, "you simply stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds."
"Rounds!" exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. "I thought they were choosin' sides for a free-for-all."
Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.
"If you'll be so kind as to keep time," he suggested, "that's a neutral position. We fight four minutes and rest one."
Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke. However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch, which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.
There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms, chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their lives in play and luxury.
Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog. His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his strength was simply wonderful.
It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of music.
"All ready!" called Leonard.
The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically, Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their guards.
For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet. Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow, although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through with a stinging left to the hairy chest.
"Go afther him! Kill him!" cried Hogan to his principal. "Nixt toime he thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!"
"Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!" advised two of the cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.
Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms working like pistons.
The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers, and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily—as a gentleman disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system about it.
"First round is over!" called Madden.
"Phwat a shame!" cried Hogan.
With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them facing each other like human game cocks.
Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.
The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine. Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.
The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.
"Land on 'is nose there, Smith!" shouted Mulcher. "Don't let 'im to ye! Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!"
On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, "Bore in, Greer! Bore in, me lad!" and Hogan, "G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him out?"
"Time's up!" announced Madden.
During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and chest.
The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.
Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had armored his body with hard flesh.
The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.
To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and fantastic.
The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy, and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.
"You can't hit him while he's down!" he shouted in the bull's ear, and then the American began counting: "One, two, three..."
Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy. Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but left-hand jabs.
In an instant Smith saw what was the matter. That blow on the hip had ruined Greer's right hand, strained it, perhaps broken it. Greer's rushes had stopped, and Smith, who was a boxer, not a fighter, could stand off and peck at his man's eyes or jaw without danger to himself.
He hitched wearily up to his enemy, blocked Greer's left hand and let his right have a full swing at his exposed body. Farnol went through the motion of striking, but his blow was a mere tap and caused the heavy fellow to cringe with pain.
Caradoc Stands the Acid Test.
Caradoc Stands the Acid Test.
Caradoc swung a light blow to the neck. Greer countered fiercely with his left, but it was parried easily.
Suddenly the crowd understood what had happened.
"Put 'im out!" "Finish 'im!" "Put 'im to sleep!" bawled a chorus. "He hit you below th' belt w'en 'e broke 'is 'and!"
Farnol continued his chopping one-armed fight. "Put me out! Put me out!" he bubbled furiously. "I said ye was a thief! Youarea thief! You're a thief!" and he accented his charges with stabs.
Smith side-stepped the harmless attack, letting it slide first to one side then the other, men were so tired they could hardly keep their feet. The Englishman looked down on the stubborn fellow, with his chopped, bleeding face and blackened, defiant eyes. A hard swing at unprotected jaw would stretch him out in broiling heat, but he did not make the blow. Instead he pushed the frothing fellow away from him.
"Go to your corner and cool off," he panted. "Yes, I'm a thief. Go on away; I don't want knock you out."
He turned his back deliberately and walked to his own awning. The crowd stared, absolutely dumfounded by this unexpected turn of affairs. Greer himself stared, then moved forward automatically to continue his onslaught, when Hogan grabbed him.
"Come on back," cried the Irishman. "Th' scoundrel has lift ye no ixcuse to fight him any more. He says he's a thafe, but I don't belave Come git a wash and let's wrap up yer hand."
At that moment the dignified voice of Gaskin came from the forward pontoon. The crew hushed their hot comments on the fight to listen.
"A sail," called the cook. "A sail to th' sou'west, sir!"
Instantly every man moved forward. The fight was forgot in the great hope of a rescue. Even the gory looking principals hurried forward to see if such welcome news could be true.
THE RETURN OF THEVULCAN
THE RETURN OF THEVULCAN
Etched against the horizon lay a stumpy masted vessel that seemed as still and dead as ocean that rotted around it. She had not a sail aloft nor a plume of smoke in her funnel. For the moment this lifelessness was not observed by the hungry castaways. A joyous medley arose from the dock.
"Th'Vulcan! Hit's th'Vulcan! Th' goodVulcan! We'll 'ave full rations t'night, 'at will! Hurrah!"
They fell to cheering. Voices arose in confusion.
"Vulcanahoy!Vulcanah-o-oy!" they bellowed in an effort to span the miles with human ices.
"Say, lads, she ain't movin'!" cried someone making the surprising discovery.
"Faith and phwat's th' matter withhernow?" exclaimed Hogan in exasperated wonder.
A silence fell over the boisterous group.
"Out o' coal," hazarded Galton, "that's w'y she harsn't got back no sooner."
"W'ere's 'er sails, then?"
"A tug couldn't do nothin' with sails—she isn't made for sails!"
"It ain't w'ot ye're made for, hit's w'ot ye can git in this blarsted sea!"
"Maybe 'er machin'ry's broke?"
"Maybe they're hall sick?"
"Or dead?"
"Maybe——"
Madden hurried to his cabin and returned with binoculars. The men foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house. Her small boats were in place, but he saw neither life nor movement aboard. She appeared as deserted as a pile of scrap iron.
"W'ot are they doin'?" queried Galton.
"Nothing." Madden was puzzled over the strange condition of the tug.
"Ain't they crowdin' to th' side, sir, lookin' at us and fixin' to come to us?"
"Nobody's on her," replied Madden. "At least I don't see anyone."
"W'ot! W'ot! Nobody on 'er! Is she deserted, too? Just like theMinnie B!" chorused apprehensive voices.
"Seems so," frowned Madden, then he made up his mind quickly and moved over to the small boat which had been hauled up on the forward pontoon.
"Fall to, men, lower that dinghy. We'll go over and see what's the trouble."
The crew went about their task with a sudden slump of enthusiasm.
"If the crew's gone, sir," mumbled one of the men, as he paid out the rope, "w'ot's the use goin' across?"
"To get to the tug, of course."
"An'w'ot'll we do?"
Madden looked hard at the cockney. "Get the provisions aboard if nothing else."
"There wasn't none on theMinnie B, sir."
"What's theMinnie Bgot to do with theVulcan? We're going to run the tug and dock out of this sea, crew or no crew—ease away on that rope, Mulcher. Let go! Now climb down, Galton, loose the tackle and swing her in alongside the ladder."
When the cockneys obeyed, Madden ordered the whole crew into the small boat. They climbed down the ladder one by one with a reluctance Madden did not quite understand at the time.
Fifteen minutes later, the little boat, loaded down to her gunwales, set out for the tug. Four oarsmen rowed, one man to the oar. The slow clacking of shafts in tholes echoed sharply from the huge walls of the dock as the dinghy drew away through the burning sunshine.
At some half-mile distance, the harsh outlines of the walls and pontoons changed subtly into a great wine-red castle, that lay on a colorful tapestry of seaweed, with a background of blue ocean and bronze sky.
As he drew away, Madden had a premonition that the dock was vanishing out of his life and sight, that never again would he live in its great walls. Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay ahead.
Half an hour later the dinghy drew alongside the silentVulcanand the crew clambered aboard. As they had suspected, there was no sign of the tug's crew aboard.
Although the binoculars had forewarned them of this, the adventurers bunched together on the deck with a qualmish feeling and began talking in low tones, as men converse in the presence of mystery, or death.
"We'll search her first," directed Madden, in a tone he tried to make natural.
"Yes," agreed Greer, "and, men, keep a sharp eye out for lunatics. Don't let anything jump on you——"
"Lunatics!" gasped Mulcher.
"Greer and I fancied someone scuttled theMinnie B," explained Madden with a frown, "but that's no sign such a person is aboard theVulcan."
"They are wonderful like, sir," observed Gaskin.
"Anyway we'll look her over."
The men agreed and began scattering away, two by two for companionship. Presently from the port side Hogan raised his voice guardedly.
"Oh, Misther Madden, just stip this way a moment, if you plaze."
The call instantly attracted several other men. They moved across deck. Hogan was pointing. "Jist th' same as th' other wan," he said gloomily and significantly. "We knew it would be this way, sir. It was th' same hand as done it"
Leonard looked with rising dismay at the sinister parallel.
TheVulcanalso was lying at sea anchor.
In brief, here was conclusive proof that the tug had been abandoned deliberately and with forethought by Malone, Captain Black and the wholeVulcancrew. Moreover, as in the case of theMinnie B, they had deserted their ship without taking a boat or even so much as a life buoy.
The amazed group of men collected about them other members of the searching party, who stuck their heads out of ports and doors now and then to see that no evil magic had set the rigging in flames.
"They all go th' same way," mumbled Hogan, staring at the anchor and wetting his dry lips. "Oi'm thinkin' it'll be our toime nixt."
"Piffle," derided the American half-heartedly.
"It makes no difference what happens," put in Caradoc, "we'll see the thing through."
For some reason the men thought better of Smith since the fight and his crisp announcement cheered them somewhat.
"She's got plenty o' coal," volunteered Galton.
"'Er engines look all right," contributed Mulcher, "though I know bloomin' little about hengines."
"I weesh I knew what happened to the men," worried Deschaillon in his filed-down accent.
"My quistion ixactly, Frinchy," nodded Hogan emphatically. "Misther Madden says 'Piffle,' but Oi say where are they piffled to? Did they go over in a storm, or die of fever, or run crazy with heat?"
"They didn't starve," declared Mulcher, "for some of th' fellows are in th' cook's galley now eatin'."
Madden lifted his hand for attention, "There's no use speculating on what has happened. It's our job to get dock and tug to the nearest port."
"But suppose—suppose——"
"Suppose what?"
"Suppose th' thing gits arfter us, sir?"
Madden stared, "Thing—what thing?"
The cockney frowned, looked glumly across deck. Galton answered,
"W'y, sir, th' thing that run th' crew hoff theMinnie Ban' hoff th'Vulcan. Crews don't 'op hoff in th' hocean for amoosement, sir. Some'n' done hit an' that's sure."
"Do you mean you object to sailing this tug on account of some imaginarything?" demanded Madden in utter surprise.
"Imaginary, sir!" protested Mulcher, "If you please, us lads on th' dock, the night th'Minnie Bsunk, saw something swim off to th' south wrapped hall over in fire, sir. Imaginary thing! It bit a 'ole in th'Minnie Ban' sunk 'er, sir!"
This recalled to Leonard's mind the peculiar phenomenon he had witnessed at the sinking of theMinnie B.
"What do you think the thing is?" he temporized.
"A—A sea sorpint, sir," stammered a cockney embarrassed.
"Sea serpent! Sea serpent!" scouted the American. "There is no such thing as a sea serpent!"
"That's w'ot th' hofficers always say," growled Mulcher.
"But it is a scientific fact—there's no such thing."
The well-fed Gaskin, who formed one of the group, made a bob. "That may well be, sor," he said in solemn deference, "but w'ether there is or isn't such a thing, sor, it's 'orrible to see, either way."
From the banding of the men against him, Madden became aware that they had decided on the real cause of the mystery behind his back, and he would have hard work to argue them out of the sea serpent idea.
"You boys saw a shark or porpoise swimming away from that schooner," he began patiently. "I saw it myself. You recall, on that night anything that moved in the water burned like fire. The ship was brilliant, the oars of the dinghy shone. The thing you saw had nothing to do with the schooner."
"Then w'ot sunk 'er, sor?"
"Aye, an' w'ot come of 'er men, sor?"
"Aye, an w'ot come of th'Vulcan'screw?"
"Could a sea serpent put out a sea anchor?" retorted Leonard.
The men stared doggedly at their chief. "We don't know, sor."
"You do know that it is impossible!"
"If there ain't no such thing, sor, 'ow do we know w'ot it can do?" questioned Gaskin.
"Then do you want to go back and stay on the dock and starve?" cried Madden at the end of his patience.
There was a silence at the anger in his tone, then Gaskin began very placatingly, "Hi'm not wishin' to chafe ye, sor, but th' dock is so big th' lads 'ave decided the sorpint is afraid o' th' dock."
At Leonard's impatient gesture he added hastily, "Not that Hi believe in such things, sor, but Hi carn't 'elp but notice that hever'body on th' dock is alive, an' hever'body on th' other two wessels is dead an' gone, sor."
Madden turned sharply on his heel. "Anybody who knows anything about marine engines, follow me," he snapped. "We must study out a way to start theVulcan'smachinery. We're going!"
As he moved down to the doorway amidship that led below, he heard Galton mumble: "Yes,we'llbe going, Hi think, down some sea sorpint's scaly throat, but th' tug an' th' dock'll stay 'ere."
If a view of theMinnie B'sauxiliary engines had put hopeful notions in Madden's head of puzzling out their control by mere inspection, a single glance at the huge machinery of theVulcanfilled him with despair.
The tug's hull was practically filled with a maze of machinery. Her engines arose in a tower of bracings, wheels, gearing, pistons, steam pipes, steam valves, with a multitude of the eccentrics and trip gearings used on quadruple expansion engines.
Although he had seen hundreds of steam engines, never before had Madden realized their complication until he faced the problem of running this difficult fabric. His proposed task made him realize that the engineer's apprentice, who serves four years amid oil and iron black, learning all the details of these mechanical monsters, is probably just as well educated, just as capable of exact and sustained thought, as the lad who spends four years in college construing dead tongues.
Madden could construe dead tongues, or at least could when he left college a few months back, but now his life, the life of his crew, the salving of the dock, and the winning of a possible fortune, depended upon his answering the riddle of this Twentieth Century Sphinx. It was like attempting to understand all mathematics, from addition to celestial mechanics, at a glance.
Nevertheless, Madden's training as a civil engineer gave him a certain aptitude for his formidable undertaking and he set about it with rat-like patience.
He picked out the main steam pipe, larger than his body, covered with painted white canvas, and followed this till he discovered the throttle, a steel wheel with hand grips with which he could choke the breath out of the monster engines. Beside this were control levers. On the steam chest lay a half-smoked cigarette, as if the engineer had been called suddenly away from his post.
Madden turned the throttle, pushed the levers back and forth, and listened to clicking sounds high up in the complexity of the engines. He knew that every lever threw long systems of vents and valves in and out of play. A wrong combination would easily wreck all this powerful machinery. He was tackling a delicate job—like juggling a car-load of dynamite.
An oil can sat under the throttle. The amateur engineer picked up this and a handful of greasy tow. Engines require constant oiling. Madden had never watched an engineer ten minutes but that he went about poking a long crooked-necked oil can into all sorts of hidden inaccessible places.
Madden thought if he tried to oil the engine, he might learn something about it. He glanced around for the usual myriad little shining brass oil cups stuck, one on each bearing. To his surprise, he saw none. The machinery of theVulcanwas lubricated by a circulatory compression system, which used the same oil over and over. Madden did not know this, so it threw him off the track at his first step.
No one had followed the boy into the engine room, so now he was about to go on deck and commandeer a squad, when, to his surprise, Galton appeared at the top of the circular stairs, whistling a rather cheerful tune. He leaned over the rail and called down heartily:
"Do you want me, Mr. Madden?"
"Yes, come along. I wish you knew something about machinery."
Galton laughed buoyantly. "I'm not such a chump at hit, sor," he recommended.
"You know something about it?" inquired Madden in surprise.
"A bit, a bit, Mr. Madden. My brother Charley is chief engineer on theRajahin the P & O, sor."
"Ever work under him?" asked the American hopefully.
"Two years, only two years, sor. Never did finish my term an' get my papers. Often's the time 'e's begged me to do it, Mr. Madden. 'E'd say, ''Enry, me boy, w'y don't ye finish your term and git a screw o' sixteen pun' per, but I was allus a——"
"That's all right!" cried Leonard delightedly. "I don't care whether you're a full-fledged engineer or not. You're hired for this job. Understand? You'll get full wages, and then some. I'll——"
"Oh! I can 'andle a little hengine like this, sor. That's th' inspirator, sor," he pointed. "That's th' steam chist. In th' other end is th' condensing chamber. That little hegg-shaped thing is——"
"That's all right; I'm no examining board. Just so you can run it and keep it running. Now I'll get a gang at the furnace, if the boys have got over their sea-serpent scare by this time."
"They're jolly well over that, sor. Me and Mulcher 'ave decided as 'ow we're goin' to kill that sea sorpint, if it comes a-bitin' into our tug, sor."
Madden looked at his willing helper curiously. "Kill it—how are you going to kill it?"
"Dead, sor, yes, kill it dead, sor." Galton nodded solemnly, "My brother Charley, cap'n o' th'Cambria, sir, in th' 'Amburg-American Line, 'e learned me to kill sea sorpints, w'en I was jest a l-little bit of a—a piker, sor. An' I n-never forgot 'ow 'e told me to do it. You climb up th' mainmast, sor, w'ere you can git at their 'eads, cross your fingers for luck, an' blow tobacco smoke in their eyes. They 'ate tobacco smoke an——"
Leonard stared at the fellow, with a sinking heart. He was drunk. As to whether he knew anything about marine engines or not, there was no way to find out.
The effect of the long strain of heat, hunger and anxiety now told on Madden in a wave of unreasonable exasperation.
"You boozy fool!" snapped the officer, "you haven't sense enough to run a go-cart. Go down and start a fire in the furnace—can you do that?"
"Shertainly," nodded Galton gravely, "Mr. Madden, I can do anything. Go bring me th' furnace, and I'll put a fire in itthatquick. I'll start it now."
Here he stooped unsteadily, picked up a piece of oily tow, and before Madden knew what he was about, drew out a match and set fire to the greasy mass.
Leonard made a jump, planted a cracking blow between Galton's eyes. The fellow went down like a tenpin and lay still. The American stamped out the blazing tow before the fire spread on the oily floor.
Just then he heard a yelling from the upper deck. Hardly knowing what to expect, he dived for the circular stairway and rushed up three steps at a jump.
THE SEA SERPENT
THE SEA SERPENT
When a new crew is shipped on an old vessel, the mate's first duty is to search the sailors' dunnage for whiskey; when an old crew is shipped on a new vessel, that officer would do well to search the vessel for rum.
Madden had neglected this. While the American was in the engine room, the cockneys in the cook's galley had found intoxicants, had poured raw whiskey into their empty stomachs and the result was the quickest and most complete intoxication. When Madden regained the deck he found his crew singing, laughing, fighting, quarreling in an absurd medley.
Deschaillon roared out a French song. Two cockneys quarreled bitterly over what words he was saying. Mike Hogan jigged to the Frenchman's tune, but shouted as he danced that he was spoiling for a fight. The smell of spirits reeked over the tug as if someone had sprinkled her deck with liquor.
Madden looked with anxious eyes for Caradoc, but did not see him. Smith was probably stuck away in some hole, senseless with poison, his effort at sobriety frustrated, his moral courage shattered, his weeks of painful reform smashed.
Whatever humor there might have been in the ill-starred situation was destroyed for Madden by his friend's moral relapse. It was much as if some invalid, nursing a broken leg, should fall and break it over again.
Gaskin was the first man who came in reach of the wrathful American. Madden caught his arm, whirled him about.
"You ladle rum out to these hogs?" he blazed.
Gaskin revolved with dignity and considered his accuser. "You wouldn't think Hi'd do such a thing, sor!"
"Then how did they get it?" Leonard shook the fat arm sharply.
"In spite o' me, sor! In spite o' me!" defended the cook, shaking his fat jowls earnestly. "Hi rebooked 'em, sor. Says Hi, 'Gents, this is lootin', it is piratin', it is——'"
"You should have refused them a drop!"
"Refuse—Hi did refuse, sor! Hi did more. Hi blocked 'em! Hi—Hi fought hout, like a demon, sor! There were too many! Hoverpowered me, sor, they did! I was fightin' and blockin', fightin' and blockin', like a d-demon, sor, b-but—b-but——"
Here Gaskin's utterance grew thicker, his fat head bobbed, then he slithered down by the rail in the hot sunshine; his face stared skyward and stewed sweat in the terrific heat. Madden gave a grunt of disgust. Gaskin was fast asleep.
There was nothing to be done. The men were drunk and he would have to wait till they became sober before making an attempt to run theVulcan. He stood a moment, staring disgustedly at his useless crew, then finally stooped and dragged Gaskin to the shady side of the superstructure. As he passed with his burden some of the men made clumsy tangle-footed efforts to salute.
In the shade Leonard found a deck chair, perched himself on its arm so as not to touch its hot canvas, and sat brooding glumly. He banished the drunken uproar from his brain and began totting up his prospects for escape from this foully beautiful sea. His mind jumped from topic to topic in an exhausted fashion. He wondered whether or not Galton really knew anything of marine engines? If the dock would be discovered by a passing ship? If the tug's crew had really gone demented and leaped overboard? If there were any connection between the fate of theMinnie Band theVulcan?
It seemed to Madden that he had been in the heat and brilliant garishness of the Sargasso for centuries. He wondered if the men would become so starved that they would draw lots to see who should be killed and eaten.
Anything, everything, was possible in this isolated sea. Its normal happenings were unreasonable. It was a place of madness. He recalled the words of the navvy on the London dock, "Everything is unreasonable at sea." Certainly that was true of the vast stewing labyrinth of the Sargasso. He had lived abnormally so long that it seemed strange to him now to think that there were comfortable, well-ordered places on the face of the earth. Just as one cannot imagine snow and ice in the depth of summer, so Madden could not imagine the simple comforts of life. It seemed to him the whole world shriveled under a furnace heat.
Such heat, such congestion, he thought, might well breed sea-monsters. After all, why should there not be a sea monster? Who could be sure that the old megalosauri, and megalichthys were extinct? Those monsters existed once upon a time, certainly. He was half persuaded that they still existed.
A sea serpent!
He wondered what a sea serpent would look like? One might well drive a man insane, cause him to leap overboard in utter horror.
His feverish brooding was interrupted by a wild flood of abuse from the starboard deck. It was Galton's voice bellowing:
"Were is 'e? Were is that bloody Hamerican? 'E 'it me! 'It me in th' eye for trying to 'elp 'im! You lads goin' to see me murdered for nothin'?"
Came a medley of drunken questions:
"W'ot's th' matter? Who bloodied your bloomin' eyes? W'ot 'appened?"
"That Hamerican chap!" bawled Galton savagely. "'E 'it me for 'elpin' 'im make a fire! Goin' to see me run over an' killed?"
"Faith Oi didn't see nawthin'," panted Malone, fresh from his dance
"Won't you stan' by a Hinglishman?" shouted the battered one.
"Sure we will!"
"We're Hinglish!"
"Le's 'lect 'nother hofficer an' court martial 'im!" bawled the sailor venomously.
"Sure, make 'im walk a plank!"
"Son of a shark!"
"Man-killin' crimp!"
The whole crew came lurching around toward Madden, filled with the wordy anger of intoxicated men.
The American arose to his feet with little emotion save a return of his old disgust. He knew he could defend himself from any assault the crew might make in that condition. But they made none. They stopped a little way from him, some drunkenly grave, others winking or leering, some abusive and threatening.
"Go'n' tuh 'lect 'nother captain," announced Mulcher thickly. "You no reg'lar hofficer!"
"You 'it a man for 'elpin' you, and 'urt 'is eye!"
"Make 'im walk a plank!" flared out Galton, shaking a big fist at Leonard. "Make 'im walk a plank!" Leonard observed that the fellow's nose and forehead were badly bruised, and dark circles had settled under his eyes. He started for Madden, when Hogan caught him under the arms.
"Phwat you talkin' about, old scout? Walk a plank—you have to court martial him first."
"I don't b'lieve 'e can walk a plank," surmised a cockney gravely. "'E's too drunk; 'e'd fall hoff."
"Where's Farnol Greer, Mulcher?" snapped Madden disgustedly. "Is he drunk, too?"
"D-drunk—you don't think we're drunk, sor?"
"We 'ave been drinkin' a little, sor, but we're not drunk."
"Oi am," nodded Hogan, resting his chin on Galton's shoulder as if from deep affection.
"Oi don't a—ack loike it, you—hic—you couldn't tell it on me, b-but Oi—Oi—Oi'm drunk, aw roight."
"I theenk Greer ees in the cook's galley," smiled Deschaillon, who appeared to be rational; then he added coolly: "Eef there ees any fighting, I weel help you, Meester Madden."
"Cook's galley!" sputtered Mulcher. "'E's drinkin' hit ever' drop, lads; come on!"
"An' th' grub, too!" added Hogan.
This news completely disorganized the court martial and election committee. Galton himself forgot his revenge in his thirst. They started aft pellmell in confused haste to help Greer finish the rum.
Leonard made no objection. They were already drunk. They might as well dispose of the liquor once for all, and then it would trouble discipline no more.
When the men and their turmoil had disappeared, Madden remained on deck, filled with a dull, heavy feeling of lassitude and bitterness. It was one of those moments when a man's hope is swamped in present difficulties.
The sun swung slowly down into the western sea, and its reflections made long blinding streaks in the Sargasso. Its yellow light transformed the great red dock into an orange structure that rested on the sea as lightly as the pavilions of the evening clouds.
The perpetual bizarre beauty of the scene was tiring to the youth. For some reason he thought again of the sea serpent. It occurred to Madden that an enormous scaly thing, in vivid spangling colors, embossed with sword-like spines, with a long convoluted tail, huge red-fanged mouth, would be in keeping with the scene before him, would indeed produce a gorgeously decorative effect, such as he had seen in Chinese pictures.
His thoughts took all sorts of queer turns. He wondered what he would do if he should see such a creature? He walked over and stood by the rail, staring intently into the colorful west, half expecting to see some wild dragon of his imagination. If it should come, he wished for a camera—a moving picture camera. A moving picture of a dragon attacking a ship!
Just then he caught a strange noise that seemed to emanate from the air above his head. He stood quite still, hands on rail, listening. It was repeated. It was a human noise. It seemed to come from the vacant bronze-colored sky above his head. He wondered if he were going insane? Just then he caught sight of Caradoc's torso thrust out from a barrel up in the shrouding of the foremast. The crew of theVulcanhad run up the barrel like a whaler's lookout to post a watch. Into this barrel Caradoc had climbed.
The face of Smith wore a strained, desperate look. Madden stared at him for several seconds, quite taken aback by finding him in such an unexpected place. One thing, however, filled the American with deep gratification. The man was not drunk.
"What you doing up there?" called Madden in surprise.
Caradoc's broad shoulders sagged drearily. "I don't know," he said dully. "I fancy I might as well jump overboard and be done with it."
Madden became instantly alert. "Jump overboard! What for?" A sudden thought hit him. Maybe this was the way they all went? Then another fear entered his heart.
"Say, have you seen anything up there, Smith?... A dragon, or... sea serpent, or..." Madden stared dumbfounded at his friend, marveling what manner of sight had put suicidal thoughts into Smith's head.
"Heavens, yes... dragons, dragons, dragons!"
A weak, watery feeling went through Madden's legs. He felt doddery. "Many dragons!" All idea of beauty was lost in grisly horror.
"W-wait a m-minute!" he chattered. "D-don't j-jump—I'm coming up th-there!"