THE CASTAWAYS

THE CASTAWAYSI

Whenthe Cubans, led by Gomez and Maceo, were waging their final rebellion against the immemorial tyranny of Spain, it may be recalled that there was much filibustering out of American ports, and a lively demand for seafaring men of an intrepid temper who could be relied on to keep their eyes open and their mouths shut. Such a one was young Captain O’Shea, and, moreover, he was no amateur at this ticklish industry, having already “jolted one presidente off his perch in Hayti, and set fire to the coat-tails of another one in Honduras,” as he explained to the swarthy gentlemen of the Cuban Junta in New York, who passed on his credentials.

They gave him a sea-going tug called theFearless, permitted him to pick his own crew, and told him where to find his cargo, in a fairly lonesome inlet of the Florida coast. Thereafter he was to work out his own salvation. The programme was likely to be anything else than monotonous. Tobe nabbed by a Yankee cruiser in home waters for breaking the laws of nations meant that Captain O’Shea would cool his heels in a Federal jail, a mishap most distasteful to a man of a roving disposition. To run afoul of the Spanish blockading fleet in Cuban waters was to be unceremoniously shot full of holes and drowned in the bargain.

Such risks as these were incidental to his trade, and Captain O’Shea maintained his cheerful composure until theFearlesshad taken her explosive cargo on board and was dropping the sandy coast-line of Florida over her stern. Then he scrutinized his passengers and became annoyed. The Junta had sent him a Cuban colonel and forty patriots, recruited from the cigar factories of Tampa and Key West, who ardently, even clamorously, desired to return to their native land and fight for the glorious cause of liberty.

Their organization was separate from that of the ship’s company. It was not the business of Captain O’Shea to enforce his hard-fisted discipline among them, nor did he have to feed them, for they had brought their own stores on board. Early in the voyage he expressed his superheated opinion of the party to the chief engineer. The twain stood on the little bridge above the wheel-house, the clean-built, youthful Irish-American skipper, and the beefy, gray-headed Johnny Kent, whose variegated career had begun among the Yankees of ’way down East.

The deep-ladenFearlesswas wallowing through the uneasy seas of the Gulf Stream. The Cubanpatriots were already sea-sick in squads, and they lay helpless amid an amazing disorder of weapons, blankets, haversacks, valises, and clothing. Now and then the crest of a sea flicked merrily over the low guard-rail and swashed across the pallid sufferers.

“Did ye ever see such a mess in all your born days?” disgustedly observed Captain O’Shea. “And we will have to live with this menagerie for a week or so, Johnny.”

“It’ll be a whole lot worse when all of ’em are took sea-sick,” was the discouraging reply. “Doggone ’em, they ain’t even stowed their kits away. They just flopped and died in their tracks. Why don’t you make their colonel kick some savvey into ’em, eh, Cap’n Mike?”

“Colonel Calvo?” and O’Shea spat to leeward with a laugh. “He is curled up in the spare state-room, and his complexion is as green as a starboard light. There is one American in the lot. Wait till I fetch him up.”

A deck-hand was sent into the dismal chaos, and there presently returned in his wake a lean, sandy man in khaki who clutched an old-fashioned Springfield rifle. At a guess his years might have been forty, and his visage had never a trace of humor in it. Much drill had squared his shoulders and flattened his back, and he stiffly saluted Captain O’Shea.

“Who are you, and what are ye doing in such amazin’ bad company?” asked the latter.

“My name is Jack Gorham, sir. I served four enlistments in the Fifth Infantry, and I have medalsfor marksmanship. The Cubans took me on as a sharp-shooter. They promised me a thousand dollars for every Spanish officer I pick off with this old gun of mine. I have a hundred and fifty rounds. You can figure it out for yourself, sir. I’ll be a rich man.”

“Provided ye are not picked off first, me hopeful sharp-shooter. Are there any more good men in your crowd?”

The old regular dubiously shook his head as he answered:

“There’s a dozen or so that may qualify on dry land. The rest ain’t what you’d call reliable comrades-in-arms.”

“Oh, they may buck up,” exclaimed Captain O’Shea. “Look here, Gorham, you can’t live on deck with those sea-sick swine. Better go for’ard and bunk with my crew.”

Jack Gorham looked grateful, but firmly declared:

“Thank you, sir, I belong with the Cuban outfit, and I’ll take my medicine. It would make bad feeling if I was to quit ’em. They are as jealous and touchy as children. I have a tip for you. There is one ugly lad in the bunch, the big, black nigger settin’ yonder on the hatch. They tell me he comes from Colombia and left there two jumps ahead of the police.”

They gazed down at the powerful figure of the negro, whose tattered shirt disclosed swelling ridges of muscle and more than one long scar defined in pink against the shining black skin. Thick-lipped,flat-nosed, he was the primitive African savage whose ancestors had survived the middle passage in the hold of a Spanish slaver. He was snarling and grumbling to a group of Cubans, and Captain O’Shea pricked up his ears.

“Raising a row about the grub, is he? ’Tis a pity he could not be sea-sick early and often.”

“Why don’t you crack him over the head with a belayin’-pin just for luck?” amiably suggested the chief engineer. “It would sweeten him up considerable.”

“I am carrying them as passengers, you blood-thirsty old buccaneer,” retorted O’Shea. “I must keep me hands off till they really mix things up. But I do not like the looks of the big nigger. He is one of your born trouble-hunters.”

“You take my advice and beat him up good and plenty before he gets started,” was the sage farewell of Johnny Kent as he lumbered below to exhort his oilers and stokers.

The night came down and obscured the hurrying tug whose course was laid for the Yucatan passage around the western end of Cuba. The lights of a merchant-steamer twinkled far distant and Captain O’Shea sheered off to give her a wide berth. He had no desire to be sighted or reported.

To him, keeping lookout on the darkened bridge, came his cook, a peaceable mulatto who had a grievance which he aired as follows:

“Please, cap’n, them Cubans what ain’t sea-sick is actin’ powerful unreasonable. I lets ’em heat theirstuff and make coffee in my galley, but I ain’t ’sponsible for th’ rations they all draws. That big, black niggah is stirrin’ ’em up. Jiminez, they calls him. At supper-time to-night, cap’n, he tried to swipe some of th’ crew’s bacon and hash, and I had to chase him outen th’ galley.”

“All right, George. I will keep an eye on him to-morrow,” said the skipper. “Between you and me the Cuban party did not bring enough provisions aboard to run them on full allowance for the voyage. There was graft somewhere. But I’m hanged if they can steal any of my stores. We may need every pound of them. I will see to it that your galley isn’t raided. And if this big bucko Jiminez gets gay again, give him the tea-kettle and scald the black hide off him—understand?”

“Yes, suh, cap’n; I’ll parboil him if you’ll look out he don’t carve me when he’s done recuperated.”

The cook descended to his realm of pots and pans while Captain O’Shea reflected that the voyage might be even livelier than he had anticipated. With calm weather his forty passengers would recover their appetites and demand three meals per day. They might whine and grumble over the shortage, but without a leader they were fairly harmless.

“I will have to lock horns with the big nigger before he gets any more headway,” soliloquized Captain O’Shea.

For once he heartily desired high winds and rough seas, but the following morning brought weather somuch smoother, that the pangs of hunger took hold of the reviving patriots, who arose from the coal-sacks and crowded to the galley windows. The cook toiled with one eye warily lifted lest the formidable negro from Colombia should board him unawares.

Captain O’Shea leaned over the rail of his bridge and surveyed the scene. Black Jiminez was making loud complaint in his guttural Spanish patois, but his following was not eager to encounter the rough-and-tumble deck-hands of theFearless, besides which the prudent cook hovered within easy distance of the steaming tea-kettle.

To the amusement of Captain O’Shea, it was that lathy sharp-shooter of the serious countenance, Jack Gorham, who took it upon himself to read the riot act to the big negro. He regarded himself and his duty with a profound, unshaken gravity. Jiminez overtopped him by a foot, but pride of race and self-respect would not permit him to knuckle under to the black bully.

“Will ye look at the Gorham man?” said Captain O’Shea to the chief engineer who had joined him. “He is bristlin’ up to the nigger like a terrier pup. And Jiminez would make no more than two bites of him.”

“How can the soldier do anything else?” exclaimed Johnny Kent. “He’s the only white man in the bunch.”

“I may as well let him know that I am backin’ his game,” observed the other. He sang out toGorham, and the veteran infantryman climbed to the bridge, where he stood with heels together, hat in hand. His pensive, freckled countenance failed to respond to the captain’s greeting smile.

“Unless I am mistaken, Gorham, ye have it in mind to tackle a job that looks a couple of sizes too large for you. Will ye start a ruction with Jiminez?”

“Until the colonel gets on his legs I’m the man to take charge of the party, sir,” answered the soldier, reflectively rubbing the bald spot which shone through his thinning thatch of sandy hair.

“But I expect to take a hand,” petulantly declared the captain. “This is my ship.”

“Excuse me, sir,” and Gorham’s accents were most apologetic. “This is your ship, but it ain’t your party. The patriots are a separate command. The big nigger belongs to me. If I don’t discourage him, I lose all chance of winnin’ promotion in the Cuban army. If he downs me, I’ll be called a yellow dog from one end of the island to the other. I intend to earn my shoulder-straps.”

“And you will climb this big, black beggar, and thank nobody to interfere?” asked the admiring Captain O’Shea.

“It is up to me, sir.”

“You strain me patience, Gorham. If ye have any trinkets and messages to send to your friends, better give them to me now.”

Said the chief engineer when the soldier was out of ear-shot:

“Does he really mean it, Cap’n Mike? He’ll sure be a homely-lookin’ corpse.”

“Mean it? That lantern-jawed lunatic wouldn’t know a joke if it hit him bows on.”

“Will you let him be murdered?”

“We will pry the big nigger off him before it goes as far as that. Have ye not learned, Johnny Kent, that it is poor business to come between a man and his good intentions, even though they may be all wrong?”

Later in the day Captain O’Shea sought the state-room of the prostrate Colonel Calvo. The sea was a relentless foe and showed him no mercy. Feebly moving his hands, he turned a ghastly face to the visitor and croaked:

“I have no interes’ in my mens, in my country, in nothings at all. I am dreadful sick. I will not live to see my Cuba. She will weep for me. The ship, she will sink pretty soon? I hope so.”

“Nonsense, colonel,” bluffly returned O’Shea. “The weather couldn’t be finer. A few days more of this and ye will be wading in Spanish gore to your boot-tops. I want to ask about your stores. Your men are growlin’. Who is in charge of the commissary?”

“Talk to me nothings about eats,” moaned the sufferer. “Why do anybody want eats? Come to-morrow, nex’ day, nex’ week. Now I have the wish to die with peace.”

“The sooner, the better,” said the visitor, and departed.

TheFearless, with explosives in the hold and inflammable humanity above-decks, pursued her hard-driven way through another night and turned to double Cape San Antonio and enter the storied waters of the Caribbean. Black Jiminez had failed to play the rôle expected of him and the discontent of the patriots focussed itself in no open outbreak. Captain O’Shea was puzzled at this until the mate came to him and announced that the Cubans had broken through a bulkhead in the after-hold and were stealing the ship’s stores. This accounted for their good behavior on deck. The leader of the secret raiding party was the big negro from Colombia.

“It seems to me that this ismybusiness,” softly quoth the skipper, and his gray eyes danced while he pulled his belt a notch tighter. “But I must play fair and ask permission of the melancholy sharp-shooter before I proceed to make a vacancy in the Jiminez family.”

The interview with Gorham was brief. The captain argued that by breaking through a bulkhead and pilfering the crew’s provisions, the large black one had invaded the O’Shea domain. The soldier held to it with the stubbornness of a wooden Indian that his own self-respect was at stake. O’Shea lost his temper and burst out:

“If ye are so damned anxious to commit suicide, go and get him and put him in irons. I will give you a decent burial at sea, though ye don’t deserve it, you pig-headed old ramrod.”

“The moral effect will be better if I get him,” mildly suggested the soldier.

The Cubans had learned that trouble was in the wind. Their stolen supplies were to be cut off and this meant short rations again. Angry and rebellious, only a spark was needed to set them ablaze. When eight bells struck the noon hour they surged toward the galley, making a great noise, displaying their sea-rusted machetes and rifles. In the lead was Jiminez, a half-clad, barbaric giant who waved a heavy blade over his head and shouted imprecations. The purpose of the mob was to rush the galley and carry off all the food in sight.

The crew of theFearlessliked not the idea of going dinnerless. When the excited patriots charged forward, there quickly rallied in front of the deck-house fourteen earnest-looking men equipped with Mauser rifles broken out of the cargo. In a wheel-house window appeared the head and shoulders of Captain O’Shea. His fist held a piece of artillery known as a Colt’s forty-five. In the background of the picture was the resourceful Johnny Kent, who was coupling the brass nozzle of the fire-hose.

Jiminez had decided to declare war. He appealed to the patriots to use their weapons, but they showed a prudent reluctance to open the engagement. One of them, by way of locating the responsibility for the dispute, pulled a revolver from a holster and took a snap-shot at the cook.

“I guess I’d better turn loose this hose and wash ’em aft, Cap’n Mike,” sung out the chief engineer.“George is a darned good cook and it ain’t right to let these black-and-tans pester him.”

Captain O’Shea bounded from the bridge to the deck, and the crew of theFearlesswelcomed him with joyous yelps. Instead of giving them the expected order to charge the Cubans hammer-and-tongs, he made for Jiminez single-handed. His intention was thwarted. Between him and the burly negro appeared the spare figure of Jack Gorham, who moved swiftly, quietly. With courteous intonation and no sign of heat he affirmed:

“This is my job, sir. It’s about time to put a few kinks in him.”

The manner of the man made Captain O’Shea hesitate and feel rebuked, as though he had been properly told to mind his own business. With a boyish grin he slapped Gorham on the back and said:

“I beg your pardon for intrudin’. ’Tis your funeral.”

Although the mob behind Jiminez failed to catch the wording of this bit of dialogue, they comprehended its import. The extraordinary composure of the two men impressed them. They felt more fear of them than of the embattled deck-hands. The tableau lasted only a moment, but a singular silence fell upon the ship.

Big Jiminez nervously licked his lips and his bloodshot eyes roved uneasily. It was apparent that he had been singled out as the leader, and that the sad-featured American soldier in the sea-stainedkhaki viewed him as no more than an incident in the day’s work.

Captain O’Shea had stepped back to join his own men. Jack Gorham stood alone in a small cleared space of the deck, facing the truculent negro. The Cubans began to edge away from Jiminez as if comprehending that here was an issue between two men. The soldier had for a weapon that beloved old Springfield rifle, but he made no motion to shoot.

Presently he sprang forward, with the heavy butt upraised. The negro swung his machete at the same instant and the blade was parried by the steel barrel. The mob had become an audience. It lost its menacing solidarity and drifted a little way aft to make room for the combatants. Instead of riot or mutiny, the trouble on board theFearlesshad defined itself as a duel.

The veteran regular handled the clubbed rifle with amazing ease and dexterity. The wicked machete could not beat down his guard, and he stood his ground, shifting, ducking, weaving in and out, watching for an opening to smash the negro’s face with a thrust of the butt. Once the blade nicked Gorham’s shoulder and a red smear spread over the khaki tunic.

Jiminez was forced back until he was cramped for room to swing. His machete rang against a metal stanchion and the galley window was at his elbow. His black skin shining with sweat, his breath labored, the splendid brute was beginning to realize that he had met his master. From thetail of his eye he observed that the Cubans no longer thronged the passageway between the deck-house and guard-rail. He turned and ran toward the stern.

Gorham was after him like a shot. In his wake scampered the crew of theFearlessintermingled with the Cubans, all anxious to be in at the finish. Jiminez wheeled where the deck was wide. He was not as formidable as at first. Fear was in his heart. He had never fought such a man as this insignificant-looking American soldier, who was unterrified, unconquerable. Gorham ran at him without an instant’s hesitation, the rifle gripped for a downward swing. The machete grazed his head and chipped the skin from the bald spot.

Before Jiminez could strike again, the butt smote his thick skull and he staggered backward. Caught off his balance, his machete no longer dangerous, he was unable to avoid the next assault. Gorham moved a step nearer and deftly tapped his adversary with the rifle-butt. It was a knock-out blow delivered with the measured precision of a prize-ring artist. The machete dropped from the negro’s limp fingers and he toppled across two sacks of coal with a sighing grunt.

The crew of theFearlessbroke into a cheer. The mate on duty in the wheel-house let the vessel steer herself and scrambled to the bridge, where he was clumsily dancing a jig. The Cubans chattered among themselves in subdued accents, and from the state-room door peered the wan countenance of ColonelCalvo, who was wringing his hands and sputtering commands to which nobody paid the slightest attention.

Jack Gorham stood swaying slightly, leaning upon his Springfield, and wiped the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. A moment later Captain O’Shea had both arms around him and was bellowing in his ear:

“We will hoist ye into a bunk, Jack. Oh, but you are the jewel of a fightin’ man! I hope ye were not hurt bad.”

“Nothing to speak of, sir, but my wind isn’t what it was,” panted Gorham. “Better look after the nigger first. I didn’t plan to kill him.”

The chief engineer was dragging the hose aft with the praiseworthy intention of washing down the combatants, and the captain told him to turn the cool salt-water on the prostrate bulk of the negro.

“I’ll play nurse to him if you haven’t spoiled him entirely,” said Johnny Kent. “I need more help down below and he’ll make a dandy hand with a coal-shovel when his head is mended.”

Just then the mate, who had returned to the wheel, yelled to Captain O’Shea and jerked the whistle-cord. The skipper ran forward and bolted into the wheel-house. With a flourish of his arm the mate indicated a small boat lifting and falling on the azure swells no more than a few hundred yards beyond the bow of the tug. The occupants were vigorously signalling by means of upraised oars and articles of clothing.

The captain rang the engine-room bell to slacken speed and stared at the boat-load of castaways which had none of the ear-marks of shipwreck and suffering. The white paint of the boat was unmarred by the sea and the handsome brass fittings were bright. Two seamen in white clothes were at the oars, and in the stern-sheets were two women and a young man who could not be mistaken for the ordinary voyagers of a trading-vessel’s cabin.

“I ought to have called you sooner, sir,” sheepishly confessed the mate of theFearless, “but I was watching the shindy on deck, same as all hands of us. What do you make of it?”

“It looks like a pleasure party,” said Captain O’Shea. “I am puzzled for fair.”

He ordered the engines stopped and theFearlessdrifted slowly toward the boat. The ship’s company flocked to the rail to see the castaways, who gazed in their turn at the picturesque throng of twentieth-century buccaneers—the swarthy, unshaven Cubans with their flapping straw hats, bright handkerchiefs knotted at the throat, their waists girded with cartridge-belts, holsters, and machete-scabbards—and the sunburnt, reckless rascals of the crew.

There were symptoms of consternation in the small boat as it danced nearer the crowded rail of theFearless, also perceptibly less eagerness to be rescued. This was making a choice between the devil and the deep sea. It was now possible to discern that of the two women in the stern of the boatone was elderly and the other girlishly youthful. Both wore white shirt-waists and duck skirts, and the young man was smartly attired in a blue double-breasted coat, of a nautical cut, and flannel trousers. One might have supposed that the party was being set ashore from a yacht instead of tossing adrift in a lonely stretch of the Caribbean beyond sight of land.

Captain O’Shea surveyed them with a dismayed air. He was not equipped for the business of rescuing shipwrecked people of such fashionable appearance; and as for taking two women on board theFearless, here was a complication to vex the soul of an industrious, single-minded filibuster. However, he was a sailor and an Irishman, and his honest heart responded to the appeal of femininity in distress. The steps were hung over the tug’s side to make the transfer from the boat as easy as possible, and a deck-hand stood ready with a coil of heaving-line. From the bridge Captain O’Shea hailed the derelicts.

“For the love of heaven, who are you and where do ye come from, so spick and span? What is it all about, anyhow?”

The young man in the stern answered in somewhat nettled tones:

“It seems more to the point to ask who you are. We are in a deucedly bad fix, and these ladies ought to be taken aboard; but do you mind if I ask whether you intend to make us walk the plank? My word, but you are a frightfully hard-looking lot. Is Captain Kidd with you?”

It was O’Shea’s turn to be ruffled, and he flung back:

“You seem mighty particular about your company. ’Tis a nuisance for me to bother with ye at all.”

“Oh, the ladies can’t drift about in this open boat any longer,” the young man hastened to exclaim. “I shall pay you handsomely to set us ashore at the nearest port.”

“And what would I be doing in the nearest port?” the skipper muttered with a grin. “Well, there is no sense in slingin’ words to and fro. Let them come aboard and find out for themselves.”

Running to the rail to assist these unwelcome guests, he called to the self-possessed young man in the boat:

“How long have ye been adrift?”

“Since midnight. Our yacht ran on a reef and broke her back. Before daylight we lost sight of the other boats.”

Captain O’Shea said nothing more. His interest veered to the girl, who had been shielding her face from the blistering glare of sun and sea. Now, as she looked up at the tug which towered above the boat, the impressionable skipper perceived that her face was fair to see, and that she smiled at him with friendly confidence. Presently he was lending her a steadying hand as she clung to the swaying rail of the tug and found foothold on the steps over which the waves washed.

“You are a plucky one and no mistake!” exclaimedCaptain O’Shea. “A man might think ye enjoyed it.”

“I do,” said she, shaking the water from her skirt as she gained the deck. “Now please get my aunt aboard as carefully as you can. She has a touch of rheumatism.”

Without mishap the elderly lady was assisted to accomplish the acrobatic feat of forsaking the bobbing boat, after which the young man and the sailors were allowed to shift for themselves. Leather hand-bags, steamer-rugs, and canned provisions were tossed to the deck and the boat was turned adrift, for there was no room to stow it on board. Immediately theFearlessforged ahead and picked up her course at full speed.

To an elderly spinster of refinement whose years had been spent in a sheltered, effete civilization, mostly bounded by Massachusetts, the deck of theFearlesswas an environment shocking beyond words. The chief engineer had resumed his interrupted task of playing the hose on the senseless, half-naked bulk of black Jiminez. Jack Gorham, more or less ensanguined, was stretched upon a hatch, where the surgeon of the Cuban party had detained him to sponge and stitch his shoulder and bandage his head. Near by hovered the disreputable patriots, begrimed with coal-dust and bristling with deadly weapons.

The elderly lady stared with eyes opened very wide. Her lips moved, but made no sound, and her delicately wrinkled cheek grew pale. At length she managed to whisper to her niece that dread sayingfamiliar to many generations of New England spinsters:

“Mercy! We shall all be murdered in our beds.”

Captain O’Shea joined them, to speak his earnest reassurances.

“You are as safe as if you were in Sunday-school, ladies. This bunch of patriots is perfectly harmless. There was an argument just before we sighted ye, and the best man won.”

“And what is this voyage of yours, captain?” asked the girl.

“Oh, we are just romancin’ around the high-seas. ’Tis nothing that would interest a lady.”

“Do you kill each other every day?”

“You mean the big nigger yonder?” and Captain O’Shea looked a trifle embarrassed. “No, his manners had to be corrected. But will you come for’ard, please, and make yourselves at home in my room? ’Tis yours as long as ye are on board.”

“I am quite sure you have no intention of murdering us,” smilingly quoth the girl. “And we shall ask you no more questions for the present. Come along, Aunt Katharine.”

The young man of the castaways was fidgeting rather sulkily in the background. He wished to interview the captain at once, but the gallant O’Shea had eyes only for the ladies. Overlooked and apparently forgotten, the shipwrecked young man picked his way across the deck to accost Johnny Kent, whose first-aid-to-the-injured treatment with a hose-nozzle had proved efficacious. The vanquishednegro was rubbing his head and sputtering salt-water and Spanish.

“There, you’re what I call recussitated in bang-up good style,” cried the engineer, proud of his handiwork. “If you were a white man, your block ’ud have been knocked clean off. You ought to be thankful for your mercies.”

The castaway touched his arm and exclaimed:

“I say, my good man, I need something to eat, and a place to sleep. I was awake all night in an open boat.”

The stout person in the greasy overalls turned to survey the speaker with mild amusement on his broad, red face.

“By the look of your party you must have suffered something awful. The skipper will attend to you pretty soon and he’ll do his best to make you happy. But this ain’t no gold-plated yacht, and it ain’t no table dote hotel.”

“So I see, but I’ll pay for the best on board. Really, money is noobject——”

Johnny Kent chuckled and turned to wave the nozzle at the negro, who was sitting up.

“You subside, Jiminez, or I’ll dent this over your head. It ain’t healthy for you to get well too darned fast.”

He scrutinized the castaway with a tolerant, fatherly air and answered him:

“Better stow that you-be-damned manner of yours, young man. We’re outlaws, liable to be blown out of water any blessed minute. Thosetarriers for’ard had just as soon throw you overboard as not if they don’t like your style. You ain’t a shipwrecked hero. You’re an unavoidable nuisance aboard this hooker. We’ve got other fish to fry.”

The young man flushed angrily. He was pleasant-featured, fair-haired, of athletic build, his accent suggesting that he had imported it from England. He was conscious of his own importance in the world whose idols were money and social position. Grizzled old Johnny Kent, who had diced with fortune and looked death between the eyes on many seas, knew only one distinction between men. They were “good stuff” or they were “quitters.” As for money, to have a dollar in one’s pocket after a week ashore argued a prudence both stingy and unmanly. Wherefore he wholly failed to grasp the view-point of the young man who had been wrecked in a sea-going yacht.

Fortunately Captain O’Shea came back to divert the chief engineer’s outspoken opinions. He called the castaway aside to say:

“Come to the galley with me and the cook will do his best for ye. I will sit down there and hear your yarn. If you want some clothes, maybe I can fit you out. My men are looking after your sailors.”

“This is a filibustering expedition, I take it,” exclaimed the other as they went forward.

“I do not admit it,” judicially replied Captain O’Shea. “I will not turn state’s evidence against meself.”

When they had perched themselves upon stools at the galley table the young man handed the skipper his card, which read:

“Mr. Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen.”

The recipient eyed the card critically and commented:

“Dutch? I had a Dutchman as bos’n once and, saving your presence, he was an oakum-headed loafer. Now, how did ye come to be in these waters and whose yacht was it?”

Young Mr. Van Steen proceeded to explain.

“She was theMorning Star, owned by my father, the New York banker—the old house of Van Steen & Van Steen. You have heard of it, of course. He decided to take a winter holiday-trip and asked me to go along—that is to say, Miss Forbes and me. She is myfiancée——”

“You mean the young one. And she has signed on to marry you?” broke in Captain O’Shea with marked interest.

“Yes. She invited her aunt, Miss Hollister, to make the voyage as a sort of chaperon. We cruised to Barbadoes, where my father was called home on business and took a mail-steamer in a hurry. We jogged along in theMorning Staruntil her captain lost his bearings, or something of the kind, and you know the rest. We were ordered into a boat, but while waiting for an officer and more sailors a rain-squall came along—a nasty blow it was—and our boat broke loose, and we couldn’t get back to the yacht. The wind was dead against us.”

“The other boats will be picked up,” observed O’Shea. “You were lucky to have such an easy time of it. Now comes the rub. What am I going to do with ye?”

“Chuck up your voyage,” cheerfully answered Mr. Van Steen. “We simply can’t go knocking about with you and risking the ladies’ lives. And think of the hardships. My dear man, this tug is no place for a gentlewoman.”

“It is not,” agreed O’Shea, “nor was it meant to be. ’Tis not ladies’ work I have on hand. I have promised to deliver my cargo at a certain place at a certain time, and there are men waitin’ that need it bad. Shall I break me word to them?”

Van Steen made an impatient gesture. He was used to dealing with men who had their price.

“But you are in this business for money,” cried he. “And I fancy you must have been pretty hard up to take such a job and run all these risks. Name your figure. I can understand the situation. Rescuing us is deucedly awkward for you. You don’t know what to do with us. How much do you stand to make on the voyage, and what is the cargo worth?”

Captain Michael O’Shea leaned across the table and his fist was clenched. He did not strike, but the wrath that blazed in his eyes caused Van Steen to draw back. The sailor was not much older in years than the other man, but he had battered his way, not merely sauntered through life, and virile experiences had so strongly stamped his featuresthat Van Steen looked effeminate beside him. It was a masterful man that held himself steady under the provocation and replied to the insulting proposition slowly and carefully, as though choosing his words:

“You heard me say I had given me word to land this cargo as soon as ever I could, Mr. Van Steen. And on top of that ye try to buy me to leave good men in the lurch and break my word when this stuff of mine means life or death to them. All the money your daddy has in his bank could not make me put this ship one point off her course to set you ashore until I am good and ready. Do I make meself clear? You and your dirty money! This isn’t New York.”

Van Steen was honestly amazed. This lowering, flinty-faced young skipper must be crazy. Professional filibusters were a kind of criminal recruited from the roughest classes. They could have no morals, no manners, none of the sentiments of a gentleman. He ventured a final attempt and said with a nervous laugh:

“But what if I offer to buy the vessel outright, cargo and all, and absolutely protect you personally against any loss whatever?”

“I do not like your company,” abruptly exclaimed O’Shea. “Ye fill me with sorrow for the rich. I cannot be rid of you, but we will not be on good terms.”

His sense of humor saved the situation, and he concluded with one of his sunny, mischievous smiles:

“’Tis terrible inconvenient for both of us. Here we are, aboard a kind of a Flying Dutchman that must go dancin’ and dodgin’ about the high seas with every man’s hand against her. And you are no more anxious to quit me than I am to see the last of you.”

“But—but—it is absolutely impossible,” stammered Van Steen. “Think of theladies——”

“They have my room, and the bit of an upper deck will be sacred to them.”

O’Shea stepped to the galley door, but Van Steen detained him with a question.

“What about me? Can I negotiate for a state-room?”

“Yes, indeed; it is on the overhang with two sacks of coal for a mattress, and ye should be thankful ’tis soft coal and not anthracite. Ye may find the suite a trifle crowded, but by kicking a few patriots in the ribs you can make room for yourself.”

In the refuge of the captain’s room that distraught spinster, Miss Hollister, was overcome by emotions almost hysterical. Her first impressions of theFearlesshad been in the nature of a nervous shock more severe than the episode of the shipwreck. Only the presence of her niece restrained her from tears and lamentations. Nora Forbes, the young person in question, was behaving with so much courage andself-possession as to set her aunt a most excellent example.

“Oh, did you ever see anything so dreadful?” moaned Miss Hollister, glancing at the captain’s shaving-glass and absently smoothing her gray hair. “There was a dead negro stretched on deck, and a white man all covered with blood, and the captain not in the least excited, actually joking aboutit——”

Miss Nora Forbes artfully coaxed her aunt away from the bit of mirror and proceeded to arrange her own disordered tresses as though this were more important than damp skirts and wave-soaked stockings. With hairpins twain between her pretty lips, she replied, and her accents were by no means hopeless:

“It is just too tremendously romantic for words, Aunt Katharine. I am not the least bit afraid. The captain may be a desperate villain, but he carries himself like a rough-and-ready gentleman. This is a genuine adventure, so cheer up and enjoy it.”

“But the scenes of violence—the crew of cutthroats—the bloodshed,” unsteadily resumed Miss Hollister, unable to refrain from dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “I don’t know what to say. My mind is a blank. I can onlypray——”

“I should advise unpacking that bag and getting out some clean clothes,” suggested Nora. “There is no reason why we should look like a pair of drowned frights. It is an upsetting experience, Aunt Katharine, but life on shore is so tame!”

“I shall be content to be tame forevermore, Nora,if I am permitted to survive this experience. I hope Gerald can persuade the captain to land us at once.”

“They didn’t want to rescue us, so we must make ourselves as agreeable as possible. I intend to be particularly nice to the captain.”

Miss Hollister was recalled to her duty as chaperone. Her manner was reproving as she counselled:

“Be careful, Nora, you are a heedless girl at times and Gerald is very sensitive. Our plight is too serious for jesting. Of course you must be civil to the captain, but he is a perfectly impossible person. Gerald will reward him for his trouble in our behalf. We are placing ourselves under no obligations whatever.”

They were quite trim and fresh in dry clothes when the cook brought up a tray laden with the best fare the ship’s stores could provide and a pot of coffee black and hot enough to revive the most forlorn castaways that ever floated.

“Th’ cap’n’s compliments,” said George, entering with a cake-walk shuffle, “an’ he tells me to inform you that if th’ grub is burnt or don’t taste right he’ll hang me up by mah thumbs an’ peel off mah no-’count hide with a rope’s end.”

Miss Hollister appeared so ready to believe the worst that the rascally George could not forbear to add:

“Of cou’se, I’se jes’ fillin’ in till th’ regular cook gits well. Mebbe you seen him when you come aboard. He was all spraddled out. It mighty near done for big Jiminez, I’se a-tellin’ you.”

“What happened to him?” breathlessly demanded Miss Hollister, her hands clasped.

“He done fetch th’ cap’n a cup of cold coffee, ma’am.”

“How awful! And what was the matter with the white man in the khaki uniform?”

“He tried to say a good word for th’ cook. And th’ cap’n done give himhis. This is a lively ship, ma’am.”

He could not help grinning as he turned to leave, and Nora Forbes caught him in the act.

“You are an utterly shameless prevaricator,” cried she, “and I have a notion to report you to the captain.”

“No need of it,” exclaimed O’Shea himself, who appeared in time to grasp the luckless George by the neck and pitch him down the stairway to the lower deck.

“He is a good cook, but his imagination is too strong for him at times,” explained O’Shea as he stood in the door-way, declining Nora’s invitation to enter. “The both of ye look as lovely as a May morning. It agrees with you to be shipwrecked.”

Miss Hollister thawed a trifle, although she was strongly inclined to accept the cook’s story as after the fact. But it was hard resisting the blarneying sailor with the merry eyes.

“Is such severity necessary? I feel that I ought to protest—” she began, spurred by the prompting of a New England conscience.

“And what was that slippery divil of a cook deludin’ ye about?”

The spinster mustered courage to explain. Captain O’Shea roared with glee, and turning to Nora Forbes, as if recognizing a sympathetic listener, exclaimed:

“Would ye know the truth about the big nigger? Then I will introduce you to-morrow to the man that laid him out, and a better one never stood on two feet than this same Jack Gorham, the melancholy sharp-shooter who captures ’em alive with the butt of his gun.”

Afraid of delaying their meal, he made an abrupt bow and vanished on deck. Presently Mr. Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen stood gloomily regarding them. Nora made room for him on the cushioned locker and cheerily asked:

“How are you getting on with the assorted pirates? Are they a rum lot and do they sing ‘Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest’?”

“I am not getting on at all,” sadly quoth he. “I have met only the chief engineer and the captain, and I should call them a very rum lot indeed. This is a floating mad-house. By Jove! I was never so angry in my life.”

“I think I understand, Gerald,” soothingly observed Miss Hollister. “But I am sure you can extricate us from this alarming situation. You are a young man of courage and resources and the name of Van Steen carries great weight everywhere.”

“This wild Irishman never heard of it,” said Gerald. “And when I talked money he almost crawled across the table to assault me.”

“Then he refuses to put us on shore at once?”tremulously cried the chaperon. “What do you mean, Gerald?”

“He doesn’t care a hang about us. I made no impression on him at all. The more I argued the hotter he got. He intends to carry us about with him until he has dumped his cargo of guns somewhere on the Cuban coast. And then I presume he will make his way back to the United States, if the tug isn’t sunk with all hands in the meantime.”

“But the captain can’t afford to let us interfere with his plans,” protested Nora, who looked by no means so unhappy as the circumstances warranted. “Do be reasonable, Gerald. Aunt Katharine and I are quite comfortable.”

“I am not,” vehemently exclaimed young Mr. Van Steen. “The brute of a skipper tells me I must sleep on two sacks of coal. Fancy that!”

“I am afraid you were not tactful,” was Nora’s mirthful comment.

“We are in the captain’s power,” sighed Miss Hollister.

“We are kidnapped. That’s what it amounts to,” strenuously affirmed Van Steen.

Later in the afternoon the trio sought the railed space on the roof of the deck-house, just behind the small bridge which was Captain O’Shea’s particular domain. The mate had found two battered wooden chairs and rigged an awning. Such consideration as this was bound to dull the edge of Miss Hollister’s fears and she gazed about her with fluttering interest and reviving animation. Through an opendoor they could see Captain O’Shea standing beside the man at the wheel. He wore no coat, his shirt-sleeves were rolled up and displayed his brown, sinewy forearms, and a shapeless straw hat was pulled over his eyes. His binoculars attentively swept the blue horizon ahead and abeam.

Presently he went on the bridge and searched the shimmering sea astern. His demeanor was not so uneasy as vigilant and preoccupied. So long did he stand in the one position with the glasses at his eyes that Gerald Van Steen became curious and tried to descry whatever it was that had attracted the captain’s notice. At length he was able to make out a trailing wisp of brown vapor, like a bit of cloud, where sea and sky met.

“There is some kind of a steamer astern of us,” said Van Steen to Nora Forbes. “Perhaps it is a German or English mail-boat. If so, I can see no objection to transferring us aboard.”

Captain O’Shea overheard the remark and called to them:

“No mail-steamer is due on this course. And it is not a cargo tramp or she would not be steaming faster than we are.”

“Then what can it be?” asked Nora.

“I cannot tell ye, Miss Forbes, nor am I anxious at all to let her come close enough to find out.”

On the lower deck the Cubans were flocking to the overhang or climbing on the rail to gaze at the distant smoke astern. They talked excitedly, with many gestures. Evidently here was an event ofsome importance. Little by little the other steamer cut down the miles of intervening space until her funnel was visible. TheFearlesshad been making no unusual effort to increase her own speed, but now Captain O’Shea said a few words into the engine-room speaking-tube, and Johnny Kent came trundling up from below, wiping his face with a bunch of waste.

The captain took him by the arm and imparted:

“I do not like the looks of her, Johnny; she is too fast to be healthy for us. I got the word in New York that two of theAlmirantecruiser class were coming out from Spain to join the blockadin’ fleet and make it hot for our business. There is nothing on the coast that can do over twelve knots, is there?”

“Only theJulio Sanchez, Cap’n Mike, and she’s laid up at Havana with her boilers in awful shape. I suppose you want me to hook up and burn my good coal.”

“I think this is a poor place to loaf in, Johnny. There was something said about a reward of fifty thousand dollars to the Spanish navy vessel that overhauled theFearlessand sunk her at sea. Better crack on steam and maybe we can lose that fellow yonder after nightfall.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n Mike, I’ll put the clamps on the safety-valves, and take care not to look at the gauges. I’ll need more help below.”

“Grab the deck-hands. Get to it.”

“And I was just crawlin’ into my bunk to finish the most excitin’ novel you ever read,” mournedJohnny Kent as he footed it down the ladder. “It’s all about adventures. The situations are hair-raisin’, Cap’n Mike.”

Young Mr. Van Steen had edged within ear-shot so that he heard part of this dialogue. Returning to the ladies, he thrust his hands in his pockets and tried to hide his perturbation. Nora questioned him eagerly, and he answered with a shrug and a laugh:

“We’re going to have a race with the steamer behind us. I imagine they told a few whoppers for my benefit. The chief engineer remarked in the most casual way that he intended to put clamps on the safety-valves. That is absurd, of course. The boilers might blow up.”

“I am inclined to think he meant it,” said Nora, who was looking at Captain O’Shea. “This is not a yachting cruise, Gerald.”

“But if the silly old ass of an engineer really meant it, and we are pursued by a hostile man-of-war,” stubbornly persisted Van Steen, “why did he talk about wanting to finish a novel because it was full of exciting adventures? Isn’t this exciting enough?”

“You are stupid,” impatiently exclaimed Nora. “These extraordinary men can’t see that they are living the most thrilling adventures. It is all in the day’s work with them. I am going to ask Captain O’Shea to tell me the truth.”

Her aunt objected, but with no great spirit. Her poor, tired brain was bewildered by this new turn of events. She had begun to hope to survive thevoyage, but now she was beset by fresh alarms, fantastic and incredible. Imminent danger menaced the lawless tug. It could be felt in the buzzing excitement which pervaded the crowded decks. The only calm place was the bridge, where Captain O’Shea walked steadily to and fro, six paces to port and six paces to starboard, a ragged cigar between his teeth. Already the hull was vibrating to the increasing speed of the engines and the smoke gushed thick and black from the hot funnel.

Nora Forbes had mounted the bridge before Van Steen could make angry protest. Clinging to the canvas-screened rail, she paused to catch a bird’s-eye glimpse of the swarming decks which spread beneath her from the sheering bow to the overhang that seemed level with the following seas. Captain O’Shea snatched a coat from the wheel-house and flung it over the girl’s head and shoulders, for the red cinders were pelting down from the funnel-top like hail. For the life of him he could not keep the caressing note out of his pleasant voice when he was talking to a pretty woman.

“’Tis a bright day and a fine breeze, Miss Forbes, and the oldFearlessis poundin’ through it at thirteen knots. Are ye enjoying yourself?”

“Every minute of it,” she replied, and the joy of living made her cheek glow. “Are you really afraid of that steamer behind us? Mr. Van Steen thought you were joking with the chief engineer. Really you can be frank with me. I promise not to make a scene.”

He regarded her rather wistfully for an instant, felt unusually hesitant, and told her the truth because he could not bring himself to tell her anything else.

“If it is a Spanish cruiser yonder, as I mistrust, she may make short work of us. But she has to catch us first. And if I was easy to catch I would not be here at all. Sooner than risk a hair of your head, Miss Forbes, I would give up meself and my ship. But a man’s duty comes first.”

“You are not to give me—to give us, one thought,” she warmly assured him, and her head was held high. “Thank you for being honest with me, Captain O’Shea. Do you wish us to stay on deck?”

Perplexed and unhappy, he answered:

“There is no safe place to stow you if the Spaniard gets within shooting range. The hold is full of cartridges and dynamite and such skittish truck.”

The steamer astern was still slowly gaining on theFearless. Her forward mast was now discernible, and the tiny ring around it was unmistakably a fighting-top. If the vessel belonged to any other navy than that of Spain, she would be jogging along at a cruising gait, instead of crowding in chase with a reckless consumption of coal. Captain O’Shea ran below to see how matters fared in the sooty, stifling kingdom of Johnny Kent. TheFearlesscould not turn and fight. All hopes of safety were bound up in those clanking, throbbing, shining engines, in the hissing boilers, in the gang of half-naked, grimy men who fed the raging furnaces and wieldedthe glowing slice-bars and shifted the coal from the cavernous bunkers.

The quivering needles of the gauges already recorded more steam than the law allowed, and they were creeping higher pound by pound. The heat in the fire-room was so intense that the men had to be relieved at brief intervals. There was no forced ventilation, and the wind was following the ship. The deck-hands, unaccustomed to grilling alive, stood to it pluckily until they collapsed and were hauled out by the head and the heels. Back and forth, between the engine-room and this inferno, waddled Johnny Kent, raining perspiration, an oil-can in one hand, a heavy wrench in the other, and with the latter he smote such faint-hearted wights as would falter while there was strength in them.

“Hello, Cap’n Mike,” he roared as the skipper sidled into the engine-room. “Is the other vessel still gainin’ on us, and what does she look like?”

“She looks like trouble, Johnny. We are doing better. How are things with you?”

“I need a couple of husky men. No use sendin’ me those limpsy patriots.”

“I will look for them, Johnny. Will your boilers hold together? Can you get any more out of her?”

“Of course I can. She’s licensed to carry a hundred and eighty pounds, and I aim to push her to two hundred and fifty.”

Captain O’Shea hastened on deck, glanced forward and aft, and grinned as he caught sight of GeraldTen Eyck Van Steen. To this pampered young man he shouted:

“You are a well-built lad. Jump below, if you please, and the chief will introduce ye to a shovel.”

“But I don’t want a shovel. I refuse to go below,” haughtily replied Van Steen. “It has occurred to me that if you will quit this silly race and let the other steamer come within signalling distance I can explain the case to her commander, and he will be glad to take us on board. Van Steen & Van Steen have influential banking connections with the Spanish government.”

“’Tis no time to deliver orations,” swiftly spake O’Shea. “The other steamer will shoot first and explain afterward. Come along and work your passage.”

“Do not resist, Gerald,” quavered Miss Hollister.

“Be a good sport and play the game,” slangily advised Nora Forbes.

Captain O’Shea did not appear to use violence. He seemed to propel Van Steen with a careless wave of the arm, and the indignant young man moved rapidly in the direction of the stoke-hole ladder. Johnny Kent pounced on him with profane jubilation, instantly stripped him of coat and shirt, and shot him in to join the panting toilers. There was a plucky streak in this victim of circumstances, and he perceived that he must take his medicine. The fire-room gang was reinforced by a strong pair of arms, a stout back, and the stubborn endurance of the Dutch.

The afternoon was gone and the sun had slid under the lovely western sea. The Spanish cruiser was spurting desperately to overtake her quarry before darkness. The speed of the quivering, clangorousFearlesshad crept up to a shade better than fifteen knots. The cruiser was in poor trim to show what she could do. Captain O’Shea knew the rated speed of every craft on the Spanish naval list and if his surmise was correct this particular cruiser should be doing eighteen knots. But he knew also that a foul bottom, slovenly discipline, and inferior coal counted against her, and that he had a fighting chance of escape.

It was immensely trying to watch and wait. Of all the company on deck that stood and stared at the small outline of the cruiser etched against the shining sea, only Captain O’Shea realized that this was the grimmest kind of a life-and-death tussle. He was your thoroughbred gambler who comprehends the odds and accepts them, but he was sorry for his crew, and much more so for the two women who were in his charge.

The chaperon had retired to her room in the grip of an acute nervous headache. She was mercifully unable to understand that tragedy moved on the face of the waters, that whether or not theFearlesswas to be obliterated depended on a certain number of engine revolutions per minute.

The cook had prepared supper, observing to himself as he rattled his pans:

“If we all is due to git bumped to glory, I reckonwe’ll take it more cheerful with a square meal under our briskets.”

He dutifully bore a tray to the captain’s room, but Miss Hollister had no appetite, and he betook himself to the bridge, where Nora Forbes was standing beside the captain.

“Set the supper on the chart-locker in the wheel-house, George,” said O’Shea. “The young lady will not be wanting to go into her room and miss any of the show.”

In her twenty years Nora Forbes had never lived as intensely as now. The blood of an adventurous ancestry was in her veins. She was thrilled, but not afraid. More than she was aware, the dominating personality of Captain O’Shea was influencing and attracting her. Unconsciously she was sharing his simple, clear-eyed courage, which accepted things as he found them. There was singular comfort in standing beside him. They lingered for a moment in the wheel-house, where the tall young mate gripped the spokes, his eyes fixed on the swaying compass-card in the binnacle.

“You have never filibustered before, I take it, Miss Forbes,” said Captain O’Shea, “but ye are as cool as an old hand.”

“I never dreamed that men were living such lives as this nowadays,” she replied. “Tell me, doyou——”

Down the wind came the report of a heavy gun. O’Shea leaped to the bridge and the girl followed, her heart throbbing with a sudden, sickening fear.Twilight was shutting down. The first star gleamed in the pale sky, but a curious after-glow lingered to flood the sea with tremulous illumination. The cruiser showed like a gray shadow, a vague blur, from which shot a second flash of red. Again the boom of her gun was heard on theFearless, and this time the steel shell kicked up a water-spout far off to starboard.

“Johnny Kent has lost distance in the last half hour,” muttered the skipper. “His men can’t stand the pace.”

“What does it mean?” implored Nora, and she caught her breath with a sob. “Are they really and truly trying to kill us?”

“Those are the intentions, but the shooting is pretty bad, Miss Forbes. I will bet ye ten to one they do not hit us.”

Unwittingly she moved closer to him. Her hand was upon the rail and he covered it with his hard palm. At the firm, warm contact her fortitude returned. His tremendous vitality was like an electric current. She smiled up at him gratefully, and he said in a big, friendly way, to put her at ease:

“’Tis good to have somebody to hang onto in a tight pinch, isn’t it? Look! There he goes again! A better shot. It struck the water within two hundred yards of us. If he keeps on improvin’ his target practice, I may lose me bet.”

Nora was silent. She could think of nothing to say as she stared at the darkening horizon and the flashes of the cruiser’s guns. The after-glow died,and night marched swiftly across the tropic sea. It curtained the cruiser and obscured theFearless. Johnny Kent had won in the first act of the drama.

Every light on board the tug was extinguished, and the word was carried below to close the draughts and slacken the fires in order to show no sparks from the funnel. TheFearlessswerved sharply from her course and ran straight away from the Cuban coast, heading to the southward across the Caribbean. To follow her was a game of blind-man’s-buff, and Captain O’Shea knew every trick of shaking off pursuit.

Nora had withdrawn her imprisoned hand with a self-conscious little start. Already the episode of the chase seemed unreal, theatrical. It would not have surprised her if the picturesque Cubans had burst into a light-opera chorus. She hastened to tell her aunt the good news, and presently there came staggering up from the lower deck the wreck of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. The merciful night hid his grime and tatters. Leaning against the bulkhead of the tiny passageway, he addressed the invisible ladies in the state-room. His voice was husky and cracked, but, singularly enough, all its petulance had fled.

“It was simply great,” he exclaimed. “We shovelled coal like drunken devils, and between-times they dragged us on deck and turned the hose on us. My word, it was a sporty game, and we won. I am bruises from head to foot, but what’s the odds?”

Nora was instantly contrite. Here was an unexpected hero, whom she had shamefully forgotten.

“You poor Gerald! Tell us all about it.”

He felt proud of himself. Nora shared the feeling, and yet her behavior lacked the warmth to be expected of a girl whose engagement to Gerald Van Steen had been a notable society event on Fifth Avenue. Wayward and shocking it was, no doubt, but she knew that she would rather talk to the rude and unregenerate Captain Michael O’Shea.

She let Gerald tell her of the great fight for more speed down among the roaring furnaces, of the fainting men, the straining boilers, the furiously driven engines, and of the bullying, cursing, jesting Johnny Kent who held the men and the machines unfalteringly to their work.

“He is an awful brute,” said Van Steen, rubbing a welt on his shoulder, “but he has pluck—no end of it. A steam-pipe leading to a pump or something burst and scalded him, but he didn’t let up at all, and threatened us with more kinds of death and damnation than ever.”

“He must be suffering dreadfully,” exclaimed the ardently sympathetic Nora. “I thought he looked so good-natured and jolly and easy-going.”

“You are a poor hand at reading character,” was the earnest comment. “Were you anxious about me, Nora?”

“Yes, I suppose so. It was so exciting on deck that I couldn’t think of anything else but that wicked Spanish cruiser.”

“Where were you all the time?”

“On the bridge with Captain O’Shea.”

“The deuce you were! I don’t like him at all, Nora. He is not the sort you should have anything to do with.”

“I can’t very well help meeting him now and then, Gerald. Don’t be a goose. Tell me some more about your adventures with a shovel.”

Van Steen was ruffled and became a sulky companion. Nora let him kiss her good-night, and he wearily descended to find a resting-place on the open deck. She found her aunt awake and told her of the heroic conduct of the scalded chief engineer. The stamp of Van Steen’s approval was apt to color the mental attitude of Miss Hollister and she exclaimed in an animated manner:

“Does Gerald really believe that this Mr. Kent is such a fine character, a diamond in the rough?”

“Gerald certainly respects him, although he does not love him, Aunt Katharine.”

“Then I hope to meet Mr. Kent in the morning, Nora. I am given to understand that he saved our lives, but I can’t realize that the cruiser was actually shooting at us with deadly intent.”

Miss Hollister was a woman of a certain kind of determination whenever duty was concerned. And because she had misjudged the chief engineer, it was her duty to make amends. After breakfast she asked Van Steen if she might safely go to the lower deck and look into the engine-room.

“You are coming on remarkably well,” said he. “Aren’t you afraid of the brutes?”

“I wish to thank our preserver and to inspect the ship,” she calmly answered.

“Very well. Will you come along, Nora?”

“Thanks, Gerald, but Captain O’Shea wants to show me the chart of this coast and of the bay where he will try to land the cargo.”

“Hang Captain O’Shea; he is making a confounded nuisance of himself,” muttered Van Steen as he reluctantly departed with Miss Hollister. They passed among the lounging patriots and came upon their leader, Colonel Calvo, whom the flight from the cruiser had frightened, not out of his boots, but into them. As a cure for sea-sickness he had found the boom of an eight-inch gun extremely efficacious. He flourished his hat with flamboyant gallantry and bowed low as he addressed Miss Hollister.

“Ah, ha, Señora! To behol’ you is a pleasure for me an’ my braves’ of soldiers. Yesterday we was ready to fight the ship of Spain, to defen’ the ladies with our lives.”

The dignified spinster looked confused. She resented the bold stare of the colonel’s black eyes and the smirking smile. With a stiff little nod she grasped Gerald’s arm and told him, as they moved to another part of the deck:

“I hate that man. Is he really a brave officer?”

“Not yet, but perhaps, Miss Hollister. We shall have to ask Johnny Kent about him.”

Pausing at the engine-room door, they found an assistant on duty. To their inquiry he replied:

“The chief is in his bunk, all bandaged up and using language. His arm and chest were blistered bad.”

“I should like very much to do something for him,” timidly answered Miss Hollister. “Who is attending him?”

“The Cuban doctor has a medicine chest, ma’am, and we all try to soothe him. But he cusses us out and throws things at us.”

“I will look in his room and leave a message for you, Miss Hollister,” said Gerald.

“He must be in great distress. And I am sure he is not getting proper care,” she murmured.

Van Steen cautiously advanced to an open door beyond the engine-room, Miss Hollister hovering in the background. No sooner had the sufferer in the bunk caught sight of the young man than his big voice roared:

“Come to gloat, have you? I suppose you’re glad to see me on my beam ends after the awful way I abused you. Get to hell out of here.”

“Miss Hollister came below to express her sympathy,” began Van Steen, ready to dodge a water-bottle that stood beside the bunk.

“Holy mackerel! The lovely lady with the gray hair?” blurted Johnny Kent, his face redder than ordinary. “Did she, honestly? Is she out there? Did she hear me slip that cuss-word?”

“I am afraid so. Do you want to apologize?She accepts my statement that you are a grand man in an emergency.”

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