"You think I'm soft, you dog," he boomed through his spurt of blasphemy, "and reckon because I've got notions of decency I'm to be trod on. Run on my rocks and sink and burn."
His voice rose to a scream and cracked. He tried to speak, but tried in vain.
"Mr. Green, here," he whispered, and leaving the wheel to the man he had displaced, the mate jumped to the lee poop rail.
"Tell him he's no sailor; my voice is gone. Say he's a—oh, tell him anything you feel."
Green did so, and satisfied himself and Banks and the entire crew. And then, seeing Wilson, he gave him a friendly bellow.
"What cheer, Wilson!"
And hoisting the topsails, they ran on, leaving Spiller choking with helpless rage.
As it grew darker and they dropped thePalembangthey picked up the mainsail, and shortened down for the night.
"We ain't in no hurry," whispered Banks, "and to-morrow we'll be up with my rocks, if I've hit it off right."
He was now sombre and dignified, and spoke with particular grammatical and moral accuracy. Not the ghost of a damn issued from his lips. He reproved Green for swearing, and held a service in the cabin, much to the disgust of the entire ship, as it wasn't Sunday. Perhaps to punish himself, for he always liked to stand well with the crowd, he gave them no grog after it.
In the morning he sent a man on the fore-topgallant-yard looking for his rocks, and as he gave notice that any one who sighted them first should have five pounds, the entire watch, which should have been below snoring, sat like crows up aloft and strained their eyes all round the horizon.
At ten Banks was jovial and got his voice back. At noon he was anxious. By four o'clock he shortened sail again.
"We've overrun 'em," he said sadly. "If they're still about, we're to the west of 'em. Mr. Green, during the night we'll stand under easy sail to the eastward. I'm set on seeing those rocks again, if I lose a week."
And the night fell darkly.
No matter whose watch it was, mate's or second mate's, the white-whiskered skipper was on deck every ten minutes, peering into the black darkness with his glasses. The old chap's nerves were on edge; his imagination flamed; he saw reefs and pinnacles of islands every moment, and heard the boom of breakers.
When Green relieved his subordinate at midnight, the second mate whispered to him:
"The old man's as nervous as a cat. To hear him jaw you'd think the bottom of the sea was rising up. Mind you ain't high and dry on a new continent by daylight."
"We'll whack it out fair among the lot of us," said Green. "Jeewhillikins, what's that?"
He spoke suddenly, in an altered voice, and Milton jumped.
"What?"
"I thought I saw a flare to the southward."
"Lordy, you've got them too," said Milton. "Let's go ashore, and have a walk on the Apollo Bunda."
"Stow it," cried Green, and holding on to the mizzen-topgallant backstay, he jumped upon the rail.
"Look, look!" he cried, and Milton, looking, saw a faint glow to the southward—or fancied he saw it.
"Call the old man," said Green, and in two and three-fifths seconds by any man's chronometer, Banks was on deck, and saw nothing.
"But did ye see it, man?" he yelled; "and if so, what's it mean?"
"Some one struck a match in Colombo," said the second mate irreverently. For he had sailed with Banks for years, and at times took liberties.
"I only trust to Providence that it isn't that wicked man's ship in any trouble," said the skipper viciously. "Mr. Green, we'll stand to the south'ard for a while."
"Lay aft the watch," sang out Milton, and they braced her up to within two points of the wind.
Both watches stayed on deck in the little excitement, and in the course of the next hour they reported all kinds of non-existent things. "Rocks on the starboard bow" were varied by "A vessel on the port bow," and a planet low down in a break of cloud was "A steamer's head-light, sir."
"Collision with Venus," cried Milton.
But just in the 'twixt and 'tween of earliest dawn, when the grey ghost of day walked in the east, a man up aloft sang out with startling energy:
"Two dark rocks right ahead, sir."
The main-deck hummed suddenly, and a patter of bare feet told that the entire crew had run for the foc'sle head. The skipper nipped into the mizzen rigging quick as a chipmunk.
"Keep her away a point or two," he cried.
"Away a point or two, sir," echoed the helmsman.
"I see 'em, Mr. Green," yelled the old chap; "and just where I figured them out to be. There'll be three, there'll be three."
He paused and looked down on Green.
"But—but two will do me," he added cautiously. "I never pinned my faith to three."
Green climbed alongside him, and even a bit higher.
"Lord, sir, they're boats," he cried.
"No, rocks," said the skipper.
"Boats," repeated the mate, obstinately.
"So they are! Damn!" cried the skipper.
And then the same verdict came from aloft, and was confirmed by the entire sea jury.
The disappointed captain dropped back on deck.
"Now, if they were thePalembang'sboats," suggested Green.
"No such luck," said the skipper. "Is there any one in 'em, and do they see us?"
"By the same token they see us now!" shouted Green, and in a quarter of an hour the boats were alongside, and theSimoomlay to.
"What boats are those?" squealed Banks.
"ThePalembang's," replied a voice from the tumbling cockleshells.
The skipper and the mates said "Whew!" and Banks was fairly dancing.
"And where's your ship?"
"Bottom of the Indian Ocean," said a voice that Banks recognised as Spiller's.
"Is that you, Captain Spiller?" he inquired, with much exaggerated courtesy.
"It is," growled Spiller.
"Did you by any chance come across my rocks as you sailed along so pleasant?"
Spiller swore in a muffled voice.
"Not by your description of 'em: far from it," he replied at last.
"We'll see about that," said Banks. "Now then, come under the lee quarter, and we'll have some of you aboard; the captain of thePalembanglast."
"Whad yer mean?" cried Spiller sulkily.
"What I say," said Banks softly.
And when every one was out of the boats but Spiller, he stood by the line.
"Now, captain, were they my rocks or not?"
"No," said Spiller.
"Then stay in your damned boat," cried Banks. "Cast that line off, Spiller. You won't? Then cut it, Mr. Green."
Green smiled but didn't move. The skipper borrowed a knife from the nearest seaman by taking it out of its sheath.
"Now, was they or not?"
"No," cried Spiller.
"One, two, and at three I cut," said Banks. "One—two——"
"Very well, they was, then," shrieked Spiller; and the next minute he was on deck.
"I'll have you sign a paper to that effect," said Banks, "and if you don't, the whole of your crew will, including your mate."
Wilson, who was standing by Green, said that he would willingly, and when Spiller scowled, he scowled back.
"And now, Mr. Green," cried Banks cheerfully, "since we know where they are, and can find 'em any time, you may put her on her course again. And we'll have a little thanksgiving service for all this."
He did not explain whether the service was for the established character of the Simoom Rocks, or for the rescue of the shipwrecked crew, but when he got them all below he handed round hymn books.
"First of all we will sing hymn No. 184 of Hymns Ancient and Modern," he said softly, and when Spiller looked it up he was very much annoyed.
Things were quiet in San Francisco—that is to say, though the usual blackguards spouted on the Sand-Lot on Sundays, there was no great political row on. The President of the United States had still three years to run before any chance of a second term, and local politics had quietened. The Governor of the State, though an angel to one side and a devil to the other, had been "let up on" at last, and the reporters for the daily papers had to invent "stories" to keep themselves going. That only kept their hand in. It was a blessing to them without any disguise when the rivalry between young Jack Hunt and Sibley Gawthrop for the hand and the money and the affections of Edith Atherton became public property. It was most of all a blessing to Gardiner, the smartest new man on the San FranciscoChronicle, who knew both of the boys well.
For how could any "story" fail to pay dividends when two of the swagger "Anglo-Franco-Californians," the most beautiful girl on the coast, and Shanghai Smith, the most scoundrelly boarding-house keeper on the Pacific, played leading parts in the drama? And when one reflects that San Francisco, the Pacific itself and the Atlantic, and the Sailors' Home in Well Street, London, came into the newspaper play quite naturally, it seems obvious there was meat for any reporter's teeth.
Gardiner, of course, was not in the high-toned gang to which Hunt and Gawthrop belonged, but he knew them both very well, although he had only been in California a short year. He knew every one in San Francisco, from the biggest toughs on Telegraph Hill, and the political bosses, to the big pots and their womankind. He knew Miss Atherton too. He wanted to know her better. Though he was on the staff of theChronicle, it was his own fault. If he could have only got on with his father in New York, he might have been as rich as Hunt himself. But the boy who cannot differ on vital points with his father before he is sixteen is no true American, and Gardiner was U.S. to his fingertips.
"I'll get there yet," said Gardiner. His chance was coming. There are more ways of succeeding than one.
"How is it you bow to a reporter on theChronicle, my dear?" asked a friend of Edith Atherton's. "I understand that is what he is."
"I do it because he might have been my brother," said Edith Atherton.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that his father nearly married my mother," said Edith; "but he was too autocratic, and he married an Englishwoman. I don't wonder George Gardiner could not hit it off with him. Poor boy! I wish he could."
Certainly he was far finer-looking than either Hunt or Gawthrop—that is the way her friend interpreted the girl's sigh.
"And he's cleverer too," said the older woman acutely, "nevertheless——"
And "nevertheless" was very easy to interpret.
"Which will it be, I wonder?" said her friend.
The solution lay on the knees of the gods, and in the hands of Shanghai Smith.
That night Hunt met Gardiner at the club by chance, and stayed with him all the evening.
"What are you looking so down about?" asked the newspaper man. "You are drinking too much. Ease up on it."
Indeed, Hunt was drinking too much. He drank enough to loosen his tongue.
"Damn that Gawthrop," he said.
"Ah, I see," cried Gardiner; "is that it?"
And Hunt nodded sulkily. Then he wept.
"If he was only out of the way," he moaned, "I believe I could work the racket with her."
Gardiner shrugged his shoulders.
"Ah, well, buck up. Come on. I'm going to the office."
They walked into Kearney Street and turned east towards theChronicleoffices. As they passed Bush Street a very hard-looking citizen nodded to Gardiner.
"Who's that?" asked Hunt.
"Don't you know him? That's Shanghai Smith, the biggest scoundrel unhung. He's a sailors' crimp, and a daylight robber, and a man with a 'pull.'"
Certainly Smith had some political power. In the United States it is impossible to avoid politics and the police at the same time, except by lavish bribery.
"And why do they call him 'Shanghai'?" asked Hunt.
"Because he 'shanghais' men," answered Gardiner, "and nowadays that means drugging a man and putting him aboard some ship. Oh, he's a daisy. He'd ship your dad to New York round the Horn if there was money in it. When a man disappears in this city we look first in the morgue, and then make inquiries at Smith's."
"I wish Gawthrop was in the morgue, I do," said Hunt "And here I'll say good-night. You're a good chap, Gardiner, if you are a newspaper man, and it's been a relief to talk to you, so it has."
They shook hands and parted, but Gardiner had not walked ten yards before he turned and came back. His eyes glittered curiously. Hunt's were blurred and fishy. He had certainly taken a little too much. Gardiner wondered if he had taken too much to remember in the morning what happened now.
"You wish he was in the morgue, eh?"
"I do," said Hunt firmly. "I do."
"Why not get him shanghaied?" asked Gardiner, and he walked away very swiftly, and did not return when Hunt called to him.
"By the Great Horn Spoon and the tail of the Sacred Bull, I'll not give her up," said Gardiner; "certainly not to a man like Hunt, or to a dude like Gawthrop. Sooner than that I'll write to the old man and squeal. He'll rub it in, but after all he is the dad, and she——"
Ah, she was everything.
"Let the best man win. I'm in the game, after all," said Gardiner. "And to think if she hadn't recognised me to-day I'd have thrown it up!"
He was not surprised to see Hunt the next afternoon, though every one else in the office was astonished to see him looking for a mere reporter.
"Do you remember what you said to me last night?" asked Hunt rather nervously.
"About what?"
"About somebody called Shanghai Smith?"
He stared out of the window as he spoke.
"I remember, Hunt."
"Can it be done?"
"Can what be done?"
"Could I get rid of that Gawthrop for a month or two?"
"I shouldn't be surprised, if you put up the dollars."
"Will you help me?"
"And get myself—disliked?"
He was going to say—"get myself in the penitentiary," but on reflection he did not desire to frighten Hunt. After all, the affair would cause so much laughter that legal proceedings were not likely to rise out of it.
"I don't want you to show. Only give me a pointer. Could you bring this Smith to me?"
Gardiner stabbed his desk with a pen-knife, and considered the matter for a moment.
"Look here," he said, "I want to deal as squarely as I can with you. I don't want either you or Gawthrop to marry this particular lady."
Hunt stared at him.
"You don't? Oh! I say, Gardiner——" and he burst into laughter, which Gardiner apparently did not resent.
"Yes, I know I'm a newspaper dog, and so on; let that be. If I chose to crawl down and go East, I could stack dollar for dollar with half of you in time. What I'm telling you is this: I think Gawthrop has more show than you, and I'd be glad to get him out of the way, just as he'd no doubt be glad to get you out. I'll help if you'll hold your tongue about me, whatever happens."
"Very well," said Hunt; "I give you my word."
"Whatever happens?"
"Whatever happens."
"Of course I shall do everything I can to win."
"That's only natural," said Hunt; "but I'll bet you a thousand dollars that if I get Gawthrop out of the way I'll marry Miss Atherton inside of three months."
"Whatever happens?"
"Whatever happens."
"Then I take that bet," said Gardiner, "and to-morrow you shall meet Shanghai."
But when Hunt had gone, Gardiner winked steadily at nothing and stroked his chin.
"Great Scott, thisisa game," he said. "I wonder where Gawthrop is?"
But before he found out he sat down and wrote a letter to the elder Gardiner in New York. It was late that evening before he went down to that undesirable quarter of San Francisco known as the Barbary Coast, where Shanghai Smith had his sailor-robbing den located.
As he went along the water-front and saw the ships lying at the wharves, it was "plumb" dark. Though he knew every tough in the city, he walked some way from the edge of the wharves and kept his hand on his six-shooter in the right-hand pocket of his coat. There is never any knowing what may happen in the low quarters of that sink of the Pacific, where all the scum of the world gathers, and it is well to keep one's eyes skinned lest worse may befall. Gardiner had no desire to turn up on a trestle at the morgue as his next public appearance. But though he was careful, he went cheerfully, and could not help laughing.
"Great Scott, to think of Sibley Gawthrop as an able seaman on board theHarvesteror theWanderer! But won't it do him good? These young Californians are a rotten crowd."
He came at last to Smith's house, and stepped upon the verandah floor boldly.
"Why, it's Mr. Gardiner of theChronicle, so it is," said Billy, who was Smith's runner, and, next to his boss and a few politicians, the hardest case in California. "Is it Mr. Smith you want to see, sir?"
"I'm only just doing a run around, and thought I'd look in, Billy," said Gardiner carelessly.
"Ay, just acultus nannitch, as they say in Chinook," replied Billy. "But we're always glad to see you."
Gardiner doubted that. But Smith was always civil to newspaper men. He hadn't Gardiner bought, as he had the police, and he knew that a true column and a bit on his doings might bring down an avalanche any day.
"And here is Mr. Smith," said Billy.
"How are you makin' it?" asked Smith, "and what'll you drink?"
But Gardiner was not drinking. It was so notoriously unhealthy to drink at Shanghai's place that few sober men were reckless enough to take a cocktail there.
"How are you off for men?" asked Gardiner. "Is business good?"
Smith shook his head.
"Men? There are too many of 'em! Now hell ain't fuller of devils, Mr. Gardiner, than what San Francisco is of sailors, and you know as well as me that with sailormen a drug in the market, I don't come out on top."
"To be sure," said Gardiner, "but I was thinking, as I came along, that you might get a ship for a young friend of mine."
"I'll be glad to do anythin' for any friend of yours," said Smith, "but as I'm tellin' you, 'tis as easy to be President of the United States as to do business with the streets full of men that lets on to be sailors. What kind of a job is your friend lookin' for?"
Gardiner laughed.
"I want him to go a voyage before the mast. It will do him good."
"Ah," said Smith quickly, "what's the game? But whatever it is with you, I'm on! Say it and mean it!—that's me."
Gardiner edged him up to the quiet end of the verandah.
"Smith, can you hold your tongue and earn a thousand dollars?"
"Can I do what?" asked Smith. "Look here, so help me, I'd cut my tongue out for a thousand. I tell you, things are tough. What's the game?"
And Gardiner, after looking round, whispered in his ear.
"Whew!" whistled Smith; "you don't mean it. Young Sibley Gawthrop! Holy sailor, I'd rather not touch him. His father is a power in the land."
Gardiner shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, very well, there are others. And in any case, who need know you took a hand in it? Now, will you or won't you? Yes or no, or I quit right here."
"You don't quit. I'll do it," said Smith. "I'll do it for you, C.O.D."
It can be judged how much he did it for Gardiner when C.O.D. is translated "Cash on Delivery."
"Right!" said Gardiner, "and pick him a nice easy ship. A good old English limejuicer will be the thing. I want him to go to Europe."
He went up town, and curiously enough found himself having supper in the swagger restaurant of the city at the next table to Hunt's victim.
"Gawthrop, I want to have a talk with you on very special business," he said. "Can you spare me half an hour to-morrow morning if I call on you?"
And when they parted next morning, after their talk on "very special business," Sibley Gawthrop was in a high state of excitement.
"If I can only get that Hunt out of the way for three months, I believe I can work the racket with her. But what I can't understand is Gardiner's notion that he has any chance. I suppose that's what he meant by keeping on saying, 'Don't think I do this for you. I'm not in it for friendship or for my health. I'll do you if I can.' Poor beggar, he hasn't the least show. Oh, but isn't this a game! To think of old Hunt turning up in the London Docks!"
He actually drove along the water-front that morning in order to gloat over the ships in the harbour, and when he saw men working up aloft he burst into laughter. The notion was splendid, whatever motive Gardiner had in putting him up to it. It was odd that he had never taken any interest in the seafaring trade of the city before. Gawthrop eyed the very loafers on the wharves with new feelings. Though he did not know it, he saw Shanghai Smith and his runner Billy at the bottom of Spear Street.
"Jehoshaphat," said Smith, "now this is a queer coincī-dence. Billy, that's the young feller I've been telling you about. See him?"
"Rather," growled Bill. "When do you want him shipped, and how am I to get him?"
"I'll tell you when it's fixed up," said Smith. "I've got to see the chap that's runnin' the show."
"There'll be a holy row on about it," grunted Bill. "It ain't exackly legitimate business, Mr. Smith. It's all mighty well doin' what I know. I can get a crew out of a ship in the bay with any man; but shanghain' sons of millionaires——"
"You're a forsaken fool," said Smith. "If you do it neatly, who's to know till he comes back? And who knows then you or I done it? And ain't I reckonin' to allow you a bonus of ten dollars extra? With times as they is now, ten dollars is ten dollars, lemme tell you. And you've taken to growlin' lately in a way I'm not goin' to stand, Bill. I don't want any slack-jaw from you, so there."
"Who's givin' any slack-jaw?" expostulated the runner. "I suppose a man can hev an opinion?"
"And he can keep it till called for, too," said his boss. "I can lick you any time."
And Bill growled, "Who says you can't? Would I be workin' for you if you couldn't?" The inference was not exactly obvious.
That afternoon Gardiner came down again to the Barbary Coast, and had another talk with Shanghai Smith.
"What, another of 'em?" asked Shanghai. "I say, Mr. Gardiner, this is a bit thick!"
"Yes, it's two thousand dollars thick," said Gardiner; "if you could only ship a whole crew on such terms, you might retire and go in for politics."
"And who's the man this time?"
"It's Jack Hunt."
"Him as is payin' for Gawthrop?"
Gardiner nodded.
"And who's payin' for Hunt?"
Gardiner took him by the greasy lapel of his coat.
"I'll tell you—it's Gawthrop!"
Gardiner, who was doing the dramatic criticism for theChroniclethat night, saw Gawthrop and Hunt in Miss Atherton's box at the Opera House. They appeared to be on very good terms, and were both in an excellent humour. For all that he had planned, George Gardiner was in no great good temper when he imagined that Edith showed more favour to Sibley than to his rival.
"He's not a bad sort, but he's not the sort to marry a girl like that," said Gardiner; "if she only knew the life he has led, she'd give him the mitten right off. And I could let her know. It's doing him a favour to send him to sea. And as for Hunt, he's really mean. Life won't be all pie to him as he's laid it out to be. She'll think they've shied off, and will be mad, and more ready to listen to a man who has loved her for years, as she knows. If she'd only take me while I'm poor, I'd be the proudest man in California. And wouldn't it make all California sick!"
Though he did not know it, both Gawthrop and Hunt played into his hands. Each was quite convinced that he was the favoured lover, and as they both had a secret they used it when they got a chance.
"Gawthrop is a very nice fellow," said Jack Hunt condescendingly; "but he never knows his own mind, Miss Atherton. I should never be surprised to hear he had gone to Europe. He's fond of travel, and very, very inconstant."
"Indeed," said Edith. She had found him fairly persevering. It was strange when Hunt was called outside for a few minutes that Gawthrop, who this night had shown no jealousy, threw out a dark hint that Hunt was no true Californian.
"I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear he had gone to Europe," he said. "He's very flighty. I suppose that is the reason he didn't marry while he was young."
Hunt was thirty, and his rival was twenty-six.
"And don't you want to see Europe?" asked Edith, who wondered what was in the wind.
"Ah, some day, but not alone," answered Sibley. "I shall never go without a companion."
"You should go with Jack Hunt," said Edith mischievously. "I certainly wonder none of you travel more. Now, Mr. Gardiner down there has been all over the world."
"Ah, poor Gardiner!" said Sibley. "How is it so clever and good-natured a man should be doing what he is?"
And much to Sibley's astonishment, Edith Atherton turned on him with an odd question.
"Well—and what are you doing?"
Perhaps if Gardiner had heard her ask that question, he might have considered that Shanghai Smith need not intervene after all.
But Smith did intervene that night.
When Gawthrop left the theatre he went straight down Market Street to the water-front, and found his way to Shanghai Smith's without any difficulty. He had plenty of pluck, and plenty of ignorance of the real conditions of life in San Francisco. What he heard and what he read about the matter did not touch him; he lived in security in quite another world from the scoundrels at the bottom of Clay Street and the toughs of the "Coast." Life there was a theatrical representation. He sat in the stalls and said, "Poor devils, do they really live that way?" He was Sibley Gawthrop, the son of a big man: he was a power himself: he had no fear, and went into the trap smiling. If he carried in his hip pocket what Westerners call a "gun," it was on account of Western traditions. He showed no caution, though he walked whistling in the middle of the road. He had no chance to use any weapon, and he never saw Smith. He never even saw Billy, Smith's runner, till Billy sand-bagged him on the back of the head. For Smith was not to be found at his house. He was with Gardiner, and they were both waiting till they heard from the runner that Gawthrop was safely disposed of.
"I ain't goin' to show in it," said Smith, "and why should I? TheHampshireis short of two hands as I shipped in her myself. They don't go aboard when they should, and they turns up drunk at my house, and Billy puts them on board. Can I help it if he puts the wrong ones on her? Of course I cayn't. And if Billy finds the cash agreed on on 'em and hands it to me, why, I'll keep it till it's claimed by the owners of it!"
He winked his eye at Gardiner, and the journalist burst into laughter.
"They'll not touch me," he said, "and if they do, I shall either have the laugh on them or shan't care."
As he spoke, there was a message sent up from the street. A boy wanted to see Mr. Gardiner.
"A printer's devil, of course," said Gardiner. But he knew the word came from Billy.
"Billy, Mr. Smith's runner, gimme a quarter to run up to you, sir, and say it's all right," said the young hoodlum. "Andhesaid you was to gimme another quarter."
Billy had said nothing of the kind, but the boy got it all the same.
And half an hour later Jack Hunt interviewed Billy the runner in about the same place in the dark road that Gawthrop had met him. The runner went through his pockets eagerly.
"Two thousand in the one night," said Billy. "Oh, ain't Smith doin' well? And two first-class guns as belongs to me. I'll shove 'em on board theHampshirebright and early. Oh, I done it clean and neat."
He had great professional pride, and when he came alongside theHampshireat four o'clock in the morning, and found all hands getting up the anchor, he felt that the thing was going to finish itself without a hitch.
"Once at sea and the job's complete. Hallo, there, send down a whip into the boat," he cried. "I've got them two as skipped. And good men, too, when they're sober."
He heard the first mate bellow:
"Mr. Jones, get these swine on board quick. Drunk, are they? We'll sober 'em. Up aloft and loose the topsails."
And the two lights of San Francisco society were carried into the foc'sle.
"Blimy, but I'd give sumfink to be as blind speechless as this," said one cockney, "and there ain't no chance of it till we gets to London."
But the mate was roaring overhead. They dropped Hunt and Gawthrop into two empty bunks and went on deck.
"Can't you turn those men to?" asked the chief mate, Mr. Ladd, of Jones. And Jones went into the foc'sle and punched both of these gentlemen in the ribs.
"Wake up, you drunken galoots," said Jones.
In answer they both sighed and snored, and turned peaceably to rest. Jones, who knew a bit, unhooked the lamp from the sweating beam overhead, and lifting Hunt's eyelid with his thumb, saw that the man's pupil was down to a pin-point. It was the same with Gawthrop.
"Hocussed, of course," he said. And he reported aft that not even putting them under the hose would wake them for some hours.
"Confound all California and its manners and customs," said Ladd.
But the manners and customs of Shanghai Smith at any rate saved Hunt and Gawthrop from eight hours of the finest education in the world. It was noon, and theHampshire'scrowd was at dinner when Gawthrop showed signs of animation.
"Ah, humph!" said Gawthrop, and without opening his eyes he reached out and pressed the head of a small bolt with his thumb.
"What's the josser doin' of?" asked Tom, the cockney who had sighed over the fact that there was no chance of getting intoxicated until they reached London.
"Johnson, give me some tea," said Gawthrop. He believed that his man had answered the electric bell. But there was a Johnson, or more properly a Johanssen, among the crew.
"Here, Dutchy, give him some tea."
Gawthrop opened his eyes and yawned. He shut his eyes again, but did not shut his mouth in time to prevent Bill Yardley, who was the joker of the crowd, dropping a piece of soaked biscuit into it. Gawthrop spluttered, coughed violently, and sat up. As he did so he of course hit his head a smart crack on the deck above him. He sat up again on his elbow, and stared about him stupidly.
"'Ere, come out, matey, and 'ave yer grub," cried the kindly crew with one voice.
"You've 'ad a rare good caulk," said Tom encouragingly.
"Eh, eh, what?" asked Gawthrop. He blinked at the men, and with a fallen jaw wagged his head from side to side.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"On board the'Ampshire, sonny," said Tom. "Come, show a leg!"
"Humph!" said Gawthrop, and he rolled a dry tongue against his teeth. "Am I asleep?"
"I'll lay odds you won't be in ten minutes," said Tom. "What's the game you're playin'?"
Gawthrop stared at him and rolled his eyes round the foc'sle. He saw fifteen grinning faces in the light from the scuttle above. Outside the open foc'sle door he beheld the foremast, with its rail and the gear coiled on the pins.
"It's a ship," said Gawthrop, "it's obviously a ship!"
The men looked at each other.
"D'ye think he's a greenhorn?"
"Hocussed!"
"Shanghaied!"
The word "Shanghai" fetched Gawthrop clean out of his dream.
It hit him fair and square, and though it half-stunned him, it woke him, all the same.
"Where am I?"
"In theHampshireand at sea," said all hands eagerly. They saw what had happened quicker than he did. For reasons which he did not yet understand they believed him a seaman, but they saw he had been shipped against his will.
"D'ye think it was Shanghai Smith as done it?"
"Ah," said Gawthrop. "Why, where's Hunt?"
"D'ye mean your mate as come aboard wid you?" asked Tom. "There 'e is, 'ard and fast asleep. Wake 'im up, chaps: I say, 'ere's a game."
Gawthrop put a leg out and dropped on deck just as Tom got Hunt by the hair and gave it a yank that nearly raised his scalp, but did not wake him.
"Is this 'im?"
In the half-light Gawthrop saw a face which was the colour of dark mahogany, and did not recognise his rival.
"No," he said. He did not know that Billy, with a professional ardour that did him credit, had coloured Hunt and himself with walnut juice on their faces and hands till they appeared to have been tanned the three skins deep.
And just as Gawthrop denied that he knew Hunt, the boson's whistle blew.
"You'd best come on deck. They're goin' to pick the watches," said Tom. And Gawthrop, still in a maze, followed the rest. When the fresh air blew on him, his mind cleared as suddenly as if a fog had rolled up.
"By the Lord, I've been done," he said, and he knew it was Gardiner who had done him. "All right," he said, "I'll get even. The captain must put back. I'll pay him to do it."
His knowledge of the sea was limited. Though he was the citizen of a republic, he had been accustomed to deference. That was when he was Sibley Gawthrop. He was now a nameless man in dungaree trousers and a blue shirt, in a ship bound for London with a fine fair wind. He walked aft with the defiant yet shamed air of a man who has been at a fancy ball and finds himself surprised by daylight.
"I want to see the captain," he said to the first man whom he met aft. It happened to be Jones, the second "greaser."
"That's him on the poop," said Jones, staring at him; "take a good look at him, you drunken swab. Why the blue blazes didn't you come on board before?"
"My good fellow," said Gawthrop haughtily, "there has been a mistake. I must be put on shore immediately."
"Oh," said Jones, "oh, indeed! There has been a fatal error, has there? And I'm your good fellow, am I? Take that, you swine."
And what Gawthrop took caused him to sit down very suddenly on a hard teak deck.
"What's the matter, Mr. Jones?" asked the captain, coming to the break of the poop.
"Nothing, sir, nothing," said Jones, foaming at the mouth, "only this ratty hoodlum isn't sober yet. I'll have him in my watch if Mr. Ladd hasn't any fancy for him."
"Sir," said Gawthrop, still in a sitting position, "I'm not a sailor, and have been put on board against my will. My name's Gawthrop—Sibley Gawthrop of Menlo Park. I'm well known in San Francisco."
"Dry up!" said Jones; "known to the police, I should say. And your name's either Fisher or Bates. And where's that other josser? I'll soon see if he's one of the same sort."
He shot forward, and was presently seen emerging from the foc'sle holding the astounded Hunt by the nape of the neck. He ran him aft and discharged him like a catapult right among the men. He fell down alongside Gawthrop.
"Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones," said the skipper mildly. But if he was going to remonstrate with Jones on his American methods, the two hands who had caused the fuss put him off. For Hunt and Gawthrop, on recognising each other, as they did now in spite of their high colouring, lost no time in speech, but went for each other without a word. They locked together and rolled headlong into the starboard scuppers; for though the ship was on an even keel with a fine northerly breeze, the deck had a big camber to it. Then Captain Singleton lost all his mildness at this outrageous insult to his high authority.
"Pull them apart," he roared, as Jones dived for Gawthrop's ankle, and two of the crew got Hunt by the legs. "What the devil does this mean?"
"It means he's had me shanghaied," said Hunt. "I know it."
"And you—oh, I'll kill you," spluttered Gawthrop.
"Send them both up here," said the captain. He stared at them like a fury when they stood before him. No two harder looking cases ever had an interview with a skipper, for Gawthrop was bleeding from the nose, and Hunt had lost all his shirt but the neck-band. They glared at each other, and Jones stood between them ready.
"Now then," said Singleton, "before I put you in irons I'd like to know what you mean by daring——"
It was paralysing to both Gawthrop and Hunt to be looked at as the captain looked at them. They felt like the scum of the earth.
"It's a mistake, a dreadful mistake," said Hunt; "if you will put me ashore, I'll give you five thousand dollars."
And the eager crowd on the main-deck sniggered.
"Lord, he's very big in drink, ain't 'e?" said Tom.
The skipper frowned, and shook his fist right against Hunt's face.
"You hound, don't joke with me. What's this man's name, Mr. Jones?"
"It's either Bates or Fisher," said Jones.
"No, my name's Hunt," cried Hunt. And one of the men on deck, an insinuating beggar who liked to curry favour with the powers, cried:
"His name's Fisher, sir. I've seed him often about the front."
"It's not, it's not," said Hunt furiously. "I'm a man well known in San Francisco."
"Shut up!" said Jones; "the other joskin said that."
"I won't shut up," roared Hunt, quite losing his temper. "I warn you all to put me ashore, or I'll ruin the lot of you."
"Oh," said the captain, "indeed, well, we'll see. Mr. Jones, you can have the one there—Bates, I think. Mr. Ladd, look after this sailorman with the five thousand dollars. Now if there's another word comes out of either of you, or if you start fighting again and I hear of it, I'll make the pair of you wish you'd died before you saw me."
And Jones shoved both of them down on the main-deck. The two unfortunates recognised that their only chance, and that the faintest, lay in speaking together.
"But we're neither of us sailors, sir," they said piteously.
"This is where we manufacture sailors," said Captain Singleton, who was not without humour. "Mr. Jones, Mr. Ladd, you hear that I hope they won't be able to say as much for themselves this day three months."
And the crew laughed, as in duty bound. But Hunt and Gawthrop did not laugh.
"D'ye think there's any truth in what those two men said?" asked Captain Singleton of his mate.
"Likely enough, sir," replied Ladd. "Aren't we out of San Francisco?"
"I certainly don't seem to remember their faces," said the skipper, "but they'll have to do. Make what you can of them. If it's any ways true, it's no good telling them we think so."
"Certainly not, sir," said Ladd. "But what's their remedy?"
He knew perfectly well that there was no practical remedy against the ship. And Hunt and Gawthrop were well aware they had none against their friend Shanghai Smith, or against Gardiner.
They had no chance of speaking to each other till the second dog-watch, and then only in the presence of the whole crowd, who were very anxious to get to the bottom of the mystery.
"They ain't sailormen, not they," growled the oldest man on board, who came from Brook Street, Shadwell, and was known as "Shadwell," though his real name was Shaw, "and a nice thing for hus. Two less to take the wheel. I calls it a bally shime."
He looked at Hunt with an air of unutterable contempt, and sniffed every time the man spoke. Gawthrop, who was younger and more elastic, sat on the other side of the foc'sle, and presently addressed Hunt.
"I suppose we must make the best of it, Hunt."
"Don't speak to me, sir," said Hunt, and the crew roared.
"Tell us 'ow it 'appened, do," said Tom. "Oh, ain't your friend 'aughty? Tell us, 'as 'e got that five thousand dollars?"
"Not on him," replied Gawthrop.
"Look 'ere," said Tom, "if you'll tell us the troof, I'll stand you a drop of rum. I've a nip left. And this is a teetotal ship, this is."
He could not conceive any man refusing such a bribe. And Gawthrop, in spite of everything, could hardly help laughing at Hunt's face. He took the rum partly to have an excuse for telling the story. It was the wisest thing to be friends with every one, and after all, if he was out of the running for a time, so was Hunt.
"Well," said Gawthrop, "I and my cheerful friend over there are very great friends indeed. But I wanted him out of San Francisco for a time, for reasons. And I got Shanghai Smith to arrange it."
"Weknow him," said the crowd eagerly. "Oh yes, we know him!"
"I stayed in 'is 'ouse."
"So did I."
"Shut up and let him tell us."
And Hunt by now was all alone on the starboard side. Even old Shadwell came across to hear the yarn.
"Another friend of mine suggested it," said Gawthrop, "and fixed it up for me."
That was Gardiner," said Hunt.
"It was," said Gawthrop, "and I paid a thousand dollars to have Mr. Hunt put here."
"That's whatIpaid to have you put here," said Hunt. "A friend of mine put me up to it."
"That was Gardiner," said Gawthrop.
"It was," said Hunt.
"And that's why we're both here," said Gawthrop, and his aspect was at once so melancholy and so comic that all hands shrieked with laughter. Old Shadwell creaked like the cheep of a block.
"But what'd this hyer Gardiner to do with the show?" asked the only American in the crew. "It looks like as if he played the pair of you for suckers."
"You hear that, Hunt?"
"I hear," said Hunt sulkily. "Wait till I see him."
"You ain't told us hall," said Shadwell, with a gloomy air of suspicion. "I knows somethin' of life, and somethin' about women; and there was a woman in this."
"Mr. Shadwell is right," said Gawthrop.
"I was to have taken her for a drive this morning," said Hunt; "and a pretty sort of a man I shall look, not turning up."
"Never mind," said Gawthrop. "I was to have taken her out this afternoon."
Old Shadwell nodded gloomily.
"What 'ave I often told you about 'em, boys!" he said. "This proves it. A woman's like a cat with nine lives, and nine sorts of dispositions, and if she don't satisfy 'em with nine sort of man fool she ain't happy. I've know them as nine wouldn't satisfy. And they're all the same; there's different nations of men, but women is all one nation. You can bet your boots, you two fellers, that your girl is out with some one else. This here v'yge will do you good if it rams that into you."
He turned to the others.
"D'ye believe what this young feller has told you?"
They said they did. Shadwell turned again to Gawthrop.
"It's 'ard lines on men as is sailormen, and ships so short-'anded as they always is with greedy owners, to 'ave ship-mates as can't do their work. But you look bright, young feller, and if you skips quick and does your best, there ain't no reason as you shouldn't be some kind of use in the world before we're off the Horn. And I say the same to you over there."
"Go to the devil," replied Hunt sulkily.
"Sailormen don't go there.Theygoes to Fidler's Green," said Shadwell. "And mark me! Put the girl out of your minds. This was a put-up job, andshewas in it. She'll marry this here Gardiner!"
"He hasn't a cent," said Gawthrop contemptuously.
"It don't follow," said Shadwell stubbornly, "that because woman is wicked by nature they ain't silly by choice. I tell you Gardiner 'as gone to wind'ard of you! He's laughin' this very minute!"
And so he was. But Edith Atherton was by no means amused at the sudden disappearance of the two men who were supposed to stand highest in her favour. Whether she cared much or little for either of them, or not, it was unpleasant to have them fail to keep their appointments, and to leave San Francisco without a word of explanation. Her first and very natural impulse was to let every one infer that she had rejected both of them. But when old Mr. Gawthrop called on her during the second day she had to own that she understood the mystery as little as the newspapers did. And all the papers were very keen on any scent.
"But, Mr. Gawthrop, they both said something that I could not understand. Mr. Hunt said that he was sure that your son would soon go to Europe, and not ten minutes after Sibley said the same of Mr. Hunt."
The explanation seemed easy to the old man. Both of them imagined that his rejected rival would travel. The rest must be a coincidence. He went away to the police, and the police invented many hypotheses. They were learned in the matter of disappearances in San Francisco. But none of the hypotheses seemed to fit. Both the young men were wealthy, and it seemed certain that one or the other of them was bound to succeed with the lady in question. Nevertheless, old Gawthrop learnt some things about his son which surprised him.
There was one newspaper which suggested that they might have been shanghaied. It was theChronicle, on which Gardiner worked. For though he had made up his mind to do very little more work on any paper, he was loyal to his flag so long as he hoisted it, and meant that theChronicleshould be able to sail in at the last and say, "We told you so." And when every one else on the paper failed in getting an interview with Miss Atherton, he volunteered to try.
"You must understand, however," he said to his editor, "that even if I see her I don't promise to write anything about it. You see, I knew her a little when she was in New York two years ago, and though I'm not in the gilt-edged crowd she adorns here, I owe her something."
And Edith Atherton saw him, although she did consider a man on a newspaper little, if anything, higher than a deck-hand in a Bay ferry-boat. She had never understood what he was doing in California at all. He went to interview her, and she interviewed him.
"I'm here as a man from theChronicle, Miss Atherton," said Gardiner. He spoke almost timidly. It was the first time he had ever been alone with her.
"You are not here as a man from theChronicle" said Edith.
"You mean——?" said Gardiner eagerly.
"I mean that," said Edith—"just that. You are here as the Mr. Gardiner I met in New York."
Gardiner's eyes sparkled. He looked at her, smiled, and then laughed.
"But mayn't I ask you anything about the—mystery?" he asked.
"I don't see what it has to do with me," replied Edith. "But I see your paper says they have been shanghaied? Tell me what that means."
He explained: no man knew better.
"You mean they have gone to sea as common sailors?" she exclaimed.
"That is the theory of theChronicle" said Gardiner drily. "If we are right, it will do them both good."
"I'm rather sorry for Sibley Gawthrop," she said; but Gardiner was not so young as to be discouraged by her sympathy for Sibley.
"May I be sorry for him too?" asked Gardiner, boldly.
Edith Atherton stared at him and dropped her eyes.
"How is your father?" she asked irrelevantly. "He was a very nice old man."
"So he is," replied Gardiner, "the only trouble was that he believed he owned me. He came from the South, and was one of the few Southerners, who, on losing their slaves, played their own game on the men from the North. He and I quarrelled about a subject in which I considered he had no right to interfere."
There were no obvious implications in the way he spoke, and Edith Atherton saw none.
"What was that?" she asked, innocently enough.
"His view was that I shouldn't marry until he let me. I wanted to marry you."
Edith gasped a little and took hold of her chair as she bent forward.
"Indeed, Mr. Gardiner."
"And I still want to, Miss Atherton. And as the lady whom he wished me to marry was married a month ago, I think he will forgive me, if I ask him. It was always understood, even when we parted, that he would reinstate me as his partner if I succeeded for myself."
"And have you succeeded?" asked Edith with bent head.
Gardiner rose from his chair and went towards her.
"That is for you to say," he cried.
And when he returned to the office he handed in no more than a paragraph. It was considered in some quarters an adequate explanation of the disappearance of Hunt and Gawthrop. Yet it was not adequate for Edith. It was only when she became Mrs. Gardiner, and they were on their way East, that her husband told her the truth.
"I'm really very sorry now," said Gardiner. "Nevertheless, it will do them lots of good. They required it. You never really liked either of them, Edith?"
"No-o, not that way," said his wife. But she said to herself, "Next day I should have accepted Mr. Gawthrop!"
They ran into Laramie Junction, that horrible centre of sage-brush and alkali. A bitter wind drove dust against the windows of their car.
"It's a ghastly prospect," said Gardiner, as he looked out on the prairie.
"It would have been," replied his wife absently.
"It would have been?" asked her husband in surprise.
"I mean it is, of course," said Edith hastily.
William, or, as he was usually called, Bill, Noyes, was a citizen of the United States, and, like most citizens of that part of the Western Continent, he was accustomed to do as he "darned pleased." But besides being an American citizen, he was an American shipmaster, and such are accustomed to having their own way and giving no one else a chance. He explained this to the crowd in theState of Oregon, bound from San Francisco to Bordeaux, with wine which was going to be converted into claret. For this was some time ago, before the wine-growers there had it all their own way in the French Republic.
"You're dogs, and I'm the man with the whip. You're hogs, and I'm your driver. I'm boss, and captain, and governor, and congress, and the senate, and the president, and don't any of you forget it! If I hadn't been brought up religious I'd go a step farther still. Let me hear a growl out of you, and I'll make you wish you were in hell. Do your duty, and I'll make this ship paradise. It shall be as sweet to you as a full roost of chickens to a buck nigger on a dark night. I'm a good man, I am, and I know it. You'll know it, too. I'll see to that. Now then, Mr. Bragg, start them to. D'ye see that damned Dutchman? He looks as if he didn't understand 'United States.' Jolt him on the jaw for me!"
And the unfortunate Dutchman, who was really a Finn from Abo, got a crack with a closed fist that made him see more stars than even the American flag of liberty can boast.
"What for? I done nuttin'," he yelled, as he put his hand to his head; but never another man opened his mouth.
"Say another word," said Bragg, "and I'll ram a belaying-pin crossways down your throat," and this was the beginning.
"Very good indeed," said Noyes. "Now every one understands, Mr. Bragg, and no one can say everything warn't explained to them clearly. Work the drink out of 'em. I'm for a holy, healthy, happy crew."
And Noyes went below for a drink. He was, as he often said, a sober man.
"One tot every time the bell strikes, and two at eight-bells, and as a man can't sleep and drink, I take what I should take before I turn in."
But none of the men for'ard got as much as a teaspoonful even after shortening sail, or on Saturday nights.
"We've struck it rich," said the crowd, when they got together in the second dog-watch. "We've struck it rich. There's no fatal error about that. You can see it with half an eye a mile off. The skipper's a holy terror!"
"Ya! ya! we've got to yoomp!" said a real Dutchman, and he was put in the place proper to a Dutchman at once.
"Speak when you are spoken to," said the English and American seamen all at once. "These Dutchmen are getting past a joke, bullies."
"So they are," said old Mackenzie, a shellback of the briniest description. "When I was a boy, if one of them opened his mouth too wide we used to put something in it."
"What did you put in?" asked the eager Anglo-Saxons.
"Oh, anything as he couldn't eat," said Mac. "A ball o' twine or a swab. I remember one Dutchy aswouldtalk——"
But just then the man from Abo came in, and though the crowd was not really sympathetic, they asked him how his jaw felt. It appeared after all that he understood "United States" sufficiently well when it was to the point: that is, when it concerned his duty or the talk that goes on in a foc'sle. A word beyond these limits opened his eyes and shut his mouth. He was then like a waiter fresh from the Continent, who can talk in English about food, and food only.
"Never you mind, Dutchy," said one of his own watch. "Mebbe, after all, it'll do you good. If Bragg hammers you, we won't."
Even such consolation was better than none, and Dutchy was truly grateful. The lot of a "Dutchman" at sea is not always beer and skittles. But even an Anglo-American crowd can have sympathy when they are like to want it themselves. They certainly found that Billy Noyes's notion of a paradise made Tophet look cool, even as depicted to a sad and sober sailor in a waterside Bethel. They wanted Bordeaux badly, and under the influence of that desire and the stimulation supplied by the officers they lost no time in getting there. And as they were a fine lot as men go, few of them came in for actual hammering. The slowest got that always, and the man from Abo was the man to get it.
It was marvellous to observe how much he got and how little it seemed to hurt him. He was knocked down once a day and twice on Sundays. Even when he got a chance to be first up aloft he never seemed to know it. The only way he had of getting down first was to fall. And once when he did so without seriously damaging himself Bragg hammered him for doing it.
"What you're after is to be laid up; I see that," said Bragg. "But let me catch you at it."
And Hans shook his head under Bragg's heavy hand till he forgot he had bruises on him the size of a soup-plate.
"Dutchy's a fair wonder," said the crowd, rejoicing in their own freedom; "he's taking the whack of all us and never turns a hair. We'll have to get up a subscription for him. Ain't he just tough? Say, Dutchy, suppose you and Bragg or you and the old man was to have a fair set-to, d'ye think you could down either of 'em?"
"Ya," said Hans from Abo very soberly, "neider of 'em can't hurt me mooch."
"He's made of teak," said the admiring crowd. "Now, there ain't one of us wouldn't be bunged up if we'd been hit about like him, and he ain't got a mark."
"It reminds me of a Chinky I fo't once," said one of the men. "I knocked him down seven times, and then two other chaps chucked him out. And next morning he was as cheerful as you please and never fazed; not a mark to him. I give him ten cents for a drink to let me look at him close. Dutchy's just such another, he's a real tough, so he is."
Hans's marvellous capacity for being hammered was soon noted aft.
"Why don't you take a pillow to him?" said Noyes, with a sneer. "To see you hit him, Bragg, makes me tired, and you used to be a hard man, too."
The mate was injured in his tenderest point.
"I done my best," he said suddenly. "I carn't help it if the swine is made of injy-rubber. I pretty near skinned my knuckles on him yesterday, and he's as fresh as paint to-day. Try him yourself, sir."
"I hired you," retorted Noyes; "but if I do get at him you'll see something fly."
They were well to the nor'ard and eastward of the Horn before Noyes happened to try, and it was blowing a snorter from the south-west. As the men came down on the poop after stowing the lower mizzen-topsail, Hans, having gum-boots on, slipped and fell against the skipper. The next moment Hans was on his back and Noyes had his knuckles to his own mouth.
"Great Scott!" said Noyes, with a face like a comic door-knocker or a Japanese grotesque, and he turned about and went below.
"It serves him right," said Hans. "Oh, no, I ain't hurt. It is nuttin'."
And though he showed nothing, not even a slight puffiness on his high cheek-bone, the skipper wore a mitten on his right hand for days. Noyes even conceived a certain respect for the Finn.
"I thought I'd hit a bollard," he said. "I ought to have hit him on the jaw, or where he keeps his wind."
By dint of these object-lessons Hans gradually got an easier time. If Bragg ever went for him he kicked him, and the marks he made, if he made any, did not show, for Hans came on board clothed, and never undressed till they reached the Line in the Atlantic. There he took a bath. As he said, he always made a point of having some buckets of water thrown over him every time he crossed the equator homeward bound; perhaps he thought it kept him fresh. But by then Bragg was even tired of kicking him. Nothing made him go slower or faster. He went at the pace he had been born to, and he never learnt anything more than he had known at seventeen. If there is any truth in the transmigration of souls, Hans must have been a tortoise and was destined to "jump up" again as a sloth. But once, after a long slow month of provocation, he hit the real Dutchman from Amsterdam, and that native of Holland "went to sleep" for two hours.
"He's the on'y Dutchman I ever had any real respect for," said the crowd each for himself. But of course he was a Finn, and, as every one knows, a Finn triumphs over his disabilities as a Dutchman by virtue of strange gifts.
"No, I don't believe none of that jaw about Finns and witchcraft," said old Mackenzie, "but I own there's always somethin' strange about a Finn. Now, all Hans's nature seems to 'ave run to 'ardness. What a saddle 'is skin would make!" For Mac had spent two years in the Australian bush, and was never tired of relating his strange experiences on horseback.
And presently theState of Oregonbegan, as the men said, to smell land. It was off Finisterre that Noyes proved the man from Abo could bleed; for the skipper never forgot that he had been knocked out in one round by knocking down a 'Dutchman.' The thought rankled, and when Hans was at the wheel when the wind was light out of the north-east the skipper's temper, ragged at a contrary wind when he had made a record passage so far, led him a little astray. For, as he often said, "It's all right marking men when one's bound home and when they've time to get well bound to Yewrope, but I like to leave 'em without no visible sign to say you've larrupped 'em when I'm bound East."
In the United States there is very little respect for a man who can't take care of himself, but some Europeans have silly notions. It's not uncommon even to find a consul who doesn't understand that sailors are no good unless they are in a state of mutiny or near it. There is no end to the foolishness of some consuls, as Captain Noyes often complained with natural bitterness. So when, after he had cursed Hans twice for his steering, he jammed the brass end of his telescope right between the man's eyes and cut him badly, he was quite sorry for it. You see, he had almost got to believe that the man from Abo couldn't be hurt. But a brass telescope properly applied makes four neat little cuts, one on the forehead, one on the bridge of the nose, and one on each eyebrow, as a little consideration of the human race and the nature of a circle will show. The blood ran down into Hans's eyes, and Bragg had to walk to the break of the poop and bellow:
"Relieve the wheel!"
And two days afterwards theState of Oregon, owing to a favourable change of wind, lay at Bordeaux. As soon as she did, the entire crew got too much to drink, and not even Noyes and Bragg could handle them, though the skipper was, as he had averred at the beginning of the passage, captain and congress and president all rolled in one. The only people who could handle them were the French police, and they had their work cut out. The next day, as it is the habit of Frenchmen and Spaniards and the like to let the consuls fix up all difficulties with foreign crews if they can, the American Consul was called on to arbitrate in the matter. And for the nonce the American Consul was the English one, for Mr. Schuyler had gone to Paris on what he described as business, but what no Puritan would have called such. And this is where the man from Abo came home, as one may say.
Mr. Johnson, then British Consul at Bordeaux, was a fine man with a clear skin, a merry eye, a knowledge of the world, and a hard fist. As a young man he had been amateur champion of the middle-weights in England, and though he was now a heavy-weight, he was almost as quick as he had been at twenty-two. He had a sense of fair play which was almost disgusting to masters of merchantmen, and a sense of humour which sometimes got him into trouble with the Foreign Office. For it may have been noticed that among the English Civil Service the only humour, which is, one has to own, rather sardonic, is to be found in that part of it which deals with the Income Tax. The very moment the consul had the shamefaced crew before him, and saw the officers, he knew where the trouble lay, and he thought of the boxing gloves with which he often whiled away an idle hour when the vice-consul felt "good."
"Well, now, well, what's the trouble?" asked the consul.
And Noyes told him where he thought it lay. Noyes was as smooth as bad butter, and had a heartiness about him which would have made a child cry for its mother. All the time he was talking, and the men were muttering that he was a liar, the consul was taking the crowd in. He spotted many marks and bruises on them, all come by honestly among themselves or given them without malice by the gensd'armes; but when his eye lighted on the man from Abo it stayed there.
"A comfortable ship, yes, yes," said the consul, "of course, of course! And a tough crowd to be sure. Here you, come here!"
And as the others saw that he meant Hans, they shoved him forward.
"That's a nice face you've got," said Mr. Johnson. "God bless my soul you've been running against something. Now I should say—I should say—yes, by Jove, you've been running against a telescope?"
And Hans nodded.
"Who gave you that?"
Noyes looked as black as his coat, but the Finn pointed at him with his finger.
"The cap'en, sir."
The consul looked at them both. He noted that they were both of a size, both probably of the same weight, and both looked as hard as nickel steel. His eye sparkled with a certain joy.
"Did you, Mr. Noyes?"
It enraged Noyes to be given his proper handle.
"And he deserved it," he said angrily.