"Make Campbell run the ship," said Cochrane.
"You can't _make_ a Scotchman do anything."
"Persuade him, then," went on Cochrane. "He'd sell his soul for a drink
of that whisky. But if you can't persuade him, I'd trust to those
fellows to make him do what you want."
And he pointed to the firemen.
"I'll let 'em play their little game till they're tired of it,"
answered Hovey, "an' then we'll bring up Campbell an' try what we can
do with him."
The "little game" had now become a wild debauch. Except for the few
unfortunates who had been detailed by Hovey to guard the prisoners and
see that the fugitives in the wireless house made no attempt to rush
the main cabin as a forlorn hope, every man of the crew was gathered in
the captain's cabins or on the deck nearby. The fireroom was deserted;
the engines stopped; the _Heron_ floated idly on the swell of the sea;
but heedless of this the mutineers celebrated their victory.
They divided their attention between drinking and gambling. They seemed
feverishly eager to throw away their piles of gold. Some of them
flipped coins at ten dollars a throw. Others tossed dice. One group of
four sat around a greasy pack of cards betting on which man would draw
the first jack.
Those who lost did not envy the winners. They looked about; gold was on
all sides, heaps of it; if their hands were empty, their eyes were
rich. Sam Hall lost his entire share within an hour, betting
recklessly. He approached a gigantic fireman who squatted by the wall
with a canvas bag clutched in one hand and a broken bottle in the
other. The whisky had run out on the floor, but the fellow was too far
gone to know the difference, and from time to time he raised the empty
bottle to his lips.
"Money gone," said Hall. "Gimme!" And he held out his hand.
The fireman, with a vast grin, delved his hand into the bag and brought
it forth loaded with gold, which Hall took without a word and returned
to his game of rolling dice, one throw at five hundred dollars a throw.
In ten minutes he went back to the fireman with a double handful of
corns.
"Principal an' interest," grunted the big sailor, and dumped his gold
into the canvas bag which, filled to overflowing, spilled a dozen coins
upon the floor.
The fireman, with a groan of dull content, slipped prone on the floor
and was instantly asleep, embracing the canvas bag in both arms. Every
man in the crew was in a somewhat similar condition, saving Hovey, with
his gray-blue, steady eyes, and Cochrane, with his glittering, shifty
black. These two watched the rest descend toward swinish
unconsciousness; they saw, and waited coolly, and now and then glanced
at each other with faint smiles of understanding.
Somewhere in the waist of the ship Jacob Flint was singing shrill songs
of infinite profanity, but otherwise there was no sound on the _Heron_
as the sun went down, and all night long the old freighter wallowed
sluggishly up and down on the waves, as if she waited for dawn before
resuming her journey toward the shore.
There was a wisdom, however, in Hovey's laxness of discipline during
the first day of his mastery. The next morning the men slept late,
sprawling about the deck, and Hovey and Cochrane first roused ominous
Jacob Flint and Sam Hall and Kyle. With this nucleus of five mighty
men, men to be feared on land or sea, Hovey started to rouse the rest
of the mutineers. They woke cursing and sad of stomach and head, and to
the first orders they responded with cursing; the reply was a
sledge-hammer blow from the fist of Hall or Kyle, and while the man lay
on the deck, it was explained curtly and forcibly to him that while the
_Heron_ was at sea, he would have to obey Bos'n Hovey; but as soon as
the ship reached land, each man could be his own master.
First of all the firemen were commanded to the hole to get up steam,
but when this was done, it was found that there was some minor trouble
with the machinery. An engineer was needed; Hovey, with Cochrane, Flint
and Hall beside him, sent for Campbell, and retired to the cabin to
await his coming.
There sat the body of Fritz Klopp as it had remained ever since the
beginning of the revels the day before, grinning up at the ceiling.
Hall and Flint raised the body, and the clutching fingers were found to
be frozen by death immovably around a whole handful of gold. As Hall
suggested, this would serve as lead to take him to the bottom of the
sea. The others applauded the thought, and with his hand still full of
gold, they carried Fritz Klopp to the rail and dumped him into the
water.
As they re-entered the cabin, Campbell was kicked in from the opposite
door. His hands were manacled behind him, and the force of the kick,
together with a sway of the ship, threw him off his balance. He crashed
on his face at the feet of Hovey. The bos'n grew positively pale with
pleasure. He selected a cigar from an open box on the table and lighted
it leisurely.
At last he ordered: "Pick him up."
The chief engineer was jerked to his feet and stood with a trickle of
blood running down from his split lip. His face was rather purple than
red, and the dark pouches underneath his eyes told the horror of the
night he had passed. Nevertheless, the eyes themselves were bright.
Far away, half heard, and drowned by any noise near at hand, was a
sound of singing. It was Black McTee in the wireless house, half
maddened by thirst and hunger and despair, and singing in defiance
songs of bonny Scotland.
"There's been trouble aboard, chief," he said, "but now trouble's over.
All over! We want you to take charge of the engines again and bring us
to shore."
Campbell waited, not as if he had not heard. In spite of himself, Hovey
stirred a trifle and grew uneasy. From a corner of the room he picked
up a canvas bag and dropped it with a melodious jingling on the table
in front of the engineer.
"This is your share," he said.
Campbell smiled faintly.
"And this," said Hovey, with a glance at his companions.
The smile had not altered on the lips of the Scotchman.
"With this money," said Hovey, forcing himself to remain calm, "you can
retire from active work. You can get yourself a little place on the
coast somewhere"--he had heard Campbell name some of his dreams--"and
have a little cellar full of the right stuff, and have your friends run
out to see you now an' then, an' talk over things that're goin' on at
sea--where you ain't."
Here he placed a third bag of money on the table.
"You could do all that and more, chief--a lot more--with this money."
Hovey cut the lace which tied the mouth of one of the bags; he poured
the gleaming contents across the table.
"Well?" he asked softly.
"Damn you!" whispered Campbell, and then, "You fool, am I not Scotch?"
"At least," went on the bos'n easily, "think it over, chief, and while
you're thinkin', what d'you say to a drop of the real stuff?"
Campbell had not tasted either food or liquid since early the day
before, and his eyes were moist as they stared at the two bottles.
"Set his hands free," said Hovey, "so that the chief can drink. We
ain't half-bad fellers, Campbell; but we've got good cause for raisin'
the hell you've seen on the _Heron._"
While he spoke, the arms of Campbell were set free, and glasses were
shoved toward him, one full of Scotch and the other of seltzer. The
mutineers were already raising their drinks for a toast when Campbell
took his with a violently trembling hand. But as he lifted the liquor,
he was fully conscious for the first time of a singing which had been
faint in the air for some time, the songs of Black McTee in the
wireless house, and now the big-throated Scotchman swung into a new
air, plaintive and rapid in cadence, a death song and a war song at
once, the speech of Bruce before Bannockburn, as Burns conceived it.
Loud and true rang the voice of Black McTee, breaker of men:
"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots wham Bruce hae aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!"
And the hand of Campbell checked on its way to his lips. "We're lookin'
in your eyes, chief," said Hovey. And the song broke in:
"Wha would be a traitor slave,
Let him turn and flee!"
Campbell was staring at the wall like one who sees a
vision but cannot make out its meaning.
The voice of Black McTee swelled high and strong:
"Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freemen stand and freemen fa',
Let him on wi' me!"
And the glass dropped from the lips of the Scotchman. It crashed
against the hard floor. Broad Scotch was on his tongue.
"I canna drink wi' murderers!" he cried.
"Damn you!" said Hovey, and drove his fist into Campbell's face,
hurling him to the deck.
The manacles were clapped on his wrists again; he was dragged once more
to his feet.
"Take him out," said Hovey to the grinning sailors who had lingered in
the door. "Take him back to the waist of the ship before the wireless
house. Wait for me there. And see that Van Roos and Borgson are brought
there also."