BRUTUS: O that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.
_Julius Caesar._
When Jack got on board the North Star he found that, although he had
shipped as working passenger, the wily mate had taken him as one of the
crew, with the intention, doubtless, of pocketing the wages which
otherwise would have gone to the sailor who would have been employed.
Several of the sailors were rather intoxicated, and the rest were just
getting over a spree. They came down into the forecastle just before
leaving, and seeing Jack there, whom they did not know, were very
silent. One of them at last said:
"Is every man here a Union man?"
Jack knew he was not, and that, being ignorant of secret signs, he would
perhaps be found out. He answered, "I don't belong to the Union."
The man who spoke first then, said sulkily: "That settles it; I'm going
ashore. The rules says that no member shall sail on a vessel if there is
any scab on board."
Jack understood from this, after a moment's thought, that this
expression must refer to one who did not avail himself of the healthy
privileges of the Sailors' Union.
He explained that he was only going as a passenger, and was not under
pay.
This seemed to make the matter satisfactory, and after the malcontent
quieted down they all got to work peacefully. It took them a long time
to get all the canvas set while the tug towed the vessel out of and
beyond the harbor.
Jack found he was no match for these men in the toil of making heavy
canvas. He felt like a child among them. The halyards were so large and
coarse to the touch, and after being exposed to the weather, their fiber
was like fine wire and ate into his hands painfully, although the
latter were well enough seasoned for yachting work. His hands almost
refused to hold the ropes when they had got thoroughly scalded in the
work, and by the time all the canvas was set he was ready to drop on the
deck with exhaustion.
He was on the mate's watch. This man saw that, although Jack was
physically inferior, his knowledge seemed all right. This puzzled the
sailors. He was dressed in clothes which had looked rough and plebeian
on the Ideal, but here he was far too well dressed. If there were tears
in his clothes and in his hat, there were no patches anywhere, and this
seemed to be, _prima facie_, a suspicious circumstance. He regretted
that his clothes were not down to the standard. After being reviled on
the yachts because they were so disreputable, he now felt that they were
so particularly aristocratic that he longed for the garments of a tramp.
He saw that if the sailors suspected that he was not one of themselves
by profession they would send him to Coventry for the rest of the trip.
This would be unpleasant, for as the men got sober they proved
good-humored fellows in their way, although full of cranks and queer
ideas.
At eight bells, on the first night, Jack came on deck in a long ulster,
which, although used for duck-shooting and sailing for five years since
it last saw King Street, was still painfully whole. The vessel was lying
over pretty well and thrashing through the waves in creditable style.
The watch just going off duty had "put it up" with the mate that Jack
should be sent aloft to stow the fore-gafftopsail.
They could not make Jack out. And when he went up the weather-rigging,
after slipping out of the ulster, every man on board except the captain
was covertly watching him--wondering how he would get through the task.
The topsail had been "clewed up" at the masthead--and was banging about
in the strong wind like a suspended Chinese lantern.
Suppose a person were to tie together the four corners of a new
drawing-room carpet, and were then to hoist it in this shape to the top
of a tall pine tree bending in the wind to an angle of thirty degrees.
Let him now climb up, and with a single long line master the banging
mass by winding the line tightly around it from the top down to the
bottom, and afterward secure the long bundle to the side of the tree. If
this be done, by way of experiment, while the seeker after knowledge
holds himself on as best he can by his legs, and performs the operation
on a black night entirely by the sense of touch he will understand part
of what our lake sailors have to do.
Jack, to say truly, had all he wanted. The sail was a new one. The
canvas and the bolt-ropes were so stiff as to almost defy his strength.
But he got it done and descended, tired enough. All hands were satisfied
that he knew a good deal, and yet they said they were sure he was "not
quite the clean wheat." The ulster had been very damaging.
The evening of the second day saw them still working down the lake, and
having had some favorable slants of wind they had got well on their way.
As Jack's watch went below at midnight, a fog had settled over the sea,
and he was glad to get down out of the cold, and have a comfortable
smoke before turning into his old camping blankets for the rest of his
four hours off.
By the light of a bad-smelling tin lamp nailed against the Samson-post,
and sitting on a locker beside one of the swinging anchor chains that
came down through the hawse pipe from the deck above into the fore-peak
under the man's feet, one of the sailors fell to telling one of his many
adventures on the lakes. There was no attempt at humor in this story. It
was a simple, artless tale of deadly peril, cold, exhaustion, and
privation on our inland sea. It was told with a terrible earnestness,
born of a realization of the awful anxiety that had stamped upon his
perfect memory every little detail that occurred.
This was an experience when, in the month of December, the schooner he
was then sailing on had been sent on a last trip from Oswego to Toronto.
They had almost got around the Lighthouse Point at Toronto, after a
desperately cold passage, when a gale struck them, and, not being able
to carry enough canvas to weather the point, they were thus driven down
the lake again with the sails either blown from the bolt-ropes or split
to ribbons, with the exception of a bit of the foresail, with which they
ran before the wind. To go to South Bay would probably mean being frozen
in all winter, and perhaps the loss of the ship, so the captain headed
for Oswego, hoping the snow and sleet would clear off to enable them to
see the harbor when they got there. On the way down a huge sea came over
the stern, stove in the cabin, and smashed the compasses.
"We hedn't kept no dead reckonin', an' we cudn't tell anyways how fast
we wus goin'. We just druv' on afore it for hours. Cudn't see more'n a
vessel's length anywheres for snow, and, as for ice, we wus makin' ice
on top of her like you'd think we wus a-loadin' ice from a elevator; we
wus just one of 'Greenland's icy mountings' gone adrift. Waal, the old
man guv it up at last, and acknowledged the corn right up and up. Says
he, 'Boys, she's a goner. We've druv' down below and past Oswego, and
that's the last of her.'"
"This looked pretty bad--fur the old man to collapse all up like this;
fur all on yer knows as well as I do that to get down below Oswego in a
westerly gale in December means that naathin' is goin' to survive but
the insurance. There's no harbors, ner shelter, ner lifeboats, ner
naathin'. Yer anchors are no more use to yer off that shore than a
busted postage-stamp. Thet's the time, boys, fur to jine the Salvation
Army and trample down Satan under yer feet and run her fur the shore and
pray to God for a soft spot and lots of power fer to drive her well up
into a farm.
"Waal, gents, the old man tuckered out, and went off to his cabin fur to
make it all solid with his 'eavenly parents, and two or three of us
chaps as hed been watchin' things pretty close come to the conclusion
thet we hedn't got below Oswego yet. So we all went in a body, as a kind
o' depitation from ourselves, and says us to the old man: 'Hev you guv
up the nevigation of this vessel? becus, ef yer hev, there's others here
as wud like to take a whack at playin' captain.'
"'All right,' says the old man from his knees (fur he was down gettin'
the prayers ready-made out of a book), 'I've guv her up,' says he; 'do
you jibe your fores'l and head her fur the sutherd and look out for a
soft spot. Yer kin do what yer likes with her.'
"So we jibes the fores'l then, just puttin' the wheel over and lettin'
the wind do the rest of it, fer there was six inches of ice on to the
sheets, and yer couldn't touch a line anywheres unless yer got in to it
with a axe. Waal, the old fores'l flickers across without carryin' away
naathin', and, just as we did this, another vessel heaves right across
the course we bed been a-driven' on. Our helm was over and the ship was
a-swingin' when we sighted her, or else we'd have cut her in two like a
bloomin' cowcumber. And then we seed our chance. That ere vessel was
goin' along, on the full kioodle, with every appearance of knowin' where
she was goin' to--which we didn't. 'Hooray!' says we, 'we ain't below
Oswego yet, and that vessel will show us the road. She's got the due
course from somewheres, and she's our only chance.'
"And we follered her. You can bet your Sunday pants we was everlastin'ly
right on her track. She was all we hed, boys, 'tween us and th' etarnal
never-endin' psalm. Death seemed like a awful cold passage that time,
boys! We wus all frost-bit and froze up ginerally; and clothes weren't
no better'n paper onto us."
"But she had a _leetle_ more fores'l onto her than we hed; and after a
while she begun to draw away from us. We hed naathin' left more to set
fer to catch up with her. We hollered to make her ease up, but she paid
no attention. Guess she didn't hear, or thought we hed our compasses all
right--which we hedn't. Waal, gents, it was a awful time. Our last
chance was disappearin' in the snow-storm, and there wus us left there,
'most froze to death, and not knowin' where to go. Yer cudn't see her,
thro' the snow, more'n two lengths ahead; and, when she got past that,
all yer cud see was the track of her keel in the water right under our
bows. Well, fellows, I got down furrud on the chains, and we 'stablished
a line o' signals from me along the rest of them to the man at the
wheel. If I once lost that tract in the water we wus done forever.
Sometimes I wus afeared I hed lost it, and then I got it again, and then
it seemed to grow weaker; and I thought a little pray to God would do no
harm. And I lifts up my hand--so--"
The man had left his seat and was crouching on the floor as he told this
part of the story. The words rolled out with a terrific energy as he
glared down at the floor, stooping in the attitude in which he had
watched the track in the water. The tones of his voice had a wild terror
in them that thrilled Jack to the very core, and made him feel as if he
could not breathe.
"And I lifts up me hand--so (and, gents, I wus lookin' at that streak in
the water. I want yer to understand I was a-lookin' at it). And I lifts
up me hand--so--and I says 'Holy Christ, don't let that vessel get off
no farderer--'"
The story was never finished.
A sound came to them that seemed to Jack to be only a continuation of
the horror of the story he had heard. A crash sounded through the ship
and they were all knocked off their seats into the fore-peak with a
sudden shock. They tumbled up on deck in a flash, and there they saw
that a great steamer had mounted partly on top of the schooner's
counter. The mainmast had gone over the side to leeward.
The schooner had been about to cross the steamer's course when they
first saw her lights in the fog, and, partly mistaking her direction,
the sailing captain had put his ship about. This brought the stern of
the schooner, as she swung in stays, directly in line with the course of
the steamer. The steamer's helm was put hard over, and the engines were
reversed, but not until within fifty feet of the schooner. The stern of
the schooner swung around as she turned to go off on the other tack, so
that, although the stem or cutwater of the steamer got past, the counter
of the schooner was struck and forced through the steamer's starboard
bow under the false sides. When they struck, the schooner's stern was
depressed in the seaway and the steamer's bow was high in the air, so
that the latter received a deadly blow which tore a hole about six feet
high by ten long in her bow. Both boats went ahead together, chiefly
owing to the momentum of the huge steamer. And for a moment the
steamer's false sides rested on what was left of the schooner's counter
on the port side.
A man leaning over from the upper deck of the steamer cried:
"What schooner is that?"
"Schooner North Star, of Toronto," was the reply.
The man vaulted over the bulwarks and slid actively down the sloping
side of the steamer to the deck of the schooner and looked around him.
No sooner had he done so than the motion of the waves parted the two
boats. The steamer ceased to move ahead. The forward canvas of the
schooner had caught the wind and she was beginning to pay off on the
port tack, the mainmast, mainsail, and rigging dragging in the water.
Jack, who was filled with helpless anxiety, then discovered that the
steamer was the Eleusinian. At the same moment he heard a shriek from
the bow of the steamer and there he saw Nina, her long hair driving
behind her, beckoning him to come to help her. The steamer, filling like
a broken bottle, had already taken one lurch preparatory to going down
and Jack yelled:
"Jump, Nina! Jump into the water and I will save you!"
But Nina, not knowing that the steamer was going down, had not the
courage to cast herself into the black heaving waves.
Jack saw this hesitation, and yelled to her again to jump. He made fast
the end of a coil of light line, and then sprang to the bulwarks to jump
overboard so that when he swam to the bows of the steamer Nina could
jump into the water near him.
He knew without looking that the schooner, with no after-canvas set,
could do nothing at present but fall off and drift away before the wind,
as she was now doing, and as her one yawl boat had been smashed to dust
in the collision, the only chance for Nina was for him to have a line in
his hand whereby to regain the schooner as it drifted off. It was a wild
moment for Jack, but his nerve was equal to the occasion. While he
belayed the end of the light line to a ring on the bulwarks, he called
to his mates on the schooner to let go everything and douse their
forward canvas.
It takes a long time even to read what had to be done. What Jack did was
done in a moment; but as he sprang to the bulwarks to vault over the
side, a strong pair of arms seized him from behind and held him like a
vice with his arms at his sides.
"Let me go," he cried, as he struggled in the grasp of a stranger.
"No, sir. You're wanted. I have had trouble enough to get you without
letting you drown yourself."
Jack struggled wildly; but the more frantic he became the more he roused
the detective to ferocity. He heaved forward to throw Dearborn over his
head; but the two fell together, crashing their heads upon the deck,
where they writhed convulsively.
The iron grip never relaxed. At last Jack, lifting Dearborn with him,
got on his feet and, seizing something on the bulwarks to hold himself
in position, he stopped his efforts to escape. "For God's sake," he
cried brokenly, "for Christ's sake, let me go! See, there she is! She is
going to be my wife!"
In his excitement Dearborn forgot that the woman on the steamer might
have the stolen money with her. To him Jack's jumping overboard promised
certain death and the loss of a prisoner.
As Jack tried to point to Nina, who was clasping the little flag-pole at
the bow of the steamer--a white figure in the surrounding gloom, waving
and apparently calling to him--he saw the steamer take a slow, sickening
lurch forward, and then a long lurch aft. The bows rose high in the air,
with that poor desolate figure clasping the flag-pole, and then the
Eleusinian slowly disappeared.
For an instant the bows remained above the surface while the air escaped
from the interior, and the last that could be seen was the white figure
clinging desperately to the little mast as if forsaken by all. No power
had answered her agonies of prayer for deliverance.
* * * * *
After the strong man who had pinioned Jack saw the vessel go down, he
became aware that he was holding his culprit up rather than down. He
looked around at his face, and there saw a pair of staring eyes that
discerned nothing. He laid him on the deck then, and finally placed him
in the after-cabin on the floor. Jack did not regain consciousness. His
breathing returned only to allow a delirium to supervene. Dearborn and a
sailor had again to hold him, or he would have plunged over the
bulwarks, thinking the steamer had not yet sunk.
The captain's wife, who had been sleeping in the extra berth off the
after-cabin, had been crushed between the timbers when the collision
took place, and under the frantic orders of the captain the rest of the
crew were trying to extricate the screaming woman. The mate had been
disabled in the falling of the mainmast, so that no attempts were made
to save those who were left swimming when the Eleusinian went down, and
the schooner, under her forward canvas, sailed off, dragging her
wreckage after her, slowly, of course, but faster than any one could
swim. Thus no one was saved from the steamer except the detective, who
had not thought of saving his own life when he had dropped to the deck
of the schooner, but only of seizing Jack.
The mate was able, after a time, to give his directions while lying on
the deck. The wreckage was chopped away, and the vessel was brought
nearer the wind to raise the injured port quarter well above the waves
until canvas could be nailed over the gaping aperture. When this was
done they squared away before the wind, hoisted the center-board, and
made good time up the lake. They had a fair wind to Port Dalhousie--the
only place available for dockyards and refitting--where they arrived at
two o'clock in the day.
After raving in delirium until they arrived at Port Dalhousie, Jack fell
off then into a sleep, and when the Empress of India was ready to leave
at four o'clock for Toronto, Dearborn woke him up and found that his
consciousness seemed to have partly returned. The detective was pleased
that the disabled vessel had sought a Canadian port, where his warrant
for Jack's arrest was good. However, the prisoner made no resistance,
and at nine o'clock he was duly locked up at Toronto, having remained in
a sort of stupor from which nothing could arouse him.