had been stabbed she had fled to her room, locking herself in, and sat
shivering until curiosity compelled her to open the door on a crack and
peep out; and when Louis and the mate stumbled along the alley-way by
our windows, it sounded to her like the tramp of a ball-and-chain gang.
As soon as Louis was secured we turned our attention to the second mate
again, and after reaching the conclusion that there was no internal
hemorrhage, or, at least, none that our slight skill could detect, we
drew the edges of the wound together, into which you might easily have
thrust a plum, securing them with adhesive plaster, and then bound up
the cut with listerine-soaked cloths. Poor fellow! he had a bad night.
Two heavy doses of laudanum and a five-grain opium pill had no more
effect on him than so much nitre; and it was not until shortly before
eight this morning that he dozed away, only to be aroused by the clang
of the huge breakfast-bell just without his door. He is suffering
dreadfully, has a high fever, and has conceived the notion that he is
in slivers inside.
At 8.15 this morning the after wheel-house door was opened, and the
captain asked Louis if there was anything that he wanted, to which the
Frenchman answered by turning his back with a shrug. Then the skipper
said to him, “I just came to tell you that you’re no longer a seaman
aboard this ship. You’re a prisoner, and will remain so till I hand you
over to the authorities in San Francisco.” Then breakfast, consisting
of burgoo, hard bread, salt beef, and coffee, was taken to him, and he
was left alone till one o’clock, when a pannikin of soup was carried to
him, which he refused, although he ate another piece of salt beef and
a huge piece of soft bread. The manacles are knocked off when he eats,
after which they are locked on again, and he is then left utterly
alone. He is not allowed to enter the forecastle upon any pretext,
and when it is necessary for him to go forward, the mate follows
immediately behind.
At a little before nine this morning, as I was reading by the
wheel-house, Paddy, who was steering, leaned out and whispered, “Look,
the old man’s goin’ to read the riot act.” I glanced forward, and saw
that the ship’s company had been mustered aft on the main-deck, with
the captain glaring at them, but not in the least excited. I reached
the break of the poop just in time to hear what it was about. Said the
skipper: “I hear you men are finding fault with the food and say I’m
starving you; is that so?”
Tim, with a villanous twist, came forward, and said, “It is, sor; and
we don’t get enough wather to wash our hands wid,” holding out two
dirty paws.
“Not enough to wash your hands with, eh?” said the old man. “It looks
to me as if there was plenty of water over the side, and I believe
you’ve got enough salt-water soap. Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“It is, sor,” said Tim.
“Is there any one else in the same fix?” asked the skipper.
Coleman then stepped out and said the same thing about the food and
water. Every one else seemed to find something mighty interesting in
the deck-seams.
“All right. Mr. Goggins, you will see that the men are put on
government allowance from now till I see fit to stop it. You can go
forrad,” he added to the men.
It must be explained that on Yankee ships it is not customary to put
men on the allowance prescribed by law as it is on foreign ships. On
some of our ships the men are fed very well and on others miserably.
We began here by giving all sorts of extra things to the men,
apple-sauce, cheap jam, butter, etc., and when these “delicacies” ran
out the men thought it strange, and then by and by, according to some
of the most trustworthy of the sailors, the bread and meat themselves
began to grow less and less. It would be much better if long-voyage
American ships would adhere to the government allowance, and not give
the men sweets one month and then suddenly stop them entirely; such a
course always breeds discontent; and I have noticed that the mates have
not been able to get any more work out of the men here even when they
were luxuriating in their jam and butter, etc., than they did on the
English “Mandalore,” where everything was weighed out to the ounce, and
no “fixins.”
The serenity that ought to accompany a sea-voyage has been savagely
dissipated, for go on deck and approach the wheel-house, and you
instinctively recoil when you think that it perhaps contains a
murderer. Go below to meals, and the smile vanishes from your face as
your thoughts revert to the wounded man groaning in his dingy cavern.
Over the ship hovers a silence such as falls upon a community when
Death stalks through its midst. The men look grave, the mate gives his
orders in low tones, and instead of the ringing chanties, the halliards
are tautened up to a muffled “oh ho”; and the pumps would revolve in
utter silence but for their own grinding clank.
As for the day, it was magnificent, and we continue to surge along over
a sparkling ocean. Latitude, 4° 30′ south; longitude, 109° 58′ west.
+August 20+
After the excitement and turmoil incident to such an affair as happened
yesterday, or rather the night before last, it is hard to get at the
real facts of the case until the agitation calms down. Therefore it
was not until a little while ago that we learned the truth about the
row between Louis and Chips. It appears that before stowing away the
heavy suit of sails when they had been unbent, some slight repairs were
necessary on the lower foretop-sail. They were completed day before
yesterday, and the sail was carefully rolled and tied up. The men were
ordered to rinse the paint off their hands with kerosene, furnished
them by the carpenter, so that they should leave no finger-marks on
the white duck. Afterward, for some unknown reason, Louis wanted more
oil, and personally went into the carpenter-shop to get it. Now, it is
one of the strictest rules aboard all ships that no sailor shall ever
enter the carpenter-shop in the absence of Chips; and when the latter,
no doubt in an ugly mood, found Louis in there, he threw him out.
After the fight the Frenchman was in a blind passion, and there were
probably two reasons for his taking summary vengeance upon the second
mate. In the first place, I have often seen him flush up with anger
at the way in which some of the men have been treated, this being his
first American ship; and he probably determined that if either mate
laid hand on him unlawfully, he would show them that there was at least
one man forward with the courage to defend himself. The second mate
took him by the throat (Rarx admits that) while he, Louis, was quietly
standing by the chicken-coop cutting off a plug of tobacco, being at
the time perfectly well behaved, and the Frenchman, remembering his
comrades, used his knife, ready in his hand. In the second place, the
name which the second mate called him was the last straw. English,
German, Scandinavian, and American sailors do not seem to care what
they are called by the mates; but any one of the violent Latin races
always resents this epithet with all the fury of which they are
possessed. It is inconceivable, anyhow, why Rarx should have stirred
up the row again. Chips ejected Louis from his shop. All right; he
is there to guard that part of the ship, and did right in heaving him
out of it; yet the second mate must needs rake it all up again two
hours afterward, when he didn’t even see the original disturbance.
Gradually I am beginning to lean toward the belief that Rarx and Louis
have had a grudge against each other for a long time, and mayhap that
little incident in the South Atlantic while the sails were being
shifted, during which Rarx nearly threw the Frenchman off one of the
mizzen-top-sail-yards, was not so much of an accident as it seemed.
By far the gravest question now is, was the knife that did the deed
rusty? It was a sheath-knife such as all sailors carry in a little
leathern scabbard by the hip. It must have been fairly bright, though,
as there has been a great deal of use lately for sheath-knives in
cutting away old chafing gear, and therein lies Rarx’s salvation. His
sufferings are very great now; at long intervals he is somewhat easier,
but he groans almost continuously in what seems to be excruciating
agony, his breath comes in gasps, and perspiration oozes from his face
in large beads, as he wallows and squirms in his narrow, hot bunk,
almost crying aloud sometimes when the ship rolls.
And what of Louis? He has been removed to the lazarette and fastened,
still handcuffed, to a thick stanchion. There he sits brooding
in the gloom, for no light penetrates the apartment save by the
booby-hatch that leads into it, secured with a chain heavy enough for
a maintop-sail-sheet. He has, however, plenty of air and good food,
including soft bread, which is no longer given to the men; but there is
not space enough for him to stand upright in, a kneeling posture being
the most elevated that he can assume. Still, there’s nothing else to do
with him, for he certainly couldn’t be allowed at large. Three times a
day the mate carries him his food, liberates him when he has finished
and marches him forward, walking about five feet behind him, his hand
gripping a pistol in his hip-pocket, ready for the least false move on
the part of the Frenchman or any one else. The latter’s face is a study
as he walks rapidly forward, his heavy, dark brows hanging sulkily over
flashing eyes which he never raises from the deck. Through the midst of
his shipmates he strides silently with bare feet, his immovable face
shrouded in deep scowls, looking neither to the right nor left. They
make way for him with averted heads as he passes through, followed
by his jailer, and the men close up again as after the passage of a
blood-hound in leash. Then in a moment back again he hurries along the
deck, mounts the poop-ladder, descends into the dusky recess, holds
out his hands, the irons are snapped on, with the chains between, and
he is left for another five or six hours to muse in solitude upon his
bloody deed. His face shows as yet no indication of relenting; but as
day after day drags on in all its awful loneliness even his nature,
however dauntless, must at last succumb to that most terrible of all
punishments, solitary confinement.
As for the rest of the men, they have recovered somewhat and go about
their work much as usual, bar the chanties, and I had lately another
chance for a word with honest Paddy. “What do you think of this
affair?” I asked him. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” he answered.
“How is that?” wishing to sound him. “Mr. Rarx has always seemed a
pretty decent fellow.” “Decent fellow!” he replied. “Say, look here,
I didn’t say much about him to you the other day, but I’ll tell you
what now, there’s not a single man in the fo’c’s’l what’ll say a good
word for him, ’ceptin’ that he’s a fine sailor-man. His temper’s hell,”
he went on, and I expected to hear of some more fine examples of
discipline, for we were on the fore-castle-head and not likely to be
seen, when “Come, come, Paddy, this ain’t the dog-watch,” broke sharply
in, and we perceived the stalwart shoulders of the bosun rise above the
ladder, which, of course, ended the conversation.
My wife is rapidly recovering from her nervousness, having in this
respect exhibited almost miraculous recuperative powers. What a trying,
not to say a terrible, position for a woman to be placed in! What a
miserable termination to a voyage undertaken solely for pleasure!
Indeed, though, while we have enjoyed the sea as much, perhaps more,
than we ever did before, there have been so many adverse conditions
on board with which we have had to contend, that, after all, this is
a more or less appropriate termination to the passage. When Louis was
first put into the lazarette my wife didn’t like it at all, as our room
adjoins it, though separated by a stout partition or bulkhead; we have
allayed her fears, though, and we never hear so much as the clink of
the chain from the Frenchman, even at night. It is fortunate that our
relatives have no suspicion of our position.
We are now permanently three hands short, for old Neilsen is still
so seedy that his most arduous tasks are making sennit and mats and
pointing and putting Turk’s-heads on ropes. At noon we found that a
strong southwesterly current had retarded us, and we are not as far
north by half a degree as we supposed. Precisely the same weather
conditions prevail, this great ocean being still in a state of absolute
rest. The wind is now east; an advantage, as it allows every sail to
draw. Latitude, 2° 49′ south; longitude, 112° 30′ west.
+August 21+
Mr. Rarx is somewhat improved, we think, and this afternoon he is not
in so much pain. When I went in to see him yesterday I was shocked at
his appearance. His face was swollen and puffed and glistening with
perspiration; he twitched suddenly in jerks and was so exhausted that
a dozen consecutive words wore him completely out. The worst of all,
however, was his rambling speech, due to five-grain doses of opium;
these seem to me to be prodigious amounts to administer, and perhaps
account for the excessive cardiac palpitation from which he suffers.
During breakfast this morning he had a dreadful spasm of pain, and we
could hear him crying, “Oh, oh, oh, oh!” and it was miserable to see
this powerful man stricken down at one blow.
Louis still conducts himself with the grim indifference of a Sioux
Indian; his chains have been double-riveted and shackled, and an idea
of the massiveness of the gear may be obtained when it is said that the
stanchion to which he is secured is five inches square and only four
feet high, that being the amount of head-room in the lazarette. The
skipper has to stand the second mate’s watches now, which is hard on
him, as he is suffering acutely from rheumatism. Lately, or since we
took the southeast Trades, he has been most astonishingly affable. We
don’t know what to think of him; his argumentativeness has disappeared
and he insists on conversing pleasantly at meals; in short, he has
assumed a gracious benignity as surprising as it is welcome, and it
proves that he knows quite well how to talk and act, and that his surly
manner is simply the result of a morose temper. I expect that he wants
to leave a good impression on our minds at the end of the voyage.
Our southwesterly current gave rise to a most astounding lie from the
mate, to illustrate what he believes to be the erratic movements of the
currents in the North Pacific. The incident happened on a bark in the
San Francisco-Honolulu trade, of which he was mate at the time. This
vessel carried no freight, but did a large passenger trade, and always
carried cows along for fresh milk. “Well, sir, wot I’m a-tellin’ yer of
’appened onct on the houtward passage; one of our cows took sick and
died, and of course we ’ad to ’eave ’er over the side, which we did in
the northeast Trades. We reached ’Onolulu all right, and started back
ag’in for San Francisco, when one mornin’ in the Trades the cap’n he
says to me, ‘Mr. Goggins,’ says he, ‘wot’s that?’ ‘Wot’s wot?’ says I.
‘That there,’ says ’e, a-pointin’ over the weather-quarter. I looked,
sir, and strike me blind if there warn’t the body o’ that cow, and we
two ’undred mile to the north’ard o’ where we chucked ’er hoverboard.
She’d drifted there nearly dead ag’in the Trades in twenty-seven days.”
When I told this singular experience to the old man, he said, “The
principal thing that’s the matter with Goggins is that he’s a d---- old
fool.” This being the first occasion on which I ever knew a captain to
omit the handle to a mate’s name.
However, Captain Scruggs himself told us a strange story later; but as
he is painfully accurate and never enlarges on facts or figures, it is
most likely true. He was bound from Seattle to Manila, master of the
“Judas Dowes,” and while rolling down through the southeast Trades he
fell in with a German ship which asked for the longitude. They had a
little talk together with the flags, and it turned out that she was
from Vancouver for Callao and that she was then one hundred and nine
days out. Nor was this the most remarkable part of the affair, for
she was thirteen hundred miles out of her course! Her chronometers
were out and she had been drifting about in the strong currents for
weeks, working by dead-reckoning. But if this is extraordinary, what
shall be said of the voyage of the ship “Ravenscrag,” which arrived
at Callao not many months ago, one hundred and eighty-four days from
New Whatcom! This place with the musical name is on Puget Sound, so
that the distance which the “Ravenscrag” had to traverse was not more
than six thousand miles in a straight line, yet so extremely difficult
is it to make the coast of South America on account of the Trades
that she was half a year at sea. Sailing ships have to practically
cross the Pacific before they can fetch a port on the Peruvian coast.
Another instance of the delay of this voyage is afforded by one of our
rear-admirals, retired, who told me that he was once almost one hundred
days from San Francisco to Callao in a training-ship, which shows
that the long passage of the “Ravenscrag” was not due to indolence
and bad navigation. The latter vessel’s voyage was infinitely more
extraordinary in comparison than the “T. F. Oakes’s” passage of two
hundred and fifty-nine days from Hong-Kong to New York.
It is a pity that vessels have to stand so far to the westward here
when bound north in order to get the northeast Trades, but unless
they do they will fall into a great calm region that extends from the
Central American coast to the one hundred and twentieth meridian, and
which reaches as far north as the thirtieth parallel. This is also a
cyclonic zone, which, at certain seasons (particularly in September),
renders the voyage from Panama to San Francisco a very dangerous one
even for large steamers.
The longest voyage that it is possible to make both in time and
distance is that from Great Britain or New York to the Japanese
and Chinese ports during the northeast monsoon, when vessels sail
completely around Australia and the whole length of the Asian coast
to 35° north rather than beat up through the Sunda Straits, the total
length of the voyage being twenty-one thousand miles. The following
recent passages taken from London “Fair-play” serve to show the
duration of the voyage in days:
“Ladakh,” New York to Hong-Kong 181
“Falls of Dee,” New York to Hong-Kong 182
“John R. Kelley,” New York to Hong-Kong 182
“Torrisdale,” New York to Hong-Kong 190
“Emily F. Whitney,” New York to Shanghai 197
“Musselcrag,” New York to Shanghai 197
“Ancona,” New York to Shanghai 240
“Eureka,” Philadelphia to Nagasaki 186
“George Curtis,” Philadelphia to Nagasaki 197
“Vimeira,” Philadelphia to Hiogo 189
“Englehorn,” Philadelphia to Yokohama 180
The “Whitney,” “Curtis,” “Kelley,” and “Eureka” are American ships,
their average being one hundred and ninety days; the rest are English,
with an average of one hundred and ninety-four, the miserable passage
of the “Ancona” having spoiled the record of the Britishers. It will
be seen, however, that not one of the ships went out in less than six
months; compare this with the run of the American bark “St. James,”
from New York to Shanghai, of ninety-eight days in the southwest
monsoon, which was not a very wonderful passage.
The weather is as usual, save that there is a great increase in the
humidity. Latitude, 1° south; longitude, 114° 40′ west.
+August 22+
North latitude! At nine o’clock this morning we crossed the equator
in 115° 35′ west, and once more entered the Northern Hemisphere. Our
passage of one hundred and three days from New York to this position is
an average one, and we have yet twenty-seven days in which to reach San
Francisco without breaking what the skipper says is his record of never
having been at sea one hundred and thirty days.
A remarkable circumstance in connection with this part of the world
is the low temperature of both sea and air; the former at noon was 77°
and the latter only 70°, or about the same as the sea in August at New
York. In the Indian and Atlantic Oceans the sea temperature at the
equator is 84° and the air 86°.
We certainly made a fine run up from Cape Horn. Four weeks ago
to-morrow we were in 60° south, and have, therefore, sailed
thirty-six hundred miles of latitude and forty degrees of longitude
in twenty-seven days. But the wind has been very, very light for
twenty-four hours. We did only one hundred and one miles and just did
contrive to wriggle across the line. Perhaps this is only a light spell
in the Trades, as this wind at this season ought to carry us seven or
eight degrees farther north.
Sufficient unto the day, etc. The memory of that miserable night last
Wednesday is already beginning to grow dim. Mr. Rarx is improving;
the terrific palpitation of his heart has ceased, and he has had much
natural sleep lately. He did a strange thing last night in the middle
watch: he got up out of his bed and sat for an hour in a chair; his
heart was much relieved, he said, and he certainly does look better.
This being Sunday I had a long talk in the afternoon watch with MacFoy,
who confirmed what Paddy said of Rarx’s temper. Then happening to
mention Coleman, the bosun remarked, “He’s been pretty quiet since Mr.
Rarx laid him out.” “Laid him out when?” I asked. “Why, didn’t you know
he near killed him when we were towin’ to sea? No? Oh, dear! We were
haulin’ aft the foresheet and Coleman turned his head to say a word
to the man behind him, when the second mate come around the house and
kicked him pretty hard in the legs. ‘What are yer kickin’ me for, sir?
I didn’t do nothin’.’ ‘You lie,’ said Mr. Rarx. ‘What are you sayin’ to
that man? Givin’ me back talk, too.’ Well, sir, with that he jumped
on him when he was stoopin’ over, and I thought his ribs ’ud go afore
he got through with him. Now, look; a bosun’s supposed to be on the
mate’s side. But I say there’s no bit o’ use in a-smashin’ a man all up
that didn’t deserve it, as I’ve seen dozens o’ times in American ships.
I must say there’s some tough cases sails in Yankee ships, but whose
fault is that? It’s the fault o’ the cap’ins and mates themselves.
What man with a little bit o’ self-respec’s goin’ to allow himself to
be knocked around the decks when he can sail in other ships, even if
he is only a foremast hand? A dog won’t stand that, but he can run
away from the man what beats him; but the sailor can’t. But the worst
of the whole thing is that American mates don’t make any difference
atween a blackguard and a man what’s doin’ his best. Some men’s got
to be thumped, it’s the only way to handle ’em; but what’s the good
o’ hittin’ a man with a block like the second mate did to Karl and
then hazin’ him for the rest o’ the passage. It’s mighty little you
know what’s been goin’ on here up forrad; they’ve kep’ it quiet, for
I guess the old man told the mates not to let out afore you and the
lady. But there was a hot time under the forecastle-head some days off
the Horn. I was goin’ out in the ‘S. G. Alley’ a couple o’ year ago to
Japan. ‘Black Taylor’ was mate of her, the toughest man in the toughest
ship under the flag. We were makin’ sail off the Hook and there was a
man surgin’ up on a rope at a capstan; the rope was wet and wouldn’t
render easy, but paid out in short jerks, which, of course, the sailor
couldn’t help. Taylor spotted him, and sung out that if he did it again
he’d come over and fix him. In a minute or so the rope slipped an inch
again, and with that Taylor runs over to him and kicks him into the
water-ways, and was goin’ to lep on his stummick when the man all at
once jumped up, whipped out a knife and drew it up the mate’s vest.
His insides fell out on the deck and he died in a little while. Of
course the ship couldn’t go to sea without a mate, so we turned back
to New York. The sailor was jugged, and what d’ye think he got? Six
months! He pleaded self-defence and Taylor’s black record decided the
jury. I’ll bet this Frenchman of ours’ll get nothin’ at all if only one
man’ll stand by him and tell what he’s seen Mr. Rarx do. I’ve sailed in
a good many American ships, and in every one of them some one was cut
up afore we got in. I’m thinkin’ o’ the Snug Harbor or you’d never see
me in another one.” Latitude, 0° 7′ north; longitude, 115° 47′ west.
+August 23+