CHAPTER II

THE VOYAGE OF THE "BEAVER"

I

In sailing-ship days we who were seamen and self-respecting did not

join for a voyage while we were sober enough to come on board all of

our own accord. It would have been bad form.

So, having shipped her joyful mariners, the _Beaver's_ officers and

the afterguard, not more than half-seas over, got the vessel off from

Gravesend as best they could, dropping downtide so far as the ebb

served, then brought her up in the fairway. They dropped anchor on

the Nore, hoisted a riding light, and posted two comparatively sober

apprentices to keep each other awake and call the mate at dawn.

Bill Fright, being fast asleep in his dinghy, was swept up by the

strong flood, and awakened in haste on finding the boat foul of a

ship's bows and more or less capsized. He climbed on board, a matter

arranged beforehand by the fairies or other spirits invisible who

look after seafaring boys--they need a deal of looking after,

too--and there is little doubt that his coming scared the anchor

watch. Finding him, however, to be no mermaid, but somebody wet and

profane, they sought for a hair of the dog which had bitten the crew,

stole a flask from one of the men up forward, gave Bill a drink, and

did not waste such liquor as remained.

At dawn Bill watched the mate, Mr. Dodd, come up to snuff the air,

wrap three turns of brown muffler about his thin neck, button a

monkey jacket across his portly front, and stump about the half-poop

to get warm. A ship is always at her dirtiest on leaving port; and

of a certainty the deck was filthy apart from the unholy ravel of new

stiff halliards coiled like a knot of snakes. Bill felt these a

disgrace, and set to work on them of his own accord to straighten out

the loops and flemish down. Mr. Dodd, supposing him to be a member

of the crew, saw that Bill knew his business.

Meanwhile one 'prentice had gone to the hoodway up forward, the other

to the steerage hatch, and both of them howled like demons down the

ladders. "Ahoy there! All hands on deck!" "Hear the good news!

Oh, rise and shine, my hearties!" "Show a leg there, cripples, or

the mate will bring you tea in bed. Ahoy! Ahoy! Tumble up for the

rum! Ahoy!"

The people tumbled up, looking somewhat bilious in the gray light,

and set to scrubbing the frosted deck. Bill hung the coiled

halliards on their pins and watched the mate the while, a proper

officer who knew his job, one who did not nag or fuss, but let each

man work his best. "I dunno as I'd mind," Bill thought, "making a

woyage with him." And he had always longed to go foreign. But for

mother he would have gone big boating these three years past or more.

And now she was dead. Why not!

The captain had appeared, a meager, pompous man with a mean face,

stamping in sea boots along the windward side of the half-poop. Mr.

Dodd gave him a curt salute and took the leeward side.

"Mr. Dodd," said the captain, pointing to Bill, "call that man aft."

The mate signaled Bill to come to the foot of the three steps which

led from the quarter-deck up to the holy place behind the rails.

"Ask this Willie Muggins what the blank he means by getting himself

arrested at Gravesend."

Bill felt surprised, somewhat abashed, not called upon to speak. Why

did this captain call him Willie Muggins?

"I think, sir," answered the mate respectfully, "that the arrest was

at the instance of Mrs. Willie Muggins. This lad seems much too

young to be a husband."

"Mr. Dodd," said the captain, "you will be pleased to mind your own

concerns. You, Muggins, what time did you come aboard?"

These officers on the half-poop were rather terrifying. Unwashed

since yesterday, with grimy hands, an aching heart, and a frantic

desire for breakfast, Bill felt at a disadvantage. This captain

also, bully and cur complete, had unlimited power to do him wrong.

The lad's bulldog face turned rigid, his eyes were menacing, his

fists clenched, his body strung for defense as he answered the

captain.

"You sunk my boat," he said, "so you can put me ashore. As to this

yere Villie Muggins, I'll find him out, and give him your love if you

like."

"Mr. Dodd," asked the captain, "is this man a seaman?"

"To judge by his conduct, yes, sir."

"My man," said Captain Home, "you're signed on as Willie Muggins,

your chest is in the forecastle beside your bunk. If you don't

answer to your name, you'll be flogged until you do. Mr. Dodd, put

him to work."

"But----"

"Turn to, lad," said Mr. Dodd.

Bill stood for a moment, feeling the man's kindness, the good will,

the well-meant advice. He would do anything on earth to please that

mate.

"Aye! aye!" said he quite cheerfully, and turned to.

II

In sailing days the Americans were a maritime people, first among

nations as naval architects. Their ships were magnificently found,

handled with headlong daring, and broke sea records; indeed, the

young skippers of that time have never been rivaled in seamanship.

The bucko mates aspiring to succeed them were man stealers and slave

drivers well armed, able to cow the boldest seamen in the world.

They did not stick at murder. So the American ship might be

puritanically Sabbatarian of a Sunday, and even moderately well fed

in rare examples, but, on the whole, she had the reputation of a hell

afloat. There were cases of the ship's company being driven to

desert, and replaced by shanghaied men at every port, so that for a

three-years' voyage the captain paid no wages.

By comparison the Canadian, and especially the Bluenose or Nova

Scotian shipping, was even more hard-bitten, with man-killing mates

as a speciality. The British merchant service, like the North

American, was undermanned, and had a reputation also for being

hungry, but it was rather more humane, and the death rate of ships

and men least among maritime nations. The Norwegian death rate was

highest, the ships being second-hand coffins, ill-found, but handled

with gallant seamanship. French ships were well designed,

beautifully built, admirably found, but double-manned to make amends

for poor seamanship, and their people liable to sudden panic.

Prussian or "Square-head" seamanship was fairly good, Russian a joke,

the Mediterranean shipping classified as "dago," and the rest as

"nigger."

The pen runs away with the writer. Blame the pen. As one descended

from a race of mariners, brought up among retired shellbacks, serving

before the mast just at the end of that great Golden Age of

Seamanship, I cannot but look back. The life was bitter hard, the

men grim humorists, the ships most gloriously beautiful. They

thronged the straits of Dover, outward, taut on a fine bowline, or

homeward running free, while purple shadows of the racing clouds

swept green sea pastures, and England faded into silver haze. The

Channel widened under golden sunshine the gateway of Adventure, and

beyond lay enchanted seas where there were pirates still, dangerous

tribes of savages, lone desert isles, Empires in the making through

remote, obscure campaigns, stampedes to new-found gold fields, and

hardy pioneering of wild lands. Aye, but there is heartache when

memory lights the corridors of Time, when pictures come to life of

scene and incident in the days when one was young and cared, took the

long odds and lost, fought on, and tried, and won.

According to the Norsemen, who are sea-wise beyond the common run of

mariners, the fore-and-aft sails of schooner, smack, or cutter were

masculine of gender, while the ship's rig with square yards was rated

feminine. So, the world over, a vessel square-rigged on the

foremast, but schooner rigged on the mainmast, partook in its nature

of both sexes, and was called hermaphrodite. Such was the brigantine

_Beaver_, but having a cross jack and a topgallant sail on the main,

her conduct as a whole was that of a perfect lady.

When the seamen were thrown into their two divisions, the mate and

the second chose alternately, each trying to pick the best team. So

the mate chose the larboard watch, and picked out Bill Fright in

preference to the apprentices.

At actual work in making or shortening sail, each man had his proper

station, the stronger seamen on the large sails of the foremast, the

weaker on the smaller canvas aft. So Bill found his way aft, and

barge-trained as he was, proved from the start the best man on the

trysail and the staysails. Yet though he would break his heart with

overanxiety to please the mate and prove his manhood, it took him

many weeks to learn the crossjack and topgallant sails, and longer

still to win the leadership, to be first aloft, first at the weather

earning or the bunt, taking the posts of honor on the high swaying

yards.

The builders had left a deal of rubbish in the 'tween decks, which

the crew saved for fuel in the forecastle bogey. On that first

evening at sea, while the _Beaver_ was threading her way through the

Downs and the Straits of Dover, the larboard watch rested from six

P.M. to eight. They had firelight and leisure in their dogwatch

below to get the place in order, the bedding in their bunks, and kit

sorted out for use. Then they sat on the sea chests, and Auld Jock,

the forecastle oracle, delivered a homily to instruct the young.

"Ye'll ken," he said, as he kindled his clay pipe with a coal from

the fire, "that wi' the Scots Ahm Scotch, but when Ahm shipmates wi'

the vulgar, as in the present circumstances, Ah speaks the vulgar

tongue, which is the English, and that withoot a tr-r-ace o' Scottish

accent."

"You bet your sweet socks," observed a Yankee, Silas by name, from

Salem.

"And in pairfect English," continued Jock. "Ah lays it doon as a

first princeeple, that the vulgar is liable to interrupt: Yankees

especially being constructed like a dog, with an inch of brain to a

fathom of mouth."

"!," said the Yankee, or something to that effect.

"But them as hae the gift of reason," Jock turned his eyes away from

the American, "may have obsairved the hoose flag at oor fore truck, a

white pennant wi' red letters 'H.B.C.,' the which means Here Before

Christ forbye the Hudson's Company goes forth to the uttermost

heathen which can be skinned for furs, and the missionaries do not

follow after.

"And for why? Them as has brains, instead of"--he glanced at the

Yankee--"of a bucket o' slush, considers the ways of the heathen.

The missionary gives the puir savage a guid conceit of his soul, so

up goes the price of furs. Whereupon the missionary is not invited,

ye ken, to follow after.

"Whilk this Hudson's Bay Company is Here Before Christ in a second

sense o' standing in front of Him, not being especially relegate to

damnation, but for the maist pairt Presbyterian. So ye'll tak'

notice, shipmates, that if the Company buys a leaky bucket, the same

is put in soak until the wood swells--and is, in a manner, a

reformed, guid, soond bucket, wi' warranty to haud water.

"So if the Company engages of a liar--like some he-ere present--as I

sees grinning--he'll be richt weel advised to wrop up his girt talent

in a napkin, or put it under a bushel, the while he larns to tell the

truth--in moderation, ye ken.

"And if the Company engages a thief, the same will go to waste for

want o' practice, or he'll be cast oot into a wilderness o' mosquitos

withoot sae much as a hook to fush wi'.

"Ye manna leak, nor lie, nor steal, or ye'll na stay i' the Hudson's

Bay Sairvice ane week. And as to gettin' fu'---- Well, boys, if I

didna get droonk, for ma stomach's sake, ye ken, I'd be a captain

afloat or a chief trader ashore instead o' wasting guid advice on a

lot o' gumps in a ship's forec'stle.

"The which brings me roond to this lad heare, as is shippit i' the

name o' Willie Muggins, whereas he's no but a lubberly bargee, taking

the wage of an honest able-bodied sailorman. Coom oot o' that bunk,

Willie, and let me get me een on ye. So. Rub oot the grin frae yer

ugly mug, me son, and, juist as if ye were standin' He-ere Befo'

Christ, tak a' that I say to hearrt.

"This Captain Home, a' for his own honor and glory, and to keep his

log book free frae blots and erasures, taks a bargee oot o' London

River, worth ten shillin' a month as a boy, and ca's ye an a-able

seaman at twa pun' ten a month, with anither man's kit to haud for

yer ain, and a bunk among men in the forecastle.

"Weel. Weel, ye're in luck, ma son, and we'll no grudge ye the luck.

But ye owes it to the captain, and to us, as ye mak' guid a' that

luck. Ye've got to pu' yer weight as a man which doesn't leak, or

lee, or steal, but does guid honest man's wark as a shipmate, come

cauld, or storm, or wrack, frae heere to Cape Stiff, and roond, and

hame agin, not leaving any ither mon to tak' yer trick at the wheel,

or yer lookout aheid, or yer ain bunt, or earring, or jobs at

sailorizing."

There was something about Bill's eyes told the Scotsman that this lad

would not fail. Indeed, the youngster was looking not at Jock at

all, but at his mother, who stood behind the seaman just as in life,

nor was she changed by death save for a strange rare glory, love in

her eyes, amusement in her smile, then on her lips a word. That word

was "Peace!"

III

Auld Jock had likened the Yankee to a dog with an inch of brain and a

fathom of jaw; and of a surety there was some faint suggestion, but

not of a dog exactly. The retreating forehead, cold eyes, red

eyelids, lean, ravenous jaws, and yellow fangs, the mean and stealthy

smile with upcurved lip, were not quite those of a dog, but rather of

a wolf. The one barks, and the other snarls, but this man kept

silence watching, waiting. The Englishmen, the Norwegian, and the

Iroquois Indian would make the best of things or share the worst in

common, but the American would master the lot or go under. The hours

they wasted he had filled with study. He would be second officer,

then mate, and a bucko mate at that, then command a ship, and own one

while they were still in the forecastle. They could play the game,

but he would win.

As yet it had not entered into his mind that he, an American, had

aught to learn from Britishers. Hatred for the British Government

was part of his heritage, contempt for the British a portion of his

faith. He would read them a lesson.

As his nation had nothing to learn from Great Britain, so Silas would

have accounted anybody lunatic who claimed that he could be the

better man for a lesson at the hands of these Britishers. He sat on

the edge of his bunk contemptuous alike of the Scotsman's tolerance

and the boy's simplicity. Auld Jock had affronted him, and Silas

would get even. As for Willie Muggins or whatever his tally might

be, here was a sodger, a mere bargee taking a man's pay for a boy's

work. The shrewd American was too good a seaman to tolerate false

ratings in _his_ watch. He would take the shine out of Willie

Muggins. "He'll wish himself dead," said Silas to himself, "before

I'm through with him."

IV

The _Beaver_ and her consort the _Nereid_ lay at Falmouth completing

for their voyage to Oregon. Captain Home had taken the coach to

London, where he would get his final orders from the Hudson Bay House

and say good-by to his family. His crew were at work from dawn until

after dark, watering, taking in fuel, loading the ship's stores, and

making all shipshape aloft. Except for an anchor watch, the people

had the nights in the crowded forecastle, when foul air made the

flame of the slush lamp blue, while in the bunks men lay half

suffocated. Willie Muggins had been on anchor watch, trying hard to

realize that he was really and truly Bill Fright of the _Polly

Phemus_, and of London River, one who had vowed himself to a

religious life, been in great dreams, beheld tremendous visions. He

was all adrift, and now in light and troubled sleep haunted by

nightmare. At last his body, tired out, lapsed into deep sleep, and

his soul dreamed true.

A creature of fairy grace poised on the edge of the bunk, then

settled down to pull his ears, to kiss his upturned nose.

"Oh, Slug! Wake up!" she said. "Storm! Storms-all-of-a-sudden!

Wake up!"

"H'm!" said he in the deep sleep. "That you, Rain?"

"Why didn't you come, eh, Stupid?"

"I daresn't leave my body. Mother might come. She'd miss me."

"Kyai-yo!" she cried. "Her love would find you, Storm, if you were

hid in the Shadows of the Sandhills."

She looked about her. "See that man?" she asked, pointing to Silas,

the American. "He makes bad medicine against you, Storm. Keep your

temper with him."

"I hate him."

"Love him," she answered, "and he is harmless. Hate him, and his

hate is stronger than yours. He'll ruin you."

"How can I love him?"

"First pity him. He's lonely. He has no friends. His medicine is

bad. The love of a friend could save him from sinking, drowning in

seas of Hate. Now come to Dreamland."

"Dreamland!" he answered; and the two of them were walking through

the Fairy Glen, with the squirrels running in front to say that they

were coming.

When they came to the Tuft of Moss they found Rain's seat close

guarded by Julia, the lady Griffin, who lay stretched out to a length

of eighteen feet, asleep, with one eye open. At sight of Rain she

blinked, and wagged eight feet of fine bronze tail with spikes, and a

barbed tip complete.

"How d'ye do?" she minced affectedly. "I hope I see you well,

ma'am." Her wicked eye was cocked at Storm, and her jaw slavered.

"If you sniff at him," said Rain, "I'll tell him how old you are."

Being a mature virgin, some fourteen centuries of age, she promised

faithfully to be very good. "Especially," she added, if I may be

chaperon. I'd love to feel like a real chaperon. I'd be vastly

obleeged if I might take you to the Mythological Gardens.

"You know I'm really and truly a Dragon, and it's only to be genteel

that I try to behave like a Griffin. But, would you believe

it"--with much complaisance Julia surveyed her lion body, alligator

tail, and folded bat wings--"that among my relatives at the

Mythological Gardens I am considered almost plain, not quite of

course, but almost?"

She invited the lovers to take their seats between her folded wings,

which they did. They knew it would please poor Julia.

"If it were not unbecoming," she simpered, "to a perfect

lady--ahem--I would say 'Hang on with teeth and toenails, or you will

alight--ahem--at the wrong gardens.' I will now ask you, Lady and

Gentleman, to put twopence in the slot. It's for the Home, you know,

for Decayed Griffins. Thank you. I will next proceed--as

expected--to breathe out a few small flames."

She did, although the flames were neither few nor small, and with a

mighty leap extended her wings, all gloriously iridescent, flapped

powerfully and soared into the skies. Then her wings seemed asleep

upon the air, with delicate featherings as she steered through space.

As to the landscape down there which floated past at a hundred miles

an hour, I might plead scant time to see, but that other fellows who

have traveled in aeroplanes would sneer at my false pretenses. Or I

might claim that, were the story told, nobody on earth would believe

one word of it, and that again would be a mean excuse. It is best to

own up at once to a very well-grown, mature, and lively ignorance.

And yet, there being many sorts of gems, as diamonds or rubies; so

there be divers kinds of ignorance. Nobody would compare my

ignorance with that of a truly scientific person, shut up in a little

truth-tight compartment, and taking less air and exercise than any

convict. My darkness is complete and natural. Concerning the

provinces of Dreamland, Fairyland, and Wonderland I have read _Alice_

(a sound authority), the _Arabian Nights_, which are most explicit,

Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_, Mandeville's _Travels_, Hans Anderson, the

Brothers Grimm, bits of the _Odyssey_, and in fact all the best

authors, who visited lands of glamour in their dreams, and brought us

back their happy memories of truly facts. But how did they get back?

How tear themselves away? On questions like these the witnesses are

dumb, the scientists are stumped, and how on earth should I know!

Yet one may console oneself with the comfortable thought that the

more ignorant an author is, the longer the words he is obliged to

use, and the deeper his obscurity of style. By that measure the

ignorance of Darwin about Biology, of Spencer in Philosophy, of Lodge

on Ether of Space is something really too awful to think about.

In her way, and as Griffins go, Julia was rather a good sort. She

meant well, but when she set up as a guide to places where she had

never been before, she became like a professional medium, all

whoppers and busters. Her passengers were not at all particular, but

when she pointed out Sinbad's palace she said it was Asgaard the

gods-home of the Norseman. Then she showed off a Chinese pagoda as

the Court of King Arthur of England, so Storm called her a liar. "So

far," she said judicially, "as it is quite becoming to a perfect

lady--I am. You see, my dears, I know exactly where we are, but the

Mythological Gardens have been removed, and I regret to say mislaid

in the confusion of removal. House-moving is always a worry, but

think of having to move the whole Mythological Gardens! It's

perfectly dreadful!"

It is much to be regretted that Julia could not find her way to the

Mythological Gardens, which must be a wonderful show place.

Still, it was a nice excursion until, being very absent-minded, the

poor Griffin turned her head towards home while her body continued in

the old direction. That is how she managed to breathe a gust of her

largest flames in the faces of her passengers. Storm was extremely

annoyed....

* * * * * * *

V

An ant heap is a busy community, and has no time to be concerned at

all with the domestic worries of the other ant heaps. Our world is

absorbed in its worldly affairs, and looks upon other-worldly people

as more or less lunatic for being attracted by the concerns of worlds

remote or planets far removed. By these analogies we may perceive

that Captain David Home was all the world to Captain David Home. The

sun which lighted that world was the Hudson's Bay House, from whence

came all good things, to which his prayers were addressed in

duplicate. The moon which governed the night was Mrs. Home, whose

face was full or peaked or turned away according to his conduct.

There were certain little satellites whose music was not the music of

the spheres as known to the angels in Heaven. And the rest of

creation was the _Beaver_, peopled by mates and microbes of low

degree, together possibly with rats, cockroaches, weevils, and other

vermin to be kept down. The adoration of the sun, and moon and the

suppression of low forms of life made up the sum of Captain's Home's

religion. So shall it be understood that, what with the sun, the

moon, and the microbes, he had no time to be bothered about the

news-sheets, but merely caused a stack of the same to be hoarded for

future use at sea, where they would come in handy when there was

nothing better as food for the mind, for shaving paper, stuffing for

his mattress, and an incentive to the mates. They might--if they

behaved themselves--be allowed to see what was left next time he had

his berth cleaned. So after a month or two the mates would read the

news-sheets, use them for shaving paper, stuff mattresses, have their

bunks cleaned, and allow what was left to be seen by the Boatswain,

Chips, Sails, and others in the steerage. These, having read,

shaved, stuffed, and cleaned out, would pass the ragged remnants

forward to such as could read in the forecastle. There the very

advertisements and obituaries would be devoured over and over again

by men with starving minds.

Thus it came about that the _Beaver_ was in the tropics, and running

down the "trades" while still the tragedy of the barge _Polly

Phemus_, noted in all the news-sheets, escaped any special attention.

It was an episode remote from the real world of things which matter.

Indeed, from the point of view of deep-sea mariners a barge is a mere

obstruction to traffic on the fairways, while bargees are lubbers of

no account whatever.

The _Beaver_ was a fine sight of a Sunday morning, when after the

decks were holystoned snow-white and breakfast served, she set her

colors out above a cloud of sail, and rigged church with the Union

Jack upon the table. She had the boatswain whistle the men aft

barefoot all in their best white slacks, their red or chequered

shirts, black silken scarfs, and shiny tarpaulin hats. In no detail

of pomp and circumstance would the Hudson's Bay Company come short of

the Navy, being authorized by Royal Charter to arm their forts, their

troops, their ships, to wield the Greater and the Lesser Justice,

make treaty with savage peoples or levy war, or, in an Empire three

times as large as the then United States, wield the main powers of a

Sovereign state. Indeed the old man, standing at the break of the

half-poop, addressed his prayers to the Almighty with a jolly good

word of command.

In those days dinner and supper consisted of boiled salt horse served

in a kid or wooden tub upon the forecastle floor. The fat joints

went aft. There was always hard-tack; and tea, not too powerful, was

served morning and evening. At noon there was lime juice, used by

British merchant ships on long voyages to stave off scurvy. Sunday

dinner was illustrated with boiled duff of flour and water. The

Navy, East Indiamen, Hudson's Bay ships, and clippers of the first

flight had plum duff.

Food thus being lavished upon common sailors, mainly because they

could not be put out to graze, they had the Sunday afternoon off duty

excepting one hand to relieve the wheel.

Men on good terms with the cook would sometimes win a mug of hot

fresh water to wash themselves withal, instead of waiting months

perhaps for a deluge of tropic rain. Clothes were cleaned with sea

water by trailing them overboard. There was a deal of making and

mending to get the whole kit ready against the cold and storms off

the Cape and the Horn. Mighty fine was their craftsmanship with

waxed thread, palm thimble, bladed needles, and awls for heavy

sewing; but for delicate artistry of intricately beautiful knotting

the sheath knife lanyard has never been excelled. The knots took

years to learn. Men sat in the coil of a halliard or perched upon a

boat, smoking black muck in cutty pipes while they sewed, gossiped,

or spun yarns, though some would read or sleep. Above them a flaw of

the wind would set the reef points tapping upon sails which slept,

high up against white cloud race or deep azure. Out beyond the

bulwarks, the indigo of the deeps was maned with diamond-glittering

spray on the swift surges. On deck was a splendor of swaying light,

and shadow soft as sapphire dissolved. Bill sat and darned socks,

while Auld Jock read the Bible aloud, or at times expounded the

sacred text, "withoot, ye ken, the verra slichtest trace o' Scottish

accent."

Further aft, in the waist, his back against the weather bulwark,

Silas the Yankee overhauled frayed scraps from the _London

Advertiser_. "A coroner's inquest held on 28 October at Margate

disclosed particulars, which we summarize, of a peculiarly shocking

affair occurring on board the barge _Polly Phemus_ [sic!]. The

vessel was the property of T. Fright, licensed victualer at the "Fox

under the Hill" tavern by the Adelphi, who appeared in court to make

claim, contra the claimants who testified that they found her

derelict.

"Residents of Margate to whom her cargo had been consigned, were

astonished to hear on the 22nd inst. that the barge, six days overdue

at that port, was reported to be lying at anchor some four miles to

the westward off Epple Bay, in the parish of Birchington. Proceeding

thither by road they learned, from laborers employed upon the farm

adjacent to Epple Bay, that the barge's dinghy was gone from her

stern, although nobody had been observed to come ashore. For some

days no smoke had been seen to rise from the cabin funnel, nor had

the vessel shown any sign of life.

"Such unusual circumstances being communicated to the Vicar as

nearest Justice of the Peace, he caused a visit to be paid to the

_Polly Phemus_. On the cabin floor lay the body, stabbed to the

heart, of the master of the barge, identified by the owner as his

brother James Fright. In the bunk, attired in a nightdress, lay the

mortal remains of the man's wife, also stabbed to death, but under

circumstances of awful ferocity. Indeed, the crime appears to be the

deed of a maniac, indifferent to the woman's purse containing two

sovereigns and some silver, her silver watch, and her gold wedding

ring. The medical evidence pointed to an interval of about six days

between the date of the crime and that of the discovery. There were

no signs of a struggle, but the fact that the couple had been

drinking heavily was attested by the discovery of no less than six

empty gin bottles under the cabin table. A sheath knife was found

crusted, blade and hilt, with dried blood. But the most sinister

aspect of this affair remains to be told.

"The cabin was found locked from the outside, and this fact becomes

of dreadful significance because the fore hatch was discovered to

have been left wide open. The fore compartment was used as a

store-room, but also occupied by the only son of the deceased couple,

by name Bill Fright. That he had left in haste was evidenced by the

finding in his spare clothes of six shillings in silver and

elevenpence three-farthings in bronze, apparently forgotten when,

after murdering both his parents, he locked their bodies in the

cabin, and fled from the place in the dinghy. No trace of him or of

the boat is as yet reported; but the coroner's jury gave their

verdict against him of willful murder, a warrant has been issued for

his apprehension, and the police are understood to have a strong clue

to his present whereabouts.

"He is described as follows: age 18 to 19, height 5 ft. 7 in., build

slight but strong, fair hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion, features

those of a pug. Usual dress a ragged blue jersey and slacks, black

silk neckcloth, sea boots. The Joseph Fright recently executed at

Tyburn was an uncle of this atrocious young scoundrel. _Verb. sap._"

Silas looked up from his reading and stared at Bill with a malicious

grin. "I guess," so ran his thought, "as he's the poor orphan right

enough. Got his Uncle Joseph hanged, and knifed his beloved parents!

He don't brag none of his past life, or talk about his last ship

either, and now it comes to mind as I caught him blubbering--seems he

feels kinder lonesome!

"Off Margate, eh? So his boat drifts up the flood twenty or thirty

mile until he's off the Nore and fouls our bows, and comes aboard

white as a ghost, his hands all shaking. Say! That's why he coiled

them halliards down to hide the trembling. Waal!

"Calls himself Willie Muggins!

"All the same, I hain't due to be seen giving him away, and him a

shipmate--sort of. The fellers wouldn't stand for that. Shucks!

And yet I dunno. The news might be dragged out of me. And there's

the mate leaning on the poop rail, curious as monkeys--sees me look

sideways trying to hide the paper, sort o' furtive, acting

mysterious. What if I ups and axes him!"

Silas went aft, ostentatiously hiding something in his trousers

pocket, looking worried, anxious, as he approached the mate and asked

his permission to speak.

"What's wrong, my man?"

"If you please, mister. I kinder doubt----No"--he turned away--"I

ain't having any!"

"What on earth's the matter?"

"Oh, nothing 'cept you kin gimme the date as we dropped down on the

tide from Gravesend, sir, to the Nore!"

"October 17th--why?"

Silas appeared to be appalled, stared forward at Bill, pulled out a

corner of the paper, glanced at the date, then looked back over his

shoulder, thanking the mate, and saying it didn't matter anyways.

"What doesn't matter? Silas, give me that paper!"

"Oh no, sir, not that! No! No!"

"I order you to give me that paper!"

Silas used his neckcloth to wipe the sweat from his face. Of course

he knew that the man at the wheel heard everything.

"Waal, since you got ter have it, I guess I obeys orders, if I breaks

owners. Here, sir."

Mr. Dodd read the cutting, which to the Yankee's mind appeared to

concern young Willie who sat there darning socks, beyond the galley

door. The ship had cleared from Falmouth on 1st November, this paper

was dated 29 October, 1835. A week or so before that a young bargee

had murdered his parents on board the barge _Polly Phemus_, lying not

far from Margate. That must be on or about the 16th October, perhaps

a day or two earlier. The murderer had got away in the dinghy. On

the morning of the 17th young Willie, sweeping upriver in a dinghy,

had fouled the ship's bows and come aboard at dawn. He had not given

any name, had merely been dubbed Willie Muggins because the skipper

said so.

Mr. Dodd told Silas to send Willie aft, and presently the Yankee

brought the lad. "Stand out of earshot," said the mate; "go

forward." Silas went forward, dragging his feet, reluctant to miss

the fun.

There was something ominous in the mate's bearing, and Bill became

uneasy, wondering vaguely which of his many crimes had been found out.

"Sonny," said Mr. Dodd, "what is your real name?"

"Bill Fright, sir." The lad was smiling now, yet with an inward

dread, for the officer had a queer catch in his voice. What was this

paper he held and glanced at?

"You worked on a barge," he said. "What was she called?"

"_Polly Phemus_," came the reluctant answer. Was this paper

something to do with mother's death?

"Why did you leave her, son?"

Bill's face had clouded; the mate could see a glitter of tears, a

twist of the lips.

"You leave that alone," said the lad in a broken voice. "It hain't

your business."

"Mine, or the captain's business, Willie. Wouldn't you rather deal

with me, lad, eh?"

"Well, if you got to know--my father done my mammie in with his belt

knife, and then 'e killed hisself. I found 'em dead, I did." The

lad's face was drawn and ghastly now. "I locked the cabin up----"

"Why?"

"D'ye think I hain't got no pride? D'ye think I vants strangers

peeping and prying down that 'atch, and smellin' around my fambily

affairs? Well, I don't." Then defiantly, "And I doesn't thank you

for interfering neither!"

Mr. Dodd was a man first, an officer when he called to mind his duty.

He saw no insubordination here, but only honesty and manly

self-respect. He did not know that the old man was listening within

the cabin hatchway.

"Who told you, sir?" Bill challenged, flushing with sudden temper,

his fists clenched, his jaw thrust out, his anger mounting steadily.

"Is that the paper you got from Silas? Eh? So that's the game!

I'll see to him."

Shaking with passion the lad flashed round, looked out for Silas, saw

him, and leaped like a wild beast. "You ... take that!" he yelled,

launching his fist in the Yankee's face, dislodging teeth, then

drawing back for a space to get his full strength into the second

blow. But the American, snarling with rage and pain, whipped out his

belt knife, and crouching low, ripped upwards with the blade.

"Ma mannie," Jock was saying, "calm yourself," as he tripped the

Yankee headlong into the scappers. "Belay all that!" he added. The

Yorkshireman seized the knife, and the Iroquois, with a long leap,

jumped Silas to hold him down. The negro cook held Bill, who raged

to get at his enemy again, screaming, "Leave go! Leave go!"

"What's all this? Now, what's all this about?" Captain Home,

attended by the mate and the boatswain, came surging along the

gangway. "I'll show who's master here!" He pointed to Auld Jock,

and ordered the bos'n to "clap that man in irons!" The bos'n

laughed. "What, sir!" asked the mate. "For saving a man's life?"

That brought the captain short with a round turn, baffled. He was

determined to show his authority, somehow, anyhow. He rounded on the

mate, would have sent him to his berth under arrest, but for the eyes

of the seamen clustered forward. Here was menace, a low muttering

not to be disregarded. This was their affair, a fight between two

shipmates, and all hands were determined to see fair play.

Knowing his business thoroughly, he dared not be less than master.

He was bound to dominate these men, or all of them would treat him

with contempt, as unfit to command a ship. He must make some

example, and as it happened Silas claimed attention. He was yelling,

"I charge that man. I charge that man with murder!"

The captain and all hands had seen him attempting to knife the

youngster. The Yorkshireman, grinning broadly, held out the weapon.

The bos'n with a broad paw attempted in vain to mask a snort of joy.

Auld Jock, suspecting the savor of a joke cried, "Haec mon! Wha's

murdering ye? Wullie? Aye, mannie!" Even the captain, angry as he

was, joined his bleak smile to the general roar of laughter. But the

Yankee held his ground, defying all of them, pointing his accusation.

"I guess," he said in his high nasal drawl, slowly, venomously, "the

joke is on this man's father and mother, murdered! And there," he

pointed to the paper which the mate still held, "is proof it ain't my

joke."

The mate gave the paper to Captain Home. "You'd better read this, if

you will, sir."

The captain read, but did not grasp the issue until the mate

explained coincidence of dates, the description which identified the

murderer as Bill Fright, the verdict of a jury, the warrant out.

Cold, stiff, official, Home saw no demerit in this newspaper which

dared to presume the guilt of an untried man. He looked at the

accused, and in disgust sneered at him, contemptuous, disdainful.

"Murdered your parents, eh?"

Bill turned on Silas, and in the same level voice, quiet, incisive,

he said that all might hear, "Sneaked on your shipmate, eh? Sneaked

on a shipmate!" He spat in the man's face. "Cur!"

Americans have a code of honor not less manful or more loosely held

than the British, but it is different. The American code is one of

an extraordinary chivalry towards women, children, all who are

unarmed, defenseless, weak, but has no trace of mercy on any

incompetence or false pretenses. Silas attacked a bargee pretending

to be a seaman, and under a purser's name. But his method of attack

struck at the roots of the British code the honor of the sportsman

who plays the game to the death, but neither explains, nor complains,

nor carries tales. Anybody is liable to lose his temper, and in the

heat of anger, without the least intent of homicide, to kill. Silas

himself had but this moment attempted a comrade's life. So much was

readily forgiven, but he had sneaked to the mate, and for that there

could be no pardon. So Bill was put in irons, and consigned to a

cupboard known as the "bos'n's locker." He was now the pet of the

ship's company. He might be innocent of parricide, or guilty, as

time and a fair trial would bring to proof, but he was victim of a

sneak. No officer or man on board the _Beaver_ spoke to Silas after

that, off duty, nor was there conversation in his presence.

As to the captain, he had his consolations. Whenever, as in this

example, he made an all-round ass of himself, he "logged" the mate

with entry in the ship's log book that Mr. Dodd had used

insubordinate language (signed) D. Home. There are many such entries

in the oldtime manuscript volume, and, if I remember rightly, Mr.

Dodd did not always limit himself to the use of appropriate language.

Reading between the lines, I suspect that at times he kicked his

commanding officer down the companion ladder. Two years later, when

Captain Home was drowned in the Columbia River, Dodd took the

command, and his log books are quite free from any trace of

peevishness.

Did Captain Home propose to relinquish the services of an able-bodied

man? Did he expect Bill to be a prisoner in that cupboard rounding

Cape Horn and to survive the voyage? Was the captain likely to get

the prisoner transferred to a man-o'-war or to a magistrate in

British territory this side of Oregon?

"Then," asked the mate, "why keep my watch short-handed, sir? I'll

answer for him that he don't jump overboard."

"Mind your own business, Mr. Dodd."

"Right, sir; you are responsible for this man's life, not I. But

it's my business, Captain Home, to report to you that the bos'n's

locker is too small to kennel a dog. There's no air to breathe, and

barely standing room. It is slow murder, and has put the men in an

ugly mood, a very ugly mood, endangering your life, Captain Home."

"How dare you! Silence! Go below, sir. This is rank mutiny!"'

Next morning, very early, the captain took all that out of the bos'n,

asking what the devil he meant by locking up one of the seamen in

that doghole.

VI

The bos'n's locker must have been, apart from its perfume, cramped as

an upright coffin, for Bill dreamed that he was grandfather's clock

stuck in a corner of the old bar parlor at the "Fox," condemned from

everlasting to everlasting to point out the minutes with one hand,

the hours with the other. And really there was no room even to point.

Then into his dream swept Rain's beloved presence.

"Hai ya!" cried Rain. "I wouldn't point if I were you. I'd stop."

The scene of his dream had changed. He was in Dreamland.

"I haven't been wound up," he answered sorrowfully, "since we cleared

Ushant. I'm feeling awful--run down, you know; but if the old man

catches me----"

"Say a prayer to Old Man." The Indian maid put up her hands most

reverently, for "old man" is a sort of god among her people.

"Whenever you feel hungry, you should say, 'For what I am about to

receive, please, Old Man, make me truly thankful.'"

"What, for hard-tack and water!"

"Yes, you've been bad; but when you're good and say grace prettily,

Old Man will send you something nice to eat, a tongue, or berry

pemmican from the captain's food box."

"Old Man!" said Storm, with scorn. "I don't hold with them heathen

gods. Nice sort of a Christian you are!"

"And yet," she purred, "I hear that Christians swear by the Christian

gods Be Jabers, and S'elp-me-Bob, and Strike-me-pink--or are these

holy saints?"

So she began to tease him.

By this time they had traversed the glade which leads into Fairyland,

and as Rain sat for the Tuft of Moss in the Fairy Parliament, of

course she plumped down flop on her constituency. Moreover, this

dream was taking on a certain strangeness, for the Red Indian maid

was no longer clad in her warrior dress. All of a sudden she had

changed into a stiff costume of ruff and farthingale in the fashions

of the reign of James I of England, while her copper color took on a

hectic flush, her face became shrunken, and she had a dry cough. The

fairies, who have nice manners, pretended to take no notice.

"What do you know," said Storm disdainfully, "of how we swear in

England?"

"Gadzooks!" was her joyful answer. "Sirrah, I do assure you"--this

very primly--"that when I was in England I could swear like a little

gentlewoman. Hoity-toity!"

The fairies had begun to scent a tale, and they are always ravenous

for stories.

"You wasn't never there!" cried Storm.

She rose from her tuft, to dip him a low curtsy. Then she began to

speak in the manner of the Devon peasantry.

"What! Haven't ye heeard as King Powhatan's darter, the Blessed

Pocahontas, be coom a-land i' Devon? And they du tell as thicky

ma-aid be marriet with Master John Rolfe, the young Planter, aie, an'

has a son by him aie. Tammas his na-a-me is, and she be coom a' the

way-ay frae Virginia, thicky Lady Rebecca Rolfe so they du sa-ay,

which be her christened na-ame."

Eavesdropping fairies, pretending not to hear, were gathered by

hundreds now to nurse a drooping rosebud.

"H'm!" Storm grunted. "You've always got some new mare's nest to sit

on."

Yet he was puzzled to find himself arrayed, as Master John Rolfe

might have been, coming ashore from Virginia, his sea boots changed

to tan riding-boots, his trousers to trunk hose, his jersey to a

brown doublet, a stiff, wide linen collar spreading above his

shoulders, and on his head a green top hat with a feather.

"Mare's nest?" said Pocahontas. "Pillion, you mean, on the crupper,

i' faith, be-hind my little master John Rolfe in his brown doublet,

and his green top-hat, his scabbard bruising my knees, yes, all the

way to Town."

Of course it was only a dream, but still it was queer that he seemed

to be astride a sweaty gray horse, with a perfect little witch of a

woman perched up behind him, poking shy fun as they rode.

"Now they do call me the Lady Rebecca Rolfe--as one might say our

Lady the Queen. Yiss. All the simple people at their doors

prick-eared and open-mouthed as we ride by, to see the Redskin lady

coom a' the way from Jamestown at the new Plantations. And the

gentries come of an evening to our tavern, where we shall lie the

night, with civil welcome, so please you, to the Lady Rebecca Rolfe

who is a Princess Royal."

Thousands of fairies formed the audience now, and as their numbers

gave them confidence, sat unabashed to listen.

"The woman's got bats in her belfry!" said Storm, disgusted. He sat

in the moss, and gloomed.

"Marry! Was it not proper to ride pillion, even with him my husband?

Or to have my arm around him, with fingers creeping up under his

jerkin, for it was cruel cold, to pull the fur on his chin?"

Storm gave examples of the latest bargese, but Rain put her fingers

to her ears and went on, most demure.

"Of course my man had his servant to ride behind him, and a Devon

lass, good Betsy, riding cockhorse with our baby son in her arms."

"Take leave of her senses!" was Storm's despairing comment.

"Strewth," she observed, "or so they said in Jamestown, for though I

wore rich stuff under Dacca muslin, with jewels in my hair and

birdplumes, they all held I had married beneath me. Aye, sirrah,

Powhatan's eldest daughter of the Blood Royal mated to plain Mister,

commoner, so please you. Albeit, my little widower looked quite

smart, I grant you, in his court suit, a tobacco planter, a gentleman

entitled to sword and spur--by no means the common bargee using foul

speech to a lady. At least he was never anything low. Dear no!

"And after all, a Princess is only woman when it comes to mating, and

John was rather nice. I loved him, so that's all there is to it,

loved him, and love him still, and ever shall do--madly!"

"O-o!" said the lady fairies--"o-h! o-h!"

"Oh, this is too much!" Storm shrieked. "Shut up! For Gawd's sake

shut yer mouth!"

"Methinks my little man mislays his manners."

All the gentlemen fairies clapped their tiny hands.

"Who is he?" Storm ramped up and down in front of her, and the more

he raged, the softer was her stroking. "Just let me at your little

man this once. I'll corpse the swine. I'll tear his hide off over

his ears. Now out with it! Who is he? Where is he?"

"Whom I did swear to love, honor, and obey--more or less, in his

little tantrums, these two hundred years."

"Ah!" gasped the lady fairies. "Two hundred minutes!"

"Two hundred years? What d'ye mean?"

"Since you and I were wed, John Rolfe, in our last life, my little

man, two hundred years ago. Don't you remember, John, how we came

freezing in the bitter east wind into the courtyard at the 'Mermaid

Inn,' so numb with cold that we couldn't get down off the horse.

Don't you remember, dear? There was a bald vagabond came out of the

bar parlor bearing a posset to warm us--God's charity to poor

travelers. He told us he acted at the theater. Why, John, it seems

but yesterday."

"You mean that I----"

"Dear stupid, I mean that you're my little man Master John Rolfe the

planter of Virginia, and I'm your true wife, once called the Blessed

Pocahontas, King Powhatan's daughter, christened i' the name of

Rebecca, known to the Englishry as the Lady Rebecca Rolfe. I'd know

you again by your naughty temper, John, pug nose, and fighting jaw,

Storms-all-the-time. Oh! fie upon you! Can't you remember how you

vexed the Bishop, the Heap Big Medicine Man of London, when we did

lie in his lodge at Brentford?"

"I don't believe one word of it," said Storm. "It's only one of your

games. Now, isn't it?"

"Oh, John dear, Matoaka speaks, your Matoaka. Can't you remember

even that, my birth name? Why, you would whisper it in the night,

weaving it into sonnets when you thought I was fast asleep! Oh,

well!" she sighed, "you were not at all clever, John, dear, only a

good, religious gentleman."

She sighed, she turned away, then there came a wicked little twinkle

of her eye, a naughty curl of the lip, showing the sharp teeth--she

would have another nibble!

"If it were only a game, why it does not matter then, I didn't truly

love you in that last life of ours. Suppose, dear, that it was all

make-believe! What if I loved another man at the time I wedded you?"

"Ah!" sighed the gentlemen fairies. "Oh!" gasped the ladies.

"Loved another devil!"

"He was more like a god."

"Hell!" Storm's jealousy had flamed to greater heights than ever.

"But, dearest, if you were not John Rolfe and I was not your wife,

why fuss?"

"I don't fuss. I never fuss. It's you that fusses." Storm ground

his teeth. "Who was he?"

"My friend, the dearest friend maid ever had, dread leader and dear

father of all Virginia. Surely you must remember the mighty

Johnsmith?"

"Never heard tell of him. Who was this Johnsmith?"

"Why think of the magic Johnsmith book you read to me at Brentford,

all about the paladin--so you called him, this English lad commanding

the Christian guns, crusading against the Paynim Turks. Big warriors

were these Indians you called Turks, clean fighters, but Johnsmith

made bad medicine against them, new conceits you said of blazing

serpents and fiery flying dragons which burned up the Turkish towns.

His medicine was very powerful.

"You read me how he fought three Turkish war chiefs, Knights was the

word you said, below the stockade called Reigall. He fought with the

lance and finished with the sword, taking their three heads, and from

the last of them a suit of golden armor.

"You told me how once at the Pass of the Rose Tower this dread chief

armed all his pony soldiers with branches of trees soaked in pitch,

then lighted them like torches and charged a Turkish Army which fled

into the night, thinking the Devil was after them.

"Next of a tribe called Tartars, very bad Indians, more in number

than the leaves of the forest, who killed Johnsmith and all his

warriors in battle. But Johnsmith came alive again to be a war slave

sold to Turkish squaws.

"From which captivity he did escape by using his chain to club down a

Turkish war lord whose head he chopped off, then took his armor,

sword, and horse for that great ride he made, the ride of a hundred

days back to the Christian tribes. They hailed him as first of all

their warriors.

"Then of his passage in the little trade ship which fought two

Spanish battleships. Oh, you must remember how they boarded, and

when they got the fore part of the ship he touched off his powder

barrels there and blew up the forecastle.

"Last of his coming to London, only twenty-five years old, but

passing rich in plunder, first of all warriors on earth in glory, and

so beautiful a man that every woman worshiped him--even as I did."

"Oh well, it's only fairy tales," said Storm resignedly.

"Boo!" said all the fairies. "Boo-oo-oo!"

"Truly it was like a fairy tale," said Pocahontas, and the fairies

were ever so pleased, "when Johnsmith came into Virginia.

"My father King Powhatan watched that English camp in Virginia, of

wasters led by idiots, who starved and squabbled until the sickness

took their silly voices one by one out into the silence. 'There's

only one man among them,' said my father Powhatan, 'so they landed

him in irons--this fellow they call Johnsmith.' But we called him

the Great Werowance. 'I'll kill him,' said Powhatan, 'and the rest

of them will blow away like the dead leaves in winter.'

"But Johnsmith had the heart of a saint and the mind of a boy, magic

beyond our biggest medicine men, and such a queer little laugh. Our

warriors laid his head on a block to club his brains out, but I took

his head in my arms and held on tight, so they must kill me first.

After that he always used to call me his little daughter.

"My father was the biggest of all kings, but Captain Johnsmith was

his master. Time and again Powhatan tried to get him killed but

Werowance would come and talk it over, smoking with him, laughing at

him. Once I ran through the woods all night to tell him that

Powhatan's army was coming against his little helpless camp, but

instead of running away he unpacked his goods to give me

presents--oh, such lovely gifts if only I'd dared to take them, to be

caught wearing them.

"Then came the night when the soldiers blew up his boat with

gunpowder, and what was left of him was sent to die in England. You

swore to me that he died there, or I'd never have married you. And

yet in my heart I knew all the time, that he lived. But how was I to

get to England and to him unless I married you? Well," she sighed,

"it can't be helped. We're married.

"Verily when we got to England, Johnsmith was alive, but then you see

I was married, to a little man with a temper--and so jealous. Well,

better jealous than runagate!"

"Go on. Twist the knife deeper."

She put her little head sideways and chirped like a squirrel, then

made a great pretense that she did no such thing.

All the fairies were poking one another in the ribs, ever so slyly.

"Johnsmith heard of my coming. The camp crier called it among the

tipis in London town, but who believes what he says! And then one

day the hero walked in Philpot Lane among the smelly lodges, when who

should he see but Uttamatomahkin, one of Powhatan's counselors, who

went with a stick and a knife, making a notch for every man he met.

Powhatan had ordered him to find out the number of English warriors

there were for killing. Johnsmith hailed him, making the sign for

peace.

"'Oh, Great Werowance, Master of all the Seas,'" cried

Uttamatomahkin. "'I come with the Lady Pocahontas, and her husband,

and her baby son to seek you.'"

"So they walked together, the chief notching his stick for every man

they met. 'Now show me God,' said he, supposing that the God of the

English ought to live in their chief village.

"'Nay,' answered Johnsmith, 'but is it really true my little one is

here?'

"They came to the Sachem, Sir Thomas of the English tribe in

Virginia, and asked him about the Princess Pocahontas.

"'I hear,' said the Sachem, 'she is a very civil formal

gentlewoman--though she be squaw in the wigwam of Bear-who-sulks.'"

"You made that up!" Storm snarled.

"I did," said Pocahontas. "Then Johnsmith put on his chief's dress,

his war bonnet, and best velvet robe. He brushed his curly beard up,

so, and his mustaches straight out like a wildcat seeking his love.

He rode his painted war horse to the Bishop's tipi, where you and I

were lying, with our small baby boy.

"Now may it please your worship Master Rolfe. There was little me

tied up with strings like a sacred medicine bundle, in wooden hoops,

and a stomacher stiff as a baby's cradle board, a piccadill collar

stuck out all round with skewers, a tall hat, and high-heeled

moccasins--yes, with red heels tap-tap-tap on a floor like black ice.

Tap-tap-tap--flop, then scramble up to my feet, and tap, tap,

tap--lawks!"

She slithered round the Tuft of Moss, like a cat on glare ice,

pretending to overbalance and recover, wide-eyed, hands outstretched.

Some of the fairies skirled and ran away.

"I couldn't run to him on heels like that. I couldn't love him

properly in stomacher and farthingale. I knew he'd hate me in blue,

because I'm yellow, and what could I do but beat the air with a fan

of three plumes or a stick? He never liked face paint either--men

who kiss nicely object to the taste. H'm? No? But then you don't

kiss nicely like dear Johnsmith.

"On the whole I couldn't bear it. At the sight of him I tried to run

and couldn't. So I just turned away, flopped on the floor, and

howled. Yes, there's your civil formal Lady Rebecca, Royal Squaw,

gentlewoman, and tied up with a husband, sniff, boo-hoo-hoo-oo!

Although he was only a little one."

Storm crouched in the moss a picture of glum despair, and all the

fairies poking fun at him.

"Out with it," he growled. "You ran away with Johnsmith!"

"Ran away with grand-dad! He kissed you as if you were his long lost

little one, and took you to walk in the fields, his arm about your

neck, until I'd time to mend the ravages in my face-paint."

Storm looked up, wistfully, humbly. "I seem to remember," he

whispered. "Father of Virginia and New England."

"Founder of the United States," said Rain, "for so my spirit-guide

would call him."

"Captain John Smith? Why didn't you call him by his proper name?"

"Beshrew me I did," she answered indignantly. "All the time."

"Oh, you little liar!"

* * * * * * *

"I may be a little liar," said the bos'n, "but this is the first I've

heered about it. Now wake up properly."

The bos'n had brought Bill hard-tack and water for breakfast,

together with a hunk of cold meat pie pinched from the cabin pantry.

He unlocked the handcuffs, and put the food on the small paint-shelf.

"When youse put that inside your belt," said he, "Old Home-sweet-home

says you kin make yourself scarce, and join your watch, my son, the

watch below."

VII

The old man nagged like an old woman and Mr. Dodd looked haggard,

haunted, grew irritable, and hounded the men at their work. As to

the second mate, he seemed demoralized altogether. Nor was there

comfort in the forecastle, where the straining bowsprit worked a

passage for the water until all bunks were sodden and men wrung out

wet clothes to put on damp ones after their watch on deck. The

presence of a sneak made talk unsafe, and there was sullen silence in

that wet, black, freezing hole, while the Cape Horn swell struck like

a battering-ram and freezing sprays lashed high. Then somehow

Captain Home took exception to a glance or a word from Auld Jock,

flew in a passion, had the man spread-eagled, and gave him three

dozen to show him who was master.

"Rope's end" could not be mentioned after that, or "rope," a word but

seldom used afloat. It was barred lest that or ever so slight a

reference remind Auld Jock of the outrage. Delicately tactful,

afraid to take over his duties lest they affront his pride, the

fellows would leave to him the bit of meat which had a trace of fat,

offer all sorts of little courtesies, seek Jock's advice in their

affairs, ask his opinion when a point was argued. Silas was once

more a member of the mess, apparently quite friends again with Bill,

for in this general mourning all men were brothers. But on duty

there were no chanteys sung. The job which had taken five minutes

was now dragged out for an hour; a surly obedience, a scowling

glance, replaced the old alacrity of service, and Captain Home had

remarkably narrow escapes from blocks or marlinespikes which fell

from aloft by accident.

Then at long last, driven far down towards the Antarctic after six

weeks of awful cold, of furious gales, of peril without and

smoldering mutiny within, the ship won round the Horn. Sheeted with

ice from truck to keelson, she drove before a polar gale straight to

the norrard. A storm jib, and a close-reefed to'gallant sail kept

her just clear of being jumped by black-browed, white-manned,

hell-bred, mast-high combers, outroaring the Antarctic wind, while

sheeted spray slashed overhead, and on the rolling decks green seas

came aft, waist deep.

Jock and the Iroquois, the two strongest men in the watch, were at

the wheel, the mate standing by lest a kick of the rudder whirl them

into the scuppers. Forward the rest of the men hung on, half

drowned, Silas and Bill together in the starboard shrouds. "Say,"

the American had to shout to make himself heard in that uproar, "jest

you keep an eye on the old man, aft there in the rigging. He knows

he daren't heave to, and if we broach we'll founder; but if he's man

enough he'll set three reefs in the tawps'l and let her rip for Hail

Columbia."

By the fading daylight Bill saw the gleam in this Yankee's eyes, the

smile upon his lips, the triumph of him, caught the exultant laugh,

and for the first time knew that here was indeed a man. But as it

needs a light to cast a shadow, this new admiration for the Yankee

sharpened Bill's memory of the betrayal, so mean an act of spite. If

the ship won through to the Columbia, Silas had prospects ahead a

life to live. If she broached to, if one of these vindictive monster

seas should batter in her ribs, and send her reeling down through the

black deeps beneath, he need not go to Newgate, or be hanged at

Tyburn on a false charge of murdering his mother. As he looked at

Silas the lad's lips appeared to be drawn, gray, smoldering, while in

his eyes the American saw grief so awful that he turned away. He was

afraid.

To fear is only human, but the display of it is cowardice, that

meanest selfishness which infects and saps and drains away the

courage of others just when they need their strength. So Silas,

knowing at the inner-most of his being that he was afraid of Bill, in

spirit terrified, must needs, for his manhood's sake, attempt to

bluff.

"Shucks! You got a grouch ag'in me still?" he challenged.

"Yes," answered Bill, through his clenched teeth, "I has."

"You'd as lief fight it out?"

"In the second dog watch if we've time," said Bill, "or the middle

watch if we hasn't."

"Right-o. Where?"

"On the bowsprit end. We'll 'ave it out with knives."

Silas wished then with all his heart he had not tried to bluff.

"You mean that?" he asked huskily.

"I mean," said Bill, "as I'm afraid to live, and Silas," he stared

into the man's eyes, "you're scared to die!"

"Waal, that's a fact. I am--leastways to die at such a job as that."

"When you sneaked," said Bill, "your words was murder."

A heavy sea crashed inboard, filled the fore deck, and when the spray

cleared they saw the galley all adrift against the half-poop.

"Bill," said Silas, "I ax your pardon for what I done."

"And I forgives yer, Silas."

"Bill--I see the old man screeching for us."

But Bill saw his mother standing amid the wash and wreckage aft. She

nodded and smiled to him. Then she was gone, and the lad went to his

duty about the shattered galley.

VIII

The gale was at its height during the middle watch, but on towards

dawn began to flaw with lulls between the furious squalls, so when

the starboard watch was called the captain had the idlers on deck,

served rum, and set the topsail. It was a sign that, for Cape Horn

was conquered, and in their victorious mood, with the sudden glow of

liquor warming them, the men forgot the gloom of the long nights, the

piercing cold, drenched clothing, boils, wet berths, the chronic

hunger, and mental weariness from lack of sleep, their burning hatred

of the captain, even the lack of that human kindness which alone

makes life worth living. The setting of the topsail was a sign of

better days, of favoring winds, of sunshine, warmth, the Happy

Latitudes ahead, water to wash with, a landfall, a seaport, fresh

food, and an all-night's rest.

Until this time Bill's mind had dwelt mainly upon the past, with a

sick yearning for his mother, and for the barge, the only home he had

known, the merry traffic down the Lower Reaches, the stir and throb

of London. If he thought of the future, it was only with dread of

being taken back, and hanged as a matter of course--yes, just as

Uncle Joey had been turned off at Tyburn. Now a new impulse filled

him. Was he such a fool as to be taken back there alive? "Yes, if

they're smart enough to catch me once I gets ashore!"

He was tailing on the halliard. For the outrage upon Auld Jock, the

ship's best chantey man, no man would start a stave. Yet in his mind

was the memory of the Trawling chantey picked up long ago from the

Barking fisherman. He began to hum the tune, aloud before he knew,

and presently a Shetlander of the starboard watch took up the chorus,

one after another caught the melody, and Bill roared out the bass,

yelped the high grace notes:

"Now up jumps the Herring--the King of the sea,

He jump to the tiller--shouts 'Hellum a lee.'

"Chorus, you fellers--

For it's windy old weather,

Stormy bad weather,

And when the wind blow

We must all pull together!"

IX

At Robinson Crusoe's Island, which is now called Juan Fernandez, the

_Beaver_ put in for water, and there her consort the _Nereid_ joined

company, having been out of sight for a month.

Of course Bill wanted to go ashore with the watering party, so the

old man clapped him in irons lest he attempt an escape. "Losing your

day's work," said Silas, who came to him at dinner time in the

'tween-decks, and brought food for them both.

Bill yawned. "Sleep is good," said he. "I didn't intend to run--at

least, not here."

They sat on the deck with the food between them, to share the salt

meat and biscuit.

"You hadn't oughter run," answered Silas. "Them Chilian loafers

ashore what thinks they're soldiers ain't worth encouraging. Set 'em

to hunting you--why, they'd get swelled head mistaking themselves for

white men. You want to wait until we makes little old North America,

where there's more room."

"You been on this west coast?" said Bill.

"You betcher--droguing hides along them Mexican ports, from San Diego

all the way up north to San Francisco. Yes, and when I was whaling,

I been to Roosian America. We watered at New Archangel!"

"Away north?"

"Sure, and in between California and the Roosian fur-trade forts is

the British claims. That's from San Francisco up to 54° 40"

north--all Hudson's Bay posts, wot we're heading for now. The

British hain't got no rights to be there anyways, seeing it's U.S.A."

"What rights 'as you got to our forts?"

"Oh, as to that, the English can take their rotten forts away and

bury 'em. It's the country belongs to us. We bought it from France.

It's part of Louisiana."

"'Ow abart the moon?"

Silas grinned joyfully. "Waal," he drawled in his very slow speech,

"it's this a-way. The President he come along to tell my mother as

he'd like to owe her ten dollars, if she could fix it. I axed him

about the moon, but I sort o' disremember exactly what he said.

Lemme see. Why, yes.

"Mr. President, he says, says he, 'Waal, Silas, it ain't lo-cated,

the moon ain't, yet,' says he, 'but when it is lo-cated, you kin bet

yer life no foreigners will be up early enough in the mawning, but

they'll find our stakes in fust.'"

Bill was profoundly impressed, and tried in vain to recollect any

such conversation of his own with King William IV.

"Another time," said Silas thoughtfully, "when the President went

buggy riding with my father, he telled him that when we're good and

ready, we're going to run you British out of Oregon."

* * * * * * *

"--and Padre, Silas says----"

"Is that the dog-faced man?" asked Rain.

"More like a wolf," said Storm. "Him as is going to give me his gun,

to make up for the way he sneaked."

"Give you his gun?" asked Rain, delighted.

"Yes; it's a good gun too, if I can get a flint for the lock. If it

had a flint, of course he wouldn't give it me. Besides, there's no

powder or ball."

"When will he give it?" asked Rain.

"When we gets to the mouth of your river."

"I'll pray to the Sun for a flint," said Rain.

"Padre"--the lad looked up at the fairy clergyman, who was

frightfully busy working at his book--"Silas says that the Americans

is going to run us English out of Oregon."

The padre abandoned his work in despair, swung round on his high

stool, put up his spectacles, and looked over the top of the rims at

these disturbing children who squatted very comfy on the corner,

holding each other's hands. "Ah! that reminds me," he said. "Julia

is engaged!"

"Oh!" Rain cried. "But, Padre, you know there is no marrying here."

"Did I say marrying?" asked the clergyman. "No, Julia took a fancy

to Lion King-at-Arms, and is engaged, digesting him." He sighed.

"She has such a temperature! Ah! yes, and by the way, young Storm, I

have a letter which will interest you."

"Eh?" Storm jumped to his feet. "But of course there hain't no

letters in Dreamland." He sat down again disappointed.

"Pause, my son. Think it out. The fairies know all about

everything. Well, how would they know anything if they never got any

news? When a letter is destroyed down there on Earth, of course it

comes here by fairy post at once. This letter"--he grubbed about for

some time in his desk--"Ah! here. It came I see in 1806, so it's

been quite a long time waiting for you."

"Twenty-eight years! Nine years before I was born!"

"So matters are arranged. The little beforehand and the little

behindhand are attributes of the fore-handed fairies. Now, this

particular letter is in Russian; but there again, pause, and reflect.

It is a thought, my son, and thoughts are things which flash from

mind to mind. I am speaking Spanish, but you hear in English, and

Rain understands in Blackfoot. You shall read this Russian letter in

your own language."

Bill wanted the letter, but the padre would lecture, so it couldn't

be helped.

"I see," he continued, "that it went down on board the Russian scow

_Peter Paul_, when she foundered in a gale off Iterup in 1807. It is

written by a man you are to meet in Oregon, a Lieutenant Tschirikov.

His grandfather, you know, was the great Lieutenant Tschirikov, the

Russian explorer who sailed with Vitus Bering in 1741. He made the

first landfall when the Russians discovered North America from the

west."

Storm groaned, for at this rate he would never get the letter.

"I'm frightened," said Rain. "Letters are supernatural, and

fearfully powerful medicine. Hadn't Storm better pray to the Sun

before he reads?"

"N-no." The padre thought this over very carefully. "Lieutenant

Tschirikov is bald, quite bald, and very very fat, so he should be

quite harmless. The truly dangerous magicians are never bald or fat

like Tschirikov."

"Still, I think," said Rain most fearfully, "dear Storm, you'd better

make a sacrifice to the Sun. Just hang up something."

Ever obedient to her, Storm jumped up, grabbed the padre's

spectacles, ran out, and hung them on a tree as a sacrifice to the

Sun. Then he came in again, snatched the letter, and read. It

seemed to have no bearing upon his affairs, but still one never knows:

To His EXCELLENCY

COLONEL THE BARIN ALEXEI ALEXANDROVITCH,,

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF EASTERN SIBERIA,

IRKUTSK.

ST. PETR, KADIAK ISLAND, RUSSIAN AMERICA,

_July_ 10th, 1806.

VENERABLE BROTHER,--

In the name of all the saints--vodka! Send barrels! I languish on

salmon, and Eskimo, inhaling the latter, for so far I have been

mercifully delivered from the necessity of eating any. They are

suffocating.

I pray you salute the Immaculate Ruin, our Aunt, and kiss her on my

behalf. Thus I shall have done my duty, but not suffered.

Oh for the delights of your Excellency's palace, and a clean shirt!

How I envy you the very least of those perquisites and assumptions of

plunder which ever flow into your treasury, pickings worthy a

minister of state. But at the least I am solvent, for so long as I

can blow my own trumpet I shall never be destitute, having Her

Excellency--Salute!--yourself--General Salute!--and the Immaculate

Ruin--nine guns!--to borrow from. In default of roubles I repay, as

you perceive, in compliments.

Baranov, you know, spent last summer in extending the Company's

operations to a point a few thousands versts or so from here, and far

to the eastward of Mt. St. Elias. Here's to St. Elias! I was with

him--not Elijah, you stupid--in the _St. Paul_, my present command,

and he had all the natives that could be mustered, in some three

hundred skin canoes. Most of them, by the way, were drowned in Icy

Bay, but when Baranov makes an omelet he likes to hear the eggs

splash. We founded a post in the country of the Sitka tribes, and

called it New Arkangel. On our return westward in the autumn, we

left behind some twenty-three men as garrison, but they have

foolishly allowed themselves to be done to death. So we sail in a

few days to massacre the Sitkas, the only amusement there is to look

forward to at present.

Meanwhile I have put in for repairs here at St. Petr; and beyond some

little diversion of which it is the purpose of this present writing

to advise you, I have little to do except play cards with the priest,

and listen to the oddest lot of legends that ever came out of a

monastery. Yum! Yum!

I do not suppose that you care to hear about the conditions of the

country and the fur trade, or I would regale you with an account of

all the hunters drowned, stabbed, or starved since I last wrote.

Nay, I will not weary you with commonplaces. It is enough that men

such as ourselves of the first fashion are condemned to be bored all

day with the affairs of the canaille, without letting them intrude

upon our private correspondence. Verily our revered grandparent

deserved to be exterminated and heavily fined for his idiocy in

discovering such a country.

As a matter of fact, however, I am not writing to amuse either myself

or you, but to tell you how I managed to fall out with Baranov. As

the insolent old fool has written to Golovnin and others to get me

sent home in disgrace. I want your Excellency to have his paws

burned. How such a base-born, red-haired, shopkeeping, bald-headed,

shriveled-up he-bear came to be Governor of Russian America I cannot

imagine.

Well, early in June I arrived at Ounalashka, in the Aleutian Islands,

with supplies from Petropavlovsk; found the Governor there, and began

to unload. From the first I heard of little else but the charms of

Olga--the Little Fur Seal--they called her--daughter of a big Aleut

chief from Oumnack. I entertained the old gentleman on board the St.

Paul, until he grew mellow with my particular vodka, now, alas! no

more. Olga sat in a corner with her big dark eyes fixed on me, her

red lips just a little parted, and her black hair streaming down on

either side of her face: only a savage, of course, but one cannot

expect court ladies from the entourage of Her Imperial Majesty. When

I thought the chief was in a sufficiently amiable humor--you could

have buttoned his grin behind his neck--I asked how many skins he

required for his very plain daughter. Not that I wanted her. But

still I felt some curiosity. It would not be good for his morals to

encourage his avarice.

To which he replied that all my skins wouldn't buy her, because the

great lord Baranov demanded her for wife. Now the Governor has more

skins than I have hairs; but I have wisdom, and wisdom is better than

many skins; so I told the chief that if he would give me Olga I would

tell him all about everything. You know I picked up ventriloquism at

the Naval College, so that when the chief derided me, voices were

heard laughing at him from under his chair, out of the vodka bottles,

in the beams overhead and all over the cabin. He said I was a great

doctor, and knew everything; but how could he give me Olga when he

had also promised her to Ivan, a young chief in the village?

Moreover, she was in love with a fourth party. I told him that I was

very wise, and that I loved Olga.

Now, to make a long story short, I disposed of the pretenders as

follows: The fourth party I won over by giving him an old cocked hat

and a broken sword, together with the degree of Sublime Exaltation in

the Ancient and Hereditary Order of Mystical Gluttons. The

initiation was a most imposing ceremony. I read the ritual from the

ship's big medicine book, and in token of the ancient and hide-bound

traditions of the Order, encased his head in plaster of Paris and

painted his nose red. After marching thrice round the cabin on all

fours we concluded the ceremony with an oath, whereby he is bound to

present himself in person at Irkutsk, and there to deliver letters

credential to His Excellency the Venerable and Supreme Grand Master

of the Order, take him into his arms, rub noses in token of amity and

a joyful heart, and to receive the appointment of Minister of Stolen

Goods in the government of the province. He sails in the ship of my

little friend Hans Schlitz, and I hereby commend him to your

brotherly love.

Now for the third party, Ivan, the young Chief: I sent him to Baranov

in the dead of the night to ask why he has red hair; but instead of

having his mind enriched with the important revelations which were to

have been uttered by the Governor on hearing this mystic password, my

poor friend Ivan had his body decorated with quite other forms of

enrichment, and was found next morning on top of the church belfry

with one eye and three fingers missing and his nose pointing round

the corner. Baranov is inclined, at times, to be a little playful.

The fourth party being under your Excellency's care, and the third

suitor ignominiously rejected by the Little One as damaged goods, I

had now to compensate her father for not getting Baranov's skins.

Wherefore I proceeded to instill the most subtle wisdom into the head

of my future father-in-law. I taught him a little sleight of hand,

and some card tricks; showed him how to run a sword through his body

by means of a tin tube in the shape of a half belt, invented for him

a beautiful system of fortune telling, and gave him the ship's

speaking trumpet with which to bellow at the people through his big

medicine mask. I showed him the effects of phosphorus upon the face

at night, and how even white people turn black when painted with

nitrate of silver. But the most polite of his new accomplishments is

the ventriloquism--a trick which he has raised to the dignity of a

fine art. Suffice it to say that I qualified that savage to become

such an intolerable nuisance that he is to-day the recognized terror

of all Aliaska, and possesses more skins than even Baranov could have

offered for his daughter.

But alas for all my virtue and my discretion! Just as I had won the

Little Fur Seal, for whose sake Baranov piled up his skins in vain,

the young Aleut Chief was undergoing repairs, and the fourth party

proceeding to rub noses with your Excellency at Irkutsk, the old

chief came to me, crouched down on the cabin floor, and began to wail.

I took him by the scruff, rattled his teeth, and ordered him to speak.

"She's gone," he moaned--"gone away in the night, and left her poor

old father all alone!"

I hauled him on deck by the ear, kicked him overboard, and went to

Baranov. Our sorrows had made us brethren, and we wept. We were

sampling a small keg of brandy, to assuage our anguish, when in came

Ivan, with his nose bandaged up and his tongue hanging out, to mourn

with us.

In proof of our sympathy we gave him some of the brandy, and as we

three sat together mingling our tears with our spirits, a rude little

boy came in and laughed at us. Olga, he said, was his sister, and

had whispered to him last night, before she went away that _any one

who wanted Fur Seal would have to hunt_! She said also that she was

going to St. Petr on Kadiak Island, and bade him tell nobody of the

fact, particularly Captain Tschirikov.

Baranov rose from his chair with a most absurd assumption of dignity,

and said: "Captain Tschirikov, you will at once beach the _St. Paul_

for repairs in the East Cove, and superintend the work in person.

Ivan, you will report to me at nine o'clock this evening, and receive

dispatches for Attoo Island. Boy, consider yourself entered on the

books of the Company as my body servant, and be ready by to-morrow

morning to go with me to Kadiak Island."

Dismissing Ivan and the boy, I told Baranov that I intended to beach

my ship for repairs, not in the East Cove but at St. Petr, where

there are better facilities. He at once ordered me under arrest. I

replied that I was not accustomed to receive indignities at the hands

of tradesmen, that as a naval officer I was responsible to no

civilian, and only refrained from calling him out because he was not

a gentleman. Leaving him speechless with rage, I boarded my vessel,

slipped and buoyed my cable, and squared away for Kadiak.

A Russian does not sleep when he is out wife-hunting, and you have

only to hold in remembrance the black eyes of my Little Fur Seal to

realize that I was not many days in reaching her hiding place. I

landed at St. Petr with my whole starboard watch, and proceeded to

search the village. Just as one of my men entered a house, he called

to me, but I reached the front door only in time to see something

flutter out at the back. Giving chase, I had the Little Fur Seal

safe in my arms within a hundred yards of the house. We have hunted

bears together, O my brother, and faced them when they were defending

their cubs; but a she-bear in the spring is a lamb compared to Olga.

She scratched, kicked, bit, screamed; she tried to plunge a long

knife into me, and when I took that from her, clutched my hair.

Wherefore I do beseech thee, Alexei Pavlovitch, as thou dost honor

the memory of our sire, to send for a wig to Petersburg--just a

little wig, with a becoming queue, in the latest mode of the _vielle

noblesse_, in size about the same as you wear on full-dress

occasions. Have this consigned to the care of Hans Schlitz at

Petropavlovsk.

When I got her down to the boat the Little One began to sulk; and

except for some little scratching as we got her up over the ship's

side, she sulked on consistently until supper time. I felt like a

brute as, after a solitary meal in the cabin, I smoked my pipe before

turning in. I was conscious all the time of the glare from her black

eyes. Whenever I tried to make friends they flashed upon me like

twin stars; while once in my bunk I had an uncomfortable presentiment

that, presently finding me asleep, she would cut me off in the flower

of my youth with a big butcher knife. But reflecting that it is much

wiser to sleep than to lie awake imagining vain things, and greatly

solaced by the memory of having seen Baranov's vessel beating her way

up the harbor, I partly closed my eyes, and dozed a little.

As luck would have it, I was just sufficiently awake to note that the

Little One, believing me to be asleep, was stirring. To give her

confidence, I snored comfortably and, unsuspected by her, watched

every movement. How pretty she looked as she stood in the faint glow

of the candlelight, and then moved slowly towards me, almost

imperceptibly and softly as a panther! Picture to yourself, Alexei,

the gentle swaying of her limbs, the tangled mass of shadowy hair,

the brilliant eyes, the full red lips! Outside I could hear

Baranov's crew letting their anchor go, and taking in their canvas.

I thought also, with a sense of pleasure, of Ivan stealing slowly

along the coast in his canoe towards us. Then, brother, conceive my

delight as I saw her creep past the locker upon which lay the knife

without even stretching out her hand towards it. A moment later I

felt that she was bending over me; her breath played upon my face,

her lips drew closer and closer, until at last they rested upon my

cheek, leaving there the imprint of the sweetest small round kiss

that ever sent a thrill of joy through the heart of man.

_The Little Fur Seal was mine!_

Your affectionate brother,

NICOLAI.

In the padre's little adobe house Storm finished reading, and at once

the fairies, peeping round the edge of the door and the window, made

grand pretense that they had not heard.

"Padre," asked Rain, "what's bald?"

The holy man lowered his head to show the shaven tonsure. "That,"

said he.

"Oh!" said Rain. "I never saw a bald before. We don't have any in

the Blackfoot nation." Tears came to her eyes and made them glisten.

"And fat," she said. "Poor Nicolai! Poor Little Fur Seal! Storm,

when you meet him in the Oregon be kind to him and comfort him for

the fat and bald. And give her my love too."

"If I remember," answered Storm.

* * * * * * *

And Bill awakened because the bos'n knelt beside him with a lantern,

taking off the handcuffs. The _Beaver_ was at sea.