On the word being passed that Alec Corning was back from the West Coast,
a few reminiscent friends went to hunt him up, and found him in the
Anchorage, in a back room overlooking Duncan's wharf; and Alec was
agreeable, over a social glass and a good cigar, to explain how it came
he was back in Gloucester.
"If they'd only let us alone I'd 'a' got--and Archie Gillis too--good
and rich."
"Rich, Alec? You rich?"
"Well, maybe not quite rich, for that, o' course, would call for saving,
but certainly I'd had a roll to spend before I was done--if only they'd
let us alone. But would they? Man, the meddlers they were!--the
brass-buttoned, steam-winched buttinskis!"
"But if that is their business, Alec?"
"M-m--maybe. But Russians, English, Japs--yes, an' American cutters and
gunboats before they were done--you ought to seen them!"
Alec paused, but only for a quick breath. "We had the finest little
scheme of sealing till they took to hunting us. Up and down the length
and breadth of the sealing-grounds they'd up and chase us whenever
they'd get word of us--from the Japan coast back by way of the
Aleutians--clear down, one time, a pair of 'em, till we had to put in
behind Vancouver Island and hide the _Hattie_ behind a lot o' screen
boughs."
Alec paused; this time for a longer, an almost reflective, breath. "That
being their business, p'r'aps they were all right; but ain't it a fine
thing when a gang wants to go seal-hunting that a lot o' gover'ment
people must specify where they can kill 'em, and when?--and they
swimmin' the wide ocean as the Lord intended! And our little vessel--the
_Hattie Rennish_ when she used to go fresh halibutin' out o'
here--remember her?"
There were several who heartily remembered the fast and able _Hattie_.
Presently, letting the elevated front legs of his chair drop to the
floor, Alec rested one forearm on the table and went on to tell of how
at last they got the _Hattie Rennish_.
"'Twas a Californian man named Trumbull bought the _Hattie_ when she was
fresh halibutin' out o' Gloucester. A good sort of a man, and 'twas him
got me, with Archie Gillis for mate, to bring her 'round to Frisco.
"But the time I'm going to speak of, the _Hattie_--painted green she
was, and called the _Pioneer_--was layin' into Seattle, when a chap
comes aboard with a letter from Trumbull to me explaining that certain
aspects of the sealing business 'd been taking on a serious look to him
lately and he'd sold the _Hattie_, and the party who'd bought her,
letter herewith, might want to do business with me.
"The looks of the new owner didn't warm me toward him in the start-off.
Looks, of course, ain't everything, but when you don't know much about a
man you got to go a lot by his looks. Yes, you sure have. And I'd seen
him before, joy cruisin' on the Barbary Coast one night with a lot of
drunken sailors--only he wasn't drunk. And I knew what he was--some
Chinese blood in him, and the name o' being a slick one. But I didn't
say anything about that. Gratu'tously telling a man you don't like him
don't lay you up to wind'ard any. No. And we sat down and he explains
what he wanted. There was a consignment of a few bales of hemp waiting
up on the British Columbia coast, and would I run the _Hattie_ over and
slip back with 'em? And we'd have to leave right away.
"Well, I would--after a talk. And with Archie Gillis and a few hoboes
that called themselves sailors, which I'd picked up in Jack Downing's
place in Seattle, we put out. Archie was mate and to get two hundred
dollars and me five hundred.
"It was a fine night, that night, and we put out into the sound and
worked our way up through the islands, and the second morning later
slips into a little cove behind some high hills with trees along the
banks--in Georgia Strait. Twenty-four hours we lay there, and then we
hears a steamer's wheel, but we don't see her; only a couple of hours
later the owner comes for me in a big ship's quarter-boat, and we work
the _Hattie_ over to a little island where we find a lot of bales
wrapped in burlap and hid in a cook's shack.
"'That all?' I asks my new owner--Durks his name.
"'Oh, yes--there's a couple o' Chinamen here. But let's see--where are
they?' He looks around. 'They're not here--strolling in the woods
somewhere. We'll take them along, too,' he says. 'You won't mind that,
will you?'
"Now there was nothing in the contract about Chinamen, and I didn't like
the notion of him working 'em aboard in that way, but I said all right
and soon as dark came we'd roll 'em aboard and put out.
"Well, the boss and I sits down to lunch in the cook-house, and by and
by, with nothing to do but wait for dark, we stroll around the island.
Now I'm no wizard in anything, but I always did have a good ear. And no
harm at all, a good ear, when you got to do most of your own watching
out. Before we'd gone far I knew somebody was trailing me and the new
owner. I could hear steps behind us an' dead twigs snapping and somebody
shoving aside branches, and once, when we stopped for a talk on the edge
of a clearing, I knew I heard somebody breathing just behind the bushes
which was hanging over the logs we were sitting on.
"Now I knew that this Durks wasn't very popular in the quarters where he
did business, and 's I wasn't aching to have any Chinese tong man hit me
over the head with any hatchet by mistake in a shaded wood, I just
naturally fell out of step and lost him, and being some trailer myself,
I took to trailing whoever it was 'd been trailing me and Durks, and by
and by I come up behind him, and when I do I grip him where he won't
make too much noise nor do me too much harm till I let him. He wasn't a
very big chap, nor any too strong, and I sets him down on the nearest
old tree trunk and--'What is it?' I asks.
"He looks at me and shakes his head and says, 'No sabby,' and I looks at
him and I shakes my head and says: 'Oh, yes, you do, Johnnie Sing. I
wasn't wearing any whiskers when I used to meet you in Wall-Eye Bunsen's
place. I've cultivated them for protective purposes only, to hide my
face but not my intelligence--so you just overlook them and try and
recollect Alec Corning. Now what d' y' say?'
"'Halloo, Captain Corning!' he says; and, no pretending, he was glad to
see me.
"'Whitely,' I says--'Bill Whitely when you say it out loud. What's your
trouble, Johnnie?' And so you c'n all get it right, I ought to say first
that Johnnie Sing was a sort of Americanized Chinaman, who the last time
I'd seen him was inquiring if he couldn't become a real American some
way. He'd been born in Lima on the West Coast, where there's a big
colony o' Chinamen, and he was part Chinese, the rest of him Peruvian
Indian. A Christian, too, he was; which I'm not putting up as being for
or against him, except so you'll see he had as much right to be a
Christian as anything else. His mother was Christian, and so it wasn't
like as if he had turned against his own to get on in the world.
"Johnnie was a good sort, and he'd made a few dollars in the tea
business, and so maybe ought to 'a' been happy. But he wasn't. There
was an old Chinaman, and not too old either, who'd married a Finn woman
came off a wrecked Norwegian bark. They ran a laundry together, and
by'n'by they came on to Frisco and ran a laundry there. And Johnnie
followed them. A good woman, and she died leaving a well-grown little
girl, and by'n'by the old fellow he figures he's made enough and goes
back to have a look at China. But no sooner there than he learns he
won't live very long, and he writes Johnnie of it, or maybe it was the
girl did, her and Johnnie having been always about three-quarters in
love with each other. And Johnnie he cruises over to China, and the old
fellow, savvying how things are, says all right, marry, and they get
married, and he gives 'em his blessing and lays down and dies. A good
old scout, Johnnie said, and I guess he was.
"Well, everything's fine, only Johnnie wants to come back and live in
the United States, and the girl too. She was sixteen years old when she
left California, and a woman's life in the United States looked a lot
better to her than in this land of one-half her ancestors. So she and
Johnnie takes a steamer to Vancouver, and they get there all right; but
not till they got there did either of them happen to think that they
were foreigners and barred as Chinese from coming into the United
States. Which was a pity, they being pretty white and so strong for
everything American. Anyway, Johnnie writes to Trumbull, my old boss, to
see what he could do, and after ten days or so Durks happens along and
bumps into Johnnie and is surprised as you please to see him, and
Johnnie tells him his story, and Durks tells him not to worry about
that--that he'd smuggle him and his wife across in a schooner he'd just
bought. They would take a little coast steamer and meet her a few hours
up the coast, and then across the sound to Seattle--'twould be the
easiest thing ever you see.
"And there they were, Johnnie and his wife, and when he got that far in
his story Johnnie stops and looks up at the sky most mournful-like.
Springtime it was, mind you, and fine weather, with the sun shining and
the waters of the inlet rolling up on the rocks gentle-like, and the
first of the birds were up from the south and singing and chirping, and,
I s'pose, nesting overhead--a bran'-new spring day in a piny grove on a
pretty little island off the coast of British Columbia, when anybody
should 'a' been happy, 'specially with a new young wife.
"'Well, what's wrong--what you so blue about?' I asks Johnnie when he'd
got through squinting up the tree branches to the sky.
"And he tells me how after his wife was aboard the steamer which 'd
brought 'em to this place she sees Durks and tells Johnnie how Durks
came near kidnapping her one time--before she went back to China with
her father. Her father and Durks had a terrible row over it. Her father
near killed Durks with a hatchet. And now here was Durks turning up in
this accidental way; too accidental altogether--for Durks. He would
steal her or something, and once he got her into San Francisco they
could be swallowed up with her. Huh--a Chinese row, the police would
say, and not bother too much. Not like stealing an American girl. 'And
if he gives me over to the police, I am not an American citizen--out of
the country I must go,' winds up Johnnie.
"Terrible downcast is Johnnie Sing, but I stands him on his feet and
tells him to cheer up. Durks was head of the expedition, yes, and paying
the bills, yes; but me, Alec Corning, was skipper of the _Hattie_. 'Go
down and tell your little wife that everything'll be all right,' says
I--'that Alec Corning'll be on the job. Where is she?'
"'She is here,' he says, and whistles, and out from the brush steps a
cute little girl dressed like a man, and with a hard hat to make her
look all the more like a man. Johnnie lifted the little hat, and under
it she has a lot of yellow-ash hair coiled up where a reg'lar Chinaman
'd have only a black pigtail.
"'Don't let on to Durks either of you ever saw me in your life,' I
advises 'em, 'and when it's time to go aboard the vessel you go.'
"And they went aboard with what Durks says was bales of hemp; and we put
out that night in open water, and next day threading inside passages so
far as we could. Another night and another morning found us in Puget
Sound, and there on a little neck of land on the American shore we
hoisted our load of hemp onto a little, rough-made wooden pier. A
narrow-gauge track ran up from the pier, and standing on the track was a
hand flat car.
"'Now,' says Durks, 'I will pay off" these men, so they won't be hanging
around and possibly talking too much before we get clear.' And he did---
ten dollars to the hands and fifteen to the cook, and a silver dollar
all around for car-fare. And they went ashore, he telling them where
they would find a little branch station about a mile up the road to take
them to Seattle. And so we got through with them.
"He himself goes ashore after they're out the way, and stays an hour or
so, and when he's back, 'How about paying off me and my mate now?' I
asks.
"'You take the schooner to a little place west of here and then I'll pay
you both off,' he answers.
"'And how about landing those two passengers?' I asks.
"'No, no, don't land them here,' he says. 'Somebody might see them and
pounce on us for landing them. Keep them aboard for a while--to the next
anchorage.'
"And we put out late in the morning then, and, there being no wind,
'twas in the middle of the afternoon before we came to anchor in a
little harbor about five miles from where we landed the cargo. And we'd
hardly been there when an American gunboat comes to anchor just off our
hiding-place, and Archie and me we looks at each other, but don't say
anything.
"And Durks? He's terribly surprised at the sight of the
gunboat--terribly. By and by he stops walking the deck and says to me:
'I have a plan, captain. I will go aboard that gunboat and find out what
they want here. If they think there is anything wrong about us, I will
invite them to come aboard and look us over. What do you say to that?'
"I didn't say anything to it, but 'What will become of me and my wife--I
paid you five hundred dollars for us?' pipes up Johnnie Sing.
"'Why'--and Durks smiles--'that is easy. You can hide--oh, where now?
Why, of course, in the lazaretto. And your wife in a locker somewhere
that Captain Corning will pick out for her. They will not look far, even
if they shall suspect us--they will think we would have fifty or a
hundred aboard or none at all. So they will not look into every corner.
If you both hide away somewhere everything will be all right.'
"Johnnie is uneasy, but I nods my head to him on the sly, and he says
all right and goes below with his wife. And making sure they are below,
Durks turns to me and hands over five hundred to me, and to Archie two
hundred dollars. And he shows us another five hundred and says: 'And
this will be for you two to divide as you please when I get Johnnie Sing
away from the ship and the girl is left behind. What do you say?'
"And I looks over at the five hundred and says, 'It looks pretty good';
and Archie he looks at me and at the extra money and says, 'It looks
pretty good'; and Durks laughs and says, 'It will feel pretty good, too;
but better put that money out of sight, hadn't you, captain--and you
too, Mr. Gillis?' and goes off in the big quarter-boat--the only boat we
had aboard, by the way.
"No sooner was he gone than up pops Johnnie Sing out of the cabin
companionway. 'Captain,' he says, 'must I hide away?'
"Can you swim?'
"'A little bit.'
"'A little bit? Not enough. And your wife?'
"From over his shoulder she shook her head.
"'Then you can't swim ashore, can you? You got to stay aboard, that's
plain. Well, you and your wife go with Mr. Gillis, who'll stow you in a
place he knows under the forec's'le floor. Neither o' you bein' too tall
or too fat, you c'n stow away in this place without smotherin' for an
hour or two. We've used it before. Go by way of the cabin and through
the hold below decks, so if anybody's got a glass on us from the gunboat
they won't see you.'
"And they went, she crawling behind him like a little mouse. And Archie
tucked 'em away and comes on deck, looking at his money as he comes--two
one-hundred-dollar bills. 'Tuck it out o' sight!' Archie was
sayin'--'tuck it out o' sight, hah?' And the more he looks the more
doubtful he becomes, and I looks at mine, and I get a magnifyin' glass
from my dunnage to have a closer look, and sure enough it's the phony
kind of money men like Durks used sometimes to pass off on unsuspecting
Chinks on that coast. 'Johnnie Sing tips me off about it just now,'
explains Archie to me.
"And while we're swearing at Durks for that, back he comes with a young
officer and four armed sailors. The officer looks at me and says: 'You
have contraband Chinamen aboard here?'
"Well, that got me. I looks at him, and then, thinking of the phony
money, I looks at Durks. And I don't answer.
"'We shall have to search the ship,' says the officer.
"'Sure,' I says, 'search away.'
"And they went and dropped straight into the cabin and made for the
lazaretto, Durks waiting and whistling to himself on deck. Pretty soon
the officer comes up and reports nobody in the lazaretto. Durks goes up
in the air. 'Where is he?' he says to me.
"'He? Who?'
"'Johnnie Sing.'
"'What you talkin' about?' I asks, and at the same time Archie
carelessly hauls out a hundred-dollar bill and lights a cigarette with
it. And Durks suddenly changes, and with the officer's permission steps
with me into the cabin. And the first thing he does is to count out
seven hundred dollars good money and hand it to me. 'I took that other
from the wrong pile,' he says, and smiles, but not as if he expects to
be believed. And he holds out another five hundred--good money--and
says, 'Where are they?' And I looks wise and says, 'Suppose that Chink
gave me a thousand to get 'em clear?' 'A thousand? Well, here--here's a
thousand when you turn him over to me. Where are they?'
"And I whispered, so the lockers themselves couldn't hear me: 'They swam
ashore and are hid away. To-morrow morning I give them the signal and
they'll come back aboard.'
"'Then,' says Durks, 'you can get his five hundred and my thousand. Will
that satisfy you?'
"And I said I'd think it over, and we went on deck, where Durks told the
officer there might be a way to get hold of the contraband Chinamen yet.
And the officer eyes us both and finally says: 'You'd better both come
with me to the ship and make it clear to the captain. He is now up the
Sound, but will be aboard in the morning. And we went, leaving Archie to
look after the vessel.
"We went aboard the gunboat, not exactly under guard, but just so's to
be sure we'd be there when we were wanted. It was now getting on toward
six o'clock, and the first thing meal call blew, and up steps an old
shipmate, Ed Gurney, and invites me down to the chief petty officers'
mess for supper.
"Ed and me we'd been snapper-fishing together in the Gulf o' Mexico, on
the Campeche Bank, in one of those little short bowsprit schooners out
o' Pensacola, and now he was high-line marksman of the ship, wore extra
marks on his sleeve and got extra money, and all that kind o' stuff, for
his shooting. Well, Ed always could tell an oil-tanker from a banana
steamer as far as any man in the Gulf, and we talked of those days
during supper, and after we'd had a good smoke we walked the deck
together, talking of one thing and another, and before I got through I
told him all about the scrape I was in.
"'The grab-all snake!' says Ed. 'And what you goin' to do, Alec?'
"'My name is Bill,' I answers; 'Bill Whitely if there's anybody likely
to be in hearing. But I tell you, Ed,' I says, 'I don't like the notion
o' little Johnnie Sing and his wife getting caught--or separated.'
"We were looking over the side then, where to the boom was tied a string
of small boats, our big quarter-boat to the end.
"'What do you know about this fellow Durks, Ed?' I said, after a time.
"'Nothing,' he said, 'except that he's under suspicion of smuggling
opium for a long time. They say he's money-mad and woman-mad, and always
was.'
"'So I've heard. And what's his game here with me?'
"'It's going around the ship that you ran away with his schooner and
smuggled a Chink aboard unbeknownst, but that he's going to forgive you
if you hand over the Chinaman and so put him right with the Gover'ment.
He didn't say anything about any woman.'
"'He's one fine gentleman,' I says. And, by 'n' by: 'Suppose you saw
somebody was trying to slip the _Hattie_--the _Pioneer_--out by you in
the dark, what would happen?'
"'Happen?' says Ed. 'A lot o' things. And quick. It'd be up with a lot
of three-inch ammunition, and some high-rating gun pointer, who's as
likely to be me as anybody else, would probably have to use you for a
little target practice.'
"'And you c'n lay 'em pretty close aboard, can't you, Ed--strings o'
bull's-eyes at six and eight and ten thousand yards--hah?'
"'I have landed 'em as close as that,' says Ed.
"'But an old shipmate, Ed?' I says.
"'Now, Alec----'
"'Bill--Bill Whitely,' I says.
"'Well, Bill Whitely, then, though you'd better let me call you Alec. I
think I'd shoot a bit wider thinking of Alec Corning than anybody named
Bill Whitely. If you don't leave me any other way out of it, I'd maybe
keep scraping the paint off you as long as I could.'
"'Your idea bein' to do the right thing by the Gover'ment in the end,
Ed?'
"'That's it,' says Ed.
"'Well, Ed,' I says, 'if you should happen to see such a thing as a
moving picture of the _Hattie_ stealin' out to sea, and it's up to you
to bring her to, say at five or six or eight thousand yards, just scrape
the paint with the first two or three, will you, by way o' telling me
how it's you, Ed?'
"'All right,' says Ed.
"'And we shook hands over that. 'And maybe the Gover'ment won't be
losing anything at that,' I says.
"After a time Ed Gurney left me to go on the night watch, and I was
standing by the rail, figuring how I was going to get back to the
_Hattie_, when Durks comes looking for me.
"'Of course,' says Durks, 'you had no idea of it, but I organized this
expedition as much to get Johnnie Sing out of the way and separate him
from his wife as to smuggle in the cargo of hemp.'
"'The duty on hemp,' I interrupts, 'must be very high, Mr. Durks.'
"'What? It is--yes,' he says.
"'And how much _is_ the duty on hemp?' I asks.
"And he don't know. 'Hemp, humph!' I says, 'how much is the duty on--?'
and I stops.
"'On what?' he says.
"'On whatever's in those bales?' I answers.
"'Why, what is the duty?' he asks.
"Maybe there's no duty--maybe it's against the law to bring it in, no
matter what the duty,' I answers.
"And he sees I know too much, and from out of a pocket inside his vest
he draws a package of money and lets me look to see how much, and he
says: 'Five hundred now and five hundred when you turn over to me
Johnnie Sing--separate from his wife.'
"'If I could get back on the schooner,' I says, like I was studying it
out, 'back on her to-night, I'd guarantee I'd have Johnnie Sing aboard
her in the morning.'
"'But how can you get off this ship?' he says.
"'Easy enough,' I says. 'Nobody here cares whether I stay aboard or get
away, and nobody's watching me too close. You ask the executive
officer's permission to go down aboard your quarter-boat, swinging from
the boom there, by way of seeing it's all right, and you get into it and
look it over, and the last thing you do before leaving it you unfasten
the painter and let her go adrift. And in the morning, when you see the
_Hattie_, Johnnie Sing and his wife will be aboard--- on her deck in
plain sight. And then you come and get 'em. But you'll have to come and
get 'em yourself--and give me five hundred dollars now on account--good
money, mind.' And he does--good money.
"And while he's going down over the boom ladder to one side I'm climbing
down a side ladder on the other, and soon standing on the last rung,
just above the water-line, and waiting. And pretty soon I see the shadow
of our quarter-boat drifting past her stern, and as I do I slips
overboard and strikes out for her, quiet and mostly under water, because
I had my clothes on.
"I get aboard the quarter-boat and I let her drift till maybe I am a
quarter of a mile away, and then I out oars and heads her in for where I
can see the _Hattie's_ riding light. I comes alongside. Archie's shape
looms up over the rail. 'Hi-i!' he yells, 'keep off!' 'It's all right,
Archie,' I says, and he reaches down and takes the painter. 'What's
doing?' he says.
"'Where's Johnnie Sing and his wife?'
"'She's asleep in the cabin and he's awake watching her. What you going
to do?'
"'You tell Johnnie here's his five hundred passage money back, will you,
Archie? And then we'll make ready to skip out of here.'
"'Skip out? Not enough wind,' says Archie.
"'Not now,' I says, 'but there will be.'
"'I hope so,' says Archie, and calls Johnnie and tells him, and I gives
him his money which he didn't want to take but had to and we slip her
chain cable but left her riding light on a buoy in case the gunboat
watch were having an eye on her. 'And now,' I says, 'to that lighter
where those bales of hemp are.'
"'Hadn't we better put straight for the open sound and head to sea,'
says Archie, 'while it's dark? What do we want with a lot o' hemp?'
growls Archie.
"'We'll go after the hemp, all the same, Archie,' I says.
"It took us three hours from our anchorage to make the lighter, where
the hemp was, and that made it midnight. We let the schooner drift a
couple of hundred yards off the little pier, and Archie and me paddled
ashore in our quarter-boat with a spare lantern.
"There was the lighter, but no bales of hemp. Up on the pier, about two
hundred yards, we see a streak of light. We crept up to that, and
through a pane of glass high up--me standing on Archie's shoulders to
get a look through--was four men playing cards, with money and a bottle
of whiskey and a kerosene lamp on the table. We looked around. On the
narrow-gauge railroad track we found the little flat hand-car, and on
that, under a tarpaulin, were the bales of hemp.
"We crept around to the door of the shack. By feeling we saw it opened
out; so the two of us felt around for big-sized stones, a hundred pounds
apiece, or so, and them we piled in front of the door, fifteen or twenty
of 'em, very softly, and then I whispers to Archie to hustle the flat
car along to the pier.
"And he did, but in getting started the car wheels grinded a little, and
somebody inside yells, 'What's that!' and again, 'Listen!' and then I
could hear one of 'em jumping up and cursing and swearing: 'What started
her?' Next thing somebody rattled the door-latch and pushed. And pushed
again. And then--bam! his whole weight against the door. The top part
springs out, but the bottom half sticks.
"Then there was a quiet, and then somebody said something quick, and I
could hear 'em all jumping up and yelling out, and they came piling
bang-up for the door and slammed against it, but the big stones held
'em. Then they stopped, and one of 'em says: 'We're locked in all
right.' 'Yes,' I calls out, 'and you'd better stay locked in, for the
first man, and the second man, and the third man comes out the door he
gets his. And now, men,' I calls out, 'keep that door covered and cut
loose if it's knocked open.' And then I hurried after Archie's lantern,
which I see is now to the pier.
"It didn't take us more than a couple o' minutes to pitch those little
bales off that car, tote 'em across the lighter and drop 'em into our
quarter-boat. Then we rowed out to our vessel and threw them over the
rail and let 'em lay there amidships till we could get a chance to rip
'em open and see what we got.
"It was then two o'clock, and 's by this time the breeze'd made a bit, I
was hoping we'd slip by the gunboat before daylight. And we did--almost;
but not far enough by. Before the sun was fair up they saw us and puts
after us. It took her a few minutes to get under way and steam up on
her, and then she came a-belting. Twelve knots she was probably
steaming, but by now the breeze was strong enough for the _Hattie_ to
hold her own, but not to draw away. And soon the breeze comes stronger,
and we begin to lengthen and draw away from the gunboat. And it breezed
up more, and the _Hattie_, balloon and stays'l on now, and taking it
over her quarter, was beginning to show the stuff in her.
"She was lifting her forefoot and kicking her way through like she knew
what we wanted. We were walking away from the gunboat, and I was
wondering why she didn't reach out for us with one of her long five-inch
lads. But I see why pretty soon. In the clearing light a point of land
shows up ahead of us, making out maybe a couple of miles to the windward
of our course. We couldn't turn out, for here was the main shore and
there was the gunboat. 'And a pity, too,' I says to Archie, 'with enough
opium aboard to keep us many a year.'
"Archie'd 'most forgot the bales. 'Cut 'em open,' I says to him, and he
did, and out they come--six or eight pound tins they looked--dozens of
'em. And Archie, looking at the bright shiny tins, said, 'What a pity!'
again, and we both said what a pity it was, too, for Johnnie Sing and
his wife. 'But don't you worry about 'em,' I says; 'Nor you about your
wife,' I says to Johnnie, who was looking heart-broken, with his arm
around her.
"All the time we were hopping on toward the point, and if 'twas anything
but a steamer with guns was chasing us we'd 'a' squeezed by, and, once
by, it was good night to the gunboat or anything like her in that
breeze. It looked that way even as it was, till a shell goes skipping
across the water ahead of us. In half a minute there came another one
astern. There wasn't any sea on this time--inshore this and the water
smooth, and the two shells had a fine chance to show how they could
pile up little hills of water and then go skipping across the surface,
making quarter circles to the right. I had hopes, a few hopes yet. For
the wind was still there, and the _Hattie_ she had everything on her,
and she was pirooting 'tween earth and sky like a picnic swing. And
looking out in terror was Johnnie Sing's little wife, and I was saying
to her: 'She's all right--she'll stay up, never fear.'
"'Oh, she'll stay up,' says Archie, 'if one of them shells don't come
aboard,' and we both eying a flash o' flame that just then came out the
side of the gunboat.
"'They're only fourteen-pounders,' I says.
"'Is that all?' says Archie. 'Only fourteen pounds o' nitroglycerine, or
cordite, or dynamite, or guncotton, or whatever 'tis they packs into
'em! Only fourteen pounds!--and fourteen ounces is enough to send the
_Hattie_ to the clouds and eternal glory if ever it comes aboard,' and
just then one came right under her forefoot and another under her
counter. And I looks back to the gunboat. She's less than a mile away
now, and I takes the glasses and has a peek, and I imagines I sees a
tall, rangy lad standing beside a long, slim, steel-shiny,
needle-lookin' gun, and I says to myself: 'Eddie boy, you miss us about
twice more and Alec Corning'll be buying you more than one drink next
time we meet,' for I knew the end was near. Ahead of me I see a passage
making an island of the last half mile o' that point o' land, and it
looked like water enough in the passage to let the _Hattie_ through.
"I calls out to Archie and tells him to heave the tins of opium into the
quarter-boat, and he did, and 'Now get into her,' I says, 'and pull for
the beach.' And they did, me staying aboard the _Hattie_ to luff her for
them to get away. And then I cut the stays'l free and gave the _Hattie_
her wheel again, and when she was going full-tilt I jibed her over, and
she had everything on, and it was blowing blue devils, and only one
thing you'd think could happen after that long main-boom went swinging
across her deck--over the side had to go her spars. But they didn't. A
twenty-two-inch forem'st she carried, a great stick, and when she was
away again and going straight for the passage I says to myself: 'You'll
have to hurry, Ed Gurney, or I'll be beating you to it!' For after all,
when you're put to it, Durks or no Durks, there's only one thing to
do--try and save your vessel.
[Illustration: "Just then one came right under her forefoot and another
under her counter. And I looks back to the gunboat."]
"The _Hattie_ rushes straight for the passage, and I thought maybe she'd
make it, when whing! whing! whing! you'd think somebody was trying
to cut his initials in the water around her. One after the other, like
somebody having fun with her, and then wr-r-t! I felt her shiver, and
then she seemed to shake herself, and then straight into the air her
bowsprit seemed to rise and point to the morning sky, and from out of
her waist came flame and smoke. Straight on and up the bowsprit went,
and down! and plump! her after-part went! and flying junks of one thing
and another filled the air, and some smoke, and then in the sea around
the small parts that'd blown up began to fall. But I wasn't watching
them. I was watching the for'ard half of her as it went pitching up, the
bowsprit making a quarter circle in the air, and then plunk! down and
under. The great little _Hattie_ was gone. By that time I was in the
water reaching out for the quarter-boat.
"'Too bad,' says Archie, 'too bad!' when I was safe in her. 'Too bad!'
he says, and stops rowing. 'Pull, you sentimental loafer; pull for the
beach!' I yells at him.
"And he did, and we all did--all but Johnnie's wife--and landed, and ran
up and hid in the brush up top of the cliff, and lay on our stomachs
watching the gunboat come stealing in and put off a steam-barge and grab
our quarter-boat with all the opium in it. And we could hear Ed Gurney
whoop when he held a tin of it aloft. 'Man, tons of it, tons of it!'
Archie swore he could hear Ed yelling, and we guessed that would square
him for those few wide shots. And then they headed back and went aboard
the gunboat, and pretty soon she steamed off.
"'Vessel and opium both gone--I wonder how Durks is feeling now,' says
Archie; 'and we with his--but how much is it altogether, Alec?' And that
reminded me, and I says to Archie, 'Where'd you leave your two hundred
dollars?' and he stops and swears. He'd left it under his mattress in
the cabin of the _Hattie_. And I'd left my five hundred hanging up in my
coat in the cabin of the _Hattie_, and there she was in ten fathom of
water. I broke the news to Archie.
"Archie said he'd be damned. Then: 'How'll we get out of here? For we
gotta go east after this, Alec.'
"And Johnnie Sing, listening, takes the five hundred I'd given him and
hands it to me. I don't want to take it, and he says, 'Plenty
more--see,' and with his jackknife begins opening the wadding of his
coat, and out come bills and bills and bills. All his property,
twenty-odd thousand dollars, was sewed up there in big bills. And when
'twas all out he offers it to us, telling us to help ourselves. And
Archie and me said no, the five hundred would do us to pay our way back
to Gloucester here, and meals on the way, o' course. And Johnnie, by
our advice, he comes east, too, with his little wife, and stepped off in
New York; and that's where we left him.
"A fine little team, Johnnie and his wife. And the _Hattie_? If there's
any of you never seen her, then you ought to when she was alive. A great
little vessel, the _Hattie Rennish_!"