AS she had done many times in those days of gloom and doubt, the girl
came out of her state-room and walked with me. Her companionship was
a consolation. She looked up at me from under her tousle of curls and
swung along by my side with an easy air of comradeship.
The word “comradeship” best expresses our attitude toward each other.
After that explosion of her feelings on board the lighter, when she had
kissed me in front of the whole bunch, she had coated herself with just
a little ice, and my Yankee reserve and sensitiveness detected it. It
was as though she had hinted to me that I would be a cad to presume
further because she had taken a woman’s interest in my misfortune. In
fact, she had dropped a few words in regard to women making fools of
themselves when they are too frightened to know what they are doing.
Furthermore, she stuck to that knickeroocker costume of hers, and I
found myself forgetting half the time that she was a girl, for she
clambered about over the truck aboard the old _Zizania_ as no girl
in skirts could, and never needed a hand on her trips to and from the
lighter. She wore those clothes with such frank assurance that the
garb was the only suitable one for the circumstances, with such lack
of self-consciousness, that after a few days it really seemed as if the
other men had forgotten that we had a girl aboard.
Perhaps that accounts for the fact that when one of the firemen rushed
past us a few minutes later he was using language such as he would not
have used had he been properly mindful that there was a lady in hearing.
The fireman came from the depths below-decks, and was chasing the
Russian Finn’s monkey. He was so intent on the chase that when the
fleeing monkey invaded the sanctity of the upper deck the fireman came
along, too. There were several breathless instants in that part of the
pursuit which we saw. You will recollect that this monkey had a false
end to his mutilated tail--a curved wire, which was covered with cat’s
fur. As the monkey fled, screaming and swinging the heavy end of the
tail from side to side, the hook caught, first on a stanchion, then on
a lifeboat prop. The monkey had not entirely mastered the science of
handling that new tail, or else he was too excited just then to remember
its limitations. When he had his own pliant tail it didn’t matter if a
loop hooked around an obstruction. But now when the wire hooked itself
the monkey was obliged to back up and unhook that inflexible loop. Each
time he stopped he lost all the lead he had gained on the fireman.
Four times in traversing the upper deck the coal-heaver was near enough
to make a crack at the monkey with a grate bar. Each time the monkey
unhooked himself just in time to be able to dodge and continue the
flight. Finally the fugitive made the ensign mast by a rousing leap,
shinned, up, and hung over the dingy gilded ball at the top. I don’t
understand monkey talk, but I’m sure that the yells he sent down were
just as pure profanity as that which the fireman was howling up at him.
“Hey, there, my man,” I called, “that kind of talk doesn’t belong up
here.”
He shut up, gave the monkey a long and blistering stare, and came back
toward the ladder. Sweat was running down through the soot on his face,
and that face showed that he was in no pleasant frame of mind.
“I asks to be excused,” he said, “but that--” he gulped. “Seeing that
I can’t talk about it before a lady and be polite, I asks to be excused
again and I’ll be going.”
I followed him to the head of the ladder and stopped him just as he was
on the first rounds.
“What happened?”
“We’re keeping up a little steam for the derrick windlass and the pumps,
and that gimlet-eyed, snub-nosed hellion got into the bunkers when I was
on deck, and turned on my wet-down hose, and shifted twenty tons of dust
coal out to where it’s all got to be shoveled back. I’m going down to
write out notices for a funeral and, by Jabez! I’ll guarantee to have
the corpse ready!”
“Shifted twenty tons of coal!” said I, surprised. “It must have taken
him some time.”
“I guess you don’t know what can be done in fine coal with a stream
of water when you bore it in,” snapped the fireman. “That wire-tailed
gabumpus wasn’t in there five minutes. He has laid in wait and watched
me sprinkle coal. He turned her on full bent and bored. I’ll get him,
and I’ll get him good!” His smudged face went out of sight down the
ladder.
There are some ideas in this life which steal up on a man and whisper
to him, and keep whispering for a long time, until at last he
overhears--and then he plans and toils, and in the end an invention
results.
Then there are other ideas which march up to a man and hit him on the
head.
Twenty tons of coal shifted in five minutes by a monkey and a hose! The
idea that hit me was like a hammer blow. My head wasn’t clear all
at once; I was dizzy. The details were hazy--but there was the idea
hammering at me. It was such a glorious idea that I walked aft to that
ensign mast, looked up, and took off my hat to that monkey. I know he
misunderstood my act. I know he cursed me as another enemy. But I did
not care. I had got used to being misunderstood and underrated aboard
the _Zizania_.
I turned around and found the girl looking at me with wide-open eyes.
“This isn’t insanity,” I told her. “It doesn’t run in the Sidney family.
But an idea has just come to me out of a monkey’s prank, and it’s such
a wonderful idea that I don’t dare to talk about it until I have thought
it over. I guess you’ll have to excuse me, Miss Kama; I’ve got to go
into my state-room and pound at that idea while it is hot.”
I did not sleep much that night. I was wrestling with a notion as the
old chap in the Bible wrestled with the angel. And when morning came I
was positive that an angel of a notion had come to me. I told Captain
Holstrom at breakfast that I was not going down that day. But when he
turned a doleful look at me I grinned so amiably that he snapped his
eyes, thinking, perhaps, that he was not seeing just straight.
“I’ll have something to tell you later, Captain. It’ll sound better to
you when I have made certain that we have got stuff aboard here to work
out an idea.”
That became my business after breakfast--to hunt the _Zizania_ over for
certain material. I invited Captain Holstrom along with me, and took two
men for helpers.
My first quest was for hose. The _Zizania_ carried canvas hose for
fire purposes, stacked here and there on racks. It was not in prime
condition, for the old _Zizania_ had been condemned along with her
equipment as far as Government purposes went.
We got that hose down and measured it, and found rising two hundred
feet of stuff that was serviceable. I needed three hundred feet to cover
the distance between the lighter and the wreck. I made inquiries about
canvas. The steamer had a suit of sails for her two masts, and the sails
had been unbent some time before and were stored. Before the day was
over Mate Number-two Jones had men at work cutting that canvas and
sewing it into hose of a diameter to fit the fire-hose. Of course,
it was crude work, but I was obliged to do the best I could with the
materials at hand.
That evening I called a conference. Captain Holstrom, his two mates, and
Engineer Shank assembled in the wheel-house, and I explained as best I
could what my preparations meant.
Remember, please, that at the time of which I am writing hydraulic
mining had not been tried, and men in those days had no conception of
what a stream of water would accomplish in moving soil.
I told those blinking confrères that I believed I could direct a
stream of water on that sand below the sea and bore a hole down to that
treasure. The only one in the party who showed one glimmer of enthusiasm
was Mr. Shank. And even he did not get up and hurrah. He nodded his head
sagely and admitted that “stranger things had happened.”
“But you’ve got to use our steam-donkey for your stream,” growled
Captain Holstrom, “and you can’t get the _Zizania_ any nearer shore than
this without wrecking her. You’re only planning on three hundred feet of
hose.”
“That’s all I need, Captain. Mr. Shank can build us a plunger-pump with
brakes, and we’ll put the whole crew on to the beams, and have ’em
give an imitation of a firemen’s muster.”
Mr. Shank nodded again, and allowed that “stranger things had been
done.”
“How did you happen to think of this cussed scheme, anyway?” inquired
Captain Holstrom, not trying to hide his disappointment.
I promptly decided that I would not confess that the thing had been
suggested to me by a monkey with a wire tail. I looked at the scowling
captain, and I could imagine the wealth of his language if I should tell
him any such thing. So I took all the credit to myself--and it was not
much credit I received from those solemn listeners. The most I got out
of Holstrom was the sullen statement that no matter what I did next the
situation couldn’t be any worse than it was.
The work went on the next day, and the day after, and the day after
that. It was slow business making that hose so that it would be anyway
water-tight. And the wooden force-pump took a lot of time in the
building, rude affair though it was. It had a plunger--two ends of wood
on an iron rod, and the brake-beams were long enough so that a dozen men
could get a clutch on them.
I don’t remember how much time we used up in getting our makeshift
apparatus into such shape as would warrant it being used for the trial.
I do remember this--and remember it all too well!--before we were in
readiness for the test of the hose and our pump a small schooner came
rolling up the coast and anchored well inside of us, even nearer the
wreck than our lighter from which we had been operating.
This was no customs boat. Within a few hours we abroad the _Zizania_
knew that Marcena Keedy was in command of the new arrival, and that he
had brought two divers and was full of hope and curses and brag.
Where Keedy secured his men and his craft we did not know--for social
calls were not exchanged between the two vessels. But a lot can be
accomplished in a few weeks when a man has greed to prick him, a grudge
to settle, and twenty thousand dollars to back him.
Capt. Rask Holstrom had been in the depths of despair before the arrival
of Keedy; now he found a hole leading into the subcellar of his despair,
and retreated still lower. He had no faith in my new contrivances. He
wanted me to abandon work on such folderols and go down and stand over
that treasure. He could not seem to see with my eyes. He knew that
millions in gold were at the bottom of the sea--I had recovered a sample
of it. He felt just as though it lay there unprotected, and that the
first-comer would get it. As a submarine diver who had struggled against
the difficulties of the situation, I was more serene. I didn’t know what
sort of prodigies in the diving line Keedy had secured as my rivals, but
I was not ready to admit to myself that they would succeed by ordinary
means where I had failed after exerting every ounce of effort.
Using Captain Holstrom’s long telescope, I saw them going down. They
went together. Evidently Keedy had concluded that if one diver had
failed, two ought to be twice as good, and succeed.
Captain Holstrom remained at the end of his telescope until he acquired
a permanent squint. We had hard work to get him to drop the glass long
enough to eat. Day after day, as soon as it was light in the morning,
he was in the wheel-house, balancing the glass across the window-sill,
watching Keedy’s schooner. He evidently feared and expected to see
uncounted wooden boxes of ingots come tumbling up over her rail.
My equipment had been almost ready when Keedy arrived, but now another
consideration held me back. I did not propose to let the other crowd in
on my methods if I could help it. No matter what Captain Holstrom and
his associates thought of the feasibility of the scheme, I had a lot of
confidence in it, and was not willing that a rival should know enough
about it to copy any plans.
Therefore I set my crew at work building a wall of boards about the
lighter, leaving only a door for my exit over the side. I wanted to
conceal the pumping operations. As to the divers whom I should meet
at the scene of the wreck, I trusted to other measures to conceal my
system.
I was out on the lighter to superintend the building of the wall,
and more especially to oversee the setting of the force-pump and its
attachments. I did not like the looks of the sea on that last day of our
work. It looked murky and slaty as the big rollers surged under us, and
I remembered that it showed that same color on the day when my friendly
undertow had helped me. I was tempted to go down and investigate, but I
had seen the men from Keedy’s schooner go overboard, and I concluded
to keep away from contact with them until I was ready for serious
operations.
Inclosed in my wall on the lighter, I was busy about my own affairs, and
did not peep to see what was happening in the neighborhood.
Captain Holstrom remained on the _Zizania_, in close companionship of
his only intimate of those days--his long telescope. But Kama Holstrom
was at my side while I worked, cheering me by her wise little comments,
her bright eyes taking all in, her quick mind grasping all the
possibilities of my scheme.
It was a rather cheerful little group there in our pen. Even Number-two
Jones was whistling in jig time, for all the apparatus was fitting
together as slick as a school-marm’s hand in a fur mitten. And then in
through the door burst a human thunderbolt in the form of Capt. Rask
Holstrom.
He was bareheaded and his gray hair was scruffed up like the bristling
mane of a mad bulldog. He was not able to manage words for about a
minute, but he wasn’t voiceless by any manner of means. He roared and
leaped about and smote his fists together. He picked up our hose and
flung it about himself like an insane snake charmer. He kicked at the
wooden pump with his stubtoed shoes until I was obliged to push him
away. Then he grabbed the hose once more, and reeled it about himself in
senseless fury, for all the world like a caterpillar weaving its cocoon.
His square face was a war map of rage, and in the center of that face
his red nose gleamed like a danger signal.
We stood and gaped at him. There wasn’t much else we could do as long as
he remained in that awful state. He paid no attention to his daughter’s
questions and appeals.
I took a peep through the cracks of the boarding to see whether the old
_Zizania_ were still afloat; I had a horrified suspicion that she
had sunk or burned. She floated serenely, sweeping up and down on the
crested waves.
After letting off his surplus of steam in howls, Captain Holstrom was
able to manage speech at last.
“They’ve got it!” he yelled. “They’re getting it! I’ve seen ’em pull
two boxes of it over their rail, and they’re dancing jubilee around the
deck.” He flung down the coils of hose, and stamped on it, and spat the
most vicious oaths I ever listened to.
“They’re getting it--they’ve got it--and all you’re doing here is
fooling with a damnation squirt-gun that ain’t no sense and no good--and
I told you so in the first place. Keedy was right. I ought to have stuck
to Keedy. I’ve known Keedy. He was a friend of mine till you came along
and broke us up. I had promised my girl to him. He ain’t setting around
darning second-hand canvas”--he kicked the hose--“when he ought to be up
and about, doing real business.” He rushed at me and clacked his fists
under my nose. “I’m all done with you! I’m going to Keedy and crawfish
and offer him the steamer and my equipment for a lay with him and his
men. I’ll offer him my girl. You’ll marry him if I have to hold you up
in front of the minister by the ears!” he informed her, whirling and
shaking his fists under her nose, too. “I’ve had all the silly notions
and lallygagging I propose to have, and what I say goes after this. It’s
business from now on.”
He started to plunge back through the door like a down through a hoop. A
couple of his men were holding a yawl beside the lighter.
I had used my submarine grip on Captain Holstrom once before when he was
drunk. I used it now when he was sober--and the grip held. I grabbed him
and yanked him back, slammed the door, and set myself against it.
“You can’t dissolve partnership with me in any such way,” I informed
him. “Especially not right now, just as I’ve got the world by the tail.”
“I’ll show you whether I can dissolve partnership or not,” he barked;
and he began running about the inclosure, roaring threats and peering
here and there. He was plainly hunting for a weapon of some sort in
order to beat me away from the door.
“Kama!” I called to her--the first time I had ever addressed her so
familiarly, but that was no time for niceties. “Kama, it’s no use to
plead with your father. He’s no better than a lunatic. He’s going to
throw everything into the hands of that thief of a Keedy. It mustn’t be
done!”
The captain had found a dub and was coming at me.
She put herself between us. He knew better than to raise his club
against her, and he kept dodging back and forth to get past her. He paid
no attention to her protests and appeals.
“Mr. Shank--Mr. Jones,” she cried, “take that club away from my father.
He is not in his right mind.”
“It would be mutiny--mutiny and State prison,” stammered the mate.
“I’m his daughter--I’ll go into court if it ever comes to that! I order
you to do it!”
“Keep the others off, and I’ll do it,” I said in her ear, and I rushed
past her.
Holstrom struck at me viciously, but my rush had taken him by surprise.
I caught his arm and the stick, and tore the weapon away from him. But
to down him and subdue him was a different proposition--and a very husky
job he made of it for me.
He was broad and sturdy; he was sober, and he was beside himself with
rage. The spectacle of that gold going into the hands of Keedy and his
gang had made a lunatic of him for the time being. I got no help from
the others. Men of the sea and ships, they had a wholesome tear of what
would happen to mutineers when that matter came into court. I struggled
with that old rascal until every muscle in me throbbed with the pain of
tension, and I thought the blood would burst through my face. No matter
about the details of that long fight. But at last I got him down; I
rolled him on his face. I pulled his hands together, kneeling on him,
and the girl lashed his wrists together when I appealed to her. She
lashed his legs as well, for I decided to take no chances with him while
he was in that mood.
When I got my breath I leaned over him and spoke my little piece:
“This is tough business for all of us, Captain Holstrom. I don’t know
what may come out of it. I’m prepared to take my medicine if I’ve done
wrong. But you have started in to run amuck. You ought to know what
Keedy is by this time. He has done you once. He would do you worse the
next time. If you weren’t crazy at this minute you’d realize it. I don’t
propose to stand by and see you heave your best chance over the rail in
any such fashion. I demand twenty-four hours to make good on my scheme.
Twenty-four hours--that’s all. I know how those men got that gold. I
got mine in the same way. But they won’t get any more; I know conditions
down there; I’ve been all through it. You listen to me, I say! I’m going
to take twenty-four hours--and if I’ve got to keep you tied up while I
operate, then it’s tied up you stay. I’ll take all the responsibility
of this mutiny, men,” I told the crowd on the lighter. “I’m a partner in
this expedition with a signed contract. Twenty-four hours from now I’ll
hold out my hands and let you tie me up if I haven’t made good.”
That was pretty bold talk, and I’ll confess that I did not know just
where I was going to get off. But to let Captain Holstrom run away to
that rogue of a Keedy just when I was on the eve of my experiment--to
allow Holstrom to hand over everything to that he-devil--was too
intolerable.
“We’ll take the captain back to the steamer,” I told the men. “I’m
assuming all responsibility.”
“I’ll share it with you,” said the girl, stoutly.
Captain Holstrom seemed to have lost his voice. He stared at us and
gasped like a fish newly heaved on deck. He was silent while we carried
him to his state-room on the steamer. We left him tied up well and his
daughter was his caretaker and jailer by her own choice. She was showing
the grit of a young catamount in that emergency.
All of it was about as bad as it could be. But it was going to be worse.