Stirling kept a careful record of the changes given in the course of the
_Pole Star_, and found that the little skipper was reaching for the true
great-circle route to Yokohama. This was checked by Cushner, who was a
good rule-of-thumb navigator.
They kept their observations from Whitehouse. The mate was a frugal soul
who spent much of his time driving the crew over the decks or keeping
them polishing the brass work with a sand-and-paste preparation which
was homemade and cheap.
"Hit keeps 'em from thinking of their troubles," he had declared to
Stirling. "Now that the skipper has taken charge of the poop, there
isn't much for them to do."
Stirling bided his time and kept a close watch on the quarter-deck. He
often saw Marr striding from port to starboard and back again directly
aft the wheelsman, though the canvas that had been rigged shut off most
of the view of the taffrail and the jack-staff. A position in the
crow's-nest, however, was a fair one to observe the after part of the
_Pole Star_. From this coign of vantage Stirling watched developments
with eyes which had been sharpened by suspicion and a determination to
find out the truth about the unknown woman.
Cushner climbed up through the lubber's hole on the third day of the
outbound passage, lifted himself over the edge of the crow's-nest, and
dropped down beside Stirling.
Their course had been changed a half point by Marr's orders. The wind
was southerly and came over the port quarter in soft billows of warmth.
It had been tempered by the Japan Current.
"Got a chew?" asked the second mate, resting his elbows on the edge of
the crow's-nest and squinting aft to where the mizzen sail billowed,
with the yard set sharply around.
Stirling passed over a plug. "Save me some," he said, slowly. "Go easy,
Sam. I don't often use the weed, but I may have to do something
desperate if Marr keeps changing his course. We're almost on the Japan
route. Another half point will see the great-circle route. That takes us
far up and out in the North Pacific. Wouldn't wonder if it was a
rendezvous."
"What's that?" asked Cushner, clamping his huge jaws on the plug and
parting his icicle-like beard for a second bite.
"A meeting-place. A gamming spot in the ocean!"
Cushner understood the last. "Gamming" was a term used only by whalers.
It meant visiting another ship or being visited by the afterguard of a
whaler.
"Maybe, Stirling. Maybe. Who could we gamm out in this ocean?" The
second mate swept an arm to the northward. A wild waste of harrowed
waters, stirred into whitecaps by the southern breeze, extended to a
linelike horizon. There was no speck or sail to gladden the view. It
appeared like a stretch which would reach infinity.
"How about seals?" continued Cushner.
"Ain't likely we're going after them," said Stirling.
Stirling turned and stared down upon the quarter-deck. The wheelsman--a
Kanaka--hung on the spokes with his dark eyes glued into the binnacle;
the canvas shield was too high to allow a view of the taffrail and the
cabin companion. Once only Stirling saw moving shadows against the
light, as if more than one body had passed from starboard to port. He
frowned and turned away, as there was no way to discover the exact
situation.
Cushner borrowed the plug of tobacco for a third bite, passing it back
without thanks. He stared at Stirling, lifted one huge leg over the edge
of the crow's-nest, waited till the ship steadied, and then was gone.
Stirling remained. He glance ahead over the wilderness of Northern
waters, and the soft rush of their passage charmed him. The neat manner
in which the whaler cleft the seas, the throbbing of the sweet-running
engines, gladdened his heart, and he began to whistle a little tune of
the West coast. After all, he decided, the world was not such a bad
place for a man to fight in and conquer. He had made many mistakes. He
should have commanded a ship instead of being an ice pilot. The chicken
venture and the wiping out of his scanty fortune had been unfortunate.
It had set him back five years in his ambitions.
His face lighted and grew resolute with the wine of living. He had a
code, which was the code of right. He had always played fair with seamen
and natives, and decided to see the voyage out, earn every penny he
could, then try for a ship of his own. Whalers would stake him to almost
anything. Marr might be open for an investment. The thing to do was to
keep the little skipper's good will, and watch developments, which came
fast enough.
On the seventh day after leaving the Golden Gate, a gleam of light was
thrown upon the mystery of the great-circle passage.
Stirling, Cushner, and Whitehouse stood in the waist of the ship with
nothing more to do than watch the crew lolling forward in indolent
respite from their light labours.
The sun hung high in the south with gray clouds creeping up to it like a
closing hand. The wind had veered to the south and west, and canted the
whaler ever so slightly, as all yards were braced fore and aft.
"What is the exact position?" asked Stirling, turning toward Whitehouse,
who had shot the sun and finished his figuring.
"I make it 49-52 and 179-58! We're near the Aleutians and close to the
one hundred and eightieth meridian!"
Cushner glanced at the sun. "We're about that!" he said with Yankee
shrewdness. "I can smell my position in these waters. I smell shore
stuff--fish and moss."
"It comes down the wind!" snorted the cockney with a burst of disgust.
"All the same, I don't need no sextant. All I need is a lead line and
experience."
Whitehouse gulped at this and worked his brows up and down like a
gorilla, then turned toward the after part of the ship. "Seen the
skipper?" he asked. "Seen the old man? 'E's been shaved--'e 'as! 'E
looks fine--'e does!"
"Shaved?" exclaimed Stirling, wheeling and staring at the quarter-deck.
"What do you mean? Has he taken off his beard?"
"You're blym well right, 'e 'as! I wouldn't know 'im! Looks like a
regular, 'e does. All spick and span. 'E was askin' about our position
not a bell ago. 'E's expectin' to meet with something on these seas.
Likely it will be another ship!"
"You and he are rather thick," suggested Stirling.
"As thick as costermongers--once! Now 'e's retired from view like a
loidy of the music 'alls. I don't know what to think."
The mate was evidently in earnest, and Stirling eyed him sharply, then
turned away and stared at Cushner. The Yankee hitched up his beard and
thrust it under the collar of his soiled pea-jacket--then started as he
glared toward the poop.
"Old man wants you," he said. "He's callin' you, Mr. Whitehouse."
The cockney mate braced his shoulders and hurried aft to the poop steps
on the weather side. He mounted them and disappeared behind the canvas
where Marr had sauntered.
"What do you think?" asked Cushner.
"Nothing yet, Sam. Hold your jaw tackle. Where did you first meet with
Whitehouse?"
"The same day you was shanghaied. He came across the States by rail. He
brought two dunnage bags and a whacking accent with him. Had papers, all
right. Said he'd been in the British navy. I asked him why he left."
"What did he say?"
"He said it was a mere matter of five thousand pounds. That's just what
he said. That's money, isn't it?"
"Considerable money! I wonder if he is under obligations to Marr in any
way?"
"Might be. Looks mighty like it. At that, the old man isn't telling
anybody anything. He owns the ship. He's got a right to whale and seal
and trade with the natives. Nothing's going to stop him doing that."
"Not if he goes after pelagic seals and keeps within the law."
"Why is he working in these waters?"
Stirling did not answer this question, but stared forward and directly
at the watch on deck. He counted them, searching for the seaman who had
put up the fight when brought aboard. He was not in evidence.
"I wonder," asked Stirling, with a pucker on his brow, "if Marr expects
that crew to follow him in a lawless enterprise? Outside of three or
four, I know them from hearsay. They're drifters. They expect nothing
but an iron dollar. Larribee hasn't paid a whaling hand a cent over the
legal dollar in five seasons. He figures the advance money and the stuff
they draw from the slop-chest is enough for sea scum. He has no heart at
all!"
"Dirty work!"
"It is," said Stirling, sincerely. "Particularly when they don't even
get the advance money. The boarding-house keepers, crimps, and runners
get that. They furnish a man with an outfit and a dunnage bag. The
outfit consists of a 'donkey's breakfast' for a mattress and a pair of
pasteboard sea boots which will melt under the first hose. That's no way
to send a man North!"
Cushner glanced at the Ice Pilot. He shook his head. "You're sticking up
for poor Jack," he said. "That's no more than right. The laws are all
for the owners and the boarding-house crimps. Poor Jack is friendless.
What can he do?"
"There's seamen and seamen, Sam! There's the coasting crews and the
deep-water bunch who know enough to get big wages and hold to the Union.
The ones who suffer are boys like we got forward. They have no chance;
they work eight months for an iron dollar and are cheated out of that!"
Cushner slanted his eyes forward. "They don't look as if they'd care
what happened," he said. "Marr, or anybody else, could give them a good
argument and they'd follow him to the end of the world. Five square
faces of gin and tobacco would buy the whole fo'c's'le."
Stirling lifted his strong shoulders expressively. "You're partly
right!" he admitted. "I wouldn't blame them, either. But you're here and
I'm here, and we're going to see that this ship keeps within the law."