PART III

A Northeast gale off Hatteras: immense gray combers, five to the mile,

charging shoreward, occasionally breaking, again lifting their heads

too high in the effort, truncated as by a knife, and the liquid apex

shattered to spray; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the

rain-squalls, across which heavy background rushed the darker scud and

storm-clouds; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and

a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward

of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-center. This is the

picture that the sea-birds saw at daybreak on a September morning, and

could the sea-birds have spoken they might have told that the

square-rigged craft carried a navigator who had learned that a whirling

fury of storm-center was less to be feared than the deadly Diamond

Shoals--the outlying guard of Cape Hatteras toward which that steamer

was drifting, broadside on.

Clad in yellow oilskins and sou'wester, he stood by the

after-companionway, intently examining through a pair of glasses the

wallowing steamer to leeward, barely distinguishable in the half-light

and driving spindrift. On the main-deck a half-dozen men paced up and

down, sheltered by the weather rail; forward, two others walked the

deck by the side of the forward house, but never allowed their march to

extend past the after-corner; and at the wheel stood a little man who

sheltered a cheerful face under the lee of a big coat-collar, and

occasionally peeped out at the navigator.

"Poop-deck," he shouted above the noise of the wind, "take the wheel

till I fire up."

"Thought I was exempt from steering," growled the other,

good-humoredly, as he placed the glasses inside the companionway.

"You're getting too fat and sassy; steer a little."

Poop-deck relieved the little man, who descended the cabin stairs, and

returned in a few moments, smoking a short pipe. He took the wheel, and

Poop-deck again examined the steamer with the glasses.

"There goes his ensign, union down," he exclaimed; "he's in trouble.

We'll show ours."

From a flag-locker inside the companionway he drew out the Stars and

Stripes, which he ran up to the monkey-gaff. Then he looked again.

"Down goes his ensign; up goes the code pennant. He wants to signal.

Come up here, boys," called Poop-deck; "give me a hand."

As the six men climbed the steps, he pulled out the corresponding code

signal from the locker, and ran it up on the other part of the halyards

as the ensign fluttered down. "Go down, one of you," he said, "and get

the signal-book and shipping-list. He'll show his number next. Get ours

ready--R. L. F. T."

While a man sprang below for the books named, the others hooked

together the signal-flags forming the ship's number, and Poop-deck

resumed the glasses.

"Q. T. F. N.," he exclaimed. "Look it up."

The books had arrived, and while one lowered and hoisted again the code

signal, which was also the answering pennant, the others pored over the

shipping-list.

"Steamer _Aldebaran_ of New York," they said.

The pennant came down, and the ship's number went up to the gaff.

"H. V.," called Poop-deck, as he scanned two flags now flying from the

steamer's truck. "What does that say?"

"Damaged rudder--cannot steer," they answered.

"Pull down the number and show the answering pennant again," said

Poop-deck; "and let me see that signal-book." He turned the leaves,

studied a page for a moment, then said: "Run up H. V. R. That says,

'What do you want?' and that's the nearest thing to it."

These flags took the place of the answering pennant at the gaff-end,

and again Poop-deck watched through the glasses, noting first the

showing of the steamer's answering pennant, then the letters K. R. N.

"What does K. R. N. say?" he asked.

They turned the leaves, and answered: "I can tow you."

"Tow us? We're all right; we don't want a tow. He's crazy. How can he

tow us when he can't steer?" exclaimed three or four together.

"He wants to tow us so that he _can_ steer, you blasted fools," said

Poop-deck. "He can keep head to sea and go where he likes with a big

drag on his stern."

"That's so. Where's he bound--'you that has knowledge and eddication'?"

"Didn't say; but he's bound for the Diamond Shoals, and he'll fetch up

in three hours, if we can't help him. He's close in."

"Tow-line's down the forepeak," said a man. "Couldn't get it up in an

hour," said another. "Yes, we can," said a third. Then, all speaking at

once, and each raising his voice to its limit, they argued excitedly:

"Can't be done." "Coil it on the forecastle." "Yes, we can." "Too much

sea." "Run down to wind'ard." "Line 'ud part, anyhow." "Float a

barrel." "Shut up." "I tell you, we can." "Call the watch." "Seldom,

yer daft." "Needn't get a boat over." "Hell ye can." "Call the boys."

"All hands with heavin'-lines." "Can't back a topsail in this." "Go lay

down." "Soak yer head, Seldom." "Hush." "Shut up." "Nothing _you_ can't

do." "Go to the devil." "I tell you, we can; do as I say, and we'll get

a line to him, or get his."

The affirmative speaker, who had also uttered the last declaration, was

Seldom Helward. "Put me in command," he yelled excitedly, "and do what

I tell you, and we'll make fast to him."

"No captains here," growled one, while the rest eyed Seldom

reprovingly.

"Well, there ought to be; you're all rattled, and don't know any more

than to let thousands o' dollars slip past you. There's salvage down to

looward."

"Salvage?"

"Yes, salvage. Big boat--full o' passengers and valuable cargo--shoals

to looward of him--can't steer. You poor fools, what ails you?"

"Foller Seldom," vociferated the little man at the wheel; "foller

Seldom, and ye'll wear stripes."

"Dry up, Sinful. Call the watch. It's near seven bells, anyhow. Let's

hear what the rest say. Strike the bell."

The uproarious howl with which sailors call the watch below was

delivered down the cabin stairs, and soon eight other men came up,

rubbing their eyes and grumbling at the premature wakening, while

another man came out of the forecastle and joined the two pacing the

forward deck. Seldom Helward's proposition was discussed noisily in

joint session on the poop, and finally accepted.

"We put you in charge, Seldom, against the rule," said Bigpig Monahan,

sternly, "'cause we think you've some good scheme in your head; but if

you haven't,--if you make a mess of things just to have a little fun

bossin' us,--you'll hear from us. Go ahead, now. You're captain."

Seldom climbed to the top of the after-house, looked to windward, then

to leeward at the rolling steamer, and called out:

"I want more beef at the wheel. Bigpig, take it; and you, Turkey, stand

by with him. Get away from there, Sinful. Give her the upper

maintopsail, the rest of you. Poop-deck, you stand by the

signal-halyards. Ask him if he's got a tow-line ready."

Protesting angrily at the slight put upon him, Sinful Peck relinquished

the wheel, and joined the rest on the main-deck, where they had

hurried. Two men went aloft to loose the topsail, and the rest cleared

away gear, while Poop-deck examined the signal-book.

"K. S. G. says, 'Have a tow-line ready.' That ought to do, Seldom," he

called.

"Run it up," ordered the newly installed captain, "and watch his

answer." Up went the signal, and as the men on the main-deck were

manning the topsail-halyards, Poop-deck made out the answer: "V. K. C."

"That means 'All right,' Seldom," he said, after inspecting the book.

"Good enough; but we'll get our line ready, too. Get down and help 'em

mast-head the yard first, then take 'em forrard and coil the tow-line

abaft the windlass. Get all the heavin'-lines ready, too."

Poop-deck obeyed; and while the main-topsail-yard slowly arose to place

under the efforts of the rest, Seldom himself ran up the answering

pennant, and then the repetition of the steamer's last message: "All

right." This was the final signal displayed between the two craft. Both

signal-flags were lowered, and for a half-hour Seldom waited, until the

others had lifted a nine-inch hawser from the forepeak and coiled it

down. Then came his next orders in a continuous roar:

"Three hands aft to the spanker-sheet! Stand by to slack off and haul

in! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! Hard up the

wheel! Check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! Shiver the

topsail! Slack off that spanker!"

Before he had finished the men had reached their posts. The orders were

obeyed. The ship paid off, staggered a little in the trough under the

right-angle pressure of the gale, swung still farther, and steadied

down to a long, rolling motion, dead before the wind, heading for the

steamer. Yards were squared in, the spanker hauled aft, staysail

trimmed to port, and all hands waited while the ship charged down the

two miles of intervening sea.

"Handles like a yacht," muttered Seldom, as, with brow wrinkled and

keen eye flashing above his hooked nose, he conned the steering from

his place near the mizzenmast.

Three men separated themselves from the rest and came aft. They were

those who had walked the forward deck. One was tall, broad-shouldered,

and smooth-shaven, with a palpable limp; another, short, broad, and

hairy, showed a lamentable absence of front teeth; and the third, a

blue-eyed man, slight and graceful of movement, carried his arm in

splints and sling. This last was in the van as they climbed the poop

steps.

"I wish to protest," he said. "I am captain of this ship under the law.

I protest against this insanity. No boat can live in this sea. No help

can be given that steamer."

"And I bear witness to the protest," said the tall man. The short,

hairy man might have spoken also, but had no time.

"Get off the poop," yelled Seldom. "Go forrard, where you belong." He

stood close to the bucket-rack around the skylight. Seizing bucket

after bucket, he launched them at his visitors, with the result that

the big man was tumbled down the poop steps head first, while the other

two followed, right side up, but hurriedly, and bearing some sore

spots. Then the rest of the men set upon them, much as a pack of dogs

would worry strange cats, and kicked and buffeted them forward.

There was no time for much amusement of this sort. Yards were braced to

port, for the ship was careering down toward the steamer at a ten-knot

rate; and soon black dots on her rail resolved into passengers waving

hats and handkerchiefs, and black dots on the boat deck resolved into

sailors standing by the end of a hawser which led up from the bitts

below on the fantail. And the ship came down, until it might have

seemed that Seldom's intention was to ram her. But not so; when a scant

two lengths separated the two craft, he called out: "Hard down! Light

up the staysail-sheet and stand by the forebraces!"

Around the ship came on the crest of a sea; she sank into the hollow

behind, shipped a few dozen tons of water from the next comber, and then

lay fairly steady, with her bow meeting the seas, and the huge steamer

not a half-length away on the lee quarter. The fore-topmast-staysail was

flattened, and Seldom closely scrutinized the drift and heave of the ship.

"How's your wheel, Bigpig?" he asked.

"Hard down."

"Put it up a little; keep her in the trough."

He noted the effect on the ship of this change; then, as though

satisfied, roared out: "Let your forebraces hang, forrard there! Stand

by heavin'-lines fore and aft! Stand by to go ahead with that steamer

when we have your line!" The last injunction, delivered through his

hands, went down the wind like a thunder-clap, and the officers on the

steamer's bridge, vainly trying to make themselves heard against the

gale in the same manner, started perceptibly at the impact of sound,

and one went to the engine-room speaking-tube.

Breast to breast the two vessels lifted and fell. At times it seemed

that the ship was to be dropped bodily on the deck of the steamer; at

others, her crew looked up a streaked slope of a hundred feet to where

the other craft was poised at the crest. Then the steamer would drop,

and the next sea would heave the ship toward her. But it was noticeable

that every bound brought her nearer to the steamer, and also farther

ahead, for her sails were doing their work.

"Kick ahead on board the steamer!" thundered Seldom from his eminence.

"Go ahead! Start the wagon, or say your prayers, you blasted idiots!"

The engines were already turning; but it takes time to overcome three

thousand tons of inertia, and before the steamer had forged ahead six

feet the ship had lifted above her, and descended her black side with a

grinding crash of wood against iron. Fore and main channels on the ship

were carried away, leaving all lee rigging slack and useless; lower

braces caught in the steamer's davit-cleats and snapped, but the sails,

held by the weather braces, remained full, and the yards did not swing.

The two craft separated with a roll and came together again with more

scraping and snapping of rigging. Passengers left the rail, dived

indoors, and took refuge on the opposite side, where falling blocks and

small spars might not reach them. Another leap toward the steamer

resulted in the ship's maintopgallantmast falling in a zigzag whirl, as

the snapping gear aloft impeded it; and dropping athwart the steamer's

funnel, it neatly sent the royal-yard with sail attached down the iron

cylinder, where it soon blazed and helped the artificial draft in the

stoke-hold. Next came the foretopgallantmast, which smashed a couple of

boats. Then, as the round black stern of the steamer scraped the lee

bow of the ship, jib-guys parted, and the jib-boom itself went, snapping

at the bowsprit-cap, with the last bite the ship made at the steamer

she was helping. But all through this riot of destruction--while

passengers screamed and prayed, while officers on the steamer shouted

and swore, and Seldom Helward, bellowing insanely, danced up and down

on the ship's house, and the hail of wood and iron from aloft threatened

their heads--men were passing the tow-line.

It was a seven-inch steel hawser with a Manila tail, which they had

taken to the foretopsail-sheet bitts before the jib-boom had gone.

Panting from their exertions, they watched it lift from the water as

the steamer ahead paid out with a taut strain; then, though the

crippled spars were in danger of falling and really needed their first

attention, they ignored the fact and hurried aft, as one man, to attend

to Seldom.

Encouraged by the objurgations of Bigpig and his assistant, who were

steering now after the steamer, they called their late commander down

from the house and deposed him in a concert of profane ridicule and

abuse, to which he replied in kind. He was struck in the face by the

small fist of Sinful Peck, and immediately knocked the little man down.

Then he was knocked down himself by a larger fist, and, fighting

bravely and viciously, became the object of fist-blows and kicks,

until, in one of his whirling staggers along the deck, he passed close

to the short, broad, hairy man, who yielded to the excitement of the

moment and added a blow to Seldom's punishment. It was an unfortunate

mistake; for he took Seldom's place, and the rain of fists and boots

descended on him until he fell unconscious. Mr. Helward himself

delivered the last quieting blow, and then stood over him with a lurid

grin on his bleeding face.

"Got to put down mutiny though the heavens fall," he said painfully.

"Right you are, Seldom," answered one. "Here, Jackson, Benson--drag him

forrard; and, Seldom," he added, reprovingly, "don't you ever try it

again. Want to be captain, hey? You can't; you don't know enough. You

couldn't command my wheelbarrow. Here's three days' work to clear up

the muss you've made."

But in this they spoke more, and less, than the truth. The steamer,

going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each

quarter, kept the ship's canvas full until her crew had steadied the

yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer-stays and

shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not.

An uncanny appearance of the sea to leeward indicated too close

proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to windward told

of probable increase of wind and sea. And the steamer waited no longer.

With a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the

ship on the starboard bridle, gave power to her engines, and rounded

to, very slowly, head to sea, while the men on the ship, who had been

carrying the end of the coiled hawser up the foretopmast rigging,

dropped it and came down hurriedly.

Released from the wind-pressure on her strong side, which had somewhat

steadied her, the ship now rolled more than she had done in the trough,

and with every starboard roll were ominous creakings and grindings

aloft. At last came a heavier lurch, and both crippled topmasts fell,

taking with them the mizzentopgallantmast. Luckily, no one was hurt,

and they disgustedly cut the wreck adrift, stayed the fore- and

mainmasts with the hawser, and resigning themselves to a large

subtraction from their salvage, went to a late breakfast--a savory meal

of smoking fried ham and potatoes, hot cakes and coffee served to

sixteen in the cabin, and an unsavory meal of "hardtack-hash," with an

infusion of burnt bread-crust, pease, beans, and leather, handed, but

not served, to three in the forecastle.

Three days later, with Sandy Hook lighthouse showing through the haze

ahead, and nothing left of the gale but a rolling ground-swell, the

steamer slowed down so that a pilot-boat's dinghy could put a man

aboard each craft. And the one who climbed the ship's side was the

pilot that had taken her to sea, outward bound, and sympathized with

her crew. They surrounded him on the poop and asked for news, while the

three men forward looked aft hungrily, as though they would have joined

the meeting, but dared not. Instead of giving news, the pilot asked

questions, which they answered.

"I knew you'd taken charge, boys," he said at length. "The whole world

knows it, and every man-of-war on the Pacific stations has been looking

for you. But they're only looking out there. What brings you round

here, dismasted, towing into New York?"

"That's where the ship's bound--New York. We took her out; we bring her

home. We don't want her--don't belong to us. We're law-abidin' men."

"Law-abiding men?" asked the amazed pilot.

"You bet. We're goin' to prosecute those dogs of ours forrard there to

the last limit o' the law. We'll show 'em they can't starve and hammer

and shoot free-born Americans just 'cause they've got guns in their

pockets."

The pilot looked forward, nodded to one of the three, who beckoned to

him, and asked:

"Who'd you elect captain?"

"Nobody," they roared. "We had enough o' captains. This ship's an

unlimited democracy--everybody just as good as the next man; that is,

all but the dogs. They sleep on the bunk-boards, do as they're told,

and eat salt mule and dunderfunk--same as we did goin' out."

"Did they navigate for you? Did no one have charge of things?"

"Poop-deck picked up navigation, and we let him off steerin' and

standin' lookout. Then Seldom, here, he wanted to be captain just once,

and we let him--well, look at our spars."

"Poop-deck? Which is Poop-deck? Do you mean to say," asked the pilot

when the navigator had been indicated to him, "that you brought this

ship home on picked-up navigation?"

"Didn't know anything about it when we left Callao," answered the

sailor, modestly. "The steward knew enough to wind the chronometer

until I learned how. We made an offing and steered due south, while I

studied the books and charts. It didn't take me long to learn how to

take the sun. Then we blundered round the Horn somehow, and before long

I could take chronometer sights for the longitude. Of course I know we

went out in four months and used up five to get back; but a man can't

learn the whole thing in one passage. We lost some time, too, chasing

other ships and buying stores; the cabin grub gave out."

"You bought, I suppose, with Captain Benson's money."

"S'pose it was his. We found it in his desk. But we've kept account of

every cent expended, and bought no grub too good for a white man to

eat."

"What dismasted you?"

They explained the meeting with the steamer and Seldom's misdoing; then

requested information about the salvage laws.

"Boys," said the pilot, "I'm sorry for you. I saw the start of this

voyage, and you appear to be decent men. You'll get no salvage; you'll

get no wages. You are mutineers and pirates, with no standing in court.

Any salvage which the _Almena_ has earned will be paid to her owners

and to the three men whom you deprived of command. What you can

get--the maximum, though I can't say how hard the judge will lay it

on--is ten years in state's prison, and a fine of two thousand dollars

each. We'll have to stop at quarantine. Take my advice: if you get a

chance, lower the boats and skip."

They laughed at the advice. They were American citizens who respected

the law. They had killed no one, robbed no one; their wages and

salvage, independently of insurance liabilities, would pay for the

stores bought, and the loss of the spars. They had no fear of any court

of justice in the land; for they had only asserted their manhood and

repressed inhuman brutality.

The pilot went forward, talked awhile with the three, and left them

with joyous faces. An hour later he pointed out the _Almena's_ number

flying from the masthead of the steamer.

"He's telling on you, boys," he said. "He knew you when you helped him,

and used you, of course. Your reputation's pretty bad on the high seas.

See that signal-station ashore there? Well, they're telegraphing now

that the pirate _Almena_ is coming in. You'll see a police boat at

quarantine."

He was but partly right. Not only a police boat, but an outward-bound

man-of-war and an incoming revenue cutter escorted the ship to

quarantine, where the tow-line was cast off, and an anchor dropped.

Then, in the persons of a scandalized health-officer, a naval captain,

a revenue-marine lieutenant, and a purple-faced sergeant of the

steamboat squad, the power of the law was rehabilitated on the

_Almena's_ quarter-deck, and the strong hand of the law closed down on

her unruly crew. With blank faces, they discarded--to shirts, trousers,

and boots--the slop-chest clothing which belonged to the triumphant

Captain Benson, and descended the side to the police boat, which

immediately steamed away. Then a chuckling trio entered the ship's

cabin, and ordered the steward to bring them something to eat.

* * * * *

Now, there is no record either in the reports for that year of the

police department, or from any official babbling, or from later yarns

spun by the sixteen prisoners, of what really occurred on the deck of

that steamer while she was going up the bay. Newspapers of the time

gave generous space to speculations written up on the facts discovered

by reporters; but nothing was ever proved. The facts were few. A tug

met the steamer in the Narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning,

and her captain, on being questioned, declared that all seemed well

with her. The prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers

and a sergeant. A little after twelve o'clock a Battery boatman

observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a

look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her

heading up the North River, past the Battery. A watchman on the

elevator docks at Sixty-third Street observed her charging up the river

a little later in the afternoon, wondered why, and spoke of it. The

captain of the _Mary Powel_, bound up, reported catching her abreast of

Yonkers. He had whistled as he passed, and though no one was in sight,

the salute was politely answered. At some time during the night,

residents of Sing Sing were wakened by a sound of steam blowing off

somewhere on the river; and in the morning a couple of fishermen, going

out to their pond-nets in the early dawn, found the police boat

grounded on the shoals. On boarding her they had released a pinioned,

gagged, and hungry captain in the pilot-house, and an engineer,

fireman, and two deck-hands, similarly limited, in the lamp-room.

Hearing noises from below, they pried open the nailed doors of the

dining-room staircase, and liberated a purple-faced sergeant and eight

furious officers, who chased their deliverers into their skiff, and

spoke sternly to the working-force.

Among the theories advanced was one, by the editor of a paper in a

small Lake Ontario town, to the effect that it made little difference

to an Oswego sailor whether he shipped as captain, mate, engineer,

sailor, or fireman, and that the officers of the New York Harbor Patrol

had only under-estimated the caliber of the men in their charge,

leaving them unguarded while they went to dinner. But his paper and

town were small and far away, he could not possibly know anything of

the subject, and his opinion obtained little credence.

Years later, however, he attended, as guest, a meeting and dinner of

the Shipmasters' and Pilots' Association of Cleveland, Ohio, when a

resolution was adopted to petition the city for a harbor police

service. Captain Monahan, Captain Helward, Captain Peck, and Captain

Cahill, having spoken and voted in the negative, left their seats on

the adoption of the proposition, reached a clear spot on the floor,

shook hands silently, and then, forming a ring, danced around in a

circle (the tails of their coats standing out in horizontal rigidity)

until reproved by the chair.

And the editor knew why.

THE BRAIN OF THE BATTLE-SHIP

Build an inverted Harvey-steel box about eight feet high, one hundred

and fifty feet long, half as wide, with walls of eighteen-inch

thickness, and a roof of three, and you have strong protection against

shot and shell. Build up from the ends of the box two steel barbettes

with revolving turrets as heavy as your side-walls; place in each a

pair of thirteen-inch rifles; flank these turrets with four others of

eight-inch wall, each holding two eight-inch guns; these again with

four smaller, containing four six-inch guns, and you have power of

offense nearly equal to your protection. Loosely speaking, a modern

gun-projectile will, at short range, pierce steel equal to itself in

cross-section, and from an elevated muzzle will travel as many miles as

this cross-section measures in inches. Placed upon an outlying shoal,

this box with its guns would make an efficient fortress, but would lack

the advantage of being able to move and choose position.

Build underneath and each way from the ends of the box a cellular hull

to float it; place within it, and below the box, magazines, boilers,

and engines; construct above, between the turrets, a lighter

superstructure to hold additional quick-fire guns and torpedo-tubes;

cap the whole with a military mast supporting fighting-tops, and

containing an armored conning-tower in its base; man and equip,

provision and coal the fabric, and you can go to sea, confident of your

ability to destroy everything that floats, except icebergs and other

battle-ships.

Of these essentials was the first-class coast-defense battle-ship

_Argyll_. She was of ten thousand tons displacement, and was propelled

by twin screws which received ten thousand horse-power from twin

engines placed below the water-line. Three long tubes--one fixed in the

stem, two movable in the superstructure--could launch Whitehead

torpedoes,--mechanical fish carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of

guncotton in their heads,--which sought in the water a twenty-foot

depth, and hurried where pointed at a thirty-knot rate of speed. Their

impact below the water-line was deadly, and only equaled in effect by

the work of the ram-bow, the blow of the ship as a whole--the last

glorious, suicidal charge on an enemy that had dismounted the guns, if

such could happen.

Besides her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch guns, she carried a

secondary quick-fire battery of twenty six-pounders, four one-pounders,

and four Gatling guns distributed about the superstructure and in the

fighting-tops. The peculiar efficacy of this battery lay in its menace

to threatening torpedo-boats, and its hostility to range-finders,

big-gun sights, and opposing gunners. A torpedo-boat, receiving the

full attention of her quick-fire battery, could be disintegrated and

sunk in a yeasty froth raised by the rain of projectiles long before

she could come within range of torpedo action; while a simultaneous

discharge of all guns would distribute over seven thousand pounds of

metal with foot-tons of energy sufficient to lift the ship herself high

out of water. Bristling, glistening, and massive, a reservoir of death

potential, a center of radiant destruction, a spitting, chattering,

thundering epitome of racial hatred, she bore within her steel walls

the ever-growing burden of progressive human thought. She was a maker

of history, a changer of boundaries, a friend of young governments; and

it chanced that on a fine tropical morning, in company with three

armored cruisers, four protected cruisers, and a fleet of torpedo-boats

and destroyers, she went into action.

She was stripped to bare steel and signal-halyards. Davits, anchors,

and cables were stowed and secured. Ladders, gratings, stanchions, and

all movable deck-fittings were below the water-line. Wooden bulkheads,

productive of splinters, were knocked down and discarded, while all

boats, with the plugs out, were overboard, riding to a sea-anchor made

up of oars and small spars.

The crew was at quarters. Below, in the magazine, handling-rooms,

stoke-holds, and bunkers, bare-waisted men worked and waited in

stifling heat; for she was under forced draft, and compartments were

closed, even though the enemy was still five miles away. The chief and

his first assistant engineer watched the main engines in their twin

compartments, while the subordinate aids and machinists attended to the

dynamos, motors, and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets,

pumps, and ammunition-hoists. All boilers were hot and hissing steam;

all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting

streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one

another while they waited.

In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer

above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the

quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the

fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the

one-pounders and Gatling guns--the easiest-minded of the ship's

company, for they could see and breathe. Each division of fighters and

workers was overseen by an officer; in some cases by two and three.

Preparatory work was done, and, excepting the "black gang," men were

quiescent, but feverish. Few spoke, and then on frivolous things, in

tones that were not recognized. Occasionally a man would bring out a

piece of paper and write, using for a desk a gun-breech or -carriage, a

turret-wall, or the deck. An officer in a fighting-top used a

telegraph-dial, and a stoker in the depths his shovel, in a chink of

light from the furnace. These letters, written in instalments, were

pocketed in confidence that sometime they would be mailed.

From the captain down each man knew that a large proportion of their

number was foredoomed; but not a consciousness among them could admit

the possibility of itself being chosen. The great first law forbade it.

Senior officers pictured in their minds dead juniors, and thought of

extra work after the fight. Junior officers thought of vacancies above

them and promotion. Men in the turrets bade mental good-by to their

mates in the superstructure; and these, secure in their five-inch

protection, pitied those in the fighting-tops, where, cold logic says,

no man may live through a sea-fight. Yet all would have volunteered to

fill vacancies aloft. The healthy human mind can postulate suffering,

but not its own extinction.

In a circular apartment in the military mast, protected by twelve

inches of steel, perforated by vertical and horizontal slits for

observation, stood the captain and navigating officer, both in

shirt-sleeves; for this, the conning-tower, was hot. Around the inner

walls were the nerve-terminals of the structure--the indicators,

telegraph-dials, telephones, push-buttons, and speaking-tubes, which

communicated with gun-stations, turrets, steering-room, engine-rooms,

and all parts of the ship where men were stationed. In the forward part

was a binnacle with small steering-wheel, disconnected now, for the

steering was done by men below the water-line in the stern. A spiral

staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first

fighting-top above, in which staircase were small platforms where a

signal-officer and two quartermasters watched through slits the signals

from the flag-ship, and answered as directed by the captain below with

small flags, which they mastheaded through the hollow within the

staircase.

The chief master-at-arms, bareheaded, climbed into the conning-tower.

"Captain Blake, what'll we do with Finnegan?" he said. "I've released

him from the brig as you ordered; but Mr. Clarkson won't have him in

the turret where he belongs, and no one else wants him around. They

even chased him out of the bunkers. He wants to work and fight, but Mr.

Clarkson won't place him; says he washes his hands of Finnegan, and

sent me to you. I took him to the bay, but he won't take medicine."

Captain Blake, stern of face and kindly of eye, drew back from a

peep-hole, and asked: "What's his condition?"

"Shaky, sir. Sees little spiders and big spiders crawling round his

cap-rim. Him and the recording angel knows where he gets it and where

he keeps it, sir; but I don't. I've watched him for six months."

"Send him to me."

"Very good, sir."

The master-at-arms descended, and in a few moments the unwanted

Finnegan appeared--a gray-bearded, emaciated, bleary-eyed seaman, who

brushed imaginary things from his neck and arms, and stammered, as he

removed his cap: "Report for duty, sir."

"For duty?" answered the captain, eying him sternly. "For death. You

will be allowed the honorable death of an English seaman. You will die

in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours."

The man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it,

but said nothing, while Mr. Dalrymple, the navigating officer, with his

eyes at a peep-hole and his ears open to the dialogue, wondered (as he

and the whole ship's company had wondered before) what the real

relation was between the captain and this wretched, drunken butt of the

crew. For the captain's present attitude was a complete departure.

Always he had shielded Finnegan from punishment to the extent that

naval etiquette would permit.

"I have tried for six years," continued the captain, "to reform you and

hold you to the manhood I once knew in you; but I give you up. You are

not fit to live, and will never be fitter to die than this morning,

when the chance comes to you to die fighting for your country. But I

want you to die fighting. Do you wish to see the surgeon or the

chaplain?"

"No, no, no, cappen; one's bad as t' other. The chaplain'll pray and

the doctor'll fill me up wi' bromide, and it just makes me crazy, sir.

I'm all right, cappen, if I only had a drink. Just give me a drink,

cappen,--the doctor won't,--and send me down to my station, sir. I know

it's only in my head, but I see 'em plain, all round. You'll give me a

drink, cappen, please; I know you'll give me a drink."

He brushed his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an

isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake's stern face softened. His mind

went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an

icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a

shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, until this man's

face, young, strong, and cheery then, appeared behind a white

life-buoy; and he heard again the panting voice of his rescuer: "Here

ye are, Mr. Blake; boat's comin'."

He whistled down the speaking-tube, and when answered, called: "Send an

opened bottle of whisky into the conning-tower--no glasses."

"Thankee, sir."

The captain resumed his position at the peep-hole, and Finnegan busied

himself with his troubles until a Japanese servant appeared with a

quart bottle. The captain received it, and the Jap withdrew.

"Help yourself, Finnegan," said the captain, extending the bottle;

"take a good drink--a last one." Finnegan took the equivalent of three.

"Now, up with you." The captain stood the bottle under the binnacle.

"Upper top. Report to Mr. Bates."

"Cappen, please send me down to the turret where I b'long, sir. I'm all

right now. I don't want to go up there wi' the sogers. I'm not good at

machine-guns."

"No arguments. Up with you at once. You are good for nothing but to

work a lever under the eye of an officer."

Finnegan saluted silently and turned toward the stairs.

"Finnegan!"

He turned. The captain extended his hand. "Finnegan," he said, "I don't

forget that night, but you must go; the eternal fitness of things

demands it. Perhaps I'll go, too. Good-by."

The two extremes of the ship's company shook hands, and Finnegan

ascended. When past the quartermasters and out of hearing, he grumbled

and whined: "No good, hey? Thirty years in the service, and sent up

here to think of my sins like a sick monkey. Good for nothin' but to

turn a crank with the sogers. Nice job for an able seaman. What's the

blasted service a-comin' to?"

The two fleets were approaching in similar formation, double column, at

about a twelve-knot speed. Leading the left column was the _Lancaster_,

and following came the _Argyll_, _Beaufort_, and _Atholl_, the last

two, like the _Lancaster_, armored cruisers of the first class. On the

_Lancaster's_ starboard bow was the flag-ship _Cumberland_, a large

unarmored cruiser, and after her came the _Marlborough_, _Montrose_,

and _Sutherland_, unarmored craft like the flag-ship, equally

vulnerable to fire, the two columns making a zigzag line, with the

heaviest ships to the left, nearest the enemy.

Heading as they were, the fleets would pass about a mile apart. Led

by a black, high-sided monster, the left column of the enemy was made

up of four battle-ships of uncouth, foreign design and murderous

appearance, while the right column contained the flag-ship and three

others, all heavily armored cruisers. Flanking each fleet, far to the

rear, were torpedo-boats and destroyers.

"We're outclassed, Dalrymple," said Captain Blake. "There are the ships

we expected--_Warsaw_, _Riga_, _Kharkov_, and _Moscow_, all of fighting

weight, and the _Obdorsk_, _Tobolsk_, _Saratov_, and _Orenburg_.

Leaving out the _Argyll_, we haven't a ship equal to the weakest one

there. This fight is the _Argyll's_."

"And the _Argyll_ is equal to it, captain. All I fear is torpedoes. Of

course our ends and superstructure will catch it, and I suppose we'll

lose men--all the quick-fire men, perhaps."

"Those in the tops surely," said the captain. "Dalrymple, what do you

think? I don't feel right about Finnegan. He belongs in the turret, and

I've sentenced him. Have I the right? I've half a mind to call him

down." He pushed a button marked "Forward turret," and listened at a

telephone.

"Mr. Clarkson!" he called. "I've put your man Finnegan in the upper

top; but he seems all right now. Can you use him?"

The answer came:

"No, sir; I've filled his place."

"Die, then. On my soul be it, Finnegan, poor devil," muttered the

captain, gloomily.

His foot struck the bottle under the binnacle, and, on an impulse due

to his mood, he picked it up and uncorked it. Mr. Dalrymple observed

the action and stepped toward him.

"Captain, pardon me," he said, "if I protest unofficially. We are going

into action--not to dinner."

The captain's eyes opened wide and shone brighter, while his lip

curled. He extended the bottle to the lieutenant.

"The apologies are mine, Mr. Dalrymple," he said. "I forgot your

presence. Take a drink."

The officer forced a smile to his face, and stepped back, shaking his

head. Captain Blake swallowed a generous portion of the whisky.

"The fool!" mused the navigator, as he looked through the peep-hole.

"The whole world is watching him to-day, and he turns to whisky. That's

it, dammit; that's the bond of sympathy: Blake and Finnegan, Finnegan

and Blake--dipsomaniacs. Lord, I never thought. I've seen him drunker

than Finnegan, and if it wasn't for his position and obligations, he'd

see spiders, too."

Mr. Dalrymple was not the only one on board who disapproved of "Dutch

courage" for captains. The Japanese servant, whose station was at the

forward-turret ammunition-hoist, reported the service of the whisky to

his mates, and from here the news spread--as news will in a cellular

hull--up to turrets and gun-rooms, through speaking-tubes and

water-tight bulkheads, down to stoke-hold, engine-rooms, and

steering-room; and long before Captain Blake had thought of taking a

drink the whole ship's company was commenting, mentally and openly, and

more or less profanely, on the story that "the old man was getting

drunk in the conning-tower."

And another piece of news traveled as fast and as far--the whereabouts

of Finnegan. Mr. Clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain,

who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and

spread. Men swore louder over this; for though they did not want

Finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die. Strong

natures love those which may be teased; and not a heart was there but

contained a soft spot for the helpless, harmless, ever good-natured,

drunk, and ridiculous Finnegan.

The bark of an eight-inch gun was heard. Captain Blake saw, through the

slits of the conning-tower, a cloud of thinning smoke drifting away

from the flag-ship. Stepping back, he rang up the forward turret.

"Mr. Clarkson," he said to the telephone when it answered him,

"remember: aim for the nearest water-line, load and fire, and expect no

orders after the first shot."

Calling up the officer in the after-turret, he repeated the injunction,

substituting turrets as the object of assault. He called to the

officers at the eight-inch guns that conning-towers and superstructure

were to receive their attention; to those at the six-inch guns to aim

solely at turret apertures; to ensigns and officers of marine in charge

of the quick-fire batteries to aim at all holes and men showing, to

watch for torpedo-boats, and, like the others, to expect no orders

after the first shot. Then, ringing up the round of gun-stations, one

after another, he sang out, in a voice to be heard by all: "Fire away!"

The initial gun had been fired from the flag-ship when the leading

ships of the two fleets were nearly abreast. It was followed by

broadsides from all, and the action began. The _Argyll_, rolling

slightly from the recoil of her guns, smoked down the line like a thing

alive, voicing her message, dealing out death and receiving it. In this

first round of the battle the fire of the eight opposing vessels was

directed at her alone. Shells punctured her vulnerable parts, and,

exploding inside, killed men and dismounted guns. The groans of the

stricken, the crash of steel against steel, the roar of the

turret-guns, the rattling chorus of quick-fire rifles, and the drumming

of heavy shells against the armor and turrets made an uproarious riot

of sound over which no man above the water-line could lift his voice.

But there were some there, besides the dead,--men who worked through

and survived the action,--who, after the first impact of sound, did not

hear it, nor anything else while they lived. They were the men who had

neglected stuffing their ears with cotton.

A fundamental canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another

is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to

disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most

advantageous position--if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply

equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in

opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other,

will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to

improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will

narrow until the battle becomes a melee.

The two lines, a mile apart and each about a mile in length, were

squarely abreast in less than five minutes from the time of firing the

first gun; and by now the furious bombardment of the _Argyll_ by eight

ships had ceased, for each one found it more profitable to deal with

its vis-a-vis. But there was yet a deafening racket in the _Argyll's_

conning-tower as small projectiles from the rear battle-ship abreast

impinged on its steel walls; and Captain Blake, his ears ringing, his

eyes streaming, half stunned by the noise, almost blinded and

suffocated by the smoke from his forward guns, did not know that his

ship had dropped back in the line until the signal-officer descended

and shouted in his ear an order signaled from the admiral: "Move ahead

to position."

"Hang the man who invented conning-towers," he muttered angrily. "Keep

a lookout up there, Mr. Wright," he shouted; "I can see very little."

The officer half saluted, half nodded, and ran up the stair, while

Captain Blake rang "full speed" to the engines. The indicators on the

wall showed increased revolution, and he resumed his place at the

peep-hole. In a few moments Mr. Wright reappeared with a message from

the flag-ship to "starboard helm; follow ship ahead."

"All right. Watch out up there; report all you see," he answered.

Peeping out, he saw the _Lancaster_ and the _Cumberland_ sheering to

port, and he moved the lever of the steering-telegraph. There was no

answering ring. "Shot away, by George," he growled. He yelled into a

supplementary voice-tube to "starboard your wheel--slowly." This was

not answered, and with his own hands he coupled up the steering-wheel

on the binnacle and gave it a turn. It was merely a governor, which

admitted steam to the steering-engine, and there was no resisting

pressure to guide him; but a helm indicator showed him the changed

position of the rudder, and, on looking ahead, he found that she

answered the wheel; also, on looking to starboard, he found that he had

barely escaped collision with the _Montrose_, whose fire he had been

masking, to the scandal of the admiral and the _Montrose's_ officers.

A little unnerved, Captain Blake called down a seven-inch tube to an

apartment in the depths,--a central station of pipes and wires, to be

used as a last resort,--directing the officer on post to notify the

chief engineer of the damage, and to order the quartermasters in the

steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. This was

answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand on the wheel.

"Reduces the captain of the ship to a helmsman," he muttered.

The navigating officer approached, indicating by gesture and expression

his intention of relieving him, but was waved away.

"I want the wheel myself," shouted the captain. "Devil take a

conning-tower, anyhow! Keep a lookout to port. But say, Dalrymple, send

up for Finnegan. I'll not have him killed. Get him down, if he's

alive."

Mr. Dalrymple ascended the stair to pass the word for Finnegan, but did

not come down. He had reached the signal-platform, where one

quartermaster lay dead, and was transmitting the order to Mr. Wright,

when a heavy shell struck the mast, above their heads and below the

lower top, exploded inside, killed the three men on the platform, and

hurled the upper part of the mast, with both tops full of dead men and

living, high in air. The conning-tower was filled with gas and smoke;

but Captain Blake, though burned and nearly stripped of clothing by the

blast of flame, was uninjured by the flying fragments of the shell.

Smarting, gasping, and choking, fully aware of the complete destruction

above, his mind dwelt for an instant on the man who had once saved his

life, whom he had sentenced to death. He looked up the hollow within

the wrecked staircase, but saw nothing.

Mr. Clarkson, however, happened to be looking through an upper

peep-hole in the sighting-hood at this moment, and saw the upper half

of the mast lift and turn; also, dimly through the smoke, he noticed,

among the dozen of men hurled from the tops, the blue-shirted figure of

one whom he knew to be Finnegan, clinging at arm's-length in mid-air to

a Gatling gun, which had been torn from its fastenings. Then the smoke

thickened and shut out the view; but a moment later he heard the

rattling crash of the mast as it fell upon the superstructure beneath.

"The whole mast's gone, boys," he shouted to his crew--"both tops.

Finnegan's done for."

And the story of Finnegan's finish went down the hoist and through the

ship, everywhere received with momentary sorrow, and increased

malediction on the drunken captain, who thought no more--and knew no

more--of a blue-jacket than to masthead him with the marines.

The tactics of both admirals being the same, and the speed of both

fleets--that of their slowest ships--being equal, they turned, and,

like two serpents pursuing each other's tails, charged around in a

circle, each ship firing at the nearest or most important enemy. This

fire was destructive. A ship a mile distant is a point-blank target for

modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight

inches of steel suffered. The _Argyll_ had lost her military mast and

most of her secondary guns. The flag-ship _Cumberland_, raked and

riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam

from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung

drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. A

long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted

by her, unstruck by the shells sent by the flag-ship and the _Marlborough_.

A larger thing, mouse-colored and nearly hidden by a larger wave, was

coming from the opposite direction, spitting one-pound shot at the rate

of sixty a minute, but without present avail; for a spindle-shaped

object left the deck of the first when squarely abreast of the helpless

flag-ship, diving beneath the surface, and the existence and position

of this object were henceforth indicated only by a line of bubbles, a

darting streak of froth, traveling toward the _Cumberland_. In less

than a minute it had reached her. The sea alongside arose in a mound,

and she seemed to lean away from it; then the mound burst, and out of

it, and spouting from funnels, ventilators, and ports, came a dense

cloud of smoke, which mingled with the steam and hid her from view,

while a dull, booming roar, barely distinguishable in the noise of

battle, came across the water. When the cloud thinned there was nothing

to be seen but heads of swimming men, who swam for a time and sank. The

flag-ship had been torpedoed.

But the torpedo-boat followed her. Pursued by the mouse-colored

destroyer, she circled around and headed back in the endeavor to reach

her consorts; but she had not time. Little by little the avenger crept

up, pounding her with small shot and shell, until, leaking from a

hundred wounds, she settled beneath the surface. She had fulfilled her

mission; she was designed to strike once and die.

No armored cruiser may withstand the fire of a battle-ship. The

_Lancaster_, leading the _Argyll_, received through her eight-inch

water-line belt the heavy shot and shell of the _Moscow_ and _Orenburg_.

Nine- and eleven-inch shell fire, sent by Canet and Hontoria guns, makes

short work of eight-inch armor, and the doomed _Lancaster_ settled and

disappeared, her crew yelling, her screws turning, and her guns firing

until the water swamped her. The following _Argyll_ scraped her funnels

and masts as she passed over.

Eight hundred feet back in the line was the _Beaufort_, armored like

the _Lancaster_. Her ending was dramatic and suicidal. Drilled through

and through by the fire of the _Riga_, she fought and suffered until

the _Lancaster_ foundered; then, with all guns out of action, but with

still intact engine-power, she left the line, not to run, but to ram.

The circle was narrowing, but she had fully four minutes to steam

before she could reach the opposite side and intercept her slayer. And

in this short time she was reduced to scrap-iron by the concentrated

fire of the _Warsaw_, _Riga_, and _Kharkov_. Every shot from every gun

on the three battle-ships struck the unlucky cruiser; but in the face

of the storm of flame and steel she went on, exhaling through fissures

and ports smoke from bursting shells and steam from broken pipes.

Half-way across, an almost solid belching upward and outward of white

steam indicated a stricken boiler, and from now on her progress was

slow. She was visibly lower in the water and rolled heavily. Soon

another cloud arose from her, her headway decreased, and she came to a

stop, two hundred yards on the port bow of the onrushing _Riga_, whose

crew yelled derisively--whose quick-fire guns still punished her.

But the yells suddenly ceased and the gunners changed their aim. A

small thing had left the nearly submerged tube in the cruiser's stem,

and the gunners were now firing at a darting line of bubbles,

obliterating the target for a moment with the churning of the water,

only to see the frothy streak within their range, coming on at

locomotive speed. They aimed ahead; two five-inch guns added their

clamor, and even a Hontoria turret-gun voiced its roar and sent its

messenger. But the bubbles would not stop; they entered the bow wave of

the battle-ship, and a second later the great floating fort separated

into two parts, with a crackling thunder of sound and an outburst of

flame and smoke which came of nothing less than an exploded magazine.

The two halves rolled far to starboard, then to port, shivered,

settled, turned completely over, and sank in a turmoil of bursting

steam and air-bubbles. Three minutes later the _Beaufort_ lifted her

stern and dived gently after her victim, still groaning hoarsely from

her punctured iron lungs. In her death-agony she had given birth to a

child more terrible than a battle-ship.

The rear ship of the inner column, the _Atholl_, was officially an

armored cruiser, but possessed none of the attributes of the cruiser

class. She was the laggard of the fleet, and her heaviest guns were of

six-inch caliber; but, being designed for a battle-ship, she carried

this temporary battery behind sixteen inches of steel, and had

maintained her integrity, taking harder blows than she could give. With

the going down of the _Beaufort_ she took a position astern of the

_Sutherland_, and the double line of battle was reduced to a single

line; for the _Argyll_ had left the column when the flag-ship sank.

And this is why the overmatched, battered, and all but demoralized

cruisers received no more attention from the enemy; it were wiser to

deal with the _Argyll_. The _Saratov_, blazing fiercely from the

effects of a well-planted shell, had drawn out of line, the better to

deal with her trouble. Her place in the line and that of the sunken

_Riga_ were filled by the following ships drawing ahead; but the fleet

still held to double column, and into the lane between the lines the

_Argyll_ was coming at sixteen knots, breathing flame, vomiting

steel--delivering destruction and death.

She had rounded the _Moscow's_ stern, raking her as she came, and

sending armor-piercing shells through her citadel. Some exploded on

impact, some inside; all did work. An eight-inch projectile entered the

after turret-port, and silenced the gun and gun-crew forever. Before

the _Argyll_ was abeam the _Moscow_ had ceased firing. Rolling and

smoking, her crew decimated, her guns disabled and steering-gear

carried away, she swung out of line; and the appearance in his field of

vision of several rushing waves with short smoke-stacks behind, and the

supplementary pelting his ship was now receiving from the _Marlborough_,

decided her commander to lower his flag.

On the starboard bow of the _Argyll_ was the armored cruiser _Orenburg_.

Her fire, hot and true, ceased on the explosion of a large shell at her

water-line, and she swung out of the fight, silent but for the roar of

escaping steam, heeled heavily to port, and sank in ten minutes, her

ensigns flying to the last. Mr. Clarkson rejoiced with his gun-crew. He

had sent the shell.

On stormed the _Argyll_. Her next adversary was the _Kharkov_, a

battle-ship nearly equal in guns and armor to herself, but not

quite--by an inch. And that inch cost her the fight. With her main

turrets damaged, her superstructure, secondary guns, and torpedo-tubes

shot away, she yielded to fate, and, while the _Argyll_ passed on,

hauled down her ensigns at the request of a torpedo-boat.

Ahead and to starboard was the cruiser _Tobolsk_, leaving the

neighborhood as fast as her twin screws could push her. Her end was in

sight; in her wake were two gray destroyers, and behind, charging

across the broken formation, was the fleet _Marlborough_. The _Argyll_

ignored the _Tobolsk_; for slowing down to await her coming was the

black and high-sided _Warsaw_, the monster of the fleet, bristling with

guns, somber, and ominous in her silence.

Ahead of her, and turning to port, was the flag-ship _Obdorsk_, also

slowed down; but she promised to be fully occupied with the _Atholl_,

_Sutherland_, and _Montrose_, who had wheeled in their tracks, no

longer obliged to traverse a circle to reach an enemy.

On rushed the _Argyll_, and when nearly up to the _Warsaw_, the latter

gave steam to her engines. Breast to breast the gladiators charged

across the sea, roaring, flaming, and smoking. A torpedo left the side

of the _Warsaw_, pointed diagonally ahead, to intercept the _Argyll_.

But it was badly aimed, and the hissing bubbles passed under her stern.

Before another could be discharged, the torpedo-room, located by the

_Argyll's_ officers, was enlarged to the size of three by the

succeeding bombardment and the explosion of the remaining torpedoes.

Twelve-inch armor cannot keep out thirteen-inch armor-piercing shell,

and torpedoes cannot explode on board without damage to machinery,

steering-gear, and vital connections. The _Warsaw_ yawed, slackened

speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speaking, but the

secondary guns silent. The _Argyll_ circled around her, sending her

thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch shells into her victim with almost

muzzle energy. The two military masts of the _Warsaw_ sank, and dead

men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard. The forward turret

seemed to explode; smoke and flame shot out of the ports, and its top

lifted and fell. Then the _Argyll_ turned and headed straight for her

side.

There was little need of gun fire now; but the forward-turret guns

belched once during the charge, and the more quickly handled eight- and

six-inch rifles stormed away while there was time to reload. Smoking,

rolling, and barking,--ten thousand tons of inertia behind a solid

steel knife,--she pounced on her now silent enemy. There was a

crunching sound, muffled and continuous. The speed of the _Argyll_

seemed hardly checked. In went the ram farther and farther, until the

slanting edge began cutting above the water. Then the _Warsaw_, heeled

far over by the impact, rolled back, and the knife cut upward. The

smooth plates at the _Argyll's_ water-line wrinkled like paper, and the

pile of shattered steel which had once been her forward deck and

bulkheads was shaken up and adjusted to new positions; but not until

her nose was actually buried in the wound--until the _Warsaw_ was cut

half in two--did the reversed engines begin to work. The _Argyll_

backed out, exposing for a moment a hole like a cavern's mouth; then

the stricken ship rolled heavily toward her, burying the sore, and,

humming and buzzing with exhausting steam and rushing air, settled

rapidly and sank, while out from ports, doors, and nearly vertical

hatches came her crew, as many as could. They sprang overboard and

swam, and those that reached the now stationary _Argyll_ were rescued;

for a cry had gone through the latter from the central station in her

depths: "All hands on deck to save life! Bring ladders, life-buoys, and

ropes' ends!"

The battle was ended; for, with the ramming of the _Warsaw_, the

_Obdorsk_ struck to the three ships circling around her. They had

suffered, but the battle-ship _Argyll_ was reduced to a monitor. Her

superstructure and the bow and stern above the water-line were

shattered to a shapeless tangle of steel. What was left of her funnels

and ventilators resembled nutmeg-graters, and she was perceptibly down

by the head; for her bow leaked through its wrinkled plates, and the

forward compartment below the protective deck was filled. Yet she could

still fight in smooth water. Her box-like citadel was intact, and

standing naked out of the wreck, scarred and dented, but uninjured,

were the turrets, ammunition-hoists, and conning-tower. In the latter

was the brain of the ship, that had fought her to victory and then sent

the call to her crew to save the lives of their enemies.

Two men met on a level spot amidships and clasped hands. Both were

bare-waisted and grimy, and one showed red as a lobster under the

stains. He was the chief engineer.

"We've won, Clarkson," he said. "We've won the hottest fight that

history can tell of--won it ourselves; but he'll get the credit."

"And he's drunk as a lord--drunk through it all. What did he ram for?

Why did he send two millions of prize-money to the bottom? O Lord! O

Lord! it's enough to make a man swear at his mother. We had her licked.

Why did he ram?"

"Because he was drunk, that's why. He rang seven bells to me along at

the first of the muss, and then sent word through young Felton that he

wanted full speed. Dammit, he already had it, every pound of it. And he

gave me no signal to reverse when we struck; if it wasn't for luck and

a kind Providence we'd have followed the _Warsaw_. I barely got her

over. Here, Mr. Felton; you were in the central, were you not? How'd

the old man appear to be making it? Were his orders intelligible?"

A young man had joined them, hot, breathing hard, and unclothed.

"Not always, sir; I had to ask him often to repeat, and then I

sometimes got another order. He kept me busy from the first, when he

sent the torpedoes overboard."

"The torpedoes!" exclaimed Mr. Clarkson. "Did we use them? I didn't

know it."

"He was afraid they'd explode on board, sir," he said. "That was just

after we took full speed."

"And just before he got too full to be afraid of anything," muttered

the lieutenant. "Why don't he come out of that?" He glanced toward the

conning-tower. Other officers had joined them.

"We'll investigate," said Mr. Clarkson.

The door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found

to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black,

sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up

and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to

the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the

wheel, steering the drifting ship with one hand and holding an empty

bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and bloody face. In

spite of the disfigurement Mr. Clarkson knew him. Jammed into the

narrow staircase leading below was the body of a man partly hidden by a

Gatling gun, the lever of which had pierced the forehead.

"Finnegan," yelled the officer, "how'd you get there?"

The man at the wheel lifted a bleary eye and blinked; then, unsteadily

touching his forehead, answered: "Fe' dow'-shtairs, shir."

"Come out of that! On deck there! Take the wheel, one hand, and stand

by it!" Mr. Clarkson descended to the others with a serious look on his

grimy face, and a sailor climbed the ladder and went down the mast.

"Gentlemen," said the first lieutenant, impressively, "we were

mistaken, and we wronged Captain Blake. He is dead. He died at the

beginning. He lies under a Gatling gun in the bottom of the tower. I

saw Finnegan hanging to that gun, whirling around it, when the mast

blew up. It is all plain now. Finnegan and the gun fell into the tower.

Finnegan may have struck the stairs and rolled down, but the gun went

down the hollow within and killed the captain. We have been steered and

commanded by a drunken man--but it was Finnegan."

Finnegan scrambled painfully down the ladder. He staggered, stumbled,

and fell in a heap.

"Rise up," said Mr. Clarkson, as they surrounded him; "rise up, Daniel

Drake Nelson Farragut Finnegan. You are small potatoes and few in the

hill; you are shamefully drunk, and your nose bleeds; you are stricken

with Spanish mildew, and you smell vilely--but you are immortal. You

have been a disgrace to the service, but Fate in her gentle irony has

redeemed you, permitting you, in one brief moment of your misspent

life, to save to your country the command of the seas--to guide, with

your subconscious intelligence, the finest battle-ship the science of

the world has constructed to glorious victory, through the fiercest

sea-fight the world has known. Rise up, Daniel, and see the surgeon."

But Finnegan only snored.

THE WIGWAG MESSAGE

As eight bells sounded, Captain Bacon and Mr. Knapp came up from

breakfast, and Mr. Hansen, the squat and square-built second mate,

immediately went down. The deck was still wet from the morning washing

down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to

relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the

forward house a heavy, wet hawser used in towing out the evening

before. They were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was

necessary, the first mate remained on the poop for a few moments'

further conversation with the captain.

"Poor crew, cap'n," he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a

match, he scanned the men forward. "It'll take me a month to lick 'em

into shape."

To judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an

operation. He was a giant, with a giant's fist and foot; red-haired and

bearded, and of sinister countenance. But he was no more formidable in

appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven,

and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter.

"Are the two drunks awake yet?" asked the latter.

"Not at four o'clock, sir," answered the mate. "Mr. Hansen couldn't get

'em out. I'll soon turn 'em to."

As he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward

house, and came aft. They were young men, between twenty-five and

thirty, with intelligent, sun-burnt faces. One was slight of figure,

with the refinement of thought and study in his features; the other,

heavier of mold and muscular, though equally quick in his movements,

had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to

supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were

dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at

sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of

"sea-legs," climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and

approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. The heavier

man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, and

smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a

pleasant, evenly modulated voice:

"Good morning. I presume that one of you is the captain."

"I'm the captain. What do you want?" was the gruff response.

"Captain, I believe that the etiquette of the merchant service requires

that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound ship he remains

silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the

passage ends; but we cannot bring ourselves to do so. We were struck

down in a dark spot last night,--sandbagged, I should say,--and we do

not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept

unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. We wakened this morning

in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything

we had with us."

"Where were you slugged?"

"In Cherry Street. The bridge cars were not running, so we crossed from

Brooklyn by the Catherine Ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the

elevated station."

"Well, what of it?"

"What--why--why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first

inbound craft we meet."

"Not much I won't," answered the captain, decidedly. "You belong to my

crew. I paid for twenty men; and you two and two others skipped at the

dock. I had to wait all day in the Horseshoe. You two were caught dead

drunk last night, and came down with the tug. That's what the runners

said, and that's all I know about it. Go forrard."

"Do you mean, captain----"

"Go forrard where you belong. Mr. Knapp, set these men to work."

Captain Bacon turned his back on them, and walked away.

"Get off the poop," snarled the mate. "Forrard wi' you both!"

"Captain, I advise you to reconsider----"

The words were stopped by a blow of the mate's fist, and the speaker

fell to the deck. Then a hoarse growl of horror and rage came from his

companion; and Captain Bacon turned, to see him dancing around the

first officer with the skill and agility of a professional boxer,

planting vicious blows on his hairy face and neck.

"Stop this," roared the captain, as his right hand sought the pocket of

his coat. "Stop it, I say. Mr. Hansen," he called down the skylight,

"on deck, here."

The huge mate was getting the worst of the unexpected battle, and

Captain Bacon approached cautiously. His right hand had come out of his

pocket, armed with large brass knuckles; but before he could use them

his dazed and astonished first officer went down under the rain of

blows. It was then, while the victor waited for him to rise, that the

brass knuckles impacted on his head, and he, too, went down, to lie

quiet where he fell. The other young man had arisen by this time,

somewhat shocked and unsteady in movement, and was coming bravely

toward the captain; but before he could reach him his arms were

pinioned from behind by Mr. Hansen, who had run up the poop steps.

"What is dis, onnyway?" he asked. "Mudiny, I dink?"

"Let go," said the other, furiously. "You shall suffer for this, you

scoundrels. Let go of my arms." He struggled wildly; but Mr. Hansen was

strong.

Mr. Knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. His

conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still

active in rebellion. So, while the approving captain looked on in

brass-knuckled dignity, he sprang forward and struck, with strength

born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless

in the arms of Mr. Hansen, until his battered head sank supinely

backward, and he struggled no more. Then Mr. Hansen dropped him.

"Lay aft, here, a couple o' hands," thundered the captain from the

break of the poop, and two awe-struck men obeyed him. The whole crew

had watched the fracas from forward, and the man at the wheel had

looked unspeakable things; but no hand or voice had been raised in

protest. One at a time they carried the unconscious men to the

forecastle; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons,

and listened to a forceful speech by Captain Bacon, delivered in quick,

incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his ship--whether

he believed himself shipped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a

policeman, or a dry-nurse--showed the slightest hesitation at obeying

orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would

be punished with fists, brass knuckles, belaying-pins, or

handspikes,--the officers were here for that purpose,--and if he

persisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. They could go forward.

They went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the

second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below

finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered

consciousness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the

best of it until the ship reached Hong-Kong, where they could all "jump

her" and get better berths.

"For if ye don't," concluded an Irishman, "I take it ye'll die, an'

take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an American ship, where the

mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o'

their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take

this hash-kid back to the galley."

The larger of the two victims sprang to his feet. He was stained and

disfigured from the effects of the brass knuckles, and he looked

anything but "pleasant."

"Say, Irish," he said angrily, "do you know who you 're talkin' to?

Looks as though you don't. I'm used to all sorts of guff from all sorts

of men, but Mr. Breen here----"

"Johnson," interrupted the other, "wait--it's of no account now. This

man's advice is sound. No one would believe us, and we can prove

nothing. We are thoroughly helpless, and must submit until we reach a

consular port, or something happens. Now, men," he said to the others,

"my name is Breen. Call me by it. You, too, Johnson. I yield to the

inevitable, and will do my share of the work as well as I can. If I

make mistakes, don't hesitate to criticize, and post me, if you will.

I'll be grateful."

"But I'll tell you one thing to start with," said Johnson, glaring

around the forecastle: "we'll take turns at bringin' grub and cleanin'

up the forecastle. Another thing: I've sailed in these wind-jammers

enough to know my work; and that's more than you fellows know, by the

looks of you. I don't want your instructions; but Mr. Breen,

here--Breen, I mean" (a gesture from the other had interrupted

him)--"Breen's forgotten what you and I will never learn, though he

might not be used to pullin' ropes and swabbing paint-work. If I find

one o' you pesterin' him, or puttin' up any jobs, I'll break that man's

head; understand me? Any one want to put this thing to the test, now?"

He scanned each man's face in turn; but none showed an inclination to

respond. They had seen him fight the big first mate. "There's not the

makin' of a whole man among you," he resumed. "You stand still while

three men do up two, when, if you had any nerve, Mr. ---- Breen, here,

might be aft, 'stead o' eatin' cracker-hash with a lot o' dock-rats and

beach-combers. He's had better playmates; so 've I, for that matter, o'

late years."

"Johnson, keep still," said the other. "It doesn't matter what we have

had, who we were or might be. We're before the mast, bound for

Hong-Kong. We may find a consul at Anjer; I'm not sure. Meanwhile, I'm

Breen, and you are Johnson, and it is no one's business what we have

been. I'm not anxious for this matter to become public. I can explain

to the department, and no one else need know."

"Very good, sir."

"No; not 'sir.' Keep that for our superiors."

Johnson grumbled a little; then Mr. Hansen's round Swedish face

appeared at the door.

"Hi, you in dere--you big feller--you come out. You belong in der utter

watch. You hear? You come out on deck," he called.

"Aye, aye, sir," said Johnson, rising sullenly.

"All the better, Johnson," whispered Breen. "One can keep a lookout all

the time. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."

So for these two men the work of the voyage began. The hard-headed,

aggressive Johnson, placed in the mate's watch, had no trouble in

finding his place, and keeping it, at the top of the class. He ruled

the assorted types of all nations, who worked and slept with him, with

sound logic backed by a strong arm and hard fist, never trying to

conceal his contempt for them.

"You mixed nest o' mongrels," he would say, at the end of some petty

squabble which he had settled for them, "why don't you stay in your own

country ships? Or, if you must sign in American craft, try to feel and

act like Americans. It's just this same yawping at one another in the

forecastles that makes it easy for the buckoes aft to hunt you. And

that's why you get your berths. No skipper 'll ship an American sailor

while there's a Dutchman left in the shippin'-office. He wouldn't think

it safe to go to sea with too many American sailors forward to call him

down and make him treat 'em decent. He picks a Dago here, and a

Dutchman there, and all the Sou'wegians he sees, and fills in with the

rakin's and scrapin's o' Hell, Bedlam, and Newgate, knowin' they'll

hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together."

To which they would respond in kind, though of lesser degree, always

yielding him the last word when he spoke it loud enough.

But Breen, in the second mate's watch, had trouble with his fellows at

first. They could not understand his quiet, gentlemanly demeanor,

mistaking it for fear of them; so, unknown to Johnson, for he would not

complain, they subjected him to all the petty annoyances which

ignorance may inflict upon intelligence. Though he showed a theoretical

knowledge of ships and the sea superior to any they had met with, he

was not their equal in the practical work of a sailor. He was awkward

at pulling ropes with others, placing his hands in the wrong place and

mixing them up in what must be a concerted pull to be effective. His

hands, unused to labor, became blistered and sore, and he often,

unconsciously perhaps, held back from a task, to save himself from

pain. He was an indifferent helmsman, and off Hatteras, in a blow, was

sent from the wheel in disgrace. He did not know the ropes, and made

sad mistakes until he had mastered the lesson. He could box the

compass, in his own way; for instance, the quarter-points between

north-northeast and northeast by north he persisted in naming from the

first of these points instead of from the other, as was seamanlike and

proper; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other

quadrants. Once, at the wheel, when the ship was heading southeast by

south half-south, he had been asked the course, and answered:

"South-southeast half-east, sir." For this he was profanely admonished

by the captain and ridiculed by the men. Johnson had made the same

mistake, but corrected himself in time, and nothing was said about it;

but Breen was bullied and badgered in the watch below,--the lubberly

nomenclature becoming a byword of derision and contempt,--until,

patience leaving him, he doubled his sore fingers into fists one

dog-watch, and thrashed the Irishman--his most unforgiving critic--so

quickly, thoroughly, and scientifically that persecution ceased; for

the Irishman had been the master spirit of the port forecastle.

But the captain and mates were not won over. Practical Johnson--an able

seaman from crown to toe--knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse;

but Breen did not. The very presence of such a man as he before the

mast was a continuous menace,--an insult to their artificial

superiority,--and they assailed him at each mistake with volleys of

billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his

eyes; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warning to

tyrants of better discrimination. Once again, while being rebuked in

this manner, his self-control left him. With white face and blazing

eyes he darted at Mr. Knapp, and had almost repeated Johnson's feat on

the poop when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain

descended upon him and broke his left arm. Mr. Knapp's fists and boots

completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another

lesson learned. Johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken

bones and made a sling; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward,

secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water

from the galley; but open assistance was refused by the captain.

Breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days; then,

the first mild skirts of the trade-wind being reached, the mate drove

him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands

(in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. But the trade-wind freshened,

and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. With the men all

aloft and the two mates forward, the ship nearly broached to one day,

and only the opportune arrival of Captain Bacon on deck saved the

spars. He seized the wheel, ground it up, and the ship paid off; then a

whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was

promptly and properly punished. He was kicked off the poop, and his

arm, as a consequence, needed resetting.

Johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he

came down at supper-time. Yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging

the broken arm earnestly explained, as Breen's groans would allow, that

if he killed one the other two would kill him, and nothing would be

gained. "For they've brass knuckles in their pockets, sir," he said,

"and pistols under their pillows. We haven't even sheath-knives, and

the crew wouldn't help."

Whereupon, an inspired Russian Finn of the watch remarked: "If a man

know his work an' do his work, an' gif no back lip to te mates, he get

no trupple mit te mates. In my country ships----" The dissertation was

not finished. Johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident

closed.

But they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short

"lying up." With the steward's washboard, he could wash the captain's

soiled linen, which the steward would afterward wring out and hang up.

He refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the

lee scuppers amidships. Johnson made a detour on his way to the

main-rigging, and muttered: "Say the word, sir, and I 'll chance it. No

jury'd convict."

"No, no; go aloft, Johnson. I'm all right," answered Breen, as he bent

over the distasteful task.

Johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royalyard, which he was to

scrape for reoiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out:

"Sail oh! Dead ahead, sir. Looks like an armored cruiser o' the first

class."

"Armored cruiser o' the first class?" muttered the captain, as he

carried his binoculars to the weather rail and looked ahead. "More 'n I

can make out with the glasses."

If three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops

indicate an armored cruiser of the first class, Johnson was right.

These the oncoming craft showed plainly even at seven miles' distance.

Fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward; a

beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with

buff-colored turrets and superstructure, and black guns bristling from

all parts of her. The Stars and Stripes flew from the flagstaff at the

stern; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the

forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a

small red-and-white flag. Captain Bacon brought out the American

ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the

mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the

gaff-end. Then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was

doing except the man washing clothes in the lee scuppers. His business

was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to

look at passing craft; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively

aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the mainroyalyard.

Johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left

hand to the royal-pole,--certainly the most conspicuous detail of the

whole ship to the eyes of those on board the cruiser,--and with his

right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and

down. There was method in his motions, for when he would cease, the

small red-and-white flag on the cruiser's bridge would answer, waving

to the right and left, and up and down.

A secondary gun spoke from a midship sponson, and Captain Bacon

exclaimed enthusiastically, "Salutin' the flag," and again dipped his

ensign. Then, after an interval, during which it became apparent that

the cruiser had altered her course to cross the ship's stern, there was

seen another tongue of flame and cloud of smoke, and something seemed

to rush through the air ahead of the ship. But it was a splash of water

far off on the lee bow which really apprised them that the gun was

shotted. At the same time a string of small flags arose to the

signal-yard, and when Captain Bacon had found this combination in his

code-book, he read with amazement: "Heave to or take the consequences."

By this time the cruiser was squarely across his wake, most certainly

rounding to for an interview.

"Heave to or take the consequences!" he exclaimed. "And he's firin' on

us. Down from aloft, all hands!" he roared upward; then he seized the

answering pennant from the flag-locker and displayed it from the rail,

begrudging the time needful to hoist it. The men were sliding to the

deck on backstays and running-gear, and the mates were throwing down

coils of rope from the belaying-pins.

"Man both main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "Clue

up! Weather main-braces, the rest o' you! Slack away to looward! Round

wi' the yards, you farmers--round wi' 'em! Down wi' the wheel, there!

Bring her up three points and hold her. H----l an' blazes, what's he

firin' on me for?"

Excitedly, the men obeyed him; they were not used to gun fire, and it

is certainly exciting to be shot at. Conspicuous among them was

Johnson, who pulled and hauled lustily, shouting exuberantly the

formless calls which sailors use in pulling ropes, and smiling

sardonically. In five minutes from the time of the second gun the yards

were backed, and, with weather leeches trembling, the ship lay "hove

to," drifting bodily to leeward. The cruiser had stopped her headway,

and a boat had left her side. There were ten men at the oars, a

cockswain at the yoke-ropes, and with him in the stern-sheets a young

man in an ensign's uniform, who lifted his voice as the boat neared the

lee quarter, and shouted: "Rig a side-ladder aboard that ship!"

He was hardly more than a boy, but he was obeyed; not only the

side-ladder, but the gangway steps were rigged; and leaving the

cockswain and bow oarsman to care for the boat, the young officer

climbed aboard, followed by the rest--nine muscular man-of-war's-men,

each armed with cutlass and pistol, one of them carrying a hand-bag,

another a bundle. Captain Bacon, as became his position, remained upon

the poop to receive his visitor, while the two mates stood at the main

fife-rail, and the ship's crew clustered forward. Johnson, alert and

attentive, stood a little in the van, and the man in the lee scuppers

still washed clothes.

"What's the matter, young man?" asked the captain from the break of the

poop, with as much of dignity as his recent agitation would permit.

"Why do you stop my ship on the high seas and board her with an armed

boat's crew?"

"You have an officer and seaman of the navy on board this ship,"

answered the ensign, who had been looking about irresolutely. "Produce

them at once, if you please."

"What--what----" stuttered the captain, descending the poop steps; but

before more was said there was a sound from forward as of something

hard striking something heavy, and as they looked, they saw Captain

Bacon's bucket of clothes sailing diagonally over the lee rail,

scattering a fountain of soapy water as it whirled; his late laundryman

coming toward them with head erect, as though he might have owned the

ship and himself; and Johnson, limping slightly, making for the crowd

of blue-jackets at the gangway. With these he fraternized at once,

telling them things in a low voice, and somewhat profanely, while the

two mates at the fife-rail eyed him reprovingly, but did not interrupt.

Breen advanced to the ensign, and said, as he extended his hand: "I am

Lieutenant Breen. Did you bring the clothing? This is an extremely

fortunate meeting for me; but I can thank you--you and your brother

officers--much more gracefully aboard the cruiser."

The officer took the extended hand gingerly, with suspicion in his

eyes. Perhaps, if it had not been thoroughly clean from its late

friction with soap and water, he might have declined taking it; for

there was nothing in the appearance of the haggard, ragged wreck before

him to indicate the naval officer.

"There is some mistake," he said coldly. "I am well acquainted with

Lieutenant Breen, and you are certainly not he."

Breen's face flushed hotly, but before he could reply, the captain

broke in.

"Some mistake, hey?" said he, derisively. "I guess there is--another

mistake--another bluff that don't go. Get out o' here; and I tell you

now, blast yer hide, that if you make me any more trouble 'board my

ship yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to yer

heels. And you, young man," he stormed, turning to the ensign, "you

look round, if you like. There's my crew. All the navy officers you

find you can have, and welcome to 'em." He turned his back, stamped a

few paces along the deck, and returned, working himself into a fury.

Breen had not moved, but, with a slight sparkle to his eyes, said to

the young officer:

"I think, sir, that if you take the trouble to investigate, you will be

satisfied. There are two Breens in the navy. You know one, evidently; I

am the other. Lieutenant William Breen is on shore duty at Washington,

I think. Lieutenant John Breen, lately in command of the torpedo-boat

_Wainwright_, with his signalman Thomas Johnson, are shanghaied on

board this ship. There is Johnson talking to your men."

The young man's face changed, and his hand went to his cap in salute;

but the mischief was done. Captain Bacon's indignation was at

bursting-pressure, and his mind in no condition to respond readily to

new impressions. He was captain of the ship, and grossly affronted.

Johnson, noting his purple face, wisely reached for a topsail-brace

belaying-pin, and stepped toward him; for he now towered over Breen,

cursing with volcanic energy.

"Didn't I tell you to go forrard?" he roared, drawing back his powerful

fist.

Breen stood his ground; the officer raised his hand and half drew his

sword, while the blue-jackets sprang forward; but it was Johnson's

belaying-pin which stopped that mighty fist in mid-passage. It was an

iron club, eighteen inches long by an inch and a half diameter; and

Johnson, strong man though he was, used it two-handed. It struck the

brawny forearm just above the wrist with a crashing sound, and seemed

to sink in. Captain Bacon almost fell, but recovered his balance, and,

holding the broken bones together, staggered toward the booby-hatch for

support. He groaned in pain, but did not curse; for it requires a

modicum of self-respect for this, and Captain Bacon's self-respect was

completely shocked out of him.

But Mr. Knapp and Mr. Hansen still respected themselves, and were

coming.

"You keep back, there--you two," yelled Johnson, excitedly. "Stand by

here, mates. These buckoes 'll kill someone yet. Look out for their

brass knuckles and guns."

And the two officers halted. They had no desire to assert themselves

before nine scowling, armed men, an angry and aggressive mutineer with

a belaying-pin, and a rather confused, but wakening, young officer with

drawn sword. Johnson backed toward the latter.

"Don't you know me, Mr. Bronson," he said--"Tom Johnson, cocks'n o' the

gig on your practice-cruise? 'Member me, sir? This is Lieutenant

Breen--take my word, sir."

"Yes--yes--I understand," said the ensign, with a face redder than

Breen's had been. "I really beg your pardon, Mr. Breen. It was

inexcusable in me, I know--but--I had expected to see a different face,

and--and--we're three months out from Hong-Kong, you see----"

Breen smiled, and interrupted with a gesture.

"No time for explanations, Mr. Bronson," said he, kindly. "Did you

bring the clothes? Thoughtful of Johnson to ask for them, wasn't it? It

really would be embarrassing to join your ship in this rig. In the grip

and bundle? All right. Form your men across the deck, please, forward

of the cabin. Keep these brutes away from us while we change. Come,

Johnson."

Taking the hand-bag and the bundle, they brazenly entered the cabin by

the forward door. In ten minutes they emerged, Johnson clad in the blue

rig of a man-of-war's-man, Breen in the undress uniform of an officer,

his crippled arm buttoned into the coat. As they stepped toward the

gangway, Captain Bacon, pale and perspiring, wheezing painfully,

entered the cabin and passed out of their lives. The steward followed

at his heels, and the two mates, with curiously working faces,

approached Breen.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Knapp, "but I want to say that I had no

notion o' this at all; and I hope you won't make no trouble for me

ashore."

Breen, one foot on the steps while he waited for the blue-jackets to

file over the side, eyed him thoughtfully.

"No," he said slowly. "I hardly think, Mr. Knapp, that I shall exert

myself to make trouble for you personally, or for the other two. There

is a measure now before Congress which, if it passes, will legislate

brutes like you and your captain off the American quarter-deck by its

educational conditions. This, with a consideration for your owners, is

what permits you to continue this voyage, instead of going back to the

United States in irons. But if I had the power," he added, looking at

the beautiful flag still flying at the gaff, "I would lower that

ensign, and forbid you to hoist it. It is the flag of a free country,

and should not float over slave-ships."

He mounted the steps, and, assisted by the young officer and Johnson,

descended to the boat; but before Johnson went down, he peered over the

rail at the two mates, grinning luridly.

"And I'll promise you," he said, "that I'm always willing to make

trouble for you, ashore or afloat, and wish I had a little more time

for it now. And you can tell your skipper, if you like, in case he

don't know it, that he got smashed with the same club that he used on

Mr. Breen, and I'm only d----d sorry I didn't bring it down on his

head. So long, you bloody-minded hell-drivers. See you again some day."

He descended, and Mr. Knapp gave the order to brace the yards.

"Give a good deal," he mused, as the men manned the braces, "to know

just how they got news to that cruiser. Homeward bound from

Hong-Kong--three months out. Couldn't ha' been sent after us."

But he never learned.

THE TRADE-WIND

The orgy was finished. The last sea-song had resounded over the smooth

waters of the bay; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were

voiced; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the

red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit deck, snoring.

Though the barrel of rum broached on the main-hatch was but slightly

lowered, their sleep was heavy; scurvy-tainted men at the end of a Cape

Horn passage may not drink long or deeply. Some lay as they fell--face

upward; others on their sides for a while, then to roll over on their

backs and so remain until the sleep was done; for in no other position

may the human body rest easy on a hard bed with no pillow. And as they

slept through the tropic night the full moon in the east rose higher

and higher, passed overhead and disappeared behind a thickening haze in

the western sky; but before it had crossed the meridian its cold,

chemical rays had worked disastrously on the eyes of the sleeping men.

Captain Swarth, prone upon the poop-deck, was the first to waken. There

was pain in his head, pain in his eyes,--which were swollen,--and a

whistling tumult of sound in his ears coming from the Plutonian

darkness surrounding him, while a jarring vibration of the deck beneath

him apprised his awakening brain that the anchor was dragging. As he

staggered to his feet a violent pressure of wind hurled him against the

wheel, to which he clung, staring into the blackness to windward.

"All hands, there!" he roared! "Up with you all! Go forward and pay out

on the chain!"

Shouts, oaths, and growls answered him, and he heard the nasal voice of

his mate repeating his order. "Angel," he called, "get the other anchor

over and give her all of both chains."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the mate. "Send a lantern forrard, Bill.

Can't see our noses."

"Steward," yelled the captain, "where are you? Light up a deck-lantern

and the binnacle. Bear a hand."

He heard the steward's voice close to him, and the sound of the

binnacle lights being removed from their places, then the opening and

closing of the cabin companionway. He could see nothing, but knew that

the steward had gone below to his store-room. In a minute more a shriek

came from the cabin. It rang out again and again, and soon sounded from

the companionway: "I'm blind, I'm blind, capt'n. I can't see. I lit the

lantern and burned my fingers; but I can't see the light. I'm blind."

The steward's voice ended in a howl.

"Shut up, you blasted fool," answered Captain Swarth; "get down there

and light up."

"Where's that light?" came the mate's voice in a yell from amidships.

"Shank-painter's jammed, Bill. Can't do a thing without a light."

"Come aft here and get it. Steward's drunk."

The doors in the forward part of the cabin slammed, and the mate's

profanity mingled with the protest of the steward in the cabin. Then

shouts came from forward, borne on the gale, and soon followed by the

shuffling of feet as the men groped their way aft and climbed the poop

steps.

"We're stone-blind, cappen," they wailed. "We lit the fo'c'sle lamp,

an' it don't show up. We can't see it. Nobody can see it. We're all

blind."

"Come down here, Bill," called the mate from below.

As Captain Swarth felt his way down the stairs a sudden shock stilled

the vibrations caused by the dragging anchor, and he knew that the

chain had parted.

"Stand by on deck, Angel; we're adrift," he said. "It's darker than ten

thousand black cats. What's the matter with you?"

"Can you see the light, Bill? I can't. I'm blind as the steward, or I'm

drunker."

"No. Is it lit? Where? The men say they're blind, too."

"Here, forrard end o' the table."

The captain reached this end, searched with his hands, and burned them

on the hot glass of a lantern. He removed the bowl and singed the hair

on his wrists. The smell came to his nostrils.

"I'm blind, too," he groaned. "Angel, it's the moon. We're

moonstruck--moon-blind. And we're adrift in a squall. Steward," he said

as he made his way toward the stairs, "light the binnacle, and stop

that whining. Maybe some one can see a little."

When he reached the deck he called to the men, growling, cursing, and

complaining on the poop. "Down below with you all!" he ordered. "Pass

through and out the forrard door. If any man sees the light on the

cabin table, let that man sing out."

They obeyed him. Twenty men passed through the cabin and again climbed

the poop stairs, their lamentations still troubling the night. But not

one had seen the lantern. Some said that they could not open their eyes

at all; some complained that their faces were swollen; others that

their mouths were twisted up to where their ears should be; and one man

averred that he could not breathe through his nose.

"It'll only last a few days, boys," said the captain, bravely; "we

shouldn't have slept in the moonlight in these latitudes. Drop the lead

over, one of you--weather side. The devil knows where we're drifting,

and the small anchor won't hold now; we'll save it." Captain Swarth was

himself again.

But not so his men. They had become children, with children's fear of

the dark. Even the doughty Angel Todd was oppressed by the first horror

of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. Above the rushing sound

of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the

steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or

groan--according to temperament--added to the distraction on deck. One

man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the

side. An able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead.

"A quarter six," he sang out, and then, plaintively: "We'll fetch up on

the Barrier, capt'n. S'pose we try an' get the other hook over."

"Yes, yes," chorused some of the braver spirits. "It may hold. We don't

want to drown on the reef. Let's get it over. Chain's overhauled."

"Let the anchor alone," roared the captain. "No anchor-chain'll hold in

this. Keep that lead a-going, Tom Plate, if it's you. What bottom do

you find?"

"Quarter less six," called the leadsman. "Soft bottom. We're shoaling."

"Angel," said the captain to his mate, who stood close to him, "we're

blowing out the south channel. We've been drifting long enough to fetch

up on the reef if it was in our way. There's hard bottom in the north

channel, and the twenty-fathom lead wouldn't reach it half a length

from the rocks."

The mate had nothing to say.

"And the south channel lay due southeast from our moorings," continued

the captain. "Wind's nor'west, I should say, right down from the

hilltops; and I've known these blasted West India squalls to last three

days, blowing straight and hard. This has the smell of a gale in it

already. Keep that lead a-going, there."

"No bottom," answered the leadsman.

"Good enough," said the captain, cheerfully.

"No bottom," was called repeatedly, until the captain sang out:

"That'll do the lead." Then the leadsman coiled up the line, and they

heard his rasping, unpleasant voice, cursing softly but fiercely to

himself. Captain Swarth descended the stairs, silenced the steward with

a blow, felt of the clock hands, secured his pistols, and returned to

the deck.

"We're at sea," he said. "Two hands to the wheel. Loose and set the

foretopmast-staysails and the foretopsail. Staysail first. Let a man

stay in the slings to square the yard by the feel as it goes up."

"What for?" they answered complainingly. "What ye goin' to do? We can't

see. Why didn't you bring to when you had bottom under you?"

"No arguments!" yelled Swarth. "Forrard with you. What are you doing on

the poop, anyway? If you can't see, you can feel, and what more do you

want? Jump, now. Set that head-sail and get her 'fore the wind--quick,

or I'll drop some of you."

They knew their captain, and they knew the ropes--on the blackest of

dark nights. Blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and

gaskets. Blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and

in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly

along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavoring to

keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their

faces.

"Keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you can without broaching

to," yelled the captain in their ears, and they answered and did their

best. She was a clean-lined craft and steered easily; yet the off-shore

sea which was rising often threw her around until nearly in the trough.

The captain remained by them, advising and encouraging.

"Where're ye goin', Bill?" asked the mate, weakly, as he scrambled up

to him.

"Right out to sea, and, unless we get our eyes back soon, right across

to the Bight of Benin, three thousand miles from here. We've no

business on this coast in this condition. What ails you, Angel? Lost

your nerve?"

"Mebbe, Bill." The mate's voice was hoarse and strained. "This is new

to me. I'm falling--falling--all the time."

"So am I. Brace up. We'll get used to it. Get a couple of hands aft and

heave the log. We take our departure from Kittredge Point, Barbados

Island, at six o'clock this morning of the 10th October. We'll keep a

Geordie's log-book--with a jack-knife and a stick."

They hove the log for him. It was marked for a now useless 28-second

sand-glass, which Captain Swarth replaced by a spare chronometer, held

to his ear in the companionway. It ticked even seconds, and when

twenty-eight of them had passed he called, "Stop." The markings on the

line that had slipped through the mate's fingers indicated an

eight-knot speed.

"Seven, allowing for wild steering," said the captain when he had

stowed away his chronometer and returned to the deck. "Angel, we know

we're going about sou'east by east, seven knots. There's practically

no variation o' the compass in these seas, and that course'll take us

clear of Cape St. Roque. Just as fast as the men can stand it at the

wheel, we'll pile on canvas and get all we can out o' this good wind.

If it takes us into the southeast trades, well and good. We can feel

our way across on the trade-wind--unless we hit something, of course.

You see, it blows almost out of the east on this side, and 'll haul

more to the sou'east and south'ard as we get over. By the wind first,

then we'll square away as we need to. We'll know the smell o' the

trades--nothing like it on earth--and the smell o' the Gold Coast,

Ivory Coast, Slave Coast, and the Kameruns. And I'll lay odds we can

feel the heat o' the sun in the east and west enough to make a fair

guess at the course. But it won't come to that. Some of us 'll be able

to see pretty soon."

It was wild talk, but the demoralized mate needed encouraging. He

answered with a steadier voice: "Lucky we got in grub and water

yesterday."

"Right you are, Angel. Now, in case this holds on to us, why, we'll

find some of our friends over in the Bight, and they'll know by our rig

that something's wrong. Flanders is somewhere on the track,--you know

he went back to the nigger business,--and Chink put a slave-deck in his

hold down Rio way last spring. And old man Slack--I did him a service

when I crippled the corvette that was after him, and he's grateful.

Hope we'll meet him. I'd rather meet Chink than Flanders in the dark,

and I'd trust a Javanese trader before either. If either of them come

aboard we'll be ready to use their eyes for our benefit, not let 'em

use ours for theirs. Flanders once said he liked the looks of this

brig."

"S'pose we run foul of a bulldog?"

"We'll have to chance it. This coast's full o' them, too. Great guns,

man! Would you drift around and do nothing? Anywhere east of due south

there's no land nearer than Cape Orange, and that's three hundred and

fifty miles from here. Beginning to-morrow noon, we'll take deep-sea

soundings until we strike the trade-wind."

The negro cook felt his way through the preparing of meals and served

them on time. The watches were set, and sail was put on the brig as

fast as the men became accustomed to the new way of steering, those

relieved always imparting what they had learned to their successors.

Before nightfall on that first day they were scudding under foresail,

topsail and topgallantsail and maintopsail, with the spanker furled as

useless, and the jib adding its aid to the foretopmast-staysail in

keeping the brig before the quartering seas which occasionally climbed

aboard. The bowsprit light was rigged nightly; they hove the log every

two hours; and Captain Swarth made scratches and notches on the

sliding-hood of the companionway, while careful to wind his chronometer

daily.

But, in spite of the cheer of his indomitable courage and confidence,

his men, with the exception of a few, dropped into a querulous, whining

discontent. Mr. Todd, spurred by his responsibility, gradually came

around to something like his old arbitrary self. Yank Tate, the

carpenter, maintained through it all a patient faith in the captain,

and, in so far as his influence could be felt, acted as a foil to the

irascible, fault-finding Tom Plate, the forecastle lawyer, the man who

had been at the lead-line at Barbados. But the rest of them were dazed

and nerveless, too shaken in brain and body to consider seriously Tom's

proposition to toss the afterguard overboard and beach the brig on the

South American coast, where they could get fresh liver of shark, goat,

sheep, or bullock, which even a "nigger" knew was the only cure for

moon-blindness.

They had not yet recovered from the unaccustomed debauch; their clouded

brains seemed too large for their skulls, and their eyeballs ached in

their sockets, while they groped tremblingly from rope to rope at the

behest of the captain or mate.

So Tom marked himself for future attention by insolent and disapproving

comments on the orders of his superiors, and a habit of moving swiftly

to another part of the deck directly he had spoken, which prevented the

blind and angry captain from finding him in the crowd.

Dim as must have been the light of day through the pelting rain and

storm-cloud, it caused increased pain in their eyes, and they bound

them with their neckerchiefs, applying meanwhile such remedies as

forecastle lore could suggest. The captain derided these remedies, but

frankly confessed his ignorance of anything but time as a means of

cure. And so they existed and suffered through a three days' damp gale

and a fourth day's dead calm, when the brig rolled scuppers under with

all sail set, ready for the next breeze. It came, cool, dry, and faint

at first, then brisker--the unmistakable trade-wind. They boxed the

brig about and braced sharp on the starboard tack, steering again by

the feel of the wind and the rattling of shaking leeches aloft. The

removal of bandages to ascertain the sun's position by sense of light

or increase of pain brought agonized howls from the experimenters, and

this deterred the rest. Not even by its warmth could they locate it. It

was overhead at noon and useless as a guide. In the early morning and

late afternoon, when it might have indicated east and west, its warmth

was overcome by the coolness of the breeze. So they steered on blindly,

close-hauled on the starboard tack, nearly as straight a course as

though they were whole men.

They took occasional deep-sea soundings with the brig shaking in the

wind, but found no bottom, and at the end of fifteen days a longer

heave to the ground-swell was evidence to Captain Swarth's mind that he

was passing Cape St. Roque, and the soundings were discontinued.

"No use bothering about St. Paul Rocks or the Rocas, Angel," said he.

"They rise out o' the deep sea, and if we're to hit, soundings won't

warn us in time. I take it we'll pass between them and well north of

Ascension." So he checked in the yards a little and brought the wind

more abeam.

One day Yank Tate appeared at the captain's elbow, and suggested, in a

low voice, that he examine the treasure-chests in the 'tween-deck. "I

was down stowing away some oakum," he said, "an' I was sure I heard the

lid close; but nobody answered me, an' I couldn't feel anybody."

Captain Swarth descended to his cabin and found his keys missing; then

he and the carpenter visited the chests. They were locked tight, and as

heavy as ever.

"Some one has the keys, Yank, and has very likely raided the diamonds.

We can't do anything but wait. He can't get away. Keep still about it."

The air became cooler as they sailed on; and judging that the

trade-wind was blowing more from the south than he had allowed for, the

captain brought the wind squarely abeam, and the brig sailed faster.

Still, it was too cool for the latitude, and it puzzled him, until a

man came aft and groaned that he had lifted his bandage to bathe his

eyes, and had unmistakably seen the sun four points off the port

quarter; but his eyes were worse now, and he could not do it again.

"Four points off!" exclaimed Swarth. "Four o'clock in the afternoon.

That's just about where the sun ought to be heading due east, and far

enough south o' the line to bring this cool weather. We're not far from

Ascension. Never knew the sou'east trade to act like this before. Must

ha' been blowing out o' the sou'west half the time."

A week later they were hove to on the port tack under double-reefed

topsails, with a cold gale of wind screaming through the rigging and

cold green seas boarding their weather bow. It was the first break in

the friendly trade-wind, and Swarth confessed to himself--though not to

his men--that he was out of his reckoning; but one thing he was sure

of--that this was a cyclone with a dangerous center.