"Let the spanker hang in the brails; tie_"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea

mate from his position at the break of the poop.

"Aye, aye, sir," answered a voice from the group, and an active figure

sprang into the rigging. Another figure--slim and graceful, clad in

long yellow oilskin coat, and a sou'wester which could not confine a

tangled fringe of wind-blown hair--left the shelter of the

after-companionway and sped along the alley to the mate's side.

"The foot-rope, Mr. Adams," she said hurriedly. "The seizing was

chafed, you remember."

"By George, Miss Freda!" said the officer. "Forgot all about it. Glad

you spoke. Come down from aloft," he added in a roar.

The sailor answered and descended.

"Get a piece of spun yarn out o' the booby-hatch and take it up wi'

you," continued the mate. "Pass a temporary seizing on the lee royal

foot-rope. Make sure it's all right 'fore you get on it, now."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The man passed down the poop steps, secured the spun yarn, and while

rolling it into a ball to put in his pocket, stood for a moment in the

light shining from the second mate's room. The girl on the poop looked

down at him. He was a trim-built, well-favored young fellow, with more

refinement in his face than most sailors can show; yet there was no

lack of seamanly deftness in the fingers which balled up the spun yarn

and threw a half-hitch with the bight of the lanyard over the point of

the marlinespike which hung to his neck. As he climbed the steps, the

girl faced him, looking squarely into his eyes.

"Be careful, John--Mr. Owen," she said. "The seizing is chafed through.

I heard the man report it--it was Dutch George of the other watch. Do

be careful."

"Eh, why--why, yes, Miss Folsom. Thank you. But you startled me. I've

been Jack for three years--not John, nor Mister. Yes, it's all right;

I----"

"Get aloft to that mizzenroyal," thundered the mate, now near the

wheel.

"Aye, aye, sir." He touched his sou'wester to the girl and mounted the

weather mizzen-rigging, running up the ratlines as a fireman goes up a

ladder. It was a black night with cold rain, and having thrown off his

oiled jacket, he was already drenched to the skin; but no environment

of sunshine, green fields and woodland, and flower-scented air ever

made life brighter to him than had the incident of the last few

moments; and with every nerve in his body rejoicing in his victory, and

her bitter words of four years back crowding his mind as a contrasting

background, he danced up and over the futtock-shrouds, up the

topmast-rigging, through the crosstrees, and up the topgallant-rigging

to where the ratlines ended and he must climb on the runner of the

royal-halyards. As the yard was lowered, this was a short climb, and he

swung himself upward to the weather yard-arm, where he rolled up one

side of the sail with extravagant waste of muscular effort; for she had

said he was not a man, and he had proved her wrong: he had conquered

himself, and he had conquered her.

He hitched the gasket, and crossed over to the lee side, forgetting, in

his exhilaration, the object of the spun yarn in his pocket and the

marlinespike hung from his neck, stepped out on the foot-rope, passed

his hands along the jack-stay to pull himself farther, and felt the

foot-rope sink to the sound of snapping strands. The jackstay was torn

from his grasp, and he fell, face downward, into the black void

beneath.

An involuntary shriek began on his lips, but was not finished. He felt

that the last atom of air was jarred from his lungs by what he knew was

the topgallant-yard, four feet below the royal; and, unable to hold on,

with a freezing cold in his veins and at the hair-roots, he experienced

in its fullness the terrible sensation of falling,--whirling

downward,--clutching wildly at vacancy with stiffened fingers.

The first horror past, his mind took on a strange contemplativeness;

fear of death gave way to mild curiosity as to the manner of it. Would

he strike on the lee quarter, or would he go overboard? And might he

not catch something? There was rigging below him--the lee

royal-backstay stretched farthest out from the mast, and if he brushed

it, there was a possible chance. He was now face upward, and with the

utmost difficulty moved his eyes,--he could not yet, by any exercise of

will or muscle, move his head,--and there, almost within reach, was a

dark line, which he knew was the royal-backstay; farther in toward the

spars was another--the topgallant-backstay; and within this, two other

ropes which he knew for the topgallant-rigging, though he could see no

ratlines, nor could he distinguish the lay of the strands; the ropes

appeared like solid bars. This, with the fact that he was still but a

few feet below the topgallant-yard, surprised him, until it came to him

that falling bodies travel over sixteen feet in the first second of

descent, which is at a rate too fast for distinct vision, and that the

apparent slowness of his falling was but relative--because of the

quickness of his mind, which could not wait on a sluggish optic nerve

and more sluggish retina.

Yet he wondered why he could not reach out and grasp the backstay. It

seemed as though invisible fetters bound every muscle and joint, though

not completely. An intense effort of will resulted in the slow

extension of all the fingers of his right hand, and a little

straightening of the arm toward the backstay; but not until he had

fallen to the level of the upper topsail-yard was this result reached.

It did no good; the backstay was now farther away. As it led in a

straight line from the royal-masthead to the rail, this meant that he

would fall overboard, and the thought comforted him. The concussion

would kill him, of course; but no self-pity afflicted him now. He

merely considered that she, who had relented, would be spared the sight

of him crushed to a pulp on the deck.

As he drifted slowly down past the expanse of upper topsail, he noticed

that his head was sinking and his body turning so that he would

ultimately face forward; but still his arms and legs held their

extended position, like those of a speared frog, and the thought

recalled to him an incident of his infancy--a frog-hunt with an older

playmate, his prowess, success, wet feet, and consequent illness. It

had been forgotten for years, but the chain was started, and led to

other memories, long dead, which rose before him. His childhood passed

in review, with its pleasures and griefs; his school-days, with their

sports, conflicts, friends and enemies; college, where he had acquired

the polish to make him petted of all but one--and abhorrent to her.

Almost every person, man or woman, boy or girl, with whom he had

conversed in his whole life, came back and repeated the scene; and as

he passed the lower topsail-yard, nearly head downward, he was

muttering commonplaces to a brown-faced, gray-eyed girl, who listened,

and looked him through and through, and seemed to be wondering why he

existed.

And as he traversed the depth of the lower topsail, turning gradually

on his axis, he lived it over--next to his first voyage, the most

harrowing period of his life: the short two months during which he had

striven vainly to impress this simple-natured sailor-girl with his good

qualities, ending at last with his frantic declaration of a love that

she did not want.

"But it's not the least use, John," she said to him. "I do not love

you, and I cannot. You are a gentleman, as they say, and as such I like

you well enough; but I never can love you, nor any one like you. I've

been among men, real men, all my life, and perhaps have ideals that are

strange to you. John,"--her eyes were wide open in earnestness,--"you

are not a man."

Writhing under her words, which would have been brutal spoken by

another, he cursed, not her, nor himself, but his luck and the fates

that had shaped his life. And next she was showing him the opened door,

saying that she could tolerate profanity in a man, but not in a

gentleman, and that under no circumstances was he to claim her

acquaintance again. Then followed the snubbing in the street, when,

like a lately whipped dog, he had placed himself in her way, hoping she

would notice him; and the long agony of humiliation and despair as his

heart and soul followed her over the seas in her father's ship, until

the seed she had planted--the small suspicion that her words were

true--developed into a wholesome conviction that she had measured him

by a higher standard than any he had known, and found him wanting. So

he would go to her school, and learn what she knew.

With lightning-like rapidity his mind rehearsed the details of his

tuition: the four long voyages; the brutality of the officers until he

had learned his work; their consideration and rough kindness when he

had become useful and valuable; the curious, incongruous feeling of

self-respect that none but able seamen feel; the growth in him of an

aggressive physical courage; the triumphant satisfaction with which he

finally knew himself as a complete man, clean in morals and mind, able

to look men in the face. And then came the moment when, mustering at

the capstan with the new crew of her father's ship, he had met her

surprised eyes with a steady glance, and received no recognition.

And so he pleaded his cause, dumbly, by the life that he lived. Asking

nothing by word or look, he proved himself under her eyes--first on

deck; first in the rigging; the best man at a weather-earing; the best

at the wheel; quick, obedient, intelligent, and respectful, winning the

admiration of his mates, the jealous ill will of the officers, but no

sign of interest or approval from her until to-night--the ninety-second

day of the passage. She had surrendered; he had reached her level, only

to die; and he thought this strange.

Facing downward, head inboard now, and nearly horizontal, he was

passing the cross-jack yard. Below him was the sea--black and crisp,

motionless as though carved in ebony. Neither was there movement of the

ship and its rigging; the hanging bights of ropes were rigid, while a

breaking sea just abaft the main chains remained poised, curled, its

white crest a frozen pillow of foam. "The rapidity of thought," he

mused dreamily; "but I'm falling fast enough--fast enough to kill me

when I strike."

He could not move an eyelid now, nor was he conscious that he breathed;

but, being nearly upright, facing aft and inboard, the quarter-deck and

its fittings were before his eyes, and he saw what brought him out of

eternity to a moment of finite time and emotion. The helmsman stood at

the motionless wheel with his right hand poised six inches above a

spoke, as though some sudden paralysis gripped him, and his face,

illumined by the binnacle light, turned aloft inquiringly. But it was

not this. Standing at the taffrail, one hand on a life-buoy, was a girl

in yellow looking at him,--unspeakable horror in the look,--and around

her waist the arm of the mate, on whose rather handsome face was an

evil grin.

A pang of earthly rage and jealousy shot through him, and he wished to

live. By a supreme effort of will he brought his legs close together

and his arms straight above his head; then the picture before him shot

upward, and he was immersed in cold salt water, with blackness all

about him. How long he remained under he could not guess. He had struck

feet first and suffered no harm, but had gone down like a deep-sea

lead. He felt the aching sensation in his lungs coming from suppressed

breathing, and swam blindly in the darkness, not knowing in which

direction was the surface, until he felt the marlinespike--still

fastened to his neck--extending off to the right. Sure that it must

hang downward, he turned the other way, and, keeping it parallel with

his body, swam with bursting lungs, until he felt air upon his face and

knew that he could breathe. In choking sobs and gasps his breath came

and went, while he paddled with hands and feet, glad of his reprieve;

and when his lungs worked normally, he struck out for a white, circular

life-buoy, not six feet away. "Bless her for this," he prayed, as he

slipped it under his arms. His oilskin trousers were cumbersome, and

with a little trouble he shed them.

He was alive, and his world was again in motion. Seas lifted and

dropped him, occasionally breaking over his head. In the calm of the

hollows, he listened for voices of possible rescuers. On the tops of

the seas,--ears filled with the roar of the gale,--he shouted, facing

to leeward, and searching with strained eyes for sign of the ship or

one of her boats. At last he saw a pin-point of light far away, and

around it and above it blacker darkness, which was faintly shaped to

the outline of a ship and canvas--hove to in the trough, with

maintopsail aback, as he knew by its foreshortening. And even as he

looked and shouted it faded away. He screamed and cursed, for he wanted

to live. He had survived that terrible fall, and it was his right.

Something white showed on the top of a sea to leeward and sank in a

hollow. He sank with it, and when he rose again it was nearer.

"Boat ahoy!" he sang out. "Boat ahoy!--this way--port a

little--steady."

He swam as he could, cumbered by the life-buoy, and with every heaving

sea the boat came nearer. At last he recognized it--the ship's dinghy;

and it was being pulled into the teeth of that forceful wind and sea by

a single rower--a slight figure in yellow.

"It's Freda," he exclaimed; and then, in a shout: "This way, Miss

Folsom--a little farther."

She turned, nodded, and pulled the boat up to him. He seized the

gunwale, and she took in the oars.

"Can you climb in alone, John?" she asked in an even voice--as even as

though she were asking him to have more tea. "Wait a little,--I am

tired,--and I will help you."

She was ever calm and dispassionate, but he wondered at her now; yet he

would not be outdone.

"I'll climb over the stern, Freda, so as not to capsize you. Better go

forward to balance my weight."

She did so. He pulled himself to the stern, slipped the life-buoy over

his head and into the boat, then, by a mighty exercise of all his

strength, vaulted aboard with seeming ease and sat down on a thwart. He

felt a strong inclination to laughter and tears, but repressed himself;

for masculine hysterics would not do before this young woman. She came

aft to the next thwart, and when he felt steadier he said:

"You have saved my life, Freda; but thanks are idle now, for your own

is in danger. Give me the oars. We must get back to the ship."

She changed places with him, facing forward, and said wearily, as he

shipped the oars: "So you want to get back?"

"Why, yes; don't you? We are adrift in an open boat."

"The wind is going down, and the seas do not break," she answered, in

the same weary voice. "It does not rain any more, and we will have the

moon."

A glance around told him that she spoke truly. There was less pressure

to the wind, and the seas rose and fell, sweeping past them like moving

hills of oil. Moonlight shining through thinning clouds faintly

illumined her face, and he saw the expressionless weariness of her

voice, and a sad, dreamy look in her gray eyes.

"How did you get the dinghy down, Freda?" he asked. "And why did no one

come with you?"

"Father was asleep, and the mate was incompetent. I had my revolver,

and they backed the yards for me and threw the dinghy over. I had

loosened the gripes as you went aloft. I thought you would fall.

Still--no one would come."

"And you came alone," he said in a broken voice, "and pulled this boat

to windward in this sea. You are a wonder."

"I saw you catch the life-buoy. Why did you fall? You were cautioned."

"I forgot the foot-rope. I was thinking of you."

"You are like the mate. He forgot the foot-rope all day because he was

thinking of me. I should have gone aloft and seized it myself."

There was no reproof or sarcasm in the tired voice. She had simply made

an assertion.

"Why are you at sea, before the mast--a man of your talents?"

It was foolish, he knew; but the word "man" sent a thrill through him.

"To please you if I may; to cultivate what you did not find in me."

"Yes, I knew; when you came on board I knew it. But you might have

spoken to me."

There was petulance in the tone now, and the soul of the man rejoiced.

The woman in her was asserting itself.

"Miss Folsom," he answered warmly, "I could not. You had made it

impossible. It was your right, your duty, if you wished it. But you

ignored my existence."

"I was testing you. I am glad now, Mr. Owen."

The petulance was gone, but there was something chilling in this

answer.

"Can you see the ship?" he asked after a moment's silence. "The

moonlight is stronger."

"We will not reach her. They have squared away. The mate had the deck,

and father is asleep."

"And left you in an open boat," he answered angrily.

"He knew I was with you."

What was irrelevant in this explanation of the mate's conduct escaped

him at the time. The full moon had emerged from behind the racing

clouds, and it brightened her face, fringed by the tangled hair and

yellow sou'wester, to an unearthly beauty that he had never seen

before. He wondered at it, and for a moment a grisly thought crossed

his mind that this was not life, but death; that he had died in the

fall, and in some manner the girl had followed.

She was standing erect, her lithe figure swaying to the boat's motion,

and pointing to leeward, while the moonlit face was now sweetened by

the smile of a happy child. He stood up, and looked where she pointed,

but saw nothing, and seated himself to look at her.

"See!" she exclaimed gleefully. "They have hauled out the spanker and

are sheeting home the royal. I will never be married! I will never be

married! He knew I was with you."

Again he stood up and searched the sea to leeward. There was nothing in

sight.

"Unhinged," he thought, "by this night's trouble. Freda," he said

gently, "please sit down. You may fall overboard."

"I am not insane," she said, as though reading his thought; and,

smiling radiantly in his face, she obeyed him.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked tentatively. "Are we in the track

of ships?"

"No," she answered, while her face took on the dreamy look again. "We

are out of all the tracks. We will not be picked up. We are due west

from Ilio Island. I saw it at sundown broad on the starboard bow. The

wind is due south. If you will pull in the trough of the sea we can

reach it before daylight. I am tired--so tired--and sleepy. Will you

watch out?"

"Why, certainly. Lie down in the stern-sheets and sleep if you can."

She curled up in her yellow oil-coat and slumbered through the night,

while he pulled easily on the oars--not that he had full faith in her

navigation, but to keep himself warm. The sea became smoother, and as

the moon rose higher, it attained a brightness almost equal to that of

the sun, casting over the clear sky a deep-blue tint that shaded

indefinitely into the darkness extending from itself to the horizon.

Late in the night he remembered the danger of sleeping in strong

moonlight, and arising softly to cover her face with his damp

handkerchief, he found her looking at him.

"We are almost there, John. Wake me when we arrive," she said, and

closed her eyes.

He covered her face, and, marveling at her words, looked ahead. He was

within a half-mile of a sandy beach which bordered a wooded island. The

sea was now like glass in its level smoothness, and the air was warm

and fragrant with the smell of flowers and foliage. He shipped the

oars, and pulled to the beach. As the boat grounded she arose, and he

helped her ashore.

The beach shone white under the moonlight, and dotting it were large

shellfish and moving crabs that scuttled away from them. Bordering the

beach were forest and undergrowth with interlacery of flowering vines.

A ridge of rocks near by disclosed caves and hollows, some filled by

the water of tinkling cascades. Oranges snowed in the branches of

trees, and cocoa-palms lifted their heads high in the distance. A

small deer arose, looked at them, and lay down, while a rabbit

inspected them from another direction and began nibbling.

"An earthly paradise, I should say," he observed, as he hauled the boat

up the beach. "Plenty of food and water, at any rate."

"It is Ilio Island," she answered, with that same dreamy voice. "It is

uninhabited and never visited."

"But surely, Freda, something will come along and take us off."

"No; if I am taken off I must be married, of course; and I will never

be married."

"Who to, Freda? Whom must you marry if we are rescued?"

"The mate--Mr. Adams. Not you, John Owen--not you. I do not like you."

She was unbalanced, of course; but the speech pained him immeasurably,

and he made no answer. He searched the clean-cut horizon for a moment,

and when he looked back she was close to him, with the infantile smile

on her face, candor and sanity in her gray eyes. Involuntarily he

extended his arms, and she nestled within them.

"You _will_ be married, Freda," he said; "you _will_ be married, and to

me."

He held her tightly and kissed her lips; but the kiss ended in a

crashing sound, and a shock of pain in his whole body which expelled

the breath from his lungs. The moonlit island, sandy beach, blue sea

and sky were swallowed in a blaze of light, which gave way to pitchy

darkness, with rain on his face and whistling wind in his ears, while

he clung with both arms, not to a girl, but to a hard, wet, and cold

mizzentopgallant-yard whose iron jack-stay had bumped him severely

between the eyes. Below him in the darkness a scream rang out, followed

by the roar of the mate: "Are you all right up there? Want any help?"

He had fallen four feet.

When he could speak he answered: "I'm all right, sir." And catching the

royal foot-rope dangling from the end of the yard above him, he brought

it to its place, passed the seizing, and finished furling the royal.

But it was a long job; his movements were uncertain, for every nerve in

his body was jumping in its own inharmonious key.

"What's the matter wi' you up there?" demanded the mate when he reached

the deck; and a yellow-clad figure drew near to listen.

"It was nothing, sir; I forgot about the foot-rope."

"You're a bigger lunkhead than I thought. Go forrard."

He went, and when he came aft at four bells to take his trick at the

wheel, the girl was still on deck, standing near the companionway,

facing forward. The mate stood at the other side of the binnacle,

looking at her, with one elbow resting on the house. There was just

light enough from the cabin skylight for Owen to see the expression

which came over his face as he watched the graceful figure balancing to

the heave of the ship. It took on the same evil look which he had seen

in his fall, while there was no mistaking the thought behind the gleam

in his eyes. The mate looked up,--into Owen's face,--and saw something

there which he must have understood; for he dropped his glance to the

compass, snarled out, "Keep her on the course," and stepped into the

lee alleyway, where the dinghy, lashed upside down on the house, hid

him from view.

The girl approached the man at the wheel.

"I saw you fall, Mr. Owen," she said in a trembling voice, "and I could

not help screaming. Were you hurt much?"

"No, Miss Folsom," he answered in a low though not a steady tone; "but

I was sadly disappointed."

"I confess I was nervous--very nervous--when you went aloft," she said;

"and I cleared away the life-buoy. Then, when you fell, it slipped out

of my hand and went overboard. Mr. Adams scolded me. Wasn't it

ridiculous?" There were tears and laughter in the speech.

"Not at all," he said gravely; "it saved my life--for which I thank

you."

"How--why----"

"Who in Sam Hill's been casting off these gripe-lashings?" growled the

voice of the mate behind the dinghy.

The girl tittered hysterically, and stepped beside Owen at the wheel,

where she patted the moving spokes, pretending to assist him in

steering.

"Miss Freda," said the officer, sternly, as he came around the corner

of the house, "I must ask you plainly to let things alone; and another

thing, please don't talk to the man at the wheel."

"Will you please mind your own business?" she almost screamed; and

then, crying and laughing together: "If you paid as much attention to

your work as you do to--to--me, men wouldn't fall from aloft on account

of rotten foot-ropes."

The abashed officer went forward, grumbling about "discipline" and

"women aboard ship." When he was well out of sight in the darkness, the

girl turned suddenly, passed both arms around Owen's neck, exerted a

very slight pressure, patted him playfully on the shoulder as she

withdrew them, and sped down the companionway.

He steered a wild course during that trick, and well deserved the

profane criticism which he received from the mate.

NEEDS MUST WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES

Hogged at bow and stern, her deck sloped at the ends like a truck's

platform, while a slight twist in the old hull canted the foremast to

port and the mizzen to starboard. It would be hard to know when she was

on an even keel. The uneven planking, inboard and out, was scarred like

a chopping-block, possibly from a former and intimate acquaintance with

the coal trade. Aloft were dingy gray spars, slack hemp rigging,

untarred for years, and tan-colored sails, mended with patch upon patch

of lighter-hued canvas that seemed about to fall apart from their own

weight. She was English-built, bark-rigged, bluff in the bow, square in

the stern, unpainted and leaky--on the whole as unkempt and

disreputable-looking a craft as ever flew the black flag; and with the

clank of the pumps marking time to the wailing squeak of the

tiller-ropes, she wallowed through the waves like a log in an eddying

tideway.

Even the black flag at the gaff-end wore a makeshift, slovenly air. It

was a square section of the bark's foreroyal, painted black around the

skull-and-cross-bones design, which had been left the original hue of

the canvas. The port-holes were equally slovenly in appearance, being

cut through between stanchions with axes instead of saws; and the

bulwarks were further disfigured by extra holes smashed through at the

stanchions to take the lashings of the gun-breechings. But the guns

were bright and cared for, as were the uniforms of the crew; for they

had been lately transhipped. Far from home, with a general cargo, this

ancient trader had been taken in a fog by Captain Swarth and his men an

hour before their own well-found vessel had sunk alongside--which gave

them just time to hoist over guns and ammunition. When the fog shifted,

the pursuing English war-brig that had riddled the pirate saw nothing

but the peaceful old tub ahead, and went on into the fog, looking for

the other.

"Any port in a storm, Angel," remarked Captain Swarth, as he flashed

his keen eyes over the rickety fabric aloft; "but we'll find a better

one soon. How do the boys stand the pumping?"

Mr. Angel Todd, first mate and quartermaster, filled a black pipe

before answering. Then, between the first and second deep puffs, he

said: "Growlin'--dammum."

"At the work?"

"Yep, and the grub. And they say the 'tween-deck and forecastle smells

o' bedbugs and bilge-water, and they want their grog. 'An ungodly

witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth

iniquity.'" Mr. Todd had been educated for the pulpit; but, going out

as a missionary, he had fallen into ungodly ways and taken to the sea,

where he was more successful. Many of his old phrasings clung to him.

"Well," drawled the captain, "men get fastidious and high-toned in this

business,--can't blame them,--but we've got to make the coast, and if

we don't pick up something on the way, we must careen and stop the

leak. Then they'll have something to growl about."

"S'pose the brig follows us in?"

"Hope she will," said Captain Swarth, with a pleasant smile and a

lightening of his eyes--"hope she will, and give me a chance. Her

majestic widowship owes me a brig, and that's a fine one."

Mr. Todd had never been known to smile, but at this speech he lifted

one eyebrow and turned his saturnine face full at his superior, inquiry

written upon every line of it. Captain Swarth was musing, however, and

said no more; so the mate, knowing better than to attempt probing his

mind, swung his long figure down the poop-ladder, and went forward to

harass the men--which, in their opinion, was all he was good for.

According to his mood, Mr. Todd's speech was choicest English or the

cosmopolitan, technical slang of the sea, mingled with wonderful

profanity. But one habit of his early days he never dropped: he wore,

in the hottest weather, and in storm and battle, the black frock and

choker of the clerical profession. Standing now with one foot on the

fore-hatch, waving his long arms and objurgating the scowling men at

the pumps, he might easily have seemed, to any one beyond the reach of

his language, to be a clergyman exhorting them. Captain Swarth watched

him with an amused look on his sunburnt face, and muttered: "Good man,

every inch of him, but he can't handle men." Then he called him aft.

"Angel," he said, "we made a mistake in cutting the ports; we can't

catch anything afloat that sees them, so we'll have to pass for a

peaceable craft until we can drift close enough to board something. I

think the brig'll be back this way, too. Get out some old tarpaulins

and cover up the ports. Paint them, if you can, the color of the sides,

and you might coil some lines over the rail, as though to dry. Then you

can break out cargo and strike the guns down the main-hatch."

Three days later, with Cape St. Roque a black line to the westward, a

round shot across her bows brought the old vessel--minus the black

emblem now, and outwardly respectable--up to the wind, with maintopsail

aback, while Captain Swarth and a dozen of his men--equally respectable

in the nondescript rig of the merchant sailor--watched the approach of

an English brig of war. Mr. Todd and the rest of the crew were below

hatches with the guns.

The brig came down the wind like a graceful bird--a splendid craft,

black, shiny, and shipshape, five guns to a side, brass-bound officers

on her quarter-deck, blue-jackets darting about her white deck and up

aloft, a homeward-bound pennant trailing from her main-truck, and at

her gaff-end a British ensign as large as her mainroyal. Captain Swarth

lazily hoisted the English flag to the bark's gaff, and, as the brig

rounded to on his weather beam, he pointed to it; but his dark eyes

sparkled enviously as he viewed the craft whose government's protection

he appealed to.

"Bark ahoy!" came a voice through a trumpet. "What bark is that?"

Captain Swarth swung himself into the mizzen-rigging and answered

through his hands with an excellent cockney accent: "_Tryde Wind_

o' Lunnon, Cappen Quirk, fifty-one dyes out fro' Liverpool, bound to

Callao, gen'ral cargo."

"You were not heading for the Horn."

"Hi'm a-leakin' badly. Hi'm a-goin' to myke the coast to careen. D'ye

happen to know a good place?"

An officer left the group and returned with what Captain Swarth knew

was a chart, which a few of them studied, while their captain hailed

again:

"See anything more of that pirate brig the other day?"

"What! a pirate? Be 'e a pirate?" answered Captain Swarth, in agitated

tones. "Be that you a-chasin' of 'im? Nao, hi seed nothink of 'im arter

the fog shut 'im out."

The captain conferred with his officers a moment, then called:

"We are going in to careen ourselves. That fellow struck us on the

water-line. We are homeward bound, and Rio's too far to run back.

nine fifty-one forty south, rocks to the north, lowland to the south,

good water at the entrance, and a fine beach. Look out for the brig.

It's Swarth and his gang. Good morning."

"Aye, that hi will. Thank ye. Good marnin'."

In three hours the brig was a speck under the rising land ahead; in

another, she was out of sight; but before this Captain Swarth and his

crew had held a long conference, which resulted in sail being

shortened, though the man at the wheel was given a straight course to

the bay described by the English captain.

Late on the following afternoon the old bark blundered into this bay--a

rippling sheet of water, bag-shaped, and bordered on all sides by a

sandy beach. Stretching up to the mountainous country was a luxurious

forest of palm, laurel, and cactus, bound and intertwined by almost

impassable undergrowth, and about half-way from the entrance to the end

of the bay was the English brig, moored and slightly careened on the

inshore beach. Captain Swarth's seamanly eye noted certain appearances

of the tackles that held her down, which told him that the work was

done and she was being slacked upright. "Just in time," he muttered.

They brought the bark to anchor near the beach, about a half-mile from

the brig, furled the canvas, and ran out an anchor astern, with the

cable over the taffrail. Heaving on this, they brought the vessel

parallel with the shore. So far, good. Guns and cargo lightered ashore,

more anchors seaward to keep her off the beach, masthead tackles to the

trees to heave her down, and preventer rigging and braces to assist the

masts, would have been next in order, but they proceeded no further

toward careening. Instead, they lowered the two crazy boats,

provisioned and armed them on the in-shore side of the bark, made

certain other preparations--and waited.

On the deck of the English brig things were moving. A gang of

blue-jackets, under the first lieutenant, were heaving in the cable;

another gang, under the boatswain, were sending down and stowing away

the heavy tackles and careening-gear, tailing out halyards and sheets

and coiling down the light-running rigging, while topmen aloft loosed

the canvas to bunt-gaskets, ready to drop it at the call from the deck.

The second lieutenant, overseeing this latter, paced the port

quarter-deck and answered remarks from Captain Bunce, who paced the

sacred starboard side (the brig being at anchor) and occasionally

turned his glass on the dilapidated craft down the beach.

"Seems to me, Mr. Shack," he said across the deck, "that an owner who

would send that bark around the Horn, and the master who would take

her, ought to be sequestered and cared for, either in an asylum or in

jail."

"Yes, sir, I think so too," answered the second lieutenant, looking

aloft. "Might be an insurance job. Clear away that bunt-gasket on the

royal-yard," he added in a roar.

Captain Bunce--round, rosy, with brilliant mutton-chop

whiskers--muttered: "Insurance--wrecked intentionally--no, not here

where we are; wouldn't court investigation by her Majesty's officers."

He rolled forward, then aft, and looked again through the glass.

"Very large crew--very large," he said; "very curious, Mr. Shack."

A hail from the forecastle, announcing that the anchor was short,

prevented Mr. Shack's answering. Captain Bunce waved a deprecatory hand

to the first lieutenant, who came aft at once, while Mr. Shack

descended to the waist, and the boatswain ascended the forecastle steps

to attend to the anchor. The first lieutenant now had charge of the

brig, and from the quarter-deck gave his orders to the crew, while

Captain Bunce busied himself with his glass and his thoughts.

Fore-and-aft sail was set and head-sheets trimmed down to port, square

sails were dropped, sheeted home, and hoisted, foreyards braced to

port, the anchor tripped and fished, and the brig paid off from the

land-breeze, and, with foreyards swung, steadied down to a course for

the entrance.

"Mr. Duncan," said the captain, "there are fully forty men on that

bark's deck, all dressed alike--all in red shirts and knitted caps--and

all dancing around like madmen. Look!" He handed the glass to the first

lieutenant, who brought it to bear.

"Strange," said the officer, after a short scrutiny; "there were only a

few showing when we spoke her outside. It looks as though they were all

drunk."

As they drew near, sounds of singing--uproarious discord--reached them,

and soon they could see with the naked eye that the men on the bark

were wrestling, dancing, and running about.

"Quarters, sir?" inquired Mr. Duncan. "Shall we bring to alongside?"

"Well--no--not yet," said the captain, hesitatingly; "it's all

right--possibly; yet it is strange. Wait a little."

They waited, and had sailed down almost abreast of the gray old craft,

noticing, as they drew near, an appreciable diminution of the uproar,

when a flag arose from the stern of the bark, a dusky flag that

straightened out directly toward them, so that it was difficult to make

out.

But they soon understood. As they reached a point squarely abreast of

the bark, five points of flame burst from her innocent gray sides, five

clouds of smoke ascended, and five round shot, coming with the thunder

of the guns, hurtled through their rigging. Then they saw the design of

the flag, a white skull and cross-bones, and noted another, a black

flag too, but pennant-shaped, and showing in rudely painted letters the

single word "Swarth," sailing up to the forepeak.

"Thunder and lightning!" roared Captain Bunce. "Quarters, Mr. Duncan,

quarters, and in with the kites. Give it to them. Put about first."

A youngster of the crew had sprung below and immediately emerged with a

drum which, without definite instruction, he hammered vigorously; but

before he had begun, men were clearing away guns and manning flying-jib

downhaul and royal clue-lines. Others sprang to stations, anticipating

all that the sharp voice of the first lieutenant could order. Around

came the brig on the other tack and sailed back, receiving another

broadside through her rigging and answering with her starboard guns.

Then for a time the din was deafening. The brig backed her main-yards

and sent broadside after broadside into the hull of the old craft. But

it was not until the eighth had gone that Captain Bunce noticed through

the smoke that the pirates were not firing. The smoke from the burning

canvas port-coverings had deluded him. He ordered a cessation. Fully

forty solid shot had torn through that old hull near the water-line,

and not a man could now be seen on her deck.

"Out with the boats, Mr. Duncan," he said; "they're drunk or crazy, but

they're the men we want. Capture them."

"Suppose they run, sir--suppose they take to their boats and get into

the woods--shall we follow?"

"No, not past the beach--not into an ambush."

The four boat-loads of men which put off from the brig found nothing

but a deserted deck on the sinking bark and two empty boats hauled up

on the beach. The pirates were in the woods, undoubtedly, having kept

the bark between themselves and the brig as they pulled ashore. While

the blue-jackets clustered around the bows of their boats and watched

nervously the line of forest up the beach, from which bullets might

come at any time, the two lieutenants conferred for a few moments, and

had decided to put back, when a rattling chorus of pistol reports

sounded from the depths of the woods. It died away; then was heard a

crashing of bush and branch, and out upon the sands sprang a figure--a

long, weird figure in black frock of clerical cut. Into their midst it

sped with mighty bounds, and sinking down, lifted a glad face to the

heavens with the groaning utterance: "O God, I thank thee. Protect me,

gentlemen--protect me from those wicked men."

"What is it? Who are you?" asked Mr. Duncan. "Were they shooting at

you?"

"Yes, at me, who never harmed a fly. They would have killed me. My name

is Todd. Oh, such suffering! But you will protect me? You are English

officers. You are not pirates and murderers."

"But what has happened? Do you live around here?"

It took some time for Mr. Todd to quiet down sufficiently to tell his

story coherently. He was an humble laborer in the vineyard of the Lord.

He had gleaned among the poorest of the native population in the

outskirts of Rio de Janeiro until his health suffered, and had taken

passage home in a passenger-ship, which, ten days out, was captured by

a pirate brig. And the pirate crew had murdered every soul on board but

himself, and only spared his life, as he thought, for the purpose of

amusement; for they had compelled him to dance--he, a minister of the

gospel--and had made him drink under torture, and recite ribald poetry,

and swear, and wash their clothes. All sorts of indignities had been

heaped upon him, but he had remembered the injunction of the Master; he

had invariably turned the other cheek when smitten, and had prayed for

their souls. He told of the flight from the English war-brig, of the

taking of the old bark in the fog and the sinking of the pirate craft,

of the transfer of guns and treasure to the bark, and the interview at

sea with the English brig, in which Captain Swarth had deceived the

other, and of Captain Swarth's reckless confidence in himself, which

had induced him to follow the brig in and careen in the same bay. He

wound up his tale with a lurid description of the drunken debauch

following the anchoring of the bark,--during which he had trembled for

his life,--of the insane firing on the brig as she passed, and the

tumbling into the boats when the brig returned the fire, of the flight

into the woods, the fighting among themselves, and his escape under

fire.

As he finished he offered an incoherent prayer of thankfulness, and the

sympathetic Mr. Shack drew forth his pocket-flask and offered it to the

agitated sufferer; but Mr. Todd, who could probably drink more whisky

and feel it less than any other man in the pirate crew, declined the

poison with a shiver of abhorrence. Then Mr. Duncan, who had listened

thoughtfully, said: "You speak of treasure; did they take it with

them?"

Mr. Todd opened wide his eyes, looked toward the dark shades of the

forest, then at the three masts of the bark rising out of the water,

and answered impressively:

"Gentlemen, they did not. They were intoxicated--mad with liquor. They

took arms and a knapsack of food to each man,--they spoke of an inland

retreat to which they were going,--but the treasure from the

passenger-ship--the bars of gold and the bags of diamonds--they forgot.

They transferred it from their sinking vessel when sober, but when

intoxicated they remembered food and left it behind. Gentlemen, there

is untold wealth in the hull out there which your fire has sunk. It is,

verily, the root of all evil; let us hope that it remains at the bottom

of the sea."

"Bars of gold--bags of diamonds!" said Mr. Duncan. "Come on board, Mr.

Todd; we'll see what the captain thinks."

At dinner in the brig's cabin that evening--as a prelude to which Mr.

Todd said grace--his account of the wealth spread out on Captain

Swarth's cabin table after the taking of the passenger-ship was

something to arouse interest in a less worldly man than Captain Bunce.

Virgin gold--in bars, ingots, bricks, and dust--from the Morro Velho

mines of Brazil was there, piled up on the table until the legs had

given way and launched the glittering mass to the floor. Diamonds

uncut, uncounted, of untold value,--a three years' product of the whole

Chapada district,--some as large as walnuts, had been spread out and

tossed about like marbles by those lawless men, then boxed up with the

gold and stowed among the cargo under the main-hatch. Again Mr. Todd

expressed the hope that Providence would see fit to let this treasure

remain where the pirates had left it, no longer to tempt man to kill

and steal. But Captain Bunce and his officers thought differently.

Glances, then tentative comments, were exchanged, and in five minutes

they were of one mind, even including Mr. Todd; for it may not be

needless to state that the treasure and the passenger-ship existed only

in his imagination.

Pending the return of the boats the brig's anchor had been dropped

about two hundred yards from the bark; now canvas was furled, and at

eight bells all hands were mustered aft to hear what was in store.

Captain Bunce stated the case succinctly; they were homeward bound and

under general orders until they reported to the admiral at Plymouth.

Treasure was within their reach, apportionable, when obtained, as

prize-money. It was useless to pursue the pirates into the Brazilian

jungle; but they would need to be watchful and ready for surprise at

any moment, either while at work raising the bark or at night; for

though they had brought out the two boats in which the pirates had

escaped, they could find other means of attack, should they dare or

care to make it. The English sailors cheered. Mr. Todd begged to say a

few words, and enjoined them not to allow the love of lucre to tempt

their minds from the duty they owed to their God, their country, and

their captain, which was also applauded and forgotten in a moment.

Then, leaving a double-anchor watch, provided with blue fire and strict

instructions, on deck, the crew turned in to dream of an affluent

future, and Mr. Todd was shown to a comfortable state-room. He removed

his coat and vest, closed the door and dead-light, filled and lighted

his black pipe, and rolled into the berth with a seaman's sigh of

contentment.

"That was a good dinner," he murmured, after he had filled the room

with smoke--"a good dinner. Nothing on earth is too good for a

sky-pilot. I'd go back to the business when I've made my pile, if it

wasn't so all-fired hard on the throat; and then the trustees, with

their eternal kicking on economy, and the sisters, and the

donation-parties--yah, to h----l with 'em! Wonder if this brig ever

carried a chaplain? Wonder how Bill and the boys are making out? Fine

brig, this,--'leven knots on a bow-line, I'll bet,--fine state-room,

good grub, nothin' to do but save souls and preach the Word on Sunday.

Guess I'll strike the fat--duffer--for the--job--in--the--morn----" The

rest of the sentence merged into a snore, and Mr. Todd slept through

the night in the fumes of tobacco, which so permeated his very being

that Captain Bunce remarked it at breakfast. "Smoke, Captain Bunce? I

smoke? Not I," he answered warmly; "but, you see, those ungodly men

compelled me to clean all their pipes,--forty foul pipes,--and I do not

doubt that some nicotine has lodged on my clothing." Whereupon Captain

Bunce told of a chaplain he had once sailed with whose clothing smelled

so vilely that he himself had framed a petition to the admiral for his

transfer to another ship and station. And the little story had the

effect on Mr. Todd of causing him mentally to vow that he'd "ship with

no man who didn't allow smoking," and openly aver that no sincere,

consistent Christian clergyman would be satisfied to stultify himself

and waste his energies in the comfort and ease of a naval chaplaincy,

and that a chaplain who would smoke should be discredited and forced

out of the profession. But later, when Captain Bunce and his officers

lighted fat cigars, and he learned that the aforesaid chaplain had

merely been a careless devotee of pipe and pigtail twist, Mr. Todd's

feelings may be imagined (by a smoker); but he had committed himself

against tobacco and must suffer.

During the breakfast the two lieutenants reported the results of a

survey which they had taken of the wreck at daylight.

"We find," said Mr. Duncan, "about nine feet of water over the deck at

the stern, and about three feet over the fore-hatch at low tide. The

topgallant-forecastle is awash and the end of the bowsprit out of

water, so that we can easily reach the upper ends of the bobstays.

There is about five feet rise and fall of tide. Now, we have no

pontoons nor casks. Our only plan, captain, is to lift her bodily."

"But we have a diving-suit and air-pump," said Mr. Shack,

enthusiastically, "and fifty men ready to dive without suits. We can

raise her, captain, in two weeks."

"Gentlemen," said Captain Bunce, grandly, "I have full faith in your

seamanship and skill. I leave the work in your hands." Which was

equivalent to an admission that he was fat and lazy, and did not care

to take an active part.

"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Duncan, and "Thank you, sir," said Mr.

Shack; then the captain said other pleasant things, which brought other

pleasant responses, and the breakfast passed off so agreeably that Mr.

Todd, in spite of the soul-felt yearning for a smoke inspired by the

cigars in the mouths of the others, felt the influence of the

enthusiasm and bestowed his blessing--qualifiedly--on the enterprise.

Every man of the brig's crew was eager for the work, but few could

engage at first; for there was nothing but the forecastle-deck and the

bark's rigging to stand upon. Down came the disgraceful black flags the

first thing, and up to the gaff went the ensign of Britain. Then they

sent down the fore and main lower and topsail yards, and erected them

as sheers over the bow and stern, lower ends well socketed in spare

anchor-stocks to prevent their sinking in the sand, upper ends lashed

together and stayed to each other and to the two anchors ahead and

astern. To the sheer-heads they rigged heavy threefold tackles, and to

the disconnected bobstays (chains leading from the bowsprit end to the

stem at the water-line) they hooked the forward tackle, and heaving on

the submerged windlass, lifted the bow off the bottom--high enough to

enable them to slip two shots of anchor-chain under the keel, one to

take the weight at the stern, the other at the bow, for the bobstays

would pull out of the stem under the increased strain as the bark

arose.

Most of this work was done under water; but a wetting is nothing to men

looking for gold, and nobody cared. Yet, as a result of ruined

uniforms, the order came from Captain Bunce to wear underclothing only

or go naked, which latter the men preferred, though the officers clung

to decency and tarry duck trousers. Every morning the day began with

the washing of the brig's deck and scouring of brasswork--which must be

done at sea though the heavens fall; then followed breakfast, the

arming of the boats ready for an attack from the shore, and the descent

upon the bark of as many men as could work.

Occasionally Captain Bunce would order the dinghy, and, accompanied by

Mr. Todd, would visit the bark and offer interfering suggestions, after

the manner of captains, which only embarrassed the officers; and Mr.

Todd would take advantage of these occasions to make landlubberly

comments and show a sad ignorance of things nautical. But often he

would decline the invitation, and when the captain was gone would

descend to his room, and, shutting the door, grip his beloved--though

empty--black pipe between his teeth and breathe through it, while his

eyes shone fiercely with unsatisfied desire, and his mind framed silent

malediction on Bill Swarth for condemning him to this smokeless

sojourn. For he dared not smoke; stewards, cooks, and sailors were all

about him.

In three days the bark's nose was as high as the seven-part tackle

would bring it, with all men heaving who could find room at the

windlass-brakes. Then they clapped a luff-tackle on the fall, and by

heaving on this, nippering and fleeting up, they lifted the fore-hatch

and forecastle scuttle out of water--which was enough. Before this

another gang had been able to slip the other chain to position abaft

the mizzenmast, hook on the tackle, and lead the fall through a

snatch-block at the quarter-bitts forward to the midship capstan.

Disdaining the diving-suit, they swam down nine feet to do these

things, and when they had towed the rope forward they descended seven

feet to wind it around the capstan and ship the bars, which they found

in a rack at the mainmast.

A man in the water weighs practically nothing, and to heave around a

capstan under water requires lateral resistance. To secure this they

dived with hammers and nails, and fastened a circle of cleats to catch

their feet. Then with a boy on the main fife-rail (his head out)

holding slack, eighteen men--three to a bar--would inhale all the air

their lungs could hold, and, with a "One, two, three," would flounder

down, push the capstan around a few pawls, and come up gasping, and

blue in the face, to perch on their bars and recover. It went slowly,

this end, but in three days more they could walk around with their

heads above water.

The next day was Sunday, and they were entitled to rest; but the flavor

of wealth had entered their souls, and they petitioned the captain for

privilege to work, which was granted, to the satisfaction of the

officers, and against the vigorous protest of Mr. Todd, who had

prepared a sermon and borrowed clean linen from Mr. Shack in which to

deliver it.

With luff-tackles on the fall they hove the stern up until the cabin

doors and all deck-openings but the main-hatch were out of water, and

then, with the bark hanging to the sheers as a swinging-cradle hangs

from its supports, some assisted the carpenter and his mates in

building up and calking an upward extension of the main-hatch coaming

that reached above water at high tide, while others went over the side

looking for the shot-holes of eight broadsides. These, when found, were

covered with planking, followed by canvas, nails being driven with

shackles, sounding-leads, and stones from the bottom in the hands of

naked men clinging to weighted stagings--men whose eyes protruded,

whose lungs ached, whose brains were turning.

Then, and before a final inspection by the boatswain in the diving-suit

assured them that the last shot-hole was covered, they began bailing

from the main-hatch, and when the water perceptibly lowered--the first

index of success--a feverish yell arose and continued, while nude

lunatics wrestled and floundered waist-deep on the flooded deck. The

bark's pumps were manned and worked under water, bailing-pumps--square

tubes with one valve--were made and plunged up and down in each hatch,

whips were rigged, and buckets rose and fell until the obstructing

cargo confined the work to the bark's pumps. Can-hooks replaced the

buckets on the whips, then boxes and barrels were hoisted, broken into,

and thrown overboard, until the surface of the bay was dotted with

them. They drifted back and forth with the tide, some stranding on the

beach, others floating seaward through the inlet. And all the time that

they worked, sharp eyes had watched through the bushes, and a few miles

inland, in a glade surrounded by the giant trees of the Brazilian

forest, red-shirted men lolled and smoked and grew fat, while they

discussed around the central fire the qualities of barbecued wild oxen,

roast opossum and venison, and criticized the seamanship of the

Englishmen.

With a clear deck to work on, every man and boy of the brig's crew,

except the idlers (stewards, cooks, and servants), was requisitioned,

and boxes flew merrily; but night closed down on the tenth day of their

labor without sign of the treasure, and now Mr. Todd, who had noticed a

shade of testiness in the queries of the officers as to the exact

location of the gold and diamonds, expressed a desire to climb the

rigging next afternoon, a feat he had often wished to perform, which he

did clumsily, going through the lubber's hole, and seated in the

maintop with Mr. Duncan's Bible, he remained in quiet meditation and

apparent reading and prayer until the tropic day changed to sudden

twilight and darkness, and the hysterical crew returned. Then he came

down to dinner.

In the morning the work was resumed, and more boxes sprinkled the bay.

They drifted up with the flood, and came back with the ebb-tide; but

among them now were about forty others, unobserved by Captain Bunce,

pacing his quarter-deck, but noted keenly by Mr. Todd. These forty

drifted slowly to the offshore side of the brig and stopped, bobbing up

and down on the crisp waves, even though the wind blew briskly with the

tide, and they should have gone on with the others. It was then that

Captain Bunce stepped below for a cigar, and it was then that Mr. Todd

became strangely excited, hopping along the port-rail and throwing

overboard every rope's end within reach, to the wonder and scandal of

an open-eyed steward in the cabin door, who immediately apprised the

captain.

Captain Bunce, smoking a freshly lit cigar, emerged to witness a

shocking sight--the good and godly Mr. Todd, with an intense expression

on his somber countenance, holding a match to a black pipe and puffing

vigorously, while through the ports and over the rail red-shirted men,

dripping wet and scowling, were boarding his brig. Each man carried a

cutlass and twelve-inch knife, and Captain Bunce needed no special

intelligence to know that he was tricked.

One hail only he gave, and Mr. Todd, his pipe glowing like a hot coal,

was upon him. The captain endeavored to draw his sword, but sinewy arms

encircled him; his cigar was removed from his lips and inserted in the

mouth of Mr. Todd alongside the pipe; then he was lifted, spluttering

with astonishment and rage, borne to the rail and dropped overboard,

his sword clanking against the side as he descended. When he came to

the surface and looked up, he saw through a cloud of smoke on the rail

the lantern-jaws of Mr. Todd working convulsively on pipe and cigar,

and heard the angry utterance: "Yes, d--n ye, I smoke." Then a vibrant

voice behind Mr. Todd roared out: "Kill nobody--toss 'em overboard,"

and the captain saw his servants, cooks, and stewards tumbling over to

join him.

Captain Bunce turned and swam--there was nothing else to do. Soon he

could see a black-eyed, black-mustached man on his quarter-deck

delivering orders, and he recognized the thundering voice, but none of

the cockney accent of Captain Quirk. Men were already on the yards

loosing canvas; and as he turned on his back to rest--for, though

fleshy and buoyant, swimming in full uniform fatigued him--he saw his

anchor-chains whizzing out the hawse-pipes.

He was picked up by the first boat to put off from the bark, and

ordered pursuit; but this was soon seen to be useless. The clean-lined

brig had sternway equal to the best speed of the boats, and now

head-sails were run up, and she paid off from the shore. Topsails were

sheeted home and hoisted, she gathered way, and with topgallantsails

and royals, spanker and staysails, following in quick succession, the

beautiful craft hummed down to the inlet and put to sea, while yells of

derision occasionally came back to the white-faced men in the boats.

A month later the rehabilitated old bark also staggered out the

entrance, and, with a naked, half-starved crew and sad-eyed,

dilapidated officers, headed southward for Rio de Janeiro.

WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK

"Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just."

BARD OF AVON.

"But 4 times he who gits hiz blo' in fust."

JOSH BILLINGS.

Captain William Belchior was more than a martinet. He was known as

"Bucko" Belchior in every port where the English language is spoken,

having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his

days as second and chief mate, he would whirl belaying-pins, heavers,

and handspikes about the decks, and by his success in knocking down,

tricing up, and working up sailors who displeased him. With a blow of

his fist he had broken the jaw of a man helplessly ironed in the

'tween-deck, and on the same voyage, armed with a simple belaying-pin,

had sprung alone into a circle of brandishing sheath-knives and quelled

a mutiny. He was short, broad, beetle-browed, and gray-eyed, of

undoubted courage, but with the quality of sympathy left out of his

nature.

During the ten years in which he had been in command, he was relieved

of much of the executive work that had made him famous when he stood

watch, but was always ready to justify his reputation as a "bucko"

should friction with the crew occur past the power of his officers to

cope with. His ship, the _Wilmington_, a skysail-yard clipper, was

rated by sailormen as the "hottest" craft under the American flag, and

Captain Belchior himself was spoken of by consuls and commissioners,

far and near, as a man peculiarly unfortunate in his selection of men;

for never a passage ended but he was complainant against one or more

heavily ironed and badly used-up members of his crew.

His officers were, in the language of one of these defendants, "o' the

same breed o' dorg." No others could or would sign with him. His crews

were invariably put on board in the stream or at anchorage--never at

the dock. Drunk when coerced by the boarding-masters into signing the

ship's articles, kept drunk until delivery, they were driven or hoisted

up the side like animals--some in a stupor from drink or drugs, some

tied hand and foot, struggling and cursing with returning reason.

Equipped thus, the _Wilmington_, bound for Melbourne, discharged her

tug and pilot off Sandy Hook one summer morning, and, with a fresh

quartering wind and raising sea, headed for the southeast. The day was

spent in getting her sail on, and in the "licking into shape" of the

men as fast as they recovered their senses. Oaths and missiles flew

about the deck, knock-downs were frequent, and by eight bells in the

evening, when the two mates chose the watches,--much as boys choose

sides in a ball game,--the sailors were well convinced that their

masters lived aft.

Three men, long-haired fellows, sprawling on the main-hatch, helpless

from seasickness, were left to the last in the choosing and then

hustled into the light from the near-by galley door to be examined.

They had been dragged from the forecastle at the mate's call for "all

hands."

"Call yourselves able seamen, I suppose," he said with an oath, as he

glared into their woebegone faces.

"No, pard," said the tallest and oldest of the three, in a weak voice.

"We're not seamen; we don't know how we got here, neither."

The mate's answer was a fist-blow under the ear that sent the man

headlong into the scuppers, where he lay quiet.

"Say 'sir' when you speak to me, you bandy-legged farmers," he snarled,

glowering hard at the other two, as they leaned against the water-tank.

"I'm pard to none of ye."

They made him no answer, and he turned away in contempt. "Mr. Tomm," he

called, "want these Ethiopians in your watch?"

"No, sir," said the second mate; "I don't want 'em. They're no more use

'an a spare pump."

"I'll make 'em useful 'fore I'm done with 'em. Go forrard, you three.

Get the bile out o' yer gizzards 'fore mornin', 'f ye value yer good

looks." He delivered a vicious kick at each of the two standing men,

bawled out, "Relieve the wheel an' lookout--that'll do the watch," and

went aft, while the crew assisted the seasick men to the forecastle and

into three bedless bunks--bedless, because sailors must furnish their

own, and these men had been shanghaied.

The wind died away during the night, and they awoke in the morning with

their seasickness gone and appetites ravenous. Somber and ominous was

their bearing as they silently ate of the breakfast in the forecastle

and stepped out on deck with the rest in answer to the mate's roar:

"All hands spread dunnage." Having no dunnage but what they wore, they

drew off toward the windlass and conferred together while chests and

bags were dragged out on deck and overhauled by the officers for whisky

and sheath-knives. What they found of the former they pocketed, and of

the latter, tossed overboard.

"Where are the canal-drivers?" demanded the chief mate, as he raised

his head from the last chest. "Where are our seasick gentlemen, who

sleep all night--what--what----" he added in a stutter of surprise.

He was looking down three eight-inch barrels of three heavy Colt

revolvers, cocked, and held by three scowling, sunburnt men, each of

whom was tucking with disengaged left hand the corner of a shirt into a

waistband, around which was strapped a belt full of cartridges.

"Hands up!" snapped the tall man; "hands up, every one of ye! Up with

'em--over yer heads. That's right!" The pistols wandered around the

heads of the crowd, and every hand was elevated.

"What's this? What d' ye mean? Put them pistols down. Give 'em up. Lay

aft, there, some o' ye, and call the captain," blustered the mate, with

his hands held high.

Not a man stirred to obey. The scowling faces looked deadly in earnest.

"Right about, face!" commanded the tall man. "March, every man--back to

the other end o' the boat. Laramie, take the other side and round up

anybody ye see. Now, gentlemen, hurry."

Away went the protesting procession, and, joined by the carpenter,

sail-maker, donkey-man, and cook, "rounded up" from their sanctums by

the man called Laramie, it had reached the main-hatch before the

captain, pacing the quarter-deck, was aware of the disturbance. With

Captain Belchior to think was to act. Springing to the cabin skylight,

he shouted: "Steward, bring up my pistols. Bear a hand. Lower your

weapons, you scoundrels; this is rank mutiny."

A pistol spoke, and the captain's hat left his head. "There goes your

hat," said a voice; "now for a button." Another bullet sped, which cut

from his coat the button nearest his heart. "Come down from there--come

down," said the voice he had heard. "Next shot goes home. Start while I

count three. One--two----" Captain Belchior descended the steps. "Hands

up, same as the rest." Up went the captain's hands; such marksmanship

was beyond his philosophy. "'Pache," went on the speaker, "go up there

and get the guns he wanted." The steward, with two bright revolvers in

his hands, was met at the companion-hatch by a man with but one; but

that one was so big, and the hand which held it was so steady, that it

was no matter of surprise that he obeyed the terse command, "Fork over,

handles first." The captain's nickel-plated pistols went into the

pockets of 'Pache's coat, and the white-faced steward, poked in the

back by the muzzle of that big firearm, marched to the main-deck and

joined the others.

"Go down that place, 'Pache, and chase out any one else ye find,"

called the leader from behind the crowd. "Bring 'em all down here."

'Pache descended, and reappeared with a frightened cabin-boy, whom,

with the man at the wheel, he drove before him to the steps. There was

no wind, and the ship could spare the helmsman.

"Now, then, gentlemen," said the tall leader, "I reckon we're all here.

Keep yer hands up. We'll have a powwow. 'Pache, stay up there, and you,

Laramie, cover 'em from behind. Plug the first man that moves."

He mounted the steps to the quarter-deck, and, as he replaced empty

shells with cartridges, looked down on them with a serene smile on his

not ill-looking face. His voice, except when raised in accents of

command, had in it the musical, drawling, plaintive tone so peculiar to

the native Texan--and so deceptive. The other two, younger and rougher

men, looked, as they glanced at their victims through the sights of the

pistols, as though they longed for the word of permission to riddle the

ship's company with bullets.

"You'll pay for this, you infernal cut-throats," spluttered the

captain. "This is piracy."

"Don't call any names now," said the tall man; "'t ain't healthy. We

don't want to hurt ye, but I tell ye seriously, ye never were nearer

death than ye are now. It's a risky thing, and a foolish thing, too,

gentlemen, to steal three American citizens with guns under their

shirts, and take 'em so far from land as this. Hangin''s the fit and

proper punishment for hoss-stealin', but man-stealin''s so great a

crime that I'm not right sure what the punishment is. Now, we don't

know much 'bout boats and ropes,--though we can tie a hangman's knot

when necessary,--but we do know somethin' 'bout guns and human

natur'--here, you, come 'way from that fence."

The captain was edging toward a belaying-pin; but he noticed that the

speaker's voice had lost its plaintiveness, and three tubes were

looking at him. He drew inboard, and the leader resumed:

"Now, fust thing, who's foreman o' this outfit? Who's boss?"

"I'm captain here."

"You are? You are not. I'm captain. Get up on that shanty." The small

house over the mizzen-hatch was indicated, and Captain Belchior climbed

it. The tubes were still looking at him.

"Now, you, there, you man who hit me last night when I was sick, who

are you, and what?"

"Mate, d---- you."

"Up with you, and don't cuss. You did a cowardly thing, pardner--an

unmanly thing--low down and or'nary. You don't deserve to live any

longer; but my darter, back East at school, thinks I've killed enough

men for one lifetime, and mebbe she's right--mebbe she's right. Anyhow,

she don't like it, and that lets you out--though I won't answer for

'Pache and Laramie when my back's turned. You kicked 'em both. But I'll

just return the blow." The mate had but straightened up on top of the

hatch-house when the terrible pistol spat out another red tongue, and

his yell followed the report, as he clapped his hand to the ear through

which the bullet had torn.

"Hands up, there!" thundered the shooter, and the mate obeyed, while a

stream of blood ran down inside his shirt-collar.

"Any more bosses here?"

The second mate did not respond; but 'Pache's pistol sought him out,

and under its influence, and his guttural, "I know you; get up," he

followed his superiors.

"Any more?"

A manly-looking fellow stepped out of the group, and said: "You've got

the captain and two mates. I'm bo's'n here, and yonder's my mate. We're

next, but we're not bosses in the way o' bein' responsible for anything

that has happened or might happen to you. We b'long forrard. There's no

call to shoot at the crew, for there's not a man among 'em but what 'ud

be glad to see you get ashore, and get there himself."

"Silence, bo's'n," bawled the captain. But the voice of authority

seemed pitifully ludicrous and incongruous, coupled with the captain's

position and attitude, and every face on the deck wore a grin. The

leader noticed the silent merriment, and said:

"Laramie, I reckon these men'll stand. You can come up here. I'm

gettin' 'long in years, and kind o' steadyin' down, but I s'pose you

and 'Pache want some fun. Start yer whistle and turn loose."

Up the steps bounded Laramie, and, with a ringing whoop as a prelude,

began whistling a clear, musical trill, while 'Pache, growling out,

"Dance, dance, ye white-livered coyotes," sent a bullet through the

outer edge of the chief mate's boot-heel.

"Dance," repeated Laramie between bars of the music. _Crack, crack_,

went the pistols, while bullets rattled around the feet of the men on

the hatch, and Laramie's whistle rose and fell on the soft morning air.

The sun, who has looked on many scandalous sights, looked on this, and

hid his face under a cloud, refusing to witness. For never before had

the ethics of shipboard life been so outrageously violated. A squat

captain and two six-foot officers, nearly black in the face from rage

and exertion, with hands clasped over their heads, hopped and skipped

around a narrow stage to the accompaniment of pistol reports

harmoniously disposed among the notes of a whistled tune, while bullets

grazed their feet, and an unkempt, disfigured, and sore-headed crew

looked on and chuckled. When the mate, weak from loss of blood, fell

and rolled to the deck, the leader stopped the entertainment.

"Now, gentlemen," he said in his serious voice, "I'm called Pecos Tom,

and I've had considerable experience in my time, but this is my fust

with human creatur's so weak and thoughtless that they'll drug and

steal three men without takin' their guns away from them. And so, on

'count o' this shiftless improvidence, I reckon this boat will have to

turn round and go back."

They bound them, rolled and kicked the two mates to the rail, lifted

the captain to his feet, and then the leader said significantly:

"Give the right and proper order to yer men to turn this boat round."

With his face working convulsively, Captain Belchior glanced at his

captors, at his eager, waiting crew, at the wheel without a helmsman,

at a darkening of the water on the starboard bow to the southward, up

aloft, and back again at the three frowning muzzles so close to his

head.

"One hand to the wheel! Square in main and cro'-jack yards!" he called.

He was conquered.

With a hurrah which indicated the sincerity of these orders, the crew

sprang to obey them, and with foreyards braced to starboard and

head-sheets flat, the ship _Wilmington_ paid off, wore around, and

bringing the young breeze on the port quarter, steadied down to a

course for Sandy Hook, which the captain, with hands released, but

still under the influence of those threatening pistols, worked out from

the mate's dead-reckoning. Then he was pinioned again, but allowed to

pace the deck and watch his ship, while the two officers were kept

under the rail, sometimes stepped upon or kicked, and often admonished

on the evil of their ways.

Early passengers on the East River ferryboats were treated to a novel

sight next morning, which they appreciated according to their nautical

knowledge. A lofty ship, with sky-sails and royals hanging in the

buntlines, and jibs tailing ahead like flags, was charging up the

harbor before a humming southerly breeze, followed by an elbowing crowd

of puffing, whistling, snub-nosed tugs. It was noticeable that whenever

a fresh tug arrived alongside, little white clouds left her

quarter-deck, and that tug suddenly sheered off to take a position in

the parade astern. Abreast of Governor's Island, topgallant-halyards

were let go, as were those of the jibs; but no cluing up or hauling

down was done, nor were any men seen on her forecastle-deck getting

ready lines or ground-tackle. She passed the Battery and up the East

River, craft of all kinds getting out of her way,--for it was obvious

that something was wrong with her,--until, rounding slowly to a

starboard wheel, with canvas rattling and running-gear in bights, she

headed straight for a slip partly filled with canal-boats. Now her

topsail-halyards were let go, and three heavy yards came down by the

run, breaking across the caps; and amid a grinding, creaking, and

crashing of riven timbers, and a deafening din of applauding tug

whistles, she plowed her way into the nest of canal-boats and came to a

stop.

Then was a hejira. Down her black sides by ropes and chain-plates, to

the wrecked and sinking canal-boats,--some with bags or chests, some

without,--came eager men, who climbed to the dock, and answering no

questions of the gathering crowd of dock-loungers, scattered into the

side-streets. Then three other men appeared on the rail, who shook

their fists, and swore, and shouted for the police, calling

particularly for the apprehension of three dark-faced, long-haired

fellows with big hats.

In the light of later developments it is known that the police

responded, and with the assistance of boarding-house runners gathered

in that day nearly all of this derelict crew,--even to the cautious

boatswain,--who were promptly and severely punished for mutiny and

desertion. But the later developments failed to show that the three

dark-faced men were ever seen again.

PRIMORDIAL

Gasping, blue in the face, half drowned, the boy was flung

spitefully--as though the sea scorned so poor a victory--high on the

sandy beach, where succeeding shorter waves lapped at him and retired.

The encircling life-buoy was large enough to permit his crouching

within it. Pillowing his head on one side of the smooth ring, he wailed

hoarsely for an interval, then slept--or swooned. The tide went down

the beach, the typhoon whirled its raging center off to sea, and the

tropic moon shone out, lighting up, between the beach and barrier reef,

a heaving stretch of oily lagoon on which appeared and disappeared

hundreds of shark-fins quickly darting, and, out on the barrier reef,

perched high, yet still pounded by the ocean combers raised by the

storm, a fragment of ship's stern with a stump of mizzenmast. The

elevated position of the fragment, the quickly darting dorsal fins, and

the absence of company for the child on the beach spoke, too plainly,

of shipwreck, useless boats, and horrible death.

Sharks must sleep like other creatures, and they nestle in hollows at

the bottom and in coral caves, or under overhanging ledges of the reefs

which attract them. The first swimmer may pass safely by night, seldom

the second. Like she-wolves, fiendish cats, and vicious horses, they

have been known to show mercy to children. For one or both reasons,

this child had drifted to the beach unharmed.

Anywhere but on a bed of hot sand near the equator the sleep in wet

clothing of a three-year-old boy might have been fatal; but salt water

carries its own remedy for the evils of its moisture, and he wakened at

daylight with strength to rise and cry out his protest of loneliness

and misery. His childish mind could record facts, but not their reason

or coherency. He was in a new, an unknown world. His mother had filled

his old; where was she now? Why had she tied him into that thing and

thrown him from her into the darkness and wet? Strange things had

happened, which he dimly remembered. He had been roused from his sleep,

dressed, and taken out of doors in the dark, where there were frightful

crashing noises, shoutings of men, and crying of women and other

children. He had cried himself, from sympathy and terror, until his

mother had thrown him away. Had he been bad? Was she angry? And after

that--what was the rest? He was hungry and thirsty now. Why did she

not come? He would go and find her.

With the life-buoy hanging about his waist--though of cork, a heavy

weight for him--he toddled along the beach to where it ended at a

massive ridge of rock that came out of the wooded country inland and

extended into the lagoon as an impassable point. He called the chief

word in his vocabulary again and again, sobbing between calls. She was

not there, or she would have come; so he went back, glancing fearfully

at the dark woods of palm and undergrowth. She might be in there, but

he was afraid to look. His little feet carried him a full half-mile in

the other direction before the line of trees and bushes reached so

close to the beach as to stop him. Here he sat down, screaming

passionately and convulsively for his mother.

Crying is an expense of energy which must be replenished by food. When

he could cry no longer he tugged at the straps and strings of the

life-buoy. But they were wet and hard, his little fingers were weak,

and he knew nothing of knots and their untying, so it was well on

toward midday before he succeeded in scrambling out of the meshes, by

which time he was famished, feverish with thirst, and all but

sunstruck. He wandered unsteadily along the beach, falling

occasionally, moaning piteously through his parched, open lips; and

when he reached the obstructing ridge of rock, turned blindly into the

bushes at its base, and followed it until he came to a pool of water

formed by a descending spray from above. From this, on his hands and

knees, he drank deeply, burying his lips as would an animal.

Instinct alone had guided him here, away from the salt pools on the

beach, and impelled him to drink fearlessly. It was instinct--a

familiar phase in a child--that induced him to put pebbles, twigs, and

small articles in his mouth until he found what was pleasant to his

taste and eatable--nuts and berries; and it was instinct, the most

ancient and deeply implanted,--the lingering index of an arboreal

ancestry,--that now taught him the safety and comfort of these woody

shades, and, as night came on, prompted him--as it prompts a drowning

man to reach high, and leads a creeping babe to a chair--to attempt

climbing a tree. Failing in this from lack of strength, he mounted the

rocky wall a few feet, and here, on a narrow ledge, after indulging in

a final fit of crying, he slept through the night, not comfortably on

so hard a bed, but soundly.

During the day, while he had crawled about at the foot of the rocks,

wild hogs, marsupial animals, and wood-rats had examined him

suspiciously through the undergrowth and decamped. As he slept, howling

night-dogs came up, sniffed at him from a safe distance, and scattered

from his vicinity. He would have yielded in a battle with a pugnacious

kitten, but these creatures recognized a prehistoric foe, and would not

abide with him.

A week passed before he had ceased to cry and call for his mother; but

from this on her image grew fainter, and in a month the infant

intelligence had discarded it. He ate nuts and berries as he found

them, drank from the pool, climbed the rocks and strolled in the wood,

played on the beach with shells and fragments of splintered wreckage,

wore out his clothes, and in another month was naked; for when buttons

and vital parts gave way and a garment fell, he let it lie. But he

needed no clothes, even at night; for it was southern summer, and the

northeast monsoon, adding its humid warmth to the radiating heat from

the sun-baked rocks, kept the temperature nearly constant.

He learned to avoid the sun at midday, and, free from contagion and

motherly coddling, escaped many of the complaints which torture and

kill children; yet he suffered frightfully from colic until his stomach

was accustomed to the change of diet, by which time he was emaciated to

skin and bone. Then a reaction set in, and as time passed he gained

healthy flesh and muscle on the nitrogenous food.

Six months from the time of his arrival, another storm swept the beach.

Pelted by the warm rain, terror-stricken, he cowered under the rocks

through the night, and at daylight peered out on the surf-washed sands,

heaving lagoon, and white line of breakers on the barrier reef. The

short-lived typhoon had passed, but the wind still blew slantingly on

the beach with force enough to raise a turmoil of crashing sea and

undertow in the small bay formed by the extension of the wall. The

fragment of ship's stern on the reef had disappeared; but a half-mile

to the right--directly in the eye of the wind--was another wreck, and

somewhat nearer, on the heaving swell of the lagoon, a black spot,

which moved and approached. It came down before the wind and resolved

into a closely packed group of human beings, some of whom tugged

frantically at the oars of the water-logged boat which held them,

others of whom as frantically bailed with caps and hands. Escorting the

boat was a fleet of dorsal fins, and erect in the stern-sheets was a

white-faced woman, holding a child in one arm while she endeavored to

remove a circular life-buoy from around her waist. At first heading

straight for the part of the beach where the open-eyed boy was

watching, the boat now changed its course and by desperate exertion of

the rowers reached a position from which it could drift to leeward of

the point and its deadly maelstrom. With rowers bailing and the

white-faced woman seated, fastening the child in the life-buoy, the

boat, gunwale-deep, and the gruesome guard of sharks drifted out of

sight behind the point. The boy had not understood; but he had seen his

kind, and from association of ideas appreciated again his

loneliness--crying and wailing for a week; but not for his mother: he

had forgotten her.

With the change of the monsoon came a lowering of the temperature.

Naked and shelterless, he barely survived the first winter, tropical

though it was. But the second found him inured to the surroundings--hardy

and strong. When able to, he climbed trees and found birds' eggs, which

he accidentally broke and naturally ate. It was a pleasant relief from

a purely vegetable diet, and he became a proficient egg-thief; then the

birds built their nests beyond his reach. Once he was savagely pecked

by an angry brush-turkey and forced to defend himself. It aroused a

combativeness and destructiveness that had lain dormant in his nature.

Children the world over epitomize in their habits and thoughts the

infancy of the human race. Their morals and modesty, as well as their

games, are those of paleolithic man, and they are as remorselessly

cruel. From the day of his fracas with the turkey he was a hunter--of

grubs, insects, and young birds; but only to kill, maim, or torture; he

did not eat them, because hunger was satisfied, and he possessed a

child's dislike of radical change.

Deprived of friction with other minds, he was slower than his social

prototype in the reproduction of the epochs. At a stage when most boys

are passing through the age of stone, with its marbles, caves, and

slings, he was yet in the earlier arboreal period--a climber--and would

swing from branch to branch with almost the agility of an ape.

On fine, sunny days, influenced by the weather, he would laugh and

shout hilariously; a gloomy sky made him morose. When hurt, or angered

by disappointment in the hunt, he would cry out inarticulately; but

having no use for language, did not talk, hence did not think, as the

term is understood. His mind received the impressions of his senses,

and could fear, hate, and remember, but knew nothing of love, for

nothing lovable appealed to it. He could hardly reason, as yet; his

shadow puzzled, angered, and annoyed him until he noticed its

concomitance with the sun, when he reversed cause and effect,

considered it a beneficent, mysterious Something that had life, and

endeavored by gesture and grimace to placate and please it. It was his

beginning of religion.

His dreams were often horrible. Strange shapes, immense snakes and

reptiles, and nondescript monsters made up of prehistoric legs, teeth,

and heads, afflicted his sleep. He had never seen them; they were an

inheritance, but as real to him as the sea and sky, the wind and rain.

Every six months, at the breaking up of the monsoon, would come squalls

and typhoons--full of menace, for his kindly, protecting shadow then

deserted him. One day, when about ten years old, during a wild burst of

storm, he fled down the beach in an agony of terror; for, considering

all that moved as alive, he thought that the crashing sea and swaying,

falling trees were attacking him, and, half buried in the sand near the

bushes, found the forgotten life-buoy, stained and weather-worn. It was

quiescent, and new to him,--like nothing he had seen,--and he clung to

it. At that moment the sun appeared, and in a short time the storm had

passed. He carried the life-buoy back with him--spurning and

threatening his delinquent shadow--and looked for a place to put it,

deciding at last on a small cave in the rocky wall near to the pool. In

a corner of this he installed the ring of cork and canvas, and remained

by it, patting and caressing it. When it rained again, he appreciated,

for the first time, the comfort of shelter, and became a cave-dweller,

with a new god--a fetish, to which he transferred his allegiance and

obeisance because more powerful than his shadow.

From correlation of instincts, he now entered the age of stone. He no

longer played with shells and sticks, but with pebbles, which he

gathered, hoarded in piles, and threw at marks,--to be gathered

again,--seldom entering the woods but for food and the relaxation of

the hunt. But with his change of habits came a lessening of his cruelty

to defenseless creatures,--not that he felt pity: he merely found no

more amusement in killing and tormenting,--and in time he transferred

his antagonism to the sharks in the lagoon, their dorsal fins making

famous targets for his pebbles. He needed no experience with these

pirates to teach him to fear and hate them, and when he bathed--which

habit he acquired as a relief from the heat, and indulged daily--he

chose a pool near the rocks that filled at high tide, and in it learned

to swim, paddling like a dog.

And so the boy, blue-eyed and fair at the beginning, grew to early

manhood, as handsome an animal as the world contains, tall, straight,

and clean-featured, with steady eyes wide apart, and skin--the color of

old copper from sun and wind--covered with a fine, soft down, which at

the age of sixteen had not yet thickened on his face to beard and

mustache, though his wavy brown hair reached to his shoulders.

At this period a turning-point appeared in his life which gave an

impetus to his almost stagnant mental development--his food-supply

diminished and his pebble-supply gave out completely, forcing him to

wander. Pebble-throwing was his only amusement; pebble-gathering his

only labor; eating was neither. He browsed and nibbled at all hours of

the day, never knowing the sensation of a full stomach, and, until

lately, of an empty one. To this, perhaps, may be ascribed his

wonderful immunity from sickness. In collecting pebbles his method was

to carry as many as his hands would hold to a pile on the beach and go

back for more; and in the six years of his stone-throwing he had found

and thrown at the sharks every stone as small as his fist, within a

sector formed by the beach and the rocky wall to an equal distance

inland. The fruits, nuts, edible roots, and grasses growing in this

area had hitherto supported him, but would no longer, owing to a

drought of the previous year, which, luckily, had not affected his

water-supply.

One morning, trembling with excitement, eye and ear on the alert,--as a

high-spirited horse enters a strange pasture,--he ventured past the

junction of bush and tide-mark, and down the unknown beach beyond. He

filled his hands with the first pebbles he found, but noticing the

plentiful supply on the ground ahead of him, dropped them and went on;

there were other things to interest him. A broad stretch of undulating,

scantily wooded country reached inland from the convex beach of sand

and shells to where it met the receding line of forest and bush behind

him; and far away to his right, darting back and forth among stray

bushes and sand-hummocks, were small creatures--strange, unlike those

he knew, but in regard to which he felt curiosity rather than fear.

He traveled around the circle of beach, and noticed that the moving

creatures fled at his approach. They were wild hogs, hunted of men

since hunting began. He entered the forest about midday, and emerging,

found himself on a pebbly beach similar to his own, and facing a

continuation of the rocky wall, which, like the other end, dipped into

the lagoon and prevented further progress. He was thirsty, and found a

pool near the rocks; hungry, and he ate of nuts and berries which he

recognized. Puzzled by the reversal of perspective and the similarity

of conditions, he proceeded along the wall, dimly expecting to find his

cave. But none appeared, and, mystified,--somewhat frightened,--he

plunged into the wood, keeping close to the wall and looking sharply

about him. Like an exiled cat or a carrier-pigeon, he was making a

straight line for home, but did not know it.

His progress was slow, for boulders, stumps, and rising ground impeded

him. Darkness descended when he was but half-way home and nearly on a

level with the top of the wall. Forced to stop, he threw himself down,

exhausted, yet nervous and wakeful, as any other animal in a strange

place. But the familiar moon came out, shining through the foliage, and

this soothed him into a light slumber.

He was wakened by a sound near by that he had heard all his life at a

distance--a wild chorus of barking. It was coming his way, and he

crouched and waited, grasping a stone in each hand. The barking,

interspersed soon with wheezing squeals, grew painfully loud, and

culminated in vengeful growls, as a young pig sprang into a patch of

moonlight, with a dozen dingoes--night-dogs--at its heels. In the

excitement of pursuit they did not notice the crouching boy, but

pounced on the pig, tore at it, snapping and snarling at one another,

and in a few minutes the meal was over.

Frozen with terror at this strange sight, the boy remained quiet until

the brutes began sniffing and turning in his direction; then he stood

erect, and giving vent to a scream which rang through the forest,

hurled the two stones with all his strength straight at the nearest. He

was a good marksman. Agonized yelps followed the impact of stone and

hide; two dogs rolled over and over, then, gaining their feet, sped

after their fleeing companions, while the boy sat down, trembling in

every limb--completely unnerved. Yet he knew that he was the cause of

their flight. With a stone in each hand, he watched and waited until

daylight, then arose and went on homeward, with a new and intense

emotion--not fear of the dingoes: he was the superior animal, and knew

it--not pity for the pig: he had not developed to the pitying stage. He

was possessed by a strong, instinctive desire to emulate the dogs and

eat of animal food. It did not come of his empty stomach; he felt it

after he had satisfied his hunger on the way; and as he plodded down

the slope toward his cave, gripped his missiles fiercely and watched

sharply for small animals--preferably pigs.

But no pigs appeared. He reached his cave, and slept all day and the

following night, waking in the morning hungry, and with the memory of

his late adventure strong in his mind. He picked up the two stones he

had brought home, and started down the beach, but stopped, came back,

and turned inland by the wall; then he halted again and retraced his

steps--puzzled. He pondered awhile,--if his mental processes may be so

termed,--then walked slowly down the beach, entered the bush a short

distance, turned again to the wall, and gained his starting-point. Then

he reversed the trip, and coming back by way of the beach, struck

inland with a clear and satisfied face. He had solved the problem--a

new and hard one for him--that of two roads to a distant place; and he

had chosen the shortest.

In a few hours he reached his late camping-spot, and crouched to the

earth, listening for barking and squealing--for a pig to be chased his

way. But dingoes hunt only by night, and unmolested pigs do not squeal.

Impatient at last, he went on through the forest in the direction from

which they had come, until he reached the open country where he had

first seen them; and here, rooting under the bushes at the margin of

the wood, he discovered a family--a mother and four young ones--which

had possibly contained the victim of the dogs. He stalked them slowly

and cautiously, keeping bushes between himself and them, but was seen

by the mother when about twenty yards away. She sniffed suspiciously,

then, with a warning grunt and a scattering of dust and twigs, scurried

into the woods, with her brood--all but one--in her wake.

A frightened pig is as easy a target as a darting dorsal fin, and a fat

suckling lay kicking convulsively on the ground. He hurried up, the

hunting gleam bright in his eyes, and hurled the second stone at the

little animal. It still kicked, and he picked up the first stone,

thinking it might be more potent to kill, and crashed it down on the

unfortunate pig's head. It glanced from the head to the other stone and

struck a spark--which he noticed.

The pig now lay still, and satisfied that he had killed it, he tried to

repeat the carom, but failed. Yet the spark had interested him,--he

wanted to see it again,--and it was only after he had reduced the pig's

head to a pulp that he became disgusted and angrily threw the stone in

his hand at the one on the ground. The resulting spark delighted him.

He repeated the experiment again and again, each concussion drawing a

spark, and finally used one stone as a hammer on the other, with the

same result--to him, a bright and pretty thing, very small, but alive,

which came from either of the dead stones. Tired of the play at last,

he turned to the pig--the food that he had yearned for.

It was well for him, perhaps, that the initial taste of bristle and fat

prevented his taking the second mouthful. Slightly nauseated, he

dropped the carcass and turned to go, but immediately bounded in the

air with a howl of pain. His left foot was red and smarting. Once he

had cut it on a sharp shell, and now searched for a wound, but found

none. Rubbing increased the pain. Looking on the ground for the cause,

he discovered a wavering, widening ring of strange appearance, and

within it a blackened surface on which rested the two stones. They were

dry flint nodules, and he had set fire to the grass with the sparks.

Considering this to be a new animal that had attacked him, he pelted it

with stones, dancing around it in a rage and shouting hoarsely. He

might have conquered the fire and never invoked it again, had not the

supply of stones in the vicinity given out, or those he had used grown

too hot to handle; for he stayed the advancing flame at one side. But

the other side was creeping on, and he used dry branches, dropping to

his hands and knees to pound the fire, fighting bravely, crying out

with pain as he burned himself, and forced to drop stick after stick

which caught fire. Soon it grew too hot to remain near, and he stood

off and launched fuel at it, which resulted in a fair-sized bonfire;

then, in desperation and fear, he hurled the dead pig--the cause of the

trouble--at the terrible monster, and fled.

Looking back through the trees to see if he was pursued, he noticed

that the strange enemy had taken new shape and color; it was reaching

up into the air, black and cloud-like. Frightened, tired mentally and

physically, and suffering keenly from his burns, he turned his back on

the half-solved problem and endeavored to satisfy his hunger. But he

was on strange territory and found little of his accustomed food; the

chafing and abrading contact of bushes and twigs irritated his sore

spots, preventing investigation and rapid progress, and at the end of

three hours, still hungry, and exasperated by his torment into a

reckless, fighting mood, he picked up stones and returned savagely to

battle again with the enemy. But the enemy was dead. The grass had

burned to where it met dry earth, and the central fire was now a

black-and-white pile of still warm ashes, on which lay the charred and

denuded pig, giving forth a savory odor. Cautiously approaching, he

studied the situation, then, yielding to an irresistible impulse,

seized the pig and ran through the woods to the wall and down to his

cave.

Two hours later he was writhing on the ground with a violent

stomach-ache. It was forty-eight hours after when he ate again, and

then of his old food--nuts and berries. But the craving returned in a

week, and he again killed a pig, but was compelled to forego eating it

for lack of fire.

Though he had discovered fire and cooked food, his only conception of

the process, so far, was that the mysterious enemy was too powerful for

him to kill, that it would eat sticks and grass but did not like

stones, and that a dead pig could kill it, and in the conflict be made

eatable. It was only after months of playing with flints and sparks

that he recognized the part borne by dry grass or moss, and that with

these he could create it at will; that a dead pig, though always

improved by the effort, could not be depended upon to kill it unless

the enemy was young and small,--when stones would answer as well,--and

that he could always kill it himself by depriving it of food.

It is hardly possible that animal food produced a direct effect on his

mind; but the effort to obtain it certainly did, arousing his torpid

faculties to a keener activity. He grasped the relation of cause to

effect--seeing one, he looked for the other. He noticed resemblances

and soon realized the common attributes of fire and the sun; and, as

his fetish was not always good to him,--the sun and storm seeming to

follow their own sweet will in spite of his unspoken faith in the

lifebuoy,--he again became an apostate, transferring his allegiance to

the sun, of which the friendly fire was evidently a part or symbol. He

did not discard his dethroned fetish completely; he still kept it in

his cave to punch, kick, and revile by gestures and growls at times

when the sun was hidden, retaining this habit from his former faith.

The life-buoy was now his devil--a symbol of evil, or what was the same

to him--discomfort; for he had advanced in religious thought to a point

where he needed one. Every morning when the sun shone, and at its

reappearance after the rain, he prostrated himself in a patch of

sun-light--this and the abuse of the life-buoy becoming ceremonies in

his fire-worship.

In time he became such a menace to the hogs that they climbed the wall

at the high ground and disappeared in the country beyond. And after

them went the cowardly dingoes that preyed on their young. Rodent

animals, more difficult to hunt, and a species of small kangaroo

furnished him occupation and food until they, too, emigrated, when he

was forced to follow; he was now a carnivorous animal, no longer

satisfied with vegetable food.

The longer hunts brought with them a difficulty which spurred him to

further invention. He could carry only as many stones as his hands

would hold, and often found himself far from his base of supply, with

game in sight, and without means to kill it. The pouch in which the

mother kangaroo carried her young suggested to his mind a like

contrivance for carrying stones. Since he had cut his foot on the

shell, he had known the potency of a sharp edge, but not until he

needed to remove charred and useless flesh from his food did he

appreciate the utility. It was an easy advance for him roughly to skin

a female kangaroo and wear the garment for the pocket's sake. But it

chafed and irritated him; so, cutting off the troublesome parts little

by little, he finally reduced it to a girdle which held only the pouch.

And in this receptacle he carried stones for throwing and shells for

cutting, his expeditions now extending for miles beyond the wall, and

only limited by the necessity of returning for water, of which, in the

limestone rock, there were plenty of pools and trickling springs.

He learned that no stones but the dry flints he found close to the wall

would strike sparks; but, careless, improvident, petulant child of

nature that he was, he exhausted the supply, and one day, too indolent

to search his hunting-tracts to regain the necessary two, he endeavored

to draw fire from a pair that he dug from the moist earth, and failing,

threw them with all his strength at the rocky wall. One of them

shivered to irregular pieces, the other parted with a flake--a six-inch

dagger-like fragment, flat on one side, convex on the other, with sharp

edges that met in a point at one end, and at the other, where lay the

cone of percussion, rounded into a roughly cylindrical shape,

convenient for handling. Though small, no flint-chipping savage of the

stone age ever made a better knife, and he was quick to appreciate its

superiority to a shell.

Like most discoveries and inventions that have advanced the human race,

his were, in the main, accidental; yet he could now reason from the

accidental to the analogous. Idly swinging his girdle around his head,

one day, and letting go, he was surprised at the distance to which,

with little effort, he could send the stone-laden pouch. Months of

puzzled experimenting produced a sling--at first with a thong of hide

fast to each stone, later with the double thong and pouch that small

boys and savages have not yet improved upon.

To this centrifugal force, which he could use without wholly

understanding, he added the factor of a rigid radius--a handle to a

heavy stone; for only with this contrivance could he break large flints

and open cocoanuts--an article of good food that he had passed by all

his life and wondered at until his knife had divided a green one. His

experiments in this line resulted in a heavy, sharp-edged, solid-backed

flint, firmly bound with thongs to the end of a stick,--a rude

tomahawk,--convenient for the _coup de grace_.

The ease with which he could send a heavy stone out of sight, or bury a

smaller one in the side of a hog at short range, was wonderful to him;

but he was twenty years old before, by daily practice with his sling,

he brought his marksmanship up to that of his unaided hand, equal to

which, at an earlier date, was his skill at hatchet-throwing. He could

outrun and tomahawk the fastest hog, could bring down with his sling a

kangaroo on the jump or a pigeon on the wing, could smell and

distinguish game to windward with the keen scent of a hound, and became

so formidable an enemy of his troublesome rivals, the dingoes,--whose

flesh he disapproved of,--and the sharks in the lagoon, that the one

deserted his hunting-ground and the other seldom left the reef.

He broke or lost one knife and hatchet after another, and learned, in

making new ones, that he could chip them into improved shape when

freshly dug, and that he must allow them to dry before using--when they

were also available for striking fire. He had enlarged his pocket,

making a better one of a whole skin by roughly sewing the edges

together with thongs, first curing the hide by soaking in salt water

and scraping with his knife. His food-list now embraced shellfish and

birds, wild yams, breadfruit, and cocoanuts, which, even the latter, he

cooked before eating and prepared before cooking. Pushed by an

ever-present healthy appetite, and helped by inherited instincts based

on the habits and knowledge of a long line of civilized ancestry, he

had advanced in four years from an indolent, mindless existence to a

plane of fearless, reasoning activity. He was a hunter of prowess,

master of his surroundings, lord over all creatures he had seen, and,

though still a cave-dweller when at home, in a fair way to become a

hut-builder, herdsman, and agriculturist; for he had arranged boughs to

shelter him from the rain when hunting, had attempted to block up the

pass over the wall to prevent the further wanderings of a herd of hogs

that he had pursued, and had lately become interested in the sprouting

of nuts and seeds and the encroachments and changes of the vegetation.

Yet he lacked speech, and did his thinking without words. The

deficiency was not accompanied by the unpleasant twisted features and

grimacing of mutes, which comes of conscious effort to communicate. His

features were smooth and regular, his mouth symmetrical and firm, and

his clear blue eye thoughtful and intent as that of a student; for he

had studied and thought. He would smile and frown, laugh and shout,

growl and whine, the pitch and timbre of his inarticulate utterance

indicating the emotion which prompted it to about the same degree as

does an intelligent dog's language to his master. But dogs and other

social animals converse in a speech beyond human ken; and in this

respect he was their inferior, for he had not yet known the need of

language, and did not, until, one day, in a section of his domain that

he had never visited before,--because game avoided it,--down by the sea

on the side of the wall opposite to his cave, he met a creature like

himself.

He had come down the wooded slope on the steady jog-trot he assumed

when traveling, tomahawk in hand, careless, confident, and happy

because of the bright sunshine and his lately appeased hunger, and, as

he bounded on to the beach with a joyous whoop, was startled by an

answering scream.

Mingled with the frightful monsters in the dreams of his childhood

had been transient glimpses of a kind, placid face that he seemed

to know--a face that bent over him lovingly and kissed him. These

were subconscious memories of his mother, which lasted long after

he had forgotten her. As he neared manhood, strange yearnings had

come to him--a dreary loneliness and craving for company. In his

sleep he had seen fleeting visions of forms and faces like his

reflection in a pool--like, yet unlike; soft, curving outlines,

tinted cheeks, eyes that beamed, and white, caressing hands

appeared and disappeared--fragmentary and illusive. He could not

distinctly remember them when he wakened, but their influence made

him strangely happy, strangely miserable; and while the mood lasted

he could not hunt and kill.

Standing knee-deep in a shallow pool on the beach, staring at him with

wide-open dark eyes, was the creature that had screamed--a living,

breathing embodiment of the curves and color, the softness, brightness,

and gentle sweetness that his subconsciousness knew. There were the

familiar eyes, dark and limpid, wondering but not frightened; two white

little teeth showing between parted lips; a wealth of long brown hair

held back from the forehead by a small hand; and a rounded, dimpled

cheek, the damask shading of which merged delicately into the olive

tint that extended to the feet. No Venus ever arose from the sea with

rarer lines of beauty than were combined in the picture of loveliness

which, backed by the blue of the lagoon, appeared to the astonished

eyes of this wild boy. It was a girl--naked as Mother Eve, and as

innocently shameless.

In the first confusion of his faculties, when habit and inherent

propensity conflicted, habit dominated his mind. He was a

huntsman--feared and avoided: here was an intruder. He raised his

hatchet to throw, but a second impulse brought it slowly down; she had

shown no fear--no appreciation of what the gesture threatened. Dropping

the weapon to the ground, he advanced slowly, the wonder in his face

giving way to a delighted smile, and she came out of the pool to meet

him.

Face to face they looked into each other's eyes--long and earnestly;

then, as though the scrutiny brought approval, the pretty features of

the girl sweetened to a smile, but she did not speak nor attempt to.

Stepping past him, she looked back, still smiling, halted until he

followed, and then led him up to the wall, where, on a level with the

ground, was a hollow in the formation, somewhat similar to his cave,

but larger. Flowering vines grew at the entrance, which had prevented

his seeing it before. She entered, and emerged immediately with a

life-buoy, which she held before him, the action and smiling face

indicating her desire that he admire it.

The boy thought that he saw his property in the possession of another

creature, and resented the spoliation. With an angry snarl he snatched

the life-buoy and backed away, while the girl, surprised and a little

indignant, followed with extended hands. He raised it threateningly,

and though she did not cower, she knew intuitively that he was angry,

and feeling the injustice, burst into tears; then, turning from him,

she covered her eyes with her hands and crouched to the ground, sobbing

piteously.

The face of the boy softened. He looked from the weeping girl to the

life-buoy and back again; then, puzzled,--still believing it to be his

own,--he obeyed a generous impulse. Advancing, he laid the treasure at

her feet; but she turned away. Sober-faced and irresolute, not knowing

what to do, he looked around and above. A pigeon fluttered on a branch

at the edge of the wood. He whipped out his sling, loaded it, and sent

a stone whizzing upward. The pigeon fell, and he was beneath it before

it reached the ground. Hurrying back with the dead bird, he placed it

before her; but she shuddered in disgust and would not touch it. Off in

the lagoon a misguided shark was swimming slowly along,--its dorsal fin

cutting the surface,--a full two hundred yards from the beach. He ran

to the water's edge, looked back once, flourished his sling, and two

seconds later the shark was scudding for the reef. If she had seen, she

evidently was not impressed. He returned, picked up his tomahawk on the

way, idly and nervously fingered the pebbles in his pocket, stood a

moment over the sulky girl, and then studied the life-buoy on the

ground. A light came to his eyes; with a final glance at the girl he

bounded up the slope and disappeared in the woods.

Three hours later he returned with his discarded fetish, and found her

sitting upright, with her life-buoy on her knees. She smiled gladly as

he approached, then pouted, as though remembering. Panting from his

exertion, he humbly placed the faded, scarred, and misshapen ring on

top of the brighter, better-cared-for possession of the girl, and

stood, mutely pleading for pardon. It was granted. Smiling

radiantly,--a little roguishly,--she arose and led him again to the

cave, from which she brought forth another treasure. It was a billet of

wood,--a dead branch, worn smooth at the ends,--around which were

wrapped faded, half-rotten rags of calico. Hugging it for a moment, she

handed it to him. He looked at it wonderingly and let it drop, turning

his eyes upon her; then, with impatience in her face, she reclaimed it,

entered the cave,--the boy following,--and tenderly placed it in a

corner.

It was her doll. Up to the borders of womanhood--untutored, unloved

waif of the woods--living through the years of her simple existence

alone--she had lavished the instinctive mother-love of her heart on a

stick, and had clothed it, though not herself.

With a thoughtful little wrinkle in her brow, she studied the face of

this new companion who acted so strangely, and he, equally mystified,

looked around the cave. A pile of nuts in a corner indicated her

housewifely thrift and forethought. A bed of dry moss with an evenly

packed elevation at the end--which could be nothing but a

pillow--showed plainly the manner in which she had preserved the

velvety softness of her skin. Tinted shells and strips of faded calico,

arranged with some approach to harmony of color around the sides and

the border of the floor, gave evidence of the tutelage of the

bower-birds, of which there were many in the vicinity. And the vines at

the entrance had surely been planted--they were far from others of the

kind. In her own way she had developed as fully as he. As he stood

there, wondering at what he saw, the girl approached, slowly and

irresolutely; then, raising her hand, she softly pressed the tip of her

finger into his shoulder.

In the dim and misty ages of the past, when wandering bands of ape-like

human beings had not developed their tribal customs to the level of

priestly ceremonies,--when the medicine-man had not arisen,--a marriage

between a man and young woman was generally consummated by the man

beating the girl into insensibility, and dragging her by the hair to

his cave. Added to its simplicity, the custom had the merit of

improving the race, as unhealthy and ill-favored girls were not

pursued, and similar men were clubbed out of the pursuit by stronger.

But the process was necessarily painful to the loved one, and her

female children very naturally inherited a repugnance to being wooed.

When a civilized young lady, clothed and well conducted, anticipates

being kissed or embraced by her lover, she places in the way such

difficulties as are in her power; she gets behind tables and chairs,

runs from him, compels him to pursue, and expects him to. In her

maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help

resisting. She obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to

spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go screaming out of

the cave and down the beach in simulated terror--an instinct inherited

from the prehistoric mother, who fled for dear life and a whole skin

from a man behind armed with a club and bent upon marriage.

Shouting hoarsely, the boy followed, in what, if he had been called

upon to classify it, might have seemed to him a fury of rage, but it

was not. He would not have harmed the girl, for he lacked the tribal

education that induces cruelty to the weaker sex. But he did not catch

her; he stubbed his toe and fell, arising with a bruised kneecap which

prevented further pursuit. Slowly, painfully, he limped back, tears

welling in his eyes and increasing to a copious flood as he sat down

with his back to the girl and nursed his aching knee. It was not the

pain that brought the tears; he was hardened to physical suffering. But

his feelings had been hurt beyond any disappointment of the hunt or

terror of the storm, and for the first time in his life since his

babyhood he wept--like the intellectual child that he was.

A soft, caressing touch on his head aroused him and brought him to his

feet. She stood beside him, tears in her own eyes, and sympathy

overflowing in every feature of the sweet face. From her lips came

little cooing, gurgling sounds which he endeavored to repeat. It was

their first attempt at communication, and the sounds that they

used--understood by mothers and infants of all races--were the first

root-words of a new language. He extended his arms, and though she held

back slightly, while a faint smile responded to his own, she did not

resist, and he drew her close--forgetting his pain as he pressed his

lips to hers.

"Let the spanker hang in the brails; tie up the royal," ordered the