I could not help listening to the talk at the next table, because the
orchestra was quiet and the conversation unrestrained; then, too, a
nautical phrasing caught my ear and aroused my attention. For I had
been a lifelong student of nautical matters. A side glance showed me
the speaker, a white-haired, sunburned old fellow in immaculate evening
dress. With him at the table in the restaurant were other similarly
clad men, evidently of good station in life, and in their answers and
comments these men addressed the white-haired man as Commodore. A navy
captain, I thought, promoted on retirement. His talk bore it out.
"Yes, sirree," he said, as he thumped the table mildly. "A good, tight
merchant ship, with nothing wrong except what might be ascribed to
neglect such as light canvas blown away and ropes cast off the pins,
with no signs of fire, leak, or conflict to drive the crew out, with
plenty of grub in the stores and plenty of water in the tanks. Yet,
there she was, under topsails and topgallant-sails, rolling along
before a Biscay sea, and deserted, except that the deck was almost
covered with dead rats."
"What killed them, Commodore," asked one; "and what happened to the
crew?"
"Nobody knows. It might have been a poisonous gas from the cargo, but
if so it didn't affect us after we boarded her. The log-book was gone,
so we got no information from that. Moreover, every boat was in its
chocks or under its own davits. It was as though some mysterious power
had come down from above and wiped out the crew, besides killing the
rats in the hold. She was a grain ship from 'Frisco, and grain ships
are full of rats.
"I was the prize-lieutenant that took her into Queenstown. She was
condemned in Admiralty proceedings and, later, restored to her owners.
But to this day no man has told the story of that voyage. It is thirty
years and more since then, but it will remain one of the unexplained
mysteries of the sea."
The party left the table a little later, and left me, an ex-sailor, in
a condition of mind not due to the story I had heard from the
Commodore. There was something else roused into activity--something
indefinite, intangible, elusive, like the sense of recognition that
comes to you when you view a new scene that you know you have never
seen before. It was nothing pertaining to myself or my adventures; and
I had never heard of a ship being found deserted with all boats in
place. It was something I must have heard at some time and place that
bore no relation to the sea and its mysteries. It tormented me; I
worried myself into insomnia that night, thinking about it, but at last
fell asleep, and awakened in the morning with a memory twenty-five
years old.
It is a long stretch of time and space from that gilded restaurant of
that night to the arid plans of Arizona, and back through the years of
work and struggle and development to the condition of a sailor on shore
beating his way, horseback and afoot, across the country from the Gulf
to the Pacific. But in my sleep I traversed it, and, lying on my back
in the morning, puffing at my first pipe, I lived again my experience
with the half-witted tramp whom I had entertained in my camp and who
changed his soul in my presence.
I was a line-rider for a cattle company, and as it was before the days
of wire fences, my work was to ride out each day along my boundary and
separate the company's cattle from those of its neighbor, a rival
company. It was near the end of the day, when I was almost back to
camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to
his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water
sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him after the manner of
seamen.
"Well, mate, how are you heading?" I inquired, as I leaned over the
saddle.
"Say, pardner," he said, in a soft, whining voice, "kin you tell me
where a feller might git a bite to eat around here?"
"Well," I answered, "yes and no. I thought you were a sailorman." Only
his seamanly roll had appealed to me. His face, though bearded, tanned,
and of strong, hard lines, seemed weak and crafty. He was tall, and
strongly built--the kind of man who impresses you at first sight as
accustomed to sudden effort of mind and body; yet he cringed under my
stare, even as I added, "Yes, I'll feed you." I had noticed a blue foul
anchor tattooed on his wrist.
"Come along, old man," I said, kindly. "You're traveling for your
health. I'll ask no fool questions and say nothing about you. My camp
is just around that hill."
He walked beside my horse, and we soon reached the camp, a log house of
one room, with an adobe fireplace and chimney, a rough table, and a
couple of boxes for seats. Also, there was a plank floor, a novelty and
a luxury in that country at that time. Under this floor was a family of
huge rats that I had been unable to exterminate, and I had found it
easier and cheaper to feed them than to have them gnawing into my
stores in my absence. So they had become quite tame, and in the
evenings, keeping at a safe distance, however, they would visit me. I
had no fear of them, and rather enjoyed their company.
I fed and hobbled my horse, then cooked our supper, of which my guest
ate voraciously. After supper I filled my pipe and offered him another,
but he refused it; he did not smoke. Then I talked with him and found
him weak-minded. He knew nothing of consequence, nothing of the sea or
of sailors, and he had forgotten when that anchor had been tattooed on
his wrist. He thought it had always been there. He was a laborer, a
pick-and-shovel man, and this was the only work he aspired to.
Disappointed in him, for I had yearned for a little seamanly sympathy
and companionship, I finished my smoke in the fire-light and turned to
get the bed ready, when one of the rats sprang from the bed, across the
floor and between the tramp and the fire; then it darted to a hole in
the edge of the floor and disappeared. But its coming and going wrought
a curious effect upon that wayfarer. He choked, spluttered, stood up
and reeled, then fell headlong to the floor.
"Hello!" I said, anxiously; "anything wrong?"
He got on his feet, looked wildly about the place, and asked, in a
hoarse, broken voice that held nothing of its former plaintiveness:
"What's this? Was I picked up? What ship is this?"
"No ship at all. It's a cow camp."
"Log cabin, isn't it?"--he was staring at the walls. "I never saw one
before. I must have been out of my head for a while. Picked up, of
course. Was the mate picked up? He was in bad shape."
"Look here, old man," I said, gently, "are you out of your head now, or
were you out of your head before?"
"I don't know. I must have been out of my head. I can't remember much
after tumbling overboard, until just now. What day is this?"
"Tuesday," I answered.
"Tuesday? It was Sunday when it happened. Did you have a hand in
picking me up? Who was it?"
"Not me," I said. "I found you on the road out here in a dazed state of
mind, and you knew nothing whatever of ships or of sailors, though I
took you for a shellback by your walk."
"That's right. You can always spot one. You're a sailor, I can see, and
an American, too. But what are you doing here? This must be the coast
of Portugal or Spain."
"No, this is a cow camp on the Crossbar Range in the middle of
Arizona."
"Arizona? Six thousand miles from there! How long have I been out of my
head?"
"Don't know. I've only known you since sundown. You've just gone
through a remarkable change of front."
"What day of the month is it?"
"The third day of December."
"Hell! Six months ago. It happened in June, Of course, six months is
time enough for me to get here, but why can't I remember coming?
Someone must have brought me."
"Not necessarily. You were walking along, caring for yourself, but
hungry. I brought you here for a feed and a night's sleep."
"That was kind of you--" He involuntarily raised his hand to his face.
"I've grown a beard, I see. Let's see how I look with a beard." He
stepped to a looking-glass on the wall, took one look, and sprang back.
"Why, it isn't me!" he exclaimed, looking around with dilated eyes.
"It's someone else."
"Take another look," I said. He did so, moved his head to the right and
left, and then turned to me.
"It must be me," he said, hoarsely, "for the image in the glass follows
my movements. But I've lost my face. I'm another man. I don't know
myself."
"Look at that anchor on your wrist," I suggested. He did so.
"Yes," he said, "that part of me is left. It was pricked in on my first
voyage." He examined his arms and legs. "Changed," he muttered. He
rubbed his knees, and passed his hands over his body.
"What year was it when, as you say, you jumped overboard?" I asked.
"Eighteen seventy-five."
"This is eighteen eighty-four. Matey, you have been nine years out of
your head," I said.
"Nine years? Sure? Can you prove that to me? My God, man, think of it!
Nine years gone out of my life. You don't know what that means to me."