"That paper is about six months old," I said, "but it's an eighteen
eighty-four paper."
"Right," he said, sadly and somewhat wildly. "Got a pipe? I want to
smoke on this, and think it out. Nine years, and six thousand miles
travel! Where have I been, I wonder, and what have I done, to change
the very face of me, while I lived with it? It's something like death,
I take it."
I gave him a pipe and tobacco, and he smoked vigorously, trembling with
excess of emotion, yet slowly pulling himself together. Finally he
steadied, but he could not smoke. He put the pipe down, saying that it
sickened him. I knew nothing of psychology at the time, but think now
that in his second personality he had given up smoking.
I forbore questioning him, knowing that I could not help him in his
problem--that he must work it out himself. He did not sleep that night,
and kept me awake most of the time with his twitchings and turnings.
Once he was up, examining his face in the glass by the light of a
match, but in the morning, after a doze of an hour or so, I found him
outside, looking at the sunrise and smoking.
"I'm getting used to my new face," he said, "and I'm getting used to
smoking again. Got to. Nothing but a smoke will help a fellow at times.
What business is this you're in here?"
"Cow-punching--riding out after cattle."
"Hard to learn?"
"Easy for a sailor. I'm only hanging on until pay-day, then I make for
'Frisco to ship."
"And someone will take your place, I suppose. I'll work for my grub if
you'll break me in so that I can get the job. I'm through with going to
sea."
"Certainly. All I need is to tell the boss. I've an extra saddle."
So I tutored him in the tricks of cow-punching, and found him an apt
pupil. But he was heavy and depressed, seeming to be burdened with some
terrible experience, or memory, that he was trying to shake off. It was
not until the evening before my departure, when I had secured him the
job and we sat smoking before the mesquite-root fire, that he took me
into his confidence. The friendly rat had again appeared, and he sprang
up, backed away, and sat down again, trembling violently.
"It was that rat that brought you to yourself that evening," I
ventured. "Rats must have had something to do with your past life."
"Right, they did," he answered, puffing fiercely. "I didn't know you
had rats here, though."
"A whole herd of them under the floor. But they're harmless. I found
them good company."
"I found them bad company. I was shipmates with thousands of rats on
that last passage. Want the yarn? It'll raise your hair."
I was willing, and he reeled it off. His strong self-control never left
him from the beginning to the end, though the effect upon me was not
only to raise my hair, but at times to stop the beating of my heart. I
left him next morning, and have never seen or heard of him since; but
there is strong reason to believe that he never went to sea again, or
told that yarn in shipping circles. And it is because I have not seen
that old Commodore since the evening in the restaurant, and because I
cannot recall the name of the ship, or secure full data of marine
happenings of the year 1875, that I am giving that story to the world
in this form, hoping it will reach the right quarters and explain to
those interested the mystery of the grain ship, found in good shape,
but abandoned by all but the dead rats.
* * * * *
"I shipped in her at 'Frisco," began Draper. "She was a big,
skysail-yarder loading grain at Oakland, and as the skipper had offered
me second mate's berth, I went over and sized her up. She seemed all
right, as far as man may judge of a ship in port--nearly new, and well
found in gear and canvas, which the riggers had rove off and bent. Her
cargo of grain was nearly in, and there would be nothing much to do in
the way of hard work. Still, I couldn't make up my mind. Something
seemed to prevent me liking the prospect, so I went on up to Oakland to
visit some friends, and on the way back, long after dark, stopped again
at the dock for another look at her. And this time I saw what was
needed to ease my mind and decide me. You know as well as I do that
rats quit a ship bound for the bottom, and their judgment is always
right, though no one knows why. And I reasoned that if rats swarm into
an outbound ship she would have a safe passage. Well, that's what they
were doing. Wharf rats, a foot long--hundreds of them--going up the
mooring-chains, the cable to the dock, the lines, the fenders, and the
gangway, some over the rail, others in through the mooring-chocks. The
watchman was quiet, perhaps asleep; so, perhaps, every rat that went
aboard got into the hold. I signed on next morning.
"Nothing occurred aboard that ship except the usual trouble of breaking
in a new crew, until we'd got down to about forty south, when the
skipper brought up a rat-trap with a big, healthy rat in it. He was a
mild-mannered little man, and a rat and dog fight marked the limits of
his sporting nature. That was what he was after. He had a little
black-and-tan terrier, about the size of the rat, and there was a
lively time around the deck for a while, until the rat got away. He put
up a stiff fight with the dog, but finally saw his chance, and slipped
into the forward companion of the cabin; then, I suppose, he found the
hole he'd come up. But the dog had nipped him once, it seemed, for the
rat left a tiny trail of blood after him. As for the dog, he nearly had
a fit in his anger and disappointment, and when the skipper picked him
up he nipped him, too. It was only a little wound on the skipper's
thumb, but the dog's teeth were sharp, and the blood had come. The
skipper gave him a licking, and the work went on.
"The dog was a spirited little fellow, and used to sit on the skipper's
shoulder when we were going about, or wearing ship, or handling canvas,
and he would bark and yelp and swear at us, bossing each job as though
he knew all about it. It kept the men good-humored, and we all liked
the little beast. But from the time of the licking he moped, and
finally grew sick, slinking around the deck in a dispirited fashion,
refusing any attention, and unwilling to remain a minute in one place.
We felt rather sore at the skipper, who seemed ashamed now and anxious
to make friends with the dog, for the little bite in his thumb had
healed up. This went on for a few days, and then we woke up to what
really ailed that dog. He was racing around decks one morning with his
tongue hanging out, froth dropping from his mouth, and agonized yelps
and whines coming from him.
"'My God!' cried the skipper, 'Now I know. He was bitten in 'Frisco. He
is mad, and he has bitten me. Keep away from him everybody. Don't let
him get near you.'
"I'll always count that in the skipper's favor. Bitten and doomed
himself, he thought of others.
"We dodged the little brute until he had dropped in sheer exhaustion
and gone into a spasm. Then we picked him up with a couple of shovels
and threw him overboard. But this didn't end it, for the skipper was
bitten. He studied up some books on medicine he had below, but found no
comfort. I heard him tell the mate that there was nothing in the
medicine chest to meet such an emergency.
"'In fact,' he said, mournfully, 'even on shore, with the best of
medical skill, there is no hope for a man bitten by a mad dog. The
period of incubation is from ten days to a year. I will navigate the
ship until I lose my head, Mr. Barnes; then, for fear of harm to
yourselves, you must shoot me dead. I am doomed, anyway.'
"We tried to reassure him, but his mind was made up and nothing would
change it. Whether or not he had hydrophobia we could not tell at the
time, but we knew that strong and intense thinking about it would bring
on symptoms. In the light of after happenings, however, there was no
doubt of it. He got sick after we'd rounded the Horn, fidgety, nervous,
and excitable, and, like the dog, he couldn't stay long in one place;
but he wouldn't admit that the disease had developed in him until the
little scar on his thumb grew inflamed and painful and he experienced
difficulty in drinking. Then he gave up, but he certainly showed
courage and character.
"'I am against suicide on principle,' he said to Mr. Barnes and me, 'so
I must not kill myself. But I am not against killing a wild beast that
menaces the lives of human beings. I am to be such a wild beast. Kill
me in time before I injure you.'
"But we didn't. We had the same compunctions about killing a sick man
that he had about suicide. We strapped him down when he got violent,
and after three days of frightful physical and mental agony he died. We
buried him with the usual ceremonies, and Mr. Barnes took command.
"He and I had a consultation. We were well up toward the river Plate,
and he was for putting into Montevideo and cabling the owners for
orders. As he was a competent navigator I advised keeping on; and in
this, perhaps, is where I earned my punishment. He took my advice, and
we had reached up into the doldrums on the line, when a man turned out
at eight bells of the middle watch--midnight, you know--and swore that
a big rat had bitten him as he lay asleep. We laughed at him, even
though he showed four bloody little holes in his wrist. But, three
weeks later, that man was raving around the deck, going into periodic
convulsions, frothing at the mouth, and showing every symptom that had
preceded the death of the skipper. He died in the same horrible agony,
and we realized that not only the skipper, but the rat bitten by the
dog had been inoculated with the virus, and that the rat could
inoculate other rats. We buried the man, and from that time on slept in
our boots, with mittens on, and our heads covered, even in the hot
weather of the tropics. It was no use. Mad rats appeared on deck,
frenzied with pain, frothing at the mouth, fearless of all living
things, a few at first and after dark, then in larger numbers night and
day. We killed them as we could, but they increased. They filled the
cabin and forecastles, and we found them in coils of rope up aloft in
the tops, the crosstrees, and the doublings of the masts. They climbed
everywhere, up or down, on a sail or its leach, a single rope or a
backstay. The mate and myself, with the steward, could shut the doors
of our rooms and keep them out until they chose to gnaw through, but
the poor devils forward had no such refuge. Their forecastles and the
galley and carpenter shop were wide open. Man after man was nipped,
awake or asleep, on deck or below, or up aloft in the dark, when,
reaching for another hold on a shroud or a backstay, he would touch
something soft and furry, and feel the teeth and hear the squeak that
spelled death for him.
"In two weeks from the death of the first sailor, seven others were
sick; and all went through the symptoms--restlessness, talkativeness,
and the tendency to belittle the case and to deny their danger. But the
real symptom, which they had to accept themselves, was their inability
to drink water. It was frightful to see the poor wretches, staggering
around with eyes wide open and the terrible fear of death in them,
going to the barrel for a drink, only to tumble back in convulsions at
the sight of the water. We strapped them down as they needed it, and
they died, one by one; for there was no helping them.
"We had started with a crew of twenty, a carpenter, sailmaker, steward,
and cook, besides the mate and myself. Eight were gone now, and from
the exhaustion of the remainder, due to extra work and loss of sleep,
it became difficult to work ship. Men aloft moved slowly, fearing at
any moment the sting of small, sharp teeth. Skysails, royals, and
staysails blew away before men could get up to furl them. Gear that had
parted was left unrove; for a panic-stricken crew cannot be bullied or
coerced. Any of them would take a knock-down from the mate or myself
rather than go aloft at night.
"We got clear of the doldrums in time, and by then six more of the
crew, including the cook, had been bitten, and things looked bad. I now
strongly advised the mate to put in to St.-Louis or some other port on
the African coast, land the crew, and wait until the last rat had been
bitten by his fellow and died; but he would not have it. To land the
men, he said, meant to lose them, and to wait until another crew was
sent by the owners. This would be loss of time, money, and prospects. I
could only give way, even though the last item pertained solely to him.
I was not a navigator, and did not hope for promotion to a command.
"So we held on, dodging the crazed men when the disease had reached
their brains, knocking them down and binding them when necessary, and
watching them die in their tracks like so many mad dogs. And all this
time the number of rats that sought the deck for light and air was
increasing. We carried belaying pins in our boots now, ready to swipe a
rat that got too close; but as for killing them all this way, it was
beyond any chance. There were too many, and they ran too fast. Before
the six men had died, others had been bitten, and one had felt the
teeth of a maddened shipmate. So the terrible game continued; we had
only seven men before the mast now, and the carpenter and sailmaker had
to drop their work and stand watch, while the steward quit being a
steward to cook for those that were left.
"The man at the wheel had heard me arguing with the mate about making
port, and, counting upon my sympathy, had prevailed upon the others
forward to insist upon it. Well, you know the feeling of an officer up
against mutiny. No matter what the provocation, he must put the mutiny
down; so, when the men came aft, they found me with the mate, and dead
against them. We called their bluff, drove them forward at the muzzles
of our guns, and promised them relief from all work except handling
sail if they would take the ship to Queenstown. They agreed, because
they could not do anything else, and the mutiny was over. But my
conscience bothered me later on; for if I had joined them, some lives
might have been saved. Even though the mate was a big, courageous
Irish-American half again as heavy as myself, he could not have held
out against me with the crew at my back. But, you see, it would have
been mutiny, and mutiny spells with a big M to a man that knows the
law.
"Before we reached the Bay of Biscay every man forward, including the
carpenter, sailmaker, and steward, had been bitten, either by a mad rat
or a mad shipmate, and was more or less along on the way to convulsions
and death. The decks, rails, and rigging, the tops, crosstrees, and
yards, swarmed with rats darting along aimlessly biting each other, and
going on, frothing at their little mouths, and squeaking in pain. By
this time all thought of handling the ship was gone from us. The mate
and I took turns at steering, and keeping our eyes open for a sail. But
a curious thing about that passage is that from the time we dropped the
Farallones, off 'Frisco, we did not speak a single craft in all that
long four months of sailing. Once in a while a steamer's smoke would
show up on the horizon, and again a speck that might be a sail would
heave in sight for an hour or so; but nothing came near us.
"The mate and I began to quarrel. We had heeled ourselves with pistols
against a possible assault of some frenzied sailor, but there was
strong chance that we might use these playthings on each other. I
upbraided the mate for not putting in to St.-Louis, and he got back at
me for advising him against putting in to Montevideo. It was not an
even argument, for the first sailor had not been bitten at the time I
advised him. But it resulted in bad feeling between us. We kept our
tempers, however, and kept the maddened men away from us until they
died, one by one; then, with the wheel in beckets, and the ship
steering herself before the wind, we hove the bodies overboard. There
was no funeral service now; we had become savages.
"'Well,' said the mate, as the last body floated astern, 'that's done.
Take your wheel. I'm going to sleep.'
"'Look out,' I said, grimly, 'that it's not your last.'
"'What do you mean?' he asked, eying me in an ugly way. 'Do you strike
sleeping men?'
"'No; but rats bite sleeping men,' I answered. 'And understand, Mr.
Barnes, I'd rather you'd live than die, so that I may live myself. With
both alive and one awake a passing ship could be seen and signaled.
With one dead and the other asleep, a ship might pass by. I shall keep
a lookout.'
"'Oh, that's all, is it? Well, if that's all, keep your lookout.' His
ugly disposition still held him. He went down, and I steered, keeping a
sharp lookout around; for I knew that up in the bay there were sure
chances of something coming along. But nothing appeared, and before an
hour had passed, Mr. Barnes was up, sucking his wrist, and looking
wildly at me.
"'My God, Draper,' he said, 'I've got it! I killed the rat, but he's
killed me.'
"'Well, Mr. Barnes,' I said, as he strode up to me, 'I'm sorry for you;
but what do you want?--what I would want in your place?--a bullet
through the head?'
"'No, no.' He sucked madly at his wrist, where showed the four little
red spots.
"'Well, I'll tell you, Barnes. You've shown antagonism to me, and
you're likely to carry it into your delirium when it comes. I'll not
shoot you until you menace me; then, unless I am too far gone myself,
I'll shoot you dead, not only in self-defense, but as an act of mercy.'
"'And you?' he rejoined. 'You--you--you are to live and get command of
the ship?'
"'No,' I answered, hotly. 'I can't get command. I'm not certificated. I
want my life, that's all.'
"He left me without another word, and stamped forward. Rats ran up his
clothing, reaching for his throat, but he brushed them off and went on,
around the forward house, and then aft to me.
"'Draper,' he said, in a choked voice, 'I've got to die. I know it. I
know it as none of the men knew it. And it means more to me.'
"'No, it doesn't. Life was as sweet to them as to you or the skipper.'
"'But I've a Master's license. All I wanted was my chance, and I
thought my chance had come. Draper, if I'd taken this ship into port
I'd have been a hero and obtained my command.'
"'So, that's your cheap way of looking at it, is it?' I answered, as I
hove on the wheel and kicked rats from underfoot. 'A hero by the toll
of twenty-four deaths. Down off the river Plate I didn't realize the
horror of all this. Off St.-Louis I did, and advised you. You
withstood, to be a hero. Well, I'm sorry for you, that's all.'
"A big rat jumped from the wheel-box at this moment, climbed my
clothing, and had reached my chest before I knocked it off with my
fist.
"'You see, Barnes, the rat does not know, and I did not kill it. But
you do know, and I shall hasten your death with a bullet if you
approach me. It will not be murder, nor manslaughter. It will be an act
of mercy; but I cannot do it now. See how I feel?'
"'Oh, God!' he shrieked, running away from me. He reached the break of
the poop, then turned and came back.
"'Got your gun on you, Draper? Kill me now; kill me, and have it over
with. I'm down and done for. There's nothing more for me.'
"I refused; and yet I know that with regard to that man's mental agony
for the next few days, culminating in the first physical symptoms of
unrest, fever, and thirst, I should have obeyed his request. He was
doomed, and knew it. And he was a madman from mental causes before the
physical had produced effects, even though the disease ran its course
quickly in him. On the third day he was raving of a black-eyed woman
who kept a candy store in Boston, and who had promised to marry him
when he obtained command.
"I got out a bottle of bromide from the medicine chest and induced
Barnes to take a good dose of it. He drank about half a teacup of it,
and in an hour was asleep. Then, clad in boots and mittens, with a
sailor's clothes-bag over my head, I went aloft and lashed myself in
the mizzentopmast crosstrees, where I obtained about six hours' sleep,
which I needed badly. Barnes was worse when I came down; three more
rats had bitten him, he declared, and he begged me to shoot him. It
never occurred to him to do the job himself, and I couldn't suggest it
to him.
"'Well, Draper,' he said at last, 'I'm going, and I know it. Now, if
you escape, sometime you'll be in Boston. Will you take the street-car
out the Boston Road, and at Number 24 Middlesex Place drop in and say a
few words to that woman? Call her Kate, and say we were shipmates, and
I told you to. Tell her about this, and that I thought of her, and
didn't want to die because of her. Tell her, will you, Draper?'
"'Barnes, I promise,' I said. 'I will hunt up or write to that woman if
I get ashore. I'll tell her all about it. Now, go and lie down.'
"But he couldn't lie down; and when the time came that I had to sleep
in the crosstrees again, I found, on waking, that Barnes had followed
me, and in some way had got my gun out of my pocket. I knew he had it
by the insane way he laughed as I came down from my perch. I hunted
through the cabin for pistols or rifles, but he had been ahead of me;
and as I came up and he stood near the wheel--the wheel, like
everything else, was neglected now--there was a crazy look in his eyes
that meant bad luck for me.
"'Going to kill me, weren't you?' he chuckled. 'Well, you won't. Nor
will you get that woman out the Boston Road. I'm dead on to you, you
dog. And you'll get no credit for the advice you gave--that I put down
in the log. Not much you won't.'
"He darted into the cabin and returned with the ship's log, which he
had charge of, and the official log of the skipper. I do not know what
was entered in them, but he tossed them overboard.
"'There goes your record of efficiency,' he said.
"He came toward me on the run, his eyes blazing, but I did not budge.
He made no gun-play, but put up his fists, and I met him; I was used to
this form of fighting. However, I went down before his plunges and
punches, and realized that I was up against a bigger, heavier, stronger
man than myself, and could not hope to win. I'm no small boy, as you
see, but Barnes was a giant, and a skilled fighter.
"I got away from him and kept away. I wanted to hoist an ensign, union
down, but the lunatic prevented me; his intelligence had left him. He
watched me as a cat watches a mouse, or I might have brought a
handspike down on his head and ended his troubles and some of my own.
And it would have been no foul play to have done so; but I could not.
He followed me everywhere, ready to pounce upon me at the first move I
made.
"I spent that night walking away from him as he nosed me around the
deck, and brushing off the crazy rats that climbed my legs. I did not
dare make for the rigging, for without my bag I would have been worse
off than on deck, and at such a move he would have jumped on me. But in
the morning he had his first convulsion, and it left him a wreck. While
he lay gasping and choking on the deck, with equally afflicted rats
crawling over him and nipping where they felt flesh, I managed to get a
bite from the steward's storeroom, and it roused me up and strengthened
me. I came out, resolved to bind him down, but I was too late. He was
on his feet, the paroxysm gone, crazy as ever, and, though weak, still
able to master me.
"The ship was rolling heavily in the trough of a Biscay sea, which, no
matter how the wind, is a violent, troublesome heave of cross-forces.
The upper canvas was carried away, or hanging in the buntlines. Some of
the braces were adrift and the yards swinging. We had the courses
clewed up when the men were alive, and the lower yards were fairly
square; so the ship, with the aid of the head-sails, kept the canvas
full, and she sailed along, manned by a crew of rabid rats, a crazy
first mate, and a half-crazy second mate. I knew I was half-crazy, for
I had a fixed, insistent thought that would not go--that of a little
school-ma'am who had whipped me in childhood. I deserved the whipping,
but--Lord, how I hated her now!
"I feared the mate. He was again nosing me around the deck, glaring
murder at me and talking to himself. I feared him more than I feared
the rats, for I could brush them off. I could not get out of his sight;
but I did venture on grabbing a circular life-buoy from the
quarter-rail as I passed it, and slipping it over my head, and he did
not seem to notice the maneuver. I was resolved, as a last resort, to
jump into the sea with this scant protection against death by drowning,
hunger, or thirst, rather than risk another assault by this lunatic or
a bite from a rat. These were numbered now by the thousands. The deck
was black with them in places, and here and there a rope was as big
around as a stove-pipe.
"All was quiet this last day aboard. The mate busied himself in
following me around, talking to the rats and to himself, even as they
bit him, and I busied myself in quietly keeping out of his way and
brushing off rats that climbed my legs. I was dead tired, being on my
feet so long, and in sheer desperation and love of life I hoped for
another convulsion that would give me relief from the strain. But
before it came to him I was out of his way, and, I strongly suspect, he
was out of the way of the convulsion.
"He caught me on the forecastle deck and made for me, half mad from the
disease, but wholly mad from his mental state. There was no escape
except out the head-gear, and I went that way, with him after me. Out
the bowsprit, on to the jib foot-ropes, and out toward the end I went,
hoping to reach the martingale-stay and slip down it to the back-ropes.
I did so, but he scrambled down, tumbling and clutching, and gripped me
just abaft the dolphin-striker. His face was twisted in frenzy, and he
growled and barked like a dog, occasionally breaking into a horrible,
rat-like squeal. But he didn't bite me; he simply squeezed me in both
arms, and in that effort lost his hold on the back-rope and fell,
taking me with him. We struck the water together, and his grip
loosened, for he was now up against something too strong for him--the
sound and sight and feeling of cold water. When we came up, the
cutwater was between us, and I didn't see him again, though I heard his
convulsive gurgling and screaming from the other side of the ship. Then
the sounds stopped, and I think he must have gone under; but I was too
busy with myself to speculate much. I was trying to get a finger-nail
grip on that smooth, black side slipping by me, but could not. There
was nothing to get hold of, and no ropes were hanging over. Then I
thought of the rudder and the iron bumpkin on it that the rudder-chains
fastened to, and swam with all my strength under the quarter as it came
along. But it was no good. The life-buoy hampered me in swimming, and I
missed the rudder by an inch.
"The ship went on and left me alone on the sea. I remember very little
of it. I think my mind must have slowly gone out of me, leaving me
another person. I remember a few sensations--and it only seems like a
week ago to me--one, of being alone on the surface of the sea at night,
supported by the life-buoy; and then, I seemed to be back among the
rats, but that was just as I wakened on your floor here. The next
sensation was the sight of you, and the sound of your voice, speaking
to me, and then the knowledge that I was really alive and ashore."
"And the woman out the Boston Road?" I inquired at length.
"I will write to her as I promised. But I will not go there. Boston is
too close to the sea."