I followed the man, caught by the electricity of excitement which
seemed to dominate all on deck.
On the after-deck of the _Wanderer_, near the rail, was a long settee,
and about this eight or nine men were grouped closely. In the half
light of dawn their figures loomed bulkily and strangely alike. As I
drew near I made out Captain Brack, Riordan and Garvin. Pierce was
there, too, I saw on closer scrutiny, in the center of the throng,
apparently as excited as any of them.
A black figure, dripping wet, was lying on one end of the settee. I
saw that it was a man, and that Dr. Olson was bending over him, a
bottle of brandy in his right hand.
“He’s coming to again,” said the doctor. “He’ll be all right.”
No one paid any attention; not a man turned to look. They were bending
over something that lay on the other end of the settee, and so eager
were their attitudes that I, too, paid no attention to Dr. Olson, or
the man he was nursing, but crowded in among the close-pressed
shoulders for a sight of what the magnet might be.
“Go-o-old!” the pugilist, Garvin, was repeating in awe-stricken
whispers.
“Go-o-old! My Gawd! Look at it. And he said there was barrels of
it—barrels—where that comes from!”
A water-soaked canvas bag, roughly slit open, was spread out on the
settee. What appeared to be a score or so of small pebbles was lying
on the canvas, beside what seemed to me to be a handful of sand; but
at that moment the first rays of the sun reached the _Wanderer’s_
decks, the pebbles and sand began to gleam dully, and I saw that I was
looking at a pile of gold nuggets and gold dust.
“Two men to carry him below, cap’n,” came Dr. Olson’s voice from the
other end of the settee. “He’s all right; in surprisingly good
condition; but we’ve got to strip him and get dry clothes on him.”
Not one of us turned our heads. The others were fascinated by the
gold, and I was fascinated by the expression on their faces. Each face
bore the same expression; to a man they had dropped such masks of
civilization as they possessed, and greed, pure, primitive greed,
shone frankly from their strangely lighted eyes.
Life—raw and crawling! Brack’s words flashed through my mind. He was
right, then. Raw and crawling! It was the first time I had viewed the
souls of men, naked and unashamed of their nudity, and the vision was
appalling.
“Schwartz—Dillon,” Captain Brack spoke over his shoulder. “To the
doctor. Jump!”
The two men named withdrew reluctantly. I heard them marching behind,
bearing the dripping man below, but I did not turn to look. My eyes
were on Garvin. He was standing so that I had a fair view of his eyes
and his unbandaged mouth, and I stared in fascination, as one is
fascinated by something grewsome, which one has not believed possible.
I became conscious that somebody was watching me. It was Brack. He was
smiling.
“Raw and crawling, Mr. Pitt,” he said, reading my thoughts like print.
“You wouldn’t believe it when I told you; but there it is, all over
Garvin’s face. Now what do you say?”
Garvin swung his head around viciously.
“What’s the matter with my face?” he snarled.
“It is the face of a frankly carnivorous animal with a bone in sight,”
laughed Brack, “and it does not please our friend, Mr. Pitt.”
“Oh, him!” said Garvin, turning back. “To —— with him.”
“To —— with everybody!” growled another man. “Look at it—gold! And he
said he just scraped that up with his bare hands.”
“And it’s only a few hundred miles away—the place he got it.”
“And we’re going up north hunting bones, for thirty a month! ——!”
“Enough!” With a swoop of his hands Brack gathered the gold into the
bag and stuffed it into his pocket. “Get out! Get below!”
He swept them out of sight with a commanding gesture. They went, but
they looked back with threats in their excited faces.
* * * * *
“You have seen it now, Mr. Pitt,” Brack said, turning to me. “What do
you say now—is not life raw and crawling?”
“As an exhibition of the primal instinct of greed the spectacle was
quite worth seeing,” I replied. “Now tell me what it was all about?”
“This!” said he, striking the bag of gold in his pocket. “All about
this. For this the man whom we picked up in an open boat a short time
ago risked and all but lost his life. For this the men of the crew are
ready to cut the throats of any one who opposes them. And why? Because
it is gold. Because it is power; because it means the gratification of
all that is encompassed in—life.
“So you see what is behind life, with all its veneer and politeness,
Mr. Pitt. The primal instincts, as you expressed it—raw and crawling.
You must excuse me now; I must go down and see the man we picked up.
If he should happen to die it would not be right to let the secret of
the source of this gold die with him. Besides, I want Olson to save
him. He can take Larson’s place in the crew.”
I walked to the bow of the _Wanderer_ and back. A new atmosphere
seemed to have descended upon the yacht. The movements of the men of
the watch, the sullen, slovenly manner in which they attended to their
duties, reeked with menace. It seemed to me that the decks of the
_Wanderer_ merely hid a cauldron of seething elements, ready to
explode and destroy.
Then Wilson came on deck to take the watch in Captain Brack’s absence,
and at the sight of his trig seaman’s figure I felt assured. There was
one man at least who had not lost his sense of duty toward ship and
owner. The yacht might be a mad-house, surcharged with dangerous
greed, but Wilson would do his duty as if nothing were out of the way.
“Yesterday morning we had news of losing a man, this morning we pick
one up,” I said.
“Yes sir,” he said, and looked at me narrowly.
“A strange coincidence.”
“Yes sir.” He looked at me again, and turned his eyes out over the
sea.
“Mr. Pitt,” he said after awhile, “yesterday you spoke of Larson’s
disappearance as if you believed it might have been something besides
an accident, and that things were not as they should be aboard. Well,
now I know that you are right; things are not as they should be on
this yacht.”
“What have you discovered?”
He took his time about replying.
“That man never was picked up in an open boat at sea, Mr. Pitt,” he
said quietly. “The land where he claims to have come from is about six
hundred miles away. No small boat could have lived five minutes in the
storm we have been having, and that storm was stronger farther north.”
He spoke as if he were stating an ordinary fact, and his calmness
helped me to control myself.
“What does it mean, then, Wilson?” I asked as easily as I could.
“I don’t know, sir. I’m a seaman; I can’t follow such a queer course.
I only know that this man was not picked up, after a long voyage as he
claims; because his boat could not have lived through.”
“Captain Brack must know that, too?”
“Any seaman who has sailed these waters in Springtime knows that,
sir.”
“Yet Brack seemed to accept the man’s story as true. Oh!” I gasped as
I saw him smile. “Then it was Captain Brack who claimed to have picked
him up?”
“I can’t discuss that, sir; Captain Brack is my superior. But I know
that what I have told you is the truth; and I thought it right you
should know.”
“Why do you tell me, Wilson? Mr. Chanler is the owner.”
“Yes sir.” He hesitated a moment, then added: “You are near to the
owner. You’ll tell him if you see fit.”