After his terrific head-on fall into the catamaran, Ralph lay
momentarily stunned. He recovered consciousness as the gag was being
passed over his mouth, but was utterly weak and bewildered, not
comprehending at first what had happened to him. The next instant
he felt his arms tightly bound to his side, and then his legs were
firmly bound together. He lay helpless, but started to gather his
wits together, and soon realized what had happened. The man in the
catamaran was now sculling rapidly. Ralph opened his eyes, and in the
dim dawn now breaking he recognized the man to be the oiler, Collins.
The latter now stopped sculling, pulled his oar in the boat, and came
toward Ralph. He bent down toward Ralph’s head, giving the midshipman
a feeling of helpless terror. “What is this villain going to do to me
now?” thought the young man to himself. But to Ralph’s surprise and
comfort the “villain” now bathed his injured head with cold water; he
then pulled off his heavy overshirt and making a pillow of it, put it
under Ralph’s head. The midshipman’s terror now completely left him and
was replaced by a great curiosity; this man was not like the villains
he had read about.
“I hope you’re not hurt bad,” Collins said; “you came down awfully
hard, head first.”
Ralph struggled to make a reply, but was effectually prevented by the
neckerchief tightly bound over his mouth.
Collins now removed the neckerchief, saying roughly, “We’re a long ways
off from the ship, but if you do any yelling I’ll brain you with this
oar.” Then recognizing his prisoner, he said, “Oh, so it’s you, is it?
The efficient midshipman who made a reputation by preventing a poor
enlisted man from going to see his sick wife! That was a nice trick; I
hope you’re proud of yourself, Osborn.”
Ralph sat up. “You’ll call me Mr. Osborn, when you speak to me,
Collins.”
“Will I, my pretty boy? I’ll call you Mr. Osborn when you call me Mr.
Collins,” he added sneeringly. “I’m glad it is you; I’m only sorry you
didn’t get a worse bump. But I can make it worse at any time with this
good oar.”
“I don’t believe you’ll hit me with the oar, Collins,” said Ralph
quietly.
“Don’t you? Well you’d better not kick up any fuss then.” Collins spoke
savagely. He now commenced to scull again, and by daylight had rounded
a point of land and was now entirely hidden from the ship.
Ralph said nothing, wondering what the outcome of this adventure would
be. In Collins’ face he saw mingled emotions of worry and anguish. But
in it he saw no expression that frightened him, helpless as he was.
The catamaran was now driven to a stretch of sand and hauled up on the
beach. Collins looked at Ralph and said abruptly, “Get up.”
“I will if you’ll untie this rope that’s around my arms and legs.”
“What am I going to do with you?” asked Collins moodily.
“For your own sake, the best thing you can do with me is to scull back
to the ship.”
“Do you think I’m a fool?” snarled Collins.
“It looks that way to me.”
“Yes, you’d like to have me take you back to the ship, wouldn’t you?
You’d get a lot of glory out of that, but what would I get, do you
think? I’d get some more double irons, for safe-keeping, the log would
say,” he added contemptuously, “and then I’d get a general court
martial and be sent to prison for several years. And for what? Just
because I did what any man in my place would do; if you had a wife,
sick, perhaps dying in a strange town, wouldn’t you try to see her no
matter if you did break some artificial regulations? Tell me as a man,
wouldn’t your duty to your sick wife come before anything else?”
“It certainly would,” replied Ralph softly.
“What did I do, and how was I treated?” cried Collins. “I went to the
executive officer and told him about it and asked for a couple of
hours, and got treated like a dog and called a liar. Then I did what
any decent man would do, I tried to go without permission and was
chased and treated like an escaping criminal; and you were one of the
chasers and fished me out of the water with a boat-hook. And then I was
put in irons; me, a decent, self-respecting American!”
Collins boiled over with rage when recounting his wrongs.
“I heard you at the mast, Collins; I felt awfully sorry for you when
the executive officer would not let you go.”
“It looked like you felt sorry for me when you pulled me out with a
boat-hook.”
“That was not personal; I didn’t know who it was and it wouldn’t have
made any difference who it was. I had to do my duty. It was the same
this morning when you ran across the deck and got into the catamaran.
But I have been and am real sorry for you, Collins. Now what are you
going to do?”
“That’s none of your business, Osborn; whatever I’m going to do you
can’t stop me. I’ve got you fixed, that’s certain. And I’m going
where one man can’t put another in double irons unless he’s committed
a crime. I’ve finished with the Navy where a man is treated like a
criminal for trying to see a sick wife. You’re going to be an officer
and you think it’s all right to put an enlisted man in irons and treat
him as if he were a thief. You think an officer is a different being
from an enlisted man. You’ve never had irons on your hands and legs;
you don’t know the awful despair that comes over one, the terrible,
hopeless feeling. You have no regard for an enlisted man’s honor; you
laugh at the idea of his having any. Just let me tell you that I am as
proud of the life I’ve lived as any officer is of his life. I’ve always
worked hard and supported my mother and my wife. I’ve never lied, nor
stolen. And I’ve never touched a drop of liquor in my life. You think
enlisted men are a lot of brutes and haven’t feelings. I tell you that
man Hester is as good a man and as fine a gentleman as any officer in
the Navy, even if he does wear a blue shirt.”
“I knew it, I felt certain of it,” cried Ralph.
“Knew what?” asked Collins mystified.
“I knew that you were a good man. But, Collins, I’m afraid you are a
very foolish one and are steering yourself into a lot of trouble.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Osborn?”
“Now what have you done? You’ve broken arrest, which is, I imagine, a
serious breach of naval discipline. But to make matters worse you’ve
deserted, and stolen a boat. Then, to cap the climax, you assaulted a
midshipman on special duty and kidnapped him. If you really were the
villain these things would make you out to be you might complete the
job and murder me and try to hide the traces of your crime. But you
see all this fails because you’re not really a villain; but you’ve got
yourself tangled up in an awful mess, and now you don’t know what to
do. And you’ve got me on your hands also.”
“Mr. Osborn, if you’ll promise to wait until noon and give me a chance
to get away I’ll come up that rope that’s about you. I’ve no desire to
harm you.”
“Of course you haven’t, Collins; but I’m not going to make you any
promise; what you would try to do is to get to the mainland and then
beat your way to Newport News; and what do you suppose would happen
then? Before you ever saw your wife you would be arrested; you would be
tried by general court martial for desertion, assaulting and kidnapping
a midshipman on duty and so forth; by all of these things you have made
yourself out to be a desperate criminal. You would be convicted and
sent to prison for ten, perhaps fifteen years. And what would become of
the poor wife, Collins? Are you proving yourself a good husband to her
by doing such things as these? Just think of it all, Collins!”
“My God, Mr. Osborn, what can I do? I’ve gone too far now.”
“The first thing you can do, Collins, is to unbind the rope around me.”
Without a second’s delay, with a pale, anxious face, Collins unbound
Ralph’s arms and legs. Ralph stood up and stretched himself. His heart
was full of sympathy for the distracted man before him.
“What next, Mr. Osborn?” he humbly asked.
“What next?” repeated Ralph, in a burst of good feeling. “Why, the
next thing that’s going to happen is that Oiler Collins and Midshipman
Osborn are going to shake hands and be good friends and are going to
help one another whenever they can.”
“What, Mr. Osborn, would you shake hands with a man who has treated you
so badly as I have?”
“Indeed I will, Collins. There. Now I hope to convince you before long
that officers are not as hard and unfeeling as you think. Your impulses
run away with you, Collins, and I hope and believe the captain will
think those impulses are not unpardonable.” And Ralph seated himself in
the boat.
“How’s your head, Mr. Osborn?”
“Bumpy, but I’m feeling quite contented all the same. Oh, thank you,
Collins; that’s good of you.”
Collins was now bathing Ralph’s head with the cool water, and tied his
neckerchief about the bruised part.
“What shall I do now, Mr. Osborn?” asked Collins. “I’ll do whatever you
tell me to do.”
Ralph looked up into his face and said, “Collins, you will do what
you think you ought to do; I’m not going to give you any order or
suggestion, except to tell you I’m getting hungry.”
Collins pushed the boat into the water with alacrity, and commenced to
scull it around the point of land. The tide had changed and was now
with the catamaran; and at half-past seven the boat was alongside the
_Puritan_.