HAM TURNS OUT TO BE A PROPHET
“YASSUH! yassuh! Dat’s de story ’bout de Ghost ob Alligator Swamp,”
declared Ham Mockus, solemnly.
It had been hard work to get the yarn out of the colored steward. The
meal was over, and the howling of the wind through the rigging of the
signal mast made a dismal sound that was enough to get on any timid
person’s nerves. But the electric lights were turned on brilliantly
in the cozy, snug little cabin of the “Restless.” All being light and
warmth there, and the four passengers being in merry mood, Ham had
gotten his courage together. As the two men lighted their cigars at
the end of the meal, after having secured the permission of the ladies,
Mr. Tremaine had pushed the cigar box toward the steward, intimating
that Ham might remain and indulge in a cigar if he would tell them,
truthfully and without holding back any part, the story of the ghost in
question.
“For you know, Ham,” Mr. Tremaine had explained, “I haven’t been near
my place in these parts for three years, and I’ve heard only the
faintest rumors about the ghost. I want a real, true account.”
So Ham, with many mutterings under his breath, with many sharp
indrawings of air and much rolling of his eyes, had told the startling
tale. Not all of it need be told here, as the Ghost of Alligator Swamp
was destined to appear to all now on board. According to Ham Mockus the
spectre could take the form of either man or woman, or even of any of
the better-known beasts. Water was no barrier; it could travel at sea.
Distance meant nothing to this grisly apparition, which, at need, could
travel fifty miles in a second. Ham told tale after tale about the
ghost. The others listened mostly in amused silence; but the narration
caused the hair of Ham himself to stand on end.
“Why, then, Ham,” suggested Mr. Tremaine, taking a few thoughtful
whiffs of his cigar, “there’d be really nothing to prevent the ghost
from coming on board here to-night in the midst of the storm, if we
have one.”
“Yassuh! yassuh! Dat ghost can done come, ef it wanter.”
“I wonder if it will?” asked Miss Silsbee, musingly.
“Don’ say dat, Missy! Don’, fo’ de lub ob hebben!” begged Ham, growing
terror-stricken. “Many time dat ha’nt done go wheah it been asked ter
go. Don’ ’vite it heah! Ole Marse Satan, he shuah ter ride in de gale
dis night, an’ ole Marse Satan, he am ernuff, fo’ shuah! ’Scuse me,
now, ladies an’ gemmen. I gotter finish clearin’ offen de table.”
With that, the steward began to remove dishes and other things in a
hurry, his feet sounding constantly in the passage forward of the
cabin. Then, at last, he appeared to inquire:
“Is dat all fo’ me, now, ladies an’ gemmen?”
“Yes; we shan’t need you any more, Ham,” replied Mrs. Tremaine.
Ordinarily, Ham would have gone to the galley, where, with hot water
ready, he would have cleaned up all the dishes.
“But Ah ain’t so shuah dere gwine ter _be_ any mawnin’,” he muttered to
himself, after he had bobbed his head up into the open for a long look
at the threatening sky overhead. So Ham came out on deck, to walk about
as long as he could still find it safe to do so.
Following the early winter twilight an increasing darkness had settled
down over the waters. Every few minutes Captain Tom, once more at the
wheel, turned on the electric searchlight, swinging it around in an arc
of a circle before the boat, seeking to inform himself of any danger
that might lie in their path. For the rest, the young skipper was
content to steer through the darkness, having only the binnacle light
upon the compass for a guide, and carrying the chart memorized in his
mind.
For the last hour the waves had been crested with white-caps. Every now
and then a mass of foam leaped over the bulwarks of the bridge deck,
the water retreating through the scuppers. The wind was blowing at
nearly twenty-five miles an hour. Yet, so far, there was nothing in the
actual weather that could make a capable captain’s mind uneasy. Joe,
after a look out into the black night, and after wetting his finger and
holding it up in the breeze, had gone below, where he found his motors
working satisfactorily. So he had turned into his bunk, hoping to catch
an hour or two of sleep ere the call came for duty on deck all through
the night.
The “Restless” was rolling and pitching considerably, but as yet the
motion was no more than was agreeable to those who love the sea and its
moods. As Ham came up on deck, however, he saw that the life-lines had
been stretched. That had been Joe Dawson’s last work before turning in.
“You’ll want to keep awake to-night, Ham,” called Tom, when he saw his
dark visage.
“Yassuh! yassuh!” came willingly from the colored man, who, however,
could go to sleep standing up anywhere.
Though none of the passengers below was exactly afraid, none cared to
turn in early that night. After the men had smoked as much as they
cared to, the quartette in the cabin started a game of euchre.
Tom, who had last been relieved at seven o’clock, in order that he
might go below for supper, kept at the wheel alone, until eleven
o’clock. Then, catching sight of the steward’s head through the doorway
of the motor room, he shouted the order to call Joe Dawson on deck.
Joe came with the promptness of a fireman responding to an alarm. He
took a look about him at the weather, then faced his chum.
“Between Marquesas and Tortugas?” he asked.
“Yes. Look!”
At just that moment the red eye of the revolving light over on Dry
Tortugas, some miles away, swung around toward them.
“I’m glad the gale has held off so long,” muttered Joe. “This is the
nastiest part of the way. Half an hour more, if a squall doesn’t strike
us, and we’ll be where we’ll feel easier.”
“It’s queer weather, anyway,” said Skipper Tom musingly. “I figured
we’d be in the thick of a souther by eight o’clock.”
“Maybe the storm has spent itself south of us,” ventured Joe Dawson,
but Halstead shook his head.
“No; it’s going to catch us. No doubt about that. Hullo! Feel that?”
The first drops of rain struck the backs of their necks. Nodding,
Dawson dived below, coming up soon in his oilskins and sou’wester. He
took the wheel while Tom vanished briefly for similar clothing and
headgear.
Swish-sh-sh! Now, the rain began to drive down in great sheets,
illumined by two faint flashes of winter lightning. Immediately
afterward came a rush of wind from the south that sang loudly through
the rigging on the signal mast.
“Now, we’ll soon be in for it in earnest,” muttered Tom Halstead,
taking the wheel from his chum and casting an anxious look for the
next “red eye” from the revolving light over on Tortugas.
Voices sounded on the after deck. Henry Tremaine was calling to his
wife and ward to get on their rain coats and come up for a brief look
at the weather.
“Joe,” muttered the young skipper, sharply, “go back to those people
and tell them the only place for them is going to be below. Tell Mr.
Tremaine he’d be endangering the ladies to have ’em on deck, even for a
minute or two. Push ’em below and lock the after companionway, if you
have to!”
Joe easily made his way aft ta carry out these instructions. Hardly
had Dawson returned when another and greater gust of wind overtook the
“Restless.” Her nose was buried deep in the water, as she pitched.
Then, on the crest of the following wave, the little craft’s bow rose
high. The full gale was upon them in five minutes more—a wind blowing
fifty-five miles an hour. Running before the wind the cruiser steered
easily enough. Tom could manage the wheel alone, though Joe stood by to
lend a hand in case of accident or emergency.
Up onto deck stumbled Ham Mockus, clutching desperately at the
deck-house and life-lines.
“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, dis shuah gwine finish us!” yelled the steward in
terror. He was so badly frightened, in fact, that both boys felt sorry
for him.
“Don’t you believe it,” Captain Tom bellowed at him. “We’ve been out in
a heap sight worse gales than this.”
“In dis boat?” wailed Ham, hoarsely.
“Right in this boat, in one worse gale,” replied Halstead, thinking of
the September northeaster experienced on the other side of Florida, as
told in “THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS.”
“But Ah reckon ole Marse Satan didn’t gwine ride on dat gale,”
protested Ham Mockus.
“Nor on this gale, either,” rasped Halstead, sharply.
“Den yo’ don’ know,” retorted the steward, with an air of conviction.
“Yo’s all right, Marse Tom, but yo’ ain’t raised on dis west coast like
Ah wuz.”
“Get below,” counseled Joe Dawson. “You’ll drown up here, Ham.”
For, by now, the decks were awash, and there was a threat that, at any
moment, the great combers would be rolling fairly across the bulwarks.
Dawson drove the black man below, forcing him to close the motor room
hatch.
Five minutes later, however, the hatch opened again, and Oliver Dixon
appeared in rain coat and cap.
“I thought you might need an extra hand up here,” volunteered Dixon,
speaking in a loud voice to make himself heard over the howling gale.
“So I told the ladies I’d come on deck for a while.”
“No, we don’t need anyone, thank you,” Tom shouted back at him. “We’ll
soon be past Tortugas, and then we’ll be in open waters for hours to
come.”
Yet Dixon showed no intention of returning below. Tom Halstead did not
like to order him below decks. Dixon, making his way to where he could
lean against the cabin deck-house, was not likely to be at all in the
way.
“There’s no accounting for tastes,” muttered Joe, under his breath. “If
I were a passenger on this boat, and had a snug cabin to go to, that
would be good enough for me. I wonder why I dislike this fellow so?”
By the time that they had the Tortugas light well astern Captain Tom
jerked his head slightly, backward, then glanced meaningly at his chum
before looking straight ahead.
“Yes; we’re in the open,” nodded Joe. “Good!”
Yet the gale, if anything, was increasing in severity. Staunch a craft
as she was, the “Restless” creaked almost as though in agony. Timbers
will act that way in any heavy sea.
“Take the wheel, Joe!” shouted Skipper Tom, presently. “My arms ache.”
And well they might, as Joe knew, for, with such a sea running, the
wheel acted as though it were a thing of life as it fiercely resisted
every turn.
As Dawson stepped into place, bracing himself, and with both strong
young hands resting on the spokes, Tom Halstead, holding lightly to one
of the life lines, started to step backward to the deck-house. Just
then a great, combing wave broke over the boat, from astern, racing the
full length with fearful force. Joe Dawson, hearing it come, partly
turned to meet it. Halstead was caught, lurching as he let go of the
life line to clutch at the deck-house. Dixon’s foot shot out, tripping
the young skipper. Losing his footing and deprived of grip at the same
instant, Tom Halstead rose on the billow as it swept along.
Over the port side went the great mass of water. It would have carried
Skipper Tom with it, all in a flash, but Joe, dropping the wheel and
diving to hit the port bulwark, threw his hands upward, clutching
desperately at his friend’s leg.
Then Dawson held on—how he gripped!
A moment more and the force of that invading billow was spent. Joe,
panting under the strain of that fight against tons of water in
motion, drew Halstead to him in safety.
But the “Restless,” with no hand at the wheel, was lurching around into
the trough of the sea. The next wave might engulf her.
Sure that his friend was safe, Joe Dawson sprang to the wheel. While he
was still fighting with the steering gear, Tom Halstead stood at his
side. Between them, not without effort, they put the bobbing little
cork of a cruiser on her course, once more, on that seething, boiling
stretch of waters.
“Can you hold her, Joe?” panted Tom, huskily, in his friend’s ear.
Dawson nodding, Tom stepped back to Dixon, who regarded the young
captain with curiously blazing eyes.
“I think you’d better go below, sir,” shouted Halstead.
“Why—why—do you mean——?”
“I mean nothing,” retorted Tom, dryly, “except that the deck is no
place for you in this weather. We can handle the yacht better if all
passengers are below.”
“But——”
Captain Tom’s eyes gleamed resolutely.
“Will you go below, sir, or shall I have to call the steward to help me
put you below? I mean it, Mr. Dixon. I’m captain here!”
Gripping at the lines, Dixon sullenly made his way to the motor room
hatch. Halstead swung it open, gently but firmly aiding his passenger
below.
“Did he trip you?” asked Joe, when the hatch had been closed and his
chum stood beside him.
“It’s an awful thing to say, and I guess he didn’t, but I almost
thought so,” Halstead shouted back.
“He’s bad, I think,” growled Joe, which was a good deal for that quiet
young engineer to say. “Yet I can’t see any earthly reason for his
treating you like that.”
“Nor I, either,” admitted the youthful sailing master. “Oh, of course
he didn’t mean to. The whole thing is too absurd!”
Ten minutes later, feeling that it would be better to go below and see
how the hull was standing the severe strain, Halstead called to Ham to
stand by Joe on deck. Then Tom went below.
Once down there, it struck him to step through the passageway. There
was a peep-hole slide in the door opening into the cabin. Halstead
stood there, shifting the slide so that he could look beyond.
“If the ladies are still up,” he told himself, “I can see how they are
bearing the excitement. If they look very scared, I’ll go in and try
to put some courage into them.”
As Halstead looked through the small peep-hole, he saw Tremaine and
that gentleman’s wife and ward seated at the further end of the cabin
table, bending over a book that Tremaine held open. At the sideboard
stood young Dixon.
“Now, what’s he doing?” wondered Halstead, curiously.
With the water bottle in one hand, Oliver Dixon was pouring into it a
few drops from the vial he had placed in his vest pocket in the late
afternoon.
In the meantime, up on the bridge deck, Joe Dawson at first waited for
the return of his chum without any feeling of curiosity. Yet, after
many minutes had passed the young fleet engineer of the Motor Boat Club
began to wonder what his comrade was doing below.
“Ham,” ordered Joe, at last, “go below and find Captain Halstead. See
if anything has happened.”
Glad enough to get away from the deck, where the billows were pouring
over and threatening to carry him overboard, the colored steward made
his way, clutching at the life-lines, to the motor room door.
“Get that hatch shut!” roared Joe. “Don’t leave it open for a five-ton
wave to get down in there at the motors!”
Ham shut the hatch with a bang, then ran through the passageway to the
cabin door.
“’Scuse me, ladies an’ gemmen,” begged Ham, poking his head through the
doorway. “Any ob yo’ done seen Cap’n Halstead?”
“Why, no,” replied Mr. Tremaine, looking up. “He hasn’t been through
this cabin—at least, not within the last hour. Isn’t he on deck?”
“No, sah. Marse Dawson, he-um up at de wheel. He gwine sent me heah to
look fo’ de cap’n.”
“You were forward, a while ago, Dixon,” spoke Mr. Tremaine. “Did you
see Halstead?”
“Not even a glimpse of him,” replied that young man.
“Is the captain lost?” demanded Mrs. Tremaine, a tremor in her tone.
“I’se spec he must be,” declared Ham, solemnly. “He-um ain’ forrard,
an’ he-um ain’ on de bridge. He-um ain’ here, neider.”
“Don’t alarm the ladies, Ham,” spoke Mr. Tremaine, sharply. “If Captain
Halstead came below, then of course he didn’t go overboard. Look
forward. If you don’t find the captain promptly, come back for me, and
I’ll help you.”
Ham departed, going back through the passageway. Then, emitting a
frenzied yell, shaking in every limb, Ham half lurched, half tottered
back into the cabin. His appearance of utter fright was such as to
cause the ladies to rise, holding to the table for support while the
boat rocked and dipped.
As for Ham, he fell against the sideboard, holding on there, his eyes
rolling wildly, until little more than the scared whites of them could
be seen.
“What do you mean, you black idiot?” roared Mr. Tremaine, darting at
the steward and clutching him, administering a sound shaking.
“Cap’n Halstead, he ain’ on board!” wailed Ham Mockus. Then, in a
greater outburst of terror, he screamed hoarsely:
“Dat ain’ de worst! De Ghost ob Alligator Swamp _am_ on board—Ah done
seen it so close dat Ah s’pec it reach out an’ grab me!”
Though none of the passengers believed in ghosts, this information, at
such a time, was enough to make them gasp.
“Wut Ah done tell yo’?” roared Ham, his voice deepening in the frenzy
of his terror. “Ah tole yo’-all dat ole Marse Satan gwine ride on dis
great wind ter-night! He sho’ is doin’ dat. Oh, Lawdy!”
Slipping from the grasp of Henry Tremaine, Ham Mockus sank groveling to
the floor.