Things are worse than I fancied. Here are two episodes within the last
seventy-two hours. Mr. Mellaire, for instance, is going to pieces. He
cannot stand the strain of being on the same vessel with the man who
has sworn to avenge Captain Somers’s murder, especially when that man
is the redoubtable Mr. Pike.
For several days Margaret and I have been remarking the second mate’s
bloodshot eyes and pain-lined face and wondering if he were sick. And
to-day the secret leaked out. Wada does not like Mr. Mellaire, and this
morning, when he brought me breakfast, I saw by the wicked, gleeful
gleam in his almond eyes that he was spilling over with some fresh,
delectable ship’s gossip.
For several days, I learned, he and the steward have been solving a
cabin mystery. A gallon can of wood alcohol, standing on a shelf in the
after-room, had lost quite a portion of its contents. They compared
notes and then made of themselves a Sherlock Holmes and a Doctor
Watson. First, they gauged the daily diminution of alcohol. Next they
gauged it several times daily, and learned that the diminution,
whenever it occurred, was first apparent immediately after meal-time.
This focussed their attention on two suspects—the second mate and the
carpenter, who alone sat in the after-room. The rest was easy. Whenever
Mr. Mellaire arrived ahead of the carpenter more alcohol was missing.
When they arrived and departed together, the alcohol was undisturbed.
The carpenter was never alone in the room. The syllogism was complete.
And now the steward stores the alcohol under his bunk.
But wood alcohol is deadly poison. What a constitution this man of
fifty must have! Small wonder his eyes have been bloodshot. The great
wonder is that the stuff did not destroy him.
I have not whispered a word of this to Margaret; nor shall I whisper
it. I should like to put Mr. Pike on his guard; and yet I know that the
revealing of Mr. Mellaire’s identity would precipitate another killing.
And still we drive south, close-hauled on the wind, toward the
inhospitable tip of the continent. To-day we are south of a line drawn
between the Straits of Magellan and the Falklands, and to-morrow, if
the breeze holds, we shall pick up the coast of Tierra del Fuego close
to the entrance of the Straits of Le Maire, through which Captain West
intends to pass if the wind favours.
The other episode occurred last night. Mr. Pike says nothing, yet he
knows the crew situation. I have been watching some time now, ever
since the death of Marinkovich; and I am certain that Mr. Pike never
ventures on the main deck after dark. Yet he holds his tongue, confides
in no man, and plays out the bitter perilous game as a commonplace
matter of course and all in the day’s work.
And now to the episode. Shortly after the close of the second dog-watch
last evening I went for’ard to the chickens on the ’midship-house on an
errand for Margaret. I was to make sure that the steward had carried
out her orders. The canvas covering to the big chicken coop had to be
down, the ventilation insured, and the kerosene stove burning properly.
When I had proved to my satisfaction the dependableness of the steward,
and just as I was on the verge of returning to the poop, I was drawn
aside by the weird crying of penguins in the darkness and by the
unmistakable noise of a whale blowing not far away.
I had climbed around the end of the port boat, and was standing there,
quite hidden in the darkness, when I heard the unmistakable age-lag
step of the mate proceed along the bridge from the poop. It was a dim
starry night, and the _Elsinore_, in the calm ocean under the lee of
Tierra del Fuego, was slipping gently and prettily through the water at
an eight-knot clip.
Mr. Pike paused at the for’ard end of the housetop and stood in a
listening attitude. From the main deck below, near Number Two hatch,
across the mumbling of various voices, I could recognize Kid Twist,
Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine—the three gangsters. But Steve Roberts,
the cow-boy, was also there, as was Mr. Mellaire, both of whom belonged
in the other watch and should have been turned in; for, at midnight, it
would be their watch on deck. Especially wrong was Mr. Mellaire’s
presence, holding social converse with members of the crew—a breach of
ship ethics most grievous.
I have always been cursed with curiosity. Always have I wanted to know;
and, on the _Elsinore_, I have already witnessed many a little scene
that was a clean-cut dramatic gem. So I did not discover myself, but
lurked behind the boat.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. The men still talked. I was
tantalized by the crying of the penguins, and by the whale, evidently
playful, which came so close that it spouted and splashed a
biscuit-toss away. I saw Mr. Pike’s head turn at the sound; he glanced
squarely in my direction, but did not see me. Then he returned to
listening to the mumble of voices from beneath.
Now whether Mulligan Jacobs just happened along, or whether he was
deliberately scouting, I do not know. I tell what occurred. Up-and-down
the side of the ’midship-house is a ladder. And up this ladder Mulligan
Jacobs climbed so noiselessly that I was not aware of his presence
until I heard Mr. Pike snarl:
“What the hell you doin’ here?”
Then I saw Mulligan Jacobs in the gloom, within two yards of the mate.
“What’s it to you?” Mulligan Jacobs snarled back. The voices below
hushed. I knew every man stood there tense and listening. No; the
philosophers have not yet explained Mulligan Jacobs. There is something
more to him than the last word has said in any book. He stood there in
the darkness, a fragile creature with curvature of the spine, facing
alone the first mate, and he was not afraid.
Mr. Pike cursed him with fearful, unrepeatable words, and again
demanded what he was doing there.
“I left me plug of tobacco here when I was coiling down last,” said the
little twisted man—no; he did not say it. He spat it out like so much
venom.
“Get off of here, or I’ll throw you off, you and your tobacco,” raged
the mate.
Mulligan Jacobs lurched closer to Mr. Pike, and in the gloom and with
the roll of the ship swayed in the other’s face.
“By God, Jacobs!” was all the mate could say.
“You old stiff,” was all the terrible little cripple could retort.
Mr. Pike gripped him by the collar and swung him in the air.
“Are you goin’ down?—or am I goin’ to throw you down?” the mate
demanded.
I cannot describe their manner of utterance. It was that of wild
beasts.
“I ain’t ate outa your hand yet, have I?” was the reply.
Mr. Pike tried to say something, still holding the cripple suspended,
but he could do no more than strangle in his impotence of rage.
“You’re an old stiff, an old stiff, an old stiff,” Mulligan Jacobs
chanted, equally incoherent and unimaginative with brutish fury.
“Say it again and over you go,” the mate managed to enunciate thickly.
“You’re an old stiff,” gasped Mulligan Jacobs. He was flung. He soared
through the air with the might of the fling, and even as he soared and
fell through the darkness he reiterated:
“Old stiff! Old stiff!”
He fell among the men on Number Two hatch, and there were confusion and
movement below, and groans.
Mr. Pike paced up and down the narrow house and gritted his teeth. Then
he paused. He leaned his arms on the bridge-rail, rested his head on
his arms for a full minute, then groaned:
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” That was all. Then he went aft,
slowly, dragging his feet along the bridge.