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[Illustration: The fake armament of the raider frightens a Canadian
barque into submission.
Along came the _Antonin_ on her way from Chile to France with a
load of saltpeter. Her skipper was a savage old salt.]
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In the fo'c'sle two fellows were sitting on a box, smoking their
pipes. They were shirking work, just as I had shirked it. I
wondered whether they would find anything strange in me, and walked
up to them. One of them named Hein said:
"What's your name?"
"Phelax."
"I guess you have been ashore a long time."
"Why?"
"Your hair is cut so neat. Are you married?"
"No."
"Well, I am. My old woman was married three times before, but never
got the right mate. Now she says she has got the right one. How
happy she is. She is a laundress, and when we are in port here she
brings me my warm supper every night."
Now comes the mate.
"Get out of here and get to work. Phelax can unpack his things and
get to work."
"No, I told you not until to-morrow morning."
The captain came on board and asked the mate what kind of help he had
got.
"One who is mighty independent."
"Send him to me."
The cabin boy comes.
"Phelax, go over to the captain."
To the captain I say:
"Good-day, sir!"
"Good-day. How long have you been at sea?"
"Fifteen years."
"Do you know how to mend sails?"
"I know how very well."
"We have no time to mend sails at anchor. But you will have to do a
lot of sewing at sea."
"I have done it often."
The captain sizes me up as a fellow who knows his business and good
at the sail-mending which he is anxious to have done. He agrees that
I do not have to go to work until to-morrow morning.
Once again I eat bean soup, leaning over the table with a large
enamel pot, my "mug." After dinner I lie in my bunk, and ask:
"Is there no squealer?"
"Hein has one."
"Play, Hein, and I'll treat to a case of beer."
A motor boat selling beer is alongside. I buy a case, and we drink.
The squealer begins to wheeze, while the evening sun shines on the
water.
At half-past six Hein's laundress arrived. She was passably
good-looking except that she was all pitted with smallpox and her
hair stuck out like a flying jib. She certainly loved her Hein. She
brought him a pot of supper, some of which he divided among the rest
of us.
I noticed that Hein had some paint and a brush such as artists use.
Was he an artist? On the girl's arm he painted a big heart with an
arrow. In the middle of the heart he signed his initials. He had to
stop at times, because she could not bear the burn of the turpentine
in the paint.
"She is a fine girl," said Hein. "She stands for everything. She is
as true as gold."
She did not exactly look it.
Night came on, the stars appeared, and Hein's squealer gave forth
music. That was the life, a sailor's life.
On the following day I worked. I could not get along with the mate.
He thought me too independent, and tattled on me to the captain, who
restrained himself and had patience with me, since he did not want to
lose so experienced a sailor. At night Hein's laundress came again,
and the squealer sounded long and merrily.
On the third day my friend the shipowner came to the boat to get me.
I managed to say to him without being observed.
"Don't give me away. Have the captain meet us for dinner at the
hotel to-night."
The shipowner invited the captain, who accepted with alacrity.
That night at the Atlantic Hotel I dressed myself in full uniform,
and joined the shipowner and the captain in the dining room. In such
a glittering place, the captain was bashful.
"Captain Erdmann of the _Hannah_--Lieutenant Commander Count von
Luckner."
Erdmann eyed me curiously and then looked down for a long time,
turning his wineglass around in his hand. Evidently he thought he
saw a certain resemblance. In a little while, I stepped out.
"Is he a count?" the captain asked the shipowner.
"Yes."
"And just think, I almost made the break of telling him he looked
like a sailor aboard our ship. They might be twins, though. You
never saw such a resemblance."
"It would be dreadful indeed to say anything like that," responded
the other.
When I returned, we drank a little more and then I said to the
captain:
"Don't you recognize me?"
He squirmed.
"Well--yes--but----"
"You mean you don't recognize me?"
"But, Count, have I really met you before?"
"Of course, don't you remember me?"
He wrestled with a temptation to speak out, but fought it down.
"Yes, Count, you do look familiar to me. But where have we met?"
He sat there, as the saying goes, with both feet in the trough.
"Don't you know me from the ship?"
"Man, man, are you Phelax?"
"Captain, Captain," warned the shipowner.
"Oh, excuse me, excuse me," stammered the captain.
"Well, I am Phelax," I laughed. "I went aboard your ship to see how
it felt to be a sailor again."
"Well, well," stuttered the captain, "and now it is my turn to treat."
I told him my story, how I had been born a count, had become a sailor
and then an officer of sailing ships, and now was an officer of the
Imperial Service. He had tears in his eye.
"And my mate--think of it--my mate said you were too independent."
The old fellow became so enthusiastic that he insisted that we take a
trip through Sankt Pauli with him. We went, and had a high old time.
The captain got quite drunk, and he revealed a secret regret that
lingered in his mind. What a sail-mender he had missed!
"Who will believe it on board," he muttered, "when I tell them that
that my fine sail-mender turned out to be a count?"