would be well when Rokeby came down, and got a hold of the safe. But I
knew in my heart that the men above, the whole general crew, were not
the men to help.
As a record of fact, the men above were awed at the disaster, and
only Rokeby's steadiness saved my life. He had the pumps kept going,
and finally decided that he would have to take a chance down there,
or let me die like a hooked fish. He was man enough to overcome the
nerve-shaking dangers that had beset us, and he put on another suit.
Then, with his breath fairly gone from fright, he went down to help me.
He had never gone below before, except under most favorable conditions
and in very shallow water. Still, he knew what to do, and he managed
to get a good man above to tend line for him. He found things in bad
shape at the opening, but lost no more time than he could help getting
a purchase to the end of that safe, and the winches started. In half
an hour they had dragged it clear of the ship, and I was hauled aboard
insensible, but still alive.
Before I had regained my senses, they had the safe fast aboard the old
hooker, and I had the satisfaction of staggering on deck to view it.
There it was, all right, perfectly intact. I had saved the company
several millions, and it had cost the lives of two men, and nearly my
own.
There was not a moment lost in getting away from that hot, unhealthy
coast. We got under way that very evening with Williams still stricken
with the fever, and myself too weak to sit up, but I would not stop a
minute.
"Get her under way at once," I said, and the mates needed no urging.
The wrecking tug, under full steam, came alongside, and the safe was
slung carefully over to her deck, where it was bolted down and made as
fast as a sailor could make it. I put a metal line about it, and sealed
it up, not even willing to trust to the safe combination that had
withstood the blasts and the sea.
"Good-by, and a pleasant voyage to the Cape for you," I said to my
former shipmates. They steamed away to the southward to lay the old
ship up for repairs, and we, in the mighty wrecker, _Viking_, under
full power and making fifteen knots the hour, stood back for old
England, where we arrived safe enough a short time later.
A TWO-STRANDED YARN
PART I.
"Captain Gantline?" The words escaped me like a shot from a gun.
"Sure as eggs--'n where did you come from?" said that stout seaman. He
stood at the bar of Bill's place on Telegraph Hill, drinking rum. His
eyes, crinkled up at the corners like the ripples of a ship's cutwater
in a smooth sea, were bloodshot and liquor-soaked. Old man Gantline was
broad of beam and shorter than myself--no real good seaman is tall--and
he raised his empty glass and hammered upon the bar with it.
"Gimme another drink," said he to the barkeeper. Then he turned to me.
"So it's you fer sure, old man--well, well, what a small world it is,
after all! Take a nip--I'm sure glad to see you--an' how'd it happen?"
I saw that old Gantline was getting drunk. It was a shame. The old
skipper was a crack packet skipper. I was amazed at him, for he was not
a drinking man. I wondered what made him do it. The barkeeper was now
opening another bottle, and I knew the old sailor had drunk much.
"I blew in from New York around the Cape last week," I said.
"Must 'a' been blowin' some, hey, then--kinder quick passage--what?"
"Oh, I don't mean I made the run in a week--we were one hundred and
sixty days--but I've been here in Frisco a week. And I've spent all the
money I saved from the munificent owners of the British ship _Glenmar_,
who rated me as second mate at thirty per--or, rather, five pun ten a
month. I tried to eat something since I came in to make up for what
I didn't get at sea. Those Englishmen are sure on short commons, all
right--but I haven't been drinking. I don't drink."
"I do," said Gantline.
"I see it," I answered; "but it don't seem to do you any good, though
it isn't for me to tell you so, I know. A drink or two don't hurt any
one much, but pour it in, and come with me, and listen to my tale of
woe. I need some one who knows something to listen to me--I'm broke."
"Well, I dunno as I might jest as well," sighed Gantline. "I'll take a
couple more noggins--then you can come down to the ship with me."
"Sure, that's just what we'll do--go down aboard--hurry up and poison
yourself sufficiently," I said, and waited until he had soaked down a
few more drafts of liquid fire. Then, as he was growing unsteady, I
linked his arm in my own, and we went slowly down Market Street until
we came to the water front.
"That's her layin' out there--_Silas Tanner_--four masts--or are they
five? Sink me if I kin count 'em, Clew! You count 'em for me--seems
like there's more'n half a dozen sticks risin' outen her--hey? Maybe
Slade's stuck more in her, thinkin' four ain't enough----"
"What? A schooner? You in a schooner--how'd you come to go in a
fore-and-after, Gantline? You, an old square-rigger!"
"That's hit, thash hit, Clew--me, an old seaman, in a coaster--for'n
aft--Chinks for passengers--cabin, too--ladies aft--I'm clear drunk,
Clew--an' I don't care 'f 'am--nuff to make a man drunk," mumbled
Gantline.
It was high time to get him to his ship. I hailed a small boat, and got
him aboard, and then we went out to the _Tanner_--four-masted schooner,
now riding at anchor off Market Street, San Francisco, waiting for a
tide and something I could not guess as yet.
She was heavily loaded, all right, and I wondered at the old man's
conduct the more. The idea of him forgetting himself at the last
minute! It was too much. And with a mate like Slade--Slade, who had
sailed in several ships with me, the best mate I had known for many a
year. We drew alongside.
"Lower down the side ladder--the skipper's coming up," I sang out, and
a head came to the high rail. It was the mate's.
"Christopher Columbus! How'd this happen?" asked Slade. "And how--how'd
you turn up? I'm glad to see you, old man--pass him up--look out he
don't fall overboard."
We managed to get the skipper on deck, and then below to his bunk,
Slade questioning me all the time, and asking about times gone by.
Then, after we had the old man safely stowed, we came on deck together,
and Slade told me the trouble.
"Bound out for Guam with cargo and fifty coolies--Chinks--for labor
there. We got a passenger's license, and take out several first class
to Manila, besides. Loaded down with general cargo, and two safes full
of silver for circulation at Agaña--about ten thousand dollars."
"Well, what's the trouble?" I asked.
"The old man don't like the coolie idea," Slade went on. "He hates
Chinks. We got all loaded up, and then the owners sent word that we
must provide quarters for fifty men--Chinamen, too, at that--and the
old man threw a fit. He'd have quit the ship, but he's bought into
her, and can't do it. We had to clear out the alleyways under the
poop, knock ports in the sides, and build up a line of shelves for
'em to sleep on--twenty-five on a side, and right next the after
saloon---couldn't get them below--see the doors we cut in the bulkhead?
Lets 'em out on deck. It's a government contract, and it's good pay,
all right--but them dirty coolies! It's a shame to make an old fellow
like Gantline carry them--he hates' em so."
"Who's second under you?" I asked.
"Nobody--thought you'd come for it. Isn't that what you're here for?"
"Not that I know of," I answered. "But I'll take it if the old man says
so, all right, all right. I've been ashore long enough--broke, too."
"Sure thing," said Slade. "You're as good as signed on right now--soon
as he gets over it he'll ask you to go--never saw the old man like that
before, and it's a pity, too. 'Never thought I'd run a slaver,' says
he--and I don't much blame him, either."
"I'll send down my dunnage in the morning," I said. "How about the
crew?"
"Well, we'll get them, all right. Whisky Bill's attended to it--we'll
get ten men--all we need with the engine for handling line."
I hastened ashore to settle my affairs and get my dunnage down to the
ship.
In payment for my last week's board I gave my landlord a whale's
tooth, carved prettily--or, rather, I left it behind for him to accept
gracefully, and before daylight in the morning I was aboard the
_Tanner_. Gantline was so glad to see me come that he almost forgot his
headache. I signed for the voyage and went on duty.
The decks of the schooner were somewhat disordered that morning she was
to leave. Honolulu was her first stop, and there was much to go on deck
for that shorter run. The crimp had just brought down the men, and we
mates upset each seaman's bag of dunnage, and scattered the contents
about the gangway. We searched for hidden liquor and firearms, well
knowing a sailor's habits, and we knocked things about a little hunting
for them. The poor, half-sober devils could separate their belongings
afterward as best they might.
The result of the search was that, after the mate had confiscated a few
bottles of stuff and a couple of out-of-date revolvers and ammunition,
the general pile divided up among the men was enough to refill each bag
again, the effort of sorting personal belongings at that moment being
entirely too laborious to entertain.
Slade took two bottles, and managed to secrete them upon his person
while the eye of the skipper was diverted to a passenger who had just
appeared. Slade was slanting toward the forward cabin with the goods,
closely followed by his emulating second officer, when the voice of the
old man roared out orders for me to see to getting the baggage of the
passengers below without delay. I turned, somewhat disappointed, just
as Slade entered the door of the saloon and winked slowly and meaningly
at me.
With some small encomiums pronounced upon the untimely work cut out
for me, I turned to the gangway, and ordered up a few men in tones and
language I should hate to repeat.
As I did so I suddenly came face to face with the passenger who had
come from behind a cab and started down the gangway plank to the ship's
deck. She put her lorgnette up to her eyes and gazed smilingly at me.
Then she was joined by a younger woman, a girl about twenty, who took
the older woman's arm, led her down the plank to the deck, and went
right into the door of the forward cabin, leaving me staring as though
I had seen a ghost.
"I don't got no good eyes, den, if dat ain't de purtiest gal I ever
see," said a Dutchman who was waiting to hear further orders from me.
Another man, with a loose lip, looked up and scratched his head.
"Get, you squareheads--get a move on before something happens to you,"
I growled.
"I do love to hear them swear so," said the elder lady, as she reached
the door. "They're such romantic fellows--so bold--oh, dear, just hear
what that man----"
"Come along, auntie, come back where the captain is. I never heard such
language before, and I don't think it a bit romantic--no, not at all.
It's all dreadfully vulgar, and all that--but that man--well, well, he
does say some amusing things, even if they are not what they should be."
Miss Aline MacDonald led her aunt aft, and I breathed easier. That she
had flung me a sort of compliment was certain. I knew it. I had more
queer ways of cussing out a Dutchman than any Yankee mate afloat--I
knew that--but----
Gantline met them as they entered, and extended his hand.
"Come aft, ladies, come aft, and I'll have the stewardess show you your
rooms at once--hope they'll suit you--best in the ship. Of course, we
don't compete with the steamers, but a voyage in this schooner will be
worth two in a steamer as a health restorer. If things ain't the way
you like them, sing out--I'll do the best I can." And he led the way
aft to where a Kanaka woman took them in charge. Then I ducked into the
mate's room, and joined Slade for a few minutes. He had already pulled
a cork.
"Ain't adverse none to passengers," said he, pouring out the liquor,
"but you may sink me if that old un don't come near the limit--you hear
me?"
"Give me a drink and shut up about passengers," I grinned. "The old
one's all right. She appreciated my education--sort of goo-gooed at me
while I was laying out some language--quick with the booze, before the
old man gets wise to it."
We hurried back on deck in time to take charge of things, and we were
soon ready and waiting for the coolies, who were to come aboard from
the tug that would tow us out to sea.
The tug _Raven_ took our towline and we warped out, swung around, and
were headed for the open sea within a few minutes. The engineer had
steam up in the donkey, and the winches turned. Our crew were used to
fore-and-aft canvas, and Slade took the turns as the halyards came to
the revolving drums, being helped, as I may say, by his second mate,
who held the peak as he held the throat.
We snatched stoppers upon them as the sails came to the mastheads, and
in less time than it takes to tell we had all save the headsails on
the _Tanner_, and were standing out. The tug dropped back, and came
alongside, taking her lines.
"Stand by fer yore passengers," bawled a red-headed fellow, grinning
from the pilot house.
I now saw a crowd of yellow-tails gathering on the tug's deck.
Fifty-seven of them, all told, led by a giant yellow man in a skullcap
and long, braided cue. A chattering babble of Chink talk, and the big
fellow hustled the crowd to the rail, up the schooner's side, and on
deck in less than a minute.
Bundles, packages, clothes, came with them, and Slade gave up the
premeditated job of searching them in a few moments as he saw the
yellow men gather up their belongings and crowd about the break of the
poop, jamming in a mass right under the edge from where Gantline leaned
over and gazed down at them in sour amazement and distrust.
"Me makee dem tlake-a down, down," cooed the giant leader in a
sing-song voice, pointing with his hand at the crowd of Chinamen.
"Yes, git below--git out an' be quick about it," snarled the old man
from above him. "You're blockin' the decks--slam 'em in the alleyways,
git 'em out the way," he continued to Slade and myself.
"No lika men high, a-a-h, aye, makee down, down," sang the giant, with
a glint in his little slits of eyes.
He was an ugly animal. Talk about your Oriental being a degenerate!
Well, that fellow was nothing degenerate physically. He was six
feet four, and about half as wide across the hulking shoulders. A
thin-lipped mouth ran clear across his face; his nose was flat, like an
African's. A whitish-blue scar had ripped his pleasing features from
eye to chin on the starboard side, and his head was enormous.
The hair was shaved close up to the limits of that skullcap of black
silk, and from under its lower end there dropped a cue about a fathom
long, all done up with silk cords and stuff, until a pretty little
black tassel was plaited into the end, surmounted by a Matthew Walker
knot and a couple of Turks' heads.
He was something to notice, all right, and his voice was grand.
Nothing of the nervous squeak of the coolie about it. It sang along
with flutelike notes that bristled full of "I's" and "Ah's," until you
thought he was singing it to his men in a sort of deep bass or baritone.
Understand him? Did you ever know any white man who could understand a
Chink if that fellow didn't talk for him to understand it? No, we took
it for granted that the "boss" coolie was on the level, and was arguing
with the herd to corral them into the alleyways where they belonged. He
understood the skipper right enough.
A stout yellow man edged from the press about the door of the forward
house, and came to the big man's side. A soft gabble, then a yell, then
the herd took the alleyways on the jump, and inside of ten seconds
there was not a yellowskin on deck.
"Got 'em trained, all right enough," said Slade, with a grin. "The old
man needn't worry about 'em if the big one goes at it that way."
"Fifty-seven Chinks on a dead man's chest--and I'll bet my month's pay
they've a bottle of rum--maybe a hundred," I ventured. "What's the big
cheese's name?"
"Sink me, if I know! The old man called him 'Yaller Dog,' and he's
that, all solid. Let it go at that. I'd sure like to have him in my
watch. What a man he'd make on a earing in a blow!"
"Shall we deal them their rice raw or cooked?" I asked. "I suppose they
won't eat it if it's cooked in the galley, and then they'd be trying to
build fires under the cabin or in the lazaret to boil it."
"No; let 'em eat it or throw it overboard. What do you care? Turn the
men to, and choose the watch, and then I'll go below for a rest."
I did so, and soon the Farallones were disappearing in the east astern.
The first two days out there was so much to do aboard that I hardly
had time to observe things. The decks were lumbered up with all kinds
of gear, and a load of stuff for Honolulu, which took all our time to
secure. The men were under the union scale of the West Coast--that is,
thirty dollars per month--and there was nothing off on account of our
going deep-water in her, for we were not by any means coasting at all,
as our course lay directly across the Pacific Ocean, and the itinerary
took in a voyage of seven thousand miles.
I hated the fore-and-aft canvas. I knew its value on short runs and in
smooth seas, but when it comes to deep water and a rough old ocean,
with a twenty-five-knot wind increasing to fifty, give me the square
canvas with double topsails, that men can handle.
However, we were very fast. The _Tanner_ could do fifteen knots free
on a wind that would jam a square-rigger close and by. Her four masts
were of the usual type, all the same, and her gaff-topsails were high
on the hoist, giving her a tall appearance.
The first day under all sail, with the wind abeam, she rolled off
thirteen and fourteen knots an hour, and kept her decks awash under
a perfect torrent of foam, dragging her rail through a solid mass of
suds. She simply ran, shoved her sharp nose out through it, and slipped
over the long, smooth, rolling swell with a plunging lift that felt
good.
The steam winches for handling line were good. With drums turning,
all one had to do was to snatch the halyard in the deck block, grab a
turn on the drum, and up went anything that could go. Then a stopper
on the line, and to the belaying pin--and all was done. There was no
hee-hawing, no singing of sailor's chanteys, no sailoring of the type
we had known in our earlier days; but I am free to admit that I would
rather have had the steam winches--especially when it came on to blow
and we had to reef her down.
The Chinks were allowed on deck from eight bells in the morning until
eight at night; and they were always getting in the way.
Miss MacDonald and her aunt came on deck most of the time, and sat
wrapped in rugs near the wheel, where the old man entertained them with
tales of the sea. They were greatly interested in the Chinamen.
I found my watch on the poop not at all disagreeable during daylight,
for Miss Aline was good to look at. She was of medium height, with
brown hair that curled in spite of the sea wind, and she was solidly
and strongly built, her figure having lines that told of sturdiness
rather than delicate beauty. But although she was not what one would
call fat, or even stout, she was certainly not thin, and her rounded
face was rosy with health.
Her mouth had a peculiar gentleness of expression, and when she showed
her white teeth to me and flushed a bit upon recognizing the master
handler of fluent oaths, I thought her about as good as they come. I
was a bit embarrassed, but I was only second greaser, and as such could
not sit at the table with her, so I said little.
I told Slade, however, that his hands were unfit to pass salt junk to
a lady--and, for a wonder, he washed them in fresh water before going
below! He was mate, and could sit in with the skipper, while I walked
the deck above and made mental comments upon the irony of fate that
shoved in a fellow like him to entertain a girl that he could not speak
to without stammering like a drunken man, while I-----
It was in my watch during dinner that I had the first real chance
to see our coolie boss. The second week, after things had settled
themselves, and the routine of the ship took the place of the frantic
scramble to get things shipshape, I stood at the break of the poop,
which in the _Tanner_ was very low--not more than four feet above
the deck, as is the case in many schooners--and as I stood there up
popped Yellow Dog, the giant Chink, from the door of the alleyway to
starboard. The beggar was so tall that he was almost on a level with
myself, in spite of the difference in the decks, and I found his eyes
close to mine as he turned and saw me.
"Have any trouble in the passageway?" I asked him, thinking he might
have been a bit mixed in straightening out that gang below in the
narrow space.
He gave me a look, a slanting glance from the corners of his little,
screwed-up eyes, and then he turned his back upon me as if I had been
bilge water, and offended his senses.
"Hey, Yellow Dog! What's the matter with you? Are you tongue-tied?
Don't you know enough of ship's etiquette to answer an officer when he
speaks?" I spat at him.
"I tlakee captain man--not you," he sang, in his musical voice, and he
forthwith strode to the galley, where a Kanaka cook was busy with the
dinner.
"You great big Yellow----" But there is no use of telling what I
remarked to him as he went along that deck. As the officer in command
at the moment, I was not a little offended by this high-handed way of a
common Chink, more especially as I was inquiring for the welfare of his
men.
The cook heard my note of temper, and refused the giant admittance
to his galley's sacred precincts, whereupon Yellow Dog seized him by
the scruff of the neck, and tossed him into the lee scuppers. He was
about to pitch a pot of hot water on top of him, but I interposed an
objection to this action in the shape of a belaying pin which, flung
by my right arm under full swing, struck Yellow Dog fairly upon the
skull-cap, and, bounding off, flew overboard.
The giant staggered, caught himself from falling, then he stood very
straight, and gave me a look that for cold fury expressed more than I
had ever dreamed possible in a Chink.
"Killee you fo' that," he hissed.
"Go on, do your killing, Yellow Dog," I snapped. "But take care you
don't get something yourself--and the next time I speak to you aboard
here, if you don't answer at once you'll find something else bounding
off your dome that you'll remember for a long time. Now send your mess
kids to that galley, and the cook will hand you out your rice and
long-lick."
The men of my watch stopped work where they were, and grinned at the
big Chinaman. Their contempt for the race was more than my own, and I
knew I had the hearty approval of the sailors. At the same time I was
sorry that the thing had happened, for the Chinamen who were already
on deck passed the word along, and by the time I had finished talking
the whole gang of them were standing about, with looks upon their faces
that told of trouble.
It was a bad beginning for a long voyage.
Gantline came on deck as soon as he could finish his dinner, and wanted
to know what the trouble was about, but that was all he said. He
found no fault with my remarks nor with my actions. A ship's officer
must maintain discipline, and discipline cannot be maintained without
respect.
Miss MacDonald came up with her aunt, and I went below to my dinner.
As I passed the door of the forward house leading into the cabin, the
stout Chink who seemed to be a close chum of the big leader glared
at me. He had a sinister face, with little slits of eyes that looked
slantwise, like the eyes of a wolf.
His moustaches were thin and straight along his lip, until they reached
the corners of his wide mouth, then they suddenly dropped straight
down, and hung like the tusks of a walrus, two thin, black points
of hair about six inches long. They gave him the appearance of some
carnivorous animal, fierce, saturnine and dangerous.
Instead of slamming him for his insolence, I pretended not to see him,
and passed in, yet the look stayed with me, and I remembered it at
intervals. He was a wolf, all right, a human wolf--but I was to find
that out later.
"What do you think of our passengers--the coolies?" I asked Jack, the
steward, who sat at my mess next the carpenter, Oleson.