rail, and a bullet ripped my cheek open, knocking me head over heels
with the shock.
I scrambled to my feet, furious with the pain and excitement. The
fragments of the small boat drifted alongside, the after part going to
leeward, and dragging along the channels. I saw Slade spring upon the
rail for an instant, and then plunge overboard.
Holding my bleeding face with one hand, I ran to the forechannels, and
saw Yellow Dog grasp the chains as they washed past. He had a mighty
grip, and that hand hold of his was a wonder. He drew himself into the
chains, and, without waiting, clambered up and over the rail, springing
to the deck right in front of me as I backed away.
Oleson saw him coming, and so did a seaman named Wales. The three of us
closed on him, and dragged him down, and we rolled in the lee scuppers,
a fighting, snarling pile of humanity, while Gantline let the wheel go,
and ran to help us.
Yellow Dog tossed the three of us off with the ease of a man throwing
aside children, and would have taken charge in another moment, but
Gantline, running up behind him with a handspike, swung the bar down
with full force upon that little skullcap, and the giant Chink
stretched out harmless. We had him trussed before the schooner had
stopped her headway into the breeze.
Then we ran to the side, and looked for Slade. He was swimming easily
about a hundred yards astern, holding the form of Miss Aline with one
hand, and keeping her head clear of the water. All about were the forms
of swimming Chinamen.
Quickly backing the headsails, we sent the schooner astern, drifting
down upon the mate. I made a line fast to a life buoy, and flung it far
out. After what seemed a long time, we finally had the mate fast to it,
and were hauling him in. Soon he was taken aboard, and Miss MacDonald
was carried below. Then we went to work trying to pick up the Chinks.
Many of these refused to come aboard, preferring to die in the sea.
Some we caught and dragged up forcibly. We caught most of them, and
then hauled our wind for the two boats that were now almost out of
sight.
Within a couple of hours we had the first alongside, and she
surrendered. In it was Miss Aline's aunt, and she was passed below
insensible. The other boat took longer to get, but we finally got
her alongside, and the men out of her. Forty-seven Chinks stood the
muster. We had lost ten of them and two of our men in the fracas. Miss
MacDonald came out of her faint, and from her room, where she had
locked herself. She fell into the arms of her niece.
"Oh, the brave men, those romantic sailors, those heroes!" she cried,
in an ecstasy of joy, and she gave me a look worth millions.
"Hush!" said Miss Aline. "Perhaps if those heroes had been a little
more gentle there would have been no trouble--but I am glad we are
saved. Mr. Slade risked his life for me."
The Kanaka cook crawled from the lower hold, where he had hidden at
the first outcry, and the stewardess came from the lazaret. We came
into Honolulu that evening with the police flag flying, and turned the
big Chink over to the authorities for treatment. His lieutenant of the
walrus mustaches was missing.
Miss Aline came on deck to look around. She saw Slade, and went to him.
What she said to him was none of my business, but Slade was a good man
and a good mate. Afterward she came to the mizzen where I stood like a
bandaged soldier.
"I suppose you'll not make the rest of the voyage with us?" I asked.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Oh--er--I don't know; maybe you don't care so much for the heathen.
Brotherly love and kindness--fine theory, all right, but we're not just
ready to put it in practice--willing to wait, you know, until it comes
our way--perhaps a bit afraid----"
"You are very much mistaken, sir," she broke in. "You will find out
your error, too, I think, before we get through. I am firmly convinced
that your own actions with that poor heathen are as much at fault as
his, and that if you had not treated him so roughly he would never have
done what he did."
I grinned. I couldn't help it. Slade was winking at me from the door
of the forward house. Oh, well, here was a good woman gone wrong in
her theories, and I would not be insolent enough to disagree with her.
I let it go at that. I was willing to wait until she had finished the
voyage--for Slade's sake. He was a sly dog, that Slade.
We found about two thousand dollars of the money taken among the men
captured. The rest was a total loss, and Gantline bemoaned his fate, as
it fell upon him to a certain extent.
We cleared, leaving the big Chinaman to stand trial with two others as
accessories, and the police absolved me absolutely from all blame in
the matter.
PART II
"No loafing around the ship," I called to the little yellow chap who
was sitting near the spring line which held the schooner _Tanner_ to
the wharf at Honolulu. The man paid not the slightest attention to me.
"Hey, there, sonny! Move out! Beat it; make a getaway, you savvy?" I
bawled in a louder tone.
Then he arose, and instead of a young fellow I was amazed to find him
at least ten years older than myself--and I had been a ship's officer
some years. He walked slowly to the vessel's side, and gazed up at me
where I stood near the break of the poop, holding to a backstay.
She was a modern, short-poop schooner. The sallow little man was not
a Chinaman, nor of Kanaka breed, but a full-blooded Japanese. He was
stout, strong, yellow of skin, and his black hair was too long for his
country's custom, sticking out from under the rim of a brown derby that
had seen its best days. His eyes were slitlike, keen little eyes, but
there was nothing repulsive in them. They attracted me. For one thing,
he had an open frankness, an honest and fearless look, and his face was
sad.
"What you doin' on the dock, Togi?" I asked, eying him humorously.
"If your august presence will listen, I'll tell you," he answered
easily.
"Sure, Michael, let her go, and don't mind my gigantic--er--august
self," I sniggered.
"In the first place," he said, "I'm not sonny, being, if your honorable
temper allows, a man of forty. If fine schooner says so, I go with
you as far as Tokyo. There I am the humble cousin of the Honorable
Baron Komuri, son of a Samurai, under the former emperor. I should
like indeed to sail with you, and will----" Here he stopped a moment,
hesitating.
"Go on, king, old man; don't let anything stop you from telling your
yarn. Sing it out, and I'll listen if it breaks a bone."
"No, no; not king, old man; just Mister Komuri--if your presence allows
me to correct. Your humble servant is but a plain man. Better be plain
man than dead lion, as your excellent books say. I accept plain man,
and go that way if so ship says."
"We are not going to Tokyo, but if you see the skipper he'll take you
clear to Manila for a hundred or two yen. You savvy him yen. Must pay,
you know."
"Ah, that is of what I wish to tell your honorable self. Allow me to
make myself so humble to tell I have not the yen you ask. I have not
anything----"
"Nothing doing, kiddo; on your way," I said remorselessly.
"But I sit on dock end waiting----"
"Waiting for what?"
"Waiting for two hundred yen to fly up and knock me dead. I wait and no
yen fly up to strike me on the cranium. Now I go with fine ship, and
work like plain man."
"You have a sense of humor, king," said I, "and sink me if I don't try
to get you a job wrastling the dishes aft. How about it? Can you sling
the pots--are you a number-one pot-wrastler?"
"I never wrastle; a little jujutsu sometimes when necessary for take
care, but I work at anything your august self tells. If honorable
commander tells me to wrastle pots, I try him so. I pretty good with
sword or short knife----"
"Not so fast, king; this isn't a man-of-war; no fighting here. All the
fracasing done here is done by my august self and the other mate, Mr.
Bill Slade, both, as you say, honorable men, and some hustlers when it
comes right down to handling cloth in a blow. What I want--honorable
ship wants--is a man to give the eats aft--savvy? Bring in the hash
from honorable cook in galley--see? Set dish on table, wash dish off
table. You know."
"But I am soldier--son of Samurai. I do not like dishwork; but if no
other way, I do mean work to get to Tokyo," he said sadly.
"You're on," I hastened to say. "You're on, king, but in the future you
will be known as Koko. Savvy?"
"As Mister Komuri," he interrupted, with a look from those slits of
eyes that called my attention.
"No misters aboard here but my honorable self and mate. Rules of
honorable ship, you know. Sorry, but august skipper has discipline,
and you are soldier. You savvy? We'll compromise on Komuri. How's
that--just plain Komuri, steward, hash boy, hey?"
"Your august self, yes; to common men, Mister Komuri, yes."
"Get aboard, then," I said. "Go forward to the galley. The cook--that
big Kanaka there--he'll give you the line. In the meantime I'll square
it with the boss."
Mister Komuri sprang over the rail, and made his way as directed. It
was easy to see that he had been in ships before, as what Japanese
hasn't, since they are a race of seamen.
Our new member took hold without further orders, and I saw him not
again until the land was well astern, and we were on our way to Guam,
with forty-seven chink coolies below, and two lady passengers aft.
This was the second part of our run, the first being from Frisco, where
we had shipped the coolies under the leadership of their gigantic
foreman, who had tried to take the ship and landed in jail for his
pains. The few thousand dollars we now carried in the safe aft was not
worthy of anxiety in regard to protection. Our voyage promised to be
uneventful.
Among our crew were two new hands we had shipped at Honolulu to
help run the ship, also to take care of the Chinese we carried. Our
experience with the coolies had taught us that being short-handed was
not either good or safe. Our arms were now ready, being, as they were,
riot guns full of buckshot, and reliable six-shooters of heavy caliber.
This going out with nearly half a hundred Chinks with but three men in
a watch was all right if the Chinks were good, but we had found they
were not to be trusted. With the leader of the uprising in jail for
murder, and his lieutenant killed, we hoped for an easy life.
We now had four men in watch, with the engineer for the ever-ready
steam winch bunking in his engine house with banked fires and enough
steam always ready to handle line. We were really carrying a full crew
for a schooner, and the expense of the engine was extra, there being
now enough men to handle her canvas easily without the aid of the
winches.
One of the new men was a strange-looking fellow, who was neither dago
nor Dutchman. Just what he was I don't know, except that he was crafty,
watchful, and dodged all work possible. He had a way of looking at you
with eyes that seemed to fathom your inmost thoughts, an affected way
of appearing to understand, and his peculiar silences gave support to
the look. It deceived the old man.
It deceived both Slade and myself at first, but afterward we grew more
discerning, peered deeper into his meaning, and saw--nothing. He was
just a petty, crafty sea lawyer who was looking for trouble to carry
back to the coast, where they love to get masters and mates mixed up in
courts for some violation of the shipping articles.
This fellow's name was Dodd--Alfred Dodd--and he was called Alf by his
shipmates. Komuri seemed to sense danger the moment he jostled the
seaman in the gangway the first day out. I heard the row from the deck,
and it was short.
"Hey, Jack," yelled Dodd to the regular steward we had signed on in
Frisco, "Jack, you seem to belong to the nobility now--can't hand a man
a pot of coffee during the mid-watch no more, hey? Let the king do it."
"Not king; just plain Mister Komuri," purred our little helper, as he
grinned.
"What's the matter?" asked Dodd. "Don't four-flush at your title, hey?"
"Aw, give us rest," said Jack, who was good-natured and liked the
little yellow man, for Komuri did all his work now, and there was no
comeback.
"I don't know if honorable sailor means wrong by four-flush," said
Komuri quietly, "but if he does the finger of Fate will point at him."
"Wow! Fate will point at me! What der you think o' that?" sneered Dodd.
"Let's hope you ain't Fate, sonny, or I might p'int my own fair hand at
you in return."
"If honorable seaman will step out to the fore end of ship I'll show
him just what a son of Samurai means. It will take short time."
"Sure, king; I'll go you that explanation, all right. Come right along
while the watch are getting their whack. No one will notice us."
Komuri jumped like a tiger without warning. He sprang upon the fellow,
and had a strangle hold of his wrist, and twisted over his neck until
I thought he was getting killed. I had to stop laughing to run up and
stop the fracas. Dodd was sweating with pain, and cursing furiously,
absolutely helpless. It was so quickly done that I wondered at it. Of
course, a strong man might grab the small fellow and jerk him out of
his shoes, but that was not Dodd.
"Drop it!" I commanded, and the second steward let go at once, smiling.
"Now, get below, and quit this fooling," said I, and the sailor waited
for no further orders. "You can show me some of your tricks, you
Japanese juggler, when we have more time," I said to the little man.
"You interest me considerable. Get to the hash, and don't waste time
with a fool like that."
Of course, it might be expected that a man of Komuri's parts would be
gallant, for it seems always the case when a man is able and unafraid
that he is sure to love with more passion than discernment. Komuri was
not an exception.
Not being at the first table with the passengers, I had small
opportunity to see how he treated Miss MacDonald, but from what Slade
told me I was concerned. The small chap was always in attendance upon
the ladies when they were on deck. He was politeness itself, and he
busied himself with all kinds of little efforts to make them more
comfortable than they were.
"If honorable ladies will allow, I fix the rugs in chairs," he would
say, and although the weather was tropical, a rug made a softer seat
when they took the air on deck, which they did nearly all daytime while
we ran our westing down beneath the tropic of Cancer.
With a good full month or six weeks before us, and a fair wind on the
starboard quarter all the time, we had a stretch of water to cross
that put one in mind of steamers. The ship ran steadily day and night
at about from eight to ten knots an hour. We seldom touched a sheet
or halyard except to set it up, and the gentle heeling with the trade
swell made the voyage seem like a yachting trip.
Komuri had much time to devote to the comfort of the ladies, and the
elder one seemed to like him very much indeed. He told them stories of
the warlike Samurai, and honor and self-respect stood out plainly in
them all. It was not a bad thing, except that he always seemed to be
something of a hero, and no steward either second or first should be
such a thing where there are seamen around waiting for the job.
"I have always believed that you heathen were very able people," said
Miss Aline, "and if you were treated properly you would be just as
gentle and tractable as the European races."
"Heathen," said Komuri calmly, "are those who do not accept your own
honorable views. Who knows which is right? It is a word we never use in
Japan."
She looked at him a moment, and said: "You are quite incorrigible. I
hope you are not really bad, after all."
"Honorable lady must see by how I do--not how I talk; she judge humble
self most true. Her heart right," said the Japanese, which I thought
was going some for a second steward, especially when I remembered how
Slade stood, or wished to stand, in a certain quarter. I thought it
best to let the humble steward see he was going far enough.
"Say, king, old man," I interrupted, "Jack wants you to get busy with
the potatoes for dinner. He's waiting for the peelings."
Komuri nodded to me respectfully.
"At once, august mate, I go," he said, and went.
"Quite a superior steward, that Japanese boy," said the elder lady to
me.
"Oh, he's a wonder, all right," I assented; "but his place is in the
galley, and not on the quarter-deck--if I may be allowed to speak of
it."
"And I do hope you will treat him kindly--not as you did the Chinese
man who went bad," said Miss Aline.
"No fear of it--not the king. He wouldn't stand roughing--and don't
call for it. You see, while he goes with the Chinks altogether too much
for their own good, and talks altogether too much for his own, he is
not a Chinaman. Oh, no; he is far removed from the coolie Chinks, as
far as the skipper himself. He's just a plain little fighting man, that
a good-sized mate like myself could bite in two; but I know him--just
what he'd do."
"Why, what?" asked Miss Aline.
"I'd hate to tell you," I grinned.
"You may be a good seaman, but you're somewhat stupid," said Miss
Aline, and I laughed outright at her humor.
"What do you think of this fine weather?" asked her aunt to change the
conversation.
"It's good as it goes, but it's the hurricane season, and we can't
count on it lasting all the way, you know," I said. "Maybe we'll hook
right into a typhoon before----"
"Oh, you always want something rough, something bad," put in Miss
Aline. "I never saw such a man. Why do you always look for trouble?
Don't you find it often enough without hunting it always?"
"Sure as eggs," I said; "but I'm only telling you what I believe, what
the signs show me. I'm not trying to frighten you at all."
"I think you are perfectly horrid," said the young woman.
"I hope I'm wrong, at least," I answered. But as I scanned the perfect
sky I felt that indeed I was trespassing upon the feelings of the
passengers too much, in spite of the fact that I had a mercury glass to
observe in Slade's room.
The coolies came on deck in the daytime now, and sat in rows along the
waterways, eating their rice and chewing some sort of stuff to fill in
the interval between meals. They chattered a lot, and appeared not to
feel abashed at their former behavior.
At these times the old man would come on deck--it being about the time
he'd take the noon sight--and gaze down at them dismally. He hated
Chinks, and their presence in his ship was more than he could get used
to.
"What good are Chinks, anyway?" he would say.
"Somebody's got to do the work in hot countries, and you can't always
get the blacks. They are just like mules, carabao buffalo, or jacks.
They'll work on ten cents a day and get fat; they don't know any
better," I'd tell him.
But he would shake his old, shaggy head and mutter:
"What good, what good, anyway?"
As a matter of fact, they did no harm aboard besides befouling the air
of the alleyways with their eternal opium smoking. They had nothing at
all to do with the men forward, and the only person who appeared to
be able to hold intercourse with them was Komuri. He understood their
lingo or singsong way of telling it, and he would talk to them for
hours during the evening after the supper things were washed up, and
Jack, the steward, had turned in.
I was a bit suspicious of this, for I don't like men of the after
guard to be intimate with either the crew or the passengers. It starts
something before long, and the voyage across the Pacific is a long one
if nothing else. Slade commented upon the Japanese often, and he rather
disliked our little second steward for his untiring efforts in behalf
of the ladies. Slade was a jealous man, although he was a seaman from
clew to earing, and his attentions to Miss Aline were more and more
marked as the schooner sped on her course.
"Why shouldn't I get married?" he used to say to me when we had a
chance to be together, which was seldom enough. "Why shouldn't I get a
wife, and take up the simple life of the farmer? I've been through all
the hardness of seagoing, and I'm tired of it. What is a man, after
all, if he sticks to it? He gets to be a skipper of some blamed hooker
that'll make him a couple of thousand a year when he is too old to
enjoy spending it. Then he loses her, maybe, and then where is he? A
fit subject, for the sailors' home. No, I'm going to marry that woman
and get a berth ashore. You watch me."
Of course, I encouraged him all I thought necessary. I even grinned
at times when I thought of the picture he would make as a husband of a
woman like Miss Aline MacDonald--after he had been on the beach for a
year or two.
And so we ran our westing down, and drew near the one hundred and
sixtieth meridian to the northward of the Marshall Islands. Here the
trade failed us for a wonder, and began to get fitful and squally. At
times it would come with a rush, and then die away altogether, the
squalls being accompanied by rain. A mighty swell began to heave in
from the southeast diagonally across the trade swell, and it lumped up
some, heaving the schooner over and rolling her down to her bearings
when the wind failed to hold her.
The glass fell, and the air became sultry, the sun glowing like a ball
of red copper in the hazy atmosphere. The squall clouds grew heavier,
and when the sun shone between them it sent long rays, fan-shaped,
through the mist.
The old man came on deck, and viewed the sea with a critical eye. It
was nearly eight bells, and Slade was on watch. I came out and watched
them take the sun for meridian altitude--both of them sometimes did
this together--and when the bells struck off, Slade came down from the
poop, and joined me on the main deck.
"What'd you make of the weather, old man?" he asked.
"Looks dirty to me; glass falling and the hot squalls coming from that
quarter--whew! Look at it!"
As I spoke a huge roller swept under the schooner, lifting her skyward,
and then dropping her slowly down the side. It was an enormous sea--a
hill of water full forty feet high--and it rolled like a living
mountain, a mighty mass that made nothing of the trade swell, and told
of some tremendous power behind it.
The sea ran swiftly, with a quick, live feeling. As sure as death there
was awful wind somewhere in that peaceful ocean, driving with immense
force and resistless power.
Slade looked askance at the topsails. As he gazed the old man sang out
from aft:
"Clew up the topsails and roll them up snug. Put extra gaskets on them!"
Then came the main and mizzen along with the outer jibs, and by the
time the watch had their dinner we were close reefing the mizzen and
taking the bonnet out of the foresail.
Miss Aline was on deck, as the sudden motion was so extraordinary that
to remain below meant to be seasick. Her aunt came up from a hasty
meal, and clung to the poop rail and watched us work.
"Oh, those gallant men!" she murmured to her niece. "See how they climb
like monkeys upon that awful sail. Romantic heroes! Yes, Aline, they
are wonderful, and the way that officer talks to them is a revelation.
Just hear him."
I was at that moment holding forth to a couple of squareheads upon
the evident virtues of passing reef points properly, and I may have
slipped my etiquette a bit, for my language was such that I was almost
persuaded to follow it with action. But I had heard enough. I stopped.
The men went on lazily, growling at the work.
"Reefing a ship in a dead calm," grumbled one, "ten minutes for the
eats, and then we'll loose these here p'ints out ag'in, and take the
sail to the winch."
I was too angry to hear more. Here was an old lady putting me queer
with men who ought to know better than talk when they were expected to
hurry. At least they should not criticize their officers.
"Get along, you Scandaluvian sons of Haman! Get those points in lively,
or the squall'll break before you know it--an' I'll be the rain,
thunder, and lightning!" I roared.
I refused to look at the two passengers, and went to the forward end
of the poop, and looked down at the Chinks, who were seated in the
waterways eating their rice and long-lick--molasses. Just what to do
with these fellows seemed to me a problem. We could hardly lock them in
now, and if trouble came along quickly they would be in it, right in
the middle.
The old man came from below, and gazed solemnly across the misty sea,
and I went to him.
"How about it?" he asked. "Hadn't we better house them Chinks now,
before it's too late? They'll die of suffocation in those alleyways
with the ports shut fast--I suppose you shut the ports in, didn't you?"
he said.