THE FIRST WATCH
On his way back to the deck, the captain encountered Suarez. The man’s
gestures, and the satisfaction which lit up his wrinkled face, would
have told the news he wished to convey if Courtenay were not able to
catch the words “Indianos” and “van.” In his excitement the Spaniard
pulled the Englishman towards one of the peep-holes in the canvas
screen. Sure enough, the canoes were making off towards Otter Creek. In
the marvelously clear light it was easy to see the threatening arms
held out towards the ship by a few men who stood upright. Even their
raucous cries were yet audible. Courtenay was glad he had not missed
this demonstration of hatred. It argued the necessity of continued
watchfulness.
The general attitude of the crew was one of real annoyance that the
fight had not been carried on at close quarters. They had heard a good
deal of noise and yelling, the starboard squad had experienced the
thrill of having a man fall dead in their midst, but, with the
exception of Tollemache and the Chilean marksman, the main body of the
defenders took no part in the fray and saw but little of it. And it is
one of human nature’s queer proclivities that it seeks rather than
shirks a combat when the loins are girt for the smiting.
Walker, though eager to return to his lathe, was no exception to the
rule. He looked a trifle discontented when the captain found him
unscrewing the engine-room hatch.
“That was a pwetty poo-aw scwap, sir,” said he. “I did expect to have a
smack at some of those magpies, if only for the sake of washin’ the
paint an’ feath-ahs off ’em with a jet of steam.”
“They came quite near enough to be pleasant, Walker. Their flank march
was almost a surprise; if a swarm of vicious savages had succeeded in
reaching the decks—well, we might have beaten them off, but it would
have been touch and go.”
“Mebbe you-aw wight, cap’n. ‘Best look at a bull ov-ah a fence,’ as
they say in the Canny Toon. Eh, but I’ll have a fine tale to tell when
next I meet my butties on the Quay-side. Did ye ev-ah see such faces as
yon, all daubed wi’ black an’ white! Talk about Chirgwin—”
Courtenay smiled and passed on. He was in no mood for jesting: the
death of the Chilean fireman had damped his high spirits. The _Kansas_
bore tokens in plenty of the battle. Many bullets and arrows had struck
the ship; the canvas was torn in several places; a number of port
lights were broken, and the open decks fore and aft, as well as the
spar deck, were littered with stones. He picked up some of these
missiles, man’s earliest and latest projectile. They were round and
heavy; a few bore the red streaks of oxidized iron; some appeared to be
veritable lumps of ore, though the action of water had made them
“smooth stones out of the brook.” He showed one to Tollemache, who
seemed to possess a good deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, and the
latter instantly pronounced the specimen to be almost pure copper
veined with silver.
“Queer thing!” he commented. “You find the worst rotters in any country
squatted over the richest minerals.”
At the time, Courtenay gave slight heed to this bit of crude
philosophy. It was not until he called to mind the Kaffir, the
Australian black, the Alaskan Indian, the primeval nomads of
California, Colorado, and Northern Siberia, that he saw how
extraordinarily true was his friend’s dictum. Then he looked on the
shores of Good Hope Inlet with a new interest. Would a city ever spring
up in that desolate land, a city builded of those pebbles which had
clattered against the solid walls of the _Kansas_? Who could tell? The
long romance of gold contained stranger chapters.
But the captain had more important things with which to bother his
brains than the fanciful laying out of corner lots on the comparatively
level bluff overlooking Otter Creek. He saw to the reverent burial of
poor Pietro Gama, entered full details of the fight in the ship’s log,
and helped Walker to search the suspected coal for a further supply of
dynamite, as the utility of the surface mines had been demonstrated
beyond a doubt. He thought it possible, given the necessary time, to
rig a device which would be practically invisible. A fresh set of dummy
poles, which the Indians would probably avoid in the event of a second
attack, might deflect the canoes into the area of new mines laid at sea
level.
Their utmost diligence brought to light no further supply of the
explosive. Evidently, the prepared lumps of coal, each containing a
stick of dynamite, which were placed among the bunker at Valparaiso,
had been conveyed on board by one man, so it was more than likely there
was not another ounce of the stuff on the ship except the three
specimens first discovered. These, water-soaked and useless, were
locked in a drawer in the chart-house.
While scrutinizing the bunker, Courtenay found a grimy piece of paper,
crushed into a ball and amalgamated with coaldust by means of the glue,
or other substance, which had been used for making the bombs intended
for the destruction of the furnaces. He examined it carefully,
believing it had the appearance and texture of cartridge paper. He
placed it in his pocket, and, while changing his clothes before joining
the others at supper, came on it again with a certain surprise. He
plunged it into a basin of hot water, and it yielded its secret. It was
the outer wrapper of a stick of dynamite; it bore the circular stamp of
the manufacturers, the “Sociedad Anonyma de las Costas del Pacifico.”
This, in itself, meant nothing. The same company probably supplied
hundreds of mines with the five-pound boxes in which dynamite is
packed, and, if the stamp were the only clue, none could possibly say
when or where it had been issued for use.
But miners are apt to be careless; men accustomed to dynamite will
handle it with an astounding disregard for danger. And here was a case
in point. Some Spanish overseer, evidently at a loss for a memorandum
tablet, had scribbled hieroglyphics with an indelible pencil on this
particular wrapper. It was clear that the figures and abbreviated words
referred to the development of a cross-heading and the position of
certain lodes, but Courtenay was quick to see that the official who
made those notes would recognize them. Hence, the mine or store from
which the package had been stolen or bought could be identified. Such
evidence was of high circumstantial value. Courtenay put the wrapper in
the same drawer as the cartridges, entered in the log the time and
manner of its discovery, and forthwith dismissed it from his mind.
It was almost dark when he went on deck. The wind was keen and chilly.
It whistled through the broken windows of the wheel-house, and seemed
to have in it a promise of bad weather. But a glance aloft and at the
sky beyond the southern headland—Point _Kansas_, as it was called on
board—reassured him. The far-flung arc overhead was cloudless. The
stars of the southern hemisphere, vivid and bright, though less
familiar than those of the north, were reflected in the black water.
The ship was so still, the surroundings so peaceful, save for the plash
of tiny waves created by the breeze, that he was almost startled when a
soft voice came from the lower deck:
“Where in the world have you been, Captain Courtenay? Joey is fretting
for you, and I have carried him all over the ship in vain search.”
His heart jumped with gladness. Elsie was awaiting him at the foot of
the companion. Be sure he was by her side without needless delay. The
dog wriggled in her arms, so she said:
“I don’t think he ought to run about. His dear little paw is rather
badly cut, and there may be more broken glass on the deck.”
“I hope not, for our Chileans’ sake,” laughed Courtenay. “I heard Mr.
Boyle telling them to sweep it up, and they were hard at work when I
went to my cabin.”
“Oh, is that where you hid yourself? No wonder I could not find you. Of
course, Joey knew where you were. How stupid of me!”
“Please don’t call yourself names, Elsie. You don’t deserve them. And,
by the way, may I address you by your Christian name? It slipped out
to-day unawares. Not that I feel like apologizing, because I don’t.
There are times when the heart speaks, not the guarded tongue.”
Luckily, the darkness covered the hot blush which leaped to her cheeks.
She gave a nervous little laugh, and strove desperately to parry this
wholly unexpected assault.
“I shall be delighted if you always call me Elsie. It sounds friendly,
and I think our circumstances warrant a true friendship.”
“Excellent. I suppose you know that my name is Arthur?”
“Yes, but I had no notion of that sort of exchange. You are the
captain, and a very serious sort of captain at times. I feel like a
little girl when you look at me and tell me not to be naughty. So
‘Elsie’ sounds all right, but I simply dare not call you ‘Arthur.’ Just
imagine what a sensation it would create in the saloon. I should feel
creepy all over. And hadn’t we better be—”
“Elsie,” said he, with a tender note in his voice which thrilled her
like a chord of exquisite music, “I want to tell you something. The
knowledge is forced on me that there is another man on this ship who
wishes to make you his wife. But I, too, love you, and I see no reason
why I should stand aside for any man on God’s earth until you tell me
with your own lips that you prefer him to me.”
“Oh!” gasped Elsie, and “Oh!” again, but not another word could she
utter, she who had been so voluble a moment ago. The bitter-sweet pain
of hearing this sudden avowal was almost overpowering. Her ideals of
honor and truth were shocked; but she was a woman as well as an
idealist, and she was stirred to the depths of her soul by the
knowledge that she had won the man whose love she craved. Yet it must
not be: she could never again hold her head high if she yielded to him.
She must relinquish him, drive him away from her by an assumed coldness
which would wring her very heart-strings. If he came nearer, if he took
her in his arms, she would be unable to resist him. Her impulse was to
fly, to lock herself in her room. But she could not drop the wounded
dog on the deck, and Joey, satisfied by his master’s presence, snuggled
up close to her breast, and made the most of his comfortable quarters.
And now, while Courtenay stroked Joey with one hand, he placed the
other on Elsie’s shoulder. What a plight for a frightened maid who
wished to escape! Of course, because she wished that some one would
come to her help, the deck was practically deserted. Certainly, Mr.
Boyle did appear at the after end of the corridor; but he seemed to
remember something strong and urgent which the crew ought to hear, and
he turned back.
And here was Courtenay speaking again, speaking in the slow and
definite way of a man who was determined that there should be no
lingering doubt as to his meaning.
“I want you to listen to me, Elsie,” he said, with a passionate
intensity that stilled the rising storm in her bosom. “Doctor
Christobal may have pleaded his own cause already. It is not for me to
cavil at him for doing that. But I cannot lose you without a word.
Whether you marry him or me, or neither of us, I shall love you for
ever. I want you to know that. It is no new discovery to me. I think my
heart went out to you when I carried you in my arms through the gale,
and since that hour you and I have had experiences denied to most men
and women ere they reach the conclusion that they are fit mates for the
voyage of life. Do you feel that, sweetheart? Have we known each other
ten days, or ten years?”
His face was very near to hers now. His arm had encroached so far that
it was around her neck. It was quite dark where they stood in the
shadow of the bridge. He could not see the tears in her eyes, but he
heard her broken answer:
“Are you—quite—fair—in using such words to me?”
“Fair, Elsie! ‘Fair’ to whom?”
“Because—oh, how can I tell you? Are you free to—to speak to me in this
way?”
“Elsie, I am pledged to no other woman, if that is what you mean. Who
has been telling you otherwise?”
“No one. Indeed, indeed, I alone am to blame. You will be angry with
me, but I could not help it.”
She could say no more. If she had uttered another syllable just then
she would have broken down completely. Joey did not seem to need any
further fondling; hence, having a hand at liberty, so to speak,
Courtenay placed it under her chin, and lifted her unresisting lips to
his. He kissed her twice, and laughed softly, with a glad confidence
that sent a wave of delight coursing through Elsie’s veins.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “I am sure you would not have allowed me to
speak so plainly if you were going to send me away. Now, I don’t want
you to bind yourself irrevocably to-night. That would certainly not be
fair. I don’t know why I am to be angry, or what it was you couldn’t
help, and I don’t care a red cent. All I want to know is this—if the
_Kansas_ brings us both back to the outer world once more, have I as
good a chance of winning your love as any other man?”
“But I must tell you. I could not look you in the face again if you did
not hear it. When I was left alone in your cabin, the second time, and
the sea came in, a packet of letters fell out of some clothes which I
picked up from the floor. There was one from your sister. I hardly knew
what I was doing, but I saw her name, ‘Madge,’ and I read a few words
on the half page above her signature.”
His left arm was now so well established that his hand touched her
cheek, and he found it wet with tears.
“What wild conceit has crept into your pretty little head?” he cried in
amaze, unconsciously raising his voice somewhat. “A letter from my
sister! She is the most straightforward woman breathing, I assure you.
Never a line has she written to me which could bear any construction
such as seems to trouble you. Why, on the contrary, Madge has often
chaffed me for being so like herself in giving no thought to
matrimony.”
“It is horrid of me to persist, but I owe it to you to tell you what I
saw. She alluded to your ‘affianced wife,’ and said that ‘under no
other circumstances,’ whatever they were, would she receive her.”
Then Courtenay laughed again, and Elsie found it was absolutely
essential, if Joey were not to be crushed, that her head should bend a
little forward, with the obvious result that it rested on Courtenay’s
shoulder.
“I must show you the whole of that letter,” he cried, “and the others
which are tied up in the same bundle. You will see me blush, I admit,
but it will not be from a sense of perfidy. But there is one thing you
have forgotten, Elsie—” and his voice dropped to a tense whisper
again—“In telling me your secret, which is no secret, you have given me
my answer. Your heart must have crept out a little way to meet mine,
dear, or my sister’s words would not have perplexed you. So that is why
you have avoided me during the past few days! But there! Now, indeed, I
am not acting quite fairly. It is unfair to ask you to confess when I
want you to wait until we win clear of our present difficulties before
you decide whether or not you can find it to your liking to make a poor
sailor-man happy.”
Joey was a highly accommodating dog under certain conditions. He had
curled up so complacently that Elsie found she could hold him quite
easily with one arm. So the other went out in the darkness until it
rested timidly on her lover’s disengaged shoulder.
“It is easy to confess that which is already known,” she murmured.
“Whether we are fated to live one day or fifty years, it will be all
the same to me, dear.”
She lifted her face again to his, and would have returned the kisses he
gave her were it not that they lost their one-sided character this
time. It was an odd place for love-making, this darkened nook on the
deck of a disabled and beleaguered ship. But a man and a woman reck
little of time or locality when the call of love’s spring-time sounds
in their ears. That magic summons can be heard but once, and it is well
with the world, for those two at least, while its ecstasy floods the
soul.
There was a chance that Joey might have been partly suffocated—though,
to all appearance, he meant to die a willing martyr—had not Suarez
leaned over the upper rail, and asked, in his grating accents, if he
heard the señor captain’s voice below.
Elsie, all tremulous and rosy, and profoundly thankful for the
darkness, withdrew herself from Courtenay’s embrace and answered the
Argentine.
“Ah,” said Suarez, “I am glad you are there too, señorita. Will you
tell him that I am very hungry, and that I have not been relieved at
the proper time. I have been waiting half an hour or more.”
“There!” cried the captain, squeezing Elsie’s arm, “that comes of using
so many unnecessary explanations. I ought to have adopted the
recognized Jack Tar method and just grabbed you round the waist without
ceremony. I wonder where Boyle is. He and Christobal take the first
watch, and it must be two bells, or later. I will hunt them up.
Good-by, sweetheart. Meet you at supper in ten minutes.”
It was a strange and peculiar fact that Boyle had cornered Christobal
in the saloon, and had insisted on telling him various remarkable
anecdotes concerning the one-legged skipper of the _Flower of the
Ocean_ brig. It was still more odd that when Christobal yielded to a
fit of unwonted and melancholy silence after learning from Suarez that
the senor captain had been talking to the señorita for a very long time
on the promenade deck, Boyle should feel inclined to sing.
The chief officer’s musical attainments were not of the highest, and
his repertory was archaic. But there must be some explanation of his
unwonted and melancholy chanting. He always spoke of Elsie with the
utmost admiration, and it was no secret that he rendered Courtenay a
sort of hero-worship hidden under the guise of an exaggerated belief in
the good luck which followed the captain of the _Kansas_ in all his
doings. And then, with a chilling inspiration, Christobal knew why the
chief officer had caused him to miss the hour for relieving the watch.
Boyle had seen those two together, and had planned to leave them
undisturbed!
The Spaniard was a dignified man; he had inherited from his English
mother a saving sense of humor. It was intolerable that the pleasant
relations existing between the few survivors on board the Kansas should
be disturbed by reason of any failure on his part to acquiesce in
Elsie’s right to bestow her affections where she listed. He wondered if
the girl had come on deck after supper; her habit was to retire early,
as she rose soon after the sun. He had seen her for a moment only in
passing out of the saloon, and there was a suspicious brightness in her
eyes for which solicitude on the dog’s behalf would hardly account. Why
not put his fortunes to the test that night and have done with it? Yes,
that was the right course. He would cease this petty watchfulness, this
campaign of planning and contriving lest others should monopolize more
of her smiles and pleasant words than he. A simple question would
determine his fate. Either she was heart-whole, or not; at any rate, he
would receive a straight answer.
So it was on the cards that Elsie would be the amazed recipient of two
proposals in one evening, which is a better average than most women are
favored with in a lifetime. Christobal had entered the chart-house with
the fixed intent of warning Boyle that he was going below for a moment
to ask Miss Maxwell to come on deck, when a hurried step on the bridge
companion caused the imminent words to be withheld.
It was Courtenay, who had run up from the saloon to procure those
fateful letters which had so nearly parted Elsie and himself. He had
laughingly refused to tell her their history. That would spoil their
effect, he said. She must take them to her state-room and read them at
her leisure. Then she would see their true inwardness, and his feelings
would be spared, as he could not deny that the majority of them had
been written by ladies.
On his way, he looked into the wheel-house. There was no light in the
interior. Boyle, wrapped in a heavy coat, was seated in the most
sheltered corner.
“All quiet?” asked the captain, in his brisk way.
“Nothin’ doin’, sir,” answered Boyle.
“I expect you are both feeling pretty tired. Tollemache and I propose
to relieve you at six bells.”
“But why?” demanded Christobal. “It is you who have passed an exciting
day. I am ready to mount guard until dawn. Tollemache can join me now
if he likes, as Mr. Boyle ought to be in bed.”
“I’m all right,” said Boyle, gruffly. “I am only sitting here because
my back is stiff.”
Courtenay glanced at the somber shadow of Point _Kansas_, silhouetted
against the deep blue of the seaward arc.
“Suarez has retired to roost,” he said. “He seems to be quite assured
that the Indians will never deliver a night attack.”
“To-day’s hammering should teach them to leave the _Kansas_ alone in
future,” said Christobal.
“I hope so, but Suarez and Tollemache agree that they are most
persistent wretches. Now, Boyle, you must obey the doctor. I am going
back to the saloon to give Miss Maxwell some documents I wish her to
see. Then, Tollemache and I will relieve the pair of you. All right,
Christobal; I promise to take my share of the blankets in the morning.
I shall be ready for a nap at four o’clock. At present I feel
particularly wide-awake.”
He went to the cabin. They heard him unlock the door and enter. At that
instant a startling hail came from two sailors stationed on the poop.
“Indianos!” they yelled.
The three men were on the spar deck a second later, straining their
eyes into the black vagueness of the water.
“Indianos!” shouted two other sailors on the forecastle, and from the
spar deck it seemed to be possible to distinguish several black objects
moving towards the ship.
“The siren, Boyle,” cried Courtenay, striking a match. At once the
swelling note of the fog-horn smote the air and thundered away in
tremendous sound waves. Soon a hissing, fiery serpent ran up the port
wall of the chart-house, and a fine star rocket soared into the sky. It
illuminated a wide area of the bay, and revealed a number of crowded
canoes darting in on the ship from all sides. Courtenay grasped the
lines connected with the remaining mines and hauled for dear life.
Already the Indian rifle fire was crackling with vivid spurts of flame,
and stones and arrows were beginning to patter on the deck and bang
against the steel plates. Two of the dynamite bombs exploded with the
usual din, but it was impossible to ascertain their effect owing to the
yelling of the Indians.
The loud summons of the siren brought all hands from below; arms were
hastily secured, the fore and aft awnings closed, and Walker made shift
to hammer the engine-room door tight. The increasing violence of the
stone-slinging showed that the Alaculofs meant to press home this time.
Whatever their dread of the fiends who roam the world in the dark, they
had conquered it, and this latest phase in the stormy history of the
ship threatened to be its most trying one.
Courtenay, who seemed to be everywhere at once, lighted torches which
were fastened to the empty davits in readiness for a night alarm. He
had used the last rocket on board, but the flares would burn for
fifteen minutes at least. By their light the defenders were able to
shoot or smash the skulls of several savages who climbed up roughly
contrived grapnells fashioned out of bent sticks and thongs of hide.
But there were only thirteen men to repel an attack which developed at
fifty points simultaneously. Ere the torches flickered in their sockets
the savages had swarmed over poop and bows. They were tearing at the
canvas shields and sweeping the hurricane deck with showers of
missiles. Tollemache was injured, and Walker. Courtenay had his
forehead cut open. Suarez fell insensible while he was bellowing curses
through the megaphone in the vain hope of frightening the determined
enemy. Two Chileans were down, one struck with a stone and the other
shot through the lungs.
So, at last, the _Kansas_ was in the grip of a savage and implacable
foe. Courtenay, while hauling a steam hose to the weakest point, the
after part of the promenade deck, met Christobal. He clutched the
Spaniard in a way there could be no mistaking.
“Go below!” he muttered in a terrible voice. “I cannot leave the deck.
You must go. And, for God’s sake, don’t tell her! Let her die without
knowing!”