THE PAPIER-MACHE ORANGES.
During these days of harrowing suspense I saw much of Fidette.
Together we had walked into her father’s cabin one afternoon and she
was showing me its treasures. In an artistically designed hanging
basket of woven sea grass I noticed a dozen or more orange-like
spheroids, quite resembling the fruit in shape and color. I at first
mistook them for the real thing, wondering whence they had come. But,
on closer inspection, I recognized them as specimens of detonating
bombs, manufactured in Wilmington, Del., and used upon the Fourth
of July and other national holidays to add to the noise and the
enthusiasm of the occasion.
They are fired from small mortars, and are hurled to a great height
in the air. When their velocity is exhausted they explode. They
are filled with charcoal and a fulminate similar to that with
which percussion caps are charged. They are the most dangerous
fireworks used, and the manufacturer will only sell them to the most
experienced exhibitors.
A terrible experience enabled me to recognize these deadly missiles
at a glance. Only a few years before I had been bound up the Delaware
to Philadelphia for charter when the captain decided to anchor off
Wilmington, owing to fog, and I, as first mate, was sent ashore to
proceed to the Quaker City by train, in order to report to our
principals. I had succeeded in finding the mouth of Brandywine
Creek, and was rapidly ascending it toward the nearest street to the
railroad station, when, the mist having lifted, I saw that I was near
a large brick factory at which fireworks were made. The exterior of
the building announced the fact and bore the name of the company.
Just as I was passing this building, that faced the little creek, a
terrific explosion occurred within its walls. The entire side of the
structure was blown out, and one unfortunate man was hurled almost
over my head into the water. Believing that I could render aid to
the wounded--and I was confident there must be many--I told my men
to land me at the little wharf near the works, and hurried into the
building. All was wreck and confusion. Two dead women and five dead
men lay about the room. Almost without exception they were unscarred
and appeared to have died from concussion. In a box, each carefully
separated by a layer of cotton, lay several hundred of these
papier-mâché-encased bombs.
They were exactly similar in color to those I saw before me.
Evidently the Kantoon did not know the dangerous character of the
pretty yellow spheres that occupied so prominent a place in his
quarters. Just at this moment the good man entered, and I asked him
how they had come into his possession.
Taking one up, playfully, he explained, as he tossed it about from
one hand to the other, that they had been found in a box of wreckage
that had floated into the canal several months before, and had been
picked up by one of his boat crews. The box had been in the water
several months, but it was hermetically sealed.
“Oh! they are all right,” he said, carelessly.
The Kantoon admitted that he had no idea to what use the orange-hued
spheres were put. He had been in the habit of making ink from their
contents, which Fidette had used in decorating shells, fish scales
and sharks’ teeth.
I gently took the small sphere from the Kantoon’s fingers and
replaced it in the basket, telling him in a general way that harm
might come to him if he dropped one. To Fidette, however, on the
earliest opportunity, I made a free and frank confession. I told her
that to drop one of those detonating shells meant instant death to
every one within a radius of twenty-five feet. She appeared to attach
no importance to my caution, but my words found an indelible place in
her bright memory.
It was an episode that only a woman’s genius could turn to future
account.
They were to become “blood oranges.”
The history of this revolt against the Kantoon of the Happy Shark, is
exceedingly curious.
Ostensibly, the rebellion was for the purpose of avenging the death
of the young Portuguese lover of Fidette. But it was led by a young
man who had not personally known the Portuguese, and whose real
motive I shall now explain.
I have already told what a sturdy race of men the Sargassons were.
This was due to the cruel, but invariable, rule of destroying all
weak children and of putting to death all young men who, having
attained their growth, did not reach the height of six feet or more.
When a young man attained the age of 21 he was summoned before the
Kantoons of twenty-one ships, who assembled on an island of floating
sod, and he was then carefully measured as to his height. The only
question ever raised was whether the candidate so examined had
attained his full growth. Instances had happened in which the young
man had been kept under observation for several years, and then
finally condemned. The penalty was death.
There were no jails in Sargasso where people who broke the laws
could be locked up. You will remember that I suffered a few days’
confinement in a temporary cage on the main deck of the Happy Shark.
It is not improbable that such a cell existed on all the ships. But
the difficulty of caring for prisoners and the impossibility of
banishment made it necessary to inflict the death penalty for nearly
all infractions of the Sargasson social customs.
One of the most popular men in all the Seaweed Sea was the son of
a distinguished Kantoon, whose barnacle-covered ship was not far
distant from the Happy Shark. He had just attained his majority,
and at a council of Kantoons, at which he had presented himself, it
had been decided that he was a full half inch under size. However
much he stretched his neck in the effort to elongate his frame to
the required six feet, the decision was against him. Most decided
in his opinion was the Kantoon of my ship. He scouted the idea that
the young man had not attained his full stature. He ridiculed the
assertion of the candidate that he still suffered from growing pains,
and finally turned the tide against a popular movement on the part of
several other members of the council to give the candidate another
year’s grace.
It is doubtful if this extension of time would have proved of real
benefit to the candidate, because he had already done everything in
his power to lengthen himself, having hung by his arms for half a day
at a time in order to expand the knee and hip joints. The Kantoon of
the Happy Shark pronounced the final decree that the young man must
die.
Entirely contrary to custom, the condemned protested.
His firmness in the matter, his disinclination to accept death when
it was decreed him, excited wonderment. As usual in such cases, he
had a week in which to take leave of his friends, at the end of which
time he was expected to present himself for execution.
During that interval he fomented the rebellion.
The women who had visited Fidette on the Happy Shark had repeated and
enlarged upon the cruel incident of the Portuguese’s death. The young
insurgent leader caught up this act as one of injustice, and gathered
around him a faithful band of fifty rebellious spirits like himself.
They seized a derelict that was occupied only by a caretaker,
fortified it and scorned the mandate of the Grand Council.
Hansko Yap, as he was called, announced that the purpose of himself
and his followers was to avenge the death of Fernandez. But the
real motive was to humiliate the Kantoon of my ship for the manner
in which he had persisted in bringing about the sentence of death.
Spurred on by the courage of despair, the young leader developed into
a veritable Commander Cushing.
With utter fearlessness he prepared the most deadly engine that could
be sent against his adversaries. This consisted of a large spar--the
foremast of his own ship--which was neatly tapered to a point, and
this capped with iron. The spar was eighty feet long, and as straight
as an arrow.
The method of attack was to use this spar as a battering ram to break
holes through the assailed ships. With entire indifference to the
presence of sharks, forty of the young men who had joined in the
rebellion would spring into the water, clasp the spar tightly under
one arm, and with the disengaged hand propel the floating mast at a
high rate of speed. Starting back a thousand feet or more from the
derelict they intended to assail, they would bring their engine of
destruction forward with a rapid and regular stroke of great power
until within five feet of the vessel, when, at a signal from their
leader, all would dive. The crash was so great that the hull of a
wooden vessel was always broken in.
With iron steamers the damage was less serious, but it was only
a question of time and repetition when a seam would open and the
plates start apart. Being without any means of stopping the inflow
of water, the Sargassons of the doomed ship methodically prepared
themselves for death, and stood upon the deck chanting their weird,
funereal song until the ship gradually settled and took its final
plunge.
Such had been the experience in the attacks upon all vessels prior to
the assault on the Happy Shark.
Already this bold opponent of public order had sunk a dozen ships,
and had caused it to be made known among the entire community that
our craft must accept the same fate.
As the defense had been placed completely in my hands, I took the
precaution of having twenty boats in the water ready to be manned
and sent out at a moment’s notice. In similar cases the oarsman took
his place in the stern of the boat, while in the bow was a sailor
armed with a very sharp knife. The defense, therefore, was likely
to be very stubborn, because a score of semi-savages, armed with
huge swords, would be able to make a very serious attack upon twice
as many men swimming in water. Excepting a few men who were already
in the boats, keeping them in order so that they could be promptly
manned, the rest of the crew lay asleep upon the deck, all armed with
spears or cutlasses, awaiting the boarding party.