all there is to it. It's too much of a strain on any man. Suit yourself.
You run them. I shipped as captain of a vessel. I'm no dock walloper.
I won't _do_ it--for no man!"
I gasped with dismay at the man's complete moral collapse. It seemed
incredible. I caught myself wondering whether he would recover tone
were he again to put to sea.
"My God, man, but you _must_!" I cried at last.
"I won't, and that's flat," said he, and turned deliberately on his
heel and disappeared in the cabin.
I went ashore thoughtful and a little scared. But on reflection I
regained a great part of my ease of mind. You see, I had been with
these men now eight months, during which they had been as orderly as
so many primary schoolboys. They had worked hard, without grumbling,
and had even approached a sort of friendliness about the camp fire.
My first impression was overlaid. As I looked back on the voyage, with
what I took to be a clearer vision, I could not but admit that the
incidents were in themselves trivial enough--a natural excitement by
a superstitious negro, a little tall talk that meant nothing. It must
have been the glamour of the adventure that had deceived me; that,
and the unusual stage setting and costuming. Certainly few men would
work hard for eight months without a murmur, without a chance to look
about them.
In that, of course, I was deceived by my inexperience. I realised
later the wonderful effect Captain Selover threw away with his empty
brandy bottles. The crew might grumble and plot during the watch
below; but when Captain Ezra Selover said _work_, they worked.
He had been saying work, for eight months. They had, from force of
experience, obeyed him. It was all very simple.
IX
THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE
So there I was at once deprived of my chief support. Although no
danger seemed imminent, nevertheless the necessity of acting on my
own initiative and responsibility oppressed me somewhat.
Truth to tell, after the first, I was more relieved than dismayed at
the captain's resolution to stay aboard. His drinking habit was
growing on him, and afloat or ashore he was now little more than a
figurehead, so that my chief asset as far as he was concerned, was
rather his reputation than his direct influence. In contact with the
men, I dreaded lest sooner or later he do something to lessen or
destroy the awe in which they held him.
Of course Dr. Schermerhorn had been mistaken in his man: A real
captain of men would have risen to circumstances wherever he found
them. But who could have foretold? Captain Selover had been a rascal
always, but a successful and courageous rascal. He had run desperate
chances, dominated desperate crews. Who could know that a crumble of
island beach and six months ashore would turn him into what he had
become? Yet I believe such cases are not uncommon in other walks of
life. A man and his work combine to mean something; yet both may be
absolutely useless when separated. It was the weak link----
I put in some time praying earnestly that the eyes of the crew might
be blinded, and that the doctor would finish his experiments before
the cauldron could boil up again.
My first act as real commander was to announce holiday. My idea was
that the island would keep the men busy for a while. Then I would
assign them more work to do. They proposed at once a tour into the
interior.
We started up the west coast. After three or four miles along a mesa
formation where often we had to circle long detours to avoid the
gullies, we came upon another short beach, and beyond it a series of
ledges on which basked several hundred seals. They did not seem
alarmed. In fact one old bull, scarred by many battles, made toward
us.
We left him, scaled the cliff, and turned up a broad, pleasant valley
toward the interior.
There the later lava flow had been deflected. All that showed of the
original eruption were occasional red outcropping rocks. Soil and
grass had overlaid the mineral. Scattered trees were planted
throughout the flat. Cacti and semi-tropical bushes mingled with brush
on the rounded side hills. A number of brilliant birds fluttered at
our approach.
Suddenly Handy Solomon, who was in advance, stopped and pointed to
the crest of the hill. A file of animals moved along the sky line.
"Mutton!" said he, "or the devil's a preacher!"
"Sheep!" cried Thrackles. "Where did they come from?"
"_Golden Horn_," I suggested. "Remember that wide, empty deck
forward? They carried sheep there." The men separated, intending fresh
meat. The affair was ridiculous. These sheep had become as wild as
deer. Our surrounding party with its silly bared knives could only
look after them open-mouthed, as they skipped nimbly between its
members.
"Get a gun of the Old Man, Mr. Eagen," suggested Pulz, "and we'll have
something besides salt horse and fish."
I nodded.
We continued. The island was like this as far as we went. When we
climbed a ridge, we found ourselves looking down on a spider-web of
other valleys and cañons of the same nature, all diverging to broad
downs and a jump into the sea, all converging to the outworks that
guarded the volcano with its canopy of vapour.
On our way home we cut across the higher country and the heads of the
cañons until we found ourselves looking down on the valley and Dr.
Schermerhorn's camp. The steam from the volcanic blowholes swayed
below us. Through its rifts we saw the tops of the buildings.
Presently we made out Percy Darrow, dressed in overalls, his sleeves
rolled back, and carrying a retort. He walked, very preoccupied, to
one of the miniature craters, where he knelt and went through some
operation indistinguishable at the distance. I looked around to see
my companions staring at him fascinated, their necks craned out, their
bodies drawn back into hiding. In a moment he had finished, and
carried the retort carefully into the laboratory. The men sighed and
stood erect, once more themselves. As we turned away Perdosa voiced
what must have been in the minds of all.
"A man could climb down there," said he.
"Why should he want to?" I demanded sharply.
"_Quien sabe_?" shrugged he.
We turned in silence toward the beach. Each brooded his thoughts. The
sight of that man dressed in overalls, carrying on some mysterious
business, brought home to each of us the fact that our expedition had
an object, as yet unknown to us. The thought had of late dropped into
the background. For my part I had been so immersed in the adventure
and the labour and the insistent need of the hour that I had forgotten
why I had come. Dr. Schermerhorn's purpose was as inscrutable to me
as at first. What had I accomplished?
The men, too, seemed struck with some such idea. There were no yarns
about the camp fire that night. Percy Darrow did not appear, for which
I was sincerely sorry. His presence might have created a diversion.
For some unknown reason all my old apprehensions, my sense of
impending disaster, had returned to me strengthened. In the firelight
the Nigger's sullen face looked sinister, Pulz's nervous white
countenance looked vicious. Thrackles' heavy, bulldog expression was
threatening, Perdosa's Mexican cast fit for knife work in the back.
And Handy Solomon, stretched out, leaning on his elbow, with his red
headgear, his snaky hair, his hook nose, his restless eye and his
glittering steel claw--the glow wrote across his aura the names of
Kid, Morgan, Blackbeard. They sat smoking, staring into the fire with
mesmerised eyes. The silence got on my nerves I arose impatiently and
walked down the pale beach, where the stars glimmered in splashes
along the wettest sands. The black silhouette of the hills against
the dark blue of the night sky; the white of breakers athwart the
indistinct heave of the ocean, a faint light marking the position of
the _Laughing Lass_--that was everything in the world. I made
out some object rolled about in the edge of the wash. At the cost of
wet feet I rescued it. It was an empty brandy bottle.
[Illustration: "These sheep had become as wild as deer"]
X
CHANGE OF MASTERS
The next day we continued our explorations by land, and so for a week
after that. I thought it best not to relinquish all authority, so I
organised regular expeditions, and ordered their direction. The men
did not object. It was all good enough fun to them.
The net results were that we found a nesting place of sea birds--too
late in the season for eggs; a hot spring near enough camp to be
useful; and that was about all. The sheep were the only animals on
the island, although there were several sorts of birds. In general,
the country was as I have described it--either volcanic or overlaid
with fertile earth. In any case it was cañon and hill. We soon grew
tired of climbing and turned our attention to the sea.
With the surf boat we skirted the coast. It was impregnable except
in three places: our own beach, that near the seal rookery, and on
the south side of the island. We landed at each one of these places.
But returning close to the coast we happened upon a cave mouth more
or less guarded by an outlying rock.
The day was calm, so we ventured in. At first I thought it merely a
gorge in the rock, but even while peering for the end wall we slipped
under the archway and found ourselves in a vast room.
Our eyes were dazzled so we could make out little at first. But
through the still, clear water the light filtered freely from below,
showing the bottom as through a sea glass. We saw the fish near the
entrance, and coral and sea growths of marvellous vividness. They
waved slowly as in a draught of air. The medium in which they floated
was absolutely invisible, for, of course, there were no reflections
from its surface. We seemed to be suspended in mid-air, and only when
the dipping oars made rings could we realise that anything sustained
us.
Suddenly the place let loose in pandemonium. The most fiendish cries,
groans, shrieks, broke out, confusing themselves so thoroughly with
their own echoes that the volume of sound was continuous. Heavy
splashes shook the water. The boat rocked. The invisible surface was
broken into facets.
We shrank, terrified. From all about us glowed hundreds of eyes like
coals of fire--on a level with us, above us, almost over our heads.
Two by two the coals were extinguished.
Below us the bottom was clouded with black figures, darting rapidly
like a school of minnows beneath a boat. They darkened the coral and
the sands and the glistening sea growths just as a cloud temporarily
darkens the landscape--only the occultations and brightenings
succeeded each other much more swiftly.
We stared stupefied, our thinking power blurred by the incessent whirl
of motion and noise.
Suddenly Thrackles laughed aloud.
"Seals!" he shouted through his trumpeted hands.
Our eyes were expanding to the twilight. We could make out the arch
of the room, its shelves, and hollows, and niches. Lying on them we
could discern the seals, hundreds and hundreds of them, all staring
at us, all barking and bellowing. As we approached, they scrambled
from their elevations, and, diving to the bottom, scurried to the entrance
of the cave.
We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then silence fell. There persisted
a tiny _drip, drip, drip_ from some point in the darkness. It
merely accentuated the hush. Suddenly from far in the interior of the
hill there came a long, hollow _boo-o-o-m_! It reverberated,
roaring. The surge that had lifted our boat some minutes before thus
reached its journey's end.
The chamber was very lofty. As we rowed cautiously in, it lost nothing
of its height, but something in width. It was marvellously coloured,
like all the volcanic rocks of this island. In addition some chemical
drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy streamers of white.
We rowed in as far as the faintest daylight lasted us. The occasional
reverberating _boom_ of the surges seemed as distant as ever.
This was beyond the seal rookery on the beach. Below it we entered
an open cleft of some size to another squarer cave. It was now high
tide; the water extended a scant ten fathoms to end on an interior
shale beach. The cave was a perfectly straight passage following the
line of the cleft. How far in it reached we could not determine, for
it, too, was full of seals, and after we had driven them back a hundred
feet or so their fiery eyes scared us out. We did not care to put them
at bay. The next day I rowed out to the _Laughing Lass_ and got
a rifle. I found the captain asleep in his bunk, and did not disturb
him. Perdosa and I, with infinite pains, tracked and stalked the
sheep, of which I killed one. We found the mutton excellent. The
hunting was difficult, and the quarry, as time went on, more and more
suspicious, but henceforward we did not lack for fresh meat.
Furthermore we soon discovered that fine trolling was to be had
outside the reef. We rigged a sail for the extra dory, and spent much
of our time at the sport. I do not know the names of the fish. They
were very gamy indeed, and ran from five to an indeterminate number
of pounds in weight. Above fifty pounds our light tackle parted, so
we had no means of knowing how large they may have been.
Thus we spent very pleasantly the greater part of two weeks. At the
end of that time I made up my mind that it would be just as well to
get back to business. Accordingly I called Perdosa and directed him
to sort and clear of rust the salvaged chain cable. He refused flatly.
I took a step toward him. He drew his knife and backed away.
"Perdosa," said I firmly, "put up that knife."
"No," said he.
I pulled the saw-barrelled Colt's 45 and raised it slowly to a level
with his breast.
"Perdosa," I repeated, "drop that knife."
The crisis had come, but my resolution was fully prepared for it. I
should not have cared greatly if I had had to shoot the man--as I
certainly should have done had he disobeyed. There would then have
been one less to deal with in the final accounting, which strangely
enough I now for a moment never doubted would come. I had not before
aimed at a man's life, so you can see to what tensity the baffling
mystery had strung me.
Perdosa hesitated a fraction of an instant. I really think he might
have chanced it, but Handy Solomon, who had been watching me closely,
growled at him.
"Drop it, you fool!" he said.
Perdosa let fall the knife.
"Now, get at that cable," I commanded, still at white heat. I stood
over him until he was well at work, then turned back to set tasks for
the other men. Handy Solomon met me halfway.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," said he, "I want a word with you."
"I have nothing to say to you," I snapped, still excited.
"It ain't reasonable not to hear a man's say," he advised in his most
conciliatory manner, "I'm talking for all of us."
He paused a moment, took my silence for consent, and went ahead.
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen," said he, "we ain't going to do any
more useless work. There ain't no laziness about us, but we ain't
going to be busy at nothing. All the camp work and the haulin' and
cuttin' and cleanin' and the rest of it, we'll do gladly. But we ain't
goin' to pound any more cable, and you can kiss the Book on that."
"You mean to mutiny?" I asked.
He made a deprecatory gesture.
"Put us aboard ship, sir, and let us hear the Old Man give his orders,
and you'll find no mutiny in us. But here ashore it's different. Did
the Old Man give orders to pound the cable?"
"I represent the captain," I stammered.
He caught the evasion. "I thought so. Well, if you got any kick on
us, please, sir, go get the Old Man. If he says to our face, pound
cable, why pound cable it is. Ain't that right, boys?"
They murmured something. Perdosa deliberately dropped his hammer and
joined the group. My hand strayed again toward the sawed-off Colt's
45.
"I wouldn't do that," said Handy Solomon, almost kindly. "You couldn't
kill us all. And w'at good would it do? I asks you that. I can cut
down a chicken with my knife at twenty feet. You must surely see, sir,
that I could have killed you too easy while you were covering Pancho
there. This ain't got to be a war, Mr. Eagen, just because we don't
want to work without any sense to it."
There was more of the same sort. I had plenty of time to see my
dilemma. Either I would have to abandon my attempt to keep the men
busy, or I would have to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To
do the latter would be to destroy it. The master had become a stuffed
figure, a bogie with which to frighten, an empty bladder that a prick
would collapse. With what grace I could muster, I had to give in.
"You'll have to have it your own way, I suppose," I snapped.
Thrackles grinned, and Pulz started to say something, but Handy
Solomon, with a peremptory gesture, and a black scowl, stopped him
short.
"Now that's what I calls right proper and handsome!" he cried
admiringly. "We reely had no right to expect that, boys, as seamen,
from our first officer! You can kiss the Book on it, that very few
crews have such kind masters. Mr. Eagen has the right, and we signed
to it all straight, to work us as he pleases; and w'at does he do?
Why, he up and gives us a week shore leave, and then he gives us light
watches, and all the time our pay goes on just the same. Now that's
w'at I calls right proper and handsome conduct, or the devil's a
preacher, and I ventures with all respect to propose three cheers for
Mr. Eagen."
They gave them, grinning broadly. The villain stood looking at me,
a sardonic gleam in the back of his eye. Then he gave a little hitch
to his red head covering, and sauntered away humming between his teeth.
I stood watching him, choked with rage and indecision. The humming
broke into words.
"'Oh, quarter, oh, quarter!' the jolly pirates cried.
_Blow high, blow low! What care we_?
But the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea,
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_."
"Here, you swab," he cried to Thrackles, "and you, Pancho! get some
wood, lively! And Pulz, bring us a pail of water. Doctor, let's have
duff to celebrate on."
The men fell to work with alacrity.
XI
THE CORROSIVE
That evening I smoked in a splendid isolation while the men whispered
apart. I had nothing to do but smoke, and to chew my cud, which was
bitter. There could be no doubt, however I may have saved my face,
that command had been taken from me by that rascal, Handy Solomon.
I was in two minds as to whether or not I should attempt to warn Darrow
or the doctor. Yet what could I say? and against whom should I warn
them? The men had grumbled, as men always do grumble in idleness, and
had perhaps talked a little wildly; but that was nothing.
The only indisputable fact I could adduce was that I had allowed my
authority to slip through my fingers. And adequately to excuse that,
I should have to confess that I was a writer and no handler of men.
I abandoned the unpleasant train of thought with a snort of disgust,
but it had led me to another. In the joy and uncertainty of living
I had practically lost sight of the reason for my coming. With me it
had always been more the adventure than the story; my writing was a
by-product, a utilisation of what life offered me. I had set sail
possessed by the sole idea of ferreting out Dr. Schermerhorn's
investigations, but the gradual development of affairs had ended by
absorbing my every faculty. Now, cast into an eddy by my change of
fortunes, the original idea regained its force. I was out of the
active government of affairs, with leisure on my hands, and my
thoughts naturally turned with curiosity again to the laboratory in
the valley.
Darrow's "devil fires" were again painting the sky. I had noticed them
from time to time, always with increasing wonder. The men accepted
them easily as only one of the unexplained phenomena of a sailor's
experience, but I had not as yet hit on a hypothesis that suited me.
They were not allied to the aurora; they differed radically from the
ordinary volcanic emanations; and scarcely resembled any electrical
displays I had ever seen. The night was cool; the stars bright: I
resolved to investigate.
Without further delay I arose to my feet and set off into the
darkness. Immediately one of the group detached himself from the fire
and joined me.
"Going for a little walk, sir?" asked Handy Solomon sweetly. "That's
quite right and proper. Nothin' like a little walk to get you fit and
right for your bunk."
He held close to my elbow. We got just as far as the stockade in the
bed of the arroyo. The lights we could make out now across the zenith;
but owing to the precipitance of the cliffs, and the rise of the
arroyo bed, it was impossible to see more. Handy Solomon felt the
defences carefully.
"A man would think, sir, it was a cannibal island," he observed. "All
so tight and tidy-like here. It would take a ship's guns to batter
her down. A man might dig under these here two gate logs, if no one
was against him. Like to try it, sir?"
"No," I answered gruffly.
From that time on I was virtually a prisoner; yet so carefully was
my surveillance accomplished that I could place my finger on nothing
definite. Someone always accompanied me on my walks; and in the
evening I was herded as closely as any cattle.
Handy Solomon took the direction of affairs off my hands. You may be
sure he set no very heavy tasks. The men cut a little wood, carried
up a few pails of water--that was all.
Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend most of their time
lying on their backs watching the sky. This in turn bred a languor
which is the sickest, most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented
by the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to walk down the
beach and back, and yet they were wearied to death of the inaction.
After a little they became irritable toward one another. Each
suspected the other of doing less than he should. You who know men
will realise what this meant.
The atmosphere of our camp became surly. I recognised the precursor
of its becoming dangerous. One day on a walk in the hills I came on
Thrackles and Pulz lying on their stomachs gazing down fixedly at Dr.
Schermerhorn's camp. This was nothing extraordinary, but they started
guiltily to their feet when they saw me, and made off, growling under
their breaths.
All this that I have told you so briefly, took time. It was the eating
through of men's spirits by that worst of corrosives, idleness. I
conceive it unnecessary to weary you with the details----
The situation was as yet uneasy but not alarming. One evening I
overheard the beginning of an absurd plot to gain entrance to the
Valley--that was as far as detail went. I became convinced at last
that I should in some way warn Percy Darrow.
That seems a simple enough proposition, does it not? But if you will
stop to think one moment of the difficulties of my position, you will
see that it was not as easy as at first it appears. Darrow still
visited us in the evening. The men never allowed me even the chance
of private communication while he was with us. One or two took pains
to stretch out between us. Twice I arose when the assistant did, resolved
to accompany him part way back. Both times men resolutely escorted
us, and as resolutely separated us from the opportunity of a single
word apart. The crew never threatened me by word or look. But we understood
each other.
I was not permitted to row out to the _Laughing Lass_ without
escort. Therefore I never attempted to visit her again. The men were
not anxious to do so, their awe of the captain made them only too glad
to escape his notice. That empty shell of a past reputation was my
only hope. It shielded the arms and ammunition.
As I look back on it now, the period seems to me to be one of merely
potential trouble. The men had not taken the pains to crystallise
their ideas. I really think their compelling emotion was that of
curiosity. They wanted to _see_. It needed a definite impulse
to change that desire to one of greed.
The impulse came from Percy Darrow and his idle talk of voodoos. As
usual he was directing his remarks to the sullen Nigger.
"Voodoos?" he said. "Of course there are. Don't fool yourself for a
minute on that. There are good ones and bad ones. You can tame them
if you know how, and they will do anything you want them to." Pulz
chuckled in his throat. "You don't believe it?" drawled the assistant
turning to him. "Well, it's so. You know that heavy box we are so
careful of? Well, that's got a tame voodoo in it."
The others laughed.
"What he like?" asked the Nigger gravely.