"Er--um--you may as well, I think."
The side-boys were caught on the giggle and Kep frowned at them.
He saluted the quarter-deck as if to the manner born.
"What--er--can I do you for, youngster?" This from the midshipman of
the after watch.
"I want to see the commander or Captain."
"Neither on board. Here comes the second lieutenant.
"Hullo, my lad"--he wasn't much more than a lad himself--"have you
friends on board?"
"Soon will have, I hope, sir. I want to join the service, and this
ship. Rather like the looks of her."
The middies pulled their handkerchiefs out, and seemed strangely
convulsed. The officer raised his eye-brows, but appeared much amused.
"Come down to the ward-room, my boy," he said. "There is really nobody
on board, yet. Sit down. You are smartly dressed, is your father a
gentleman?"
"Yes, and all my forefathers, and I'm a gentleman myself."
"Undoubtedly, but you've run away from home, haven't you? What is your
father's name?"
"Not over anxious to divulge, sir," replied Kep.
"Well, what name do you sail under?"
"Not particular. Call me Mr. Bowser."
"Well, Master Bowser, you say you are desirous of doing us the honour of
sailing with us. May I presume to ask in what capacity?"
Kep jumped up.
"You are making fun of me, poking fun at me," he cried, now furiously
red in the face.
"Sit down, you spitfire, and don't be a little fool, else, but there!
now calm yourself and answer my question. What use do you think you'd
be on H.M.S. _Breezy_?"
"Oh, I'm so willing, sir! I can be anything, or do anything. Could
take charge of a watch or my turn at the wheel, or help the cook, or
clean the boots. I can reef and steer, and box the compass, splice the
main-brace, or work out the reckoning or----"
"Suppose, now, our captain were taken ill?"
"Oh, sir. I could soon learn to do the simple duties of a Naval
Captain."
"Is there any other capacity in which you could serve?"
"Oh yes, I can speak six or seven languages fluently, and I could play
on this little pipe while the sailor men danced."
The lieutentant was more amused than ever. He wanted a little fun,
anyhow.
"Play something to me."
"What shall it be? Nocturne, Sonata, Valse, or, just name your opera.
Come, here is a little bit of Wagner." The officer leaned back in his
chair, really or truly delighted.
"Why," he said, "you are--why you are a juvenile freak. Come on deck
with me."
"Quartermaster, just take this lad forward, and he'll play you a
hornpipe."
He did. Kep played, and didn't the men dance too. It was half an hour
of the best fun ever seen on board a man-o'-war.
Then the young lieutentant gave the boy ginger wine, grapes, and much
good advice, and bade him be sure to go home to his parents.
No, Kep had not succeeded in joining the _Breezy_, but he really had
made an impression on board, and those who met him would not soon forget
him.
The boy did not go directly back to the _Blue Ensign_. The day was very
beautiful and though already far spent there was plenty of time of
stroll around and see things.
Now Plymouth down by the docks is always a busy place. It was ten times
more so just at present, for complications had once more arisen betwixt
this country and Russia. Since the close of the terrible war against
the Japs, the Russians appeared to be intriguing very much in European
politics. She desired a war with Britain, she longed to invade India,
but the trouble was that unless supported by another power there was
little chance of her being able to regain her lost prestige.
Be that as it may, orders had only a few days before Kep's arrival been
received at Plymouth dockyards that make things hum, as the saying is,
and the lad wondered a good deal at all he saw in the dockyards. A
swarm of bees about to swarm could not have been more busy and bustling.
The tall policemen who guarded the gates eyed everyone who sought
entrance with considerable suspicion unless wearing the king's uniform,
and even Kep came in for his share of this.
"Are you a young officer, sir?" said one, as the lad essayed to pass in,
just as coolly as if the place were all his own.
"Halt! Are you a young gentleman, sir?"
Kep smiled his blandest, though with a slight air of hauteur in his
manner.
"I hope so," he replied emphatically.
The policeman touched his hat.
And an Irish marine who was doing sentry-go, seeing this, shouldered
arms as he passed, and Kep returned the salute with a flourish of his
hand capwards as he had seen real officers do on the street, when the
blue-jackets saluted.
"This is all very sweet," thought Kep, though the fact was that he was
sailing under false colours, for the policeman's "young gentleman,"
really meant "junior officer," although it ought to have struck him as
strange that even a naval cadet, if appointed, should be marching
through the dockyard in mufti. And this incident, trifling though it
appears, pleased Kep. It proved that he looked a little gentleman, and
not a second-class boy, nor shop-keeper's apprentice out for a day.
But everybody was not quite so polite to our little hero, for during his
peregrination he happened to stumble against a red-faced pompous looking
old officer, and made bold to salute.
This officer was in uniform and stopped to eye Kep for a moment.
"Hillo! young fellow, who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Just having a look around, sir."
"Cool. You don't belong to the service?"
"No, sir. That _is not_ yet."
The officer laughed.
"Here is sixpence for you," he said. "I rather like a cheeky boy.
Yonder is a gate, they'll let you out and they shouldn't have let you
in. Go and buy buns."
Poor Kep reddened to the roots of the hair. He took the coin, though it
seemed to burn his fingers and marched on towards the gate.
A bo's'n'smate accosted him next. "What ho! younk, whither away?
What's your tally?"
"I'm only just a little boy going to buy buns," said Kep, and they
parted.
The first thing he did, when he emerged, was to give that sixpence to a
small gutter-snipe girl. She examined it wonderingly.
"'Taint a reel un, is it boss?"
"Yes, quite, go and buy buns for yourself."
"Well, you be a softy, anyhow," she cried and darted off, shrieking with
delight. And, next moment, Kep ran right up against Jack himself.
"Come to bring you back home, sonny," said the kindly fellow. "Make
sure, you know, that you don't fall into mischief."
About two hours after this, Kep might have been seen in the tap-room of
the _Blue Ensign_ piping to a lot of jolly young sailors, as he stood on
the top of a table. A position, which I must admit was a trifle _infra
dignitate_--beneath the dignity--of Keppel Drummond, only son of a lord
of a manor. But Kep enjoyed it and so did the blue-jackets.
Well, Kep had supper with the landlady, Katie and Jack, in the cosy bar
parlour, quite a private party, be assured, and a very merry one as
well. This happened after ten o'clock, when the house was shut up for
the night.
To have seen Kep now, and heard his ringing laughter, as Jack spun his
droll service yarns, you could scarce have believed that he had any
sorrow at all at his heart. He did have though, and it is not easy to
forget so happy a home as that which he had just forsaken, only care
lies lightly on the shoulders of a lad of fourteen. He compounded with
his conscience, moreover, by promising to write nice letters home the
very next morning.
He bade his friends good-night at last, and was shown up to his little
room, a bit rough, perhaps, but everything as sweet and clean as new
silver.
Never a dream, and it was far into the morning before the sun shimmering
in through the window awoke him, and soon he was down to breakfast.
There came word now that the _Breezy_ was off, and so she was. Jack and
Kep started for the Hoe to see her sail past.
And Kep sighed. How he would have liked to be on board that low long
craft. Not perhaps so poetic-looking was she as a ship under sail with
every inch of canvas set to woo the wind, but her build and shape, and
clean cut bows suggested terrific force, terrible possibilities.
The variegated flutter of her signal flags as she flew through the blue
water, her great white ensign floating astern, and the sweet music of
her band playing, "Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye," everything about her
in fact, thrilled poor Kep till the tears filled his eyes.
They watched her getting smaller and smaller as she went stretching
seawards. Yes, and many more than they were watching her, for when our
sailors leave their native bonnie British shores, they leave many a
tearful face and many a breaking heart behind them.
There was more of sadness in Kep's breast as he walked back to the _Blue
Ensign_ than he had ever felt since the day his mother died.
He would work some of that off, however, by writing to his sister, and
his father, to say nothing of the good old priest and Duncan Rae. He
had much to write about to Madge, and, indeed, he felt somehow as if
years had elapsed since he had sat beside her on the green cliff-top.
The landlady of the inn vouchsafed to Kep some very good advice. He
must, she said, go back to his parents--Kep had not told her his
story--there was nothing else for it.
Kep patted her white podgy hand, and thanked her. "Your advice, mammy,"
he said, "is very excellent in its way, but it is advice of the feminine
gender, and I shall go to sea, whatever happens. I shall not return
home until I can do so with honour. My proud father shall never have to
say that his son is unworthy of his grand old name."
"And you really will go," said Katie mournfully.
"I must, Katie, but cheer up, my dear. O'er many seas and lands I'll
roam. Yet the heart of your sailor shall ever be true, and when my
wanderings are over, I'll return to Merrie England and marry my Katie."
This wasn't bad for a boy of fourteen, was it?
"Well, go if you must," said the landlady, "where are you bound to?"
"Yes," said Jack, "what is your next port, sonny?"
"I shall consider. Have you a Bradshaw, Katie?"
He opened the book at random, at the place where it tells one of
steamers that sail away to every part of the known world. It opened at
Southampton.
He closed his eyes now fast and hard, and stuck a pin into one of the
pages. It struck the West Indies.
Even Jack, old sailor though he was, was taken aback at the boy's
boldness.
"I shall go there!" he said. "My dear and charming Katie," he added
heroically, "Any spot on earth is a home for the brave."
*CHAPTER IV*
*IN SEARCH OF A SHIP*
That same day Keppel Drummond bade his friends of the _Blue Ensign_
goodbye.
The good landlady gave the boy her blessing. Katie gave him a bunch of
ribbons and he gave Katie a kiss. He was saucy enough almost for
anything.
"Goodbye, sonny," said Jack, "the world isn't so very wide, and we may
meet again."
Then with his bag over his shoulder Kep bore up for the railway-station
straight away, and in due time was deposited at Southampton.
The ship would sail in two days' time, so he went straight away and
booked himself a second-class passage. Then set out to purchase his
travelling box and kit. Kep did not mean to let the grass grow up
between his toes it he could help it.
I suppose the lad really had a good share of Scottish forethought in his
nature, as well as Italian frugality, and he counted his cash again, and
counted all costs before he booked. The landlady at the _Blue Ensign_
on giving him back his money had refused to accept a single coin for her
hospitality, and the boy had turned red when he remembered that he had
at first positively taken her pretty little hostelry for a boozing ken.
He did not go on board the _Paramaribo_ until the very last bell,
thinking that his youthful appearance might cause enquiries. It is so
seldom, if ever, that a boy of fourteen starts on so long a voyage
without a friend or guardian.
He posted another letter to Madge, his sister, before leaving, and a
little pink note to Katie, quite a boy's love letter in fact and of no
more value than most juvenile love letters. Only it pleased Katie. In
addition to Jack Stormalong, she could now boast that she had a little
boy lover far away on the stormy main.
Jack Stormalong was one day--if not eaten by blue sharks--going to marry
Katie, and the two were to have the _Blue Ensign_. But she showed Kep's
letter to Jack.
Jack took a pull at his beer and laughed. "Why, he _is_ a precockshious
lad and no mistake," he said. "He's bound to fall on his feet, Katie.
Bound to come out top-dog, or die for it."
Once on board, and settled down, our Kep was not long in making himself
friends. His flute with its blue ribbon did that for him. Of course,
it was away forward that he made his first friends. But soon his fame
became noised abroad and then Kep was invited aft to play. The boy's
knowledge of music was really phenomenal, and his execution on the piano
astonished everybody.
He called himself Charlie Bowser because in his pride he considered it
would be lowering his father's caste somewhat to travel second class
with his own name.
But apart from his musical talents some of the ladies aft took a great
fancy for our saucy self-contained boy. There was a mystery about him,
too, which was fascinating to many. Nor, when asked, did he hesitate to
say that he was travelling under an assumed name.
"But why should you run away from home, Charlie?" asked one lady, "so
bright a lad as you?"
"Only just to see a little life, dear lady," said the boy. "Perhaps
there is something radically wrong with my idiosyncracy, you know, but I
assure you I'm not running away an account of any evil I have done. I'm
not cut-purse and I never held up a coach nor even a motor-car."
"You are very young, Charlie!"
"A man," he replied, "is just as old as he feels, so I must be quite
twenty."
"I had the best Italian masters," he replied to another lady, who was
praising his musical talents. "My father talks several languages."
"And your mother, Charlie."
"Mother talked many more languages than father. But mother is with the
saints in Heaven, madam." This with a sigh.
"And in Heaven," he added, "they talk Latin, I suppose, or a kind of
refined Volapuk."
* * * * *
How very quickly the days flew by in the _Paramaribo_, the "old Pram,"
as the sailors unceremoniously called her. But the life to Kep was all
so new and delightful.
The voyage came to an end at last, and at Jamaica a really pleasant old
lady, as Kep called her in his own mind, resolved to carry the boy away
inland. Well, as he did not object to see a little of the beautiful
interior, he readily consented.
What a tropical paradise it was she brought him to! And life amidst the
sublimity of such mountain scenery, under a tropical sky, and with such
magnificence of flowers around him, was to Kep with his ardent
temperament and his love of romance and poetry like a foretaste of
Heaven.
The house itself was larger than his father's, as white as the snows of
Ben Nevis, wherever a glimpse could be caught of its walls, through the
wealth of climbing flowers that surrounded it and clustered over its
verandas.
The gardens were gorgeous, and Kep laughed with delight to see the
bright-winged birds dashing through and through the white spray of the
fountains, that played here and there on the sward.
The lady had a quiet and gentle husband who seemed to be her loving
slave, so fond was he of her. She had children too, boys and girls,
dark-eyed like himself and browned-skinned as Ethiops.
"Live here always, and for ever," said little Zuleika to him one day,
"and be our brother."
But there was restlessness in the boy's heart before he had been among
these enchanted hills and dells a fortnight.
"No, Zulee," he said. "I must away and soon," and then he told the
child all about his sister and his own English home, all that she could
understand.
"But take Zulee with you, home to your home, and your sister shall be
Zulee's sister."
"Well," said Kep, returning her innocent embrace, "I must leave Zulee
and come back for her some day--perhaps."
Kep was really burning to get away to sea in some capacity or another,
so promising to return and bid his new friends all adieu, as soon as he
had got a ship, our Kep journeyed back once more to Jamaica.
He had spent such a happy time, and they had been so good to him--but
then everybody was.
"Heigho!" the boy sighed. "Heaven must be such a nice place, just
because when you do make friends you keep them, and there are no more
cruel partings."
Kep found apartments in a tiny cactus-surrounded cottage, not far from
the busy parts of the city, yet cool and quiet--a little oasis in a
somewhat objectionable desert.
He counted his cash again, and found to his surprise that it could not
last for ever.
He must find work, and that work must be on board some sailing ship or
steamer.
Now, strangely enough, he did not find this so easy to do as he had
imagined. No one appeared to want a really talented boy on board ship,
and his repeated rebuffs began to tell on him. He grew just a trifle
less buoyant and hopeful.
How different were the shippy parts of the city into which trading
skippers dived here in search of wretched crews from those of his own
dear England.
There were "houffs" here, partly brandy shops, partly cafes, where these
same skippers were wont to call. And rough seamen frequented these in
search of a job--seamen ever so rough, gallows rogues of all nations,
apparently. And into these Kep had often to go and sit at some vile
little table sipping his black coffee and waiting.
These places reeked with the scum of all kinds of sea-bred rascality.
Reeked with sin and language so horrible that Kep was often terrified as
he sat in his half dark corner waiting for that something that was sure
to turn up some day, he told himself, but drink besotted men would
swagger in with knives in their belts that Kep felt sure had been used
in many a horrid melee. Then men would play dominoes with others of the
same calibre, drinking the while, and using terrible imprecations. Or
they would quarrel and fight or, if extra friendly, indulge in the
_aguardiente_, until they reeled and got kicked into corners there to
lie and snore, awaking only to call for more of their fiery potations.
Kep never took his money to such places, preferring to leave it at his
little cottage. This was the house of two Creoles, but they were
kindness personified to their brave little lodger, so he had no fear of
dishonesty.
When Kep wrote to his sister now, he did not tell her a word about his
anxiety and hardships, which would have grieved her, so all his letters
breathed the poetry and romance of the beautiful island into which Fate
had thrown him.
The boy was sitting one afternoon in a somewhat dark corner of a dingy
cafe, making his cup last as long as possible before calling for
another, when there entered and sat down at the long table about half a
dozen men. One who appeared to be chief called for coffee and brandy.
The men whom the skipper, for such he turned out to be, was endeavouring
to engage as seamen, were a mixed lot, and as villainous-looking as any
Kep had yet seen in this particular cafe. Badly dressed, hulking
fellows, with a cast of the butcher in every one of them. The boy felt
sure these men would do anything or commit any crime for money. But the
skipper experienced great difficulty in bargaining with them. One was an
immense hulk of a negro, who spoke English after a fashion. Of the
other five one only was a Britisher, and easily dealt with. It was
different with the big Turk, the Italian, and the two Spaniards.
"I fear it is no go," grunted the skipper, himself an American.
"Garcon!"
"Oui, m'sieu."
"Have you anyone in your place that can translate me the garble these
chaps are talking? Can pay for an interpreter?"
Kep had been hustled into a corner by this tall skipper and was only
waiting for a chance to escape.
As the garcon was unable to solve the difficulty and get the skipper out
of the clove-hitch, the boy tapped him modestly on the shoulder.
He turned at once and gave Kep a little more room.
"Strike me lucky!" he said, "if I knowed there war any crittur there."
Kep smiled conciliatively.
"I know all that these men are saying," he said.
"Well, fire away, younk, and I pay you smartly."
"I don't want pay. I'm looking for a ship like the rest of them, and if
you can help me, I'll be glad to do anything I can for you."
"You're true blue? Nothing of this sort?"
As he spoke he adroitly picked his red silk handkerchief from his own
pocket and nimbly palmed it.
Kep laughed rightly merrily.
"Oh, no, I'm not a thief," he said.
"Waal, then, just look jerky, and tell these beggars all I ask you to."
So jerky did Kep look and act that in two minutes' time the men were
engaged.
"And that," said the skipper, "makes up my complement, and when they've
signed articles, we'll sail."
"Bothered!" he added, "if I don't think you'd do, boy, to help our
steward and cook. You look a play-acting kind of a chap, can ye do
anything likely to amoose us."
"I can pipe if the men want to dance on a Saturday night, or when you're
heaving the capstan."
"Pipe? Waal, I'd like to hear yer."
Out came the little piccolo, and in half a minute Kep commanded the
whole situation. Drunken sailors crawled out of their corners to dance,
sailors' sweethearts all kinds and colours joined in, and even the
doorway was blocked by dusky faces listening.
It was a mad five minutes.
"Hurrah!" cried the skipper, beating the table with his brown fist.
"Strike me lucky if ever I heard its equal! Why, siree, the pied piper
of Hamelin wouldn't be in it with you. Give us yer flipper, younk.
Will you sign on?"
"Yes, you are going to queer places evidently. I'll sign on. I'll see
life."
Something like a cloud shadow darkened the skipper's face for just an
instant.
"You'll maybe see death, too, lad. But there, you look a good plucked
one. Come, we'll march these beggars on board, else they'll get drunk
and bilk us."
They had a long way to row, but at last found themselves alongside a
tall dark taper-masted barque. Though the paint was washed off her sides
a bit, she looked good and sea-worthy, and Kep liked the golden hue of
her copper bottom as she heeled over now and then to the swell.
The skipper invited Kep down to the cabin, which was large and roomy
with doors off it, leading into staterooms at each side and the
spirit-room abaft. It was comfortably, though not luxuriously
furnished, and the great black tom-cat asleep in the captain's easychair
gave an air of extra cosiness to the place.
"Have a drink? No? Better not. Had Nat Stainer, and that's me, never
touched, tasted nor handled, he'd have been a Commodore in the United
States Navy by this time."
Kep was sent on shore, promising to be off early in the morning.
He paid his bill, and bade his hostess a kindly good-bye, and at two
bells next forenoon watch, his boat was rasping against the sides of the
_Macbeth_.
A Jacob's ladder was thrown him carelessly, and up he scrambled and
stood once more on deck.
General confusion reigned throughout, but probably not more than we
usually find on ships of this kind about to leave for a long voyage.
But this confusion was worse confused, owing to many of the crew being
unacquainted with the language in which orders were given, for the
second mate who had charge of this watch was a Finn.
To him Kep reported himself, saluting as he did so. All he received in
return was a kind of grunt.
"We don't care much for man-o'-war prattle here," he said. "Go and find
something, do. Translate my orders to these grub-eaters."
After doing so for a whole hour, Kep, who was willing and cheerful,
bolted down the after companion to the pantry, where he found the
steward, a little black-haired young man, with a pleasant face. He was
an Austrian, or Swiss, at any rate he talked good French, and for this
Kep was thankful.
He had not much to say at first, and the boy was unwilling to force the
conversation. Presently, however, he wheeled round on Kep, rubbing hard
at a spoon as he did so.
"I think you weel like dis sheep?" he said.
"I don't know yet," returned Kep. "I hope so. Do you?" He spoke in
French now. The steward shook his head.
"Glad," he said, "you talk French; we will be companions, comrades. But
I am so poor, I must sail in anything. See here."
He took two strides farther forward as he spoke and picked up an
electric lantern.
"Follow me. The Capitan has not yet come off, and we sail this
evening." He led the way into the saloon, and through it to the
spirit-room door, which he opened with a bright and shining key. He now
let the lantern's glare fall on the deck inside. It was splatched and
spotted with black, so were the bulkheads.
"Claret?" said Kep.
"Blood," said the little steward. "They fought in there. Now come this
way." He threw open the door of the Captain's stateroom and kicked away
a grass mat. Ominous stains again. "Just there," he continued, "the
first mate died. Shot down he was by the master."
"Murder?" And Kep shuddered a little.
"Who can say, the mate had a knife, the Capitan was quicker, he had a
revolver."
Kep was undoubtedly brave, yet for some seconds he seemed to be turned
into stone.
"Was there an inquest, an enquiry?"
"No, we were far at sea. The mate was buried two hours afterwards _sans
ceremonie_. The blood kept dropping through the blanket we had sewn him
in, and the stains will never leave the stairs."
"But surely such things call aloud for----"
"Hush! hush!" cried Dolphin (his name was Adolphus), "we speak not so
here. And list, that is the Capitan's voice, he is just coming over the
side."
Dolphin hurried to the pantry and was singing cheerfully at his work
when the Captain came down below.
He nearly run Kep down, being sun-blind for a time. "Hullo, little
piper, I can feel it is you. Can't see much, though. Dolphin, knock the
head off a bottle of fizz. We'll be out o' here by five."
"I say," he continued after swallowing a smoking tumblerful of the
champagne. "I say, Dolphin, mum's the stuff I'm drinking, ain't it?"
"It is, sir."
"Waal, mum's the word you've got to remember when talking to any new
hand, else----"
The rest of the sentence was hissed into the steward's ear, and the
little man turned a shade paler.
There was some sort of mystery and horror about this ship that crept
coldly round our Kep's heart. He had half a mind to ask to be put on
shore, but that would have been cowardly. He did not even like the
barque's name--_Macbeth_. There was something ominous about it, and the
word rhymes with death.
"You are to be told off to do all sorts of odd jobs," said Dolphin, soon
after this, "but I think you'll be principally the Capitan's servant and
interpreter."
"I'll be glad to be busy," said Kep.
The anchor was got up, and sail set, and with much noise, and terrible
shouting. Then she slid away towards the open sea, but the first watch
had well begun before the cargo, heavy barrels and boxes, was stowed
away even temporarily. Should it come on to blow a bit during the night
this cargo would shift, and there would be more noise than ever.
Adolphus and Kep had a wretched little state-room next to the pantry.
Hardly six feet square was it, with a ventilator in the door and one
scuttle which could only be carried open in calm weather.
There was the evil odour of cockroaches here too, and as soon as the
light was put out they rustled and ran all over the beds in a way which
was not at all pleasant for our hero.
But Kep was tired and was soon in the land of dreams.
He was up at four bells, and went on deck bare-footed--the men were
washing decks--to plash about and see the red sun rise over hills of
rolling water.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE SHIP "MACBETH."--HORRIBLE MUTINY*
Wind some points abaft the beam, the _Macbeth_ on the starboard tack,
and heeling prettily over to it, doing about ten knots.
On such a morning as this, in these warm and sparkling seas, on which
showers of diamonds seemed to be falling, with the light blue overhead
and the darker below, who could help being joyful.
In their curious and mixed "garble" the men laughed and joked, and even
sang as they sluiced the water about and plied their scrubbers.
Now and then half a watch, obedient to the mate's command, would take a
pull at the traces, "Lee-hoe-ing" as they did so, as musically as the
song of the sea-birds, until the shout "Belay!" fell on their ears.
By sunset of that first day every man was acquainted with his quarters,
so to speak, and the crew had settled down. The skipper, first and
second mates, and bo's'n lived in the saloon, the older and best men,
chips, the cooper, and so forth were in the half-deck, and forward,
below or above deck, as suited them, the rest of the crew bunked.
Despite the terrible tale which Dolphin had told him, the tragedy of
last voyage, Kep thought he was bound to be happy. At the same time he
had already made up his mind that he would try to find another vessel
when they reached Sidney. So he waited at table, he helped cook and
steward, and he piped or played to the men in the evening, as well as
being interpreter to the crew. He found that none of the officers or
crew, except Dolphin, had been in her last voyage; I suppose the skipper
made sure of that.
The men had all nicknames which seemed to grow upon them, or be
suggested by their general appearance. There was one low-built squat
fellow his comrades called "Kruger." A black man of gigantic strength
"Slogger." From the first Kep was half afraid of this fellow. His
great bare black feet and ankles, his immense naked neck and tattoed
chest, his brutal figure-head and daring looks, all were repulsive. And
he was so black that when in the sunshine he scratched one forearm, he
left white streaks on it. But he was a good seaman. There was only one
worse-looking man in the ship, though he was white. This was "Bloody
Tom." Then there was "Long-shanks," expressive enough; "Spider-legs,"
the "Turk," and so on and so forth.
These I have named were the men that really dominated the rest of the
crew, and whom, some time after this, Kep had good reason to remember.
They all of them, notwithstanding their looks, were good to Kep. This
almost goes without saying, for away forward, after sundown, he could
spin yarns that kept them laughing by the hour.
The Turk turned out a decent kind of hulk, and Kep would tell even him
droll stories in his own tongue.
One day this man, while alone with Kep in the ship's waist, asked the
boy to feel the keenness of a huge knife he carried.
"If anything ever happens," he told the boy, "I'll be your friend."
This Turk was called the "Prophet." Why, Kep could not tell.
The _Macbeth_ was partly in ballast, but she landed a good deal of stuff
at Rio and took in much more heavy cargo. No man on board, except the
captain, knew what this cargo was. It consisted chiefly of huge,
square, very heavy boxes.
Some thought it must be specie, but the Turk declared it was sand.
But why sand? We shall soon see. The ship was now stretching away down
the South Atlantic, and in good time for such a slow and heavy sailer
she doubled Cape Horn, and now bore north and west. Dolphin said he had
no faith in the skipper, and that he merely told this story of their
being bound for the Cape as a blind. He was going to do something bad.
Dolphin was sure of this.
Dolphin told Kep one night after they had retired, told him in French
and in whispers, that when the skipper was on deck the day before, and
it was "all hands shorten sail," he had found papers in the old man's
stateroom which proved that the _Macbeth_ was a coffin ship, and that he
and the first mate had agreed for a large sum of money to scuttle and
sink her first chance. There was to be no bloodshed if possible. The
men were to take to the boats when not far off a certain island, and
would be picked up by another vessel sent on purpose by the same
company.
The _Macbeth_, of course, with her supposed cargo of considerable value,
was heavily insured.
It might not be supposed that in the year of our Lord 1906, the date of
this tale, such things could be possible; but list, my lads. Though
this story is predated, the facts actually occurred only a few years
ago. And what happened in 1901 may well occur in 1906. As you are not
reading fiction altogether, I like to paint the sea and sea-life in as
bright colours as I can, but ah! while there is a romance about it,
which is beautiful and glorious, the sea also hath its perils and its
grim tragedies; and we are bound sometimes to look at the dark side.
Kep did not sleep a deal that night. He lay long awake thinking, and
when slumber did at last seal his eyelids, it brought with it dreams
that had more terror in them than even his waking thoughts.
The ship anyhow had not only proved herself a leaky and unseaworthy tub,
the rattle of the pumping engine being heard in every watch, but the
crew speedily became a discontented one. The skipper and first mate
were only pleasant towards evening, while in their "cups." By day they
behaved, often enough, like very fiends to the men. Rope's-ending was a
daily matter of occurrence; men, lashed to the lower rigging, especially
the young ones, were often heard shrieking in their agony.
One poor fellow was booted off the poop by the captain himself, and
though his leg was smashed, he was clapped in irons for what was called
mutinous conduct.
Adolphus now set himself to watch the captain and mate, who of a night
used to be very much together in the chief state-room.
The steward about ten o'clock would beg leave to retire.
"Put the brandy and glasses in my room, then, and you may go, Dolphin,"
would be the usual reply.
But as soon as the saloon was in darkness and he could hear the sounds
of carousal in the state-room, Dolphin crept on hands and knees towards
the sanctum. The two conspirators one night had the chart between them.
"It is down here, just off these islands, we are to do the job," the
former was saying.
He placed a finger on the chart as he spoke; and, raising himself
gently--for death would have speedily followed discovery--the steward
drew aside the curtain till he could see the very spot the finger
indicated.