_LITERA SCRIPTA MANET_
"Mr. Marrable, did ever ye see a drookit craw?"
"No."
"Well, see me!" announced Mr. Goble complacently.
He crawled out of the engine-room companionway and sat down on the deck.
Excessive spruceness had never been a foible of his, but now he was an
unrecognisable mass of coal-dust, oil, and rust. He was dripping wet,
for he had spent the last hour in an exhaustive examination of the
Orinoco's waterlogged internal economy. The morning sun was warm, and he
steamed comfortably as he detailed the result of his investigations to
Hughie, who in some imperceptible but inevitable manner had taken
command of the tiny ship's company.
Shorn of technicalities and irrelevant excursions into the regions of
pawky philosophy, Mr. Goble's report came to this.
Mr. Angus had pumped out the after ballast-tank during the night,
allowing the water, by means of a specially rigged return-pipe, to flow
into the bilges of the ship instead of escaping overboard. By this
device he had altered the Orinoco's centre of gravity in such a manner
as to produce the afore-mentioned down-hill slant of her decks--a
corroborative detail, as Pooh-Bah would have observed, which gave a
little much-needed artistic verisimilitude to the Bimbo Brothers' bald
and unconvincing narrative of disaster. Incidentally he had flooded the
forehold and engine-room with sufficient water to give those members of
the ship's company who were not in their employer's confidence the
impression that she was sinking, and to furnish those who were with a
_prima facie_ argument for deserting her.
But these thoughtful precautions, though sufficient to procure the
abandonment of the Orinoco, were by no means sufficient to send her to
the bottom, a consummation to be achieved at any cost; for to leave
your ship lying about in mid-ocean, to be picked up by the first
chance-comer, while you go hurrying home to extract a cheque from the
insurance company, savours of slipshod business methods; and Mr. Noddy
Kinahan was nothing if not thorough.
Now every steamer which plies under Lloyds' ægis is fitted, below the
water-line, with a set of what are called bilge-valves. Through these it
is possible to expel any water which may have found its way into the
body of the vessel. As it is even more desirable to prevent the entrance
of water into your ship than to assist its exit, these valves are of
a strictly "non-return" variety, and no amount of pressure from
the outside should ever prevail upon them to play the part of
Facing-Both-Ways. The very life of the ship depends upon them; and the
enterprising individual who tampers with their mechanism in such a
manner as to convert what is meant to be an Emergency Exit into a sort
of Early Door for the rolling deep, does so at the risk of coming into
immediate and painful collision with the criminal laws of his country.
Mr. Angus, it appeared, had been employing some of his spare time during
the voyage in reversing one of these bilge-valves, with such skill and
_finesse_ that, as we have seen, one had only to give a turn to a
worm-and-wheel gear in the engine-room to admit the Atlantic Ocean in
large quantities.
"Oh, he has a heid on him, has Angus!" commented Mr. Goble with
professional appreciation, "even when he's fou'. He made a rare job o't.
But how he managed to contrive that imitation o' a collision, merely
through some jookery-packery wi' the reverse-gear and throttle, wi'oot
tearin' the guts oot o' her, I div not ken. Man, it was a fair conjurin'
trick! By rights the link motion should be twisted intil a watch-chain
and the cross-heids jammit in the guides. But they're no. It's jist
Providence, I doot," he added rather apologetically, with the air of one
who should have thought of this sooner.
Then he uprose from his seat on an inverted bucket.
"Before I gang ben, sir," he concluded, "tae change ma feet and ma
breeks, I'll tak' the liberty tae inquire of you what you propose tae
dae next. Maircy me! Yon's Walsh."
Two figures had appeared round the corner of the chart-house, their
presence on the far side thereof having been advertised for some time by
the clanking of the deck-pumps. (Mr. Angus's precaution of blowing off
steam before leaving had put mechanical assistance in getting rid of the
water out of the question for the time being.)
"Yes, it's me," said Walsh, who, it will be remembered, was the second
engineer, to whom Hughie had recently been acting as deputy. "I should
have come on duty at eight bells to relieve Angus, but I slept right
through everything till Mr. Marrable found me in my bunk an hour or two
ago. I expect they put something in my grog last night."
"It's quite a hobby of theirs," said Allerton drily. "Mr. Marrable, I
have found something that may be useful to us."
He handed his superior officer a damp but undamaged little packet of
papers.
"Where did you find them?" asked Hughie. "I thought I had gone through
Kingdom's kit pretty thoroughly."
"They were sticking in the falls of the davits belonging to the boat
Kingdom went off in," replied Allerton. "I saw him hurrying along the
deck from his cabin just before his departure, carrying the log-book and
some papers and instruments. I expect he dropped these as he went over
the side."
"Sit down, everybody," said the commander, "we'll see this through. It
may concern us all."
The packet contained two letters, together with some invoices and bills
of lading referring chiefly to the Orinoco's cargo of astringent claret.
Hughie glanced through the letters. Then he re-read them with some
deliberation. Then he whistled low and expressively. Then he sat up and
sighed, gently and contentedly.
"Mr. Noddy Kinahan," he said, "is shortly going to wish, with all his
benevolent and philanthropic little heart, that he had never been born.
And we are the people that are going to make him wish. Listen!"
He read the two letters aloud. They were brief, but explicit. One
contained Kinahan's orders to Kingdom as to the disposal of the Orinoco.
The other was a sort of invoice, or consignment note, relating to the
person of one Marrable, who had apparently been shipped on board the
night before the ship sailed. Each of these documents, it may be added,
contained sufficient matter to ensure penal servitude for their author.
Hughie stopped reading, and there was a long and appreciative silence.
Then Allerton said:--
"What beats me is to understand how Kinahan could have been such a mug
as to commit these schemes to paper, and how Kingdom should have been
such a fool as to want to keep them. _I'd_ have let them go down in the
Orinoco."
"I expect one explanation covers both cases," said Hughie. "Kingdom
probably demanded his orders in black and white, as a guarantee that he
would get his money when he had done his job. Otherwise he had no claim
on Kinahan for a penny, beyond his ordinary wage as skipper. Kinahan
probably agreed, stipulating that the letters should be handed back to
him when they squared accounts. It was a risky thing to do, but when two
thieves can't trust each other, and go dropping about documentary
evidence to that effect--well, that's where poor but deserving people
like ourselves come in. No, I shouldn't think Kingdom _would_ want to
leave these behind; and I opine that he's a pretty sick man by this time
if he has missed them."
He folded the letters up, and put them away carefully.
"Now, gentlemen," he said briskly, "I propose that we go below and see
if there is sufficient steam on the Orinoco to pump the rest of the
water out of her and get the propeller revolving again. We'll have to
damp down most of the fires, because we can't run too many firemen, but
I think we ought to knock four or five knots out of her in ordinary
weather. Luckily, seventy-five _per cent_ of the ship's company are
competent engineers. After that we'll have some breakfast, and after
that we'll make tracks for home. We'll work"--he smacked his lips
cheerily, like an energetic pedagogue on the first morning of term--"in
shifts of three. Two men will run the engine-room and stokehold, and the
third will take the wheel. The fourth can sleep. That will give us each
eighteen hours on and six hours off. I don't know where we are, and I
have no means of finding out, as Captain Kingdom has walked off with the
chart and most of the proper instruments. But we must be near land, or
they would not have taken to the boats yet. If we keep steaming steadily
east (with a little north in it), at about a hundred miles a day,--which
I fancy is about our limit,--we should knock up against something sooner
or later. And when we do, we'll get hold of the proper authorities, and
I venture to think that with the help of these two letters and that
doctored bilge-valve down below we shall be able to prepare a welcome
for those three boat-loads of shipwrecked mariners, when they arrive,
that will surprise them. Also, I fancy there will be pickings for you in
the way of salvage. What a game!" Hughie stood up, and inhaled a great
breath. This was real life! "Are you _on_, boys?" he cried suddenly. "Is
the old Orinoco going to the bottom this journey?"
The crew rose at him and gave three cheers.
* * * * *
Later that afternoon, as the Orinoco pounded along at a strictly
processional pace through the ruffling waters,--the glass was falling
and a breeze getting up,--Deputy-Quartermaster Lionel Hinchcliffe
Welford-Welford Allerton, late scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge,
sometime Assistant Deck-Hand in the mercantile marine, descried from his
post on the bridge a small moving object upon the starboard bow.
It was the Orinoco's whale-boat, which was proceeding under two lugsails
on a course parallel with the steamer's.
Allerton, who in the excitement of salving the Orinoco had almost
forgotten the existence of the gang of buccaneers who had scuttled her,
excitedly rang the telegraph bell and summoned the rest of the ship's
company to his side.
The emotions, however, aroused in the Orinoco by the sight of the
whale-boat were mild in comparison with those excited in the undutiful
whale-boat by the spectacle of her resuscitated parent. Mr. Angus, on
beholding the steamer, kept discreetly silent. He had given himself away
by seeing things which were not there once or twice in his life before.
But Captain Kingdom turned a delicate apple-green.
"Look there!" he gasped, pointing.
"Yon bit cloud, ye mean?" said the cautious Angus.
"No, no, man--the Orinoco!" cried the frantic skipper.
"Oh--the shup! Aye, aye!" replied Mr. Angus, rather pleased than
otherwise.
"There's a crew on board her," continued Kingdom shakily. "And she's got
steam on her, too!"
"Aye," said Mr. Angus. "I doot somebody will have closed yon sea-cock
again."
"Who can it be?" demanded the captain feverishly. "Surely we left no one
on board. I told Dingle to take that fellow Marrable in his boat."
"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Angus, "yin of the other boats cam' back."
Kingdom pointed impatiently to two small specks upon the horizon.
"They're there," he said.
"Maybe some liner has come across her and left a bit crew on board her,"
continued the fertile Mr. Angus.
"If so, we'd have seen the liner," replied Kingdom irritably.
He took up his binoculars and began to scrutinise the Orinoco, which had
altered her course a few points in their direction.
Mr. Angus had a fresh inspiration.
"Did ye mind tae wauken Walsh?" he whispered. "If not, ye ken he micht
weel--"
The captain lowered his glasses, and nodded.
"He might be one," he agreed; "but there are four men on deck." He
raised his binoculars again. "Yes, there they are. Well, whoever they
are and whatever the game is, we must get on board again and do the job
properly this time.--Hallo, one of them is running below!--Here he is
again!--He's carrying something--flags, I reckon. They're going to
signal us."
He was right. Up to the topmost summit of the Orinoco's grimy foremast
travelled a signal--a banner with a strange device indeed, but conveying
a perfectly intelligible message for all that. It consisted of the
nether or unmentionable portion of a ragged suit of orange-and-red
striped pyjamas.
Having reached its destination, it inflated itself in the freshening
breeze and streamed out, defiant and derisive, in the rays of the
setting sun; flinging to the fermenting couple in the whale-boat the
simple but comprehensive intimation--"Sold!"
Then, with one single joyous toot from her siren, the Orinoco altered
her course a couple of points and wallowed off in a north-easterly
direction, leaving the crew of the whale-boat to listen in admiring
silence to a sulphurous antistrophe in two dialects proceeding from the
stern-sheets.