Back to Primitive Things
Many harsh and ignorant things have been written concerning the masters
of ships, principally, I think, because of the crimes committed by
a few of them. Therefore I feel that it ought to be plainly stated
that, remembering the temptation a shipmaster in a sailing ship on a
long voyage is subjected to daily, it speaks well for human nature
in general, and for seafarers in particular, that those crimes have
been so few, so very few in proportion to the number of individuals
who have been tempted to the commission of them. It is too often
forgotten by those who ignorantly write upon this subject how free
from all restraint save that of his own conscience is the master of
a sailing ship at sea on a long passage. If he be a cruel, brave
bully and tyrant--and believe me the bully is _not_ always a coward
as is generally supposed--he finds abundant opportunity to gratify
his propensities and is almost sure of immunity from retribution when
the vessel reaches port from the well-known careless character of his
victims.
Where he has a few passengers another side of him may develop, as with
Captain Eldridge, a side that must be touched very lightly upon but
which all will understand, and many have been the tragedies resulting
from his lack of gentlemanly self-restraint. And in the present case
all the indications pointed to a tragedy fast approaching as the
captain, encouraged by the apparently entire indifference of the two
male passengers, pressed his unwelcome attentions daily with more
perseverance upon the young wife. She, poor girl, took great care never
to be alone; when her father remained in his cabin she remained in
hers, C. B. being always fully occupied with work among the seamen. But
Captain Eldridge lay in wait for her, and as soon as she appeared on
deck with her father he took all sorts of interest in placing chairs,
getting wraps, etc., and then when they were settled seating himself by
the lady’s side and paying her all sorts of odious compliments in a low
voice while ogling her in a peculiarly bold and insolent manner.
With all the desire in the world to keep the peace and natural fear of
the consequences of any action being taken on her part, Mary felt that
she must do something soon. She could not ask her husband to remain
with her always, for she loved to see him exercising his mighty limbs
at really hard work, and knew how much he felt the need of exercise.
Not only so, but she hated to disturb his quiet serenity of mind by the
hideous suggestion that the captain was paying assiduous court to his
wife, and besides she had nothing definite to go upon, even her father
would have been unable to substantiate a complaint.
Presently the matter was taken out of her hands in a quite unexpected
manner. The chief mate, a very keen young Philadelphian named Haynes,
keeping his eye upon his chief as all mates do, was disgusted to
see how Mrs. Adams was persecuted by him. He himself scarcely ever
had a chance to speak to her, and there may well have been a spice
of jealousy in his mind, but in any case he was very angry with his
skipper and contemptuous of C. B.’s want of perception. Yet he had
grown very fond of C. B., as indeed everybody had but the skipper, and
the more he grew to like him the less could he understand his apparent
neglect of his wife, leaving her to be pestered continually by the
skipper.
At last he could restrain himself no longer, and calling C. B. into his
berth one afternoon watch below, he said, after fidgeting about a bit--
“Look here, old man, I’ve got very fond of you--I believe you’re about
as good as they make ’em, but I’m hanged if I can understand how you
allow Eldridge to persecute your wife as he does. He never lets her
alone. And if you had any eyes in your head you’d see how peaky she’s
gettin’ with all the worry of it. I don’t want to make trouble, I’ve
got my living to get, but I honestly couldn’t see this cruel game going
on any longer without warnin’ you, as you don’t seem able to see a hole
through a ladder.” And all the time the mate was speaking he watched C.
B.’s face. It showed no signs of change except that the lips tightened
up a bit and the dark eyes glowed with a sombre fire. At last he spoke.
“Thank you very much, Haynes, I’ll see to it at once. I’m afraid I am
guilty of neglect, and I can never forgive myself for being so selfish.
I thought she was happy with her books and her work and her father,
and that I was pleasing her by working about the ship. I didn’t dream
of anything of this kind happening. But,” and he rose, holding out his
hand, “I’m very grateful to you, Haynes, for your warning, which I’m
going to act upon now.” And he strode out of the cabin, Haynes watching
him with a queer sensation of wonder as to how the storm would burst,
for burst it would he felt sure.
C. B. went straight to his cabin, but his wife was not there. From
thence he ascended to the deck, where he saw, as if it had been
arranged for him, a tableau such as the mate had been speaking about.
There was his father-in-law asleep with an open book in his hand in one
deck chair, his wife in another next to the old gentleman, and seated
on a cushion at her feet the skipper, whose face, distinctly visible
to C. B.’s eagle vision from where he was, bore an expression entirely
evil. His wife’s face he could not see, but he went quickly towards
her, saying--
“Mary, dear, will you come down for a moment, I want to speak to you.”
She rose immediately, turning towards him as she did so, and he saw
that her dear face was pale and drawn and that her eyes were full of
tears. Choking down the awful wrath he felt rising within him at the
sight, he assisted her into their cabin, closed the door, and said--
“Mary, dear, forgive me, I never dreamed of neglecting you, but I see
that I have. And I fear that I have subjected you to persecution of a
very bad kind. Tell me, dear, what has the captain done?”
She looked doubtfully at him for a moment as if wondering what the
outcome would be, but she was too much akin to him in soul to palter
with the truth through fear, so she said--
“Dear love, he has been very offensive for some time now. His actual
words have had little meaning in them for me, though I know they all
had a double intention, but his eyes and his looks generally have
filled me with horror. I have felt again and again that I must tell
you, but, dear one, I dreaded a scene, I find I don’t know you well
enough even yet, and then there was nothing actually to complain about
except his looks. But he certainly has made me very unhappy, and there
could be no mistake as to his meaning.”
Again C. B. said with grave penitence--
“Forgive me, dear, I had not imagined that men could be so vile. I
suppose to them I must look like a semi-idiot. However, you shall have
no more of this. I will go to him now.”
The captain was just then coming down into his stateroom whistling
dreamily, and C. B., following him to the door, said--
“I should like a few words with you, Captain Eldridge.”
“Oh!” returned the skipper insolently, “what about?”
“About your behaviour to my wife, which, I’m sorry to say, has been
entirely rude and distressing to her, making her feel quite ill. It has
I find been a topic of general conversation in the ship, but I, being
exceedingly unsuspicious and never dreaming that a gentleman could
behave so, have left her more than I ought to have done, and you have
taken advantage of this simplicity of mine to behave as you have. Now
my eyes are opened, I tell you this must cease.”
While C. B. was speaking Captain Eldridge’s face grew almost livid with
rage, his eyebrows contracted until they met across the bridge of his
nose, and as soon as C. B. had finished he snarled out--
“Looky here, Mr. Educated Coon, I’ll allow no nigger to talk to me like
that on board my ship, and if you open your head to me again on the
subject, I’ll shoot ye: understand that. Now get out o’ my stateroom
an’ keep yer squaw out o’ my way.”
C. B. retreated, keeping his eyes fixed upon the scoundrel, who
doubtless at that moment would have carried out his threat, so mad was
he. As soon as C. B. reached his cabin, where he was awaited by his
wife, he entered, closed the door and fell upon his knees, crying in
agony of soul, “Lord, keep my hands, keep my temper, save me from doing
wrong. Don’t let that man try me beyond endurance, and see right done.”
Then he sprang up, calm again, and told his wife all that had happened,
only leaving out the opprobrious epithet applied to her by the captain.
As soon as he had done so he went on deck and sought Mr. Stewart, to
whom he told the story. The old gentleman listened with compressed lips
and lowering brows until it was finished, then said with a sigh, “Well,
I guess we’re in the hands of a deep-dyed scoundrel, and we shall not
have much of a gaudy time from this out. Now we shall all have to learn
from you how to bring God into all our troubles, or else feel pretty
miserable.”
Indeed he was right, for from thenceforth no indignity that it was in
Captain Eldridge’s power to inflict upon them was omitted. He really
seemed as if he laid awake at night thinking over new ways of annoying
them. And the poor wretch did not know that only by constant prayer and
watchfulness did C. B. restrain himself from slaying him with his bare
hands. Coincidently with this development another arose. Every member
of the crew knew of what had happened in the mysterious way that news
spreads on board ship, and especially resented the way in which the
skipper continually vented his wrath and disappointment upon them. Not
only the foremast hands but the officers were thus disaffected, and
undoubtedly the ship was getting fully ripe for mutiny.
Every time that C. B. came on deck it seemed as if the skipper was
waiting for him, and insults and provocations came thick and fast. With
his hand in his hip pocket where his revolver lay, the dastard (for a
man must be a dastard who insults and abuses an unarmed man, having
himself a lethal weapon) would hurl every epithet of contumely that he
could invent at the great fellow, who took not the slightest notice of
him until one day, maddened by the contemptuous silence as he deemed
it of the passenger, he hurled a foul and filthy insult at Mary. With
a leap like a tiger’s C. B. was upon him in spite of the quick shots
fired, had torn the revolver from his grip and flung it overboard, and
then, forcing him to his knees, said in a voice that was terrible in
its deep calm--
“You bad man, you don’t know how near you have been to hell. Abuse me
all you care to, it’s better than praise from a man like you; but if
you value your life, don’t say a syllable against the good woman who is
my wife. She is no subject for your foul lips.”
With that C. B. released him and he staggered to his feet, all his
crew looking on at his discomfiture. If there be a greater punishment
for a man than he then endured without possibility of retaliation I do
not know of it. He had no second revolver, or he would assuredly have
gone and loaded it and laid for C. B., and shot him from some secure
hiding-place, after the most approved American methods. He staggered
into his cabin, shouted for his steward, and when that trembler
appeared, he said--
“Go an’ get a revolver from either Mr. Haynes’ cabin or Mr. Fisher’s
(the second mate), I don’t care which; but get me one or I’ll smash yer
face in.”
The steward fled on deck and, seeing the mate, almost screamed--
“Oh, Mr. Haynes, the skipper wants yer revolver, says he’ll kill me
if I don’t get it for him. I believe he’s gone mad. Oh dear, oh dear,
whatever I’ll do I don’t know.”
The mate’s face darkened, and, turning contemptuously away from the
steward, he went below and rapped sharply at the skipper’s stateroom
door.
“Come in,” was snapped at him, and pushing back the door he looked in
at the skipper, who was standing like a wolf at bay.
“What you want?” he snarled, and the mate replied--
“I understand you sent the steward to search my room for my revolver.
Now see here, what’s in that room’s mine, and don’t you dare to meddle
with it or there’ll be bigger trouble than you want. I’m at your
service on deck, but my room’s mine and no man’s coming into it without
my leave.” With that the mate turned on his heel and made for the deck
again.
Now although the atmosphere seemed surcharged with electricity nothing
happened. Stewart and his daughter both implored C. B. to be very
wary and careful of the skipper, but he smiled placidly as usual, and
replied that a greater care than he could exercise was being manifested
for all of them: and went on his usual way.
They were now getting down into the “roaring Forties,” and the stern
weather characteristic of those immense southern spaces had set in.
Needless to say the vessel was handled in seamanlike fashion, because
she was a Yankee clipper, and it is not possible to imagine them being
handled otherwise. So as the great west wind rushed out of its lair,
they trimmed their yards to it, set up preventer backstays, swayed up
all halyards and tautened all sheets, while the beautiful craft, like
a high-mettled steed, laid herself down to her mighty race over the
six-thousand-mile course.
Great was the temptation to C. B. to help in these hard doings, to join
in the work when she was shipping green seas over all, but he dared not
leave his wife again for one minute, for he feared what the malevolent
ingenuity of the skipper might effect. And he dared not trust his
father-in-law, who seemed to have developed a strange habit for him of
reading himself off to sleep at any hour of the day. It looked as if
the stimulus of money getting having been removed, he was sinking into
a lethargy from which it would need something very urgent to arouse
him. And as he was only sixty-two that was a bad sign.
Eastward, at three hundred miles a day, the good ship sped, the wind
and sea holding steady and true. C. B. and his wife watched her flying
over the immense combers with unconquerable energy, not lightly as the
sprite-like wanderers of the ocean that floated above, but as if in
full crashing triumph over all obstacles and dangers. Neither of them
had ever such an experience before, but it appealed most to C. B.,
whose recollections of the leisurely movements of the old whaler were
entirely at variance with this wonderful utilization of the wind’s
power. Hour after hour they would sit watching the beautiful fabric,
noting every forceful bound and lurch, their ears attuned to the great
sea music, the blended chorus of wind and sea and ship all working
amicably together, but all strung up to concert pitch of highest energy.
Never since that remarkable day when C. B. disarmed him had the
skipper made a sign of either enmity or friendship--he had simply
ignored their presence on board. But this unnatural quiet had the
effect of making C. B. doubly watchful because he could not understand
it, and he lived as we say a dog’s life, that is, he always seemed to
have one eye open: which for a man with a poor physique and weak nerves
would have been fatal, but had little or no effect upon this perfectly
healthy and natural man. Still, there was one thing which troubled him,
the absolute disregard of attention to the boats. As an ex-whaleman,
of course, he had to look upon the boats as being always in readiness.
Pretty they certainly looked, with their sword-mat gripes and their
gaily painted covers, but how they were to be got out puzzled him, for
there were no davits shipped.
And when he mentioned his fears to the mate, who in utter defiance of
the skipper continually chummed up with him, that worthy said--
“Well, I guess it’s about the same in all merchant ships of all
nations; we don’t go much on boats because we ain’t got much confidence
in ’em. I know there have been boat voyages that make you gasp as you
read about them, but you take the average sailor and he don’t think
much of boats. And I’m a pretty average sailor too.”
This did not content C. B., but he kept his ideas to himself, saying
that bad as the skipper might be, he was a No. 1 seaman, and that it
was most unlikely that any harm could come to the ship.
And no one seemed to remember the nature of the cargo!
That was why, I suppose, when during the second dog-watch of a
particularly strenuous day, when the ship was doing fully fifteen knots
an hour on her course, nobody took any notice of C. B.’s remark that
there was a smoky lamp somewhere. His keen scent had noticed it but
none of the others could, being used moreover to the unpleasant fumes
emitted by a kerosene lamp when it is turned down too low. Still, every
now and then he would utter his complaint, until suddenly there was a
cry from forrard that quickened the heart-beats of the listeners--
“There’s smoke comin’ up the forehatch.”
And everybody remembered that the ship had 164,000 cases of kerosene
stowed in her hold, realized that they were in the midst of the
stormiest, remotest ocean in the world, afloat upon a volcano due to
burst, and quailed. No blame to any of them. From the outside we may
pass judgment upon what men do in such crises, but we should be chary
of so doing: it is an awful test of manhood.
The mate rose to the occasion. “Call all hands!” he cried, “and pass
the hose along.” Then he sought the skipper and reported to him, at
the same time reminding him of the state of the boats. The skipper
received the news in the same curious, careless way that he had treated
everything of late, but to the mate’s remark about the boats he made
no reply whatever. This angered the mate, who repeated the remark in
a raised tone and asked for orders concerning them. In a strange,
unnatural voice the captain replied that he could do what he liked, it
would not matter. Of what use were boats here, and he waved his hand
around over the desperate sea. For a moment the mate hesitated, then
shouting--“I can’t waste time with you,” he rushed forrard, intending
to give orders to have the boats cleared, when he saw C. B. and two
hands working away at them, the rest being busy at the forehatch with
a monkey pump.
It was a sad business but heroic in the extreme, that little group
of men engaged in the hopeless task of trying to subdue the flames
below among that terrible cargo, and aft one of their number steadily
pursuing his task of steering the doomed ship on her course through the
darkness. Suddenly the mate roared--
“Drop those buckets and get the boats clear, what’s the use of wasting
work?” and, obedient to his cry, all hands rushed to the boats,
realizing in a dazed sort of way what the neglect of this slender
chance of life might mean. But C. B. and his two companions had toiled
at the biggest boat on the skids to good advantage, for they already
had her clear, her gear all sorted out and water put in her.
Then C. B., hurriedly whispering to his helpers to get such food as
they could out of the cabin, caught up his wife and placed her in the
stern of the boat. Next he settled his father-in-law by her side and
bade them remain where they were. They obeyed him implicitly, for at
that moment he seemed to them to be gifted with amazing power and
foresight. But he was at his wits’ end because the ship was still
running before the gale like a hunted thing, and the very act of
heaving her to, that is, bringing her round to the wind and stopping
her way, was fraught with the utmost danger, yet it had to be done if
the boats were to be launched. And the captain made no sign.
At last the mate, able to bear it no longer, rushed off to where the
captain stood by the helmsman, and shouted so as to be heard above the
roar of the gale--
“We’ve only moments left; the fire may burst up through all hatches at
once at any time now.”
“All right,” said the skipper wearily, as if the matter did not concern
him very much.
“All, all hands to shorten sail.” He had hardly uttered the words when
with a roar that dumbed the gale a column of fire burst upwards from
the fore hatch as wide as that opening and as high as the topsail
yards. The man at the wheel, paralysed at the sight, let the spokes
slip from his nerveless grasp, and the vessel gave a tremendous sheer
up into the wind. She was of course carrying a press of canvas, and the
weight of it caught aback, heeled her over, until she was on her beam
ends. One gigantic sea towered above her like a wall, then swept down
and tore everything movable from her decks over the lee side which was
now under water.
C. B. standing by the boat in which was all that he held dear felt her
heel and saw the sea coming. He clutched at the boat’s gunwale just as
the wave overwhelmed the ship, and was swept with her out and away into
the tormented sea, clinging with all his great strength to her as she
went. Presently he found the strain upon his arms ease, realized that
the boat was still afloat, and climbed into her. She was half full of
water, but his dear ones were still safe cowering in the stern sheets.
He uttered a fervent, “Thank God!” and feeling all his vigour return
got an oar out and tried to get the boat’s head round before the sea
so that she would ride easier. But it was an impossible task for one
man, however strong and skilful, and he realized it directly, resigning
himself to the mercy of God. But full of hope even then.
He had just settled down by the side of his wife and grasped her clammy
hand when the whole of the wild heavens were lit up by a tremendous
glare, in which every detail of the ship close at hand was manifest, an
awful though a glorious sight. For the space of a couple of minutes the
mighty mass of flames soared heavenwards, lighting up the whole expanse
and revealing the heaving waste of ocean all dotted with wreckage. But
it showed also that the sea was smoothened greatly, as was inevitable
from the enormous quantity of oil which had been liberated. C. B. did
not think of the cause of this relief, but he seized the opportunity to
get the mast stepped and the jib set by means of which he could keep
the boat under control. And within the next five minutes before the
glare died down and the last sign of the ship disappeared, three men
were rescued from the watery wild around, the mate, the cook, and one
seaman. Then the light went out and darkness most profound swallowed
them up.
Throughout that terrible night the boat, managed with consummate skill
by C. B., rode gallantly and easily over the tremendous billows. But
the strain of watching was intense, and when day dawned at last on the
tormented breadths of ocean the effect of it upon C. B. was painfully
manifest. Nestling side by side at his feet were his wife and her
father, sheltered as well as was possible, and marvellous to state,
sleeping soundly. The rescued men, however, did not appear to have been
able to sleep, they knew the danger too well, and besides, they were in
a miserable plight with wet and cold. Bad as they were, however, Mr.
Haynes, looking at C. B. and noting the effect that his ceaseless watch
had had upon him, at once offered to relieve him at the helm so that
he could rest a little if sleep was impossible. Very gratefully C. B.
accepted his offer, handed the tiller to him, and slipping down by the
side of his wife had only just time to murmur a few words of thanks
when he fell fast asleep.
When he awoke the weather had become finer, and Haynes had managed to
get the mainsail set with a couple of reefs in it, so that something of
a course to the northward could be made. There were still heavy masses
of clouds marching swiftly up from the west, and occasionally obscuring
the pale blue that looked so hopeful, and the waves were still huge and
threatening, but the boat was now making good progress without shipping
any water to speak of, and the sun diffused some warmth through their
chilled frames. So that as C. B. looked around he felt a great wave of
thankfulness surge over him, and kneeling he invited all hands to join
with him in praising God for their wonderful deliverance. Very solemnly
and heartily they all agreed, and some of them for the first time in
their lives honestly and unreservedly recognized God as the Lord by
praising him for that their lives had been spared.
Then a meal was taken, the provisions having been examined and
apportioned with the utmost care, and Mary looking up into her
husband’s face with eyes of deepest affection, said--
“Only to think, Christmas, that so short a time ago we were your
patrons, showing off the power of wealth, I’m afraid, and now we
are like little children in your hands.” And Mr. Stewart chimed in
laconically--
“I guess it’s good for a man to get down to the beginning of things
occasionally. I ain’t a bit comfortable, nor I wouldn’t be here if I
could help it, but somehow I feel glad to think I am here and getting
along almost as well as the next man.”
And C. B., refreshed in body as well as exalted in mind, raised his
voice in the grand strains of “Oh God of Bethel by whose hand,” to the
manifest wonder of all his companions, but also to their exceeding
comfort.