E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Graeme Mackreth, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/a00kiplbaftfunnelrich
ABAFT THE FUNNEL
By RUDYARD KIPLING
ABAFT THE FUNNEL
by
RUDYARD KIPLING
"Men in pajamas sitting abaft the funnel
and swapping lies of the purple seas"
New York
B. W. Dodge & Company
1909
Copyright, 1909, by
B. W. Dodge & Company
PREFACE
The measure of a man's popularity is not always--or indeed seldom--the
measure of his intrinsic worth. So, when the earlier work of any writer
is gathered together in more enduring form, catering to the enthusiasm
of his readers in his maturer years, there is always a suspicion that
the venture is purely a commercial one, without literary justification.
Fortunately these stories of Mr. Kipling's form their own best excuse
for this, their first appearance together in book form. Not merely
because in them may be traced the origin of that style and subject
matter that later made their author famous; but because the stories are
in themselves worth while--worth writing, worth reading. "The Likes o'
Us" is as true to the type as any of the immortal Mulvaney stories;
the beginning of "New Brooms" is as succinctly fine as any prose Mr.
Kipling ever wrote; for searching out and presenting such splendid
pieces of fiction as "Sleipner, late Thurinda," and "A Little More
Beef" to a public larger than their original one in India, no apology
is necessary.
A.F.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Erastasius of the Whanghoa 1
Her Little Responsibility 12
A Menagerie Aboard 20
A Smoke of Manila 26
The Red Lamp 33
The Shadow of His Hand 41
A Little More Beef 49
The History of a Fall 58
Griffiths the Safe Man 66
It 77
The Fallen Idol 85
New Brooms 91
Tiglath Pileser 99
The Like o' Us 109
His Brother's Keeper 121
"Sleipner," Late "Thurinda" 141
A Supplementary Chapter 161
Chautauquaed 180
The Bow Flume Cable Car 204
In Partibus 213
Letters on Leave 218
The Adoration of the Mage 251
A Death in the Camp 258
A Really Good Time 265
On Exhibition 273
The Three Young Men 283
My Great and Only 292
The Betrayal of Confidences 305
The New Dispensation--I 313
The New Dispensation--II 322
The Last of the Stories 331
ABAFT THE FUNNEL
ERASTASIUS OF THE _WHANGHOA_[1]
"The old cat's tumbled down the ventilator, sir, and he's swearing away
under the furnace-door in the stoke-hole," said the second officer to
the Captain of the _Whanghoa_.
"Now what in thunder was Erastasius doing at the mouth of the
ventilator? It's four feet from the ground and painted red at that.
Any of the children been amusing themselves with him, d'you think? I
wouldn't have Erastasius disturbed in his inside for all the gold in
the treasury," said the Captain. "Tell some one to bring him up, and
handle him delicately, for he's not a quiet beast."
In three minutes a bucket appeared on deck. It was covered with a
wooden lid. "Think he have make die this time," said the Chinese sailor
who carried the coffin, with a grin. "Catchee him topside coals--no
open eye--no spit--no sclatchee my. Have got bucket, allee same, and
make tight. See!"
He dived his bare arm under the lid, but withdrew it with a yell,
dropping the bucket at the same time. "Hya! Can do. Maskee dlop
down--masky spilum coal. Have catchee my light there."
Blood was trickling from his elbow. He moved aft, while the bucket,
mysteriously worked by hidden force, trundled to and fro across the
decks, swearing aloud.
Emerged finally Erastasius, tom-cat and grandfather-in-chief of the
_Whanghoa_--a gaunt brindled beast, lacking one ear, with every hair on
his body armed and erect. He was patched with coal-dust, very stiff and
sore all over, and very anxious to take the world into his confidence
as to his wrongs. For this reason he did not run when he was clear of
the bucket, but sitting on his hunkers regarded the Captain, as who
would say: "You hold a master's certificate and call yourself a seaman,
and yet you allow this sort of thing on your boat."
"Guess I must apologise, old man," said the Captain gravely. "Those
ventilators are a little too broad in the beam for a passenger of your
build. What made you walk down it? Not a rat, eh? You're too well fed
to trouble of rats. Drink was it."
Erastasius turned his back on the Captain. He was a tailless Japanese
cat, and the abruptness of his termination gave him a specially brusque
appearance.
"Shouldn't wonder if the old man hasn't been stealing something and
was getting away from the galley. He's the biggest reprobate that ever
shipped--and that's saying something. No, he isn't my property exactly.
I've got a notion that he owns the ship. Gathered that from the way he
goes round after six bells to see the lights out. The chief engineer
says he built the engines. Anyway, the old man sits in the engine-room
and sort of keeps an eye on the boilers. He was on the ship before I
joined her--that's seven years ago, when we were running up and down
and around and about the China Seas."
Erastasius, his back to the company, was busied in cleaning his
disarranged fur. He licked and swore alternately. The ventilator
incident had hurt his feelings sorely.
"He knows we are talking about him," continued the Captain. "He's a
responsible kind o' critter. That's natural when you come to think that
he has saved a quarter of a million of dollars. At present his wants
are few--guess he would like a netting over those ventilators first
thing--but some day he'll begin to live up to his capital."
"Saved a quarter of a million dollars! What securities did he invest
'em in?" said a man from Foochow.
"Here, in this bottom. He saved the _Whanghoa_ with a full cargo of
tea, silk and opium, and thirteen thousand dollars in bar silver.
Yes; that's about the extent of the old man's savings. I commanded.
The old man was the rescuer, and I was more grateful to him 'cause
it was my darned folly that nearly brought us into the trouble. I was
new to these waters, new to the Chinaman and his fascinating little
ways, being a New England man by raising. Erastasius was raised by the
Devil. That's who his sire was. Never ran across his dam. Ran across a
forsaken sea, though, in the _Whanghoa_, a little to the northeast of
this, with eight hundred steerage passengers, all Chinamen, for various
and undenominated ports. Had the pleasure of sending eighteen of 'em
into the water. Yes, that's so, isn't it, old man?"
Erastasius finished licking himself and mewed affirmatively.
"Yes, we carried four white officers--a Westerner, two Vermont men, and
myself. There were ten Americans, a couple of Danes and a half-caste
knocking round the ship, and the crew were Chinese, but most of 'em
good Chinese. Only good Chinese I ever met. We had our steerage
passengers 'tween-decks. Most of 'em lay around and played dominoes or
smoked opium. We had bad weather at the start, and the steerage were
powerful sick. I judged they would have no insides to them when the
weather lifted, so I didn't put any guards on them. Wanted all my men
to work the ship. Engines rotten as Congress, and under sail half the
time. Next time I carry Chinese steerage trash I'll hire a Gatling and
mount it on the 'tween-decks hatch.
"We were fooling about between islands--about a hundred and fifty
thousand islands all wrapped up in fog. When the fog laid the wind,
the engines broke down. One of the passengers--we carried no ladies
that journey--came to me one evening. 'I calculate there's a conspiracy
'tween-decks,' he said. 'Those pigtails are talking together. No good
ever came of pigtails talking. I'm from 'Frisco. I authoritate on
these matters.' 'Not on this ship,' I said: 'I've no use for duplicate
authority.' 'You'll be homesick after nine this time to-morrow,' he
said and quit. I guess he told the other passengers his notions.
"Erastasius shared my cabin in general. I didn't care to dispute
with a cat that went heeled the way he did. That particular night
when I came down he was not inclined for repose. When I shut the door
he scrabbled till I let him out. When he was out he scrabbled to
come back. When he was back, he jumped all round the shanty yowling.
I stroked him, and the sparks irrigated his back as if 'twas the
smoke-stack of a river steamer. 'I'll get you a wife, old man,' I
said, 'next voyage. It is no good for you to be alone with me.'
'_Whoopee, yoopee-yaw-aw-aw_,' said Erastasius. 'Let me get out of
this.' I looked him square between the eyes to fix the place where
I'd come down with a boot-heel (he was getting monotonous), and as I
looked I saw the animal was just possessed with deadly fear--human
fear--crawling, shaking fear. It crept out of the green of his eyes
and crept over me in billowing waves--each wave colder than the last.
'Unburden your mind, Erastasius,' I said. 'What's going to happen?'
'_Wheepee-yeepee-ya-ya-ya-woop!_' said Erastasius, backing to the door
and scratching.
"I quit my cabin sweating big drops, and somehow my hand shut on my
six-shooter. The grip of the handle soothes a man when he is afraid. I
heard the whole ship 'tween-decks rustling under me like all the woods
of Maine when the wind's up. The lamp over the 'tween-decks was out.
The steerage watchman was lying on the ground, and the whole hive of
Celestials were on the tramp--soft-footed hounds. A lantern came down
the alley-way. Behind it was the passenger that had spoken to me, and
all the rest of the crowd, except the half-caste.
"'Are you homesick any now?' said my passenger. The 'tween-decks woke
up with a yell at the light, and some one fired up the hatch-way.
Then we began our share of the fun--the ten passengers and I. Eleven
six-shooters. That cleared the first rush of the pigtails, but we
continued firing on principle, working our way down the steps. No one
came down from the spar-deck to assist, though I heard considerable of
a trampling. The pigtails below were growling like cats. I heard the
lookout man shout, 'Junk on the port bow,' and the bell ring in the
engine-room for full speed ahead. Then we struck something, and there
was a yell inside and outside the ship that would have lifted your
hair out. When the outside yell stopped, our pigtails were on their
faces. 'Run down a junk,' said my passenger--'_their_ junk.' He loosed
three shots into the steerage on the strength of it. I went up on deck
when things were quiet below. Some one had run our Dahlgren signal-gun
forward and pointed it to the break of the fo'c'sle. There was the
balance of a war junk--three spars and a head or two on the water, and
the first mate keeping his watch in regular style.
"'What is your share?' he said. 'We've smashed up a junk that tried to
foul us. Seems to have affected the feelings of your friends below.
Guess they wanted to make connection.' 'It is made,' said I, 'on the
Glassy Sea. Where's the watch?' 'In the fo'c'sle. The half-caste is
sitting on the signal-gun smoking his cigar. The watch are speculatin'
whether he'll stick the business-end of it in the touch-hole or
continue smoking. I gather that gun is not empty.' 'Send 'em down below
to wash decks. Tell the quartermaster to go through their boxes while
they are away. They may have implements.'
"The watch went below to clean things up. There were eighteen stiff
uns and fourteen with holes through their systems. Some died, some
survived. I did not keep particular count. The balance I roped up, and
it employed most of our spare rigging. When we touched port there was a
picnic among the hangmen. Seems that Erastasius had been yowling down
the cabins all night before he came to me, and kept the passengers
alive. The man that spoke to me said the old man's eyes were awful
to look at. He was dying to tell his fear, but couldn't. When the
passengers came forward with the light, the half-caste quit for topside
and got the quartermaster to load the signal-gun with handspikes and
bring it forward in case the fo'c'sle wished to assist in the row.
That was the best half-caste I ever met. But the fo'c'sle didn't
assist. They were sick. So were the men below--horror-sick. That was
the way the old man saved the _Whanghoa_."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
HER LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY[2]
_And No Man May Answer for the Soul of His Brother_
It was two in the morning, and Epstin's Dive was almost empty, when
a Thing staggered down the steps that led to that horrible place and
fawned on me disgustingly for the price of a drink. "I'm dying of
thirst," he said, but his tone was not that of a street loafer. There
is a freemasonry, the freemasonry of the public schools, stronger than
any that the Craft knows. The Thing drank whisky raw, which in itself
is not calculated to slake thirst, and I waited at its side because
I knew, by virtue of the one sentence above recorded, that it once
belonged to my caste. Indeed, so small is the world when one begins
to travel round it, that, for aught I knew, I might even have met
the Thing in that menagerie of carefully-trained wild beasts, Decent
Society. And the Thing drank more whisky ere the flood-gates of its
speech were loosed and spoke of the wonderful story of its fall.
Never man, he said, had suffered more than he, or for slighter sin.
Whereat I winked beerily into the bottom of my empty glass, having
heard that tale before. I think the Thing had been long divided
from all social and moral restraint--even longer from the wholesome
influence of soap and water.
"What I feel most down here," said It, and by "down here" I presume he
meant the Inferno of his own wretchedness, "is the difficulty about
getting a bath. A man can always catch a free lunch at any of the
bars in the city, if he has money enough to buy a drink with, and you
can sleep out for six or eight months of the year without harm, but
San Francisco doesn't run to free baths. It's not an amusing life any
way you look at it. I'm more or less used to things, but it hurts me
even now to meet a decent man who knows something of life in the old
country. I was raised at Harrow--Harrow, if you please--and I'm not
five-and-twenty yet, and I haven't got a penny, and I haven't got a
friend, and there is nothing in creation that I can command except a
drink, and I have to beg for that. Have you ever begged for a drink?
It hurts at first, but you get used to it. My father's a parson. I
don't think he knows I beg drink. He lives near Salisbury. Do you know
Salisbury at all? And then there's my mother, too. But I have not heard
from either of them for a couple of years. They think I'm in a real
estate office in Washington Territory, coining money hand over fist.
If ever you run across them--I suppose you will some day--there's the
address. Tell them that you've seen me, and that I am well and fit.
Understand?--well and fit. I guess I'll be dead by the time you see
'em. That's hard. Men oughtn't to die at five-and-twenty--of drink.
Say, were you ever mashed on a girl? Not one of these you see, girls
out here, but an English one--the sort of girl one meets at the
Vicarage tennis-party, don't you know. A girl of our own set. I don't
mean mashed exactly, but dead, clean gone, head over ears; and worse
than that I was once, and I fancy I took the thing pretty much as I
take liquor now. I didn't know when to stop. It didn't seem to me
that there was any reason for stopping in affairs of that kind. I'm
quite sure there's no reason for stopping half-way with liquor. Go the
whole hog and die. It's all right, though--I'm not going to get drunk
here. Five in the morning will suit me just as well, and I haven't the
chance of talking to one of you fellows often. So you cut about in fine
clothes, do you, and take your drinks at the best bars and put up at
the Palace? All Englishmen do. Well, here's luck; you may be what I
am one of these days. You'll find companions quite as well raised as
yourself.
* * * * *
"But about this girl. Don't do what I did. I fell in love with her. She
lived near us in Salisbury; that was when I had a clean shirt every day
and hired horses to ride. One of the guineas I spent on that amusement
would keep me for a week here. But about this girl. I don't think some
men ought to be allowed to fall in love any more than they ought to be
allowed to taste whisky. She said she cared for me. Used to say that
about a thousand times a day, with a kiss in between. I think about
those things now, and they make me nearly as drunk as the whisky does.
Do you know anything about that love-making business? I stole a copy
of Cleopatra off a book-stall in Kearney Street, and that priest-chap
says a very true thing about it. You can't stop when it's once started,
and when it's all over you can't give it up at the word of command. I
forget the precise language. That girl cared for me. I'd give something
if she could see me now. She doesn't like men without collars and odd
boots and somebody else's hat; but anyhow she made me what I am, and
some day she'll know it. I came out here two years ago to a real estate
office; my father bought me some sort of a place in the firm. We were
all Englishmen, but we were about a match for an average Yankee; but I
forgot to tell you I was engaged to the girl before I came out. Never
you make a woman swear oaths of eternal constancy. She'll break every
one of them as soon as her mind changes, and call you unjust for making
her swear them. I worked enough for five men in my first year. I got
a little house and lot in Tacoma fit for any woman. I never drank, I
hardly ever smoked, I sold real estate all day, and wrote letters at
night. She wrote letters, too, about as full of affection as they make
'em. You can tell nothing from a woman's letter, though. If they want
to hide anything, they just double the 'dears' and 'darlings,' and then
giggle when the man fancies himself deceived.
"I don't suppose I was worse off than hundreds of others, but it seems
to me that she might have had the grace to let me down easily. She
went and got married. I don't suppose she knew exactly what she was
doing, because I got the letters just the same six weeks after she was
married! It was an odd copy of an English paper that showed me what had
happened. It came in on the same day as one of her letters, telling me
she would be true to the gates of death. Sounds like a novel, doesn't
it? But it did not amuse me in the least. I wasn't constructed to pitch
the letters into the fire and pick up with a Yankee girl. I wrote her a
letter; I rather wish I could remember what was in that letter. Then I
went to a bar in Tacoma and had some whisky, about a gallon, I suppose.
If I had anything approaching to a word of honour about me, I would
give it you that I did not know what happened until I was told that my
partnership with the firm had been dissolved, and that the house and
lot did not belong to me any more. I would have left the firm and sold
the house, anyhow, but the crash sobered me for about three days. Then
I started another jamboree. I might have got back after the first one,
and been a prominent citizen, but the second bust settled matters. Then
I began to slide on the downgrade straight off, and here I am now.
I could write you a book about what I have come through, if I could
remember it. The worst of it is I can see that she wasn't worth losing
anything in life for, but I've lost just everything, and I'm like the
priest-chap in Cleopatra--I can't get over what I remember. If she had
let me down easy, and given me warning, I should have been awfully cut
up for a time, but I should have pulled through. She didn't do that,
though. She lied to me all along, and married a curate, and I dare say
she'll be a virtuous she-vicar later on; but the little affair broke me
dead, and if I had more whisky in me I should be blubbering like a calf
all round this Dive. That would have disgusted you, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," said I.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
A MENAGERIE ABOARD[3]
It was pyjama time on the _Madura_ in the Bay of Bengal, and the
incense of the very early morning cigar went up to the stainless skies.
Every one knows pyjama time--the long hour that follows the removal
of the beds from the saloon skylight and the consumption of _chota
hazri_. Most men know, too, that the choicest stories of many seas
may be picked up then--from the long-winded histories of the Colonial
sheep-master to the crisp anecdotes of the Californian; from tales of
battle, murder and sudden death told by the Burmah-returned subaltern,
to the bland drivel of the globe-trotter. The Captain, tastefully
attired in pale pink, sat up on the signal-gun and tossed the husk of a
banana overboard.
"It looked in through my cabin-window," said he, "and scared me nearly
into a fit." We had just been talking about a monkey who appeared to
a man in an omnibus, and haunted him till he cut his own throat. The
apparition, amid howls of incredulity, was said to have been the result
of excessive tea-drinking. The Captain's apparition promised to be
better.
"It was a menagerie--a whole turnout, lock, stock, and barrel, from the
big bear to the little hippopotamus; and you can guess the size of it
from the fact that they paid us a thousand pounds in freight only. We
got them all accommodated somewhere forward among the deck passengers,
and they whooped up terribly all along the ship for two or three days.
Among other things, such as panthers and leopards, there were sixteen
giraffes, and we moored 'em fore and aft as securely as might be; but
you can't get a purchase on a giraffe somehow. He slopes back too much
from the bows to the stern. We were running up the Red Sea, I think,
and the menagerie fairly quiet. One night I went to my cabin not
feeling well. About midnight I was waked by something breathing on my
face. I was quite calm and collected, for I had got it into my head
that it was one of the panthers, or at least the bear; and I reached
back to the rack behind me for a revolver. Then the head began to slide
against my cabin--all across it--and I said to myself: 'It's the big
python.' But I looked into its eyes--they were beautiful eyes--and saw
it was one of the giraffes. Tell you, though, a giraffe has the eyes of
a sorrowful nun, and this creature was just brimming over with liquid
tenderness. The seven-foot neck rather spoilt the effect, but I'll
always recollect those eyes."
"Say, did you kiss the critter?" demanded the orchid-hunter en route to
Siam.
"No; I remembered that it was darn valuable, and I didn't want to lose
freight on it. I was afraid it would break its neck drawing its head
out of my window--I had a big deck cabin, of course--so I shoved it out
softly like a hen, and the head slid out, with those Mary Magdalene
eyes following me to the last. Then I heard the quartermaster calling
on heaven and earth for his lost giraffe, and then the row began all
up and down the decks. The giraffe had sense enough to duck its head to
avoid the awnings--we were awned from bow to stern--but it clattered
about like a sick cow, the quartermaster jumping after it, and it
swinging its long neck like a flail. 'Catch it, and hold it!' said the
quartermaster. 'Catch a typhoon,' said I. 'She's going overboard.' The
spotted fool had heaved one foot over the stern railings and was trying
to get the other to follow. It was so happy at getting its head into
the open I thought it would have crowed--I don't know whether giraffes
crow, but it heaved up its neck for all the world like a crowing cock.
'Come back to your stable,' yelled the quartermaster, grabbing hold of
the brute's tail.
"I was nearly helpless with laughing, though I knew if the concern
went over it would be no laughing matter for me. Well, by good luck
she came round--the quartermaster was a strong man at a rope's end.
First of all she slewed her neck round, and I could see those tender,
loving eyes under the stars sort of saying: 'Cruel man! What are you
doing to my tail?' Then the foot came on board, and she bumped herself
up under the awning, looking ready to cry with disappointment. The
funniest thing was she didn't make any noise--a pig would ha' roused
the ship in no time--only every time she dropped her foot on the deck
it was like firing a revolver, the hoofs clicked so. We headed her
towards the bows, back to her moorings--just like a policeman showing
a short-sighted old woman over a crossing. The quartermaster sweated
and panted and swore, but she never said anything--only whacked her
old head despairingly against the awning and the funnel case. Her feet
woke up the whole ship, and by the time we had her fairly moored fore
and aft the population in their night-gear were giving us advice. Then
we took up a yard or two in all the moorings and turned in. No other
animal got loose that voyage, though the old lady looked at me most
reproachfully every time I came that way, and 'You've blasted my young
and tender innocence' was the expression of her eyes. It was all the
quartermaster's fault for hauling her tail. I wonder she didn't kick
him open. Well, of course, that isn't much of a yarn, but I remember
once, in the city of Venice, we had a Malayan tapir loose on the deck,
and we had to lasso him. It was this way":
"_Guzl thyar hai_," said the steward, and I fled down the companion and
missed the tale of the tapir.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Vol. V., Jan.--March, 1889.]
A SMOKE OF MANILA[4]
The man from Manila held the floor. "Much care had made him very lean
and pale and hollow-eyed." Added to which he smoked the cigars of his
own country, and they were bad for the constitution. He foisted his
Stinkadores Magnificosas and his Cuspidores Imperiallissimos upon all
who would accept them, and wondered that the recipients of his bounty
turned away and were sad. "There is nothing," said he, "like a Manila
cigar." And the pink pyjamas and blue pyjamas and the spotted green
pyjamas, all fluttering gracefully in the morning breeze, vowed that
there was not and never would be.
"Do the Spaniards smoke these vile brands to any extent?" asked the
Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure as he inspected a fresh box of
Oysters of the East. "Smoke 'em!" said the man from Manila; "they do
nothing else day and night." "Ah!" said the Young Gentleman travelling
for Pleasure, in the low voice of one who has received mortal injury,
"that accounts for the administration of the country being what it is.
After a man has tried a couple of these things he would be ready for
any crime."
The man from Manila took no heed of the insult. "I knew a case once,"
said he, "when a cigar saved a man from the sin of burglary and landed
him in quod for five years." "Was he trying to kill the man who gave
him the cigar?" said the Young Gentleman travelling for Pleasure. "No,
it was this way: My firm's godowns stand close to a creek. That is to
say, the creek washes one face of them, and there are a few things
in those godowns that might be useful to a man, such as piece-goods
and cotton prints--perhaps five thousand dollars' worth. I happened
to be walking through the place one day when, for a miracle, I was
not smoking. That was two years ago." "Great Cæsar! then he has been
smoking ever since!" murmured the Young Gentleman travelling for
Pleasure.
"Was not smoking," continued the man from Manila. "I had no business in
the godowns. They were a short cut to my house. When half-way through
them I fancied I saw a little curl of smoke rising from behind one of
the bales. We stack our bales on low saddles, much as ricks are stacked
in England. My first notion was to yell. I object to fire in godowns on
principle. It is expensive, whatever the insurance may do. Luckily I
sniffed before I shouted, and I sniffed good tobacco smoke." "And this
was in Manila, you say?" interrupted the Young Gentleman travelling for
Pleasure.
"Yes, in the only place in the world where you get good tobacco. I knew
we had no bales of the weed in stock, and I suspected that a man who
got behind print bales to finish his cigar might be worth looking up. I
walked between the bales till I reached the smoke. It was coming from
the ground under one of the saddles. That's enough, I thought, and I
went away to get a couple of the Guarda Civile--policemen, in fact. I
knew if there was anything to be extracted from my friend the bobbies
would do it. A Spanish policeman carries in the day-time nothing more
than a six-shooter and _machete_, a dirk. At night he adorns himself
with a repeating rifle, which he fires on the slightest provocation.
Well, when the policemen arrived, they poked my friend out of his
hiding-place with their dirks, hauled him out by the hair, and kicked
him round the godown once or twice, just to let him know that he had
been discovered. They then began to question him, and under gentle
pressure--I thought he would be pulped into a jelly, but a Spanish
policeman always knows when to leave off--he made a clean breast of the
whole business. He was part of a gang, and was to lie in the godown all
that night. At twelve o'clock a boat manned by his confederates was to
drop down the creek and halt under the godown windows, while he was
to hand out our bales. That was their little plan. He had lain there
about three hours, and then he began to smoke. I don't think he noticed
what he was doing: smoking is just like breathing to a Spaniard. He
could not understand how he had betrayed himself and wanted to know
whether he had left a leg sticking out under the saddles. Then the
Guarda Civile lambasted him all over again for trifling with the
majesty of the law, and removed him after full confession.
"I put one of my own men under a saddle with instructions to hand out
print bales to anybody who might ask for them in the course of the
night. Meantime the police made their own arrangements, which were very
comprehensive.
"At midnight a lumbering old barge, big enough to hold about a hundred
bales, came down the creek and pulled up under the godown windows,
exactly as if she had been one of my own barges. The eight ruffians
in her whistled all the national airs of Manila as a signal to the
confederate, then cooling his heels in the lock-up. But my man was
ready. He opened the window and held quite a long confab with these
second-hand pirates. They were all half-breeds and Roman Catholics,
and the way they called upon all the blessed saints to assist them in
their work was edifying. My man began tilting out the bales quite as
quickly as the confederate would have done. Only he stopped to giggle
now and again, and they spat and swore at him like cats. That made him
worse, and at last he dropped yelling with laughter over the half door
of the godown goods window. Then one boat came up stream and another
down stream, and caught the barge stem and stern. Four Guarda Civiles
were in each boat; consequently, eight repeating rifles were pointed
at the barge, which was very nicely loaded with our bales. The pirates
called on the saints more fluently than ever, threw up their hands, and
threw themselves on their stomachs. That was the safest attitude, and
it gave them the chance of cursing their luck, the barge, the godown,
the Guarda Civile, and every saint in the calendar. They cursed the
saints most, for the Guarda Civile thumped 'em when their remarks
became too personal. We made them put all the bales back again. Then
they were handed over to justice and got five years apiece. If they had
any dollars they would get out the next day. If they hadn't, they would
serve their full time and no ticket-of-leave allowed. That's the whole
story."
"And the only case on record," said the Young Gentleman travelling for
Pleasure, "where a Manila cigar was of any use to any one." The man
from Manila lit a fresh Cuspidore and went down to his bath.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
THE RED LAMP[5]
"A strong situation--very strong, sir--quite the strongest one in the
play, in fact."
"What play?" said a voice from the bottom of the long chair under the
bulwarks.
"_The Red Lamp._"
"Oh!"
Conversation ceased, and there was an industrious sucking of cheroots
for the space of half an hour before the company adjourned to the
card-room. It was decidedly a night for sleeping on deck--warm as the
Red Sea and more moist than Bengal. Unfortunately, every square foot
of the deck seemed to be occupied by earlier comers, and in despair I
removed myself to the extreme fo'c'sle, where the anchor-chains churn
rust-dyed water from the hawseholes and the lascars walk about with
slushpots.
The throb of the engines reached this part of the world as a muffled
breathing which might be easily mistaken for the snoring of the
ship's cow. Occasionally one of the fowls in the coops waked and
cheeped dismally as she thought of to-morrow's entrées in the saloon,
but otherwise all was very, very still, for the hour was two in the
morning, when the crew of a ship are not disposed to be lively. None
came to bear me company save the bo'sun's pet kittens, and they were
impolite. From where I lay I could look over the whole length of
awning, ghostly white in the dark, and by their constant fluttering
judged that the ship was pitching considerably. The fo'c'sle swung up
and down like an uneasy hydraulic lift, and a few showers of spray
found their passage through the hawseholes from time to time.
Have you ever felt that maddening sense of incompetence which follows
on watching the work of another man's office? The civilian is at
home among his despatch-boxes and files of pending cases. "How in
the world does he do it?" asks the military man. The budding officer
can arrange for the movements of two hundred men across country.
"Incomprehensible!" says the civilian. And so it is with all alien
employs from our own. So it was with me. I knew that I was lying among
all the materials out of which Clark Russell builds his books of the
sea--the rush through the night, the gouts of foam, the singing of the
wind in the rigging overhead, and the black mystery of the water--but
for the life of me I could make nothing of them all.
"A topsail royal flying free
A bit of canvas was to me,
And it was nothing more."
"Oh, that a man should have but one poor little life and one incomplete
set of experiences to crowd into it!" I sighed as the bells of the ship
lulled me to sleep and the lookout man crooned a dreary song.
I slept far into the night, for the clouds gathered over the sky, the
stars died out, and all grew as black as pitch. But we never slackened
speed; we beat the foam to left and right with clanking of chains,
rattling of bow-ports, and savage noises of ripping and rending from
the cut-water ploughing up to the luminous sea-beasts. I was roused by
the words of the man in the smoking-room: "A strong situation, sir,
very strong--quite the strongest in the play, in fact--_The Red Lamp_,
y' know."
I thought over the sentence lazily for a time, and then--surely there
was a red lamp in the air somewhere--an intolerable glare that singed
the shut eyelids. I opened my eyes and looked forward. The lascar was
asleep, his face bowed on his knees, though he ought to have been
roused by the hum of a rapidly approaching city, by the noises of men
and women talking and laughing and drinking. I could hear it not half a
mile away: it was strange that his ears should be closed.
The night was so black that one could hardly breathe; and yet where
did the glare from the red lamp come from? Not from our ship: she was
silent and asleep--the officers on the bridge were asleep; there was
no one of four hundred souls awake but myself. And the glare of the
red lamp went up to the zenith. Small wonder. A quarter of a mile in
front of us rolled a big steamer under full steam, and she was heading
down on us without a word of warning. Would the lookout man never look
out? Would their crew be as fast asleep as ours? It was impossible, for
the other ship hummed with populous noises, and there was the defiant
tinkle of a piano rising above all. She should have altered her course,
or blown a fog-horn.
I held my breath while an eternity went by, counted out by the
throbbing of my heart and the engines. I knew that it was my duty
to call, but I knew also that no one could hear me. Moreover, I was
intensely interested in the approaching catastrophe; interested, you
will understand, as one whom it did in no wise concern. By the light
of the luminous sea thrown forward in sheets under the forefoot of
the advancing steamer I could discern the minutest details of her
structure from cat-head to bridge. Abaft the bridge she was crowded
with merrymakers--seemed to be, in fact, a P. & O. vessel given up to a
ball. I wondered as I leaned over the bulwarks what they would say when
the crash came--whether they would shriek very loudly--whether the men
and women would try to rush to our decks, or whether we would rush on
to theirs. It would not matter in the least, for at the speed we were
driving both vessels would go down together locked through the deeps
of the sea. It occurred to me then that the sea would be cold, and
that instead of choking decently I might be one in a mad rush for the
boats--might be crippled by a falling spar or wrenched plate and left
on the heeling decks to die. Then Terror came to me--Fear, gross and
overwhelming as the bulk of the night--Despair unrelieved by a single
ray of hope.
We were not fifty yards apart when the passengers on the stranger
caught sight of us and shrieked aloud. I saw a man pick up his child
from one of the benches and futilely attempt to climb the rigging. Then
we closed--her name-plate ten feet above ours, looking down into our
forehatch. I heard the grinding as of a hundred querns, the ripping of
the tough bow-plates, and the pistol-like report of displaced rivets
followed by the rush of the sea. We were sinking in mid-ocean.
* * * * *
"Beg y' pardon," said the quartermaster, shaking me by the arm, "but
you must have been sleeping in the moonlight for the last two hours,
and that's not good for the eyes. Didn't seem to make you sleep easy,
either." I opened my eyes heavily. My face was swollen and aching, for
on my forehead lay the malignant splendour of the moon. The glare of
the Red Lamp had vanished with the brilliantly-lighted ship, but the
ghastly shrieks of her drowning crew continued.
"What's that?" I asked tremulously of the quartermaster. "Was it real?"
"Pork chops in the saloon to-morrow," said the quartermaster. "The
butcher he got up at four bells to put the old squeaker out of the way.
Them's his dying ejaculations."
I dragged my bedding aft and went to sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
THE SHADOW OF HIS HAND[6]
"I come from San José," he said. "San José, Calaveras County,
California: that's my place." I pricked up my ears at the mention of
Calaveras County. Bret Harte has made that sacred ground.
"Yes?" said I politely. Always be polite to a gentleman from Calaveras
County. For aught you know he may be a lineal descendant of the great
Colonel Starbottle.
"Did you ever know Vermilyea of San Luis Obispo?" continued the
stranger, chewing the plug of meditation.
"No," said I. Heaven alone knows where lies San Luis Obispo, but I was
not going to expose my ignorance. Besides, there might be a story at
the back of it all. "What was the special weakness of Mister Vermilyea?"
"Vermilyea! He weak! Lot Vermilyea never had a weakness that you might
call a weakness until subsequent events transpired. Then that weakness
developed into White Rye. All Westerners drink White Rye. On the
Eastern coast they drink Bourbon. Lot tried both when his heart was
broken. Both--by the quart."
"D'you happen to remember what broke his heart?" I said.
"This must be your first trip to the States, sir, or you would
know that Lot's heart was broken by his father-in-law. Lot's
congregation--he took to Religion--always said that he had no business
fooling with a father-in-law. A good many other people said that too.
But I always adhered to Lot. 'Why don't you kill the animal, Lot?' I
used to say. 'I can't. He's the father of my wife,' Lot used to say.
'Loan him money then and settle him on the other side of the States,' I
used to say. 'The old clam won't move,' Lot used to say."
"Half a minute. What was the actual trouble between Vermilyea and his
father-in-law? Did he borrow money?"
"I'm coming to that," said the stranger calmly. "It arrived this way.
Lot had a notion to get married. Some men get that idea. He went to
'Frisco and pawned out his heart--Lot had a most feeling heart, and
that was his ruin--to a girl who lived at back of Kearney Street. I've
forgotten her given name, but the old man's name was Dougherty. Guess
he was a naturalised Irishman. The old man did not see the merits of
Lot when he went sparking after the girl evenings. He fired Lot out off
the stoop three or four times. Lot didn't hit him because he was fond
of the daughter. He just quit like a lamb; the old man welting into him
with anything that came handy--sticks and besoms, and such. Lot endured
that, being a tough man. Every time Lot was fired out he would wait
till the old man was pretty well pumped out. Then he used to turn round
and say, 'When's the wedding to be?' Dougherty used to ramp round Lot
while the girl hid herself till the breeze abated. He had a peculiar
aversion to domiciliary visits from Lot, had Dougherty. I've my own
theory on the subject. I'll explain it later on. At last Dougherty got
tired of Lot and his peacefulness. The girl stuck to him for all she
was worth. Lot never budged. 'If you want to marry her,' said the old
man, 'just drop your long-suffering for half an hour. Stand up to me,
Lot, and we'll run this thing through with our hands.' 'If I must, I
must,' said Lot, and with that they began the argument up and down the
parlour floor. Lot he was fighting for his wife. He set considerable
value on the girl. The old man he was fighting for the fun of the
affair. Lot whipped. He handled the old man tenderly out of regard
for his connections. All the same he fixed him up pretty thoroughly.
When he crawled off the old man he had received his permission to
marry the girl. Old man Dougherty ran round 'Frisco advertising Lot
for the tallest fighter in the town. Lot was a respectable sort of man
and considerable absorbed in preparing for his wedding. It didn't
please him any to receive invitations from the boss fighting men of
'Frisco--professional invitations, you must understand. I guess he
cussed the father-in-law to be.
"When he was married, he concluded to locate in 'Frisco, and started
business there. A married man don't keep his muscle up any. Old man
Dougherty he must have counted on that. By the time Lot's first child
was born he came around suffering for a fight. He painted Lot's house
crimson. Lot endured that. He got a hold of the baby and began yanking
it around by the legs to see if it could squeal worth listening to.
Lot stretched him. Old man howled with delight. Lot couldn't well
hand his father-in-law over to the police, so they had it, knuckle
and tooth, all round the front floor, and the old man he quit by the
window, considerably mashed up. Lot was fair spent, not having kept up
his muscle. My notion is that old man Dougherty being a boss fighter
couldn't get his fighting regularly till Lot married into the family.
Then he reckoned on a running discussion to warm up his bones. Lot was
too fond of his wife to disoblige him. Any man in his senses would have
brought the old man before the courts, or clubbed him, or laid him out
stiff. But Lot was always tender-hearted.
"Soon as old man Dougherty got his senses together off the pavement,
he argued that Lot was considerable less of a fighter than he had
been. That pleased the old man. He was plastered and caulked up by
the doctors, and as soon as he could move he interviewed Lot and made
remarks. Lot didn't much care what he said, but when he came to casting
reflections on the parentage of the baby, Lot shut the office door and
played round for half an hour till the walls glittered like the evening
sun. Old man Dougherty crawled out, but he crowed as he crawled.
'Praise the blessed saints,' he said, 'I kin get my fighting along o'
my meals. Lot, ye have prolonged my life a century.'
"Guess Lot would like to see him dead now. He is an old man, but most
amazing tough. He has been fighting Lot for a matter of three years.
If Lot made a lucky bit of trade, the old man would come along and
fight him for luck. If Lot lost a little, the old man would fight him
to teach him safe speculation. It took all Lot's time to keep even with
him. No man in business can 'tend his business and fight in streaks.
Lot's trade fell off every time he laid himself out to stretch the old
man. Worst of it was that when Lot was made a Deacon of his church, the
old man fought him most terrible for the honour of the Roman Catholic
Church. Lot whipped, of course. He always whipped. Old man Dougherty
went round among the other Deacons and lauded Lot for a boss pugilist,
not meaning to hurt Lot's prospects. Lot had to explain the situation
to the church in general. They accepted it.
"Old man Dougherty he fought on. Age had no effect on him. Lot always
whipped, but nothing would satisfy the old man. Lot shook all his teeth
out till his gums were as bare as a sand-bar. Old man Dougherty came
along lisping his invitation to the dance. They fought.
"When Lot shifted to San Luis Obispo, old man Dougherty he came along
too--craving for his fight. It was cocktails and plug to him. It
grew on him. Lot handled him too gently because of the wife. The old
man could come to the scratch once a month, and always at the most
inconvenient time. They fought.
"Last I heard of Lot he was sinking into the tomb. 'It's not the
fighting,' he said to me. 'It's the darned monotony of the circus. He
knows I can whip him, but he won't rest satisfied. 'Lay him out, Lot,'
said I; 'fracture his cranium or gouge him. This show is foolish all
round.' 'I can't lay him out,' said Lot. 'He's my father-in-law. But
don't it strike you I've a deal to be thankful for? If he had been a
Jew he'd have fought on Sundays when I was doing Deacon. I've been too
gentle with him; the old man knows my spot place, but I've a deal to be
thankful for.'
"Strikes me that thankfulness of Lot's sort is nothing more nor less
than cussed affectation. Say!"
I said nothing.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: "Turnovers," Vol. VII.]
A LITTLE MORE BEEF[7]
"A little more beef, please," said the fat man with the grey whiskers
and the spattered waistcoat. "You can't eat too much o' good beef--not
even when the prices are going up hoof over hock." And he settled
himself down to load in a fresh cargo.
Now, this is how the fat man had come by his meal. One thousand miles
away, a red Texan steer was preparing to go to bed for the night in the
company of his fellows--myriads of his fellows. From dawn till late
dusk he had loafed across the leagues of grass and grunted savagely as
each mouthful proved to his mind that grass was not what he had known
it in his youth. But the steer was wrong. That summer had brought great
drought to Montana and Northern Dakota. The cattle feed was withering
day by day, and the more prudent stock owners had written to the East
for manufactured provender. Only the little cactus that grows with the
grasses appeared to enjoy itself. The cattle certainly did not; and the
cowboys from the very beginning of spring had used language considered
profane even for the cowboy. What their ponies said has never been
recorded. The ponies had the worst time of all, and at each nightly
camp whispered to each other their longings for the winter, when
they would be turned out on the freezing ranges--galled from wither
to croup, but riderless--thank Heaven, riderless. On these various
miseries the sun looked down impartial. His business was to cake the
ground and ruin the grasses.
The cattle--the acres of huddled cattle--were restless. In the first
place, they were forced to scatter for graze; and in the second, the
heat told on their tempers and made them prod each other with their
long horns. In the heart of the herd you would have thought men were
fighting with single-sticks. On the outskirts, posted at quarter-mile
intervals, sat the cowboys on their ponies, the brims of their hats
tilted over their sun-skinned noses, their feet out of the big
brown-leather hooded stirrups, and their hands gripping the horn of the
heavy saddle to keep themselves from falling on to the ground--asleep.
A cowboy can sleep at full gallop; on the other hand, he can keep
awake also at full gallop for eight and forty hours and wear down six
unamiable bronchos in the process.