the galley itself. But he found it at last and climbed out cautiously.
The lamp in the galley had gone out; there was not a glimmer of light
anywhere. He had no knowledge of the Chinaman's whereabouts, he could
not find the opening which led into the other parts of the ship. He
groped about as noiselessly as he could, hoping to avoid the one and to
find the other, and then suddenly there came a truly terrible sound.
He had put his foot on the Chinaman's face.
He heard the Chinaman get up in his rage; he even knew where he was
although it was too dark to see him. His heart stood still; the
Chinaman was feeling for him in the darkness; and then he was obliged
to feel himself for the Chinaman in order to avoid him.
Suddenly he caught a glimpse of a light. He ran towards it not knowing
what else to do. But in almost the same moment the Chinaman had seen
it too, and also had seen him go. Near the light was a ladder which
ascended to some unknown region. The boy raced up the ladder with the
Chinaman upon his heels. As soon as he got to the top the sharp, wet
air caught his face. He was on the deck. He dashed straight ahead;
there was no time for any plan. The Chinaman was at the top of the
ladder already and trying to catch him by the leg.
Running like mad, the boy gained a yard or two along the deck. But he
had no real chance of escape, for he had not the least notion of his
bearings or of the hang of the ship. And luck did not favor him at
all. Suddenly he tripped over an unseen obstacle and fell heavily, and
then the Chinaman came down on him with both knees, fastening fingers
upon his throat.
He was not able to cry out, the Chinaman saw to that. But if Sing was
going to kill him, he could only hope it would be soon. This, however,
was not the cook's intention. He merely led Henry Harper back to the
galley by the ear, gave his arm a ferocious twist which made the boy
gasp, and then sent him flying head-first into the stifling darkness of
the manhole with the help of a well-timed boot. The boy pitched in
such a way that he was half stunned, and when at last he came fully to
himself light was creeping through a tiny chink in the manhole, and he
knew that it was morning. Also he knew by the curious lapping sound
made by the waves under the galley stairs that the ship was already at
sea.
XII
Yes, it was true, the ship was already at sea. He was lost. And
hardly was there time for his mind to seize this terrible thought when
the Chinaman looked into the manhole. As soon as he saw the boy was
sitting up, a broad grin came on his face and he beckoned him out with
a finger.
The boy obeyed at once, and tumbled unsteadily into the galley. But as
soon as he tried to stand on his legs he fell down. The Chinaman with
a deep smile pointed to the bacon box, and the boy sat on it, and then
tried as well as he could to prevent his head from going round.
Luckily, for the time being, the Chinaman took no further notice of
Henry Harper, but set about the duties of the day. It was nearly six
bells of the morning watch, and he had to serve breakfast for the crew.
This consisted partly of a curious mixture that was boiling in the
copper, which was called wet hash, and was esteemed as a luxury, and
partly of an indescribable liquid called coffee, which was brewed out
of firewood or anything that came handy, and was not esteemed as
anything in particular by the most catholic taste.
Long before the boy's head had done spinning six bells was struck, and
the members of the crew came into the galley with their pannikins.
There were sixteen all told, excluding the Old Man and the superior
officers, of whom Mr. Thompson was the chief. Henry Harper's breath
was taken away by the sight of this wolfish looking lot. He had seen
distinguished members of the criminal classes massed around the Judge's
carriage at the Assizes at Blackhampton, just for old sake's sake as it
were, and to show that they still took a friendly interest in the Old
Cock; but these were tame and rather amateurish sort of people compared
with the crew of the _Margaret Carey_.
As a body of seamen the crew of the _Margaret Carey_ was undoubtedly
"tough." Dagoes, Yanks, Dutchmen and a couple of not very "white"
Britishers; they came into the galley, one after another, took up their
pannikins of wet hash, and as soon as they saw and smelled it, told Mr.
Sing what they thought of him in terms of the sea. Henry Harper was
chilled to the marrow. He was still seated on the bacon box, his head
was still humming; but he seemed to remember that Auntie, even on
Saturday nights, when she came home from the public, was not as these.
At the end of a fortnight the boy was still alive. At first he was so
dreadfully ill that his mind was distracted from other things. And as
he did not lack food as soon as he could eat it, body and soul kept
together in a surprising way.
He was still in great dread of the Chinaman and of the nights of
torment in the crawling darkness of the manhole under the galley
stairs. But he kept on doing his job as well as he could; he took care
to be alert and obliging to whomever crossed his path; he tried his
honest best to please the Chinaman by saving him as much trouble as
possible, thus at the end of a fortnight not only his life was intact,
but also his skin.
The truth was he was not a bad sort of boy at all. For one thing he
was as sharp as a needle: the gutter, Dame Nature's own academy, had
taught him to be that. He never had to be told a thing twice. Also he
was uncommonly shrewd and observant, and he very soon came to the
conclusion that the business of his life must be to please the Chinaman.
In this task he began to succeed better than he could have hoped.
Sing, for all his look of unplumbed wickedness, did not treat him so
badly as soon as he began to make himself of use. For one thing he got
a share of the best food that was going, the scraps from the cabin
table, and this was a very important matter for one of the hungriest
boys aboard one of the hungriest ships athwart the seas.
In the course of the third week, Henry Harper began to buck up a bit.
His first experience of the motions of a ship at sea had made him
horribly unwell. As night after night he lay tossing and moaning as
loudly as he dared in the stifling darkness between the boiler and the
galley stairs, without a friend in the world and only an unspeakable
fate to look forward to, he felt many times that he was going to die
and could only hope the end would be easy.
However, he had learned already that the act of death is not a simple
matter if you have to compass it for yourself. Every morning found him
limp as a rag, but always and ever alive. And then gradually he got
the turn. Each day he grew a little stronger, a little bolder, so that
by the end of the third week he had even begun to feel less afraid of
the Chinaman.
In the middle of the fourth week, he had a bit of real luck. And it
came to him in the guise of an inspiration. It was merely that one
night when the time came for turning into that stifling inferno which
he still dreaded with all his soul, he literally took his courage in
his hands. He spread Johnnie's overcoat in the farthest corner of the
galley itself, made a pillow of the bundle that Mother had given him,
and then without venturing a look in the direction of the Chinaman very
quietly lay down and waited, with beating heart, for the worst.
Strange to say, the worst never happened. For a long time he expected
a boot in his ribs. Every nerve was braced to receive it. But the
slow minutes passed and no boot came. All this time Sing sat on the
bacon box, smoking solemnly, and taking an occasional sip of grog from
his pannikin. And then suddenly Henry Harper went quite deliciously to
sleep, and dreamed that he was in the West Indies, and had caught a
real live parrot for Johnnie.
It was a really wonderful sleep that he had. He did not wake once till
four bells struck in the morning watch, the proper time for starting
the duties of the day. These began with lighting the fire and filling
the copper. He rose from his corner a new boy, and there was Sing
lying peacefully in the middle of the floor, not taking notice of
anyone. And the odd thing was that during the day Sing showed him no
disfavor; and when night came and it was time once more to turn in,
Henry Harper lay down again in the corner of the galley. There was now
no need to await the arrival of the Chinaman's boot.
XIII
The floor of the galley gave Henry Harper his first start on the road
to manhood. He got so far along it as to be only a little afraid of
the Chinaman. But that was his limit for some little time to come.
Meanwhile he continued in the punctual discharge of his duties, and for
some months things seemed to go fairly well with him. But at last
there came a fatal day when the sinister figure of Mr. Thompson
appeared once more upon the scene. The boy was told briefly and
roughly that the ship was short-handed, that he was wanted aft at once,
and that he had better take his truck along with him.
From that hour the current of his life was changed. For many a day
after that he was to know neither peace nor security. He had been
called to bear a part in the terrific fight that went on all day and
all night, between this crazy windjammer and the forces of nature.
For days and weeks the brain of Henry Harper was a confused horror of
raging seas, tearing winds, impossible tasks, brutal and savage
commands. He did his best, he kept on doing it even when he didn't
know what he was doing, but what a best it was! He was buffeted about
the slippery decks by the hand of man or the hand of nature; he
understood less than half of what was said to him, and even that he
didn't know how to set about doing. The _Margaret Carey_ was so ill
found that she seemed at the mercy of the great gales and the mighty
seas of the Atlantic. She was flung and tossed to all points of the
compass; her decks were always awash; her furious and at times half
demented Old Man was always having to heave her to, but Henry Harper
was never a hand's turn of use on the deck of that hell ship.
He was so unhandy that in the port watch they christened him "Sailor."
There wasn't a blame thing he could do. He was so sick and sorry, he
was so scared out of his life that the Old Man used to get furious at
the mere sight of him.
For weeks the boy hardly knew what it was to have a whole skin or a dry
shirt. The terrible seas got higher and higher as they came nearer the
Horn, the wind got icier, the Old Man's temper got worse, the ship got
crazier, the crew got smaller and smaller by accidents and disease;
long before Cape Stiff was reached in mid-Atlantic the _Margaret Carey_
was no habitation for a human soul.
Sailor's new berth in the half-deck was always awash. Every time he
turned into it he stood a good chance of being drowned like a rat in a
hole. The cold was severe. He had no oilskins or any proper seaman's
gear, except a pair of makeshift leggings from the slop chest. Day
after day he was soaked to the skin, and in spite of Johnnie's overcoat
and all the clothes in the bundle Mother had given him, he could seldom
keep dry.
Every man aboard the _Margaret Carey_, except the Old Man and Mr.
Thompson, and perhaps the second mate, Mr. MacFarlane, in his rare
moments of optimism, was convinced she would never see Frisco. The
crew was a bad one. Dagoes are not reckoned much as seamen, the
Dutchmen were sullen and stupid, none of the Yankees and English was
really quite white. The seas were like mountains; often during the day
and night all available hands had to be literally fighting them for
their lives.
All through this time Henry Harper found only one thing to do, and that
was to keep on keeping on. But the wonder was he was able even to do
that. Often he felt so weak and miserable that he could hardly drag
himself along the deck. He had had more than one miraculous escape
from being washed overboard. His time must come soon enough, but he
could take no step to bring it nearer, because he felt that never again
would he be able to arrange the matter for himself. Something must
have snapped that night he had waited on the wrong rail for the engine.
Bowery Joe, the toughest member of the crew, a regular down-east
Yankee, who liked to threaten him with a knife because of the look on
his face, had told him that he ought to have been born a muddy dago,
and that he was "short of sand."
There seemed to be something missing that others of his kind possessed.
But he had many things to worry about just then. He just kept on
keeping on--out of the way of the Old Man as well as he could--out of
the way of the fist of the second mate--out of the way of the boots and
the knives of all and sundry--out of the way of the raging, murderous
sea that, after all, was his only friend. The time came when sheer
physical misery forced him to be always hiding from the other members
of the crew.
One morning the Old Man caught him skulking below after all hands had
been piped on deck to get the canvas off her. The Old Man said not a
word, but carried him up the companion by the nape of the neck as if he
had been a kitten, brought him on the main deck, and fetched him up in
the midst of his mates at the foot of the mast. He then ordered him
aloft with the rest of them.
In absolute desperation Sailor began to climb. He knew that if he
disobeyed he would be flung into the sea. Clinging, feet and claws,
like a cat, for the sake of the life he hadn't the courage to lose, he
fought his way up somehow through the icy wind and the icier spray that
was ever leaping up and hitting him, no matter how high he went. He
fought his way as far as the lower yardarm. Here he clung helpless,
dazed with terror, faint with exhaustion. Commands were screamed from
below, which he could not understand, which he could not have obeyed
had he understood them, since he now lacked the power to stir from his
perch. His hands were frozen stiff; there was neither use nor breath
in his body; the motions of the ship were such that if he tried to
shift a finger he would be flung to the deck he could no longer see,
and be pulped like an apple. So he clung frantically to the shrouds,
trying to keep his balance, although he had merely to let go an instant
in order to end his troubles. But this he could not do; and in the
meantime commands and threats were howled at him in vain.
"Come down, then," bawled the Old Man at last, beside himself with fury.
But the boy couldn't move one way or the other. At that moment it was
no more possible to come down than it was to go up higher.
They had to roll up the sails without his aid. After that the fury of
the wind and the sea seemed to abate a bit. Perhaps this was more
Henry Harper's fancy than anything else; but at least it enabled him to
gather the strength to move from his perch and slide down the futtock
shrouds to the deck.
The Old Man was waiting for him at the foot of the mast. He took him
by the throat.
"One o' you fetch me a bight o' cord," he roared quietly. He had to
roar to make himself heard at all, but it was a quiet sort of roar that
meant more than it could express.
He was promptly obeyed by two or three. There was going to be a bit of
fun with Sailor.
Frank, an Arab and reckoned nothing as a seaman, was the first with the
cord, but Louis, a Peruvian, was hard on his heels. The boy wondered
dimly what was going to happen.
The Old Man took hold of his wrists and tied them so tightly behind him
that the double twist of cord cut into his thin flesh. But he didn't
feel it very much just then. The next thing the boy knew was that he
was being dragged along the deck. Then he realized that he was being
lashed to the mizzen fife-rail while several of the crew stood around
grinning approvingly. And when this was done they left him there.
They left him unable to sit or to lie down, or even to stand, because
the seas continually washed his feet from under him. There was nothing
to protect him from the pitiless wind of the Atlantic that cut through
his wretched body like a knife, or the yet more pitiless waves that
broke over it, soaking him to the skin and half dashing out his life.
Mercifully the third sea that came, towering like a mountain and then
seeming to burst right over him, although such was not the case, left
him insensible.
He didn't know exactly how or when it was that he came to. He had a
dim idea that he was very slowly dying a worse death than he had ever
imagined it was possible for anything to die. It was a process that
went on and on; and then there came a blank; and then it started again,
and he remembered he was still alive and that he was still dying; and
then another blank; and then there was something alive quite near him;
and then he remembered Mother and tried to gasp her name.
When at last Henry Harper came to himself he found he was in the arms
of Mr. Thompson. The Old Man with the devil in his eyes was standing
by; all around the Horn he had been drinking heavily. Mr. MacFarlane,
Mr. Petersen the third mate, and some of the others were also standing
by.
The boy heard the Old Man threaten to put Mr. Thompson in irons, and
heard him call him a mutinous dog. Mr. Thompson made no reply, but no
dog could have looked more mutinous than he did as he held the boy in
his arms. There was a terrible look on his face, and Mr. MacFarlane
and the others held back a bit.
It chanced, however, that there was just one thought at the back of the
Old Man's mind, and it was this that saved Mr. Thompson, also the boy
and perhaps the ship. He feared no man, he had no God when he was in
drink, and he didn't set much store by the devil as a working
institution; but drunk or sober he was always a first-rate seaman and
he cared a great deal about his ship. And he knew very well that
except himself Mr. Thompson was the only first-rate seaman aboard the
_Margaret Carey_, and that without his aid there was little chance of
the vessel reaching Frisco. It was this thought at the back of the Old
Man's mind that prevented his putting Mr. Thompson in irons.
The boy lay longer than he knew, hovering much nearer to death than he
guessed, in Mr. Thompson's bunk, with Mr. Thompson's spare oilskins
over him, his dry blankets under him, and Mr. Thompson moistening his
lips with grog every few minutes for several hours. It was a pretty
near go; had Henry Harper known how near it was he might have taken his
chance. But he didn't know, and in the course of two or three days
nature and Mr. Thompson and perhaps a change in the weather pulled him
through.
All the way out from London until the third day past the Horn the
weather had been as dirty as it knew how to be; and it knows how to be
very dirty indeed aboard a windjammer on the fifty-sixth degree of
latitude in the month of December, which is not the worst time of the
year. But it suddenly took quite a miraculous turn for the better.
The wind allowed Mr. Thompson to shift the course of the _Margaret
Carey_ a couple of points in two hours, so that before that day was out
the old tub, which could not have been so crazy as she seemed to Henry
Harper, was running before it in gala order with all her canvas spread.
During the following morning the sun was seen for the first time for
some weeks, and the port watch gave it a cheer of encouragement. By
nightfall the wind and the sea were behaving very well, all things
considered, and they shared the credit with Mr. Thompson of having
saved the life of Henry Harper.
The Old Man's temper began to mend with the weather. He was not all
bad--very few men are--it was merely as Mr. Thompson had said, that
when drink was in him he was a devil. The dirtier the weather the more
drink there was in him, as a rule. When the sun shone again and things
began to look more hopeful, the Old Man's temper improved out of all
knowledge.
The Old Man set such store by seamanship that it was the one quality he
respected in others. His world was divided into those who were good
seamen and those who were not good seamen. If you were a good seaman
he would never forget it in his dealings with you; if you were not a
good seaman, whatever else you might be, you could go to hell for all
that he cared. And of all the seamen he had shipped in the course of a
pretty long experience as a master mariner, he had never, in his own
judgment, come across the equal of Mr. Thompson. This was his fifth
time round the Horn with that gentleman as mate, and each voyage
increased the Old Man's respect for his remarkable ability. He had
never seen anything better than the style in which the mate got the old
ship before the wind; nothing could be more perfect than the way she
was moving now under all her canvas; and that evening in the cabin,
after supper, the Old Man broached a bottle of his "pertickler" and
decided upon some little _amende_ to the mate for having threatened to
put him in irons.
"That bye is no use on deck," he said. "He had better come here and
make himself useful until he gets stronger."
The Old Man meant this for a great concession, and Mr. Thompson
accepted it in the spirit in which it was offered. The Old Man now
regarded the boy as part and parcel of Mr. Thompson's property, and it
was by no means certain, such is the subtle psychology of active
benevolence, that Mr. Thompson did not regard the boy in that light
also. At any rate the boy looked on the mate as his natural protector.
Henry Harper craved for someone to whom he could render homage and
obedience. He would have reverenced the Old Man had he been worthy of
such an emotion; as it was he had to fall back on the mate, a rough man
to look at, and a very bad one to cross, but one to whom he owed his
life, and the only friend he had.
It took Henry Harper a fortnight to get fairly on his legs again. Then
he was able to come on deck as far as the break of the poop. Much
seemed to have happened to the world since he had been below. He found
the sun shining gloriously; there was hardly a puff of wind; the crew
in high good humor were cheerfully mending sails. It was not the same
ship, it was not the same sea, it was not the same world he had left a
long fortnight ago. He was amazed and thrilled. The slum-bred waif
had no idea that any world could be like this. Moreover, the
convalescent stage of a dangerous illness was cleansing and renewing
him. For the first time since he had been born he forgot the burden of
his inheritance. He was suddenly intoxicated by the extraordinary
majesty and beauty of the universe.
The sea, what an indescribably glorious thing! The sky without a cloud
in it! He had never seen any sky at Blackhampton to compare with this.
The air, how clean and bright it was! The mollymawks with their
beautiful white breasts were skimming the green water. It was a
glorious world. He heard a dago singing at his work. He almost wanted
to sing as well.
He got a needle and some packthread and sat down on the afterhatch and
suddenly made up his mind to do his best. He could make nothing of his
life, or of his circumstances. His wretched body was all sore and
bruised and broken; his head was still going round and round; he didn't
know what he was, or why he was, or where he was; but a very glorious
earth had been made by Somebody, just as a very miserable thing had
been made by Somebody. However, let him keep on keeping on.
He had gone too far, thus early in life, for self-pity. Besides there
was too much happening around him, too much to look at, too much to do
to think very deeply about himself. Yes, it was a very wonderful
world. The sun began to warm his veins as he sat plying his needle,
such a sun as he had never known. The colors all around were simply
marvelous; blues and yellows, greens and purples! There was nothing at
Blackhampton to compare with them. The dago seated near had set down
his needle, had dabbled his hand in the water, had begun to sing louder
than ever. Yes, Blackhampton was not to be compared with such a world
as this.
For the next three weeks things began to go a bit kinder for Henry
Harper. Each day grew warmer, more gorgeous; there was no wind to
speak of; the sea became so smooth that it might have been the West
Norton and Bagsworth canal. And as it was clearly realized by the rest
of the crew that for some mysterious reason Sailor was now under the
extremely powerful protection of Mr. Thompson, they were careful to
keep their hands off him, and also their boots. This made life a
little duller for them, but a bit easier for Henry Harper.
XIV
Three weeks or so this good life went on. Horror unspeakable was at
the back of the boy's mind. There were things he could never forget as
long as life lasted. At any moment they might return upon him; but
during those days of sun and calm Henry Harper was in an enchanted
world. It was so warm and fair that he retrieved Johnny's overcoat and
Mother's bundle from his bunk where they had been a long time soaking,
spread them on the deck to dry, and had them for a pillow when he slept
that night underneath the stars.
But the good days were soon at an end. Each one after the
twenty-second got hotter and hotter; the twenty-fourth was quite
unpleasant; the heat on the twenty-seventh became almost unbearable.
They were now in the doldrums in a dead calm.
"Shouldn't wonder if we find trouble before we get to the China seas."
Thus Mr. MacFarlane, the second mate, a prophetic Scotsman, in Henry
Harper's hearing.
Mr. MacFarlane was right, as he generally was in these matters--more so
perhaps than he had reckoned, for they managed to find a good deal of
trouble before they got to the China seas.
For several days there was no stir in the air. The heat grew worse;
and then one afternoon it suddenly became very dark, without any
apparent reason. Mr. Thompson went about with a face uglier than
usual, and Mr. MacFarlane said they were cutting straight into the tail
of a typhoon; and then there was an anxious consultation with the Old
Man on deck.
Mr. Thompson's face got uglier as the sky got darker, and the sea
became like a mixture of oil and lead. It was almost impossible to
breathe even on deck; there wasn't a capful of air in the sails or out
of them; all the crew had their tongues out; and instead of eating his
supper that evening the Old Man opened a bottle of his "pertickler."
The boy turned in that night, in the new berth that had been found for
him by Mr. Thompson's orders, with a feeling that something was going
to happen. For one thing the Old Man looked like having the devil in
him again before the morning. Moreover, the heat was so intense that
sleep seemed out of the question.
However, the boy fell asleep unexpectedly, and was presently awakened
in a stifling darkness by a sudden awful and incredible sound of
rushing and tearing. He sat up gasping for air and wondering what it
was that had happened.
Afraid to stay where he was, for it was certain that something terrible
had occurred, he got out of his bunk and groped his way as well as he
could through the darkness, and at last made his way on deck. Here it
was as black as it was below; all the lights were out; the sky was like
pitch; the sea could not be seen; but he knew at once the cause of the
tearing and rushing. It was the wind.
The wind was blowing in a manner he would not have thought to be
possible. Its fury was stupendous. It was impossible to stand up in
it, therefore he did the only thing that he could: he lay down.
Some time he lay on the deck, unable to move forward a yard, or even to
return whence he came, such was the pressure that held him down. Then
it was he felt a new kind of terror. This was more than physical, it
seemed beyond the mind of man. They had had high winds and fierce
storms at Blackhampton, but never had he known or guessed that there
could be a thing of this kind. Such a wind was outside nature
altogether. It seemed to be tearing the ship into little bits.
Several times he tried to rise to his feet in the darkness and find his
way below, but it was no use. Flesh and blood could not stand an
instant against such a rage as that. And then as he lay down again
full length, clutching the hot deck itself for safety, he began to
wonder why no one else was about. Slowly the truth came to him, but
not at first in a form in which he could recognize or understand it.
It seemed to creep upon him like a nightmare. All the crew and Mr.
Thompson and the Old Man had been blown overboard, and he was drifting
about the world, a strange unbelievable world, alone on the ship.
He began to shriek with terror. Yet he didn't know that. It was not
possible to hear the sound of his own voice. He lay writhing on the
deck in a state of dementia. A caveman caught and soused by his first
thunderstorm could not have been more pitiable. He was alone, in this
unknown sea, in this endless night, with all eternity around him.
Again he tried to rise from the deck, but he was still held down,
gasping and choking, by a crushing weight of wind. It would be a
merciful thing if the ship went to the bottom. But even if it did his
case might be no better. Then came the thought that this was what had
happened. The ship had foundered, and this tempest and this appalling
darkness were what he had heard the Reverend Rogers speak of, at a very
nice tea party at the Brookfield Street Mission Hall to which he had
once been invited, as "the life to come."
Henry Harper remembered that "the life to come" was to be a very
terrifying business for "those who had done evil," and according to the
Reverend Rogers all men had done evil; moreover, he had dwelt at great
length on the Wrath of the Supreme Being who was called God.
Henry Harper was in the presence of God. This terrific wind in which
it was impossible for any created thing to exist was the Wrath of the
Supreme Being. Such a thought went beyond reason. It was a key which
unlocked secret chambers in the inherited memory of Henry Harper. Many
were the half remembered things of which he had had experience through
former eons of time. The idea of God was the chief of these.
Half mad with subconscious recollection, he began to crawl like a snake
on his belly along the deck. The key was unlocking one chamber after
another in his soul. Now he was a fire worshiper in a primeval forest;
now he was cleansing his spirit in the blood of sacrifice; now he was
kneeling and praying; now he was dancing round a pile of stones. He
was flooded with a subconscious memory of world-old worship of the
Unseen, a propitiation of the thing called God.
He was a caveman in the presence of deity. Shuddering in every pulse
of his being he pressed his face to the hot boards of the deck. The
secret chambers of his mind were assailing him with things unspeakable.
Even the Reverend Rogers could not have imagined them.
All at once he rolled up against something soft in the darkness. With
a thrill of hope he knew it was a living thing. It was a dago bereft
like himself. Lying with his sweating face pressed to the deck, he
also was in the presence of deity.
The noise was too great for their voices to be heard, but each knew
that the other was alive, and they lay side by side for two hours,
contriving to save their reason by the sense of each other's nearness.
After that time had passed they were able to crawl into shelter. Here
they found others of the crew in varying states of terror and
stupefaction. But it was now getting lighter, and the wind was blowing
less. The worst was over. It seemed very remarkable that the
_Margaret Carey_ was still afloat.
In two hours more the wind had died. An hour after that they saw the
sun again and the ship kept her course as if nothing had occurred.
Indeed, nothing had occurred to speak of, in Mr. Thompson's opinion,
except that two members of the crew had fetched away and gone
overboard, and they could ill afford to lose them, being undermanned
already.
It was now the boy's duty to wait on the Old Man in the cabin. This
was more to his taste than having to lend a hand in the port watch. He
was not the least use on deck, and was assured by everybody that he
never would be, but in the cabin he was very alert and diligent, and
less inefficient than might have been expected. He was really very
quick in some ways, and he laid himself out to please the Old Man with
his cheerful willingness, not that he felt particularly willing or
cheerful either, but he knew that was the only way to save his skin.
At any rate, Sailor was not going back into the port watch if he could
possibly help it.
For such a boy as he, with an eager, imaginative brain always asking
questions of its profoundly ignorant owner, the cabin was a far more
interesting place than the half-deck or the forecastle. There was a
measure of society in the cabin; Mr. Thompson and Mr. MacFarlane
sometimes fraternized with the Old Man, after supper, and their
discourse when they turned to and smoked their pipes and discussed a
noggin of the Old Man's "pertickler," of which they were great
connoisseurs, was very well worth hearing.
Henry Harper found that when the Old Man was not upset by the
weather--which generally brought on a drinking attack--he was human
more or less. Although prone to outbursts of fury, in which anything
might occur, he was by no means all bad. In fact, he was rather by way
of being religious when the elements were in his favor. When at a
loose end he would read a chapter of the Bible, which was of the large
family order, adorned the cabin sideboard, and had apparently been
handed down from father to son. If the weather was good there was
often an instructive theological discussion with Mr. MacFarlane after
supper. The second mate was very full of Biblical lore. His
interpretation of Holy Writ was not always identical with that of his
superior officer, and being a Scotsman and a man of great parts and
character, he never temporized or waived a point. Sometimes he flatly
contradicted the Old Man who, to Henry Harper's intense surprise, would
take it lying down, being an earnest seeker after light in these high
matters. For all that, some of the Old Man's Biblical theories were
quite unshakable, as, for instance, that Jonah could not have been a
first-rate seaman.
In spite of being short-handed, things began to go a bit better. There
was very little wind, the sea was like glass, the sun was beautifully
warm all day, and at night a warm and glowing sky was sown thickly with
stars. Rather late one afternoon, while the Old Man was drinking his
tea, Mr. MacFarlane appeared in the cabin with a look of importance,
and reported land to starboard.
"Nonsense, Mr. MacFarlane," said the Old Man. "We are a good nine days
from anywhere."
Mr. MacFarlane, however, maintained with polite firmness--land to
starboard not being a theological matter--that land there was on the
starboard bow, N. by NE. as well as he could reckon.
"Nonsense, Mr. MacFarlane," said the Old Man.
But he rose from his tea at once, took his binoculars and clambered on
deck. A little while afterwards he returned in a state of odd
excitement, accompanied by Mr. Thompson, and they spread out a chart on
the cabin table.
"By God," said the Old Man, "it's the Island of San Pedro." And he
suddenly brought his fist down on the chart. Moreover, he pronounced
the name with a curious intensity. "By God," he said, "I haven't seen
that island for four and twenty years. We tried to dodge a typhoon,
but was caught in her, and went aground on the Island of San Pedro.
There was only me and the ship's bye as lived to tell the tale."
The voice of the Old Man had grown hoarse, and in his eyes was a glow
of dark excitement. Suddenly they met full and square the startled
eyes of the boy who was listening eagerly.
"Only me and the ship's bye," said the Old Man, his voice falling
lower. "We lived six weeks on shellfish and the boots and clothes of
the dead."
The voice of the Old Man sank to a thrilling whisper. He then said
sharply: "Bye, a bottle o' brandy."
When Henry Harper brought the brandy his face was like a piece of white
chalk.
"Only me and the ship's bye," repeated the Old Man in a hoarse whisper.
"The others went ravin' mad. We knifed 'em one by one; it was the
kindest thing to do. The bye didn't go ravin' mad till afterwards.
And there weren't no Board of Trade Inquiry."
"No, sir," said Mr. Thompson, nodding his ugly head and speaking in a
slow, inhuman voice.
"No Board o' Trade inquiry," said the Old Man. "Nine men and the
ship's bye on the Island o' San Pedro, latitude eighteen degrees,
longitude one hundred and twenty-four degrees." He placed his finger
on the chart on the cabin table. "There y'are, Mr. Thompson. And on'y
me to tell the tale. The bye was gibbering like a baboon by the time
he was fetched aboard the _Para Wanka_, Chinese barque out o' Honolulu.
I was a bit touched meself. Thirteen weeks in 'orspital. Remarkable
recovery. That's the knife on the sideboard in the leather case."
Mr. Thompson took the knife in his hand reverently.
"No Board o' Trade inquiry, sir," he said.
"No Board o' Trade inquiry," said the Old Man, taking a good drink of
neat brandy. "Come on deck and let us have another look at the Island
of San Pedro."
Overcome by a sense of uncanny fascination the boy followed the Old Man
and the mate up the companion and to the deck. Long the Old Man gazed
at the island through his glass, but made no further remark. Then,
having seen enough of it, he handed the glass to Mr. Thompson, who made
no remark either, but gazed with a mask of steel at the Island of San
Pedro.
Mr. MacFarlane, who stood by, pointed with his finger suddenly.
"Sharks," he said.
"Aye," said the Old Man with queer eyes, "these roads is full of 'em.
Aye, there they are, the pretties!"
The boy followed Mr. MacFarlane's finger over the deck rail, and sure
enough, quite near to the ship was a number of creatures whose upturned
bellies shone a strange dead white.
"Come every morning to look at us, the pretties, on the Island of San
Pedro." The Old Man laughed in a queer way. "The tide brought 'em
more than one nice breakfast, but they never had no luck with me and
that bye. He! he! he!"
The Old Man went down to the cabin rather unsteadily, but laughing all
the way.
XV
"Shouldn't wonder if it's a wet night," said Mr. MacFarlane to the mate
in the hearing of the boy.
This was a technicality that Henry Harper didn't understand, but it
held no mystery for Mr. Thompson, who smiled as he alone could and
growled, "Yep."
After supper, the Old Man sat late and drank deep. He pressed both his
officers to share with him. He was always passing the bottle, but
though Mr. Thompson and Mr. MacFarlane were able to keep a stout
course, they were simply not in it with the Old Man. For one thing
both were men of principle who preferred rum to brandy, and very
luckily for the _Margaret Carey_, Mr. Thompson in certain aspects of
his nature preferred his ship to either.
The Old Man talked much that night of the Island of San Pedro, overmuch
perhaps for the refined mind of the second mate. The boy stood
listening behind the Old Man's chair, ready to go about as soon as the
Old Man should be at the end of the bottle.
"No, we didn't touch human flesh," said the Old Man. "I give you my
word of honor as a Christian man. But we caught one o' the Chinamen at
it--two of us was Chinamen--an' we drew lots as to who should do him
in. There was three white men left at that time, including myself and
excluding the bye. Andrews it was, our bosun, who drawed the ticket,
and as soon as he drawed it I thought he looked young for the work. He
wanted to pass it to me, but I said no--he'd drawed the ticket an' he
must do the will o' God."
"'Scuse my interrupting, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane, "but how did ye
know it was the will o' God?"
"Because he'd drawed the ticket, you fool," snapped the Old Man.
"Didn't I say he'd drawed the ticket?"
"Yep," nodded Mr. Thompson.
"Very well, then," said the Old Man with acerbity. "It was up to
Andrews to do the will o' God. He said he'd not do it then, but he'd
wait until the morning. I said, 'There's no time like the present,'
but he was Scotch, and he was obstinate, an' the mornin' never come for
Andrews. He began to rave in the night, as we all lay together on the
sand, with the Chinaman in the middle, and at the screech o' dawn when
I give him the knife, I see at once he was off his rocker."
"Up the pole, sir?" asked Mr. MacFarlane, politely.
"Yes, blast you," said the Old Man. "Don't you understand plain
English? Bye, another bottle."
As the boy's livid face was caught by the lamp on the table while he
bent over it with the new bottle, the Old Man suddenly laughed. There
was something in the boy's eyes that went straight to his heart.
"By God!" he said, refilling his glass. "That's a good idea. We'll
put Sailor here ashore on the Island o' San Pedro first thing in the
morning. We will, so help me!" And the Old Man winked solemnly at Mr.
Thompson and the second mate.
Mr. Thompson smiled and the second mate laughed. The idea itself was
humorous, and the Old Man's method of expressing it seemed to lend it
point.
"That's a good idea," said the Old Man, bringing his fist down so
sharply that the brandy out of his glass slopped over on the
tablecloth. "Sailor here shall be put ashore at sunrise on the Island
of San Pedro. We'll never be able to make a man of him aboard the
_Margaret Carey_. We'll see what the tigers and the lions and the
wolves and hyenas 'll do with him on the Island o' San Pedro."
"Sirpints, Cap'n?" inquired Mr. Thompson innocently, as he returned the
look of his superior officer.
"God bless me, yes, Mr. Thompson!" said the Old Man in a thrilling
voice. "That's why you've got to keep out o' the trees. My advice to
Sailor is--are ye attendin', young feller?--always sleep on sand.
Sirpints won't face sand, and it's something to know that, Mr.
Thompson, when you are all on your lonesome on the Island of San Pedro."
"I've heard that afore, sir," said Mr. Thompson, impressively. "Never
knowed the truth o' it, though."
"True enough, Mr. Thompson," said the Old Man. "Sirpints has no use
for sand. Worries 'em, as you might say."
"I've always understood, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane, whose humor was apt
to take a pragmatical turn, "that it's only one sort o' sirpint what's
shy o' sand."
The Old Man eyed the second mate sullenly.
"O' course it is," he said, "and that's the on'y sort they've got on
the Island o' San Pedro. The long, round-bellied sort, as don't bite
but squeeges."
"And swallers yer?" said Mr. Thompson.
"And swallers yer. Pythons, I think they're called, or am I thinkin'
o' boar constrictors?"
"Pythons, sir," said Mr. MacFarlane. "What swallows a bullock as easy
as it swallows a baby."
"Yes, that's right." The Old Man turned to grin at the boy, but there
was pathos in his voice. "Sailor, my bye, you must keep out o' the
trees. Promise me, Sailor, you'll keep out o' the trees."
The boy had to hold on by the table. The laughter that rang in his
ears could only have one meaning. He knew that the Old Man with the
drink in him would be as good as his word. Suddenly, by a queer trick
of the mind, Henry Harper was again a newsboy crying, "'Orrible Crime
on the 'Igh Seas," along the streets of Blackhampton.
XVI
Sailor didn't sleep that night in his bunk in the half-deck but lay in
the lee of the chart-house looking up at the stars. Now and again, he
could hear little plop-plops in the water, and these he knew were
sharks. It was a night like heaven itself--not that Sailor had had
much experience of heaven so far--wonderfully calm, with the stars so
bright that even as he lay he could see the outline of the Island of
San Pedro. It was so clear in the starlight that he could see little
dark patches here and there rising to the skyline. These were trees he
was sure.
He didn't try to sleep, but lay waiting for the dawn, not thinking of
what he should do, or what he ought to do. What was the use? He was
alone and quite helpless, and he was now in a state altogether beyond
mere terror; he was face to face with that which his mind could not
meet. But he was as sure as those stars were in the sky, that as soon
as it was light the Old Man would put him ashore on the Island of San
Pedro, and that even Mr. Thompson would raise no protest.
Once or twice he tried to think, but it was no use. His brain was
going. He must lie there and wait. How long he lay he didn't know,
but it seemed hours before he heard the morning watch come on deck, and
even then it was some while from daylight. For a long, long time he
lay stupefied, unable to do anything but listen for the stealthy
plop-plop of the sharks in the water. And when the daylight came, at
first it was so imperceptible that he did not notice it.
At last the sun got up, and then he saw that right away to starboard
the sky was truly wonderful, a mass of delicate color which the eye
could not grasp. For a moment, the soul of Henry Harper was entranced.
Heaven itself was opening before him. His mind went back to the
Reverend Rogers and the Brookfield Street Mission. With a stab of
shame for having so long forgotten them, he suddenly recalled the words
of the Reverend Rogers upon the subject of the Golden Gates. Flooded
by an intolerable rush of memories, he imagined he could see and hear
the Choir Invisible. The fowls of the air were heralding a marvelous
sunrise in the Pacific.
For a moment he forgot the Island of San Pedro. Another door of memory
had been unlocked. He was in a flood of golden light. There straight
before him were the gates of paradise. He was looking at the home of
God. Suddenly Henry Harper thought he could hear the voices of the
angels. He strained his eyes to starboard. Real angels with wings
would be a wonderful sight. The fowls of the air were in chorus, the
sharks were plopping in the water, the gates of heaven were truly
marvelous--orange, crimson, gold, purple, every color he had ever seen
or imagined, and he had seen and imagined many, was now filling his
eyes with ecstasy. At every pore of being he was sensing light and
sound. He was like a harp strung up. And then in the midst of it all,
there came the voice of the Old Man as he climbed on deck, with Mr.
Thompson at his heels. And then ... and then ... the heavens opened
... and Henry Harper saw ... and Henry Harper saw....
There was a great plop in the water, much nearer than that of the
sharks. There followed heartrending screams and cries, enough to
appall the soul of man. All hands rushed to the side of the ship.
"It's on'y Sailor," said the Old Man, with a drunken growl. "Let him
drown."
In the next instant there came another great plop in the water.
"What the hell!" roared the Old Man.
"Please, sir, Mr. Thompson's gone for him."
"Mr. who? ... blast you!"
"Mr. Thompson, sir."
"Then lower the gig." The Old Man began to stamp up and down the deck,
roaring like a maniac. "Lower the gig, I tell ye." His fingers were
the first on the davits. "And all hands pipe up a chantey ... louder
... louder ... blast you! ... to keep off those sharks."
The Old Man's voice was hoarse and terrible, as he worked like a demon
to launch the boat.
"Louder, louder, blast you!" he kept roaring. The smooth, dead-white
bellies lay all around, shining in the sunrise. The Old Man was in a
frenzy; it seemed as if the boat would never be got into the water.
At last it was launched and the Old Man was the first to jump into it,
still roaring like one possessed. He beat the water furiously with a
piece of spar. But Mr. Thompson with the boy in tow seemed to be
holding his own very well. Either the sharks had not seen them, or
they dare not approach in the midst of that terrific outcry.
They were soon in the boat, Mr. Thompson being a powerful swimmer; and
when at last they were back on the deck of the _Margaret Carey_, the
boy lay gasping and the mate stood by like some large and savage dog,
shaking the water out of his eyes.
"Whatever made you do that, Mr. Thompson?" expostulated the Old Man.
He was a good deal sobered by the incident, and his manner showed it.
Mr. Thompson did not answer. He stood glowering at a number of the
hands who had gathered round.
"Don't none o' you gennelmen touch that bye," he said with a slow
snarl, and he pointed to the heap on the deck.
They took Mr. Thompson's advice. Most people did aboard the _Margaret
Carey_. Even the Old Man respected it in the last resort, that was if
he was sober enough to respect anything. But with him it was the
seamanship rather than the personal force of his chief officer that
turned the scale. It was the man himself to whom less exalted people
bowed the knee.
It took the boy the best part of two days to recover the use of his
wits. And even then he was not quite as he had been. Something seemed
to have happened to him; a very subtle, almost imperceptible change had
taken place. He had touched bottom. In a dim way he seemed to realize
that he had been made free of some high and awful mystery.
The knowledge was reflected in the thin brown face, haunted now with
all manner of unimaginable things. But the feeling of defeat and
hopelessness had passed; a new Henry Harper had come out of the sea;
never again was he quite so feckless after that experience.
For one thing, he was no longer afraid to go aloft. During the warm
calm delightful days in the Indian Ocean when things went well with the
ship, and there happened to be nothing doing in the cabin, Sailor began
to make himself familiar with the yards. All through the good weather
he practiced climbing assiduously, so that one day the Old Man remarked
upon it to the mate, demanding of that gentleman, "What has happened to
Sailor? He goes aloft like a monkey and sleeps in the cross-trees."
Mr. Thompson made no reply, but a look came into his grim face which
might be said to express approval.
The Old Man and the mate were the first to recognize that a change had
taken place in Sailor, but the knowledge was not confined exclusively
to them. It was soon shared by others. One evening, as Sailor sat
sunning himself with the ship's cat on his knee, gazing with intensity
now at the sky, now at the sea, one of the hands, a rough nigger named
Brutus, threw a boot at him in order to amuse the company. There was a
roar of laughter when it was seen that the aim was so true that the boy
had been hit in the face.
Sailor laid the cat on the deck, got up quietly, and with the blood
running down his cheek came over to Brutus.
"Was that you, you ----?" To the astonishment of all he addressed in
terms of the sea the biggest bully aboard the ship.
"Yep," said the nigger, showing his fine teeth in a grin at the others.
"There, then, you ugly swine," said Sailor.
In an instant he had whipped out one of the cabin table knives, which
he had hidden against the next attack, and struck at the nigger with
all his strength. If the point of the knife had not been blunt the
nigger would never have thrown another boot at anybody.
There was a fine to-do. The nigger, a thorough coward, began to howl
and declared he was done. The second mate was fetched, and he reported
the matter at once to the Old Man.
In a great fury the Old Man came in person to investigate. But he very
soon had the rights of the matter; the boy's cheek was bleeding freely,
and the nigger was more frightened than hurt.
"Get below you," said the Old Man savagely to the nigger. "I'll have
you in irons. I'll larn you to throw boots."
That was all the satisfaction the nigger got out of the affair, but
from then boots were not thrown lightheartedly at Sailor.
XVII
After many days of ocean tramping with an occasional discharge of cargo
at an out of the way port, the ship put in at Frisco. Here, after a
clean up, a new cargo was taken aboard, also a new crew. This was a
pretty scratch lot; the usual complement of Yankees, Dutchmen, dagoes,
and an occasional Britisher.
For a long and trying fifteen months, Sailor continued on the seas,
about all the oceans of the world. At the end of that time he was
quite a different boy from the one who had left his native city of
Blackhampton. Dagoes and niggers no longer did as they liked with him.
He still had a strong dislike, it was true, to going aloft in a gale,
but he invariably did as he was told to the best of his ability; he no
longer skulked or showed the white feather in the presence of his
mates. Nevertheless, he was always miserably unhappy. There was
something in his nature that could not accept the hateful discomforts
of a life before the mast, although from the day of his birth he had
never known what it was to lie soft. He was in hell all the time.
Moreover, he knew it and felt it to the inmost fiber of his being; the
soul of Henry Harper was no longer derelict.
The sense of the miracle which had happened off the Island of San Pedro
abided with him through gale and typhoon, through sunshine and
darkness, through winter and summer. It didn't matter what the sea was
doing, or the wind was saying, or the Old Man was threatening, a
miracle had happened to Henry Harper. He had touched bed rock. He had
seen things and he had learned things; man and nature, all the terrible
and mysterious forces around him could do their worst, but he no longer
feared them in the old craven way. Sailor had suffered a sea change.
The things in earth and heaven he had looked upon none could share with
him, not even Mr. Thompson, that strange and sinister man of the sea,
to whom he owed what was called "his life"; nay, not even the Old Man
himself who had lived six weeks on shellfish on the Island of San Pedro.
When the _Margaret Carey_ had been to Australia and round the larger
half of the world, she put in at Frisco again. Here she took another
cargo and signed on fresh hands for a voyage round the Pacific Coast.
Among the latter was a man called Klondyke. At least, that was the
name he went by aboard the _Margaret Carey_, and was never called by
any other. At first this individual puzzled Henry Harper considerably.
He shared a berth with him in the half-deck, and the boy--now a grown
man rising sixteen--armed with a curiosity that was perfectly
insatiable, and a faculty of taking lively and particular notice, found
a great deal to interest him in this new chum.
He was about twenty-four and a Britisher, although Sailor in common
with most of his shipmates thought at first that he was a Yankee. For
one thing, he was a new type aboard the _Margaret Carey_. Very
obviously he knew little of the sea, but that didn't seem to trouble
him. From the moment he set foot aboard, he showed that he could take
good care of himself. It was not obtrusive but quietly efficient care
that he took of himself, yet it seemed to bear upon the attitude of all
with whom he had to do.
Klondyke knew nothing about a windjammer, but soon started in to learn.
And it didn't seem to matter what ticklish or unpleasant jobs he was
put to--jobs for which Sailor could never overcome a great dislike--he
had always a remarkable air of being in this hard and perilous business
merely for the good of his health.
Klondyke said he had never been aloft before in his life, and the first
time he went up it was blowing hard from the northeast, yet his chief
concern before he started was to lay a bet of five dollars with anybody
in the starboard watch that he didn't fall out of the rigging. But
there were no takers, for there was not a man aboard who would believe
that this was the first time he had gone up on a yard.
It was not many weeks before Klondyke was the most efficient ordinary
seaman aboard the _Margaret Carey_. And by that time he had become a
power among the after gang. As one of the Yankees, who was about as
tough as they made them but with just a streak of the right color in
him, expressed it, "Klondyke was a white man from way back."
The fact was, Klondyke was a white man all through, the only one aboard
the ship. It was not a rarefied or aggressively shining sort of
whiteness. His language on occasion could be quite as salt as that of
anybody else, even more so, perhaps, as he had a greater range of
tongues, both living and dead, from which to choose. He was very
partial to his meals, and growled terribly if the grub went short as it
often did; he also set no store by dagoes and "sich," for he was very
far from believing that all men were equal. They were, no doubt, in
the sight of God, but Klondyke maintained that the English were first,
Yankees and Dutchmen divided second place, and the rest of sea-going
humanity were not on the chart at all. He was always extremely clear
about this.
From the first day of Klondyke's coming aboard, Sailor, who was very
sharp in some things, became mightily interested in the new hand in the
wonderful fur cap with flaps for the nose and ears, who went about the
ship as if he owned it; while after a time the new hand returned the
compliment by taking a friendly interest in Sailor. But that was not
at first. Klondyke, for all his go-as-you-please air, was not the kind
of man who entered easily upon personal relations. Moreover, there was
something about him which puzzled Henry Harper. He spoke a kind of
lingo the boy had never heard before. It was that as much as anything
which had made Sailor think he was a Yank. He had not been used to
that sort of talk at Blackhampton, nor was it the kind in vogue on the
_Margaret Carey_. If not exactly la-di-da, had it been in the mouth of
some people it would have been considered a trifle thick.
Sailor's intimacy with Klondyke, which was to have an important bearing
upon his life, began in quite a casual way. One afternoon, with the
sea like glass, and not a puff of wind in the sails, they sat together
on the deck picking oakum to keep them from idleness, when Klondyke
suddenly remarked: "Sailor, don't think me inquisitive, but I'm
wondering what brought you to sea."
"Inquisitive" was a word Sailor had not heard before, and he could only
guess at its meaning. But he thought Klondyke so little inquisitive
that he said at once quite simply and frankly, "Dunno." He then added
by way of an afterthought, although Klondyke was a new chum and rated
the same as himself, "Mister."
"No, I expect not," said Klondyke, "but I've been wondering a bit
lately"--there was something very pleasant in Klondyke's tone--"how you
come to be aboard this hell ship. One would have thought you'd have
done better ashore."
Sailor was not able to offer an opinion upon that.
"In some kind of a store or an office?"
"Can't read, can't write."
"No?" Klondyke's eyebrows went up for a fraction of an instant, then
they came down as if a bit ashamed of themselves for having gone up at
all. "But it's quite easy to learn, you know."
Sailor gasped in astonishment. He had always been led to believe that
to learn to read and write was a task of superhuman difficulty. Some
of his friends at Blackhampton had attended a night school now and
again, but none of them had been able to make much of the racket of
reading and writing, except one, Nick Price, who had a gift that way
and was good for nothing else. Besides, as soon as he really took to
the game a change came over him. Finally, he left the town.
"I'd never be able to read an' write," said Sailor.
"Why not?" said Klondyke. "Why not, like anybody else ... if you stuck
it? Of course, you'd have to stick it, you know. It mightn't come
very kind at first."
This idea was so entirely new that Sailor rose with quite a feeling of
excitement from the upturned bucket on which he sat.
"Honest, mister," he said, gazing wistfully into the face of Klondyke,
"do you _fink_ I could?"
"Sure," said Klondyke. "Sure as God made little apples."
Sailor decided that he would think it over. It was a very important
step to take.
XVIII
Klondyke's library consisted of two volumes: the Bible and "Don
Quixote." Sailor knew a bit about the former work. The Reverend
Rogers had read it aloud on a famous occasion when Henry Harper had had
the luck to be invited to a real blowout of tea and buns at the
Brookfield Street Mission. That was a priceless memory, and Henry
Harper always thought that to hear the Reverend Rogers read the Bible
was a treat. Klondyke, who was not at all like the Reverend Rogers in
word or deed, said it was "a damned good book," and would sometimes
read in it when he was at a bit of a loose end.
It was by means of this volume that Sailor learned his alphabet.
Presently he got to spelling words of two and three letters, then he
got as far as remembering them, and then came the proud day when he
could write his name with a stump of pencil on a stray piece of the
_Brooklyn Eagle_, in which Klondyke had packed his tooth brush, the
only one aboard the _Margaret Carey_.
"What is your name, old friend?" Klondyke asked.
"Enry Arper."
"H-e-n with a Hen, ry--Henry. H-a-r with a Har, p-e-r--Harper."
"There ain't no aitch in Arper," said Sailor.
"Why not?"
Enry Arper was Sailor's own private name, which he had been given at
his birth, which he had used all his life. He had always felt that as
it was the only thing he owned, it was his to do with as he liked.
Therefore he was determined to spell it according to his fancy. He
wouldn't admit that there could possibly be an aitch in Arper; and for
some little time his faith in Klondyke's competence was a bit shaken,
for his mentor was at pains to make out that there could be and was.
Henry Harper stuck to his ground, however.
"It's me own name," he said, "an' I oughter know."
Klondyke was amused. He seemed rather to admire Sailor's attitude. No
doubt he felt that no Englishman is worth his salt who doesn't spell
his name just as the fancy takes him.
Klondyke's own name was Jack Pridmore, and it was set out with other
particulars on the flyleaf of his Bible. In a large and rather crude
copperplate was inscribed:
Jack Pridmore is my name,
England is my nation,
Good old Eton College
Gave me a lib'ral education.
Stet domus et
Floreat Etona.
The arms of Eton College with the motto "Floreat Etona" were inscribed
on the opposite page, also in tattoo on the left arm of the owner. In
Sailor's opinion, Eton College did flourish undoubtedly in the person
of Jack Pridmore. He was a white man all through, and long before
Sailor could make out that inscription on the flyleaf of Klondyke's
Bible, he was convinced that such was the case.
In Sailor's opinion, he was a good one to follow anywhere. Everything
in Klondyke seemed in just the right proportion and there was nothing
in excess. He was new to the sea, but he was not in the least green or
raw in anything. You would have to stay up all night if you meant to
get ahead of him. So much had he knocked about the world that he knew
men and cities like the back of his hand, and he had the art of shaking
down at once in any company.
All the same, in Sailor's opinion, he had odd ideas. For one thing, he
set his face against the habit of carrying a knife in your shirt in
case the dagoes got above themselves.
"It's not quite white, you know, old friend," said Klondyke.
"Dagoes ain't white," said Sailor.
"No; and that's why we've got to show 'em how white we are if we are
going to keep top dog."
This reasoning was too deep for Sailor.
"Don't see it meself. Them dagoes is bigger'n me. If I could lick
'em, I'd lick 'em till they hollered when they started in to fool
around. But they are real yaller; none on 'em will face a bit o'
sheffle."
"No," said Klondyke, "and they'll not face a straight left with a punch
in it either."
Klondyke then made a modest suggestion that Sailor should acquire this
part of a white man's equipment. He was firmly convinced that with the
rudiments of reading and writing and a straight left with a punch in
it, you could go all over the world.
At first Sailor took by no means as kindly to the punching as he did to
the other branches of knowledge. He wanted a bit of persuading to face
Klondyke in "a little friendly scrapping practice" in the lee of the
chart house when no one was by. Klondyke was as hard as a nail; his
left was like a horse's kick; and when he stood in his birthday suit,
which he did once a day to receive the bucket of water he got Sailor to
dash over him--another of his odd ideas--he looked as fine a picture of
make and muscle as you could wish to see. Sailor thought "the little
friendly scrapping practice" was a very one-sided arrangement. His
nose seemed to bleed very easily, his eyes began to swell so that he
could hardly see out of them, and his lips and ears thickened with
barely any provocation at all, whereas he never seemed to get within a
yard of Klondyke's physiognomy unless that warrior put down his hands
and allowed him to hit it.
By this time, however, Klondyke had laid such a hold on Henry Harper
that he didn't like to turn it up. He'd never make a Slavin or a
Corbett--it simply wasn't in him--but all that was "white" in Sailor
mustered at this chap's call. The fact was, he had begun to worship
Klondyke, and when with the "sand" of a true hero he was able to get
over an intense dislike of being knocked about, he began to feel a sort
of pride in the process. If he had to take gruel from anybody, it had
better be from him. Besides, Sailor was such a queer fish that there
seemed something in his nature which almost craved for a licking from
the finest chap he had ever known. His affection for this "whitest" of
men seemed to grow with the punishment he took from him.
One night, after an easy watch, as they lay talking and smoking in
their bunks in the dark, Klondyke remarked:
"Sailor, there's a lot o' guts in you."
Henry Harper, who was very far off that particular discovery, didn't
know what Klondyke was getting at.
"You've taken quite a lot of gruel this week. And you've stood up to
it well. Mind, I don't think you'll ever make a bruiser, not if you
practice until the cows come home. It simply isn't there, old friend.
It's almost like hitting a woman, hitting you. It is not your line of
country, and it gets me what you are doing aboard this blue-nose
outfit. How do you stick it? It must be hell all the time."
Henry Harper made no reply. He was rather out of his depth just now,
but he guessed that most of this was true.
"I don't mind taking chances, but it's all the other way with you.
Every time you go aloft, you turn white as chalk, and that shows what
grit you've got. But your mother ought never to have let you come to
sea, my boy."
"Never had no mother," said Sailor.
"No"--Klondyke felt he ought to have known that. "Well, it would have
saved mine a deal of disappointment," he said cheerfully, "if she had
never had such a son. I'm her great sorrow. But if you had had a
mother it would have been another story. You'd have been a regular
mother's boy."
Sailor wasn't sure.
XIX
Klondyke was ten months an ordinary seaman aboard the _Margaret Carey_.
In that time the old tub, which could not have been so crazy as she
seemed to the experts of the forecastle, went around the Pacific as far
as Brisbane, thence to Durban, thence again to California. Meanwhile,
friendship ripened. It was a great thing for Sailor to have the
countenance of such a man as Klondyke. He knew so much more about the
world than Sailor did, also he was a real friend and protector; and,
when they went ashore together in strange places, as they often did, he
had a wonderful knack of making himself respected.
It was not that Klondyke wore frills. In most of the places in which
they found themselves a knife in the ribs would have done his business
out of hand had that been the case. It was simply that he knew his way
and could talk to every man in his own language, and every woman, too,
if it came to that. Whether it was a Frisco hash-slinger or a refined
bar-lady along the seaboard made no difference to Klondyke. It was
true that he always looked as if he had bought the earth at five per
cent. discount for cash and carried the title deeds in his pocket, but
he had such a way with him that from Vancouver to Sydney and back again
nobody seemed to think the worse of him for it.
However, the day came all too soon when a tragic blow fell on Sailor.
The ship put in at Honolulu one fine morning, and as soon as Klondyke
went ashore he picked up a substitute for himself on the waterfront,
whom the Old Man was willing to accept for the rest of his term.
Klondyke then broke the news to Sailor that he had just taken a fancy
to walk across Asia.
It was a heavy blow. Sailor was very near tears, although he was
growing in manhood every week.
"It's no use asking you to come with me," said Klondyke. "We shouldn't
have enough brass to go round. Besides, now the _wanderlust_ is on me
there is no saying where I'll get to. I'm very likely to be sawed up
for firewood in the middle of Tibet."
Sailor knew that Klondyke wanted to make the journey alone. Partly to
soften the blow and partly as an impulse of friendship, he gave the boy
his Bible and also his wonderful fur cap with flaps for the nose and
ears.
"Stick to the reading and writing, old friend," were the final words of
this immortal. "That's your line of country. It'll pay you in the
end. You'll get no good out of the sea. If you are wise, whenever you
touch the port of London, you'll give a miss to this old tub. A life
on the ocean wave is never going to be the least use to you."
Sailor knew that Klondyke was right. But among the many things he
lacked was all power of initiative. As soon as he had lost his prop
and stay, he was once more a derelict. For him life before the mast
must always be a hell, but he had no power of acting for himself.
After Klondyke left the ship there didn't seem anything else to do
beyond a mere keeping of body and soul together aboard the _Margaret
Carey_. There was nothing else he could do if it came to that. He had
only learned to sell papers on land, and he had given the best years of
his life to the sea. Besides, every voyage he became a better sailor
and was paid a bit more; he even had visions of one day being rated
able seaman. Moreover, being saving and careful, his slender store of
dollars grew. But his heart was never really in his work, never in the
making of money nor in the sailing of the ship.
He was a square peg in a round hole. He didn't know enough about
himself or the world or the life he was trying to live to realize fully
that this was the case. And for all his weakness of will and complete
lack of training, which made his life a burden to him, he had a curious
sort of tenacity that enabled him to keep on keeping on long after
natures with more balance would have turned the thing up. All the
years he was at sea, he never quite overcame the sense of fear the sea
aroused in him; he seldom went aloft, even in a dead calm, without
changing color, and he never dared look down; he must have lost his
hold in many a thrashing northeaster and been broken on the deck like
an egg but for an increasing desire to live that was simple torment.
There was a kind of demon in his soul which made him fight for a thing
that mocked it.
He had no other friend after Klondyke went. No other was possible;
besides, he had a fierce distrust of half his shipmates; he even lost
his early reverence for Mr. Thompson, in spite of the fact that he owed
him his life, long before the mate left the ship at Liverpool nine
months after the departure of Klondyke. Above all, the Old Man in
liquor always inspired his terror, a treat to be counted on once a
month at least. The years of his seafaring were bitter, yet never once
did he change ship. He often thought about it, but unluckily for Henry
Harper thought was not action; he "never quite matched up," as Klondyke
used to express it. He had a considerable power of reflection; he was
a creature of intuitions, with a faculty of observation almost
marvelous in an untrained mind, but he never seemed able to act for
himself.
Another grave error was that he didn't take Klondyke's advice and stick
to reading and writing. No doubt he ought to have done it; but it was
such a tough job that he could hardly take it on by himself. The
drudgery made him miserable; it brought too vividly to his mind the
true friend who had gone out of his life. For the rest of his time
aboard the _Margaret Carey_ he never got over the loss of Klondyke.
The presence and support of that immortal had meant another world for
him. For many months he could hardly bear the sight of the Bible his
friend had given him, but cherished it as he had once cherished an
apple that had also been given him by one who had crossed his orbit in
the night of time and had spoken to him in passing.
It is not unlikely that Henry Harper would have sailed the seas aboard
the _Margaret Carey_ until that miraculous ship went to pieces in
mid-ocean or turned turtle round the Horn; it is not unlikely that he
would have gone down to his grave without a suspicion that any other
kingdom awaited him, had it not been that in the last resort the
decision was taken out of his hands.
One day, when he had been rather more than six years at sea, the
_Margaret Carey_ was within three days of London, whither she was bound
with a cargo of wheat, when the Old Man informed him briefly and curtly
that she was making her last voyage and that she was going to be broken
up. The news was such a blow that at first Sailor could not realize
what it meant. He had come to feel that no sort of existence would be
possible apart from the _Margaret Carey_. He had lived six crowded and
terrible years of worse than discomfort, but he could envisage no
future apart from that leaking, crazy, foul old tub.
All too soon the day came, a misty morning of October, when he stepped
ashore. A slender bundle was under one arm, Klondyke's fur cap on his
head, a weird outfit on his lathlike body, an assortment of clothes as
never was on sea or land before; and he had a store of coins of various
realms, no less than eighty-five pieces of all sizes and values, from
an English farthing to a Mexican five dollars, very carefully disposed
about his person.