THE RETURN OF THE _VULCAN_
Etched against the horizon lay a stumpy masted vessel that seemed as
still and dead as ocean that rotted around it. She had not a sail aloft
nor a plume of smoke in her funnel. For the moment this lifelessness was
not observed by the hungry castaways. A joyous medley arose from the
dock.
"Th' _Vulcan_! Hit's th' _Vulcan_! Th' good _Vulcan_!
We'll 'ave full rations t'night, 'at will! Hurrah!"
They fell to cheering. Voices arose in confusion.
"_Vulcan_ ahoy! _Vulcan_ ah-o-oy!" they bellowed in an effort
to span the miles with human ices.
"Say, lads, she ain't movin'!" cried someone making the surprising
discovery.
"Faith and phwat's th' matter with _her_ now?" exclaimed Hogan in
exasperated wonder.
A silence fell over the boisterous group.
"Out o' coal," hazarded Galton, "that's w'y she harsn't got back no
sooner."
"W'ere's 'er sails, then?"
"A tug couldn't do nothin' with sails--she isn't made for sails!"
"It ain't w'ot ye're made for, hit's w'ot ye can git in this blarsted
sea!"
"Maybe 'er machin'ry's broke?"
"Maybe they're hall sick?"
"Or dead?"
"Maybe----"
Madden hurried to his cabin and returned with binoculars. The men
foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his
eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute
distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the
swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could
even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house. Her small
boats were in place, but he saw neither life nor movement aboard. She
appeared as deserted as a pile of scrap iron.
"W'ot are they doin'?" queried Galton.
"Nothing." Madden was puzzled over the strange condition of the tug.
"Ain't they crowdin' to th' side, sir, lookin' at us and fixin' to come
to us?"
"Nobody's on her," replied Madden. "At least I don't see anyone."
"W'ot! W'ot! Nobody on 'er! Is she deserted, too? Just like the
_Minnie B_!" chorused apprehensive voices.
"Seems so," frowned Madden, then he made up his mind quickly and moved
over to the small boat which had been hauled up on the forward pontoon.
"Fall to, men, lower that dinghy. We'll go over and see what's the
trouble."
The crew went about their task with a sudden slump of enthusiasm.
"If the crew's gone, sir," mumbled one of the men, as he paid out the
rope, "w'ot's the use goin' across?"
"To get to the tug, of course."
"An'w'ot'll we do?"
Madden looked hard at the cockney. "Get the provisions aboard if nothing
else."
"There wasn't none on the _Minnie B_, sir."
"What's the _Minnie B_ got to do with the _Vulcan_? We're
going to run the tug and dock out of this sea, crew or no crew--ease
away on that rope, Mulcher. Let go! Now climb down, Galton, loose the
tackle and swing her in alongside the ladder."
When the cockneys obeyed, Madden ordered the whole crew into the small
boat. They climbed down the ladder one by one with a reluctance Madden
did not quite understand at the time.
Fifteen minutes later, the little boat, loaded down to her gunwales,
set out for the tug. Four oarsmen rowed, one man to the oar. The slow
clacking of shafts in tholes echoed sharply from the huge walls of the
dock as the dinghy drew away through the burning sunshine.
At some half-mile distance, the harsh outlines of the walls and pontoons
changed subtly into a great wine-red castle, that lay on a colorful
tapestry of seaweed, with a background of blue ocean and bronze sky.
As he drew away, Madden had a premonition that the dock was vanishing
out of his life and sight, that never again would he live in its great
walls. Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely
forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought
from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay
ahead.
Half an hour later the dinghy drew alongside the silent _Vulcan_
and the crew clambered aboard. As they had suspected, there was no sign
of the tug's crew aboard.
Although the binoculars had forewarned them of this, the adventurers
bunched together on the deck with a qualmish feeling and began talking
in low tones, as men converse in the presence of mystery, or death.
"We'll search her first," directed Madden, in a tone he tried to make
natural.
"Yes," agreed Greer, "and, men, keep a sharp eye out for lunatics. Don't
let anything jump on you----"
"Lunatics!" gasped Mulcher.
"Greer and I fancied someone scuttled the _Minnie B_," explained
Madden with a frown, "but that's no sign such a person is aboard the
_Vulcan_."
"They are wonderful like, sir," observed Gaskin.
"Anyway we'll look her over."
The men agreed and began scattering away, two by two for companionship.
Presently from the port side Hogan raised his voice guardedly.
"Oh, Misther Madden, just stip this way a moment, if you plaze."
The call instantly attracted several other men. They moved across deck.
Hogan was pointing. "Jist th' same as th' other wan," he said gloomily
and significantly. "We knew it would be this way, sir. It was th' same
hand as done it"
Leonard looked with rising dismay at the sinister parallel.
The _Vulcan_ also was lying at sea anchor.
In brief, here was conclusive proof that the tug had been abandoned
deliberately and with forethought by Malone, Captain Black and the whole
_Vulcan_ crew. Moreover, as in the case of the _Minnie B_, they
had deserted their ship without taking a boat or even so much as a
life buoy.
The amazed group of men collected about them other members of the
searching party, who stuck their heads out of ports and doors now and
then to see that no evil magic had set the rigging in flames.
"They all go th' same way," mumbled Hogan, staring at the anchor and
wetting his dry lips. "Oi'm thinkin' it'll be our toime nixt."
"Piffle," derided the American half-heartedly.
"It makes no difference what happens," put in Caradoc, "we'll see the
thing through."
For some reason the men thought better of Smith since the fight and his
crisp announcement cheered them somewhat.
"She's got plenty o' coal," volunteered Galton.
"'Er engines look all right," contributed Mulcher, "though I know
bloomin' little about hengines."
"I weesh I knew what happened to the men," worried Deschaillon in his
filed-down accent.
"My quistion ixactly, Frinchy," nodded Hogan emphatically. "Misther
Madden says 'Piffle,' but Oi say where are they piffled to? Did they go
over in a storm, or die of fever, or run crazy with heat?"
"They didn't starve," declared Mulcher, "for some of th' fellows are in
th' cook's galley now eatin'."
Madden lifted his hand for attention, "There's no use speculating on
what has happened. It's our job to get dock and tug to the nearest
port."
"But suppose--suppose----"
"Suppose what?"
"Suppose th' thing gits arfter us, sir?"
Madden stared, "Thing--what thing?"
The cockney frowned, looked glumly across deck. Galton answered,
"W'y, sir, th' thing that run th' crew hoff the _Minnie B_ an' hoff
th' _Vulcan_. Crews don't 'op hoff in th' hocean for amoosement,
sir. Some'n' done hit an' that's sure."
"Do you mean you object to sailing this tug on account of some imaginary
_thing_?" demanded Madden in utter surprise.
"Imaginary, sir!" protested Mulcher, "If you please, us lads on th'
dock, the night th' _Minnie B_ sunk, saw something swim off to th'
south wrapped hall over in fire, sir. Imaginary thing! It bit a 'ole in
th' _Minnie B_ an' sunk 'er, sir!"
This recalled to Leonard's mind the peculiar phenomenon he had witnessed
at the sinking of the _Minnie B_.
"What do you think the thing is?" he temporized.
"A--A sea sorpint, sir," stammered a cockney embarrassed.
"Sea serpent! Sea serpent!" scouted the American. "There is no such
thing as a sea serpent!"
"That's w'ot th' hofficers always say," growled Mulcher.
"But it is a scientific fact--there's no such thing."
The well-fed Gaskin, who formed one of the group, made a bob. "That may
well be, sor," he said in solemn deference, "but w'ether there is or
isn't such a thing, sor, it's 'orrible to see, either way."
From the banding of the men against him, Madden became aware that they
had decided on the real cause of the mystery behind his back, and he
would have hard work to argue them out of the sea serpent idea.
"You boys saw a shark or porpoise swimming away from that schooner," he
began patiently. "I saw it myself. You recall, on that night anything
that moved in the water burned like fire. The ship was brilliant, the
oars of the dinghy shone. The thing you saw had nothing to do with the
schooner."
"Then w'ot sunk 'er, sor?"
"Aye, an' w'ot come of 'er men, sor?"
"Aye, an w'ot come of th' _Vulcan's_ crew?"
"Could a sea serpent put out a sea anchor?" retorted Leonard.
The men stared doggedly at their chief. "We don't know, sor."
"You do know that it is impossible!"
"If there ain't no such thing, sor, 'ow do we know w'ot it can do?"
questioned Gaskin.
"Then do you want to go back and stay on the dock and starve?" cried
Madden at the end of his patience.
There was a silence at the anger in his tone, then Gaskin began very
placatingly, "Hi'm not wishin' to chafe ye, sor, but th' dock is so big
th' lads 'ave decided the sorpint is afraid o' th' dock."
At Leonard's impatient gesture he added hastily, "Not that Hi believe in
such things, sor, but Hi carn't 'elp but notice that hever'body on th'
dock is alive, an' hever'body on th' other two wessels is dead an' gone,
sor."
Madden turned sharply on his heel. "Anybody who knows anything about
marine engines, follow me," he snapped. "We must study out a way to
start the _Vulcan's_ machinery. We're going!"
As he moved down to the doorway amidship that led below, he heard Galton
mumble: "Yes, _we'll_ be going, Hi think, down some sea sorpint's
scaly throat, but th' tug an' th' dock'll stay 'ere."
If a view of the _Minnie B's_ auxiliary engines had put hopeful
notions in Madden's head of puzzling out their control by mere
inspection, a single glance at the huge machinery of the _Vulcan_
filled him with despair.
The tug's hull was practically filled with a maze of machinery. Her
engines arose in a tower of bracings, wheels, gearing, pistons, steam
pipes, steam valves, with a multitude of the eccentrics and trip
gearings used on quadruple expansion engines.
Although he had seen hundreds of steam engines, never before had Madden
realized their complication until he faced the problem of running this
difficult fabric. His proposed task made him realize that the engineer's
apprentice, who serves four years amid oil and iron black, learning all
the details of these mechanical monsters, is probably just as well
educated, just as capable of exact and sustained thought, as the lad who
spends four years in college construing dead tongues.
Madden could construe dead tongues, or at least could when he left
college a few months back, but now his life, the life of his crew, the
salving of the dock, and the winning of a possible fortune, depended
upon his answering the riddle of this Twentieth Century Sphinx. It was
like attempting to understand all mathematics, from addition to
celestial mechanics, at a glance.
Nevertheless, Madden's training as a civil engineer gave him a certain
aptitude for his formidable undertaking and he set about it with
rat-like patience.
He picked out the main steam pipe, larger than his body, covered with
painted white canvas, and followed this till he discovered the throttle,
a steel wheel with hand grips with which he could choke the breath out
of the monster engines. Beside this were control levers. On the steam
chest lay a half-smoked cigarette, as if the engineer had been called
suddenly away from his post.
Madden turned the throttle, pushed the levers back and forth, and
listened to clicking sounds high up in the complexity of the engines. He
knew that every lever threw long systems of vents and valves in and out
of play. A wrong combination would easily wreck all this powerful
machinery. He was tackling a delicate job--like juggling a car-load of
dynamite.
An oil can sat under the throttle. The amateur engineer picked up this
and a handful of greasy tow. Engines require constant oiling. Madden had
never watched an engineer ten minutes but that he went about poking a
long crooked-necked oil can into all sorts of hidden inaccessible
places.
Madden thought if he tried to oil the engine, he might learn something
about it. He glanced around for the usual myriad little shining brass
oil cups stuck, one on each bearing. To his surprise, he saw none. The
machinery of the _Vulcan_ was lubricated by a circulatory
compression system, which used the same oil over and over. Madden did
not know this, so it threw him off the track at his first step.
No one had followed the boy into the engine room, so now he was about to
go on deck and commandeer a squad, when, to his surprise, Galton
appeared at the top of the circular stairs, whistling a rather cheerful
tune. He leaned over the rail and called down heartily:
"Do you want me, Mr. Madden?"
"Yes, come along. I wish you knew something about machinery."
Galton laughed buoyantly. "I'm not such a chump at hit, sor," he
recommended.
"You know something about it?" inquired Madden in surprise.
"A bit, a bit, Mr. Madden. My brother Charley is chief engineer on the
_Rajah_ in the P & O, sor."
"Ever work under him?" asked the American hopefully.
"Two years, only two years, sor. Never did finish my term an' get my
papers. Often's the time 'e's begged me to do it, Mr. Madden. 'E'd say,
''Enry, me boy, w'y don't ye finish your term and git a screw o' sixteen
pun' per, but I was allus a----"
"That's all right!" cried Leonard delightedly. "I don't care whether
you're a full-fledged engineer or not. You're hired for this job.
Understand? You'll get full wages, and then some. I'll----"
"Oh! I can 'andle a little hengine like this, sor. That's th'
inspirator, sor," he pointed. "That's th' steam chist. In th' other end
is th' condensing chamber. That little hegg-shaped thing is----"
"That's all right; I'm no examining board. Just so you can run it and
keep it running. Now I'll get a gang at the furnace, if the boys have
got over their sea-serpent scare by this time."
"They're jolly well over that, sor. Me and Mulcher 'ave decided as 'ow
we're goin' to kill that sea sorpint, if it comes a-bitin' into our tug,
sor."
Madden looked at his willing helper curiously. "Kill it--how are you
going to kill it?"
"Dead, sor, yes, kill it dead, sor." Galton nodded solemnly, "My brother
Charley, cap'n o' th' _Cambria_, sir, in th' 'Amburg-American Line,
'e learned me to kill sea sorpints, w'en I was jest a l-little bit of
a--a piker, sor. An' I n-never forgot 'ow 'e told me to do it. You climb
up th' mainmast, sor, w'ere you can git at their 'eads, cross your
fingers for luck, an' blow tobacco smoke in their eyes. They 'ate
tobacco smoke an----"
Leonard stared at the fellow, with a sinking heart. He was drunk. As to
whether he knew anything about marine engines or not, there was no way
to find out.
The effect of the long strain of heat, hunger and anxiety now told on
Madden in a wave of unreasonable exasperation.
"You boozy fool!" snapped the officer, "you haven't sense enough to run
a go-cart. Go down and start a fire in the furnace--can you do that?"
"Shertainly," nodded Galton gravely, "Mr. Madden, I can do anything. Go
bring me th' furnace, and I'll put a fire in it _that_ quick. I'll
start it now."
Here he stooped unsteadily, picked up a piece of oily tow, and before
Madden knew what he was about, drew out a match and set fire to the
greasy mass.
Leonard made a jump, planted a cracking blow between Galton's eyes. The
fellow went down like a tenpin and lay still. The American stamped out
the blazing tow before the fire spread on the oily floor.
Just then he heard a yelling from the upper deck. Hardly knowing what to
expect, he dived for the circular stairway and rushed up three steps at
a jump.