MAN OVERBOARD

Yes--I have heard "Man overboard!" a good many times since I was

a boy, and once or twice I have seen the man go. There are more

men lost in that way than passengers on ocean steamers ever learn

of. I have stood looking over the rail on a dark night, when

there was a step beside me, and something flew past my head like

a big black bat--and then there was a splash! Stokers often go

like that. They go mad with the heat, and they slip up on deck

and are gone before anybody can stop them, often without being

seen or heard. Now and then a passenger will do it, but he

generally has what he thinks a pretty good reason. I have seen a

man empty his revolver into a crowd of emigrants forward, and

then go over like a rocket. Of course, any officer who respects

himself will do what he can to pick a man up, if the weather is

not so heavy that he would have to risk his ship; but I don't

think I remember seeing a man come back when he was once fairly

gone more than two or three times in all my life, though we have

often picked up the life-buoy, and sometimes the fellow's cap.

Stokers and passengers jump over; I never knew a sailor to do

that, drunk or sober. Yes, they say it has happened on hard

ships, but I never knew a case myself. Once in a long time a man

is fished out when it is just too late, and dies in the boat

before you can get him aboard, and--well, I don't know that I

ever told that story since it happened--I knew a fellow who went

over, and came back dead. I didn't see him after he came back;

only one of us did, but we all knew he was there.

No, I am not giving you "sharks." There isn't a shark in this

story, and I don't know that I would tell it at all if we weren't

alone, just you and I. But you and I have seen things in various

parts, and maybe you will understand. Anyhow, you know that I am

telling what I know about, and nothing else; and it has been on

my mind to tell you ever since it happened, only there hasn't

been a chance.

It's a long story, and it took some time to happen; and it began

a good many years ago, in October, as well as I can remember. I

was mate then; I passed the local Marine Board for master about

three years later. She was the _Helen B. Jackson_, of New York,

with lumber for the West Indies, four-masted schooner, Captain

Hackstaff. She was an old-fashioned one, even then--no steam

donkey, and all to do by hand. There were still sailors in the

coasting trade in those days, you remember. She wasn't a hard

ship, for the old man was better than most of them, though he

kept to himself and had a face like a monkey-wrench. We were

thirteen, all told, in the ship's company; and some of them

afterwards thought that might have had something to do with it,

but I had all that nonsense knocked out of me when I was a boy. I

don't mean to say that I like to go to sea on a Friday, but I

_have_ gone to sea on a Friday, and nothing has happened; and

twice before that we have been thirteen, because one of the hands

didn't turn up at the last minute, and nothing ever happened

either--nothing worse than the loss of a light spar or two, or a

little canvas. Whenever I have been wrecked, we had sailed as

cheerily as you please--no thirteens, no Fridays, no dead men in

the hold. I believe it generally happens that way.

I dare say you remember those two Benton boys that were so much

alike? It is no wonder, for they were twin brothers. They shipped

with us as boys on the old _Boston Belle_, when you were mate

and I was before the mast. I never was quite sure which was which

of those two, even then; and when they both had beards it was

harder than ever to tell them apart. One was Jim, and the other

was Jack; James Benton and John Benton. The only difference I

ever could see was, that one seemed to be rather more cheerful

and inclined to talk than the other; but one couldn't even be

sure of that. Perhaps they had moods. Anyhow, there was one of

them that used to whistle when he was alone. He only knew one

tune, and that was "Nancy Lee," and the other didn't know any

tune at all; but I may be mistaken about that, too. Perhaps they

both knew it.

Well, those two Benton boys turned up on board the _Helen B.

Jackson_. They had been on half a dozen ships since the _Boston

Belle_, and they had grown up and were good seamen. They had

reddish beards and bright blue eyes and freckled faces; and they

were quiet fellows, good workmen on rigging, pretty willing, and

both good men at the wheel. They managed to be in the same

watch--it was the port watch on the _Helen B._, and that was

mine, and I had great confidence in them both. If there was any

job aloft that needed two hands, they were always the first to

jump into the rigging; but that doesn't often happen on a

fore-and-aft schooner. If it breezed up, and the jibtopsail was

to be taken in, they never minded a wetting, and they would be

out at the bowsprit end before there was a hand at the downhaul.

The men liked them for that, and because they didn't blow about

what they could do. I remember one day in a reefing job, the

downhaul parted and came down on deck from the peak of the

spanker. When the weather moderated, and we shook the reefs out,

the downhaul was forgotten until we happened to think we might

soon need it again. There was some sea on, and the boom was off

and the gaff was slamming. One of those Benton boys was at the

wheel, and before I knew what he was doing, the other was out on

the gaff with the end of the new downhaul, trying to reeve it

through its block. The one who was steering watched him, and got

as white as cheese. The other one was swinging about on the gaff

end, and every time she rolled to leeward he brought up with a

jerk that would have sent anything but a monkey flying into

space. But he didn't leave it until he had rove the new rope, and

he got back all right. I think it was Jack at the wheel; the one

that seemed more cheerful, the one that whistled "Nancy Lee." He

had rather have been doing the job himself than watch his brother

do it, and he had a scared look; but he kept her as steady as he

could in the swell, and he drew a long breath when Jim had worked

his way back to the peak-halliard block, and had something to

hold on to. I think it was Jim.

They had good togs, too, and they were neat and clean men in the

forecastle. I knew they had nobody belonging to them ashore,--no

mother, no sisters, and no wives; but somehow they both looked as

if a woman overhauled them now and then. I remember that they had

one ditty bag between them, and they had a woman's thimble in it.

One of the men said something about it to them, and they looked

at each other; and one smiled, but the other didn't. Most of

their clothes were alike, but they had one red guernsey between

them. For some time I used to think it was always the same one

that wore it, and I thought that might be a way to tell them

apart. But then I heard one asking the other for it, and saying

that the other had worn it last. So that was no sign either. The

cook was a West Indiaman, called James Lawley; his father had

been hanged for putting lights in cocoanut trees where they

didn't belong. But he was a good cook, and knew his business; and

it wasn't soup-and-bully and dog's-body every Sunday. That's

what I meant to say. On Sunday the cook called both those boys

Jim, and on week-days he called them Jack. He used to say he must

be right sometimes if he did that, because even the hands on a

painted clock point right twice a day.

What started me to trying for some way of telling the Bentons

apart was this. I heard them talking about a girl. It was at

night, in our watch, and the wind had headed us off a little

rather suddenly, and when we had flattened in the jibs, we clewed

down the topsails, while the two Benton boys got the spanker

sheet aft. One of them was at the helm. I coiled down the

mizzen-topsail downhaul myself, and was going aft to see how she

headed up, when I stopped to look at a light, and leaned against

the deck-house. While I was standing there I heard the two boys

talking. It sounded as if they had talked of the same thing

before, and as far as I could tell, the voice I heard first

belonged to the one who wasn't quite so cheerful as the

other,--the one who was Jim when one knew which he was.

"Does Mamie know?" Jim asked.

"Not yet," Jack answered quietly. He was at the wheel. "I mean to

tell her next time we get home."

"All right."

That was all I heard, because I didn't care to stand there

listening while they were talking about their own affairs; so I

went aft to look into the binnacle, and I told the one at the

wheel to keep her so as long as she had way on her, for I thought

the wind would back up again before long, and there was land to

leeward. When he answered, his voice, somehow, didn't sound like

the cheerful one. Perhaps his brother had relieved the wheel

while they had been speaking, but what I had heard set me

wondering which of them it was that had a girl at home. There's

lots of time for wondering on a schooner in fair weather.

After that I thought I noticed that the two brothers were more

silent when they were together. Perhaps they guessed that I had

overheard something that night, and kept quiet when I was about.

Some men would have amused themselves by trying to chaff them

separately about the girl at home, and I suppose whichever one it

was would have let the cat out of the bag if I had done that.

But, somehow, I didn't like to. Yes, I was thinking of getting

married myself at that time, so I had a sort of fellow-feeling

for whichever one it was, that made me not want to chaff him.

They didn't talk much, it seemed to me; but in fair weather, when

there was nothing to do at night, and one was steering, the other

was everlastingly hanging round as if he were waiting to relieve

the wheel, though he might have been enjoying a quiet nap for all

I cared in such weather. Or else, when one was taking his turn at

the lookout, the other would be sitting on an anchor beside him.

One kept near the other, at night more than in the daytime. I

noticed that. They were fond of sitting on that anchor, and they

generally tucked away their pipes under it, for the _Helen B._

was a dry boat in most weather, and like most fore-and-afters was

better on a wind than going free. With a beam sea we sometimes

shipped a little water aft. We were by the stern, anyhow, on that

voyage, and that is one reason why we lost the man.

We fell in with a southerly gale, south-east at first; and then

the barometer began to fall while you could watch it, and a long

swell began to come up from the south'ard. A couple of months

earlier we might have been in for a cyclone, but it's "October

all over" in those waters, as you know better than I. It was just

going to blow, and then it was going to rain, that was all; and

we had plenty of time to make everything snug before it breezed

up much. It blew harder after sunset, and by the time it was

quite dark it was a full gale. We had shortened sail for it, but

as we were by the stern we were carrying the spanker close reefed

instead of the storm trysail. She steered better so, as long as

we didn't have to heave to. I had the first watch with the Benton

boys, and we had not been on deck an hour when a child might have

seen that the weather meant business.

The old man came up on deck and looked round, and in less than a

minute he told us to give her the trysail. That meant heaving to,

and I was glad of it; for though the _Helen B._ was a good vessel

enough, she wasn't a new ship by a long way, and it did her no

good to drive her in that weather. I asked whether I should call

all hands, but just then the cook came aft, and the old man said

he thought we could manage the job without waking the sleepers,

and the trysail was handy on deck already, for we hadn't been

expecting anything better. We were all in oilskins, of course,

and the night was as black as a coal mine, with only a ray of

light from the slit in the binnacle shield, and you couldn't tell

one man from another except by his voice. The old man took the

wheel; we got the boom amidships, and he jammed her into the wind

until she had hardly any way. It was blowing now, and it was all

that I and two others could do to get in the slack of the

downhaul, while the others lowered away at the peak and throat,

and we had our hands full to get a couple of turns round the wet

sail. It's all child's play on a fore-and-after compared with

reefing topsails in anything like weather, but the gear of a

schooner sometimes does unhandy things that you don't expect, and

those everlasting long halliards get foul of everything if they

get adrift. I remember thinking how unhandy that particular job

was. Somebody unhooked the throat-halliard block, and thought he

had hooked it into the head-cringle of the trysail, and sang out

to hoist away, but he had missed it in the dark, and the heavy

block went flying into the lee rigging, and nearly killed him

when it swung back with the weather roll. Then the old man got

her up in the wind until the jib was shaking like thunder; then

he held her off, and she went off as soon as the head-sails

filled, and he couldn't get her back again without the spanker.

Then the _Helen B._ did her favourite trick, and before we had

time to say much we had a sea over the quarter and were up to our

waists, with the parrels of the trysail only half becketed round

the mast, and the deck so full of gear that you couldn't put your

foot on a plank, and the spanker beginning to get adrift again,

being badly stopped, and the general confusion and hell's delight

that you can only have on a fore-and-after when there's nothing

really serious the matter. Of course, I don't mean to say that

the old man couldn't have steered his trick as well as you or I

or any other seaman; but I don't believe he had ever been on

board the _Helen B._ before, or had his hand on her wheel till

then; and he didn't know her ways. I don't mean to say that what

happened was his fault. I don't know whose fault it was. Perhaps

nobody was to blame. But I knew something happened somewhere on

board when we shipped that sea, and you'll never get it out of my

head. I hadn't any spare time myself, for I was becketing the

rest of the trysail to the mast. We were on the starboard tack,

and the throat-halliard came down to port as usual, and I suppose

there were at least three men at it, hoisting away, while I was

at the beckets.

Now I am going to tell you something. You have known me, man and

boy, several voyages; and you are older than I am; and you have

always been a good friend to me. Now, do you think I am the sort

of man to think I hear things where there isn't anything to hear,

or to think I see things when there is nothing to see? No, you

don't. Thank you. Well now, I had passed the last becket, and I

sang out to the men to sway away, and I was standing on the jaws

of the spanker-gaff, with my left hand on the bolt-rope of the

trysail, so that I could feel when it was board-taut, and I

wasn't thinking of anything except being glad the job was over,

and that we were going to heave her to. It was as black as a

coal-pocket, except that you could see the streaks on the seas as

they went by, and abaft the deck-house I could see the ray of

light from the binnacle on the captain's yellow oilskin as he

stood at the wheel--or rather I might have seen it if I had

looked round at that minute. But I didn't look round. I heard a

man whistling. It was "Nancy Lee," and I could have sworn that

the man was right over my head in the crosstrees. Only somehow I

knew very well that if anybody could have been up there, and

could have whistled a tune, there were no living ears sharp

enough to hear it on deck then. I heard it distinctly, and at the

same time I heard the real whistling of the wind in the weather

rigging, sharp and clear as the steam-whistle on a Dago's

peanut-cart in New York. That was all right, that was as it

should be; but the other wasn't right; and I felt queer and

stiff, as if I couldn't move, and my hair was curling against the

flannel lining of my sou'wester, and I thought somebody had

dropped a lump of ice down my back.

I said that the noise of the wind in the rigging was real, as if

the other wasn't, for I felt that it wasn't, though I heard it.

But it was, all the same; for the captain heard it, too. When I

came to relieve the wheel, while the men were clearing up decks,

he was swearing. He was a quiet man, and I hadn't heard him swear

before, and I don't think I did again, though several queer

things happened after that. Perhaps he said all he had to say

then; I don't see how he could have said anything more. I used to

think nobody could swear like a Dane, except a Neapolitan or a

South American; but when I had heard the old man I changed my

mind. There's nothing afloat or ashore that can beat one of your

quiet American skippers, if he gets off on that tack. I didn't

need to ask him what was the matter, for I knew he had heard

"Nancy Lee," as I had, only it affected us differently.

He did not give me the wheel, but told me to go forward and get

the second bonnet off the staysail, so as to keep her up better.

As we tailed on to the sheet when it was done, the man next me

knocked his sou'wester off against my shoulder, and his face came

so close to me that I could see it in the dark. It must have been

very white for me to see it, but I only thought of that

afterwards. I don't see how any light could have fallen upon it,

but I knew it was one of the Benton boys. I don't know what made

me speak to him. "Hullo, Jim! Is that you?" I asked. I don't know

why I said Jim, rather than Jack.

"I am Jack," he answered. We made all fast, and things were much

quieter.

"The old man heard you whistling 'Nancy Lee,' just now," I said,

"and he didn't like it."

It was as if there were a white light inside his face, and it was

ghastly. I know his teeth chattered. But he didn't say anything,

and the next minute he was somewhere in the dark trying to find

his sou'wester at the foot of the mast.

When all was quiet, and she was hove to, coming to and falling

off her four points as regularly as a pendulum, and the helm

lashed a little to the lee, the old man turned in again, and I

managed to light a pipe in the lee of the deck-house, for there

was nothing more to be done till the gale chose to moderate, and

the ship was as easy as a baby in its cradle. Of course the cook

had gone below, as he might have done an hour earlier; so there

were supposed to be four of us in the watch. There was a man at

the lookout, and there was a hand by the wheel, though there was

no steering to be done, and I was having my pipe in the lee of

the deck-house, and the fourth man was somewhere about decks,

probably having a smoke too. I thought some skippers I had sailed

with would have called the watch aft, and given them a drink

after that job, but it wasn't cold, and I guessed that our old

man wouldn't be particularly generous in that way. My hands and

feet were red-hot, and it would be time enough to get into dry

clothes when it was my watch below; so I stayed where I was, and

smoked. But by and by, things being so quiet, I began to wonder

why nobody moved on deck; just that sort of restless wanting to

know where every man is that one sometimes feels in a gale of

wind on a dark night. So when I had finished my pipe I began to

move about. I went aft, and there was a man leaning over the

wheel, with his legs apart and both hands hanging down in the

light from the binnacle, and his sou'wester over his eyes. Then

I went forward, and there was a man at the lookout, with his back

against the foremast, getting what shelter he could from the

staysail. I knew by his small height that he was not one of the

Benton boys. Then I went round by the weather side, and poked

about in the dark, for I began to wonder where the other man was.

But I couldn't find him, though I searched the decks until I got

right aft again. It was certainly one of the Benton boys that was

missing, but it wasn't like either of them to go below to change

his clothes in such warm weather. The man at the wheel was the

other, of course. I spoke to him.

"Jim, what's become of your brother?"

"I am Jack, sir."

"Well, then, Jack, where's Jim? He's not on deck."

"I don't know, sir."

When I had come up to him he had stood up from force of instinct,

and had laid his hands on the spokes as if he were steering,

though the wheel was lashed; but he still bent his face down, and

it was half hidden by the edge of his sou'wester, while he seemed

to be staring at the compass. He spoke in a very low voice, but

that was natural, for the captain had left his door open when he

turned in, as it was a warm night in spite of the storm, and

there was no fear of shipping any more water now.

"What put it into your head to whistle like that, Jack? You've

been at sea long enough to know better."

He said something, but I couldn't hear the words; it sounded as

if he were denying the charge.

"Somebody whistled," I said.

He didn't answer, and then, I don't know why, perhaps because the

old man hadn't given us a drink, I cut half an inch off the plug

of tobacco I had in my oilskin pocket, and gave it to him. He

knew my tobacco was good, and he shoved it into his mouth with a

word of thanks. I was on the weather side of the wheel.

"Go forward and see if you can find Jim," I said.

He started a little, and then stepped back and passed behind me,

and was going along the weather side. Maybe his silence about the

whistling had irritated me, and his taking it for granted that

because we were hove to and it was a dark night, he might go

forward any way he pleased. Anyhow, I stopped him, though I spoke

good-naturedly enough.

"Pass to leeward, Jack," I said.

He didn't answer, but crossed the deck between the binnacle and

the deck-house to the lee side. She was only falling off and

coming to, and riding the big seas as easily as possible, but the

man was not steady on his feet and reeled against the corner of

the deck-house and then against the lee rail. I was quite sure he

couldn't have had anything to drink, for neither of the brothers

were the kind to hide rum from their shipmates, if they had any,

and the only spirits that were aboard were locked up in the

captain's cabin. I wondered whether he had been hit by the

throat-halliard block and was hurt.

I left the wheel and went after him, but when I got to the corner

of the deck-house I saw that he was on a full run forward, so I

went back. I watched the compass for a while, to see how far she

went off, and she must have come to again half a dozen times

before I heard voices, more than three or four, forward; and then

I heard the little West Indies cook's voice, high and shrill

above the rest:--

"Man overboard!"

There wasn't anything to be done, with the ship hove-to and the

wheel lashed. If there was a man overboard, he must be in the

water right alongside. I couldn't imagine how it could have

happened, but I ran forward instinctively. I came upon the cook

first, half-dressed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had

tumbled out of his bunk. He was jumping into the main rigging,

evidently hoping to see the man, as if any one could have seen

anything on such a night, except the foam-streaks on the black

water, and now and then the curl of a breaking sea as it went

away to leeward. Several of the men were peering over the rail

into the dark. I caught the cook by the foot, and asked who was

gone.

"It's Jim Benton," he shouted down to me. "He's not aboard this

ship!"

There was no doubt about that. Jim Benton was gone; and I knew in

a flash that he had been taken off by that sea when we were

setting the storm trysail. It was nearly half an hour since then;

she had run like wild for a few minutes until we got her hove-to,

and no swimmer that ever swam could have lived as long as that in

such a sea. The men knew it as well as I, but still they stared

into the foam as if they had any chance of seeing the lost man. I

let the cook get into the rigging and joined the men, and asked

if they had made a thorough search on board, though I knew they

had and that it could not take long, for he wasn't on deck, and

there was only the forecastle below.

"That sea took him over, sir, as sure as you're born," said one

of the men close beside me.

We had no boat that could have lived in that sea, of course, and

we all knew it. I offered to put one over, and let her drift

astern two or three cable's-lengths by a line, if the men thought

they could haul me aboard again; but none of them would listen to

that, and I should probably have been drowned if I had tried it,

even with a life-belt; for it was a breaking sea. Besides, they

all knew as well as I did that the man could not be right in our

wake. I don't know why I spoke again. "Jack Benton, are you

there? Will you go if I will?"

"No, sir," answered a voice; and that was all.

By that time the old man was on deck, and I felt his hand on my

shoulder rather roughly, as if he meant to shake me.

"I'd reckoned you had more sense, Mr. Torkeldsen," he said. "God

knows I would risk my ship to look for him, if it were any use;

but he must have gone half an hour ago."

He was a quiet man, and the men knew he was right, and that they

had seen the last of Jim Benton when they were bending the

trysail--if anybody had seen him then. The captain went below

again, and for some time the men stood around Jack, quite near

him, without saying anything, as sailors do when they are sorry

for a man and can't help him; and then the watch below turned in

again, and we were three on deck.

Nobody can understand that there can be much consolation in a

funeral, unless he has felt that blank feeling there is when a

man's gone overboard whom everybody likes. I suppose landsmen

think it would be easier if they didn't have to bury their

fathers and mothers and friends; but it wouldn't be. Somehow the

funeral keeps up the idea of something beyond. You may believe in

that something just the same; but a man who has gone in the dark,

between two seas, without a cry, seems much more beyond reach

than if he were still lying on his bed, and had only just stopped

breathing. Perhaps Jim Benton knew that, and wanted to come back

to us. I don't know, and I am only telling you what happened, and

you may think what you like.

Jack stuck by the wheel that night until the watch was over. I

don't know whether he slept afterwards, but when I came on deck

four hours later, there he was again, in his oilskins, with his

sou'wester over his eyes, staring into the binnacle. We saw that

he would rather stand there, and we left him alone. Perhaps it

was some consolation to him to get that ray of light when

everything was so dark. It began to rain, too, as it can when a

southerly gale is going to break up, and we got every bucket and

tub on board, and set them under the booms to catch the fresh

water for washing our clothes. The rain made it very thick, and I

went and stood under the lee of the staysail, looking out. I

could tell that day was breaking, because the foam was whiter in

the dark where the seas crested, and little by little the black

rain grew grey and steamy, and I couldn't see the red glare of

the port light on the water when she went off and rolled to

leeward. The gale had moderated considerably, and in another hour

we should be under way again. I was still standing there when

Jack Benton came forward. He stood still a few minutes near me.

The rain came down in a solid sheet, and I could see his wet

beard and a corner of his cheek, too, grey in the dawn. Then he

stooped down and began feeling under the anchor for his pipe. We

had hardly shipped any water forward, and I suppose he had some

way of tucking the pipe in, so that the rain hadn't floated it

off. Presently he got on his legs again, and I saw that he had

two pipes in his hand. One of them had belonged to his brother,

and after looking at them a moment I suppose he recognised his

own, for he put it in his mouth, dripping with water. Then he

looked at the other fully a minute without moving. When he had

made up his mind, I suppose, he quietly chucked it over the lee

rail, without even looking round to see whether I was watching

him. I thought it was a pity, for it was a good wooden pipe, with

a nickel ferrule, and somebody would have been glad to have it.

But I didn't like to make any remark, for he had a right to do

what he pleased with what had belonged to his dead brother. He

blew the water out of his own pipe, and dried it against his

jacket, putting his hand inside his oilskin; he filled it,

standing under the lee of the foremast, got a light after wasting

two or three matches, and turned the pipe upside down in his

teeth, to keep the rain out of the bowl. I don't know why I

noticed everything he did, and remember it now; but somehow I

felt sorry for him, and I kept wondering whether there was

anything I could say that would make him feel better. But I

didn't think of anything, and as it was broad daylight I went aft

again, for I guessed that the old man would turn out before long

and order the spanker set and the helm up. But he didn't turn out

before seven bells, just as the clouds broke and showed blue sky

to leeward--"the Frenchman's barometer," you used to call it.

Some people don't seem to be so dead, when they are dead, as

others are. Jim Benton was like that. He had been on my watch,

and I couldn't get used to the idea that he wasn't about decks

with me. I was always expecting to see him, and his brother was

so exactly like him that I often felt as if I did see him and

forgot he was dead, and made the mistake of calling Jack by his

name; though I tried not to, because I knew it must hurt. If ever

Jack had been the cheerful one of the two, as I had always

supposed he had been, he had changed very much, for he grew to be

more silent than Jim had ever been.

One fine afternoon I was sitting on the main-hatch, overhauling

the clock-work of the taffrail-log, which hadn't been registering

very well of late, and I had got the cook to bring me a

coffee-cup to hold the small screws as I took them out, and a

saucer for the sperm-oil I was going to use. I noticed that he

didn't go away, but hung round without exactly watching what I

was doing, as if he wanted to say something to me. I thought if

it were worth much he would say it anyhow, so I didn't ask him

questions; and sure enough he began of his own accord before

long. There was nobody on deck but the man at the wheel, and the

other man away forward.

"Mr. Torkeldsen," the cook began, and then stopped.

I supposed he was going to ask me to let the watch break out a

barrel of flour, or some salt horse.

"Well, doctor?" I asked, as he didn't go on.

"Well, Mr. Torkeldsen," he answered, "I somehow want to ask you

whether you think I am giving satisfaction on this ship, or not?"

"So far as I know, you are, doctor. I haven't heard any

complaints from the forecastle, and the captain has said nothing,

and I think you know your business, and the cabin-boy is bursting

out of his clothes. That looks as if you are giving satisfaction.

What makes you think you are not?"

I am not good at giving you that West Indies talk, and sha'n't

try; but the doctor beat about the bush awhile, and then he told

me he thought the men were beginning to play tricks on him, and

he didn't like it, and thought he hadn't deserved it, and would

like his discharge at our next port. I told him he was a d----d

fool, of course, to begin with; and that men were more apt to try

a joke with a chap they liked than with anybody they wanted to

get rid of; unless it was a bad joke, like flooding his bunk, or

filling his boots with tar. But it wasn't that kind of practical

joke. The doctor said that the men were trying to frighten him,

and he didn't like it, and that they put things in his way that

frightened him. So I told him he was a d----d fool to be

frightened, anyway, and I wanted to know what things they put in

his way. He gave me a queer answer. He said they were spoons and

forks, and odd plates, and a cup now and then, and such things.

I set down the taffrail-log on the bit of canvas I had put under

it, and looked at the doctor. He was uneasy, and his eyes had a

sort of hunted look, and his yellow face looked grey. He wasn't

trying to make trouble. He was in trouble. So I asked him

questions.

He said he could count as well as anybody, and do sums without

using his fingers, but that when he couldn't count any other way

he did use his fingers, and it always came out the same. He said

that when he and the cabin-boy cleared up after the men's meals

there were more things to wash than he had given out. There'd be

a fork more, or there'd be a spoon more, and sometimes there'd be

a spoon and a fork, and there was always a plate more. It wasn't

that he complained of that. Before poor Jim Benton was lost they

had a man more to feed, and his gear to wash up after meals, and

that was in the contract, the doctor said. It would have been if

there were twenty in the ship's company; but he didn't think it

was right for the men to play tricks like that. He kept his

things in good order, and he counted them, and he was responsible

for them, and it wasn't right that the men should take more

things than they needed when his back was turned, and just soil

them and mix them up with their own, so as to make him think--

He stopped there, and looked at me, and I looked at him. I didn't

know what he thought, but I began to guess. I wasn't going to

humour any such nonsense as that, so I told him to speak to the

men himself, and not come bothering me about such things.

"Count the plates and forks and spoons before them when they sit

down to table, and tell them that's all they'll get; and when

they have finished, count the things again, and if the count

isn't right, find out who did it. You know it must be one of

them. You're not a green hand; you've been going to sea ten or

eleven years, and don't want any lesson about how to behave if

the boys play a trick on you."

"If I could catch him," said the cook, "I'd have a knife into him

before he could say his prayers."

Those West India men are always talking about knives, especially

when they are badly frightened. I knew what he meant, and didn't

ask him, but went on cleaning the brass cogwheels of the patent

log and oiling the bearings with a feather. "Wouldn't it be

better to wash it out with boiling water, sir?" asked the cook,

in an insinuating tone. He knew that he had made a fool of

himself, and was anxious to make it right again.

I heard no more about the odd platter and gear for two or three

days, though I thought about his story a good deal. The doctor

evidently believed that Jim Benton had come back, though he

didn't quite like to say so. His story had sounded silly enough

on a bright afternoon, in fair weather, when the sun was on the

water, and every rag was drawing in the breeze, and the sea

looked as pleasant and harmless as a cat that has just eaten a

canary. But when it was toward the end of the first watch, and

the waning moon had not risen yet, and the water was like still

oil, and the jibs hung down flat and helpless like the wings of a

dead bird--it wasn't the same then. More than once I have started

then, and looked round when a fish jumped, expecting to see a

face sticking up out of the water with its eyes shut. I think we

all felt something like that at the time.

One afternoon we were putting a fresh service on the

jib-sheet-pennant. It wasn't my watch, but I was standing by

looking on. Just then Jack Benton came up from below, and went to

look for his pipe under the anchor. His face was hard and drawn,

and his eyes were cold like steel balls. He hardly ever spoke

now, but he did his duty as usual, and nobody had to complain of

him, though we were all beginning to wonder how long his grief

for his dead brother was going to last like that. I watched him

as he crouched down, and ran his hand into the hiding-place for

the pipe. When he stood up, he had two pipes in his hand.

Now, I remembered very well seeing him throw one of those pipes

away, early in the morning after the gale; and it came to me now,

and I didn't suppose he kept a stock of them under the anchor. I

caught sight of his face, and it was greenish white, like the

foam on shallow water, and he stood a long time looking at the

two pipes. He wasn't looking to see which was his, for I wasn't

five yards from him as he stood, and one of those pipes had been

smoked that day, and was shiny where his hand had rubbed it, and

the bone mouthpiece was chafed white where his teeth had bitten

it. The other was water-logged. It was swelled and cracking with

wet, and it looked to me as if there were a little green weed on

it.

Jack Benton turned his head rather stealthily as I looked away,

and then he hid the thing in his trousers pocket, and went aft on

the lee side, out of sight. The men had got the sheet pennant on

a stretch to serve it, but I ducked under it and stood where I

could see what Jack did, just under the fore-staysail. He

couldn't see me, and he was looking about for something. His hand

shook as he picked up a bit of half-bent iron rod, about a foot

long, that had been used for turning an eye-bolt, and had been

left on the main-hatch. His hand shook as he got a piece of

marline out of his pocket, and made the water-logged pipe fast to

the iron. He didn't mean it to get adrift, either, for he took

his turns carefully, and hove them taut and then rode them, so

that they couldn't slip, and made the end fast with two

half-hitches round the iron, and hitched it back on itself. Then

he tried it with his hands, and looked up and down the deck

furtively, and then quietly dropped the pipe and iron over the

rail, so that I didn't even hear the splash. If anybody was

playing tricks on board, they weren't meant for the cook.

I asked some questions about Jack Benton, and one of the men told

me that he was off his feed, and hardly ate anything, and

swallowed all the coffee he could lay his hands on, and had used

up all his own tobacco and had begun on what his brother had

left.

"The doctor says it ain't so, sir," said the man, looking at me

shyly, as if he didn't expect to be believed; "the doctor says

there's as much eaten from breakfast to breakfast as there was

before Jim fell overboard, though there's a mouth less and

another that eats nothing. I says it's the cabin-boy that gets

it. He's bu'sting."

I told him that if the cabin-boy ate more than his share, he must

work more than his share, so as to balance things. But the man

laughed queerly, and looked at me again.

"I only said that, sir, just like that. We all know it ain't so."

"Well, how is it?"

"How is it?" asked the man, half-angry all at once. "I don't know

how it is, but there's a hand on board that's getting his whack

along with us as regular as the bells."

"Does he use tobacco?" I asked, meaning to laugh it out of him,

but as I spoke I remembered the water-logged pipe.

"I guess he's using his own still," the man answered, in a queer,

low voice. "Perhaps he'll take some one else's when his is all

gone."

It was about nine o'clock in the morning, I remember, for just

then the captain called to me to stand by the chronometer while

he took his fore observation. Captain Hackstaff wasn't one of

those old skippers who do everything themselves with a pocket

watch, and keep the key of the chronometer in their waistcoat

pocket, and won't tell the mate how far the dead reckoning is

out. He was rather the other way, and I was glad of it, for he

generally let me work the sights he took, and just ran his eye

over my figures afterwards. I am bound to say his eye was pretty

good, for he would pick out a mistake in a logarithm, or tell me

that I had worked the "Equation of Time" with the wrong sign,

before it seemed to me that he could have got as far as "half the

sum, minus the altitude." He was always right, too, and besides

he knew a lot about iron ships and local deviation, and adjusting

the compass, and all that sort of thing. I don't know how he came

to be in command of a fore-and-aft schooner. He never talked

about himself, and maybe he had just been mate on one of those

big steel square-riggers, and something had put him back. Perhaps

he had been captain, and had got his ship aground, through no

particular fault of his, and had to begin over again. Sometimes

he talked just like you and me, and sometimes he would speak more

like books do, or some of those Boston people I have heard. I

don't know. We have all been shipmates now and then with men who

have seen better days. Perhaps he had been in the Navy, but what

makes me think he couldn't have been, was that he was a thorough

good seaman, a regular old wind-jammer, and understood sail,

which those Navy chaps rarely do. Why, you and I have sailed with

men before the mast who had their master's certificates in their

pockets,--English Board of Trade certificates, too,--who could

work a double altitude if you would lend them a sextant and give

them a look at the chronometer, as well as many a man who

commands a big square-rigger. Navigation ain't everything, nor

seamanship, either. You've got to have it in you, if you mean to

get there.

I don't know how our captain heard that there was trouble

forward. The cabin-boy may have told him, or the men may have

talked outside his door when they relieved the wheel at night.

Anyhow, he got wind of it, and when he had got his sight that

morning he had all hands aft, and gave them a lecture. It was

just the kind of talk you might have expected from him. He said

he hadn't any complaint to make, and that so far as he knew

everybody on board was doing his duty, and that he was given to

understand that the men got their whack, and were satisfied. He

said his ship was never a hard ship, and that he liked quiet, and

that was the reason he didn't mean to have any nonsense, and the

men might just as well understand that, too. We'd had a great

misfortune, he said, and it was nobody's fault. We had lost a

man we all liked and respected, and he felt that everybody in the

ship ought to be sorry for the man's brother, who was left

behind, and that it was rotten lubberly childishness, and unjust

and unmanly and cowardly, to be playing schoolboy tricks with

forks and spoons and pipes, and that sort of gear. He said it had

got to stop right now, and that was all, and the men might go

forward. And so they did.

It got worse after that, and the men watched the cook, and the

cook watched the men, as if they were trying to catch each other;

but I think everybody felt that there was something else. One

evening, at supper-time, I was on deck, and Jack came aft to

relieve the wheel while the man who was steering got his supper.

He hadn't got past the main-hatch on the lee side, when I heard a

man running in slippers that slapped on the deck, and there was a

sort of a yell and I saw the coloured cook going for Jack, with

a carving-knife in his hand. I jumped to get between them, and

Jack turned round short, and put out his hand. I was too far to

reach them, and the cook jabbed out with his knife. But the blade

didn't get anywhere near Benton. The cook seemed to be jabbing it

into the air again and again, at least four feet short of the

mark. Then he dropped his right hand, and I saw the whites of his

eyes in the dusk, and he reeled up against the pin-rail, and

caught hold of a belaying-pin with his left. I had reached him by

that time, and grabbed hold of his knife-hand and the other too,

for I thought he was going to use the pin; but Jack Benton was

standing staring stupidly at him, as if he didn't understand. But

instead, the cook was holding on because he couldn't stand, and

his teeth were chattering, and he let go of the knife, and the

point stuck into the deck.

"He's crazy!" said Jack Benton, and that was all he said; and he

went aft.

[Illustration: HE LET GO OF THE KNIFE, AND THE POINT STUCK INTO

THE DECK.]

When he was gone, the cook began to come to, and he spoke quite

low, near my ear.

"There were two of them! So help me God, there were two of them!"

I don't know why I didn't take him by the collar, and give him a

good shaking; but I didn't. I just picked up the knife and gave

it to him, and told him to go back to his galley, and not to make

a fool of himself. You see, he hadn't struck at Jack, but at

something he thought he saw, and I knew what it was, and I felt

that same thing, like a lump of ice sliding down my back, that I

felt that night when we were bending the trysail.

When the men had seen him running aft, they jumped up after him,

but they held off when they saw that I had caught him. By and by,

the man who had spoken to me before told me what had happened. He

was a stocky little chap, with a red head.

"Well," he said, "there isn't much to tell. Jack Benton had been

eating his supper with the rest of us. He always sits at the

after corner of the table, on the port side. His brother used to

sit at the end, next him. The doctor gave him a thundering big

piece of pie to finish up with, and when he had finished he

didn't stop for a smoke, but went off quick to relieve the wheel.

Just as he had gone, the doctor came in from the galley, and when

he saw Jack's empty plate he stood stock still staring at it; and

we all wondered what was the matter, till we looked at the plate.

There were two forks in it, sir, lying side by side. Then the

doctor grabbed his knife, and flew up through the hatch like a

rocket. The other fork was there all right, Mr. Torkeldsen, for

we all saw it and handled it; and we all had our own. That's all

I know."

I didn't feel that I wanted to laugh when he told me that story;

but I hoped the old man wouldn't hear it, for I knew he wouldn't

believe it, and no captain that ever sailed likes to have

stories like that going round about his ship. It gives her a bad

name. But that was all anybody ever saw except the cook, and he

isn't the first man who has thought he saw things without having

any drink in him. I think, if the doctor had been weak in the

head as he was afterwards, he might have done something foolish

again, and there might have been serious trouble. But he didn't.

Only, two or three times I saw him looking at Jack Benton in a

queer, scared way, and once I heard him talking to himself.

"There's two of them! So help me God, there's two of them!"

He didn't say anything more about asking for his discharge, but I

knew well enough that if he got ashore at the next port we should

never see him again, if he had to leave his kit behind him, and

his money, too. He was scared all through, for good and all; and

he wouldn't be right again till he got another ship. It's no use

to talk to a man when he gets like that, any more than it is to

send a boy to the main truck when he has lost his nerve.

Jack Benton never spoke of what happened that evening. I don't

know whether he knew about the two forks, or not; or whether he

understood what the trouble was. Whatever he knew from the other

men, he was evidently living under a hard strain. He was quiet

enough, and too quiet; but his face was set, and sometimes it

twitched oddly when he was at the wheel, and he would turn his

head round sharp to look behind him. A man doesn't do that

naturally, unless there's a vessel that he thinks is creeping up

on the quarter. When that happens, if the man at the wheel takes

a pride in his ship, he will almost always keep glancing over his

shoulder to see whether the other fellow is gaining. But Jack

Benton used to look round when there was nothing there; and what

is curious, the other men seemed to catch the trick when they

were steering. One day the old man turned out just as the man at

the wheel looked behind him.

"What are you looking at?" asked the captain.

"Nothing, sir," answered the man.

"Then keep your eye on the mizzen-royal," said the old man, as if

he were forgetting that we weren't a square-rigger.

"Ay, ay, sir," said the man.

The captain told me to go below and work up the latitude from the

dead-reckoning, and he went forward of the deck-house and sat

down to read, as he often did. When I came up, the man at the

wheel was looking round again, and I stood beside him and just

asked him quietly what everybody was looking at, for it was

getting to be a general habit. He wouldn't say anything at first,

but just answered that it was nothing. But when he saw that I

didn't seem to care, and just stood there as if there were

nothing more to be said, he naturally began to talk.

He said that it wasn't that he saw anything, because there wasn't

anything to see except the spanker sheet just straining a little, and

working in the sheaves of the blocks as the schooner rose to the short

seas. There wasn't anything to be seen, but it seemed to him that the

sheet made a queer noise in the blocks. It was a new manilla sheet; and

in dry weather it did make a little noise, something between a creak and

a wheeze. I looked at it and looked at the man, and said nothing; and

presently he went on. He asked me if I didn't notice anything peculiar

about the noise. I listened awhile, and said I didn't notice anything.

Then he looked rather sheepish, but said he didn't think it could be his

own ears, because every man who steered his trick heard the same thing

now and then,--sometimes once in a day, sometimes once in a night,

sometimes it would go on a whole hour.

"It sounds like sawing wood," I said, just like that.

"To us it sounds a good deal more like a man whistling 'Nancy

Lee.'" He started nervously as he spoke the last words. "There,

sir, don't you hear it?" he asked suddenly.

I heard nothing but the creaking of the manilla sheet. It

was getting near noon, and fine, clear weather in southern

waters,--just the sort of day and the time when you would least

expect to feel creepy. But I remembered how I had heard that same

tune overhead at night in a gale of wind a fortnight earlier,

and I am not ashamed to say that the same sensation came over

me now, and I wished myself well out of the _Helen B._, and

aboard of any old cargo-dragger, with a windmill on deck, and an

eighty-nine-forty-eighter for captain, and a fresh leak whenever

it breezed up.

Little by little during the next few days life on board that

vessel came to be about as unbearable as you can imagine. It

wasn't that there was much talk, for I think the men were shy

even of speaking to each other freely about what they thought.

The whole ship's company grew silent, until one hardly ever heard

a voice, except giving an order and the answer. The men didn't

sit over their meals when their watch was below, but either

turned in at once or sat about on the forecastle smoking their

pipes without saying a word. We were all thinking of the same

thing. We all felt as if there were a hand on board, sometimes

below, sometimes about decks, sometimes aloft, sometimes on the

boom end; taking his full share of what the others got, but doing

no work for it. We didn't only feel it, we knew it. He took up no

room, he cast no shadow, and we never heard his footfall on deck;

but he took his whack with the rest as regular as the bells,

and--he whistled "Nancy Lee." It was like the worst sort of dream

you can imagine; and I dare say a good many of us tried to

believe it was nothing else sometimes, when we stood looking over

the weather rail in fine weather with the breeze in our faces;

but if we happened to turn round and look into each other's eyes,

we knew it was something worse than any dream could be; and we

would turn away from each other with a queer, sick feeling,

wishing that we could just for once see somebody who didn't know

what we knew.

There's not much more to tell about the _Helen B. Jackson_ so far

as I am concerned. We were more like a shipload of lunatics than

anything else when we ran in under Morro Castle, and anchored in

Havana. The cook had brain fever, and was raving mad in his

delirium; and the rest of the men weren't far from the same

state. The last three or four days had been awful, and we had

been as near to having a mutiny on board as I ever want to be.

The men didn't want to hurt anybody; but they wanted to get away

out of that ship, if they had to swim for it; to get away from

that whistling, from that dead shipmate who had come back, and

who filled the ship with his unseen self. I know that if the old

man and I hadn't kept a sharp lookout the men would have put a

boat over quietly on one of those calm nights, and pulled away,

leaving the captain and me and the mad cook to work the schooner

into harbour. We should have done it somehow, of course, for we

hadn't far to run if we could get a breeze; and once or twice I

found myself wishing that the crew were really gone, for the

awful state of fright in which they lived was beginning to work

on me too. You see I partly believed and partly didn't; but

anyhow I didn't mean to let the thing get the better of me,

whatever it was. I turned crusty, too, and kept the men at work

on all sorts of jobs, and drove them to it until they wished I

was overboard, too. It wasn't that the old man and I were trying

to drive them to desert without their pay, as I am sorry to say

a good many skippers and mates do, even now. Captain Hackstaff

was as straight as a string, and I didn't mean those poor fellows

should be cheated out of a single cent; and I didn't blame them

for wanting to leave the ship, but it seemed to me that the only

chance to keep everybody sane through those last days was to work

the men till they dropped. When they were dead tired they slept a

little, and forgot the thing until they had to tumble up on deck

and face it again. That was a good many years ago. Do you believe

that I can't hear "Nancy Lee" now, without feeling cold down my

back? For I heard it too, now and then, after the man had

explained why he was always looking over his shoulder. Perhaps it

was imagination. I don't know. When I look back it seems to me

that I only remember a long fight against something I couldn't

see, against an appalling presence, against something worse than

cholera or Yellow Jack or the plague--and goodness knows the

mildest of them is bad enough when it breaks out at sea. The men

got as white as chalk, and wouldn't go about decks alone at

night, no matter what I said to them. With the cook raving in

his bunk the forecastle would have been a perfect hell, and

there wasn't a spare cabin on board. There never is on a

fore-and-after. So I put him into mine, and he was more quiet

there, and at last fell into a sort of stupor as if he were going

to die. I don't know what became of him, for we put him ashore

alive and left him in the hospital.

The men came aft in a body, quiet enough, and asked the captain

if he wouldn't pay them off, and let them go ashore. Some men

wouldn't have done it, for they had shipped for the voyage, and

had signed articles. But the captain knew that when sailors get

an idea into their heads they're no better than children; and if

he forced them to stay aboard he wouldn't get much work out of

them, and couldn't rely on them in a difficulty. So he paid them

off, and let them go. When they had gone forward to get their

kits, he asked me whether I wanted to go too, and for a minute I

had a sort of weak feeling that I might just as well. But I

didn't, and he was a good friend to me afterwards. Perhaps he was

grateful to me for sticking to him.

When the men went off he didn't come on deck; but it was my duty

to stand by while they left the ship. They owed me a grudge for

making them work during the last few days, and most of them

dropped into the boat without so much as a word or a look, as

sailors will. Jack Benton was the last to go over the side, and

he stood still a minute and looked at me, and his white face

twitched. I thought he wanted to say something.

"Take care of yourself, Jack," said I. "So long!"

It seemed as if he couldn't speak for two or three seconds; then

his words came thick.

"It wasn't my fault, Mr. Torkeldsen. I swear it wasn't my fault!"

That was all; and he dropped over the side, leaving me to wonder

what he meant.

The captain and I stayed on board, and the ship-chandler got a

West India boy to cook for us.

That evening, before turning in, we were standing by the rail

having a quiet smoke, watching the lights of the city, a quarter

of a mile off, reflected in the still water. There was music of

some sort ashore, in a sailors' dance-house, I dare say; and I

had no doubt that most of the men who had left the ship were

there, and already full of jiggy-jiggy. The music played a lot of

sailors' tunes that ran into each other, and we could hear the

men's voices in the chorus now and then. One followed another,

and then it was "Nancy Lee," loud and clear, and the men singing

"Yo-ho, heave-ho!"

"I have no ear for music," said Captain Hackstaff, "but it

appears to me that's the tune that man was whistling the night we

lost the man overboard. I don't know why it has stuck in my head,

and of course it's all nonsense; but it seems to me that I have

heard it all the rest of the trip."

I didn't say anything to that, but I wondered just how much the

old man had understood. Then we turned in, and I slept ten hours

without opening my eyes.

I stuck to the _Helen B. Jackson_ after that as long as I could

stand a fore-and-after; but that night when we lay in Havana was

the last time I ever heard "Nancy Lee" on board of her. The spare

hand had gone ashore with the rest, and he never came back, and

he took his tune with him; but all those things are just as clear

in my memory as if they had happened yesterday.

After that I was in deep water for a year or more, and after I

came home I got my certificate, and what with having friends and

having saved a little money, and having had a small legacy from

an uncle in Norway, I got the command of a coastwise vessel, with

a small share in her. I was at home three weeks before going to

sea, and Jack Benton saw my name in the local papers, and wrote

to me.

He said that he had left the sea, and was trying farming, and he

was going to be married, and he asked if I wouldn't come over for

that, for it wasn't more than forty minutes by train; and he and

Mamie would be proud to have me at the wedding. I remembered how

I had heard one brother ask the other whether Mamie knew. That

meant, whether she knew he wanted to marry her, I suppose. She

had taken her time about it, for it was pretty nearly three years

then since we had lost Jim Benton overboard.

I had nothing particular to do while we were getting ready for

sea; nothing to prevent me from going over for a day, I mean;

and I thought I'd like to see Jack Benton, and have a look at the

girl he was going to marry. I wondered whether he had grown

cheerful again, and had got rid of that drawn look he had when he

told me it wasn't his fault. How could it have been his fault,

anyhow? So I wrote to Jack that I would come down and see him

married; and when the day came I took the train, and got there

about ten o'clock in the morning. I wish I hadn't. Jack met me at

the station, and he told me that the wedding was to be late in

the afternoon, and that they weren't going off on any silly

wedding trip, he and Mamie, but were just going to walk home from

her mother's house to his cottage. That was good enough for him,

he said. I looked at him hard for a minute after we met. When we

had parted I had a sort of idea that he might take to drink, but

he hadn't. He looked very respectable and well-to-do in his black

coat and high city collar; but he was thinner and bonier than

when I had known him, and there were lines in his face, and I

thought his eyes had a queer look in them, half shifty, half

scared. He needn't have been afraid of me, for I didn't mean to

talk to his bride about the _Helen B. Jackson_.

He took me to his cottage first, and I could see that he was

proud of it. It wasn't above a cable's-length from high-water

mark, but the tide was running out, and there was already a broad

stretch of hard wet sand on the other side of the beach road.

Jack's bit of land ran back behind the cottage about a quarter of

a mile, and he said that some of the trees we saw were his. The

fences were neat and well kept, and there was a fair-sized barn a

little way from the cottage, and I saw some nice-looking cattle

in the meadows; but it didn't look to me to be much of a farm,

and I thought that before long Jack would have to leave his wife

to take care of it, and go to sea again. But I said it was a nice

farm, so as to seem pleasant, and as I don't know much about

these things I dare say it was, all the same. I never saw it but

that once. Jack told me that he and his brother had been born in

the cottage, and that when their father and mother died they

leased the land to Mamie's father, but had kept the cottage to

live in when they came home from sea for a spell. It was as neat

a little place as you would care to see: the floors as clean as

the decks of a yacht, and the paint as fresh as a man-o'-war.

Jack always was a good painter. There was a nice parlour on the

ground floor, and Jack had papered it and had hung the walls with

photographs of ships and foreign ports, and with things he had

brought home from his voyages: a boomerang, a South Sea club,

Japanese straw hats and a Gibraltar fan with a bull-fight on it,

and all that sort of gear. It looked to me as if Miss Mamie had

taken a hand in arranging it. There was a bran-new polished iron

Franklin stove set into the old fireplace, and a red table-cloth

from Alexandria, embroidered with those outlandish Egyptian

letters. It was all as bright and homelike as possible, and he

showed me everything, and was proud of everything, and I liked

him the better for it. But I wished that his voice would sound

more cheerful, as it did when we first sailed in the _Helen B._,

and that the drawn look would go out of his face for a minute.

Jack showed me everything, and took me upstairs, and it was all

the same: bright and fresh and ready for the bride. But on the

upper landing there was a door that Jack didn't open. When we

came out of the bedroom I noticed that it was ajar, and Jack shut

it quickly and turned the key.

"That lock's no good," he said, half to himself. "The door is

always open."

I didn't pay much attention to what he said, but as we went down

the short stairs, freshly painted and varnished so that I was

almost afraid to step on them, he spoke again.

"That was his room, sir. I have made a sort of store-room of it."

"You may be wanting it in a year or so," I said, wishing to be

pleasant.

"I guess we won't use his room for that," Jack answered in a low

voice.

Then he offered me a cigar from a fresh box in the parlour, and

he took one, and we lit them, and went out; and as we opened the

front door there was Mamie Brewster standing in the path as if

she were waiting for us. She was a fine-looking girl, and I

didn't wonder that Jack had been willing to wait three years for

her. I could see that she hadn't been brought up on steam-heat

and cold storage, but had grown into a woman by the sea-shore.

She had brown eyes, and fine brown hair, and a good figure.

"This is Captain Torkeldsen," said Jack. "This is Miss Brewster,

captain; and she is glad to see you."

"Well, I am," said Miss Mamie, "for Jack has often talked to us

about you, captain."

She put out her hand, and took mine and shook it heartily, and I

suppose I said something, but I know I didn't say much.

The front door of the cottage looked toward the sea, and there

was a straight path leading to the gate on the beach road. There

was another path from the steps of the cottage that turned to the

right, broad enough for two people to walk easily, and it led

straight across the fields through gates to a larger house about

a quarter of a mile away. That was where Mamie's mother lived,

and the wedding was to be there. Jack asked me whether I would

like to look round the farm before dinner, but I told him I

didn't know much about farms. Then he said he just wanted to look

round himself a bit, as he mightn't have much more chance that

day; and he smiled, and Mamie laughed.

"Show the captain the way to the house, Mamie," he said. "I'll

be along in a minute."

So Mamie and I began to walk along the path, and Jack went up

toward the barn.

"It was sweet of you to come, captain," Miss Mamie began, "for I

have always wanted to see you."

"Yes," I said, expecting something more.

"You see, I always knew them both," she went on. "They used to

take me out in a dory to catch codfish when I was a little girl,

and I liked them both," she added thoughtfully. "Jack doesn't

care to talk about his brother now. That's natural. But you won't

mind telling me how it happened, will you? I should so much like

to know."

Well, I told her about the voyage and what happened that night

when we fell in with a gale of wind, and that it hadn't been

anybody's fault, for I wasn't going to admit that it was my old

captain's, if it was. But I didn't tell her anything about what

happened afterwards. As she didn't speak, I just went on talking

about the two brothers, and how like they had been, and how when

poor Jim was drowned and Jack was left, I took Jack for him. I

told her that none of us had ever been sure which was which.

"I wasn't always sure myself," she said, "unless they were

together. Leastways, not for a day or two after they came home

from sea. And now it seems to me that Jack is more like poor Jim,

as I remember him, than he ever was, for Jim was always more

quiet, as if he were thinking."

I told her I thought so, too. We passed the gate and went into

the next field, walking side by side. Then she turned her head to

look for Jack, but he wasn't in sight. I sha'n't forget what she

said next.

"Are you sure now?" she asked.

I stood stock-still, and she went on a step, and then turned and

looked at me. We must have looked at each other while you could

count five or six.

"I know it's silly," she went on, "it's silly, and it's awful,

too, and I have got no right to think it, but sometimes I can't

help it. You see it was always Jack I meant to marry."

"Yes," I said stupidly, "I suppose so."

She waited a minute, and began walking on slowly before she went

on again.

"I am talking to you as if you were an old friend, captain, and I

have only known you five minutes. It was Jack I meant to marry,

but now he is so like the other one."

When a woman gets a wrong idea into her head, there is only one

way to make her tired of it, and that is to agree with her.

That's what I did, and she went on talking the same way for a

little while, and I kept on agreeing and agreeing until she

turned round on me.

"You know you don't believe what you say," she said, and

laughed. "You know that Jack is Jack, right enough; and it's Jack

I am going to marry."

Of course I said so, for I didn't care whether she thought me a

weak creature or not. I wasn't going to say a word that could

interfere with her happiness, and I didn't intend to go back on

Jack Benton; but I remembered what he had said when he left the

ship in Havana: that it wasn't his fault.

"All the same," Miss Mamie went on, as a woman will, without

realising what she was saying, "all the same, I wish I had seen

it happen. Then I should know."

Next minute she knew that she didn't mean that, and was afraid

that I would think her heartless, and began to explain that she

would really rather have died herself than have seen poor Jim go

overboard. Women haven't got much sense, anyhow. All the same, I

wondered how she could marry Jack if she had a doubt that he

might be Jim after all. I suppose she had really got used to him

since he had given up the sea and had stayed ashore, and she

cared for him.

Before long we heard Jack coming up behind us, for we had walked

very slowly to wait for him.

"Promise not to tell anybody what I said, captain," said Mamie,

as girls do as soon as they have told their secrets.

Anyhow, I know I never did tell any one but you. This is the

first time I have talked of all that, the first time since I took

the train from that place. I am not going to tell you all about

the day. Miss Mamie introduced me to her mother, who was a quiet,

hard-faced old New England farmer's widow, and to her cousins and

relations; and there were plenty of them too at dinner, and there

was the parson besides. He was what they call a Hard-shell

Baptist in those parts, with a long, shaven upper lip and a

whacking appetite, and a sort of superior look, as if he didn't

expect to see many of us hereafter--the way a New York pilot

looks round, and orders things about when he boards an Italian

cargo-dragger, as if the ship weren't up to much anyway, though

it was his business to see that she didn't get aground. That's

the way a good many parsons look, I think. He said grace as if he

were ordering the men to sheet home the topgallant-sail and get

the helm up. After dinner we went out on the piazza, for it was

warm autumn weather; and the young folks went off in pairs along

the beach road, and the tide had turned and was beginning to come

in. The morning had been clear and fine, but by four o'clock it

began to look like a fog, and the damp came up out of the sea and

settled on everything. Jack said he'd go down to his cottage and

have a last look, for the wedding was to be at five o'clock, or

soon after, and he wanted to light the lights, so as to have

things look cheerful.

"I will just take a last look," he said again, as we reached the

house. We went in, and he offered me another cigar, and I lit it

and sat down in the parlour. I could hear him moving about, first

in the kitchen and then upstairs, and then I heard him in the

kitchen again; and then before I knew anything I heard somebody

moving upstairs again. I knew he couldn't have got up those

stairs as quick as that. He came into the parlour, and he took a

cigar himself, and while he was lighting it I heard those steps

again overhead. His hand shook, and he dropped the match.

"Have you got in somebody to help?" I asked.

"No," Jack answered sharply, and struck another match.

"There's somebody upstairs, Jack," I said. "Don't you hear

footsteps?"

"It's the wind, captain," Jack answered; but I could see he was

trembling.

"That isn't any wind, Jack," I said; "it's still and foggy. I'm

sure there's somebody upstairs."

"If you are so sure of it, you'd better go and see for yourself,

captain," Jack answered, almost angrily.

He was angry because he was frightened. I left him before the

fireplace, and went upstairs. There was no power on earth that

could make me believe I hadn't heard a man's footsteps overhead.

I knew there was somebody there. But there wasn't. I went into

the bedroom, and it was all quiet, and the evening light was

streaming in, reddish through the foggy air; and I went out on

the landing and looked in the little back room that was meant for

a servant girl or a child. And as I came back again I saw that

the door of the other room was wide open, though I knew Jack had

locked it. He had said the lock was no good. I looked in. It was

a room as big as the bedroom, but almost dark, for it had

shutters, and they were closed. There was a musty smell, as of

old gear, and I could make out that the floor was littered with

sea chests, and that there were oilskins and stuff piled on the

bed. But I still believed that there was somebody upstairs, and I

went in and struck a match and looked round. I could see the four

walls and the shabby old paper, an iron bed and a cracked

looking-glass, and the stuff on the floor. But there was nobody

there. So I put out the match, and came out and shut the door and

turned the key. Now, what I am telling you is the truth. When I

had turned the key, I heard footsteps walking away from the door

inside the room. Then I felt queer for a minute, and when I went

downstairs I looked behind me, as the men at the wheel used to

look behind them on board the _Helen B._

Jack was already outside on the steps, smoking. I have an idea

that he didn't like to stay inside alone.

"Well?" he asked, trying to seem careless.

"I didn't find anybody," I answered, "but I heard somebody moving

about." "I told you it was the wind," said Jack, contemptuously.

"I ought to know, for I live here, and I hear it often."

There was nothing to be said to that, so we began to walk down

toward the beach. Jack said there wasn't any hurry, as it would

take Miss Mamie some time to dress for the wedding. So we

strolled along, and the sun was setting through the fog, and the

tide was coming in. I knew the moon was full, and that when she

rose the fog would roll away from the land, as it does sometimes.

I felt that Jack didn't like my having heard that noise, so I

talked of other things, and asked him about his prospects, and

before long we were chatting as pleasantly as possible.

I haven't been at many weddings in my life, and I don't suppose

you have, but that one seemed to me to be all right until it was

pretty near over; and then, I don't know whether it was part of

the ceremony or not, but Jack put out his hand and took Mamie's

and held it a minute, and looked at her, while the parson was

still speaking.

Mamie turned as white as a sheet and screamed. It wasn't a loud

scream, but just a sort of stifled little shriek, as if she were

half frightened to death; and the parson stopped, and asked her

what was the matter, and the family gathered round.

"Your hand's like ice," said Mamie to Jack, "and it's all wet!"

She kept looking at it, as she got hold of herself again.

"It don't feel cold to me," said Jack, and he held the back of

his hand against his cheek. "Try it again."

Mamie held out hers, and touched the back of his hand, timidly at

first, and then took hold of it.

"Why, that's funny," she said.

"She's been as nervous as a witch all day," said Mrs. Brewster,

severely.

"It is natural," said the parson, "that young Mrs. Benton should

experience a little agitation at such a moment."

Most of the bride's relations lived at a distance, and were busy

people, so it had been arranged that the dinner we'd had in the

middle of the day was to take the place of a dinner afterwards,

and that we should just have a bite after the wedding was over,

and then that everybody should go home, and the young couple

would walk down to the cottage by themselves. When I looked out I

could see the light burning brightly in Jack's cottage, a quarter

of a mile away. I said I didn't think I could get any train to

take me back before half-past nine, but Mrs. Brewster begged me

to stay until it was time, as she said her daughter would want to

take off her wedding dress before she went home; for she had put

on something white with a wreath, that was very pretty, and she

couldn't walk home like that, could she?

So when we had all had a little supper the party began to break

up, and when they were all gone Mrs. Brewster and Mamie went

upstairs, and Jack and I went out on the piazza, to have a

smoke, as the old lady didn't like tobacco in the house.

The full moon had risen now, and it was behind me as I looked

down toward Jack's cottage, so that everything was clear and

white, and there was only the light burning in the window. The

fog had rolled down to the water's edge, and a little beyond, for

the tide was high, or nearly, and was lapping up over the last

reach of sand, within fifty feet of the beach road.

Jack didn't say much as we sat smoking, but he thanked me for

coming to his wedding, and I told him I hoped he would be happy;

and so I did. I dare say both of us were thinking of those

footsteps upstairs, just then, and that the house wouldn't seem

so lonely with a woman in it. By and by we heard Mamie's voice

talking to her mother on the stairs, and in a minute she was

ready to go. She had put on again the dress she had worn in the

morning, and it looked black at night, almost as black as Jack's

coat.

Well, they were ready to go now. It was all very quiet after the

day's excitement, and I knew they would like to walk down that

path alone now that they were man and wife at last. I bade them

good-night, although Jack made a show of pressing me to go with

them by the path as far as the cottage, instead of going to the

station by the beach road. It was all very quiet, and it seemed

to me a sensible way of getting married; and when Mamie kissed

her mother good-night I just looked the other way, and knocked my

ashes over the rail of the piazza. So they started down the

straight path to Jack's cottage, and I waited a minute with Mrs.

Brewster, looking after them, before taking my hat to go. They

walked side by side, a little shyly at first, and then I saw Jack

put his arm round her waist. As I looked he was on her left, and

I saw the outline of the two figures very distinctly against the

moonlight on the path; and the shadow on Mamie's right was broad

and black as ink, and it moved along, lengthening and shortening

with the unevenness of the ground beside the path.

I thanked Mrs. Brewster, and bade her good-night; and though she

was a hard New England woman her voice trembled a little as she

answered, but being a sensible person she went in and shut the

door behind her as I stepped out on the path. I looked after the

couple in the distance a last time, meaning to go down to the

road, so as not to overtake them; but when I had made a few steps

I stopped and looked again, for I knew I had seen something

queer, though I had only realised it afterwards. I looked again,

and it was plain enough now; and I stood stock-still, staring at

what I saw. Mamie was walking between two men. The second man was

just the same height as Jack, both being about a half a head

taller than she; Jack on her left in his black tail-coat and

round hat, and the other man on her right--well, he was a

sailor-man in wet oilskins. I could see the moonlight shining on

the water that ran down him, and on the little puddle that had

settled where the flap of his sou'wester was turned up behind:

and one of his wet, shiny arms was round Mamie's waist, just

above Jack's. I was fast to the spot where I stood, and for a

minute I thought I was crazy. We'd had nothing but some cider for

dinner, and tea in the evening, otherwise I'd have thought

something had got into my head, though I was never drunk in my

life. It was more like a bad dream after that.

I was glad Mrs. Brewster had gone in. As for me, I couldn't help

following the three, in a sort of wonder to see what would

happen, to see whether the sailor-man in his wet togs would just

melt away into the moonshine. But he didn't.

[Illustration: ONE OF HIS WET, SHINY ARMS WAS ROUND MAMIE'S WAIST.]

I moved slowly, and I remembered afterwards that I walked on the

grass, instead of on the path, as if I were afraid they might

hear me coming. I suppose it all happened in less than five

minutes after that, but it seemed as if it must have taken an

hour. Neither Jack nor Mamie seemed to notice the sailor. She

didn't seem to know that his wet arm was round her, and little by

little they got near the cottage, and I wasn't a hundred yards

from them when they reached the door. Something made me stand

still then. Perhaps it was fright, for I saw everything that

happened just as I see you now.

Mamie set her foot on the step to go up, and as she went forward

I saw the sailor slowly lock his arm in Jack's, and Jack didn't

move to go up. Then Mamie turned round on the step, and they all

three stood that way for a second or two. She cried out then,--I

heard a man cry like that once, when his arm was taken off by a

steam-crane,--and she fell back in a heap on the little piazza.

I tried to jump forward, but I couldn't move, and I felt my hair

rising under my hat. The sailor turned slowly where he stood, and

swung Jack round by the arm steadily and easily, and began to

walk him down the pathway from the house. He walked him straight

down that path, as steadily as Fate; and all the time I saw the

moonlight shining on his wet oilskins. He walked him through the

gate, and across the beach road, and out upon the wet sand, where

the tide was high. Then I got my breath with a gulp, and ran for

them across the grass, and vaulted over the fence, and stumbled

across the road. But when I felt the sand under my feet, the two

were at the water's edge; and when I reached the water they were

far out, and up to their waists; and I saw that Jack Benton's

head had fallen forward on his breast, and his free arm hung limp

beside him, while his dead brother steadily marched him to his

death. The moonlight was on the dark water, but the fog-bank was

white beyond, and I saw them against it; and they went slowly and

steadily down. The water was up to their armpits, and then up to

their shoulders, and then I saw it rise up to the black rim of

Jack's hat. But they never wavered; and the two heads went

straight on, straight on, till they were under, and there was

just a ripple in the moonlight where Jack had been.

It has been on my mind to tell you that story, whenever I got a

chance. You have known me, man and boy, a good many years; and I

thought I would like to hear your opinion. Yes, that's what I

always thought. It wasn't Jim that went overboard; it was Jack,

and Jim just let him go when he might have saved him; and then

Jim passed himself off for Jack with us, and with the girl. If

that's what happened, he got what he deserved. People said the

next day that Mamie found it out as they reached the house, and

that her husband just walked out into the sea, and drowned

himself; and they would have blamed me for not stopping him if

they'd known that I was there. But I never told what I had seen,

for they wouldn't have believed me. I just let them think I had

come too late.

When I reached the cottage and lifted Mamie up, she was raving

mad. She got better afterwards, but she was never right in her

head again.

Oh, you want to know if they found Jack's body? I don't know

whether it was his, but I read in a paper at a Southern port

where I was with my new ship that two dead bodies had come ashore

in a gale down East, in pretty bad shape. They were locked

together, and one was a skeleton in oilskins.

* * * * *

Francis Marion Crawford, the youngest of the four

children of the well-known sculptor Thomas Crawford,

was born in Rome, educated by a French governess;

then at St Paul's School, Concord, N.H.; in the

quiet country village of Hatfield Regis, under an

English tutor; at Trinity College, Cambridge, where

they thought him a mathematician in those days; at

Heidelberg and Karlsruhe, and at the University of

Rome, where a special interest in Oriental languages

sent him to India with the idea of preparing for a

professorship.

At one time in India hard times nearly forced him

into enlistment in the British army, but a chance

opening sent him as editor of the _Indian Herald_ to

Allahabad. It was during the next eighteen months

that he met at Simla the hero of his first novel,

"Mr. Isaacs." "If it had not been for him," Mr.

Crawford has been known to say, "I might at this

moment be a professor of Sanskrit in some American

college;" for that idea persisted after his return

to the United States, where he entered Harvard for

special study of the subject.

But from the May evening when the story of the

interesting man at Simla was first told in a club

smoking-room overlooking Madison Square, Mr. Crawford's

life has been one of hard literary work. He returned to

Italy in 1883, spent most of the next year in

Constantinople, where he was married to a daughter

of General Berdan. From 1885 he has made his home in

Sorrento, Italy, visiting America at intervals.

"Mr. Isaacs," published in 1882, was followed almost

at once by "Dr. Claudius." Then _The Atlantic

Monthly_ claimed a serial, "A Roman Singer," in

1883. Since that time the list of his novels has

been increased to thirty-two, besides the historical

and descriptive works entitled "Ave Roma Immortalis"

and "The Rulers of the South."

To Mr. Crawford, the development of a story and of

the character which suggested it, is the preeminent

thing. As the critics say:--

"He is an artist, a born story-teller and

colourist, imaginative and dramatic, virile and

vivid."

His wide range as a traveller has contributed doubtless

to another characteristic quality:--

"... his strength in unexcelled portraits of odd

characters and his magical skill in seeming to make

his readers witnesses of the spectacles."

His intimate knowledge of many countries has resulted in

an unequalled series of brilliant romances, including

varied characters from the old families of Rome, the

glassblowers of Venice, the silversmiths of Rome, the

cigarette makers of Munich, the court of old Madrid, the

Turks of Stamboul and the Bosphorus, simple sailors on the

coast of Spain, Americans of modern New York and Bar Harbor,

to Crusaders of the twelfth century. But whether the scene

be in modern India, rural England, the Black Forest, or the

palaces of Babylon, the story seizes on the imagination and

fascinates the reader.

"The romantic reader will find here a tale of love

passionate and pure; the student of character, the

subtle analysis and deft portrayal he loves; the

historian will approve its conscientious historic

accuracy; the lover of adventure will find his

blood stir and pulses quicken as he reads."

* * * * *

THE NOVELS OF

F. MARION CRAWFORD