A RIOT ON THE DOCKS.
In due time the voyage ended at the port of New York. The _Ajax_ would
not be ready for sea again for two weeks to come, and in the meantime
her crew was paid off, Jack among them.
Raynor, after promising to call on the young wireless man on board the
_Venus_ as soon as he returned from a flying visit to his sister, shook
hands warmly with his young chum. He proffered his left hand, though,
for his injured arm was not entirely mended even then.
Uncle Toby received his young nephew with characteristic demonstrations
of delight. He inquired if he had had occasion to use anything from the
voluminous chest of medicines that the drug-compounding uncle had given
to the boy. Jack had not the heart to tell the anxious old man that the
contents of most of the bottles had gone overboard, although he had
given some of them to a stout old quartermaster, who was as fond of
dosing himself as are most sailors. The patient had drunk off the
embrocations and rubbed in the internal remedies and declared himself
much benefited; so that Jack could, without stretching the truth, tell
his uncle that his remedies had accomplished a lot of good on the
_Ajax_.
“I knew it! I knew it!” declared the old man, rubbing his hands
delightedly. “They were never known to fail. I’ll give you another
boxful when you are ready for sea again.”
“I’ve plenty left of the old lot, uncle,” declared Jack.
“Nothing like being well provided, though, my hearty,” said his uncle.
“I’d hate to think of you being sick, away out at sea, without some of
the ‘Universal Tonic and Pain Eradicator’ handy.”
The night after his return Jack bethought himself of some bits of
apparatus he had left in his cabin on the _Ajax_. He decided to go over
to her dock and get them. It would not take long and he was anxious to
conduct some experiments with a view to the betterment of his “wireless
alarm,” which had not worked quite satisfactorily.
The _Ajax_ was not berthed in the Erie Basin, there being temporarily no
room for her there, but lay at one of the Titan Line’s wharves in New
York City.
The dock was on West Street, and it was not a long trip across the
Brooklyn Bridge to where she lay.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” he told his uncle as he left.
“All right, my hearty,” said the old salt, engrossed in the composition
of an invaluable malarial remedy for a captain bound for the South
American coast.
When Jack reached the ship the evening had turned from a cloudy, dull
twilight into a damp, disagreeable drizzle. A heavy Scotch mist filled
the air and the big electric lights on the pier shone through the haze
like blobs of pale yellow.
At the head of the gangplank was an old ship’s watchman who readily
passed him on board on his explaining his business. Jack was surprised
to see that there were several vague figures flitting about the elevated
after-structure of the “tanker.”
“I thought all hands were ashore,” he said.
“No; there’s the fireman and an engineer left on board,” said the
watchman. “They mean to keep up steam till it’s time to berth her over
in the Basin, I guess.”
Jack’s mission took him longer than he had thought it would. He decided
not to go home to supper, but to take it at any nearby restaurant and
then come back to search for what he wanted later.
He found a quiet, respectable place and ate a hearty meal. When he had
paid his check he returned to the ship and to his cabin. Some little
time longer was spent in getting together the odd effects he wanted.
Suddenly his attention was arrested by a sound of shouting and yelling
and brawling somewhere, as near as he could make out at the river end of
the dock.
“Wonder what’s up?” thought the boy; and then the next minute, “Sounds
to me like a lot of firemen cutting up in a riot.”
There was a lull and then the clamor burst out afresh. Loud, angry
voices rose, and fierce shouts, as if the men on the dock were in deadly
strife.
Jack ran out of his cabin.
As he did so the old watchman came pattering along the steel decks and
clambered up the ladder to the superstructure, where Jack was standing.
“What is the matter?” demanded the boy.
“The firemen!” panted the watchman, pointing to the dock.
“Well, what’s the reason of all this racket? Are they fighting?”
“Fighting! They are trying to kill each other!” puffed the old watchman
in a scared voice.
The lad knew that the firemen of big steamers are about as hard a crowd
as can be found anywhere; but it was unusual for them to be making such
a racket so close to the ship. He surmised correctly that some of the
men had been ashore on a carouse while the others kept up steam.
“You’d better run for the police,” he told the scared watchman, and
while the old fellow pattered off on his errand Jack’s ears were
suddenly assailed by another sound.
Splash!
Something had struck the water right alongside the ship. Jack was just
about to shout, “Man overboard!” when he peered over and saw in the
fog-wreathed space between the ship and the dock a dark object drop from
some port in the fire-room below him and strike the water with a second
splash.
For a flash he thought it might be some fireman taking French leave of
the ship. But a second’s thought convinced him that what had dropped was
no human being but a big bundle of some sort.
“Now what in the world is going on?” he thought undecidedly.
On the dock the din of the fighting firemen still kept up. But right
then Jack was more concerned with the mysterious happenings on board the
ship itself. Something very out of the ordinary was going forward, that
was plain enough. But what could it be? What was being thrown out of the
fire-room port?
He was still struggling with the mystery when there came another sudden
sound.
Jack recognized it instantly as the noise of an oar moving in a rowlock.
A boat was moving about in the dark obscurity between the ship and the
dock. Peering over, Jack could see the dim outlines of the little craft
moving slowly about far below where he stood.
Then of a sudden another of those mysterious bundles dropped from the
fire-room.
He saw the boat impelled toward it as it lay floating, and then it was
hoisted on board.
“What black work is going on here?” thought the young wireless man as he
watched.
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