THE GOLD OF THE "ROYAL WILLIAM"
The skipper and his four companions returned to the cliff above the
wreck, the skipper striding ahead, silent, deep in a mental and
spiritual unrest that was thought without reflection. The others
followed, whispering among themselves but afraid to question their
leader. The wind had fallen to a breeze by the time they reached the
point of the cliff overlooking the slanted deck of the stranded ship.
Also, the seas had lost much of their height and violence, and the tide
was ebbing. The group on the cliff's edge eyed the skipper inquiringly,
furtively, as he joined them. He strode through them and looked down at
the wreck. His face lightened in a flash and his dark eyes gleamed.
"What did I tell ye!" he cried. "Now she lays steady as a house, all
ready to be gutted like a fish. Pass a couple o' lines this way, men.
Take in the slack o' the hawser an' make her fast to yonder nub o'
rock. Nick Leary, follow after me wid that block an' pulley. Bill, rig
yer winch a couple o' yards this way an' stake her down. Keep ten men
wid ye--an' the rest o' ye can follow me. But not too close, mind ye!
Fetch yer axes along, an' every man o' ye a line."
Three minutes later, the skipper was sliding down the foremast, with
Nick Leary close above him, another man already on the cross-trees and
yet another in mid-air on the hawser. The skipper reached the slanted
deck and slewed down into the starboard scuppers, snatched hold of a
splintered fragment of the bulwarks in time to save himself from
pitching overboard, steadied himself for a moment and then crawled aft.
Leary, profiting by the skipper's experience in the scuppers, made a
line fast to the butt of the foremast, clawed his way up the slant of
the deck to port, scrambled aft until he was fairly in line with the
stump of the mainmast, and then let himself slide until checked in his
course by that battered section of spar. Taking a turn around it with
his line, he again clawed to port, and scrambled aft again. His second
slide to starboard brought him to the splintered companionway of the
main cabin. Here he removed the end of the rope from his waist and made
it fast, thus rigging a life-line from the butt of the foremast aft to
the cabin for the use of those to follow. It had been a swift and
considerate piece of work. The men on the cliff cheered. Nick waved his
hand to the cliff, shouted a caution to the man at that moment
descending the foremast, and then swung himself down into four feet of
water and the outer cabin.
"Where be ye, skipper?" he bawled.
"This way, Nick. Fair aft," replied the skipper. "Keep to port or ye'll
have to swim. I bes in the captain's berth; an' here bes his dispatch
box, high an' dry in his bunk."
Nick made his way aft, through the length of the outer cabin as quickly
as he could, with the water to his chin as he stooped forward in his
efforts toward speed, entered an inner and smaller cabin by a narrow
door and finally swam into the captain's own state-room. He grasped the
edge of the berth in which the skipper crouched.
"Hell! I bes nigh perished entirely wid the cold, skipper!" he cried.
"Then swallow this," said the skipper, leaning down and tilting a bottle
of brandy to the other's lips. "I found it right here in the bunk,
half-empty; aye, an' two more like it, but wid nary a drop in 'em.
There, Nick, that bes enough for ye."
Leary dragged himself up beside the skipper. As the deadlight had been
closed over the port, the state-room was illumined only by a gray
half-gloom from the cabin.
"This bunk bes nigh full o' junk," said Nolan. "The skipper o' this ship
must ha' slept in the lower bunk an' kept his stores here. Here bes
t'ree boxes wid the ship's gold an' papers, I take it; an' a
medicine-chest, by the smell o' it; an' an entire case o' brandy, by
Garge! Sure, Nick, it bes no wonder he got off his course! Take another
suck at the bottle, Nick, an' then get overside wid ye an' pass out
these boxes."
Nick was still deriving warmth from the bottle when a third man entered
the state-room, with just his head and neck above water.
"She bes down by the starn desperate, skipper," he said. "Saints
presarve me, I bes ice to the bones!"
At a word from the skipper, the last arrival took the bottle from Leary.
Others reached the scene of action and the three iron boxes and the case
of brandy were soon safe on deck. From there they were winched up to
the top of the cliff.
"We'll break into the lazaret when the tide bes out," said the skipper.
"She'll drain out, ye can lay to that, wid a hole in her as big as the
roof o' a house."
They salvaged a few cases of tinned provisions from the steward's
pantry. Five state-rooms were situated on either side of the main or
outer cabins. They looted those to port first, where the water was only
a few feet deep, finding little but clothing and bedding and one leather
purse containing thirty pounds in gold. The skipper put the purse into a
submerged pocket, and sent the other stuff to the deck, to be winched
aloft. The cabins on the starboard side contained but little of value. A
few leather boxes and bags were sent up unopened. The water was still
shoulder-deep to starboard. The door of the fifth room on the starboard
side was fastened. The skipper pulled and jerked at it, then lowered his
head beneath the water, and saw that it was locked on the inside. But
the lock was a light one, and the wood of the door was not heavy. He
called for a capstan-bar; and in spite of the fact that he had to strike
blindly under several feet of water, the lock was soon shattered. By
this time, a dozen men were clustered around, their curiosity and greed
uncooled by the cold water to their shoulders.
"There bes somethin' wort' salvin' in there, ye kin lay to that!" said
one.
"The passengers' store-room, I bes a-t'inkin'," said another.
"Naught but the sail-locker," said a third. "D'ye look to find gold an'
dimins in every blessed corner o' every blessed ship?"
At that moment the skipper pulled the narrow door open to its full
extent. The water inside swirled out to fill the eddy made by the
opening of the door; and then, slow, terrible, wide-eyed, floating
breast-high in the flood, a woman drifted out of the narrow room into
the midst of the expectant men. Death had not been able to hide the
agony in her staring eyes, or dull the lines of horror in her waxen,
contorted face. She floated out to them, swaying and bowing, one hand
clutched and fixed in the torn bosom of her dress, a pendant of gold and
pearl swinging from each ear.
A groan of wordless horror went up from the wreckers. For a moment they
stared at the thing rocking and sidling in their midst, with grotesque
motions of life and the face and hands of a terrific death; and then, as
one man, they started to splash, beat and plunge their way to the
companion-steps. The water was set swirling by their frantic efforts, in
eddies and cross-currents which caught the dead woman and drew her,
pitching and turning heavily, in the wakes of the leaders and elbow to
elbow with some of the panic-stricken fellows in the second line of
retreat. They knew the thing was not a ghost; they knew the thing was
not alive, and could not harm them with its pitiful, stiff fingers; they
knew it for the body of a woman who had been drowned in her cabin--and
yet the horror of it chilled them, maddened them, melted their courage
and deadened their powers of reasoning. Even the skipper felt the blind
terror of the encounter in every tingling nerve. The water was deep, the
deck sloped beneath their feet, and the way to the flooded steps of the
companionway seemed a mile long. The fellows who suffered the touch of
those dead elbows that seemed to reach out to them beneath the churning
water yelled wildly, lost their footing and power to advance at one and
the same moment, and soused under, clutching blindly at their comrades.
This brought others down and under who believed that the fingers
gripping them were those of the poor corpse. Screams and yells filled
the cabin and drifted up to the astounded men on the cliff. Heads
vanished; legs and arms beat the imprisoned water to spume; fists and
feet struck living flesh; and one poor, frantic fool clutched the
unconscious cause of all this madness in his arms. Then the skipper,
steadied from his first insanity of fear by the signs of disaster,
lowered his head deliberately, plunged forward and downward, and swam
under water for the companion. In his passage he wrenched floundering
bodies aside and kicked and struck at floundering legs and arms. Coming
to the surface and sinking his feet to the deck at the same moment, he
grasped a step of the companionway and hauled himself out of the water,
as if the devil were nipping at his heels. Turning on an upper step, he
reached down, clutched two of the struggling fellows by the collars and
dragged them up from the battling smother. One of them sprang on up the
companion without so much as a glance at his rescuer, reached the deck
with a yell, and started forward on the run without pausing to lay a
hand on the life-line. His course was brief. The list of the deck
carried him to the starboard. His foot caught in a splinter of shattered
bulwark and he pitched overboard, head first and with terrific force, to
the black rocks and surging seas. That was the last time Dan Cormick was
seen alive--and the sight of him springing from the companion and
plunging to his death struck horror and amazement to the souls of the
men on the cliff.
Below, the skipper was doing his utmost to still the tumult and drag the
men to safety. They were the men of his harbor--a part of his equipment
in life--and therefore he worked like a hero to save them from
themselves and one another. His young brother was safe on the cliff; so
his fine efforts were not inspired by any grander emotion than that felt
by the shopkeeper who fights fire in the protection of his uninsured
stock-in-trade. There were men below whom he needed, but none whom he
loved even with the ordinary affection of man for humanity. The skipper
yanked the men to the steps as fast as he could get hold of them,
dragged them up to the level of the deck, and left them sprawled. All
were breathless; some were cut and bruised; Nick Leary's left cheek had
been laid open from eye to jaw in some way. The shouting and yelling
were now over, and several husky fellows, ashamed of the recent panic,
helped the skipper at his work. When the task of rescue was at last
finished, the flooded cabin had given up three corpses besides that of
the woman--four corpses and a dozen wounded men.
The bodies of the wreckers were hauled up to the top of the cliff, amid
prayers, curses and groans of distress. The fellows on shore demanded to
know who had killed them--and why? Knives were drawn. The brother of one
of the dead men swore that he was ready and eager to cut the heart out
of the murderer. The lads on the wreck caught something of all this; but
it did not cool their desire to get ashore. Those who had the use of
their limbs swarmed up the foremast and crossed over to the cliff. The
first to step ashore was in grave danger for a half-minute; but he
managed to throw some light on the thing that had taken place in the
flooded cabin. Others landed, the whole story was told and knives were
returned to their sheaths. The skipper, the seriously injured and the
dead woman remained on the deck. The skipper was in a black mood. He
knew his people well enough to see that this unfortunate affair would
weaken his power among them. They would say that the saints were
against his enterprises and ambitions; that his luck was gone; that he
was a bungler and so not fit to give orders to full-grown men. He
understood all this as if he could hear their grumbled words--nay, as
well as if he could read the very hearts of them. He turned to Nick
Leary. Nick had already bandaged his face with a piece of sail-cloth.
"Where bes the medicine-chest? Was it sent aloft?" asked the skipper.
"Nay, skipper, 'twas left below--in the captain's berth," replied Nick;
his voice shook from pain and loss of blood.
"Ye bes cut desperate bad," said the skipper. "I'll go fetch the
medicine-chest an' fix ye up wid plaster an' dacent bandages. Who says
his leg bes broke? Ye, Bill Lynch? I'll fix yer leg, b'y, when I git the
chest."
He looked up at the crowd on the cliff and roared to them to lower away
some brandy for the wounded men.
"An' step lively, damn ye, or I'll be comin' up to ye wid a bat in me
hand," he concluded, knowing that it was not the time to display any
sign of weakness. Then he went down the companion, entered the water,
which had drained out with the ebbing tide until it reached no higher
than to his waist, and waded aft to the lost captain's berth. He felt
decidedly uneasy, shot glances to right and left at the narrow doors of
the state-rooms and experienced a sensation of creeping cold at the
roots of his hair; but he forced himself onward. He soon regained the
deck with the big medicine-chest in his arms. He was received by a growl
of admiration from the little group of wounded. The men on the cliff
looked down in silence, those who had taken part in the recent panic
deeply impressed by the skipper's action. The brandy had already been
lowered to the deck, and the bottles were uncorked. The skipper placed
the chest on the upper side of the hatch, and saw to the fair
distribution of the liquor. He passed it around with a generous hand;
but the doses administered to Nick Leary and the man with the broken leg
were the most liberal. He attended to Nick's cheek first, drawing the
lips of the wound together with strips of adhesive plaster from the
medicine-chest, and then padding and bandaging it securely with gauze
and linen.
"That bes fine, skipper. Sure, it feels better now nor it did afore it
was cut," mumbled Nick, gazing at the other with dog-homage in his eyes.
By this time, Bill Lynch, of the broken leg, was oblivious to the world,
thanks to the depth and strength of his potations. The skipper cut away
a section of the leg of his heavy woollen trousers, prodded and pried at
the injured limb with his strong fingers until the fracture was found,
put a couple of strong splints in place, and bandaged them so that they
were not likely to drop off, to say the least. He then made a sling of a
blanket and sent his drunken patient swaying and twirling aloft in it to
the top of the cliff. The other injured persons went ashore in the same
way, one by one, like bales of sail-cloth. At last only the skipper and
the dead woman were left on the wreck. The skipper stood with a scowl on
his dark face and considered her. He drew the blanket sling toward him,
and stood toward the poor clay.
"I'll send her up to ye for dacent burial," he shouted.
This suggestion was answered by a yell of protest from the men on the
cliff.
"If ye be afeard o' her, ye white-livered swile, what d'ye want me to do
wid her?"
"T'row her overboard! Heave her into the sea!" "Aye, t'row her
overboard. She bes the devil hisself! T'ree good lads bes kilt dead by
her already. T'row her overboard!"
"There bain't a man amongst ye wid the heart o' a white-coat," returned
the skipper. "Afeared o' a poor drownded wench, be ye?"
This taunt was received in sullen silence. The skipper stood firm on the
listed deck, his feet set well apart and his shoulders squared, and
leered up at them. Then, stooping forward quickly, he plucked the
pendants from those bloodless ears, and set the body rolling into the
starboard scuppers and overboard to the frothing surf and slobbering
rocks. From the cliff a cry as of mingled relief and dismay rang down to
him. He moved forward and swarmed the foremast to the cross-trees. There
he paused for a few moments to glance across. He saw that Bill Brennen,
Nick Leary, his brother Cormick and several of the men whom he had
rescued from the flooded cabin had clustered around the shore-end of the
hawser. He saw that they feared treachery. He made his way across, cool,
fearless, with a dangerous smile on his lips.