CHAPTER I

THE WRECK OF THE

TITAN

OR, FUTILITY

BY

MORGAN ROBERTSON

AUTOGRAPH EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

AND

METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE

Copyright, 1898, by

M. F. MANSFIELD

Copyright, 1912, by

MORGAN ROBERTSON

_All rights reserved_

THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS

RAHWAY, N. J.

CONTENTS

THE WRECK OF THE TITAN 1

THE PIRATES 70

BEYOND THE SPECTRUM 207

IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 227

THE WRECK OF THE TITAN;

OR FUTILITY

THE WRECK OF THE TITAN

CHAPTER I

She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men.

In her construction and maintenance were involved every science,

profession, and trade known to civilization. On her bridge were

officers, who, besides being the pick of the Royal Navy, had passed

rigid examinations in all studies that pertained to the winds, tides,

currents, and geography of the sea; they were not only seamen, but

scientists. The same professional standard applied to the personnel of

the engine-room, and the steward's department was equal to that of a

first-class hotel.

Two brass bands, two orchestras, and a theatrical company entertained

the passengers during waking hours; a corps of physicians attended to

the temporal, and a corps of chaplains to the spiritual, welfare of all

on board, while a well-drilled fire-company soothed the fears of nervous

ones and added to the general entertainment by daily practice with their

apparatus.

From her lofty bridge ran hidden telegraph lines to the bow, stern

engine-room, crow's-nest on the foremast, and to all parts of the ship

where work was done, each wire terminating in a marked dial with a

movable indicator, containing in its scope every order and answer

required in handling the massive hulk, either at the dock or at

sea--which eliminated, to a great extent, the hoarse, nerve-racking

shouts of officers and sailors.

From the bridge, engine-room, and a dozen places on her deck the

ninety-two doors of nineteen water-tight compartments could be closed in

half a minute by turning a lever. These doors would also close

automatically in the presence of water. With nine compartments flooded

the ship would still float, and as no known accident of the sea could

possibly fill this many, the steamship _Titan_ was considered

practically unsinkable.

Built of steel throughout, and for passenger traffic only, she carried

no combustible cargo to threaten her destruction by fire; and the

immunity from the demand for cargo space had enabled her designers to

discard the flat, kettle-bottom of cargo boats and give her the sharp

dead-rise--or slant from the keel--of a steam yacht, and this improved

her behavior in a seaway. She was eight hundred feet long, of seventy

thousand tons' displacement, seventy-five thousand horse-power, and on

her trial trip had steamed at a rate of twenty-five knots an hour over

the bottom, in the face of unconsidered winds, tides, and currents. In

short, she was a floating city--containing within her steel walls all

that tends to minimize the dangers and discomforts of the Atlantic

voyage--all that makes life enjoyable.

Unsinkable--indestructible, she carried as few boats as would satisfy

the laws. These, twenty-four in number, were securely covered and lashed

down to their chocks on the upper deck, and if launched would hold five

hundred people. She carried no useless, cumbersome life-rafts;

but--because the law required it--each of the three thousand berths in

the passengers', officers', and crew's quarters contained a cork jacket,

while about twenty circular life-buoys were strewn along the rails.

In view of her absolute superiority to other craft, a rule of

navigation thoroughly believed in by some captains, but not yet openly

followed, was announced by the steamship company to apply to the

_Titan_: She would steam at full speed in fog, storm, and sunshine, and

on the Northern Lane Route, winter and summer, for the following good

and substantial reasons: First, that if another craft should strike her,

the force of the impact would be distributed over a larger area if the

_Titan_ had full headway, and the brunt of the damage would be borne by

the other. Second, that if the _Titan_ was the aggressor she would

certainly destroy the other craft, even at half-speed, and perhaps

damage her own bows; while at full speed, she would cut her in two with

no more damage to herself than a paintbrush could remedy. In either

case, as the lesser of two evils, it was best that the smaller hull

should suffer. A third reason was that, at full speed, she could be more

easily steered out of danger, and a fourth, that in case of an end-on

collision with an iceberg--the only thing afloat that she could not

conquer--her bows would be crushed in but a few feet further at full

than at half speed, and at the most three compartments would be

flooded--which would not matter with six more to spare.

So, it was confidently expected that when her engines had limbered

themselves, the steamship _Titan_ would land her passengers three

thousand miles away with the promptitude and regularity of a railway

train. She had beaten all records on her maiden voyage, but, up to the

third return trip, had not lowered the time between Sandy Hook and

Daunt's Rock to the five-day limit; and it was unofficially rumored

among the two thousand passengers who had embarked at New York that an

effort would now be made to do so.

CHAPTER II

Eight tugs dragged the great mass to midstream and pointed her nose down

the river; then the pilot on the bridge spoke a word or two; the first

officer blew a short blast on the whistle and turned a lever; the tugs

gathered in their lines and drew off; down in the bowels of the ship

three small engines were started, opening the throttles of three large

ones; three propellers began to revolve; and the mammoth, with a

vibratory tremble running through her great frame, moved slowly to sea.

East of Sandy Hook the pilot was dropped and the real voyage begun.

Fifty feet below her deck, in an inferno of noise, and heat, and light,

and shadow, coal-passers wheeled the picked fuel from the bunkers to the

fire-hold, where half-naked stokers, with faces like those of tortured

fiends, tossed it into the eighty white-hot mouths of the furnaces. In

the engine-room, oilers passed to and fro, in and out of the plunging,

twisting, glistening steel, with oil-cans and waste, overseen by the

watchful staff on duty, who listened with strained hearing for a false

note in the confused jumble of sound--a clicking of steel out of tune,

which would indicate a loosened key or nut. On deck, sailors set the

triangular sails on the two masts, to add their propulsion to the

momentum of the record-breaker, and the passengers dispersed themselves

as suited their several tastes. Some were seated in steamer chairs, well

wrapped--for, though it was April, the salt air was chilly--some paced

the deck, acquiring their sea legs; others listened to the orchestra in

the music-room, or read or wrote in the library, and a few took to their

berths--seasick from the slight heave of the ship on the ground-swell.

The decks were cleared, watches set at noon, and then began the

never-ending cleaning-up at which steamship sailors put in so much of

their time. Headed by a six-foot boatswain, a gang came aft on the

starboard side, with paint-buckets and brushes, and distributed

themselves along the rail.

"Davits an' stanchions, men--never mind the rail," said the boatswain.

"Ladies, better move your chairs back a little. Rowland, climb down out

o' that--you'll be overboard. Take a ventilator--no, you'll spill

paint--put your bucket away an' get some sandpaper from the yeoman. Work

inboard till you get it out o' you."

The sailor addressed--a slight-built man of about thirty, black-bearded

and bronzed to the semblance of healthy vigor, but watery-eyed and

unsteady of movement--came down from the rail and shambled forward with

his bucket. As he reached the group of ladies to whom the boatswain had

spoken, his gaze rested on one--a sunny-haired young woman with the blue

of the sea in her eyes--who had arisen at his approach. He started,

turned aside as if to avoid her, and raising his hand in an embarrassed

half-salute, passed on. Out of the boatswain's sight he leaned against

the deck-house and panted, while he held his hand to his breast.

"What is it?" he muttered, wearily; "whisky nerves, or the dying flutter

of a starved love. Five years, now--and a look from her eyes can stop

the blood in my veins--can bring back all the heart-hunger and

helplessness, that leads a man to insanity--or this." He looked at his

trembling hand, all scarred and tar-stained, passed on forward, and

returned with the sandpaper.

The young woman had been equally affected by the meeting. An expression

of mingled surprise and terror had come to her pretty, but rather weak

face; and without acknowledging his half-salute, she had caught up a

little child from the deck behind her, and turning into the saloon door,

hurried to the library, where she sank into a chair beside a

military-looking gentleman, who glanced up from a book and remarked:

"Seen the sea-serpent, Myra, or the Flying Dutchman? What's up?"

"Oh, George--no," she answered in agitated tones. "John Rowland is

here--Lieutenant Rowland. I've just seen him--he is so changed--he tried

to speak to me."

"Who--that troublesome flame of yours? I never met him, you know, and

you haven't told me much about him. What is he--first cabin?"

"No, he seems to be a common sailor; he is working, and is dressed in

old clothes--all dirty. And such a dissipated face, too. He seems to

have fallen--so low. And it is all since--"

"Since you soured on him? Well, it is no fault of yours, dear. If a man

has it in him he'll go to the dogs anyhow. How is his sense of injury?

Has he a grievance or a grudge? You're badly upset. What did he say?"

"I don't know--he said nothing--I've always been afraid of him. I've met

him three times since then, and he puts such a frightful look in his

eyes--and he was so violent, and headstrong, and so terribly

angry,--that time. He accused me of leading him on, and playing with

him; and he said something about an immutable law of chance, and a

governing balance of events--that I couldn't understand, only where he

said that for all the suffering we inflict on others, we receive an

equal amount ourselves. Then he went away--in such a passion. I've

imagined ever since that he would take some revenge--he might steal our

Myra--our baby." She strained the smiling child to her breast and went

on. "I liked him at first, until I found out that he was an

atheist--why, George, he actually denied the existence of God--and to

me, a professing Christian."

"He had a wonderful nerve," said the husband, with a smile; "didn't know

you very well, I should say."

"He never seemed the same to me after that," she resumed; "I felt as

though in the presence of something unclean. Yet I thought how glorious

it would be if I could save him to God, and tried to convince him of the

loving care of Jesus; but he only ridiculed all I hold sacred, and said,

that much as he valued my good opinion, he would not be a hypocrite to

gain it, and that he would be honest with himself and others, and

express his honest unbelief--the idea; as though one could be honest

without God's help--and then, one day, I smelled liquor on his

breath--he always smelled of tobacco--and I gave him up. It was then

that he--that he broke out."

"Come out and show me this reprobate," said the husband, rising. They

went to the door and the young woman peered out. "He is the last man

down there--close to the cabin," she said as she drew in. The husband

stepped out.

"What! that hang-dog ruffian, scouring the ventilator? So, that's

Rowland, of the navy, is it! Well, this is a tumble. Wasn't he broken

for conduct unbecoming an officer? Got roaring drunk at the President's

levee, didn't he? I think I read of it."

"I know he lost his position and was terribly disgraced," answered the

wife.

"Well, Myra, the poor devil is harmless now. We'll be across in a few

days, and you needn't meet him on this broad deck. If he hasn't lost all

sensibility, he's as embarrassed as you. Better stay in now--it's

getting foggy."

CHAPTER III

When the watch turned out at midnight, they found a vicious half-gale

blowing from the northeast, which, added to the speed of the steamship,

made, so far as effects on her deck went, a fairly uncomfortable whole

gale of chilly wind. The head sea, choppy as compared with her great

length, dealt the _Titan_ successive blows, each one attended by

supplementary tremors to the continuous vibrations of the engines--each

one sending a cloud of thick spray aloft that reached the crow's-nest on

the foremast and battered the pilot-house windows on the bridge in a

liquid bombardment that would have broken ordinary glass. A fog-bank,

into which the ship had plunged in the afternoon, still enveloped

her--damp and impenetrable; and into the gray, ever-receding wall ahead,

with two deck officers and three lookouts straining sight and hearing to

the utmost, the great racer was charging with undiminished speed.

At a quarter past twelve, two men crawled in from the darkness at the

ends of the eighty-foot bridge and shouted to the first officer, who had

just taken the deck, the names of the men who had relieved them. Backing

up to the pilot-house, the officer repeated the names to a quartermaster

within, who entered them in the log-book. Then the men vanished--to

their coffee and "watch-below." In a few moments another dripping shape

appeared on the bridge and reported the crow's-nest relief.

"Rowland, you say?" bawled the officer above the howling of the wind.

"Is he the man who was lifted aboard, drunk, yesterday?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is he still drunk?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right--that'll do. Enter Rowland in the crow's-nest,

quartermaster," said the officer; then, making a funnel of his hands, he

roared out: "Crow's-nest, there."

"Sir," came the answer, shrill and clear on the gale.

"Keep your eyes open--keep a sharp lookout."

"Very good, sir."

"Been a man-o'-war's-man, I judge, by his answer. They're no good,"

muttered the officer. He resumed his position at the forward side of the

bridge where the wooden railing afforded some shelter from the raw wind,

and began the long vigil which would only end when the second officer

relieved him, four hours later. Conversation--except in the line of

duty--was forbidden among the bridge officers of the _Titan_, and his

watchmate, the third officer, stood on the other side of the large

bridge binnacle, only leaving this position occasionally to glance in at

the compass--which seemed to be his sole duty at sea. Sheltered by one

of the deck-houses below, the boatswain and the watch paced back and

forth, enjoying the only two hours respite which steamship rules

afforded, for the day's work had ended with the going down of the other

watch, and at two o'clock the washing of the 'tween-deck would begin, as

an opening task in the next day's labor.

By the time one bell had sounded, with its repetition from the

crow's-nest, followed by a long-drawn cry--"all's well"--from the

lookouts, the last of the two thousand passengers had retired, leaving

the spacious cabins and steerage in possession of the watchmen; while,

sound asleep in his cabin abaft the chart-room was the captain, the

commander who never commanded--unless the ship was in danger; for the

pilot had charge, making and leaving port, and the officers, at sea.

Two bells were struck and answered; then three, and the boatswain and

his men were lighting up for a final smoke, when there rang out overhead

a startling cry from the crow's-nest:

"Something ahead, sir--can't make it out."

The first officer sprang to the engine-room telegraph and grasped the

lever. "Sing out what you see," he roared.

"Hard aport, sir--ship on the starboard tack--dead ahead," came the cry.

"Port your wheel--hard over," repeated the first officer to the

quartermaster at the helm--who answered and obeyed. Nothing as yet could

be seen from the bridge. The powerful steering-engine in the stern

ground the rudder over; but before three degrees on the compass card

were traversed by the lubber's-point, a seeming thickening of the

darkness and fog ahead resolved itself into the square sails of a

deep-laden ship, crossing the _Titan's_ bow, not half her length away.

"H--l and d--" growled the first officer. "Steady on your course,

quartermaster," he shouted. "Stand from under on deck." He turned a

lever which closed compartments, pushed a button marked--"Captain's

Room," and crouched down, awaiting the crash.

There was hardly a crash. A slight jar shook the forward end of the

_Titan_ and sliding down her fore-topmast-stay and rattling on deck came

a shower of small spars, sails, blocks, and wire rope. Then, in the

darkness to starboard and port, two darker shapes shot by--the two

halves of the ship she had cut through; and from one of these shapes,

where still burned a binnacle light, was heard, high above the confused

murmur of shouts and shrieks, a sailorly voice:

"May the curse of God light on you and your cheese-knife, you

brass-bound murderers."

The shapes were swallowed in the blackness astern; the cries were hushed

by the clamor of the gale, and the steamship _Titan_ swung back to her

course. The first officer had not turned the lever of the engine-room

telegraph.

The boatswain bounded up the steps of the bridge for instructions.

"Put men at the hatches and doors. Send every one who comes on deck to

the chart-room. Tell the watchman to notice what the passengers have

learned, and clear away that wreck forward as soon as possible." The

voice of the officer was hoarse and strained as he gave these

directions, and the "aye, aye, sir" of the boatswain was uttered in a

gasp.

CHAPTER IV

The crow's-nest "lookout," sixty feet above the deck, had seen every

detail of the horror, from the moment when the upper sails of the doomed

ship had appeared to him above the fog to the time when the last tangle

of wreckage was cut away by his watchmates below. When relieved at four

bells, he descended with as little strength in his limbs as was

compatible with safety in the rigging. At the rail, the boatswain met

him.

"Report your relief, Rowland," he said, "and go into the chart-room!"

On the bridge, as he gave the name of his successor, the first officer

seized his hand, pressed it, and repeated the boatswain's order. In the

chart-room, he found the captain of the _Titan_, pale-faced and intense

in manner, seated at a table, and, grouped around him, the whole of the

watch on deck except the officers, lookouts, and quartermasters. The

cabin watchmen were there, and some of the watch below, among whom were

stokers and coal-passers, and also, a few of the idlers--lampmen,

yeomen, and butchers, who, sleeping forward, had been awakened by the

terrific blow of the great hollow knife within which they lived.

Three carpenters' mates stood by the door, with sounding-rods in their

hands, which they had just shown the captain--dry. Every face, from the

captain's down, wore a look of horror and expectancy. A quartermaster

followed Rowland in and said:

"Engineer felt no jar in the engine-room, sir; and there's no excitement

in the stokehold."

"And you watchmen report no alarm in the cabins. How about the steerage?

Is that man back?" asked the captain. Another watchman appeared as he

spoke.

"All asleep in the steerage, sir," he said. Then a quartermaster entered

with the same report of the forecastles.

"Very well," said the captain, rising; "one by one come into my

office--watchmen first, then petty officers, then the men.

Quartermasters will watch the door--that no man goes out until I have

seen him." He passed into another room, followed by a watchman, who

presently emerged and went on deck with a more pleasant expression of

face. Another entered and came out; then another, and another, until

every man but Rowland had been within the sacred precincts, all to wear

the same pleased, or satisfied, look on reappearing. When Rowland

entered, the captain, seated at a desk, motioned him to a chair, and

asked his name.

"John Rowland," he answered. The captain wrote it down.

"I understand," he said, "that you were in the crow's-nest when this

unfortunate collision occurred."

"Yes, sir; and I reported the ship as soon as I saw her."

"You are not here to be censured. You are aware, of course, that nothing

could be done, either to avert this terrible calamity, or to save life

afterward."

"Nothing at a speed of twenty-five knots an hour in a thick fog, sir."

The captain glanced sharply at Rowland and frowned.

"We will not discuss the speed of the ship, my good man," he said, "or

the rules of the company. You will find, when you are paid at Liverpool,

a package addressed to you at the company's office containing one

hundred pounds in banknotes. This, you will receive for your silence in

regard to this collision--the reporting of which would embarrass the

company and help no one."

"On the contrary, captain, I shall not receive it. On the contrary, sir,

I shall speak of this wholesale murder at the first opportunity!"

The captain leaned back and stared at the debauched face, the trembling

figure of the sailor, with which this defiant speech so little accorded.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have sent him on deck to be dealt

with by the officers. But this was not an ordinary circumstance. In the

watery eyes was a look of shock, and horror, and honest indignation; the

accents were those of an educated man; and the consequences hanging over

himself and the company for which he worked--already complicated by and

involved in his efforts to avoid them--which this man might precipitate,

were so extreme, that such questions as insolence and difference in rank

were not to be thought of. He must meet and subdue this Tartar on common

ground--as man to man.

"Are you aware, Rowland," he asked, quietly, "that you will stand

alone--that you will be discredited, lose your berth, and make enemies?"

"I am aware of more than that," answered Rowland, excitedly. "I know of

the power vested in you as captain. I know that you can order me into

irons from this room for any offense you wish to imagine. And I know

that an unwitnessed, uncorroborated entry in your official log

concerning me would be evidence enough to bring me life imprisonment.

But I also know something of admiralty law; that from my prison cell I

can send you and your first officer to the gallows."

"You are mistaken in your conceptions of evidence. I could not cause

your conviction by a log-book entry; nor could you, from a prison,

injure me. What are you, may I ask--an ex-lawyer?"

"A graduate of Annapolis. Your equal in professional technic."

"And you have interest at Washington?"

"None whatever."

"And what is your object in taking this stand--which can do you no

possible good, though certainly not the harm you speak of?"

"That I may do one good, strong act in my useless life--that I may help

to arouse such a sentiment of anger in the two countries as will forever

end this wanton destruction of life and property for the sake of

speed--that will save the hundreds of fishing-craft, and others, run

down yearly, to their owners, and the crews to their families."

Both men had risen and the captain was pacing the floor as Rowland, with

flashing eyes and clinched fists, delivered this declaration.

"A result to be hoped for, Rowland," said the former, pausing before

him, "but beyond your power or mine to accomplish. Is the amount I named

large enough? Could you fill a position on my bridge?"

"I can fill a higher; and your company is not rich enough to buy me."

"You seem to be a man without ambition; but you must have wants."

"Food, clothing, shelter--and whisky," said Rowland with a bitter,

self-contemptuous laugh. The captain reached down a decanter and two

glasses from a swinging tray and said as he placed them before him:

"Here is one of your wants; fill up." Rowland's eyes glistened as he

poured out a glassful, and the captain followed.

"I will drink with you, Rowland," he said; "here is to our better

understanding." He tossed off the liquor; then Rowland, who had waited,

said: "I prefer drinking alone, captain," and drank the whisky at a

gulp. The captain's face flushed at the affront, but he controlled

himself.

"Go on deck, now, Rowland," he said; "I will talk with you again before

we reach soundings. Meanwhile, I request--not require, but request--that

you hold no useless conversation with your shipmates in regard to this

matter."

To the first officer, when relieved at eight bells, the captain said:

"He is a broken-down wreck with a temporarily active conscience; but is

not the man to buy or intimidate: he knows too much. However, we've

found his weak point. If he gets snakes before we dock, his testimony is

worthless. Fill him up and I'll see the surgeon, and study up on drugs."

When Rowland turned out to breakfast at seven bells that morning, he

found a pint flask in the pocket of his pea-jacket, which he felt of but

did not pull out in sight of his watchmates.

"Well, captain," he thought, "you are, in truth, about as puerile,

insipid a scoundrel as ever escaped the law. I'll save you your drugged

Dutch courage for evidence." But it was not drugged, as he learned

later. It was good whisky--a leader--to warm his stomach while the

captain was studying.

CHAPTER V

An incident occurred that morning which drew Rowland's thoughts far from

the happenings of the night. A few hours of bright sunshine had brought

the passengers on deck like bees from a hive, and the two broad

promenades resembled, in color and life, the streets of a city. The

watch was busy at the inevitable scrubbing, and Rowland, with a swab and

bucket, was cleaning the white paint on the starboard taffrail, screened

from view by the after deck-house, which shut off a narrow space at the

stern. A little girl ran into the inclosure, laughing and screaming, and

clung to his legs, while she jumped up and down in an overflow of

spirits.

"I wunned 'way," she said; "I wunned 'way from mamma."

Drying his wet hands on his trousers, Rowland lifted the tot and said,

tenderly: "Well, little one, you must run back to mamma. You're in bad

company." The innocent eyes smiled into his own, and then--a foolish

proceeding, which only bachelors are guilty of--he held her above the

rail in jesting menace. "Shall I drop you over to the fishes, baby?" he

asked, while his features softened to an unwonted smile. The child gave

a little scream of fright, and at that instant a young woman appeared

around the corner. She sprang toward Rowland like a tigress, snatched

the child, stared at him for a moment with dilated eyes, and then

disappeared, leaving him limp and nerveless, breathing hard.

"It is her child," he groaned. "That was the mother-look. She is

married--married." He resumed his work, with a face as near the color of

the paint he was scrubbing as the tanned skin of a sailor may become.

Ten minutes later, the captain, in his office, was listening to a

complaint from a very excited man and woman.

"And you say, colonel," said the captain, "that this man Rowland is an

old enemy?"

"He is--or was once--a rejected admirer of Mrs. Selfridge. That is all I

know of him--except that he has hinted at revenge. My wife is certain of

what she saw, and I think the man should be confined."

"Why, captain," said the woman, vehemently, as she hugged her child,

"you should have seen him; he was just about to drop Myra over as I

seized her--and he had such a frightful leer on his face, too. Oh, it

was hideous. I shall not sleep another wink in this ship--I know."

"I beg you will give yourself no uneasiness, madam," said the captain,

gravely. "I have already learned something of his antecedents--that he

is a disgraced and broken-down naval officer; but, as he has sailed

three voyages with us, I had credited his willingness to work

before-the-mast to his craving for liquor, which he could not satisfy

without money. However--as you think--he may be following you. Was he

able to learn of your movements--that you were to take passage in this

ship?"

"Why not?" exclaimed the husband; "he must know some of Mrs. Selfridge's

friends."

"Yes, yes," she said, eagerly; "I have heard him spoken of, several

times."

"Then it is clear," said the captain. "If you will agree, madam, to

testify against him in the English courts, I will immediately put him in

irons for attempted murder."

"Oh, do, captain," she exclaimed. "I cannot feel safe while he is at

liberty. Of course I will testify."

"Whatever you do, captain," said the husband, savagely, "rest assured

that I shall put a bullet through his head if he meddles with me or mine

again. Then you can put me in irons."

"I will see that he is attended to, colonel," replied the captain as he

bowed them out of his office.

But, as a murder charge is not always the best way to discredit a man;

and as the captain did not believe that the man who had defied him would

murder a child; and as the charge would be difficult to prove in any

case, and would cause him much trouble and annoyance, he did not order

the arrest of John Rowland, but merely directed that, for the time, he

should be kept at work by day in the 'tween-deck, out of sight of the

passengers.

Rowland, surprised at his sudden transfer from the disagreeable

scrubbing to a "soldier's job" of painting life-buoys in the warm

'tween-deck, was shrewd enough to know that he was being closely watched

by the boatswain that morning, but not shrewd enough to affect any

symptoms of intoxication or drugging, which might have satisfied his

anxious superiors and brought him more whisky. As a result of his

brighter eyes and steadier voice--due to the curative sea air--when he

turned out for the first dog-watch on deck at four o'clock, the captain

and boatswain held an interview in the chart-room, in which the former

said: "Do not be alarmed. It is not poison. He is half-way into the

horrors now, and this will merely bring them on. He will see snakes,

ghosts, goblins, shipwrecks, fire, and all sorts of things. It works in

two or three hours. Just drop it into his drinking pot while the port

forecastle is empty."

There was a fight in the port forecastle--to which Rowland belonged--at

supper-time, which need not be described beyond mention of the fact that

Rowland, who was not a participant, had his pot of tea dashed from his

hand before he had taken three swallows. He procured a fresh supply and

finished his supper; then, taking no part in his watchmates' open

discussion of the fight, and guarded discussion of collisions, rolled

into his bunk and smoked until eight bells, when he turned out with the

rest.

CHAPTER VI

"Rowland," said the big boatswain, as the watch mustered on deck; "take

the starboard bridge lookout."

"It is not my trick, boats'n," said Rowland, in surprise.

"Orders from the bridge. Get up there."

Rowland grumbled, as sailors may when aggrieved, and obeyed. The man he

relieved reported his name, and disappeared; the first officer sauntered

down the bridge, uttered the official, "keep a good lookout," and

returned to his post; then the silence and loneliness of a night-watch

at sea, intensified by the never-ceasing hum of the engines, and

relieved only by the sounds of distant music and laughter from the

theater, descended on the forward part of the ship. For the fresh

westerly wind, coming with the _Titan_, made nearly a calm on her deck;

and the dense fog, though overshone by a bright star-specked sky, was so

chilly that the last talkative passenger had fled to the light and life

within.

When three bells--half-past nine--had sounded, and Rowland had given in

his turn the required call--"all's well"--the first officer left his

post and approached him.

"Rowland," he said as he drew near; "I hear you've walked the

quarter-deck."

"I cannot imagine how you learned it, sir," replied Rowland; "I am not

in the habit of referring to it."

"You told the captain. I suppose the curriculum is as complete at

Annapolis as at the Royal Naval College. What do you think of Maury's

theories of currents?"

"They seem plausible," said Rowland, unconsciously dropping the "sir";

"but I think that in most particulars he has been proven wrong."

"Yes, I think so myself. Did you ever follow up another idea of

his--that of locating the position of ice in a fog by the rate of

decrease in temperature as approached?"

"Not to any definite result. But it seems to be only a matter of

calculation, and time to calculate. Cold is negative heat, and can be

treated like radiant energy, decreasing as the square of the distance."

The officer stood a moment, looking ahead and humming a tune to himself;

then, saying: "Yes, that's so," returned to his place.

"Must have a cast-iron stomach," he muttered, as he peered into the

binnacle; "or else the boats'n dosed the wrong man's pot."

Rowland glanced after the retreating officer with a cynical smile. "I

wonder," he said to himself, "why he comes down here talking navigation

to a foremast hand. Why am I up here--out of my turn? Is this something

in line with that bottle?" He resumed the short pacing back and forth on

the end of the bridge, and the rather gloomy train of thought which the

officer had interrupted.

"How long," he mused, "would his ambition and love of profession last

him after he had met, and won, and lost, the only woman on earth to him?

Why is it--that failure to hold the affections of one among the

millions of women who live, and love, can outweigh every blessing in

life, and turn a man's nature into a hell, to consume him? Who did she

marry? Some one, probably a stranger long after my banishment, who came

to her possessed of a few qualities of mind or physique that pleased

her,--who did not need to love her--his chances were better without

that--and he steps coolly and easily into my heaven. And they tell us,

that 'God doeth all things well,' and that there is a heaven where all

our unsatisfied wants are attended to--provided we have the necessary

faith in it. That means, if it means anything, that after a lifetime of

unrecognized allegiance, during which I win nothing but her fear and

contempt, I may be rewarded by the love and companionship of her soul.

Do I love her soul? Has her soul beauty of face and the figure and

carriage of a Venus? Has her soul deep, blue eyes and a sweet, musical

voice? Has it wit, and grace, and charm? Has it a wealth of pity for

suffering? These are the things I loved. I do not love her soul, if she

has one. I do not want it. I want her--I need her." He stopped in his

walk and leaned against the bridge railing, with eyes fixed on the fog

ahead. He was speaking his thoughts aloud now, and the first officer

drew within hearing, listened a moment, and went back. "Working on him,"

he whispered to the third officer. Then he pushed the button which

called the captain, blew a short blast of the steam whistle as a call to

the boatswain, and resumed his watch on the drugged lookout, while the

third officer conned the ship.

The steam call to the boatswain is so common a sound on a steamship as

to generally pass unnoticed. This call affected another besides the

boatswain. A little night-gowned figure arose from an under berth in a

saloon stateroom, and, with wide-open, staring eyes, groped its way to

the deck, unobserved by the watchman. The white, bare little feet felt

no cold as they pattered the planks of the deserted promenade, and the

little figure had reached the steerage entrance by the time the captain

and boatswain had reached the bridge.

"And they talk," went on Rowland, as the three watched and listened; "of

the wonderful love and care of a merciful God, who controls all

things--who has given me my defects, and my capacity for loving, and

then placed Myra Gaunt in my way. Is there mercy to me in this? As part

of a great evolutionary principle, which develops the race life at the

expense of the individual, it might be consistent with the idea of a

God--a first cause. But does the individual who perishes, because

unfitted to survive, owe any love, or gratitude to this God? He does

not! On the supposition that He exists, I deny it! And on the complete

lack of evidence that He does exist, I affirm to myself the integrity of

cause and effect--which is enough to explain the Universe, and me. A

merciful God--a kind, loving, just, and merciful God--" he burst into a

fit of incongruous laughter, which stopped short as he clapped his hands

to his stomach and then to his head. "What ails me?" he gasped; "I feel

as though I had swallowed hot coals--and my head--and my eyes--I can't

see." The pain left him in a moment and the laughter returned. "What's

wrong with the starboard anchor? It's moving. It's changing. It's

a--what? What on earth is it? On end--and the windlass--and the spare

anchors--and the davits--all alive--all moving."

The sight he saw would have been horrid to a healthy mind, but it only

moved this man to increased and uncontrollable merriment. The two rails

below leading to the stem had arisen before him in a shadowy triangle;

and within it were the deck-fittings he had mentioned. The windlass had

become a thing of horror, black and forbidding. The two end barrels were

the bulging, lightless eyes of a non-descript monster, for which the

cable chains had multiplied themselves into innumerable legs and

tentacles. And this thing was crawling around within the triangle. The

anchor-davits were many-headed serpents which danced on their tails, and

the anchors themselves writhed and squirmed in the shape of immense

hairy caterpillars, while faces appeared on the two white

lantern-towers--grinning and leering at him. With his hands on the

bridge rail, and tears streaming down his face, he laughed at the

strange sight, but did not speak; and the three, who had quietly

approached, drew back to await, while below on the promenade deck, the

little white figure, as though attracted by his laughter, turned into

the stairway leading to the upper deck.

The phantasmagoria faded to a blank wall of gray fog, and Rowland found

sanity to mutter, "They've drugged me"; but in an instant he stood in

the darkness of a garden--one that he had known. In the distance were

the lights of a house, and close to him was a young girl, who turned

from him and fled, even as he called to her.

By a supreme effort of will, he brought himself back to the present, to

the bridge he stood upon, and to his duty. "Why must it haunt me through

the years?" he groaned; "drunk then--drunk since. She could have saved

me, but she chose to damn me." He strove to pace up and down, but

staggered, and clung to the rail; while the three watchers approached

again, and the little white figure below climbed the upper bridge steps.

"The survival of the fittest," he rambled, as he stared into the fog;

"cause and effect. It explains the Universe--and me." He lifted his hand

and spoke loudly, as though to some unseen familiar of the deep. "What

will be the last effect? Where in the scheme of ultimate balance--under

the law of the correlation of energy, will my wasted wealth of love be

gathered, and weighed, and credited? What will balance it, and where

will I be? Myra,--Myra," he called; "do you know what you have lost? Do

you know, in your goodness, and purity, and truth, of what you have

done? Do you know--"

The fabric on which he stood was gone, and he seemed to be poised on

nothing in a worldless universe of gray--alone. And in the vast,

limitless emptiness there was no sound, or life, or change; and in his

heart neither fear, nor wonder, nor emotion of any kind, save one--the

unspeakable hunger of a love that had failed. Yet it seemed that he was

not John Rowland, but some one, or something else; for presently he saw

himself, far away--millions of billions of miles; as though on the

outermost fringes of the void--and heard his own voice, calling.

Faintly, yet distinctly, filled with the concentrated despair of his

life, came the call: "Myra,--Myra."

There was an answering call, and looking for the second voice, he beheld

her--the woman of his love--on the opposite edge of space; and her eyes

held the tenderness, and her voice held the pleading that he had known

but in dreams. "Come back," she called; "come back to me." But it seemed

that the two could not understand; for again he heard the despairing

cry: "Myra, Myra, where are you?" and again the answer: "Come back.

Come."

Then in the far distance to the right appeared a faint point of flame,

which grew larger. It was approaching, and he dispassionately viewed it;

and when he looked again for the two, they were gone, and in their

places were two clouds of nebula, which resolved into myriad points of

sparkling light and color--whirling, encroaching, until they filled all

space. And through them the larger light was coming--and growing

larger--straight for him.

He heard a rushing sound, and looking for it, saw in the opposite

direction a formless object, as much darker than the gray of the void as

the flame was brighter, and it too was growing larger, and coming. And

it seemed to him that this light and darkness were the good and evil of

his life, and he watched, to see which would reach him first, but felt

no surprise or regret when he saw that the darkness was nearest. It

came, closer and closer, until it brushed him on the side.

"What have we here, Rowland?" said a voice. Instantly, the whirling

points were blotted out; the universe of gray changed to the fog; the

flame of light to the moon rising above it, and the shapeless darkness

to the form of the first officer. The little white figure, which had

just darted past the three watchers, stood at his feet. As though warned

by an inner subconsciousness of danger, it had come in its sleep, for

safety and care, to its mother's old lover--the strong and the weak--the

degraded and disgraced, but exalted--the persecuted, drugged, and all

but helpless John Rowland.

With the readiness with which a man who dozes while standing will answer

the question that wakens him, he said--though he stammered from the now

waning effect of the drug: "Myra's child, sir; it's asleep." He picked

up the night-gowned little girl, who screamed as she wakened, and folded

his pea-jacket around the cold little body.

"Who is Myra?" asked the officer in a bullying tone, in which were also

chagrin and disappointment. "You've been asleep yourself."

Before Rowland could reply a shout from the crow's-nest split the air.

"Ice," yelled the lookout; "ice ahead. Iceberg. Right under the bows."

The first officer ran amidships, and the captain, who had remained

there, sprang to the engine-room telegraph, and this time the lever was

turned. But in five seconds the bow of the _Titan_ began to lift, and

ahead, and on either hand, could be seen, through the fog, a field of

ice, which arose in an incline to a hundred feet high in her track. The

music in the theater ceased, and among the babel of shouts and cries,

and the deafening noise of steel, scraping and crashing over ice,

Rowland heard the agonized voice of a woman crying from the bridge

steps: "Myra--Myra, where are you? Come back."

CHAPTER VII

Seventy-five thousand tons--dead-weight--rushing through the fog at the

rate of fifty feet a second, had hurled itself at an iceberg. Had the

impact been received by a perpendicular wall, the elastic resistance of

bending plates and frames would have overcome the momentum with no more

damage to the passengers than a severe shaking up, and to the ship than

the crushing in of her bows and the killing, to a man, of the watch

below. She would have backed off, and, slightly down by the head,

finished the voyage at reduced speed, to rebuild on insurance money, and

benefit, largely, in the end, by the consequent advertising of her

indestructibility. But a low beach, possibly formed by the recent

overturning of the berg, received the _Titan_, and with her keel cutting

the ice like the steel runner of an ice-boat, and her great weight

resting on the starboard bilge, she rose out of the sea, higher and

higher--until the propellers in the stern were half exposed--then,

meeting an easy, spiral rise in the ice under her port bow, she heeled,

overbalanced, and crashed down on her side, to starboard.

The holding-down bolts of twelve boilers and three triple-expansion

engines, unintended to hold such weights from a perpendicular flooring,

snapped, and down through a maze of ladders, gratings, and fore-and-aft

bulkheads came these giant masses of steel and iron, puncturing the

sides of the ship, even where backed by solid, resisting ice; and

filling the engine- and boiler-rooms with scalding steam, which brought

a quick, though tortured death, to each of the hundred men on duty in

the engineer's department.

Amid the roar of escaping steam, and the bee-like buzzing of nearly

three thousand human voices, raised in agonized screams and callings

from within the inclosing walls, and the whistling of air through

hundreds of open deadlights as the water, entering the holes of the

crushed and riven starboard side, expelled it, the _Titan_ moved slowly

backward and launched herself into the sea, where she floated low on her

side--a dying monster, groaning with her death-wound.

A solid, pyramid-like hummock of ice, left to starboard as the steamer

ascended, and which projected close alongside the upper, or boat-deck,

as she fell over, had caught, in succession, every pair of davits to

starboard, bending and wrenching them, smashing boats, and snapping

tackles and gripes, until, as the ship cleared herself, it capped the

pile of wreckage strewing the ice in front of, and around it, with the

end and broken stanchions of the bridge. And in this shattered, box-like

structure, dazed by the sweeping fall through an arc of seventy-foot

radius, crouched Rowland, bleeding from a cut in his head, and still

holding to his breast the little girl--now too frightened to cry.

By an effort of will, he aroused himself and looked. To his eyesight,

twisted and fixed to a shorter focus by the drug he had taken, the

steamship was little more than a blotch on the moon-whitened fog; yet he

thought he could see men clambering and working on the upper davits, and

the nearest boat--No. 24--seemed to be swinging by the tackles. Then the

fog shut her out, though her position was still indicated by the roaring

of steam from her iron lungs. This ceased in time, leaving behind it the

horrid humming sound and whistling of air; and when this too was

suddenly hushed, and the ensuing silence broken by dull, booming

reports--as from bursting compartments--Rowland knew that the holocaust

was complete; that the invincible _Titan_, with nearly all of her

people, unable to climb vertical floors and ceilings, was beneath the

surface of the sea.

Mechanically, his benumbed faculties had received and recorded the

impressions of the last few moments; he could not comprehend, to the

full, the horror of it all. Yet his mind was keenly alive to the peril

of the woman whose appealing voice he had heard and recognized--the

woman of his dream, and the mother of the child in his arms. He hastily

examined the wreckage. Not a boat was intact. Creeping down to the

water's edge, he hailed, with all the power of his weak voice, to

possible, but invisible boats beyond the fog--calling on them to come

and save the child--to look out for a woman who had been on deck, under

the bridge. He shouted this woman's name--the one that he

knew--encouraging her to swim, to tread water, to float on wreckage, and

to answer him, until he came to her. There was no response, and when his

voice had grown hoarse and futile, and his feet numb from the cold of

the thawing ice, he returned to the wreckage, weighed down and all but

crushed by the blackest desolation that had, so far, come into his

unhappy life. The little girl was crying and he tried to soothe her.

"I want mamma," she wailed.

"Hush, baby, hush," he answered, wearily and bitterly; "so do I--more

than Heaven, but I think our chances are about even now. Are you cold,

little one? We'll go inside, and I'll make a house for us."

He removed his coat, tenderly wrapped the little figure in it, and with

the injunction: "Don't be afraid, now," placed her in the corner of the

bridge, which rested on its forward side. As he did so, the bottle of

whisky fell out of the pocket. It seemed an age since he had found it

there, and it required a strong effort of reasoning before he remembered

its full significance. Then he raised it, to hurl it down the incline of

ice, but stopped himself.

"I'll keep it," he muttered; "it may be safe in small quantities, and

we'll need it on this ice." He placed it in a corner; then, removing the

canvas cover from one of the wrecked boats, he hung it over the open

side and end of the bridge, crawled within, and donned his coat--a

ready-made, slop-chest garment, designed for a larger man--and buttoning

it around himself and the little girl, lay down on the hard woodwork.

She was still crying, but soon, under the influence of the warmth of his

body, ceased and went to sleep.

Huddled in a corner, he gave himself up to the torment of his thoughts.

Two pictures alternately crowded his mind; one, that of the woman of his

dream, entreating him to come back--which his memory clung to as an

oracle; the other, of this woman, cold and lifeless, fathoms deep in the

sea. He pondered on her chances. She was close to, or on the bridge

steps; and boat No. 24, which he was almost sure was being cleared away

as he looked, would swing close to her as it descended. She could climb

in and be saved--unless the swimmers from doors and hatches should swamp

the boat. And, in his agony of mind, he cursed these swimmers,

preferring to see her, mentally, the only passenger in the boat, with

the watch-on-deck to pull her to safety.

The potent drug he had taken was still at work, and this, with the

musical wash of the sea on the icy beach, and the muffled creaking and

crackling beneath and around him--the voice of the iceberg--overcame him

finally, and he slept, to waken at daylight with limbs stiffened and

numb--almost frozen.

And all night, as he slept, a boat with the number twenty-four on her

bow, pulled by sturdy sailors and steered by brass-buttoned officers,

was making for the Southern Lane--the highway of spring traffic. And,

crouched in the stern-sheets of this boat was a moaning, praying woman,

who cried and screamed at intervals, for husband and baby, and would not

be comforted, even when one of the brass-buttoned officers assured her

that her child was safe in the care of John Rowland, a brave and trusty

sailor, who was certainly in the other boat with it. He did not tell

her, of course, that Rowland had hailed from the berg as she lay

unconscious, and that if he still had the child, it was with him

there--deserted.

CHAPTER VIII

Rowland, with some misgivings, drank a small quantity of the liquor, and

wrapping the still sleeping child in the coat, stepped out on the ice.

The fog was gone and a blue, sailless sea stretched out to the horizon.

Behind him was ice--a mountain of it. He climbed the elevation and

looked at another stretch of vacant view from a precipice a hundred

feet high. To his left the ice sloped to a steeper beach than the one

behind him, and to the right, a pile of hummocks and taller peaks,

interspersed with numerous cañons and caves, and glistening with

waterfalls, shut out the horizon in this direction. Nowhere was there a

sail or steamer's smoke to cheer him, and he retraced his steps. When

but half-way to the wreckage, he saw a moving white object approaching

from the direction of the peaks.

His eyes were not yet in good condition, and after an uncertain scrutiny

he started at a run; for he saw that the mysterious white object was

nearer the bridge than himself, and rapidly lessening the distance. A

hundred yards away, his heart bounded and the blood in his veins felt

cold as the ice under foot, for the white object proved to be a traveler

from the frozen North, lean and famished--a polar bear, who had scented

food and was seeking it--coming on at a lumbering run, with great red

jaws half open and yellow fangs exposed. Rowland had no weapon but a

strong jackknife, but this he pulled from his pocket and opened as he

ran. Not for an instant did he hesitate at a conflict that promised

almost certain death; for the presence of this bear involved the safety

of a child whose life had become of more importance to him than his own.

To his horror, he saw it creep out of the opening in its white covering,

just as the bear turned the corner of the bridge.

"Go back, baby, go back," he shouted, as he bounded down the slope. The

bear reached the child first, and with seemingly no effort, dashed it,

with a blow of its massive paw, a dozen feet away, where it lay quiet.

Turning to follow, the brute was met by Rowland.

The bear rose to his haunches, sank down, and charged; and Rowland felt

the bones of his left arm crushing under the bite of the big,

yellow-fanged jaws. But, falling, he buried the knife-blade in the

shaggy hide, and the bear, with an angry snarl, spat out the mangled

member and dealt him a sweeping blow which sent him farther along the

ice than the child had gone. He arose, with broken ribs, and--scarcely

feeling the pain--awaited the second charge. Again was the crushed and

useless arm gripped in the yellow vise, and again was he pressed

backward; but this time he used the knife with method. The great snout

was pressing his breast; the hot, fetid breath was in his nostrils; and

at his shoulder the hungry eyes were glaring into his own. He struck for

the left eye of the brute and struck true. The five-inch blade went in

to the handle, piercing the brain, and the animal, with a convulsive

spring which carried him half-way to his feet by the wounded arm, reared

up, with paws outstretched, to full eight feet of length, then sagged

down, and with a few spasmodic kicks, lay still. Rowland had done what

no Innuit hunter will attempt--he had fought and killed the

Tiger-of-the-North with a knife.

It had all happened in a minute, but in that minute he was crippled for

life; for in the quiet of a hospital, the best of surgical skill could

hardly avail to reset the fractured particles of bone in the limp arm,

and bring to place the crushed ribs. And he was adrift on a floating

island of ice, with the temperature near the freezing point, and without

even the rude appliances of the savage.

He painfully made his way to the little pile of red and white, and

lifted it with his uninjured arm, though the stooping caused him

excruciating torture. The child was bleeding from four deep, cruel

scratches, extending diagonally from the right shoulder down the back;

but he found upon examination that the soft, yielding bones were

unbroken, and that her unconsciousness came from the rough contact of

the little forehead with the ice; for a large lump had raised.

Of pure necessity, his first efforts must be made in his own behalf; so

wrapping the baby in his coat he placed it in his shelter, and cut and

made from the canvas a sling for his dangling arm. Then, with knife,

fingers, and teeth, he partly skinned the bear--often compelled to pause

to save himself from fainting with pain--and cut from the warm but not

very thick layer of fat a broad slab, which, after bathing the wounds at

a near-by pool, he bound firmly to the little one's back, using the torn

night-gown for a bandage.

He cut the flannel lining from his coat, and from that of the sleeves

made nether garments for the little limbs, doubling the surplus length

over the ankles and tying in place with rope-yarns from a boat-lacing.

The body lining he wrapped around her waist, inclosing the arms, and

around the whole he passed turn upon turn of canvas in strips, marling

the mummy-like bundle with yarns, much as a sailor secures chafing-gear

to the doubled parts of a hawser--a process when complete, that would

have aroused the indignation of any mother who saw it. But he was only a

man, and suffering mental and physical anguish.

By the time he had finished, the child had recovered consciousness, and

was protesting its misery in a feeble, wailing cry. But he dared not

stop--to become stiffened with cold and pain. There was plenty of fresh

water from melting ice, scattered in pools. The bear would furnish food;

but they needed fire, to cook this food, keep them warm, and the

dangerous inflammation from their hurts, and to raise a smoke to be seen

by passing craft.

He recklessly drank from the bottle, needing the stimulant, and

reasoning, perhaps rightly, that no ordinary drug could affect him in

his present condition; then he examined the wreckage--most of it good

kindling wood. Partly above, partly below the pile, was a steel

lifeboat, decked over air-tight ends, now doubled to more than a right

angle and resting on its side. With canvas hung over one half, and a

small fire in the other, it promised, by its conducting property, a

warmer and better shelter than the bridge. A sailor without matches is

an anomaly. He whittled shavings, kindled the fire, hung the canvas and

brought the child, who begged piteously for a drink of water.

He found a tin can--possibly left in a leaky boat before its final hoist

to the davits--and gave her a drink, to which he had added a few drops

of the whisky. Then he thought of breakfast. Cutting a steak from the

hindquarters of the bear, he toasted it on the end of a splinter and

found it sweet and satisfying; but when he attempted to feed the child,

he understood the necessity of freeing its arms--which he did,

sacrificing his left shirtsleeve to cover them. The change and the food

stopped its crying for a while, and Rowland lay down with it in the warm

boat. Before the day had passed the whisky was gone and he was delirious

with fever, while the child was but little better.

CHAPTER IX

With lucid intervals, during which he replenished or rebuilt the fire,

cooked the bear-meat, and fed and dressed the wounds of the child, this

delirium lasted three days. His suffering was intense. His arm, the seat

of throbbing pain, had swollen to twice the natural size, while his

side prevented him taking a full breath, voluntarily. He had paid no

attention to his own hurts, and it was either the vigor of a

constitution that years of dissipation had not impaired, or some

anti-febrile property of bear-meat, or the absence of the exciting

whisky that won the battle. He rekindled the fire with his last match on

the evening of the third day and looked around the darkening horizon,

sane, but feeble in body and mind.

If a sail had appeared in the interim, he had not seen it; nor was there

one in sight now. Too weak to climb the slope, he returned to the boat,

where the child, exhausted from fruitless crying, was now sleeping. His

unskillful and rather heroic manner of wrapping it up to protect it from

cold had, no doubt, contributed largely to the closing of its wounds by

forcibly keeping it still, though it must have added to its present

sufferings. He looked for a moment on the wan, tear-stained little face,

with its fringe of tangled curls peeping above the wrappings of canvas,

and stooping painfully down, kissed it softly; but the kiss awakened it

and it cried for its mother. He could not soothe it, nor could he try;

and with a formless, wordless curse against destiny welling up from his

heart, he left it and sat down on the wreckage at some distance away.

"We'll very likely get well," he mused, gloomily, "unless I let the fire

go out. What then? We can't last longer than the berg, and not much

longer than the bear. We must be out of the tracks--we were about nine

hundred miles out when we struck; and the current sticks to the fog-belt

here--about west-sou'west--but that's the surface water. These deep

fellows have currents of their own. There's no fog; we must be to the

southward of the belt--between the Lanes. They'll run their boats in the

other Lane after this, I think--the money-grabbing wretches. Curse

them--if they've drowned her. Curse them, with their water-tight

compartments, and their logging of the lookouts. Twenty-four boats for

three thousand people--lashed down with tarred gripe-lashings--thirty

men to clear them away, and not an axe on the boat-deck or a

sheath-knife on a man. Could she have got away? If they got that boat

down, they might have taken her in from the steps; and the mate knew I

had her child--he would tell her. Her name must be Myra, too; it was her

voice I heard in that dream. That was hasheesh. What did they drug me

for? But the whisky was all right. It's all done with now, unless I get

ashore--but will I?"

The moon rose above the castellated structure to the left, flooding the

icy beach with ashen-gray light, sparkling in a thousand points from the

cascades, streams, and rippling pools, throwing into blackest shadow the

gullies and hollows, and bringing to his mind, in spite of the weird

beauty of the scene, a crushing sense of loneliness--of littleness--as

though the vast pile of inorganic desolation which held him was of far

greater importance than himself, and all the hopes, plans, and fears of

his lifetime. The child had cried itself to sleep again, and he paced up

and down the ice.

"Up there," he said, moodily, looking into the sky, where a few stars

shone faintly in the flood from the moon; "Up there--somewhere--they

don't know just where--but somewhere up above, is the Christians'

Heaven. Up there is their good God--who has placed Myra's child

here--their good God whom they borrowed from the savage, bloodthirsty

race that invented him. And down below us--somewhere again--is their

hell and their bad god, whom they invented themselves. And they give us

our choice--Heaven or hell. It is not so--not so. The great mystery is

not solved--the human heart is not helped in this way. No good, merciful

God created this world or its conditions. Whatever may be the nature of

the causes at work beyond our mental vision, one fact is indubitably

proven--that the qualities of mercy, goodness, justice, play no part in

the governing scheme. And yet, they say the core of all religions on

earth is the belief in this. Is it? Or is it the cowardly, human fear of

the unknown--that impels the savage mother to throw her babe to a

crocodile--that impels the civilized man to endow churches--that has

kept in existence from the beginning a class of soothsayers,

medicine-men, priests, and clergymen, all living on the hopes and fears

excited by themselves?

"And people pray--millions of them--and claim they are answered. Are

they? Was ever supplication sent into that sky by troubled humanity

answered, or even heard? Who knows? They pray for rain and sunshine, and

both come in time. They pray for health and success and both are but

natural in the marching of events. This is not evidence. But they say

that they know, by spiritual uplifting, that they are heard, and

comforted, and answered at the moment. Is not this a physiological

experiment? Would they not feel equally tranquil if they repeated the

multiplication table, or boxed the compass?

"Millions have believed this--that prayers are answered--and these

millions have prayed to different gods. Were they all wrong or all

right? Would a tentative prayer be listened to? Admitting that the

Bibles, and Korans, and Vedas, are misleading and unreliable, may there

not be an unseen, unknown Being, who knows my heart--who is watching me

now? If so, this Being gave me my reason, which doubts Him, and on Him

is the responsibility. And would this being, if he exists, overlook a

defect for which I am not to blame, and listen to a prayer from me,

based on the mere chance that I might be mistaken? Can an unbeliever, in

the full strength of his reasoning powers, come to such trouble that he

can no longer stand alone, but must cry for help to an imagined power?

Can such time come to a sane man--to me?" He looked at the dark line of

vacant horizon. It was seven miles away; New York was nine hundred; the

moon in the east over two hundred thousand, and the stars above, any

number of billions. He was alone, with a sleeping child, a dead bear,

and the Unknown. He walked softly to the boat and looked at the little

one for a moment; then, raising his head, he whispered: "For you, Myra."

Sinking to his knees the atheist lifted his eyes to the heavens, and

with his feeble voice and the fervor born of helplessness, prayed to the

God that he denied. He begged for the life of the waif in his care--for

the safety of the mother, so needful to the little one--and for courage

and strength to do his part and bring them together. But beyond the

appeal for help in the service of others, not one word or expressed

thought of his prayer included himself as a beneficiary. So much for

pride. As he rose to his feet, the flying-jib of a bark appeared around

the corner of ice to the right of the beach, and a moment later the

whole moon-lit fabric came into view, wafted along by the faint westerly

air, not half a mile away.

He sprang to the fire, forgetting his pain, and throwing on wood, made a

blaze. He hailed, in a frenzy of excitement: "Bark ahoy! Bark ahoy! Take

us off," and a deep-toned answer came across the water.

"Wake up, Myra," he cried, as he lifted the child; "wake up. We're going

away."

"We goin' to mamma?" she asked, with no symptoms of crying.

"Yes, we're going to mamma, now--that is," he added to himself; "if that

clause in the prayer is considered."

Fifteen minutes later as he watched the approach of a white

quarter-boat, he muttered: "That bark was there--half a mile back in

this wind--before I thought of praying. Is that prayer answered? Is she

safe?"

CHAPTER X

On the first floor of the London Royal Exchange is a large apartment

studded with desks, around and between which surges a hurrying, shouting

crowd of brokers, clerks, and messengers. Fringing this apartment are

doors and hallways leading to adjacent rooms and offices, and scattered

through it are bulletin-boards, on which are daily written in duplicate

the marine casualties of the world. At one end is a raised platform,

sacred to the presence of an important functionary. In the technical

language of the "City," the apartment is known as the "Room," and the

functionary, as the "Caller," whose business it is to call out in a

mighty sing-song voice the names of members wanted at the door, and the

bare particulars of bulletin news prior to its being chalked out for

reading.

It is the headquarters of Lloyds--the immense association of

underwriters, brokers, and shipping-men, which, beginning with the

customers at Edward Lloyd's coffee-house in the latter part of the

seventeenth century, has, retaining his name for a title, developed into

a corporation so well equipped, so splendidly organized and powerful,

that kings and ministers of state appeal to it at times for foreign

news.

Not a master or mate sails under the English flag but whose record, even

to forecastle fights, is tabulated at Lloyds for the inspection of

prospective employers. Not a ship is cast away on any inhabitable coast

of the world, during underwriters' business hours, but what that mighty

sing-song cry announces the event at Lloyds within thirty minutes.

One of the adjoining rooms is known as the Chart-room. Here can be found

in perfect order and sequence, each on its roller, the newest charts of

all nations, with a library of nautical literature describing to the

last detail the harbors, lights, rocks, shoals, and sailing directions

of every coast-line shown on the charts; the tracks of latest storms;

the changes of ocean currents, and the whereabouts of derelicts and

icebergs. A member at Lloyds acquires in time a theoretical knowledge of

the sea seldom exceeded by the men who navigate it.

Another apartment--the Captain's room--is given over to joy and

refreshment, and still another, the antithesis of the last, is the

Intelligence office, where anxious ones inquire for and are told the

latest news of this or that overdue ship.

On the day when the assembled throng of underwriters and brokers had

been thrown into an uproarious panic by the Crier's announcement that

the great _Titan_ was destroyed, and the papers of Europe and America

were issuing extras giving the meager details of the arrival at New York

of one boat-load of her people, this office had been crowded with

weeping women and worrying men, who would ask, and remain to ask again,

for more news. And when it came--a later cablegram,--giving the story of

the wreck and the names of the captain, first officer, boatswain, seven

sailors, and one lady passenger as those of the saved, a feeble old

gentleman had raised his voice in a quavering scream, high above the

sobbing of women, and said:

"My daughter-in-law is safe; but where is my son,--where is my son, and

my grandchild?" Then he had hurried away, but was back again the next

day, and the next. And when, on the tenth day of waiting and watching,

he learned of another boat-load of sailors and children arrived at

Gibraltar, he shook his head, slowly, muttering: "George, George," and

left the room. That night, after telegraphing the consul at Gibraltar of

his coming, he crossed the channel.

In the first tumultuous riot of inquiry, when underwriters had climbed

over desks and each other to hear again of the wreck of the _Titan_,

one--the noisiest of all, a corpulent, hook-nosed man with flashing

black eyes--had broken away from the crowd and made his way to the

Captain's room, where, after a draught of brandy, he had seated himself

heavily, with a groan that came from his soul.

"Father Abraham," he muttered; "this will ruin me."

Others came in, some to drink, some to condole--all, to talk.

"Hard hit, Meyer?" asked one.

"Ten thousand," he answered, gloomily.

"Serve you right," said another, unkindly; "have more baskets for your

eggs. Knew you'd bring up."

Though Mr. Meyer's eyes sparkled at this, he said nothing, but drank

himself stupid and was assisted home by one of his clerks. From this on,

neglecting his business--excepting to occasionally visit the

bulletins--he spent his time in the Captain's room drinking heavily, and

bemoaning his luck. On the tenth day he read with watery eyes, posted on

the bulletin below the news of the arrival at Gibraltar of the second

boat-load of people, the following:

"Life-buoy of _Royal Age_, London, picked up among wreckage in Lat.

45-20, N. Lon. 54-31, W. Ship _Arctic_, Boston, Capt. Brandt."

"Oh, mine good God," he howled, as he rushed toward the Captain's room.

"Poor devil--poor damn fool of an Israelite," said one observer to

another. "He covered the whole of the _Royal Age_, and the biggest chunk

of the _Titan_. It'll take his wife's diamonds to settle."

Three weeks later, Mr. Meyer was aroused from a brooding lethargy, by a

crowd of shouting underwriters, who rushed into the Captain's room,

seized him by the shoulders, and hurried him out and up to a bulletin.

"Read it, Meyer--read it. What d'you think of it?" With some difficulty

he read aloud, while they watched his face:

"John Rowland, sailor of the _Titan_, with child passenger, name

unknown, on board _Peerless_, Bath, at Christiansand, Norway. Both

dangerously ill. Rowland speaks of ship cut in half night before

loss of _Titan_."

"What do you make of it, Meyer--_Royal Age_, isn't it?" asked one.

"Yes," vociferated another, "I've figured back. Only ship not reported

lately. Overdue two months. Was spoken same day fifty miles east of that

iceberg."

"Sure thing," said others. "Nothing said about it in the captain's

statement--looks queer."

"Vell, vwhat of it," said Mr. Meyer, painfully and stupidly: "dere is a

collision clause in der _Titan's_ policy; I merely bay the money to der

steamship company instead of to der _Royal Age_ beeple."

"But why did the captain conceal it?" they shouted at him. "What's his

object--assured against collision suits?"

"Der looks of it, berhaps--looks pad."

"Nonsense, Meyer, what's the matter with you? Which one of the lost

tribes did you spring from--you're like none of your race--drinking

yourself stupid like a good Christian. I've got a thousand on the

_Titan_, and if I'm to pay it I want to know why. You've got the

heaviest risk and the brain to fight for it--you've got to do it. Go

home, straighten up, and attend to this. We'll watch Rowland till you

take hold. We're all caught."

They put him into a cab, took him to a Turkish bath, and then home.

The next morning he was at his desk, clear-eyed and clear-headed, and

for a few weeks was a busy, scheming man of business.

CHAPTER XI

On a certain morning, about two months after the announcement of the

loss of the _Titan_, Mr. Meyer sat at his desk in the Rooms, busily

writing, when the old gentleman who had bewailed the death of his son in

the Intelligence office tottered in and took a chair beside him.

"Good morning, Mr. Selfridge," he said, scarcely looking up; "I suppose

you have come to see der insurance paid over. Der sixty days are up."

"Yes, yes, Mr. Meyer," said the old gentleman, wearily; "of course, as

merely a stockholder, I can take no active part; but I am a member here,

and naturally a little anxious. All I had in the world--even to my son

and grandchild--was in the _Titan_."

"It is very sad, Mr. Selfridge; you have my deepest sympathy. I pelieve

you are der largest holder of _Titan_ stock--about one hundred thousand,

is it not?"

"About that."

"I am der heaviest insurer; so Mr. Selfridge, this battle will be

largely petween you and myself."

"Battle--is there to be any difficulty?" asked Mr. Selfridge, anxiously.

"Berhaps--I do not know. Der underwriters and outside companies have

blaced matters in my hands and will not bay until I take der initiative.

We must hear from one John Rowland, who, with a little child, was

rescued from der berg and taken to Christiansand. He has been too sick

to leave der ship which found him and is coming up der Thames in her

this morning. I have a carriage at der dock and expect him at my office

py noon. Dere is where we will dransact this little pizness--not here."

"A child--saved," queried the old gentleman; "dear me, it may be little

Myra. She was not at Gibraltar with the others. I would not care--I

would not care much about the money, if she was safe. But my son--my

only son--is gone; and, Mr. Meyer, I am a ruined man if this insurance

is not paid."

"And I am a ruined man if it is," said Mr. Meyer, rising. "Will you come

around to der office, Mr. Selfridge? I expect der attorney and Captain

Bryce are dere now." Mr. Selfridge arose and accompanied him to the

street.

A rather meagerly-furnished private office in Threadneedle Street,

partitioned off from a larger one bearing Mr. Meyer's name in the

window, received the two men, one of whom, in the interests of good

business, was soon to be impoverished. They had not waited a minute

before Captain Bryce and Mr. Austen were announced and ushered in.

Sleek, well-fed, and gentlemanly in manner, perfect types of the

British naval officer, they bowed politely to Mr. Selfridge when Mr.

Meyer introduced them as the captain and first officer of the _Titan_,

and seated themselves. A few moments later brought a shrewd-looking

person whom Mr. Meyer addressed as the attorney for the steamship

company, but did not introduce; for such are the amenities of the

English system of caste.

"Now then, gentlemen," said Mr. Meyer, "I pelieve we can broceed to

pizness up to a certain point--berhaps further. Mr. Thompson, you have

the affidavit of Captain Bryce?"

"I have," said the attorney, producing a document which Mr. Meyer

glanced at and handed back.

"And in this statement, captain," he said, "you have sworn that der

voyage was uneventful up to der moment of der wreck--that is," he added,

with an oily smile, as he noticed the paling of the captain's

face--"that nothing occurred to make der _Titan_ less seaworthy or

manageable?"

"That is what I swore to," said the captain, with a little sigh.

"You are part owner, are you not, Captain Bryce?"

"I own five shares of the company's stock."

"I have examined der charter and der company lists," said Mr. Meyer;

"each boat of der company is, so far as assessments and dividends are

concerned, a separate company. I find you are listed as owning two

sixty-seconds of der _Titan_ stock. This makes you, under der law, part

owner of der _Titan_, and responsible as such."

"What do you mean, sir, by that word responsible?" said Captain Bryce,

quickly.

For answer, Mr. Meyer elevated his black eyebrows, assumed an attitude

of listening, looked at his watch and went to the door, which, as he

opened, admitted the sound of carriage wheels.

"In here," he called to his clerks, then faced the captain.

"What do I mean, Captain Bryce?" he thundered. "I mean that you have

concealed in your sworn statement all reference to der fact that you

collided with and sunk the ship _Royal Age_ on der night before the

wreck of your own ship."

"Who says so--how do you know it?" blustered the captain. "You have only

that bulletin statement of the man Rowland--an irresponsible drunkard."

"The man was lifted aboard drunk at New York," broke in the first

officer, "and remained in a condition of delirium tremens up to the

shipwreck. We did not meet the _Royal Age_ and are in no way responsible

for her loss."

"Yes," added Captain Bryce, "and a man in that condition is liable to

see anything. We listened to his ravings on the night of the wreck. He

was on lookout--on the bridge. Mr. Austen, the boats'n, and myself were

close to him."

Before Mr. Meyer's oily smile had indicated to the flustered captain

that he had said too much, the door opened and admitted Rowland, pale,

and weak, with empty left sleeve, leaning on the arm of a bronze-bearded

and manly-looking giant who carried little Myra on the other shoulder,

and who said, in the breezy tone of the quarter-deck:

"Well, I've brought him, half dead; but why couldn't you give me time to

dock my ship? A mate can't do everything."

"And this is Captain Barry, of der _Peerless_," said Mr. Meyer, taking

his hand. "It is all right, my friend; you will not lose. And this is

Mr. Rowland--and this is der little child. Sit down, my friend. I

congratulate you on your escape."

"Thank you," said Rowland, weakly, as he seated himself; "they cut my

arm off at Christiansand, and I still live. That is my escape."

Captain Bryce and Mr. Austen, pale and motionless, stared hard at this

man, in whose emaciated face, refined by suffering to the almost

spiritual softness of age, they hardly recognized the features of the

troublesome sailor of the _Titan_. His clothing, though clean, was

ragged and patched.

Mr. Selfridge had arisen and was also staring, not at Rowland, but at

the child, who, seated in the lap of the big Captain Barry, was looking

around with wondering eyes. Her costume was unique. A dress of

bagging-stuff, put together--as were her canvas shoes and hat--with

sail-twine in sail-makers' stitches, three to the inch, covered skirts

and underclothing made from old flannel shirts. It represented many an

hour's work of the watch-below, lovingly bestowed by the crew of the

_Peerless_; for the crippled Rowland could not sew. Mr. Selfridge

approached, scanned the pretty features closely, and asked:

"What is her name?"

"Her first name is Myra," answered Rowland. "She remembers that; but I

have not learned her last name, though I knew her mother years

ago--before her marriage."

"Myra, Myra," repeated the old gentleman; "do you know me? Don't you

know me?" He trembled visibly as he stooped and kissed her. The little

forehead puckered and wrinkled as the child struggled with memory; then

it cleared and the whole face sweetened to a smile.

"Gwampa," she said.

"Oh, God, I thank thee," murmured Mr. Selfridge, taking her in his arms.

"I have lost my son, but I have found his child--my granddaughter."

"But, sir," asked Rowland, eagerly; "you--this child's grandfather?

Your son is lost, you say? Was he on board the _Titan_? And the

mother--was she saved, or is she, too--" he stopped unable to continue.

"The mother is safe--in New York; but the father, my son, has not yet

been heard from," said the old man, mournfully.

Rowland's head sank and he hid his face for a moment in his arm, on the

table at which he sat. It had been a face as old, and worn, and weary as

that of the white-haired man confronting him. On it, when it

raised--flushed, bright-eyed and smiling--was the glory of youth.

"I trust, sir," he said, "that you will telegraph her. I am penniless at

present, and, besides, do not know her name."

"Selfridge--which, of course, is my own name. Mrs. Colonel, or Mrs.

George Selfridge. Our New York address is well known. But I shall cable

her at once; and, believe me, sir, although I can understand that our

debt to you cannot be named in terms of money, you need not be penniless

long. You are evidently a capable man, and I have wealth and influence."

Rowland merely bowed, slightly, but Mr. Meyer muttered to himself:

"Vealth and influence. Berhaps not. Now, gentlemen," he added, in a

louder tone, "to pizness. Mr. Rowland, will you tell us about der

running down of der _Royal Age_?"

"Was it the _Royal Age_?" asked Rowland. "I sailed in her one voyage.

Yes, certainly."

Mr. Selfridge, more interested in Myra than in the coming account,

carried her over to a chair in the corner and sat down, where he fondled

and talked to her after the manner of grandfathers the world over, and

Rowland, first looking steadily into the faces of the two men he had

come to expose, and whose presence he had thus far ignored, told, while

they held their teeth tight together and often buried their finger-nails

in their palms, the terrible story of the cutting in half of the ship on

the first night out from New York, finishing with the attempted bribery

and his refusal.

"Vell, gentlemen, vwhat do you think of that?" asked Mr. Meyer, looking

around.

"A lie, from beginning to end," stormed Captain Bryce.

Rowland rose to his feet, but was pressed back by the big man who had

accompanied him--who then faced Captain Bryce and said, quietly:

"I saw a polar bear that this man killed in open fight. I saw his arm

afterward, and while nursing him away from death I heard no whines or

complaints. He can fight his own battles when well, and when sick I'll

do it for him. If you insult him again in my presence I'll knock your

teeth down your throat."

CHAPTER XII

There was a moment's silence while the two captains eyed one another,

broken by the attorney, who said:

"Whether this story is true or false, it certainly has no bearing on the

validity of the policy. If this happened, it was after the policy

attached and before the wreck of the _Titan_."

"But der concealment--der concealment," shouted Mr. Meyer, excitedly.

"Has no bearing, either. If he concealed anything it was done after the

wreck, and after your liability was confirmed. It was not even barratry.

You must pay this insurance."

"I will not bay it. I will not. I will fight you in der courts." Mr.

Meyer stamped up and down the floor in his excitement, then stopped with

a triumphant smile, and shook his finger into the face of the attorney.

"And even if der concealment will not vitiate der policy, der fact that

he had a drunken man on lookout when der _Titan_ struck der iceberg will

be enough. Go ahead and sue. I will not pay. He was part owner."

"You have no witnesses to that admission," said the attorney. Mr. Meyer

looked around the group and the smile left his face.

"Captain Bryce was mistaken," said Mr. Austen. "This man was drunk at

New York, like others of the crew. But he was sober and competent when

on lookout. I discussed theories of navigation with him during his trick

on the bridge that night and he spoke intelligently."

"But you yourself said, not ten minutes ago, that this man was in a

state of delirium tremens up to der collision," said Mr. Meyer.

"What I said and what I will admit under oath are two different things,"

said the officer, desperately. "I may have said anything under the

excitement of the moment--when we were accused of such an infamous

crime. I say now, that John Rowland, whatever may have been his

condition on the preceding night, was a sober and competent lookout at

the time of the wreck of the _Titan_."

"Thank you," said Rowland, dryly, to the first officer; then, looking

into the appealing face of Mr. Meyer, he said:

"I do not think it will be necessary to brand me before the world as an

inebriate in order to punish the company and these men. Barratry, as I

understand it, is the unlawful act of a captain or crew at sea, causing

damage or loss; and it only applies when the parties are purely

employees. Did I understand rightly--that Captain Bryce was part owner

of the _Titan_?"

"Yes," said Mr. Meyer, "he owns stock; and we insure against barratry;

but this man, as part owner, could not fall back on it."

"And an unlawful act," went on Rowland, "perpetrated by a captain who is

part owner, which might cause shipwreck, and, during the perpetration of

which shipwreck really occurs, will be sufficient to void the policy."

"Certainly," said Mr. Meyer, eagerly. "You were drunk on der

lookout--you were raving drunk, as he said himself. You will swear to

this, will you not, my friend? It is bad faith with der underwriters. It

annuls der insurance. You admit this, Mr. Thompson, do you not?"

"That is law," said the attorney, coldly.

"Was Mr. Austen a part owner, also?" asked Rowland, ignoring Mr. Meyer's

view of the case.

"One share, is it not, Mr. Austen?" asked Mr. Meyer, while he rubbed his

hands and smiled. Mr. Austen made no sign of denial and Rowland

continued:

"Then, for drugging a sailor into a stupor, and having him on lookout

out of his turn while in that condition, and at the moment when the

_Titan_ struck the iceberg, Captain Bryce and Mr. Austen have, as part

owners, committed an act which nullifies the insurance on that ship."

"You infernal, lying scoundrel!" roared Captain Bryce. He strode toward

Rowland with threatening face. Half-way, he was stopped by the impact of

a huge brown fist which sent him reeling and staggering across the room

toward Mr. Selfridge and the child, over whom he floundered to the

floor--a disheveled heap,--while the big Captain Barry examined

teeth-marks on his knuckles, and every one else sprang to their feet.

"I told you to look out," said Captain Barry. "Treat my friend

respectfully." He glared steadily at the first officer, as though

inviting him to duplicate the offense; but that gentleman backed away

from him and assisted the dazed Captain Bryce to a chair, where he felt

of his loosened teeth, spat blood upon Mr. Meyer's floor, and gradually

awakened to a realization of the fact that he had been knocked down--and

by an American.

Little Myra, unhurt but badly frightened, began to cry and call for

Rowland in her own way, to the wonder, and somewhat to the scandal of

the gentle old man who was endeavoring to soothe her.

"Dammy," she cried, as she struggled to go to him; "I want

Dammy--Dammy--Da-a-may."

"Oh, what a pad little girl," said the jocular Mr. Meyer, looking down

on her. "Where did you learn such language?"

"It is my nickname," said Rowland, smiling in spite of himself. "She has

coined the word," he explained to the agitated Mr. Selfridge, who had

not yet comprehended what had happened; "and I have not yet been able to

persuade her to drop it--and I could not be harsh with her. Let me take

her, sir." He seated himself, with the child, who nestled up to him

contentedly and soon was tranquil.

"Now, my friend," said Mr. Meyer, "you must tell us about this

drugging." Then while Captain Bryce, under the memory of the blow he had

received, nursed himself into an insane fury; and Mr. Austen, with his

hand resting lightly on the captain's shoulder ready to restrain him,

listened to the story; and the attorney drew up a chair and took notes

of the story; and Mr. Selfridge drew his chair close to Myra and paid no

attention to the story at all, Rowland recited the events prior to and

succeeding the shipwreck. Beginning with the finding of the whisky in

his pocket, he told of his being called to the starboard bridge lookout

in place of the rightful incumbent; of the sudden and strange interest

Mr. Austen displayed as to his knowledge of navigation; of the pain in

his stomach, the frightful shapes he had seen on the deck beneath and

the sensations of his dream--leaving out only the part which bore on the

woman he loved; he told of the sleep-walking child which awakened him,

of the crash of ice and instant wreck, and the fixed condition of his

eyes which prevented their focusing only at a certain distance,

finishing his story--to explain his empty sleeve--with a graphic account

of the fight with the bear.

"And I have studied it all out," he said, in conclusion. "I was

drugged--I believe, with hasheesh, which makes a man see strange

things--and brought up on the bridge lookout where I could be watched

and my ravings listened to and recorded, for the sole purpose of

discrediting my threatened testimony in regard to the collision of the

night before. But I was only half-drugged, as I spilled part of my tea

at supper. In that tea, I am positive, was the hasheesh."

"You know all about it, don't you," snarled Captain Bryce, from his

chair, "'twas not hasheesh; 'twas an infusion of Indian hemp; you don't

know--" Mr. Austen's hand closed over his mouth and he subsided.

"Self-convicted," said Rowland, with a quiet laugh. "Hasheesh is made

from Indian hemp."

"You hear this, gentlemen," exclaimed Mr. Meyer, springing to his feet

and facing everybody in turn. He pounced on Captain Barry. "You hear

this confession, captain; you hear him say Indian hemp? I have a

witness now, Mr. Thompson. Go right on with your suit. You hear him,

Captain Barry. You are disinterested. You are a witness. You hear?"

"Yes, I heard it--the murdering scoundrel," said the captain.

Mr. Meyer danced up and down in his joy, while the attorney, pocketing

his notes, remarked to the discomfited Captain Bryce: "You are the

poorest fool I know," and left the office.

Then Mr. Meyer calmed himself, and facing the two steamship officers,

said, slowly and impressively, while he poked his forefinger almost into

their faces:

"England is a fine country, my friends--a fine country to leave pehind

sometimes. Dere is Canada, and der United States, and Australia, and

South Africa--all fine countries, too--fine countries to go to with new

names. My friends, you will be bulletined and listed at Lloyds in less

than half an hour, and you will never again sail under der English flag

as officers. And, my friends, let me say, that in half an hour after you

are bulletined, all Scotland Yard will be looking for you. But my door

is not locked."

Silently they arose, pale, shamefaced, and crushed, and went out the

door, through the outer office, and into the street.

CHAPTER XIII

Mr. Selfridge had begun to take an interest in the proceedings. As the

two men passed out he arose and asked:

"Have you reached a settlement, Mr. Meyer? Will the insurance be paid?"

"No," roared the underwriter, in the ear of the puzzled old gentleman;

while he slapped him vigorously on the back; "it will not be paid. You

or I must have been ruined, Mr. Selfridge, and it has settled on you. I

do not pay der _Titan's_ insurance--nor will der other insurers. On der

contrary, as der collision clause in der policy is void with der rest,

your company must reimburse me for der insurance which I must pay to der

_Royal Age_ owners--that is, unless our good friend here, Mr. Rowland,

who was on der lookout at der time, will swear that her lights were

out."

"Not at all," said Rowland. "Her lights were burning--look to the old

gentleman," he exclaimed. "Look out for him. Catch him!"

Mr. Selfridge was stumbling toward a chair. He grasped it, loosened his

hold, and before anyone could reach him, fell to the floor, where he

lay, with ashen lips and rolling eyes, gasping convulsively.

"Heart failure," said Rowland, as he knelt by his side. "Send for a

doctor."

"Send for a doctor," repeated Mr. Meyer through the door to his clerks;

"and send for a carriage, quick. I don't want him to die in der office."

Captain Barry lifted the helpless figure to a couch, and they watched,

while the convulsions grew easier, the breath shorter, and the lips from

ashen gray to blue. Before a doctor or carriage had come, he had passed

away.

"Sudden emotion of some kind," said the doctor when he did arrive.

"Violent emotion, too. Hear bad news?"

"Bad and good," answered the underwriter. "Good, in learning that this

dear little girl was his granddaughter--bad, in learning that he was a

ruined man. He was der heaviest stockholder in der _Titan_. One hundred

thousand pounds, he owned, of der stock, all of which this poor, dear

little child will not get." Mr. Meyer looked sorrowful, as he patted

Myra on the head.

Captain Barry beckoned to Rowland, who, slightly flushed, was standing

by the still figure on the couch and watching the face of Mr. Meyer, on

which annoyance, jubilation, and simulated shock could be seen in turn.

"Wait," he said, as he turned to watch the doctor leave the room. "Is

this so, Mr. Meyer," he added to the underwriter, "that Mr. Selfridge

owned _Titan_ stock, and would have been ruined, had he lived, by the

loss of the insurance money?"

"Yes, he would have been a poor man. He had invested his last

farthing--one hundred thousand pounds. And if he had left any more it

would be assessed to make good his share of what der company must bay

for der _Royal Age_, which I also insured."

"Was there a collision clause in the _Titan's_ policy?"

"Dere was."

"And you took the risk, knowing that she was to run the Northern Lane at

full speed through fog and snow?"

"I did--so did others."

"Then, Mr. Meyer, it remains for me to tell you that the insurance on

the _Titan_ will be paid, as well as any liabilities included in and

specified by the collision clause in the policy. In short, I, the one

man who can prevent it, refuse to testify."

"Vwhat-a-t?"

Mr. Meyer grasped the back of a chair and, leaning over it, stared at

Rowland.

"You will not testify? Vwhat you mean?"

"What I said; and I do not feel called upon to give you my reasons, Mr.

Meyer."

"My good friend," said the underwriter, advancing with outstretched

hands to Rowland, who backed away, and taking Myra by the hand, moved

toward the door. Mr. Meyer sprang ahead, locked it and removed the key,

and faced them.

"Oh, mine goot Gott," he shouted, relapsing in his excitement into the

more pronounced dialect of his race; "vwhat I do to you, hey? Vwhy you

go pack on me, hey? Haf I not bay der doctor's bill? Haf I not bay for

der carriage? Haf I not treat you like one shentleman? Haf I not, hey? I

sit you down in mine office and call you Mr. Rowland. Haf I not been one

shentleman?"

"Open that door," said Rowland, quietly.

"Yes, open it," repeated Captain Barry, his puzzled face clearing at the

prospect of action on his part. "Open it or I'll kick it down."

"But you, mine friend--heard der admission of der captain--of der

drugging. One goot witness will do: two is petter. But you will swear,

mine friend, you will not ruin me."

"I stand by Rowland," said the captain, grimly. "I don't remember what

was said, anyhow; got a blamed bad memory. Get away from that door."

Grievous lamentation--weepings and wailings, and the most genuine

gnashing of teeth--interspersed with the feebler cries of the frightened

Myra and punctuated by terse commands in regard to the door, filled that

private office, to the wonder of the clerks without, and ended, at last,

with the crashing of the door from its hinges.

Captain Barry, Rowland, and Myra, followed by a parting, heart-borne

malediction from the agitated underwriter, left the office and reached

the street. The carriage that had brought them was still waiting.

"Settle inside," called the captain to the driver. "We'll take another,

Rowland."

Around the first corner they found a cab, which they entered, Captain

Barry giving the driver the direction--"Bark _Peerless_, East India

Dock."

"I think I understand the game, Rowland," he said, as they started; "you

don't want to break this child."

"That's it," answered Rowland, weakly, as he leaned back on the cushion,

faint from the excitement of the last few moments. "And as for the right

or wrong of the position I am in--why, we must go farther back for it

than the question of lookouts. The cause of the wreck was full speed in

a fog. All hands on lookout could not have seen that berg. The

underwriters knew the speed and took the risk. Let them pay."

"Right--and I'm with you on it. But you must get out of the country. I

don't know the law on the matter, but they may compel you to testify.

You can't ship 'fore the mast again--that's settled. But you can have a

berth mate with me as long as I sail a ship--if you'll take it; and

you're to make my cabin your home as long as you like; remember that.

Still, I know you want to get across with the kid, and if you stay

around until I sail it may be months before you get to New York, with

the chance of losing her by getting foul of English law. But just leave

it to me. There are powerful interests at stake in regard to this

matter."

What Captain Barry had in mind, Rowland was too weak to inquire. On

their arrival at the bark he was assisted by his friend to a couch in

the cabin, where he spent the rest of the day, unable to leave it.

Meanwhile, Captain Barry had gone ashore again.

Returning toward evening, he said to the man on the couch: "I've got

your pay, Rowland, and signed a receipt for it to that attorney. He paid

it out of his own pocket. You could have worked that company for fifty

thousand, or more; but I knew you wouldn't touch their money, and so,

only struck him for your wages. You're entitled to a month's pay. Here

it is--American money--about seventeen." He gave Rowland a roll of

bills.

"Now here's something else, Rowland," he continued, producing an

envelope. "In consideration of the fact that you lost all your clothes

and later, your arm, through the carelessness of the company's officers,

Mr. Thompson offers you this." Rowland opened the envelope. In it were

two first cabin tickets from Liverpool to New York. Flushing hotly, he

said, bitterly:

"It seems that I'm not to escape it, after all."

"Take 'em, old man, take 'em; in fact, I took 'em for you, and you and

the kid are booked. And I made Thompson agree to settle your doctor's

bill and expenses with that Sheeny. 'Tisn't bribery. I'd heel you myself

for the run over, but, hang it, you'll take nothing from me. You've got

to get the young un over. You're the only one to do it. The old

gentleman was an American, alone here--hadn't even a lawyer, that I

could find. The boat sails in the morning and the night train leaves in

two hours. Think of that mother, Rowland. Why, man, I'd travel round the

world to stand in your shoes when you hand Myra over. I've got a child

of my own." The captain's eyes were winking hard and fast, and Rowland's

were shining.

"Yes, I'll take the passage," he said, with a smile. "I accept the

bribe."

"That's right. You'll be strong and healthy when you land, and when that

mother's through thanking you, and you have to think of yourself,

remember--I want a mate and will be here a month before sailing. Write

to me, care o' Lloyds, if you want the berth, and I'll send you advance

money to get back with."

"Thank you, captain," said Rowland, as he took the other's hand and then

glanced at his empty sleeve; "but my going to sea is ended. Even a mate

needs two hands."

"Well, suit yourself, Rowland; I'll take you mate without any hands at

all while you had your brains. It's done me good to meet a man like you;

and--say, old man, you won't take it wrong from me, will you? It's none

o' my business, but you're too all-fired good a man to drink. You

haven't had a nip for two months. Are you going to begin?"

"Never again," said Rowland, rising. "I've a future now, as well as a

past."

CHAPTER XIV

It was near noon of the next day that Rowland, seated in a steamer-chair

with Myra and looking out on a sail-spangled stretch of blue from the

saloon-deck of a west-bound liner, remembered that he had made no

provisions to have Mrs. Selfridge notified by cable of the safety of her

child; and unless Mr. Meyer or his associates gave the story to the

press it would not be known.

"Well," he mused, "joy will not kill, and I shall witness it in its

fullness if I take her by surprise. But the chances are that it will get

into the papers before I reach her. It is too good for Mr. Meyer to

keep."

But the story was not given out immediately. Mr. Meyer called a

conference of the underwriters concerned with him in the insurance of

the _Titan_ at which it was decided to remain silent concerning the card

they hoped to play, and to spend a little time and money in hunting for

other witnesses among the _Titan's_ crew, and in interviewing Captain

Barry, to the end of improving his memory. A few stormy meetings with

this huge obstructionist convinced them of the futility of further

effort in his direction, and, after finding at the end of a week that

every surviving member of the _Titan's_ port watch, as well as a few of

the other, had been induced to sign for Cape voyages, or had otherwise

disappeared, they decided to give the story told by Rowland to the press

in the hope that publicity would avail to bring to light corroboratory

evidence.

And this story, improved upon in the repeating by Mr. Meyer to

reporters, and embellished still further by the reporters as they wrote

it up, particularly in the part pertaining to the polar bear,--blazoned

out in the great dailies of England and the Continent, and was cabled to

New York, with the name of the steamer in which John Rowland had sailed

(for his movements had been traced in the search for evidence), where it

arrived, too late for publication, the morning of the day on which, with

Myra on his shoulder, he stepped down the gang-plank at a North River

dock. As a consequence, he was surrounded on the dock by enthusiastic

reporters, who spoke of the story and asked for details. He refused to

talk, escaped them, and gaining the side streets, soon found himself in

crowded Broadway, where he entered the office of the steamship company

in whose employ he had been wrecked, and secured from the _Titan's_

passenger-list the address of Mrs. Selfridge--the only woman saved. Then

he took a car up Broadway and alighted abreast of a large department

store.

"We're going to see mamma, soon, Myra," he whispered in the pink ear;

"and you must go dressed up. It don't matter about me; but you're a

Fifth Avenue baby--a little aristocrat. These old clothes won't do,

now." But she had forgotten the word "mamma," and was more interested

in the exciting noise and life of the street than in the clothing she

wore. In the store, Rowland asked for, and was directed to the

children's department, where a young woman waited on him.

"This child has been shipwrecked," he said. "I have sixteen dollars and

a half to spend on it. Give it a bath, dress its hair, and use up the

money on a dress, shoes, and stockings, underclothing, and a hat." The

young woman stooped and kissed the little girl from sheer sympathy, but

protested that not much could be done.

"Do your best," said Rowland; "it is all I have. I will wait here."

An hour later, penniless again, he emerged from the store with Myra,

bravely dressed in her new finery, and was stopped at the corner by a

policeman who had seen him come out, and who marveled, doubtless, at

such juxtaposition of rags and ribbons.

"Whose kid ye got?" he demanded.

"I believe it is the daughter of Mrs. Colonel Selfridge," answered

Rowland, haughtily--too haughtily, by far.

"Ye believe--but ye don't know. Come back into the shtore, me tourist,

and we'll see who ye shtole it from."

"Very well, officer; I can prove possession." They started back, the

officer with his hand on Rowland's collar, and were met at the door by a

party of three or four people coming out. One of this party, a young

woman in black, uttered a piercing shriek and sprang toward them.

"Myra!" she screamed. "Give me my baby--give her to me."

She snatched the child from Rowland's shoulder, hugged it, kissed it,

cried, and screamed over it; then, oblivious to the crowd that

collected, incontinently fainted in the arms of an indignant old

gentleman.

"You scoundrel!" he exclaimed, as he flourished his cane over Rowland's

head with his free arm. "We've caught you. Officer, take that man to the

station-house. I will follow and make a charge in the name of my

daughter."

"Then he shtole the kid, did he?" asked the policeman.

"Most certainly," answered the old gentleman, as, with the assistance of

the others, he supported the unconscious young mother to a carriage.

They all entered, little Myra screaming for Rowland from the arms of a

female member of the party, and were driven off.

"C'm an wi' me," uttered the officer, rapping his prisoner on the head

with his club and jerking him off his feet.

Then, while an approving crowd applauded, the man who had fought and

conquered a hungry polar bear was dragged through the streets like a

sick animal by a New York policeman. For such is the stultifying effect

of a civilized environment.

CHAPTER XV

In New York City there are homes permeated by a moral atmosphere so

pure, so elevated, so sensitive to the vibrations of human woe and

misdoing, that their occupants are removed completely from all

consideration of any but the spiritual welfare of poor humanity. In

these homes the news-gathering, sensation-mongering daily paper does not

enter.

In the same city are dignified magistrates--members of clubs and

societies--who spend late hours, and often fail to arise in the morning

in time to read the papers before the opening of court.

Also in New York are city editors, bilious of stomach, testy of speech,

and inconsiderate of reporters' feelings and professional pride. Such

editors, when a reporter has failed, through no fault of his own, in

successfully interviewing a celebrity, will sometimes send him

news-gathering in the police courts, where printable news is scarce.

On the morning following the arrest of John Rowland, three reporters,

sent by three such editors, attended a hall of justice presided over by

one of the late-rising magistrates mentioned above. In the anteroom of

this court, ragged, disfigured by his clubbing, and disheveled by his

night in a cell, stood Rowland, with other unfortunates more or less

guilty of offense against society. When his name was called, he was

hustled through a door, along a line of policemen--each of whom added to

his own usefulness by giving him a shove--and into the dock, where the

stern-faced and tired-looking magistrate glared at him. Seated in a

corner of the court-room were the old gentleman of the day before, the

young mother with little Myra in her lap, and a number of other

ladies--all excited in demeanor; and all but the young mother directing

venomous glances at Rowland. Mrs. Selfridge, pale and hollow-eyed, but

happy-faced, withal, allowed no wandering glance to rest on him.

The officer who had arrested Rowland was sworn, and testified that he

had stopped the prisoner on Broadway while making off with the child,

whose rich clothing had attracted his attention. Disdainful sniffs were

heard in the corner with muttered remarks: "Rich indeed--the idea--the

flimsiest prints." Mr. Gaunt, the prosecuting witness, was called to

testify.

"This man, your Honor," he began, excitedly, "was once a gentleman and a

frequent guest at my house. He asked for the hand of my daughter, and as

his request was not granted, threatened revenge. Yes, sir. And out on

the broad Atlantic, where he had followed my daughter in the guise of a

sailor, he attempted to murder that child--my grandchild; but was

discovered--"

"Wait," interrupted the magistrate. "Confine your testimony to the

present offense."

"Yes, your Honor. Failing in this, he stole, or enticed the little one

from its bed, and in less than five minutes the ship was wrecked, and he

must have escaped with the child in--"

"Were you a witness of this?"

"I was not there, your Honor; but we have it on the word of the first

officer, a gentleman--"

"Step down, sir. That will do. Officer, was this offense committed in

New York?"

"Yes, your Honor; I caught him meself."

"Who did he steal the child from?"

"That leddy over yonder."

"Madam, will you take the stand?"

With her child in her arms, Mrs. Selfridge was sworn and in a low,

quavering voice repeated what her father had said. Being a woman, she

was allowed by the woman-wise magistrate to tell her story in her own

way. When she spoke of the attempted murder at the taffrail, her manner

became excited. Then she told of the captain's promise to put the man in

irons on her agreeing to testify against him--of the consequent decrease

in her watchfulness, and her missing the child just before the

shipwreck--of her rescue by the gallant first officer, and his assertion

that he had seen her child in the arms of this man--the only man on

earth who would harm it--of the later news that a boat containing

sailors and children had been picked up by a Mediterranean steamer--of

the detectives sent over, and their report that a sailor answering this

man's description had refused to surrender a child to the consul at

Gibraltar and had disappeared with it--of her joy at the news that Myra

was alive, and despair of ever seeing her again until she had met her in

this man's arms on Broadway the day before. At this point, outraged

maternity overcame her. With cheeks flushed, and eyes blazing scorn and

anger, she pointed at Rowland and all but screamed: "And he has

mutilated--tortured my baby. There are deep wounds in her little back,

and the doctor said, only last night, that they were made by a sharp

instrument. And he must have tried to warp and twist the mind of my

child, or put her through frightful experiences; for he has taught her

to swear--horribly--and last night at bedtime, when I told her the story

of Elisha and the bears and the children, she burst out into the most

uncontrollable screaming and sobbing."

Here her testimony ended in a breakdown of hysterics, between sobs of

which were frequent admonitions to the child not to say that bad word;

for Myra had caught sight of Rowland and was calling his nickname.

"What shipwreck was this--where was it?" asked the puzzled magistrate of

nobody in particular.

"The _Titan_," called out half a dozen newspaper men across the room.

"The _Titan_," repeated the magistrate. "Then this offense was committed

on the high seas under the English flag. I cannot imagine why it is

brought into this court. Prisoner, have you anything to say?"

"Nothing, your Honor." The answer came in a kind of dry sob.

The magistrate scanned the ashen-faced man in rags, and said to the

clerk of the court: "Change this charge to vagrancy--eh--"

The clerk, instigated by the newspaper men, was at his elbow. He laid a

morning paper before him, pointed to certain big letters and retired.

Then the business of the court suspended while the court read the news.

After a moment or two the magistrate looked up.

"Prisoner," he said, sharply, "take your left sleeve out of your

breast!" Rowland obeyed mechanically, and it dangled at his side. The

magistrate noticed, and read on. Then he folded the paper and said:

"You are the man who was rescued from an iceberg, are you not?" The

prisoner bowed his head.

"Discharged!" The word came forth in an unjudicial roar. "Madam," added

the magistrate, with a kindling light in his eye, "this man has merely

saved your child's life. If you will read of his defending it from a

polar bear when you go home, I doubt that you will tell it any more bear

stories. Sharp instrument--umph!" Which was equally unjudicial on the

part of the court.

Mrs. Selfridge, with a mystified and rather aggrieved expression of

face, left the court-room with her indignant father and friends, while

Myra shouted profanely for Rowland, who had fallen into the hands of the

reporters. They would have entertained him after the manner of the

craft, but he would not be entertained--neither would he talk. He

escaped and was swallowed up in the world without; and when the evening

papers appeared that day, the events of the trial were all that could be

added to the story of the morning.

CHAPTER XVI

On the morning of the next day, a one-armed dock lounger found an old

fish-hook and some pieces of string which he knotted together; then he

dug some bait and caught a fish. Being hungry and without fire, he

traded with a coaster's cook for a meal, and before night caught two

more, one of which he traded, the other, sold. He slept under the

docks--paying no rent--fished, traded, and sold for a month, then paid

for a second-hand suit of clothes and the services of a barber. His

changed appearance induced a boss stevedore to hire him tallying cargo,

which was more lucrative than fishing, and furnished, in time, a hat,

pair of shoes, and an overcoat. He then rented a room and slept in a

bed. Before long he found employment addressing envelopes for a mailing

firm, at which his fine and rapid penmanship secured him steady work;

and in a few months he asked his employers to indorse his application

for a Civil Service examination. The favor was granted, the examination

easily passed, and he addressed envelopes while he waited. Meanwhile he

bought new and better clothing and seemed to have no difficulty in

impressing those whom he met with the fact that he was a gentleman. Two

years from the time of his examination he was appointed to a lucrative

position under the Government, and as he seated himself at the desk in

his office, could have been heard to remark: "Now John Rowland, your

future is your own. You have merely suffered in the past from a mistaken

estimate of the importance of women and whisky."

But he was wrong, for in six months he received a letter which, in part,

read as follows:

"Do not think me indifferent or ungrateful. I have watched from a

distance while you made your wonderful fight for your old standards.

You have won, and I am glad and I congratulate you. But Myra will

not let me rest. She asks for you continually and cries at times. I

can bear it no longer. Will you not come and see Myra?"

And the man went to see--Myra.

THE PIRATES

PROLOGUE

Two young men met in front of the post-office of a small country town.

They were of about the same age--eighteen--each was well dressed,

comely, and apparently of good family; and each had an expression of

face that would commend him to strangers, save that one of them, the

larger of the two, had what is called a "bad eye"--that is, an eye

showing just a little too much white above the iris. In the other's eye

white predominated below the iris. The former is usually the index of

violent though restrained temper; the latter of an intuitive, psychic

disposition, with very little self-control. The difference in character

so indicated may lead one person to the Presidency, another to the

gallows. And--though no such results are promised--with similar

divergence of path, of pain and pleasure, of punishment and reward, is

this story concerned.

The two boys were schoolmates and friends, with never a quarrel since

they had known each other; they had graduated together from the high

school, but neither had been valedictorian. They later had sought the

competitive examination given by the congressman of the district for an

appointment to the Naval Academy, and had won out over all, but so close

together that the congressman had decreed another test.

They had taken it, and since then had waited for the letter that named

the winner; hence the daily visits to the post-office, ending in this

one, when the larger boy, about to go up the steps, met the smaller

coming down with an opened letter, and smiling.

"I've got it, Jack," said the smaller boy, joyously. "Here it is. I win,

but, of course, you're the alternate. Read it."

He handed the letter to Jack, but it was declined.

"What's the use?" was the somewhat sulky response. "I've lost, sure

enough. All I've got to do is to forget it."

"Then let me read it to you," said the winner, eagerly. "I want you to

feel glad about it--same as I would if you had passed first. Listen:

"'MR. WILLIAM DENMAN.

"'DEAR SIR: I am glad to inform you that you have successfully

passed the second examination for an appointment to the Naval

Academy, winning by three points in history over the other

contestant, Mr. John Forsythe, who, of course, is the alternate in

case you do not pass the entrance examination at Annapolis.

"'Be ready at any time for instructions from the Secretary of the

Navy to report at Annapolis. Sincerely yours,

JACOB BLAND.'"

"What do I care for that?" said Forsythe. "I suppose I've got a letter

in there, too. Let's see."

While Denman waited, Forsythe entered the post-office, and soon emerged,

reading a letter.

"Same thing," he said. "I failed by three points in my special study.

How is it, Bill?" he demanded, fiercely, as his disappointment grew upon

him. "I've beaten not only you, but the whole class from the primary up,

in history, ancient, modern, and local, until now. There's something

crooked here." His voice sank to a mutter.

"Crooked, Jack! What are you talking about?" replied Denman, hotly.

"Oh, I don't know, Bill. Never mind. Come on, if you're going home."

They walked side by side in the direction of their homes--near together

and on the outskirts of the town--each busy with his thoughts. Denman,

though proud and joyous over the prize he had won, was yet hurt by the

speech and manner of Forsythe, and hurt still further by the darkening

cloud on his face as they walked on.

Forsythe's thoughts were best indicated by his suddenly turning toward

Denman and blurting out:

"Yes, I say; there's something crooked in this. I can beat you in

history any day in the week, but your dad and old Bland are close

friends. I see it now."

Denman turned white as he answered:

"Do you want me to report your opinion to my father and Mr. Bland?"

"Oh, you would, would you? And take from me the alternate, too! Well,

you're a cur, Bill Denman. Go ahead and report."

They were now on a block bounded by vacant lots, and no one was within

sight. Denman stopped, threw off his coat, and said:

"No, I'll not report your opinion, but--you square yourself, Jack

Forsythe, and I'll show you the kind of cur I am."

Forsythe turned, saw the anger in Denman's eyes, and promptly shed his

coat.

It was a short fight, of one round only. Each fought courageously, and

with such fistic skill as schoolboys acquire, and each was equal to the

other in strength; but one possessed about an inch longer reach than the

other, which decided the battle.

Denman, with nose bleeding and both eyes closing, went down at last, and

could not arise, nor even see the necessity of rising. But soon his

brain cleared, and he staggered to his feet, his head throbbing

viciously and his face and clothing smeared with blood from his nose,

to see between puffed eyelids the erect figure of Forsythe swaggering

around a distant corner. He stanched the blood with his handkerchief,

but as there was not a brook, a ditch, or a puddle in the neighborhood,

he could only go home as he was, trusting that he would meet no one.

"Licked!" he muttered. "For the first time in my life, too! What'll the

old gentleman and mother say?"

What the father and mother might say, or what they did say, has no part

in this story; but what another person said may have a place and value,

and will be given here. This person was the only one he met before

reaching home--a very small person, about thirteen years old, with big

gray eyes and long dark ringlets, who ran across the street to look at

him.

"Why, Billie Denman!" she cried, shocked and anxious. "What has happened

to you? Run over?"

"No, Florrie," he answered, painfully. "I've been licked. I had a

fight."

"But don't you know it's wrong to fight, Billie?"

"Maybe," answered Denman, trying to get more blood from his face to the

already saturated handkerchief. "But we all do wrong--sometimes."

The child planted herself directly before him, and looked chidingly into

his discolored and disfigured face.

"Billie Denman," she said, shaking a small finger at him, "of course I'm

sorry, but, if you have been fighting when you know it is wrong,

why--why, it served you right."

Had he not been aching in every joint, his nose, his lips, and his eyes,

this unjust speech might have amused him. As it was he answered testily:

"Florence Fleming, you're only a kid yet, though the best one I know;

and if I should tell you the name I was called and which brought on the

fight, you would not understand. But you'll grow up some day, and then

you will understand. Now, remember this fight, and when some woman, or

possibly some man, calls you a--a cat, you'll feel like fighting, too."

"But I wouldn't mind," she answered, firm in her position. "Papa called

me a kitten to-day, and I didn't get mad."

"Well, Florrie," he said, wearily, "I won't try to explain. I'm going

away before long, and perhaps I won't come back again. But if I do,

there'll be another fight."

"Going away, Billie!" she cried in alarm. "Where to?"

"To Annapolis. I may stay, or I may come back. I don't know."

"And you are going away, and you don't know that you'll come back! Oh,

Billie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got licked, too. Who did it? I hate

him. Who licked you, Billie?"

"Never mind, Florrie. He'll tell the news, and you'll soon know who he

is."

He walked on, but the child headed him and faced him. There were tears

in the gray eyes.

"And you're going away, Billie!" she exclaimed again. "When are you

going?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Whenever I am sent for. If I don't see you

again, good-by, Florrie girl." He stooped to kiss her, but straightened

up, remembering the condition of his face.

"But I will see you again," she declared. "I will, I will. I'll come to

your house. And, Billie--I'm sorry I scolded you, really I am."

He smiled ruefully. "Never mind that, Florrie; you always scolded me,

you know, and I'm used to it."

"But only when you did wrong, Billie," she answered, gravely, "and

somehow I feel that this time you have not done wrong. But I won't scold

the next time you _really_ do wrong. I promise."

"Oh, yes, you will, little girl. It's the privilege and prerogative of

your sex."

He patted her on the head and went on, leaving her staring, open-eyed

and tearful. She was the child of a neighbor; he had mended her dolls,

soothed her griefs, and protected her since infancy, but she was only as

a small sister to him.

While waiting for orders to Annapolis, he saw her many times, but she

did not change to him. She changed, however; she had learned the name of

his assailant, and through her expressed hatred for him, and through her

sympathy for Billie as the disfigurements left his face, she passed the

border between childhood and womanhood.

When orders came, he stopped at her home, kissed her good-by, and went

to Annapolis, leaving her sad-eyed and with quivering lips.

And he did not come back.

CHAPTER I

She was the largest, fastest, and latest thing in seagoing destroyers,

and though the specifications called for but thirty-six knots' speed,

she had made thirty-eight on her trial trip, and later, under careful

nursing by her engineers, she had increased this to forty knots an

hour--five knots faster than any craft afloat--and, with a clean bottom,

this speed could be depended upon at any time it was needed.

She derived this speed from six water-tube boilers, feeding at a

pressure of three hundred pounds live steam to five turbine engines

working three screws, one high-pressure turbine on the center shaft,

and four low-pressure on the wing shafts. Besides these she possessed

two "astern" turbines and two cruising turbines--all four on the wing

shafts.

She made steam with oil fuel, there being no coal on board except for

heating and cooking, and could carry a hundred and thirty tons of it,

which gave her a cruising radius of about two thousand miles; also, with

"peace tanks" filled, she could steam three thousand miles without

replenishing. This would carry her across the Atlantic at thirteen

knots' speed, but if she was in a hurry, using all turbines, she would

exhaust her oil in two days.

When in a hurry, she was a spectacle to remember. Built on conventional

lines, she showed at a mile's distance nothing but a high bow and four

short funnels over a mighty bow wave that hid the rest of her long,

dark-hued hull, and a black, horizontal cloud of smoke that stretched

astern half a mile before the wind could catch and rend it.

She carried four twenty-one-inch torpedo tubes and a battery of six

twelve-pounder, rapid-fire guns; also, she carried two large

searchlights and a wireless equipment of seventy miles reach, the

aërials of which stretched from the truck of her short signal mast aft

to a short pole at the taffrail.

Packed with machinery, she was a "hot box," even when at rest, and when

in action a veritable bake oven. She had hygienic air space below decks

for about a dozen men, and this number could handle her; but she carried

berths and accommodations for sixty.

Her crew was not on board, however. Newly scraped and painted in the dry

dock, she had been hauled out, stored, and fueled by a navy-yard gang,

and now lay at the dock, ready for sea--ready for her draft of men in

the morning, and with no one on board for the night but the executive

officer, who, with something on his mind, had elected to remain, while

the captain and other commissioned officers went ashore for the night.

Four years at the Naval Academy, a two years' sea cruise, and a year of

actual service had made many changes in Denman. He was now twenty-five,

an ensign, but, because of his position as executive, bearing the

complimentary title of lieutenant.

He was a little taller and much straighter and squarer of shoulder than

when he had gone to the academy. He had grown a trim mustache, and the

sun and winds of many seas had tanned his face to the color of his eyes;

which were of a clear brown, and only in repose did they now show the

old-time preponderance of white beneath the brown.

In action these eyes looked out through two slits formed by nearly

parallel eyelids, and with the tightly closed lips and high arching

eyebrows--sure sign of the highest and best form of physical and moral

courage--they gave his face a sort of "take care" look, which most men

heeded.

Some women would have thought him handsome, some would not; it all

depended upon the impression they made on him, and the consequent look

in his eyes.

At Annapolis he had done well; he was the most popular man of his class,

had won honors from his studies and fist fights from his fellows, while

at sea he had shown a reckless disregard for his life, in such matters

as bursting flues, men overboard, and other casualties of seafaring,

that brought him many type-written letters from Washington, a few

numbers of advancement, and the respect and admiration of all that knew

or had heard of him.

His courage, like Mrs. Cæsar's morals, was above suspicion. Yet there

was one man in the world who was firmly convinced that Lieutenant

Denman had a yellow streak in him, and that man was Denman himself.

He had never been home since his departure for Annapolis. He had

promised a small girl that if he came back there would be another fight,

in which, as he mentally vowed, he would redeem himself. In this he had

been sincere, but as the months at the academy went on, with the

unsettled fight still in the future, his keen resentment died away,

leaving in its place a sense of humiliation and chagrin.

He still meant to go back, however, and would have done so when vacation

came; but a classmate invited him to his home, and there he went, glad

of the reprieve from an embarrassing, and, as it seemed to him now, an

undignified conflict with a civilian. But the surrender brought its

sting, and his self-respect lessened.

At the next vacation he surrendered again, and the sting began eating

into his soul. He thought of the overdue redemption he had promised

himself at all times and upon all occasions, but oftenest just before

going to sleep, when the mental picture of Jack Forsythe swaggering

around the corner, while _he_ lay conquered and helpless on the ground,

would accompany him through his dreams, and be with him when he wakened

in the morning.

It became an obsession, and very soon the sudden thought of his coming

fight with Forsythe brought the uplift of the heart and the slight

choking sensation that betokened nothing but fear.

He would not admit it at first, but finally was compelled to. Honest

with himself as he was with others, he finally yielded in the mental

struggle, and accepted the dictum of his mind. He was afraid to fight

Jack Forsythe, with no reference to, or regard for, his standing as an

officer and a gentleman.

But now, it seemed, all this was to leave him. A month before, he had

thought strongly of his child friend Florrie, and, with nothing to do

one afternoon, he had written her a letter--a jolly, rollicking letter,

filled with masculine colloquialisms and friendly endearments, such as

he had bestowed upon her at home; and it was the dignity of her

reply--received that day--with the contents of the letter, which was the

"something on his mind" that kept him aboard.

His cheeks burned as he realized that she was now about twenty years

old, a young lady, and that his letter to her had been sadly conceived

and much out of place. But the news in the letter, which began with

"Dear Sir," and ended with "Sincerely yours," affected him most. It

read:

"I presume you know that your enemy, Jack Forsythe, took his

disappointment so keenly that he never amounted to much at home, and

about two years ago enlisted in the navy. This relieves you, as

father tells me, from the necessity of thrashing him--as you

declared you would. Officers and enlisted men cannot fight, he said,

as the officer has the advantage, and can always order the man to

jail. I thank you very much for remembering me after all these

years--in fact, I shall never forget your kindness."

His cheeks and ears had burned all day, and when his fellow officers had

gone, and he was alone, he reread the letter.

"Sarcasm and contempt between every line," he muttered. "She expected

me--the whole town expected me--to come back and lick that fellow.

Well"--his eyelids became rigidly parallel--"I'll do it. When I find

him, I'll get shore leave for both of us, take him home, and square the

account."

This resolution did him good; the heat left his cheek, and the sudden

jump of the heart did not come with the occasional thought of the task.

Gradually the project took form; he would learn what ship Forsythe was

in, get transferred to her, and when in port arrange the shore leave. He

could not fight him in the navy, but as man to man, in civilian's

clothing in the town park, he would fight him and thrash him before the

populace.

It was late when he had finished the planning. He lighted a last cigar,

and sauntered around the deck until the cigar was consumed. Then he went

to his room and turned in, thinking of the caustic words of Miss

Florrie, forgiving her the while, and wondering how she looked--grown

up.

They were pleasant thoughts to go to sleep on, but sleep did not come.

It was an intensely hot, muggy night, and the mosquitoes were thick. He

tried another room, then another, and at last, driven out of the

wardroom by the pests, he took refuge in the steward's pantry, and

spreading his blanket on the floor, went to sleep on it.