Forsythe and Daniels ran forward, while Billings, the cook off watch,
followed from the galley hatch, and Casey came up from the wireless
room. Each asked questions, but nobody answered at once. There were
eight bound men lying upon the deck, and these must first be released,
which was soon done.
Denman, lying prone with a small pool of blood near his head, was next
examined, and pronounced alive--he was breathing, but dazed and shocked;
for a large-caliber bullet glancing upon the skull has somewhat the same
effect as the blow of a cudgel. He opened his eyes as the men examined
them, and dimly heard what they said.
"Now," said Forsythe, when these preliminaries were concluded, "here we
are, miles at sea, with short store of oil, according to Riley, and a
short store of grub, according to Daniels. What's to be done? Hey? The
man who has bossed us so far hasn't seen this, and is now down in the
wardroom--knocked out by this brass-buttoned dudeling. What are you
going to do, hey?"
Forsythe flourished his pistols dramatically, and glared unspeakable
things at the "dudeling" on the deck.
"Well, Forsythe," said old Kelly, the gunner's mate, "you've pretended
to be a navigator. What do you say?"
"I say this," declared Forsythe: "I'm not a navigator, but I can be. But
I want it understood. There has got to be a leader--a commander. If you
fellows agree, I'll master the navigation and take this boat to the
African coast. But I want no half-way work; I want my orders to go, just
as I give them. Do you agree? You've gone wrong under Jenkins. Take your
choice."
"You're right, Forsythe," said Casey, the wireless man of the starboard
watch. "Jenkins is too easy--too careless. Take the job, I say."
"Do you all agree?" yelled Forsythe wildly in his excitement.
"Yes, yes," they acclaimed. "Take charge, and get us out o' these seas.
Who wants to be locked up?"
"All right," said Forsythe. "Then I'm the commander. Lift that baby down
to the skipper's room with the sick woman, and let them nurse each
other. Lift Jenkins out of the wardroom, and stow him in a forecastle
bunk. Riley, nurse your engines and save oil, but keep the dynamo going
for the wireless; and you, Casey, have you got that message cooked up?"
"I have. All I want is the latitude and longitude to send it from."
"I'll give it to you soon. Get busy, now, and do your share. I must
study a little."
The meeting adjourned. Denman, still dazed and with a splitting
headache, was assisted aft and below to the spare berth in the captain's
quarters, where he sank into unconsciousness with the moaning of the
stricken woman in his ears.
Casey went down to his partner and his instruments; Riley and King, with
their _confrères_ of the other watch, went down to the engines to "nurse
them"; and Forsythe, after Jenkins had been lifted out of the wardroom
and forward to a forecastle bunk, searched the bookshelves and the desks
of the officers, and, finding what he wanted, went forward to study.
He was apt; he was a high-school graduate who only needed to apply
himself to produce results. And Forsythe produced them. As he had
promised, he took a meridian observation that day, and in half an hour
announced the latitude--thirty-five degrees forty minutes north.
"Now, Casey," he called, after he had looked at a track chart. "Got your
fake message ready?"
"Only this," answered Casey, scanning a piece of paper. "Listen:
"Stolen destroyer bound north. Latitude so and so, longitude so and
so."
"That'll do, or anything like it. Send it from latitude forty north,
fifty-five west. That's up close to the corner of the Lanes, and if it's
caught up it'll keep 'em busy up there for a while."
"What's our longitude?"
"Don't know, and won't until I learn the method. But just north of us is
the west-to-east track of outbound low-power steamers, which, I take it,
means tramps and tankers. Well, we'll have good use for a tanker."
"You mean we're to hold up one for oil?"
"Of course, and for grub if we need it."
"Piracy, Forsythe."
"Have pirates got anything on us, now?" asked Forsythe. "What are we?
Mutineers, convicts, strong-arm men, thieves--or just simply pirates.
Off the deck with you, Casey, and keep your wires hot. Forty north,
forty-five west for a while, then we'll have it farther north."
Casey jotted down the figures, and departed to the wireless room, where,
at intervals through the day he sent out into the ether the radiating
waves, which, if picked up within fifty miles by a craft beyond the
horizon, might be relayed on.
The success of the scheme could not be learned by any tangible signs,
but for the next few days, while the boat lay with quiet engines and
Forsythe studied navigation, they remarked that they were not pursued or
noticed by passing craft.
And as the boat, with dead engines, rolled lazily in the long Atlantic
swell, while the men--all but Forsythe, the two cooks, and the two
wireless experts--lolled lazily about the deck, the three invalids of
the ship's company were convalescing in different degrees.
Jenkins, dumb and wheezy, lay prone in a forecastle bunk, trying to
wonder how it happened. His mental faculties, though apprising him that
he was alive, would hardly carry him to the point of wonder; for wonder
predicates imagination, and what little Jenkins was born with had been
shocked out of him.
Still he struggled, and puzzled and guessed, weakly, as to what had
happened to him, and when a committee from the loungers above visited
him, and asked what struck him, he could only point suggestively to his
throat, and wag his head. He could not even whisper; and so they left
him, pondering upon the profanely expressed opinion of old Kelly that it
was a "visitation from God."
The committee went aft to the skipper's quarters, and here loud talk and
profanity ceased; for there was a woman below, and, while these fellows
were not gentlemen--as the term is understood--they were men--bad men,
but men.
On the way down the stairs, Kelly struck, bare-handed, his watch mate
Hawkes for expressing an interest in the good looks of the woman; and
Sampson, a giant, like his namesake, smote old Kelly, hip and thigh, for
qualifying his strictures on the comment of Hawkes.
Thus corrected and enjoined, with caps in hand, they approached the open
door of the starboard room, where lay the injured woman in a berth,
fully clothed in her now dried garments, and her face still hidden in
Denman's bandage.
"Excuse me, madam," said Sampson, the present chairman of the committee,
"can we do anything for you?"
"I cannot see you," she answered, faintly. "I do not know where I am,
nor what will happen to me. But I am in need of attention. One man was
kind to me, but he has not returned. Who are you--you men?"
"We're the crew of the boat," answered Sampson, awkwardly. "The
skipper's forward, and I guess the man that was kind to you is our
prisoner. He's not on the job now, but--what can we do?"
"Tell me where I am, and where I am going. What boat is this? Who are
you?"
"Well, madam," broke in old Kelly, "we're a crowd o' jail-breakers that
stole a torpedo-boat destroyer, and put to sea. We got you off a burned
and sinking yacht, and you're here with us; but I'm blessed if I know
what we'll do with you. Our necks are in the halter, so to speak--or
rather, our hands and ankles are in irons for life, if we're caught.
You've got to make the best of it until we get caught, and if we don't,
you've got to make the best of it, too. Lots o' young men among us, and
you're no spring chicken, by the looks o' you."
Old Kelly went down before a fist blow from Hawkes, who thus strove to
rehabilitate himself in the good opinion of his mates, and Hawkes went
backward from a blow from Sampson, who, as yet unsullied from unworthy
thought, held his position as peacemaker and moralist. And while they
were recovering from the excitement, Denman, with blood on his face
from the wound in his scalp, appeared among them.
"Are you fellows utterly devoid of manhood and self-respect," he said,
sternly, "that you appear before the door of a sickroom and bait a woman
who cannot defend herself even by speech? Shame upon you! You have
crippled me, but I am recovering. If you cannot aid this woman, leave
her to me. She is burned, scalded, disfigured--she hardly knows her
name, or where she came from. You have saved her from the wreck, and
have since neglected her. Men, you are jailbirds as you say, but you are
American seamen. If you cannot help her, leave her. Do not insult her. I
am helpless; if I had power I would decree further relief from the
medicine-chest. But I am a prisoner--restricted."
Sampson squared his big shoulders. "On deck with you fellows--all of
you. Git--quick!"
They filed up the companion, leaving Sampson looking at Denman.
"Lieutenant," he said, "you take care o' this poor woman, and if any one
interferes, notify me. I'm as big a man as Jenkins, who's knocked out,
and a bigger man than Forsythe, who's now in command. But we're
fair--understand? We're fair--the most of us."
"Yes, yes," answered Denman, as he staggered back to a transom seat.
"Want anything yourself?" asked Sampson, as he noted the supine figure
of Denman. "You're still Lieutenant Denman, of the navy--understand?"
"No, I do not. Leave me alone."
Sampson followed his mates.
Denman sat a few moments, nursing his aching head and trying to adjust
himself to conditions. And as he sat there, he felt a hand on his
shoulder and heard a weak voice saying:
"Are you Lieutenant Denman--Billie Denman?"
He looked up. The bandaged face of the woman was above him. Out of the
folds of the bandage looked two serious, gray eyes; and he knew them.
"Florrie!" he said, in a choke. "Is this you--grown up? Florrie Fleming!
How--why--what brings you here?"
"I started on the trip, Billie," she said, calmly, "with father on a
friend's yacht bound for the Bermudas. We caught fire, and I was the
only one saved, it seems; but how are you here, subordinate to these
men? And you are injured, Billie--you are bleeding! What has happened?"
"The finger of Fate, Florrie, or the act of God," answered Denman, with
a painful smile. "We must have the conceit taken out of us on occasions,
you know. Forsythe, my schoolmate, is in command of this crowd of
jail-breakers and pirates."
"Forsythe--your conqueror?" She receded a step. "I had-- Do you know,
Mr. Denman, that you were my hero when I was a child, and that I never
forgave Jack Forsythe? I had hoped to hear--"
"Oh, I know," he interrupted, hotly, while his head throbbed anew with
the surge of emotion. "I know what you and the whole town expected.
But--well, I knocked him down on deck a short time back, and the
knockdown stands; but they would not allow a finish. Then he shot me
when I was not looking."
"I am glad," she answered, simply, "for your sake, and perhaps for my
own, for I, too, it seems, am in his power."
He answered her as he could, incoherently and meaninglessly, but she
went to her room and closed the door.