In the refuge of the captain’s room that distraught spinster, Miss
Hollister, was overcome by emotions almost hysterical. Her first
impressions of the _Fearless_ had been in the nature of a nervous shock
more severe than the episode of the shipwreck. Only the presence of
her niece restrained her from tears and lamentations. Nora Forbes,
the young person in question, was behaving with so much courage and
self-possession as to set her aunt a most excellent example.
“Oh, did you ever see anything so dreadful?” moaned Miss Hollister,
glancing at the captain’s shaving-glass and absently smoothing her gray
hair. “There was a dead negro stretched on deck, and a white man all
covered with blood, and the captain not in the least excited, actually
joking about it----”
Miss Nora Forbes artfully coaxed her aunt away from the bit of mirror
and proceeded to arrange her own disordered tresses as though this
were more important than damp skirts and wave-soaked stockings. With
hairpins twain between her pretty lips, she replied, and her accents
were by no means hopeless:
“It is just too tremendously romantic for words, Aunt Katharine. I am
not the least bit afraid. The captain may be a desperate villain, but
he carries himself like a rough-and-ready gentleman. This is a genuine
adventure, so cheer up and enjoy it.”
“But the scenes of violence--the crew of cutthroats--the bloodshed,”
unsteadily resumed Miss Hollister, unable to refrain from dabbing her
eyes with a handkerchief. “I don’t know what to say. My mind is a
blank. I can only pray----”
“I should advise unpacking that bag and getting out some clean
clothes,” suggested Nora. “There is no reason why we should look like a
pair of drowned frights. It is an upsetting experience, Aunt Katharine,
but life on shore is so tame!”
“I shall be content to be tame forevermore, Nora, if I am permitted to
survive this experience. I hope Gerald can persuade the captain to land
us at once.”
“They didn’t want to rescue us, so we must make ourselves as agreeable
as possible. I intend to be particularly nice to the captain.”
Miss Hollister was recalled to her duty as chaperone. Her manner was
reproving as she counselled:
“Be careful, Nora, you are a heedless girl at times and Gerald is very
sensitive. Our plight is too serious for jesting. Of course you must be
civil to the captain, but he is a perfectly impossible person. Gerald
will reward him for his trouble in our behalf. We are placing ourselves
under no obligations whatever.”
They were quite trim and fresh in dry clothes when the cook brought up
a tray laden with the best fare the ship’s stores could provide and a
pot of coffee black and hot enough to revive the most forlorn castaways
that ever floated.
“Th’ cap’n’s compliments,” said George, entering with a cake-walk
shuffle, “an’ he tells me to inform you that if th’ grub is burnt or
don’t taste right he’ll hang me up by mah thumbs an’ peel off mah
no-’count hide with a rope’s end.”
Miss Hollister appeared so ready to believe the worst that the rascally
George could not forbear to add:
“Of cou’se, I’se jes’ fillin’ in till th’ regular cook gits well. Mebbe
you seen him when you come aboard. He was all spraddled out. It mighty
near done for big Jiminez, I’se a-tellin’ you.”
“What happened to him?” breathlessly demanded Miss Hollister, her hands
clasped.
“He done fetch th’ cap’n a cup of cold coffee, ma’am.”
“How awful! And what was the matter with the white man in the khaki
uniform?”
“He tried to say a good word for th’ cook. And th’ cap’n done give him
_his_. This is a lively ship, ma’am.”
He could not help grinning as he turned to leave, and Nora Forbes
caught him in the act.
“You are an utterly shameless prevaricator,” cried she, “and I have a
notion to report you to the captain.”
“No need of it,” exclaimed O’Shea himself, who appeared in time to
grasp the luckless George by the neck and pitch him down the stairway
to the lower deck.
“He is a good cook, but his imagination is too strong for him at
times,” explained O’Shea as he stood in the door-way, declining Nora’s
invitation to enter. “The both of ye look as lovely as a May morning.
It agrees with you to be shipwrecked.”
Miss Hollister thawed a trifle, although she was strongly inclined to
accept the cook’s story as after the fact. But it was hard resisting
the blarneying sailor with the merry eyes.
“Is such severity necessary? I feel that I ought to protest--” she
began, spurred by the prompting of a New England conscience.
“And what was that slippery divil of a cook deludin’ ye about?”
The spinster mustered courage to explain. Captain O’Shea roared with
glee, and turning to Nora Forbes, as if recognizing a sympathetic
listener, exclaimed:
“Would ye know the truth about the big nigger? Then I will introduce
you to-morrow to the man that laid him out, and a better one never
stood on two feet than this same Jack Gorham, the melancholy
sharp-shooter who captures ’em alive with the butt of his gun.”
Afraid of delaying their meal, he made an abrupt bow and vanished on
deck. Presently Mr. Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen stood gloomily regarding
them. Nora made room for him on the cushioned locker and cheerily asked:
“How are you getting on with the assorted pirates? Are they a rum lot
and do they sing ‘Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest’?”
“I am not getting on at all,” sadly quoth he. “I have met only the
chief engineer and the captain, and I should call them a very rum lot
indeed. This is a floating mad-house. By Jove! I was never so angry in
my life.”
“I think I understand, Gerald,” soothingly observed Miss Hollister.
“But I am sure you can extricate us from this alarming situation. You
are a young man of courage and resources and the name of Van Steen
carries great weight everywhere.”
“This wild Irishman never heard of it,” said Gerald. “And when I talked
money he almost crawled across the table to assault me.”
“Then he refuses to put us on shore at once?” tremulously cried the
chaperon. “What do you mean, Gerald?”
“He doesn’t care a hang about us. I made no impression on him at all.
The more I argued the hotter he got. He intends to carry us about with
him until he has dumped his cargo of guns somewhere on the Cuban coast.
And then I presume he will make his way back to the United States, if
the tug isn’t sunk with all hands in the meantime.”
“But the captain can’t afford to let us interfere with his plans,”
protested Nora, who looked by no means so unhappy as the circumstances
warranted. “Do be reasonable, Gerald. Aunt Katharine and I are quite
comfortable.”
“I am not,” vehemently exclaimed young Mr. Van Steen. “The brute of a
skipper tells me I must sleep on two sacks of coal. Fancy that!”
“I am afraid you were not tactful,” was Nora’s mirthful comment.
“We are in the captain’s power,” sighed Miss Hollister.
“We are kidnapped. That’s what it amounts to,” strenuously affirmed Van
Steen.
Later in the afternoon the trio sought the railed space on the roof of
the deck-house, just behind the small bridge which was Captain O’Shea’s
particular domain. The mate had found two battered wooden chairs and
rigged an awning. Such consideration as this was bound to dull the
edge of Miss Hollister’s fears and she gazed about her with fluttering
interest and reviving animation. Through an open door they could
see Captain O’Shea standing beside the man at the wheel. He wore no
coat, his shirt-sleeves were rolled up and displayed his brown, sinewy
forearms, and a shapeless straw hat was pulled over his eyes. His
binoculars attentively swept the blue horizon ahead and abeam.
Presently he went on the bridge and searched the shimmering sea astern.
His demeanor was not so uneasy as vigilant and preoccupied. So long did
he stand in the one position with the glasses at his eyes that Gerald
Van Steen became curious and tried to descry whatever it was that had
attracted the captain’s notice. At length he was able to make out a
trailing wisp of brown vapor, like a bit of cloud, where sea and sky
met.
“There is some kind of a steamer astern of us,” said Van Steen to Nora
Forbes. “Perhaps it is a German or English mail-boat. If so, I can see
no objection to transferring us aboard.”
Captain O’Shea overheard the remark and called to them:
“No mail-steamer is due on this course. And it is not a cargo tramp or
she would not be steaming faster than we are.”
“Then what can it be?” asked Nora.
“I cannot tell ye, Miss Forbes, nor am I anxious at all to let her come
close enough to find out.”
On the lower deck the Cubans were flocking to the overhang or climbing
on the rail to gaze at the distant smoke astern. They talked excitedly,
with many gestures. Evidently here was an event of some importance.
Little by little the other steamer cut down the miles of intervening
space until her funnel was visible. The _Fearless_ had been making no
unusual effort to increase her own speed, but now Captain O’Shea said
a few words into the engine-room speaking-tube, and Johnny Kent came
trundling up from below, wiping his face with a bunch of waste.
The captain took him by the arm and imparted:
“I do not like the looks of her, Johnny; she is too fast to be healthy
for us. I got the word in New York that two of the _Almirante_ cruiser
class were coming out from Spain to join the blockadin’ fleet and make
it hot for our business. There is nothing on the coast that can do over
twelve knots, is there?”
“Only the _Julio Sanchez_, Cap’n Mike, and she’s laid up at Havana with
her boilers in awful shape. I suppose you want me to hook up and burn
my good coal.”
“I think this is a poor place to loaf in, Johnny. There was something
said about a reward of fifty thousand dollars to the Spanish navy
vessel that overhauled the _Fearless_ and sunk her at sea. Better crack
on steam and maybe we can lose that fellow yonder after nightfall.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n Mike, I’ll put the clamps on the safety-valves, and
take care not to look at the gauges. I’ll need more help below.”
“Grab the deck-hands. Get to it.”
“And I was just crawlin’ into my bunk to finish the most excitin’ novel
you ever read,” mourned Johnny Kent as he footed it down the ladder.
“It’s all about adventures. The situations are hair-raisin’, Cap’n
Mike.”
Young Mr. Van Steen had edged within ear-shot so that he heard part
of this dialogue. Returning to the ladies, he thrust his hands in
his pockets and tried to hide his perturbation. Nora questioned him
eagerly, and he answered with a shrug and a laugh:
“We’re going to have a race with the steamer behind us. I imagine they
told a few whoppers for my benefit. The chief engineer remarked in the
most casual way that he intended to put clamps on the safety-valves.
That is absurd, of course. The boilers might blow up.”
“I am inclined to think he meant it,” said Nora, who was looking at
Captain O’Shea. “This is not a yachting cruise, Gerald.”
“But if the silly old ass of an engineer really meant it, and we are
pursued by a hostile man-of-war,” stubbornly persisted Van Steen, “why
did he talk about wanting to finish a novel because it was full of
exciting adventures? Isn’t this exciting enough?”
“You are stupid,” impatiently exclaimed Nora. “These extraordinary men
can’t see that they are living the most thrilling adventures. It is all
in the day’s work with them. I am going to ask Captain O’Shea to tell
me the truth.”
Her aunt objected, but with no great spirit. Her poor, tired brain
was bewildered by this new turn of events. She had begun to hope to
survive the voyage, but now she was beset by fresh alarms, fantastic
and incredible. Imminent danger menaced the lawless tug. It could be
felt in the buzzing excitement which pervaded the crowded decks. The
only calm place was the bridge, where Captain O’Shea walked steadily to
and fro, six paces to port and six paces to starboard, a ragged cigar
between his teeth. Already the hull was vibrating to the increasing
speed of the engines and the smoke gushed thick and black from the hot
funnel.
Nora Forbes had mounted the bridge before Van Steen could make angry
protest. Clinging to the canvas-screened rail, she paused to catch a
bird’s-eye glimpse of the swarming decks which spread beneath her from
the sheering bow to the overhang that seemed level with the following
seas. Captain O’Shea snatched a coat from the wheel-house and flung it
over the girl’s head and shoulders, for the red cinders were pelting
down from the funnel-top like hail. For the life of him he could not
keep the caressing note out of his pleasant voice when he was talking
to a pretty woman.
“’Tis a bright day and a fine breeze, Miss Forbes, and the old
_Fearless_ is poundin’ through it at thirteen knots. Are ye enjoying
yourself?”
“Every minute of it,” she replied, and the joy of living made her cheek
glow. “Are you really afraid of that steamer behind us? Mr. Van Steen
thought you were joking with the chief engineer. Really you can be
frank with me. I promise not to make a scene.”
He regarded her rather wistfully for an instant, felt unusually
hesitant, and told her the truth because he could not bring himself to
tell her anything else.
“If it is a Spanish cruiser yonder, as I mistrust, she may make short
work of us. But she has to catch us first. And if I was easy to catch
I would not be here at all. Sooner than risk a hair of your head, Miss
Forbes, I would give up meself and my ship. But a man’s duty comes
first.”
“You are not to give me--to give us, one thought,” she warmly assured
him, and her head was held high. “Thank you for being honest with me,
Captain O’Shea. Do you wish us to stay on deck?”
Perplexed and unhappy, he answered:
“There is no safe place to stow you if the Spaniard gets within
shooting range. The hold is full of cartridges and dynamite and such
skittish truck.”
The steamer astern was still slowly gaining on the _Fearless_. Her
forward mast was now discernible, and the tiny ring around it was
unmistakably a fighting-top. If the vessel belonged to any other
navy than that of Spain, she would be jogging along at a cruising
gait, instead of crowding in chase with a reckless consumption of
coal. Captain O’Shea ran below to see how matters fared in the sooty,
stifling kingdom of Johnny Kent. The _Fearless_ could not turn and
fight. All hopes of safety were bound up in those clanking, throbbing,
shining engines, in the hissing boilers, in the gang of half-naked,
grimy men who fed the raging furnaces and wielded the glowing
slice-bars and shifted the coal from the cavernous bunkers.
The quivering needles of the gauges already recorded more steam than
the law allowed, and they were creeping higher pound by pound. The
heat in the fire-room was so intense that the men had to be relieved
at brief intervals. There was no forced ventilation, and the wind was
following the ship. The deck-hands, unaccustomed to grilling alive,
stood to it pluckily until they collapsed and were hauled out by the
head and the heels. Back and forth, between the engine-room and this
inferno, waddled Johnny Kent, raining perspiration, an oil-can in one
hand, a heavy wrench in the other, and with the latter he smote such
faint-hearted wights as would falter while there was strength in them.
“Hello, Cap’n Mike,” he roared as the skipper sidled into the
engine-room. “Is the other vessel still gainin’ on us, and what does
she look like?”
“She looks like trouble, Johnny. We are doing better. How are things
with you?”
“I need a couple of husky men. No use sendin’ me those limpsy patriots.”
“I will look for them, Johnny. Will your boilers hold together? Can you
get any more out of her?”
“Of course I can. She’s licensed to carry a hundred and eighty pounds,
and I aim to push her to two hundred and fifty.”
Captain O’Shea hastened on deck, glanced forward and aft, and grinned
as he caught sight of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. To this pampered
young man he shouted:
“You are a well-built lad. Jump below, if you please, and the chief
will introduce ye to a shovel.”
“But I don’t want a shovel. I refuse to go below,” haughtily replied
Van Steen. “It has occurred to me that if you will quit this silly race
and let the other steamer come within signalling distance I can explain
the case to her commander, and he will be glad to take us on board. Van
Steen & Van Steen have influential banking connections with the Spanish
government.”
“’Tis no time to deliver orations,” swiftly spake O’Shea. “The other
steamer will shoot first and explain afterward. Come along and work
your passage.”
“Do not resist, Gerald,” quavered Miss Hollister.
“Be a good sport and play the game,” slangily advised Nora Forbes.
Captain O’Shea did not appear to use violence. He seemed to propel Van
Steen with a careless wave of the arm, and the indignant young man
moved rapidly in the direction of the stoke-hole ladder. Johnny Kent
pounced on him with profane jubilation, instantly stripped him of coat
and shirt, and shot him in to join the panting toilers. There was a
plucky streak in this victim of circumstances, and he perceived that he
must take his medicine. The fire-room gang was reinforced by a strong
pair of arms, a stout back, and the stubborn endurance of the Dutch.
The afternoon was gone and the sun had slid under the lovely western
sea. The Spanish cruiser was spurting desperately to overtake her
quarry before darkness. The speed of the quivering, clangorous
_Fearless_ had crept up to a shade better than fifteen knots. The
cruiser was in poor trim to show what she could do. Captain O’Shea knew
the rated speed of every craft on the Spanish naval list and if his
surmise was correct this particular cruiser should be doing eighteen
knots. But he knew also that a foul bottom, slovenly discipline, and
inferior coal counted against her, and that he had a fighting chance of
escape.
It was immensely trying to watch and wait. Of all the company on deck
that stood and stared at the small outline of the cruiser etched
against the shining sea, only Captain O’Shea realized that this was
the grimmest kind of a life-and-death tussle. He was your thoroughbred
gambler who comprehends the odds and accepts them, but he was sorry for
his crew, and much more so for the two women who were in his charge.
The chaperon had retired to her room in the grip of an acute nervous
headache. She was mercifully unable to understand that tragedy moved
on the face of the waters, that whether or not the _Fearless_ was to
be obliterated depended on a certain number of engine revolutions per
minute.
The cook had prepared supper, observing to himself as he rattled his
pans:
“If we all is due to git bumped to glory, I reckon we’ll take it more
cheerful with a square meal under our briskets.”
He dutifully bore a tray to the captain’s room, but Miss Hollister had
no appetite, and he betook himself to the bridge, where Nora Forbes was
standing beside the captain.
“Set the supper on the chart-locker in the wheel-house, George,” said
O’Shea. “The young lady will not be wanting to go into her room and
miss any of the show.”
In her twenty years Nora Forbes had never lived as intensely as
now. The blood of an adventurous ancestry was in her veins. She was
thrilled, but not afraid. More than she was aware, the dominating
personality of Captain O’Shea was influencing and attracting her.
Unconsciously she was sharing his simple, clear-eyed courage, which
accepted things as he found them. There was singular comfort in
standing beside him. They lingered for a moment in the wheel-house,
where the tall young mate gripped the spokes, his eyes fixed on the
swaying compass-card in the binnacle.
“You have never filibustered before, I take it, Miss Forbes,” said
Captain O’Shea, “but ye are as cool as an old hand.”
“I never dreamed that men were living such lives as this nowadays,” she
replied. “Tell me, do you----”
Down the wind came the report of a heavy gun. O’Shea leaped to the
bridge and the girl followed, her heart throbbing with a sudden,
sickening fear. Twilight was shutting down. The first star gleamed in
the pale sky, but a curious after-glow lingered to flood the sea with
tremulous illumination. The cruiser showed like a gray shadow, a vague
blur, from which shot a second flash of red. Again the boom of her gun
was heard on the _Fearless_, and this time the steel shell kicked up a
water-spout far off to starboard.
“Johnny Kent has lost distance in the last half hour,” muttered the
skipper. “His men can’t stand the pace.”
“What does it mean?” implored Nora, and she caught her breath with a
sob. “Are they really and truly trying to kill us?”
“Those are the intentions, but the shooting is pretty bad, Miss Forbes.
I will bet ye ten to one they do not hit us.”
Unwittingly she moved closer to him. Her hand was upon the rail and he
covered it with his hard palm. At the firm, warm contact her fortitude
returned. His tremendous vitality was like an electric current. She
smiled up at him gratefully, and he said in a big, friendly way, to put
her at ease:
“’Tis good to have somebody to hang onto in a tight pinch, isn’t it?
Look! There he goes again! A better shot. It struck the water within
two hundred yards of us. If he keeps on improvin’ his target practice,
I may lose me bet.”
Nora was silent. She could think of nothing to say as she stared at the
darkening horizon and the flashes of the cruiser’s guns. The after-glow
died, and night marched swiftly across the tropic sea. It curtained
the cruiser and obscured the _Fearless_. Johnny Kent had won in the
first act of the drama.
Every light on board the tug was extinguished, and the word was carried
below to close the draughts and slacken the fires in order to show no
sparks from the funnel. The _Fearless_ swerved sharply from her course
and ran straight away from the Cuban coast, heading to the southward
across the Caribbean. To follow her was a game of blind-man’s-buff, and
Captain O’Shea knew every trick of shaking off pursuit.
Nora had withdrawn her imprisoned hand with a self-conscious little
start. Already the episode of the chase seemed unreal, theatrical.
It would not have surprised her if the picturesque Cubans had burst
into a light-opera chorus. She hastened to tell her aunt the good
news, and presently there came staggering up from the lower deck the
wreck of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. The merciful night hid his grime
and tatters. Leaning against the bulkhead of the tiny passageway, he
addressed the invisible ladies in the state-room. His voice was husky
and cracked, but, singularly enough, all its petulance had fled.
“It was simply great,” he exclaimed. “We shovelled coal like drunken
devils, and between-times they dragged us on deck and turned the hose
on us. My word, it was a sporty game, and we won. I am bruises from
head to foot, but what’s the odds?”
Nora was instantly contrite. Here was an unexpected hero, whom she had
shamefully forgotten.
“You poor Gerald! Tell us all about it.”
He felt proud of himself. Nora shared the feeling, and yet her behavior
lacked the warmth to be expected of a girl whose engagement to Gerald
Van Steen had been a notable society event on Fifth Avenue. Wayward and
shocking it was, no doubt, but she knew that she would rather talk to
the rude and unregenerate Captain Michael O’Shea.
She let Gerald tell her of the great fight for more speed down among
the roaring furnaces, of the fainting men, the straining boilers, the
furiously driven engines, and of the bullying, cursing, jesting Johnny
Kent who held the men and the machines unfalteringly to their work.
“He is an awful brute,” said Van Steen, rubbing a welt on his shoulder,
“but he has pluck--no end of it. A steam-pipe leading to a pump or
something burst and scalded him, but he didn’t let up at all, and
threatened us with more kinds of death and damnation than ever.”
“He must be suffering dreadfully,” exclaimed the ardently sympathetic
Nora. “I thought he looked so good-natured and jolly and easy-going.”
“You are a poor hand at reading character,” was the earnest comment.
“Were you anxious about me, Nora?”
“Yes, I suppose so. It was so exciting on deck that I couldn’t think of
anything else but that wicked Spanish cruiser.”
“Where were you all the time?”
“On the bridge with Captain O’Shea.”
“The deuce you were! I don’t like him at all, Nora. He is not the sort
you should have anything to do with.”
“I can’t very well help meeting him now and then, Gerald. Don’t be a
goose. Tell me some more about your adventures with a shovel.”
Van Steen was ruffled and became a sulky companion. Nora let him kiss
her good-night, and he wearily descended to find a resting-place on the
open deck. She found her aunt awake and told her of the heroic conduct
of the scalded chief engineer. The stamp of Van Steen’s approval was
apt to color the mental attitude of Miss Hollister and she exclaimed in
an animated manner:
“Does Gerald really believe that this Mr. Kent is such a fine
character, a diamond in the rough?”
“Gerald certainly respects him, although he does not love him, Aunt
Katharine.”
“Then I hope to meet Mr. Kent in the morning, Nora. I am given to
understand that he saved our lives, but I can’t realize that the
cruiser was actually shooting at us with deadly intent.”
Miss Hollister was a woman of a certain kind of determination whenever
duty was concerned. And because she had misjudged the chief engineer,
it was her duty to make amends. After breakfast she asked Van Steen if
she might safely go to the lower deck and look into the engine-room.
“You are coming on remarkably well,” said he. “Aren’t you afraid of the
brutes?”
“I wish to thank our preserver and to inspect the ship,” she calmly
answered.
“Very well. Will you come along, Nora?”
“Thanks, Gerald, but Captain O’Shea wants to show me the chart of this
coast and of the bay where he will try to land the cargo.”
“Hang Captain O’Shea; he is making a confounded nuisance of himself,”
muttered Van Steen as he reluctantly departed with Miss Hollister. They
passed among the lounging patriots and came upon their leader, Colonel
Calvo, whom the flight from the cruiser had frightened, not out of his
boots, but into them. As a cure for sea-sickness he had found the boom
of an eight-inch gun extremely efficacious. He flourished his hat with
flamboyant gallantry and bowed low as he addressed Miss Hollister.
“Ah, ha, Señora! To behol’ you is a pleasure for me an’ my braves’ of
soldiers. Yesterday we was ready to fight the ship of Spain, to defen’
the ladies with our lives.”
The dignified spinster looked confused. She resented the bold stare of
the colonel’s black eyes and the smirking smile. With a stiff little
nod she grasped Gerald’s arm and told him, as they moved to another
part of the deck:
“I hate that man. Is he really a brave officer?”
“Not yet, but perhaps, Miss Hollister. We shall have to ask Johnny Kent
about him.”
Pausing at the engine-room door, they found an assistant on duty. To
their inquiry he replied:
“The chief is in his bunk, all bandaged up and using language. His arm
and chest were blistered bad.”
“I should like very much to do something for him,” timidly answered
Miss Hollister. “Who is attending him?”
“The Cuban doctor has a medicine chest, ma’am, and we all try to soothe
him. But he cusses us out and throws things at us.”
“I will look in his room and leave a message for you, Miss Hollister,”
said Gerald.
“He must be in great distress. And I am sure he is not getting proper
care,” she murmured.
Van Steen cautiously advanced to an open door beyond the engine-room,
Miss Hollister hovering in the background. No sooner had the sufferer
in the bunk caught sight of the young man than his big voice roared:
“Come to gloat, have you? I suppose you’re glad to see me on my beam
ends after the awful way I abused you. Get to hell out of here.”
“Miss Hollister came below to express her sympathy,” began Van Steen,
ready to dodge a water-bottle that stood beside the bunk.
“Holy mackerel! The lovely lady with the gray hair?” blurted Johnny
Kent, his face redder than ordinary. “Did she, honestly? Is she out
there? Did she hear me slip that cuss-word?”
“I am afraid so. Do you want to apologize? She accepts my statement
that you are a grand man in an emergency.”
“Fetch her in. No, wait a minute. Straighten out the bedclothes and
see that my nightie is buttoned clear up to the neck. This is the
da-darnedest thing that ever happened to me.”
It was also an unprecedented experience for Miss Katharine Hollister,
but one could not live twenty-four hours on board the _Fearless_
without losing one’s grip on conventions, even though they were made
in New England. She halted at the brass-bound threshold of the little
room, and peered curiously at the recumbent figure of the chief
engineer with his gray mustache and mop of grizzled hair.
“Come in and take the chair by my desk, ma’am. What on earth made you
want to see me?” was his hearty greeting.
She remained standing, and confessed, hesitating nervously:
“I formed such a shocking opinion of you when I first saw you--I
thought you had killed that negro--and when Mr. Van Steen told me how
you had toiled and suffered to save the ship--and were in pain--I knew
my judgment was mistaken--and that it was my duty----”
“Forget it, ma’am,” and Johnny Kent waved a bandaged fist. “We ain’t
pretty to look at, and our manners are violent, but when you talk about
duty, I guess you and I believe in the same gospel.”
His gaze was so honestly, respectfully worshipful that Miss Hollister
was conscious of an agreeable sensation. She was a woman, and a
charming one, but at fifty years she no longer dreamed of masculine
homage.
“Were you severely injured, Mr. Kent?”
“Not half as much as those poor old boilers. I’m afraid to guess how
many tubes are leaky. I’ll quit sputterin’ and losin’ my temper when we
get those Cubans and guns ashore.”
“Their leader does not seem very capable,” ventured Miss Hollister. “I
was not at all favorably impressed with him when he spoke to me just
now.”
“Did that sea-sick tin soldier annoy you, ma’am?” heatedly ejaculated
Johnny Kent as he raised himself on his elbow and fixed a glittering
eye on a holster which hung on the wall. “I’ll surge out of here and
learn him a lesson that will do him a whole lot of good.”
“No more violence, I beg of you,” implored the spinster, dismayed and
yet enjoyably thrilled. “I should not have mentioned it. If there is
anything that can be done to make you more comfortable----”
“Pshaw, I’ll be up and doing before we try to make a landing, ma’am.
Your droppin’ in to see me has made me chirk up. Blessed if it don’t
make this hole of a room seem kind of sweetened and lit up and
sanctified.”
Miss Hollister colored and concluded that she had stayed quite long
enough. With a gracious word of farewell, she hastened to the upper
deck. Nora Forbes had found a new companion, a lean, sandy man in faded
khaki whose sad, freckled face had a noticeable pallor and whose head
was wound about with a white bandage. He sat with his back propped
against a boat in the shade of the awning, and Nora announced to her
aunt:
“I want you to know Mr. Jack Gorham. He is the man who conquered that
giant of a negro. Captain O’Shea says it was one of the finest things
he ever saw.”
Gorham, a modest, shrinking soul, looked acutely uncomfortable and
protested:
“I had to get him. He fetched me a couple of clips, but I feel pretty
spry. I’ll be ready to hop ashore and perforate them Spanish officers
at a thousand per.”
Oddly enough, Miss Hollister was no longer terrified by the presence
of these men of war. Since meeting Johnny Kent she had suffered a
sea-change. In the face of the veteran soldier she was able to read
that same quality of respectful admiration. She had been vouchsafed
a glimpse of the real spirit of this singular voyage. It was pure
romance, reincarnated from the age when the world was young. She had
been permitted to sail with men who were living an Odyssey, a saga, but
they knew it not. She thought of Johnny Kent in his bunk, and now she
looked at Jack Gorham, commonplace, unlettered, uncouth, and listened
while Nora repeated the story of the fight with Jiminez. The soldier
wriggled uneasily. His embarrassment was painful. When questioned he
could only repeat:
“Well, I just had to get him. That’s all there was to it.”
“But you did not have to risk your life,” persisted Nora. “Captain
O’Shea was ready with his whole crew to overpower the man.”
“The captain wanted to tackle him, but of course I couldn’t stand for
that,” patiently explained Gorham.
“_Why_ did you do it?” asked Miss Hollister.
“I guess it was what you might call a question of duty,” he drawled.
“I have heard nothing else,” was the spinster’s wondering comment. “And
yet you are all breaking the laws of your country. My standards of
right and wrong seem all topsy-turvy.”
“You sure did land in queer company this time,” seriously affirmed
Gorham.
Miss Hollister’s excursion into the debatable ground of conduct and
ethics as applied to buccaneering in the Caribbean was interrupted by
Captain O’Shea, who was in a mood of brisk action and curt speech.
Paying no attention to the ladies, he halted in front of Gorham to say:
“We shall try to put the stuff ashore to-night. Will ye be fit to land
with the Cubans, or will I carry you back home with me?”
“Of course, I’ll land, sir. The nigger didn’t cut me deep,” was the
dogged response. “What’s the programme?”
“The cargo will be hoisted out of the hold this afternoon, convenient
for droppin’ into the boats. If you are able, will ye stand by to boss
a gang of Cubans? Ye need not bear a hand yourself. Just talk to them
and make signs with the butt end of that old Springfield.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll manage to keep them busy.”
The news ran through the ship. By noon the patriots were seething with
excitement. They were about to set foot on the beloved soil of Cuba,
to be quit of the hateful, perfidious ocean. They became incredibly
valiant. These forty men would face a Spanish army. They talked of
marching to attack fortified cities. Magically revived, they scoured
the rust from their weapons and brandished them with melodramatic
gesticulation. They sang the battle-hymns of the revolution and wept
at sight of the blue, misty mountain range of the distant coast. Jack
Gorham regarded them critically.
One gang of Cubans went into the hold and another was stationed on
deck. The heavy cases of rifles and cartridges were passed up through
the hatchways and piled along the rail. Captain O’Shea sauntered hither
and yon, once halting to remark in chiding accents:
“Better not bang those square boxes about so free and careless. ’Tis
nitro-glycerine for making dynamite ashore.”
“I’ll land it myself,” said Gorham. “It will come in handy for blowin’
up Spanish troop-trains.”
Toward nightfall the _Fearless_ reduced speed and loafed along over a
smooth sea at a distance of perhaps thirty miles from the coast. The
crisis of the voyage had come. O’Shea must run his ship into a trap and
get her out again.
As soon as darkness was at hand the _Fearless_ began the final dash
for the coast. Johnny Kent had crawled from his bunk and wearily set
himself down in the engine-room doorway to await orders.
“If anything goes wrong to-night, it’ll happen all of a sudden,” he
grumbled to his first assistant. “Takin’ chances of getting bottled up
in a bay don’t please me a mite.”
“There is nothing in sight, chief. It looks like an easy landing. The
skipper knows his business.”
“But it would be just our fool luck to run into trouble with these two
ladies aboard. Women complicate every game they draw cards in. But that
Miss Hollister is certainly a queen, ain’t she, Jim?”
“She’s old enough to be my mother,” ungallantly observed the youthful
assistant.
“And I’m ’most old enough to be your grand-daddy, you godless,
disrespectful sculpin,” was the angry retort of Johnny Kent. “And I’m
man enough to break you in two across my knees.”
The rash young man wisely held his tongue, and the chief engineer
murmured to the world at large:
“Refinement and culture do make a heap of difference in folks. Now, if
I had chased after refinement and culture when I was young, instead of
incessantly pursuin’ rum, riot, and rebellion on the high seas--but
what’s the use?”
Thereupon this pensive pirate turned to survey his chanting engines
and wondered what the night might bring forth. The _Fearless_
maintained an even gait until the coast was no more than five miles
distant. Then she drifted idly while Captain O’Shea swept the horizon
with his night-glasses. His eyes and ears were acutely alert, but there
was neither sight nor sound of Spanish blockading craft cruising to
intercept him. Astern were piled six large flat-bottomed surf-boats, in
nests, as fishermen’s dories are carried. These were now launched and
towed, ready to be ranged alongside and filled with cargo.
The forty Cubans conversed in hushed tones. Every man had knapsack,
blanket-roll, canteen, and loaded rifle. The _Fearless_ again picked up
full speed and moved straight for the coast. Soon the mountains loomed
like gigantic shadows blotting out the stars. It was a bold, sheer
coast, indented here and there by small bays into which the rivers
flowed from the passes and valleys. It was in a certain one of these
bays that Captain O’Shea had been told by the Junta to beach his cargo.
A force of Cubans led by General Maximo Gomez himself would be waiting
to receive the munitions. As had been arranged, the _Fearless_ now
showed a white mast-head light above a red. Captain O’Shea looked at
his watch. Three minutes later his signal-lights flashed again. In the
gloom of the mountain-side, a white light winked above a red.
“That looks good to me,” said O’Shea to the mate. “If there was
anything wrong, the answering signal would warn us to keep clear. But I
do not like this messin’ around in a bay. Give me the open coast and
plenty of sea-room.”
The _Fearless_ had come so near the entrance of the bay that the
shadowy headlands on either side were dimly discernible from the
bridge. The speed of the tug diminished until she was cautiously moving
ahead with no more than steerage-way.
The silence was intense. No one spoke above a whisper. The engines were
turning over so slowly that their rhythmic clamor was no more than a
faint, muffled throb, like the pulse-beat of the ship. Warily she slid
into the quiet bay and made ready to drop anchor off a strip of white
beach. The surf-boats were hauled alongside and the cargo began to
tumble into them. It looked as though this game of filibustering might
not be so hazardous as reputed. The seamen were in the boats, detailed
to handle the oars and put the Cubans and the cargo ashore.
The deep-laden flotilla had not quit the _Fearless_ for the first trip
to the beach when the vigilant skipper fancied he saw a shadow steal
from behind a headland at the mouth of the bay. For a long moment he
ceased to breathe, while his gaze followed the illusive shadow which he
was not sure that he could distinguish from the darkened sea.
Then one or two sparks gleamed like fire-flies and were gone. This was
enough. Captain O’Shea instantly concluded that the sparks had dropped
from a steamer’s funnel. He was caught inside the bay. Perhaps the
steamer would pass without sighting the _Fearless_. But the shadow
halted midway between the headlands, and O’Shea cursed the treachery
which he presumed had betrayed his destination. The snare had been
cleverly set for him. The Cuban force in the mountains had failed to
detect this Spanish vessel or they would not have signalled him that
the coast was clear.
O’Shea had to make his choice. He could abandon his ship and flee
with his crew and passengers to the beach and the jungle, or he could
turn and try to smash his way out to sea. The thought of deserting
the _Fearless_ was so intolerable that he made his decision without
hesitating. Summoning the mate and Johnny Kent, he spoke hurriedly.
“’Tis bottled up we are. Look yonder and ye can see for yourself. Call
the men aboard and cut the boats adrift. Give it to her, Johnny, and
hold on tight. There may be the divil and all of a bump.”
“Goin’ to run her down?” asked the chief engineer.
“If she doesn’t get out of my way. ’Tis a small gun-boat most likely.”