The Mutiny of the Elsinore Part 31

And yet most of them, in a week after we reach Seattle, will be on board other s.h.i.+ps outward bound for the Horn. Margaret says the reason for this is that sailors forget. Mr. Pike agrees. He says give them a week in the south-east trades as we run up the Pacific and they will have forgotten that they have ever been around the Horn. I wonder. Can they be as stupid as this? Does pain leave no record with them? Do they fear only the immediate thing? Have they no horizons wider than a day? Then indeed do they belong where they are.

They _are_ cowardly. This was shown conclusively this morning at two o'clock. Never have I witnessed such panic fear, and it was fear of the immediate thing--fear, stupid and beast-like. It was Mr. Mellaire's watch. As luck would have it, I was reading Boas's _Mind of Primitive Man_ when I heard the rush of feet over my head. The _Elsinore_ was hove to on the port tack at the time, under very short canvas. I was wondering what emergency had brought the watch upon the p.o.o.p, when I heard another rush of feet that meant the second watch. I heard no pulling and hauling, and the thought of mutiny flashed across my mind.

Still nothing happened, and, growing curious, I got into my sea-boots, sheepskin coat, and oilskin, put on my sou'wester and mittens, and went on deck. Mr. Pike had already dressed and was ahead of me. Captain West, who in this bad weather sleeps in the chart-room, stood in the lee doorway of the house, through which the lamplight streamed on the frightened faces of the men.

Those of the 'mids.h.i.+p-house were not present, but every man Jack of the forecastle, with the exception of Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs, as I afterwards learned, had joined in the flight aft. Andy Fay, who belonged in the watch below, had calmly remained in his bunk, while Mulligan Jacobs had taken advantage of the opportunity to sneak into the forecastle and fill his pipe.

"What is the matter, Mr. Pike?" Captain West asked.

Before the mate could reply, Bert Rhine snickered:

"The devil's come aboard, sir."

But his snicker was palpably an a.s.sumption of unconcern he did not possess. The more I think over it the more I am surprised that such keen men as the gangsters should have been frightened by what had occurred.

But frightened they were, the three of them, out of their bunks and out of the precious surcease of their brief watch below.

So fear-struck was Larry that he chattered and grimaced like an ape, and shouldered and struggled to get away from the dark and into the safety of the shaft of light that shone out of the chart-house. Tony, the Greek, was just as bad, mumbling to himself and continually crossing himself. He was joined in this, as a sort of chorus, by the two Italians, Guido Bombini and Mike Cipriani. Arthur Deacon was almost in collapse, and he and Chantz, the Jew, shamelessly clung to each other for support. Bob, the fat and overgrown youth, was sobbing, while the other youth, Bony the Splinter, was s.h.i.+vering and chattering his teeth. Yes, and the two best sailors for'ard, Tom Spink and the Maltese c.o.c.kney, stood in the background, their backs to the dark, their faces yearning toward the light.

More than all other contemptible things in this world there are two that I loathe and despise: hysteria in a woman; fear and cowardice in a man.

The first turns me to ice. I cannot sympathize with hysteria. The second turns my stomach. Cowardice in a man is to me positively nauseous. And this fear-smitten ma.s.s of human animals on our reeling p.o.o.p raised my gorge. Truly, had I been a G.o.d at that moment, I should have annihilated the whole ma.s.s of them. No; I should have been merciful to one. He was the Faun. His bright, pain-liquid, and flas.h.i.+ng-eager eyes strained from face to face with desire to understand. He did not know what had occurred, and, being stone-deaf, had thought the rush aft a response to a call for all hands.

I noticed Mr. Mellaire. He may be afraid of Mr. Pike, and he is a murderer; but at any rate he has no fear of the supernatural. With two men above him in authority, although it was his watch, there was no call for him to do anything. He swayed back and forth in balance to the violent motions of the _Elsinore_ and looked on with eyes that were amused and cynical.

"What does the devil look like, my man?" Captain West asked.

Bert Rhine grinned sheepishly.

"Answer the captain!" Mr. Pike snarled at him.

Oh, it was murder, sheer murder, that leapt into the gangster's eyes for the instant, in acknowledgment of the snarl. Then he replied to Captain West:

"I didn't wait to see, sir. But it's one whale of a devil."

"He's as big as a elephant, sir," volunteered Bill Quigley. "I seen'm face to face, sir. He almost got me when I run out of the fo'c's'le."

"Oh, Lord, sir!" Larry moaned. "The way he hit the house, sir. It was the call to Judgment."

"Your theology is mixed, my man," Captain West smiled quietly, though I could not help seeing how tired was his face and how tired were his wonderful Samurai eyes.

He turned to the mate.

"Mr. Pike, will you please go for'ard and interview this devil? Fasten him up and tie him down and I'll take a look at him in the morning."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Pike; and Kipling's line came to me:

"Woman, Man, or G.o.d or Devil, was there anything we feared?"

And as I went for'ard through the wall of darkness after Mr. Pike and Mr.

Mellaire along the freezing, slender, sea-swept bridge--not a sailor dared to accompany us--other lines of "The Galley Slave" drifted through my brain, such as:

"Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold-- We ran a mighty merchandise of n.i.g.g.e.rs in the hold. . . "

And:

"By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, By the welts the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal . . . "

And:

"Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled draughts of years gone by . . . "

And I caught my great, radiant vision of Mr. Pike, galley slave of the race, and a driver of men under men greater than he; the faithful henchman, the able sailorman, battered and grizzled, branded and galled, the servant of the sweep-head that made mastery of the sea. I know him now. He can never again offend me. I forgive him everything--the whiskey raw on his breath the day I came aboard at Baltimore, his moroseness when sea and wind do not favour, his savagery to the men, his snarl and his sneer.

On top the 'mids.h.i.+p-house we got a ducking that makes me s.h.i.+ver to recall. I had dressed too hastily properly to fasten my oilskin about my neck, so that I was wet to the skin. We crossed the next span of bridge through driving spray, and were well upon the top of the for'ard-house when something adrift on the deck hit the for'ard wall a terrific smash.

"Whatever it is, it's playing the devil," Mr. Pike yelled in my ear, as he endeavoured to locate the thing by the dry-battery light-stick which he carried.

The pencil of light travelled over dark water, white with foam, that churned upon the deck.

"There it goes!" Mr. Pike cried, as the _Elsinore_ dipped by the head and hurtled the water for'ard.

The light went out as the three of us caught holds and crouched to a deluge of water from overside. As we emerged, from under the forecastle- head we heard a tremendous thumping and battering. Then, as the bow lifted, for an instant in the pencil of light that immediately lost it, I glimpsed a vague black object that bounded down the inclined deck where no water was. What became of it we could not see.

Mr. Pike descended to the deck, followed by Mr. Mellaire. Again, as the _Elsinore_ dipped by the head and fetched a surge of sea-water from aft along the runway, I saw the dark object bound for'ard directly at the mates. They sprang to safety from its charge, the light went out, while another icy sea broke aboard.

For a time I could see nothing of the two men. Next, in the light flashed from the stick, I guessed that Mr. Pike was in pursuit of the thing. He evidently must have captured it at the rail against the starboard rigging and caught a turn around it with a loose end of rope.

As the vessel rolled to windward some sort of a struggle seemed to be going on. The second mate sprang to the mate's a.s.sistance, and, together, with more loose ends, they seemed to subdue the thing.

I descended to see. By the light-stick we made it out to be a large, barnacle-crusted cask.

"She's been afloat for forty years," was Mr. Pike's judgment. "Look at the size of the barnacles, and look at the whiskers."

"And it's full of something," said Mr. Mellaire. "Hope it isn't water."

I rashly lent a hand when they started to work the cask for'ard, between seas and taking advantage of the rolls and pitches, to the shelter under the forecastle-head. As a result, even through my mittens, I was cut by the sharp edges of broken sh.e.l.l.

"It's liquor of some sort," said the mate, "but we won't risk broaching it till morning."

"But where did it come from?" I asked.

"Over the side's the only place it could have come from." Mr. Pike played the light over it. "Look at it! It's been afloat for years and years."

"The stuff ought to be well-seasoned," commented Mr. Mellaire.

Leaving them to lash the cask securely, I stole along the deck to the forecastle and peered in. The men, in their headlong flight, had neglected to close the doors, and the place was afloat. In the flickering light from a small and very smoky sea-lamp it was a dismal picture. No self-respecting cave-man, I am sure, would have lived in such a hole.

Even as I looked a bursting sea filled the runway between the house and rail, and through the doorway in which I stood the freezing water rushed waist-deep. I had to hold on to escape being swept inside the room. From a top bunk, lying on his side, Andy Fay regarded me steadily with his bitter blue eyes. Seated on the rough table of heavy planks, his sea- booted feet swinging in the water, Mulligan Jacobs pulled at his pipe.

When he observed me he pointed to pulpy book-pages that floated about.

"Me library's gone to h.e.l.l," he mourned as he indicated the flotsam.