Michael, Brother of Jerry Part 10

"There's no getting away from them rings he wears," Daughtry overheard Simon Nis.h.i.+kanta that evening telling Grimshaw in the dark on the weather p.o.o.p. "You don't see that kind nowadays. They're old, real old. They're not men's rings so much as what you'd call, in the old-fas.h.i.+oned days, gentlemen's rings. Real gentlemen, I mean, grand gentlemen, wore rings like them. I wish collateral like them came into my loan offices these days. They're worth big money."

"I just want to tell you, Killeny Boy, that maybe I'll be wis.h.i.+n' before the voyage is over that I'd gone on a lay of the treasure instead of straight wages," Dag Daughtry confided to Michael that night at turning- in time as Kwaque removed his shoes and as he paused midway in the draining of his sixth bottle. "Take it from me, Killeny, that old gentleman knows what he's talkin' about, an' has been some hummer in his days. Men don't lose the fingers off their hands and get their faces chopped open just for nothing--nor sport rings that makes a Jew p.a.w.nbroker's mouth water."

CHAPTER XI

Before the voyage of the _Mary Turner_ came to an end, Dag Daughtry, sitting down between the rows of water-casks in the main-hold, with a great laugh rechristened the schooner "the s.h.i.+p of Fools." But that was some weeks after. In the meantime he so fulfilled his duties that not even Captain Doane could conjure a shadow of complaint.

Especially did the steward attend upon the Ancient Mariner, for whom he had come to conceive a strong admiration, if not affection. The old fellow was different from his cabin-mates. They were money-lovers; everything in them had narrowed down to the pursuit of dollars. Daughtry, himself moulded on generously careless lines, could not but appreciate the s.p.a.ciousness of the Ancient Mariner, who had evidently lived s.p.a.ciously and who was ever for sharing the treasure they sought.

"You'll get your whack, steward, if it comes out of my share," he frequently a.s.sured Daughtry at times of special kindness on the latter's part. "There's oodles of it, and oodles of it, and, without kith or kin, I have so little time longer to live that I shall not need it much or much of it."

And so the s.h.i.+p of Fools sailed on, all aft fooling and befouling, from the guileless-eyed, gentle-souled Finnish mate, who, with the scent of treasure pungent in his nostrils, with a duplicate key stole the s.h.i.+p's daily position from Captain Doane's locked desk, to Ah Moy, the cook, who kept Kwaque at a distance and never whispered warning to the others of the risk they ran from continual contact with the carrier of the terrible disease.

Kwaque himself had neither thought nor worry of the matter. He knew the thing as a thing that occasionally happened to human creatures. It bothered him, from the pain standpoint, scarcely at all, and it never entered his kinky head that his master did not know about it. For the same reason he never suspected why Ah Moy kept him so at a distance. Nor had Kwaque other worries. His G.o.d, over all G.o.ds of sea and jungle, he wors.h.i.+pped, and, himself ever intimately allowed in the presence, paradise was wherever he and his G.o.d, the steward, might be.

And so Michael. Much in the same way that Kwaque loved and wors.h.i.+pped did he love and wors.h.i.+p the six-quart man. To Michael and Kwaque, the daily, even hourly, recognition and consideration of Dag Daughtry was tantamount to resting continuously in the bosom of Abraham. The G.o.d of Messrs. Doane, Nis.h.i.+kanta, and Grimshaw was a graven G.o.d whose name was Gold. The G.o.d of Kwaque and Michael was a living G.o.d, whose voice could be always heard, whose arms could be always warm, the pulse of whose heart could be always felt throbbing in a myriad acts and touches.

No greater joy was Michael's than to sit by the hour with Steward and sing with him all songs and tunes he sang or hummed. With a quant.i.ty or pitch even more of genius or unusualness in him than in Jerry, Michael learned more quickly, and since the way of his education was singing, he came to sing far beyond the best Villa Kennan ever taught Jerry.

Michael could howl, or sing, rather (because his howling was so mellow and so controlled), any air that was not beyond his register that Steward elected to sing with him. In addition, he could sing by himself, and unmistakably, such simple airs as "Home, Sweet Home," "G.o.d save the King," and "The Sweet By and By." Even alone, prompted by Steward a score of feet away from him, could he lift up his muzzle and sing "Shenandoah" and "Roll me down to Rio."

Kwaque, on stolen occasions when Steward was not around, would get out his Jews' harp and by the sheer compellingness of the primitive instrument make Michael sing with him the barbaric and devil-devil rhythms of King William Island. Another master of song, but one in whom Michael delighted, came to rule over him. This master's name was c.o.c.ky.

He so introduced himself to Michael at their first meeting.

"c.o.c.ky," he said bravely, without a quiver of fear or flight, when Michael had charged upon him at sight to destroy him. And the human voice, the voice of a G.o.d, issuing from the throat of the tiny, snow-white bird, had made Michael go back on his haunches, while, with eyes and nostrils, he quested the steerage for the human who had spoken.

And there was no human . . . only a small c.o.c.katoo that twisted his head impudently and sidewise at him and repeated, "c.o.c.ky."

The taboo of the chicken Michael had been well taught in his earliest days at Meringe. Chickens, esteemed by _Mister_ Haggin and his white-G.o.d fellows, were things that dogs must even defend instead of ever attack.

But this thing, itself no chicken, with the seeming of a wild feathered thing of the jungle that was fair game for any dog, talked to him with the voice of a G.o.d.

"Get off your foot," it commanded so peremptorily, so humanly, as again to startle Michael and made him quest about the steerage for the G.o.d-throat that had uttered it.

"Get off your foot, or I'll throw the leg of Moses at you," was the next command from the tiny feathered thing.

After that came a farrago of Chinese, so like the voice of Ah Moy, that again, though for the last time, Michael sought about the steerage for the utterer.

At this c.o.c.ky burst into such wild and fantastic shrieks of laughter that Michael, ears p.r.i.c.ked, head c.o.c.ked to one side, identified in the fibres of the laughter the fibres of the various voices he had just previously heard.

And c.o.c.ky, only a few ounces in weight, less than half a pound, a tiny framework of fragile bone covered with a handful of feathers and incasing a heart that was as big in pluck as any heart on the _Mary Turner_, became almost immediately Michael's friend and comrade, as well as ruler.

Minute morsel of daring and courage that c.o.c.ky was, he commanded Michael's respect from the first. And Michael, who with a single careless paw-stroke could have broken c.o.c.ky's slender neck and put out for ever the brave brightness of c.o.c.ky's eyes, was careful of him from the first. And he permitted him a myriad liberties that he would never have permitted Kwaque.

Ingrained in Michael's heredity, from the very beginning of four-legged dogs on earth, was the _defence of the meat_. He never reasoned it.

Automatic and involuntary as his heart-beating and air-breathing, was his defence of his meat once he had his paw on it, his teeth in it. Only to Steward, by an extreme effort of will and control, could he accord the right to touch his meat once he had himself touched it. Even Kwaque, who most usually fed him under Steward's instructions, knew that the safety of fingers and flesh resided in having nothing further whatever to do with anything of food once in Michael's possession. But c.o.c.ky, a bit of feathery down, a morsel-flash of light and life with the throat of a G.o.d, violated with sheer impudence and daring Michael's taboo, the defence of the meat.

Perched on the rim of Michael's pannikin, this inconsiderable adventurer from out of the dark into the sun of life, a mere spark and mote between the darks, by a ruffing of his salmon-pink crest, a swift and enormous dilation of his bead-black pupils, and a raucous imperative cry, as of all the G.o.ds, in his throat, could make Michael give back and permit the fastidious selection of the choicest tidbits of his dish.

For c.o.c.ky had a way with him, and ways and ways. He, who was sheer bladed steel in the imperious flas.h.i.+ng of his will, could swashbuckle and bully like any over-seas roisterer, or wheedle as wickedly winningly as the first woman out of Eden or the last woman of that descent. When c.o.c.ky, balanced on one leg, the other leg in the air as the foot of it held the scruff of Michael's neck, leaned to Michael's ear and wheedled, Michael could only lay down silkily the bristly hair-waves of his neck, and with silly half-idiotic eyes of bliss agree to whatever was c.o.c.ky's will or whimsey so delivered.

c.o.c.ky became more intimately Michael's because, very early, Ah Moy washed his hands of the bird. Ah Moy had bought him in Sydney from a sailor for eighteen s.h.i.+llings and chaffered an hour over the bargain. And when he saw c.o.c.ky, one day, perched and voluble, on the twisted fingers of Kwaque's left hand, Ah Moy discovered such instant distaste for the bird that not even eighteen s.h.i.+llings, coupled with possession of c.o.c.ky and possible contact, had any value to him.

"You likee him? You wanchee?" he proffered.

"Changee for changee!" Kwaque queried back, taking for granted that it was an offer to exchange and wondering whether the little old cook had become enamoured of his precious jews' harp.

"No changee for changee," Ah Moy answered. "You wanchee him, all right, can do."

"How fas.h.i.+on can do?" Kwaque demanded, who to his beche-de-mer English was already adding pidgin English. "Suppose 'm me fella no got 'm what you fella likee?"

"No fas.h.i.+on changee," Ah Moy reiterated. "You wanchee, you likee he stop along you fella all right, my word."

And so did pa.s.s the brave bit of feathered life with the heart of pluck, called of men, and of himself, "c.o.c.ky," who had been birthed in the jungle roof of the island of Santo, in the New Hebrides, who had been netted by a two-legged black man-eater and sold for six sticks of tobacco and a s.h.i.+ngle hatchet to a Scotch trader dying of malaria, and in turn had been traded from hand to hand, for four s.h.i.+llings to a blackbirder, for a turtle-sh.e.l.l comb made by an English coal-pa.s.ser after an old Spanish design, for the appraised value of six s.h.i.+llings and sixpence in a poker game in the firemen's forecastle, for a second-hand accordion worth at least twenty s.h.i.+llings, and on for eighteen s.h.i.+llings cash to a little old withered Chinaman--so did pa.s.s c.o.c.ky, as mortal or as immortal as any brave sparkle of life on the planet, from the possession of one, Ah Moy, a sea-c.o.c.k who, forty years before, had slain his young wife in Macao for cause and fled away to sea, to Kwaque, a leprous Black Papuan who was slave to one, Dag Daughtry, himself a servant of other men to whom he humbly admitted "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," and "Thank you, sir."

One other comrade Michael found, although c.o.c.ky was no party to the friends.h.i.+p. This was Sc.r.a.ps, the awkward young Newfoundland puppy, who was the property of no one, unless of the schooner _Mary Turner_ herself, for no man, fore or aft, claimed owners.h.i.+p, while every man disclaimed having brought him on board. So he was called Sc.r.a.ps, and, since he was n.o.body's dog, was everybody's dog--so much so, that Mr. Jackson promised to knock Ah Moy's block off if he did not feed the puppy well, while Sigurd Halvorsen, in the forecastle, did his best to knock off Henrik Gjertsen's block when the latter was guilty of kicking Sc.r.a.ps out of his way. Yea, even more. When Simon Nis.h.i.+kanta, huge and gross as in the flesh he was and for ever painting delicate, insipid, feministic water- colours, when he threw his deck-chair at Sc.r.a.ps for clumsily knocking over his easel, he found the ham-like hand of Grimshaw so instant and heavy on his shoulder as to whirl him half about, almost fling him to the deck, and leave him lame-muscled and black-and-blued for days.

Michael, full grown, mature, was so merry-hearted an individual that he found all delight in interminable romps with Sc.r.a.ps. So strong was the play-instinct in him, as well as was his const.i.tution strong, that he continually outplayed Sc.r.a.ps to abject weariness, so that he could only lie on the deck and pant and laugh through air-draughty lips and dab futilely in the air with weak forepaws at Michael's continued ferocious- acted onslaughts. And this, despite the fact that Sc.r.a.ps out-bullied him and out-scaled him at least three times, and was as careless and unwitting of the weight of his legs or shoulders as a baby elephant on a lawn of daisies. Given his breath back again, Sc.r.a.ps was as ripe as ever for another frolic, and Michael was just as ripe to meet him. All of which was splendid training for Michael, keeping him in the tiptop of physical condition and mental wholesomeness.

CHAPTER XII

So sailed the s.h.i.+p of Fools--Michael playing with Sc.r.a.ps, respecting c.o.c.ky and by c.o.c.ky being bullied and wheedled, singing with Steward and wors.h.i.+pping him; Daughtry drinking his six quarts of beer each day, collecting his wages the first of each month, and admiring Charles Stough Greenleaf as the finest man on board; Kwaque serving and loving his master and thickening and darkening and creasing his brow with the growing leprous infiltration; Ah Moy avoiding the Black Papuan as the very plague, was.h.i.+ng himself continuously and boiling his blankets once a week; Captain Doane doing the navigating and worrying about his flat-building in San Francisco; Grimshaw resting his ham-hands on his colossal knees and girding at the p.a.w.nbroker to contribute as much to the adventure as he was contributing from his wheat-ranches; Simon Nis.h.i.+kanta wiping his sweaty neck with the greasy silk handkerchief and painting endless water-colours; the mate patiently stealing the s.h.i.+p's lat.i.tude and longitude with his duplicate key; and the Ancient Mariner, solacing himself with Scotch highb.a.l.l.s, smoking fragrant three-for-a-dollar Havanas that were charged to the adventure, and for ever maundering about the h.e.l.l of the longboat, the cross-bearings unnamable, and the treasure a fathom under the sand.

Came a stretch of ocean that to Daughtry was like all other stretches of ocean and unidentifiable from them. No land broke the sea-rim. The s.h.i.+p the centre, the horizon was the invariable and eternal circle of the world. The magnetic needle in the binnacle was the point on which the _Mary Turner_ ever pivoted. The sun rose in the undoubted east and set in the undoubted west, corrected and proved, of course, by declination, deviation, and variation; and the nightly march of the stars and constellations proceeded across the sky.

And in this stretch of ocean, lookouts were mastheaded at day-dawn and kept mastheaded until twilight of evening, when the _Mary Turner_ was hove-to, to hold her position through the night. As time went by, and the scent, according to the Ancient Mariner, grow hotter, all three of the investors in the adventure came to going aloft. Grimshaw contented himself with standing on the main crosstrees. Captain Doane climbed even higher, seating himself on the stump of the foremast with legs a-straddle of the b.u.t.t of the fore-topmast. And Simon Nis.h.i.+kanta tore himself away from his everlasting painting of all colour-delicacies of sea and sky such as are painted by seminary maidens, to be helped and hoisted up the ratlines of the mizzen rigging, the huge bulk of him, by two grinning, slim-waisted sailors, until they lashed him squarely on the crosstrees and left him to stare with eyes of golden desire, across the sun-washed sea through the finest pair of unredeemed binoculars that had ever been pledged in his p.a.w.nshops.

"Strange," the Ancient Mariner would mutter, "strange, and most strange.

This is the very place. There can be no mistake. I'd have trusted that youngster of a third officer anywhere. He was only eighteen, but he could navigate better than the captain. Didn't he fetch the atoll after eighteen days in the longboat? No standard compa.s.ses, and you know what a small-boat horizon is, with a big sea, for a s.e.xtant. He died, but the dying course he gave me held good, so that I fetched the atoll the very next day after I hove his body overboard."

Captain Doane would shrug his shoulders and defiantly meet the mistrustful eyes of the Armenian Jew.

"It cannot have sunk, surely," the Ancient Mariner would tactfully carry across the forbidding pause. "The island was no mere shoal or reef. The Lion's Head was thirty-eight hundred and thirty-five feet. I saw the captain and the third officer triangulate it."

"I've raked and combed the sea," Captain Doane would then break out, "and the teeth of my comb are not so wide apart as to let slip through a four- thousand-foot peak."

"Strange, strange," the Ancient Mariner would next mutter, half to his cogitating soul, half aloud to the treasure-seekers. Then, with a sudden brightening, he would add:

"But, of course, the variation has changed, Captain Doane. Have you allowed for the change in variation for half a century! That should make a grave difference. Why, as I understand it, who am no navigator, the variation was not so definitely and accurately known in those days as now."