The Grain Ship Part 14

"I examined Swanson thoroughly before we buried him, and there wasn't a mark on him, or a sign of anything out of the way, except what didn't seem in any way important, just below each ear, and back of the corner of the cheek bone, was a little pink spot; but there was no blood, and no sign of finger prints on the throat.

"Peters, the romantic young fellow, got ghosts on his mind, and as he thought about it, they got on his nerves. He couldn't sleep, and walked around, up and down from the cabin to the deck. The others slept in their watch below, and on that night n.o.body died. But the next night Peters was too exhausted to stay awake, and he went to sleep on the cabin floor alongside the chests. We couldn't waken him at eight bells, and we knew his troubles were over. At daylight I examined his body.

Nothing wrong, only the two little pink spots under the ears. We buried him at daylight, with scant pretense of a burial service. Things were looking serious.

"All this time we were plowing along before the trade wind, but it soon panned out and we had light, s.h.i.+fty airs from all directions, with rain--regular Gulf Stream weather. It made us bad-tempered, and Pango and Gleason had a fight. It was a bad fight, and we couldn't stop them; both were powerful men, and as they brushed into me in their whirling lunge along the deck, locked tight, they knocked me six feet away. When I got to my feet, Pango had Gleason down and was choking him. I got a handspike and battered that c.o.o.n's head with it; but he wouldn't let go, and before others came up to help he had killed him. He went for me, but had to stop before the handspikes of the crowd.

"Now, with Gleason dead, the command devolved upon me or Pango, and this fellow was in a mood to demand the place. He could lick any three of us, but not all hands; but, while we were growling about it and cooling down, we found other troubles to keep us busy. We had piled several tons' weight on the weak cabin floor timbers of an old schooner, and of a sudden, down they crashed to the hold below, leaving a yawning hole in the cabin floor and starting a b.u.t.t or two in the planking. It was pump, pump, pump, now, for we couldn't rig any kind of a purchase to clear those busted chests away from the leak. Pango was a good worker, and, under the pressure of extreme fatigue, we forgot our grudges. I did not care for the cheap position of command over a bunch of foreigners, and so we made Pango skipper, while I remained navigator and mate. Pango promptly quit pumping, saying that skippers don't pump.

And that night he quit everything. As skipper he stood no watch, but at breakfast time he was cold, with the same little marks under his ears.

On his skin, however, they showed a brownish black.

"Gleason had been choked to death, and I had examined the imprint of Pango's fingers before we buried him. There was hardly a sign; nothing at all to show that the little pink spots came from the pressure of a strangler's grip. Besides, you cannot choke a man asleep without waking him. He would make some kind of a fuss, and apprise others; but that never happened.

"There were but seven of us now, three Germans, two Dagoes, the j.a.p, and myself. I talked with that j.a.p. He was an educated man, highly trained in one of our universities; but he couldn't tell me anything, he said. It was all mysterious and horrible--this quiet taking off of men while they slept. As for poisoning, of which he knew he was suspected, it was absurd. There was no poison on board, to begin with; and why should he, a landsman, seek to poison the men who could take the s.h.i.+p and treasure to port? What could he do alone on the sea? This was logical, and as he was a small, weak, and confiding sort of creature, I exonerated him in my mind from any suspicion of choking the victims.

"That night the two Dagoes, Pedro and Christo, pa.s.sed into the land beyond. There were the same little marks, but nothing else. Weiss, Wagner, and Myers, the three Germans, got nutty about this time, and talked together in their lingo while they pumped; and when they were alone they talked to themselves. I confess that _I_ got nutty. Who wouldn't, with this menace hanging over him? I walked around the deck when I was off pump duty, and I remember that I planned a great school where ambitious young sailor men could study medicine, and escape the drudgery of a life 'fore the mast. Then I planned free eating-houses for tramps, and I was going to use some of my wealth to investigate the private life of a Sunday school superintendent, who, when I was a kid, predicted that I would come to a bad end. You see, we never can judge of our own mental condition at the time. It's only when you look back that you can take stock of yourself. The result of this mental disturbance upon me was insomnia. I couldn't get to sleep; but I kept track of the s.h.i.+p, and worried the three Dutchmen and the j.a.p into tr.i.m.m.i.n.g sail when necessary.

"We'd got up to the lat.i.tude of the Bermudas, I think, and I was beginning to hope that the curse had left us; for we had pa.s.sed through three nights without a man dying. But on a stormy morning, when the gaff topsails were blown away, and we four men--for the j.a.p was useless on deck--were trying to get a couple of reefs in the mainsail, Wagner suddenly howled out a lot of Dutch language and jumped overboard. I flung him a line, but he wouldn't take it, and pa.s.sed astern. The poor devil had taken the national remedy for trouble. Did you ever notice it in Germans, even the best? When things go wrong they kill themselves.

They're something like the Chinese in this.

"There were only four of us now, counting the j.a.p, who still spoiled good grub, and it took a long time to snug that schooner down to double reefs and one head sail. The water in the hold had gained on us, and we pumped while we could stand it, then knocked off, and dropped down on deck for a snooze. We were dead beat, and told the cook to call us if the wind freshened or if anything happened. He didn't call us, but something happened. I wakened in time, and stood up, sleepy and stupid and cold; for you can't sleep on deck, even in the tropics, without getting chilled; and we were up to thirty-six north. The j.a.p was fooling round the galley, and the schooner, with the wheel becketed, was lifting up and falling off, practically steering herself, by-the-wind. Of course, I thought of the water in the hold, and sounded the well. There was four feet of wet line, and I knew that things were bad. Then I went to the two Dutchmen, to call them to the pumps, and found them cold and stiff, each with the little pink marks under the ears.

"Well, I naturally went more or less crazy. I took that j.a.p by the throat and asked him what had happened. He did not know, he said. He had left us to sleep, and rest, sorry for us, and trying to cook us a good meal when we wakened. He was in a shaking fright, trembling and quavering, and I eased up. What was the use of anger and suspicion in the face of this horrible threat of death while you slept? We hove the two bodies overboard, and made a stagger at the pump; but we could not lessen the water in the hold, and at last I gave up, cleared away a boat, and stocked it with water and grub for two. Meanwhile I shaped a course for the Bermudas, and steered it after a fas.h.i.+on, hoping that I might beach the schooner and get, out of some court of salvage, a part of that seven millions down in the hold.

"But I had to steer, and keep the deck, for the j.a.p was useless. I kept it up until we sighted land, and then flopped, done up, tired out, utterly exhausted by work, and yet unable to sleep. I sang out to the cook, as I lay down on the hatch, to try and steer toward that blot of blue on the horizon, and then pa.s.sed into a semi-dazed state of mind that was not sleep, nor yet wakefulness. I could hear, and, through my half-opened eyelids, could see; yet I was not awake, for I could not guard myself. I saw that j.a.p creeping toward me. I saw the furtive, murderous glint in his beady eyes. I heard the soft pat of his feet on the wet deck, and I heard his suppressed breathing. But I could not move or speak.

"He came and stood over me, then reached down and softly pressed the tips of his forefingers into my throat, just below the ears and back of the cheek bones. Softly at first, so that I hardly felt it, then more strongly, and a sense of weakness of body came over me, something distinct from the weakness that I had felt while sinking down to try and sleep. It seemed a stopping of breath. I could not move, as yet, but could see, out of the corners of my eye, and a more hateful, murderous face never afflicted me than the face of that j.a.panese cook.

"He kept it up, steadily increasing the pressure, and soon I realized that I was not breathing. Then, I do not know why, there came to me the thought of that Sunday school superintendent, and his advice, to pray when in trouble. I forgot my grouch. I said to myself, 'G.o.d help me, G.o.d help me,' and I wakened. I found that I could move. I shook off the j.a.p, and he staggered back, chuckling and cluttering in his language. I rose to my feet, weak and shaky, and he ran away from me; but I found myself without power to follow. I was more than weak; I was just alive, just able to breathe, but I could not speak. I tried to, but the words would not come. He shut himself into his galley, and, with regard to the condition of the schooner, and my own helplessness, I painfully climbed into the boat I had stocked and cleared away the davit falls.

Then I lay down.

"I have a dim remembrance of that sleep in the boat, of waking occasionally to drive that cowardly j.a.p off with an upraised oar; of my utter inability to speak to him, and the awful difficulty of taking a long breath. But the final plunge of the schooner stands out. I was awake, or as nearly awake as I could be. The j.a.p was forward, and the decks were awash. I knew that she was going down, and got out my knife to cut the falls when the boat floated. I did this successfully, for, though I could not speak, I could move, and as the schooner plunged under, and the screams of that heathen rang in my ears, I cut the bow tackle, then the stern tackle, and found myself adrift in a turmoil of whirlpools.

"I was picked up a few days later by a fruiter, and taken into New York. I found my hair had turned white. I've been working as waiter most of the time since, hoping to enlist somebody's interest toward salving that schooner; but it's no go. I'm going to Cuba, where I've heard of a pot of money in the Santiago hills. Want to go along?"

"No," I answered. "But, tell me, what killed those men?"

"The j.a.p must have been an expert in jiu jitsu, the wrestling game of that country. I've made a stagger at studying medicine since then, and learned a little. The pneumogastric nerve did the business. It pa.s.ses from the base of the brain, down past the heart and lungs and ends near the stomach. It is motor, sensory, and sympathetic, all in one. Gentle pressure inhibits breathing, continued pressure, or stimulus, paralyzes the vocal chords; a continuance of the stimulus renders you unconscious, and a strong pressure brings about stoppage of the heart action, and death."

THE MARRIED MAN

He told the story while he and I smoked at one end of his veranda, and his kindly faced wife talked with "the only girl on earth" at the other end, beyond reach of his voice. He was a large, portly, and benign old gentleman, with an infinite experience of life, whom I had long known as a fellow-tenant in the studio building. He was not an artist, but an editorial-writer on one of the great dailies, who worked, cooked, and slept in his studio, until Sat.u.r.day evening came, when he regularly disappeared, until Monday morning.

There was nothing in this to surprise me, until he invited the only girl and myself to visit his country home over Sunday, incidentally informing us that he was a married man, and had been for more than twenty years.

And we found him most happily married. Indeed, he and his white-haired wife were so foolishly fond of each other that their caresses would have seemed absurd had they not been so genuine.

These old lovers had made much of us; and they seemed so sincerely interested in our coming marriage that, in the evening, as night settled over the quiet little suburb, and we sought the veranda for coolness, I ventured to comment to my host on his mode of life.

"Best plan in the world," he answered. "You'll find it so, after a year or two of creative work at home. Don't give up your studio. If you do, you will suffer--as I did before I began my double life--from nervous prostration. I was writing when I married--long-winded essays, sermons, editorials, and arguments about nothing at all, simply built up from the films of my imagination. The thousand-and-one distractions of household life interfered too much, and the more I tried to force my brain the more I fatigued it. The result was that I had a bad six months with myself, and then gave out, just on the verge of insanity.

"Yes, my home life nearly maddened me, as I have said. Then, I took a studio, lived in it, and visited my wife twice a week. The result was that I got my work done, and found my wife as glad to see me as I was to see her. It was like a lad's going to see his girl; and, talk as you like about conjugal bliss, a woman gets tired of a man about the house all day long. Still, there is a danger attached to this dual residence.

One must walk straight, for he is a marked man. I had an experience at the beginning that taught me the need of prudence.

"It was while I was mentally convalescent, but yet a very weak man, nervous, irritable, and of unsound judgment. There was about the same kind of a crowd in the building as now--artists, musicians, actors, and actresses. There were women coming and going at all hours, and all sorts of shady characters had access to the place. One day a neighbor named Bunker brought a pleasing young person in black into my place, and introduced us. She was the widow, she informed me, of a newspaper man, who often, when alive, had spoken of me. So hearing that I was in the building, she had asked her friend, Mr. Bunker, to bring us together, as she wished to know her dear husband's friends. She wiped away a tear at this point--genuine, too.

"Now, I had no remembrance of her husband, but, feeling kindly toward any newspaper man's widow, I welcomed her, and Bunker left us together.

She was intelligent, with literary aspirations, and we chatted a while very agreeably. Then she borrowed a book, and left.

"I had noticed that, though neatly dressed, her clothing was palpably cheap in quality, and, when she came again--without Bunker, this time--it seemed a little more worn than was consistent with good times.

So I questioned her gently, and learned that she had eaten nothing that day. She was trying to make her way by writing short stories, and that fact aroused my pity--a pity that grew when I saw her eat the luncheon I provided from my ice-box.

"She did not come again for a month, and then she appeared with the blackest eye I had ever seen on a woman. She was seedier than ever, and looked hungry. I was deeply sorry for her, believing her clothing a sure index of an honest woman's struggle to remain honest. Partly from the delicacy of feeling due to this belief, and partly because I had but thirty-five cents in my pocket, I made no offer of pecuniary a.s.sistance. But, after giving me a conventional explanation of the cause of the black eye, she hinted plainly that, unless she could raise ten dollars before night, she would be turned out of her room. This was serious, and I took thought.

"It was Friday, and a holiday. I knew that there was no one in the building but Bunker and myself, and Bunker was one of those rollicking souls who are in a continuous condition of cheerful impecuniosity.

There was not a place open in the neighborhood except the saloons, and there I was not known. Clearly, I could not raise any money for her that day; but I promised her the use of my studio for the two following nights, when I should be home in the country, and I agreed to induce Bunker, who slept in his boarding-house, to put her up in his place for that night. This would provide sleeping quarters and the use of my gas-stove and ice-box for three nights and two days, by which time something might turn up. She expressed herself as satisfied, and I went out to interview Bunker.

"'No,' he declared, vehemently, 'I can't take any woman to my place.'

'Bunker,' I interrupted, solemnly, 'you brought this young woman here, you have pretended to be her friend, and her claim upon you is enough to warrant her in expecting help at this critical moment. Remember, Bunker, this is a crisis with her. If she is helped, she may pull through; if not, she may lose heart and courage, and go to ruin.'

"My words impressed him. 'All right,' he said; 'I don't know much about her lately--knew her family well, out West--that's all. I'll give you my key, before I go home--want to lock myself in and work for a while now. Have a drink. Got some good stuff here.'

"I declined, and went back to my visitor, picking up on the way a telegraph messenger, who had arrived with a dispatch for me.

"Unwearied in well-doing, glad that I was an instrument in helping this worthy young woman, I a.s.sured her of the success of my mission--before opening the telegram. And she thanked me, with tears--genuine again.

Then, slightly affected myself, I broke the envelope, and read:

"'Meet me 5.30 Pennsylvania ferry. If miss you will come to your office.

"'MAUD MILNER.'

"Now, Maud Milner was the wife of an old friend of mine; and, too, she was my wife's old school chum. She had never been in New York, and she did not know that my 'office' was a bachelor's apartment. But her visit had been prearranged, and I had written the invitation on my studio stationery, so that her response was quite innocent; yet, I had peculiar reasons--aside from the presence there of my penniless and interesting protegee--for not wis.h.i.+ng her to visit my place in town.

"I had paid her fully as much attention before her marriage as I had my wife; in fact, I courted them both at once, in order to arouse their sense of pique. Not a strictly honorable thing to do, had either of them cared for me, initially; but neither did care, and I might not have won my wife by any other plan. The two were bad friends for a while, and, to this day, my wife cannot rid herself of a very slight jealousy. So, you see the reason for my anxiety to avoid any possibility of complications.

"I had just enough time in which to get to the ferry, and, after emphasizing to the widow the necessity of her getting Bunker's key before he left, and of leaving my studio empty against the possible arrival of Mrs. Milner without me, I rushed away.

"I reached the ferry on time; but Mrs. Milner was not there, nor did she come, though I waited until seven o'clock. Then I inquired, and an official informed that the five-thirty--the train boat--had met with an accident, and had landed her pa.s.sengers at the nearest dock, which was a little further up. I hurried there, but Mrs. Milner was not visible.

At last, fearing lest she had gone to the studio, and had met the widow with that picturesque black eye, I hastened uptown again.

"At the street-door I met Bunker--drunk as a lord.

"'Is she up there yet?' I asked, anxiously.

"'Who?' he answered, in a tone that told me he had forgotten.