The Blood Ship Part 23

CHAPTER XVIII

"Not so fast, my lad. I think I should like to look you over."

These were the words with which Captain Swope arrested my progress. He had permitted me to almost reach the ladder leading to the main deck, before he hailed. The cat and the mouse; aye, that was it! He must play with his prey. Such teasing gave him pleasure.

I stopped, of course, and turned, and faced him. Never did Captain Swope remind me more of a cat than that instant, when I met his glittering, pitiless eyes, and saw his smiling, red-lipped mouth, and listened to his soft, purring voice. I was his mouse, helpless, trapped. G.o.d's truth, I felt like one!

He looked me over slowly, from head to foot. The mate walked around behind me, and I knew the attack would come from that direction. Swope knew that I knew it; that is why he held my eyes to the front with his deliberate and insulting inspection. The cat and the mouse--he would enjoy my nervousness.

I think I disappointed him, for I tried hard to appear unconcerned. So, finally, he spoke again.

"What is your name?"

"Jack S-hreve, sir," I answered.

"Shreve? Now, what signboard did you rob? Shreve is a good name, too good for a foc'sle rat. Did you come by it honestly? Did you have a father by that name? I dare say not. A gutter product would not know his father, _eh_, my lad?"

There was no mistaking the deliberate intent of the insult, or its foul meaning. Despite my efforts, I felt the blood in my cheeks, and my fingers clenched of their own accord. I thought how white was Yankee Swope's neck, and how near, and how easily I could reach out and choke the vile words in his throat. I very nearly lost my temper--and with it, my life, and, I think, the other two lives, which I actually valued above my own.

The thing which saved me was the glimpse of a cold, speculative gleam in my tormentor's eyes. It was the mere shadow of an expression, but it acted like cold water upon my hot thoughts. I divined, suddenly, that something more than sport was behind the captain's insults. He wanted me to blow up in a great rage, and attack him, or the mate. I suddenly knew this was so, and the danger of my losing my temper was past.

I lowered my eyes, afraid their expression would betray my knowledge, and said submissively, "Yes, sir, I guess so, sir."

"I was told you had a long tongue, but you do not seem very glib this minute," Captain Swope went on. "You've taken a reef in it, _eh_, Shreve?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

"But you forgot to take a reef in it awhile back, didn't you?"

I knew he was referring to the shout that warned Newman. I did not venture a reply.

"So now you have put your tongue in gaskets," he commented, after a pause. "Too bad you didn't do it before. A long tongue is a very bad habit, my lad, and I do not allow my hands to have bad habits. I correct them--so!"

He struck me then, not a heavy, stunning blow, but a short-armed, slas.h.i.+ng uppercut, which ripped the flesh of my cheek, and sent me stumbling backwards against the mate's body. I took that blow meekly, I took Fitzgibbon's harder blow meekly. I stood there and let the two of them pummel me, and knock me down and kick me, and I made no show of resistance. I buried my head in my arms, and drew up my knees, and let them work their will on me.

Oh, it was a cruel dressing down they gave me! My face became raw meat, my body a ma.s.s of shooting pains. I took it meekly. I tried to guard my vitals, and my addled, star-riddled wits clung to the one idea--"I must not lose my temper!"

I took my medicine. I did not lift a hand against them. I grovelled on the deck like a cur, and did not fight back.

It was hard to behave like that. It was the hardest thing I had ever done--keeping my temper, and taking that beating without show of resistance. I was a fighting animal; never before in my life had I tamely turned the other cheek. Long afterwards I came to realize that those few moments, during which I lay on the deck and felt their boots thud into my flesh, were educative moments of vital importance in my growth into manhood. I was learning self-control; it was being literally kicked into me. It was a lesson I needed, no doubt--but, oh, it was a bitter, bitter lesson.

They gave over their efforts, finally. I had not much wit left in me, but I heard the captain's voice, faintly, as though he were at a distance, instead of bending over me.

"There's no fight in this rat," he said. "Might as well boot him off the p.o.o.p, Mister, and let him crawl into his hole. He's not dangerous, and the s.h.i.+p needs him as beef."

No sooner said than done. I had obligingly saved them the trouble of booting me very far, for I had been inching myself forward ever since the onslaught. When the captain spoke, I was almost at the head of the ladder to the main deck--an instant after he spoke, I was lying on the main deck at the foot of the p.o.o.p ladder, and all the stars in the universe were dancing before my eyes.

I got dizzily to my hands and knees, and then to my feet, and staggered forward. Captain Swope's soft voice followed me.

"Next time reef your tongue before you open your mouth!" he called.

I made my way into the foc'sle, and my watchmates grabbed me, and swabbed and kneaded my hurts, and swore their sympathy. My injuries were not very severe--some nasty gashes about the head and face, and innumerable bruises upon the body. Fortunately I was in no way disabled. My bones were intact. I was in far better case, they told me, than poor Holy Joe.

He was lying in his bunk unconscious, that very moment; he had a broken arm, and most of his teeth were gone.

I saw at once that the men were quite wild with rage and anxiety. From the sounds that came in the foc'sle door, I knew that the mate was hazing his men. Aye, he was going after them in the good old way, quite as if there had been no peaceful interlude. I did not have to see the mates'

men to know their temper; I could tell from the temper of my own watch how the other watch felt.

It was a terrific shock to most of them, that sudden return of brutality.

Aye, just in that I saw the devilish cunning of Captain Swope. He knew what the effect would be upon the minds of the men of slackening his h.e.l.l-s.h.i.+p discipline, and then, when the habit of pa.s.sive endurance was weakened, suddenly tightening the reins. He knew that then the bit would be well nigh unendurable. Oh, Swope had calculated shrewdly; he foresaw the effect not only of an outburst of promiscuous brutality, but of the arrest of Newman, and the beating up of Holy Joe.

I could see the effect at a glance. The stiffs were panicky. These valorous stiffs were glowering, really dangerous at last. The squareheads were hysterical with rage. The squareheads knew why Holy Joe had suffered--because of them, because of Nils. Because of Newman, too, but they did not guess that. Then, the knowledge that Newman was trapped was a heavy blow to sailors and stiffs alike. They had all, consciously or unconsciously, depended upon Newman's sane strength. With him taken from them they felt--every man-jack--that their backs were to the wall.

Just as soon as the blood was washed out of my eyes, and I could see my mates' faces, just as quickly as the ringing in my ears subsided, and I could hear their voices, I knew that the moment was past when the peace could be kept in that foc'sle. Perhaps Newman could have composed the crowd, but I doubt it. The captain had succeeded in driving them too far and too hard, in frightening them too much. He had won, I thought despairingly; he would get his mutiny.

For it was now the elemental instinct of self-preservation that swayed the men and determined their actions. Oh, there was plenty of sympathy for me, and for Holy Joe and Newman; there was rage on our account; but underlying the sympathy and rage was a very terrible fear. It was a fear of death, a fear that each man felt for himself. Self-preservation, that's it!

My s.h.i.+pmates, sailors and stiffs, had reached a point where they were afraid not to take some violent and illegal action against the men in command of the s.h.i.+p. Their long misuse, the wrongs and indignities each man had suffered, the fate of Nils, the events of the afternoon, had all culminated in the belief these men now had--good men and bad men both, remember!--that they must revolt, that they must kill the men aft before the men aft killed them! There were other factors at work, of course, greed for gold and l.u.s.t of revenge, but this simple, primal fear for their own skins was the determining factor in the situation.

"By G.o.d, I never go on deck but I'm scared o' my life!" swore one of the stiffs, named Green. And he voiced the common feeling.

I was, of course, much concerned for the parson. I went into the port foc'sle to look at him--and he looked bad, lying there unconscious. The squareheads had washed his face, but had not ventured to touch his arm.

His face was in a shocking state, and I feared his body might be broken, as was Nils' body. He was much worse off than I; for he had not my iron muscles, to withstand hard knocks, nor my skill in rough-and-tumble fighting, which had enabled me to protect the vital parts of my body.

"We'll have to get him aft, where the lady can attend to him--or else get her for'ard," I declared.

"No chance," answered Boston.

"If we take him aft dey ban kill him," a.s.serted one of the squareheads.

"She can't come for'ard; she's locked in her room," said another.

"How do you know that?" I cried.

"c.o.c.kney says so. He was there when the skipper locked her in," said Boston.

For an instant I forgot Holy Joe, and his evil plight.

"What yarn did that c.o.c.kney bring for'ard with him?" I demanded.

"Why, he was there when they got the Big 'Un," answered Blackie. "He was helpin' the steward break out a cask o' beef from the lazaret, when they brought Big 'Un into the cabin, cuffed up, and with the drop on him. He says the hen squawked, and the Old Man shut her in her room. Then they kicked him out on deck, so he wouldn't see too much o' what was goin' on.

He says they put the Big 'Un down in the lazaret, and they're goin' to croak him sure, and if we got any guts we'll go aft tonight and turn him loose. That's what c.o.c.kney says."

Well, I let myself go, verbally. I said things about that c.o.c.kney, and I was only sorry c.o.c.kney was not there to hear them. I knew most of the hard words of three languages, and I used them all. Oh, it was a relief to give even verbal release to the ocean of hate and rage in my soul! I told the crowd what I thought of c.o.c.kney. Then I told them why. I told them what had really happened in the cabin, what c.o.c.kney really was.

They believed me. They knew me; they knew I would not lie in such a case, they could not help but sense the sincerity of my loathing. They knew c.o.c.kney, also. They knew he was the sort to spy and perjure--a good many of them were that sort themselves!--and as soon as I paused for breath, this man and that began to recall certain suspicious acts of c.o.c.kney he had noticed. Aye, they believed me, and the curses heaped on c.o.c.kney's head were awful to the ear.