The Blood Ship Part 5

A moment later a man came from the cabin and stood by Lynch's side.

Here was a true bucko, even my addled wits sensed that. A human gorilla, with a battered face and brutal, pitiless mouth--the dreaded Fitzgibbon, "chief kicker" of the _Golden Bough_.

Mister "Fitz" regarded us with a sneering smile. "_Huh_, stewed to the gills! What did you dope 'em with, Swede?" he said. Then he added to Lynch, "Good beef, though. They'll pull their weight. Hope there are more like them." He gave his regard to me, looked me up and down slowly, and then turned his eyes on Newman. "s.h.i.+pped themselves, did they? Two jumps ahead o' the police, I bet! Lord, what a cargo he's got aboard!"

This last referred to Newman. I was staring at him, myself, with stupid surprise, his peculiar antics aiding me to retain a slender clutch on my senses.

For Newman was drunk, rip-roaring drunk. Now mind, he had been cold sober a few moments before when I handed him the Swede's bottle, and I was quite certain he had not touched that bottle to his lips. He came over the rail with the bottle clutched in his hand, and as soon as he touched the deck he was as pickled as any sailor who ever joined a s.h.i.+p. He hung his head, and lurched unsteadily from foot to foot, mumbling to himself. Suddenly he brandished the bottle, and commenced to howl, "Blow the Man Down," in a raucous voice.

"Stow that!" commanded Lynch, shortly. "You'll wake up the lady!"

Newman shut up. "Vas da lady on board?" asked the Swede, respectfully.

"Yes, and if that jasper rouses her, I'll shove a pin down his gullet!"

answered Lynch. "Here you two," he commanded us, "gather up your dunnage and get for'rd!"

Newman and I grappled laboriously with our bags. Fitzgibbon spoke to the Swede. "When does the crew come off?"

"Flood tide," answered the Swede. "Captain Swope comes with them. And I send a port gang to get you oondar way."

"Hope there are some more huskies like these two," said Lynch.

"_Ja_, day ban all able seamans," declared the Swede.

"You're a filthy liar!" I heard Lynch comment. But further words I lost, for Newman and I went stumbling forward to the forecastle.

We dumped our bags upon the floor, and Newman lighted the lamp. My knees gave way, and I sat down upon the bench that ran around beside the tiers of empty bunks. Then, when the flickering light revealed my companion's face, I felt another shock of surprise.

For Newman was sober again. As soon as he was out of sight of the group on the after deck, he dropped his inebriety like a mantle. The face I looked into was alert and hard set, and the eyes gleamed strangely as though the man were laboring under a strong, repressed excitement. Newman wore an air of triumph, as though he had just accomplished a difficult victory. My tongue had suddenly become very thick, but I managed to mumble a query. "Say, matey, what's the game?"

He regarded me sharply. "What's the matter with you, lad?" he exclaimed. He leaned over, pressed up one of my eyelids, and looked into my eye. Then he tilted the bottle he still carried, and wetted his laps with the liquor. "That . . . Swede! He drugged this bottle!

Bound to get the blood money for you!"

I didn't answer. I couldn't, for while Newman was speaking, a wonderful thing happened. He suddenly dwindled in size until he was no larger than a manikin, going through the motion of drinking from a tiny bottle; while in contrast, his voice increased so tremendously in volume it broke upon my ears like a surf upon a beach. I couldn't grasp the miracle.

". . . well, not enough to hurt . . . all right tomorrow . . ." Newman boomed. Then he picked me up in his arms and deposited me in a bunk.

He got a blanket out of my bag and spread it over me. I found something very comical about this, though I couldn't laugh as I wished.

One hard case tucking in another hard case, like a mother tucks in her child!

The last thing I saw, or thought I saw, ere oblivion overcrept me, was Newman's manikin-sized figure stretching out in a manikin-sized bunk opposite.

CHAPTER V

My head ached, my tongue was thick and wood-tastey, but I awoke in full possession of my faculties. Even in the brief instant between the awakening and the eye-opening, I sensed what was about.

The motion told me the s.h.i.+p was under way. The noises that had probably aroused me, boomed commands, stormed curses, groans, sounds of blows, feet stamping--all told me that the mates were turning to the crew. I sat up and looked around.

It had been dark night, and the foc'sle empty, when Newman had tucked me in for my drugged siesta. Now it was broad day, and a bright streak of sunlight streaming into the dirty hole through the open door showed men's forms sprawled in the bunks about me.

The _Golden Bough_ had a topgallant foc'sle, the port and starboard sides divided by a part.i.tion that reached not quite to the deck above, and which contained a connecting door. Newman and I had stumbled into the port foc'sle the previous night, and as I sat up, I discovered that the babel of sound came from the starboard side of the part.i.tion. I swung up into the bunk above my head, raised my eyes above the part.i.tion, and looked down.

I saw Mister Lynch, the second mate, standing in the middle of the starboard foc'sle's floor. He was turning to the crew with a vengeance. His method was simple, effective, but rather ungentle. His long arm would dart into a bunk where lay huddled a formless heap of rags. This heap of rags, yanked bodily out of bed, would resolve itself into a limp and drunken man. Then Mister Lynch would commence to eject life into the sodden lump, working scientifically and dispa.s.sionately, and bellowing the while ferocious oaths in the victim's ear.

"Out on deck with you!" he would cry, shaking the limp bundle much as a dog would shake a rat. A sharp clout on either jaw would elicit a profane protest from the patient. The toe of his heavy boot, sharply applied where it would do the most good, would produce further evidences of life. Then Lynch would take firm grasp of the scruff of the neck and seat of the breeches, and hurl the resurrected one through the door onto the deck, and out of range of my vision. A waspish voice streaming blistering oaths proved that Mister Fitzgibbon was welcoming each as he emerged into daylight. Another voice, melodiously penetrating the uproar, proved another man was watching the crew turn to. I recognized the silky, musical voice of Yankee Swope. "Stir them up, Mister! Make them jump! My s.h.i.+p is no hotel!" is what it said.

The second mate boosted the starboard foc'sle's last occupant deckwards; then he paused a moment for a breathing spell. Next, his roving eye rested upon my face blinking down at him from the top of the wall.

"Oh, ho--so you have come to life, have you!" he addressed me. "The Swede said you would be dead until afternoon!"

He stepped through the connecting door, into my side of the foc'sle, and looked about. I leaped down from the upper bunk and stood before him, feeling rather sheepish at having been discovered spying.

"Where is that big jasper who came aboard with you?" he suddenly demanded of me.

"Why;--there!" I replied promptly, indicating the bunk opposite the one in which I had slept.

Then, I became aware that Newman was not in that bunk; and a rapid survey of the foc'sle showed he was not in any bunk. He was gone, though his sea-bag was still lying on the floor. The bunk I thought he was in contained an occupant of very different aspect from my grim companion of the night before.

A short, spare man of some thirty years, wearing an old red flannel s.h.i.+rt, was stretched out upon the bare bunk-boards. Lynch and I contemplated him in silence for a moment.

He was no beachcomber or sailor, one could tell that at a glance. His skin had no tan upon it. It was white and soft. Obviously, he was no inhabitant of the underworld of forecastles and waterside groggeries.

His white face looked intelligent and forceful even in unconsciousness.

In some way, the man had come by a wicked blow upon the head. It was the cause, I suspected, of his swoon, and stertorous breathing. Dried blood was plastered on the boards about his head, and his thick, dark hair was clotted and matted with the flow from his wound.

Lynch leaned over, and opened one of the fellow's loosely clenched hands. It was as white and soft as a lady's hand.

"This jasper is no b.u.m--or sailor!" declared Lynch. "That d.a.m.n Swede's been up to some o' his tricks. Well--we'll make a sailor of him before we fetch China Sea, I reckon!" He straightened, and turned on me with another demand for Newman. "Where did you say that big jasper was?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. I could have sworn Newman had turned into that bunk; and I told him so.

Lynch snorted. "Didn't have the guts to face the music, I reckon, and cleared out! Well, if he tried to swim for it, I'll bet he's feeding fishes now!" His eyes roved around the room. Several of the bunks were occupied by nondescript figures, but Newman's huge bulk did not appear. "d.a.m.ned seedy bunch," commented Lynch. "Couldn't afford to lose good beef. h.e.l.lo--who's this?"

His eyes rested upon the bunk farthest forward, athwarts.h.i.+p bunk in the eyes. The body of a big man lying therein loomed indistinctly in the gloom of the corner. Lynch reached the bunk with a bound, and I was close behind.

But it was not Newman. It was--the c.o.c.kney! The very man to whom the Swede had tendered the runner's job, the man Newman had manhandled! He lay on his back, snoring loudly, his bloated, unlovely face upturned to us.

I laughed. "It's the runner," I said. "The Swede's first runner.

Swede gave him the job yesterday."

"And gave him a swig out of the black bottle last night!" commented Lynch. Then he grasped the significance of the Swede's double cross, and his laughter joined mine. "_Ho, ho_--shanghaied his own runner!

_Ho, ho_ . . . that d.a.m.ned Swede!"

Then it evidently struck Mister Lynch that he was conducting himself with unseemly levity in company with a foremast hand. His face became stern, his voice hard, and my moment of grace was ended.

"Turn to!" he commanded me. "What are you standing about for? Get out on deck, before I boot you out!"

I knew my place, and I obeyed with alacrity. As I reached the door, his voice held me again for a moment.