THE ENEMIES
HE was a young man—not over twenty-four—when I first met him. He came down the dock dressed in nondescript rags which, to the uninitiated, might stamp him as tramp or dock-rat; but to me, taken with his keen glance aloft at our rigging and his sure-footed jump from the stringpiece to the fore-shrouds, they bespoke the deep-water sailor. He dropped to the deck, came straight to the galley door, and looked in.
"Cook," he said, in the deep, raspy voice of strongly fibered men, "I'm hungry. Will you gi' me a bite? I'll saw wood, or peel taters, or—anything at all."
I had but a scant supply of kindling and a sprained wrist; so I set him at work. Later, as he ate his breakfast in the galley, I had a chance to study his face. It was a particularly ill-favored face—not vicious at all, but ill-adjusted by nature—disproportionate. Nothing was in harmony: his ears, though well shaped, stood straight out from his head; his mouth, neither large nor small, was made up of two very thick lips, between which showed two irregular rows of strong, yellow teeth. His eyes were dark and steadfast, deep-sunken in cavities topped by thick eyebrows that met over the nose; and his nose was the nose of a fighter, short, broad, and aquiline. But, as though to atone for her niggardly treatment of his face, Mother Nature had given him the figure and grace of an Apollo. Clearly this was not a man to be satisfied with beggary, and when he had finished his meal and thanked me I asked:
"What's the matter? Have you no boarding-house?"
"Well, yes," he answered, looking me squarely in the eyes; "but I cleared out 'fore I got in debt. I'm through wi' deep water—that is, I'll try starving awhile 'fore I ship again to be thumped and damned like a dog. Ever been deep-water?"
"Yes. One voyage."
"I've made three—three too many. And I went against my will each time. Shanghaied each time, and I skipped at every chance, and tried to get work ashore, but—you know how boarding-masters own us, and how the police are with them, always."
"Yes, I know," I answered; "and I blame no man for trying to escape the life; but can't you get a job on the docks?"
"No; I don't belong to the union, and, as for laboring work, there are ten men waiting for each job, all known to the boss. I hope to slip into something soon, but meanwhile I have to eat."
"What work are you best at?" I asked, idly, for I saw little hope for him. A sailor ashore cannot compete with Italian laborers.
"I have no trade," he answered. "I was a night-watchman in a Brooklyn lumber-yard when they first shanghaied me; and I was studying medicine nights by a dark-lantern and attending lectures in the afternoon. You may not think so, but I'm a high-school graduate. But that's all past now; I can't go home in these clothes, and I'm too old to take up study again, anyhow. No, I'm fixed."
"Why not go coasting until you save some money?" I asked, more interested now.
"Oh, I've tried to," he said, his dark eyes lighting. "They treat men decently on the coast, I hear, and that's a strong point wi' me. I wasn't born to be hammered, and I always hit back, and get the worst of it. But there's a union here, too; and I can't join it without a little money for dues and initiation."
"Ever command men?"
"Been bosun. I'm an able seaman, all right."
"Well, I'll tell you. Clear out now, and come back this afternoon. The skipper wants a second-mate in this schooner, and you might do. I'll sound him at dinner-time. The mate and crew are aboard, and we sail in the morning."
"Thank you, cook. I can't navigate, but second-mates don't have to, as I understand. Yes, I could do the work, I know. And, of course, the skipper won't expect a well-groomed man out of a deep-water fo'c's'le. I'll get clothes the first chance."
The upshot was that John Waverlie sailed with us as second mate, with an outfit of clothing paid for with money loaned by myself. I had asked few favors of Captain Samson in the five years I had signed with him, and this, with my offer to anticipate possible advance-money, won me my point; for I was thoroughly impressed with Waverlie. He fell into his place easily, mastering the slight difference between square and schooner rig seamanship before we had finished the passage to Cedar Keys, where we took an assorted cargo. Here he showed himself a master-hand at rigging purchases to discharge this cargo, which comprised the stock of a dozen country stores; and in stowing lumber for the return trip his natural intelligence served him well in lieu of experience at cargo work—which a deep-water man does not get. By the time we reached Boston he was sure of his berth and his future, should he care to remain in the coasting trade.
At Boston he paid me the money loaned, packed his belongings, and left to visit his home, where, he said, he had not been since leaving school. I supposed I had seen the last of him, and was rather surprised when he appeared in less than a week and asked the skipper for his second-mate's berth. He was taken on, and we sailed for Aspinwall.
Since the visit home his manner had changed—his earnest, dogged cheerfulness giving way to a half-surly indifference to the presence of others which was somewhat repellent. But he never overstepped the line—he was invariably civil, and in his attitude toward the crew he was all that sailors desire in an officer. He invited no freedom nor familiarity, but abstained religiously from ever raising his hand or voice in anger—a hard rule to follow, considering that even coasters occasionally ship a fo'c's'le lawyer who yields to nothing but a knock-down.
"I've seen enough of it," I heard him say to the captain, "and I know its futility. I've been hammered senseless more than once just to keep me at work; and it wasn't necessary. Nine men out o' ten will do as they're told; the tenth may wait; but he'll do it."
There was something on Waverlie's mind—something too deep and heavy for confidence. Often during the last dog-watch, when work was done and he stood in his favorite spot near the weather-poop steps, gazing steadily over the sea, I could hear, as I passed him, his heavy breathing, hoarse and throaty, which in a smaller, weaker man would have been a succession of groans. But in time, as we passed up and down the coast, these moods left him, though his silent self-absorption remained.
He bought himself a quadrant, an epitome, and a nautical almanac, and, against the ill-concealed ridicule of the first mate, studied navigation, asking no instruction from either him or the captain. And he did not appear on deck with his quadrant until, one night six months later, he brought it up to take a lunar—to the wonder of the skipper—and followed the feat by taking a meridian observation next day which tallied closely with that of his superiors. He was a navigator, and did not hesitate so to proclaim himself. His boyhood schooling had made it easy for him.
But it did not lessen the growing gulf between himself and the jealous first mate; and one day at Charleston, when there was a little friction with the overworked and exhausted crew, the angry first mate twitted the mild-spoken Waverlie with cowardice in not treating the men as men deserved to be treated by competent second mates. Waverlie coolly invited him over the side to the dock, and there he thrashed him into half-consciousness, to the result that the disgruntled and humiliated mate quit the schooner. Waverlie took his berth, and a second mate was shipped in his place.
As first mate he gave satisfaction, and after a few more trips there came a second and unexpected promotion. Captain Samson sickened and died at Rio Janeiro, and Waverlie took the schooner home. Then, after an interview with the owner, he was formally installed in command. In three years from the time I had fed him, a hungry waif looking for work, John Waverlie had become captain of a well-equipped three-mast schooner, and I was proud of my judgment.
But Waverlie did not stop. Satisfied with himself, with more leisure, he studied and read, and gradually, as the months passed, he lost the little mannerisms, the small crudities of the seafaring man, relapsing, perhaps, into the refinement of his youth. His face and voice softened; the dogged stare left his deep-sunken eyes, showing now only under stress of weather or work. And he scrupulously held to his rule of discipline. He would discharge a refractory sailor on occasions, but on no account would he allow one of his mates to strike, threaten, or even curse a man of his crew. He smoked inveterately, but did not chew tobacco nor drink; and it gradually dawned upon me that he was more than a strong, self-made man—he was a gentleman.
He studied deeper into navigation than would most captains, and his knowledge of winds, tides, currents, and the geography of the sea gave him an advantage that is generally named as good luck; he was a "lucky captain"—he made fast passages with little damage to spars, sails, or rigging. This impressed the owner, who put him in command of a fine bark of the employ, engaged in the South American trade. He took his whole crew with him, and, as the bark carried a steward as well as a cook, he gave me the berth, and installed me in charge of the cabin.
And now occurred a series of happenings which led me to think that Captain Waverlie had reached his limitations. Success had been so easy for him after his escape from the thrall of the crimps that I did not wonder at his ordering fashionable clothing from the best tailors in New York, and stopping at the best hotels when in port. Nor did the quality of his evening enjoyments surprise me. In caring for his clothing I often found programmes of vaudeville shows and music-halls, with literature pertaining to footlight favorites; for many a man of good instincts but no social position will take his entertainment where he can. But I was more than surprised and greatly saddened when he called me from my room one midnight in New York and thickly ordered me to assist him to bed. He was palpably drunk, and slept far into the morning. Then he went ashore, and remained until the bark was nearly ready to sail, when he came in a cab, in company with a woman, whom he assisted up the gangway and into the cabin. Later came an expressman with a trunk, and later in the day a clergyman. Then the first mate and myself were called into the after cabin, where Captain John Waverlie, sober, erect, and proud, gave his name to this faded woman, whose breath, even as she uttered the marriage vows, tainted the air of the cabin with the odor of whisky. Her age could not be told from her face, but I judged that she was younger than the captain. She was of the blond type, with a splendid head of hair, and fine blue eyes dimmed by illness; her face and form were emaciated, and her features twitched continually from nervous trouble, brought on, perhaps, by excessive use of stimulants. Or it may be that the immediate cause was the rather sudden stoppage of their use, as Captain Waverlie, after the first day's license, placed the ship's liquor in my charge, with orders to keep her from getting any. This I did, though she often begged plaintively for a bracer. As for the captain, he never, to my knowledge, drank again.
We sailed to Montevideo and Rio that voyage, and back to New York; and Captain Waverlie—neglecting no duty, however—spent his time in her company, and grew younger in the dimmed light of those faded blue eyes. That he loved her was beyond question; and as the voyage progressed she grew more lovable. Regular meals, pure air, and the absence of liquor rounded her form, smoothed the lines in her face, steadied her nerves, and put music into her laugh. And there was little doubt that she loved Captain Waverlie.
But she did not like the sea, and at New York induced him to install her in an uptown apartment while he made the next voyage, and promised then to join him on the third. So, with tears in her eyes, she thanked me earnestly for my hardness of heart in refusing her the whisky that was killing her, and went ashore with her husband. We sailed without her, and Captain Waverlie nearly dismasted the bark on several occasions that voyage, "cracking on" to make a quick passage; for he missed her. I missed her too, unsentimental old man though I am.
We docked at New York late in the afternoon, and he hurried ashore. When he returned, on the evening of the next day, he came alone; he stumbled heavily down the gangway steps, and walked unsteadily about the decks for a few minutes before entering the cabin, where I was watching him from the forward door. He was not drunk, though when I saw his face in the lamplight I wished that he was. He looked twenty years older.
"Dead, steward, dead!" he groaned, hoarsely and brokenly—" dead by her own hand. She couldn't hold up—she couldn't hold up without me. It's my fault—all mine. I ought not to have left her."
It is awful to hear a strong man weep. He buried his head in his arms on the table and gave way to it, his choking sobs seeming to shake the framework of the cabin. I could do nothing—say nothing; but my own tears fell as I stood stupidly by and waited. At last he grew quieter, his paroxysms dwindled to the heavy, hoarse breathing which I had noticed years before, and then he lifted his head from his arms, with a look on his face that no sane man should wear.
"Buried in Potter's Field, steward," he said, "and I could not find her grave. Even that was denied me."
"I'm very sorry, captain," I stammered. "What can I do? Shall I get you something to drink—to steady you?"
"No, no!" he yelled. "I dare not. Don't give it to me if I ask for it. If I drink, I will murder. And it must not be that—not murder."
He stood up and paced the cabin floor in hurried, jerky turns. The exercise seemed to calm him, for he faced me with a strained smile on his haggard face, and said:
"Never drink when you're in trouble, steward. It makes things worse. I'll come around all right."
"Try to, sir. Try and forget it for your own sake."
"Yes," he answered, slowly and wearily. "I'll try and forget her"—he turned to pass through the after-cabin door—"but not—"
I did not hear the rest. He closed the door and I turned into my berth—but not to sleep.
There was no more of it. He "came around," as he had said, and we made another voyage, uneventful until within a day's sail of Sandy Hook, when he met with an accident. It came of his never-failing consideration of his crew's comfort; he forebore calling the watch below to wear ship in a wind and sea which made it a hard task for the watch on deck; but, with myself at the wheel so that the sailor could help at the braces, and the captain assisting as well, the bark came around and the yards were swung. But in jibing the spanker as she swung up on the other tack the weather-sheet or guy-tackle parted, the spanker crashed over, and the broken rope, unreeving like a whip-lash, struck the captain on the left side of his face, and tore his right ear downward, half severing it from his head. I bandaged it in place, but, as it gave small sign of healing, he went ashore at New York for surgical treatment. When he returned, both ears were bandaged, and he explained, with rather a grim smile.
"I struck a place up-town," he said, "where they can shorten your nose or lengthen it, trim your ears into shape, straighten your teeth, or beautify your mouth. Surgical dermatology, they call it; and they wanted to give me the whole treatment. Well, I let them try on my stunsail ears, and they say they've made a good job of it, though I won't know until they're healed."
They had made a good job of it. His ears, which had stood out like wings, lay straight against his head when the bandages came off, and there was not even a sign of the operation, the slight scar left by the knife being hidden.
Aside from the strict habits of cleanliness and good taste in dress common to all successful and self-respecting men, Captain Waverlie had heretofore displayed nothing of personal vanity; but the straightening of his ears seemed to bring it into play. He stocked his cabin with works on anatomy and surgery, and all of the next voyage was a diligent student of these and of the advertising circulars given him by the institute which had operated on his ears. I often surprised him in front of his mirror, studying his misshapen features with an interest hardly to be expected in a strong, level-headed shipmaster. He had always shaved smooth, but on the run down the coast he grew a mustache, and on the return trip a pointed beard. Apparently neither suited him—his thick lips could not be hidden, and his broad nose spoiled the effect; so he shaved again. And at New York I found a reason for this new-born interest in his personal appearance. Our plutocratic owner, who seldom soiled his shoe-leather on the decks of his ships, brought his daughter, whom Waverlie had once spoken of, aboard the bark on a visit; and as I noticed the admiration in Waverlie's eyes I was glad, remembering the other.
She was a beautiful girl—of a beauty hard to describe, being due to her charm of manner as much as to her face and figure. She was about twenty-five, of the fair-haired, brown-eyed type so rare among women, and she possessed all the accomplishments which a rich man's daughter may acquire. Hardly the girl to take to a self-made ship captain, I thought; yet she would distract him from his memories. But I did not then know Waverlie—even after eight years of service with him. And a piece of news given out by the owner as he was departing seemed to lessen somewhat the difference between them. A new ship was thought of, to be launched in about a year—a four-masted ship for the China trade. And Captain Waverlie, the man of fast passages, was to command her.
"So, steward," he said at supper that evening, with one of his rare smiles, "I'm fated for deep-water, after all. No escape for me."
"But you go as master now, sir," I responded.
"Yes"—the smile gave way to the frightful look his face had worn when he wept for the woman he loved—"yes, steward, master of a big ship—master of the lives and liberties of twenty or thirty human beings, a pet of the law and public sentiment. What a vengeance I could wreak on the men who misused me if I got them in my forecastle!"
"But you wouldn't, captain," I answered. "You're not that kind of a man."
"Well, perhaps not—perhaps not," he said, slowly. We'll see what kind of man I may become with power of life and death. Men change as they grow older. And, by-the-way, steward, express no surprise at any change you may see in my countenance. I mean to take the treatment I spoke of, one feature at a time. You will be the only one to know of it. I want no gossip. Understand?"
I understood. Miss Irene was a prize worth a little suffering for; yet when he came on board on the evening before we sailed, with his nose bandaged, and walked the cabin floor all the night, wheezing with pain, I marveled at his fortitude. He explained next morning to his inquiring first mate that he had been assaulted, and the officer believed him. So he breathed through his mouth for three weeks at sea, and when the bandage came off there came with it a murderous steel clamp that had pressed his wide nostrils together and permanently shaped them. But it was not this which had reduced the arching profile to a straight line and given him a nose as correctly chiseled as that of a statue; an incision had been made on the bridge and some of the bony cartilage removed. Before the bark docked at New York the thin, red line of scar was gone.
Again he visited the surgeons, and again he went to sea with a tale of assault, mumbled between swollen lips almost covered with strips of adhesive plaster. These strips he removed continuously as they loosened from the moisture of his mouth, and for a few days he wrote his orders to the mate on the log-slate and almost starved from the difficulty in eating. Small muscles had been removed, he explained to me when able to speak, and the incisions made inside of the lips, where they would not show. The operation gave him a well-shaped mouth, which harmonized with the nose above, but did not harmonize with the bushy line of eyebrow higher up. The last was a small matter, however, which, he said, could be remedied with an electric needle. It was his teeth which would trouble him most, and that trouble he meant to bear on the next voyage.
What the crew, most of whom had signed with him for years, thought of his changed appearance found expression only in the casual remark of the mate, that "if he got slugged a few more times it would make a good-looking man of him." But on this voyage he allowed his beard and mustache to grow again, and when the owner and his daughter again visited the bark at New York their joking comments on his improved appearance were confined to the hirsute growth. His lips were almost hidden, and their good-breeding prevented reference to his nose.
What progress he was making in Miss Irene's good favor I could not guess; but she seemed very friendly toward him, and I knew that he was a welcome caller at her home. I hoped for the best, and as I witnessed his excruciating agony on the next run to the southward, I felt that he deserved it. They had forcibly wrenched his teeth into line, wedged them, and clamped them with steel. A drill of bad weather off Hatteras brought on facial neuralgia, for which there was no remedy in the medicine-chest; but he held to those clamps and wedges until, on the run back from Rio, the warmth of the tropics brought relief; then he displayed as fine a set of teeth as may be imagined. And a lesser embellishment came of the improvement in his eyebrows; the thick growth was thinned and the junction over the nose was cleared away. John Waverlie had become a handsome man.
But with his change of appearance came a change in disposition, regrettably for the worse. He had one more voyage to make in the bark before the big ship building in a Maine ship-yard would need his supervision, and this voyage he made with a new crew, refusing to sign a single one of the men who had sailed so long with him. The mates were discharged with recommendations to the owner, and he would have discharged me had I permitted it. It took two days of argument and a downright refusal to quit to bring a reluctant change in his mind.
"But you must take what comes," he said. "I can't take a home crew out deep-water in a big ship with as many more strange men. There'd be trouble all the time. So I'm getting used to new conditions."
I could not admit his logic, but did not argue any more; and we sailed with two heavy-fisted brutes as mates, and a crew seemingly picked for their stupidity and incompetence, whom these two brutes kicked and cursed to their hearts' content. Captain Waverlie permitted it, and even silenced my mild protest against it. All the voyage, too, he displayed an irritability and a half-peevishness entirely foreign to his past attitude; but I credited this to chagrin he must have suffered at New York when the owner and his daughter had come aboard with a third visitor—a fashionably dressed, handsome man of about his own age, whose elegant bearing and brilliant conversation seemed strongly to impress Miss Irene. As the two stood apart for a few comments I heard the owner describe him to Waverlie as one of the ablest lawyers of the metropolitan bar. When they went ashore, Waverlie's dark eyes glowed like smoldering coals, but beyond a muttered curse—not meant for my ear—he said nothing.
Although he had discharged his old mates without cause, he rather inconsistently hunted them up when we returned, and the owner installed them as captain and first mate of the bark. Then he took me, under pay, up to the Maine ship-yard, where he was to oversee the finishing touches in the big ship's construction, and I was to cook for him, as the galley and cabin were now in readiness. On the day of the launching it was my province to provide the usual luncheon for the large party of guests which the owner brought on board. Miss Irene was there, of course; and much in evidence among them was Mr. Sargent, the lawyer, who seemed to be more than ever in the good graces of the young lady. He was at her side, supporting her as she stood in the knight-heads and smashed the bottle of wine on the stem; he monopolized her society through the day, and at luncheon they sat alone on the cabin skylight. While serving them here I overheard a portion of their conversation.
"It is fitting and apropos," Mr. Sargent was saying, "that the ship bears your first name only. For the last name doesn't become you at all, and you will change—"
"Mr. Sargent," she answered, laughing as she spoke, "what reason have you for that opinion? I am very well satisfied with my last name."
At this moment I was forced to go, and I heard no more; but I wondered how it would affect Waverlie. He bore himself well through the day; he was dignified, calm, and courteous to all, and only at intervals did I notice the devils in his eyes. But the strain was undoubtedly hard upon him, and toward the last he yielded. Mr. Sargent thanked him gracefully at the gangway for the day's entertainment, and hoped that the ship would not sail before a certain coming event, when he would be proud to entertain him. Waverlie responded with cold congratulations, and ignored the extended hand of the lawyer, who thereupon went down the gangplank flushed and embarrassed. That night the captain walked his cabin floor in a silent fury, until, his footfalls keeping me awake, I intruded upon him and asked if I could do anything for him. He was pale and haggard, but graciously thanked me and declined my ministrations. Then, in a sincere effort to ease his mind, I retailed to him the conversation between the two that I had heard as they lunched on the skylight. But I was at once made aware that I had not pleased him.
"Steward," he said, sternly, "your powers of observation are good, but you are valuable to me mainly as an efficient steward who knows my ways. Unless you can make up your mind to see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing of what happens aboard this ship, you must go. I will get one who is discreet."
I protested, apologized, and promised; then he went to bed, and I followed suit in an unenviable frame of mind. It is not pleasant to be disciplined when gray-headed by one you love as a son. And I soon learned the futility of my gossip. When we were fitted out and towed to New York to load for Hong Kong, the owner came aboard and casually mentioned the coming marriage of his daughter to Mr. Sargent. But Waverlie displayed no emotion; it required the presence of his rival to excite him.
In due time we were ready for sea, and the captain shipped three mates, all bigger, noisier, more profane and foul-mouthed than the two he had taken on his last voyage; then he negotiated with Glasgow Mike, boarding-house keeper and shipping-master—the worst scoundrel and blackguard on South Street—for twenty-four able and six ordinary seamen. After the first interview in the cabin, Mike appeared no more in the matter, the details being left to two runners in his employ. These two worthies brought the crew and their dunnage down to the dock in express wagons early in the morning of our sailing-day, fully half of them unable to move from drink or drugs. They were lifted aboard, and the runners, indicating each unconscious man in his turn, answered to their names as the mate read the list from the articles.
"Only twenty-eight, all told," he said, running his eye down the column of names. "Where's George Smithers and John Carruthers?"
"Skipped out," answered one of the runners. "But we know where they are, and 'll have 'em here 'fore you leave the dock. That's all right."
They went ashore, and the mates bundled the unkempt lot of wretches into the forecastles. They were the usual type of sailors who man American deep-water ships—mostly foreigners, undersized, stupid, and ragged, enslaved at sea by the law, and robbed ashore by the crimps, who feed them for a few days, that they may enter an inflated claim against their "allotment" of wages when they sign again.
In an hour the two runners returned in a closed carriage with two more unconscious men. I stood in the galley door as they were lifted aboard, but could hear the captain, waiting at the gangway, ask the runners:
"Are these my men? Did they sign the articles?"
"It's all right, cap'n," said one, with a grin. "Signed an' got their allotment notes. This is George Smithers"—he kicked one quiet figure on the deck, then the other—"and this is John Carruthers. Good men when they're sober, too."
The runners went into the cabin with the captain, and the mates ordered the newcomers carried to the forecastle. As they passed me at the galley door I looked at their faces. George Smithers was Mr. Sargent, dressed in filthy canvas rags, and John Carruthers was Glasgow Mike.
I had promised to see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing; so I said nothing, and the expression of Captain Waverlie's face at breakfast told me that it was the safest thing to do. A man who dared shanghai Glasgow Mike and a man in Mr. Sargent's position was not to be trifled with. But I thought and wondered sadly. The mate's comment on the shortage of men told me that thirty was the ship's complement. Whether or not Glasgow Mike had arranged the abduction of Mr. Sargent as the twenty-third able seaman, he himself, it seemed, was to fill the place of the twenty-fourth—drugged and shipped by his own runners. I thought, too, of that fair young girl robbed of her lover.
The runners went ashore, and we towed down the bay, made sail with the aid of the men awake, dropped the tug and pilot off Sandy Hook Lightship, and with a fresh westerly wind sank the land before noon. Then the sleepers were awakened. I was in the cabin waiting upon the captain and chief mate at dinner at this time, and it was loud and bad language on deck which apprised us that Glasgow Mike was asserting himself. "Go forrard," I heard the second mate roar at him, "an' if you want to see the skipper wait 'til he's done dinner."
The first officer chuckled between mouthfuls at this; then said: "Know who you've got forrard, sir? Glasgow himself."
"Who is Glasgow? What do you mean?" asked the captain.
"Glasgow Mike, the boardin'-master. Don't know how it came about, sir, but his runners put him aboard as a shipped man. I knew him, but there's no use in delayin' the ship an' one man's as good as another." The officer laughed heartily.
"I know nothing whatever about it," said the captain, with annoyance in his face. "I don't know one of those thieves from another, but I was forced to apply to one of them for a crew."
"And you've got the man you applied to, sir," answered the mate, with a grin. "It's funny—damn funny."
"I know nothing about it," repeated Waverlie. "I wouldn't remember the features of the man I bargained with. He put my case in the hands of his runners. I would remember them, I think."
They finished the meal and went on deck, the second and third mates coming down when relieved by the first. Second and third mates require little waiting upon, and I placed myself in the forward companionway, where I could see and hear. Forward were the newly awakened men, clustered about the galley door. The workers were at dinner in one of the forecastles. At the mizzen-hatch was Mr. Sargent, pale and hollow-eyed, and on the weather-poop steps, his head and torso showing over the break of the poop, was Glasgow Mike. He was in a furious rage.
"Now look here, skipper," he stormed, as he climbed up. "What t'ell's this for, anyhow? What am I here for in yer damned fo'castle?"
"As I understand matters," answered the captain, stepping up to him, "you are here as one of my crew, signed for the voyage to Hong Kong and back to an American port of discharge."
"What!" yelled Mike. "Don't ye know me? I shipped yer crew for ye. What t'ell's the matter wi' ye, skipper?"
"I don't know you. I never saw you before, I paid for a crew, and the men who brought you aboard drunk gave your name as John Carruthers, able seaman. I find that name is on my articles with three months' allotment of wages charged against it, payable to Michael McSorley."
"That's me, all right—not John Carruthers. I'm Michael McSorley, and I want ye to put me 'board the first inbound craft. If ye don't, there'll be trouble ahead for you. Ye'll never get a crew on this coast again. Damn ye, don't ye know me?"
"That's enough. Mr. Mitchell," said the captain turning to the first mate, "turn this man to and take the starch out of him."
The starch was thoroughly extracted from Mike in the next five minutes. He was knocked off the poop by a fist-blow, and, though he fought bravely during his jerky passage forward, he was not a match for the giant first mate. He was actually knocked, thrown, and kicked from the poop to the forecastle door, and here, with eyes closed and blood streaming from his face, he subsided.
Captain Waverlie watched calmly from the poop, and Mr. Sargent, with doubt and anxiety in his face, from the hatch below; then, as the flushed and victorious Mr. Mitchell swaggered aft the lawyer preceded him up the poop steps and faced the captain.
"I have grasped the situation, Captain Waverlie," he said, slowly, "in all but its latest aspect—as to why the man, your paid tool evidently, who assaulted me, chloroformed me, and threw me into a cab at my own door is now in the same predicament as myself. This is probably not my business, but may I ask your intentions in my own case?"
"My intentions, damn you!" roared Waverlie—"my intentions in your case? I have none, except to make you earn your pay. What cock-and-bull yarn have you got to tell? Out with it."
The lawyer was silent for a moment while he calmly studied the captain's face; then he said: "I have no yarn to tell. I will merely remind you that I am William Sargent, a friend of your owner's and the affianced of his daughter; that I have power over the machinery of the law far beyond your grasp; that I am fully aware of your motive in removing me from your path; and I also say that unless you kill me on this passage I will send you to state's prison. And if you do kill me, understand that a man of my position cannot disappear without inquiry and investigation."
"Damn your impudence!" answered Waverlie, as he seized him by the collar. "You—Mr. Sargent"—he shook him vigorously. "Why, I know the man as well as I know myself. You're George Smithers, signed on my articles as able seaman. If you're not what you've signed for, you'll wish yourself dead. Get off my poop-deck!"
"And do you deny my identity?" demanded the angry lawyer, struggling in his strong grasp. "I warn you—"
The captain released him, but drove his fist with all his strength into his face, stopping the speech and sending him crashing against the monkey-rail.
"Get forward where you belong!" he thundered, "Mr. Mitchell, turn the man to."
The mate, who had climbed the steps, turned him to. The process was not so painful to witness as in the case of Glasgow Mike, for the lawyer made no resistance, and, after being pushed down the steps and struck a few times, went forward hurriedly. Captain Waverlie, with a face almost black with passion, started below and met me in the companion. Something in my own face must have appealed to him, for he halted and laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Steady, old man!" he said, half kindly, while his features softened. "No doubt this has a bad look to you, but you'll justify it when you know what's behind. Remember what you promised me."
He went down, and I went forward to the galley, not because my work required it at the time, but to get away from the captain's vicinity and gain time to think. Mr. Mitchell—two bells having struck—was calling the men out of the forecastles. There was much work to be done to get the ship ready for the voyage—the long tow-line must be coiled upon the forward house, the anchors rigged inboard and lashed, the chain sent below and the fish-tackle unrove, chafing-gear seized on the rigging aloft, and the decks cleared of fenders, planks, and dunnage. Glasgow Mike, subdued and disfigured, having given signs of efficiency, or, possibly, from being known to the mate, was sent aloft on the fore with a marline-spike, ball of spun-yarn, and a bundle of chafing-mats. He cursed volubly, but softly, as he passed me at the galley door, and mounted the rail to the rigging. But Mike's trouble was short-lived. As he stood on the rail preparatory to ascent, Mr. Sargent came around the corner of the house and halted before me.
"I shall expect, steward," he said, "that you will keep cognizant of what happens to me on this ship. I shall demand that you testify in my behalf."
Before I could reply, Mike, above us on the rail, burst out with a volley of billingsgate directed at the lawyer.
"It's on your damned account," he said, in conclusion, "that I'm here like a shanghaied Dutchman." Then he let fly the marline-spike, which glanced from Mr. Sargent's head and buried its point a full inch in the side of the house. The lawyer reeled, but recovered his balance, and with a furious exclamation wrenched out the implement and returned it. His aim was better. It was a pointed piece of iron about a foot long and an inch in diameter at its base. This heavy end struck Mike squarely in the middle of the forehead, and without a sound from his lips he stiffened his arms and fell backward into the sea.
"Man overboard!" I shouted, and instantly the whole ship was in confusion, with the mate's loud orders, supplemented by those of the second and third officers, now up from dinner; the green and still stupefied crew rushing about aimlessly, and the canvas rattling aloft, for the wheel had been put down. But over the uproar came the stentorian tones of the captain on the after house, countermanding all orders. The wheel was put up, the half-swung main-yards hauled back, and men climbed down from the boats on the house.
"No use, Mr. Mitchell," he called to the mate amidships. "I saw that. He was dead before he struck the water. Bring the murderer aft and put him in irons."
In the presence of the whole crew, Mr. William Sargent, a leading member of the New York bar, was ironed and led below to the lazarette, and under the name of George Smithers, with myself as witness, entered in the captain's official log for the murder of a shipmate—John Carruthers. He was put upon a diet of bread and water, and every fifth day given the full allowance of the crew, according to law.
My feelings have nothing to do with this story, and I will intrude them no more. At the end of two months, pale and emaciated—half starved on his prisoner's fare—Mr. Sargent begged piteously to be allowed to work with the rest; for the darkness and solitude were killing him. His request was granted; Captain Waverlie released him and handed him over to the mercy of his mates, who, finding him utterly ignorant of seamanship, tortured him according to their lights. He was struck, kicked, and cursed on all occasions. Almost useless on a rope or in any heavy dragging requiring physical strength, yet occupying an able man's place, he was an offence to his watch-mates, and in the watch below they added to his punishment. He cleaned up the forecastle, carried their meals from the galley, cleared up the remnants, and often washed out a shirt at the behest of a big-shouldered "Dutchman" or "Sou'egian," who would call him a "tam farmer." As he could not steer, the mate in whose watch he belonged decreed that he should stand lookout all night.
Unable to eat much of the food fed to the men, and deprived of sleep in the afternoon watch—which left him but three hours out of the twenty-four—he became weaker and weaker, until, one day when the ship was beating up toward the China Sea, the end came. He was collared by the irate third officer for some petty fault and hurled along the deck. Unable to recover his balance, he fell heavily on the sharp corner of the main-hatch, and lay still.
I assisted in lifting him to the hatch. He groaned painfully, and could speak and tell his injury, but could not move a muscle below the small of the back, where the sharp corner had impinged. Captain Waverlie came forward and examined him.
"Take him down in the after cabin," he said. "His back is broken."
We carried him down and laid him on a transom, and when the sailors who had helped were gone the captain directed me to call the three mates and the boatswain. I did so, and they came, standing sheepishly in the forward door.
"I simply say to you, once for all," said Waverlie, "that I want no more of this. I've carried the same crew for years, and never needed to strike or ill-treat a man. If any one of you ever again lifts his hand to one of my crew, or even curses him, I'll disrate that one on the spot, if I don't put him in irons. That's all."
Out they went, but I remained, with tears starting in my eyes.
"God bless you for that, captain," I stammered. He turned to me.
"Hush, you poor old fool!" he said, slowly and yet gently. "Sit down in a chair and listen."
As I obeyed him, the injured man spoke.
"You are satisfied now, I presume," he said, between groans. "Now that you have seen me fatally injured, you stop the torture of the rest."
"Right, Mr. Sargent," answered Waverlie, as he seated himself before him. "Now that your end has come, it is no longer needed."
"You fiend! And do you hope to escape Let me tell you that you will not. My murder will be fastened upon you, as sure as there is a God of vengeance."
"It will not. But there is a God of vengeance, and that is why you were delivered to me. Think a little. How will it be done? You have removed the man who abducted you. Had you not, I should have arranged it myself, for I shanghaied Glasgow Mike to get rid of him. The driver of the cab, who did not see you and whom you do not know, was one of the two that drugged Mike and brought him aboard. Mike had powerful friends, and New York will ever remain unhealthy to that man. Mr. Sargent, you have disappeared from the face of the earth."
"Murder will out—murder will out. Oh, you devil of hate! Could you not take your chance with a woman, like another man? Do you think you can win her now—you, my murderer? You cannot. God will prevent it. Oh, my God! Irene! Irene! I was to be married in a month."
"She will not miss you," said Waverlie, calmly. "She never loved you. She accepted you to please her father, and because I made no overtures in that line."
"You lie!" shrieked Sargent.
"I do not. As far as a modest woman can, she told me of her love for me—in such little ways as tears in the eyes, involuntary speeches, certain little embarrassments. As an honorable man who did not reciprocate, I could do nothing but let you step in. But I saw that you stepped out. Yet, if the time comes when I can find room in my heart for a living woman, and I find that Irene has waited, I shall ask her to be my wife."
"Curse you! Not wanting her yourself, you prevented my getting her."
"I did. I determined on this course long before you first came aboard my old bark—before either of us knew Irene. I changed my features while waiting for my opportunity; I schooled myself in brutality, and when I took charge of this big ship I signed a crew that would be glad to scatter in a foreign port. I signed mates able to scatter them. Most of this crew will not see New York again. You will die, shortly, but you must not die in the hope of my punishment. I stood that punishment years ago, Bill Sargent."
The injured man's eyes opened wide at the nickname, and the captain, his voice taking on a high-pitched, trembling intonation, said to me:
"Steward, go into my room and bring me the photograph on my desk."
I did so. It was a large one of Miss Irene.
He handed it to Sargent, who held it with shaky hands, and stared at the beautiful face with a look I never want to see again, so full was it of dumb, hungry misery.
"Study it well," said Waveriie, sternly. "Look on the face of the girl you love, who does not love you, whom you do not deserve—whose sacrifice to you would be a black crime."
"Oh, God! Why do you hate me so? Who are you?"
"Steward, bring me those two pictures above you."
I stood erect and looked. On a small shelf against the forward bulkhead were two photographs which I had never seen before. The moment's glance I allowed myself showed me a picture of a sweet-faced, laughing girl of the blond type, and one of a well- dressed boy, with broad nose, thick lips, prominent ears, and earnest, honest expression of face. They were taken in the youth of John Waveriie and the woman we had taken to sea.
Waveriie took them from me and held the one of the girl before the eyes of the dying man.
"Do you know her?" he almost hissed. "Do you know her, Bill?"
"Minnie! It came forth in a kind of gasp.
"Yes—Minnie, the girl we went to school with, Bill."
"In God's name, who are you?" screamed Sargent, rolling his head from side to side.
"I am all that's left of the boy who was once your friend—who dared love and win the girl you had cast eyes upon. The rest of that boy lies in a grave in Potter's Field with Minnie. And you are the scoundrel who poisoned her mind against me when I had come to New York to study, who followed me and employed Glasgow Mike to shanghai me—had you forgotten his face and voice? I had not—who won and cast off the girl I was to make my wife. And were this all, Bill Sargent, I might have spared you. But when, after years of searching, I found her, married her, and nursed back her health and beauty, you came again. You entered her nest—it was you; the janitor you sent for whisky described you well— and for that she killed herself. And because she killed herself I have killed you. Yes, I take it all upon my soul, though beyond the one knock-down I granted myself I have not laid hands upon you. I have killed you, Bill Sargent, by merely taking advantage of the sacred inviolability of ship-masters; for, after you entered my forecastle, my attitude, active or passive, will bear the test of legal investigation. I am backed up by the law."
The face of Sargent, pale and ghastly, had taken on an expression of horror and fright. He said nothing—merely staring at Waverlie piling up some books on the transom at his feet. Against these books Waverlie leaned the three pictures; then he propped up Sargent's head with pillows.
"There!" he said, as he stood back. "There is the face of the woman you love, the face of the woman you killed, and the face of the man you wronged. Look on them while you die."
Then he motioned me out of the cabin, and followed me.
I did not enter the after cabin again until Sargent had been carried out for sea burial, three days later. I found the pictures still in place against the books.