to the applicant. He said: "Why do you want to go?"
The captain reflected, changed his attitude three times, and decided ultimately that he didn't know. He seemed greatly ashamed. The attorney, looking at him, saw that he had eyes that resembled a lambkin's eyes.
"Glory?" said the attorney at last.
"No-o," said the captain.
"Pay?"
"No-o. Not that, so much."
"Think they'll give you a land grant when they win out?"
"No. Never thought."
"No glory. No immense pay. No land grant. What are you going for, then?"
"Well, I don't know," said the captain, with his glance on the floor, and shifting his position again. "I don't know. I guess it's just for fun, mostly." The attorney asked him out to have a drink.
When he stood on the bridge of his out-going steamer, the attorney saw him again. His shore meekness and uncertainty were gone. He was clear-eyed and strong, aroused like a mastiff at night. He took his cigar out of his mouth and yelled some sudden language at the deck.
This steamer had about her a quality of unholy mediaeval disrepair which is usually accounted the principal prerogative of the United States revenue marine. There is many a seaworthy icehouse if she was a good ship. She swashed through the seas as genially as an old wooden clock, burying her head under waves that came only like children at play, and on board it cost a ducking to go from anywhere to anywhere.
The captain had commanded vessels that shore people thought were liners, but when a man gets the ant of desire-to-see-what-it's-like stirring in his heart, he will wallow out to sea in a pail. The thing surpasses a man's love for his sweetheart. The great tank-steamer "Thunder Voice" had long been Flanagan's sweetheart, but he was far happier off Hatteras, watching this wretched little portmanteau boom down the slant of a wave.
The crew scraped acquaintance, one with another, gradually. Each man came ultimately to ask his neighbor what particular turn of ill-fortune or inherited deviltry caused him to try this voyage. When one frank, bold man saw another frank, bold man aboard, he smiled, and they became friends. There was not a mind on board the ship that was not fastened to the dangers of the coast of Cuba and taking wonder at this prospect and delight in it. Still, in jovial moments, they termed each other accursed idiots.
At first there was some trouble in the engine-room, where there were many steel animals, for the most part painted red, and in other places very shiny, bewildering, complex, incomprehensible to anyone who don't care, usually thumping, thumping, thumping with the monotony of a snore.
It seems that this engine was as whimsical as a gas-meter. The chief engineer was a fine old fellow with a gray mustache, but the engine told him that it didn't intend to budge until it felt better. He came to the bridge, and said: "The blamed old thing has laid down on us, sir."
"Who was on duty?" roared the captain.
"The second, sir."
"Why didn't he call you?"
"Don't know, sir." Later the stokers had occasion to thank the stars that they were not second engineers.
The "Foundling" was soundly thrashed by the waves for loitering while the captain and the engineers fought the obstinate machinery. During this wait on the sea, the first gloom came to the faces of the company. The ocean is wide, and a ship is a small place for the feet, and an ill ship is worriment. Even when she was again under way, the gloom was still upon the crew. From time to time men went to the engine-room doors and, looking down, wanted to ask questions of the chief engineer, who slowly prowled to and fro and watched with careful eye his red-painted mysteries. No man wished to have a companion know that he was anxious, and so questions were caught at the lips. Perhaps none commented save the first mate, who remarked to the captain: "Wonder what the bally old thing will do, sir, when we're chased by a Spanish cruiser?"
The captain merely grinned. Later he looked over the side and said to himself with scorn: "Sixteen knots! Sixteen knots! Sixteen hinges on the inner gates of Hades! Sixteen knots! Seven is her gait, and nine if you crack her up to it."
There may never be a captain whose crew can't sniff his misgivings. They scent it as a herd scents the menace far through the trees and over the ridges. A captain that does not know that he is on a foundering ship sometimes can take his men to tea and buttered toast twelve min-
