Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/177

one came into the room where he laid down ond mate's cabin and across the narrow pas to sleep he had shot his revolver and put a sage was the door of the first mate's cabin, bullet through a window. Since then he had which occupied the forward port corner of recovered and had continued to go to sea. the house. That passage was only two feet, He had a habit of talking to himself and four and one-half inches wide. gesticulating. He was talkative and jolly The vessel with its twelve people sailed with the crew. Folke Wassen was a young from the wharf in Boston upon its fateful Swede of twenty-two, a fellow countryman voyage on the morning of Friday, the third of Charley Brown. Francis M. Loheac was of July, 1896. On reaching Nantasket Roads a Frenchman and was said to have run away she was delayed by a thick fog and a head from the French navy. Henry J. Slice, a wind, and laid there until four o'clock of the German, Oscar Andersson, a Swede, and morning of Wednesday, the eighth of July, Hendrik Purdok, a Dutchman, were sturdy when she got under way and put out to sea. looking sailors. And all these six were The captain's wife made the beds and took strangers to each other and to the officers. care of the rooms of herself, her husband and The captain and his wife came aboard, and the passenger. The two mates made their the wife occupied her cabin, which was at the own beds and took care of their own rooms. forward starboard corner of the after house, The steward cooked for all hands, waited on and opened into the main cabin. The door, the table in the main cabin, and at night put however, swung inward into her room and luncheons in the cabins of the mates for concealed her bunk even when the door was them to eat on their watches. Soon after open. The floor of all the after house was going to sea the first mate ordered a sailor nearly two feet lower than the outside deck. to clean brasses. Charley Brown took the Hence the ceiling was almost seven feet from occasion to say to his shipmates, " None of the floor. There were two windows in her those G— d— blue-noses moves with me." cabin, one opening forward and one on the Charley Brown washed the paint of the out starboard side. The deckload of lumber side of the after house and about its windows was piled up opposite the forward window, daily until and including Saturday after sail about three and one-half or four inches from ing. On Monday, Charley Brown was set it. The regular deckload did not extend aft to scrubbing the after-deck aft of the after by the sides of the after house, but stopped house. The first mate ordered him to scrub at its forward end. There were some boards with both hands. Charley was angry at the piled along the sides of the house under the way the first mate spoke to him. side windows just up to the sills. Meanwhile the two mates had been making The second mate occupied the cabin be each other's acquaintance. Folke Wassen tween the forward end of Mrs. Nash's cabin heard high words between them, and Charley and the forward companion way. His door Brown heard the following conversation : opened upon the narrow passage at the foot First mate's voice, " I want you to do what of the steps. His window opened on the I tell you to do — don't intend to run me." forward end of the house and was not so ob Second mate's voice, " I don't want you to structed as the forward window of Mrs. Nash's run me either." On Saturday, the day after room, because the lumber was drawn away in sailing, Slice heard the second mate say: " I the form of steps near his window, so that wish you would let me go about my work." persons could walk up and down between The first mate made some reply, to which the top of the deckload and the top of the the second mate said that he had once had regular steps of the companion way. charge of a vessel with twenty-four in the Directly opposite to the door of the sec crew. The first mate answered, "I don't