March I hereby set my signature to this, my story.
Well, Randolph's story as he told it to me when we first pulled him aboard the Brant was about the same as his statement, except maybe it wasn't so connected. But, as I said before, we'd no sooner got him aboard than the capful of wind we'd been relying on dropped off and left us in a dead calm, and then things commenced to happen.
It was about midnight that night, I guess, when we first noticed the old hooker had stopped rolling and was beginning to wobble in a queer sort of way. I didn't pay much attention to it, but turned in, leaving the deck to the mate. He woke me up about an hour later. She was down by the head and already in a bad way. I remembered Randolph's yarn about the seaweed then, and so I ran for'ard to the chains and looked over the side.
Well, sir, I could see it there on her cutwater and all around her forefoot. Then there came a creaking and a groaning from her holds, which meant that her bottom must be covered. I had the whole crew piped and we went to it with axes and knives and everything we could lay our hands on. As heaven is my judge, you could see it a-growing over her sides—it was alive! In no time at all it was on her decks and into her rigging. While we were fighting it out of the main shrouds it would get into the jigger, and when we'd get at the jigger it would get up into the mizzen, and so on. Finally we began to list pretty badly to port, and so I ordered the mate to cut away the fore and jigger, they being the ones that seemed the worst. This helped a little but not much.
And that man, Randolph! He was a fiend! He came out on deck and danced there like a maniac, yelling and singing. He didn't try to interfere with the crew, so we didn't pay any attention to him. After a while I saw him going below, and I didn't find him until afterward.
We were pretty well loaded up with Chilean nitrates—valuable stuff—and so I held on to her cargo as long as I could, hoping we might get her clear; but after a while I saw it was no go. With the cargo out of her, I knew she'd be harder to pull under; but on the other hand, when she was empty it would be easier for that stuff to pull her over on her beam ends. But it was nip and tuck for our lives then, and to hell with the cargo. So I gave the order for half the crew to open her hatches and get the stuff out.
It was in powdered form and packed in sacks, three hundred pounds to the sack. We began getting it up as best we could, and no easy job it was, with the list on her and the wobble and all that slimy stuff a-squirming over her both alow and aloft.
We'd dropped about twenty or maybe thirty bags over the side when one of them broke and spilled into the water. That was what saved us—that bag breaking over the side. I was standing by the rail helping the men, when I saw it spill into the water; and then I noticed there was a hissing and a boiling all about her where the stuff had gone in. And that weed—it just melted away all around her waterline for the distance of ten feet—curled up and dropped off! That gave me my idea. There was some chemical reaction in that nitrate which was death to that seaweed.
I grabbed the next bag and knifed it open, and we dumped it in. Then I was sure—the nitrates would do the trick.
Well, sir, we just quit fighting that stuff with knives and axes and went
