CHAPTER XIII
THE SEA SERPENT
When a new crew is shipped on an old vessel, the mate's first duty is to search the sailors' dunnage for whiskey; when an old crew is shipped on a new vessel, that officer would do well to search the vessel for rum.
Madden had neglected this. While the American was in the engine room, the cockneys in the cook's galley had found intoxicants, had poured raw whiskey into their empty stomachs and the result was the quickest and most complete intoxication. When Madden regained the deck he found his crew singing, laughing, fighting, quarreling in an absurd medley.
Deschaillon roared out a French song. Two cockneys quarreled bitterly over what words he was saying. Mike Hogan jigged to the Frenchman's tune, but shouted as he danced that he was spoiling for a fight. The smell of spirits reeked over the tug as if someone had sprinkled her deck with liquor.
Madden looked with anxious eyes for Caradoc, but did not see him. Smith was probably stuck away in some hole, senseless with poison, his effort at sobriety frustrated, his moral courage shattered, his weeks of painful reform smashed.
Whatever humor there might have been in the ill-starred situation was destroyed for Madden by his friend's moral relapse. It was much as if some invalid, nursing a broken leg, should fall and break it over again.
Gaskin was the first man who came in reach of the wrathful American. Madden caught his arm, whirled him about.
“You ladle rum out to these hogs?” he blazed.
Gaskin revolved with dignity and considered his accuser. “You wouldn't think Hi'd do such a thing, sor!”
“Then how did they get it?” Leonard shook the fat arm sharply.
“In spite o' me, sor! In spite o' me!” defended the cook, shaking his fat jowls earnestly. “Hi rebooked 'em, sor. Says Hi, 'Gents, this is lootin', it is piratin', it is——'”
“You should have refused them a drop!”
“Refuse—Hi did refuse, sor! Hi did more. Hi blocked 'em! Hi—Hi fought hout, like a demon, sor! There were too many! Hoverpowered me, sor, they did! I was fightin' and blockin', fightin' and blockin', like a d-demon, sor, b-but—b-but——”
Here Gaskin's utterance grew thicker, his fat head bobbed, then he slithered down by the rail in the hot sunshine; his face stared skyward and stewed sweat in the terrific heat. Madden gave a grunt of disgust. Gaskin was fast asleep.
There was nothing to be done. The men were drunk and he would have to wait till they became sober before making an attempt to run the Vulcan. He stood a moment, staring disgustedly at his useless crew, then finally stooped and dragged Gaskin to the shady side of the superstructure. As he passed with his burden some of the men made clumsy tangle-footed efforts to salute.
In the shade Leonard found a deck chair, perched himself on its arm so as not to touch its hot canvas, and sat brooding glumly. He banished the drunken uproar from his brain and began totting up his prospects for escape from this foully beautiful sea. His mind jumped from topic to topic in an exhausted fashion. He wondered whether or not Galton really knew anything of marine engines? If the dock would be discovered by a passing ship? If the tug's crew had really gone demented and leaped overboard? If there were any connection between the fate of the Minnie B and the Vulcan?
It seemed to Madden that he had been in the heat and brilliant garishness of the Sargasso for centuries. He wondered if the men would become so starved that they would draw lots to see who should be killed and eaten.
Anything, everything, was possible in this isolated sea. Its normal happenings were unreasonable. It was a place of madness. He recalled the words of the navvy on the London dock, “Everything is unreasonable at sea.” Certainly that was true of the vast stewing labyrinth of the Sargasso. He had lived abnormally so long that it seemed strange to him now to think that there were comfortable, well-ordered places on the face of the earth. Just as one cannot imagine snow and ice in the depth of summer, so Madden could not imagine the simple comforts of life. It seemed to him the whole world shriveled under a furnace heat.
Such heat, such congestion, he thought, might well breed sea-monsters. After all, why should there not be a sea monster? Who could be sure that the old megalosauri, and megalichthys were extinct? Those monsters existed once upon a time, certainly. He was half persuaded that they still existed.
A sea serpent!
He wondered what a sea serpent would look like? One might well drive a man insane, cause him to leap overboard in utter horror.
His feverish brooding was interrupted by a wild flood of abuse from the starboard deck. It was Galton's voice bellowing:
“Were is 'e? Were is that bloody Hamerican? 'E 'it me! 'It me in th' eye for trying to 'elp 'im! You lads goin' to see me murdered for nothin'?”
Came a medley of drunken questions: “W'ot's th' matter? Who bloodied your bloomin' eyes? W'ot 'appened?”
“That Hamerican chap!” bawled Galton savagely. “'E 'it me for 'elpin' 'im make a fire! Goin' to see me run over an' killed?”
“Faith Oi didn't see nawthin',” panted Malone, fresh from his dance
“Won't you stan' by a Hinglishman?” shouted the battered one.
“Sure we will!”
“We're Hinglish!”
“Le's 'lect 'nother hofficer an' court martial 'im!” bawled the sailor venomously.
“Sure, make 'im walk a plank!”
“Son of a shark!”
“Man-killin' crimp!”
The whole crew came lurching around toward Madden, filled with the wordy anger of intoxicated men.
The American arose to his feet with little emotion save a return of his old disgust. He knew he could defend himself from any assault the crew might make in that condition. But they made none. They stopped a little way from him, some drunkenly grave, others winking or leering, some abusive and threatening.
“Go'n' tuh 'lect 'nother captain,” announced Mulcher thickly. “You no reg'lar hofficer!”
“You 'it a man for 'elpin' you, and 'urt 'is eye!”
“Make 'im walk a plank!” flared out Galton, shaking a big fist at Leonard. “Make 'im walk a plank!” Leonard observed that the fellow's nose and forehead were badly bruised, and dark circles had settled under his eyes. He started for Madden, when Hogan caught him under the arms.
“Phwat you talkin' about, old scout? Walk a plank—you have to court martial him first.”
“I don't b'lieve 'e can walk a plank,” surmised a cockney gravely. “'E's too drunk; 'e'd fall hoff.”
“Where's Farnol Greer, Mulcher?” snapped Madden disgustedly. “Is he drunk, too?”
“D-drunk—you don't think we're drunk, sor?”
“We 'ave been drinkin' a little, sor, but we're not drunk.”
“Oi am,” nodded Hogan, resting his chin on Galton's shoulder as if from deep affection. “Oi don't a—ack loike it, you—hic—you couldn't tell it on me, b-but Oi—Oi—Oi'm drunk, aw roight.”
“I theenk Greer ees in the cook's galley,” smiled Deschaillon, who appeared to be rational; then he added coolly: “Eef there ees any fighting, I weel help you, Meester Madden.”
“Cook's galley!” sputtered Mulcher. “'E's drinkin' hit ever' drop, lads; come on!”
“An' th' grub, too!” added Hogan.
This news completely disorganized the court martial and election committee. Galton himself forgot his revenge in his thirst. They started aft pellmell in confused haste to help Greer finish the rum.
Leonard made no objection. They were already drunk. They might as well dispose of the liquor once for all, and then it would trouble discipline no more.
When the men and their turmoil had disappeared, Madden remained on deck, filled with a dull, heavy feeling of lassitude and bitterness. It was one of those moments when a man's hope is swamped in present difficulties.
The sun swung slowly down into the western sea, and its reflections made long blinding streaks in the Sargasso. Its yellow light transformed the great red dock into an orange structure that rested on the sea as lightly as the pavilions of the evening clouds.
The perpetual bizarre beauty of the scene was tiring to the youth. For some reason he thought again of the sea serpent. It occurred to Madden that an enormous scaly thing, in vivid spangling colors, embossed with sword-like spines, with a long convoluted tail, huge red-fanged mouth, would be in keeping with the scene before him, would indeed produce a gorgeously decorative effect, such as he had seen in Chinese pictures.
His thoughts took all sorts of queer turns. He wondered what he would do if he should see such a creature? He walked over and stood by the rail, staring intently into the colorful west, half expecting to see some wild dragon of his imagination. If it should come, he wished for a camera—a moving picture camera. A moving picture of a dragon attacking a ship!
Just then he caught a strange noise that seemed to emanate from the air above his head. He stood quite still, hands on rail, listening. It was repeated. It was a human noise. It seemed to come from the vacant bronze-colored sky above his head. He wondered if he were going insane? Just then he caught sight of Caradoc's torso thrust out from a barrel up in the shrouding of the foremast. The crew of the Vulcan had run up the barrel like a whaler's lookout to post a watch. Into this barrel Caradoc had climbed.
The face of Smith wore a strained, desperate look. Madden stared at him for several seconds, quite taken aback by finding him in such an unexpected place. One thing, however, filled the American with deep gratification. The man was not drunk.
“What you doing up there?” called Madden in surprise.
Caradoc's broad shoulders sagged drearily. “I don't know,” he said dully. “I fancy I might as well jump overboard and be done with it.”
Madden became instantly alert. “Jump overboard! What for?” A sudden thought hit him. Maybe this was the way they all went? Then another fear entered his heart.
“Say, have you seen anything up there, Smith?… A dragon, or… sea serpent, or…” Madden stared dumbfounded at his friend, marveling what manner of sight had put suicidal thoughts into Smith's head.
“Heavens, yes… dragons, dragons, dragons!”
A weak, watery feeling went through Madden's legs. He felt doddery. “Many dragons!” All idea of beauty was lost in grisly horror.
“W-wait a m-minute!” he chattered. “D-don't j-jump—I'm coming up th-there!”