THE BLUE PETER

  SEA COMEDIES



  BY

  MORLEY ROBERTS

  AUTHOR OF "THE PROMOTION OF THE ADMIRAL"
  "CAPTAIN BALAAM OF THE 'CORMORANT'" ETC.



  LONDON
  EVELEIGH NASH
  1906




  INSCRIBED AFFECTIONATELY
  TO
  MY FATHER




CONTENTS


I. THE EXTRA HANDS OF THE _NEMESIS_

II. THE STRANGE SITUATION OF CAPTAIN BROGGER

III. THE OVERCROWDED ICEBERG

IV. THE REMARKABLE CONVERSION OF THE REV. T. RUDDLE

V. THE CAPTAIN OF THE _ULLSWATER_




THE EXTRA HANDS OF THE _NEMESIS_

The steamship _Nemesis_, of two thousand five hundred and fifty tons
register, and belonging to the port of London, had nearly finished
her loading one foggy afternoon in a foggy November.  She was at
Tilbury, taking in a general cargo for Capetown and Australian ports,
and as the last few cases were coming on board the skipper came on
board too by way of the big gangway, close by which the second mate
was standing.

"Is that the last of it?" asked the 'old man' gloomily.

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Cade with equal gloominess.  When a man is
second mate at the age of fifty it is not surprising that he should
be sulky.

"And it is time it was, for we're well down to our mark, and no
mistake about it, sir."

Captain Jordan said nothing, but walked for'ard to his cabin and sat
down wearily.  He threw a bundle of papers on his table, and filling
his pipe smoked for a few minutes.  He was a fine handsome
white-headed man of some fifty-two years, and had once been
ambitious.  Now he worked for Messrs. Gruddle, Shody, & Co., and, as
all seamen knew, to work for them was to have lost all chances that
following the sea affords even in these days.

"The swine," said old Jordan to himself, "oh, the swine that they
are!  I wish I could get even with them.  If I could do that I could
die happy.  They are charitable, are they?  Curse their charity!  Ah,
if I hadn't been so unlucky in my last employ."

But that was it.  He had been in the employ of a good firm with one
bitterly unjust regulation.  Any skipper of theirs who lost a ship,
even through no fault of his own, had to go, and, though he had
worked for them for twenty years, that was his fate when he piled up
the _Grimshaw Hall_ on the Manacles.

"And that's how they got me cheap," said Jordan.  "And because poor
Cade lost his master's certificate through an error of judgment they
have him cheap, and they have my old chum Thripp cheap in the same
way.  Oh, they are a precious lot of swine, and I wish I had 'em here
with me when we are out at sea.  I'd tell 'em what I think of 'em, if
I got the sack right off and had to ship before the mast."

Thripp the mate came by the cabin, and the skipper called to him.

"Yes, sir," said Thripp.

"Come in a moment," said Jordan.  "I've something to tell you,
something that will cheer you up and make you like the firm better
than ever."

Thripp was also as grey as a badger, but not through age.  He, too,
had been a master mariner, and had lost his first and only command by
running her against an iceberg in a fog.  He had had orders to make a
passage at all costs, but those orders were verbal, and his owners
showed in court printed instructions that bade all their employees
use extra caution in time of fog, even if a slow passage were the
result.  Therefore Messrs. Gruddle, Shody, & Co. got him cheap too.

"What's their charity now?" asked Thripp scornfully.

"It begins at home as usual," replied the skipper.  "They have cut
you and me down thirty bob a month and Cade a quid."

Thripp sighed, and then swore.

"Well, we have both had our certificates suspended," said Jordan
bitterly, "so what can we expect?  Men like us are every owner's
dogs, and they know it.  I'm half a mind to quit."

"I've got a wife," said Thripp, "and I can't put the poor old girl in
the workhouse."

Jordan had never been married, and was glad of it now.

"I once had a chance to marry a lady with ships of her own," he said
thoughtfully, "and I was fool enough to prefer to run alone.  But it
is wonderful how fond that woman was of me, Thripp.  She proposed to
me three times."

"You don't say so," said Thripp.

"Fact, I assure you," replied Jordan.  "She was as ugly as a freak,
and fat enough to make a livin' in a show, so I couldn't do it, you
see.

"I see," sighed Thripp, "but it was a pity."

"An awful pity," said the skipper.  "And even now she ain't forgot
me, though it is ten years ago and more since we first met.  Every
Christmas she sends me a puddin' and a bottle of rum that would make
your hair curl, ninety over proof at least, and with the aroma of a
West Injies sugar plantation.  I wonder if she has any sort of a
notion how I've come down in life so as to be at the mercy of a Jew
like Gruddle."

Cade came along and reported that the very last of the cargo was in
and that the hatches were on.  Jordan called him in and gave him a
tot of whisky, and broke the news to him that his wages had had
another cut.  But the second mate said nothing at all.  He shook his
head and went out.

"His spirit is broke," said Jordan gloomily.

"Oh, no," said Thripp, "it's only that he hasn't the words, poor
chap.  Well, it ain't any wonder.  I haven't any myself.  But if I
ran across Gruddle my opinion is that I should find 'em in spite of
my bein' a married man."

"Last week they was talkin' of comin' along with us as far as Gib,"
said Jordan.  "They are mighty proud of this steamer that I know they
got by fraud and diddlin' out of Johns and Mackie.  Oh, they are very
proud of her, and they see money in her."

"If they had come," said Thripp savagely, "I should have said
something or bust."

"Better to bust, I suppose," replied the skipper, "though I own that
if I knew they was comin' with us I should be tempted to say a lot
that's now inside me boilin'.  I wish they was, I own it.  I own it
freely, even if I got the sack."

He relapsed on the ship's papers, and Thripp went out to attend to
the duties of a conscientious mate on the eve of going to sea.  He
passed a telegraph boy on the main-deck and directed the lad to the
captain's cabin.  Destiny in a uniform thanked him and whistled.
When he had found the skipper and old Jordan had read the message he
was the one who whistled.  But he did not do so from want of thought
by any means.  He looked as savage as a trapped weasel, and as black
as a nigger on a dark night.

"Well, I'm damned," said Jordan, "so they are goin' to do it after
all!  And I don't know that I wish it now!"

He whistled again and rang the bell for the steward, who was another
of the firm's cheap bargains.  He had been in prison, in company with
a former captain of his, for disposing of stores in foreign parts and
feeding the crew on something that the illicit purchaser threw into
the bargain.  He was now trying to regain his lost reputation at the
wages of an ordinary seaman.

"Steward," said the skipper, "I want you to read this telegram and
arrange for it as best you can.  They will be with us for six days or
thereabouts."

For the wire was from Mr. Gruddle, and it stated that the four
partners were going with them as far as Gibraltar.

"Shall we 'ave to get in anythin' special for them in the way of
provisions, sir?" asked the steward.

The 'old man' scratched his head and said that he thought so.

"As you know, Smith, what we have to eat is horrid bad," he said
thoughtfully.

"It is, sir," replied Smith.  "It ain't fit for pigs."

Jordan stood thinking for a minute.  Then he turned to Smith.

"On the whole, Smith, I think I'd get nothing.  I'd like 'em to see
the kind of stuff they buy for us.  Perhaps it will do them good.  It
don't do us any.  Get nothin', Smith."

"Very well, sir," said the steward with a grin.  He turned to go, and
Jordan stopped him.

"I suppose, Smith, that some of the grub is worse than the rest?" he
asked.

"Lord bless you, sir, the men's grub is fair poison."

"Is it now?" said the skipper.  "Do you know, Smith, I think we'll
eat what the men do for the passage as far as Gibraltar.  I'll speak
to Mr. Thripp and Mr. Cade, and I daresay they won't mind just for a
little while."

"I could put you and them somethin' better in your cabin, sir, if the
other made you very sick," suggested Smith.

"So you could.  To be sure you could," said Jordan.  "That's a very
good idea of yours, Smith.  But fix up their berths.  They will be
aboard to-morrow mornin'."

He broke the news to the mates that the whole firm was coming on a
little trip with them, and when he asked them if they had any
objection to the fare that Smith proposed to give them for those few
days they said they would be glad to see it on the table.  They
thought almost happily of the face that Gruddle would put on when he
saw the measly and forbidden pork.  They had visions of Shody, who
was a wholesale grocer as well as a ship-owner, when he sampled the
stores that he supplied the firm with.  They smiled to think of
Sloggett and Butterworth, the junior partners, who promised to be
quite as bad as their elders by and by, and were known to be fond of
high feeding.  The only mistake they fell into about the whole body
of the firm was that they took them for fools who did not know what
sort of food they gave their officers and crews.  For next morning at
nine o'clock a number of fascinating-looking cases were brought on
board, on which was the name of a well-known provision merchant.  And
with the cases which obviously contained provisions there were some
which quite as obviously held champagne.  The 'old man' and the two
mates looked at this consignment and their jaws dropped.

"Our scheme ain't worth a cent," said Jordan sadly.

"It might be worse, though," said Thripp; "we'll get some of this
lot, of course."

"Do you think so?" asked Jordan sadly.

"Of course I do," said Thripp indignantly.  "Whatever kind of swabs
they are, they ain't surely so measly as to grub on this in our very
presence and see us eat the other muck?"

The skipper smiled a slow and bitter smile.

"Thripp, you are a good seaman, but as a judge of humanity you ain't
in it with Cade.  All you and me will get of this lot will be the
smell of it."

An hour later the owners came on board, and were received with the
humility due to such great men, who owned ships and shops and had
houses in Croyden, and reputations which smelt in heaven like a
tallow refining factory.  The very deck hands who brought their
luggage on board cursed them under their breath, and would have been
glad to do it openly.  Then as the tide served the _Nemesis_ cast off
from the wharf and made her way out into the stream, and started on
her most memorable trip.  If all the folks connected with the sea who
knew the character of the men who owned her had also known that they
were on board, and what was going to happen before they got back to
England again, she and they would have got a more lively send-off
than she did get.

The partners were in a very happy frame of mind, and showed it.  They
had got hold of the _Nemesis_ cheap and were going to make money out
of her.  They had their officers and crew on the cheap as well, and
it warmed their hearts to think of the price that they had
provisioned her at in these hard times.  Everything on board the
_Nemesis_ was cheap except the grub they had sent on board for their
own use, and even that had been paid for by a creditor as a means of
getting the firm to renew a bill.  It was quite certain the firm knew
their way about the dark alleys of this world.  Gruddle had a
cent.-per-cent. grin on his oily face, and fat Shody smiled like a
hyena out on a holiday, and the two more gentlemanly-looking members
of the firm laughed jovially.

"It's a great idea this," said Sloggett.  "We're going to 'ave an
ideal 'oliday and pay nothin' for it, and when we get to Gibraltar we
will put the screw on Garcia & Co. and show them that we are not to
be played with.  Oh, this was a good idea of yours, Butterworth, and
I congratulate you on it."

They were shown their berths by the scared and obsequious steward,
and they changed their frock-coats and high hats, without which they
could not move a step, and put on more suitable garments.  Gruddle,
for instance, put on patent leather shoes and spats, which with black
trousers and a loud check coat looked exceedingly striking.  He wore
a Royal Yacht Squadron cap, which he had as much right to as a Field
Marshal's uniform.  It suited his style of Oriental beauty as much as
that would have done, and he went on deck as pleased as Punch.  He
felt every inch a sailor.  The others followed him, and were almost
as remarkable to look at in their own way.  Shody, who was a very fat
man, was in knickerbockers and shooting-boots, and wore a fur-lined
overcoat; while Sloggett was adorned, in a new yachtsman's rig-out
which made him look like a pallid shop-walker.  Butterworth was the
only one who stuck to ordinary clothes, and, as a consequence, he
looked like a gentleman beside the others.  It was an illusion, of
course, for he wasn't a gentleman by any means.  On the contrary, he
was a member of the firm, and a rising man in that branch of the
shipping world which makes its money out of sinking ships.

"'Ow long will it be before we are in fine weather?" he asked, as he
stared at the docks and warehouses.  But no one knew, and just then
there was no one to ask, for all the officers had their hands full.
The river was thick with traffic, and there was enough mist on the
water to make navigation a little risky.

"Oh, give me sunlight," said Gruddle.  "When the sun shines I'm
almost as happy as when I turn a loss into a profit by attention to
details."

His partners laughed.

"There is nothing like an 'oliday on the cheap, with a free mind,"
said Shody.  "I likes an 'oliday, I own, but when it costs me money I
ain't as 'appy as when it costs someone else money."

"There is one thing about this vessel that fills me with a just
pride," said Gruddle, "and that is that her wages bill per month is
prob'ly thirty-three and a third per cent. under that of any vessel
of hequal tonnage sailin' out of London this day.  And it's done
without meanness too, all on account of my notion of givin' work to
the unfortunate at a trifle under current rates.  This is the only
firm in London that can be charitable, and 'ave the name for it, and
make money out of it."

They said that was so, and they discussed the officers.

"All good men, if a trifle unfortunate," said Shody.  "A year ago who
would 'ave believed that we could 'ave got a man like Jordan for what
we pay 'im?  The very hidea would 'ave been laughed at.  But he 'as
an accident that wasn't 'is fault, and down comes 'is price, and we
nip in and get a real good man cheap as dirt, and keep 'im off of the
streets so to speak.  Oh, Gruddle, it was a great idea of yours; and
to give that poor unfort'nit steward a job when 'e came out of chokey
was real noble of you."

"So it was," said Gruddle, "but I was always soft-'earted if I didn't
lose money by it."

"So you were," said Shody warmly.  "Do you remember 'ow you gave poor
Jenkins time to borrow money of his relatives w'en by all rights you
ought to 'ave given 'im into charge, and 'e would 'ave got ten years
as safe as a bill of Rothschild's?"

In such reminiscences of the firm's noble efforts on the part of
suffering and erring humanity they passed an agreeable hour, and then
went below and cracked a bottle of champagne.  Soon afterwards it was
time for lunch, and Butterworth saw to the arrangements of their
special table, and got things out to be cooked.  The skipper came
down for a moment while they were eating, and Gruddle called him over
to their table.

"Will you 'ave a glass of champagne, captain?" he asked.

"With pleasure, sir," said the white-headed old skipper, who looked
like a thoroughbred beside any one of them.

"Ah, I thought you would," said Gruddle warmly.  "I reckon you 'ave
not tasted it since you wrecked the _Grimshaw 'All_ on the Manacles,
captain.  And don't you forget that if you wrecks the _Nemesis_ you
won't taste much but skilly and water for the rest of your life.
Pour 'im out a glass, Sloggett, if you can spare it."

Jordan drank the wine, and it nearly choked him.  When he got out of
their sight he spat on the deck, and went upon the bridge alongside
the pilot shivering.  His hands were clenched and he was almost sick
with rage.

The mud-pilot saw that there was something wrong.

"Are you ill, captain?" he asked.

"I've 'ad a blow," said the old skipper, "I've 'ad a blow."

The pilot thought he had had bad news, and was sorry for him.

"No, not bad news," said poor old Jordan.  "It ain't no news to me.
Somebody said somethin' that puts things in a new light to me."

He chewed the cud of unutterable bitterness and wished he was dead.
He did not go below again till they were well in the Channel, and he
ate no supper.  He could not get it down.  He sent for Thripp to his
cabin, and burst out on the mate with the intolerable insults that he
had had to put up with.

"We're their dogs," said Thripp bitterly; "but if I am married I'll
not put up with much, sir.  They're half drunk by now, and are
playin' cards and drinkin' more, and Dixon is cryin' in his pantry
because one of 'em started bullyin' him about something, and said
that he was a hard bargain at any price."

"I wish I could get even, oh, I do wish it," said old Jordan.  "Did
you ever hear of such mean dogs in all your life?"

"Only in books, sir," said the mate thoughtfully.  "I recollect in
some book readin' about a man like Gruddle, but I forget what book it
was.  But I do remember that someone knocked the man down that was as
bad as Gruddle.  I enjoyed that book amazin'ly, sir."

"I wish you knew the name of it," said the skipper.  "But if I 'ad as
much money laid by as would bring me in fifteen shillin's a week I'd
show you something better than anythin' you ever read in a book,
Thripp.  You mark my words, I would."

"What would you show me, sir?" asked the mate eagerly.

But old Jordan sighed.

"What's the good of thinking of pure enjoyment when one ain't in the
least likely to get the chance of havin' it?  We must put up with
'em, Thripp.  After all it's only to Gibraltar, and after that we are
by ourselves.  I hope I shan't explode before then."

And Thripp went away to talk to the engineer, and to try to remember
the name of the book in which someone got his deserts.  While he was
doing that the partners played cards and drank more than was good for
them, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  They told Thripp, when he
came below, that the whole ship was disgracefully dirty, and that if
he wanted to keep his job he had better see to it at once.  As they
screwed him down on paint and all stores necessary to prevent a
vessel looking as bad as a house in Chancery, this naturally did not
cheer him up.  Dixon was really in tears because Gruddle swore at him
in the most horrid way without any reason, except that he had sworn
at Shody and had got the worst of it.  Cade accidentally ran into
Butterworth, who was sneaking round to see if he could find anything
to complain about, and Butterworth promptly said he was a clumsy
hound.  According to Jordan, Cade's spirit was broken, but this was
more than he could stand even from one of the owners.  He told
Butterworth to go where it was a deal hotter than the Red Sea in
July.  He did not use any circumlocution about it either, and
Butterworth was in a fury.  He complained to the skipper, and Jordan
had the greatest difficulty in refraining from endorsing Cade's hasty
recommendation of a suitable climate for the junior partner.  But he
did refrain.

"I am very sorry that he should have so far forgotten himself," said
Jordan.  "I will speak to him at once."

"The insolent fool must apologise," said Butterworth; and Jordan said
that Mr. Cade would undoubtedly see that that was his duty.  He
called for Cade, and Cade's spirit seemed to have quite bucked up.
He flatly declined to apologise unless Mr. Butterworth first did so
for 'calling him out of his name.'

"He said I was a clumsy hound," said Cade.

"So you are," said Butterworth, "and I say it again."

"Do you hear that, Captain Jordan?" asked Cade.  "Is an officer in
this vessel or in any other to be spoke to like that before the men?
Before I'll apologise I'll see that sailor-robber in hell, sir."

The poor skipper danced in his anxiety to preserve the peace.

"Mr. Cade, you mustn't.  I order you to hold your tongue, sir.  Go to
your cabin, sir, and after some reflection I am sure you will offer
an apology to Mr. Butterworth."

"I'll see him damned first," said Cade as he marched off.

"I sack you!  I discharge you!" roared Butterworth, who was in a
blind fury.

"Discharge your grandmother," said Cade discourteously.  "You can't
do it.  I'm on the ship's papers.  And who are you, anyhow?"

The owners held a consultation in the cabin when Butterworth came
below with his story of the second mate's insolence and
insubordination.

"Let us be clear as to 'ow it occurred," said Gruddle.  "Now,
Butterworth, tell us what it was."

"He ran against me, and I remonstrated, and he told me to go to
hell," said the fuming Butterworth.

"That ith very bad, very 'ighly improper," said Gruddle.  "But 'ow
did you remonstrate?  Did you 'it 'im?"

"Certainly not," said the junior partner warmly, "all I said was that
he was clumsy."

Shody and Sloggett said that Cade must be sacked at once, or at least
as soon as they got to Gibraltar.  Gruddle, who knew a deal more than
they did about most things in the way of the law and business, shook
his head.

"It will sound very queer to you," said Gruddle, "but the truth of
the matter ith that I don't think we can thack 'im.  The man 'ath a
contract for the voyage, and the only one that can thack 'im ith the
captain."

The rest said this was absurd.  Were they not the owners, and could
they not do as they pleased with every man-jack on board?  And even
if Gruddle was right, they could tell the captain to dump Cade over
the side at Gibraltar.

"Well, of course we can do that," said Gruddle.

"And we will," said the outraged Butterworth.  "I think we had better
'ave Jordan in now and tell 'im what to do."

They sent for the skipper, and the poor old chap came down and stood
up before them.  With his big white beard and his ruddy handsome face
he looked like a captive Viking before a tribunal of tradesmen.

"This 'ere conduct of the second mate is what we've called you down
about," said Gruddle.  "'E was very rude to Mr. Butterworth; told
'im, in fact, to go to 'ell, w'ich can't be put up with."

"And ain't goin' to be," said the offended partner.  "We 'ave sacked
'im, and 'e must be sent ashore at Gibraltar and another one found."

Jordan had the very strongest inclination to tell Butterworth exactly
what Cade had told him.  But he restrained himself, and suggested to
them that it would probably take some time to pick up a new second
mate at Gib, whereas they had arranged not to enter but to signal for
a boat for them to go ashore in.  It was Shody who saw the way out
and brought them all to grief.

"Cade can come ashore with us," he said with a fat and happy smile,
"and you needn't wait to get another man in 'is place, captain.  I
always understood that the second mate was on'y a kind of deputy for
the skipper, and I see no reason w'y 'e couldn't be done without
altogether."

"That's a very good idea of yours, Shody," said Sloggett and
Butterworth in the same breath, "and I daresay the captain will see
that it is."

But Jordan was breathless with indignation.  Shody spoke for him.

"I always did think," said Shody, "that the captain of any vessel 'ad
much too easy a time of it.  I don't see no reason why 'e shouldn't
stand his watch same as the mate.  The captain's job is an easy one
and a well paid one.  I should say it was an overpaid one.  'Avin' a
second mate is like 'avin' a fifth wheel to a coach, and the job
should be abolished.  This is a good chance of inauguratin' an
entirely new system, and a reform that will save money."

The only one of them who thought this was going too far was Gruddle,
and he did not care to look Jordan in the face.  When he did look at
the captain it was because he had to, and because Jordan demanded it.
The old man's face was livid with rage, and he struck the table a
resounding blow that made the glasses dance.  The partners shrank
back from him as if he was a wild elephant, and Gruddle went as white
as the skipper's beard.

"You infernal hogs," said the skipper, "you infernal hogs, I'm sorry
I ever saw one of you!  You are a disgrace to the name of Englishmen,
and--and I despise you!"

He looked as if he did; there was no mistake about that, and he also
looked as if he was about to assault the whole gang of them.  The two
junior partners jumped to their feet not so much to be prepared to
defend themselves as to run away.  Jordan might be somewhat past his
best, but he was still as strong as a bull and as big as any two of
them in spite of Shody's fat.  He was distinctly dangerous.

"'Ow, 'ow dare you on our ship?" asked Shody with a poor attempt at
dignity.  "Partners, our kindness 'as been throwed away, bestowed on
an hunworthy hobject."

"Shut up, or I'll make you," roared the old skipper.  "I won't be
spoke to by a lot of hogs such as you, with your talk of charity and
your beastly manners.  You can sack me if you like, but you don't
sack the second mate while I am captain of this vessel, so I tell
you."

"We--we discharge you," said Butterworth furiously.  "We discharge
him, don't we?"

They said that they did, and for a second the skipper was about to
take his dismissal lying down.  But the next moment he refused to do
anything of the sort.  He saw the strength of his position where they
naturally only saw his weakness.  He laughed a little angrily, but
still he laughed, and the sound outraged the firm.

"You will laugh on the wrong side of your face when you are on the
street," said Shody.  And just then Jordan heard Cade enter his
cabin.  He laughed again, this time much more naturally, and called
to the second mate.  He came in looking as black as a thundercloud.

"Mr. Cade," said the skipper in almost his usual mild tone of voice.

"Yes, sir," replied Cade.

"Would you be so good, Mr. Cade, as to tell me who I am?"

Cade stared, and so did the partners.

"Who you are, sir?" stammered the second greaser in great amazement.

"Yes, who I am?" repeated the skipper.

"Why, you are Captain Jordan, sir," said Cade, still out of soundings.

"Of what ship, Mr. Cade?"

"Of this one, sir," replied Cade, who hoped that the skipper hadn't
gone mad.

"Exactly so, Mr. Cade," said the 'old man,' who had by this time made
up his mind to a very definite course of action.  "You hear that,
gentlemen?"

They did hear it, but were not much wiser.  They looked at each other
in some amazement.

"What do you mean, you old fool?" asked Sloggett.  But Jordan did not
answer him.  He spoke again to Cade.

"And if I am the skipper of this boat," he went on, "who are these
gentlemen who are givin' me directions to put you ashore at Gib?"

Cade eyed them malevolently, and for the first time a glimpse of the
captain's meaning came to him.  His face lightened, and he smiled
grimly.

"Why, they are only passengers," he said.

"Right the very first time," said Jordan with a pleasant smile; "that
is what they are here, and no mistake about it.  And as passengers,
Mr. Cade, what authority have they?"

"Not so much as the cook," said Cade.

The skipper, who had quite recovered his temper, turned to the
partners.

"You hear that, gentlemen?" he asked.

They did hear it, and it sounded very absurd to all of them but old
Gruddle, who did know something of the ways of the sea and the laws
of it.

"You are an old fool," said Butterworth, "and when we get to
Gibraltar you will find it out too, quick."

The skipper grinned quite amiably.  As he had now made up his mind,
he reverted to the superiority of tone which had distinguished him
when he was captain of the _Grimshaw Hall_.

"Yes, I shall find it out--when I get to Gibraltar," said Jordan,
with ample and deadly courtesy, and saying that he went out of the
saloon and called Cade to follow him.  When they came out on deck he
put his hand on the second mate's shoulder.

"I ain't goin' to Gibraltar at all, Mr. Cade," he said with a nod,
and Cade gasped.

"Ain't you, sir?" he asked after a long pause of astonishment.

"Not much, I'm not," said Jordan.  "I've put up with a deal, but I'll
show 'em now who's the boss here.  I got orders for Capetown and
Sydney, and if they choose to come on board as passengers and tell me
to go elsewhere I don't choose to do it, and that is all there is to
it.  Damn their eyes!"

"Amen, sir," said Cade.  "To think that Butterworth called me a
clumsy hound!"

"He did," said the skipper.  "But I'll give you a chance of gettin'
even before you are a week older.  You see if I don't."

And in the cabin the partners were staring at each other in great
surprise.

"This is mutiny," said Sloggett.  But Gruddle growled.

"Don't be an ass, Sloggett," said the senior partner.  "'Ow can a
captain be guilty of mutiny?  The very idea is absurd."

So it was, of course.

"I don't believe he will go into Gibraltar at all," said Gruddle with
a gasp.  "You chaps 'ave put the old chap's back up, and when 'e is
mad 'e's capable of anything."

"He wouldn't dare," said Butterworth.  "Do you mean he will take us
on to Capetown?"

"That's what I do mean," sighed the wretched senior partner, who did
not find that he enjoyed the sea at all.  "That is exactly wot I do
mean."

"Good Lord," said Shody, "and there ain't enough decent grub to do
more than take us to Gibraltar."

"This is a very 'orrid situation," said Gruddle, "and we owes it
entirely to you, Butterworth, for quarrellin' with the second mate.
I believe you done a lot more than call him clumsy.  I'll lay odds
you was grossly insultin', as you always are."

The others turned on Butterworth and said that they believed it too,
and the unhappy Butterworth acknowledged that he had called Cade a
hound.

"I'm right as usual," said Gruddle; "and if I know my man no apology
will do any good.  I can see that they are savage because we cut down
their wages.  I've a good mind to raise 'em again till we get a
chance to cut 'em down safely.  We was fools to come this 'ere trip,
and we owe it all to Butterworth who suggested it."

Butterworth got it all round, and was in an extreme state of
wretchedness.

"I think that if Butterworth is a gent, as we are all ready to
believe," said Shody, "that 'e will go at once and apologise to that
beast of a second mate; and we can tell the skipper that we will
raise 'is wages again--till we can sack 'im."

This seemed a very good idea to everyone but Butterworth.

"I never apologised to anyone, and I ain't goin' to begin with a man
like Cade," said Butterworth stubbornly.

"You're not a man of business in the least," said Shody.  "I always
maintained that we lose more money by your manners, w'ich are those
of a pig, than we ever gain by your sharp practice.  And now, 'avin'
got your partners into a 'orrid mess with a mad and insubordinate
captain, you are prepared to see them eat muck on'y fit for sea-goin'
folks.  The on'y consolation is that you will 'ave to eat it
yourself."

"Oh, Butterworth, do apologise," said Gruddle with tears in his eyes,
"do apologise, for if you eat a little dirt in doin' so it is far
better than eatin' all you will if we continue this 'orrid and
disastrous trip."

The others agreed with Gruddle, and at last Butterworth was induced
to put his pride in his pocket and try an apology on Cade.

"It won't work, I know it won't work," said the cause of all their
woes.  "That Cade 'as a down on me I know, and 'e isn't a gentleman
and won't take an apology from one.  But all the same I'll try,
though I don't see why it should all be put on me.  Men like these
officers of ours think a deal more of a few shillin's a week than a
few cross words, and it was Gruddle who cut down their wages.  I
think it is Gruddle who should apologise."

But Gruddle argued that he had not called Cade a hound, and when
Butterworth went off on his painful errand he turned to the others
and said--

"The hidea of Butterworth thinkin' that 'e is a gentleman!"

They all shook their heads at the idea of Butterworth doing so, and
told each other stories of his origin in a pawnship in the Borough
Road.

"And 'e 'asn't manners either," sighed Shody.

By this time it was noon, and Cade was on the bridge, while Thripp
was in the skipper's cabin hearing a fuller account of the row than
Cade had given him.  Cade was in no frame of mind to receive an
apology from anyone.  He took things hard, and chewed over them
horribly.

"Hound, clumsy hound, am I?" said Cade as he paced the bridge with
his hands in his pockets.  "I'd like to 'clumsy hound' him.  Clumsy
hound, and I didn't knock him down!  Bein' married makes a coward of
a man!"

He turned about to find the object of his wrath on the sacred bridge.
It made him quite forget that he was married, and that Mrs. Cade was
hard to deal with if the money was not forthcoming in due season.  He
stared at Butterworth in the most offensive way, and the apology with
which the junior partner was primed stuck in his throat.

"What the devil do you want here?" asked Cade savagely.  "Don't you
know that this part of the vessel is private?  But perhaps you have
come to say that you are sorry for callin' me out of my name just
now, when I didn't knock you down as I should have done?"

It seemed peculiarly hard lines to Butterworth that his act of grace
was to be discounted in this way, and as he was not by any means as
big a coward as Gruddle or Shody he fired up at once.

"I was goin' to apologise, but now I won't, and I defy you to knock
me down, and you are a clumsy hound, so there!"

He put up his hands a moment too late, for Cade made a jump like a
buck and caught him full on the jaw, and the junior partner went down
like a sack of coals.  He got up again more quickly than was wise,
and once more went down.  This time he did not get up, though he was
invited to do so with great politeness by the second mate.  For when
Cade had it all his own way, and had wiped out the sense of
self-contempt which had lately been troubling him, he grew quite
happy.

"Get up, dear, and let me knock you endways once more," he said in
the most agreeable tones at his command.  "But I see you won't, my
chicken.  You have had enough, and you may go now and send up your
partners one by one, and I'll serve the sailor-robbin' scum in the
same way.  Get out of this, and next time don't forget that at the
first crooked word, though it is only rams'-horns, I'll knock you as
flat as a jib down-haul.  This here bridge is private."

And Butterworth rose and staggered down to his partners with his hand
to his jaw.

"I'm much happier than I was, and if the old girl cuts up rough at my
gettin' the sack again, why all I have to say is that keelin'
Butterworth over is worth double the money," said Cade joyfully.

By this time the skipper had come to a decision which would have
pleased Cade even more than knocking the junior partner endways.
Thripp said that he did not care if the skipper did it.  In fact, he
wanted him to do it, and did not care if it cost him his billet and
he had to ship before the stick in a wind-jammer for the rest of his
life.  He also went on to say that it would be a joy to him always,
and that it would be an equal joy to all hands.

"Then that's decided on," said the 'old man' firmly.  "We ain't goin'
into Gibraltar this trip, not by a hatful, and when their special
grub gives out we'll decide what is to follow."

"Yes, sir," said the mate, and he turned in to get a snooze before it
was his turn to go on watch again.  Jordan walked into the saloon,
and was passing the partners like a ship in full sail passing some
mud-barges, when he was pulled up by Sloggett.

"Captain Jordan, Mr. Butterworth has been knocked down by the second
mate."

"Oh, has he?" asked Jordan.

"Yes, I have," roared the unfortunate man who had not got his apology
out in time to save himself.  "Yes, I 'ave, and when we get to
Gibraltar I'll 'ave 'im in jail as sure as I'm one of the owners of
this vessel."

Jordan was perfectly reckless, and cared nothing by now for any of
them.  He laughed, and walked on towards his cabin.

"Ain't you goin' to do nothin' about it?" asked Shody.

"Nothin'," said the skipper.  "Serves the measly little swine right.
I hope Mr. Cade will serve the lot of you the same way before we get
to Capetown."

With that shot, which clean hulled them and made them quiver, he went
into his cabin and slammed the door upon them.

"There, there, what did I tell you?" wailed Gruddle.  "'E's goin' to
take us on to Africa, and we can't stop 'im."

The prospect of being shut in a ship with officers who totally
refused to recognise that they had any status but passengers was very
dreadful, but over and above that there was the question of what
would become of the business, with none to attend to it but underpaid
clerks who were not allowed to know the dark and secret ways of their
employers.  And then there was the question of the grub.  Shody
fairly quailed at the prospect.  They turned on poor smitten
Butterworth like one man, and if Cade needed any more revenge they
gave it him.

"You must go and speak to the skipper, Butterworth," they said in
chorus, "you must persuade him to act reasonable."

"Yes, and be knocked down again!" said the wretched junior, whose
head was aching as the result of Cade's hard fists.  "'E's a much
more powerful man than that overbearin' beast on the bridge, and I
ain't goin' to be whippin' boy for any of you."

"But you got us to come," urged Gruddle.

"I wish to 'eavens I 'ad died before I thought of it," sighed
Butterworth.  "But who would 'ave thought as men like them, under our
thumb so to speak, would 'ave taken things as they 'ave done.  It
ain't my fault."

But they said it was, and at last Gruddle with a groan suggested that
they should raise the skipper's wages if he would be good and kind to
them, and not ruin them by taking them to Africa.

"For don't let us disguise it from ourselves, it will be ruin or very
near it.  We'll get back and find ourselves in the Court, without any
of them bills provided for," said the senior partner.  "Butterworth,
I don't believe you ever tried to apologise to the second mate at
all."

"He knocked me down as soon as I come on the bridge," screamed
Butterworth angrily.

"You should 'ave apologised to a man like that from a safe distance,"
said the wise and sad Gruddle.  "You 'ad no business on the bridge,
and you know it.  'Owever, I insist that you go and speak polite to
the captain, who won't 'it you, I'm sure, while you are so swelled
from what the second mate 'as done."

It took quite a quarter of an hour's combined persuasion to make
Butterworth put his head into the lion's den, and he only did it on
the understanding that he was to be empowered to offer the skipper a
rise of three pounds a month and an indemnity for his insubordination.

"Very well," the others agreed, "you can say we forgives him for his
mutinous conduct, and won't take any steps in the matter if 'e lands
us at Gib as arranged.  And of course our sayin' so means nothin',
and we can 'ave 'im sacked at Capetown by cable, and put on the
street."

Even then Butterworth was very uneasy, and demurred to going to
interview the ferocious Jordan without some kind of an excuse.

"'Adn't we better wait till 'e comes out to dinner?" urged
Butterworth, "and then our speakin' will come natural, or more
natural than now."

Sloggett looked up at this.

"Oh, if you are such a coward as to want an excuse I can give you
one," he said.  "I quite forgot till this very moment that I brought
a letter from the office for this old scoundrel of a Jordan.  So you
can take it in, Butterworth."

But the junior partner did not like being called a coward after his
encounter with the second mate, and he was very cross with Sloggett.

"Coward yourself," he said angrily.  "Why don't you take it?  I'll
bet you 'aven't the pluck to call that Cade a clumsy 'ound."

"No more 'ave you, now," said Sloggett; "and if you like I'll take on
your job with Jordan, and give 'im the letter myself."

"All right, you can," said Butterworth; "and I'll take five to three
in sovs. that you don't get an 'idin'."

That no one offered to lay these odds made Sloggett very
uncomfortable, but as he had undertaken the job he went through with
it, though he did it with a very pale face.  He took the letter from
his pocket, without knowing that by so doing he was rendering their
trip to Capetown a dead certainty, and walked to the skipper's cabin.
He paused for a moment before he knocked, and the junior partner of
the unhappy firm laughed.  That laugh gave Sloggett the necessary
stimulus to action, and he tapped very mildly at Jordan's cabin.

"Come in," roared the skipper, in a voice like a distant
thunderstorm, and Sloggett did as he was bid, and did it as mildly as
he had knocked.

"Oh, captain, I forgot to tell you that I brought you a letter from
the office which came just as I was leavin' it."

"Put it down then," said the skipper in anything but a conciliatory
tone.  But Sloggett was not put off by that.  He could not conceive
that anyone would not come off his perch at the sound of money.

"I want to talk to you about raisin' your screw, captain," he said,
with an obsequiousness which was very rare with him.  "I want to talk
with you on the subject of raisin' your screw."

"I don't want to have any conversation with you or any of your
partners," said the skipper truculently; "and if you have any thing
to say on that or any other subject, you can say it when I come to
dinner."

"Oh, very well," said Sloggett.  "I am sorry I have disturbed you,
but I forgot to tell you that I 'ad a letter for you, and that was
really why I came in."

"I told you to put it down, didn't I?" asked the skipper.  "So do it
and get."

Sloggett withdrew like a dog with his tail between his legs, and went
back to his friends and reported that Jordan was mad and intractable.
And in the meantime the 'old man' took his letter and stared at it.

"By crumbs," said Jordan, "it's from the poor old girl that always
wanted to marry me!  It is three years since she proposed last, and I
thought she had got tired of it.  If she hasn't I'm blowed if I won't
think of doin' it after all."

He opened the letter eagerly, and when he had read it he sighed and
said--

"Poor old girl, well, well, well!  Who would have thought it?"

He walked up and down his narrow cabin, and as he did so he shook his
head.  Nevertheless there was quite another look in his face from any
he had worn since he had piled up the _Grimshaw Hall_.  He stood
quite upright, and threw back his shoulders and took in a long breath.

"I'm devilish glad that I broke with this gang of robbers before I
knew," he said.  "I feel like a man again.  Poor old girl!  I'm
almost sorry that I did not marry her after all.  I'll tell this to
Thripp and Cade.  They shall share in this or I'm a Dutchman of the
very worst kind."

He walked past the sad consulting partners, and looked more haughty
than ever, and yet more good-tempered.

"I'm very much afraid that he has 'ad good news in that letter," said
Gruddle, "for if 'e has it may make 'im more hindependent."

"I don't see 'ow 'e can be more independent than 'e 'as been,"
remarked Shody.  "When a captain gets independent enough to call the
firm that owns 'im an infernal lot of 'ogs, that seems to me the very
'eight of independence."

But, as a matter of fact, Jordan was more independent.  He went up to
Thripp, who was on the bridge, with a curious expression of mixed joy
and sadness.

"You remember that poor old girl that I told you of, Thripp?"

"The one that hankered to marry you?" asked Thripp.

"The same," said the skipper.  "She has pegged out, the poor old
girl, at least she says she has."

Thripp stared.

"What do you mean by that, sir?  How could she say so?" he asked.

The skipper showed him the letter that he had just received.

"Sloggett brought it on board, and gave it me just now as he came
crawlin' to my cabin and let on a lot of slush about raisin' my pay
agin' that they had just cut down, because they have tumbled to the
fact that I've a down on them and the likes of them, and mean to get
even by takin' them to Capetown.  And she says in the letter that she
isn't long for this weary lonely world (those are her words, and they
make me feel as if I'd been ungrateful and ought to have overlooked
the fact that she wasn't pretty), and that when she has deceased the
letter is to go to me at once, and from that I draw the conclusion
that she has deceased and is no more, don't you see?"

"I see," said the mate.  "But does she say anything else?  She hasn't
left you a ship by any chance?"

"Not to say a ship," said Jordan, shaking his head, "but what's as
good.  It appears that she naturally let on that she owned ships,
bein' a woman and a little inclined to brag, not havin' good looks to
fall back on, and it turns out that she was in the tug and lighter
line in Hartlepool, and, as I gather, doin' well enough, and makin'
money with three good tugs and a number of lighters and barges not
named, as well as a coal-yard with a well-established connection, and
she has left the whole shoot to me."

"I congratulate you," said Thripp.  "Now you are really independent
and can go for Gruddle & Co. just as you like."

The skipper nodded.

"So I can, Thripp, so I can; but it is a great pleasure to me to
think that I told 'em the truth and called 'em hogs before I had had
this letter.  Thripp, I feel more like a man than I have done since
the very painful day that I had my certificate suspended.  Now I'll
go and tell Cade.  He'll be glad to know it."

He turned to leave the bridge, when Thripp sighed.

"I suppose if you do take 'em on to Table Bay we shall all get the
dirty kick-out there, sir?" said Thripp in rather a melancholy tone
of voice.

The skipper laughed jovially.

"Of course we shall, Thripp, but think of the satisfaction of doin'
it!  Oh, but I'm a happy man this hour!  And if you can guess what I
mean to do in addition to takin' them where they by no manner of
means want to go, I'll stand you a bottle of their champagne, of
which I mean to have some or bust."

"It's all very well for you now, with your tugs and your lighters and
a coal-yard," grumbled Thripp, "but what about me and Cade, and our
wives?"

The 'old man' stared at his chief officer in the very greatest
surprise.

"Why, didn't I say that I wanted you and him to come into the
business with me, if you ain't too proud to be the skipper of a tug
and manage lighters and a coal-yard?"

"You never said a word about it," said Thripp with a pleased and
happy smile.  "But if you mean that, I'm in with you, sir, and
anything you like to do with the firm shall have my heartiest
support, even if you go so far as to turn 'em for'ard to work."

Jordan looked at him with the intensest surprise.

"How in the name of all that is holy and righteous did you guess it?"
he asked with wide-opened eyes.  "Thripp, my man, that is my
intention, and no mistake about it.  But keep it dark, and I will
wake up Cade and make him joyful, a thing he very rarely is, for his
career havin' not been a success appears to weigh on his mind, and
his missis is a tartar, as I judge.  Women worship success, and the
fact that the poor old girl that has left me these tugs knew that I
came to grief, and yet offered to marry me in spite of it, touched me
at the time as much as the tugs do now."

In five minutes there were three exceedingly happy officers on board
the _Nemesis_.  Such a thing had not happened in one of Messrs.
Gruddle & Company's boats since there had been such a firm.  But now
there were four very unhappy partners.

"I can't think why they are so happy," said Gruddle when the skipper
and the mate came down and began their dinner, "but I feel sure it
don't mean any good to us.  I never was in such a position, and I
don't believe it ever happened before that the owners of a vessel was
in such a one.  Oh, what shall we do if he won't go to Gib?"

At his instigation a bottle of champagne was sent over to the
captain's table.

"Don't you understand, Butterworth," said the senior partner, when
Butterworth objected, "that we are in a persition that is, I may say,
unparalleled?  A captain has an awful lot of power, and I gather from
'is be'aviour that 'e knows it.  In the office we gave 'im all proper
orders for Capetown, and said nothin' about Gibraltar, because you
hadn't been fool enough to suggest it then.  If 'e won't go there we
can't make 'im, so if a little kindness and a bottle of champagne
will do it it is very cheap at the price."

"I would like to murder 'im," said Butterworth, but the champagne was
sent over to the skipper's table all the same.  It was returned quite
courteously, or, at anyrate, without any demonstration of hostility,
and the partners knew then that war had been declared, and that peace
could be obtained at no price, do what they would.  They put it all
down to the letter that Sloggett had given him, and they attacked
Sloggett, who in revenge drank far more wine than he could stand, and
went first for one of them and then for another, and finally got up
enough steam to swear at the captain.  In one minute and fifteen
seconds by any good chronometer Mr. Sloggett was in irons, and in a
spare berth without anything to furnish it.  Captain Jordan was
himself again, and not the kind of man to put up with anything from
anybody.

When Sloggett was quiet and subdued, the skipper told them in a few
brief but well-chosen words what he and his officers and the whole
ship's company thought of them.  He told them his opinion of their
charity, and of the wages they paid, and of the grub they put on
board their vessel.  He went on to state in very vivid language what
was said of them all the world over, and then paused for a reply,
which they did not give him.  He asked them what they thought of
themselves, and whatever they thought upon that subject they did not
venture to state it.  He asked Thripp if he would like to say
anything, and Thripp did make a few remarks about things the captain
had omitted.  Then Jordan asked them if they would like to hear Mr.
Cade on the subject, for if so Mr. Thripp could relieve the second
officer for a few minutes.  They expressed no anxiety to hear any
more counsel for the prosecution, and then Gruddle made a
heart-rending appeal for mercy.

"Oh, take us into Gibraltar, captain, and we will forgive you all,
and even raise your pay to what you think is the proper figure.  Oh,
don't take us to Capetown, for there isn't food enough, and I shall
die of indigestion."

"There is plenty of food," said Jordan.  "Oh, there is heaps of grub
such as Mr. Shody sent on board himself, and as a lesson I'm goin' to
take you to South Africa, and I hope to the Lord that you will
survive it."

Shody shivered; he knew what bad pork was like.  Gruddle, as a Jew,
was no judge of it.  But the beef was even worse than the pork, and
the men for'ard were almost in mutiny about it already.

"But food like that is only fit for men who are doin' hard work,"
said the unlucky Shody.  The skipper's eyes flashed and then twinkled.

"Is that so?" he said.  "If it is so, there seems to be a remedy."

What the remedy was he declined to state, and the firm declined to
believe that it could be the one that occurred to them all with
dreadful vividness.  Oh no, it could not be that!  Captain Jordan
left them thinking, and retired into privacy for the remainder of the
night.  The trouble of wondering what was to happen to them came to
an end in the morning, when by some strange chance, if it was a
chance, the deck hands came as a deputation to the captain and laid a
complaint against the grub.  Jordan requested the presence on deck of
the partners, and they knew better than to refuse.

"What you have to say about the food will be better said before the
owners, my men," said the skipper.  "As you know, they happen to be
on board."

As he spoke they crawled on deck, looking very unhappy.  The steward,
Smith, who began to see how the land lay, and treated them with far
less respect already, told them what the trouble was.

"The men for'ard says the grub is rotten, gents, and they are furious
and fightable about it.  Oh, they are savage and very 'ostile."

That was distinctly calculated to cheer them up, and they were as
cheerful as if they were ordered three dozen at the gangway.  With
them went Sloggett, who had been released from irons.

"Oh, here you are, gentlemen," said the skipper cheerfully.  For the
first time since he had been an officer all his sympathies were with
the men.  He was no longer the captain only, he was also a man, and
he understood their point of view.  "I thought it best that you
should hear the men's complaints about the food.  Now then, my men,
what have you to say?"

The spokesman of the crew stood in front of the rest, and after some
half-audible encouragement from his fellows he burst into speech.

"The grub is 'orrid, sir.  Oh, it is the 'orridest that we was ever
in company with.  The pork stinks raw or boiled, and the beef fair
pawls the teeth of the 'ole crowd.  The biscuit is full of worms, and
what isn't is as 'ard as flint.  The butter makes us sick, sir.  And
not to make a song about it, but to cut it short, we are bein'
starved."

"I'm sorry to hear it," said the captain.  "But I am not responsible
for the food, men, and when we get to Capetown I'll do my best to see
that better stores are put on board.  For the stores that you speak
of Mr. Shody is responsible."

"If they are bad I 'ave been imposed on," said Shody; but the men
made audible and disrespectful remarks which the captain suppressed
at once.

"That will do.  Go for'ard and I'll see what can be done."

There was only one thing that could be done, and he did it there and
then.  He had all the provisions that the partners had brought aboard
divided among the men for'ard.  He sternly refused Thripp's
suggestion that the afterguard should share the plunder.  Even more,
the remaining bottles of champagne went the same way, and for the
first time in their lives the deck-hands and stokers had a real glass
of wine that had cost someone ninety shillings a dozen.  The firm
stood by in mute misery.

"That's the beginnin'," said the skipper sternly, and not one of them
had the pluck to ask him what he meant.  Gruddle went in tears to
Thripp and asked him.

"You're the worst of the lot, you are," said the independent mate,
"and I decline to tell you.  But I've no objection to throw out a
dark 'int that this boat is undermanned all round both on deck and in
the stokehold.  Does the thought that that gives rise to in your mind
make you curl up?  Oh, Gruddle, all this is real jam to us, and we
mean to scoff it to the very last spoonful.  It will do us good!"

Gruddle grasped him by the sleeve.

"Oh, Mr. Thripp, if you'll 'elp us out of 'is 'ands we'll make you
the captain and give you anythin' you like to ask for in reason."

"Would it run to a thousand pounds, do you think?" asked the mate.

Gruddle groaned horribly, but said that he thought it might run so
far.

"Then let me tell you," said Thripp, "that Jordan is an old pal of
mine, and I wouldn't go back on him for ten thousand, or even more.
And over and above that, my son, I wouldn't lose the sight of you
trimmin' coal in a bunker for the worth of the firm."

He left Gruddle planted to the deck, a wretched sight for the gods,
and promptly told Jordan of the offer that had been made to him.
Jordan nodded.

"I ain't surprised," said Jordan.  "But, after all, Gruddle is by no
means the worst of the gang, and I won't send him down into the
stokehold.  I mean to keep that for Shody.  And I want you to
understand that I ain't doin' this out of revenge, but out of a sense
of public duty."

He quite believed it, and Thripp saw that he did.

"It's all hunky so far as I'm concerned," said Thripp, "and I hope
that you will put Butterworth in Cade's watch and Sloggett in mine."

That was exactly what the skipper had decided on, and he was much
surprised to see that Thripp had fathomed his mind.

"To-morrow by noon we shall just about be abreast of Gib, and a long
way to the west of it," said Jordan.  "I'll give 'em liberty till
then, and when I send 'em for'ard I will tell 'em how near Gib is.
It will serve them right.  I will do it without visibly triumphing
over them, Thripp, for I don't believe in treadin' on those who are
down."

"No more do I, sir," said the mate, "not unless they thoroughly
deserve it."

He left the captain pondering over the situation, and presently
imparted to Butterworth the fate in store for him.  As Butterworth
had nothing whatever to say he went on to the bridge and told Cade of
the joy to come.  Cade was very magnanimous.

"I'll treat him no worse than any of the others," said Cade with a
smile, "no worse."

"That's good of you," said Thripp.

"Not a bit worse," said Cade again.  "They are a holy lot of ruffians
in the starboard watch, as you know, and I'll give them all socks if
they don't look out.  I tell you, sir, that I'm about sorry for
Butterworth in that gang.  Almost, but not quite."

He had a habit of repeating his words, of chewing the cud of them,
and Thripp heard him once more mumble to himself that he was almost
sorry, 'but not quite.'  The mate knew that the one who would be
quite sorry was Butterworth.  He also had suspicions that Mr.
Sloggett as a deck hand under his own supervision was likely to learn
many things of which he was at present ignorant.  He went to the
engine-room and saw the chief engineer.  To him he revealed the
interesting fact that Shody was to be made an extra hand on the
engine-room staff.  Old Maclehose grinned like a monkey at the sight
of a nut.

"Weel, weel, and do you say so?" asked Mac.  "That is most
encouragin', and it's more than whusky to me.  He's the man that is
responsible for all the stores, is he not, Thripp?"

Thripp said that he was.

"My boys will kill him, I shouldna wonder," said Mac.  "But if they
should, I'm hopin' it will be an accident, Thripp."

He wiped his hands with a lump of waste, and thereby signified that
he wiped his hands of Shody's untimely decease.

"The oil is bad," said Mac.  "I'm of a solid opeenion that Shody
won't be so oily after we are through the tropics as he is the noo."

He said no more.  He was a man of few words.  Thripp knew he could be
trusted for deeds.  He went on deck and was almost sorry for Shody.
The partners were quite sorry for themselves, and felt as helpless as
flies in the web of a spider.  They ceased to struggle, and when the
usual grub of the _Nemesis_ was served to them by an insolent
steward, who cared no longer for their authority, they sat and did
not eat it and said nothing.

The end came at noon next day, when they were all on deck in fine
weather, with Gibraltar far away on the port beam.  Old Mac came on
deck and complained to the skipper that he was short-handed in the
stokehold.  Cade spoke up with a pleasant grin.

"You know, Mr. Maclehose, that we can't spare you anyone from the
deck.  We're short ourselves, are we not, Mr. Thripp?"

"Two short at least," said Thripp, who also smiled as if he were
pleased with the fact.

"I'll find you help," said Jordan, who was the only one who did not
smile.  He turned to the partners, who were clustered together in a
sullen and disconsolate group.

"Do you hear, gentlemen, that the chief engineer is short of the
hands he should have?  I think I told you so in the office, and if I
remember rightly, Mr. Shody said I would have to do on what the firm
thought enough."

Shody turned as white as new waste, and then grew the colour of waste
that has been used.  The others fidgeted uneasily, but no one said
anything.

"Under the circumstances I have concluded to give you the assistance
of Mr. Shody," said the skipper.

"I won't go," roared Shody.  "You can't make me.  It is a crime, and
I protest.  Oh, it is scandalous!"

"You _will_ go," said Jordan, "and I'll see that you do.  I'm goin'
to teach you all something, I can assure you.  And if you don't
follow Mr. Maclehose at once, I'll have the stokers up to carry you
down."

Gruddle implored the skipper to be merciful, and Jordan said that he
would be.

"You are the oldest of the lot, Gruddle, and I have decided that I
can best avail myself of your services by askin' you to assist the
steward.  The duties will not be heavy, and all you are asked is to
be polite and willin'.  You can now commence.  If you stand there and
argue I will put you into the stokehold along with Mr. Shody."

Gruddle did not attempt to argue.  He was much too afraid that the
captain would keep his word.  He crawled down below and went to
Smith, who set him to work on the light and easy task of cleaning out
the captain's berth.  While he was at it he heard loud yells from the
main-deck, and was told by the steward that four stokers were
carrying his partner Shody down below.  Over what happened there a
decent veil may be drawn.  Old Maclehose and the engine-room
complement had very little trouble with him and taught him a very
great deal in a very short time.  Sloggett, whose spirit had been
taken out of him by being put in irons, went into the mate's watch
without a single kick; and though Butterworth began to say something,
what he was about to tell them never got further than his lips.  Cade
caught him by the neck, and running him aft discharged him at the
door of the fo'c'sle, and recommended him to the tender mercies of
the watch below.

"There, that is done now," said Jordan.  "I feel once more as if I
was captain of my own ship, and as if I had performed a public duty."

"We may get into trouble, you know," said Thripp.

"Not at all," said the skipper.  "They will never dare say a word
about it, and when we anchor in Table Bay we'll lock them up, and
skip ashore and start for England under other names right off.  Timms
of the _Singhalese_ will be about sailin' the very day we should get
there, and he'll be only too pleased to hear the yarn and give us a
passage.  In two months we'll be runnin' the tug and lighter
business, Thripp, and Cade can run the coal-yard."

He smoked a happy pipe.




THE STRANGE SITUATION OF CAPTAIN BROGGER

"Brogger is no class!" said the crowd for'ard in the _Enchantress_, a
big barque belonging to Liverpool, and just then loading wheat at
Portland, Oregon.  "Billy Brogger is no class; but mean--mean to the
backbone!"

They hated him worse than poison, for there are some kinds of poison
that sailormen do not hate.  And Jack Eales, who was the head and
soul and mouthpiece of the starboard watch, for the hundredth time
explained the reason of their hatred.

"On'y it ain't 'atred," said Eales, "it ain't 'atred.  It's plain,
straightforward despisery.  I've sailed with rough and tough and 'ard
skippers, and never 'ated 'em.  But our 'old man' is religious
without no religion.  Oh, that's a mean thing, that is!  And there's
no pleasin' of 'im.  Never a decent word, nor a tot out of 'im if we
works our innards out.  The skipper ain't no class!  'E lets on to
despise sailormen, and calls us ignorant.  And what's 'is word for
ever when 'e's jawin'--'You no sailor, you!'  And 'ere I am ready to
lay my duff for a month of Sundays against 'alf a pint of dandyfunk
that 'e couldn't make a four-stranded Mattie Walker to save 'is
unsaved soul!  Called me no sailor, didn't 'e, over a real nice job
of wire splicin'!  I'll bet the 'old man' couldn't do an eye splice
in a piece of inch and an 'alf manilla without thinkin' about it.
Those that know 'im say 'e was the clumsiest ass ever sent to sea.
Went up six times for 'is second mate's stiff.  Why, the mate and the
second 'ere knows 'im for no seaman, and 'e's as 'andy with a 'ambone
as a pig with a pianner.  They two loaths 'im just as much as us!"

There was a deal of truth in the indictment, for Brogger would never
have got a ship but for the fact that the chief owners of the
_Enchantress_ were his elder brothers.

"'Tis a pity we don't skip out here," said one of the men, "the old
swine would have his work cut out to get a fresh crowd."

"Ay, it's a pity we're such a quiet, sober crowd," replied Eales, who
on occasion was neither quiet nor sober; "but, as I showed you after
our passage out 'ere, it would be money in Brogger's pocket and the
owners' if we quit.  And 'tis true 'e owns about three sixty-fourths
of 'er 'imself.  The boardin'-'ouse bosses are selling sailors at
sixty dollars per 'ead.  Flesh and blood are cheap to-day!  I wish I
could hinvent somethin' to get even with the 'old man' in this bally,
rowdy, shanghain' old Portland.  I'll give ten dollars to the son of
a gun that gives me the least 'int of a working scheme to do it."

"D'ye mean it, Jack Eales?" asked the whole crowd.

"Don't jump down a man's throat simultaneous," said Eales
indignantly, "for in course I means it.  And what's more, I've got
the stuff.  I ain't relyin' on that blasted old devil dodger aft for
no measly five bob a week.  Since I took the pledge not to get
drunk--real drunk, that is--more'n once a month, I can trust myself
with money, and I've got it 'ere."

He kicked the chest on which he sat to show his bank.

"Blimy," said a young cockney called Corlett, who was the happiest
chap on board, "I'll 'ave a shot for Jack's ten dollars!"

"My chest's not locked," said Jack, and among so friendly a crowd the
suggestion, which was the friendliest joke, was marked up to Eales as
happy wit.

"I'm in the race for that purse," said Bush, who was the oldest
seaman on board.

"We're all after it," said the crowd, and for days afterwards they
chased Jack Eales with absurd proposals, the very least of which was
a felony, and the most pleasing absolute piracy.

"Oh, go to thunder," said Jack, when a lump of a chap called Pizzey
proposed to scuttle the _Enchantress_ as she lay alongside the wharf.

"Oh, very well," said Pizzey, who was much hurt at the way his plan
was received, "but I'll have you know that if you do it after all,
that ten dollars is mine."

The nature of seamen is so childlike, so forgetful, so forgiving,
that without further and continual irritation they would have talked
till the vessel was towed down the Willamette and the Columbia, and
for that matter all the way to Liverpool.  But the skipper saw to it
that they had something to growl about.  He kept them working a
quarter of an hour after knock-off time three times a week.  He cut
down their usual five shillings a week to a dollar, on the ground
that he was reckoning in dollars just then.  The fresh grub he sent
on board was enough, as they said in the fo'c'sle, to make a pig take
to fasting.  And he nagged and growled without ceasing till Plump,
the mate, who was a very decent fellow, hated him worse than the crew
did.  He listened to the second mate Dodman, when Dodman burst out
into long-suppressed bad language.

"I oughtn't to agree with you, but I do, I own it freely," said
Plump, as they stood against the poop-rail and watched Brogger pick
his way through the mud on the wharf.  "I ought to tell you to dry
up, Mr. Dodman, but I find it hard to do my duty."

"He's a miserable, mean, measly, growling, discontented devil," said
Dodman in a red heat, as he mopped his forehead.  "Comes and tells me
I ain't fit to stow mud in a mud-barge.  Ain't it true when he was
second in this same old _Enchantress_ he stowed sugar on kerosine?
And if the old swab can rig a double Spanish burton, I'll eat this
belayin' pin.  Our skipper's a know-nothing, sir."

"It's my duty not to listen to you," said Plump sadly.  "I don't hear
you, Mr. Dodman."

"Then I'd like to roar it through a speakin' trumpet," said the
insubordinate second greaser.  "I'd love to put it into flags, and
let every ship in Portland learn the precious truth.  Didn't he say
it was your fault, sir, that Smith skipped out last night?"

"He did," said Plump darkly, "when he'd told the best worker in the
ship that he was a soldier!  Told him he was a soldier!"

With the land alongside, what could any self-respecting seaman do but
go ashore after so dire an insult?  They say at sea 'a messmate
before a shipmate, a shipmate before a dog, and a dog before a
soldier.'  It was no wonder Smith skipped, and was just then roaring
drunk in Lant and Gulliver's, who were the boss boarding-house
masters in Portland, and bought and sold seamen as a ranchman might
cattle.

And that very night Corlett came up to Jack Eales as he was going
ashore, and put his hand on his shoulder.  The young cockney had a
grin upon him which, properly divided, would have made the whole
ship's company look happy.

"That ten dollars is mine," said Corlett.  "Jack, you're ten dollars
short.  I wouldn't part with my claim on it for nine dollars and
ninety-nine cents."

"We've 'eard too many rotten dodges lately," said Eales, "to take
that in.  What's the news now?"

But Corlett shook his head.

"I'm for the shore with you, sonny, and I'll tell you goin' along."

He bubbled as he walked, and every now and again burst into a roar of
laughter, which was so infectious that Eales joined in at last.

"You are a funny bloke," said Eales; "and I'll say this for you,
Corlett: I've never looked on you as no fool."

And Corlett sat down on a pile of lumber and laughed till he ached.

"Me a fool!  Jack Eales, I'm the smartest cove on this coast.  My
notion's worth an 'undred dollars.  It's as clear as mud, and as easy
as eatin' good soft tack, and so neat that I wonder at myself.  And
it fits everythin'--everythin'."

"Then out with it," said Eales.

And Corlett came out with it.

"By Gosh!" said Eales--"by Gosh!"

He collapsed upon an adjacent pile of lumber and gasped.

"You've no right to be at sea," he said presently; "a man with your
'ead, Corlett, ought to 'ave a public-'ouse in a front street, and
nothin' to pay for drinks.  I've only three dollars on me.  'Ere's a
dollar and an 'alf.  I owe you eight-fifty."

He walked ten yards and came back again.

"You should 'ave bumps on your 'ead," he sighed.  "This is
hintellec', Corlett.  It ain't mere cleverness, this isn't."

"You don't say so," said the cockney modestly.

"I do say so," replied Eales with great firmness; "I say it freely."

And they walked up town.

"You see," said Corlett, "'ow the 'ole thing stows itself away.  It
'ardly needs management.  Lant and Gulliver 'ates 'im, and they're
that jealous of Shanghai Smith down in 'Frisco with 'is games,
they'll jump at this.  And then it's well known Mr. Plump ain't got
'is master's ticket.  And young Dodman on'y got 'is second's ticket a
v'yge ago.  There'll be no goin' back on it if the agents find the
right man.  By the 'Oly Frost, Jack, we'll diskiver yet if old
Brogger is 'alf a bally seaman anyway."

"It's a merricle, Corlett, it's a merricle!" said Jack Eales.  "I
never quite properly understood what books I've looked into meant by
the pure hintellec'.  You're clean wasted at sea, so you are.
To-night we'll think it over, and to-morrow you and me will go as a
committee of deputation to Lant and Gulliver if we sees no flaw in
the thing."

"Take my word, there ain't no flaw in it," said Corlett.

"I'm inclined to believe you," said Eales, almost humbly.  "I never
thought to own up that a man on board the _Enchantress_ was my equal,
let alone my superior."

He sighed, but Corlett encouraged him.

"'Tis on'y a fluke, Jack."

"No, no," said Jack; "no, no, this is real 'ead-work.  I knows it
when I sees it.  I'm proud to be shipmates with you, Corlett.  Shake
'ands again."

They shook hands, and presently Corlett spent the one dollar and
fifty cents which he had earned by pure intellect.

"Per'aps I'm a fool to be at sea," he said to himself.  "I shouldn't
wonder if Jack's right."

And next evening they walked up to Lant and Gulliver's, and demanded
to see either or both of the partners in private.

"'Tis puttin' our 'eads in the lion's mouth to come 'ere," said Jack
Eales, "and you and me will do well not to touch a drop, whatever
these land-sharks offer, Corlett.  Doped drinks ain't for me just
now.  So don't go large at all, my son."

"I won't," said Corlett, "if none of 'em don't offer me a drink three
times, I can 'old off it, Jack.  Sayin' 'no' once is tol'rable easy.
I can squeeze out a second if it's a case of 'ave to; but what I
dread's the third."

Jack Eales nodded.

"The third time's what proves a man's principles, I own.  I've gone
to four times more than once soon after bein' very much under the
weather.  But 'ere we are."

They came to Lant and Gulliver's boarding-house, the whole front of
which was a saloon.  It looked a 'tough' house, and it was tough both
inside and out.  These gentry had a 'pull' in Portland which enabled
them to do as they pleased, and the only thing that pleased them was
to make money.  Most of the other boarding-houses had been fined out
of existence, owing to a law that Mr. Lant had lobbied for at Salem.
His conduct in the matter had brought him much praise for noble
disinterestedness.  He had asked for fines of five hundred dollars
for gross infractions of the law instead of fifty, and the
unsuspecting Legislature said it was a splendid suggestion, and
passed the Bill with unanimity.  As a result, his rivals, who were
comparatively poor scoundrels without his control of the police, shed
their dollars once or twice and then went under, and he had a
monopoly.  Both Lant and Gulliver had what Jack Eales called 'pure
hintellec''; they would have adorned the bench in Ohio; they might
have shone as Finance Ministers in Costa Rica or Panama.

"Well, wot is it?" asked Lant, who had the eyes and jaws and nose of
a pugilist, and the domed skull of a philosopher.  "Wot's the trouble
here?  What ship are you off of?"

"We wants a private talk with you, sir," said Eales, who had never
met Lant before, and was more scared of him than he would have been
of any admiral.  For Lant and Gulliver's reputation is
world-wide--all men who go down to the sea in ships know them.

He wrinkled his brows at them and considered for a moment.  Then he
led the way into the private snuggery, in which as much scoundrelism
had been concocted as if it had been the head office of a great Trust
or the Russian Foreign Office.

"Spit it out," said Lant as he sat down.

"We're in the _Enchantress_, sir," said Eales.

"And you want to get out, eh?  What's my runners about?  Haven't they
bin aboard of you yet?"

He frowned savagely, and Eales hastened to acquit any of his
myrmidons of such gross negligence.

"Oh yes, sir," he said, "they've been down every day, but on'y one
man 'as quit.  We don't want to leave 'er, but we ain't satisfied
with the skipper, sir, and we know, or at least we suspect, that 'e
ain't no favourite of yours neither, Mr. Lant, sir."

"Well, and if he ain't?" said Lant.

"'E do abuse you something awful; don't 'e, Corlett?"

"Awful," said Corlett; "it's 'orrid to 'ear 'im."

"And 'e shipped nearly all real teetotallers to do you in the eye,
sir," said Eales, "for 'e said, sir, as no sober man would 'ave
nothing to do with you."

"Are you a teetotaller?" asked Lant.

"To-day I am," said Eales hurriedly.  "I was drunk yesterday, and the
day after I can't look at an empty bottle even without cold shivers,
sir.  And it's the same with my mate; ain't it, Corlett?"

"The sight of a tot would make me sick," said Corlett plaintively.

"Well, well," said Lant, "what's your game?  Spit it out, I say.  I
can't give all my time to hearin' you've not the stomach of a man
between you.  Now, quick, what is it?"

But Eales stood first on one leg and then on the other.

"You, Corlett!"

"No, not me," said the seaman of pure intellect.

"Well, then, sir, Mr. Lant, does you 'ave any sort of respect for
Captain Brogger, or would you like to get even for 'is most unkind
language respectin' you?"

Lant looked him up and down, and for a moment was inclined to break
out violently.  But he hated Brogger, who had injured his prestige
once before by taking out of Portland every man he brought into it,
and he was curious besides.

"Suppose I'd like to do him up complete-ly," said Lant, staring at
Bales hard.

"And make 'im fair redik'lus and the laughin' stock of the 'ole
coast?"

"That would suit me," said Lant.  "It would fit me like a dandy suit
of clothes."

"'E's the nastiest, meanest skipper as ever lay in the Willamette;
ain't 'e, Corlett?"

"I never 'eard of a measlier," said Corlett, looking for a cuspidor
in order to accentuate his verdict.

"Then 'ere's for tellin' Mr. Lant the 'ole thing," said Eales
desperately.  And when he was 'through' with his scheme, Lant lay
back in his chair and laughed till he cried.

"It's great," he said, "it's great.  Holy Mackinaw, it's great!  And
you say he's no seaman?"

"'E ain't even a thing in place of it, sir," said Eales.

"And you really won't drink?"

Eales looked at Corlett, and Corlett looked at Eales.

"We wouldn't mind takin' a bottle down on board, sir," said Corlett,
who once more proved his intellectual capacity.

"And mind you keep your mouths shut," said Lant.

"Wild 'orses shan't drag a word out of us, sir," said Eales, "for
when my mate's drunk 'e's sulky, and I'm 'appy but speechless."

And down they went on board the _Enchantress_ with their bottle,
while Lant held a council of war with his chief runner.

* * * * * * *

Portland is a hard place; there is no harder place in the world.  San
Francisco, for all its reputation, which it owes so greatly to the
gold times, is a sweet and easy health resort compared with the
trading capital of Oregon.  Oregonians from all parts of the State
say it is a selfish city, with no more sense of State patriotism than
an Italian city of the fifteenth century had of national patriotism.
But in these days Portland is beginning to get a trifle nervous about
its reputation.  It is beginning to get written about, and the truth
is told occasionally as to what goes on there.  This is why a sudden
and remarkable disappearance of Captain Brogger, two days before the
_Enchantress_ was due to be towed down stream to the ocean, caused
rather more sensation than it might have done a few years ago.  The
newspapers took two sides, and regarded two hypotheses as needing no
proof.  The papers which were trying to make Portland smell sweetly
in the nostrils of the mercantile world said that some of the
boarding-house bosses might be able to clear up the mystery.  They
gave reasons for supposing that Brogger was not loved by the tyrants
of the water-front.  But other papers declared that he had been
knocked on the head and dumped into the river by some of his own
crew.  One reporter declared that a more evil-looking lot of ruffians
than the crowd on board the _Enchantress_ never towed past Kalama.
This journal was partially owned by Lant and Gulliver.  They owned
something of everything, even a judge.  And the good police did what
they were told, so long as it was possible.  They set about a story
that Brogger had committed suicide.  The crew said he had been
looking wild of late.  Mr. Plump had no theory, and was only mad that
he had no master's certificate.  Young Dodman went round whistling,
in spite of the fact that he was the last man to have a real shine
with the skipper.

"I hope he won't come back, that's all," said Dodman.  "If he does
I'm for the shore, boys; I'm for the shore.  I've not known what it
was to be happy for months till now."

But Plump grew haggard running to the police and the agents.  The
_Enchantress_ was full up to the deck-beams with the best Oregon
wheat, and was ready to go to sea.  Every hour's delay meant a notch
against him with the owners.  And yet, as the owners were the missing
skipper's brothers, he did not like to hurry.  But the agents, who
cared about no man's brother, put their foot down.

"We've found you a captain, Mr. Plump."

"What sort?" asked Plump anxiously.

"He's a good man and well recommended, and a thorough seaman."

"That'll be a change," said Plump.  "Poor old Brogger was fit to
skipper a canal-barge.  All right, if you say so.  We're ready if
your new man is.  All we want is another hand, and he's coming on
board to-night if we sail to-morrow.  We've had luck that way,
whatever else has gone wrong.  If Brogger had lived I believe he'd
have lost the whole crowd the way he was shaping.  He grew meaner
every day."

And that night the new skipper came on board.  He shook hands with
his officers, and in half an hour Plump had almost forgotten his want
of a master's ticket, and Dodman was swearing by the new man; for
Captain John Greig was a man, and no mistake!  He was quick and hard
and bright and humorous, and there was that about him which was
better than any extra certificate--he looked a seaman, and was one.
And he was as happy as he could be to get a good ship.  The vessel in
which he had been mate had gone home without him, owing to his
getting smallpox.

"I think we shall do," said Greig.  "I wonder what became of that old
duffer Brogger?  Well, it's an ill wind that don't serve some
skipper.  I'm a skipper at last, and with any luck I'll stay so."

Early next morning, just as the _Enchantress_ was making ready to tow
down the river, and when the whole world was still dark save where
the dawn on the great peak of Mount Hood showed a strange high gleam
to the eastward, Lant and Gulliver's chief runner came on board and
saw the mate.

"The man we agreed to put on board is sick," said the runner, "and as
all our crowd here is fixed up for, we've wired down to Astoria to
our other house to send you a good man in his place."

"Right," said Plump, who was standing on the fo'c'sle head--"right
you are.  Ay, ay, sir, let go that head-line!  Jump and haul--haul it
in, men!"

The men were cheerful; there was something in the voice of a real man
now on the poop that bucked them up.  And they knew as well as Plump
himself that he was happy to have got rid of Brogger.  The
_Enchantress_ looked as if she was to be a happy ship on the passage
home.

"You seem a derned happy family," said the runner to Jack Eales as he
skipped ashore.

"So we are," said Jack.  "But tell us what's the name of the chap
that'll come aboard at Astoria."

"His name," said the runner--"his name--oh, it's Bill Juggins!"

For he knew that Jack Eales knew more than he 'let on.'

"The new man's name is Bill Juggins," he told Corlett five minutes
later, as they began to move swiftly down the smooth dark waters of
the Willamette while the early lights of the town still gleamed and
the snowy peak of Mount Hood was edged with roses in a rosy dawn.

"'Is name is Juggins!"

He slapped his thigh and laughed.  They lay that night off Astoria,
and before the tow-line was again made fast to pull her out over the
great Columbia bar the new hand was put aboard in the usual condition
of alcoholic coma with not a little laudanum mixed with it.  He was
stowed in a bunk in the fo'c'sle, where he lay just as they threw
him.  But Jack and Corlett were as nervous now as two greenhorns on a
royal yard.

"I'm all of a bally twitter, I am," said Jack Eales.  "D'ye know,
Corlett, I ain't sure we ain't done after all.  I don't believe I
ever see this joker before.  Brogger 'ad a beard."

"And Lant and Gulliver 'ad a razor," said Corlett.

"Brogger was pippy and pasty and white as--oh--as white," urged
Eales, "and this josser is as black as a mulatter."

"Walnuts grow in Oregon," said the wise Corlett.  "D'ye think we
might let the crowd into the racket?"

"No, no, man," said Jack, "don't let nobody know as we 'ad 'alf an
'and in it.  The cove's name may be Juggins, but we'll be jugged."

They were well out to sea, and the tug was a blotch of smoke to
windward, before Bill Juggins, A.B., showed the faintest sign of
life.  And even then they only heard him grunt as he turned over
uneasily and went off on another cruise in the deep seas of sleep.

"If he works like he sleeps," said the crowd in the second dog-watch,
"he'll be a harder grafter than Smith that skipped.  It's a wonder
the second ain't been in after him."

But the new skipper and Plump and Dodman hit it off so completely
that they sat together on the poop and told each other all about
everything in the happiest way.  For Greig, though he was a hard
enough man in his way, had the gift of creating good humour along
with respect.

"It's a wonder what became of my lamented predecessor," said Greig.

"He's certainly dead, sir," said Plump.

"As dead as mutton," agreed Dodman.

"It would be a compliment to put the ship in mourning, as he owned a
share in her," said Greig; "and I think I shall do it."

"There's enough blue paint on board, sir," said the second, "to put a
fleet into mourning.  I don't know how it came here, for Captain
Brogger didn't care to be extra lavish with stores."

It was Dodman's way of saying the deceased skipper was as mean as his
brothers.

"Very well," said Greig; "you can do it as soon as you like, Mr.
Plump.  These are customs which I hate to see die out.  And now I
think I'll turn in."

As he went he added--

"I believe we shall get on very well together, gentlemen."

Plump and Dodman said they were sure of it, and when he had gone
below they said--

"He's all right."

At midnight Plump went below too, and Dodman walked the weather side
of the poop in a happier frame of mind than he had known since he
came on board the vessel in Liverpool.  The wind was fine and steady
out of the east, and the _Enchantress_ slipped through the water very
sweetly.

"Damme," said poor Dodman, "I believe I could sing."

He walked aft, looked at the compass, stared over the taffrail at the
wake, looked aloft to see if the gaff topsail, which was an ill-cut
and ill-conditioned sail, was in decent shape, and then whistled.
Being right aft he did not see a short, dark man come from the
fo'c'sle and stagger along the main-deck.  But Bales and Corlett saw
him and left the rest of the starboard watch, who were yarning
quietly on the spare topmast lashed under the rail.

"'E's come to," said Eales.  "Holy sailor, this is a game!"

Bill Juggins, A.B., laid hold of a belaying pin in the fife rail of
the main-mast, and swayed to and fro like a wet swab in a cross sea.

"Where am I?" said Bill Juggins.  "This is a nightmare.  I want to
wake."

He held tight and pondered.  But his brain reeled.

"I have no beard," said the new seaman; "I'm clean shaved.  My hair's
that short I can't catch hold of it.  These ain't my clothes.  I
can't stand straight.  But if this ain't my ship I'm mad."

"D'ye 'ear the pore devil?" asked Jack.

"I 'ears," said Corlett.  "If 'e 'adn't told me I was a soldier I
should say it was pafettick to 'ear 'im."

"This is a barque," said poor Juggins, "and so's the _Enchantress_.
But she's at sea, and yesterday she was in Portland not ready to go
for three days.  This is a dream, it's an awful, awful dream.  I'll
wake up, I will, I will!"

He hung on the pin desperately, and as he stood there Dodman walked
for'ard to the break of the poop.  He whistled lightly.

"Dodman used to whistle," said the man in a nightmare.  "I used to
tell him I wouldn't have it.  I said it was a street-boy's habit.  I
shall wake presently, oh yes."

"Who's that jabbering on the main-deck?" asked Dodman.

"It's me," said the jabberer weakly, as a cloud of laudanum floated
over his brain.  "It's me, and I don't know who I am."

But Dodman jumped as if he had been shot.  This was a voice from the
grave; there seemed no mistaking Brogger's wretched pipe.  But before
the second mate could speak Jack Eales intervened.

"'Tis the new 'and wot come aboard at Astoria, sir.  'Is name is Bill
Juggins."

The man from Astoria wavered doubtfully and looked up at the poop.

"I know that voice," he murmured.  "That's Dodman."

"The pore chap's very drunk yet, sir," said Eales.

"Take him away for'ard," said Dodman, with a gasp.

"My name--my name's Brogger!" piped the man from Astoria.

"It's Juggins--Bill Juggins!" said Eales firmly, as he took him by
the arm.  "Brogger's dead, Juggins.  'E's dead and buried.  Lant's
liquor 'as been too much for you."

And Juggins burst into tears.

"I _thought_ I was Brogger," he said feebly.  "But poor Brogger had a
beard."

"So 'e 'ad," said Eales; "and 'e was as white as veal, and you're a
fine, 'ealthy, dark colour.  Come back and doss it out, my son.  The
pafettick story of the pore chap's death 'as been too much for you."

He and Corlett led the man for'ard and put him in his bunk, where he
wept copiously.

"What are you so sad about?" asked Corlett.  "You're no better than a
soldier!"

The whole watch crowded in after them.

"What's wrong?" they asked.

"The chap that's tanked up says 'e's Brogger," said Eales.

The whole watch laughed so that the port watch woke up and cursed
them with unanimous blasphemy.

"But this josser says 'e's Brogger!" urged the starboard watch in
extenuation of their gross infraction of fo'c'sle law.

"Then 'e's no seaman," said the sulky port watch, "for Brogger 'ardly
knew 'B' from a bull's foot as a sailorman.  Dry up, and let us go to
sleep!"

But Brogger kept on saying he was Brogger, till Pizzey, the biggest
seaman in the port watch, threatened to bash him if he wasn't quiet.

"But--but I know you all," said Brogger.  "If I wasn't me, how should
I?"

"More knows Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows," said Pizzey.  And he used
such horrible threats that the skipper was quailed and became quiet,
and at last fell asleep.

And in the meantime Dodman went down below and woke up Plump, who was
in his first sleep.

"What's wrong?" asked Plump, as soon as he found that he was being
waked three hours before his time.  "You're as white as putty,
Dodman."

Dodman shook his head and could hardly speak.  When he did speak,
Plump fell back upon his pillow and gasped.

"Brogger ain't dead," said Dodman.  "Mr. Plump, Brogger's on board."

"You're mad!" cried Plump.

"I wish I was," said Dodman.  "This is a Portland plant--this is a
coast game.  They shaved him and browned him and drugged him, and he
came aboard at Astoria as a foremast hand!"

There was a deep silence for at least five minutes, and then Plump
said, almost with a wail--

"This is most disappointing!"

There was a strange look in Dodman's face; it was so strange that
Plump sat up and looked at him.

"Between you and me, sir," said Dodman, "he used to make both of us
uncomfortable."

"He did," said Plump.

"And he was no seaman."

"He wasn't fit to sail a paper-boat in a bath," said Plump.

"Then he's dead," said Dodman with a strange wink.  And Plump's face
lighted up slowly.

"He's still dead," said Plump.  "And if the owners don't like it they
can lump it.  And, what's more, I don't believe our new skipper would
stand aside now for any man that ever breathed."

"If he does he's not the man I take him for," said the second mate.
"I shall get up that blue paint in the forenoon watch, sir."

"Get it up," said Plump.  And in ten minutes he fell fast asleep
again.  For it takes more than a little to rob a seaman of his
slumber.  But at four bells in the morning watch he had to
communicate the news to the new skipper, who was an early bird.  He
broke the news warily, for he dreaded lest the 'old man' should do
something in a hurry which he and others might repent of afterwards.

"It would be a mighty strange thing, sir, if Captain Brogger wasn't
dead after all," he remarked just a trifle nervously after Greig had
walked the deck once or twice.

"He might rise up now and find his ship missing," said Greig with a
chuckle.  "After all, that's only what I did, Mr. Plump.  I was
crazy, luny, dotty, and raving with fever before I was taken out of
the _Winchelsea_, and when I came to she was days at sea."

He marched up and down again.

"And a dashed good man got my billet," he said, "and now I don't envy
it him.  It was a bit of luck my getting this, Mr. Plump, though in a
way I own I'm sorry that you couldn't have it.  I know that's tough."

Plump sighed.

"I'd ha' had my ticket, sir, but for a fluke that a youngster going
up for second mate might have been ashamed of.  A plus for a minus,
and I was minus.  You wouldn't like to step down for Captain Brogger
now, sir?"

"Minus Brogger is plus me," said Greig.  "I'd not step down to
loo'ard for all the Brogger family up from the tomb."

"No more would I, sir," said Plump.  "But----"

"But what?" asked the 'old man.'

And Plump gasped a bit.

"Last night, sir----"

Greig stared at him curiously.

"Don't hang in the wind like that!" he said sharply.  "What is it?"

Plump burst out with what it was, and told Greig in a fine flow of
words what the second mate had said.

"By crimes!" said Greig.  "By all that's holy!"

He walked the deck for a minute, and then came back and stood close
to his mate.

"Have you seen this man?"

"No, sir."

"Did Mr. Dodman believe him?"

"Dodman isn't a fool, sir.  No doubt it seemed to him that the man
had heard the tale of the captain's disappearance, and, having been
on the drink, he took it into his head that he is Brogger."

Greig turned his back to the mate and stared to windward.

"It's delirium tremens, of course," he said.  "That's plain.  I'll
see him after breakfast, unless he's sober and comes to his senses."

He went below.

"Crawl down now, and for a ghost!" said Greig.  "If I do I'll be
damned!"

And just then Brogger was sitting up in his bunk, chewing his fingers
and trying to reconstruct the lost days.  He had elusive visions of
strange interviews, he tasted strange drinks, his head ached with
horrid drugs, he recalled strange snatches of talk by strangers.  And
out of the phantasmagoria of his jumbled vision there came sometimes
the powerful and brutal face of Lant, of the firm of Lant and
Gulliver.

"Someone hit me!" he said aloud.  And Jack Eales, who was wide awake,
heard him.

"Where am I?  I'm in a dirty fo'c'sle!"

He seemed to remember vaguely that he had been out on deck in the
night.  He looked up and saw Eales' face dimly.

"What ship's this?" he asked.

"It ain't a ship," said Eales; "this is hell!"

Brogger shook his head dismally.

"It ain't--you're jokin' with me!  What am I doin' here?  Is this my
ship?"

"You was shipped in her," said Eales.  "You came aboard in Astoria.
Your name's Juggins."

"I'm Brogger--Captain William Brogger!" said Brogger.

"Hush, hush!" said Eales.  "Don't say it.  All the men 'ere 'as sworn
to 'ave Brogger's life if 'e's alive.  They say Brogger was mean, and
made them un'appy.  'E called good sailormen sojers; 'e give 'em bad
grub; 'e wouldn't 'ave no clothes dried in the galley off the 'Orn;
'e never gave 'em no forenoon watch in.  In the dirtiest weather he
'ad 'em makin' sennit between shortenin' and makin' sail.  'E wasn't
no sailor, they says, to add to it all.  And it's a sayin' 'ere that
Brogger saved 'is life by bein' killed, same as the pig did 'is by
dyin'.  For Gawd's sake don't say you're Brogger, or there'll be
blood knee-deep--if there's blood in Brogger!"

"I'll--I'll go aft," said Brogger tremulously.

"Don't you do it!" said Eales.  "There's a new skipper on board; 'e's
as fierce and 'ard as if 'e was a bucko tough out of a Western Ocean
packet of the old days.  'E won't stand taffy, nor any sort of guff;
but 'e'll jump on your stummick quick."

"Oh, what shall I do?" moaned Brogger.  "Why, I know you!  You're
Eales!"

"And you're Juggins!" said Eales fiercely.  And just then in came one
of the port watch and banged a tin can.

"Starbowlines, ahoy!  Turn out, you sleepers!" he roared.  "Turn out,
turn out, my bully boys!"

The starboard watch yawned and groaned and grunted, and showed
unwilling legs, and at last crawled out upon their chests as the boys
brought the tea and grub in.

"Holy Moses!" said big Pizzey; "don't I remember that there was one
of the starboard watch that allowed he was Brogger?"

"This is 'im," said Corlett, pointing.  And the whole crowd roared.

"'E's no more like old beast Brogger than I'm like the mate," said
Pizzey contemptuously.  For Plump was a nice-looking man, and Pizzey
had a face like a bruised apple.  "Where's your beard, Brogger?"

"It's--it's shaved," said Brogger.

"And where did you get them brown 'ands and that ma'og'ny face?
Brogger was as white as muck," said Bush.  "And, besides, 'e's dead,
and there's no more in it than that."

"I'm goin' aft," said Brogger.  "There's a dreadful mistake
somewhere."

But Corlett caught him by the tail of his jacket and sat him down on
a chest suddenly.

"Less talk and more work, shipmate.  Eat your breakfast."

He helped the poor devil to a pannikin of tea and to a tin plate full
of bad bacon.

"This tea's beastly," he declared.

"Brogger's notion of wot's fit for sailors," said Corlett.  "Drink
'is 'ealth in it."

And Brogger drank.  The hot infusion of the Lord knows what did him
good.  The fumes of fusel oil and the clouds of laudanum rolled away
from him.

"I know 'em all," he said--"I know 'em, every one.  This is my ship;
this is the _Enchantress_.  If it isn't, I'm mad!"

He rose up suddenly and made a bolt for the door, and ran aft.  As
his evil luck would have it, the very first person he ran against was
the new skipper, who looked at him very fiercely.

"Where the devil are you running to?" asked Greig, giving him a push
in the chest that sent him reeling.

"I'm Captain Brogger," said Brogger with the most lamentably weak air
of dignity.  It sat on him like a frock-coat on a gorilla.

"The devil you are?" said Greig.  "So you're still drunk.  Go
for'ard, or I'll cure you so quick!"

But just then Plump came for'ard to the break of the poop.

"Mr. Plump, Mr. Plump," cried Brogger.  It has to be owned that the
mate started just a trifle at the sound of his voice.  "Mr. Plump,
I'm Captain Brogger, and who's this?"

"Stop," said Greig, "stop right here.  Mr. Plump, do you recognise
this man?"

It was impossible to recognise him by anything but his voice, and
Plump truly denied that he saw the least resemblance to the dead
skipper.

"Call Mr. Dodman," said Greig.  And Dodman said he couldn't see the
faintest likeness.

"Then how do I know you all?" asked Brogger.

"It's my belief you sailed with us three voyages back," said Dodman.
"I seem to have seen you somewhere."

"That will do," said Greig; "go for'ard and behave yourself, or
you'll find out, whether you're Brogger or Juggins, or the Lord Muck
from Bog Island, that I'm captain here.  Bo'son!"

The bo'son came from the galley, where he was taking in the situation
with the cook.

"Set this man to work," said Greig, "and keep your eye on him."

And Brogger went for'ard like a lamb.

"It's cruel! it's cruel!" said Brogger.  But in less than two shakes
of a lamb's tail he found himself getting paint out of the bo'son's
locker in company with Corlett and Jack Eales.

"What you've got to do, sonny," said Jack, who had half a mind to be
sorry for him, "is to do your duty and do it smart and quick.  Just
now you're off-colour, so to speak, in spite of that 'ealthy
complexion of yours, and you don't feel well.  Exercise will do you
good.  We'll have you on a topsail-yard yet singin' out: ''Aul out to
loo'ard' with the best."  He turned to Corlett.

"What's all this bally paint for, Corlett?" he asked.

"Blamed if I know," said his mate.

But the other men were rigging up stages and getting them over the
side, while the bo'son mixed the paint.  It was blue, and Corlett
stared hard at Eales.

"Well, I'm d-dashed," said Eales; "this is the queerest start!"

He watched the bo'son go up to the new hand and take him carefully by
the collar.

"'Ere, you sculpin, take this pot and this brush and get down on this
stage----"

"What for?" asked Brogger.  "I'm--I'm----"

"Oh, no, you ain't," said the bo'son quickly,--"you ain't 'im by a
long sight."

"It's blue paint," said Brogger weakly.  "It's blue."

"Very blue," replied the bo'son drily.  "And all that's white you'll
paint blue."

He half-lifted Brogger on the rail, and watched him clamber down upon
the stage.  A strange, quiet ripple of laughter ran along the men at
work.

"I--I don't understand," said Brogger to Eales, who was sitting on
the stage with him.

"It's a good sea compliment to them that's gone," said Eales.
"Paint, you beggar, paint."

The bo'son put his head over the rail.

"If you don't get to work, Juggins, I'll have to come down there and
talk with you."

And the man who was spoken to knew of old what a terror the bo'son
could be if he liked.  He shivered and dipped his brush in paint.
After he had made a few feeble strokes, the bo'son's head
disappeared, and Brogger whispered to Eales--

"Who's it for?"

"It's for poor old Brogger," said Eales.




THE OVERCROWDED ICEBERG

There was a deal of ice about, and it came streaming south, in all
kinds of shapes, right into the track of ships.  There were
flat-topped bergs and ice-fields, and there were all kinds of
pinnacled danger-traps which were obviously ready to turn turtle and
load up any unwary steamer with more ice than she would ever require
to make cocktails with.  That year ice was reported in great
quantities as far south as latitude 40°, and there is every reason to
believe that there was more ice run into than was ever reported by
one unlucky liner and five tramps which were posted at Lloyd's as
'Missing.'  The Western Ocean is no-peace-at-any-price body of water,
and it tries those who sail it as high as any sea in the world, but
when the Arctic turns itself loose and empties its refrigerator into
the ocean fairway it becomes what seamen call 'a holy terror.'  For
ice brings fog, and fog is the real sea-devil, worse than any wind
that blows.  It was a remarkable thing in such circumstances that
Captain Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster preserved his equanimity.
As Ward, the mate of the _Swan of Avon_, said, he wasn't likely to
preserve the _Swan_.

"Dry up, Ward," said his commanding officer, "be so good as to dry
up.  When I require your advice to run the _Swan_ I'll let you know,
but in the meantime any uncalled-for jaw on that or any other subject
will make me very cross."

"Do you think you can lick me since you went to see that swab at the
Foreign Office?" asked Ward, as he edged towards Spink.  "Don't you
savvy, Spink, that I'm just as able as I was before to pick you up
and sling you off of this bridge on to the main-deck?"

"That's as may be," said Spink, "and I don't deny by any means that
you are a truculent and insubordinate beast.  That's why I shipped
you.  But it don't follow by no means that because my unfortunate
disposition compels me to have officers that can lick me, that I
should let 'em navigate the _Swan_ on the high lonesome principle.
As I said before, you will be so good as to shut your head.  Ice or
no ice, I'm going at my speed, not yours.  Do you think you are out
yachting that I should look after your precious carcase?"

"I believe you are ready to cast her away," said Ward.  "Are the
bally owners going shares with you?"

Spink shook his bullet head.

"They ain't, and you know it, Ward.  There are men would take such an
insinuation as an insult, and if I could lick you perhaps I would.
But you know as well as I do that if I wanted to cast her away I'd
not do it here.  There's no kind of fun that I so despise as open
boats in cold weather, and the Western Ocean in ice-time isn't my
market for a regatta.  I ain't called on to explain to a subordinate
my idea in running full speed through this fog and ice, but out of
more regard for your feelings than you ever show for mine I don't
mind revealing to you that I'm trusting to my luck."

"Your luck!"

"Yes, my luck," replied Spink with great firmness; "for luck I have
and no fatal error.  I've been thinking of it a lot this trip, and
come to the conclusion that I've more solid luck than any man I know
intimate.  To say nothing of my commanding a rust and putty kerosine
can like this old tramp at the age of thirty, when you, that can lick
me in a scrap, have to be my mate though you're older, didn't I come
out of that little affair at Aguilas with flying colours?"

"You came out with a hole in the funnel that you had to pay for
yourself," said Ward.  "I don't see where your luck came in."

"Don't you see it might have been worse, you ass?" cried Spink
irritably.  "But that's nothing.  What I've been pondering over
chiefly is my very remarkable luck in never having been caught, for a
permanency, by any of the ladies that have been after me."

"They haven't lost much," said Ward discourteously.  "And I reckon
that you are mistook when you think you're that enticing that women
hankers to drag you in by the hair of your head and kiss you by
force."

"I never said so," replied Spink; "but the fact remains that I'm not
married."

"You're a selfish beast, Spink, and I sincerely hope you'll be
married before you're through," said Ward.

"You are the most insolent mate I ever had," replied Spink, "and the
most unfeeling.  Did you hear a fog-horn?"

Though it was in the middle of the forenoon watch it was pretty
nearly as dark off the Banks as it would have been inside a dock
warehouse, for the fog was as thick as a blanket.  The rail and the
decks were slimy with it, and the skipper and his mate were as wet as
if it had been raining.  The fog came swirling in thick wreaths, and
sometimes half choked them.  The wind from the north-east was light
but very cold, as if it blew off the face of an iceberg, as it
probably did.  The _Swan_ had an air of thorough discomfort, and in
spite of it was steaming into the west at her best speed of nine
knots an hour.

It is no wonder that Spink and Ward quarrelled; there was hardly a
soul on board who was not in a bad temper.  Nothing disturbs seamen
as much as fog, and the fact that Spink refused to be disturbed by it
made it all the worse for the others.  Ward was distinctly nervous,
and let the fog play on his nerves.  He saw steamers ahead that had
no existence, and heard fog-horns that were nothing but the sound of
his own blood in his ears.

"Yes, I do hear a fog-horn.  It's on the starboard bow," he said
anxiously.

"Not a bit of it, Ward, it's on the port bow.  It's some darned old
wind-jammer.  I'll give her a friendly hoot."

He made the whistle give a melancholy wail, which was not answered by
the ship for which it was intended, but by a gigantic liner which
burst through the fog looking like high land, and booming at the rate
of at least twenty knots.  She loomed over them in the obscurity, and
Ward gave an involuntary howl which fetched the _Swan's_ crowd out on
deck in time to see that there was no need to kick their boots off
and swim for it.  They were also in time to answer the insulting
remarks of the liner's two officers on the bridge, as she scraped
past them with about the length of a handspike to spare.

"You miserable, condemned tramp," said the liner as she swept by.

"Oh, you man-drowning dogs," replied the crowd of the _Swan_.

And everything else that was said never reached its mark.  The liner
was swallowed up, and resumed her attempt to make a good passage in
spite of what she logged as 'hazy' weather.

"What did I tell you about my luck?" asked Spink coolly, and Ward
very naturally had nothing to say till he got his breath.  What he
said then could only have been said to a skipper who had so
unfortunate a disposition towards violence that he had to ship
officers who could lick him.

"You are a wonder," said Ward, "and I wish you had been dead before I
saw you.  Ain't you thinking of others' lives if you ain't of your
own?"

"What's the use of arguing with a thick-head like you, Ward?" asked
Spink.  "If that blamed express packet slowed down to our jog-trot
her skipper would feel as sick as if he had anchored, and he'd log it
'dead slow,' and the rotters that judge divorces and collisions would
call him the most praiseworthy swine that ever ran another ship down.
What's the logic of it?  Why should I daunder along at five knots?  I
might be lingering just where I'd be caught by such another or by a
berg.  I trust in Providence and my luck, and if you don't like it
you can get out and walk."

At this moment a bellow was heard for'ard, 'Ice on the starboard
bow,' and Spink, who for all his talk had the eyes of a cat, motioned
to the man at the wheel to starboard the helm a few spokes.  The
_Swan_ ground past a small berg, and had a narrower shave than with
the liner.

"If we'd been going a trifle slower, Ward," said the skipper, "I
might have plugged that lump plump in the middle, and you would have
been down on the main-deck seeing the boats put over the side."

"There's no arguing with you," growled the mate, "you'd sicken a hog,
and I wish it was Day's watch instead of mine.  If he has the same
temper when he wakes that he went below with, you'll have a dandy
time with him."

He relapsed into a silence which Spink found more trying than open
insubordination, for Spink was a cheerful soul.

"Here, I can't stand this, Ward----"

"What can't you stand?" asked Ward sulkily.

"Not being spoken to, of course," replied the skipper.  "I order you
to be more cheerful.  I don't ask you to be polite, for I know you
can't be; but you can talk when you aren't wanted to, so you just
talk now."

"I won't unless you slow down," said Ward.  "I don't see why I should
talk and be cheerful with a sea-lunatic."

"Well," said Spink, "I'll slow her down to half speed to please you,
for the Lord knows there's enough ice about without my having a lump
of it for a mate.  Ring her down to half speed, and be damned to you!"

Ward rang her to half speed without any second order.

"And I sincerely hope I shan't regret bein' weak enough to give way,"
said Spink, "for I'm a deal too easy-going and reasonable."

He lighted his pipe and smoked steadily.  As both Ward and Day
admitted, he might be hard to get along with, but he had nerves which
would have done credit to a bull.  Most skippers in the Western Ocean
get into the state of mind which sees disaster before it is in sight,
and if they don't take to drink it is because they die of continued
scares.  Spink feared nothing under heaven, and though he sometimes
drank more than was good for him, it was not because he wanted it,
but because he liked it.  There is a great distinction between these
two ways of drinking.  After a few minutes of silence he turned to
Ward.

"Do you feel easier in your mind, Ward?"

"I do," said Ward.  "I own it freely."

Spink snorted.

"As sure as ice is ice when you get a command of your own you'll take
to drink," said Spink.  "And now, as you're satisfied at getting your
own way, I'll go below and have a snooze."

About six bells in the forenoon watch the _Swan_ ran out of 'Bank
weather' into beautiful sunlight, and Ward rang her up to full speed.
All about them were icebergs small and large, which sparkled like
jewels in the sun.  There was one long, low berg right ahead of them,
there was one to the south'ard which was peaked and scarped and
pinnacled into the semblance of a mediaeval castle.  Ward, as Spink
said, had no soul for beauty unless it wore petticoats, and to him,
as to all seamen, ice in any shape was ugly.

"If he'd had his way she'd have come a mucker on that beggar ahead,"
said Ward, as he passed to windward of the big, table-topped berg.
"I wish we was out of it.  This fine spell won't last long, and there
is more thick weather ahead of us or I'm a Dago."

He gave her up to Day at noon with pleasure, and took his grub alone
as the skipper was fast asleep.  When he turned out again at four
o'clock he found the fog as thick as ever, and Bill Day as cross as
he could stick at having to yank the whistle laniard every minute or
so.  As soon as Ward showed his nose on the bridge Bill let out at
him.

"What kind of a relief do you call this?" he demanded savagely.  "I
wish I'd had this laniard round your neck, I'd have had you out of
your bunk in good time, I swear."

As a matter of fact, Ward was only three minutes behind time, and
always prided himself on giving a good relief.

"Has Double Glo'ster been worrying you that you're so sick?" he
asked.  "You know damn well that you owe me hours.  Oh, don't talk,
go below and die, as you always do when you see blankets.  Has there
been much ice?"

"It's blinking all round the bally shop," returned the second mate.
"Didn't you wake when I stopped her dead?"

"No," said Ward.

"And you talk of my dying when I get below," retorted Day.  He slid
off the bridge, and proceeded to justify the mate's accusation by
falling asleep before his head touched the pillow, in spite of the
melancholy hootings of the _Swan_ as she picked her way delicately in
the fog and ice.  It was very nearly eight bells again before Captain
Harry Sharpness Spink of Glo'ster showed on deck.  As he meant to
stay on deck all night he had really been very moderate.

"So I've missed Newcastle?" he said.

"Lucky for you," returned Ward; "his temper was horrid."

Spink sighed.

"I'm the most unfortunate man that ever commanded any blasted hooker
that ever sailed the seas," he said.  "Day tries me more than you do,
Ward.  There are times I regret I ever knew him.  I must have been
brought up badly to have such a disposition as I have.  Well, well,
it can't be helped, a man is what he was meant to be, there is no
get-away from that.  But I should admire to see you plug him.  Oh, I
say, it's fairly thick, ain't it?"

It was a deal thicker than much of the pea-soup served up in the
_Swan_, though Spink rather prided himself on the way the men were
fed in her.

"Are you nervous?" asked Spink.

"I ain't by any means happy," said Ward; "and no seaman worthy of the
name can be happy on the Banks in weather like this."

"That's a slur on me, I know," said Spink, "but I look over it."

"What would you do if you didn't?" asked Ward.

Spink did not reply to this challenge, and inside of a minute both he
and Ward had something to think of besides quarrelling about nothing.
The fog lifted for a moment, and showed ice all about them.  The air
grew bitterly cold, and was soon close on the freezing point, Spink
slowed her down again, and almost literally felt his way through the
obstacles.  Once he touched a small berg, but when he did so he was
going dead slow.  Ward stood by and saw the 'old man' handle the
_Swan_ with admiration.  When they were once more through the thick
of it he spoke.

"I wish I could understand you, Spink," he said, with far more
respect than he often showed.  "You're the most reckless skipper I
ever sailed with, and now you're more careful than I should be."

"I don't trust in my luck till I can't see," said Spink, and he
turned her over to Ward, saying, "Go your own pace, my son.  It's
most agreeable when you are civil."

And next minute the catastrophe happened, for at half speed the old
_Swan_ bunted her nose into a low but very solid berg, and the result
was very much the same as if she had tried conclusions head on with a
dock wall.  She crumpled up like a bandbox when it is inadvertently
sat on, and it would have been obvious to the least instructed
observer that her chance of going much farther was a very small one
indeed.  She trembled and was jarred to her vitals, her iron decks
lifted up like a carpet with the wind underneath it, one of the
funnel stays parted with a loud twang, and the crowd forward came out
on deck as if the devil was behind them.  And the fog was still so
thick that it was impossible to see them from the bridge.  But they
soon saw Bill Day, for even his ability to sleep through most things
could not stand being thrown out of his bunk.

"What's up now?" roared the second mate.  And the skipper showed at
his very best.

"Ward would have her at half speed," said Spink coolly, "and that
gave the southerly drift time to bring that blasted berg just where
it could do its work."

And poor Ward hadn't a word to say.  Spink had plenty.  He spoke to
the crew below.

"Keep quiet there you," he snapped, without the least sign of a
disturbed mind.  And up came the chief engineer, M'Pherson, in
pyjamas and a blue funk.

"What's happened, captain?  Oh, what's gone wrang the noo?" he cried.

"She's hit more than a penn'orth of ice, Mr. M'Pherson," replied the
skipper, "and if I were you I'd get my clothes on.  Tell me what
water she is making, and look slippy.  Mr. Ward, see to the boats.
Mr. Day, take the steward and a couple of hands and get some stores
up on deck."

He was so cool that he inspired unlimited confidence, although it was
now obvious to them all that the _Swan's_ very minutes were numbered.
It did not require old Mac's report that the water was coming on
board like a millstream to show them that.  The engineers and firemen
came on deck, and Spink addressed them in what he considered suitable
and encouraging terms.

"Now then, you stokehold scum, less jaw there, you won't get drowned
this trip."

They were exceedingly glad to hear it, for a lot of them were of a
different opinion and said so.  There was no time to waste, and
indeed none was lost.  The real trouble began when it was found that
one boat wouldn't swim, after the manner and custom of boats in the
Mercantile Marine, and when another was staved in by a swinging lump
of ice the moment it took the water.  This lump was a small 'calf' of
the larger berg which they had struck on, and the next moment the
original obstacle swung alongside and ground heavily against the
steamer.

"There ain't enough boats," said the skipper.  "Mr. Ward, d'ye think
you could hook on to that berg?  We'll have to board it and make out
as best we can."

As the _Swan_ was a vessel of close on fourteen hundred tons, her
kedge anchor ought to have weighed something like four and a half
hundredweight.  As a matter of fact it had once belonged to something
in the shape of a tug, and it weighed barely two.  Ward picked it up
as if it was a toy and hove it on the berg, and followed it with a
warp.

"Bully for you," said the skipper, and as he spoke the _Swan_ gave
forth a noise very much like a hiccup.  "Down on the ice the port
watch, and the others get the stores over the side.  Steward, all the
blankets you can get.  Mr. Day, put over the side anything to make a
raft of; we may want one if the berg melts."

Spars and hencoops and everything that would float went over the
side, some of it on the ice and some of it into the water.  A couple
of hands in the only sound boat kept her clear of the berg and the
_Swan_, and shoved the floating dunnage to those on the new vessel,
which had promptly been christened 'The Sailors' Home.'  Their late
home was about to disappear, and said so in terms that were quite
unmistakable by the initiated.

"Now then," said Spink, "when the rest of you are over the side I'm
ready.  Ward, take the chronometer as I lower it down.  And be
careful with this bag, there's the ship's papers and my sextant in
it."

"Now boom her off," said Spink, "for the _Swan's_ going."

There was a tremendous crack on board.

"The fore bulkhead," said Spink, and then the poor old _Swan_ cocked
her stern in the air.  A furious gush of steam came up from the
engine-room and all the stokehold ventilators, until the sea came
almost level with the after hatch.

"She's going down head-foremost," said the crew, "poor old _Swan_."

And then there was a mighty shivaree on board.  The whole of the
cargo in No. 1 and No. 2 holds fetched away, and evidently shot right
out at the bows.  All this mixture of cargo must have been followed
by the engines slipping from their beds, for instead of doing a dive
head-foremost, the _Swan's_ stern, which had been high in air, went
under with a big splash, and she lifted her ragged bows in the fog
before she went down with a long-drawn, melancholy gurgle.

"She warn't such a bad old packet after all," said the sad crew.  And
for at least a minute no one said another word.  Then Ward spoke.

"Where the hell's your luck now, Spink?"

"What's become of your theory that half speed in a fog is any better
than going at it at my rate?" asked Spink.  "You haven't a leg to
stand on, and I don't propose to take advice from you again.  You've
disappointed me sadly!  My luck is where it was, except in the matter
of my officers, and it's notorious that I have no luck with them.
We're out of the _Swan_ without a life lost, we've got heaps of grub,
plenty of blankets, and a fine comfortable iceberg under us.  There's
many this hour in the Western Ocean that might envy us, and don't you
make any error about that.  I come from Glo'ster, and my name is
Captain Harry Sharpness Spink, and drunk or sober it's as good as
havin' your life insured to sail with me.  Oh, I'm all right, and I
propose to plug the first man that growls, if he's as big as the side
of a house."

None of them was in trim to take up the challenge, and Spink lighted
his pipe.

"Three cheers for the captain," said the crew; and they cheered him
heartily, for which he thanked them almost regally, though he
somewhat spoilt the effect of it afterwards by telling them to go to
hell out of that and pick a place to camp in at a little distance.

"So far as I can see in this fog there's plenty of room for
everyone," said Spink, as the night grew dark.  That was where he was
wrong, for they soon discovered, by falling into the water on the far
side, that they were on no great ice island, but had picked a very
small berg indeed.  Spink consoled them by telling them that they
wouldn't be on it long, and they could hardly help believing him as
he seemed so certain of it.

"And after all," he said to Day and Ward, "the old _Swan_ was insured
for more than she was worth, and I shouldn't be surprised if the
owners were pleased with the catastrophe."

He wrapped himself in blankets and lay down.  In five minutes he was
breathing like a child.

"I tell you," said the second mate, "the 'old man' is a wonder, for
all we have to treat him like a kid.  I say, Ward, let's be kind to
him to-morrow and say Glo'ster is just as good as any other county."

"I don't mind," said Ward; "but if we do he'll take advantage of it."

"Oh, let him," said Day.  "He's a fair scorcher, and if he gets too
rowdy we can always put him down.  On my soul I'm gettin' to like
him.  He's got the pluck of a bull-dog.  Where's old Mac?"

They found Mac sitting in a puddle of melting ice-water, weeping
about his family at Glasgow.  The second engineer, whose name was
Calder, was trying to console his chief by saying it might have been
worse.

"It canna be waur, man," said old Mac.  "What can be waur than bein'
wreckit, and on a wee sma' bit o' ice that's veesibly meltin' as I
sit on it?  The cauld is strikin' through to my very banes, and in
the hurry I've had the sair misfortune to come away wi'out the
medicine for my rheumatics.  To-morrow I'll be i' a knot wi' 'em, and
nothing for it but cauld water, which I couldna abide sin' I was a
bairn.  And all my work on the engines wasted.  I'm a mournful man
this hour."

He drank something out of a bottle.  As he had left his medicine
behind it could not have been that.  It certainly did him no good,
for he wept all the more after taking it, and throwing himself in
Calder's arms he insisted that the second engineer was his mother,
and begged her not to insist on his having a cold bath.

"He's a puir silly buddy," said Calder, "and I've no great opeenion
of him as an engineer, though he's no' the fool he seems the noo."

And the night wore away while Mac wept and Spink slept the sleep of
the righteous, and Ward and Day smoked in silence.  As for the crew,
they lay huddled up together, and only woke to swear at the new kind
of 'doss.'  On the whole, everyone but the chief engineer was not
unhappy, and even he, by reason of the attention he paid to the
bottle which did not contain medicine, fell fast asleep and snored
like a very appropriate fog-horn.  The dawn broke very early, at
about three, and it found most of the inhabitants of the berg still
unconscious.  In the night the fog had lifted, and the sea was almost
as calm as a duck-pond.  What wind there was now blew from the west,
and was much warmer than it had been.  Within a mile there were two
or three other small bergs, but when Spink grunted and yawned and
crawled out of his blankets there was nothing else in sight.

"Humph," said Spink, "this is a rummy go, and if I didn't come from
Glo'ster I should be in a blue funk.  I must keep up my spirits, and
show 'em what my luck's like.  I've been in worse fixes than this
many a time, and after all, with a good seaworthy berg underfoot, and
lashings of grub, I don't see why anyone should growl.  If anyone
does I'll knock his head off.  Now, which of these jokers is the
cook?"

He found the steward, and booted him gently in the ribs.  At least he
said it was gently, whatever the aggrieved steward thought of it.

"Now then, Cox," said the skipper, "turn out and find me the
cook,--he's one of this pile of snorin' hogs,--and let's have some
breakfast."

By the time the grub was ready, Ward and Day were 'on deck,' and the
sun was beginning to think of doing the same.  The two mates looked
round the horizon and saw nothing to comfort them.  The only cheerful
thing in sight was the skipper, and for very shame the more
pessimistic Ward screwed up a smile.

"Not so bad, is it?" asked Spink.

"It might be worse, I own," replied the mate.  "What course are you
steerin', Spink?"

"Straight for Glo'ster," replied Spink cheerfully.  "How did you
chaps sleep?"

Ward said he hadn't slept at all, but Day averred that he had dreamt
he had been locked in a refrigerator belonging to some cold-meat
steamer from Australia.  And just then the steward said that
breakfast was ready.  It consisted of cold tinned beef, iced biscuit,
and melted berg.  There were signs of a mutiny among the crew at once.

"Say, cook, where's the cawfy?" they asked, and they were only
reduced to a proper sense of the situation by a few strong remarks
from Captain Spink.  The riot subsided before it really began, and
all the 'slop-built, greedy sons of corby crows,' as Spink called
them, sat down meekly and ate what they were given.  And then the sun
came up and warmed them, and they soon began to feel well and happy.
But now the real trouble of the situation began to develop.  The heat
of the summer sun when it once got high enough to do some work began
to melt the berg.  It was rather higher in the middle than it was on
the edges, and it was most amazingly slippery.  The water ran off it
in streams, and as it was barely big enough to start with, it looked
as if they would shortly be crowded.

"I never thought of this," said Spink.  "I tell you, Ward, she'll
turn turtle before we know where we are.  We must put all the stores
in the boat, and have a man in her to keep her clear if the berg
capsizes."

"Your luck ain't what you let on," said Ward gloomily; "the thing
fair melts under us, and we'll have to swim."

"To thunder with your croaking," said Spink.  "Oh, do dry up."

"I wish the berg would," said Ward, as he superintended the shipment
of the stores.  When it was done he put a cockney deck-hand into her
and made him shove off.

"Blimy," said Lim'us, "I'm likely to be the on'y dry of the 'ole
shoot."

The word 'shoot' soon threatened to become highly appropriate, for
about noon the berg was distinctly cranky.  However fast it melted
above, it was obviously melting much faster down below, for they had
apparently struck a streak of comparatively warm water, and when ice
does go it goes fast.  The 'crowd' got very uneasy, and Spink got
very cross as he arranged them so as to trim his craft.

"Sit still, you swine," said Spink.  "Do you want to capsize us?"

"But we're so cold be'ind, sittin' still, sir," said one bolder than
the rest.

"I'll warm you if I have to come over and speak to you," said Spink,
and he presently undertook to do it.  The moment he rose to carry out
his threat the iceberg wobbled in the most dreadful manner, and so
encouraged the offender that he laughed.

"If you come to 'it me, captain, she'll go over," he said with a
malicious grin.

"So she will," said Ward, laying hold of the skipper to prevent his
moving.  But Spink was not to be baulked.  He spoke to another of the
men sitting near the mutineer.

"Jackson, you come here while I go over there and dress Billings
down."

"Don't you go, Jackson, for if you do I'll dress you down to a proper
tune arterwards," said the insubordinate Billings, as he grabbed hold
of Jackson, who looked at the skipper appealingly.

"What am I to do, sir?" he asked.

"You're to obey orders," said Spink.

"Don't you forgit I'll plug you if you do," said Billings.

Poor Jackson was obviously in serious difficulties, for Billings was
the boss and bully of the fo'c'sle.  He could even lick any of the
firemen, and there were some very tough gentry among that gang.

"If I don't come over to you, sir, what will you do?" Jackson asked
the skipper nervously.

"I'll come over to you, if we're in the drink the next moment,"
replied Spink firmly.  "Don't any of you Johnnies think you can best
me.  Are you coming or are you not?"

Jackson shook his shock head.

"This is very hard lines on a peaceable cove like me," said Jackson;
"but if I am to catch toko, I'd much rather take it from Billings
than from you, sir."

And as he spoke, he smote Billings very violently on the nose.
Billings, who expected nothing less, let a horrid bellow out of him
and promptly slipped on the ice.  He fell, and slid overboard with a
howl, and the berg came near to capsizing then and there.

"Well done, Jackson," said Spink approvingly, as Billings disappeared
in the sea, "very well done indeed."  And then Billings rose to the
surface.

"Can you swim, Billings?" asked Spink with an air of kindly
curiosity.  "Oh, yes, I see you can, so keep on doing it till you
feel a little less mutinous."

It took Billings rather less than a minute to become obedient, for
though the sea was warm enough to melt the berg it was by no means so
warm as a swimming bath, and he presently howled for mercy and was
dragged upon the ice once more.

It was lucky for Billings that the sun by now was really hot.  He
stripped off his clothes and squeezed them as dry as he could, while
he threatened to kill Jackson as soon as he could.  His threats were
interrupted by the sound of a large crack, and presently there were
obvious signs that the berg was about to capsize.  Lim'us got quite
excited as they discussed the situation, and came in close, till Ward
ordered him to get farther away.  As he rowed off reluctantly he
encouraged them by yelling, "She's goin' over!  May the Lord look
sideways at me if she ain't."

"Oh, oh!" said poor old Mac, "I'm a puir meeserable sinner wi' a sore
head and no medicine, and I'll be wet in a crack, and I'll die wi'out
a wee drappie.  Oh, oh, oh!"

And the berg stopped cracking but took on an ugly cant.  A big lump
of ice broke off it down below and came up to the surface with a leap.

"Steady, you swine," said Spink politely to his unhappy crew; and
Ward asked him where his luck was.  Whatever answer he was to get he
never knew, for with a curious heave the berg started on a roll, and
with a suddenness which took them all with surprise she bucked them
into the Atlantic, together with what materials they had for a raft.
It was a lucky thing for at least half of them that there had been
time to save such dunnage from the _Swan_, for half the crowd,
including M'Pherson and Day, could not swim a stroke.  Ward grabbed
Day and helped him to a spar, and Spink did the same for old Mac.
And in the meantime Lim'us made everyone furious by squealing with
laughter in the boat.  Billings threatened him with death when he got
hold of him, and Spink had no mind or breath to rebuke the horrid and
bloodthirsty language with which the late mutineer reinforced his
threats.

"Oh, oh!" squealed old Mac when the skipper laid hold of him; "oh,
oh, I'm drooned, I'm drooned!  and I've the rheumatism bad in a' my
joints."

And Spink said he was the howling and illegitimate descendant of
three generations without any character whatever, as he dragged him
to a floating oar alongside the capsized berg.  Now it was not so
high out of water, and there was far more space on it.  For some time
it would be comparatively stable, and when Spink scrambled on it the
first of anyone he congratulated himself on his never failing luck.
He helped the rest on board, and the whole space was soon occupied by
an unclad crowd wringing the Atlantic out of their clothes, and
trying to get warm in the sun.  It was quite astonishing how cheerful
everyone was, with the single exception of that confirmed pessimist
the chief engineer.  At their end of the berg the men took to
skylarking, and Billings actually forgave Jackson.

"You done what I'd ha' done myself," said Billings, "for I owns now
I'd a'most as soon take on that big brute Ward as 'ave the skipper
get about me.  But when I give 'im that back-talk I was that icy
be'ind that I was like froze Haustralian mutting, and as cross as if
my old woman 'ad been relatin' what 'er mother thought of me.  I
furgives you, Jackson, I furgives you this once.  But don't you hever
'it me on the smeller agin, or a penny peep-show won't be in it for
the sight you'll be."

It was considered by the crowd that Billings by this act of nobility
had shown himself a 'gent,' and Billings swaggered greatly on the
strength of it.

The crew, of course, did not think.  They were not paid to do so.
All that was the officers' business.  It hardly occurred to them that
the ice on which they stood wasn't likely to last for ever.  In the
warmth of the sun they forgot the discomforts of the past night, and
did not think of the night to come.  But Ward did, and he was still
very gloomy on the situation.

"Just as she spilt us," said Ward, "I was askin' you your opinion of
your luck.  What do you think of it now?  Perhaps you'll use that
regal authority of a skipper to get us out of the hole you've got us
in."

If ever any skipper had the right to be justly indignant, Spink
thought he was that man.

"The hole I got you in!  I like that, oh, I do like that.  Who was
it, I ask, that pestered me to go half speed, and almost wept till I
said 'Have your own way, you cross-eyed swine'?"

"You never addressed them words to me," said Ward truculently, "or
I'd have given you what for, and well you know it."

Spink shook his head.

"I ain't sayin' that I used them very words," he urged, "all I mean
is that that was what I meant when I let you have your own silly way,
which has landed me and Day, to say nothin' of the rest, on a
penn'orth of ice in mid-Atlantic, more or less."

"Don't bring me into the argument," said Day.  "You're a cunning sort
of a chap, Spink, but you needn't try to raise ructions between me
and Ward, for I won't have it.  I know you, Spink."

"I'm a very unfortunate man," said poor Spink, "for at this very
moment I'd give three months' pay to be able to lick the pair of you.
I did think after what the Chief Foreign Officer said of my authority
that I should be more civilly treated by my officers, even if I have
an unfortunate disposition which compels me to lick them if I can.  I
shipped you two because I can't, but that ain't any reason for makin'
me miserable, or at anyrate more miserable than bein' in the position
of not bein' able to."

"Oh, all right," said Day, "go ahead and moan.  Nobody's stoppin'
you, is he?  Let him alone, Ward.  He's all right; and as for
fightin', I believe I could teach him to be too much for myself in a
month with the boxin' gloves."

"I wish you would," said Spink.  "Oh, Day, you've no notion how I
should enjoy pastin' you."

He fell into contemplation of such a joy, and did not speak till Ward
clapped him on the back and said he was a very good sort after all.

"And if it's any use to you, I own that my havin' gone half speed
that time may have put us here.  But sayin' so much don't mean that I
now approve of buttin' headlong into an ice-pack at twenty knots an
hour.  But to go back to what I was sayin' before you started this
row, where's your luck, Spink?  To my mind it don't look so healthy a
breed of luck as you let on, and it's my notion that old Mac is of my
opinion, to judge by the sad expression of his countenance."

"To blazes with the old fool!" said Spink.  "Who cares what he
thinks?  My luck is where it was, and I reckon to get out of this
with flyin' colours, and never a man short, and nothin' against the
certificates of any of us.  I've noticed all my life that I seem to
be under the especial care of Providence, and I don't believe
Providence will go back on me after plantin' me here all safe and
sound on an iceberg.  Day, rake up that cook, and give the cockney in
the boat a hail.  We'll have some grub.  I've a twist on me like a
machine-made hawser."

They went to dinner, and the sun did something of the same sort.  At
anyrate it went out of sight, and a thick fog came down on the
castaways.

"We 'opes no bloomin' packet 'll come and run us pore blighters
down," said the men as they fell to work on the grub, "for accordin'
to the 'old man,' who is the cheerfulest bloke in difficulties we
ever struck, we're right in the track of the ole shoot of 'em, and
may be picked up or scooted into the sea again any minute."

As a matter of fact, they were then on the southern tail of the Bank,
for when the _Swan_ bunted her nose into the berg, she was pretty
well at the locality on the Grand Bank where the usual 'lane' to New
York is left for the lane to Halifax.  The very watch before the
collision they had verified their position by flying the 'blue
pigeon,' as seamen call the deep-sea lead, and ever since then they
had been floating in the Labrador current to the south and east.  To
locate them exactly, they were just about where the Great Circle
Track of steamers from the English Channel to the Gulf of Mexico
crosses the tail of the Bank.  There was every chance of something
coming along there, even if it was getting late enough in the season
for the big liners to take the route to the south'ard for fear of the
very ice which had brought them to grief.

"Oh, yes," said the crowd, when they were full up with food, "we're
all right."

Nevertheless the fog did not cheer them up to any great extent, and
when it showed signs of lasting all day they grew less happy.

"A hundred vessels might pass us in this," said Ward, who for all his
bigness had much less endurance than the skipper, and was now hardly
more cheerful than old Mac.  "I wish I was out of it."

"Oh, wish again," retorted Spink contemptuously.  "Do you know, Ward,
that you make me tired?  What do you get by howlin' and growlin'?  I
know this is goin' to come out all right, and I won't be discouraged
by any silly jaw of a man that ought to know better.  Shut up."

And to Day's surprise Ward shut up.  At that very moment there came a
bellow from Billings, who had relieved Lim'us in the boat.

"Berg, ahoy!" roared Billings.

"Hallo!" replied the skipper.  "What's the matter now?"

"I 'ears a steamer, so help me Dick!" bellowed Billings joyfully.  "I
'ears 'er plain.  Don't none of you blokes 'ear 'er too?"

There was such a buzz among the crowd that it would have been hard to
hear a fog-horn, and it was not until Spink had hit three, kicked
half a dozen, and used at least ten pounds worth of bad language,
according to 19 Geo. II. cap. 21, that anything like silence was
restored.  Then it was obvious that Billings had made no mistake.
The sea was fairly calm, the breeze from the west was light, and any
sound carried long and far.

"She's coming from the westward," said Spink, as he consulted a toy
compass on his watch-chain.

"No," said Day, "she's bound west, or I'm a Dutchman."

"Then you come from Amsterdam for a certainty," said the 'old man'
crossly.  "Now, men, shout all together when I say three.  One, two,
three."

And just as the men yelled there was a hoot-too-oot from the
steamship, which for a moment made them believe she had heard them.
But Spink knew better, and when there was another hoot he grabbed Day
by the arm.

"By Jemima," said Spink, "we're both right, Day.  There are two of
'em; that second squeal never came out of the same whistle that the
first one did!"

Now the nature of fog is something that no fellow can understand.
Seamen must not think they are a long way off if they hear a sound
faintly, or even if they do not hear it at all.  That's bad enough,
but there is worse behind.  They are not to reckon they are near
because they hear it plainly, or that it isn't to be heard farther
away at some other spot if they cease to hear it at all.  And,
furthermore, any notion that a sound comes from any particular
direction is the biggest trap of the lot.  Now the uninitiated can
understand that they do not understand, and that seamen are in the
same awkward fix whenever a fog comes down to cheer them on their
weary way.  The two steamers coming out of nothingness and butting
into it were commanded by men who trusted to the evidence of their
senses, as if they were police magistrates trusting to policemen.
They hooted and bellowed in the most wonderful manner, and said with
one short blast that they were directing their course to starboard.
And as neither knew where the other was, or where he was himself,
they directed their courses with the most marvellous precision to the
exact spot on the tail of the Grand Bank in the Western Ocean where
they could collide.  And they did so with a most horrid grinding
crash, and with one long, last, fearful and hopeless wail on their
steam-whistles.

"Holy sailor," said the iceberg's crew, "this time they've been and
gone and done it!"

Ward asked Spink sickly if he had any remarks to make about his luck.
Spink hadn't, but he had some remarks to make about Ward, which in
other circumstances would have led to war.  While he was relieving
his overcharged mind there was a horrid uproar coming out of the fog,
for both the steamships were blowing off steam, and everyone on board
of them appeared to be running the entire show at the top of his
voice.  And just as it was all at its extreme point of interest the
fog played one of its commonest tricks, and with an anacoustic wall
shut off the whole dreadful play in one single moment.

The castaways turned to each other in alarm, and Billings, who had
nearly lost himself in the fog, rowed in close.

"I think they've both foundered," said Billings, and it certainly
looked as if he were right, in spite of what Spink said to him.

"I believe the josser is right," said Day; and old Mac wept and said
he was sure of it, and that he had the rheumatics badly, and that he
was very cold.  And to add to Spink's joy, once more Ward asked if he
still thought he was under the especial protection of Providence.
Then for the first time Spink lost his temper and went for Ward, and
by dint of taking him by surprise served him as Jackson had served
Billings.

"Take that, you swab," said the enraged skipper.  "I'll teach you to
be so discouraging and so blasphemous as to cast a slur on
Providence."

And when Ward climbed upon the ice again all he said was--

"All right, Spink, you wait till we're on board that beastly packet
you and Providence have up your sleeves."

And everyone sat down and smoked, and said how grieved they were for
the poor unfortunate beggars who had been drowned through having no
nice comfortable iceberg to take refuge on.  Then they had their
supper and went to sleep, leaving all their cares in the faithful
hands of poor Spink.

"Ah," he sighed, "my unfortunate disposition cuts me off from all
real sympathy.  I've no one to confide in at sea or ashore, and as if
bein' a ship-master wasn't solitary enough I must plug Ward and make
him hostile.  I wish I'd been brought up better and licked more
before I got into this fatal habit of fighting."

He couldn't go to sleep, and took to walking as far as the narrow
limits at his disposal would allow him.  When he found that he was in
for a restless night he told the man on the lookout that he could
turn in.  Jackson, who happened to be the look-out, lingered a little
before he did as he was told.

"Do you think, sir," he asked with some trepidation at his daring to
speak to the skipper, "do you think, sir, that we shall ever get out
o' this?"

"Of course we shall," said Spink.  "What do you suppose I'm here for?
Go to sleep, Jackson, and mind your own business.  You'll be all
right."

And Jackson, who was a simple-minded seaman of the real old sort,
fell asleep feeling that the 'old man' was to be relied on even on an
iceberg in the Western Ocean and in a fog as thick as number one
canvas.

For by now the fog was thick and no mistake.  As Spink walked the
ice, and squelched with his sea-boots in the melted puddles, he could
hardly see his hand before his face, and more than once he nearly
walked overboard.  At midnight it was even thicker, and he was
obliged to give up walking and come to an anchor on a tin of corned
beef, and though he was on watch it has to be owned that he dozed for
a few minutes, just as Lim'us did in the boat which lay a little way
off the berg.  When Spink woke he found it just about as dark as
their prospects.  When his eyes cleared, he sighed and looked about
him, with a mind which took some of its tone from the fog and from
the dull dead hour of two o'clock in the morning.

"I wonder if my luck is out," he sighed, and he stared solidly into
the solidest darkness.  It was certainly monstrously dark in one
direction.  He rubbed his eyes and grunted.  Then he lighted a match
and looked at his little compass.  His mind went back to the lady in
Bristol who had given it to him.

"She was a very pretty piece," said Spink thoughtfully.  "But I'm
damned if I can see why it should be darkest towards the east."

He rose up and peered into the fog.  Again he rubbed his eyes, and
then stood staring.

"Perhaps another berg," he said, "but----"

He stood as still as if his figure had been turned into stone, and
presently he looked to the sleeping crowd, who were all as solid with
sleep as if they were dead, and nodded in the strangest way.

"Oh, oh, if it is; if it only isn't a horrid delusion," he murmured.
He turned to the darkness again and shook his fist at it and the fog.
At that very moment the fog rolled up like a curtain.  Right in front
of Spink, and not farther than a man could chuck a biscuit, there lay
the strange and almost monstrous apparition of a silent, lightless,
and derelict steamer!

"What did I say to Ward about Providence?" asked Spink of the whole
Atlantic Ocean.  "Ward cast a nasty and uncalled-for slur on its ways
when he said what he did.  But now I've got the bulge on him, and no
fatal error about it."

He rubbed his hands together and smiled very happily.

"There'll be fine pickings in this and no mistake," he murmured.
"Oh, this'll be something like salvage.  And I'll lay dollars to
cents that I can tell how it ever happened.  Ah, here comes the fog
again!"

The fog dropped down in a thin veil, till the dim and ghostly
derelict looked still less substantial than it had done.  Then it
heaved and rolled in, and the deserted packet could be seen no more.
Spink sighed but was happy.

"I'll give Ward the biggest surprise he ever had in his life," he
said, as he turned to the boat in which young Lim'us was doing a very
solid caulk.  Spink kicked some ice into small lumps, and at the
third attempt he hit the sleeper on the side of his head.  Lim'us
woke with a start, and heard the captain's voice just in time to
prevent him threatening to eviscerate the swab who was slinging
things at him.

"Hold your infernal jaw," said Spink in a savage whisper, "and pull
in here quiet, or I'll murder you."

Lim'us obeyed instantly, though he had doubts as to whether it was
wise to come within arm's length of the skipper after having been
caught asleep.

"I warn't asleep, sir; stri'my blind if I was," he began as he came
up to the berg.

"Dry up and say nothin'," said Spink.  "If you wake anyone I'll see
you don't sleep again for a week.  Hand up some of that truck and get
the stern sheets clear, I want to get in myself."

There was more than a chance of not finding the derelict and of
losing the iceberg, and Spink knew it.  Just as he was about to
chance it he remembered that he had a couple of balls of strong twine
in the bag into which he had dumped all his belongings, including the
precious ship's papers, when he left the _Swan_.  As he recalled this
lucky fact a heavenly smile overspread his handsome features.

"It's a splendid notion," said Spink.  "I feel as proud of it as a
dog with two tails!  I wish those chaps at the Foreign Office were
here now; they would enjoy it better than a play."

He stepped to his bag as lightly as a Polar bear after a sleeping
seal, and when he found the twine he tied the end of it to Ward's leg.

"Ward at one end and Providence at the other," said Spink with a
grin.  "Oh, won't he be surprised!"

And the skipper went back to the boat, paying out the twine as he
went.  He was chuckling in the merriest way, and poor Lim'us, who was
cold, and very sick of the whole affair, thought that the strain had
been too much for him.

"'E's balmy on the crumpet, that's what's the matter wiv 'im," said
Lim'us as he obeyed orders reluctantly, and pulled into the solid fog
with a mad and grinning skipper, who would probably scupper him as
soon as they were out of earshot of the crew.

"I wish I was in Lim'us," said he.  "I'd give all my wyges to see
Commercial Rowd agin."

And still Spink chuckled and paid out the twine, until suddenly the
boat ran into a still deeper darkness.

"Easy, boy," said the skipper, with a strange note of exultation in
his voice.  "Easy, we're there now."

As he spoke the boat ground up against the side of the derelict, and
Lim'us turned about on the thwart and touched the iron plates with
his hand.

"If you let a yell out of you," said the captain, "I'll cut your
throat from ear to ear."

But indeed Lim'us was incapable of yelling.  All he could do was to
gasp, and he did that as effectively as if he was a bonito with the
grains in him.  And the boat drifted towards the vessel's bows, while
Spink looked for the easiest way on board.

"They ran like rats," said Spink.  "Oh, I know the way they ran.
They got on board the other boat, and think this one is now
surprisin' the codfish."

They reached the bows at last, and came round on the port side, and
there Spink found what he looked for.  The vessel had been cut down
to within six inches of the water's edge about forty feet aft from
the bow.

"Just as I laid it out in my mind," said Spink.  "Catch hold you,
while I get on board."

He dropped about ten fathoms of the twine into the water, and with
the rest of the ball in his pocket he scrambled up the horrid gash in
the derelict's side and got on deck.  He walked for'ard and got the
twine clear out on the starboard side, pointing for the unconscious
mate.  Then he made it fast and took a look at his new command.  In
spite of the fog it was not difficult to see that she was a fine new
boat of about two thousand tons, built and fitted, as was pretty
obvious from her derricks, for a fast freight boat.  It was equally
obvious that the whole crew had evacuated her in a panic, for Spink
found the skipper's berth with the bed-clothes on the floor, along
with a sad and derelict pair of trousers.  The 'old man' had
evidently been in his bunk instead of being on the bridge, and, so
far as Spink could see, he had stayed to grab nothing but the ship's
papers, without which there can be no maritime salvation.

"This will be a very valuable salvage job," said Spink, as he licked
his lips after taking a pull at a bottle of whisky which he found
only too handy to the lips of the former skipper.  "There's money in
this, oh, lots of it.  And now I'll show Ward where my luck comes in.
And I'll have old Mac and Calder patch up that rent in her before it
comes on to blow again."

He put the bottle in his pocket and went for'ard, feeling a deal more
proud than if he owned a fleet.  For the deserted steamer, the name
of which was the _Winchelsea_ of Liverpool, was a direct proof that
his luck was still what it had been.  He found the end of the twine,
and hauled in the slack very cautiously.

"I wish I could see his face," said Spink, as he gave the twine a
yank which made Ward sit up suddenly and wonder what had happened to
him.

"Oh, oh, oh!" said Ward.  The ice was nearer than it had been, and
what he said was quite audible on board the _Winchelsea_.

"Eh, what?" said Ward.  And then Spink gave the line another yank
which almost started Ward on an ice run for the water.  But this time
he found out what was the matter, and laid hold of the twine.

"Who the devil's pulling my leg?" he roared in such stentorian tones
that the whole crowd woke up instantly.

"I am," said Spink.  "And I'll thank you to pay attention, and not
lie there snoring while I do all the work."

"Where are you?" asked Ward.  "I can't see you."

"Where d'ye think I am?" asked Spink.  "While you were asleep I went
out and looked for a new job and found it."

As he spoke there were sudden signs of dawn, and once more the
curtain of the mist rolled away, and the late crew of the _Swan_ saw
a big steamer within fifty feet of them, with the late skipper of the
_Swan_ leaning over her side smoking his morning pipe.

"Jerusalem!" said the crew, and they shook their heads with
amazement, while Ward scratched his.  Day whistled, old Mac burst
into joyful tears, and Billings used some awful language to show his
gratitude.  And Spink said--

"When you have washed and shaved and put on clean collars, I should
be much obliged by your coming on board and doing enough work to melt
the hoar-frost that's on you.  Limehouse, scull over to the berg, and
look slippy about it."

In ten minutes they all found themselves on board, and Mac and Calder
set to work before breakfast to patch her up.  The engines and
furnaces were still warm, and it took little time to get up steam.
But Ward took some to get up his.  As he said, it was a fair
knock-out, and it seemed like some black magic on the part of the
skipper, who walked the bridge after breakfast as if he owned the
whole North Atlantic.

"She was bound for England, and we'll go home," said Spink.  "And as
soon as may be we'll find out what's in her.  This is my first
salvage, and it's goin' to be a good one."

"You're a wonder," said Ward.

"Didn't I always say so?" replied Spink modestly.  "And now I hope
that you and Day will behave yourselves, and not trade on any
weaknesses that I may have, for I won't put up with it if you do."

"How do you propose to stop it?" asked Day.  "You can't plug me or
Ward any better now than you could before.  Why don't you behave?
Then there would be no trouble.  I'm fair sick of hearin' about your
unfortunate disposition."

"So am I," said Ward.

Spink shook his head with disgust.

"And this kind of talk after what I've done," he said.  "I wish you
would read old Kelly's little book on the Mate and His Duties, Ward.
It would teach you how to behave."

"I had it in the _Swan_," said Ward, "but though it had a lot in it
about land-saints and sea-devils, there was nothin' in it that fitted
a man like you."

"Perhaps not," said Spink thoughtfully.  "I own I'm rare, I'm very
rare."

The fog cleared right off, and the sun shone and the calm sea
sparkled.  In such circumstances everyone ought to have been happy,
but Spink said he wasn't.

"I wish I wasn't so rare," said Spink.




  THE REMARKABLE CONVERSION OF
  THE REV. THOMAS RUDDLE

The passengers on board the s.s. _Nantucket_, bound from New York to
Table Bay, were of a kind to make any old-fashioned seaman shake his
head and talk dismally of Davy Jones.  They were nearly all ministers
and missionaries, and it is well known to all who follow the sea that
gentlemen of that kind are unlucky to have on board.  For Davy Jones
is the very devil, and if he gets a chance to drown a minister he
does it at once, so that he may do no more good.  There can be no
mistake about this, for every sailorman of great experience will
endorse the theory with strange oaths.  What all sailors say must be
true, for they know their business.

One of these missionaries was the Reverend Mr. Ruddle, and he was the
chief of all the others, who were going to South Africa to do it
good.  There were six of them all told.  Thomas Ruddle had his wife
with him, for he could not exist without her; and she, for her part,
thought him a marvellous man and a darling.  He had a beautiful
smile, and a big black beard, and a voice like the bellow of an
amiable bull.  But Mrs. Ruddle was blue-eyed, with the complexion of
a Californian peach and a voice like a flute.  She would have
followed him to Davy Jones' locker itself if he had asked her, and
though he did not think of doing anything so unorthodox, they were
not far from having to go there without the consent of anyone.  For
when the _Nantucket_ was within two hundred miles of Capetown it came
on to blow from the south-east as if the very devil was at the
bellows, and after the old packet had proved that she hadn't
sufficient power to make headway against the gale, she promptly
cracked her shaft, and went drifting away to loo'ard like a Dutch
schuyt on a lee tide.

"It is a very sad misfortune, and I do not know now when we shall be
in Africa," said Tom Ruddle.  "I regret to say, my dear, that the
captain is on the main-deck using very bad language to the chief
engineer, who is replying to him in a way that I cannot approve.
Indeed, I think he swears worse than Captain Stokes, if it is
possible, which I doubt."

The other gentlemen in black mostly kept to their cabins, but Ruddle
went about in the most astonishing way.  If the _Nantucket_ stood on
her head Ruddle never lost his feet, and when she stood on her tail
he was quite at his ease.  When she indulged in a wild compound
wallow in those delightful cross pyramidal seas which are the
peculiar attribute of the South Atlantic in the neighbourhood of the
Cape, all that Tom Ruddle said was 'Dear me.'  He even said it when
Captain Stokes did a flying scoot on the main-deck, and brought up
against the rail with a crash that almost unshipped his teeth.  What
Stokes said was not 'Dear me.'  And the old _Nantucket_ went drifting
west-nor'-west on the branch of the current, coming round the Cape,
which runs far to the north of Tristan d'Acunha, as if she had put
Africa out of her mind.  Down below the engineers were trying very
hard to fake up something to brace round the shaft, so that they
could at least turn the engines ahead when the weather let up a
little.  It seemed a hopeless job, and to none so hopeless as to the
engine-room crowd.  And just as perseverance with the impossible
seemed about to be rewarded, the _Nantucket_ gave a wallow in an
awful sea, and quietly dropped her propeller as a scared lizard drops
its tail.  Then very naturally the wind took off, and the sea went
down and smoothed itself out, and looked quite pretty to those who
had been watching the grey waste in despair.

"We're done," said the skipper.  For the idea of sailing her into
Table Bay was as feasible as sailing her to the moon.  The wind,
although it had fallen light, was still in the east, and it
threatened to stay so till it blew another gale, after the fashion of
Cape weather, where fifty per cent. of all winds that blow are gales.

"It is exceedingly unfortunate," said Ruddle.

"What will happen to us?" asked his fellows in deep melancholy.

"Something must," said their brave leader, and sure enough it did.  A
sailing ship hove in sight to loo'ard.  The skipper, as soon as he
heard of the stranger, made up his mind what to do.  He hoisted the
signal 'In distress--want assistance,' and presently the sailing ship
came up under her lee within hailing distance, and backed her
main-topsail.

"Are you bound for Table Bay?" asked Captain Stokes, and the obliging
stranger said he was.  In ten minutes it was all arranged, and the
_Nantucket's_ passengers were being transhipped to the _Ocean Wave_
of a thousand tons register, belonging to London.  Stokes went on
board with the last boat, and shook hands with the master of the
_Ocean Wave_.

"When you get in send a tug out to find us," said Stokes; "it's goin'
to blow heavy in a while."

"I'll do it," said Captain Gray; "but are you sure that you won't
come along?"

"I'd go under first," said Stokes; "I'll stick by her till I'm as old
as the Flying Dutchman, and my beard is down to my knees."

It was very rash to say such things in the very cruising ground of
Vanderdecken, and some of the crew of the _Wave_ that heard it
shivered.  But Stokes was a hard case, and believed in nothing.  He
said good-bye to his passengers and went on board the _Nantucket_.
The _Ocean Wave_ boarded her maintack and stood on her course with
her new crowd of passengers, who were very much delighted to be on
board something that did not go to leeward like a butter-cask.

"How strange to be on board a sailing ship," said Ruddle, as he stood
on the poop with the skipper, who was a genial old chap with a white
beard, and a figure as square as a four-hundred gallon tank.

"Why strange, Mr. Ruddle?" asked Captain Gray.  "Barring your rig-out
you look a deal more like a seaman than a parson, at least you do to
my eye."

"Your eye is right, captain," said Ruddle with a sigh.  "But it is a
very remarkable thing that though I have been a sailor I know nothing
about the sea that I have not picked up on board the unlucky steamer
we have just left."

"That's a very strange thing to say, sir," said the skipper, as he
eyed Ruddle from head to foot.  "May I ask how you make that out?
Once a seaman always a seaman, I should say.  I can't imagine my
forgetting anything.  I never could."

"It's a very strange story," said Ruddle; "and if there wasn't
evidence for it I shouldn't believe it myself.  But in my pocket-book
below I have my old discharges as mate, and yet at the present moment
there is no one on board who knows less about the sea than I do,
though I hold a master's certificate."

"Spin us the yarn," said the skipper, and Ruddle told him the strange
tale.

"I am informed," said the minister, "that I was, at the time I am
about to mention, mate in a ship belonging to Dundee.  I say I am
told, because I have not the least recollection of it.  To put it
shortly, I may tell you that I had an accident, and when I became
sensible again I was in hospital in Liverpool."

"But what was your accident?" asked Captain Gray.

"Something that I am told you call a shearpole came down from aloft
and struck me on the head, and I knew no more," said Ruddle, who was
evidently a very poor hand at a yarn.

"Well, well, go on," said the skipper.  "What happened then?"

"How do I know?" asked Ruddle in his turn.  "I was knocked silly
while the crew were taking in sail in a very great storm to the south
of Ireland, and they say I was very angry with the poor fellows up
aloft and was using dreadful language to them.  I was struck down,
and when I came to myself I was not myself at all but another,--if I
do not sadly confuse you by putting it that way,--and I had forgotten
all that had happened since I went to sea, and I did not want to go
again.  I became a minister instead and a missionary."

"Well, I'm jiggered," said Gray, "but that's a corker of a yarn.
Were you married when you were a seaman?"

"No," replied Ruddle; "I met my wife soon after I became my second
and present self, and my remarkable story so interested her that we
got married.  It is interesting, isn't it?"

"And do you mean to say that you remember nothing whatever of the
sea?  Could you go aloft, for instance?"

Mr. Ruddle looked up aloft and shivered.

"Oh, I couldn't," he said.  "The very look of the complicated
apparatus with which I must have been once only too familiar fills me
with peculiar horror."

"Well, I'm damned," said Gray.  "What's the opposite point of the
compass to sou'-east-by-sou'-half sou'-southerly?"

"I give it up.  Tell me," said the minister simply.

Gray shook his head.

"You surprise me, sir.  Can you tell when there is a mighty strong
likelihoods of bad weather comin' along?"

"I'm not at all bad at guessing when it's likely to rain," said the
former mate modestly.  "I'm never caught in a shower without my
umbrella."

And Gray shook his head again, and confided to the sea and air that
Ruddle was a red wonder.

"If you don't know more about weather than that, you are going to
have a fine chance to learn, Mr. Ruddle," said the skipper.  "I smell
a howling gale or I'm a double-distilled Dutchman.  If it don't come
out of nor'-east like a rampin', ragin', snortin' devil, call me no
sailor, but the reddest kind of sojer."

There were many signs of it, and the fall of the glass was only one.
The swell that had been coming in from the south-east now began to
come more from the north, and the whole of the horizon was in a kind
of smoke.  The wind, which had fallen so light, now began to puff a
little, and though it was no more than a breeze that any man's
t'gallan's'ls could look at comfortably, there were odd sighs in the
wind, sighs which had a rising tendency to become wails.  Before long
they would be wailings and no mistake, for these sounds are the real
voice of a hurricane, and foretell it.  The skipper looked up to
windward and spoke to his mate.

"Mr. Dixon, I think we had better snug her down a bit before it gets
dark, so clew up the t'gallan's'ls, and then we'll take the mainsail
off her.  And after that you can reef the foresail.  While the breeze
holds in the nor'-east we'll make all we can.  But I reckon we'll be
hove to by the morning."

There wasn't much doubt of that to those who knew something of Cape
weather.  The Cape pigeons as they wheeled and whistled about the
_Ocean Wave_ said 'clew up and clew down.'  At anyrate, the crew
for'ard said so as they turned out to shorten sail.  Mr. Ruddle went
below to encourage his companions and his wife.  By the time it was
as dark as the bottom of a tar-barrel they wanted encouragement, for
the _Wave_ began to pitch in a manner that the _Nantucket_ had not
accustomed them to, and as the wind increased the song of the gale in
the rigging got on their nerves sadly.

"What do you think of it, Brother Ruddle?" asked his friend Chadwick,
a little butter-tub of a man with the courage of a lion among the
heathen or the denizens of a New York slum, but without as much
spirit when the wind blew as would enable a school-girl to face a cow
in a lane.  "What does Brother Ruddle think of it?"

Ruddle said that he did not think much of it, for he thought the
skipper was not frightened.

"Although the sea threatens to rage, my friends," said the chief, "he
shows no signs of unseemly terror, but with calm confidence bids his
brave crew haste up aloft and reduce the mighty spread of canvas.
They are even now engaged in the task.  Hear with what strange music,
which somehow begins to have a familiar ring in my ears, they
encourage each other in their arduous duties.  Oh, my friends, we
little think when we are safe in the heart of Africa, or in the back
parts of the Bowery, how seamen encounter dangers on our behalf."

"Ah, and you were a sailor once, Tom," said his wife.

"I do not praise myself, dear, in praising them, for now I dare not
face those dangers with which at one time I must have been familiar.
It is wonderful, all life is wonderful.  If I had not been smitten
upon the head by a shearpole, whatever a shearpole may be, I might
never have known any of you, my dear friends; and I might never have
married you, my dear.  Ah, it is a wonderful world, and they are
making a very remarkable noise upstairs."

They certainly were making a noise, and so was the wind, and Mr.
Dixon was saying very unorthodox things, and so was Smith the second
mate.  And every now and again the skipper could be heard in
exhortation, so that Susan Ruddle snugged up alongside her husband,
and said that she was glad he was not a seaman, though that she was
sure that if he were one now he would never employ such language.
Ruddle comforted her, and said it would fill him with horror to know
that he had ever used any of that kind of talk.  He felt sure in his
mind that the report of his having ever done so must have been a
malicious invention of some enemy.  Since he had borne up for the
Church he had been, as all men knew, of a scrupulousness which was
extra Puritanical even for a minister.  He never said 'damn' unless
he had to in the course of his duty.

Presently the _Ocean Wave_ began to behave herself a little better
under shortened canvas, and the old skipper came into the cabin with
his face shining with spray, and a good-natured grin on him which
would have encouraged the biggest coward at sea in a cyclone.  Little
Mrs. Ruddle cheered up on sight of him, and so did all but the
Reverend Mr. Blithers, who was in a state of terror that was sheer
lunacy.

"Is it a great storm?  Are we going down?" asked Blithers.  He was so
far encouraged that he could speak.

"Bless my heart," replied the skipper, "what are you thinking of, in
a nice breeze like this, and in a sailin' ship too?  If you was in an
old smokestack like the one I took you gents out of you might howl,
but here you are in a fine tight ship, the real genuine article, and
are a deal safer than if you was ashore."

"Oh, do you say so?" asked Blithers.  "Oh, is it possible that you
can say so with the wind howling like this?"

And indeed the gale began to pipe as if it meant business.

"Hold your tongue, Blithers," said Ruddle; "be a man and a
missionary, and do not howl."

Blithers said his brother was unkind, and ought to be more gentle
with a weak vessel.  And at that the skipper put in his oar, and
suggested that so weak a vessel should not carry sail but retire to
his cabin.  At this Ruddle laughed jovially, and Blithers said he was
hard and cruel, and devoid of all real religious feelings.

"Don't be a fool, my dear man," said Ruddle, "but go to bed.  It is
perhaps natural to be upset by the strange uproar, and the noise of
the wind, and the trampling of the men on deck, but that is no reason
why you should say I am not religious.  If I were not I should be
angry with you and say regrettable things, such as I am informed, on
very good authority, that I said when I was a seaman."

"I don't believe you ever were one," said the sad and angry Blithers.
"And if you were, it is a pity you did not stay one, for you are a
very unkind man, and not good to me in my sad state of mind."

It took five missionaries to get Blithers into bed, but he went at
last, and when he was gone Ruddle beamed on the rest, and said--

"Our poor brother is sadly upset by the weather.  It is difficult to
understand how he can be such a coward on the water when he is a real
hero on the dry land, and has an especial gift of management with
backsliding cannibals.  But anything can be believed when you
remember that I was once in the position of Mr. Dixon, whose voice I
now hear saying something about the lee-braces, and knew all about
everything on board a ship.  And now, my friends, all things here are
mystery to me, and I do not know what the lee-braces are, and cannot
distinguish with accuracy between a binnacle and a bull-whanger, if
indeed there is such a thing as I was told by one of the seamen on
the _Nantucket_.  Ah, hold tight, dear, she is rocking to and fro
with ever increasing velocity.  I fear that Blithers will never
forget this night."

And they all had supper.  The 'old man' sat it out with them, and put
on his oilskins again and went on the poop.  There was no mistake
about it now.  The _Ocean Wave_ was in for a Cape stinger, and Gray,
who was of the old-fashioned, bull-headed sort, rammed her along on
the very path the cyclonic disturbance was taking.  If he had been
thoroughly acquainted with the nature of all cyclones wherever they
are bred, he would have turned tail to the blast, and have run into
fairer weather towards the south; or, as the _Wave_ was in the
southern semi-circle of the storm, he might have hove her to on the
coming up or starboard tack.  Instead of that he hung on all through
the night.  When the dawn came it was a fair howler and no mistake.
Mr. Blithers and not a few of the others stayed in their bunks.  It
was blowing hard enough to make almost anyone ill, and the sea was
very high.  But Thomas Ruddle and his wife and Chadwick turned out to
breakfast.

If Ruddle trusted to Providence, Susan Ruddle trusted to him, and
hardly thought it possible that any disaster could happen to her
while he was to the fore.  Mr. Chadwick was brave enough to hide his
terror, though he was in a horrid funk.  They hung on to the tables
and ate some breakfast as best they could, and after eating, Ruddle
and Mrs. Ruddle and Chadwick ventured on deck, in time to see the
reefed foresail taken off her.  Just as they got the weather
clew-garnet chock up, the gale came screaming across the waste of
grey sea to such a tune that the skipper altered his mind there and
then.

"Hold on with the lee gear of the foresail, Mr. Dixon," he bellowed,
and then he signed to the mate to come aft.

"We'll wear her now and heave her to on the starboard tack," said the
'old man.'  "This is going to be a fair perisher."

As Dixon had been throwing out hints all night that he ought to do
that or run, he was glad to hear it.  They waited for a smooth, and
put the helm up.

"Square the after yards!" roared the skipper; and they squared away,
keeping the sails lifting.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Ruddle.  "I do wish I understood it.  I
wonder what they are doing it for?"

"Square the foreyard!" yelled the captain; and they did so, and got
the staysail sheet over, and by proper management she came up on the
other tack with her nose pointing N.N.E.  They hauled up what was now
the weather clew of the foresail, and the second mate and the men
jumped aloft and furled it.

"Oh, dear," said Mr. Ruddle, "how dreadful to see them up there!  I
can't believe that I ever did it, Chadwick."

But the _Wave_ was carrying her topsails, and though they were reefed
she was scooting with her lee-rail awash.  As soon as the foresail
was stowed, both topsail halliards were let go and the sails partly
smothered by the spilling lines.  When they were furled, the lower
foretopsail was clewed up, and Ruddle, who got much excited, went
down on the main-deck in spite of the seas which came over right
for'ard by the galley.  Mrs. Ruddle said, 'Oh, don't,' but Ruddle
said, 'My dear, it is so interesting, and I must.'  And there he was
staring up at the crowd on the topsail-yard who were fighting the
bellying canvas like heroes.

"Bless my soul, how very remarkable, and even terrible," said Ruddle.
"How very extraordinary.  I wonder if I ever did that, I'll ask Mr.
Dixon if the manoeuvre is often performed."

He fell upon the busy and very cross mate with this inquiry, and
though Dixon had heard the tale about him he did not credit it, and
put it down to some hallucination.

"Do I do it often?  Do what often?" asked Dixon scornfully.

"Why, tie those sails up like that when it blows so hard?" asked
Ruddle innocently.  "Why don't you tie them up when it is fine?  It
would be much easier I should think."

"Oh, go home and die," said the mate savagely.

"That's very rude," said Ruddle, "and I don't like it."

"If you don't like it you can lump it," said the mate.  "Haven't you
more sense than to come worrying here in a gale of wind?"

"Is it a real gale?" asked Ruddle.  "A very hard one?"

It certainly looked like one, for every squall came harder and
harder, so that the topsail when it was once smothered was blown out
of the men's grip, and was all abroad and bellying once more.

"Damn your eyes, hold on to it or you'll lose the sail after all!"
yelled Dixon.  But no one heard him on the yard, they were at grips
with the canvas again, and the second mate and the bo'son at the bunt
were doing all the cursing that was necessary for a task like that.

"They seem to be working very courageously, and I think it wrong of
you to swear at them," said Ruddle severely; and then Dixon turned on
him as if he were going to hit him.  At that moment a fresh squall
struck the _Wave_ and almost laid her on her beam ends, though she
was practically hove to under the lower maintopsail.

"I never swear," said Ruddle, as the mate lifted his fist.  Then the
squall shrieked, and as the _Wave_ laid over to it both Ruddle and
the mate lost their footing, and slid between the fo'castle and the
fore part of the deck-house as if they were on an ice toboggan run.
The mate said some awful things, and Ruddle gasped, 'You shouldn't,
oh, you really shouldn't.'  And then they fetched up against the
lee-rail with a thump that caused a common accident and wrought a
very uncommon miracle.  Mr. Dixon snapped his arm like a carrot, and
let a yell out of him that reached the crowd on the yard.

"By crimes!" said the men up aloft, "when old Dickie squeals like
that he means comin' aloft himself to talk to hus like a father.  Now
then, boys, grab again and 'old 'er!"

As they tackled the topsail for the third time the cook came out of
the lee door of the galley and picked the mate out of the swamped
scuppers.

"Easy, easy, you swab," said Dixon.  "My arm's broke."

With the cook's help he got aft, and when he did he promptly sat down
in the cabin and fainted right off with the pain.  And Ruddle still
wallowed in the scuppers, for he had hit the rail with his head and
given it a most tremendous and effectual thump.  After a minute or
two he stirred and spat out a mouthful of salt water.  He also shook
his head and rubbed it.  Then he sat up and said--

"Well, I'm damned!  What has happened?"

He shook his head again, and suddenly jumped to his feet.  The
miracle happened, and they all heard it.  Tom Ruddle in the old days
had the very finest foretopsail-yard ahoy voice that ever rang across
the wastes of ocean.  It came back to him now.

"Ain't you dogs got that topsail stowed yet?" he roared in accents
that made the second mate on the yard shake in his rubber boots.
"Oh, you slabsided gang of loafers, oh, you sojers, dig in and do
somethin', or before you know I'll be up there and boot you off the
yard."

The entire crowd on the yard was so paralysed by what they heard that
they turned and looked at him, and very promptly lost all that they
had gained the last bout.  To see a minister suddenly become a seaman
and use such language was enough to scare them into loosing the
jack-stay and tumbling overboard.

"Jehoshaphat!" said they, "what's gone wrong with him?"

And the second greaser was just as much surprised as any of them; so
much so, indeed, that he could not swear.  Ruddle did it for him, and
his language was awful, full, abundant, brilliant and biting.  He
told the second mate what he thought of him, and what he thought of
all his relations; and he confided to the storm what his opinion of
the crew was and always had been; and of a sudden he made a bound,
and jumping on the rail ran up the rigging like a monkey, and before
they could gasp he was right in among them at the bunt, exhorting
them as if they were impenitent mules.

"Now, now, up with it, you no sailors, you!" he roared, as his long
black coat flapped in the wind like Irish pennants.  He dug into the
bellying canvas with the clutch of a devil's claw, and the crew
sighed and were subdued to the strange facts, and did as he told them
like the best.  There was now a sudden scream from aft.  Mrs. Ruddle
caught sight of him on the yard, and Chadwick cried out--

"Oh, it was your husband that was swearing so."

"Oh, Tom, Tom," screamed his wife, "come down, come down!"

And she screamed again, and Ruddle heard it and swore vigorously.

"What's a woman doin' on deck in such weather?" he cried, as he
clawed at the sail and held it with his stomach, and yelled in unison
with the second mate, who now began to see the joke of it.

"Where does he think he is?" he said; and at that moment the last
great fold of the top-sail rose in the air like a breaking wave, and
with one yell of triumph the whole of the crowd threw themselves on
it and smothered its life out.

"Sock it to her!" roared Ruddle triumphantly, as he dropped the
gathered bunt into the skin of the sail and reached for the bunt
gasket.

"There you are," said Ruddle; and then for the first time he looked
at the second mate, and an expression of the blankest amazement
passed across his face.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked.  "I never saw you before."

It was almost impossible to make one's self heard in the howl of the
gale, but Ruddle did it, and the crowd, with a grin on all their
weather-beaten and hairy countenances, waited to hear Mr. Smith's
answering yell.

"Who the devil do you think you are?" he asked.

"I'm the mate of this ship," said Ruddle, "but, but I don't think I
ever saw any of you before?"

"How do you come to be togged up like you are, if you are mate?"
asked Smith, as he made the bunt gasket fast.  "Don't you think you
look a hell of a sailor in that rig?"

"I don't understand it," said Ruddle blankly.  "Where did I get these
clothes?"

"You'd better ask the 'old man,'" said the second mate.  "You're a
clergyman, and you ain't a sailor at all."

"You're a liar," said Ruddle.  "But I don't understand it.  I don't
know any of you.  Where are we?"

"Off the Cape, to be sure," said Smith.

Ruddle shook his head.

"There is something very horrid about this," he said, with an
awe-stricken expression of countenance, "for when we clewed up this
topsail we were off the Head of Kinsale."

"Holy Moses," said the crowd, "'ow she must have scooted in 'alf a
watch!"

"Well, we're off the Cape now," said Smith impatiently; "and if you
don't believe it, you can ask the captain."

And they all came down on deck.  Ruddle walked like a man in a dream,
and as he walked he rubbed the spot that had been bruised.  When his
wife saw him coming she screamed again, and called out to him--

"Oh, Tom, Tom! how could you do it?"

And Tom grasped the second mate by the arm.

"Who's that woman calling 'Tom'?"

The second mate stopped as if he had been shot, and whistled.

"D'ye mean to say you don't know?" he asked.

"Confound you, I wouldn't ask if I did," said Ruddle savagely.  "It
ain't me, surely?"

It was Smith's turn to grab hold of him.

"Don't you know her?" he asked in tones of positive alarm.

"No!" roared the unfortunate Ruddle.  "No more than I know you or any
of 'em."

Smith nearly fell down.

"Man, she's your wife," said Smith; and once more Susan Ruddle said--

"Oh, Tom, how could you do it and me here?"

Then Chadwick spoke and rebuked Ruddle very strongly for having done
it, and Ruddle shook his head and scratched it and shook it again,
and then burst out with dreadful language against Chadwick for
interfering with a stranger.

"He don't know any of you," said Smith, as Chadwick fell into a cold
perspiration to hear his chief use such awful language.  "He don't
know any of you.  And he lets on that he is the mate of this ship,
and that we are off the Old Head of Kinsale."

And Susan Ruddle fainted dead away.

"Take the poor silly woman down below," said Ruddle.  "She must be
mad.  I don't know where I am, or how I got here, but I do know jolly
well that I ain't married, and that a girl in London that I ain't by
no means stuck on thinks I'm going to marry her this very year.  But
I ain't goin' to, by a dern sight.  Not me."

They carried her down below just as the 'old man' came on deck after
setting the mate's arm.  Smith told him what had happened.

The skipper shook his head.

"This is very remarkable and tryin'," said the skipper.  "For Mr.
Dixon's arm is broken through this Ruddle barrackin' him and askin'
him why he did not take in sail when it was calm, as it would be
easier.  Oh, this is very wonderful, and I makes very little of it.
And now he says he ain't married.  He brought her here as his wife,
and you are all witnesses to that.  Oh, it is very remarkable, and I
make nothin' of it in spite of his havin' been a sailor before, as
looks likely as he went aloft.  Is it true he swore?"

"Most awful and hair-raisin' and blasphemous," replied the second
mate, who was a very good judge of swearing.

"Did he now, and him a minister?  It's very remarkable, and I makes
nothin' of it," said the skipper, and he ran up the poop and right
into the arms of Ruddle.

"Who are you?  Are you the captain?  I want to see the captain before
I go ragin' luny," said Ruddle.

"Steady," said the old skipper, grasping him tightly by the arm,
"steady, my son.  Don't you know me?"

"Never saw you before that I know of," groaned Ruddle.  "And there's
no one here that I know; and I don't know where I am or what I am, or
where I got these disgusting clothes from, or where we are, or
anything about anythin' whatsoever."

The skipper gasped.

"You don't remember bein' a minister, and tellin' me that you had
been a seaman and had had a bash on the crust with a shearpole from
aloft that laid you out stiff, and when you come to you didn't
rek'lect havin' bin a sailor at all, and that you then bore up for
the Church and became a missionary?  Oh, say you rek'lect, for if you
don't I makes nothin' of it, and am most confused; and there is your
wife in a dead faint down below."

But Ruddle shook his head.

"I don't believe I ever was a missionary, for I always allowed they
were a scaly lot.  And I ain't married, and the girl that thinks I'll
marry her is away off her true course by points.  But I say, how long
do you reckon I was minister?"

He held on to the 'old man' as if he was holding on to sanity, and
implored an answer.

"We'll ask your pal," said Gray, and he bellowed down the companion
for Chadwick, who came on deck with his eyes bolting.

"Is that my pal?" asked Ruddle in great disappointment.  "Why, I
never saw him either."

Poor Chadwick burst into tears.

"Oh, this is dreadful, this is very dreadful," said poor Chadwick.
"What shall we do?  Our chief stay and strength is gone from us, and
doesn't know even me that married him."

Ruddle stared, and then rushed at him and held him in the grip of a
bear.

"Steady, mister, are you speakin' truth or are you gettin' at me?"

"It's the truth," said Chadwick.

"Then how long was I in your business?  Tell me straight, or I'll
sling you overboard right now."

"Eight years," squealed Chadwick; "and there's all of us downstairs
can testify to the same."

Ruddle sighed, and looked at the raging sea and at the skipper and at
Chadwick, and up aloft.  After a long silence he spoke.

"If I'm right the year's eighteen-ninety, and if you are right it
must be ninety-eight or more, accordin' to the time it took me to get
my certificate as missionary.  What year is it?"

"Nineteen hundred, so 'elp me," said the skipper; "and I'll have up
the Nautical Almanac to show you."

But Ruddle took their word for it, and sniffed a little, and then
remarked--

"I do think my beard wants trimmin'.  And am I mad now?"

"No, no," said the faithful Chadwick, "you aren't mad, and in a
little while it will all come back to you, and you will come back to
us, and we'll all be happy, even Blithers."

"Who's Blithers?" asked Ruddle sadly.  Yet he did not wait for an
answer.  Though the _Wave_ was now hove to under her main-topsail,
with the fore-yards checked in, and was fairly comfortable, the gale
instead of moderating let another reef out, so to speak, and was a
regular sizzler.

"I should like to see that main-topsail goose-winged, sir," said
Ruddle suddenly, "for if we are off the Cape, as you all seem to
think, this is by no means the worst of it, and it will be a real
old-fashioned scorcher."

The 'old man' looked at him.

"Do you know the mate's arm is broke?"

"No," said Ruddle.

"Well, it is, and he ain't fit to do a thing, naturally, and that
means I haven't a mate."

Ruddle looked pleased for the first time since he came back to his
old sea-self.

"You don't say so.  Well, that is fortunate," he said with a happy
smile.  "This is what I call real luck.  I'll be the mate, sir, till
you can get another."

"Right," said the skipper.  "And if you like you can goose-wing the
topsail, Mr. Ruddle.  I reckon you're right about the weather.  We
have enough parsons aboard to make old Davy Jones do his best."

And Ruddle, with a happy flush on his face, bellowed from the break
of the poop for the watch to lay aft.  They heard his voice with
amazement and came very lively.

"Haul up the lee clew of the lower main-topsail," said the new mate,
and going down on the main-deck he saw the gear manned, and started
the sheet, and then lent his gigantic strength to get the clew chock
up.

"Jump aloft and goose-wing it," said Ruddle to the bo'son, and the
men jumped and did as they were told with extraordinary agility.
They said it was a miracle, and so it was.  But Ruddle was quite
happy for a moment, and when they were down on deck again he turned
to the skipper and laughed, positively laughed.

But the 'old man' did not even smile.

"I'm thinking of the poor little lady down below, Mr. Ruddle," he
said with a sigh.  "What are you goin' to do about her?"

A look of great determination came over Ruddle's face, and the smile
died out of it.

"If I married, and I don't believe I did, when I was dotty through
bein' hit on the crust, I ain't goin' to acknowledge it," said he
with firmness.  "I ain't the same man, that's obvious.  And as I
don't know the lady, the situation would be uncommon awkward for her
and for me, and I think the best thing is for nothin' further to be
said."

The skipper was very doubtful as to whether this was the proper way
to look at it, and he expressed a very decided opinion on what the
lady would say.

"I'm a married man myself," said Gray, "and I own I have a wife that
is a jewel, but what she would say if I said I didn't know her, owing
to some accident at sea, fair inspires me with dread.  I don't
believe Mrs. Ruddle will put up with it, and you'll have a holy time
in front of you if she as much as hears that you think of trying it
on."

But Ruddle said he didn't care, and that he wasn't going to have a
wife foisted on him, so there.  And down below Chadwick was breaking
the dreadful news to Susan Ruddle that her husband did not know her
or anyone else, and that he had become a sailor with a remarkably
unorthodox vocabulary, and when this was driven into the poor woman's
mind she screamed, and almost fainted again.

"Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do!" she cried.  And then Mr.
Blithers, who had never liked Ruddle, said that he would put it right.

"I don't believe a word he says if he says he doesn't know us," said
Blithers angrily.  "I always thought he was not the man he wanted us
to think.  And as for that story of his, I never believed that
either.  I shall go on deck and tell him that he is a scoundrel."

He did so.  He crawled to the poop and emerged into the gale in which
Ruddle was fairly revelling.

"Ruddle, you are a scoundrel," said Blithers.  "I always thought so,
and now I know it."

Ruddle inspected him with great curiosity.

"I'm a scoundrel, am I?" asked the new mate.  "And what may you be?"

"Don't you dare say you don't know me, Ruddle," said Blithers.

"I know you," said Ruddle.  "I can tell by the cut of your jib that
you are an infernal humbug of the first water.  Get out of this
before I hurt you!"

"I won't," said Blithers furiously.  "I won't till you say what you
are going to do about your wife, who is weeping about you now, and
crying to you to come to her."

"If you don't stop tellin' lies about me and ladies I'll throw you
down into the cabin," said Ruddle.

"Hypocrite, liar, and man of sin, I defy you!" said Blithers; and the
next minute Ruddle had him by the neck and threw him into the cabin.

"Stand from under," said Ruddle, and Blithers howled and fell, and
turned over and over as he went, and at last came to a stop at the
feet of Chadwick and the disconsolate wife.

"He threw me down, and he knew me," screamed Blithers.  "He said, 'I
know you, and you are a humbug.'  He's just pretending."

"I don't believe it, Mr. Blithers," wailed the unhappy woman.  "He
was always a good judge of character even when he was at sea before.
But I want to see him myself.  I must, and I will.  He'll know me.
Oh, he must know me or I shall die!"

The skipper came down below.

"Oh, captain," said Susan Ruddle, "I want to see him.  If he is the
mate now, as you say, you must order him to come to me at once."

"I will," said the skipper.  "It's odd I never thought of that
before, when he as good as said he declined to hear any more argument
about wives and women, and let on that the girl that reckoned to
marry him was likely to be disapp'inted.  You cheer up, ma'am.  I'll
send him down sharp."

"Leave me here alone," said the discarded wife, who in spite of her
grief looked as pretty as a picture.  "Leave me alone, please."

Chadwick withdrew, and dragged the raging Blithers with him.  As
Chadwick said, if anyone could bring Ruddle back to a sense of the
lost period of his youth, it was his wife, and if she failed it was
likely to be a very remarkable business and no mistake about it.  He
told Blithers of other cases of the kind of which he had heard.  On
the whole, Chadwick was optimistic.  But Blithers shook his head, and
rather hoped that Ruddle would remain a sailor for the rest of his
life.

"I never thought he was fit to be a missionary," said Blithers.  "And
instead of him, I ought to be looked on as the chief here."

There was a sharp argument going on on deck in the meantime.

"I'll take charge of her, Mr. Ruddle," said the skipper, "and you can
go below and see your wife, who is naturally anxious to see you."

"I ain't in the least anxious to go below," said Ruddle.  "In fact,
if it's all the same to you I'd rather stay here till she's out of
the way."

"I don't like to think that you are a coward," observed the skipper
severely, "but I'll be compelled to think so if you don't go at once
and square things up in some sort of shape."

"Well," said Ruddle, "that's all very well for you, sir, that ain't
caught in the same nip.  But I don't want to go.  I don't know the
lady, and I'm naturally shy, and the cold perspiration pours off me
at the thought of it."

"I order you to do your duty," said the 'old man.'  "I order you to
go below and soothe the lady."

"Oh Lord, oh, I say, I won't," stammered Ruddle.  "I'd rather stay on
deck all night."

"You won't?  That's mutiny, Mr. Ruddle.  It is disobeyin' orders, it
is refusing duty.  I'd be very sorry to use severe measures with you,
but if you don't go I'll have you put in irons and carried to her."

"You don't mean that, sir, do you?"

"I mean it," said the skipper.  "But I never did see such a man.  I
never knew anyone so unwillin' to see a pretty woman before."

"Oh, is she pretty?" asked Ruddle anxiously.

"Rather," said the 'old man.'  "Oh, a regular beauty, and no fatal
error.  Dixon and Smith were both off their nuts about her when you
came on board."

"What's she like?" asked Ruddle.  "Tell me what she is like."

"Well, for one thing, she has got the most beautiful golden hair,"
said the skipper; "and from the way it's coiled, tier on tier on her
head, I should reckon she can sit on it easy."

Ruddle sighed.

"Well, that seems all right," he said.  "I was afraid I might have
landed one of the half-bald kind I hate.  I like 'em fair too.  But
go on, sir."

"Her eyes are a very superior kind of blue," said the poetical
skipper; "and in my judgment they don't stay the same kind of blue
all the time, but changes like the sea when clouds obscure the
heavens in a squall.  I reckon she's mostly sweet tempered, but if
you riled her it would not surprise me to learn that she could stand
up for herself."

"That's the way I like 'em," said Ruddle.  "I never could abide the
milk-and-water woman.  But is she big or little?"

"Neither one nor the other," returned the skipper.  "Speaking as a
judge of them, I should say she is as she should be, not too little,
not too big, but what you might call sizeable.  And her complexion,
of which I'm a judge, is quite remarkable.  Oh, on consideration I
should state with some firmness that she's very pretty."

"You comfort me a good deal," said Ruddle; "and if you still insist
on my seein' her, I'll do it at once."

"It's my duty to insist, Ruddle," said the 'old man.'  "So down you
go, and mind you behave.  And don't be too stand-offish, for I can't
abide to see tears, and never could, and as a result I've had much
trouble in my life.  And when it's fixed up, come and tell me all
about it."

And Ruddle started to see his wife with slow, reluctant steps.

"It's my firm belief that nothin' of this nature ever happened
before," said Ruddle, "and my bein' nervous seems tolerable natural.
I wonder, oh, I do wonder, if I shall like her!"

He descended the companion as slowly as if he were going to execution.

"Oh, Tom, Tom," cried the lady who was, they said, his wife, and a
cold shiver ran down Ruddle's back.  He did not dare to lift his
eyes, and stood there like a big schoolboy who has got into sad
trouble and is much ashamed of himself.

"Oh, Tom, don't you know me?" cried Susan.  She made an attempt to
rise, which was very promptly frustrated by the gale.  Ruddle lifted
his eyes at last.

"If you please, ma'am, I don't think I do," said he.  Then he added
in desperation--"At least, not well, ma'am."

The situation was too desperate for screaming, and Susan accordingly
did not scream.  She became dignified.

"I have been your wife for three years, and now you say you don't
know me.  If you don't know me, who am I, and what am I?  Tom, sir,
Mr. Ruddle, I pause for a reply."

Poor Ruddle shook his head very sadly.

"It's mighty awkward, I own," he said after some reflection; "and I
don't know what to do about it.  I'm very sorry I don't know you, but
I can't say I do, much as I'd like to oblige a lady that I'm bound to
respect, as, according to the other gents in long-tailed coats, I'm
married to her.  But they say I was a missionary, and now I'm a
seaman again, and maybe you don't care for those that follow the sea."

"I don't mind anything," sobbed Susan, who was wondering if she might
tell her husband that she loved him and would not care if he were a
dustman.  But somehow it did not seem quite proper to speak in that
way to a man who didn't know her.

"Oh, please, don't cry," said Ruddle in great distress.  "When a lady
cries I never know what to do."

"I think I'm almost glad you d-don't," said Susan, and she smiled on
him through her tears, and looked very beautiful.

"The 'old man' was right," said Tom Ruddle, "she's as beautiful as a
picture, and just the kind I like.  I don't think I could have bin'
very dotty when I married her, and I wish I remembered somethin'
about it.  If I say I think she is pretty, I wonder whether she will
be mad and think it a liberty.  I think I'll try.  They mostly like
it."

He approached her slowly.

"If I don't know you, what may I call you?" he asked diffidently.

Mrs. Ruddle gave a gasp.

"Don't you know my name?  Oh, how very dreadful!  I'm Susan, and you
used to call me Dilly Duck."

"Did I?" asked Ruddle.  "And why did I do that?"

Susan said she didn't know, but supposed that it was because he liked
her very much.

"But I like you very much now," said Ruddle, "I really do; and I
think you are very pretty, ma'am, if I may say so, and the situation
is very awkward.  I hope I ain't too forward, which has never been my
way with ladies, I assure you."

As it had taken Susan over a year to encourage him to the point of
proposing, she felt sure that he was speaking the solid truth, and it
touched her deeply.

"I'm very glad you think I'm pretty," she said with the most charming
modesty.  "If--oh, if you think so, perhaps you are not sorry that
you are married."

"But I don't feel married," urged Ruddle desperately, "and I don't
know what to do about it.  It's by far the awkwardest situation I was
ever in by long chalks, and it beats me, it fair beats me."

But surely there was a way out, thought Susan, and she wondered
whether as his wife she might not suggest it.

"But you like me?"

"Oh, yes, to be sure," said Ruddle, "and I quite understand how I
came to marry you.  That is, I can understand how I wanted to, but
what fair licks me is what you saw in me.  Perhaps it was my bein' a
long-tailed parson.  Was it, now?"

"Not in the least," said Susan stoutly, "it was because you were you."

"But now I ain't what I was, and you must find it very embarrassing,
ma'am."

"What I find embarrassing is your calling me 'ma'am,'" said Susan,
with a snap that made Ruddle see that the skipper was right in other
ways than his judgment of the lady's beauty.

"Very well," said Tom Ruddle in a great hurry, "I'll call you Susan
if you like."

"Of course I like," said Susan; "and if you like you can call me
Dilly Duck too."

But though Ruddle was much encouraged, he could not go so far as that
all at once.

"If you won't, you might at anyrate sit down near me," said the fair
Circe with the golden hair.  And Tom sat down gingerly.

"I don't know what is to be done," said he in a melancholy way.  "I
suppose you agree with me, ma'am,--Susan, I mean,--that it is very
awkward and most unusual?  Looking it fair and square, I don't see a
way out, unless----"

"Unless what?" asked Susan, with her eyes on the deck.  She herself
had an idea of the way out, but she wanted him to find it.

"It's very odd that I should feel as I do, as we have been married,"
said Ruddle; "but I'm that took aback by the facts as they show up
against my present lights, that I seem in a dream, like as if I had
sternway on me and was in a regular tangle.  Tell me, when I was a
missionary was I much afraid of you?"

Susan sighed and took him by the arm.

"I think you were a little afraid sometimes, Tom, especially if I was
cross with you."

"Ah, I dessay," said her husband.  "And if I was scared of you at
times when I knew you, it seems natural, don't it, that I should be
worse scared of you now that I don't?"

"But you aren't really frightened of me, darling, are you?" asked
Susan, once more turning on the water-works.

"When you cry and call me that," said Ruddle, "I don't know where I
am, and I want to----"

"You want to what?" asked Susan in the sweetest voice.

"I--I don't quite know," stammered Ruddle.

"I know," said Susan triumphantly.

"Oh, no, you can't," said Ruddle in great haste.  "I'm certain you
can't, for it ain't possible."

But Susan lifted her sea-blue eyes to his and shook her head.

"I do know, Tom.  You want to kiss me."

Tom gasped and stared at her.  "Well, you are clever," he said, with
the greatest air of admiration.  "I don't believe that any other
woman would have guessed it."

And Susan sat waiting.

"Well?" she said at last.

"Oh, may I?" asked Tom.

"Of course you may," said Susan, once more looking at the deck.  And
he kissed her, and then took her in his arms while she wept.

"And you are sure you love me again?" she asked.

"It's most wonderful," said Tom, "but now I come to think of it, I
feel as if I had always loved you, and no other woman can as much as
get a look in.  There was a girl in London that thought I was goin'
to tie up alongside, but she's away off it, and I'll never marry
anyone but you."

Susan wisely forbore at that moment to make any inquiries about this
other girl, of whom she had never heard till that moment, and she put
her golden head against her husband's shoulder.

"I think I am quite happy, Tom," she said, "though I am very sorry
you don't remember how happy we were when we were first married."

Tom shook his head.

"I'm sorry for that too," he replied, "but it can't be helped, and
we'll be happy yet if you really love me enough to marry me again."

"But we are married, Tom," said Susan.

"You may be," said Tom, "but I haven't the feelings of it, and I mean
to ask that long-tail to tie us up again, so that there can be no
mistake about it.  What do you say?"

Susan said he was a darling, and that she loved him more than ever,
and was willing to be married to him a thousand times if he wanted it.

"And you don't mind my bein' a sailor instead of a missionary?" asked
Tom.

"I much prefer it, so long as you don't go to sea," said Susan; and
leaving that to be arranged later, Tom Ruddle called the curious
Chadwick from his cabin.

"I've fixed it up," said Tom triumphantly.  "I've fixed it to rights,
sir.  My wife is goin' to marry me again, and we'd be much obliged if
you would perform the ceremony."

"It seems very irregular," said Chadwick, "but considering the very
peculiar circumstances I've no objection to make.  It is really very
wonderful.  I congratulate you both.  I must call the captain and
tell him about it."

When the second mate came on deck the 'old man' went below.  As soon
as he grasped the situation he turned to Susan with a grin.

"You brought him to his bearings pretty quick, ma'am, and I
congratulate you.  But then a pretty woman like you ain't the sort to
go long a-beggin'.  I knew you'd fetch him!  When I described you to
him, me bein' a judge of female beauty, I saw how it would be.  Who's
goin' to do the new hitching?"

Mr. Chadwick said he was going to do it.

"It's the first time I ever married the same couple twice," he said;
and Brother Blithers sat in the background and said it was
uncanonical.  But no one paid any attention to Blithers.  The other
missionaries chipped in with their congratulations, and said that
they hoped Ruddle would still be one of them.

"Thank you, gentlemen," said Ruddle, "but I have too much admiration
for you to think I can be one of you again.  I have a cousin that's a
shipowner, and when he finds that I'm alive and in my right sea
senses, he'll give me a ship, for though I've never been skipper of
anythin' yet, I hold a master's certificate.  And my wife will go to
sea with me."

"Darling, I'll go anywhere with you," whispered Susan.  And then they
were married, while the gale roared about them, and the good old
_Ocean Wave_ rode it out under a goose-winged main-topsail as
comfortably as a duck in a puddle.

"It's all very wonderful," said Ruddle, as he went on deck at four
o'clock to keep his watch.  The 'old man' said that it was.

"All the same I knew she'd fetch you," said Gray.  "I think the worst
of it is over.  We'll be makin' sail in the mornin'.  As this is your
weddin'-day, Mr. Ruddle, I'll keep your watch to-night."

"Thank you, sir," said Ruddle.  "Lord, what a wonderful world it is."

Mrs. Ruddle said so too.




THE CAPTAIN OF THE _ULLSWATER_

There were enemies of Captain Amos Brown who said that he was a liar.
He certainly had a vivid imagination, or a memory for a more romantic
career than falls to the lot of most at sea or ashore.

"By the time we make Callao, Mr. Wardle," said the skipper to his new
mate, as they lay in Prince's Dock, Liverpool, "I expect to be able
to tell you something of my life, which has been a very remarkable
one."

"You don't say so, sir," said Mr. Wardle, who, as it happened, had
heard nothing about the skipper, and was innocently prepared to
swallow quite a deal.  "You don't say so, sir."

"I do say so," replied the skipper.  "It has been a most remarkable
career from first to last.  Wonders happen to me, Mr. Wardle, so that
when I am at sea I just know that something will occur that is
strange.  I have a collection of binoculars, with inscriptions on
them for saving lives at sea, that would surprise you.  They have
been given me by almost every Government of any importance under the
sun."

"That must be very gratifyin', sir," said the mate.

"It gets monotonous," said the skipper with a yawn.  "At times I wish
foreign Governments had more imagination.  They never seem to think
two pair of glasses enough for any man.  And the silver-mounted
sextants I possess are difficult to stow away in my house.  If you
don't mind the inscription to me on it, I'll give you a sextant
presented to me by France, Mr. Wardle, if I can remember to bring it
with me from home next time."

Mr. Wardle said he should be delighted to own it, and said, further,
that the inscription would naturally give it an added interest.  At
this the skipper yawned again, and said that he was tired of
inscriptions.

"The next lot I pick up I'll request not to give my name," he said.
"My wife, Mr. Wardle, gets tired of keeping a servant specially to
polish 'to Captain Brown,' with a lot of complimentary jaw to follow
that makes her tired.  She knows what I am, Mr. Wardle, and doesn't
require to be reminded of it by falling over a gold-mounted sextant
every time she turns round.  A woman even of a greedy mind can easily
get palled with sextants, and a woman sees no particular use in them
when they take up room that she wants to devote to heirlooms in her
family.  Before we get to Callao I'll tell you all about my wife, and
how I came to marry her.  It is a romantic story.  She belongs to a
noble family.  She is the most beautiful woman that you ever set eyes
on.  I'll tell you all about it before we get to Callao.  I've always
been a very attractive man to the other sex, Mr. Wardle.  She's
rather jealous, too, though she belongs to a noble family.  I
understand in noble families it isn't good taste to be jealous, but
she is.  However, I must write to her now, or I shall have a letter
from her at Callao that would surprise you, if by that time I know
you well enough to show it to you.  And now, what were you saying
about those three cases marked P.D., and consigned to Manuel Garcia?"

Mr. Wardle told him what he had been saying about the cases marked
P.D. and consigned to Manuel Garcia, and it was settled what was to
be done with them.  The skipper said that he wished they were full of
his binoculars and diamond-mounted sextants, and also his gold
watches with fulsome inscriptions on them, and that they were
consigned to Davy Jones.

"And this is a letter for you, sir," said the mate.  The skipper
opened it.

"From my wife," he said, and then he swore.

"Another pair of binoculars from the Swedish Government," he groaned.
"I shall write and say that I would rather have a suit of clothes,
and that if there must be an inscription on them will they put it
where it can't be seen.  The German Government once did that for me,
but they put the inscription in good English on the collar, and I
found it very inconvenient, for strangers would come and breathe in
my neck while they read it."

Mr. Wardle went away to ask the second mate what he thought of the
skipper.  He sighed, and the second mate laughed.  The second mate
was an unbelieving dog and a merry one.  When it came six o'clock
they had a wash, and put on clean clothes, and went up town together,
and had a friendly drink at a well-known public-house which was a
great resort for mates and second mates, though a skipper rarely put
his nose inside it.

"I wonder what kind of a chap the skipper is, after all," said
Humphries the second mate.  "It seems to me, sir, that he is a holy
terror of a liar, and no mistake."

"Oh, I shouldn't like to say that," replied Wardle.  "I do, however,
think he exaggerates and puts it on a bit thick.  That isn't bein' a
liar.  I daresay he has saved life at sea.  He wouldn't have offered
me a silver-mounted sextant if he hadn't several."

"I shall believe you will get it when I see you with it," said Jack
Humphries.  "In my opinion Captain Amos Brown is a first-class liar."

Perhaps he spoke a little too loudly for a public place, though that
public place was a billiard-room with four second mates playing a
four-handed game, and making as much row over it as if they were
picking up the bunt of the fore-sail in a gale of wind.  He was
overheard by the only old man in the room.

"Did I hear you mention someone called Amos Brown?" asked the old
chap sitting next to him.

"I did, sir," said the second mate of the _Ullswater_.  "Do you know
him?"

"I had an Amos Brown as an apprentice with me when I commanded the
_Samuel Plimsoll_," replied the old gentleman, "and he was a very
remarkable lad.  I think I heard you say that this one was a liar?"

"I did," said Humphries; "though perhaps I shouldn't have done so, as
I'm second mate with him now, sir."

The old boy shook his head.

"I won't tell him.  But it surely must be the same.  The Brown I knew
was an awful liar, and I've seen many in my time, gentlemen."

He asked them to drink with him, and they did it willingly.  To know
the one-time skipper of the old _Samuel Plimsoll_ was something worth
while, seeing that she had once held the record for a day's run.  And
if his Brown was theirs it was a chance not to be missed.  They took
their drinks, and asked him to tell them all about Amos Brown.

"He went overboard in a gale of wind and saved another boy who
couldn't swim," said the stranger, "and when we got them back on
board, and he could speak, the very first thing he said was that he
had seventeen medals from the Royal Humane Society for saving other
lives.  Does that sound like your man?"

Wardle told him about the binoculars and gold watches and
silver-mounted sextants.

"Ah, he's the man," said the old skipper.  "Don't you think because
he gasses that he hasn't pluck.  I'd not be surprised to hear that
there is some truth in what he says.  I've known one man with four
pairs of inscribed binoculars.  I daresay Captain Brown has a pair or
two.  When you see him, tell him that you met Captain Gleeson, who
used to command the _Samuel Plimsoll_.  And as I'm goin' now, I don't
mind owning that I'm the man that has the four pairs of binoculars,
gentlemen."

He bade them good-night, and Humphries said when he had gone that he
was probably as big a liar as the skipper, and had never seen the
_Samuel Plimsoll_.

"And as for Brown bein' a hero," added the second mate, "I simply
don't believe it.  A liar can't be brave."

This was a large and youthful saying, and Wardle, who was not so
young as his subordinate, had his doubts of it.

"I rather think the captain is all right," he said.  "I'll ask him
to-morrow if he was ever in the _Samuel Plimsoll_."

They were at sea before he got a chance to do so.

"The _Samuel Plimsoll_? well, I should say so!" said the skipper.
"And you actually met dear old Gleeson!  Why, Mr. Wardle, he was the
man that set me on makin' this collection of inscribed articles.  Bar
myself he is the one man in the whole merchant service with more than
he can do with.  His native town has a department in its museum
especially devoted to what he has given them in that way.  His wife
refused to give them house-room, and I don't blame her.  I saved most
of the crew in that dear old hooker at one time or another, went
overboard after them in gales of wind.  They got to rely on me and
grew very careless.  I often told them that I wouldn't go after any
more, but when you see a poor chap drownin' it is difficult to stay
in the dry and let him."

"Ah," said Wardle, "he did speak about your savin' one."

The skipper cast a quick look at him, and then laughed.

"One, indeed," he said contemptuously.  "Why I saved the whole of the
mate's watch, the mate included; and on three other occasions I was
hauled out of my bunk to go after one of the starboard watch.  The
only thing I have against old Gleeson is that he was jealous when he
saw I was likely to knock his collection of medals and binoculars
into a cocked-hat.  One, indeed!  I've saved seventy men, boys, and
women, by goin' in after 'em myself; and somethin' like forty-five
crews by skilful seamanship in the face of unparalleled difficulties.
I wish I could have a talk with Gleeson."

"He said you were one of the bravest lads he ever met, sir," said
Wardle.

The skipper's face softened.

"Did he now?  Well, that was nice of him, but I think he might have
told you about more than one I saved."

"And he said he had only four pairs of binoculars given him by
foreign Governments," added Wardle.

"That is his false modesty," said Captain Brown.  "He has an idea
that if he told the truth he would not be believed.  I don't care who
doesn't believe me, Mr. Wardle.  If surprisin' things occur to a man
why should he not relate them?  There's my wife, for instance, one of
the nobility, a knight's daughter!  I know men that wouldn't mention
it for fear of not bein' believed they had married so far above them.
She is the most beautiful woman in the three kingdoms, to say nothin'
of Europe.  I know men that it would seem like braggin' in to say
that, but when you get to know me, and know that speakin' the truth
isn't out of gear with my natural modesty, you will see why I mention
it so freely."

In the course of the next few days Captain Amos Brown mentioned a
good many things freely that redounded to the credit of himself and
his family, and he did it so nicely, with such an engaging air of
innocent and delightful candour, that poor Wardle did not know
whether he was shipmates with the most wonderful man on earth or the
most magnificent liar.

"I don't know where I am," he confided in his junior.

"I know where _I_ am," said the graceless second greaser.  "I am with
a skipper with as much jaw as a sheep's head, and if he said it was
raining I should take off my oilskins.  He's the biggest braggart and
liar I ever met, sir."

"I cannot listen to you sayin' such things," said the mate.

"I beg your pardon for doin' so," replied Humphries, "but the 'old
man' is a scorcher, and I can't help seein' it."

To a less prejudiced observer it must have been obvious that there
were many fine qualities in Captain Amos Brown.  He inspected the
cooking of the men's food at intervals which annoyed the cook and
kept him up to his work.  When he went his rounds he saw that things
were shipshape even in the deckhouse.  The men for'ard said he might
be a notorious liar, as they heard from the steward, but they said he
looked like a man and a seaman.  Mr. Wardle found him as smart a
navigator as he had ever sailed with, and before long was learning
mathematics from him.

"No officer need be ashamed of takin' a wrinkle from me, Mr. Wardle,"
said the skipper, after giving him a lesson in star observations that
made the mate sit up.  "The Astronomer Royal himself owned to me that
I could give him pounds and a beating at a great deal of mathematics.
I love it, there is something so fine and free about it.  I go
sailin' over the sea of the calculus with both sheets aft.  He is
goin' to publish some observations of mine about the imperfections of
the sextant.  They were brought to my notice by my series of
silver-mounted ones.  I'm inventin' a new one compensated for all
different temperatures."

And yet it was quite true that, as far as Wardle went with him, a
better and clearer-headed teacher could not be found.

"I shall end in believing every word he says," thought the mate.

And if the mate found him his master in navigation, Humphries found
that there wasn't a trick of practical seamanship that wasn't at his
finger-ends, from cutting out a jib to a double Matthew Walker on a
four-stranded rope, which the skipper could almost do with his eyes
shut.

"Everything is all the same to me, Mr. Humphries," said the skipper
calmly.  "I'm a born pilot, and I can handle every rig as easy as if
I'd been born in 'em.  I can sail a scow or a schooner, and every
kind of sailing-boat from a catamaran to an Arab dhow.  And at steam
I'm just as good."

Humphries did not believe a word of it, and used to read up
old-fashioned seamanship in order to pose him.  He never did, and the
most out-of-date sea-riddle was to the skipper as easy as slinging a
nun-buoy.

"He beats me, I own," said the second mate.  "He's the best at
all-round sailorizin' that I ever sailed with."

The men for'ard said the same.  And the bo'son, who was a very crusty
beast from Newcastle, was of opinion that what the 'old man' did not
know about ships was not worth knowing.

"I'm goin' to believe 'im hif so be 'e says 'e's bin to the moon,"
said one cockney.  "But for hall we knows the 'old man' may not show
hup and shine as 'e does now w'en it's 'ard weather.  I was shipmet
wiv a skipper once that was wonderful gassy so long's it was topmast
stuns'l weather, but when it blew a gale 'e crawled into 'is bunk
like a sick stooard, and there 'e stayed till the sun shone."

They soon had a chance of seeing whether the skipper was a
fair-weather sailor or not.  They had taken an almighty time to get
to the south'ard of the Bay of Biscay, for it had been almost as calm
as a pond all the way from the Tuscar.  Now the barometer began to
fall in a steady, business-like way that looked as if it meant work,
while a heavy swell came rolling up from the south.  The dawn next
morning was what ladies would have called beautiful, for it was full
of wonderful colour, and reached in a strange glory right to the
zenith.  It afforded no joy, artistic or otherwise, to anyone on
board the _Ullswater_, as she rolled in the swell with too little
wind to steady her.  The watch below came out before breakfast, and
looked at the scarlet and gold uneasily.  There was a tremendously
dark cloud on the horizon, and the high dawn above it was alone a
threat of wind.  The clouds, that were lighted by the hidden sun,
were hard and oily; they had no loose edges, the colour was brilliant
but opaque.  To anyone who could read the book of the sky the signs
were as easy as the south cone.  They meant 'very heavy weather from
the south and west.'  The skipper looked a deal more happy than he
had done before.  His eyes were clear and bright; there was a ring in
his voice which encouraged everybody; he walked the poop rubbing his
hands as if he was enjoying himself, as he undoubtedly was.  He
shortened the _Ullswater_ down in good time, but set his three
t'gallan's'ls over the reefed topsails, and hung on to them until
squalls began to come out of the south which threatened to save all
trouble of furling them.  By noon the sun was out of sight under a
heavy grey pall, and the sea got up rapidly as the wind veered into
the west of south.  An hour later it was blowing enough to make it
hard to hear anyone speak, and he roared the most dreadful and
awe-inspiring lies into the ear of his mate.

"This is goin' to be quite a breeze, Mr. Wardle," he shouted
joyously, "but I don't think the weather nowadays is ever what it was
when I was young.  I've been hove to in the Bay for three weeks at a
time.  And once we were on our beam ends for a fortnight, and all we
ate all that time was one biscuit each.  I was so thin at the finish
that I had to carry weights in my pocket to keep myself from bein'
blown overboard.  Oh, this is nothin'!  We can hang on to this till
the wind is sou'-west, and then maybe we'll heave to."

By the middle of the afternoon watch the _Ullswater_ was hanging on
to a gale on the port-tack with her main hatch awash, and the crowd
for'ard had come to the conclusion that for carrying sail the 'old
man' beat any American Scotchman they had ever heard of.  When he at
last condescended to heave her to, all hands, after wearing her, had
a job with the fore and mizzen-topsails that almost knocked the
stuffing out of them, as they phrased it.  The skipper, however, told
them that they had done very well, and told the steward to serve out
grog.  As the owners of the _Ullswater_ were teetotallers, and about
as economical as owners are made, this grog was at the skipper's own
expense.  When they had got it down, the entire crowd said that they
would believe anything the skipper said henceforth.  They went
for'ard and enjoyed themselves, while the old hooker lay to with a
grummet on her wheel, and the great south-wester howled across the
Bay.  If the main-topsail hadn't been as strong as the grog and the
skipper's yarns, it would have been blown out of the bolt-ropes
before dark, for the way the wind blew then made the 'old man' own at
supper-time that it reminded him of the days of his youth.

"But you never will catch me heavin' to under anythin' so measly as a
tarpaulin' in the rigging," said Captain Amos Brown, with his mouth
full of beef and his leg round the leg of the table, as the
_Ullswater_ climbed the rising seas and dived again like a swooping
frigate-bird.  "I like to have my ship under some kind of command
however it blows.  One can never tell, Mr. Humphries, when one may
need to make sail to save some of our fellow-creatures.  As yet
neither of you two gentlemen have got as much as the cheapest pair of
binoculars out of our own Board of Trade or a foreign Government.
With me you'll have your chance to go home to your girl and chuck
somethin' of that sort into her lap, and make her cry with joy.  I
saved my own wife, who is the most beautiful woman in the world, and
weighs eleven stone, and has for years, and I got a sextant and a
nobleman's daughter at one fell swoop.  Oh, I've been a lucky man."

"How did you save your wife, sir?" asked Humphries, who was almost
beginning to believe what the skipper said.

"You may well ask, and I can't tell," replied the skipper proudly.
"I hardly remember how it was, for when I get excited I do things
which kind friends of mine say are heroic, and I can't remember 'em.
But so far as I can recall it, I swam near a mile in a sea like this,
and took command of a dismasted barque with most of the crew disabled
through havin' their left legs broke, a most remarkable fact.  There
wasn't a sound left leg in the whole crowd except my wife's, and the
only thing out of order was that the captain's left leg was broke in
two places.  I took charge of her, and put splints on their legs, and
we were picked up by a tug from Queenstown and towed in there, and
the doctors all said I was the neatest hand with splints they had
ever seen.  And I married my wife then and there with a special
license, and I've never regretted it from that day to this.  By Jove,
though, doesn't it blow!"

How the "nobleman's" daughter came to be on board the dismasted
barque he did not explain, and he shortly afterwards turned in,
leaving orders to be called if it blew much harder.

"And when I say much harder, Mr. Wardle, I mean much harder.  Please
don't disturb me for a potty squall."

As a result of these orders he was not called till the early dawn,
when it was blowing nearly hard enough to unship the main capstan.
Even then Wardle would not have ventured to rouse him if he had not
fancied that he saw some dismasted vessel far to leeward in the mirk
and smother of the storm.

"I think I saw a vessel just now down to loo'ard," screamed the mate
as the skipper made a bolt for him under the weather cloth on the
mizzen rigging.  "Dismasted I think, sir."

He saw the 'old man's' eye brighten and snap.

"Where did you say?" he roared; and before he could hear they had to
wait till a singing squall went over.

"To loo'ard," said the mate again; and the next moment the skipper
saw what he looked for.

"Not dismasted, on her beam ends," he shouted.  And in a few more
minutes, as the grey dawn poured across the waste of howling seas,
Wardle saw that the 'old man' was right.

"Poor devils," he said, "it's all over with them."

The word that there was a vessel in difficulties soon brought out the
watch on deck, who were taking shelter in the deckhouse.  As it was
close on four o'clock the watch below soon joined them, and presently
Humphries came up on the poop.

"Ah!" said the second mate, "they are done for, poor chaps."

This the skipper heard, and he turned round sharply and roared,
"What, with me here?  Oh, not much!"

He turned to Wardle.

"Here's your chance for a pair of inscribed binoculars," he said.  "I
believe she's French, and the French Government have generous minds
in the way of fittings and inscriptions, Mr. Wardle."

"But in this sea, sir?" stammered the mate.  "Why, a boat couldn't
live in it for a second, even if we launched one safe, sir."

"I've launched boats in seas to which this was a mere calm," said the
skipper ardently.  "And if I can't get you or Humphries to go I shall
go myself."

"You don't mean it, sir," said the mate; and then the skipper swore
many powerful oaths that he did mean it.

"In the meantime we're driftin' down to her," said Captain Brown,
"for she is light and high out of the water and we are as deep as we
can be."

It soon got all over the ship that the 'old man' meant to attempt a
rescue of those in distress, and there was a furious argument for'ard
as to whether it could be done, and whether any captain was justified
in asking his crew to man a boat in such a sea.  The unanimous
opinion of all the older men was that it couldn't be done.  The
equally unanimous opinion of all the younger ones was that if the
skipper said it could be done he would go in the first boat himself
rather than be beaten.

"Well, it will be a case for volunteers," said one old fo'c'sle man,
"and when I volunteer to drown my wife's husband I'll let all you
chaps know."

And that was very much the opinion of Wardle, who was a married man
too.  As for Humphries, he was naturally reckless, and was now ready
to do almost anything the skipper asked.

"He may be a liar," said the second mate, "but I think he's all
right, and I like him."

Now it was broad daylight, and the vessel was within a mile of them.
Sometimes she was quite hidden, and sometimes she was flung up high
on the crest of a wave.  Heavy green seas broke over her as she lay
with her starboard yardarms dipping.  She had been running under a
heavy press of canvas when she broached to, and went over on her beam
ends, for even yet the sheets of the upper main-topsail were out to
the lower yardarm, and though the starboard half of the sail had
blown out of the bolt ropes, the upper or port yardarm still was
sound and as tight as a drum with the wind.

"If she hasn't sunk yet she'll swim a while longer," said the skipper
of the _Ullswater_, as the day grew lighter and lighter still.  "Show
the British ensign, Mr. Humphries, and cheer them up if they're
alive.  I wish I could tell them that I am here.  I'll bet they know
me.  I'm famous with the French from Dunkirk to Toulon.  At
Marseilles they call me Mounseer Binoculaire, and stand in rows to
see me pass."

The lies that he told now no one had any ears for.  Wardle owned
afterwards that he was afraid that the 'old man' would ask him to go
in command of a boat, and, like the old fo'c'sle man, he was thinking
a good deal of his wife's husband.  But all the while Captain Amos
Brown was telling whackers that would have done credit to Baron
Munchausen, he was really thinking of how he was to save those whose
passage to a port not named in any bills of lading looked almost
certain.  By this time the foreigner was not far to leeward of them.

"No one could blame us if we let 'em go," shrieked the 'old man' in
his mate's ear as the wind lulled for one brief moment.  "But I never
think of what other men would do, Mr. Wardle.  I remember once in a
cyclone in the Formosa Channel----"

What dreadful deed of inspired heroism he had performed in a cyclone
in the Formosa Channel Wardle never knew, for the wind cut the words
from the skipper's lips and sent them in a howling shower of spray
far to loo'ard.  But his last words became audible.

"I was insensible for the best part of a month after it," screamed
Amos Brown.  "The usual ... silver-mounted ... sickened ... wife as I
said."

Then he caught the mate by the arm.

"We'll stand by 'em, Mr. Wardle.  If I get another sextant, as I
suspect, I must put up with it.  Get the lifeboat ready, Mr. Wardle,
and get all the empty small casks and oil-drums that you can and lash
them under the thwarts fore and aft.  Make her so that she can't sink
and I'll go in her myself."

This fetched the blood into Wardle's face.

"That's my job, sir," he said shortly, for he forgot all about his
wife's husband at that moment.

"I know it," said the skipper, "but with your permission I'll take it
on myself, as I've had so much experience in this sort of thing and
you've had none.  And I tell you you'll have to handle the
_Ullswater_ so as to pick us up as we go to loo'ard, and it will be a
job for a seaman and no fatal error."

The mate swore softly and went away and did as he was told.  The men
hung back a little when he told them to get the boat ready for
launching, though they followed him when they saw him begin to cast
off the gear by which she was made fast.  But the old fo'c'sle man
had something to say.

"The captain ain't goin' to put a boat over the side in a sea like
this, is he, sir?"

Wardle snorted.

"You had better ask him," he replied savagely, and then there was no
more talk.  He went back to the poop and reported that the boat was
ready.  He also reported that the men were very unlikely to volunteer.

"They'll volunteer fast enough when they know I'm goin' to ask
nothin' of them that I don't ask of myself," said the captain.  "I
really think the wind is takin' off a little, Mr. Wardle."

Perhaps it was, but if so the sea was a trifle worse.  But it seemed
to the skipper and the two mates that the French vessel was lower in
the water than she had been.  She was getting a pounding that nothing
built by human hands could stand for long.

"There's not much time to lose," said the skipper.

Captain Amos Brown apparently knew his business, and knew it, as far
as boats were concerned, in a way to make half the merchant skippers
at sea blush for their ignorance of one of the finest points of
seamanship.  The skipper had the crew aft under the break of the
poop, and came down to them himself.  They huddled in the space
between the two poop-ladders and looked very uneasy.

"Do any of you volunteer to try and save those poor fellows to
loo'ard of us?" asked the 'old man.'  And no one said a word.  They
looked at the sea and at each other with shifty eyes, but not at him.

"Why, sir, 'tis our opinion that no boat can't live in this sea,"
said the bo'son.

"I think it can," said the captain, "and I'm goin' to try.  Do any of
you volunteer to come with your captain?  I ask no man to do what I
won't do myself."

There was something very fine about the liar of the _Ullswater_ as he
spoke, and everyone knew that now at least he was telling no lies.

"I'm wiv you, sir," said a young cockney, who was the foulest mouthed
young ruffian in the ship, and had been talked to very severely by
his mates on that very point.  It is not good form for a youngster to
use worse language than his elders at sea.  Some of the others looked
at him angrily, as if they felt that they had to go now.  A
red-headed Irishman followed the cockney, just as he had followed him
into horrid dens down by Tiger Bay.

"I'm with ye, too, sorr," said Mike.

"I'm only askin' for six," said the skipper.  Then the old fo'c'sle
man, who had been so anxious about his wife's husband, hooked a black
quid out of his back teeth and threw it overboard.

"I'll come, sir."

But now all the other young men spoke together.  The skipper had his
choice, and he took the unmarried ones.

He gave his orders now to the mate without a touch of braggadocio.

"We'll run her off before the wind, Mr. Wardle, and then quarter the
sea and lower away on the lee quarter.  See that there is a man on
the weather quarter with oil, so as to give us all the smooth you
can.  When we are safe afloat give us your lee to work in all you
can, and hang her up in the wind to windward of the wreck all you
know.  While you are there don't spare oil; let it come down to her
and us.  It is possible that we may not be able to get a line to the
wreck, but we'll go under her stern and try.  With all her yards and
gear in the sea it won't be possible to get right in her lee, so we
may have to call to them to jump.  My reckonin' is that we may pick
up some that way before we get too far to loo'ard.  When we get down
close to her, fire the signal-gun to rouse them up to try and help
us.  When you see us well to loo'ard of the wreck, put your helm up,
and run down and give us your lee again.  If we miss her and have to
try again, we must beat to windward once more.  But that's
anticipatin', ain't it?  You can put your helm up now, Mr. Wardle.
Shake hands."

And they shook hands.  Then the skipper and his men took to the boat,
which was ready to lower in patent gear, with Humphries in charge of
it, and the _Ullswater_ went off before the wind.  Then at a nod from
the captain she came up a little, till she quartered the sea with
very little way on her.

"Now, Mr. Humphries," said the skipper.  In ten seconds they hit the
water fair and the hooks disengaged.  The oil that was being poured
over on the weather quarter helped them for a moment, and even when
they got beyond its immediate influence they kept some of the lee of
the ship.  They drifted down upon the wreck, and rode the seas by
pulling ahead or giving her sternway till they were within half a
cable's length of the doomed vessel.  At that moment they fired the
signal-gun on board the _Ullswater_, and they saw some of the poor
chaps to loo'ard of them show their heads above the rail.  Then the
full sweep of the storm struck them.  But the liar of the
_Ullswater_, who had saved more crews in worse circumstances than he
could count, actually whistled as he sat in the stern-sheets with a
steering oar in his hands.  To handle a boat in a heavy sea, with the
wind blowing a real gale, is a thing that mighty few deepwater seamen
are good at.  But the skipper of the _Ullswater_ knew his business
even then as if he had been a Deal puntman, a North Sea trawler, or a
Grand Bank fisherman all his life.  The boat in which he made his
desperate and humane venture was double-ended like a whale-boat, and
she rode the seas for the most part like a cork.  In such a situation
the great thing is to avoid a sea breaking inboard, and sometimes
they pulled ahead, and sometimes backed astern, so that when a heavy
sea did break it did so to windward or to loo'ard of them.  And yet a
hundred times in the dreadful full minutes that it took them to get
down to the wreck there were moments when those in the boat and those
in the _Ullswater_ thought that it was all over with them.  Once a
sea that no one could have avoided broke over them, and it was
desperate work to bale her out.  And the roar of the wind deafened
them; the seas raced and hissed; they pulled or backed water with
their teeth clenched.  Some of them thought of nothing; others were
sorry they had volunteered, and looked at the captain furiously while
he whistled through his clenched teeth.  One cockney swore at him
horribly in a thin piping scream, and called him horrid names.  For
this is the strange nature of man.  But he pulled as well as the
others, and the skipper smiled at him as his blasphemies cut the
wind.  For the skipper saw a head over the rail of the wreck, and he
knew that there was work to be done and that he was doing it, and
that the brave fool that cursed him was a man and was doing his best.
The words he spoke were such as come out of a desperate mind, and out
of a man that can do things.  They towed an oil-bag to windward, but
there was no oil to calm the movements of the soul at such a time.

"Oh, damn you, pull!" said Amos Brown.  He ceased to whistle, and
cursed with a sudden and tremendous frenzy that was appalling.  The
cursing cockney looked up at him with open mouth.

By the 'old man's' side in the stern-sheets there was a coil of rope
attached to a little grapnel.  If the men still alive on board the
French barque were capable of motion they might be able to make a
rope fast, but after hours of such a storm, while they were lashed
under the weather bulwarks, it was possible that they were almost
numb and helpless.  Now the boat came sweeping down by the stern of
the barque; they saw her smashed rudder beating to and fro, and heard
the battering-ram of the south-west seas strike on her weather side.

"Back water!" roared the skipper, for astern of them a big sea roared
and began to lift a dreadful lip.  They held the boat, and the 'old
man' kept it straight on the roaring crest, and at that moment they
were lifted high, and saw beyond the hull of the barque the white
waste of driven seas.  Then they went down, down, down; and when they
were flung up again the skipper screamed to those on board, and as he
screamed he threw the grapnel at the gear of the spanker, and as they
surged past her stern the hooks caught in the bight of her loosened
vangs.  For all her gear was in a coil and tangle, and the topping
lifts of the gaff had parted.  The men backed water hard, and the
boat hung half in the lee of the wreck, but dangerously near the
wreck of the mizzen-topmast, which had gone at the cap and swayed in
the swash of the seas.  Now they saw the seamen whom they had come to
save, and no man of the boat's crew could hereafter agree as to what
happened or the order of events.  The skipper called to the poor
wretches, and one cut himself adrift and slid down the sloping deck
and struck the lower rail with horrible force.  They heard him
squeal, and then a sea washed him over to them.  He was insensible,
and that was lucky, for his leg was broken.  Then they made out that
one of the survivors was the captain, and they saw that he was
speaking, though they heard nothing.  There were, it seemed, no more
than ten of the crew left, for they counted ten with the one man that
they had.  But it seemed that they moved slow, and the sea was worse
than ever.  It boiled over the weather-rail and then came over green,
and all the men in the boats yelled filthy oaths at the poor numb
wretches, and called them horrible names.  The Irishman prayed aloud
to heaven and to all the saints and to the Virgin, and then cursed so
awfully that the others fell into silence.

"Jump, jump!" screamed the skipper, and another man slid down the
deck and came overboard for them.  He went under, and got his head
cut open on a swaying block, and knew nothing of it till he was
dragged on board.  Then he wiped the blood from his eyes and fell to
weeping, whereon the swearing cockney, who had been oddly silent
since his eyes had met the skipper's, cuffed him hard on the side of
the head, and said, "'Old your bloody row, you bleedin' 'owler!"  And
then three of his mates laughed as they watched their boat and fended
if off the wreck of the mizzen-mast with deadly and preoccupied
energy.  The cockney took out a foul handkerchief and dabbed it on
the bleeding man's head, and then threw the rag at him with an oath,
saying that a little blood was nothing, and that he was a blasted
Dago, and, further, he'd feel sorry for him when he was on board the
_Ullswater_.  Then another man jumped and was swept under and past
them, and just as he was going the skipper reached over and, grabbing
him by the hair, got him on board in a state of unconsciousness.
Then three of the poor fellows jumped at once, two being saved and
the third never showing above the water again.

"As well now as wiv the rest of hus," said the cockney, who had give
the Dago his 'wipe,' and he snivelled a little.  "Hif I gets hout of
this I'm for stayin' in Rovver'ive all the rest of my life."

Then they got another, and there were only the French skipper and one
more man left.  It was probably his mate, but he had a broken arm and
moved slow.  The French captain got a rope round him and slid him
down to loo'ard.  But when he was half-way down the old chap (he was
at anyrate white-haired) lost his own hold, and came down into the
swash of the lee scuppers with a run.  He fell overboard, and the
Irishman got him by the collar.  He was lugged on board with
difficulty, and lay down on the bottom boards absolutely done for.
The other man didn't show up, and the men said that he must be dead.
They began talking all at once, and the skipper, who was now up at
the bows of the boat, turned suddenly and cuffed the Irishman hard,
whereupon Mike drew his sheath-knife, saying in a squeal, "You swine,
I'll kill you!"  But the bo'son struck him with the loom of his oar
under the jaw, and nearly broke it.  He snatched his knife from him
and threw it overboard.

Now they saw the _Ullswater_ right to windward of the sinking barque,
and some oil that they poured into the sea came down to them, so that
the hiss of the sea was so much less that it seemed as if silence
fell on them.  They heard the Irishman say with difficulty as he held
his jaw--

"All right, my puggy, I'll have your blood."

He had lost his oar, and the other men were wild with him.  What they
might have said no one knows, but the skipper turned to them, saying
that he would go on board after the last man.  They all said at once
that he shouldn't.  They gave him orders not to do it, and their eyes
were wild and fierce, for they were strained and tired, and fear got
hold of them, making them feel chilly in the fierce wind.  They clung
to the captain in their minds.  If he did not come back they would
never be saved, for now the boat was heavily laden.  They opened
their mouths and said 'Oh, please, sir,' and then he jumped overboard
and went hand over hand along the grapnel line and the tangle of the
vangs.  They groaned, and the Irishman wagged his head savagely,
though no one knew what he meant, least of all himself.  They saw the
'old man' clamber on board as a big sea broke over her, and they lost
sight of him in the smother of it.  They sat in the heaving boat as
if they were turned into stone, and then the Irishman saw something
in the sea and grabbed for it.  He hauled hard, and they cried out
that the skipper mustn't try it again.  But as the drowning man came
to the surface they saw that it was not the skipper after all, but
the French mate, and they said 'Oh, hell!' being of half a mind to
let him go.  But the bo'son screamed out something, and they hung on
to a dead man's legs, for to the dead man's hands the skipper was
clinging.  They got him on board not quite insensible, and the
Irishman fell to weeping over him.

"Oh, it's the brave bhoy you are," he said; and then the skipper came
to and vomited some water.

"Hold on, what are you doin'?" he asked, as he saw the two cockneys
trying to heave the dead man back in the sea.  They said that he was
dead.  The bo'son said that the deader had only half a head, and
couldn't be alive in that condition.  So they let the body go, and
the skipper woke right up and was a man again.  They hauled up to the
grapnel or near it, for they were strained enough to do foolish
things.  Then they saw it was silly and cut the line.  They drifted
to loo'ard fast, and got out into the full force of the gale, which
howled horribly.  They saw the _Ullswater_ lying to under her sturdy
old maintop-sail, and as soon as they saw her they were seen by the
second mate, who was up aloft with his coat half torn off him.  To
get her off before the wind quick they showed the head of the
foretopmast-staysail, which was promptly blown out of the bolt ropes
with a report they heard in the boat like the dull sound of a far-off
gun.  She squared away and came to the nor'-east, and presently was
to windward of them, and in her lee they felt very warm and almost
safe, though they went up to the sky like a lark and then down as if
into a grave.  And then they saw their shipmates' faces, and the
skipper laughed oddly.  The strain had told on him, as it had on all
of them, not least perhaps on some of those who had not faced the
greater risks.  And it seemed to the skipper that there was something
very absurd in Wardle's whiskers as the wind caught them and wrapped
them in a kind of hairy smear across one weather-beaten cheek.  All
those in the boat were now quite calm; the excitement was on board
the _Ullswater_, and when the gale let them catch a word of what the
mate said, as he stood on the rail with his arm about a backstay,
they caught the quality of strain.

"Ould Wardle is as fidgety as a fool," said Mike the Irishman, as he
still held on to his jaw.  "He'll be givin' someone the oncivil word
for knockin' the oar out o' me hand."

He sat with one hand to his face, with the other, as he had turned
round, he helped the bo'son.

"What about your pullin' your knife on the captain?" asked the bo'son.

Then Micky shook his head.

"Did I now?  And he struck me, and he's a brave lad," he said simply.
But the hook of the davit tackle dangled overhead as they were flung
skyward on a sea.  There were davit ropes fitted, and one slapped the
Irishman across the face.

"It's in the wars I am," he said; and then there was a wind flurry
that bore the _Ullswater_ almost over on them.  The way was nearly
off her, and in another minute she would be drifting and coming down
on them.

"Now!" screamed the skipper, and they hooked on and were hauled out
and up.

"Holy Mother," said Mike, "and I'm not drowned this trip!"

The boat was hauled on board, and when the skipper's foot touched the
deck he reeled.  Humphries caught him.

"Oh, steady, sir," said Humphries, as Mike came up to them.

The captain stared at him, for he did not remember striking him.

"It's the brrave man you are," said Mike simply; "and you're the
firrst man that I've tuk a blow from since I was the length of my
arm.  Oh, bhoys, it's the brrave man the skipper is."

The second mate pushed him away, and he went like a child and lent a
hand to help the poor 'divils of Dagoes,' as he called those who had
been saved.  The mate came and shook hands with the captain.  The
tears ran down Wardle's hairy face, and he could not speak.

"I shall have another pair of binoculars over this," said Captain
Amos Brown with quivering lips.

"You are a hero," bawled the mate as the wind roared again in a
blinding squall with rain in it.  The skipper flushed.

"Oh, it's nothin', this," he said.  "Now in the Bay of Bengal----"

The wind took that story to loo'ard, and no one heard it.  But they
heard him wind up with 'gold-mounted binoculars.'

* * * * * * *

A year later he got a pair from the great French Republic.  They were
the first he ever got.



THE END



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