CHAPTER III
"THE USE OF A SHEATH-KNIFE"
Contrary to the astronomical prophet's forecast, the Higgins was lucky in carrying the northerly breeze until she picked up the "trades," and the third day out all hands were turned to shifting sail.
By this time Broncho was beginning to feel his feet. He was fortunate in having such a useful friend as Jack Derringer, who showed him the right way to set about his work and saved him from many a trouble.
It is to be doubted if Broncho's untamed cowboy spirit would have put up with Barker's bullying and insulting tongue if it had not been for Jack's strong influence and keen common-sense way of viewing and explaining everything.
The rolling-stone, except for strange spells of melancholy, when he seemed to be lost in gloomy thoughts and was hard to get a word out of, had a way of looking at everything from a comic point of view, and his infectious smile and cool comments time and again turned Broncho's smouldering wrath into mirth.
The cowboy prided himself on his philosophical way of taking fate. His strong points were his virile manhood, his fortitude against misfortune, and his daredevil bravery, and in these traits he found an equal, if not a superior, in the cool, self-possessed Britisher.
Only once was the cowpuncher ever heard to discuss his friend, and that was in one of his queer outbursts of thought.
"This world is shore like a poker game. Some parties is mean an' no account, like an ace high or pair of deuces; some's middlin', an' has their good an' bad p'ints, like a pair o' bullets or two low pair in a Jack-pot; some gents outhold the rest as a general play, like three of a kind; but is likewise downed themselves by sech superior persons who, like flushes an' full houses, is bang full o' sand, sense, an' 'nitiative; but thar's only one sport I ever rounds up against who's got all the vartues of a four of a kind, an' that man's Derringer Jack—he's shore four aces an' the joker."
Shifting sail started off smoothly enough, chiefly owing to the bosun, who knew how to get work out of men without using a belaying-pin.
An old Blackwall rigger, he was the very beau ideal of what a bosun ought to be, and the sight of his spars and rigging was as good for the old man's liver as a ten-knot breeze astern.
One day the man at the wheel overheard Captain Bob commenting aloud to himself after a keen look round his ship.
"Me mates be all right as long as it's thumpin' men an' ship-cleaning as is the ticket; but when it comes to marlin-spike an' riggers work, that 'ere durned lime-juicer kin give 'em cards an' spades."
The bosun, however, was far from being popular with the bucko mates, as his methods of enforcing discipline were much too tame to gain their approval.
"Them doggoned lemon-pelters never could handle men; they coddles em an' spiles 'em. Human nature requires whippin', an' if them skulkin' 'possums don't get a sort o' warnin' pretty frequent, they're liable to get thinkin' they've got the bulge on us," remarked Black Davis to Barker one morning in disgust, as he watched the bosun, Jack, and Paddy chatting amiably together whilst they were at work patching a fair-weather topsail on the maindeck.
These two bullies spent their time looking for trouble. Their one delight seemed to be to haze the men and knock them about; they had already beaten every bit of spirit out of those two poor greenhorns, Pinto and Jimmy Green, whilst Sam, the great buck nigger, who topped Black Davis by at least half a foot, and Barker by more, fairly rolled his eyes in terror when either one of these worthies approached or spoke to him; they knocked the cowards about unmercifully, and even such gluttons for a fight as Pat and the cockney got their fair share of hard usage.
But neither Jack Derringer nor the cowboy had been touched since the towing out.
It was a mystery to all hands why Jack escaped so easily. It was not by reason of his muscle, which was not so apparent on the surface as that of the big nigger. It was not because they liked him, for any one could see with half an eye that the pair fairly detested him, and yet their mysterious fear of the rolling-stone seemed greater than their hate. It was not a ferocity of manner or a desperado air that caused this fear, for although Jack had a quiet way of taking the lead and ordering others about which had already made him cock of the foc's'le, his rule forward was far from being that of a despot; it was rather that of an easy-going, level-headed man, gentle but firm. Being also the only educated man forward except the young English apprentice, his advice and counsel were in constant demand.
Even he, however, could not understand his freedom from ill-treatment. Several times he complained in the foc's'le with a queer grin that he was not getting his fair share of belaying-pin soup. It actually seemed to annoy him, and he began to air his wit on the buckos in such an insolent, daring fashion that the men, hearing him, shook in their shoes at his temerity.
There was no mystery forward, however, about Broncho's escape from brutality.
It was known aft, of course, that he was a cowboy from the south-west, and Jack, with infinite cunning, had made Broncho out to the bosun a terrible desperado:
"One of the most noted 'bad men' of the West," he declared. "Known and feared from Arizona to the Kootenay, from Texas to the Pacific slope, with more notches on his six-shooter than years to his life."
This precious character, together with several blood-curdling episodes of his career, invented on the spur of the moment by the rover's fertile brain, was in due course passed on to the after gang, with the result that Broncho was treated with a strange deference by the buckos, much to the amusement of the hands forward who were in the know.
Barker took care that all the easiest work came the desperado's way, and often he would favour him in small ways, and even yarn with him, when the old man was below, in the hopes of hearing from his own lips one of his many deeds of blood. But all the time the bucko was nervous and ill at ease; his own gory record seemed mean and petty compared to the cowboy's wholesale butcheries. One night he buttonholed the cowpuncher whilst he was coiling up gear on the poop, and asked him to spin the yarn of how he killed the seven greasers at Tombstone, and Broncho had a chance of giving free rein to his inventive powers.
The nickname also of Bucking Broncho, which had long replaced the cowboy's real name, helped to promote the deception, which occasioned much unholy joy in the starboard foc's'le.
Thus it was that the buckos treated Broncho with almost servility, though they daily did their best to arouse every passion of hate, revenge, and murder in the rest of the ship's company.
But the sand in the time-glass of fate was nearly run out for one of them.
Whilst the bosun and some hands were busy bending the fore-topsails, the second mate went aloft on the main with Jack, Broncho, Ben Sluice, Pedro, and Sam.
They had just hoisted up the main upper-topsail ready for bending. Barker took his post at the bunt, Jack going out to the weather earing, with Broncho next to him, and Pedro inside next to Barker; whilst Ben and Sam went out on to the lee yardarm, where they were in a short time joined by Curly, who had been waiting below to let go the spilling-lines.
The head of the sail was spread out along the yard, the earings passed, and they were all busy making it fast to the jackstay.
Suddenly Barker, who had been watching for an opportunity to raise trouble, noticed that Pedro had skipped a roving.
"Yew mongrel skunk——" he began, raising his fist to strike the dago; but the sentence was never finished and the blow never fell, for the hot southern blood, raised to boiling-point by long-pent-up passion, burst beyond Pedro's control.
With one flashing movement and a yell of fury, he plunged his knife up to the hilt in the mate's breast.
With a deep groan, Barker fell back against the mast, bleeding profusely.
Ben, catching the stricken man in his arms, vainly tried to staunch the wound; but it was all up with the second mate, who was too far gone even for speech.
As Ben held him there was a gurgle in his throat, and a stream of bright lung blood poured from his mouth.
"You've been an' gone an' done it this time," said the ex-miner to Pedro.
"Me keela lo gringo brute. Carrajo, esta bueno!" remarked the South American coolly, with a self-satisfied air.
"It's some obvious you've coppered his play," said Broncho.
"I allows he's done jumped this earthly game for good," he added, turning to Jack and indicating Barker, who already had the death-rattle in his throat.
"Yes, I'm afraid he's pelili[4]; these buckos are always looking for it, and they generally get it in the end," answered Jack quietly. "I heard him call Pedro by a name yesterday which it's suicidal to use to any of the Latin races, and one I've frequently seen cause gun-play in the West, as no doubt you have too."
There was a hush on the yard as they watched the dying man, who was already unconscious.
It was not a pleasant sight, but was viewed by Jack, Broncho, and Ben Sluice with calm eyes and level pulses. All three had been familiar with death in many strange and horrible forms, and their senses were blunted to the keenness of the horror.
But Curly, only a boy in years, hung over the yardarm white and sick and shaking, whilst Sam, the coloured man, drew back frightened and nerveless.
The dago, however, stared indifferently, as cool and unmoved as a Sioux Indian.
Suddenly death came! There was a spasmodic twitching of the limbs, a sudden gush of blood from the mouth, nose, and ears, the pupils of the eyes grew glassy, their whites showed, the head dropped back heavily on Ben's shoulder, and the complexion took on that strange appearance of wax as the bucko's spirit fled.
Shifting sail is a busy bit of work. The bosun and his men on the fore, with their backs turned, were busy stretching their sail to a chorus, all in ignorance of the tragedy which had just occurred; whilst Black Davis, with the rest of the hands, was in the sail-locker, putting away the unbent sails.
At this moment he appeared on deck, followed by a line of men shouldering a main course, which looked for all the world like a huge white serpent, coming along the deck on six pairs of legs.
It was a delicious day. The north-east trade wind was light, and the Higgins was sneaking along over the deep blue of the Pacific, doing hardly six knots.
The bright sun shone upon the gleaming cotton canvas, giving it the dazzling appearance of snow.
As the mate stepped forward of the mainmast, he glanced casually up at the men at work above.
The first thing to catch his eye was the red stain of blood on the bellying breast of the topsail, and then he noticed that the men on the yard seemed to be all crowded into the bunt.
"Brazen sarpints! What the tarnation hell air yew doin' up thar?" he roared.
"Second mate's got badly stuck, sir," replied Jack.
"Who stuck him?"
"Dat er dago, Pedro, sah," shouted Sam, who was not a special friend of the little Chilian.
Black Davis had seen many a fatality of this sort, and to his credit it may be said that, whatever the emergency, it always found him ready.
"Bosun!" he roared, "git down off thet yard an' fetch a pair er handcuffs!"
The whole ship was now awake to the fact that a tragedy had occurred.
The old man appeared through the companion-way with his Winchester crooked under his arm, and going to the rail of the poop, sang out to know if the second mate was badly hurt.
"He's done cashed in his checks, sir!" Ben Sluice roared back.
"Better send up a bosun's chair to get the body down on deck, sir," sang out Jack.
"All right, all right, not so durned full o' talk up thar," growled the old man.
An atmosphere of excitement began to pervade the ship, and all work was dropped. Those who were up the fore scrambled quickly to the deck, and began feverishly to discuss the matter with Black Davis's gang, in charge of the main course.
Black Davis, swinging himself on to the rail, slowly started the ascent of the main rigging.
"'Oo did they say stuck 'im?" asked the cockney.
"Yew bet it's thet dago cuss Pedro done carved him up. I see'd the devil stickin' out a foot outen them black eyes er his; I've just been waitin' ter see him get his claws into one of 'em," replied Hank, taking a mighty bite out of a plug of tobacco, which he proceeded to chew vigorously.
"Gee-up! gee-up! Pedro kill-um one piecee boss number two velly muchee chop-chop! Me heap flaid—no likee funee business; plenty muchee solly!" ejaculated Lung, looking out through his galley door.
"You thinks as 'ow it's goin' to raise trouble, does ye, ye bloomin' h'opium-slave?" remarked Hollins, with the insolent tone of one addressing an inferior being.
"And I ain't so sure the chink ain't right neither," put in Hank.
"Der teufel ish dode, und it serves him recht; he was lookin' for it," grunted Muller, the German.
"You're right, Dutchy. He were playing for a show-down an' the dago plumb euchred him," remarked the gambler, Studpoker Bob. "An' if thet other golderned bucko don't mind his little game some, he'll find himself up against the iron likewise," he continued in a lower tone, with an upward glance full of sinister meaning.
"I reckon he ain't easily gallied,[5]" said Hank. "It'll take a man with a mighty stiff backbone to heave that beggar to, an' you may lay to that."
"Begorr, but there's men in this foc's'le would be after batin' the eye-teeth out of him," burst in the eager Paddy.
"Not in the port foc's'le, son; yew bet he's got us all skeert."
"Be me sowl, but he ain't goin' to come it over us starbowlines none, or he'll get the divil's own larrupin'," said Pat fiercely.
"Who's goin' to do ther larrupin'?" inquired Hank scornfully.
"I'm due to get square with that ladybuck myself, bad luck to him."
"Holy Gee! but he'd fair eat yew, Pat, an' ask for more."
"Faith, an' would he thin. Well, he wouldn't be atin' of Jack Derringer none so aisy, anyhow. Be the Powers! but Jack could knock his d——d head off."