CHAPTER VII
"IN THE SECOND DOG-WATCH"
All through the tropics, Pedro, under the influence of his solitary confinement, had been becoming more and more morose and despondent.
He hardly touched the wretched fare which was placed before him, and had wasted to a shadow of his former self.
His fierce black eyes glittered out of a sallow, heavily-lined face, upon which the lowering scowl daily became deeper and deeper.
His ragged moustache was broken and torn by chewing, whilst his lower lip hung sore and bleeding from the constant gnawing of his teeth.
"It's a cert," remarked Broncho, "that that bowie-whirlin' dago is due to go flutterin' from his limb one o' these days. He's lookin' 'bout ready to break camp for the etarnal beyond; his vittles no longer gives him joy, an' he just sets thar an' wilts."
"Weevily hard tack and dirty warm water wouldn't give anybody joy," replied Jack. "He wants air and exercise; they should let him out for an hour on deck every day."
"Gate an' seat checks for the realms o' light is about what he wants, I reckon," retorted the cattle-ranger.
And Broncho was right. One morning they found him too late; he was lying in a pool of blood with a small piece of broken wood in his clenched fingers. With this poor weapon the Chilian had managed to tear open a vein in his arm, and so bled to death. Thus miserably ended the poor little bucko-killer.
His death brought the superstitious members of the crew to the front again. Pessimistically they prophesied all sorts of evils, and Sam, the chief authority, openly proclaimed that Black Davis, with the death of the ship's cat upon his soul, would be the next victim of the ghostly avenger.
In the south-east trades easy times reigned in the starboard watch. For nearly a week not a sheet, brace, or halliard was touched, except for the usual pull on the braces and general "freshening of the nip" every evening.
In the second dog-watch the men would collect on the foc's'le head, and exchange yarns with eager faces and vehement gestures.
Every man forward had seen life in its more unusual phases. Paddy, Hank, Jack, and the cockney had all been shipwrecked more than once; and even Jim had had a strange crop of experiences crowded into his short life.
One evening Jack had just related a yarn of how he had been wounded in an affray in the New Hebrides, when mate of a "blackbirder," as the schooners recruiting Kanaka labour for the Queensland plantations were called.
"Any money in thet layout?" inquired the gambler.
"Used to be," returned Jack, "till the missionaries and opposition in Australia broke it up."
"Thar's many a cinch in the South Seas," observed Hank. "Copra an' curios ain't bad, nor yet pearls, speshully if yew kin strike a preserved patch when thar ain't no gunboat knockin' around."
"Smuggling opium's good, too," reflected Jack musingly.
"Yew bet! Ever tried it?"
"Aye."
"How did it pan out?" inquired Bedrock Ben, somewhat eagerly.
"So-so!" grunted the rover. "Did three good trips. Then we got caught napping in a typhoon, and the old junk went to the bottom."
"Close call, eh?"
"Yes; only three of us saved—two Chins and myself."
"H'I tell ye, byes, smugglin's good gear h'all round," broke in the cockney.
"Begorra, an' I'm after knowin' that same. Weren't I in the Admiral Tronde, a bruck-up little one-gunned stame-kettle runnin' guns fur them Urriguay sports," cried Paddy excitedly.
"Were ye, Pat? Bully for you," went on the cockney. "I done some gun-runnin' too up the Persian Gulf; but h'I 'ad ter quit—the screw were good enuff, but the 'eat wos a knock-out. Lord love ye! W'y, we biled our cauffee on the shanks o' the anchors; s'elp me, but they wos allers red 'ot. An' th' ole man, 'e don' ever wear nuffin' but a bloomin' gal's night-gownd——"
"Heat don't worry me," interrupted Hank. "It's cold calls the turn on me. I was up the Behring once sealin' an' got my bellyful."
"Much ice?" inquired Jack casually.
"A pretty considerable mush of it."
"I was two months in the ice to the south'ard once in the Cairngorm," declared the rover.
"The hell yew war? 'Member speakin' the I.P. Rakes off the Dyeego Ramerrez? Yew had ye jibboom gone an' nought above the lower-mast forrard. Your ole man sent a life-boat aboard us fur spuds—said y'd got scurvy bad. By Davy, I allers allows thet were the dirtiest sea I ever see'd a boat live in."
"It was bad," agreed Jack. "We got stove in trying to get aboard again, and lost three men."
"Thet's right! I see'd yew wi' these very eyes, smashed to staves yew were; an' yew were in thet boat, eh?"
"Yes," said the Britisher quietly. "I was second mate of the Cairngorm, and had charge of her."
"Phew!" exclaimed Hank, drawing a long breath; "an' whar did yew larn thet trick o' handlin' a boat? Been whalin', I s'pose?"
"No; all the boat-work I know I picked up in the Islands."
"Ever seen Siwash squaws run a birch-bark through rapids?" asked old Bedrock Ben. "That's what I calls boat-handlin'."
"Squaws 'andle a boat! To 'ell wiv ye!" burst out the cockney disdainfully. "What d'you know 'bout h'it? W'y, you ain't never seen the Boat Ryce."
"What boat race?" grunted old Ben.
"Lord lummy, byes, listen to 'im! Sech h'ignorance is bloomin' well a disgryce."
"What's this here race you-alls alludes to?" inquired Broncho in his polite Texan drawl.
"Oh, 'ell!" gasped the cockney, and sank back in a state of collapse.
"I see'd the Boat Race onct," suddenly put in Jim's small voice, "an' I ain't never forget it."
"I ain't no use fur racin'," growled Red Bill. "I does a v'yage once in one o' them tea-clippers, an' that were enuff racin' to last me my time. What wi' carryin' on when it's blowin' great guns an' muckin' around in the tropics with royal stuns'ls, save-alls, water-s'ls, ringtails, an' sech-like superfloous pocket-handkerchers, it ain't no game fur a white man."
"What was your ship, mate?" inquired the rover, looking up with interest.
"Titania."
"I came home from Australia once in the Cutty Sark," said Jack slowly.
"Lose any men?" asked Red Bill sharply.
"Well, off the Horn we did. Helmsman lost his head—let her run off, whilst we were at the main braces. We shipped a big sea and lost nine men overboard—two of them washed off the foreyard."
"I believe you, son," snorted the fiery-headed Bill. "That's the way wi' them packets. Men's lives is nuffin' so long as they makes a good passage."
"Men's lives!" growled Jack disdainfully. "Red Bill, you talk like a softy! What do you come to sea for but to take the rough with the smooth? When a man begins thinking of his life at sea, it's about time he stopped ashore and turned counterjumper, ink-squirter, or hayseed——"
"Go easy, mate, go easy!" put in Hank mildly.
"Well, I've got no patience when a man begins talking about his precious life."
"Look 'ere!" began Red Bill hotly, "you jest take in the slack o' that jaw-tackle o' yours, Jack Derringer. You're a sight too free wi' them insinnivations. I ain't afraid o' you for all ye prize-fightin' tricks, so go slow, or there'll be a slogging match."
"Bill," said the rolling-stone, with that catching smile of his, "shake hands. You're a white man, and I take it all back. It was just you talking of men's lives that roused my dander. I don't like to hear good sailormen talk about their lives like so many frightened land-crabs. I once went a yachting trip with three brass-bound, useless, chicken-hearted clothes-props, and I tell you I got a sickener of 'my precious life' talk.
"Things went well enough at first, when there was only just enough wind to keep us moving—though I had my hands full, what with cooking, steering, and doing all the dirty work; for though they were all three big men, they were so fat and flabby they couldn't pull their own weight on a rope or even hit a dent in a pat of butter; but we got a bit of a blow heading over to the French coast from Falmouth, and if ever I saw three badly scared, nerveless citizens, it was that crowd.
"The boat was a snug little yawl, and as I was pressing her through it pretty hard, things naturally got a bit wet, and now and again some green water lopped aboard.
"Well, after they'd had their first experience of a big dollop, they all turned on me.
"'Isn't it getting dangerous?' began the first uneasily.
"'Haven't we got too much sail for safety?' quavered the second.
"'Wouldn't it be risking our lives to go on?' stuttered the third. 'I'm afraid——'
"'Any fool could see that,' I broke in, as I shoved her nose into a lump of green water to cut short their chorus.
"After a good deal of spluttering they recovered sufficiently to give tongue again.
"'I'm wet through,' whimpered one. 'I must go below and change my things or I'll catch cold. D'you think it safe for me to leave the deck?'
"'I guess the deck can take care of itself all right,' I answered.
"'No, I don't mean that,' he said solemnly. 'I mean, if the boat turned over when I was in the cabin, I should lose my life, I should be d-d-drowned.'
"'By Jove, so you would!' I exclaimed, as if struck by the gravity of the idea.
"'D'you really think it would be more dangerous below than here?' put in another of the boobies anxiously.
"'You're all insured, ain't you?' I asked with a wooden face.
"'Yes,' they gulped as a spray took them; 'but for God's sake turn the boat round and go back.'
"'Can't; too dangerous to run before this sea,' I declared, making a big bluff.
"They were getting too much for my patience altogether, so with a wild cry of 'Look out!' I shoved the helm over and soused them again.
"This time I had them all as limp as a wet swab, and as the wave hit them they screeched like so many frightened women. But directly the water cleared off there was more tongue-wagging.
"'My God! I thought we were gone,' gasped one.
"Then the second booby let fly:
"'What an escape! A second longer and I should have been drowned——'
"'How terrible!' I put in brutally.
"'Terrible? Yes, you're right. Isn't the sea awful? I've never been in such danger in my life before.'
"'Nor ever will be again if you can help it, I expect,' I sneered.
"But their minds were too overwrought to take any notice of my brutal speeches.
"'I thought I should burst——' began the fattest.
"'I've often thought you'd do that,' I cut in cheerfully.
"'——from holding my breath so long,' he finished, eyeing me dismally.
"Well, the end of it all was, I got the unhappy trio below, battened 'em down, and weathered it out by my lonesome. Twenty-seven hours at the tiller! Ever since that cruise, whenever a man begins to talk about his life being in danger, I begin to get hot in the collar."
"Land folk is certainly queer that way an' easily scared," commented the pacified Red Bill.
"Gettin' scared is easy. The bigges' fire-eatin' son of a gun is scared some time in his life; but it's givin' away your hand an' showin' you're scared that gets you logged down as plumb nerveless an' no account," remarked old Ben sagely.
"You're shore right, Ben," agreed Broncho. "It's the white-livered coyote who can't keep his mental fears corralled who goes to drawin' his gun when there ain't no need, an' gets over shootin' an' pluggin' the wrong gent."
"Thet's so, pardner," grunted the gambler. "See this scar?" pointing to a livid streak on his cheek-bone. "I gets that from a tenderfoot back-east puppy as acts the way you mentions."
"He sartinly makes a greevious mistake that time," returned Broncho ambiguously.
"He shore would ha' had a depitation o' thanks from his grateful pards if he'd hit the bull's-eye, I reckon," rumbled old Ben in a loud aside.
At this moment the bell went, and the watch on deck got hastily to their feet, caught up caps, and knocked the ashes out of their pipes before going aft.
Sometimes Broncho and Jack would sneak into the bosun's little berth in the midshiphouse. Here the three of them, with pipes smoking like chimneys, passed many a pleasant hour.
Over the bosun's bunk was the worn and faded photograph of a very pretty girl. This picture seemed to attract the rolling-stone in some strange way, for often he stared fixedly at it with a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were peering back into the past and trying to recall some half-forgotten memory.
One night, noticing his rapt gaze, the bosun remarked casually:
"Yes, she's a nice-lookin' gal, ain't she?"
"I beg your pardon!" said Jack hastily, the dark red flushing through his tan. "I didn't mean to be rude, but that photograph reminds me of somebody."
"Well, bein' as we're all good mates here," observed the bosun, "I'll tell you the yarn. I never ain't married—I ain't that lucky, though I walks out with scores o' gals in my time; but I on'y ever has one real sweetheart, an' she was a clipper. She was——" He broke off, and then resumed slowly, "That's 'er photo—she was second 'ousemaid to Lord Arrendale" (Jack gave a sharp start of surprise).
"That's away back ten years or more," continued the bosun reflectively; "then I goes off on a v'yage out East, thinkin' as how with a big payday a-comin' I'd get spliced when I gets home again. But my luck's dead out. I gets wrecked among the Islands, an' precious near ate up, an' it's over four years afore I drops my mudhook in the old cottage. Then I found my gal had gone an' left her place an' disappeared." The strong man's eyes grew misty, and the deep voice shook. "Well, I ups anchor an' beats up and down the whole country, but I never meets up with my gal no more; so I goes to sea again, and I ain't been ashore more'n two months all put together in the last ten years.
"And do you think I ever forgets that gal o' mine? No, sir; she's as dear to me, an' more, than she was in them days when I was a-courtin'. I often envies folks that I sees married, all so comfort'ble in their little bit o' home with the kids an' all. The likes o' them never don't seem to realise their luck. It's us fellers who 'as no wife, nor 'ome, nor kids—who's in Shanghai one minit an' off the Horn the next—it's us who spots their luck."
The bosun ceased and looked keenly at Jack.
"Ben Cray," said the latter earnestly but simply, reaching out his hand and seizing the bosun's burly fist, "I'm sorry!"
Broncho stared; he had only heard the big Britisher addressed as bosun, and did not know his real name, and he also thought that Jack was in like ignorance up to that evening.
There was something going on behind the scenes which he could not even guess at. He was a keen observer, and had noticed the blush on the cheek of his friend.
"He's a hard-cut citizen, is Jack," thought the cowboy. "It takes a lot to jump him offen his gyard."
"Ben," continued Jack, "you're a real white man. I remember her now, poor little thing, and you too."
"I spotted you fust day you comes aboard, sir!"
"I didn't know, bosun; I've never been home since I went to sea, and that was just before you went on that unlucky voyage."
"I see'd the ole lord last time I was back," began the bosun with some hesitation; and then stopped, as if he would have liked to say something more, but dared not.
"Hm!" muttered Jack indifferently, with mask-like face; but the keen-eyed cowpuncher noticed a singular gleam in the rover's clear blue orbs.
For a few moments there was silence, and then Broncho broke in:
"Talkin' of marriage, you shorely recalls my Juanita, don't you, Jack?"
"Certainly I do."
"Well," went on the cowboy, "I never gets my brand on to her, though I near has the hobbles on more'n once."
"I'm very sorry to hear that, Broncho. I thought you were in double harness long ago."
"Well, I never does fasten somehow, though I ropes at her continuous; then one day she goes curvin' off with that ere miscreant Montana Joe, which has me plumb disgusted. I just chucks a pair o' blankets across my saddle, stuffs a wad o' notes in my war-bags, an' lights right out. Finally I makes Frisco, where I gets to drownin' dull care with nosepaint; an' I makes sech a success of that ere undertakin' that I presently finds myself as you-alls knows."
"Sidelights out, hand on the look-out!" roared Black Davis from aft.
"Aye, aye, sir!" came back the answer, and night began.
The following evening Jack, Broncho, and the boy Jim were yarning together on the foc's'le head, when a terrific uproar broke out on the deck below them. There was a hurricane of deep-sea laughter, and the next moment the small form of the cockney disengaged itself from the crowd, and came dashing up the topgallant ladder.
"Jack!" he cried, "Jack, wot's a genelman?"
"Why, Jack is, er course," burst out the boy.
"I mean, wot mykes a genelman?"
The rest of the crowd were on his heels, and Curly, thrusting his way through, burst out hotly.
"Hollins says a gentleman is a man with shiny pants and a stove-pipe hat. What do you say, Jack?"
"Bedad! I on'y knoo one gintlemen," cried Pat, "an' he weren't one at all at all."
"I see's a gentleman once," said Red Bill, "an' he had a bit er glass stuck in his eye."
"When you-alls says gentleman," drawled Broncho, "you mean the real brand, I surmise; for there's a greevious number o' gents a-waltzin' around puttin' on frills an' bluffin' they're the thoroughbred article, which same soon bogs down in one's eestimation as plumb low an' ornery. What you-alls call gentlemen is gettin' 'most rar' as buffaloes in these here wide-spread an' high-flung times; but when you does cut their trails, you can bet a whole team you're goin' to be duly impressed tharby."
"A gentleman's a cove wi' clean 'ands, 'coss he don't work," shouted Jimmy Green excitedly from the edge of the crowd.
"You shut yer dirty 'ead! 'Oo asked you ter talk when able seamen's around?" roared the cockney furiously. "Give that byby-face er clout, will ye, Ben?"
Jimmy Green got his clout and retired from the contest.
"A gentleman's a sport who can sit down to a game o' poker an' lose his dollars smiling," asserted the gambler.
"A gentleman's a tenderfoot who trails round buyin' salted claims," pronounced old Ben.
"I meets a shentlemans vonce vot I yumps a bag along vor, an' he give me two bob; you bet dat's a shentleman's, my schmard fellers," grunted Muller.
"A gentleman has shiny boots," put in Pinto from the background, with a nervous glance round as if he were taking a liberty.
"That's wot I sye," cried the cockney approvingly; "'e's a toff wi' shiny pants an' shiny boots——"
"And a boiled shirt, I hope?" interrupted Jack, laughing.
"Well, h'I don' mean to insinnivate nuffin' agin you, Jack. We h'all knows you is a real bang-up 'eavy swell when you've got your shore togs on."
"I meets a genelman one time way down to Saint Louis, bigges' genelman eber I see'd, an' he gib dis chile a clout on der ear an' say, 'Get out ob my way, yo dirty nigger,'" announced Sam.
"Well, 'ave you h'all done, for Gaud's syke?" inquired the cockney loftily.
"Wall," said Hank slowly, "I calculate a gentleman's a cuss as is some perlite. He don't spit on the floor——"
"Bedad, what does he do, thin?" broke in the astonished Pat.
"Why, spits in the spittoon!"
"Er course," agreed the cockney. "W'ere wos you brought h'up, Pat?"
"Seein' as 'ow each member o' this 'ere committee-meetin' 's 'ad 'is sye," he went on, "h'I arise ter propose that we asts the opin'on o' Jack Derringer, h'as bein' er h'expert on the subject."
"I shore seconds thet proposal," said Broncho, "though I nurses certain views tharon which no expert is goin' to stampede me out of."
"Well," began Jack, as they all waited round silently, "it's a pretty big subject; but my idea of a gentleman is a clean man who minds his own business and'll go the limit for a pal—a man who plays his cards straight and keeps a stiff upper lip."
"Thet ain't no gentleman, thet's a white man," exclaimed old Bedrock Ben, with a shake of his head.
"Same thing, ought to be," replied Jack.
"Well, see 'ere, cocky, does you mean ter tell me a man can be a genelman wivout no shiny pants nor nuffin'?" asked the astonished cockney.
"Every Siwash is a gentleman when he's got his store-clothes on, 'cordin' t'you, Hollins," said Hank with contempt.
"What in hell air yew broken-down gin-soakers doin' forrard? Relieve the wheel, yew scum, or I'll come an' knock yer durned ugly heads off."
It was Black Davis on the rampage. The foc's'le head committee-meeting broke up like a swarm of disturbed ants, and as they crowded down the ladder the cockney called out:
"There's a genelman for ye, byes, a real genelman."