XI
I sat staring across the table at Wilson for many minutes before my wits returned to me. The mate’s words seemed too awful to be true; they seemed words heard in a hideous nightmare. Throughout the night I had fought and denied the still whisperings of potential horrors aboard which had striven for room in my thoughts; and here the blackest depths of these horrors were realized by Wilson’s simple words. For in my mind’s eye I did not see the picture that his words should have conjured up: of a seaman swept from his post, falling into the sea by mischance, drowning in the dark, without a chance to be saved—I saw Brack talking to young Larson, I saw the brutal gleam of Garvin’s bandaged eyes, I saw—Good God! I was afraid to admit to myself what I did see.
“Lost?” I repeated stupidly. “You mean drowned?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good God!” I chattered. “How can you sit there and talk about it so calmly.”
“I have followed the sea since I was fourteen, Mr. Pitt,” he replied respectfully. “I have seen many men lost, good men, better men than myself. The sea is hard.”
“But how—how could it happen?”
“I don’t know, sir; it wasn’t in my watch.”
As he rose to go he added, with a puzzled shake of his head—
“He was a good seaman, too, Larson was, and a clean, sober young fellow.”
I was still too much of the coward, still too much the indoor man, to face brutal facts honestly.
“But it must have been an accident!” I said. “An accident might overtake even a good and sober seaman.”
“Yes sir,” said Wilson.
“You don’t think it was anything but an accident, do you?”
He thought for a while before replying.
“Well, sir, Larson and the rest of the crew didn’t get on together. He was from the Sound, you see, sir, and the rest of the hands, except Garvin and the negro, were shipped at ’Frisco. Larson was different from them, sir; he was young, and sober, and ambitious. He came from a good family in Portland, and he had his whole life in front of him, and he was living it so he was bound to rise, sir. He was a credit to the Wanderer, Larson was, sir.”
“Then you mean that the rest of the crew is not?”
“I didn’t say that, sir.”
“It was what you meant, though.”
“I don’t say so. I said that Larson and the rest of the crew didn’t get on together. He kept himself apart, and they saw he was too good for them, and they had trouble.”
“What do you mean by trouble?”
“Well, for one thing he wouldn’t join their crap-game, and they had words and Larson smashed a couple of their faces.”
“Good Heavens, Wilson! You don’t mean to say that you think the crew was responsible——”
“No, sir. I don’t say anything of the sort.”
He opened the door to step out.
“Wilson!” I said. “Do you think everything is right on board?”
“I don’t, sir,” he said promptly. “I would be blind if I did. But I know that I am right, sir, and I know my duty to my ship.”
Chanler came in for breakfast at that moment. He was apparently pleased at something, but at the sight of our faces his expression changed. He stood for a few seconds, looking first at Wilson, then at myself, greatly displeased.
“You’re a fine looking pair of grouches for a man to look at first thing he gets up,” he said irritably. “Hang it! Here I’ve had my first decent night’s sleep in months: get up feeling like a boy, by Jove! And here you chaps greet me with faces that look like before the morning drink. I won’t have it, you hear! You’re too sober both of you, anyhow. Hang you water-wagon riders! Smile—you! Can’t you look cheerful when you see I want it?”
A slight flush showed beneath Wilson’s tan.
“Not this morning, sir,” he said.
“Hah?” Chanler looked at him, looked at me, with alarm in his eyes. “What’s the matter? Eh? Whatd’ you know—what’re you so serious about? Out with it, Wilson? What is it?”
“Lookout Larson was swept overboard and lost in the dog-watch last night, sir.”
Chanler sank into his chair, actually relieved.
“Hang it! Is that all——”
“Good God, Chanler!” I cried springing up. “‘Is that all?’ Isn’t that enough?”
He looked at me, surprised and a little amused.
“Hello! Getting excited, Gardy? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I didn’t think you had this in you, Chanler!” I retorted indignantly. “Didn’t you hear Wilson say that one of the men—Larson, a fine young man—was drowned last night, while we slept?”
He looked at me steadily.
“Yes, I heard,” he said carelessly.
“And you said, ‘is that all?’ And it was a relief to you. Did you expect to hear something worse than that—that one of your seamen had lost his life?”
“Gardy,” he said softly, “who do you think you are talking to?
“I don’t know,” I said hotly. “I thought I knew you, Chanler. I find I am mistaken.”
“By Jove, Gardy!” he repeated. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Oh, drop that! That’s a pose, Chanler, and this is no time for posing. A man has lost his life from your yacht, and you are relieved because that is all. What sort of a condition of affairs is this?”
“I didn’t think you had it in you, Gardy,” he repeated. “No, I didn’t think you’d dare to talk to me this way face to face.”
“Dare!” I cried, and he sat up and looked at me strangely.
“By Jove! Gardy, you’re growing. The sea air is doing wonders for you. As for this chap—this hand—what’s his name, Wilson——”
“Larson, sir.”
“Larson. He was paid and paid well, and came on board of his own free will.”
“And your feeling of responsibility ends there?” I asked.
“Feeling of responsibility? My dear, excited Gardy! What are we going to have—a lecture on the responsibility of employer to employed, and that sort of rot?”
“No,” I said, “it would be wasted here.”
“Sensible man. Wilson, you may tell Captain Brack to step in, please.”
Brack came promptly, bustling in with a smile on his face.
“H’llo, cappy,” said Chanler indolently. “I hear we had an accident last night.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well—” Chanler’s face was working angrily—“Well, after this if anything unpleasant happens you give orders to keep it from me until after breakfast, d’you hear? I don’t like to hear of unpleasant things; I don’t like it. This—thing has spoiled my appetite for the whole morning!”
“Why not,” I said, staring hard at Brack, “why not ask Captain Brack to prevent such accidents from happening?”
“Hah?” Chanler started at the sound of my voice; I was startled at it myself. Even Brack’s smile vanished. “What’s this, Gardy—some more of your unpleasant rot? I won’t have it: I——”
“For I am sure if Captain Brack utilized his great ability in an effort to prevent accidents such as happened to young Larson, they would not occur.”
Not a shade did Brack’s florid face lose in color, not a flicker of change showed in his eyes. But he drew himself up a little, and in that moment I knew that my worst fears concerning the loss of Larson were true.
“Mr. Pitt flatters me, I fear,” said Brack, smiling again. “I——”
“You ‘fear’?” I said. “What do you fear? Have you any reason for using the phrase, ‘I fear,’ Captain Brack? It sounds so strange on your lips.”
He looked at Chanler and back at me.
“Mr. Pitt flatters me, I think,” he said, his old smile back in place. “Does that sound better?”
Guilty! As guilty as the devil, he was, and I knew it; yet he stood and smiled as if nothing was wrong in the world; not a thing troubling his conscience.
“Gardy, you’re—unpleasant company this morning, I must say that,” interrupted Chanler. “Why, hang it! Captain, what d’you suppose he’s been putting up to me? That I ought to feel responsible about this hand, Carson, Larson, whatever his name was. Now he’s jumping on you. You ought to be responsible too, I suppose. Gardy, you’re impossible.”
The captain smiled upon me tolerantly. Chanler’s explanation of my words and wafted away the whispers of suspicion.
“Mr. Pitt, having an exaggerated idea of the value of a human life, is greatly upset by our accident. I appreciate his condition. If his philosophy were less tainted with sentimentality——”
“I might smile over the loss of a young, hopeful life? Thank you, that is a mental level which I hardly hope to achieve.”
I went out on deck and climbed up to the wireless house. Pierce greeted me with a sorry shake of the head.
“Gee! That was a dirty shame about poor Larson. He was the only white man in the crew. If anything had to happen why couldn’t it happen to one of the bums?”
I saw that Pierce knew nothing that might make him suspect that Larson’s disappearance was not accidental and I told him hurriedly of the conversation between Riordan and Brack which I had overheard last night.
“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “The dirty dogs! Young Larson, as nice a lad as you ever talked with, against Brack, and that gorilla, Garvin! Oh, they’re a fine bunch of crooks, the bunch in this crew. As fine a bunch o’ crooks as ever went to sea to duck the police. Brack and Riordan picked ’em, you know, in San Fran’. Wilson’s all right, and besides him I think they made just one mistake in their picking.”
“How so?”
“The nigger they got at Seattle. He’s a crook, too, but he certainly has got it in for Garvin.”
The rest of that day was a trying one to me. Save for Pierce, Wilson and myself, not a soul on board seemed to have a single serious thought about Larson’s disappearance. The weather had cleared; the wind had shifted to the south and was only a gentle breeze; the sun was shining; and to the rest of the company life aboard the Wanderer seemed like a holiday.
Chanler seemed both elated and impatient. At times he lolled in a deck-chair and chaffed me good humoredly, and the next moment he would be up, pacing the promenade nervously.
“Gad! Time goes slow, doesn’t it, Gardy?” he exclaimed half a dozen times during the day. “Well, we’ll have a little something to break the monotony soon. The City of Nome will overtake us about nine tomorrow morning.”
And Captain Brack, as he heard, smiled secretively; and I wondered what joke he might be keeping to himself.
Next morning at dawn a rush of feet outside my stateroom put an end to my efforts to sleep. I dressed and went on deck. A seaman came hurrying past, running toward an excited group gathered on the after-deck. I shouted to ask the cause of the excitement.
“We’ve run a man down in an open boat at sea,” he called back, “and he’s lousy with gold!”