IN THE WAKE OF THE ENGINE
I had been transferred to the old Prince Albert, one of the freighters on the Jamaica run, and the skipper was Bill Boldwin—Boldwin who was once in the Amper Line, but who had a monstrous thirst and a reckless disposition—too reckless for first-class passengers. The "old man," as all captains are called, having these failings, had also a mighty poor education, and his navigation was mostly, "Let her go and trust to the sun."
"Compasses?" said Bill. "How'd they get along before they had 'em, hey? Steer the course, or thereabouts; you'll git thar or somewheres nigh to it—if you don't fetch up."
"But the company?" I said in amazement.
"The company be blowed! Take life easy—it's short. Don't let the company worry you to any great extent. They'll give you a job as night watchman at twenty per month after they get out of you all there is in you."
At the same time Bill, who was my "old man," and who, by the way, was ten years younger than myself, would not stand for any too much carelessness on the part of his first officer. I was his chief mate. He knew what I had to do, and hated to tell me. I confess I seldom gave him a chance. The second greaser was a little, short squarehead named Andersen; at least we called him that, going on the principle that it was a sure thing that if he was a squarehead he was either named Andersen or Johnson. There are no other names in Sweden, and a man naturally just has to be one or the other. They're good enough.
Andersen knew his business and was an able seaman, learning his little book in the old sailing ships where they teach you something not always taught in steam. He had the bos'n in with him, and what the bos'n didn't know about handling the steam winches would be hard to tell. But that's all the bos'n knew. Not a thing else. If he had he wouldn't have rammed greasy rags in behind the ceiling of the after deck house in a hurry to get his grub at knock-off time.
No, that was the failing of the bos'n; he lacked knowledge, and was as good a navigator as you might find in a young lady's finishing school. He had paws on him like a loggerhead's flippers, nearly a foot across, and each finger was a marline spike, and every thread of his hair, where he wasn't clean bald, was a rope yarn. He knew sailoring—nothing else.
He was about as much afraid of anything in this world or the next as a hungry shark is of beef; in fact, he seemed to take to trouble with about the same sort of appetite. In six months I never had a chance to tell him anything except the routine.
The chief engineer was McDougal, and the second was Mac something—all of our engine-room force went under the same name of Mac, just plain "Mac," and if they were not Scotchmen, I never saw one in my life. Scotchmen are born engine men, take to a machine like a dago does to a knife. The rest of the fireroom bunch were the old-style Liverpool Irishmen, and I'll tell you something, they were hard ones all right. They were the toughest lot of coal tossers I ever sailed with, and even the donkey man, O'Hare, was a peach of a Donegal Irishman with Galways of reddish hue that stuck out from under his shirt collar, pointing upward as if they were growing some husky on his throat.
That was the principal part of our crew. There were some twenty others, including the cooks, galley boys, seamen, and quartermasters.
We cleared for Antonio, and were soon running out over the Western Ocean in the lazy, tiresome routine of ship's duty. We were licensed to carry passengers and had a few waiters aboard, a steward, and a lady of about thirty signed on as stewardess.
As there were no passengers this voyage out—no one ever went out with us if he could help it, but came back when there were no other ships—the cabin crowd had an easy time, regular yachting trip; and if Miss Lucy Docking had a stupid time, it was because she wouldn't talk to the rest.
"Stuck-up and sassy," they said aft, but I never could tell, never getting a chance to talk with her without a dozen or more listening. At the same time I didn't like to blame the girl just because she didn't like the set of lovers the ship furnished free of charge. "Let her pick her own," said I, "it's like enough she'll make a mistake, anyways, without your help." I never had a big opinion of women, anyhow, for the only one I ever proposed marriage to fell down and nearly died laughing at me, and that after I had been dreaming of her and thinking her the greatest angel in the world.
Miss Lucy was all right with me, because I let her alone, except in the mid-watch, when I was cold and thirsty. Then she used to get me a cup of cocoa or chocolate or coffee, and I tell you the man who stands the mid-watch on the old freighters is earning all he gets, whether it comes by way of the stewardess or by way of the front office.
We crossed the Western Ocean in the usual manner. I had my order book to sign, and I saw that the second greaser didn't get gay with it. Days and days of the old routine passed, and we were in the edge of the trade when the first thing happened to show what a wild lot of yaps we had in that ship.
The bos'n stuffed his oiled rags in behind the ceiling of the after house, and it was about three days afterward we struck the hot weather. The rags promptly caught fire—they always do when snugged in from the air—and we hove the old hooker to in the teeth of the trade with the after deck a roaring furnace. If you think we didn't have a time of it putting that deck house out, throwing it overboard in pieces, you should look up Lloyd's. Well, the way I talked to that bos'n would have given heart disease to most men, but the beggar didn't see it at all.
"Rags is rags," he says, "and what for don't I put them behaind something?"
"Because if you do it again we'll toss you overboard with twenty pound of kentledge to your feet," I told him, and it was the only reason he could get through his bullet head. It didn't scare him at all. He only looked upon the matter as closed, for he would not mutiny. He was too good a sailor for any foolishness.
"Rags is rags," he would repeat as we chopped the blackened wreck away the day after, when all hands had been near the port of missing ships and were tired and nervous, having been on duty for fifty hours without a break. "Rags is rags, an' some son of a sea-cook set fire to 'em—no rags I ever seen ever took fire of themselves. Does a ship run herself, hey? Answer me that! Does a ship run her own engines, steer her own course, what? Some one of you sons of Ham did that dirty trick and I'll get you for it yet!"
"But rags do fire themselves, even if a ship don't," said the old man, "and you are the leading bonehead not to know it. You don't rate a brass boy in anything but a coal barge, and if you don't look out I'll have to train you some."
"Rags is——"
Only the size and look of the bos'n's hands prevented the old man from committing murder right there. But the bos'n took it out on the men. What he didn't do to them that voyage was never logged.
Miss Docking stood the test well. She stayed on deck and watched the fracas and never turned a hair, so to speak, waiting for the word to take to the boats with as cool a nerve as anything I ever saw. She was billeted for my boat, Number One, and I confess I was somewhat disappointed when the blamed deck house burned to the steel and the danger of leaving the ship was past.
Boldwin was always taking it easy, and he never even took that real hard, although it would cost him something to explain how he did the damage when the underwriters asked him.
"Don't do it again," was all he said to me.
"No, not until we get another deck house at least," I said. "Maybe I can see that they don't set fire to the anchor or burn up the windlass, or eat the coir hawser, or——"
"Well, see that you don't. That's your business—you're mate," he snapped back, and started for the chart house.
Andersen came to me. "I tank I sign de order book for sou'west half sou'—here we bane running eastb'no'th. How I tell de truth wid sech a t'ing—hey?" said he.
"If you always tell the truth in this line of packets you'll soon get a job hoeing potatoes in Essex! What's the matter with you? Do you want the company to get wise that we fought a fire set in with oiled rags by a fool of a bos'n and had to run the ship fifty miles off her course? Who'll pay for the coal? Who'll square the old man? Who'll tell the passengers that we don't always have a bonehead bos'n to wreck us, and that if they'll promise to come again we'll see that it don't happen often—no, not often?"
Andersen went on duty with a queer look in his eyes. He had seen something and it amazed him—just why I never could tell, for he had been in steamers before and ought to have known something of a ship's officers' duties before coming into the Prince Line.
The truth in many lines is sacred. Absolutely sacred. Too sacred entirely to shift about the deck like a bag of dunnage and leave lying around for some fools to play with. No, never play with the truth in some lines of shipping. Do your duty. That's all you've got to do, and if it's so logged, why, then you're all right. If it isn't, why, then you better get to driving a truck or peddling peanuts.
Well, Boldwin was a pretty good sort, as I have said. He mostly saw that all of us did our duty—in the log book, in the order book, and with the company officers. We went along slowly on our course after that, and were in the latitude of Watlings when bad weather came on. It was nothing much, just a cyclone of the usual order, coming as it did in the hurricane season; but we were a full-powered ship of six thousand tons, and it wouldn't have delayed us to any extent—except that we didn't count on the donkey man from Donegal.
You see, the Albert had one of those underwater ash-chutes. The pipe came down through the bilge, about fifteen feet below the water line. It was a foot in diameter, and was supposedly bolted to the skin and as solid as the keel or garboards.
The metal of the pipe was half an inch in thickness, and was braced and bolted so that the top which showed above the water line could be hove on and shut off in a seaway. The top had a sliding cover working with a lever, and when the ashes were to be fired out the cover was thrown back, the bucket dumped, and a jet of steam blew the mass out through the ship's bottom, making no dirt or dust at all, and doing away with the everlasting firing over the side.
It was a good invention. It saved the company many dollars in paint, and it kept the ship, which was always short-handed, looking better than most vessels that used the old way over the side.
It would have lasted forever if the man from Donegal hadn't been of an inquisitive turn of mind, and started exploring it with a monkey wrench the week before the storm. As it happened he broke several of the bolts which had rusted in the bottom, and the metal, having been much worn and corroded, the first thing Mac knew was a torrent of sea water pouring into the after compartment, coming as it did through a pipe hole about a foot in diameter and fifteen feet below the sea level.
It caught the firemen unawares. The donkey man was with them and let out a yip that brought every coal passer, oiler, and fireman to the chute. A wild burst of water tore through that hole, and the compartment was flooded in less time than it takes to tell about it—and that compartment ran the whole length of the engine room and aft of it until it brought up in the wake of the machinery, where the bulkhead of the tail-shaft room shut off the stern.
The donkey man managed to get out with the rest, and the fires in starboard boilers swamped, nearly blowing up the ship as the water flooded them. It was only because there was enough water to prevent the making of steam to any great extent that saved us from having the whole midsection blown in the air.
And all the time I was holding to the bridge rail with a cyclone snoring down upon us at the rate of seventy miles an hour. Luckily the ash pipe stayed partly bolted to the skin of the bottom. That alone saved us from total loss.
Of course I knew something was wrong the minute the boilers went smothered. The terrific roar of steam and the easing of the engines told me that sure enough trouble was coming, and all the time I had been wondering how we would hold the hooker up to that gale with the full power in her.
"What's the matter—bottom blow away?" howled Boldwin, coming from the pilot house and yelling in my ear.
"God knows—anything might happen to us after last week," I howled in return, but the force of the hurricane blew the words away, and the old man went staggering and pulling himself along the rail until he managed to get below. For the next fifteen minutes on that bridge I did some small bit of thinking. Looked like all day with us. Not a sign could I get from anywhere, and of course I dared not leave the bridge. Once I thought she had blown up with powder. Next I thought the engines had gone through the bottom. And all the time I could feel her settling in that whirlwind sea—a sea torn white with the blast of the squalls that were now coming faster and faster each minute.
"Well, I'm mighty glad I'm not married, anyway," I said to myself, for it looked like the long sleep coming fast. And then I somehow thought of that Miss Docking below there in the comfortable cabin waiting for the finish. It gave me a bit of a turn, and I tried to imagine what that cabin would look like in a few minutes when the sea water swept through it with all its transoms and cushions, piano and carpet——
"Hard a starboard, sir," came the cry.
It was most welcome. Anything but that standing there waiting for the next minute to follow the last. I saw that the quartermaster swung the wheel over quickly. It was steam steering, and the ship fell off in the trough of the sea in a few minutes, the weight of the gale driving her bodily to leeward and heeling her over to quite a list.
"Heave her to," came the order passed up from the old man, and I put the wheel hard down and waited to see if she would stay without coming up. She lay easily drifting off, and while I watched her for trouble the old man sent for me. Andersen came up and took my place, and I ran down, half blown, half crawling to the shelter of the deck house, and from there below to see what had happened.
Bill Boldwin was standing at the ash chute swearing at the man from Donegal. The donkey man was trying to tell what he didn't know about his business, and all the time the water flowed freely through the one-foot pipe until it so filled the compartment that nothing more could come up through it. It was a good thing! If the whole Atlantic Ocean had been delegated to flow through that pipe, nobody was there to stop it, not a soul to say why not. And then I was aware of the stewardess standing in the press of faces, looking scared but cool.
"Why don't you ram something in it?" she asked.
Simple? Sure it was simple. No one had tried to do such a thing, but there she was asking why.
"The pipe'll break away—you can't shove anything down it," said Boldwin.
"No? But why don't you shove something from the outside?" said Miss Docking.
"Go to your room," snarled the old man.
"She's right—we'll stop it in a jiffy—from the outside," I yelled.
The skipper thought I was crazy. He looked at me.
"How'll you get anything over the outside in this seaway, you bonehead?" he asked.
"Get me the hand lead," I yelled to the bos'n, "and a stick of light wood—big piece, big enough to float a man."
The bos'n ran for the stuff. That was one good point in that bos'n. He'd do what he was told even when he hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing. He came back in a few minutes with a long piece of white pine and the hand lead. I looked them over for a moment to judge the weight and floating power of the tools. Then I quickly hitched the lead to the piece of pine and left the bight of the line so that as soon as I jerked it hard the lead would free itself and go hell bent for Davy Jones, leaving the Pine line fast to the lead line to float up and away.
To the end of the chute I now quickly made my way. The Donegal man wanted to help, and faith! he was a good man when it came to doing things he understood. He showed me where the upper end of that chute was in that roaring surge of filthy water, and the beggar actually got a hold of the lever that worked the cover and jammed it open.
I instantly dropped the lead, the wood, and the line through, and had the satisfaction of feeling the line going fast to the bottom out through the hole in the bilge. When the line had gone about ten fathoms I gave the sudden jerk. Off comes the lead and the line stops running out.
"Get to windward and grab that plank," I yelled, and even the old man followed the bunch that struggled to the rail and watched the sea where we drifted bodily off. In a minute the bos'n saw it. In five more he had the plank back aboard and a three-inch line fast to the lead line. This I hauled quickly but cautiously back through the ash pipe until I got a good hold of the end.
"Now," I yelled, "give me mattresses, beds, canvas, fearnaught, or oakum—anything so long as you get it here quick."
The stewardess had already anticipated my work. I caught her eye back of the line of men.
"Here they are," she said quietly.
The bos'n got a Number Double O hatch cover. I wrapped the mattresses in it, and then quickly hitched the three-inch line carefully about the middle.
"Over the side with it," I shouted. Over it went, and as it did so I got the line hauling through the pipe. Two men helped me. We hauled the plug jam up tight against the ship's bilge, and then surged upon the line and made it fast.
"Now go ahead and pump her clear, Mac, pump her out—she's tight as a drum," I said, and the old man looked at me with a peculiar smile.
An hour later that compartment was clear of water, and she leaked only a little around the stuffing, which was not enough to wet a man's feet. Another day and the starboard boilers were doing duty with a smoothing sea and a sun peeping out through the banks of trade clouds. The storm had long passed; the Prince Albert was on her way under full power, with nothing at all to disturb the serenity of the passage, save the knowledge that we had a masterly crew aboard and some excellent specimens for manning passenger ships.
Down the Western Ocean we ran without further incident, and hove to off the entrance of Antonio, burning flares for the pilot. You know the place. Narrow cut in through the reef, with the harbor lying like a pool of blue water in the surrounding hills. Not a breath of air in the place even when, half a mile distant, just outside, the trade might be blowing a twenty-knot breeze.
The pilot came out at daybreak, and we ran in, tied up to the wharf, and began discharging. My duties were ended for the time, as I thought, and I took a stroll up to the hotel upon the hill. There was no use trying to get any sleep in the watch below while at the dock, for two hundred howling Jamaica blacks roared and surged along the gangways and crowded the winches, handling the cargo ably, while the women came down in swarms to chat with the crew and sell a few grapefruit and oranges. Boldwin let any one come aboard, and as the men were not supposed to handle cargo, they had plenty of time in spite of all we could do to keep them busy.
The skipper reported the damage to the agents, and told of the disaster below. He was honest. He might have saved that bit of knowledge until we reached England again, but he told his tale, and the agents refused to allow him to sail until the pipe was repaired and properly bolted down into the bilge plates as it should be. In the smooth water of that mirror-like harbor it seemed an easy thing to do. All that was necessary was to get a diver to go under the fifteen feet to the outside end and pass up the bolts through the flange.
Mr. Man from Donegal could then get at them with his monkey wrench and screw down the nuts upon them, clamping the pipe as fast as the keel itself.
"You take a look around uptown and try to get hold of a diver," said the old man. "Mr. Sacks, the agent, says he don't know of any nearer than Kingston, and it'll take two days to get the one over there, as he's out on a wreck off the harbor. We can't wait two days. Got to get to Montego Bay and take on a lot of stuff, then get to Kingston for clearing and off we go."
"Why not wait until we get to Kingston to do the trick?" I asked.
Bill Boldwin gazed at me in contempt.
"Say, do you want to advertise the fact that we are on the bum to all the passengers the line'll carry? Think a minute, man, and don't ask fool questions. We got to get that job done right here—see? We don't go outside until there's something more'n a mattress and a bit of fearnaught between us and the bottom of the Caribbean."
"But we carried it the last thousand miles all right," I said.
Bill turned away in disgust.
As a matter of fact, I didn't like the idea of trying to get hold of a diver in Antonio. There were not enough divers to go down to find the bottoms of the rum bottles ashore, let alone a ship's bilge. It's true, a man might do the thing naked in that clear water. I've seen men in the East copper a ship twice as deep with nothing on them but a hammer and a mouthful of nails.
After a day's search I gave it up. Not a man knew anything about submarine work, and at the hotel they laughed at me when I inquired for a diver. I also noticed that Miss Lucy Docking looked well sitting upon the veranda of the joint, togged out as she was in white linen. She gave me a nod, but wasn't keen on talking when I tried to find out if she had made arrangements for lady passengers that voyage.
"There's two on the books—that's all," she said, and gazed placidly out over the tops of the cocoa-nuts growing upon the beach below.
"Your advice last Friday helped me a lot," I said, "and I appreciate it and would——"
"Would you like some more?" she interrupted suddenly.
"Anything you might suggest," I said.
"Beat it back to the ship, then," she answered without a smile.
"Sure—if that's your advice," I snarled; "the hot weather has evidently soured your——"
"Cut it out—I'm not a guest here, and what do you think the agents would say if they saw the chief officer of their 'crack' liner talking to their stewardess sitting on the hotel piazza? I thought you had more sense."
"I ain't the only fool aboard—that's straight," I said.
"No; nor ashore, either—why don't you stop that hole yourself? You're big enough and ugly enough to stop a clock," she snapped.
"Thanks!" I answered, and strode away with the kindest feelings imaginable for our stewardess.
But strange as it may seem, that remark was what did the business. I would stop that hole if I had to be keelhauled myself to do it. What! Lay the ship up a day or two while that lady sat around in white duck and looked out dreamily over that beautiful harbor? Not if I knew myself. I'd see that the ship got away and hoped she would carry at least two ugly and indignant aged ladies who could and would make life a happy dream for that stewardess.
I went back aboard with the report that there was not a diver this side of hell, and that if the ship would stand the expense of my funeral I would at least try to pass the bolts for the man from Donegal to screw fast.
"Sink a donkey man, anyhow!" I swore, "why don't the company get engineers enough to run a ship properly?"
"Why, indeed?" smiled Bill Boldwin.
I turned to the men I needed, and with that bos'n to give them advice with those flippers of his, I peeled off and made ready for the work. The engine-room force had taken off the pipe and bolted a new flange to it, a strong job and proper. The affair was all ready to ship just as soon as we dared pull the wad of stuffing away and set it up. A frame had been rigged in the room to steady the affair, and the bolt holes had been reamed out as much as they would stand. A deck pump kept the water from the vicinity, the water that still leaked in around the bolt holes.
It was necessary to get the wad of stuff away from the bolt holes in the flanges, for it spread out so that it made passing of bolts from the outside impossible. The pressure upon it from the water under the ship at the depth of fifteen feet was great, and I was supposed to get a line to it so that it might be pulled away by the men on deck after we slacked away the three-inch line by which we had hauled it into the breach. The pipe was set up true over the opening, the holes lined up, a few bolts inserted point downward to steady it, and all was ready for the man outside to get the blamed wad away and pass the bolts upward so that their threads would appear through the flange. I went on deck and gazed down over the side at the warm blue depths.
"Strange that the mate has to do the dog's work," I said to Mac, who was waiting and watching.
I had a line rigged under the bilge by passing it under the bows and drifting it aft until it came right on the line of the hole. It was slack enough to allow a handhold, so that I could pull myself down quickly and then let go as I pushed in a bolt.
I took a light line and over I went.
The water was fine. The light filtered down under the ship's bilge, and it was only dark after I swept well under the curve of the side. Still, I could see a little, and soon made out a mass which I rightly took to be the mattress and stuff filling the hole.
I tried to get the line fast to the thing, feeling quickly, but I lost my breath before I got it fast and, letting go, struggled to the surface again.
"What luck?" asked Mac, grinning over at me.
I wasted no time in idle words. I recovered and grasped the line again and hauled myself furiously toward the opening underneath. I could not get the line fast, and had to come up and confess that I had failed so far.
"Look out a shark don't get you," said some one with an idea of wit.
"Give me a marline spike," I ordered that bos'n, and the beggar got one, handing it to me by a line. I dove again, and this time managed to drive the spike in between the turns of the line holding the mattress. The next dive I got the small line fast to it, and, coming up, told them to slack away on the big line inside and haul the small one outside and get the stuffing away. It came easy enough, and the line of interested faces peering over the rail above bore a different look as I hung with one hand and rested from the exertion.
"Now for the bolts," I said, and one was handed down. I hauled under again and inserted it, feeling with some satisfaction the other end being grasped by some one inboard. Mr. Donkey Man had hold of it all right, and, putting on a nut, set it up without delay. This much of the job was not so hard, but I was now getting tired, and found that I could hardly get below before I wanted to get my breath again. I was no diver—no, not to speak of, but I thought of that woman sitting up there waiting, taking it easy with her insolence and white dress——
Seven other inch bolts were to be inserted before the job could be finished inside, and the water was pouring through the bolt holes in streams that kept the pumps working full stroke and made working about the opening difficult. I came on deck, and Bill Boldwin gave me a noggin of rum, grinning at me all the time.
"You ain't so bad for a mate—I've sailed with worse," said he.
"The next time I sign on it'll be as a master submarine," I said, with some feeling. "Now, if I didn't have to wear these breeches I could do better and faster work."
"Why don't you take 'em off?" he said.
"But the ladies—I must wear something——"
"Oh, what do you care for a lot of niggers? Strip if it does you any good."
I was just about to take his advice when I noticed the face of Miss Docking passing the port along the gangway. She had been attracted by the crowd aboard, and had come, woman-like, out of pure curiosity, to see what was on.
"No," I said; "I'll fix the rest, all right—gimme another noggin."
I got seven of the eight bolts in place; and the donkey man, assisted by Mac and the entire engine-room force, set them up one at a time after packing the joint properly. Only one wooden plug remained inboard, and the water squirted straight up nearly fifteen feet with the pressure when that was pulled out for my last attempt. If I could get that bolt in, there was a job done that would save the company perhaps a few hundred dollars, and I would get—well, I might get mentioned as something better than the ordinary mate when Bill made his report. But that wasn't what made me do the thing; it was the confounded spirit that Lucy Docking stirred up within me. Oh, yes, I was a fool, all right. I don't deny it.
The affair was getting to be something of a circus by this time, and the coons who were looking on were making remarks. I was about to clear the gangway when I thought that here was the last plug, the last bolt, and then for a nip and a sleep before clearing. I went over with that last bolt, and, as I did so, I saw Miss Lucy gazing out of a cabin port at me. Before I went under her face appeared above the rail and watched. I was so tired by this time that I had the small line, which was hambroline, fast about my armpits, so that Mac and his crew could haul me up if I gave out entirely. This was my mistake.
Down I went, and as I went under I thought I heard the word "Shark!" muttered by some of the colored folk above. I had just shoved in the last bolt when a shadow passed. At the same instant there was a mighty pull upon the line. I was jerked bodily away, and my back scraped the huge barnacles which covered the ship all along in the wake of her engines clear to her sternpost. The razor-like edges cut and stung me. I felt a mighty desire to breathe, and tried to get upward. Then my head struck the bottom of the ship with great violence, and I was partly stunned. This was what probably saved my life, for I ceased to breathe, and the spasm passed.
What really happened was this:
A huge sawfish was swimming about the harbor, having just come inside the reef. Tropical seas are infested by many of these fish, which "fin out" like a shark, and which are probably of the shark species. The long snout, unlike the swordfish, which is a giant mackerel, is studded with rows of sharp teeth, put there for the Lord knows what purpose. This monster had come close to the ship, and the negroes had spotted him, and thought him a shark at a distance where his snout could not be seen.
Some one shouted, "Shark!" and the intelligent bos'n hauled line with those finlike flippers of his after the manner of a sperm-whaler coming upon a three hundred-barrel whale. My head had struck the ship's bilge, and my back had been cut open with the razor-like barnacles—and then the fish, getting frightened at the uproar, dove below, and his teeth on his saw snout fouled the line.
It parted, but it parted between him and the ship, and away I went in tow of a flying sawfish.
I knew nothing about it for some time, luckily; it would have affected my nerves.
Luckily the negroes were active in spite of their laziness. A small boat, lying alongside the ship, was instantly manned, and within a minute it was after me, with four stout blacks pulling for all they were worth. A man in the bow reached over and jabbed at the line with his boat hook and jerked it aboard. Then he lifted me in and turned me over to the rest in the boat, while he held on to the line and played the fish gamely for all the sport there was in it.
I came to in that boat towing behind a sawfish, which the natives seemed to think was more important to catch than me getting back aboard and receiving proper treatment for being nearly cut in two and drowned.
The line finally broke, and they rowed me sorrowfully back alongside. I looked up, and saw Miss Lucy Docking gazing over the side with some show of anxiety expressed upon her face. Also I noted Bill Boldwin, skipper of the Prince Albert, showing some interest in the proceedings.
"Send him aboard, you black scoundrels!" screamed Miss Lucy. "How dare you keep that man in the boat chasing a good-for-nothing fish?"
"Bring him alongside, or I'll be in there after you," roared Bill.
My bos'n passed a line down, and I was quickly hoisted aboard, where I was laid out flat on my back, as I was still too weak to stand. Miss Lucy herself poured whisky down my throat and smoothed my wet hair back from my bleeding head.
"Arnica, you lazy rascals!" she hissed, and some one went for it. My cuts were soaked in it, and it stung furiously, but the cuts of barnacles are poisonous, and I rather preferred arnica to friar's balsam, which I knew Bill would rub me with. Then the bos'n helped me to my bunk, and Miss Lucy Docking was left alone with me to attend to my wants.
"I suppose my advice and counsel was not so good this time?" she said as Bill left us.
"Well, it taught me one thing, all right enough," I said, "and that may do me some good in the future."
"And how is that?" asked the lady, looking at me with some show of concern. She had wonderful eyes, and her hair was noticeably curly at the temples—and her mouth——
"Well, it will teach me never, no, never, under any circumstances whatever, do you understand?—never to take it again," I said, taking her hand.
"We'll see about that later on," she said, and her mouth had a peculiar droop at the corners that has been a constant source of dread to me ever since—that is, whenever I see it.