PIRATES TWAIN
At last I was back in the regular liners of the Prince ships. My work on the Heraldine had been appreciated by Lord Hawkes, the manager, and his lordship was no piker.
He refused Boldwin my company when that worthy but thirsty skipper asked to have me back in the old Prince Alfred, where a certain lady whom I admired greatly was stewardess.
The new Prince George, twenty-five thousand tons and a twenty-two-knot vessel, was wanting a first officer, and old man Hall was somewhat disposed to give me "a chance," as the saying is at sea when an officer applies for a berth.
"You may report to the captain to-morrow at the dock," said his lordship, and our interview was at an end. Boldwin looked sour, for I had been a good mate to him, and he wanted me badly, but the manager's word was law.
I found the giant liner all that modern improvements could make her. From her six-hundred-foot keel to her four immense funnel tops, she was a beauty.
It would take a week to describe her many qualities, and I must admit it gave me a feeling of responsibility when I stepped upon her flying bridge and looked her over.
There I would be in command every four hours, and when I gazed over her immense length and breadth it seemed indeed that I must be a person of some small ability to hold the job.
No flippant remarks here, no joking about the passengers or the company. It was silence and dignity.
How I stood it at first is more of a wonder to me, when I look back at the time, than the actual work, for really a ship's officer is not considered a mighty position, even though he does hold the lives of a couple of thousand folks in his keeping during his watch on deck.
But I was not too old, and had ambition, for some day I wanted to have a little farm of my own and raise chickens and hogs—the true ambition of every seaman I ever met—and I wanted to ask a certain lady to run the said farm for me, or rather do the cooking, which is probably the same thing.
Our crew was shipped by the agents. Old man Hall had nothing whatever to do but act as overseer of the navigators, which same were myself and a second officer named MacFarland.
Mac was a good seaman, although he had never been in sail, but had risen from the apprentice school of officers established by the company to train men for its ships—and they were of course all steam.
I must admit he knew more of express ships than I, but I had ten years more sea duty done, and I was something of a windjammer in my time. This gave me the rating with the older men who had served the same way in the old sailing vessels.
We knew each other, and could depend always upon certain things in each other that no school could develop the same way. I sat at the head of the chief officers' table, and I bought a book of table etiquette to get the lay of the whack just right.
It taught me many things I hadn't learned in a ship's forecastle, and soon I was able to speak to the prosperous-looking passengers without feeling that my tongue was in the way of my teeth.
We carried three hundred first-class—that was some when you think of it—and we often herded fifteen hundred to two thousand in the steerage. Four hundred seconds added sometimes put our total complement over three thousand souls, counting, of course, our crew, stokers, and waiters.
You will realize at once the inability of a chief mate getting even the slightest acquaintance with hundreds of the people who used the Prince George for transportation across the ocean, and, if I could not get a line on them, it was equally impossible for the pursers, pursers' clerks, and stewards to do so.
Mr. Samuels, the head purser, had a memory that was said to be infallible. He said he never forgot a face. Of the million or two people he came in contact with during his runs, he boasted that he could always tell if he had ever seen one of them before.
I didn't believe it, of course; but, then, pursers have a way that many seamen can't understand, anyhow.
Being an express ship, and carrying the first-class mail, we also had an express safe. This was built into the body of the vessel, and was like the new bank safes, with solid steel doors and time locks.
Two watchmen took charge, alternating night and day, and the massive doors were not to be opened by any one alone. In that safe we often carried three or four million dollars in solid gold bars or gold coin.
Sometimes the banking houses of the United States shipped as much as two million at a time in coin. Precautions were of the modern banking sort, and the giant safe caused no comment.
The other safes of the purser and captain were just plain, every-day affairs, and seldom held more than a few thousand dollars. These were very different from the "through" safe.
I had been in the ship four months before I noticed a man who sat at my table. He had made a voyage with us the first run I made, and I remembered him as a clergyman who had relatives abroad in Europe, but who was himself an American.
He was a very dignified man, about fifty-five years of age, and he knew a great deal. I enjoyed talking to him, for he told me of many places and events that were most interesting. But he never at any time discussed religion, or even spoke of subjects relating to it.
Once on his second trip over, he came to my room, and presented me with a box of fine Havana cigars and, although it was against custom, I asked him in, and he came.
We smoked while I should have been sleeping, but I was not by any means overworked, and I rather enjoyed his society, flattered of course that a man of such vast experience and learning should single out the chief officer for a companion.
But then I knew many folks looked upon a master navigator as a likely person to know, and was not very much surprised, setting it down to his good taste and discernment—for I had gone a mile or two myself in my day, and had seen a few things both ashore and afloat.
Once I remember he talked of finance and the great gold shipments that were disturbing the country. He had followed the administration in its effort to curb a panic that was threatened, and spoke of the money we carried in gold coin that was for the purpose of staying a run at that time upon a banking house that had many foreign affiliations.
"The express safe is generally full, is it not, during times like these?" he asked.
"Yes, we carry millions every voyage now," I answered, and noticed that the Reverend Mr. Jackson made a peculiar grimace as if amused at the news.
The conversation immediately drifted off to Cape Town, where the minister had lately spent much time, and he soon left me to my slumber and cigars.
I noticed that he had remarkable hands, immensely strong, as though he had done much hard work, and afterward I wondered at a small tattoo mark on his wrist just beneath the edge of his cuff. He had powerful, hairy wrists, and the blue mark showed very indistinctly through the black hair, but it caused me to think of him as a strange man.
I asked him about it the next day when at the table, but he made an evasive answer, smiling at my compliment to his strong physique.
"I was something of an athlete in my younger days," he finally admitted, "and you must not think that because of my profession I live a sedentary life. I work very hard among my parishioners, and play golf a great deal. Of course, you, as a seaman, would hardly appreciate the mysteries of this manly game."
"I confess that it seems rather tame," I admitted; "seems like a poor sort of 'shinny' we used to play in America when I was a lad."
"My wife plays it also, and she is very strong and agile from the exercise," said Mr. Jackson; "I hope you will meet her next month when I return, as she will probably go to London with me."
I expressed pleasure at the thought, and noticed that Doctor Jackson was really quite a good-looking man, and there was no reason in the world why he should not possess a very pretty wife.
His clean-shaven face, lined, it is true, as though he had spent much time at physical exertion of the heavier sort, was handsome enough. A large, high nose, not badly shaped, set in between two steel-blue eyes, wide apart, and his mouth, although thin-lipped and hard-looking, was not ugly, and his teeth were large, even, and snow-white.
Altogether he was a man of strength and character from his appearance, and I remembered him for his kindness—and cigars.
Three weeks later, upon the return voyage, he came aboard and told me he would bring his wife aboard the next morning, and was just then seeing to his room, which was amidships, and upon the lower or main deck, just above the express room and over the steel safe.
He asked me if I thought the noise from below would disturb them, his wife being a nervous woman and irritable. I knew no sounds of any consequence would penetrate the deck, which was steel, and assured him that the voyage would be most pleasant, as the time of year was fine upon the western ocean.
The next day I was too busy to notice the couple, but when we were at sea and had made our departure, allowing me to go below to dinner, I found that Doctor Jackson and his wife were seated at my table about midway down the row of seats.
The minister nodded to me, and his wife smiled pleasantly. Her back was to the ports, and the light was bad, but I saw that she was about thirty, and very masculine in her appearance.
She had a very good complexion, rosy and healthy, but her face had a peculiar hardness, a settling about the corners of the mouth that boded ill for any one who crossed her temper. I made up my mind to feel sorry for the doctor. Her voice I could hear very indistinctly, but it had a sort of hardness, a suppressed tone of assumed smoothness which I did not like.
At eight bells that night when the day's work allowed me to get my time below, I met them as I left the bridge. The doctor introduced me to the lady, who stood tall and commanding in the darkness. She murmured something indefinite, but acknowledged me without offering her hand.
I believed this coldness was more cultivated than natural, but, as I had learned since being in express ships that ladies did, or did not shake hands, according to their training, I passed it up for what it was worth.
Doctor Jackson seemed a bit annoyed at the strained feeling, but I saw no reason why a woman, a wife of a minister, should find much in common with a seaman, even if he did happen to be the chief mate of the liner.
Our ways would naturally be different. Her topics of conversation would not fit in with mine, and I was mortally afraid of offending her by some sailor's slip in my tongue.
I really was glad when they left me to go to my room, and I hoped that I would not have to entertain them any more than the rules of the liner's etiquette called for.
The next day the doctor informed me that his wife had succumbed to the rigors of the sea and the motion had made her deathly ill. I saw her no more, and it was the fifth day out when the steward came to my room at night and asked to speak to me privately.
"The couple in Room Sixty-two will not allow their bed to be made up nor any one to enter. Doctor Jackson said to see you and it would be all right; but you know, sir, it's against the rules not to allow inspection. If you will attend to the matter, it will take the weight off the old man—he tried to enter, but he was told he could not, owing to the lady's indisposition."
"Aw, they're all right," I said. "Tell the captain I know the old sky-pilot well, and that he's a minister who has been across twice before with us. I'll go down there myself to-morrow and inspect. Give the doctor my compliments and tell him I'm sorry the rules make the inspection necessary."
"There's a strong smell of whisky, alcohol, sir, all the time, coming from the room—don't know what it can be, but I'm afraid of fire. It's probably some of those patent traveling stoves they use for heating certain medicines or something."
"Well, cut it out—I'll go down in the morning—that's all," I said, and then I turned in and forgot all about the incident.
The next day when I went below, I found the doctor and his wife waiting for me. The lady had her face wrapped up in towels, and the doctor was reading, sitting near the bed, which was a brass one, bolted to the deck.
I excused myself, and was just on the point of leaving when I noticed the smell of alcohol. It was mixed with one similar to the heated odor of a red-hot stovepipe, burning metal.
"Have any trouble with the lights?" I asked.
"Oh, no, everything is all right—one of the electrics broke and made a little smell—no, all is as comfortable as one could wish, thank you," said the doctor.
"I suppose you'll go the route all the way up?" I asked.
"No, we'll transship at Queenstown—there's a yacht waiting for me there, and we'll take her for the rest of the way to the African coast, by way of Gibraltar. You might help us with our luggage to-morrow—our little trunk is very heavy, you see." And he tried to raise one end of a small steamer trunk that was allowed in the room.
"Oh, that will be all right—the steward will fix you up—I'll see you before you go," I said, turning away.
"I hope so," returned the doctor, with a most peculiar intonation in his voice that made me look at him. But he was now turning the leaves of the book again, and a moan from the bed made me hesitate no longer.
I left them, and sent word to the head steward to see to my friends getting ashore in the morning.
As we entered the Channel, the passengers who were to go ashore came on deck. Doctor Jackson and his wife appeared at the gangway, and waited quietly for the boat.
The lady was now wrapped up in shawls, and her face was heavily veiled. The clergyman himself seemed a bit nervous, but they finally went over the side with their luggage all right.
What he had told about that steamer trunk was no joke. Two assistant stewards could hardly lift it.
Bound with iron and stoutly strapped, it seemed as though it would burst of its own weight before it was placed in the lugger that would take it ashore or rather to the small schooner that lay a few miles distant and which the doctor had pointed out as the vessel he had chartered as a yacht to take them on their summer cruise to the beautiful Mediterranean.
I waved my hand, and then went below to turn in, for the last night is always a bad one for the chief mate when making the land.
"Bang, bang, bang," came blows upon my door, followed by a yell from without. I expected to find the ship in collision, and leaped from my bunk half asleep. The express messenger stood without, accompanied by four assistants and the steward, the purser, and the second officer.
"Safe blown, sir!" yelled the messenger. "It's bloomin' well half empty, sir! Nearly a quarter of a million gone. Party from above—you knew them, the steward says!"
I ran with them to Room Sixty-two, and burst in where the captain stood gazing at a hole in the deck. He turned to me, but said nothing. The rug which had been placed over the opening was thrown aside, and there lay a hole eighteen inches wide right in the floor.
Upon the sides the charred wood told of some fierce heat to which it had been exposed. The heavy steel plate beneath had been melted and burned as if the blast of a volcano had seared it.
Ragged-edged, melted, and bent lay the plate, and beneath it again lay the hole in the express safe right in the treasure room beneath. Down and through all led the seared hole. Some mighty heat had melted, burned, and blown away the plates of hard steel.
I leaned over, and gazed down into the room where the gold had been packed in the short, stout boxes of the bank. It was scattered about, thrown all around in confusion as though the robbers had at last given up all hope of getting more out.
They had taken all that two men could lift or carry for a few rods, stopping only at the limit of their endurance; and, though the amount was not so large as the express messenger had at first stated, it ran well over one hundred thousand dollars.
For a moment I stood staring from the hole to Captain Hall and back, too amazed to speak, while the old man looked at me keenly.
"Nice little job," he commented dryly.
"The doctor and his wife—do you think?" I asked. I was beginning to see light.
"Wife, thunder! That was a young man of tremendous strength," snarled the express messenger. "Look how he used that electric burner—look how he bent and tore at the plate—he was a giant—had the current on his hot chisel all day—that's the smell you noticed. Probably the two most expert safe-crackers alive, and our outfit gave them the chance to work the hot knife, burn their way in where they never could have blown. They connected with the light—got current enough to work with, and covered up with the rug——"
"Well, we won't waste time seeing how it was done; we'll get a move after them", said the old man. "Jump on deck, and blow the siren—blow the alarm for fire, police—set the signals——"
I was gone before he had finished, and by the time the uproar was well under way I had time to gaze toward the little schooner the doctor had marked out as his yacht.
She was still lying at anchor, but beyond her and about five miles distant lay a fishing schooner with very tall spars and a very able look. She was hoisting her foresail, and I could just make out that she was getting under way at once.
I waited no longer. Jumping to the upper deck, I yelled for the crew of the first cutter, boat number one, and gave the signal for her men. They came scrambling as to the drill, and as they came I yelled to young Smith, the third officer, to get arms and join me.
He dashed into his room, and came back with a heavy revolver. The express messenger came up while we were lowering away, and handed me another.
"We'll go with you," he said.
"No! No use loading her down with men," I replied; "we want to get some speed on her—row six oars double banked, and that'll fill her up—you can come, you, Smith, and myself—it won't take a ship's crew to get them—lower away," I called, and the boat dropped.
We followed, and in less time than it takes to tell it we were going through the sea at seven knots an hour with the best-drilled boat in the ship. Three men aft armed, and that was all.
It was a bright summer morning, with almost no wind, and I was certain that we would soon overhaul the runaways. The schooner lifted her anchor, and stood out to the westward and southward, and soon appeared to be making good headway.
"By Jupiter, she's got a motor in her!" said Smith.
She was going ahead, almost straight in the eye of the wind, just close enough to keep her sails full, and she was moving a good five knots. She was a good four miles distant, and we would have to do some fine rowing to catch her.
I looked my men over, and wondered if they could stand it. They pulled steadily, and the boat went along swiftly, but even a heavy ship with an engine has a distinct advantage over oars.
The schooner's motor was but an auxiliary, to be sure, but five or six knots under motor was something desperate to catch by rowing when we were so far astern.
At the end of another mile I was getting anxious. Our bearings were not changed to any extent, and the third officer looked askance at me.
"Give it to her, bullies—there's a hundred apiece if we get them," I said, and swung my body with the stroke of the oars. This had an effect upon the men. A hundred dollars was more than three months' pay.
They put their weight upon the ash, and the boat fairly lifted under the strain. The sweat began to pour down their faces, and the wind died away, until the swell ran oily and smooth.
"Give it to her," I cried again, as we gained a little.
The two men at the bow oar swung mightily upon it. There was a sharp crack. The bow oar snapped off at the rowlock, and the boat eased up her speed, leaving two good men idle.
"Great snakes!" howled Smith, and the express messenger looked at me in despair.
"We can't catch her now," he muttered.
I knew it was true. We were now dropping back, and I kept on only because I felt that it would not do to give up. I scanned the sea for signs of a boat.
There were some fishing to the northward, and it was our only chance. I swung her around toward them.
"We've got to try for one—maybe there's one with a good motor in her," I said. In a quarter of an hour we were up to one boat, and saw she was not fit. We swept past without slowing up.
"Any boat about here with a strong motor?" I asked, as we came close.
A fisherman waved his hand to the northward.
"Boat up there—Seawave—she's fast; what's the matter?" he replied.
But we were gone without further words, and soon came to the boat. She was long and narrow, built like a seiner, only not so heavy. Two men sat in her with lines out I hailed them as we came up.
"Want to catch that schooner out there," I yelled, pointing to the vessel. "Give you a hundred dollars if you land us alongside—quick."
"Got the money?" asked the man who appeared to own her.
We came alongside without delay, and I felt rather foolish for a moment. But the express messenger had the cash with him. He handed it over without a word, and the fisherman turned quickly to his engine.
The other man pulled up the anchor at once, and in half a minute we were under way, with the motor roaring out its glad sound in a series of rapid shots that were like the discharges of a rapid-fire gun.
"Take the boat and follow," I called to the men, and then Smith, the messenger, and myself were away in the wake of the schooner that was now a good five miles off and going steadily seaward. It would be a chase for fair.
"Can you make it?" I asked the owner, who sat in his oilskins at the engine.
"Sure t'ing we make 'em—'bout two, three hours, if the gas holds out."
We were now going along at eight knots and running steadily. After all, there's nothing like machinery to get things done.
"This is something like," said Smith. "There'll be some shooting inside of an hour if the signs hold."
The messenger said nothing. The men of the boat had not asked a question. They had taken us at our word, and were doing what they could to put us alongside.
Perhaps it would be different when we came to close quarters. We had better tell them what our errand was before they stopped the motor at the beginning of hostilities. They might take us for what we were after—burglars, and spoil our chance to make a catch.
We drew near the schooner after two hours' chase. The land was lost astern, and we had run fully fifteen miles off shore.
The breeze began to freshen, but not enough to give the schooner her full, or even half, speed. She plugged along steadily at about five knots, and we drew up close enough to see a man at the wheel and no one else on deck.
Smith and the messenger told our skipper how matters stood, and the fisherman seemed to hardly relish the game after he knew it. There was certain to be trouble.
"Schooner ahoy!" I yelled, as we drew near enough to hail.
The man at the wheel paid no attention until I had repeated it several times. Then he turned and asked us what we wished in no pleasant tone.
"You stop your engine and let us board," I yelled. "You have two robbers aboard, and we want them in the name of the law."
"Who are you?" asked the man, spitting over the rail. "Go away—I don't know you."
"Run alongside—we'll jump her," I said to the skipper. The messenger, Smith, and myself drew our revolvers, and stood ready as the small craft came up to the main channels. The schooner kept right along. We sprang aboard without meeting resistance, and gained the deck.
"Where're your passengers? Don't fool with us," I snapped. "There's an old man and a young one dressed as a woman."
"Oh, Doctor Jackson and the young feller—they're down below—asleep. What do you want with them?"
We wasted no time talking. All three jumped down the companionway and into the little cabin. Doctor Jackson was in a bunk, apparently fast asleep, and a young man, whom I instantly recognized as the "wife," lay reclining upon a transom.
"Well, what's the row—what's up?" asked the young fellow, rising at the sight of three armed men.
"We want you—you know what for," said the messenger quietly. "Don't make any trouble—we won't stand it—come right along back with us, you and the other fellow there."
The doctor awoke, and sat up, seemingly amazed. He expostulated, was dumfounded at the charge, couldn't understand it—we must all be crazy. Two men came from forward and joined our group. It was all hands, just three men and two passengers—five in all to work the ship.
"Stop the engine," I ordered, "and either come with us or turn the schooner back, and we'll go with you."
They turned her around, and stood back toward the shore. On the way, while one of us stood guard over the two, the rest searched the schooner for the treasure, for the trunk. There was not a sign of gold anywhere aboard her.
We took turns, but found nothing, leaving not a bolt hole unsearched. It was disheartening, and looked like we had lost, after all.
"Well, what do you make of it?" I asked the messenger.
"Looks like they got us right, after all," he said; "we haven't the slightest clew to the money, and won't get it after they once get in to the police. They'll buy their way out, for there's not the slightest evidence they did the job, although I know it was them as well as they themselves."
"Plant it, you think?"
"Sure as death, they dropped it somewhere, and they only know just where. They'll take a chance at going up for a spell, doing their bit, and then getting the cache. It's on the course out somewhere, but just where who knows? We're out of sight of land now, and it'll take a wizard to locate it on the schooner's course."
"That's right enough," I asserted, "but how about trying them for a confession?"
"Go ahead," he replied gloomily.
I put it right up to the doctor. I promised him complete immunity if he would just tell where they had dropped that four hundred and odd pounds of gold.
The pair simply grinned in amusement. It seemed to tickle them immensely.
"And so you'd be a party to a felony?" asked the doctor, with great regret in his tone. "I didn't think that of you, captain—you surely disappoint me greatly. Now, if I knew where the gold lay, I should tell you at once, but warn you not to touch it, for I don't believe in mixing up with things of this sort. The men you are after must surely have taken the stuff on the previous voyage—or some other time——"
"All right," I interrupted, "if you want it that way, you'll get it. We have enough evidence to send you up for twenty years at least—direct evidence."
"I hate to hear you take on in this terrible manner, my dear captain, but I don't see what I can do about it. What makes you think I had anything to do with that gold?"
It was of no use. They would not talk about it. I began to study the schooner's course and try to figure out where in that vast area of sea they could have let the stuff go overboard with the certainty of getting hold of it again.
In a short time we met our own boat being rowed rapidly after us, and then we took her in tow and dismissed our motor boat, which had been dragging along at the main channels. The men had earned their hundred, and they departed, highly pleased at their luck, which represented more than a month's profits fishing.
As our boat came alongside, we were hailed joyfully by Jim Sanders, the coxswain, during my absence, and he held up a long line, at the end of which was fastened a small buoy. The other we saw was fast to the small trunk.
"We found it all right", said Jim. "We was rowing along fast after you, an' suddenly my eye catches sight o' this here float. I grabs it, and up comes that trunk fast to the other end in about ten fathoms of water. That trunk is sure some heavy, and I reckon it's got the stuff in it."
"Very good, very good indeed," cried the messenger. "Now things look better."
"Yes," said the third officer, "this is what we are looking for—no mistake."
"Hoist it right on deck," I said, and a line was passed to it. It was all two men could do to get it aboard. When it was safe on the deck, I went below and saw the doctor.
"We have the trunk with the gold all safe—now, what have you to say?" I said.
"Indeed?" asked the doctor, in surprise.
"Not really, say not so," remarked the younger man, in mock alarm. "Why, then you seem to have what you've been after, what you are looking for. If that is all, you better let us turn the ship about and continue our journey. Why didn't you say you were looking for that trunk?"
A yell from the deck told me something was not right. I came up the companion, and looked out, holding my pistol ready for trouble. The messenger was standing at the side of the trunk. So also was Smith.
Two men had just opened it, and had dumped a lot of old iron and bolts onto the deck, where they lay in a pile of rusty, wet junk.
For a moment I gazed in amazement at the littered deck. Then I smiled.
"Do you suppose we could have made a mistake by any possible means?" I asked the express messenger.
"Not by any chance, not a chance. This is a plant—why should they sink this trunk with a line and buoy to it? It proves beyond all doubt they have got the stuff somewhere. They dropped it, hoping we would stop and haul it up, and they'd gain just so much time by the device."
"Then where in Davy Jones is the swag? Where could they have hidden it?"
"That's for us to find out—I don't know."
As we came in, a dozen boats came to meet us. The police took charge, and the two prisoners were ironed and taken ashore. The schooner was put in charge of detectives, and no one allowed aboard her.
We went back to the ship in our boat, and reported the capture of the men, but the loss of the money. Whereat Captain Hall was so angry that he would not speak to me that day. I felt that I had done what I could and that I was not at fault.
I could do no less—nor no more, for that matter. I went below, and the ship went on to her dock, the passengers were sent ashore, and the dull routine of the lay-up began.
I had some time now to myself, and studied the situation carefully. It would be a month before the trial, and we would have made another voyage before then. I was served, however, with a subpœna to appear as a principal witness, and I put the paper away and took up the study of the case with vigor.
The three men aboard the schooner who had acted as crew were not in the game. That was evident, for they proved to be just plain fishermen who had chartered their craft to the doctor upon an agreement made on his former voyage. He had planned the coup, and made the vessel ready for the getaway. That was certain. The men were discharged.
Every portion of the schooner capable of hiding a gold piece was thoroughly probed. Even her masts were bored at intervals, and she was hauled out and her keel searched for a hollow that might contain the treasure. Everything that men could do was apparently done. But not a sign of gold.
The two men, the doctor and his accomplice, were sent to trial, and had the best lawyer in England to defend them, a man who did not work for small amounts. I noted that fact and waited.
They were sent up for two years each solely on the circumstantial evidence that they had occupied the room above the safe on that voyage and that if any one had committed the theft upon a former voyage it must necessarily have been discovered, as the safe was thoroughly cleaned and refilled with a new cargo of gold for that single trip.
The schooner was sold at auction by the fishermen who owned her, as they were afraid to run her under the continual scrutiny which the company put upon her. She was broken up and her gear sold for junk. That was the end of her.
It was thoroughly believed that the treasure was planted somewhere on the course we had taken during the chase, and many fishermen dragged the sea on that line in the hope of reward. But nothing came of it, and a year passed.
The time came for the doctor and his pal to get out, for the law which cut the prison term to one-half for good behavior was now in force. I watched the papers, and tried to keep posted, but nothing was printed about the convicts.
One day the doctor and his partner came aboard just as we were leaving, and spoke pleasantly to me. They had taken second class and return to New York. It was pure nerve, I thought, but the regulations allowed them the privilege, as they might not, under the "undesirable-citizen" act, be allowed to land in the States.
They took no pains at all to hide their identity, and greeted me most cordially when I met them on deck the first day out. I asked them about their sojourn in Dartmoor, and they talked freely, telling of the rigors of prison life.
"But it is all over now," said the doctor. "We will live our lives as we always have, clean, honest, without fear and without reproach. We were innocent, as you know."
"Perhaps so—but what became of the gold?" I asked cynically.
"Ah, yes, the gold," murmured the doctor. "To be sure there was some doubt about the—what shall I call it?—the disposition of the treasure that the robbers worked so hard for. That will always be a mystery."
I thought differently. I had by the process of elimination long ago come to the conclusion that the gold never left the ship in Europe.
The strange way they had taken their baggage ashore, their ostentatious manner of taking out the heavy trunk and lowering it over the side in full view of all was evidently meant for a purpose.
Why had they taken so much trouble to let all see its weight? Why had they dragged it with them when, after all, it contained apparently nothing but old iron? That it was to cover up the real effort of disposition was growing more and more plain to me, but, then, where could they have planted the heavy weight of gold?
They could not have dropped it in mid-ocean—that was absurd. It did not occur to me for a long time that the hour down the bay from New York out to the lightship might suffice to enable them to cut into the through safe, which, of course, would not be opened until the other side was reached.
It was upon a return voyage that an incident occurred that started my line of research upon the American channel.
I noticed that in going down the bay we were forced—owing to the great length of the ship—close to the Southwest Spit Buoy. The turn here is abrupt, and, while the tide runs swiftly, there is a certainty of position always for a large ship.
A smaller vessel might swing well out, but a vessel of the Prince's size could not. Then the idea of the buoys marking the line at close intervals came to me. It was just what they would desire for marking their cache.
They could make a note of position, and drop their swag so closely to an established position that there would be no trouble at all in picking it up, even after a year's submersion.
The trunk must have carried the hot-chisel outfit, the electrical tools for cutting, and these the burglars had tossed into the sea at the first opportunity, afterward filling the trunk with junk for a blind, feeling sure we would think it held the treasure.
I had studied the process of cutting with an electrical jimmy, the melting of the plates, and I soon came to the conclusion that the job was done, finished before the ship left soundings off Sandy Hook.
The pair were seemingly not well supplied with money, and I determined to watch them after they got ashore. By some strange freak the inspectors passed them, and they disappeared in the city, leaving no trace.
"I want a two-weeks' leave of absence," I said to the old man that night, "and I want it right away—I'll get the gold we lost or lose my job. I'll take the third mate with me. Smith knows them."
There was some trouble getting officers to fill our berths on such short notice, but the old man had some faith in me, and let us go. I drew a hundred dollars in pay, and we went right to Brooklyn and chartered a fast and powerful launch.
Then we ran over the course the ship always steered on her run out the main ship channel, going close to the Southwest Spit Buoy.
We did not come back to town again, but remained in the boat for two days and nights, coming in only to get gasoline and supplies, and then keeping right on the run in and out to sea.
It was lonesome work, and we passed many small boats daily, but none had the men we hoped for in them.
The third evening, just about dark, we noticed a launch running for the red buoy at the turn of the channel near Sandy Hook. We both were much disguised, being rigged with false beards and uncouth clothes.
In daylight no one would have recognized us thirty feet distant, and at night we might have talked to our best friends without detection.
As we came in, running very slow, we noticed a boat with two men in her near the Southwest Spit Buoy. The boat had stopped, and the men were doing nothing. They seemed to be waiting for something.
We came past, sitting well below the gunwales of our craft, but watching the other boat. When we came within fifty feet Smith sank below the coamings.
"That's them all right," he whispered.
I watched the pair from the corner of my eye, and headed away from the vicinity, keeping well down in our boat, and showing nothing but the back of an old battered hat.
It was the doctor and his pal, and they were at work. They stood back and forth across the channel a few times, and one of them held a line towing astern. It was evident that they were dragging a grapnel over a certain part of the channel marked by the buoy and bearings upon Sandy Hook.
Before we were half a mile away, they were hauling in the drag, both at it with all their strength, and we knew they had struck something.
It was necessary to decide at once what to do. If they had the cache, we would find it; if they had hold of something else or were simply playing to throw any one off the scent, they would keep their secret. We decided to take the chance.
I swung the launch around, and opened her up to the limit. In an instant we were flying toward them at fifteen miles an hour, and within two minutes were in hailing distance. They saw us coming, and hesitated. That hesitation made me sure of our game. They would not let go the cache unless something dangerous was about to happen, the danger of losing it altogether being too great. Smith jumped up, revolver in hand, as the launch came tearing up.
"Hands up—stop that drag," he yelled. "We've got you, Doctor Jackson."
A flash flicked the gloom, and a sharp "pop" sounded, followed by another and another. Smith dropped his gun, and fell into the bottom of the boat.
"They got me," he gasped.
Then he raised himself upon his knees and, while I headed the flying craft straight for them and opened fire, Smith rested his revolver upon the coamings, and shot the doctor through the head.
Then the launch crashed into their craft, going at full speed, and her sharp nose cut straight in a full foot and a half before she stopped.
The young man who had shot my third mate was snapping an empty gun at me as he went over the side into the sea. I stopped the engine, and jumped for him.
He dived, but as he came up I hit him over the head with a boat hook that lay handy, and before he sank I had caught the hook into his collar and dragged him alongside.
Then I lifted him into our boat, and as his face came close to mine I recognized him as the former "wife" of the doctor, the robber who had masqueraded as a woman and who was evidently the electrical expert of the pair.
I passed a lashing upon him quickly, and then went to Smith. My poor friend and shipmate was gasping in pain, lying upon the boat's bottom. I examined him, and found two wounds, one through his arm and another through his chest, both bullets being from a high-powered automatic and having passed cleanly through.
In a few minutes I had anchored the wreck of the launch which had swamped to the gunwales, and was running for the fort at the Hook, where I arrived fifteen minutes later, with Smith unconscious.
Here I turned him over to the surgeon and, getting help from the officer in charge, I ran quickly back to the buoy. The dead body of the doctor was still lying in the swamped boat, and the men removed it.
Then I got a pull upon the drag line, and was not surprised to find it caught to something very heavy. Three men helped me haul it in, and it came slowly.
A bight of chain appeared upon the surface. We caught hold of this, and hove it in also. At each end were iron boxes weighing at least two hundred and fifty pounds each. In spite of our misfortunes I gave a yell. It was the gold at last.
Young Simpson told how it was done after he had been turned over to the authorities. He had already been sentenced for the crime, and would therefore not have to suffer again, having served his term.
He told glibly how they had done the job during the two hours they had after the treasure room was closed and the ship warping out and down the channel. The time had been ample, and the rest of the voyage was just to cover up, to throw us off the track. They had the cutting outfit in the trunk that had weighed so heavy, and had taken it away to throw overboard, which they did long before we came near them in the schooner.
They had kept the trunk, but when they saw we were after them they had sunk it with a buoy, knowing that we would probably see it in the smooth sea and were aware of the old smuggler trick of sinking treasure down at the end of a fine line and small mark.
Then they had decided to make no resistance, believing rightly that the easiest way was the best. They had taken their sentence based upon the circumstantial evidence in the case, and they were just about to get their treasure when we nabbed them. They had originally intended to get it in their schooner at their leisure, but we had stopped that. The location of the buoy at the turn of the channel marking the run to sea was a safe place to drop anything. It would hardly be disturbed for some time.
The heavy, small iron boxes had been made purposely for the work, and the chains connecting them had been long enough to cover fifty feet, or cross enough space to insure picking it up without delay when dragged for.
The old man smiled when I reported for duty, but was sad at the thought of our young third officer, who would be an invalid for many days.
"They are going to give him the first mate's berth in the new ship to be out next season," said he, "and I'm mighty glad of it—he deserves something."
"That's correct—he sure does, he worked hard, and took risks—and Smith is a good man anywhere, a good navigator also. But did you hear anything about me?" I asked.
"Sure; you're to stay right on here—chief officer, but they're going to hand you one thousand dollars for taking one hundred and twenty-five from the bottom—don't that satisfy you?"
"Mighty well indeed—mighty well indeed," I replied. "Shake, captain."
THE JUDGMENT OF MEN[A]
I had rowed in for fresh beef. The weather was cold, the water rough and when Wilson asked permission to go up town to get tobacco, I let him go and made my own way to the ship-chandler's, where we men of the sea usually bought our supplies and sometimes spent an hour or two discussing primage freights and other things pertaining to shipping.
There were two big five-masters lying just outside of us in the channel and their masters were known to me. One of them had picked me up at sea from a derelict and the other was Bull Simpson, well known on the coast. Simpson was much given to gregariousness. Johnson was companionable, but quiet, and I knew they would be in Jackson's store that morning, for they would clear the next day.
The day was in midwinter. The gloomy sky whipped by the nor'wester showed signs of snow. How one hates snow at sea! The nasty white stuff making the decks like glass, hiding everything from view. The harbor was white with the scrape of the cold wind, and the salt water froze where it struck in spray. Yes, I would go to Jackson's store. The shipping looked too gloomy to contemplate any longer. I thought of the frozen fingers handling canvas stiff as tin.
The stove, a ship's bogie, was red hot in the back room. Simpson was there, long, lean and solemn. So was Johnson there, but he was smiling, smoking and so glad to be in harbor that it stuck out all over him. Captain Cone, master of a tramp steamer, sat near and warmed his fat toes, his pudgy hands red with frost.
"Go back, they're all there," grinned Jackson to me, as I passed the desk. "Thought you'd gone to sea—sech fine wedder—for gulls—what? Go back an' set in, Cap; I'll come back for your order presently."
"Hello, you look cool," said Johnson, smiling up at me from his chair.
"Glad to see you—set in," said Simpson, making room for a chair near the bogie. "Shake hands with Captain Cone of the Prince Albert—Cone has a good tea-kettle for this weather—don't you wish you ran a tramp? Please? No, I didn't hear that last——"
I bowed to the Captain. A captain of a tramp was something new to us. We seldom had any but sailormen in the group and British skippers were always looked upon as a rarity. Still they were always welcome. Cone stuck out his pudgy hand. I squeezed the fat fingers until he winced and withdrew them. I never cared for pudgy-handed seamen—just prejudice, a meanness, but it couldn't be helped. We can't help everything, we must be human, and Cone took it good-naturedly—was way above such things. He showed it by spitting voluminously at the bogie and remarking it was very cold to go to sea.
Simpson didn't like it at all. He showed it, grumbled something about Yankees and stiff-necked folks, then subsided while I lit up and gazed complacently at Johnson. We talked of various things until Cone rose, buttoned his coat and went into the office to fill his order. Simpson glared at me for a moment.
"What's the use of being so damned short with the Britisher? What's he done?" he asked.
"It's what he hasn't done I object to," I answered. "Stupid, heavy brute——"
Captain Cone came back and extended his hand. "Good-by, Simpson—good-by, gentlemen—hope you'll have better weather of it to-morrow."
I noticed that he held out his left hand; it was the left hand that was so pudgy, so fat and soft. His right hand was gloved and the fingers of the glove were stiff, straight.
"Good day," I said, rising, "and good luck to you." Johnson nodded also and the stranger withdrew, followed by Jackson who saw him to the door.
"Wake up," I said to Simpson. "Don't think I meant anything, but these Britisher tramp skippers are the limit. High ideals! lots of feeling! Human as a beef and twice as heavy—after dinner. Where did he blow in from?"
"He came in for coals to take him to Brunswick—he'll load for lumber there and go back home—hope he'll get a better reception than he got here—he's a member of the English Masters' Association; you might have been kind to him," said Simpson.
"Was he the man they fired from the Association last month? Seems to me I heard of a Cone—seems like he was accused of brutality or something, lacks humanity—looks like it, anyway," said Johnson.
"Yes, he was fired—yes—by God, he was," snapped Simpson, "and it was just such judgment that gets lots of good men into trouble. 'Lacked human sentiment'—lacked human sentiment—well, that's a charge for you! Hell! you fellows get narrower and narrower—I happen to know Cone, knew him years ago—he was fired for losing the Champion—'lacked human sentiment,' bah! Oh, now you remember him, heh?"
"Yes, we remember him—the man who lost a fine ship in collision in a clear night," said I, with something of a sneer. "But that wasn't the worst of it——"
"Yes, you read the damned papers—you got a fine idea of it all," snapped Simpson. The old seaman turned and spat viciously at the bogie as if the poor old stove, red-hot, had done him some grievous wrong. Then he turned scornfully to Johnson.
"You remember the Champion? You know something about her, you ain't so damned stuck about yourself. I happened to be aboard of her the day she sailed, talking to Redding, her chief mate—Redding, that was lost in the Arctic—yes, Redding was as straight as a string—and he told me the details of that accident after he came from the hospital—too late. He was nearly a year in the insane ward from a blow that smashed his head, but he told me about Cone.
"Yes, it was Cone who left his wife—so they said—left her, deserted her and the children. It was Cone who acted in every disgraceful way the old women tell about, Cone who raised hell and paid the devil wherever he went, Cone who only got command of the Champion after pulling shares and playing the game for all it was worth—no, don't tell me—don't, I say—I don't want to hear about what he did. I'll tell you how he lost the ship, and you say you'll believe anything poor Redding said—so would I. If there was truth in any man it was in Dan Redding—poor devil."
"Yes," I assented, "Redding was all right."
Simpson scorned to notice me. He talked at Johnson, or rather talked at me through Johnson, over him, and—Simpson could talk, talk like an Admiralty lawyer with two noggins of rum under his ribs. Jackson came in and took Cone's vacated chair. He rubbed his hands. Cone had been a good buyer, had needed plenty of stuff—and he got it at the highest rates. Jackson approved of Redding also, approved of him for the sake of memory—Redding had always paid a full bill—never asked rake-off, pourboire, "graft," or other money from him.
"You heard all that stuff about Cone, too," said Simpson, sneeringly at Jackson; "and I dare say you believe it like a good old woman you are, but I'll tell you just how he lost the ship—if you believe Redding.
"They cleared at daylight, bound for St. John's—had twenty passengers first class and about seventy second—no steerage those days. Redding said the weather was hell and something worse from the time they dropped the land, and you men know how it is on the coast in the winter time. The old Champion came across and poked her nose into the fog bank off Sable Island—bad place? Well, I reckon it is. Bad because you can't tell where the devil you are and can't keep any kind of reckoning in that current. That Sable Island bank is nearly as bad as Hatteras for us windjammers.
"Cone slowed his ship that last morning—according to Redding—slowed her down to a few knots, made the passengers keep off the decks in order to have peace and quiet aboard. One old lady didn't like it at all. She insisted she had a right to go where she pleased aboard—told the skipper so to his face and dared him to put her below. Some of the other women folks followed her example—did Cone do it? Well, he just called his quartermaster and told him to remove the objectionable old women, told him to carry them below if necessary—and that square-head did. Yes, sir, he just picked up the leader and carried her off in his arms while she screamed and clawed him, calling to the men to save her from the brutal assault.
"Oh, yes, he got a nice name for that. The passengers told how he acted, told how he brutally made his men remove innocent and unoffending females—oh, what's the use? He was a brute and they made it out plain—it was all published in the papers.
"It was along about five o'clock and the sun must have been well along to the nor'west horizon, tho' of course he couldn't see it in the fog—that a horn blared out faintly right ahead. The man on lookout heard it—for it was now quiet on deck—and the siren roared out its reply. Then he got a faint blow right off his starboard bow, a blow as if from a small fishing schooner. He kept along blowing regular blasts, kept along very slow.
"Right out of the setting sun a bit of wind seemed to make. It lifted the bank enough to show him a four-masted ship standing right into him not two hundred feet from his bow. She was heeling with the growing breeze and going about six knots or better with just a white bone across her forefoot. Cone rang off his engines.
"It is in these moments, you know, that things happen. Had Cone rang ahead full speed like Chambers did in the old Lawrence, rang and shoved into her full swing, he would have either gone clear or cut out enough to give her his stern on the turn and probably not sink either ship. He kept to the rules by British force of habit of abiding by them—and, well, the Potomack, under three skysails and shoving along with four thousand tons of cargo in her, hit him fair upon the side while he was swinging to port. The ship's jibboom reached over and drove a hole through the deckhouse first, poked right through and ripped off his blowoff pipe, letting the steam come roaring out of her, and then the heavy forefoot sunk like a wedge fair in her, right in the wake of her engines. It was the worst possible place to get it—you know that—right in the wake of the engines and close enough to the engine-room bulkhead to smash it so it was useless. Then it cut, shore down under the water line, and there he was with a hole in him big enough to drive in a trolley car, a hole and nothing but the forward bulkheads to hold him up—no, he was badly hit, hit right in the vitals, and the roar of the steam told him plainly that the ship was going to be put to it to float.
"Then came the usual panic.
"Cone tried to stop it, tried to stem the tide of passengers. His officers were good, but Redding was hit on the head by a block from the maingaff vang and while Cone was trusting to him to take charge aft, he set to work forward to get the boats out in ship-shape and seamanlike order. His second was a new man—Billings—a blue-nose he knew nothing about, but a good enough fellow to take charge. He and the third officer stood the crowd back for a time and got the port boats over.
"You see, it was smooth and there wouldn't have been much trouble, but the passengers had a grouch against Cone, hated him. The women thought him a brute and the men had heard so much from them about his private life, his affairs, his general rascality, they wouldn't stand it any longer. They rushed it and two were shot, one fell overboard and another was badly hurt. These were the only casualties—strange, wasn't it? Only passengers hurt were those who were trying to save themselves from the brutal and overbearing Cone.
"The Champion settled quickly by the head, her nose getting well down. This had the evil tendency of lifting her stern so high that the boats couldn't be handled easily. It stopped the flow of the sea to a certain extent, but it was too late to do anything to help that now. The fireroom force came up, they were literally drowned out, forced to quit, and the engineers came forward and told of the useless steam—not enough to run the pumps. Then Cone knew it was get away while he could.
"Cone stood on the port side of the flying bridge, stood there and roared out his orders, wondering why Redding didn't respond to the work cut out aft. He saw no boats going over where Redding should be tending to them, and when the crowd finally surged forward he had to let them come, had to let them get into the boats there. Oh, yes, he was charged with not holding them back, not being able to command his ship, but man, he had to let them come forward, it was only the fighting ones who insisted in getting first places and taking charge that got hurt.
"The Potomack lay to and sent in her boats, sent in four big whaleboats and one dinghy. The water wasn't rough—any good boat would live a long time—and Cone let them take off his passengers as fast as they could. He was well scored for it afterward; they told how he couldn't do it himself, and if it hadn't been for the Potomack he would have lost all his passengers.
"When the Champion settled Cone was still standing there on the bridge, standing there and he knew what it meant to him.
"'You'd better go along, sir,' said Billings, 'we're going in the next boat.'
"But Cone just looked at him for a minute, just stood there watching things and saw the last passenger get away.
"'You hound,' the fellow yelled, 'you cowardly rascal—you insulter of women!'
"You see, passengers get excited in such cases, get to lose their heads. Cone never even looked at him, never took his eyes from the settling ship.
"The engineer force had gone, the only men left aboard were the quartermasters and mates. Cone spoke to Billings.
"'Get Redding and the rest—get in the boat, I'll come along in a moment.'
"The Champion was settling fast now. The roar of the steam and air from between decks was deafening. Billings didn't quite get the words, but he knew he was told to go—and he went. The third officer found Redding lying with a broken head and dragged him to the side, lowered him down and started after him. Just as he did this, there was a ripping noise from below. It was like a tearing sort of explosion, a rending. Cone had disappeared from the bridge and they waited no longer but shoved clear. At that instant the Champion surged ahead, lifted her stern and dropped—she was gone.
"The suction whirled about, sucked the boat first one way and then another, bringing her right over the foundering ship. Billings saw a form jammed under the topmast backstay, saw a hand clutching something white and he reached for it as the topmast went under.
"It was Cone. It was the skipper.
"They hauled him into the boat and he still clutched that thing in his hand. He had been drawn under, been badly strangled and he was unconscious, but his hand hold was firm and no one took notice of what he held. It was the photograph of a woman.
"Billings didn't know anything about him; didn't know but what the tales told were true—so he took the thing away from him and said nothing about it; but Redding knew, Redding knew after he saw it—months afterward when it was shown him—too late to stop the nasty stories—oh, yes, it was the picture of his wife.
"Of course, Cone was living alone, had many affairs—so they said—and it would not do to drag a woman into his ugly life. He had gone into his room to get it—the picture—gone in to get it with that ship sinking under him, the unsentimental and brutal Cone—oh, well, what's the use?
"Yes, his hand was jammed between the backstay and the mast and Billings just got him clear in time—funny, is it? Well, I don't know, some men wouldn't have been so particular over a photograph, would have used both their hands to fight clear with—what? But then, that's what you call sentiment. No, you wouldn't expect it from Cone, wouldn't expect to find it in a seaman with ruddy cheeks and quiet manner, soft and a bit fat——"
"No," said Jackson, "you wouldn't expect a thing like that from Captain Cone—that's right."
"No, you expect sentiment from the thin, poetical, big-eyed, tender men, the men who slush and slobber it over at all occasions. You find women looking for it in the tender talkers, the soft-spoken, the amorous—oh, hell! did you ever see a man who looked the part—what?"
"I've sometimes had my doubts concerning heroes," said Johnson, "but they are—the real ones—generally most common-looking, most quiet and unassuming; but that Cone—well, he is a hard dose to swallow, and that's a fact."
"Well, treat him decently when he comes back," said Simpson.
Some years later I met Cone at the dinner given by the Manager of the Southern Fruit Company to the Captains of the West India fleet who ran the steamers chartered under contract to fill the winter schedule. There were as usual many British vessels in the trade, some Norwegian and a few American, including myself.
Cone had passed entirely out of my ken and this time I took his hand with the feeling that perhaps I had done the man an injustice by the human judgment passed upon him. He was a very old man now and his hand was still in a glove to hide the deformity which the accident had caused. He looked very much the kindly old-time shipmaster, bright of eye and vigorous to the last. He sat near me and remained silent during the opening of the somewhat formal repast. The Manager had been discussing some subject, for he seemed to wish to follow it at once.
"A thing's either right or wrong," said the Manager didactically, as he looked over the gathering. He paused for the effect of his words to be felt. He loved platitudes, although the leading man in his business and a millionaire. "A thing is either right or wrong," he repeated, "and a man is either right or wrong. There's a difference between them as plain as between black and white."
Captain Cone squirmed in his chair. He had listened to this sort of thing before from the Manager. The Company, the greatest shipping firm in the whole world, had paid him his salary, given him his liner and here was the Manager setting forth again against the manner of trusted employees who should know these self-evident truths. He interrupted.
"In fifty-five years spent knocking about the world upon every sea, I've come to a different conclusion," said he quietly.
It was so different from the usual applause, the applause which had already started and which would follow the Manager's splendid appreciation of the obvious. Several diners—there were twelve at the table—looked up quickly and wondered at the Captain.
"What—what do you mean?" asked the Manager softly, amazed at the interruption. He had been coming to a point where he expected to hurl a smashing argument against the methods of some men who handled millions, and here he had been held up by a Captain, an employee of his Company. There was a silence, awkward, impressive—and the old seaman felt it, causing him to blush through his mahogany tan. He had committed himself, and he was essentially a modest man.
"I don't know exactly how to explain," said the Captain slowly. "These questions of human analysis are so very subtle, so elusive—I am only a sailorman after all, and perhaps I see things differently from the view taken by landsmen. There is much in the point of view. But it seems that I am still reasonable, still logical—and I am able to perform my duties even though I'm seventy."
He paused, passed his brown hand across his grizzled forehead, where the hair still hung thickly. Then he let it drop slowly down over his beard and his eyes seemed to have an introspective look. He spoke very slowly and with considerable hesitation as one not used to the ready flow of language, words every one of which had a meaning.
"There was a small matter," he continued, "which called my attention to the human judgment. I don't know how to tell it, but—well, you remember Jones, Captain Jones, who had an interest in the oil ships? Yes; well, I was thinking of him.
"Jones was one of the first oil carriers. That was before the Standard took charge. I had sailed with him as mate long before the war. He got a great tank ship—lost her. Then came the squeeze of the Consolidated, then the death of competition—and, well, Jones lost one thing after another. Froze out. They made him watchman at the office, made him night watchman, a man who had once run a ten-thousand-ton oiler, a man who had made them millions by his care and industry. Then he sank to the gutter and on forty dollars a month he tried to wrest a living for seven children—four of them girls. You know the old story, the sordid details. Jones had to take on liquor once in a while. He would have gone mad without a drunk at least once a month. He figured that it was best to get drunk than go mad, best for his family. It's all well enough to talk, for the chicken-souled loafers who preach to their flocks and then get their living through the generosity of silly women, to call poor Jones a drunken reprobate, a useless loafer, because he drank. But the red-hearted men, the men who knew him, knew what he was suffering, knew what weight was pulling him down. In two years he never bought a suit of clothes. He never spent anything upon himself—except at certain times he felt that he must undergo relaxation, must get away from himself—then he would get drunk, very drunk.
"His wife—oh, yes, he had his wife. She knew him, knew what he had gone through—she saw he got enough money for rum, helped him, stinted herself, slaved, worked—well, she did everything a poor, high-spirited woman could do."
Cone paused, took a drink, a mere sip, from his glass of water, then pushed it from him. The looks of the guests annoyed him. A prohibitionist from Maine glared at him and made him uncomfortable. There was a half-suppressed sneer upon the lips of the Manager, but he was a gentleman—and a host.
"Yes—I was speaking of his wife," he went on. "She helped him, held him up with a mighty soul, a tremendous strength for a woman. All through the dark and gloomy life he led, sleeping in the daytime and wandering about the desolate offices at night, she was always ready, always willing to lend a hand, steadying, guiding, always sound in judgment and above all ready at all times to make any sacrifice for either him or the children—yes, she was a great woman—may the God of the sea hold her gently where she lies in its bosom—dead? Oh, yes, she died long ago. The worst of the affair came about when Jones fell sick. He finally broke down under the awful strain, couldn't stand it—no, the liquor didn't hurt him, he was used to that. It was the despair, the dead weight of crushed hopes, the knowledge of an old man unable to make good against the tide, the tide which was sweeping his children down to hell. The oldest girl was twenty and forced to work at a place where—well, never mind, it was the same old sordid story of a young woman staying, sticking out at a place where it was impossible for her to come out as she went in. Ruin, and hell for her afterward—convention, we call it—but what's the use? She was the old man's favorite, and it hit him very hard, very hard indeed.
"Yes, I remember it very well. Poor old Jones, captain of a ten-thousand-ton ship, owner of a quarter interest in one of the biggest commercial enterprises in the world—six children and a wife starving on forty dollars a month and the seventh child—yes, it was pretty bad, especially bad for Jones, for he had done nothing to deserve his fate, nothing but fight a combination which knew no mercy. The relentless, implacable cruelty of corporations is well enough known to you gentlemen. Their laws are like the laws of Nature—transgress them and you must die. The laws of life are supposed to be just, therefore it is probable that those of some corporations are so likewise—I don't know. But they had smashed Jones. Crushed him down—yes, there he was at forty a month, trying to forget, trying to do something to keep his family alive, and then under the heaviest strain he broke one day—broke and went down."
Many of the guests at the Manager's table had now resumed their poise. Some at the farther end resumed conversation, overlooking the story-teller and wondering a little at his bad form to monopolize the talk of the complaisant dinner humor. But some of the men nearest the Manager still listened and the old Captain watched them with his dark bright eyes, eyes which seemed to sparkle like diamonds in the light. They were the eyes which had pointed the way to many millions of dollars' worth of cargo, many thousand passengers, and they watched over them through many a wild and stormy night upon the bridge of his ship in mid-ocean where the mind has much time to ponder over the methods, the ethics of the commercial human.
"I found him at the hospital," went on Cone. "He was shaky, but he fought his weakness back and went home at the end of two weeks to find his wife down with pneumonia and the house full of famished children."
Cone stopped speaking for a moment and gazed across the table at the polished buffet, seeming to see something in the mirror back of it. The Manager looked up, saw his gaze and spoke:
"I know there's lots of hardships, Captain," said he, "and I don't lay it all to the drink habit. Let your glass be filled—what?"
"Pardon me," said the old seaman. "I am old and forgetting my story—I was just thinking a bit. This is not a temperance lecture at all—no, no, that is not what I was thinking of." And he gazed at the prohibitionist across the board who was fingering his napkin.
"No, the thing that I was coming to is this. Jones found things in a desperate condition at his home. He must have money. It was an absolute necessity to have medical attendance at once for his wife, and he dreaded the free ward of the hospitals—he had gone into one once himself and knew what it meant. He must have money for his children."
"A man might steal under those conditions without being very bad," interrupted a man sitting next to him.
"That isn't what he did," said the old Captain. "He met a friend on the street while on his way to a pawnshop—and the friend heard his tale. His friend was a bank messenger, at least he was carrying the proceeds of a ship's cargo in a bag. You see, in those days, captains were allowed to collect freights at certain points, being in the companies, and these moneys were carried aboard the ship until she reached her home port. Sometimes there were many thousand dollars. This friend had been with Jones in the old days and he knew his history. The money he carried was freights from an oil ship just arrived. There was fifteen thousand dollars of it in gold, and it was the property of the very corporation which had squeezed Jones and ruined him. Well, the friend did the obvious, did the human thing. He opened the bag and gave Jones just five hundred dollars in gold and then went along to try and fix the matter up with the firm—it required lying—that is bad; it required many other things which we will not discuss here, but they are eminently bad, bad as they can be—and by dint of lying, and pilfering, and—well, the friend made good the loss without ever getting found out—yes, a horrible example, I admit. He made good the five hundred and no one ever knew he was a thief. No one knows to this day—except—anyway, Jones saved his wife, and at the end of the money the friend helped him to buy into a schooner and he got command. They paid twenty-five per cent. in those days and he pulled out making enough to save the rest from abject poverty."
"But you don't mean you approve of that fellow, that thief who appropriated other people's money, his employers' money, do you?" asked the Manager in amazement. "The thing for him to have done was to have gone to the firm and stated the case, told of the poverty of Jones, told how he should be helped. No human being would have refused him."
"On the contrary, the friend did just those things—afterward—and as I said before, corporations know no laws but their own. They are relentless as the laws of Nature, as implacable as the laws of health. Go where there is cholera, get the germ into your system, and you will understand what I mean. No human feeling, no sympathy—nothing will save you but your own powers of resistance. You will necessarily die unless you can stand it. Most people die. And it may be right to have things this way—I don't know, I don't set up as a judge; I am a sailor. But I am human—and I don't hate my neighbor, I don't look upon my friend as my enemy. Perhaps I am wrong. Still the thief in this case suffered much. He was for years afraid of being found out. That shows the whole horrible futility of it all. He suffered more than Jones, for Jones knew from where the money came, knew it was money which by his judgment should have gone to him anyway. Jones refused to pay it back and wanted to publish the fact that he had gotten even with the corporation to the extent of five hundred dollars.
"Of course, he didn't do it. The friend persuaded him not to, and when he went into the coaster he forgot to talk about it even when under the effects of his drinks.
"You see, it was about that time the insurance troubles came about. Marine insurance had a tumble owing to the loss of several heavy ships and other matters not worth discussing now. You were badly hit yourself, I believe,"—and the old Captain nodded to the Manager, who smiled acquiescence—"you told me at the time—if I remember rightly—that one more vessel gone and you would go to the wall.
"The friend owned shares in that schooner, owned more than half of her, and he it was that let her go out, made her go to sea after her policies ran out. He would not stop her carrying, for it meant laying her up and Jones would have to go ashore again until things straightened out. It was the hurricane season and she had to go light to Cuba.
"I remember something of the affair, for I happened to be on the dock when she sailed. Jones was standing aft giving orders, and his wife, with her three daughters, were below in the cabin. It was a pretty picture of commercial life, a picture of a man doing his work with his family or part of it around him, and I almost envied him his place. What does an old liner skipper ever have of domestic life? Never gets home, never sees his wife but once or twice a year, and the company never lets her go aboard the ship at all if they can help it. Well, she sailed out that August day, and the next thing we heard of him was that his schooner was driven ashore during a gale. She rammed up on one of the Bahamas, Castle Rock, I believe, and then broke up. Some of the crew and his daughters were saved—he and his wife went down—lost before they could get them ashore.
"And so there it is—did the men do all that was right or did they do all that was wrong? That's the question. Where is the line of demarkation, where does the wrong leave off and right begin, or how is the mixture to be sifted down? We go by rules, we must play according to rules or the game becomes chaos. But do the rules always hold, do they always cover every emergency? I don't know, but I believe there is bad, or what is called bad, in all men, also there is good—it depends upon the man—not the rule."
There was a long pause. The Manager gazed curiously at his guest.
"You say the schooner went ashore on Castle Rock?"
"I said—well, it was somewhere about there, I don't know exactly," replied the old seaman, annoyed.
"There never was a wreck on Castle Rock that I ever heard of," said the Manager, eying the old Captain curiously, "but there was the Hattie Davis that was lost on the Great Inagua Bank—she wasn't insured, I believe."
"Yes, she was lost on the Great Inagua," assented the Captain, leaning back, as though the story were closed.
"You had a large interest in her, I believe," said the Manager slowly, "and I recollect, now, you lost all in her——"
"The light was not so good as it is now," quickly put in the old seaman. "It used to show only in clear weather—and it's almost always clear through the passage—I remember how the passengers used to be glad when we entered the passage coming up from Cuba in the old Panama ships—rough in the tumble off Maysi when the wind holds nor'east for a spell."
The Manager was gazing at the old skipper strangely. Then he suddenly turned and started to discuss other matters with his guests. The dinner went along without incident and afterward we arose to go to the smoking-room for our cigars.
"Come along with me, Cone," said the Manager, "I have a new orchid I picked up I want to show you; you always liked flowers, you know." Afterward I passed them and overheard the Manager saying in a low tone—"Well, you always had a hell of a reputation, Cone, anyway, but under the circumstances—well, there might be some sort of justification. You are too full of that damned sentiment for any business whatever. Still, I'll admit that it isn't so much what a man does that matters—that is, it doesn't matter so much as how it is done—and who does it."
And so this was Cone? This was the master who had earned a reputation for some very queer things as seamen see them. I remember the old days, the words of poor old Simpson who had long gone to the port of missing ships. Sentimental Captain Cone, stout, grizzled, bronzed, the man who lost his hand holding to the picture of a wife who had been false to him and who had accused him of many things too hard to print. It was strange.
I suddenly felt I would like to see Simpson, to acknowledge he was not so far wrong after all.
"The judgment of man is not good," I said in answer to some question relative to nothing concerning Cone, and with this platitude upon my lips I went home.