The fellow slouched away forward, lurching and slipping along the wet decks, and disappeared down the fore-scuttle. I deemed it not improbable that he would avail himself of the opportunity to help himself to another drink, and that it might possibly be quite five minutes, or even ten, before he returned aft to resume his duty; but a full half-hour elapsed, and still the fellow remained invisible. I had by this time very nearly come to the end of my stock of patience, and was on the point of yelling to the cook—who kept close as a limpet to the shelter of his galley, with the weather-door fast shut—to run to the forecastle and summon someone to relieve me, when I became aware of a din of excited shouts and yells arising from the fore-scuttle, that momentarily grew in intensity until the disturbance was violent enough to suggest that all pandemonium had broken adrift in that small forecastle. The cook, from his position, in the galley, heard the row much more distinctly than I did, and, forsaking his pots and pans, rushed forward, where he stood gaping down through the scuttle in an attitude expressive of combined interest and consternation. I shouted to him to let me know what it all meant, but his attention was so completely absorbed by what was happening below that he had no ears for me; while, as for me, I had my hands quite full with the brig, and dared not release my grasp of the wheel for a single instant lest she should broach-to and get her decks swept, or possibly be dismasted.
Chapter Fourteen.
A double tragedy.
The rumpus continued for nearly ten minutes, and then quite suddenly ceased; and as it did so the cook flung his legs over the coamings of the fore-scuttle, and disappeared down the hatchway. Some five minutes or so later, O’Gorman appeared on deck, ghastly white, and with his cheek laid open in a gash that extended very nearly from his left ear to the corresponding corner of his mouth. The blood was trickling down upon the collar of his jacket and staining the whole of the left breast of the garment, and his hands and cuffs were smeared with blood. It was at once evident to me that there had been a serious scrimmage in the forecastle; a conjecture that was at once confirmed by the fellow himself—who, I may mention, was completely sobered by the occurrence, if indeed he had been the worse for drink at its outbreak.
“Hillo, Misther!” he exclaimed, as he arrived within speaking distance of me, “are ye left all alone to look afther the hooker? Be jabers, that’s too bad! Where’s the shpalpeen that ought to be doin’ his thrick of grindin’ wather?”
“I sent him for’ard about three-quarters of an hour ago,” said I, “to tell you that I wished to speak to you; and the loafing blackguard never returned. But what has been the matter in the forecastle, and how came you with that wound in your cheek?”
“Oh, begorra, but it’s a bad job, intoirely!” he answered. “We was all havin’ a little game of cards together, and to make the game lively we was stakin’ our gims. Dirk got claned out at last—lost every stone of his share—and then he jumped up and swore that Price had been chatin’ him. Price knocked him down for sayin’ it; but he jumped up again—wid his mouth all bleedin’ from Jack’s blow—and, in a wink, before anny of us knew what he was afther, he’d whipped out his knife and drove it clean through poor Chips heart! That was the beginnin’ of the row. When we saw what had been done, two or three of us attimpted to seize Dirk and disarm him; but the murthering villain fought like all the furies, layin’ my cheek open, stabbin’ poor Tom in the throat so that he’s bleedin’ like a stuck pig, and pretty near cuttin’ Mike’s hand off. And that’s not the worst of it aither. Some of the other chaps took Dirk’s side, swearin’ that they’d seen Chips chatin’, and in two two’s, sir, all hands had their knives out, and we was cuttin’ and slashin’ at each other loike—loike—sodgers on a field of battle!”
“Are there any hurt beside Tom, Mike, and yourself?” I asked, too completely dazed with the sudden horror of the thing to look at more than one side of it for the moment.