However, he had learned already that the act of death is not a simple matter if you have to compass it for yourself. Every morning found him limp as a rag, but always and ever alive. And then gradually he got the turn. Each day he grew a little stronger, a little bolder, so that by the end of the third week he had even begun to feel less afraid of the Chinaman.
In the middle of the fourth week, he had a bit of real luck. And it came to him in the guise of an inspiration. It was merely that one night when the time came for turning into that stifling inferno which he still dreaded with all his soul, he literally took his courage in his hands. He spread Johnnie's overcoat in the farthest corner of the galley itself, made a pillow of the bundle that Mother had given him, and then without venturing a look in the direction of the Chinaman very quietly lay down and waited, with beating heart, for the worst.
Strange to say, the worst never happened. For a long time he expected a boot in his ribs. Every nerve was braced to receive it. But the slow minutes passed and no boot came. All this time Sing sat on the bacon box, smoking solemnly, and taking an occasional sip of grog from his pannikin. And then suddenly Henry Harper went quite deliciously to sleep, and dreamed that he was in the West Indies, and had caught a real live parrot for Johnnie.
It was a really wonderful sleep that he had. He did not wake once till four bells struck in the morning watch, the proper time for starting the duties of the day. These began with lighting the fire and filling the copper. He rose from his corner a new boy, and there was Sing lying peacefully in the middle of the floor, not taking notice of anyone. And the odd thing was that during the day Sing showed him no disfavor; and when night came and it was time once more to turn in, Henry Harper lay down again in the corner of the galley. There was now no need to await the arrival of the Chinaman's boot.
XIII
The floor of the galley gave Henry Harper his first start on the road to manhood. He got so far along it as to be only a little afraid of the Chinaman. But that was his limit for some little time to come. Meanwhile he continued in the punctual discharge of his duties, and for some months things seemed to go fairly well with him. But at last there came a fatal day when the sinister figure of Mr. Thompson appeared once more upon the scene. The boy was told briefly and roughly that the ship was short-handed, that he was wanted aft at once, and that he had better take his truck along with him.
From that hour the current of his life was changed. For many a day after that he was to know neither peace nor security. He had been called to bear a part in the terrific fight that went on all day and all night, between this crazy windjammer and the forces of nature.
For days and weeks the brain of Henry Harper was a confused horror of raging seas, tearing winds, impossible tasks, brutal and savage commands. He did his best, he kept on doing it even when he didn't know what he was doing, but what a best it was! He was buffeted about the slippery decks by the hand of man or the hand of nature; he understood less than half of what was said to him, and even that he didn't know how to set about doing. The Margaret Carey was so ill found that she seemed at the mercy of the great gales and the mighty seas of the Atlantic. She was flung and tossed to all points of the compass; her decks were always awash; her furious and at times half demented Old Man was always having to heave her to, but Henry Harper was never a hand's turn of use on the deck of that hell ship.
He was so unhandy that in the port watch they christened him "Sailor." There wasn't a blame thing he could do. He was so sick and sorry, he was so scared out of his life that the Old Man used to get furious at the mere sight of him.