He turned his corroded face up to me and blinked in an effort to see.
“As long as Chantz takes your orders, leave him alone. We’ll need every hand to work the ship in. As for yourself, send Murphy aft in half an hour and I’ll give him the best the medicine-chest affords. That is all. Go for’ard.”
And they shambled away, beaten and dispirited.
“But that man—his face—what happened to him?” Margaret asked of me.
Sad it is to end love with lies. Sadder still is it to begin love with lies. I had tried to hide this one happening from Margaret, and I had failed. It could no longer be hidden save by lying; and so I told her the truth, told her how and why the gangster had had his face dashed with sulphuric acid by the old steward who knew white men and their ways.
* * * * *
There is little more to write. The mutiny of the Elsinore is over. The divided crew is ruled by the gangsters, who are as intent on getting their leader into port as I am intent on getting all of them into jail. The first lap of the voyage of the Elsinore draws to a close. Two days, at most, with our present sailing, will bring us into Valparaiso. And then, as beginning a new voyage, the Elsinore will depart for Seattle.
* * * * *
One thing more remains for me to write, and then this strange log of a strange cruise will be complete. It happened only last night. I am yet fresh from it, and athrill with it and with the promise of it.
Margaret and I spent the last hour of the second dog-watch together at the break of the poop. It was good again to feel the Elsinore yielding to the wind-pressure on her canvas, to feel her again slipping and sliding through the water in an easy sea.