The day came when the old Viking was almost the last of her race, the only wooden full-rigged three-masted ship to sail out of Atlantic ports. All her lofty companions had passed away, or had been converted into coal barges. Her arrival in New York was an item of news. This was the one substantial reward of Captain Bradley's declining years as a ship-master; he had sailed his ship beyond her era, he had flaunted her in the face of a new generation. That compact made with the Viking in her maiden hour had been no idle sentiment; it had been life's supremest dedication, and he had kept the vow.
A few old friends remained to him, though he had made no new ones in the latter years. These friends kept urging him, every voyage, to sell the Viking for a coal barge while there was time, while even this way offered for the disposal of an outworn hull. The coal companies were beginning to build their own barges. The Viking would still be worth some fifteen thousand dollars as a coal barge. He could retire on the proceeds, and live in modest comfort for the rest of his days.
"Never!" he invariably answered "Do I look like a man who needs to retire? She shall never be a coal barge while I live"
Yet it had to come to that; perhaps he had long foreseen it, perhaps the vehemence of his denial was only the face of pride set against the inevitable. On a certain voyage he had been obliged to run into debt, to fit out the vessel. The voyage netted less than nothing. When he returned to New York the ship was attached for the debt. There was no business in sight; the bottom had at last dropped out of the shipping world. He did all that was possible, but he could not raise the money; he and the Viking were no longer a good risk as borrowers—their credit was gone. The ship was sold at auction, in equity proceedings, and was bid in by one of the large coal companies operating along the Atlantic Coast. Captain Bradley, at sixty years of age, found himself stranded on South Street without a penny in his pocket. The proceeds of the sale had barely covered the debt. But his honour, at any rate, was clear.
"Another wreck for Snug Harbour" the word was passed, as he stalked out of the room where the transaction had been completed. But they reckoned without their host. That afternoon the Viking was towed to Erie Basin, to be stripped for a coal barge. At almost the same hour, Captain Bradley disappeared from South Street. The shipping world never saw him again.
V
A tramp steamer, dirty and ill-kept about decks, streaked with iron-rust alongside, came up the bay from Sandy Hook and anchored off Quarantine. She had arrived from a long and wandering voyage. When the health officer had left the vessel, the captain called the second mate to the bridge. An old man stumbled up the steps.
"Mr. Bradley, get your things together and go ashore with me. I'll pay you off at once. You old trouble-maker, you're not going to stay aboard the ship an hour longer"
The old mate gazed at his superior officer in silence. Tears of anger rose to his eyes. He turned away to hide them, walking to the end of the bridge. His cup of bitterness was running over. Frank Bradley, commander on the high seas for forty years, discharged from a second mate's billet on a tramp steamer—discharged by an incompetent captain, because his incompetence had been found out. He shut his jaws grimly, recalling the scene of two days before. Out there in the fog he had refused to obey the captain's orders; had wrested the wheel from the hands of the quartermaster, had held them both off with threats of physical violence, while he steered the ship himself; and thus had kept her from running ashore on Diamond Shoal. The captain's orders had been completely wrong. He had probably said some sharp things about them; it had been no time for mincing words. Touch and go—but he had saved the ship—saved the captain's certificate, too.
He stood at the end of the bridge, staring down at the grey water. What should he do now? While he struggled with himself, his eyes rose slowly, resting on a hulk that lay at anchor close alongside, between the steamer and the hills of Staten Island. For a moment he regarded her with a dazed and absent concern, trying to fathom the significance of half-awakened sensations. Then, with a suddenness that stopped his throat, his heart gave a great leap of recognition. Neither coal dust nor dismantlement could hide those familiar lines. The Viking, his old ship, lay before him.