During this entire period Mr. Reardon was going about his duties as usual, in absolute ignorance of the state of affairs about the ship, for he was an innocent, trustful sort of fellow, and to a born romanticist like Terence the fairy tale which Mr. Schultz had spun at breakfast the morning after leaving Pernambuco was not at all difficult of assimilation. It appeared—according to Mr. Schultz—that the skipper had gone ashore for a night of roystering, and upon returning to the ship about midnight, in a wild state of intoxication, had become involved in an altercation with the launchman over the fare. In the resultant battle the skipper, in his helpless condition, was being terribly beaten by the vicious Pernambucan; hence one could scarcely blame him for drawing a pistol and shooting the launchman—fatally, according to Mr. Schultz. Of course, after that, to have lingered longer inside the three-mile limit would have been sheer insanity, so Mr. Schultz, taking matters into his own hands, had uphooked and skipped with doused lights from the jurisdiction of the Pernambuco police.
“And how did the skipper come out of all this?” Mr. Reardon had inquired anxiously.
“He iss in rodden shape,” Mr. Schultz had declared. “Von of hiss angles vos brogen, und he vos cut mid a knive—preddy deeb, but noddings to worry aboud. Der only drouble iss der dooty of navigading der shib falls double on der segond mate und me.”
“Make him pay ye over-time out av his own wages, the wurthless vagabone!” Mr. Reardon had urged. “May he walk wit' a limp for the rest av his days—bad cess to him! I've a notion, Misther Schultz, that lad'll never comb his hair grey.”
Mr. Schultz nodded lugubriously; then he glanced up and caught the little cockney steward staring at him so balefully, that he realized he must have speech in private with the steward. Consequently he lingered at table until Mr. Reardon finished his breakfast and went below; whereupon Mr. Schultz intimated to the steward, in his direct blunt fashion, that for the remainder of the voyage, Riggins—for that was the steward's name—was to consider himself deaf, dumb and blind; the penalty for reconsideration within the hearing of Mr. Reardon being a swift and immediate excursion, personally conducted by Mr. Schultz, to Davy Jones's locker! Following this earnest exhortation, Riggins, never a robust person mentally or physically, came abruptly to the conclusion that this was one of those occasions where silence, if not exactly golden, was at least to be preferred to great riches.
CHAPTER XIII
IT may appear strange that during the days and nights Michael J. Murphy lay on his bed of pain Terence Reardon did not once pass the little open window of the skipper's state-room. Not, however, that the latter watched for him, for he did not. He believed that Reardon, like himself, was a prisoner; although, had the chief passed the window and had the captain observed his passing, the complacence of Herr von Staden and his patriotic company would have received a jar much earlier in the voyage.
Unfortunately, however, for Murphy's plans, the chief's stateroom was located in the after part of the house and on the side opposite the skipper's, and following their brief spat through the speaking-tube, Terence Reardon had confined himself exclusively to his engine-room and that portion of the ship along which he must of necessity pass when going to and from his state-room. He told himself it was the part of wisdom for one of his ferocious temper to avoid the occasions of sin. Certainly it would be hard to pass the skipper's state-room without looking in, particularly since in these warm latitudes the door would probably be open; for should the skipper be within at the time, they would peradventure scowl at each other, and he is a fool indeed who cannot foretell the future when a thousand generations of natural enemies exchange “the black look.” Terence remembered his boy Johnny, a youth who, according to Mrs. Reardon, should never be a marine engineer, but the finest lawyer that ever pouched a fat fee. And there was Mary Agnes and Catherine Bertram. Next year they would begin taking piano lessons, and in the fullness of time, no matter how hard the pull, both should go to the state university and acquire the education made to fit their father's head, but by force of circumstances denied him. And at the thought Terence looked at his hard black hands and set himself resolutely to face a life sentence of rattling ash hoists, roaring furnaces and the soft sucking sounds of the pistons. Two hundred dollars a month—and the union scale was a hundred and fifty! Ah, no, he dared not trifle with that job. He must, at all hazard, avoid friction with the skipper, for what would Mrs. Reardon say if Cappy Ricks forced him to roll the bones with Mike Murphy—one flop and high man out? Mr. Reardon could close his eyes and see Mike Murphy roll out a “stiff,” while with trembling hand the Reardon rolled five sixes!