The men who had followed Captain O’Shea to this place were no longer so many vagabonds and failures struggling for survival. They had been welded together, in a way. They were an organization with something like esprit de corps and could be depended on to act as a unit. Such a feeling as this brings to life dead self-respect and shattered confidence. They knew not at all what the morrow might bring forth, but every one of them was anxious to play the man, to stand the test, to redeem himself in his own sight, to justify Captain O’Shea’s faith in him.
It was not a night to invite sleep. The adventurers felt the immense loneliness of this loathsome anchorage. It was unlike the populous China which they had hitherto known. One might believe, with the natives, that ghosts and demons had power to curse and blast a region in which some violation of the fung-shui, or sacred rites of wind and water, had angered the supernatural influences. The breeze died to a dead calm. The lifeless air reeked with the stenches from the mouth of the River of Ten Thousand Evil Smells.
It was drawing toward midnight when Mr. Kittridge came on deck and said to Captain O’Shea, who was sitting with a group of his men:
“I shall have to start the pumps, sir. The vessel is leakin’ much worse than when I first reported it.”
“Um-m, I was hoping we could lay her on a beach after we have finished our business up the river and calk her plates,” replied the master of the Whang Ho. “Is she making water faster than you can handle it, Mr. Kittridge?”
“She acts to me as if a plate dropped clean out of her a few minutes ago, sir. The pumps may help, but I have a notion that the whole rotten, blankety river is runnin’ into her.”
Captain O’Shea jumped below and was promptly convinced that the gloomy diagnosis of the chief engineer had a large basis of fact. The water was fairly rushing into the holds and gurgling over the ballast. Likely enough, the battering passage in from sea had sheared and wrenched away enough rusty rivets to weaken the junction of two or more plates, and they had been unable any longer to withstand the pressure. It really made no difference whether or not this theory was the correct one. The fact was that the venerable Whang Ho had suddenly decided to lay her bones in the mud with six fathoms of water above her keel. Mr. Kittridge pensively caressed his gray whiskers and remarked with a sigh:
“I mentioned the pumps from force of habit. It’s really ridiculous to stay below any longer, Captain. We gave the bloody old tub more than she could stand, and she’s peacefully chucked it up. She’s sinkin’ very quiet and decent, I’ll say that for her.”
“’Tis time we said good-by to her,” quoth O’Shea. “Draw your fires, if you can, Mr. Kittridge, and I will get the boats ready.”
“I do seem to find trouble wherever I go,” sadly murmured the chief engineer.