The Wrecking Master

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Dan felt a new thrill of surprise and alarm

"There are plenty of honest wreckers in the Bahamas," said the lad to himself, while his teeth chattered. "But they don't sail with 'Black Sam.' And he was alongside the Resolute at Nassau, talking to the cook. He'd know me again. It's a good thing I chucked up that idea of lying out of this. It's time for me to get under cover, all right."

Dan crept off the bridge along the windward side of the deck-house and kept well out of sight of the schooners until he reached the shelter of the funnel and the engine-room skylights. Then he slipped into the nearest door and made his way to the flight of ladders up which he had climbed in the morning. He had fled in a state of panic, but one glance down into the black hold made him draw back and take measures to provision himself against a long siege below. There was no need for great haste, and Dan delayed to equip himself with a lantern, matches, a jug of water, and a canvas bag, crammed with food, which he slung about his neck. Then he made his way below with lighted lantern, seeking to find as secure and comfortable a refuge as possible. The Bahama wreckers would begin to loot the part of the cargo easiest to get at and handle, he reasoned, and therefore he passed by the uppermost cargo deck and explored the region below, slowly making his way aft.

It was a dangerous and desperate journey, but Dan was thinking only of keeping out of the way of "Black Sam" until Captain Jim should come back and retake the ship which belonged to him.

"I'm what the lawyers call a vital document when they're arguing a salvage case in the Key West Court," thought Dan with a half-hearted grin. "And from all I've heard of 'Black Sam' Hurley, he'd chuck this vital document overboard if he thought it might interfere with his possession of the wreck."

In this game of hide-and-seek the advantage was with the lad in the hold, and fear of discovery by the wreckers did not greatly trouble him. After a long time he heard clamorous voices somewhere above and he doused his lantern. The wreckers seemed to be exploring the upper cargo decks. Some kind of a dispute arose and the sides of the ship flung back the echoes of it as from a great sounding board. Dan could not make out what the quarrel was about, but at length the sounds grew fainter as if the wreckers had returned to the outside world above.

Dan had felt a gush of cool wind from somewhere over his head and shifted his quarters to get beneath it and out of the reeking, stifling atmosphere of the hold. He knew it must come from a pipe running to one of the great bell-mouthed ventilators on deck and was glad that it had been turned so as to face and catch the invigorating breeze. He had not dreamed that the ventilator might serve as a speaking-tube. While he waited, however, to learn what the wreckers intended to do next, some one began to talk, and he heard every word distinctly. The voice sounded so near his ears that he was as startled as if a ghost had stepped out of the darkness. Dan jumped to his feet, his nerves all of a quiver. He would have fled anywhere to get away from this uncanny voice, but a stronger gust of wind struck his upturned face and the mysterious voice sounded even louder. He thought of the ventilator pipe, got a grip on himself, and scarcely breathed as he listened to the odd intonations of the Bahama negro speech. "Black Sam" was talking. Dan remembered the peculiar guttural cadence of his voice as he had heard it in Nassau harbor. He must have been standing directly in front of the ventilator on deck, for every word carried down the pipe to Dan:

"Ah don't care nuffin' 'bout de ship. We ain't got no tow-boats to pull her off. An' if we don't work quick an' soon them Key Westers'll be a-scatterin' down an' run us back home—you heah me? Take a big bag o' powdah an' blow de side outen her. Dat's what I say do. De cargo ports is all jammed fas'. We can't open 'em nohow. An' we ain't got no steam to hoist wid a donkey-engine. Blow de side outen her. She's hung fas' on de Reef. She ain't gwine sink. When we'se done loaded our schooners wid cargo we can strip the brasses in de engine-room. Blow her up. Ain't I wrecked plenty vessels? Don't I know?"

Dan heard one of the other wreckers rumble: "Sam knows bes'. Cut de fuse to burn ten minutes an' let us get back aboard our schooners. Hang de sack o' powder 'g'inst the ship's plates inside an' let her go. Reckon we'll blow a hole in her fit to run a tow-boat froo, Sam."