The Girl of the Golden Gate

by William Brown Meloney

With a thought of how sweet life must have been to this young fellow and with his wrath hot against his slayers, Lavelle stepped across the alleyway to the second and third mates' room. Its door opened at a touch. Here, strangely, the sour, unmistakable odor of the forecastle met him. Instantly the searcher visualized the coarse type of men who had occupied these quarters—the rule-of-thumb sort, who may spend a lifetime at sea without ever winning to a rank above second mate. Here disorder was not apparent because disorder was a natural thing.

There was a stateroom abaft the mate's. It was empty. A door immediately opposite had been forced. It was another stateroom filled with stores. It was plain that a quick draft had been made upon these supplies.

Darting into the forward cabin, only the echo of his own hail answered him. A red tablecloth lay on the deck where it had been swept by some person hurrying by or else in a struggle. A white metal castor rolled under the dining table and made a tinkling noise among its broken cruets. The pantry and three more staterooms opened upon this cabin. The staterooms reported only emptiness. They had not been recently occupied. The pantry's cleanliness and order might have been produced by a careful housewife's hands.

The doors leading into the after cabin were open and hooked back. Like the forward compartment, it was done in Indian teak, bird's-eye maple, and mahogany. It was furnished with two comfortable easy chairs, a small center table, and a divan built into the bulkhead against the starboard side. A tiny piano stood between the forward entrances. Through the after end a companionway led up on to the poop.

There were two more staterooms here. They were empty and gave no signs of recent occupancy. They were on the port side. To starboard was the chart room. A litter of books, charts, and chart pipes covered its floor. The chronometer case stood open. A glance told Paul that it had been wound within forty-eight hours. He bent his head and quickly caught a tick of even, smooth escapement.

Hurrying aft from the chart room, the castaway came to what he knew to be the skipper's room. The door to it was shut. Its middle panel was splintered. Something made him turn the knob with gentleness.

Just inside the door to the left a man in pajamas sat at a small writing desk, his head cast upon his arms as if sleep had suddenly overtaken him. His head swayed as Paul looked down at him. It was lending itself to the swing of the vessel, but the motion was so natural that, for the moment, Lavelle was deceived. A strange hope sprang into his heart.

"Wake up, old man! Wake up!" he called. He even shook him by the shoulder, but the man at the desk was sleeping a sleep that knows no mortal awakening.

Under the stiff arms Paul spied the log book which he had missed from the mate's room. He pulled it out and the dead man's head rolled back and compelled his disturber to meet the gaze of his wide-open, staring blue eyes. A pen rolled out from under his right hand and dropped from the desk.

This undoubtedly was the Daphne's skipper. He had been a man of powerful build, standing in life as tall as Lavelle himself. Even in the laxness of death his jaw bespoke indomitable determination. The nose was of a splendid aggressive type. Death had taken him in the beginning of his best years. He could not have been more than forty years of age.