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Incorrect page numbers in the Table of Contents have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained from the original.

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THE
CHIEF MATE'S YARNS

TWELVE TALES OF THE SEA

BY

CAPT. MAYN CLEW GARNETT

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERSNEW YORK

Copyright, 1911, 1912, by
STREET & SMITH
Copyright, 1912, by
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

The White Ghost of Disaster

CONTENTS

THE WHITE GHOST OF DISASTER

We had been sitting in at the game for more than an hour, and no life had entered it. The thoughts of all composing that little group of five in the most secluded corner of the ship's smoking room were certainly not on the game, and three aces lay down to fours up.

The morose and listless ship's officer out of a berth, although he spoke little—if at all—seemed to put a spell of uneasiness and unrest on the party. The others did not know him or his history; but his looks spelled disaster and misfortune.

At last Charlie Spangler, the noted journalist, keen for a story or two, threw down his cards, exclaiming: "Let's quit. None of us is less uneasy than the rest of the ship's passengers."

"Yes," chimed in Arthur Linch, the noted stock-broker. "We have endeavored to banish the all-pervading thought, 'will the ship arrive safely without being wrecked,' and have failed miserably. Cards will not do it." This seemed to express the sentiments of everybody except the morose mariner, whose thoughts nobody could read or fathom. He sat there, deep in his chair, gazing at a scene or scenes none of us could see or appreciate.

"Well! Since we cannot take our thoughts off 'shipwreck,' we may as well discuss the subject and ease our minds," added the journalist again, still hot on the scent of the possible story which he felt that the ship's officer hoarded.

The mariner, however, did not respond to this, and continued with his memories, apparently oblivious of our presence.

Under the leadership of the journalist the discussion waxed warm for some time, until the stock-broker, ever solicitous for the welfare of the stock-market and conforming his opinions thereto, exclaimed loudly: "The officers and the crew were not responsible for the collision with the berg. It was an 'act of God!' and as such we are daily taking chances with it. What will be, will be. We cannot escape Destiny!"

"Destiny be damned!" came like a thunderbolt from the heretofore silent mariner, and we all looked to see the face now full of rage and passion. "What do you know of the sea, you land pirate? What do you know of sea dangers and responsibility for the safety of human lives? Man! you're crazy. There is no such thing as Destiny at sea. A seaman knows what to expect when he takes chances. If you call that an 'act of God,' you deserve to have been there and submitted to it."

The face of Charlie Spangler was glowing. His heart beat so fast when he heard this sea clam open up, that he was afraid it might overwork and stop. "Our friend is right!" he exclaimed. "I infer that he speaks from knowledge and experience. We are hardly qualified to discuss such matters properly.

"You have something on your mind, friend. Unburden it to us. We are sympathetic, you know. Our position here makes us so," saying which, Spangler filled the mariner's half-empty glass and looked at him with sympathy streaming out of his trained eyes. We all nodded our assent.

Having fortified himself with the contents of the glass before him, the mariner spoke: "Yes, gentlemen, I am going to speak from knowledge and experience. It was my luck to be aboard of the vessel which had the shortest of lives, but which will live in the memory of man for many a year.

"It is my misfortune to be one of its surviving officers. I am going to give you the facts as they happened this last time, and a few other times besides. It is the experiences through which I have passed that make me wish I had gone down with the last one. I must now live on with memories, indelibly stamped on my brain, which I would gladly forget. Your attention, gentlemen—"

Captain Brownson came upon the bridge. It was early morning, and the liner was tearing through a smooth sea in about forty-three north latitude. The sun had not yet risen, but the gray of the coming daylight showed a heaving swell that rolled with the steadiness that told of a long stretch of calm water behind it. The men of the morning watch showed their pale faces white with that peculiar pallor which comes from the loss of the healthful sleep between midnight and morning. It was the second mate's watch, and that officer greeted the commander as he came to the bridge rail where the mate stood staring into the gray ahead.

"See anything?" asked the master curtly.

"No, sir—but I smell it—feel it," said the mate, without turning his head.

"What?" asked Brownson.

"Don't you feel it?—the chill, the—well, it's ice, sir—ice, if I know anything."

"Ice?" snarled the captain. "You're crazy! What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, very well—you asked me—I told you—that's all."

The captain snorted. He disliked the second officer exceedingly. Mr. Smith had been sent him by the company at the request of the manager of the London office. He had always picked his own men, and he resented the office picking them for him. Besides, he had a nephew, a passenger aboard, who was an officer out of a berth.

"What the devil do they know of a man, anyhow! I'm the one responsible for him. I'm the one, then, to choose him. They won't let me shift blame if anything happens, and yet they sent me a man I know nothing of except that he is young and strong. I'll wake him up some if he stays here." So he had commented to Mr. Wylie, the chief mate. Mr. Wylie had listened, thought over the matter, and nodded his head sagely.

"Sure," he vouchsafed; "sure thing." That was as much as any one ever got out of Wylie. He was not a talkative mate. Yet when he knew Smith better, he retailed the master's conversation to him during a spell of generosity engendered by the donation of a few highballs by Macdowell, the chief engineer. Smith thanked him—and went his way as before, trying to do the best he could. He did not shirk duty on that account. Wylie insisted that the captain was right. A master was responsible, and it was always customary for him to pick his men as far as possible. Besides, as Wylie had learned from Macdowell, Brownson had a nephew in view that would have filled the berth about right—so Wylie thought—and Smith was a nuisance. Smith had taken it all in good part, and smiled. He liked Wylie.

Brownson sniffed the air hungrily as he stood there at the bridge rail. The air was chilly, but it was always chilly in that latitude even in summer.

"How does she head?" he asked savagely of the man at the steam-steering gear. The man spoke through the pilot-house window in a monotone:

"West—three degrees south, sir."

"That's west—one south by standard?" snapped Brownson.

"Yes, sir," said Smith.

"Let her go west—two south by binnacle—and mark the time accurately," ordered Brownson.

He would shift her a bit. The cool air seemed to come from the northward. It was as if a door in an ice box were suddenly opened and the cold air within let out in a cold, damp mass. A thin haze covered the sea. The side wash rolled away noisily, and disappeared into the mist a few fathoms from the ship's side. It seemed to thicken as the minutes passed.

Brownson was nervous. He went inside the pilot house and spoke to the engineer through the tube leading to the engine room.

"How is she going?"

"Two hundred and ten, sir; never less than two and five the watch."

"Well, she's going too almighty fast—shut her down to one hundred," snapped Brownson. "She's been doing twenty-two knots—it's too fast—too fast, anyhow, in this weather. Ten knots will do until the sun scoffs off this mist. Shut her down."

The slowing engines eased their vibrations, and the side wash rolled less noisily. There was a strange stillness over the sea. The silence grew as the headway subsided.

The captain listened intently. He felt something.

There is always that strange something that a seaman feels in the presence of great danger when awake. It has never been explained. But all good—really good—masters have felt it; can tell you of it if they will. It is uncanny, but it is as true as gospel. The second officer had felt it in the air, felt it in his nerves. He felt—ice. It was danger.

Smith stood there watching the haze that seemed to deepen rather than disperse as the morning grew. The men turned out and the hose was started, the decks were sluiced down, and the gang with the squeegees followed. Two bells struck—five o'clock. Smith strained his gaze straight into the haze ahead. He fixed and refixed his glasses—a pair of powerful lenses of fifteen lines. He had bought them for fifty dollars, and always kept them near him while on watch.

A man came up the bridge steps.

"Shall I send up your coffee, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, send it up," said Smith, in a whisper. He was listening.

Something sounded out there in the haze. It was a strange, vibrating sound, a sort of whispering murmur, soft and low, like the far-away notes of a harp. Then it ceased. Smith looked at the captain who stood within the pilot-house window gazing down at the men at work on the deck below. The noise of the rushing water from the hose and their low tones seemed to annoy him. They wore rubber boots, and their footsteps were silent; but he gruffly ordered the bos'n to make them "shut up."

"Better slow her down, sir—there's ice somewhere about here," said the second mate anxiously. He was thinking of the thousand and more souls below and the millions in cargo values.

"Who's running this ship—me or you?" snarled Brownson savagely.

It was an unnecessary remark, wholly uncalled for. Smith flushed under his tan and pallor. He had seldom been spoken to like that. He would have to stand it; but he would hunt a new ship as soon as he came ashore again. It was bad enough to be treated like a boy; but to be talked to that way before the men made it impossible, absolutely impossible. It meant the end of discipline at once. A man would retail it, more would repeat it, and—then—Smith turned away from the bridge rail in utter disgust. He was furious.

"Blast the ship!" he muttered, as he turned away and gazed aft. His interest was over, entirely over. He would not have heard a gun fired at that moment, so furious was the passion at the unmerited insolence from his commander.

And then, as if to give insult to injury, Brownson called down the tube:

"Full speed ahead—give her all she'll do—I'm tired of loafing around here all the morning." Then he rang up the telegraph, and the sudden vibrations told of a giant let loose below.

The Admiral started ahead slowly. She was a giant liner, a ship of eight hundred feet in length. It took some moments to get headway upon that vast hull. But she started, and in a few minutes the snoring of the bow wave told of a tearing speed. She was doing twenty-two and a half knots an hour, or more than twenty-five miles, the speed of a train of cars.

The under steward came up the bridge steps with the coffee. Smith took his cup and drank it greedily, almost savagely. He was much hurt. His feelings had been roughly handled. Yet he had not even answered the captain back. He took his place at the bridge rail and gazed straight ahead into the gray mist. He saw nothing, felt nothing, but the pain of his insult.

"Let him run the ship to hell and back," he said to himself.

There was a puff of colder air than usual. A chill as of death itself came floating over the silent ocean. A man on lookout stood staring straight into the mist ahead, and then sang out:

"Something right ahead, sir," he yelled in a voice that carried like the roar of a gun.

Brownson just seized the lever shutting the compartments, swung it, jammed it hard over, and screamed:

"Stop her—stop her—hard over your wheel—hard over——"

His voice ended in a vibrating screech that sounded wild, weird, uncanny in that awful silence. A hundred men stopped in their stride, or work, paralyzed at the tones coming from the bridge.

And then came the impact.

With a grinding, smashing roar as of thousands of tons coming together, the huge liner plunged headlong into the iceberg that rose grim and silent right ahead, towering over her in spite of her great height. The shock was terrific, and the grinding, thundering crash of falling tons of ice, coupled with the rending of steel plates and solid planks, made chaos of all sound.

The Admiral bit in, dug, plowed, kept on going, going, and the whole forward part of her almost disappeared into the wall of white. A thousand tons of huge flakes slammed and slid down her decks, burying her to the fore hatch in the smother. A thousand tons more crashed, slid, and plunged down the slopes of the icy mountain and hurled themselves into the sea with giant splashes, sending torrents of water as high as the bridge rail. The men who had been forward were swept away by the avalanche. Many were never seen again. And then, with reversed engines, she finally came to a dead stop, with her bows jammed a hundred feet deep in the ice wall of the berg.

After that it was panic. All discipline seemed to end in the shock and struggle. Brownson howled and stormed from the bridge, and Smith shouted orders and sprang down to enforce them. The chief mate came on deck in his underclothes and passed the word to man the boats. A thousand passengers jammed the companionway and strove with panic and inhuman fury to reach the deck.

One man clad in a night robe gained the outside of the press, and, running swiftly along the deck, flitted like a ghost over the rail, and disappeared into the sea. He had gone crazy, violently insane in the panic.

Brownson tied down the siren cord, and the roar shook the atmosphere. The tremendous tones rose above the din of screaming men and cursing seamen; and then the master called down to the heart of the ship, the engine room.

"Is she going?" he asked.

"Water coming in like through a tunnel," came the response. "Nearly up to the grates now——"

That was all. The man left the tube to rush on deck, and the captain knew the forward bulkheads had gone; had either jammed or burst under that terrific impact. The ship was going down.

Brownson stood upon the bridge and gazed down at the human tide below him. Men fought furiously for places in the small boats. The fireroom crew came on deck and mingled with the passengers. The coal dust showed upon their white faces, making them seem strange beings from an inferno that was soon to be abolished. They strove for places in the lifeboats and hurled the weaker passengers about recklessly. Some, on the other hand, helped the women. One man dragged two women with him into a boat, kicking, twisting, and roaring like a lion. He was a big fellow with a red beard, and Brownson watched him. The mate struck him over the head with a hand spike for refusing to get out of the boat, and his interest in things ended at once and forever.

The crew, on the whole, behaved well. Officers and men tried to keep some sort of discipline. Finally six boats went down alongside into the sea, and were promptly swarmed by the crowds above, who either slid down the falls or jumped overboard and climbed in from the sides. The sea was as still as a lake; only the slight swell heaved it. Great fields of floating particles of ice from the berg floated about, and those who were drenched in the spray shivered with the cold.

The Admiral, running at twenty-two knots an hour, had struck straight into the wall of an iceberg that reached as far as the eye could see in the haze. It towered at least three hundred feet in the air, showing that its depth was colossal, probably at least half a mile. It was a giant ice mountain that had broken adrift from its northern home, and, drifting southward, had survived the heat of summer and the breaking of the sea upon its base.

Smith had felt its dread presence, felt its proximity long before he had come to close quarters. The chill in the air, the peculiar feeling of danger, the icy breath of death—all had told him of a danger that was near. And yet Brownson had scoffed at him, railed at his intuition and sense. Upon the captain the whole blame of the disaster must fall if Smith told.

The second officer almost smiled as he struggled with his boat.

"The pig-headed fool!" he muttered between his set teeth. "The murdering monster—he's done it now! He's killed himself, and a thousand people along with him——"

Smith fought savagely for the discipline of his boat. His men had rushed to their stations at the first call. The deck was beginning to slant dangerously as the falls were slacked off and the lifeboat lowered into the sea. Smith stood in the press about him and grew strangely calm. The action was good for him, good for the burning fury that had warped him, scorched him like a hot blast while he had stood silently upon the bridge and taken the insults of his commander. Women pleaded with him for places in the boat. Men begged and took hold of him. One lady, half clothed, dropped upon her knees and, holding his hand, which hung at his side, prayed to him as if he were a deity, a being to whom all should defer. He flung her off savagely.

Bareheaded now, coatless, and with his shirt ripped, he stood there, and saw his men pass down sixteen women into his craft; pass them down without comment or favor, age or condition. Thirty souls went into his boat before he sprang into the falls and slid down himself. A dozen men tried to follow him, but he shoved off, and they went into the sea. His men got their oars out and rowed off a short distance.

Muttering, praying, and crying, the passengers in his boat huddled themselves in her bottom. He spoke savagely to them, ordered them under pain of death to sit down. One man, who shivered as he spoke, insisted upon crawling about and shifting his position. Smith struck him over the head, knocking him senseless. Another, a woman, must stand upon the thwarts, to get as far away as possible from the dread and icy element about her. He swung his fist upon her jaw, and she went whimpering down into the boat's bottom, lying there and sobbing softly.

Furiously swearing at the herd of helpless passengers who endangered his boat at every movement, he swung the craft's head about and stood gazing at his ship. After a little while the crowd became more manageable, and he saw he could keep them aboard without the certainty of upsetting the craft He had just been debating which of them he would throw overboard to save the rest; save them from their own struggling and fighting for their own selfish ends. He was as cold as steel, hard, inflexible. His men knew him for a ship's officer who would maintain his place under all hazards, and they watched him furtively, and were ready to obey him to the end without question.

"Oh, the monster, the murdering monster!" he muttered again and again.

His eyes were fixed upon the bridge. High up there stood Brownson—the captain who had sent his liner to her death, with hundreds of passengers.

Brownson stood calmly watching the press gain and lose places in the boats. Two boats actually overloaded rolled over under the immense load of human freight. The others did not stop to pick them up. They had enough to do to save themselves. The ship was sinking. That was certain. She must have struck so hard that even the 'midship bulkheads gave way, or were so twisted out of place that the doors failed. The chief engineer came below him and glanced up.

As he did so, a tremendous, roaring blast of steam blew the superstructure upward. The boilers had gone. Macdowell just gave Brownson a look. That was all. Then he rushed for a boat.

Brownson grinned; actually smiled at him.

The man at the wheel asked permission to go.

"I'm a married man, sir—it's no use of me staying here any longer," he ventured.

"Go—go to the devil!" said Brownson, without interest. The man fled.

Brownson stopped giving any more orders. In silence he gazed down at the press of human beings, watching, debating within himself the chances they had of getting away from that scene of death and horror.

The decks grew more and more steep. The liner was settling by the head and to starboard. She was even now twisting, rolling over; and the motion brought down thousands of blocks of ice from the berg. The engines had long since stopped. She still held her head against the ice wall; but it would give her no support. She was slipping away—down to her grave below.

Brownson gazed back over the decks. He watched the crowd impersonally, and it seemed strange to him that so much valuable fabric should go to the bottom so quickly. The paint was so clean and bright, the brass was so shiny. The whole structure was so thoroughly clean, neat, and in proper order. It was absurd. There he was standing upon that bridge where he had stood so often, and here below him were hundreds of dying people—people like rats in a trap.

"Good Heaven—is it real?"

He was sure he was not awake. It must be a dream. Then the terrible knowledge came back upon him like a stroke; a blow that stopped his heart. It was the death of his ship he was watching—the death of his ship and of many of his passengers. Suddenly Brownson saw the boat of the second mate, and that officer standing looking up at him.

The master thought he saw the officer's lips move. He wondered what the man thought, what he would say. He had insulted the officer, made him a clown before the men. He knew the second mate would not spare him. He knew the second mate would testify that he had given warning of ice ten minutes before they struck. He also knew that the man at the wheel had heard him, as had the steward who brought up the coffee, and one or two others who were near.

No, there must be no investigation of his, Brownson's, blame in the matter. The master dared not face that. He looked vacantly at Smith. The officer stood gazing straight at him.

The liner suddenly shifted, leaned to starboard, heeled far over, and her bows slipped from the berg, sinking down clear to her decks, clear down until the seas washed to the foot of her superstructure just below Brownson. Masses of ice fell from her into the sea. The grinding, splashing noise awoke the panic again among the remaining passengers and crew. They strove with maniac fury to get the rafts and other stuff that might float over the side. Two boats drew away full to the gunwales with people. The air below began to make that peculiar whistling sound that tells of pressure—pressure upon the vitals of the ship. She was going down.

Brownson still stood gazing at his second mate.

Smith met the master's eye with a steady look. Then he suddenly forgot himself and raised his hand.

"Oh, you murdering rat, you cowardly scoundrel, you devil!" he roared out.

Brownson saw the movement of the hand, saw that it was vindictive, furious, and full of menace. He could not hear the words.

He smiled at the officer, raised his hand, and waved it in reply. It seemed to make the mate crazy. He gesticulated wildly, swore like a maniac—but Brownson did not hear him. He only knew what he was doing.

He turned away, gave one more look over the sinking ship.

"She's going now—and so am I," he muttered.

Then he went slowly into his chart room, opened a drawer, and took out a revolver that he always kept there. He stood at the open door and cocked the weapon. He looked into its muzzle, and saw the bullet that would end his life when he pulled the trigger.

He almost shuddered. It was so unreal. He could not quite do it. He gazed again at the second mate. He knew the officer was watching him, knew Smith would not believe he had the nerve to end the thing then and there. It amused him slightly in a grim sort of way. Why, he must die. That was certain. He could never face his own family and friends after what he had done. As to getting another ship—that was too absurd to think of.

The form of a woman showed in the boat. She had risen from the bottom, where the blow of the officer had felled her in her frenzy. Brownson saw her, recognized her as his niece, the sister of the man he had wished to put in Smith's place. It was for his own nephew he had insulted his officer, had caused him to relax and lose the interest that made navigation safe, in the hope that Smith would leave and let his relative get the berth.

He wondered if Smith knew. He stood there with the revolver in his hand watching for some sign from his second officer. Smith gazed at him in fury, apparently not noticing the girl whom he had just before knocked into the boat's bottom to keep order. She stood up. Smith roughly pushed her down again. Brownson was sure now—he felt that Smith knew all.

But he put the revolver in his pocket. He would not fire yet.

The ship was listing heavily, and the cries of the passengers were dying out. All who had been able to get away had gone, somehow, and only a few desperate men and women, who could not swim and who were cool enough to realize that swimming would but prolong an agony that was better over quickly, huddled aft at the taffrail. They would take the last second left them, the last instant of life, and suffer a thousand deaths every second to get it. It was absurd. Brownson pitied them.

Many of these women were praying and talking to their men, who held them in a last embrace. One young woman was clinging closely to a young man, and they were apparently not suffering terror. A look of peacefulness was upon the faces of both. They were lovers, and were satisfied to die together; and the thought of it made them satisfied. Brownson wondered at this. They were young enough and strong enough to make a fight for life.

A whistling roar, arose above all other sounds. The siren had ceased, and Brownson knew the air was rushing from below. The ship would drop in a moment. He grasped the pistol again. He dreaded that last plunge, that drop into the void below. The thought held him a little. The ocean was always so blue out there, so clear and apparently bottomless, a great void of water. He wondered at the depth, what kind of a dark bed would receive that giant fabric, the work of so many human hands. And then he wondered at his own end there. His own end? What nonsense! It was unreal. Death was always for others. It had never been for him. He had seen men die. It was not for him yet. He would not believe it. He would awaken soon, and the steward would bring him his coffee.

Then he caught the eye of Smith again in that boat waiting for the end out there. His heart gave an immense jolt, began beating wildly. The ship heeled more and more. The ice crashed and plunged from her forward. Brownson was awakening to the real at last. He felt it in those extra heartbeats; knew he must hurry it. Then he wondered what the papers would say; whether they would call him a coward, afraid to face the inevitable. He hoped they would not. But, then, what difference would it all make, anyhow—to him? He was dead. His interest was over. What difference would it make whether he was a coward or not? Men knew him for what he was, but he existed no longer. He was dead.

While he stood there with these thoughts in his mind, his nerve half lacking to end the thing, it seemed to him it was lasting for an eternity. He was growing tired of it all. He turned away again and entered the chart room.

His cat crawled from somewhere and rubbed its tail and side against his leg. Then the animal jumped to the table, and he stroked it; actually stroked it while Smith watched him, and swore at him for a cold-blooded scoundrel.

The ship sank to her superstructure. Her stern rose high in the air. It was now impossible to stand on deck without holding on. Some of the remaining passengers slid off with parting shrieks. They dropped into that icy sea.

Brownson felt the end coming now, and turned again to the doorway, looking straight at his second mate. Smith was trying to quell the movement among his crowd which was endangering his boat again.

The captain clutched the door jamb and watched. Then the ship began to sink. He could not make up his mind to jump clear. There was Smith looking at him. He dared not be saved when hundreds were being killed. No, he could not make that jump and swim to a boat under that officer's gaze. And yet at the last moment he was about to try it. Panic was upon him in a way that he hardly realized. He simply could not face the black gulf he was dropping into with his health and full physical powers still with him. It was nature to make a last effort for his life. Then, before he could make the jump overboard, he saw Smith again shaking his hand at him and howling curses.

He pulled the pistol. An ashy whiteness came over his face. Smith saw it. He stopped swearing; stopped in his furious denunciation of the man who had caused so much destruction. He also saw the pistol plainly, and wondered at the captain's nerve.

"You are afraid, you dog—you are afraid—you daren't do it, you murdering rat!" he yelled.

The men in the boat were all gazing up at the chart-house door where the form of their commander stood.

"He's going to shoot, sir," said the stroke oarsman.

"He's afraid—he won't dare!" howled Smith.

Brownson seemed to hear now. The silence was coming again, and the sounds on the sinking ship were dying out.

Brownson gazed straight at his second officer. Smith saw him raise the pistol, saw a bit of blue smoke, saw his commander sink down to the deck and disappear. A cracking and banging of ice blocks blended with the report, and the ship raised her stern higher. Then she plunged straight downward, straight as a plummet for the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Smith knew his captain had gone to his end; that he was a dead man at last.

He stood watching the mighty swirl where the liner had gone under. The men in his boat were also looking. They had seen all.

"Look—look!" shrieked a passenger. "The captain has shot himself!"

"She's gone—gone for good!" cried another. "Oh, the pity of it all!"

Smith did not reply. He was still gazing at the apparition he had seen in that chart-house door; the figure of the man shooting himself through the head. It had chilled his anger, staggered him. The awful nerve of it all, the horror——

"Hadn't we better see if we can get one or two more in her, sir?" asked the stroke oarsman. "I see a woman swimming there."

Smith did not answer. He seemed not to hear. Then he suddenly awoke to his surroundings. He was alive to the occasion, the desperate situation.

"Give way port—ease starboard—swing her out of that swirl—hard on that port oar," he ordered.

Smith looked around for the other boats. The chief mate's was in sight, showing dimly through the haze. She was full of people, crowded, and it was a wonder how she floated with the screaming, panic-stricken passengers, who fought for places in her in spite of Wylie's oaths and entreaties. Smith glared.

"The fools!" he muttered. "If they would only think of something besides their own hides for a second. But they won't. They never do. It's nature, and when the trouble comes they fight like cats."

He steered away from what he saw was trouble. He would not pick up the participants in the scuffle when they overturned the boat. He was full up now, carrying all his boat would hold. She rocked dangerously with every shifting of the crowd, that still trembled and scuffled for more comfort in her. Her gunwales were only a few inches above the sea, and it might come on to blow at any minute.

"Sit down!" he roared to the old man, who would shift and squirm about in the boat, interfering with the stroke oarsman, who jammed his oar into the small of the fellow's back, regardless of the pain it caused.

"Sit down or I'll throw you overboard! Do you hear?"

The old man whimpered and struggled for a more comfortable position; and Smith reached over with the tiller and slammed him heavily across the shoulders, knocking him over.

"If you get up again I'll kill you, you cowardly old nuisance!" he said savagely.

The old man lay quiet and trembling. A young woman upbraided Smith for brutality and talked volubly.

"Talk, you little fool!" he said. "Talk all you want to, but don't you get moving about in this boat, or I'll break your pretty neck."

"You are a monster," said the girl.

"Yes; but if I'd had my way, you would have been safe and sound below in your room instead of out here in this ice," snapped Smith.

The girl quieted down, and then spoke to the young woman, who lay in the bottom of the boat where she had fallen when Smith struck her down. She was the niece of Captain Brownson.

"I never heard of such utter brutality in my life," she said.

Miss Billings, who had first found fault, agreed with her.

"Was your brother aboard, Miss Roberts?" asked Smith.

"Yes, he was—I think he went in the mate's boat—why do you ask?"

"Oh, I was just thinking—that's all. He would have been second officer next voyage. That seemed to be fixed, didn't it?"

"Yes; and if it had, this thing would not have happened," said the girl.

"No; probably it would not," said the second officer sadly. He spoke, for the first time, with less passion. He thought of the manner they had taken to get his berth, the insults, the infamy of the whole thing.

"No; I don't suppose you knew how it was done," said he, half aloud.

The girl sat up. She had stopped whimpering from the blow.

Smith watched her for a few minutes while he swung the boat's head for the gray mist ahead where he knew lay the iceberg. He thought the face pretty, the figure well rounded and perfectly shaped. He felt sorry he had used such harshness in making her behave in the boat. But there was no time for silly sentiment. That boat must be manned properly and kept afloat, and the slapping of a girl was nothing at all. She might start a sudden movement and endanger the lives of all. Absolute trimming of the craft was the only way she could be safe to carry the immense load. The men rowed slowly and apparently without object. Smith headed the boat for the ice.

A long wall of peculiar pale blueness suddenly burst from the haze close to them. It was the iceberg. He swung the boat so that she would not strike it, and followed along the ragged side.

The two young women gazed up at the pale blueness caused by the fresh water in the ice. It was a beautiful sight. The pinnacles were sharp as needles, and they pierced the mist in white points, tapering down to the white-and-blue sheen at the base, where the ocean roared and surged in a deep-toned murmur. Great pieces broke from the mass while they gazed. Smith steered out and sheered the boat's head away from the dangerous wall. It was grand but deadly. A large block lay right ahead.

"Ease starboard," he said.

The craft swung clear. The mist from the cold ocean thinned a little. Right ahead was a flat plateau, a raised field of ice joining the berg. It sloped down suddenly to the sea, and the swell broke upon it as upon a rocky shore. A long, flat floe stretched away from the higher part. It was a field of at least a half mile in length. The huge berg reached a full half mile further. The whole was evidently broken from some giant glacier in the Arctic.

Smith debated his chances within himself. He scorned to ask his men, for he had seen much ice before in his seagoing. To remain near the berg was to miss a ship possibly; but to row far off was to miss fresh water. He had come away without either food or water, owing to the furious panic. He knew very well that, within a few hours at most, the famished folk in his boat would rave for a drink. They must have water, at least, even if they must do without food.

The iceberg lay right in the path of ships, as his own had proved, the liner running upon the great circle from New York to Liverpool. There was the certainty of meeting, or of at least coming close to a vessel shortly, for others of his line would run the same circle, the same course, as he had run it before.

With giant liners going at twenty-five knots speed, they usually kept pretty close to the same line, for there were few currents that were not accurately known over that route. The Gulf Stream was a fixed unit almost; and in calm weather other ships would certainly reckon with accuracy to meet its set. If he rowed far off the line, then he might or might not meet a ship. If he did not, then there would soon be death and terror in that boat.

He decided to keep close to the berg, and ordered his men to give way slowly while he navigated the field and skirted it, keeping just far enough out to avoid the dangerous breaks and floating pieces.

The morning wore away, and the occupants of his boat began to grow restless. They had been cramped up for several hours now, and they were not used to sitting in a cold, open boat in a thick, misty haze without food or water. The old man began to complain. Several women began to ask for water. One woman with three children begged him to go ashore and get them a piece of ice to allay their thirst. Smith saw that the effects of the wild excitement were now being felt, and the inevitable thirst that must follow was at hand.

He headed the boat for a low part of the field.

"Easy on your oars," he commanded. The boat slid gently upon the sloping ice.

"Jump out, Sam," he said to the bow oarsman. "Jump out and take the painter with you." The man did so, hauling the line far up the floe.

One by one the rest were allowed to climb out of the boat. They gathered upon a part of the field that rose a full ten feet above the sea; and there they began trying to get small pieces of ice to eat. It was as salt as the sea itself, and they were disappointed, spitting it out. Smith took a man along with him and started for the berg. The boat was left in charge of four men, who held her off the floe.

Within half an hour, the whole crowd had managed to get fresh-water ice. The second officer kept them close to the boat and watched for any signs of change in the weather. They were allowed to go a short distance and get the stiffness from their limbs by exercise.

"I am very tired and cold. Can I get back into the boat?" asked Miss Roberts, after she had been stamping her feet upon the floe for half an hour.

Smith looked at her. The print of his hand was plainly marked upon her face. He felt ashamed.

"Yes, you can go aboard," he said; and then, as if in apology for what he had done, he explained: "You must keep quiet in that boat, you know. You must not try to walk about, for it endangers the whole crowd. You understand, don't you?"

"Yes, I'll try and keep still, but my feet get so cold and I grow so stiff."

"Well, you must forgive me for having used you roughly. I had to do it. There was no time for politeness in that panic." He came close to her. His eyes held a light she feared greatly, and she shrank back.

"I hope it is not a time now for politeness," she said, with meaning.

"Oh, I wouldn't hurt you," said Smith.

"I hope not," said the girl.

Miss Billings asked if she could go aboard also. Smith allowed her, and called the boat in.

The two girls climbed into the boat, and the older women commented spiritedly upon the favors of youth. Smith shut them up with an oath. The woman with the three children huddled them back aboard as the ice caused them to shiver with the cold on their little feet. They had neglected to put on their shoes. The women, for the most part, were only half dressed, and few, if any, had on shoes. They had rushed on deck at the first alarm, and the time allowed for dressing was short. The ship had gone down within fifteen minutes from the first impact with the berg.

Smith walked to and fro upon the ice for some time. The sun shone for a few moments, but was quickly hidden again in the haze.

A gentle breeze began to blow from the southward, and the haze broke up a little. Smith began to get nervous about the ice, and finally ordered all his people back into the boat, where they huddled and shivered, hungry but no longer thirsty.

During all these hours there had been no further sign of the other boats. Smith knew that at least ten of them had gone clear of the sinking ship. The chief mate's boat was the one he was most interested in at present. He wanted to see the man who had indirectly caused the disaster; the man whom Brownson was playing up for the berth of second officer. The thing was a reality now since the tragedy. Before it, he had looked upon the matter as slight indeed.

The second mate headed his boat out and kept clear of the drifting ice; but always under the lee of the berg, which offered considerable shelter from both wind and sea, which were rising. The danger of floating ice was not great during daylight, and he swung the small boat close and rode easily, keeping her dry and clear of water. He dreaded the plunging he must inevitably undergo in the open ocean with that load of women.

With the increasing breeze, the haze lifted entirely until the horizon showed clear all around. There was no sign of the other boats. Smith knew then that they had steered off to the southward to avoid the ice. As the sea began to grow, the masses of ice broke adrift with distinct and loud reports, the plunging pieces from the higher parts making considerable noise above the deepening roar of the surge upon the base.

At three in the afternoon, Smith began to feel nervous. The ice was breaking up fast, and immense pieces were floating in the sea which bore them toward him. They grew more and more dangerous to the small craft, and the officer headed away from the vicinity and sought the open at last.

By five that afternoon, when the light was fading, he was riding a heavy sea, that grew rapidly and rolled quickly, the combers breaking badly and keeping two men busy bailing the boat. She made water fast.

The night came on with all its terrors, and the small boat was in great danger. Smith tried his best to keep her headed to the sea, which was now running high and strong. His men began to weaken under the continuous strain; and by ten that night they could no longer hold the boat's head to the sea. She fell off once or twice, and nearly filled when in the trough. There was little to do but make a last effort to hold her. The steady second officer came to his last resource.

There were five oars in the boat. Four of these he lashed into a drag by fastening two of them in the shape of a cross, and then lashing the other two across the end of the cross. He had a spare line of some length in the boat; and with this bent to the painter, he had a cable of at least twenty fathoms, which he led over the bows and to the drag. The drag was weighted with some chain that lay forward. The fifth oar he kept aboard, and used it himself for a sweep to hold her head as nearly as possible behind the drag and to the sea.

He was tired, sore, and hungry, but he kept the boat's head true for hours, and his people huddled down in the bottom, and prayed or swore as the humor took them. The children wept, and some of the older women fainted and lay prone. These gave no trouble. Some of the younger ones still insisted on moving about, and brought the wrath of the mate upon them in no uncertain manner. Smith was making a fight for their lives, and would not tolerate any hysteria. He smote all who disobeyed with his usual impersonal and rough manner; but the two girls were now too much cowed to give him trouble. They lay in the boat's bottom and wept and sobbed the night long, holding to each other, while the boat tossed high in the air or fell far down the slopes of ugly seas. And all the time the water broke over her low gunwales as she sat well down under her load of living freight.

It was about midnight when the old man, who had been unruly from the first, sprang upon a thwart and plunged over the side with a shrill scream.

Smith saw him, and made, a pass to catch him with the oar; but the old fellow drifted out of reach. The second officer swung the boat as far as possible toward him; but still he could not reach the figure that showed floating for a few moments in the darkness. Then Miss Roberts, who was close to the stern sheets, spoke up.

"Oh, the pity of it, the pity of that old man dying like this! Will no one save him?" she cried.

Her companion sat up.

"There's no one aboard here who can do anything but bully us women. If we had a man here, we might save him. I would jump after him myself, but I can't swim. It's horrible to see him drown right alongside of us in this darkness."

Smith heard and smiled grimly. He was tired out, sore, and almost exhausted, but he was full of pluck and fight still. To drop the steering oar might prove fatal if a comber struck the boat. He called to the stroke oarsman who took the oar. Smith took the stern line, gave a turn about a cork jacket that lay upon the seat, and then over the side he went, calling the men to haul him in when he gave the word.

The affair had only taken a few moments, and the form of the old fellow was hardly under the surface. Smith floundered to him; but, being a poor swimmer, as most sailors are, he was quite exhausted when he finally grabbed him. Instead of easing on the line, he hung dead upon it, hardly able to keep his face out of the sea. The girls watched him over the gunwales, but keeping their places. Two men started to haul him in without waiting for a signal; and they hove upon the line with a right good will. It was old and dry-rotted, as most lines in lifeboats are, and it parted.

Smith felt the slack, and knew what it meant. The cork jacket held him above the surface, and he looked at the boat which seemed so far away in the darkness, but in reality was only a few fathoms. Yet it was too far for him to make it again. It meant his death, his ending.

He tried to swim, but the exertion of the day had been too much. His efforts were weak and ill-directed, and he floundered weakly about, drifting farther away all the time.

The stroke oarsman called for another line. There was none except that of the drag. It would not do to haul it in. The boat was doing all she could now to keep herself afloat, and to risk her broadside in the sea might be fatal for all hands.

Miss Roberts begged some one to go to the officer's assistance. Smith seemed to hear and understand. He floundered with more vigor. There was not a man among the boat's crew who dared to go over the side in the night. There was nothing more to do but watch and hope that the second mate would finally make it. But he did not. He struggled on for many minutes. They could see him now and then fighting silently in the night. He still seemed to hold the old man with one hand.

"It is dreadful—can no one do anything for him?" begged Miss Roberts.

"I can't swim a stroke, lady," said the man at the steering oar.

No one volunteered to go. Smith slowly drifted off as the boat sagged back upon her drag. Then he disappeared entirely in the darkness.

"The brute—I didn't think it was in him," said Miss Billings, with feeling.

"Don't talk that way," said Miss Roberts. "Don't talk that way of a man who did what he has done. I forgive him with all my heart——"

The morning dawned, and the sea rolled with less vigor. The boat was still able to keep herself clear. The white faces of the men told of the frantic endeavor. The women were now nearly all too exhausted to either care for anything or do anything. They lay listless upon the boat's bottom, and she made better weather for that fact. By nine o'clock a steamer was heading for them; and within an hour they were safe aboard and bound in for New York. They arrived a few days later.

The chief mate's boat had kept her course to the southward after leaving the berg—she had gone ahead of Smith's. By midnight that night she was almost dead ahead of the second officer's boat when Smith jumped in to save the old man.

Daylight showed Wylie a dark speck on the horizon; and at the same time he saw the smoke of the approaching steamer. He had made bad weather of it, also; but with more men and less women in his craft he had kept to the oars, and, when it was very bad, had run slowly before it for several hours. This had brought him from many miles in advance to but a few ahead of Smith's boat; and he was rowing slowly ahead again by daylight. He sighted her, and noticed there were no oars; but he saw the man steering, and rightly guessed that they were hanging onto a drag.

Mr. Roberts, the nephew of Captain Brownson, sat close to the mate. He had relieved him several times during the night. Large and powerful, he was able to aid the chief mate very much.

"I think my sister is in that boat," he said as they sighted her.

"It looks like the second officer's boat, all right," said Wylie.

They rowed straight for her as the smoke of the steamer rose in the east. Before they came within a mile, they saw that the steamer would reach them before they could reach the boat. They then rowed slowly, and watched, waiting.

"Something right ahead, sir," called a man forward.

Roberts looked over the side. He saw something floating.

"Starboard, swing her over a little," he said to the chief mate.

Roberts leaned over the side. He was nervous at what he saw. It had the look of something he dreaded. Then the object came drifting along, and he reached for it. Long before he grasped it, he saw it was the form of a man holding to a cork jacket with one hand and the collar of a man's coat with the other.

The old fellow floated high, and Smith's hand was clenched with a death grip in his clothes. His left hand was jammed through the life jacket, and the fingers clutched the straps. His head lay face upward, and his teeth showed bared from his gums.

"Heavens! It's Smith himself!" exclaimed Roberts. He hauled him aboard with the help of a man.

"It's poor Smith, all right," said Wylie sadly. The life jacket told a tale too plainly. Wylie knew what had happened.

"It's just as well he didn't come ashore. He was guilty, all right," said Mr. Roberts. "A man who wrecks a liner and kills hundreds of passengers might just as well stay out here. Shall we leave him?"

"Not if I know it," said Wylie, with sudden heat.

Within fifteen minutes they were picked up by the steamer and were safe. The manager of the line welcomed Mr. Roberts gladly when that gentleman came to seek him.

"I'm sorry we didn't have you that voyage, Mr. Roberts," he said. "I don't like to say anything against a dead man; but, of course, Smith was on duty when she struck—that is all we know."

"And I suppose you'll want me to go into the other ship, now, sir?" asked the officer.

"Yes, you can report to Captain Wilson any time this week. How is your sister? Did she recover from the boat ride?"

"Well, in a way, but she's forever talking about that blamed second mate, Smith, who seemed to have a strange sort of influence over her while she was with him in the boat. He struck her, too, the dog! It's just as well he didn't come back," said Roberts.

"Well, she'll get over that all right. Smith was a rough sort of man; but as we knew him, he was a first-class sailor, a splendid navigator; and no one seems able to explain how he ran the ship against an iceberg during daylight. It's one of those things we'll never find out. The truth, you know, is mighty hard to fathom in marine disasters. It must have been a terrible blow to Brownson to have to kill himself, unable to face the shame for a mate's offense—but Brownson was always a sensitive man, a splendid fellow; and I suppose he would not go in a boat after what Smith had done. Brownson was captain, and might come under some criticism. Some of the men say he shot himself after upbraiding Smith for his crime."

"Yes. My sister tells me they had quite heated words while the liner was sinking," said the new second mate.

And so William Smith passed out. His name was never mentioned in shipping circles without reserve. But there are still some men who remember him, who knew plain "Bill" Smith, the fighting second officer of the liner that went to her end that morning off the Grand Banks. And those who knew Smith always think of that cork jacket. They made no comment. They knew him. It is not necessary.

THE LIGHT AHEAD

"Red light on starboard bow, sir," came the hail from forward. The man was Jenson, a "square-head" of more than usual intelligence and of keen eyesight.

"All right," said the mate softly, with no concern. He gazed steadily at a point two points off the starboard bow, picked up the night glass, and took a quick look. Then he left the pilot house where he had been, and walked athwartships on the bridge.

He was a young man. His eyes squinted a little under the strain of night work and showed the wrinkles at their corners. His hair was black and curly, and his bronzed face, strong-lined and handsome, was full of the strength and vigor of youth. He had gone to sea at fifteen. He was now twenty-five and a chief mate in a passenger ship, a first-class navigator, a good seaman. And the company liked him. He was a favorite, a young man rising in the best ships. Five feet eight in his white canvas shoes and white duck uniform, he looked short, for he was very stout of limb; a powerful man who had gained his strength by hard work in the forecastle and upon the main deck of several windjammers whose records in the Cape trade were well known to all shipping men.

It was the midwatch. Mr. James had been upon the bridge about half an hour only. It was the blackest part of the night, the time between one and two, in the latitude north of Hatteras. James rubbed his eyes once or twice, brushed his short mustache from his mouth with his fingers, and felt again for the night glass just within the pilot-house window, which was open.

"How does she head?" he asked the helmsman softly.

"West, two degrees north, sir," said the quartermaster at the steam steering wheel.

James looked again, and, replacing the glass, walked to the bridge rail and stopped.

The point far ahead to starboard was showing plainly. It was the red light of some steamer whose hull was still below the horizon. Her funnel tops just showed like a black dot, darker than the surrounding gloom. Her masthead light was very bright, shining like a star of the first magnitude that had just risen from a clear sky. He knew she was a long way off. Not less than twelve miles separated the vessels. There was plenty of time for a change of course. He began to hum softly:

"When the lights you see ahead, Port your helm and show your red——"

"Yes," he muttered, "it's a good old saw—poetry of the night. I wonder if she knows of the poetry of—of—the sea——"

His mind went back to the days ashore, the last days he had spent upon the beach with her.

"And I have worked up to this for you," he had told her with all the feeling he could muster, the strong passion of a strong man asking for what he desired most. "I have worked up to this for you, just you."

The words rang in his ears. The scene was there before him. The beautiful woman, the woman he loved more than his life. He could tell her no more than that—he had done all he had done just for her, just to be able to call her his own.

The dead monotony of the life before him hung like a black pall, heavy in the night. He saw all the lonely years he must face, all the hard life of the sailor, for she had simply laughed lightly, looked him squarely in the eyes—and shook her head.

"No," she had said gently. "No, you mustn't think of it—I mean it——" And he knew that what he had done was as nothing to her, nothing at all—what was a mate to a woman like that?

The steady vibration of the engines below made the steel rigging shake. The low drone of the side wash as the surf roared from the bows made a soft murmur where it reached his ears. It made him drowsy, dreamy, and sullen. He cared for nothing now. What was a mate, after all? Any corner groceryman was far better in the eyes of most women. Perhaps he had been mistaken. Perhaps the position he had ideals of was not much. Yes—that was it; he had been mistaken. And he gazed steadily out into the dark future, and subconsciously he saw a long, dreary life of toil and trouble, without the woman he loved to relieve the dark solitude.

Before him rose the lights. The red was now well up and rising fast. It had been but a flickering spark at first, showing soon after the bright headlight had risen. It was upon the port side of that vessel's bridge and high above the sea. It was electric, for no ordinary oil burner would show so far with color. The ship must be a liner of size, and must be going fast. Suddenly he saw a flash of green. It was the starboard light of the approaching ship. Then for an instant both side lights shone brightly.

The vessel then was not crossing his bows, after all. The green was her starboard light, and that was the one she must show. It was all right then. He would not change the course. If she swung out, she must be coming almost head on now, for her red had shone but two points off the bow, and the converging courses must be drawing together.

All right then. If they crossed before the ships met it was well and good. There would probably be a mile or more to spare, and he was even now crossing her course, for he saw her green light, which showed him he was right ahead of her, and his rate of speed would take him over in a few moments. Then her green would be upon his right or starboard side, showing that she was passing astern of him. It was simple, plain as could be. He paid little or no attention any longer.

And then suddenly the green light faded and the red shone again. It caused the officer to stop in his walk, which he had begun again to keep in action.

"Port your helm a little," he ordered as he realized the positions.

"Aye, aye, sir—port it is, sir," came the monotonous response from the pilot-house window; and the clanking of the steam gear sounded faintly upon his ears.

The giant liner swung slowly to starboard, swung just a little; and, as she did so, the loom of a monstrous figure rose right ahead in the night. The glare of the bright headlight shone close aboard. The red of her port light was a dangerous glare; and at a space to port flickered a moment the fatal green of the starboard side light, flickered, and then went out, shut off by the running board as the vessel swung across the bows of the ship, where the mate stood gazing at her.

"Hard aport," he yelled savagely.

"Hard aport, sir," came the response from the wheel, and the voice showed more or less concern now.

There was an instant of suspense, a moment of silence, and the two giant shapes came close with amazing speed. The liner swung to her port helm, and her bows pointed clear of the light ahead. But the speed was awful. Both going at twenty-five knots an hour, making the closing speed nearly a mile a minute, brought the giants too close to pass clear.

There was a hoarse cry from forward. The mate knew he was not going to clear, and the roar of his siren tore the night's silence. Then the huge fabrics came in collision. There was a gigantic crash, a thundering shock, and a tearing, ripping sound as steel tore steel to ribbons.

The shock made the rigging sing like a giant harp under the strain, and the "ping" of parting steel lines sounded in accompaniment to the tumultuous crashing of wood and iron. The cries of men came faintly through the uproar from forward, and this was followed almost instantly by frantic shrieks from aft as the effect of the shock was felt by the women passengers.

The liner had failed to clear, and, swinging too late to port, had cut slantingly into the other ship's quarter and tore away the greater part of her stern. Tearing, grinding, ripping, and snapping, the huge shapes ground alongside for a few moments as their headway took them along without reducing speed. Too late the reversing engines, too late the telegraph for all speed astern. The ships had come in contact. The mate had run into another ship that had shown him her red light to starboard. There was no mistake about it. The cry of the seaman on watch had been heard by fifty persons.

"Red light on the starboard bow, sir——"

It rang in the officer's ears. It sounded above the terrible din of smashing steel and beams, and even above the roar of the sirens telling of the death wound that had been given a marine monster of twenty-five thousand tons register.

The awful feeling of responsibility paralyzed the mate. The terror of what he had done numbed him; stunned him so that he stood there upon the bridge like a man asleep. Fifteen hundred human souls were sinking in that ship, which was now drifting off to port in the night with their cries sounding faintly through the blackness, even rising to be heard through the roar of the steam. He thought of it. It was ghastly. Fifteen hundred souls; and he knew how badly he had wounded the ship. He knew the terrific power of the blow he had delivered—shearing off the after part of that vessel and letting in the sea clear to the midship bulkhead. There was no chance for her to float. The wound was too deadly. It was as bad as though he had rammed her with a battleship's ram.

The half-dressed form of the captain rushed to him—his captain.

"What happened?" he whispered hoarsely. He seemed to be afraid to ask the question loudly. "Great Heaven, did you hit her?"

The mate stood gazing at the huge shadow, and his tongue refused to answer the question. Then the voice beside him seemed to gain its power. It roared out:

"Bulkheads, there—close them, quick!" And the automatic device, worked from the pilot house, was pulled savagely.

The captain rushed into the pilot house. The man at the wheel who had left it to throw the lever to close the bulkheads sprang back to his post.

"How'd you do it?" asked the master again, in a low voice full of passion and strained to the utmost. "How'd you strike—don't you know you killed at least five hundred men? You murdering brute—you were asleep." Then he raised his voice again, and bawled down through the tube to MacDougal, the chief engineer.

"How is she—quick—get the pumps going—collision—keep the firemen cool, and for God's sake don't let them panic—keep them at their posts until we see what's up. We've run down the express steamer Blue Star, of the Royal Dutch Line——"

The master turned to the pilot house again and looked out of the window. His chief officer was still standing where he had left him.

"In Heaven's name, Mr. James, what's the matter with you to-night?" he broke out wildly, in passionate tones, almost sobbing. "It's all hands—get 'em out quick!"

He was a strange creature standing there in his undershirt and drawers, with his long gray beard streaming down across his breast. The man at the wheel even looked at him for a moment, but did not smile. It was tragedy, not comedy.

"Is she full speed astern?" asked the master quickly.

"Yes, sir, full speed astern, sir," said the man. His face was white, and his hands shook a little while he held the spokes of the wheel. There was death for many that night, and he knew it. It would be hard to tell who would survive in the rush that was sure to come if the ship went down. Yet his seamanship told him that much was to be hoped from the forward bulkhead. It would hold her up if it could stand the strain.

In two minutes there was a rush of hundreds of feet upon the decks below the flying bridge. The second officer came up half naked, dressed in shirt and trousers, without shoes or stockings. He was a powerful man and short, with a tremendous voice, a real Yankee bos'n voice; and he roared out orders for the men, who jumped to their stations automatically.

The captain came again to the bridge and took command. He yelled to the boat crews below, and strove to quiet the crowding passengers who pushed and fought about the boats in spite of the after guard and seamen.

"Get down there and wade into that mess, Wilson," said the master to the second officer; and he jumped down and went bawling through the press, pushing and pulling, striking here and there a refractory passenger who would insist upon trying to fill the small boats.

"There is no danger—no danger whatever," roared the captain again and again from the bridge. The petty officers took up the cry, and gradually the press about the starboard lifeboats grew less. The boats upon the port side had been all carried away or smashed to bits. Ten boats were left.

A man rushed up the bridge steps coming from aft.

"She's sinking, sir," he panted, pointing to the dim shadow of the rammed ship drifting astern. The steady roar of her siren told of the danger, and seemed to be a resonant cry for help.

The master gazed aft. Then he rushed to the pilot-house window and took up the night glass hanging there. He looked hard at the ship now lying astern and riding with her bows high in the air. The man was right. She was rapidly going down. Ten minutes at the most would tell the whole story.

"Get the starboard boats out, Mr. James," called the captain in an even tone, "and let no one but the crews in them. The first man who attempts to get in will be shot. Go to the vessel and bring back all you can—quick——"

But the form there had vanished before he had finished speaking. The chief officer had awakened at last from his stupor. His responsibility came back to him with a rush of feeling. But an instant before he had faced the end. He had decided to kill himself at once, and was just about to go to his room for his gun. He was too ashamed to face the ordeal, the ordeal of the officer who has run down a ship in a clear night. There had been literally no excuse for him. He could not plead ignorance of the laws; his license as officer made that impossible. He knew what to do when raising a light to starboard when that light was red. The rules were plainly written. Every common waterman knew them by heart. He had disobeyed them by some mischance, some mistake he could not exactly define; but he knew that under it all was that dull, sullen apathy from a wrong, or fancied wrong, that had caused him to be negligent.

He would not go upon the witness stand and say that, because a woman did not love him, he had allowed his ship to ram a liner with fifteen hundred souls aboard her in a clear night. No! Death was a hundred, a thousand times better than such ignominy, such a miserable, cowardly sort of excuse. He would blow his brains out just as soon as he saw the finish, just as soon as he knew his vessel would float. Then came the captain's voice of command:

"Get out the starboard boats and save all you can——"

Yes, it was his duty; his above all others. He was at number one boat before the master had finished his orders.

Six good men were at their stations. The falls were run taut, the boat shoved clear, and down she went with a rush into the sea. Nine others followed within a minute, and ten boats pulled away into the darkness astern, where the roar of the siren still sounded loud and resonant—a wild, terrible cry of death and destruction.

James met a boat coming toward him before he reached the ship. She was full. Sixty-two men and women filled her, and she just floated, and that was all, her gunwales awash in the smooth sea. The swell lifted her, and she rose high above him, a dark object against the sky. Then she sank slowly down into the trough, and disappeared behind the hill of water that ran smoothly from the northeast in long, heaving seas.

The night was still fine, and the wind almost nothing at all. The banks of vapor rising in the east told of a change; but the change was not yet. James noticed the weather mechanically, as a good seaman does, from a small boat when at sea at night; but he was thinking of the huge shadow which now drew close aboard.

As the boat came under the port side, he could see the passengers crowding the rail in the waist, where the lifeboats were being filled and sent away as fast as men could work them. Seven boats were alongside full of human beings. Two more were being lowered. Three came from under the stern as he drew alongside.

There was a mass of people still to be taken off. He saw at a glance that the liner had twenty large lifeboats for her complement. One was smashed. There was every reason to believe she would send out nineteen with at least a thousand people in them. There would be several hundred more to take besides these. The life rafts might do it, but he knew the danger of life rafts in the furious struggle in a sinking ship.

The thing would be to save the passengers with his own boats. This he might do if the ship floated long enough. She was sinking fast, as he could see by her rising bows. She was probably even now hanging solely by her midship bulkhead, and that would most likely be badly smashed by the collision, for he had struck the ship far enough forward to do it damage, although his vessel had only cut into her well aft. The blow had been slanting. A little more time, perhaps a few seconds, and the ships would have swung clear.

He came alongside and hailed the deck.

"Send them down lively—come along now, quick!" he called up in his natural voice. It was the first time since the collision he had spoken. It sounded strange to hear his own tones coming natural again.

In a few moments he was crowding and seating the women and children in his boat. Then came the men from everywhere. They crowded down the falls, jumped into the sea, and swam alongside, begging to be hauled aboard, or climbed over the high gunwales themselves. One powerful young man, stripped to the waist, dived clean from the hurricane deck, and almost instantly rose alongside. Then he swung himself into the boat, and stood amidships hauling others in until the craft settled down to her bearings and the men at the oars could hardly row.

"Shove off—give way," ordered James.

The boat started back slowly, the men rowing gingerly, poking and striking the passengers in the backs with the oars until the crowd settled itself. Then she went along slowly toward the ship, and the women in her prayed, the men swore, and the children wept and sobbed. And all the time the fact that he was the cause of it all impressed James queerly. He could not understand it, could not quite see why he had done it, and yet he knew he had. One man spoke to the athlete who had dived.

"They should burn a man who would sink a ship like this on a clear night; they should burn him to a stake—the drunken, cowardly scoundrel——"

And James sat there with the tiller ropes in his hand; sat silent, thoughtful, and knew in his heart the man had spoken the truth. If he could only be sure of the passengers—he would not give them a chance to say anything more. His boat came alongside his own ship. The crowd above cheered him—they did not know—he was a hero to them, the first boat with the rescued. How quickly they would change that cheer when they learned the truth! He almost smiled. His set face, strong-lined, bronzed, and virile, turned away from the people in the boat. He gave orders in the usual tone. The passengers were quickly passed aboard. Then he started back for another load.

By this time the sides of his ship were crowded with boats. She was taking aboard over a thousand people, and the sea was still smooth.

The swell heaved higher as the small boat went back toward the sinking steamer. James noticed it. The sky to the eastward was dark with a bank of vapor. The air had the feeling of a northeaster. It was coming along, and there was plenty of time, for it would come slowly. The last of the passengers would be either sunk or aboard his own ship before the breeze rose to a dangerous extent.

The men rowed quickly. They were anxious. The horror of the whole thing had fallen upon them like a pall; but they strove mightily to do their share. James found his boat to be the last to reach the sinking ship.

The liner was well down now by the stern and her deck was awash aft. She rose higher and higher as he gazed at her, her decks slanting, sloping, and she rolled loggily in the growing swell. Her siren stopped. A dull, muffled roar from the sea, a smothered explosion told of the end of the boilers. She would go in a moment. The passengers were clinging, grabbing to anything to hold on. The deck slanted so dangerously that many were slid off into the sea where they plunged, some silently and hopelessly, others screaming wildly with the terror of sudden death.

James watched them. He saw many die, saw many go to their end. Others swam; and he strove to pick them up, forgetting himself in the struggle.

He picked up sixteen in this manner, steering for them as they swam about in the night calling for help. The last one was a girl, a beautiful girl of twenty or less. He hauled her into the boat.

A sudden, wild yelling caused him to look. The sinking liner stood upon end, her forefoot clear of the sea. She swung loggily to and fro for a moment, settling as she did so. Then, with a rush, she plunged stern first to the bottom, the crash of her bursting decks as the air blew out being the last sound he heard.

The ship was very close to him. Her swing as she foundered brought her closer. The vortex sucked his boat toward her, drew the craft with a mighty pull. A spar, twisting, whirling in the swirl, struck the boat, and instantly she was a wreck, capsized, engulfed in the mighty hole the sinking liner made in the sea with her last plunge.

James found himself smothered, drowning, drawn downward by a great force he could not fight against. The whole ocean seemed to pull down upon him and crush him into its black depths.

The whole thing took such a small space of time, he hardly realized his position. The utter blackness, the salt water in his eyes and mouth, all paralyzed his mind for a few moments. Then he thought of his end. It was just as well. He was drowning, going to the bottom. He must soon go, anyhow; he could not face those wrecked passengers; and with the thought came a grim peacefulness, a satisfaction that the fight was all over. He could now rest at last.

But nature within him was very strong. He was a powerful man. When he gave up the struggle, his natural buoyancy lifted him to the surface of the sea. He came up, his head appearing in the air, and he breathed again in spite of himself. Then the old, old fighting spirit, the desire to survive which is so strong within the breast of every young animal, took charge. No, he would not go down yet. He must see the finish, the end of things in which he was concerned.

He swam about aimlessly. The swell heaved him high up, dropped him far down; and he noticed that now the sea was running, the small combers rising before a stiff breeze. These burst upon his face and head and smothered him a little. He turned his back to them, and swam on, on, and still on into the darkness.

He saw nothing. The ship, the boats had all gone. Once he was about to cry for help; but the thought was horrible, distasteful to the last degree. He had no right to call for help. He would not. But he swam and tried to see something to get upon.

Something struck him heavily upon the head. Stars swam before his eyes. He reached upward with his hands, and they met a solid substance. Then he sank slowly down, down—and the blackness came upon him.

The object that had hit him was a small boat. In it were a man and a girl, the girl James himself had picked up from the sea a short time before. The man was a seaman, and he heard the boat strike. He reached over the side, caught the glimpse of a human form as it struck the boat's side and sank.

The seaman took up the boat hook and was about to poke the body away. He was sick of dead men, sick of seeing corpses floating about. He had met half a dozen already that night. But this one seemed to move, and the hook caught in his clothes. He pulled the body up, and saw the man was not dead, but dazed, moving feebly in a drunken way. Then he pulled James into the boat.

James regained his senses after half an hour; and during that time the boat ran before a stiff squall of wind and rain that swept it along before it into the darkness. The seaman steered with an oar, and kept the boat's head before the wind. The mate opened his eyes, and in the gray of the early dawn he saw a man he did not know, a seaman from the sunken liner, steering the boat calmly before the gale that was now coming fast with the rising sun. Near him in the bottom of the boat lay the girl huddled up and moaning with cold and fright, and fatigue.

James arose and staggered aft.

"How'd I get here?" he asked.

"I pulled you in, sir," said the sailor. "Are you from the ship that sank us?"

"Yes. I'm the mate, the chief officer."

"Well, if I'd 'a' know'd it, I mightn't have taken the trouble," said the seaman.

James said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. He knew the sailor was right. He knew the officers of his ship were men to scorn, to hate—but he would not say it was himself alone who had done the terrible deed. Something stopped him. It might have been sheer shame—or fear. He looked at the girl. Then he went to her and raised her, placing her upon a seat and trying to cheer her up.

"We'll be picked up soon—don't worry about it. Our ship will stand by and hunt for all the missing——"

"But I'm dreadfully cold," said the girl, with chattering teeth.

"Put my coat on, then," said James; and he took off his soaked coat and made her put it on.

The man grinned in derision.

"Say," he said, "who was on watch when you hit us?"

James took no notice. He would not answer the question. Then the girl spoke up.

"Yes, whose fault was it? You belong to the other ship, you'll know all about it. They ought to hang the man who is responsible for this awful thing—my poor mother and father—oh——" And she broke into a sob.

The man at the steering oar smiled grimly.

"Yes, miss, that's right, they sure ought to hang the officer who runs down a liner on a clear night when he's bound to see the lights plainly. I don't make no excuses for him—it's more'n murder."

"You were on watch, on duty—you are dressed?" said the girl.

"Yes, I knowed it when I first seen you," snarled the seaman. "I reckon you're the man who did it—what was the matter? Couldn't you keep awake, or what?" The tone was a sneer, an insult, yet the sailor did wish to find out how so unusual a thing could happen as the running down of a ship on a clear night when her lights could be seen fifteen miles or more.

James tried to defend himself. It was instinctive. The contempt of the sailor was too much. On other occasions, he never allowed the slightest insolence from the men of his own vessel. But now the officer was numb, paralyzed. He was guilty—and he knew it.

For hours they sat now in silence, the seaman holding the boat steady before the northeaster, which grew in power until by nine in the morning it was blowing a furious gale, and the sea was running strongly with sweeping combers. There was nothing to do but keep the boat before it. To try to head any other way meant to risk her filling from a bursting sea. The exertion of steering was great. The seaman, with set face, held onto the oar, and James could see the sweat start under the constant strain, but he said nothing—he waited.

"You'll have to take her, sir—a while—I'm getting played out," panted the man.

"All right," said James, "give her to me—now——"

He took the oar during the backward slant as she dropped down the side of the sea that passed under her. He was ready for the rush as she rose and shot forward again upon the breaking crest of the following hill. The exercise did him good. It made him think clearly, it took his mind from the hopelessness of his life.

All that day the two men took turns keeping the small boat before the sea; and they ran to the southward a full half hundred miles before the gale let up. Both were too exhausted to talk, too thirsty to even speak—and there was neither water nor food in the boat. Her ration of biscuit and water had been lost when she had been drawn down by the sinking liner.

The sailor had righted the boat after great effort, aided by the sea; and owing to the smoothness of the swell at the time he had managed to get her clear of water. Then he had picked up the girl who had been floating about, swimming and holding onto fragments of wreckage since James' boat had gone under.

The mate noticed that, although the girl had not spoken to him again after knowing he had caused the disaster, she still wore his coat. He studied the matter, the inconsistency of women, and he thought it strange. The sun shone for a moment before it set that evening; and in the glowing light James gazed steadily at the woman. She was very beautiful. She had not made a complaint since the morning. The sea was still running high, although the wind was going down with the sun, yet the girl had not been seasick, nor had she shown any suffering.

"How do you feel now?" he whispered, as he waited his turn at the oar.

"I'm all right, thank you. Do you think we will get picked up?" she said.

"We'll be picked up to-morrow—sure," said the officer. "We are now right in the track of the West India ships, and will sight something by daylight when we can set a signal. Are you very thirsty?"

"Tell me first, how did this accident occur? Were you really asleep, or just what? I can stand the thirst, and I'm warm enough now. This water is like milk in comparison with the air, it's so warm."

"We are in the Stream," said James; "the Gulf Stream, and that is about eighty along here—it's better than freezing in the high latitudes."

"You haven't answered my question," said the girl.

"I don't know—I don't remember what it was. I must have lost my head—been asleep—or something—yes, I was on duty, on watch—it was my fault entirely. I saw your ship, saw her red light to starboard—the right, you know. She had the right of way under the rules. I intended to swing off, waited a few minutes to see her better—then her green light showed—and—then it was too late. I went hard aport, did my best—but hit her—we were going very fast—both ships were going twenty-five knots—making the approaching speed fifty miles an hour—nearly a mile a minute—I must have lost my head just a moment—maybe I was dreaming——"

"I know you are not to blame," said the girl, placing her hand in his. "You have told me the truth, a straight story—but yet I don't see how it all happened. I'm not a sailor, anyhow; perhaps I couldn't understand. But I feel you didn't do it on purpose——"

"No, no," whispered James. "How could a man do a thing like that on purpose?" He could not tell her the truth. He was ashamed to mention a woman, to say he was sullen, depressed, stupefied at the loss of a love he bore a woman.

He took his place at the oar for the last time that night. The sea was no longer dangerous. They spoke of rigging a drag with the oar and thwarts, making a drag by the aid of the painter or line, which still was fast to her forward. They had finished this before dark, and then they lay down, exhausted. The girl stood watch. In the dim dawn the girl gave out. She had stood watch all night, and she was exhausted.

"I understand," she muttered to herself, "this poor fellow, this officer was tired out—he slept—I don't blame him at all, it was not his fault."

The sun shone upon the three sleeping, the boat riding safely and dry to the drag made of the oar and thwarts. James aroused himself first, awakening dimly with the warmth of the sun. He sat up. The two others slept on. The girl was breathing loudly, almost panting, and her parted lips were blue. Yet she was beautiful. James knew it. She was exhausted, and help must come soon for her.

He sat and gazed at the horizon, and when the sea lifted the boat, he stared hard all around to see if anything showed above the rim. Hours passed in this fashion. The girl moaned in her sleep. The sailor shifted uneasily, and grunted, snored, and murmured incoherently. They were all very thirsty.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning that James saw something to the northward. It was just a speck, just a tiny dot on the rim of sea; but he knew it was a ship of some kind, a vessel passing. The minutes dragged, and he was about to rouse the sailor to get him to help watch. Then he remembered how the fellow had striven so manfully the day before when they rode out the gale. No, he would let them sleep.

By noon, the vessel was close aboard and coming slowly with the wind upon her port beam. She was a schooner bound south. James could see the lumber on her decks. Her three masts swung to and fro in the swell, and she made bad weather of the sluggish sea. The foam showed white under her forefoot, and told of the speed being at least a few knots an hour. James called the sailor.

"Get up—turn out—there's a schooner alongside," he said. The man moved slightly, and slept on. James shook him roughly.

"Lemme alone," muttered the seaman.

"Ship ahoy!" yelled the mate as the schooner came within a quarter of a mile and headed almost straight for them. He stood up and waved his arms. Nothing came of it. The girl awoke. She sat up and realized the position. In a moment she had taken off her skirt and handed it to the mate. He waved it wildly; and his yelling finally awoke the exhausted seaman. The man stood up and bawled loudly. Then he washed his mouth with salt water, and yelled again and again. James swung the skirt. The girl prayed audibly.

The schooner stood right along on her course. She had not noticed the boat. Passing a few hundred fathoms from them caused all three to become frantic. The men bawled, cursed, and begged the schooner to take them in.

The captain of the vessel, coming on deck, happened to look in their direction. He spoke to the man at the wheel, who for the first time seemed to take his eyes from the compass card. Then, taking his glass, the captain saw that three living souls were in the small boat. The next instant he was bawling orders, and the schooner hauled her wind and came slatting into the breeze.

Six men appeared on her deck. James saw them working to get the small boat clear from her stern davits. Then they seemed to realize that this was unnecessary, and the schooner, flattening in her sheets, worked up to them slowly, rising and falling into the high swell. She stood across to windward, and then came about, easing off her sheets and drifting slowly down upon the boat.

She drew close aboard.

"Catch a line," yelled the captain from her deck.

James waved his hand in reply, and a heaving line flaked out and fell across the boat's gunwales.

In another moment they were being hauled aboard.

Explanations came at once. The master of the schooner was bound for South America.

"Of course, I'll put you all aboard the first homeward-bound ship I fall in with," said he.

"But you surely will put us ashore at once," said the girl, after she had drunk tea and changed her clothes. They were eating gingerly of ship's food and drinking water ravenously.

"That I cannot do, miss," said the captain. "I'm bound to Valparaiso with cargo, and I must take it there."

"But we will pay you to take us ashore—pay you anything, for I am very rich," said the girl.

The master smiled sadly. The effects of the forty hours in the open boat were evidently having their effect upon the young woman.

"No," he said, "you go below, and the steward will give you all you want to eat, and your clothes will be dry enough to put on again before night. We might fall in with a ship bound north any time now. Then you'll have a chance."

James knew the man was within his rights, of course. He was glad to be in the schooner. The sailor didn't seem to mind where he went. One ship was very much like another to him. The consul would be bound to ship him home, anyway. The girl was given a stateroom in the after cabin; and she soon slept the sleep of the exhausted.

The mate stayed on deck. The whole thing had a strange look to him. He had decided to kill himself. He dared not go back to the States, anyhow, to face the charges that would be made against him. He might slip overboard any night on the run down, and no one would be the wiser.

The fact that the schooner was bound to South America seemed to give him a respite. There was no hurry to commit the desperate act that he felt he must, in all honor and decency, do. He might live a month at least before dying.

After the awful struggle through the gale and shipwreck, he felt a desire to live more than before. The whole affair was more distant, almost effaced. And now he was not going back, anyhow.

The captain asked him few questions regarding his wreck, seeming to feel a certain delicacy about it. The day passed, and the next and the next, and no ship was sighted going north. They were now drawing out of the track of vessels, and a strange hope arose with the mate that they would not meet one.

The girl sat with him often, and they talked of other things than shipwreck. She was beautiful—there was no question about it. The glow of returning strength made her more lovely. James found himself wondering at her. She had been the only human being so far that would condescend to speak to him without contempt. He was lonely, very lonely, and the girl seemed to feel he needed some one to cheer him up. She did not realize his weakness. He was very strong to her; a strong man who had suffered from an accident, due, perhaps, to his carelessness, but not to criminal negligence. But he knew, he knew, and could not tell.

The days passed, and the terror of the thing he had in his mind began to fade slightly. He knew he must die. The sailor, his shipmate who had been picked up with him, had told every one in the schooner that he, James, was on watch and was responsible for a terrible disaster, the death of a great number of persons. James saw it in their looks. He knew he would never get a ship again, never hold a place among white men. Yes, he must die.

It gave him a sort of grim satisfaction to feel that he was just to live a certain length of time, that he would cut that short at the last moment. He wondered how a prisoner felt when the sentence of death was pronounced upon him. He had pronounced it upon himself. It was a genuine relief, for the vision of those terror-stricken, drowning passengers was always with him night and day, except when he was in a dreamless sleep. That sleep seemed to be portentous of what he would face.

The days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. The voyage was long and the winds light. They were ninety days to the latitude of the Falklands when they struck a furious "williwaw" from the hills of Patagonia. The schooner was in a bad fix. She was lightly manned; and, in spite of the addition of James and the seaman from the wreck, she held her canvas too long.

The struggle was short but terrific. The fore-topsail blew away and saved the mast; but the main held, and the topmast buckled and finally went by the board. The headsails had been lowered, but they blew out from the gaskets, and the jibboom snapped short off under the tremendous threshing of flying canvas. The maintopmast, hanging by the backstays, fell across the triatic stay, and the steel of the backstays cut into the spring until it finally parted under the jerks, and the mizzen was left to stand alone. It went by the board, and the great mast, snapping short at the partners, went over the side, and smashed and banged there at each heave of the ship.

There was desperate work to do to save the vessel. Her master did wonders and showed his skill; but the most dangerous and deadly task of going to leeward to cut adrift the lanyards was left to James. No one else would go.

James was a powerful man, and had won his way to an officer's berth by endeavor, not by nepotism. His hope was that he might be killed in the struggle. He dared anything, tried to do the impossible—and did it. How he succeeded in clearing away the wreck of that mast remains a mystery to those who watched him. He was almost dead when dragged back and the schooner floated clear.

The girl had seen the whole affair from the glass of the companionway. She had held her breath, almost fainted again and again at the sight of James in that fight for life. To her it was simply grand, tremendous—she had never been touched by a man's heroism before.

When it was all over and the schooner, dismantled and storm-driven, lay riding down the giant seas that swept around the Horn in the Pacific Antarctic Drift, she watched over and attended the officer as he lay in his bunk with a broken arm, a cut across the head, and the toes of one foot gone. She knew that there was something behind the will to do as James had done. But she could not fathom it, could not tell why he was unresponsive. He lay silent mostly, and seldom looked at her. Yet he was sane in his conversation, not delirious in any way. It worried her. It caused that peculiar thing that is in every woman to make the man she admires responsive. And the more she showed her feelings, the less he seemed to care. It ended the way it usually does under such conditions. She fairly worshiped him.

After that storm the weather grew very calm. The dark ocean seemed to be at rest for a spell. The schooner was now to the south'ard of the Falklands, and the captain decided that he would not venture around the Horn in the desperate condition he was in. Stanley Harbor was under his lee, and he bore away for it. Then, with the perversity of the southern zone, the wind hauled to the eastward and blew steadily for a week; blew right in their faces.

James came on deck before they were within a hundred miles of the land. He sat about in the cold of the evening wrapped up in rugs, and the girl waited upon him, brought him anything he wished. In the long hours of daylight—for it was light enough to read until midnight—they sat near the taffrail. The captain said nothing; he would not notice. He liked the man who had saved his ship. The girl was sympathetic, and James often held her hand. She did not attempt to withdraw it.

But he would not tell her he cared for her. That was absurd. He had already sacrificed his life. He was as good as dead. Yet he wondered at the passion that had brought him into such desperate trouble and had caused so much ruin and death. He pondered silently, and now often watched the girl furtively.

Into the beautiful harbor, the great fiord of Port Stanley, they came, the schooner making fairly good way in spite of her crippled condition. Her arrival was greeted with joyous acclaim by the land sharks, who smelled the wound and saw the damage. They would make a good haul. Ships didn't come often—but when they did, well, they paid.

The governor was notified of the arrival. He was told everything but the relation of the passengers to the ships to which they originally belonged. The master was generous; and, besides, it was not America they were now in. It was an outlying foreign colony at the edge of the world, a place where one seldom went or heard from. They might go ashore if they wished. The seaman asked to remain aboard. He was allowed to do so, and consequently did not go ashore and talk too much.

James passed that last night in high spirits. He was going out on his last voyage. He was going to die, going to leave the woman who he knew loved him, who had been so sympathetic, so lovable. They were on deck a long time that evening, and the captain, being wise and old enough to understand, did not molest them.

"Good night," she said finally. "Good night. I'll see you to-morrow before we go ashore. We can take the ship across to the straits, and meet the regular liner as she comes through from Punta Arenas. We'll be home again in a few weeks."

"Good-by," he said simply. That was all. She went below.

Shortly after four bells—two o'clock in the morning—James, with set face and grim resolution, stole on deck. He gazed up at the Southern Cross for a few moments, at the beautiful constellation that he would see for the last time; then at the grim, barren hills back of the settlement.

It was a farewell look, his farewell to things in this world. He was determined not to be disgraced. He would die like a man, as he could no longer live like one.

Then he dropped softly over the side, and sank down—down into the quiet waters of Stanley Harbor.

The instinct of woman is often more certain than her reason. The girl had noticed something strange in the man's behavior. She had woman's instinct to divine its cause. She had not gone to bed that night, but waited to see just what might happen to the man who owned her very soul. She had not realized before that she loved this officer, this man who had confessed partly to his disgrace. The realization awakened her wits. She would see what he meant.

At the slight splash, she was on deck in an instant. Her first thought was to call for help. Then she knew to do so was to call for an explanation; and she realized the disgrace that would follow instantly upon the explanation. She seized a life buoy always hanging upon the taffrail, and with it dropped over the side.

She swam silently toward a spot that showed disturbed water rapidly drifting astern with the tide. Within a minute she had reached the form of James, who had not placed enough weights in his clothes to insure quick sinking. He was lying silently upon his back, waiting—waiting for the end that must come shortly.

"Swim with me," she pleaded. "You must—come with me—we'll swim ashore together."

Before the morning dawned, the pair were upon the beach, several miles distant from the schooner. James saw he was doomed to life. He could not even die. Then the beauty of the woman, the sympathy, the love he could not deny, had its way with him, and they decided to vanish into the country, to disappear together.

This might or might not have been hard to do in the islands where every one is well known. But it happened that Captain Black, of the whaling station situated near the entrance of the fiord, was on deck that morning. He saw an amazing thing, a woman and a man swimming together, and finally making the land near the point.

Calling a couple of men, he started for them in his whaleboat, and caught up with them before they had gone more than a few fathoms from the shore. They were chilled through, cold and exhausted. He took them aboard the whaling steamer, and soon saw that he had a seaman of parts in Mr. James. Men were hard to get. All of his crews were convicts or ticket-of-leave men; and the addition of a man even with a wife was something to be taken advantage of.

He took James aside and asked him a few questions. He was satisfied that he would not get into trouble by giving the officer a billet; and he forthwith made him one of the company in charge of a small boat. The affair would be kept secret, and the governor would be told nothing. He probably would not ask too many questions, anyhow.

"I shall ship you both to the north'ard station, fifty miles up the coast. You can have a shack there—plenty of peat for fires and good grub—I'll inspect you once a month. Johnson will be in charge of the station. You can take this letter to him. Your wife can go with you if you wish."

James looked at the girl. She nodded her head.

"Is there a priest about here?" asked James.

"Yes. Why?" asked Black.

"Well, if you'll kindly send for him, he can marry us before we start."

Back of the northward station, on the ramp that rises sheer back from the beach like a table-land, there are a few cottages. These are occupied by the crews of the whaling station and their families. In one of them is a handsome woman with two little tots—happy-faced and smiling she is. But she seems a bit out of place in her surroundings. Mrs. James Smith they call her, and she is apparently very happy, very happy indeed, in spite of it all.

James Smith is the best gun pointer in the fleet, the best harpooner with the gun-firing harpoon. He is a sober, quiet, steady man, who has nothing now of the ship's officer about him. He never talks of wrecks. If some one starts a conversation regarding them—and they are much hoped for in the Falklands—he goes away.

Sometimes in Jack's saloon down at Stanley, he has been known to sit and stare out over the dark ocean, to sit and often mutter:

"Was it right, after all—was it worth while—was it?"

But he is a sober, quiet, industrious man, who goes about his duties without enthusiasm, without effort.

THE WRECK OF THE "RATHBONE"

"Eight bells, sir," came the voice from without, following the rap, rap upon the door of my room. I had just five minutes to dress myself and get out, and I rolled over, listening to the sounds on deck. As I had only taken off my sea boots, I was in no hurry to turn to. My sou'wester hung upon a peg, but my oilskin jacket was still buttoned up close about my neck, where it had been during my sleep; and the oilskin trousers scraped noisily as I slid my legs to the edge of the bunk.

I had slept three hours and forty minutes, and must go out and relieve Slade, the second mate, who had, in turn, relieved me at the end of the mid-watch. It was now just five minutes of four in the morning, a cold, snowy nor'easter blowing, and the brig running wildly into the thick of it.

We had cleared from New York for Rio, and were trying to run out into the warm Gulf Stream before the gale overblew us and forced us to heave to, to ride it down. January at sea on the coast was hard, indeed.

I swore at the hard luck, for my sleep had seemed just an instant, just a second's unconsciousness, and I was stiff and soaked with sea water; so cold that I had to keep on my oilskins to sleep at all. I had finally steamed my body, incased as it was, into some sort of warmth, and the first movement sent the chills running down my spine. I threw off my blankets and stood shivering, trying to jam my feet into the wet boots as the bells struck off, and I was due on deck.

Slade stood with his shoulders hunched to his ears at the break of the poop, holding to the rail to steady himself as the brig plunged and tore along under a reefed fore-topsail and close-reefed spanker, with the wind abaft the beam. The gray light of the winter morning had not come yet, and the snow beat upon my face, as if some invisible hand hurled it from the utter blackness to windward.

The dull, snoring roar of the wind under the feet of the topsail told of the increasing velocity of the squalls; and the quick, live jerk of the ship as she went rushing along the crest of a roller for an instant, and then slid along the weather side, dropping stern foremost into the trough, with a heave to windward, indicated that we were doing all we could.

"Southeast b'south!" yelled Slade into my ear. "You'll have to watch her."

I knew what he meant. She was steering hard, and might broach to in any careless moment.

"Call the old man if there's any change," he added, and stumbled down the poop steps to the main deck, where the watch were huddled under the lee of the deck house. Then he disappeared aft, and the night swallowed him up.

I made my way to the wheel. Bill, a strong West Indian negro, was holding her steady enough, meeting her as she came to and swung off. He was assisted by Jones, a sturdy little fellow with a big shock head. I could just make out their faces in the light from the binnacle, which burned, for a wonder, in spite of the gale. It generally blew out in spite of all we could do to keep the lamps lit. Beyond was a hopeless blackness.

I went to the weather rail and tried to see to windward. A fleeting glimpse of a white comber caught my gaze close aboard; but beyond a few fathoms I could see nothing at all. Aft under the stern the torrent of dead water boiled and roared, showing a sickly flare from the phosphorus. We were going some, probably twelve or fifteen knots an hour; and right ahead was nothing—that is, nothing we could see; just a black wall of darkness.

Vainly I tried to make out the light of the coming morning; but the snow squalls shut off everything. Pete, sharp-eyed fellow of my watch, was on lookout on the forecastle head. I knew Pete's eyes were the best ever, but he could see nothing in that wild gale of snow and sleet and inky darkness. I went to the break of the poop again, and hailed the deck below.

"Keep a sharp lookout ahead, there," I said, bawling the words out to reach through the storm. Then I stood waiting, for there was nothing else to do.

Two bells came—five o'clock—and the watch reported all well and the lights burning brightly. Our starboard and port—green and red—lights were none too bright at any time, yet they were well within the law, and had served the ship for five years or more.

I answered the hail, and stood trying again to see something over the black hills of water that were rushing to the southwest under the pressure of the gale. Something made me very nervous. I began to shiver, and the snow struck my face and melted enough to run down my neck, making me miserable, indeed. I still stood gazing right ahead into the night, hoping for the dawn which was now due in another hour, when I heard a yell from the forecastle head.

"Light dead ahead, sir," came the hail.

I looked and saw nothing, but took Pete's word for it.

"Keep her off all she'll go," I roared to the wheel.

And just as I felt her swing her stern to the following sea, I saw close to us the green light of a steamer, and above it her masthead light. Then the thing happened.

A wild cry from forward, followed by the loom of a gigantic object in the gloom ahead. We were upon the vessel in a moment.

A tremendous crash, grinding, tearing, splintering. The brig staggered, seemed to stop suddenly, and then the deep, roaring note of the gale smothered the rest.

We struck, fairly head on, swung to, glanced along the ship's side, and were lying dismasted in the trough of the sea, our foremast over the side, and nothing but the lower main mast standing. The seas tore over us, and we lay like a log, while the shadow of the steamer passed slowly astern.

The old man was on deck before I knew just what had happened. So also was Slade. The smashing and grinding of the wreckage alongside told of the spars; but we were too stunned to think of them.

Was the hull split open with that furious impact? That was the thought in our minds. Ours was a wooden vessel—little, light, and very strong. Did we ram our plank ends in? If so, we were lost men, all of us.

It was fully a half minute before we spoke of it. We knew just what to do, but we were stunned for a few moments. Then we made for the main deck, and tried the pumps. The water was coming in lively.

"All hands on the pumps!" came the skipper's order; and we manned the brakes with the feeling that it was just a respite, just a little time to lose. The men took to them with a will, however; but I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I worked half-heartedly for a few minutes, until I brought myself around with a jerk. I was mate. I had the responsibility. And more than that—it had happened in my watch on deck. I was the one who must do the most.

"Come along, bullies—get a couple of axes!" I roared, and made my way to the weather fore channels, where the rigging of the topmast and lower mast held the wreckage alongside, being drawn taut, as it were, across the deck, the spars to leeward, and banging and pounding against the ship with each surge. "Get into those lanyards!" and they chopped away in the gray light of the morning, cutting everything they could, and clearing the weather rigging of the strain.

The wreckage now hung by the lee rigging, and drifted farther aft. The wheel was lashed hard down, and a bit of spanker raised again upon the mainmast, the halyards still being intact, although the boom had been broken by the shock. We soon had canvas on her aft, and she headed the sea, dropping back from the wreckage to a mooring hawser bent to the standing rigging of the foremast. We got a lashing to the foot of the mast, and she dragged the mass broadside, making a lee of it, and riding easily to the heavy seas, which now took her almost dead on her bows.

When I had a chance to look about me again, the light of the morning had grown to its full height, and we were able to see around us.

The gray light made things look almost hopeless for us. The pumps worked full stroke, and the water gained rapidly on us. There had been three feet made during the first half hour. We were settling, and the brig was riding more heavily, taking the seas over her head with a smothered feeling that told of what was coming.

I had a chance to breathe again, and I looked out over the gray ocean, where the white combers rolled and the heavy clouds swept along close to their tops. A large, black object showed to the westward of us, and we recognized her as a steamer. She was very low in the water, and upon her rigging floated the signal, "We are sinking." She was the one we had run down.

The old man stood gazing at her as I came on the poop. He was trying to make her out; and this he did finally, when the wind stretched her flag in a direction so that we could see it plainly. She was one of the Havana steamers bound up from Cuba, and was about five thousand tons. Her number was that of the William Rathbone.

"No better fix than we are," snarled the skipper. "What was the matter? Didn't you see him? He's big enough."

"Too dark," I said. "You know what kind of a night it was—look at it now. We might do something if we were sure of floating ourselves—no boat would live in this sea five minutes; but it'll smooth out, maybe——"

"Maybe blow a hurricane!" howled the old man, his voice rising above the gale. "Get the boats ready, anyhow—get the steward to put all the grub he can get in them—too bad, too bad," he went on.

While Slade helped to get the boats ready for leaving the brig, I went to the bow and tried to see just what damage we had done ourselves. It was dangerous work, as the seas came over in solid masses, and more than once I came near getting washed overboard. Splintered plank ends, a crushed stem showed through the wreck of the bowsprit, which still hung by the bobstays and shrouds, jammed foul of the catheads, so that only the end swung, and struck us a blow now and then. It was a hopeless mess.

A great sea rose ahead, with its crest lifting for a break, and I ducked behind the windlass, holding on with both hands. The solid water swept over the bows, and I was almost drowned; but I held on. There was nothing I could do forward, and no men could work there. The steady grind of the pumps took the place of desperate rushing about the decks. The men stood in water to their knees as the seas swept her, but they still kept it up. As fast as one man gave out another took his place, regardless of watch; and the waiting ones chafed under the shelter of the mainmast.

The boats were on booms over the forward house, where the seas could not wash them away; and Slade had them all ready to leave, although it was a study how to get them overboard in that sea with nothing forward to raise them with. The mainstay still held, and the mainmast was strong enough; but there was nothing forward at all above them. I went aft and waited.

Old Captain Gantline was still standing at the poop rail watching the steamer. Our drift was about equal to hers, and we sagged off to leeward together, keeping about a mile apart. The steamer was settling.

"Of course, he ought to have gone clear of us!" howled the old man as I came up. "I don't blame you, Mr. Garnett; I don't blame you—but you certainly swung us off at the last minute when you knew the law was to hold your course, and let him get out of our way."

"But he was dead ahead, sir. I saw his lights right aboard. To luff meant to come to in that sea, and that would have been just as bad, for he'd have struck us aft—probably cut us in two."

I really had done nothing out of the way. The steamer had not seen us, that was certain. I was supposed, under the law, to hold on until the last moment, and I had done so. I had only swung her off a little; tried to clear when I saw he would not. I knew the law well enough, and had followed it up to the moment of striking. Our swing off had made our bows fetch up against the steamer, and had probably caused him serious damage. But it had saved us from being cut down by her sharp steel stem, which would have gone through our wooden side as if through butter.

No, I did not feel guilty; although there were evidently some hundred passengers and crew of that ship in dire peril and sore put to it. The old man knew I had done the best thing I could for us, and there was no possible way of avoiding a collision in a wild, thick night like the last when the ships were invisible but a few fathoms distant.

We waited, and the brig settled slowly, while the wind still held from the northeast, and the sea still ran strong and high. There was apparently no chance for launching a small boat. The scud flew fast and the gray wind-swept ocean looked ugly enough, the surface covered with white. The steamer was slowly sinking, like ourselves, and it was only a question whether either would go through the day or not. I hoped that it would not come in the night. There's something peculiarly nerve-racking in wild night work in a sinking ship. The very absence of light lends terror to the already awful situation, and the wild rush of the wind and seas makes chaos of the blackness about.

The day dragged slowly. It was like waiting for the end of the world. The vessels drifted apart but another mile or two, and we were still close enough to exchange signals. We had long ago run ours up, telling that the same state of affairs existed aboard the brig. If some passing coasting steamer came along, all might still be well with the passengers and crews of both of us. But not a sign of anything showed above the horizon.

At five o'clock—two bells—that evening, the brig was well down in the water; and she was taking the seas nastily over her. The main deck was all but impossible to remain upon, and the men at the pumps had to lash themselves to keep there. It would be only a question of a few hours now. The drawn faces told of the strain. Slade, the second mate, came to me.

"All over but the shouting," he said. "How'll we ever get them boats clear in this sea?"

"Better start now before it's too late," I said, and went to the old man for orders.

"All right, get them over," said the old man, in answer to my question; and we started on the last piece of work we were to do in that brig.

Bill, the West Indian negro; Wilson; Peter, the Dutchman; and Jones were to row; and, with myself at the steering oar in command, made the working crew. Besides these men we had three others, making eight men all told for our boat. Slade went with the old man, dividing the little crew up evenly.

We had a good crew. Long training in that little ship had made them good men. But for their steadiness we would never have got those boats clear. It was desperate work getting them over the side without smashing them. With a tackle upon the main, however, we managed to lift them clear and let them swing aft, lifting and guying them out by hand. Then we dropped them over the quarter, and let them tow astern to the end of a long line, and they rode free, being lighter than the ship and pulling dead to leeward.

I was the first to leave, as became my place. The old man, as captain, must be the last. I hauled the boat up, and we climbed in, jumping the now short distance as she took the seas and rose close to the taffrail. The brig was very low, and settling fast.

"Go to the steamer first," said the old man; "then head westerly until you get picked up or get ashore. We are not more than one hundred and fifty miles off—good-by."

I dropped over, and the line was cast off, letting the boat drift slowly back, but still heading the sea so that she rode almost dry, in spite of the combers.

The Rathbone was in view about three miles distant, and by the weight upon the four oars we held her so that she drifted off bodily in that direction, while still heading well up to the wind. There was plenty of light left yet, but there was a night coming, and I hoped we would get a chance to board the big vessel before it was black dark. Perhaps she was not so dangerously hurt as she looked.

I saw the old man's boat come away and take the general direction of our own; but the seas were too high to see her often. She was evidently making good weather of it, and I thanked the lucky stars that we had whaleboats for our business, and not the tin things they use for lifeboats in steamers.

By keeping the boat's head quartering to the wind and sea, she drifted bodily off toward the Rathbone, and before dark we drew close aboard.

There was much action taking place on her decks as we came close enough to see. Passengers ran about, and forms of seamen dashed fore and aft. It was evident that they were hurrying for some purpose, and that purpose showed as we noted the list to starboard the ship had. She was very low forward, and seemed to be ready to take the final plunge any moment.

Our boat had been pretty badly smashed getting her overboard, and she was leaking badly from the started seams. In that strong, rolling sea she had all she could do with the crew in her; and I fervently hoped that I would not be called upon to take passengers. Four rowing and three for relief was all right, but a dozen more would swamp her.

We came close under the Rathbone's lee. She lay broadside to the sea, and her high stern, raised as it were by her sinking head, shut off the sweep of the combers.

"Steady your oars," I commanded, as we came within a few fathoms. A man in uniform rushed to the ship's rail and hailed us through a megaphone. He was followed by several passengers.

"Can you come aboard and help us?" he bawled. "We're sinking—all the boats gone to starboard—captain killed and chief mate knocked on the head by wreckage."

"Men have refused duty," howled a man standing near him. "Mutiny aboard, and we're going down—come aboard and help us."

While they hailed, I noticed the boats to port going over the side. One had already gone down, but she had fouled her falls, and had dropped end up, smashing against the ship's side and filling. Struggling men tried to clear her, but the sea was too heavy. A life raft was pushed over the rail, and fell heavily close to us, held by a line. It surged in the lee, and, as the ship drifted down, it struck her heavily, smashing the platform.

"Don't go, sir," said Jake, in a voice that barely reached me.

"We'll have troubles enough of our own," said another.

"Shut up, there are passengers—don't you see the women?—we've got to help them," I said.

I looked for the other boat. It was not in sight. The forms of two women came to the rail, one a young girl.

"Throw me a line," I yelled to the man in uniform.

A small line came sailing across the boat. I seized it, and went forward.

"Jake and you, Bill, come with me, the rest lie by—keep her clear whatever you do," I said, and waved my hand to those above to haul away. With the bowline under my arms, I was soon on deck. Then I helped to haul my two men up.

"I'm the second," said the man in uniform; "but I can't make 'em do anything. Just stretched one out when the rest knocked me over and took to the boats."

Without delay we made our way along the port rail to amidships, where the boats were being lowered. Men crowded around them, and fought for places. The fireroom crew, white-skinned and partly clothed, their pale faces dirty with coal dust, stood around the nearest boat, and worked at the lashings, cursing, swearing, and shoving each other in the suppressed panic of men who are hurrying from death.

The canvas covering was ripped off, and four men sprang into her, the rest shoving her bodily outboard. The men at the falls howled and swore, slacked off without regard to consequences, and the craft dropped a few feet, then swung off, and came with a crash against the side.

"Fine discipline," I said to the second mate, who was close to me.

A form touched my elbow. I turned, and saw a young girl.

"Aren't they going to take us along with them?" she asked quietly, but with a voice full of pleading.

I looked at her. She was not over twenty, and very pretty. Her big eyes were looking right into mine.

"Sure, lady, you shall go," I said.

Jake and Bill stood right behind me.

"Have you a gun?" I asked the officer.

"No; haven't got a thing—let's hoof 'em."

"Avast slacking that boat down," I roared, rushing in.

"Tell it to George," snarled a big fireman, shoving me aside.

I hooked him under the jaw with all my strength, and he staggered back. Jake slammed the next man in the stomach, while the second officer waded in now, striking right and left in the press.

"Get back—stand back!" we roared; and, for a wonder, forced our way along the ship's side, taking the falls.

"Get a line below the block hook. Hold her off," came the order, and some one passed a line at the after fall, while a man in the boat pushed manfully against the ship's side to steady her.

"Now, then, slack away together," I yelled; and Bill, who had the forward fall, slacked off with me, and the craft went rushing down just as the ship rolled to leeward. She struck the sea, the block unhooked; and, as the sinking ship rolled up, she fell clear, and hung to her painter. We had got one down all right. The men then rushed.

Four of us fought back with all our might; but the weight of frantic men was too heavy for us. We were forced back and down, struggling under the crush of fighting firemen and seamen, who trampled, struck, and then tore loose to slide down the hanging boat falls or jump over into the sea, to climb in the floating craft below. The men below in the boat saw they would be swamped by numbers, and cut the painter. She drifted off, then crashed up against the ship's side, and finally swept around the stern, where she met the sea. That was the last I saw of her.

With my clothes half torn off, oilskins hanging in rags, my face bleeding, and utterly exhausted, I got to my feet, and we made for the next boat. The press about her was not so great, and we managed to make way against it. It was the last boat, and the remaining few men left aboard were not enough to hold us. Among them were some passengers, whom we got aboard—four of them—and then finally sent the boat down clear. I looked around for the girl. Two women were in the boat, and the second officer said there was another aboard. I was out of breath, and stood panting a few moments, gazing aft through the bloom of the evening trying to see what had become of that girl. She was not in sight. I remembered she was near the other boat.

"I'll run aft and try to find her," I yelled, and rushed down the deck.

At the door of the saloon I saw a form huddled up on a transom just inside.

"Come," I called roughly; "come along, quick—the boat's waiting."

"Oh, it's you," she said; and I saw it was the girl I was looking for. She sat up. "Did you ever see such brutes?"

"Never mind that now. Get a move on—the boat won't wait."

As I spoke, I felt the ship drop suddenly forward. I turned quickly, and gazed forward. It was almost dark now; but I could see the white surge burst over the forecastle head.

"She's going," I yelled, and grabbed the girl.

A great sea crashed against the house, bursting it in, roaring, smashing, and pouring like a Niagara into the saloon. The deck forward had gone under, the stern was rising high in the air, and the slanting deck told me there was not a second to lose.

The girl sprang up, and we dashed together to the taffrail, which was now fully twenty feet above the sea. There was nothing below but that life raft, the boats had gone to leeward to keep clear. Without a moment's hesitation, I dropped the girl into the sea, and sprang after her.

Hampered with my ragged clothes and oilskins, I could hardly swim a stroke. A rushing comber struck me, and I felt myself going down, unable to fight any longer. My breath was gone.

When I came to I was lying upon the life raft, and the girl was clinging to me with one hand, and passing one of the lashings of the raft with the other. It was black dark. Only the rushing seas about me told of our whereabouts; and the wild flings of the raft as it swept along with the rush made me aware of the present. I tried to see, raised my head, and felt very weak.

"How'd we get here?" I asked.

"I grabbed you and pulled you up," she said simply. "You were hit on the head by it—better tie yourself fast with that piece of cord, I can't hold you any longer."

I took a few turns of the side lashings of the raft about our bodies, and, as the seas washed us, I noticed that the water felt so much warmer than the air. We were clear of the sea a few inches, but each comber dashed over and soaked us, washing so heavily that it was necessary to hold one's head up in order to breathe freely.

"Did you see the boats?" I asked. "They'll pick us up presently."

"No; I couldn't see anything. I had all I could do to pull you on the raft. You're pretty heavy, you know. Then I had to hold you for what seemed an hour, but maybe was only a few minutes. Do you think they'll find us?"

"Sure. They wouldn't leave us. Ship went down, didn't it—rather sudden, and they had to let go. My men will stand by if it takes all night," I said.

"I sincerely hope you are right about it. I don't much fancy this raft for a place to spend the night. Will we be drowned on it, do you think?"

"No fear; we're all right. It can't sink. All we have to do is to keep a lookout for a boat and sing out for help. Why, there's five boats altogether, counting ours. Five boats, and it's just dark, not after six or seven o'clock at the most."

"How far from land are we?" she asked, seemingly cheered but still somewhat doubtful.

"Not far," I lied. I thought of a hundred and fifty miles of floating to get in—if the boats didn't pick us up. I began to experience that sinking feeling that comes to many when the outlook seems pretty bad.

The girl was silent for some time after this, and seemed to be thinking of her troubles, for once she gave a little gasp of complaint.

"Cheer up," I said; "don't give way to it yet. We'll be all right soon."

As the hours passed and no boat come near, I began to feel very nervous. I could see but a few fathoms distant, and knew the chances were growing less and less. I hailed the blackness, bawled out as loud as I could, keeping it up at minute intervals. The wind seemed to be going down, but the sea still ran quickly, and was high and strong, lifting the raft skyward at each roll, and then dropping it down gently into the hollow trough. We felt the wind only when on the top of the seas, and it chilled us; but the warm edge of the Gulf Stream soaked us, and we could stand it for a long time. The sea was as warm as milk.

How that long night passed I don't know. It seemed like eternity. Several times I lost consciousness, whether from exhaustion or from the blow I had received upon the head I cannot say. I held to the girl, and together we stood it out. Our lashings kept us upon the piece of platform remaining upon the two hollow iron cylinders comprising the raft.

The girl lost her power of speech some time during the night, and seemed to faint, her head dropping upon the slats of the platform. I held it up to keep the water from her nose and mouth, and finally propped her head so that little water broke over it. It was all I could do.

The raft swung around and around, sometimes with the sea on one side and then with it upon another. I felt for the oarlock, which is usually placed at either end to steer by, but it was gone. So also were the oars that had been placed between the cylinders and the platform. We simply had a float, that kept us bodily out of the sea, and that was all.

After hours and hours of this wild pitching and rushing upon the crests of high, rolling seas, the motion began to get easier, and I noticed that the wind was rapidly falling. The crests no longer broke with the furious rush and tumble as formerly. Then the gray light of dawn came, and I began to see about us.

The form of the girl lay alongside me, lashed to the platform. Her hair trailed into the sea in long tresses from her head, and her face was white as chalk. I thought she was dead, and shook her to see if there was any life to stir up. She lay limp. I took her hand and felt the wrist. A slight pulse told of the vital spark still burning. It seemed brutal to arouse her, to bring her back to the horror of her position. But I felt that it was best. I called to her, and she finally opened her eyes. She shivered, placed one arm under her, and then raised herself painfully into a sitting posture.

"Cut the cord around my wrist, will you, please?" she said. "I promise not to fall off."

"Better let it stay," I said. "I'll loose it so you can move about a little. Seems like they missed us in the dark."

"Well, do you still think they'll pick us up? See; it's light now, the sun is coming up. I don't know as I care very much. Do you?"

"Sure I care. Why not? We'll be all right soon."

She let her head fall forward, and gave a little sob; just a bit of a cry.

"Well, then I'm glad I pulled you out of the water," she said. "Seems like we might just as well have gone during the night. Do you really think it's worth struggling for like this? Life is good—and I want to live—but this is too hard—too terrible—and my poor mother——"

"We'll be picked up before breakfast, sure," I said. "The boats must have drifted just the same as ourselves. Something'll come along soon."

And yet deep down in me I knew that this was a bare chance. We were out of the track of ships, well off shore for the coasters, and not far enough for the Bermuda ships, like the Rathbone, which had stopped at the island on her way north.

The sun rose, and daylight broadened into the morning. The wind fell rapidly, and the sea began to get that easy run of the Atlantic when undisturbed. I loosened my lashings and stood up, gazing about us. The motion of the raft was still severe; but I could stand, balancing myself. I shivered and shook with the wet and cold; but I now felt that with the sun shining we would soon be in better straits. As the raft rose upon the swells I looked all around the horizon. But there was nothing; not a thing save the sea in sight.

"You can't see anything?" The girl's voice sounded strange, querulous, and pitiful. She was sitting with her head bowed upon her hands, which rested on her knees. Her wet dress clung to her, and she looked very frail, very delicate.

"No; I can't see anything yet," I answered; "but we'll sight something before long. Tell me, were you from Bermuda?"

"Yes; I was visiting my aunt there," she said. "I just graduated from the convent of the Sacred Cross last month. I've never been anywhere, or seen anyone, until this year. My mother is the only other near relative I have living."

"Well, you've made a good start seeing things," said I, trying to smile at her. She turned a little pink, just flushed a bit; but it gave her white face a more natural look. She was a very pretty girl.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Eighteen. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, only——"

I felt like a fool. Why should I bother this child about her age? She had saved my life by dragging me upon the raft, and I would save hers, if possible. It produced a feeling in me I could not quite understand. I liked to hear her talk, to have her look at me. She was very pretty; a good, innocent young girl.

"I could eat a house, roof, and foundation," I ventured finally, seating myself. The wash of the sea now hardly reached us, and we were drying out fast in the cool breeze and sunshine.

"Yes; I could eat a ship, masts, and spars," I went on.

"Well, I suppose I'll be tough enough," she said, glancing at me with some show of fear in her eyes. "I once read of men on a raft who ate each other; but I never thought it would be my turn. No, never."

"Don't be absurd," I said. "I don't intend to eat you—not yet."

She looked at me very hard. Her eyes were moist; big, lustrous eyes. "No," she said seriously, "I don't believe you will," and she put her hand in mine.

"Aw, don't be frightened, kid," I said. "I may look like the devil, but I'm not."

And I sat there like an idiot holding that girl's hand, while the sun rose and shone warmer and warmer upon us, drying our garments and cheering us wonderfully. I had never met a girl of this kind before; and it was something of a problem how I was to keep her alive and cheerful on that raft. I swore fiercely at Jake, at Jones, and the rest for leaving us adrift. My oaths were something strange to the girl, for she shivered and drew her hand away.

"Please don't," she said quietly. "What good does it do to use such language?"

"Eases me a lot, miss. What's your name?"

"Alice Trueman."

I mumbled the name a few times, then relapsed into silence. After that there was nothing more said for a long time; but I saw her looking at me at intervals. Evidently I was an animal she was not used to, and I wondered at a mother who would bring up a girl to view a man as such a terrible sort of creature. I was a rough sailor; but I was human.

The day advanced and the wind fell to a gentle breath. Then it became quite still, a dead calm, while the swell rolled steadily in from the eastward, but smoothed out into long, easy hills and hollows, upon which the raft rode easily and the platform kept clear of the sea at last.

We took turns standing up and looking about the surrounding waste to see if there were any signs of a ship. Nothing showed upon the horizon, and the day wore down to evening. We were both very hungry and thirsty. I knew that the limit would soon be reached if there were nothing to eat or drink. The sun was now warm, and we ceased shivering as it settled in the west. The darkness of the night came on with its terrors, and still there was no sign of help from anywhere.

"I really don't think I can stand it any longer, captain," said the girl.

"I'm not the captain—just the mate," I answered; "but you'll have to stick it out for the night."

Miss Alice gave a little sob. "I'm so hungry and thirsty," she wailed. And added plaintively: "I've never been hungry in my life before."

"Probably not," I said, sitting close to her and taking her hand in mine again. She made no resistance, and I passed my arm about her. "You must remember you've seen very little of the world yet. I've been hungry often—expect to be again before I go."

"You see, I've had everything in the world I wanted. My father died very rich—and I can't stand the things people can who are used to them," she lamented.

"Cheer up," I said. "While there's life there's hope, you know."

She gave a little sigh, and let her head fall back upon my shoulder. And so we sat there in the growing darkness, together upon a raft in the middle of the Atlantic. As I look back upon it, there seems to be a bit of sentiment lacking. I felt nothing but pity for the girl at the time. I wasn't the least unhappy. I wasn't the least disturbed, except that hunger was gnawing at me and the fear the girl would die there. Personally I was not displeased with the position. Such is youth.

"Alice," I said finally, "I find a lot of comfort in you being here with me, but I honestly believe I could stand it better if you were safe ashore. You've been a mighty brave little companion though."

She gave my hand a bit of a squeeze, and sighed like a tired child. Then she closed her eyes.

I was aroused by a hail.

"Hey, there, aboard the raft!" came a yell from the darkness.

"Boat, ahoy!" I howled, in desperation, hardly believing my ears.

"Stand by and catch the line," came the yell again, and I jumped up and stared into the gloom.

A dark spot showed close aboard. The sound of oars came over the water. A man's voice hailed again, and I recognized Jones, my bow oarsman.

"Mr. Garnett——Is it you?" he cried; and a line came hurtling across the platform, striking me in the face. I seized it, snatched a turn upon one of the slats of the platform. The boat came alongside, while they held her off with the oars and boat hook.

"A girl—one of the passengers, hey?" asked Jones. "Climb aboard, sir, and we'll take her in all safe enough."

Wilson and Jones sprang upon the platform, and helped me lift the girl to her feet. She opened her eyes at the motion, and gave a cry of joy.

"I'm so glad!" she said, and fainted dead away, while we placed her in the stern of the whaleboat.

"Water, in the name of Heaven!" I panted. "You cowards! Why did you leave us?"

"Hunted for you, sir, all night," said Jones, getting at the water breaker and measuring out a full quart. I held it to the lips of the girl, and she revived enough to drink part of it. I drank the rest, and drew another measure, drinking it off in a gulp.

"Grub," I said, without further ado; and, while they shoved clear of the raft, I took a share of the ship's biscuit, eating ravenously.

"Sit up and chew a bit of bread," I said to Miss Alice.

She raised herself with an effort, and soon recovered sufficiently to eat something. Then she nestled close to me, let her head fall again upon my shoulder, and went to sleep like a tired child.

We were heading almost due west for the coast now, and could not be very far away from coastwise traffic. I felt that the end would soon come, and that we would be picked up.

Before midnight a light showed ahead. It was a steamer's headlight, and I soon made out her green light, showing she was heading north, inside of us. We would pass very close.

"Give way strong; give way together. Let's get out of this," I said; and the men set to the oars.

The light grew brighter, the green still showing. Soon the black form of the ship's hull showed through the gloom, her masthead light now looming high in the air, and her side light close aboard. We were drawing in, and I stood up and bawled out for help. The black bulk of her hull towered over us, and for an instant it seemed that she would run us down.

"Hold—back water—hold hard!" I yelled, and the men obeyed.

The ship tore past us, the foam of her bow wave splashing into the boat. I roared out curses upon the men above in her. Then she went on into the night. I howled, swore at her, called her skipper every name I could devise. The men seconded me, and together we called down enough curses upon that ship to have sunk her. Suddenly she seemed to slow up, to stop, and then lay dead in the gloom.

"Row, you bullies, row for your lives!" I yelled; and the men gave their last spurt, putting their remaining strength into the pull. We drew closer, and a voice hailed us from the ship.

"Ship ahoy!" I called again. "Throw us a line and stand by to pick us up."

We came alongside. A line was dropped down, and Jones seized it, snatched a turn, and we were fast. The ship was wallowing slowly ahead; but we hung alongside safe enough.

"Pass down a bowline," I sang out; "and be quick about it."

The line came down into the boat, and I slipped it over the head of Miss Alice Trueman, jamming it under her arms.

"H'ist away on deck," I directed; and the girl went aloft. The rest of us came one after the other.

"I can't take your boat, sir," said the captain; "haven't any room."

"Forget the boat. Give me something to eat and drink, and a place to lie down for a few weeks," I said, and I was led below.

Two days later we were at the dock in New York. I had not seen Alice since she had been turned over to the care of the stewardess; but I waited for her to come on deck. She came, pale but self-possessed. She was still weak, but was now nearly recovered. The ship was being warped to the pier, and it would be a few minutes before we could leave her. I came up and held out my hand.

"Well," I said, "Alice, how about it? You were a good companion in trouble, a brave shipmate in the face of terrible danger. Somehow it has drawn me to you. I want to see you again."

"Always, Mr. Garnett; always will I be glad to see you—but do you think it wise under the circumstances? Don't you think we had better say good-by now? It will only be more difficult later on. You know what I mean——"

She looked up at me with moist eyes—eyes that told so much. I was taken all aback; but I understood. I was only a sailorman, a mate of a sailing ship. She was an heiress—a lady, as they say, educated and refined. She couldn't make me what she knew I would have to be to retain her respect and love, the love she would want to give. It was for my own good she was saying good-by. Yes, I believe she meant it only for that.

"Sure, girl, I was only fooling," I said, with my throat choking so that the blamed ship reeled and swung about me.

"Believe me, it's best so," she whispered, looking at me strangely with eyes now full of tears. She held out her hand, raised her head, put up her lips.

"Kiss me good-by. You were awful good to me. Good-by."

I felt that kiss burn my lips for many a day—yes, for a long time.

THE AFTER BULKHEAD

After coming home from the East I had, like many other ship's officers, taken up steam. There was more in it than the old wind-jammers, and the runs were short in comparison. It was not long before I went in the Prince Line, as they needed navigators badly.

I was chief mate of the liner, and it was my unpleasant duty to do about everything. Old Man Hall, captain and R. N. R. man, did little beside working the ship's position after we got to sea. Ashore, he left everything to Mr. Small and myself, as far as the ship was concerned, and if there were a piece of frayed line, a bit of paint chafed, we heard all about it within two hours after he came aboard.

Small was second under me, while the third and fourth officers were hardly more than apprentices, both being for the first time in the ship and not more than twenty-one or two years of age.

Captain Hall was nearly seventy, and somewhat decrepit, but he was an accurate navigator, and had kept his record clean, making one hundred runs across the Western Ocean without accident. Masters of merchantmen are good or bad, according to their records, according to their reputations. Some said Hall had excellent luck. But, anyway, he was a good man, a fair-minded skipper, and he always brought in his ship on schedule, which was saying a good deal, for the Prince Line steamers were not noted for keeping close to time—any old time was good enough for most of them until the Prince Gregory, of twenty thousand tons, came along and made the lubbers look up a bit.

She was the largest ship of the fleet—which comprised ten good steamers—and she was fitted with all the modern conveniences, from telephones to wireless, had a swimming pool, barber shop, gymnasium, café, and elevators to the hurricane deck.

With only four watch officers, and six cadets, who were about as useful as a false keel on a trunk, I had enough to do before clearing.

The chief engineer was an American, for a wonder, and his six assistants, including donkey man, were Liverpool cockneys. They drove a swarm of fire rats and coal passers that would have made a seaman crazy in two days, but Smith took things easy below, and, although he had to push her to keep the new record, he let his assistants do the heavy work. That's the reason he grew so fat—grew fat and even-tempered, while poor Small and myself sweated out our lives after the usual routine.

We had forty men in the crew, and needed more, for we often had a thousand emigrants in the steerage. Sometimes we carried bunches of those big chaps from the European forests, Lithuanians, strong, sturdy brutes, totally without sense.

It was in December that we took over five hundred of them on board, and while I was polite as possible, I put Small wise to keep a lookout on the critters. They were miners, for the most part. Contract men, going to the mines in Pennsylvania.

By some means a quantity of their baggage got below with that of the cabin passengers. We had a lot of cabin folks that voyage. There was a bunch of actors, men and women you hear at the opera, drummers galore, buyers who were coming home from the fall trading, several millionaires; and, among the society or upper-strata people, the ones without occupation to give them distinction, were the Lady Amadoun and her following.

Lady Amadoun was American born, but French by adoption, or, rather, marriage, preferring in her youth the suave manners of older generations to the rougher ones of her own countrymen. Raoul, Vicomte Amadoun, her husband, had not turned out the soft and gentle creature he appeared before marriage. In fact, he had followed the usual time-worn game of demanding money at unusual crises, which, as you know, has a tendency to make intelligent women think twice before coming across with it. The Vicomtesse Amadoun, or countess, as they called her, was young; in fact, looked hardly twenty-five—but, of course, a countess has maids to fix her up a bit!

You see, being first officer, and sitting at the head of my own table in the saloon, the countess came under my observation more than I intended. Old Hall had his own cronies, who sat with him, and Driggs, the steward, gave the most prominent passenger my right-hand seat—sort of compliment. Driggs was a good steward, and owed his place to my exertions in his behalf.

It was about this confounded baggage that I had a chance to further acquaint myself with nobility, for the trunks of the countess—and she had about fifty, including those of her friends who came with her—got mixed with the stuff that the baggage-master had sent by mistake to the first-class baggage room—the unlovely dunnage of the human moles who were roosting low in the steerage, and paying two pounds sterling a head for the privilege.

"I would take it as a great favor if you would allow me to get into my baggage by to-morrow at the latest," said the countess, beaming upon me from the adjacent seat at my table at dinner that day. "You see, we've been all over Europe, and while traveling through Russia I picked up some very pretty furs, which will be nice to use on deck during this cool sea weather."

"Madam," said I, "I shall be at your service right after eight bells to-morrow, when I leave the bridge." So I warned the baggage man, below, to have the place cleaned out a mite, so that her ladyship could go below without getting her frock spoiled from contact with the steerage passengers or their belongings.

To be sure that he would do my bidding—he belonged to the purser's force—I went below that morning, and looked the baggage over myself. I passed in through the steerage, and noted the men stowed there. Two big brutes of Lithuanians sat upon their dunnage, and jabbered in their language.

"Hike!" I said abruptly to the pair. "Git away from the baggage, and let the trunk slingers dig up."

"Oh, Mister Mate, Mister Chief, we have our trunks here, also, and want to get to them," answered one fellow in fairly good lingo.

"Beat it!" I ordered. "Make a get-away as quick as you can. Only first-class passengers can take their baggage out, or get a look-in. Why, you lubber, if every one of you steerage rats wanted to get into your trunks, it would take about fifteen hundred stewards and baggage men to take care of you."

"But it is of great importance that we see our things—there are some things in my trunk I must get at, some important things——"

"Try and fergit them until next Wednesday, when they can be dumped on Ellis Island; nuff sed—no more lingo—beat it!"

The pair went away in very ugly humor, and I started the work of clearing that baggage room of their dunnage, and trying to select the trunks of the countess from the raffle. I managed to get about twenty of them, and let it go at that.

The next day I took the countess below, and personally showed her over the trunks. She was accompanied by the count and her maid.

"Now, Marie, which trunk was it in, ma chère? You must remember it very well," she said, looking at the mass of baggage.

"Mais oui, it must be that grand affaire—that beeg one—see!" And the maid pointed to an immense Saratoga trunk, big enough to hold the clothes of a full man-o'-war's crew.

The baggage master and I pulled the trunk out of the ruck, and the count produced a bunch of keys.

I sauntered over to the other side of the room, where the gratings separated the steerage from the rest. The two fellows I saw there yesterday were watching through the slats, and did not notice me.

"Deux cent," said one, in a whisper.

"Whew, mon Dieu——"

I knew that there was something about two hundred, but just what I couldn't quite log. My lingo goes mostly to Spanish and Chink, having sailed to those countries.

The countess asked me to move the big trunk to the side of the ship. I did so without seeing the reason for the extra work, but the lady was gracious, and there was really no reason for not doing it. Two other trunks were opened, and the furs brought out. Then the lady went on deck again, after thanking me most profusely. Raoul was more reticent. He was not the tongue-lashing Frenchman he looked. He seemed preoccupied; but all very rich and powerful men seem that way to me, and after all I was but the chief officer. Perhaps the skipper would have drawn him out more.

Nothing happened until we were within sight of the Nantucket Shoals lightship. That night the countess and her husband were on deck, and, the air being cool, they were well wrapped in furs. I watched them from the bridge. They kept well forward, near the starboard forward lifeboat. That was my boat under the drill orders, and I remembered it afterward.

It was about two bells—nine o'clock in the evening—when there was a most terrific roar from below. The ship shook as though torn asunder. As I gazed aft, the deck seemed to rise and blow outboard. Something struck me heavily, and I was down and out for a few minutes. When I arose with ringing ears, I looked aft again, hardly realizing that I was awake and not dreaming. The siren was roaring full blast, and a throng of men and women were rushing forward toward the bridge. Old Hall came out of his room half dressed, and ran to me.

"What is it—what's happened?" he yelled in my ear.

"Don't know," I howled, and even then I didn't believe I was awake.

The chief engineer ran up.

"Starboard engine room full, sir—something blowed up below—whole side gone above water line—won't float ten minutes," he howled.

"For God's sake, shut off that siren, then!" yelled old man Hall. Then, turning to me, he ordered: "Stand by the boats, and get the passengers out."

In a few minutes the roar of the steam stopped. Hall stood calmly upon the bridge, and gave the orders for the small boats, and away they went one after the other. The wireless was sending its call for help, but there was no time for us to listen to replies; we had plenty to do.

The Prince Gregory settled slowly by the stern, and raised her bows high in the air. There she stopped, and, for a wonder, did not fall from under us.

"Get into the boat, quick!" I said to the countess, and she sprang with amazing ease into the stern, followed by her husband and the maid.

"Nix on the men!" I yelled, and grabbed the count. "Come out—women first," and I dragged him from the boat with no show of deference. He struck me savagely in the face, and I stretched him out with the boat's tiller. Seamen tossed him aside, and the swarm of women crowded up and into the craft while I held the men back as best I could.

I knew it was to be a close haul. Seven hundred men and women, and only twenty boats! The life rafts would be doing duty pretty soon, and no mistake.

I saw very little of the fracas around me, as one never does see much if he is tending to his own business, and mine at that time was getting forty-five women into a small boat, many of them in before she was lowered away.

Luckily there was no sea running at all. It was calm and foggy, the water like black oil.

I slid down the falls, and when we loaded up I took command at the tiller, and went out a little distance to clear the wreck in case of trouble. We lay at rest a hundred fathoms distant, and watched the scuffle aboard. Men yelled like mad, screamed, and fought. I caught the flash of a gun, and heard the report. I knew Hall would not stand for lawless rushing the boats, and was doing some fierce work. Pretty soon the outcry died away more and more, and still the black hull showed plainly, her bow still pointing skyward, and her stern submerged.

"God's blessing, there's no wind or sea!" I said to Driscoll, my stroke oarsman.

"You're right there, cap," said he. "What wus ut anyway?"

"Blessed if I knew—she's just blowed up, whole stern gone out of her. She can't float two hours, and there'll be no one out here before daybreak if they do get the signal."

"You brute!" exclaimed the countess, who was sitting close to me. "Why didn't you let my husband come in this boat?"

"If he was a man, he wouldn't have wanted to," I snapped, hot at the insult.

"I notice you are here, all right, you ruffian!" she retorted, sneering. "What do you call yourself?"

I thought best not to answer her. Words with women are generally wasted, and the woman always gets the last one, anyhow. The countess had always been so courteous and gentle that I supposed the excitement had turned her head; and then, after all, I had treated her husband a bit rough. He was a gentleman, and I was only a mate. That made a difference in her point of view, although I can't say it did so much in my own.

I talked to Driscoll, and watched the Prince Gregory as she lay there in the oily sea. Boats came and went toward the light vessel, and, thinking it would be a good thing to get rid of my cargo, I trailed off after the bunch, and was soon alongside the lightship.

As fast as we could, we sent the women aboard, finding that the little ship would hold hundreds of passengers, in spite of her diminutive size. Inside of half an hour, she had fully five hundred people in her, and was jammed to the rails, below and on deck. Still, it was better than an open boat, and I kept bringing them by scores, until there were no more, save a few boatloads, and these we kept afloat in the lifeboats.

During this time I thought little, or not at all, about the count. The ship still hung by her after bulkhead, and Lord knows the man who set it in her deserves praise enough. How it stood that strain is a wonder to this day. If there had been any sea running she would have gone down like a stone, for no unbraced cross-section of a ship can stand the surge of ten thousand tons in a seaway. It must have burst like blotting paper when wetted down. With ten men—all second-class passengers—in my boat besides the crew, I went back to the ship for the last time, and watched old man Hall as he stood upon the bridge. I could just make him out through the hazy gloom of the night, but I could hear his voice distinctly, as he gave orders to the few men who stayed with him.

"Do you want any more help, sir?" I asked, coming alongside.

"What's that—you, Jack?" he answered. "No, I reckon not. She'll hang on for hours, if the weather remains calm like this. All the passengers safe?"

"All aboard the lightship, or hanging to her by painters—there's a line of boats half a mile long trailing on behind her, and they're safe enough, as they can't get lost as long as they hold to her. Tide runs hard here on the edge of the Stream, but her wireless is going right along, and she says two cutters left Boston half an hour ago, under full steam—ought to be here before late in the morning, anyway. Never lost a man, hey?"

"No," says he, "not that I know of; and that's some remarkable, too."

I thought it was, also, but said nothing more for a few moments, watching the half-sunken hull slowly rolling from side to side in the smooth swell.

While I watched I saw the form of a man coming from aft, along the rail of the main deck, which was just awash. As every one had left the after part of the ship and the engine room abandoned, I thought this strange, and watched the figure until it came almost amidships. Then it disappeared in the cabin.

"More men aft, sir?" I asked Hall, who still stood leaning upon the bridge rail, waiting for help.

"No, no one left aboard—just Jenkins and his crew of four men—myself, that's all." Jenkins was carpenter.

"Saw a man coming from aft, sir—must be some passenger overlooked. Shall I jump up, and see to him?"

"All right," came the response, and almost before he spoke the men who waited on their oars shoved the boat astern until she was almost level with the sunken deck. I sprang out of her, and sung to them to lie by and keep clear of the captain's boat, which lay alongside, just forward of us, waiting until the old man found it necessary to leave.

I made my way in through the passageway to the saloon, and found the deck still clear of water, although the sucking roar and surge of the sea beneath told of the immense volume in the lower decks. The lights had long gone out, with the drowning of the dynamos, and I felt for a cabin door, intending to grab one of the emergency candles which are always in place on the bulkheads.

I found one, and struck a light; then made my way along the passage in front of the lower staterooms, calling at intervals for any one who might be near and unable to realize the peril of a foundering ship. I admit it was some ticklish. I had my hair raised more than once when the ship took a more than usually heavy roll, and the rushing thunders below started with renewed force. What if she should drop? It was a bad thought, and not tending to still my pulse. I couldn't help thinking of the thousand fathoms or so of blue sea beneath my feet——

I thought I heard a footstep crossing the passage in front of me. It is strange how, above the general thunder of rushing water, a slight sound makes itself evident. It was like standing upon the shore during the running of a heavy surf. One can almost talk in a whisper while the thunder reverberates along the coast.

A shadow crossed in front of me, and I hailed again. It was a man, and he was coming from below, from the sunken lower decks. He came up the staircase of the lower saloon, and darted along the passageway to port.

"Hey, there! Stop!" I yelled.

The man turned, and in an instant I recognized him. It was the Vicomte Raoul.

He eyed me with a savage look, and waited for me to come up.

"What ees it you want?" he growled.

"Just you!" I told him. "Don't you know you are in danger of getting killed down here?"

"And how does that matter interest you?" he retorted, with those shrugging shoulders and arched eyebrows he could handle so well.

"It don't, except that, as I'm an officer, it's my duty to see you leave the ship under orders of the captain."

"I noticed you were not so queek to have me leave dees sheep when I first started," he sneered, "and eef I go back for my jewels, my valuables, eet ees no affaire of yours—eh?"

"It is only to the extent that I must see you off the vessel," I said.

We were standing near the after companionway, and I noticed the splintered planking, where the force of the explosion had blown it upward. It was directly over the baggage room, where the trunks were stowed below. This was now under six to ten feet of clear water.

"If you want to get into your trunks, you will have to be a good diver," I said. "There's no chance in the world of getting below here—she's flooded full to the after bulkheads number four in the wake of the starboard engines. You couldn't do a thing below if you got there."

In a more courteous tone, the count explained:

"Eet is a matter of small valuables in my room, not my trunk. Go along like a good fellow, and I will follow instantly. I just go below to my room—I come with you instantly—go!"

"Well, I'll wait here if it don't take too long," I said. "It's against orders, and if anything happens to you I'll get it, all right. Hurry up, and beat it back—the boat's waiting, and the ship'll drop any minute. It's only that number four bulkhead holding her."

"Ah, yes, dat number four! Eet ees just at my stateroom door, zat number four you call heem. Wait, my good fellow, I come immediate," and he went down the companionway, which was knee-deep at the bottom in sea water.

He splashed through the shallow wash, and disappeared along the gloomy passage, where the candlelight failed. I stood above and waited, holding my breath at times, and cursing the luck that made me weak enough to allow him to do such a foolish thing as go below for valuables. However, I had treated him pretty rough at the first getaway, and felt he had a right to some consideration.

Suddenly I remembered that his stateroom was not below on that main deck! It seemed to me he had rooms forward and above; but the excitement had caused me to forget this detail, and I was so taken up, even at the time, that I only remembered it in a half-dazed way. What did he want below, then?

I waited, and the minutes flew by, seeming long enough. The candle ran its hot grease down upon my hand, and burned it. I was getting sore and impatient at the wait. If anything happened, I could never be given a reprimand, for I would never show up to receive it. The ship would go down and take me with her, all right enough. I hadn't a chance in the world—and I was waiting there for a count, a man who had sprung into the mate's boat to get clear, when there were hundreds of women waiting and screaming to go!

There was a sharp explosion from below. The ship shook a little, and rolled to port.

"Just Heaven! Did that bulkhead go?"

A form tore down the passageway, splashed through the water at the foot of the companion, and was upon me in an instant. Raoul struck me fairly between the eyes, and I went down to sleep—that was all I remember of the inside of the Prince Gregory, as she lay foundering off the Shoals.

When I came to, I was in the boat, with Driscoll bending over me and pouring sea water upon my head. The dark stain showed me that I was bleeding fast, and the sailor tore off the sleeve of his jumper, and tied it about my forehead. I tried to sit up, but everything swam and rolled about me horribly. Finally I managed to get my head up.

"What's happened?" I asked.

"Bulkhead gave way, sir," he told me. "You was hit on the head by wreckage. I run in after you, an' jest managed to git you clear. She's gone, sir!"

"What! The ship?" I cried.

"Sure, sir."

"And the old man—Jenkins, and the rest of them?"

"All got clear just in time—seems like Jenkins and his gang were at the bulkhead from forrards, trying to shore it up, when bing! she went, and them as was left beat it—all got clear, sir."

"See anything of a passenger—that chap we had a run-in with at the first getaway?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; one man got away in the skipper's boat—that's them headin' for the lightship over there," and he pointed to a blur that showed through the hazy night. I began to gather my senses again, but I couldn't make head or tail of it. What did that fellow nail me for? I had hit him, to be sure; but that was for a purpose. He surely intended to fix me, all right. About a minute more, and I would have gone with the ship.

"Cowardly rat!" I whispered.

"Who?" asked Driscoll.

"That white-livered dog who knocked me out," I said, gritting my teeth at the thought.

"Better lie quiet, sir; better keep still—you're bug a bit, but will be all right to-morrow. Does it hurt you much, sir?"

"Shut up!" I commanded ungratefully, and Driscoll gazed at me sorrowfully, pulling away again at his oar, for we were now almost to the lightship.

All that night we lay trailing astern. There was a long line of lifeboats reaching nearly half a mile back, all hanging to the taffrail of the ship.

About daylight she got in touch with a passing passenger ship, bound in, and while we were busy shifting the hundreds of passengers the cutters showed up, and helped to expedite matters by towing the small boats. Before breakfast time we had all the outfit aboard and away for New York. Hall and myself went aboard the cutter Eagle. We waited for several hours, to see if there were anything more to find drifting about, and then away we went for home, thanking the captain of the Nantucket Shoals lightship for what he had done.

"I don't understand it at all—don't seem to be just right," repeated Hall over and over to the captain of the cutter. "She just blew up—that's all there is to it. We had a drove of miners aboard, and you know how hard it is to keep those fellows from carrying explosives in their dunnage. You simply can't stop to search them. There was probably a couple of hundred pounds of blasting powder, at the least—went off like a mine blowing up a battleship. That bulkhead in the wake of the starboard engine room saved us—that's all!"

I was out of a ship. When we got in, the manager laid me off for a month, and then gave me the second greaser's berth on the old Prince Leander, a bum ship—and that's a fact. When I reached the other side again, I saw by the papers that a certain Frenchman had tried to collect nearly a million francs on his insurance for cargo and personal belongings in the Prince Gregory. It seems that he had shipped tons of expensive machinery and had insured it fully. The stuff was cased tightly, but one case marked for him had broken while being handled on the dock, and nothing but bricks fell out.

The insurance companies held up the claim. I hurried to the consul's office, and told of the episode of the trunk, and how I was hit over the nut by a certain French gentleman during the fracas. The description answered to the man of machinery, and when I told of that last little crack I had heard below, the consul waited not on the order of his going, but ordered a cab and fairly threw me into it. We tore to the office of the underwriters, and I told my tale. Then I began to see the light, at last.

It was the old game tried under a new guise—and it had nearly cost the lives of a half thousand human beings. The horror of it appalled me, and I found myself wondering if I were to be trusted about without a nurse again. However, I was not censured severely. The crook was well known to the police, and since then the police of many countries have been trying to locate a gentleman who answers to the description of the Vicomte Raoul de Amadoun.

CAPTAIN JUNARD

Captain Junard awoke suddenly from a sound sleep. He listened intently for a few moments. The steady vibrations of the ship's engines told of the unchecked motion, the unhindered rush of the ship through the sea. Yet something had awakened him, something had given him a start from a dreamless sleep, the sleep of a tired man. He knew that something was wrong, felt it, and wondered at it, while his heart began to sound the alarm by its increasing pulsations. He wondered if he were sick, had eaten something that might produce nightmare; but he felt very well, and knew he never started at trifles. His hand reached for the revolver at the head of his bunk. He always kept it there for emergencies. It was a heavy forty-five, with a long, blue barrel—a strong weapon that had stood him handily in several affairs aboard the steamer. The light in his room was dim, but there was enough of it to show him that his room was empty. His hand reached the spot where the weapon usually hung, but failed to reach it. He groped softly for several moments. There was nothing upon the bulkhead; the gun was gone.

This fact made a peculiar impression upon him. He felt now that his instinct was correct, that he was indeed in danger. His mind cleared quickly from the stupor of sound sleep, and he remembered. He was carrying papers of peculiar importance in his strong box, or safe—papers relating to a deal in shipping connected with a revolution in a Central American state. A rival line had tried to stop the affair, which grew into political importance when secret agents of the United States tried to find out how deeply it might affect the Panama Canal. The concession had not been granted. The Canal Zone was not yet in existence, and the United States was sure to get it if this deal went through. The president had watched the affair with hungry eyes. Now the papers were in his—Junard's—possession, aboard his ship, bound for the state department in Washington.

Junard started up when he found his hand missing the butt of that revolver. It had been a pleasant fancy to him when he remembered its solid grip and deadly accuracy, a dependable friend in the hours of darkness and distress. Now it was gone, and could not have gone without some one having taken it. If they took it, they took it to keep him from using it. The idea of its loss awakened him more than anything else, and sent his heart beating fast as with sudden quickness and energy he sprang from his bed. There was nothing in his room, nothing at all. The lamp burned low. The electrics had been switched off, as they gave too much light for him to sleep in. Junard stood wondering, studying, and gazing at his safe, which lay bolted to the deck in a corner of his room.

The captain's room was just abaft the pilot house, as is usual in ships of that class. A stairway, or companion, of five steps led to the pilot house, but these were cut flush with his room and into the floor of the house above, so that he could shut the door. The door was shut now as he looked, but the sound of the steering gear told him that the man at the wheel, within a dozen feet of him, was steering and attending apparently to his business. The room ran clear across the superstructure, opening with a door upon either side. To starboard was his bathroom, to port was a closet, which adjoined the room of the chief officer, being separated from it by the bulkhead. Both these rooms led aft and opened into his room by doors in the bulkhead. This made his room a complete section of the superstructure about twelve feet deep and running clear through. There was nothing in it that could hide any one. A table, a couch with leather cushions, several chairs, and a large desk completed the furniture. His bed was a large double bunk let in to port and hung with curtains. It somewhat resembled an old four-poster bed.

Junard walked quickly to the safe. It was locked. He smiled at himself. The absurdity of the thing almost made him laugh. And yet he was as nervous as a ship's cat when watching a strange dog. He opened the door leading to the pilot house. The man in there was standing in regulation pose, with his hands upon the spokes of the steam steering gear. The sudden rattle and clank told Junard the fellow was awake and alert. The dim light from the binnacle made his outline plainly discernible, and Junard recognized him as Swan, a quartermaster of long service and excellent ability.

"How's she heading, Swan?" whispered the captain.

"No'the, two east, sir," said the man, with a slight start. The words had come to him from the gloom behind him, and he had not heard the door open.

"That's right; they haven't reported the Cape yet?"

"No, sir; but that's Cape Maysi, sir, I think," said Swan, pointing to a light that had just begun to show right over the port bow. Eight bells struck off upon the clock in the house as he spoke, and the cry came from forward. The chief mate, who was on watch, came to the pilot-house window, reached in, and took out the night glasses. He adjusted them and gazed at Cape Maysi. Captain Junard watched him narrowly, and noted that he took the bearings and made the remark in his order book. Mr. Jameson was a good officer and a first-class navigator, and Junard did not wish to appear on deck until he was called. It looked as if he did not trust the officer sufficiently. He would wait until the light was reported officially.

When Junard turned to reënter his room, he heard a slight noise. There was a rustle, a whirl, and the door of the room to port clicked to. It had been shut when he jumped from his bunk. He gazed in the direction of the safe, and saw that it was now standing wide open, the door swinging slowly with the motion of the ship. He sprang to the switch and turned on the light, full power.

In front of him was the safe, with the door open. In front of the safe lay a huge knife, and alongside of the knife lay his revolver, fully loaded, and cocked. Whoever had it was ready to use it upon a moment's notice. The intruder had fled at the sound of Junard's steps upon the pilot-house companion.

Junard was a very heavy-set man. He stood but five feet two inches, but was at least three feet across the shoulders, an immense man for his height, his chest being as broad and hairy as a gorilla's. His powerful legs were set wide apart to steady himself to the ship's motion, and for a brief instant he stood there in the full light, clothed in his pajamas. Then, with a roar like that of a bull, he plunged headlong for the lattice door of his room, and, bursting it with a crash, reached the deck in full stride. He just caught sight of what appeared to be a skirt, switching around the corner of the deck house, and he leaped savagely for it. He reached the corner, swung around it—and saw no one. Down the alleyway he ran, swung about, and came out to port upon the deck. There was not a soul to be seen, and he hesitated an instant which way to run. Then he ran aft with prodigious speed, and, within a couple of seconds, reached the cabin companionway. The light burned at the head of the broad stairs, but not a soul was in sight. He dashed inside silently, being barefooted, and, peering over the baluster, he saw the steward on watch peacefully snoring away in a chair near the water-cooler at the foot of the stairway.

"Sam!" he called sharply.

The man awoke with a start.

"Aye, aye, sir!" he said, looking about him, recognizing the captain's voice, but not seeing him at once.

"Has any one come down this way within the last few minutes?" asked Junard.

"No, sir, not a soul, sir."

"Sure?"

"Sure, sir. I've only been dozing but a minute. I'd have seen 'em, sir."

Junard slipped away quietly, leaving the under-steward wondering what he wanted. With amazing swiftness, the master rushed back to his room. He reached it, and went inside the broken door. The light was still burning, but the safe was now closed. He tried the combination lock, and found it had been locked. The gun and knife had also disappeared. The room was in perfect order, the light burning full power, and there was not a thing to show that there had been an entry made. The bursted door was the only sign of any irregularity. He stood gazing at the safe for a few minutes. The thing was almost uncanny. He began to wonder if he had not had a nightmare, dreamed the whole thing. He turned the combination of the safe, and opened the door again. The contents of the safe were apparently intact. He reached for the inner drawer, where the important papers had been kept. They were gone.

It was not nightmare, after all. The thing was real. The papers had been taken from the safe, and they were worth perhaps a million to the finder, if not much more; that is, if they could be gotten out of the ship and into the hands of those who were antagonistic to the deal. He pondered a few minutes more, and then decided to go on deck and stand the next watch upon the bridge, remaining there, with the excuse that the cape was drawing abreast and he would take his departure from it. He decided not to say anything to either officer. The thing had best be kept secret, for the very existence of the papers might imperil his company, if that existence were known to certain parties. He hastily dressed and went on the bridge.

Mr. Dunn, the second officer, was now on watch, and it was about a quarter of an hour past midnight. The cape was drawing up, and was fast approaching the port beam. The ship was running about sixteen knots through a smooth sea, with a stiff northeast trade blowing almost dead ahead.

Junard came to where the second officer stood. Mr. Dunn turned and spoke to him, remarking upon the blackness of the night and the clearness of the Cape Maysi light.

Captain Junard said nothing, but watched the second officer narrowly, and tried to fathom his demeanor, looking for some sign that might show a knowledge of what had transpired aboard within the past few minutes. Dunn had been upon the bridge when that safe was shut, when the revolver had been taken away. Yet Dunn had been in the employ of the company for ten years, and was a reliable man, a sailor who had always done his duty without murmur. He had a fine record.

The light drew abeam, and the ship ran close to the low, rocky point where it juts out into the sea. The high mountains a few miles back showed dimly in the gloom, making a huge shadow in the background. As the light is upon the north side of the low promontory and shows across to the southward, the land was very near as the ship steamed past it and laid her head for the passage.

Junard gazed hard at the shore. He was thinking. Would any one try to get into communication with Cuba here at the cape? There was a question. If a small boat lay near, with lights out, she might get close to the ship without being observed, for it was quite dark, and the loom of the land made it darker than usual. It was nearly six hours' run to the next light, in the Bahamas, across the channel, and the Inagua Bank was too far to the eastward to invite shelter for a small boat. It would be either at the cape, or near Castle Rock, or Fortune Island, he believed, that an attempt might be made to get into communication with the ship. This he must stop. No one must get in communication with the land before daylight. Then he would search every passenger thoroughly, go through all rooms, and take a chance at the result. At Castle Rock he would be on watch, if nothing occurred here.

He gazed steadily into the blackness ahead. The stiff trade wind blew the tops of the seas white. They broke in whitecaps, which showed now and then through the gloom of the night. He strained his eyes, but nothing showed ahead. The glass showed a dull, dark sea; there was nothing in the line of vision within three miles—that is, nothing as large as a whaleboat. He was sure of this. There might be something under the dark loom of the land, but the glass failed to show anything.

"You take a four-point bearing upon the light, Mr. Dunn, and get the distance accurate," said Junard. "The mate took his bearing before he left the deck, but you can take another—we are about abreast now—she's doing exactly sixteen."

Knowing that this would take the second officer until the light bore four points abaft the beam, Junard left the bridge and went aft without notice. He slipped down to the main deck, and went along the gangway until he reached the taffrail. The whirl of the wheel shook the ship mightily here, the long, steel arm of the tiller under the gratings shook and vibrated with the pulsations. The chains drawn taut clanked and rattled in the guides and sounded above the low murmur of the shaking fabric. Junard gazed over the stern and watched the thrust of the screw as it tore the sea white and whirled a giant stream astern that showed sickly white with the phosphorescent glow.

When he turned again, he was aware of some one watching him. A head had appeared and vanished from behind the end of the cabin structure. The captain sprang for it with a bound. He turned the corner in time to see a skirt disappearing into the alleyway leading into the saloon. He was upon it with a catlike rush. He reached the saloon door just as it closed in his face.

Without hesitating an instant, he plunged against it, and it gave way to his great weight and power. He burst with a crash into the saloon.

The under steward who was on watch aft saw an apparition of a man in uniform coming through the door like a bull. He had opened his eyes in time to recognize the captain, who ran right across the cabin and out upon the deck beyond.

Junard was swift. He made a reach for the figure as it flitted into a room which opened upon the deck nearly amidships. His iron grip closed upon the skirt, which stretched out in the wind behind the fleeing figure. Then something struck him full in the face, took his breath, and blinded him. He clung to the cloth, choking, coughing, and blinded; made a grab with his free hand to clutch the person—but his grip closed upon empty air.

When he got the ammonia out of his eyes, which were almost blinded by the scorching fluid, he hurried to his room and bathed his head copiously in cold water until he regained his sight.

"Well, it's a woman, all right," he commented. "We'll have her all right in the morning; she won't get a show to-night to get away with anything. I guess I've got her measure."

In a few minutes he sent for the purser.

That individual came to the captain's room with fear and trembling. He had been playing draw poker, and breaking the rules of the ship, regardless of discipline, and expected, of course, to get a rating.

"Give me the passenger list," said Junard.

It was produced. They ran over it, looking for the location of all the women under thirty or thereabouts in the ship. Junard said nothing of his adventure, and the purser was amazed at his appearance.

"Had a bad night, captain?" he asked.

"Yes, rather. There's a case of cholera aboard—among the women—I don't know which one, but we'll have a chance to find out to-morrow. Don't speak of it to any one, mind you; don't let it out under any conditions—you understand?"

"Sure not," said the purser, paling a little under the news. "How did you come to find it out, sir?"

"Never mind that now. Just keep an eye on all the women in this ship, and don't let any of them get to throwing things overboard, or trying to do anything foolish. Watch them, and tell me of anything that might happen."

The purser, amazed, went back to his game of poker with certain passengers; but before doing so, he instructed several of his force to watch both gangways for the rest of the night. He did not know what the "old man" expected, but supposed that cholera patients attempted to throw things overboard, or tried suicide. The thought of the dread disease aboard made him forgetful of the game, and he lost heavily before morning.

Junard, still smarting from the ammonia thrown in his face, came again upon the bridge. He had saved his eyes by a fraction, for the fluid had struck him right in the nose and mouth, and only the spray of it had gotten into his face higher up. It had been squirted by a fluid "gun" of the kind commonly used by bicyclists for repelling angry dogs. Part of the skirt had remained in his grip, but the person had slipped away in an instant and disappeared. It angered him to think a woman could do such a thing. And yet, if it were a woman watching him, there was sure to be more than a woman connected with it. No woman, he reasoned, could have tried his safe. No woman would have taken his revolver and carried it, along with a deadly knife. There must have been a well-organized party to the affair, and they had watched him, after taking the papers, to see just what he would do. Of course, he knew they would not toss such a valuable document overboard in the night time without a boat being close at hand to pick it up. The ocean is a hard place to find anything at night. He knew now that they were aware of his watchfulness and would not attempt to get rid of the papers except under the most favorable conditions. To throw them overboard attached to anything small enough not to attract attention would be to invite sure loss. He reasoned this out as he stood out the rest of Mr. Dunn's watch, and at eight bells—four o'clock in the morning—the mate came again on the bridge without anything happening to excite him.

"I've been on deck for a short time, Mr. Jameson," said Junard; "but I'm going to turn in for a little while. Call me when we get well up to Castle Rock—we'll raise it before morning, before daylight with the weather clear like this."

"Aye, aye, sir; I will, sir—she's doing fine now," said Jameson, as he signed the order book for his course during his watch.

At two bells—five o'clock—the mate called the captain by going to his port door and knocking. He was amazed at the sight of a young woman who came forth from the room and whisked herself quickly down the deck and out of sight. Such a thing as a woman in the master's room at that hour was enough to excite Mr. Jameson. He had not been on the ship long, and the captain was new to him. Masters naturally had love affairs as well as sailors, but they were generally careful about being caught. Here Junard had asked him to call him when they sighted Castle Rock, and, as he knew they must do this by five, at least, the mate was puzzled to see a woman leaving the captain's room when he knocked. Why hadn't she left sooner? It was a joke he would be bound to retail to the rest sooner or later, and he smiled at the thought. He tried to get a glimpse of her face, but failed. Then he waited a decent length of time, and knocked again, louder, announcing the light ahead on the starboard bow.

Junard came on deck instantly. He had been dressed and dozing.

The gray light of the morning, which was now beginning to show things a little, enabled Junard to note the smile upon the face of his chief mate.

"Anything funny doing?" he asked.

"No, sir; but I seen her—I couldn't help it."

"Seen who?"

"I beg your pardon, sir; but she was just going out when I came to call you when I raised the light—your orders, sir, you know. I wouldn't——"

"Out with it! Whom did you see?" snapped the captain sharply, and his tone told plainly that he was in no mood for a joke. The mate sobered at once.

"There was a lady leaving your room as I came to knock—that's all, sir," he said sullenly. The captain had a poor appreciation of humor, he thought.

"What kind of looking woman was she?"

"Medium-sized, very well built—I might say stocky, sir—dressed in a dark cloth dress; she didn't have on a hat." This last was with almost a sneer. It brought Junard around with a jerk.

"I don't wish to seem foolish, Mr. Jameson, but you appear to presume too much. I might insinuate gently that you are a damn fool—but I won't, not until you tell me what is amusing you, and what you saw. I will say there was no woman in my room. If there was, I'd not be troubled to confess it."

"That's all I seen, sir," said Jameson sourly.

"Which way did she go?"

"She went aft," said the mate, wondering at the captain trying to hide the obvious. It irked him to think his master a fool. "She went aft, and that's all I seen."

"Mr. Jameson, there's a few things you don't know," said Junard. "When we get abreast of Castle Rock, I want you to go aft and watch both sides of the ship carefully, you understand? I want you to see that not a thing is thrown overboard—not a single thing—and if there is anything showing in the wake, come to me at once—or, better still, ring off the engines and mark it to pick up. This is very important. I can't tell you right now just how important it is, but I will say your berth depends upon it. Do not let anything leave the ship without notice—not a thing."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Jameson; and he went aft amazed at the outcome of his deductions. He wondered what was up. Some affair of the captain's, he was sure. But the severity of the master's tone, the earnestness of the captain's manner, disturbed him greatly. There was something peculiar about it that made him, forced him, to give his attention to it. And there was the threat of his own berth, his position, being in forfeit. He did not like that kind of talk from a captain. It savored of undue severity. He took his station aft of the superstructure with some misgivings. In the gray light of dawn, he watched both gangways, first one side and then the other, keeping well back of the house.

Castle Rock light drew well upon the bow. It was now within a mile, and Junard noticed a small fishing boat riding in the fairway just ahead of the ship. As the water was very deep here, he knew she was not anchored, but must be waiting and under way; yet no sail showed upon her. Perhaps a powerful motor lay within her. He watched her carefully, and walked from side to side of the bridge, waiting for some sign from those aboard. The wake was now showing white in the gray of morning, and a small object could soon be distinguished in the smooth sea to leeward of the lighthouse, where the heavy swell of the Atlantic was cut off.

Jameson, who stood at the taffrail, saw a figure of a man peer from the window of a stateroom nearly amidships. The head was quickly withdrawn. The mate watched, and then walked quickly across the stern and watched the wake, wondering what might be taking place. The form of a woman flitted down the gangway from forward, showing dimly in the gloom. She came from the opposite side of the ship from where he had seen the head peer forth. Hiding behind the house, he watched her come quickly aft. She was carrying something in her hand that looked like a life buoy. Instinctively the mate made ready to catch her. He saw that life belt, and to his imagination it spelled something like a person going overboard. The form of a man came quickly behind her, and Jameson recognized one of the under stewards, who had been watching for trouble at the purser's orders.

The woman ran at the sound of footsteps behind her. She came with amazing swiftness to the taffrail, near where Jameson stood. He gathered himself, and sprang forth, clasping her in his arms just as she hurled the life belt over the side into the sea.

The girl screamed shrilly, struggled frantically in the embrace of the officer. Jameson wondered what he was about—began to think he had captured a lunatic—when the rush of feet above caused him to loosen his grip. He turned in time to see Captain Junard take a header from the rail of the deck above and plunge headlong into the sea where it boiled and swirled from the thrust of the screw.

Jameson was paralyzed for an instant. He distinctly saw his commander go overboard. It gave him a shock. He let go the girl and stood motionless for a second. Then, as the head of Junard arose in the white waste astern and struck out for an object, the life belt the girl had thrown over, he gathered his wits again, and dashed for the quarter bell pull, or telegraph, to the engine room.

Full speed astern he threw it, and the astonished engineer on watch nearly fainted under the sudden warning. Thinking that a collision was at hand, he shut down and reversed under full power, opening the throttle wide, and giving her every ounce of steam in her boilers as she took the strain. The sudden take-up, the tremendous vibrations, and the slowing speed awoke many passengers. Not a sound of action had gone forth save the screams of the girl, and these were now silent as she had quickly flitted out of sight when the mate released her. Jameson rushed to the bridge and called his watch as he ran. Then he set the siren cord down hard, and the unearthly roar awoke the quiet tropical morning. Men rushed about. The watch hurried aft.

"Stop her!" yelled Jameson to the quartermaster. "Stop her—don't go astern!"

"Stop her, sir!" came the answering cry from the wheel. Jameson rushed to the rail again, and cut loose a life buoy from its lashings. He ran aft with it, intending to throw it out to his captain. Junard, however, was but a speck, far astern, his head showing like a black dot in the white water of the wake. The mate noticed for the first time that the small fishing boat ahead was now standing down toward the ship under rapid headway, the exhaust from her motor sounding loud and sharp over the sea.

"Get the quarter boat down—quick!" came his order.

Then he hesitated a moment. The small fishing boat was nearing them with rapidity. She headed straight for Junard, and would reach him long before any rowboat from the ship could get there.

"Hold on! Avast the boat there!" he ordered. "That motor boat will pick him up, all right." Then the thought that he was not quite right in not lowering down a boat for his commander, that it might look queer, waiting for a stranger to do his evident duty, came over him, and he gave the order to lower away. The small boat dropped into the sea. The steamer was now motionless, lying in the calm sea behind the rock, with her engines stopped. Men crowded the rail aft to watch.

"What's the matter? What made him jump overboard?" came the question from all sides. "It's the captain! What's up?"

Jameson could not quite tell. He was vaguely aware that his commander sprang over for some object. That he took a desperate chance, with the ship going ahead, was certain. Had he not been seen, the vessel would have been miles away before missing him, for there had been no warning from the bridge. The mate slid down the falls, wondering what he was doing.

"Cast off—give way, port; back, starboard!" came his order. He stood up, to see better, and gazed at the fishing boat, that now approached the speck he knew to be the head of Captain Junard.

"Give way together!" he said, glad to get away from the ship, with the inquisitive crowd gathering rapidly and increasing in both anxiety and numbers.

He watched the motor boat come quickly to where Junard swam. The captain was not a good swimmer. Few seamen can swim well. Jameson saw the boat approach, men lean out from her side, and grab something, apparently trying to lift the captain aboard. Then there was a tremendous floundering and threshing about in the sea, distant shouts for help from the captain, and the mate grasped the tiller yoke with a certain grip.

"Give way, bullies! Give way—all that's in you now!" he urged.

Something was taking place that he did not quite understand, but he had heard that call for help.

Junard saw the fishing boat coming toward him before it reached him. He waited, swimming slowly and reserving his strength, feeling that the occupants were hostile and were waiting for the papers that had been tossed overboard. It was about where he expected something to happen. The lighthouse and the shelter of the island made it a most convenient spot to pull off the finish of the affair. The light-draft fishing boat, with her motor, could easily evade capture from anything the ship could send out after her. The steamer herself could not enter the shoal water, and must allow the smaller boat to get away across the shallow parts of the Great Panama Bank to some distant rendezvous, where the papers could be put aboard a proper ship to take them to the conspirators. He, the commander, had no right to leave the ship in the manner he had done; but necessity called for drastic action, and he had plunged over the side as soon as he had seen the girl fling an object overboard.

Three men in the fishing boat were watching him as she drew up. His own boat was a long distance off, but he hoped the mate would hurry.

A man came forward in the motor boat, and leaned out from her side. He watched him narrowly. The man made a grab for Junard as the boat reached him, and the captain, with a sudden jerk, dragged him overboard. Then he yelled for help.

The man's two companions in the boat sprang to his aid. Junard found himself engaged in a desperate struggle with three men, and shoved himself away from the side of the craft.

He held fast to the package, a metal cylinder, tightly wrapped in canvas, and at the same time struggled out of reach of the men above him. The man he had pulled overboard regained his strength, and, grasping the life belt with one hand, grabbed at the package with the other. The package tied to the life belt could not be gotten out of his reach, and Junard was struggling with one hand and fighting and grasping alternately at the life belt with the other.

"Give it up, you scoundrel!" hissed the fellow. "What do you know about this package? Give it to me—do you hear?"

"I hear well enough," snarled Junard, struggling farther out of the reach of those in the motor boat. "But I'm the captain of that ship there—and the papers are in my care. Let go, or I'll do you harm!"

The man glared at him savagely. Then he turned to the men above him in the boat, now a dozen feet away.

"Shoot, Jim—shoot quick—kill the fool if he won't let go!" he said.

The man addressed was a tall, dark fellow with a sinister look. That he was Colombian, Junard knew from his accent and appearance. The other, who had stopped the engine, and who seemed to be the engineer, looked askance. He evidently did not like the shooting part. This man was also a Colombian, but his features were those of a man who works outdoors at a simple trade. The other two looked like desperate men, and Junard felt that they would stop at nothing to get the papers from him. The man who was called Jim hesitated, and then, seeing the small boat approaching from the steamer, reached behind his back and brought forth a long, blue revolver. Junard waited until the barrel came within a line with his eye; then he ducked, and swung the life belt around, coming up with it in front of him, and raising it partly before his face. The pistol cracked sharply, and the bullet tore through the cork. Junard let go the package, and seized the man in the water with both hands, whirling him about and holding him squarely in front of himself.

"Start that engine!" called the man, struggling vainly to get away.

The man who had stopped it whirled the wheel over again, and the rumble of the motor began. The two waited, without throwing on the clutch.

Junard grasped the man firmly, and forced him down under the sea, going under with him, and holding his breath to the limit of his great lungs.

When he came up again the man was choking, gasping for air. Junard only waited long enough to fill his own lungs with a breath, and then ducked again, the crack of the revolver ringing in his ears as he went, pulling his antagonist down with him.

The next time he came up the fellow could not talk, but choked and gasped for air. Junard held him with a giant's grip, his long, powerful arms encircling him like those of a gorilla. The fellow let go the life belt and the package. Junard took in more air, and dropped down again, while a bullet tore through his hair, cutting his scalp.

This time when he came up the fellow was limp. Junard held him before him, and the man with the pistol was afraid to fire, as the captain's eyes just showed above the man's neck. The captain struggled farther and farther away from the boat, getting fully twenty feet distant. The man at the engine threw on the clutch, and the boat shot ahead, swung sharply around, and headed for the floating men.

Junard saw the mate standing up in the stern of the ship's boat, and knew he was doing all he could to reach him. The shots had made him aware of the desperate situation, and the men were bending their backs with a will to the oars. Jameson yelled harshly, the men in the motor craft saw that to remain longer would mean capture. They swung off and headed for the steamer, leaving their companion in Junard's grip. The next moment the mate came tearing up, and, leaning over, grasped his commander and hauled him aboard the boat.

Junard came over the side, and immediately reached for a boat hook. He stabbed at the cork jacket, and hauled it alongside, dragging it aboard before the boat lost her headway. The body of the exhausted man sank before either he or Jameson could get another hold of him.

"To the ship—quick!" gasped the captain.

"What's the matter? What's up?" questioned the mate.

"Never mind—swing her, quick!"

The boat turned around and headed back, the captain urging the men to their utmost. The fishing boat, with her motor going full speed, left them far behind. They were unable to get near the craft.

Junard, watching them, saw the boat come close under the ship's stern. A form of a woman leaped from the rail of the lower deck. The splash threw spray almost into the boat as she went past, and they saw the tall Colombian reach over and drag the girl aboard. The boat shot around the steamer's stern and disappeared for a few moments; and when Junard saw her again she was a quarter of a mile distant, and making rapid headway for the shoal water of the island. He started after her, when the shots from the revolver began to strike about the craft, and Junard ordered his men to stop rowing. He knew he could not capture her, unarmed as he was, and he had his precious papers safe in his mighty hands. To follow was only to invite trouble.

The fishing boat ran quickly out of range, and Junard watched her for a few minutes. Then he headed his boat back to the ship.

The rail was crowded as he came alongside, the purser watching him, and half the passengers were on deck to see what was taking place.

"What was it? What's the matter?" asked a score at once.

"Man overboard—that's all," said Jameson.

"H'ist her up," said Junard, and he clambered up the swinging ladder thrown over to him, taking the life belt and the package under his arm.

Mr. Dunn was on deck, and Junard gave him his orders.

"Full speed ahead—on her course, north to west," he said, and went into his room. The door closed behind him. Then he switched off the lights, for it was now broad daylight, and then he opened the package. The papers were all there and intact, the water not reaching them at all. The safe was opened, and they were placed within. Then Junard stripped and turned in for a few hours of dreamless, quiet sleep.

He had saved the papers of his company, documents that were valued at more than a million dollars—and not a soul aboard knew what had really happened. Even Jameson was never quite sure.

The purser asked no questions about cholera, the ship headed along upon her course toward New York, and the warm day took its routine without further incident. Junard appeared very happy, and told many interesting stories at the dinner table that day. He answered no questions concerning the affair of the night.

He brought in his papers, delivered them in person, and a great political change took place without any one but a few select souls ever knowing how near the verge of revolution a prominent South American republic had been. Junard was offered a medal for risking his life trying to save that of a man overboard—but he refused it. The shots from the fishing boat were explained as signals for help. That was all.

IN THE WAKE OF THE ENGINE

I had been transferred to the old Prince Albert, one of the freighters on the Jamaica run, and the skipper was Bill Boldwin—Boldwin who was once in the Amper Line, but who had a monstrous thirst and a reckless disposition—too reckless for first-class passengers. The "old man," as all captains are called, having these failings, had also a mighty poor education, and his navigation was mostly, "Let her go and trust to the sun."

"Compasses?" said Bill. "How'd they get along before they had 'em, hey? Steer the course, or thereabouts; you'll git thar or somewheres nigh to it—if you don't fetch up."

"But the company?" I said in amazement.

"The company be blowed! Take life easy—it's short. Don't let the company worry you to any great extent. They'll give you a job as night watchman at twenty per month after they get out of you all there is in you."

At the same time Bill, who was my "old man," and who, by the way, was ten years younger than myself, would not stand for any too much carelessness on the part of his first officer. I was his chief mate. He knew what I had to do, and hated to tell me. I confess I seldom gave him a chance. The second greaser was a little, short squarehead named Andersen; at least we called him that, going on the principle that it was a sure thing that if he was a squarehead he was either named Andersen or Johnson. There are no other names in Sweden, and a man naturally just has to be one or the other. They're good enough.

Andersen knew his business and was an able seaman, learning his little book in the old sailing ships where they teach you something not always taught in steam. He had the bos'n in with him, and what the bos'n didn't know about handling the steam winches would be hard to tell. But that's all the bos'n knew. Not a thing else. If he had he wouldn't have rammed greasy rags in behind the ceiling of the after deck house in a hurry to get his grub at knock-off time.

No, that was the failing of the bos'n; he lacked knowledge, and was as good a navigator as you might find in a young lady's finishing school. He had paws on him like a loggerhead's flippers, nearly a foot across, and each finger was a marline spike, and every thread of his hair, where he wasn't clean bald, was a rope yarn. He knew sailoring—nothing else.

He was about as much afraid of anything in this world or the next as a hungry shark is of beef; in fact, he seemed to take to trouble with about the same sort of appetite. In six months I never had a chance to tell him anything except the routine.

The chief engineer was McDougal, and the second was Mac something—all of our engine-room force went under the same name of Mac, just plain "Mac," and if they were not Scotchmen, I never saw one in my life. Scotchmen are born engine men, take to a machine like a dago does to a knife. The rest of the fireroom bunch were the old-style Liverpool Irishmen, and I'll tell you something, they were hard ones all right. They were the toughest lot of coal tossers I ever sailed with, and even the donkey man, O'Hare, was a peach of a Donegal Irishman with Galways of reddish hue that stuck out from under his shirt collar, pointing upward as if they were growing some husky on his throat.

That was the principal part of our crew. There were some twenty others, including the cooks, galley boys, seamen, and quartermasters.

We cleared for Antonio, and were soon running out over the Western Ocean in the lazy, tiresome routine of ship's duty. We were licensed to carry passengers and had a few waiters aboard, a steward, and a lady of about thirty signed on as stewardess.

As there were no passengers this voyage out—no one ever went out with us if he could help it, but came back when there were no other ships—the cabin crowd had an easy time, regular yachting trip; and if Miss Lucy Docking had a stupid time, it was because she wouldn't talk to the rest.

"Stuck-up and sassy," they said aft, but I never could tell, never getting a chance to talk with her without a dozen or more listening. At the same time I didn't like to blame the girl just because she didn't like the set of lovers the ship furnished free of charge. "Let her pick her own," said I, "it's like enough she'll make a mistake, anyways, without your help." I never had a big opinion of women, anyhow, for the only one I ever proposed marriage to fell down and nearly died laughing at me, and that after I had been dreaming of her and thinking her the greatest angel in the world.

Miss Lucy was all right with me, because I let her alone, except in the mid-watch, when I was cold and thirsty. Then she used to get me a cup of cocoa or chocolate or coffee, and I tell you the man who stands the mid-watch on the old freighters is earning all he gets, whether it comes by way of the stewardess or by way of the front office.

We crossed the Western Ocean in the usual manner. I had my order book to sign, and I saw that the second greaser didn't get gay with it. Days and days of the old routine passed, and we were in the edge of the trade when the first thing happened to show what a wild lot of yaps we had in that ship.

The bos'n stuffed his oiled rags in behind the ceiling of the after house, and it was about three days afterward we struck the hot weather. The rags promptly caught fire—they always do when snugged in from the air—and we hove the old hooker to in the teeth of the trade with the after deck a roaring furnace. If you think we didn't have a time of it putting that deck house out, throwing it overboard in pieces, you should look up Lloyd's. Well, the way I talked to that bos'n would have given heart disease to most men, but the beggar didn't see it at all.

"Rags is rags," he says, "and what for don't I put them behaind something?"

"Because if you do it again we'll toss you overboard with twenty pound of kentledge to your feet," I told him, and it was the only reason he could get through his bullet head. It didn't scare him at all. He only looked upon the matter as closed, for he would not mutiny. He was too good a sailor for any foolishness.

"Rags is rags," he would repeat as we chopped the blackened wreck away the day after, when all hands had been near the port of missing ships and were tired and nervous, having been on duty for fifty hours without a break. "Rags is rags, an' some son of a sea-cook set fire to 'em—no rags I ever seen ever took fire of themselves. Does a ship run herself, hey? Answer me that! Does a ship run her own engines, steer her own course, what? Some one of you sons of Ham did that dirty trick and I'll get you for it yet!"

"But rags do fire themselves, even if a ship don't," said the old man, "and you are the leading bonehead not to know it. You don't rate a brass boy in anything but a coal barge, and if you don't look out I'll have to train you some."

"Rags is——"

Only the size and look of the bos'n's hands prevented the old man from committing murder right there. But the bos'n took it out on the men. What he didn't do to them that voyage was never logged.

Miss Docking stood the test well. She stayed on deck and watched the fracas and never turned a hair, so to speak, waiting for the word to take to the boats with as cool a nerve as anything I ever saw. She was billeted for my boat, Number One, and I confess I was somewhat disappointed when the blamed deck house burned to the steel and the danger of leaving the ship was past.

Boldwin was always taking it easy, and he never even took that real hard, although it would cost him something to explain how he did the damage when the underwriters asked him.

"Don't do it again," was all he said to me.

"No, not until we get another deck house at least," I said. "Maybe I can see that they don't set fire to the anchor or burn up the windlass, or eat the coir hawser, or——"

"Well, see that you don't. That's your business—you're mate," he snapped back, and started for the chart house.

Andersen came to me. "I tank I sign de order book for sou'west half sou'—here we bane running eastb'no'th. How I tell de truth wid sech a t'ing—hey?" said he.

"If you always tell the truth in this line of packets you'll soon get a job hoeing potatoes in Essex! What's the matter with you? Do you want the company to get wise that we fought a fire set in with oiled rags by a fool of a bos'n and had to run the ship fifty miles off her course? Who'll pay for the coal? Who'll square the old man? Who'll tell the passengers that we don't always have a bonehead bos'n to wreck us, and that if they'll promise to come again we'll see that it don't happen often—no, not often?"

Andersen went on duty with a queer look in his eyes. He had seen something and it amazed him—just why I never could tell, for he had been in steamers before and ought to have known something of a ship's officers' duties before coming into the Prince Line.

The truth in many lines is sacred. Absolutely sacred. Too sacred entirely to shift about the deck like a bag of dunnage and leave lying around for some fools to play with. No, never play with the truth in some lines of shipping. Do your duty. That's all you've got to do, and if it's so logged, why, then you're all right. If it isn't, why, then you better get to driving a truck or peddling peanuts.

Well, Boldwin was a pretty good sort, as I have said. He mostly saw that all of us did our duty—in the log book, in the order book, and with the company officers. We went along slowly on our course after that, and were in the latitude of Watlings when bad weather came on. It was nothing much, just a cyclone of the usual order, coming as it did in the hurricane season; but we were a full-powered ship of six thousand tons, and it wouldn't have delayed us to any extent—except that we didn't count on the donkey man from Donegal.

You see, the Albert had one of those underwater ash-chutes. The pipe came down through the bilge, about fifteen feet below the water line. It was a foot in diameter, and was supposedly bolted to the skin and as solid as the keel or garboards.

The metal of the pipe was half an inch in thickness, and was braced and bolted so that the top which showed above the water line could be hove on and shut off in a seaway. The top had a sliding cover working with a lever, and when the ashes were to be fired out the cover was thrown back, the bucket dumped, and a jet of steam blew the mass out through the ship's bottom, making no dirt or dust at all, and doing away with the everlasting firing over the side.

It was a good invention. It saved the company many dollars in paint, and it kept the ship, which was always short-handed, looking better than most vessels that used the old way over the side.

It would have lasted forever if the man from Donegal hadn't been of an inquisitive turn of mind, and started exploring it with a monkey wrench the week before the storm. As it happened he broke several of the bolts which had rusted in the bottom, and the metal, having been much worn and corroded, the first thing Mac knew was a torrent of sea water pouring into the after compartment, coming as it did through a pipe hole about a foot in diameter and fifteen feet below the sea level.

It caught the firemen unawares. The donkey man was with them and let out a yip that brought every coal passer, oiler, and fireman to the chute. A wild burst of water tore through that hole, and the compartment was flooded in less time than it takes to tell about it—and that compartment ran the whole length of the engine room and aft of it until it brought up in the wake of the machinery, where the bulkhead of the tail-shaft room shut off the stern.

The donkey man managed to get out with the rest, and the fires in starboard boilers swamped, nearly blowing up the ship as the water flooded them. It was only because there was enough water to prevent the making of steam to any great extent that saved us from having the whole midsection blown in the air.

And all the time I was holding to the bridge rail with a cyclone snoring down upon us at the rate of seventy miles an hour. Luckily the ash pipe stayed partly bolted to the skin of the bottom. That alone saved us from total loss.

Of course I knew something was wrong the minute the boilers went smothered. The terrific roar of steam and the easing of the engines told me that sure enough trouble was coming, and all the time I had been wondering how we would hold the hooker up to that gale with the full power in her.

"What's the matter—bottom blow away?" howled Boldwin, coming from the pilot house and yelling in my ear.

"God knows—anything might happen to us after last week," I howled in return, but the force of the hurricane blew the words away, and the old man went staggering and pulling himself along the rail until he managed to get below. For the next fifteen minutes on that bridge I did some small bit of thinking. Looked like all day with us. Not a sign could I get from anywhere, and of course I dared not leave the bridge. Once I thought she had blown up with powder. Next I thought the engines had gone through the bottom. And all the time I could feel her settling in that whirlwind sea—a sea torn white with the blast of the squalls that were now coming faster and faster each minute.

"Well, I'm mighty glad I'm not married, anyway," I said to myself, for it looked like the long sleep coming fast. And then I somehow thought of that Miss Docking below there in the comfortable cabin waiting for the finish. It gave me a bit of a turn, and I tried to imagine what that cabin would look like in a few minutes when the sea water swept through it with all its transoms and cushions, piano and carpet——

"Hard a starboard, sir," came the cry.

It was most welcome. Anything but that standing there waiting for the next minute to follow the last. I saw that the quartermaster swung the wheel over quickly. It was steam steering, and the ship fell off in the trough of the sea in a few minutes, the weight of the gale driving her bodily to leeward and heeling her over to quite a list.

"Heave her to," came the order passed up from the old man, and I put the wheel hard down and waited to see if she would stay without coming up. She lay easily drifting off, and while I watched her for trouble the old man sent for me. Andersen came up and took my place, and I ran down, half blown, half crawling to the shelter of the deck house, and from there below to see what had happened.

Bill Boldwin was standing at the ash chute swearing at the man from Donegal. The donkey man was trying to tell what he didn't know about his business, and all the time the water flowed freely through the one-foot pipe until it so filled the compartment that nothing more could come up through it. It was a good thing! If the whole Atlantic Ocean had been delegated to flow through that pipe, nobody was there to stop it, not a soul to say why not. And then I was aware of the stewardess standing in the press of faces, looking scared but cool.

"Why don't you ram something in it?" she asked.

Simple? Sure it was simple. No one had tried to do such a thing, but there she was asking why.

"The pipe'll break away—you can't shove anything down it," said Boldwin.

"No? But why don't you shove something from the outside?" said Miss Docking.

"Go to your room," snarled the old man.

"She's right—we'll stop it in a jiffy—from the outside," I yelled.

The skipper thought I was crazy. He looked at me.

"How'll you get anything over the outside in this seaway, you bonehead?" he asked.

"Get me the hand lead," I yelled to the bos'n, "and a stick of light wood—big piece, big enough to float a man."

The bos'n ran for the stuff. That was one good point in that bos'n. He'd do what he was told even when he hadn't the slightest idea what he was doing. He came back in a few minutes with a long piece of white pine and the hand lead. I looked them over for a moment to judge the weight and floating power of the tools. Then I quickly hitched the lead to the piece of pine and left the bight of the line so that as soon as I jerked it hard the lead would free itself and go hell bent for Davy Jones, leaving the Pine line fast to the lead line to float up and away.

To the end of the chute I now quickly made my way. The Donegal man wanted to help, and faith! he was a good man when it came to doing things he understood. He showed me where the upper end of that chute was in that roaring surge of filthy water, and the beggar actually got a hold of the lever that worked the cover and jammed it open.

I instantly dropped the lead, the wood, and the line through, and had the satisfaction of feeling the line going fast to the bottom out through the hole in the bilge. When the line had gone about ten fathoms I gave the sudden jerk. Off comes the lead and the line stops running out.

"Get to windward and grab that plank," I yelled, and even the old man followed the bunch that struggled to the rail and watched the sea where we drifted bodily off. In a minute the bos'n saw it. In five more he had the plank back aboard and a three-inch line fast to the lead line. This I hauled quickly but cautiously back through the ash pipe until I got a good hold of the end.

"Now," I yelled, "give me mattresses, beds, canvas, fearnaught, or oakum—anything so long as you get it here quick."

The stewardess had already anticipated my work. I caught her eye back of the line of men.

"Here they are," she said quietly.

The bos'n got a Number Double O hatch cover. I wrapped the mattresses in it, and then quickly hitched the three-inch line carefully about the middle.

"Over the side with it," I shouted. Over it went, and as it did so I got the line hauling through the pipe. Two men helped me. We hauled the plug jam up tight against the ship's bilge, and then surged upon the line and made it fast.

"Now go ahead and pump her clear, Mac, pump her out—she's tight as a drum," I said, and the old man looked at me with a peculiar smile.

An hour later that compartment was clear of water, and she leaked only a little around the stuffing, which was not enough to wet a man's feet. Another day and the starboard boilers were doing duty with a smoothing sea and a sun peeping out through the banks of trade clouds. The storm had long passed; the Prince Albert was on her way under full power, with nothing at all to disturb the serenity of the passage, save the knowledge that we had a masterly crew aboard and some excellent specimens for manning passenger ships.

Down the Western Ocean we ran without further incident, and hove to off the entrance of Antonio, burning flares for the pilot. You know the place. Narrow cut in through the reef, with the harbor lying like a pool of blue water in the surrounding hills. Not a breath of air in the place even when, half a mile distant, just outside, the trade might be blowing a twenty-knot breeze.

The pilot came out at daybreak, and we ran in, tied up to the wharf, and began discharging. My duties were ended for the time, as I thought, and I took a stroll up to the hotel upon the hill. There was no use trying to get any sleep in the watch below while at the dock, for two hundred howling Jamaica blacks roared and surged along the gangways and crowded the winches, handling the cargo ably, while the women came down in swarms to chat with the crew and sell a few grapefruit and oranges. Boldwin let any one come aboard, and as the men were not supposed to handle cargo, they had plenty of time in spite of all we could do to keep them busy.

The skipper reported the damage to the agents, and told of the disaster below. He was honest. He might have saved that bit of knowledge until we reached England again, but he told his tale, and the agents refused to allow him to sail until the pipe was repaired and properly bolted down into the bilge plates as it should be. In the smooth water of that mirror-like harbor it seemed an easy thing to do. All that was necessary was to get a diver to go under the fifteen feet to the outside end and pass up the bolts through the flange.

Mr. Man from Donegal could then get at them with his monkey wrench and screw down the nuts upon them, clamping the pipe as fast as the keel itself.

"You take a look around uptown and try to get hold of a diver," said the old man. "Mr. Sacks, the agent, says he don't know of any nearer than Kingston, and it'll take two days to get the one over there, as he's out on a wreck off the harbor. We can't wait two days. Got to get to Montego Bay and take on a lot of stuff, then get to Kingston for clearing and off we go."

"Why not wait until we get to Kingston to do the trick?" I asked.

Bill Boldwin gazed at me in contempt.

"Say, do you want to advertise the fact that we are on the bum to all the passengers the line'll carry? Think a minute, man, and don't ask fool questions. We got to get that job done right here—see? We don't go outside until there's something more'n a mattress and a bit of fearnaught between us and the bottom of the Caribbean."

"But we carried it the last thousand miles all right," I said.

Bill turned away in disgust.

As a matter of fact, I didn't like the idea of trying to get hold of a diver in Antonio. There were not enough divers to go down to find the bottoms of the rum bottles ashore, let alone a ship's bilge. It's true, a man might do the thing naked in that clear water. I've seen men in the East copper a ship twice as deep with nothing on them but a hammer and a mouthful of nails.

After a day's search I gave it up. Not a man knew anything about submarine work, and at the hotel they laughed at me when I inquired for a diver. I also noticed that Miss Lucy Docking looked well sitting upon the veranda of the joint, togged out as she was in white linen. She gave me a nod, but wasn't keen on talking when I tried to find out if she had made arrangements for lady passengers that voyage.

"There's two on the books—that's all," she said, and gazed placidly out over the tops of the cocoa-nuts growing upon the beach below.

"Your advice last Friday helped me a lot," I said, "and I appreciate it and would——"

"Would you like some more?" she interrupted suddenly.

"Anything you might suggest," I said.

"Beat it back to the ship, then," she answered without a smile.

"Sure—if that's your advice," I snarled; "the hot weather has evidently soured your——"

"Cut it out—I'm not a guest here, and what do you think the agents would say if they saw the chief officer of their 'crack' liner talking to their stewardess sitting on the hotel piazza? I thought you had more sense."

"I ain't the only fool aboard—that's straight," I said.

"No; nor ashore, either—why don't you stop that hole yourself? You're big enough and ugly enough to stop a clock," she snapped.

"Thanks!" I answered, and strode away with the kindest feelings imaginable for our stewardess.

But strange as it may seem, that remark was what did the business. I would stop that hole if I had to be keelhauled myself to do it. What! Lay the ship up a day or two while that lady sat around in white duck and looked out dreamily over that beautiful harbor? Not if I knew myself. I'd see that the ship got away and hoped she would carry at least two ugly and indignant aged ladies who could and would make life a happy dream for that stewardess.

I went back aboard with the report that there was not a diver this side of hell, and that if the ship would stand the expense of my funeral I would at least try to pass the bolts for the man from Donegal to screw fast.

"Sink a donkey man, anyhow!" I swore, "why don't the company get engineers enough to run a ship properly?"

"Why, indeed?" smiled Bill Boldwin.

I turned to the men I needed, and with that bos'n to give them advice with those flippers of his, I peeled off and made ready for the work. The engine-room force had taken off the pipe and bolted a new flange to it, a strong job and proper. The affair was all ready to ship just as soon as we dared pull the wad of stuffing away and set it up. A frame had been rigged in the room to steady the affair, and the bolt holes had been reamed out as much as they would stand. A deck pump kept the water from the vicinity, the water that still leaked in around the bolt holes.

It was necessary to get the wad of stuff away from the bolt holes in the flanges, for it spread out so that it made passing of bolts from the outside impossible. The pressure upon it from the water under the ship at the depth of fifteen feet was great, and I was supposed to get a line to it so that it might be pulled away by the men on deck after we slacked away the three-inch line by which we had hauled it into the breach. The pipe was set up true over the opening, the holes lined up, a few bolts inserted point downward to steady it, and all was ready for the man outside to get the blamed wad away and pass the bolts upward so that their threads would appear through the flange. I went on deck and gazed down over the side at the warm blue depths.

"Strange that the mate has to do the dog's work," I said to Mac, who was waiting and watching.

I had a line rigged under the bilge by passing it under the bows and drifting it aft until it came right on the line of the hole. It was slack enough to allow a handhold, so that I could pull myself down quickly and then let go as I pushed in a bolt.

I took a light line and over I went.

The water was fine. The light filtered down under the ship's bilge, and it was only dark after I swept well under the curve of the side. Still, I could see a little, and soon made out a mass which I rightly took to be the mattress and stuff filling the hole.

I tried to get the line fast to the thing, feeling quickly, but I lost my breath before I got it fast and, letting go, struggled to the surface again.

"What luck?" asked Mac, grinning over at me.

I wasted no time in idle words. I recovered and grasped the line again and hauled myself furiously toward the opening underneath. I could not get the line fast, and had to come up and confess that I had failed so far.

"Look out a shark don't get you," said some one with an idea of wit.

"Give me a marline spike," I ordered that bos'n, and the beggar got one, handing it to me by a line. I dove again, and this time managed to drive the spike in between the turns of the line holding the mattress. The next dive I got the small line fast to it, and, coming up, told them to slack away on the big line inside and haul the small one outside and get the stuffing away. It came easy enough, and the line of interested faces peering over the rail above bore a different look as I hung with one hand and rested from the exertion.

"Now for the bolts," I said, and one was handed down. I hauled under again and inserted it, feeling with some satisfaction the other end being grasped by some one inboard. Mr. Donkey Man had hold of it all right, and, putting on a nut, set it up without delay. This much of the job was not so hard, but I was now getting tired, and found that I could hardly get below before I wanted to get my breath again. I was no diver—no, not to speak of, but I thought of that woman sitting up there waiting, taking it easy with her insolence and white dress——

Seven other inch bolts were to be inserted before the job could be finished inside, and the water was pouring through the bolt holes in streams that kept the pumps working full stroke and made working about the opening difficult. I came on deck, and Bill Boldwin gave me a noggin of rum, grinning at me all the time.

"You ain't so bad for a mate—I've sailed with worse," said he.

"The next time I sign on it'll be as a master submarine," I said, with some feeling. "Now, if I didn't have to wear these breeches I could do better and faster work."

"Why don't you take 'em off?" he said.

"But the ladies—I must wear something——"

"Oh, what do you care for a lot of niggers? Strip if it does you any good."

I was just about to take his advice when I noticed the face of Miss Docking passing the port along the gangway. She had been attracted by the crowd aboard, and had come, woman-like, out of pure curiosity, to see what was on.

"No," I said; "I'll fix the rest, all right—gimme another noggin."

I got seven of the eight bolts in place; and the donkey man, assisted by Mac and the entire engine-room force, set them up one at a time after packing the joint properly. Only one wooden plug remained inboard, and the water squirted straight up nearly fifteen feet with the pressure when that was pulled out for my last attempt. If I could get that bolt in, there was a job done that would save the company perhaps a few hundred dollars, and I would get—well, I might get mentioned as something better than the ordinary mate when Bill made his report. But that wasn't what made me do the thing; it was the confounded spirit that Lucy Docking stirred up within me. Oh, yes, I was a fool, all right. I don't deny it.

The affair was getting to be something of a circus by this time, and the coons who were looking on were making remarks. I was about to clear the gangway when I thought that here was the last plug, the last bolt, and then for a nip and a sleep before clearing. I went over with that last bolt, and, as I did so, I saw Miss Lucy gazing out of a cabin port at me. Before I went under her face appeared above the rail and watched. I was so tired by this time that I had the small line, which was hambroline, fast about my armpits, so that Mac and his crew could haul me up if I gave out entirely. This was my mistake.

Down I went, and as I went under I thought I heard the word "Shark!" muttered by some of the colored folk above. I had just shoved in the last bolt when a shadow passed. At the same instant there was a mighty pull upon the line. I was jerked bodily away, and my back scraped the huge barnacles which covered the ship all along in the wake of her engines clear to her sternpost. The razor-like edges cut and stung me. I felt a mighty desire to breathe, and tried to get upward. Then my head struck the bottom of the ship with great violence, and I was partly stunned. This was what probably saved my life, for I ceased to breathe, and the spasm passed.

What really happened was this:

A huge sawfish was swimming about the harbor, having just come inside the reef. Tropical seas are infested by many of these fish, which "fin out" like a shark, and which are probably of the shark species. The long snout, unlike the swordfish, which is a giant mackerel, is studded with rows of sharp teeth, put there for the Lord knows what purpose. This monster had come close to the ship, and the negroes had spotted him, and thought him a shark at a distance where his snout could not be seen.

Some one shouted, "Shark!" and the intelligent bos'n hauled line with those finlike flippers of his after the manner of a sperm-whaler coming upon a three hundred-barrel whale. My head had struck the ship's bilge, and my back had been cut open with the razor-like barnacles—and then the fish, getting frightened at the uproar, dove below, and his teeth on his saw snout fouled the line.

It parted, but it parted between him and the ship, and away I went in tow of a flying sawfish.

I knew nothing about it for some time, luckily; it would have affected my nerves.

Luckily the negroes were active in spite of their laziness. A small boat, lying alongside the ship, was instantly manned, and within a minute it was after me, with four stout blacks pulling for all they were worth. A man in the bow reached over and jabbed at the line with his boat hook and jerked it aboard. Then he lifted me in and turned me over to the rest in the boat, while he held on to the line and played the fish gamely for all the sport there was in it.

I came to in that boat towing behind a sawfish, which the natives seemed to think was more important to catch than me getting back aboard and receiving proper treatment for being nearly cut in two and drowned.

The line finally broke, and they rowed me sorrowfully back alongside. I looked up, and saw Miss Lucy Docking gazing over the side with some show of anxiety expressed upon her face. Also I noted Bill Boldwin, skipper of the Prince Albert, showing some interest in the proceedings.

"Send him aboard, you black scoundrels!" screamed Miss Lucy. "How dare you keep that man in the boat chasing a good-for-nothing fish?"

"Bring him alongside, or I'll be in there after you," roared Bill.

My bos'n passed a line down, and I was quickly hoisted aboard, where I was laid out flat on my back, as I was still too weak to stand. Miss Lucy herself poured whisky down my throat and smoothed my wet hair back from my bleeding head.