“You had better overhaul the sheaves in those main lower topsail brace blocks,” he remarked for the benefit of the listening passenger. “That will do for the present.”
“Very good, sir,” said the boatswain, and went down the ladder on to the main deck.
IV
It was in the afternoon watch, and Miss Eversley was sitting with a book in her lap, staring thoughtfully out across the sea.
Forward of her, the second mate tramped across the break of the poop. When she had appeared on deck, he had been pacing fore and aft along the poop, but had kept since then to the fore part of the deck.
Of the male passenger there was no sign. Indeed, since the big officer’s “handling” of him, he had kept quite away from her, so that at last she was beginning to find her stay aboard not at all unpleasant. Occasionally the girl’s glance would stray inboard to the great silent man, smoking and meditating as he paced across the planks.
It was curious (she recognized the fact) how often of late she had found her thoughts dwelling upon him. He was no longer a nonentity—something below the line of her horizon—but a man, and a man in whom she was beginning to be interested. She remembered now—what at the time she had scarcely noticed—her casual ignoring of his proffered aid as she stepped aboard. It had seemed nothing then to her, no more than if she had casually rejected the aid of a footman; but now she could not comprehend how she had done it.
From this her memory led her to that distinctlyto-be-regretted remark about his smoking. She watched him, and realized the more completely as she did so that she would be vitally afraid to do such a thing again; for, all unaware to herself, the manhood of the man was mastering her. Yet, at this time, she had no realization of the fact; nothing beyond that she was interested in him, perhapssomewhat afraid and certainly a little desirous of knowing him.
On the second mate’s part, he was thinking of other things than her. The preceding day he had been obliged to step down on the main deck to exert authority, and had succeeded only by laying out a couple of the crew. That the disaffection was due, in part at least, to Mr. Pathan he had very little doubt; but no proof that would justify him in putting the man in irons, as he had determined to do the very moment such was forthcoming. Also, he knew that the captain’s death had unsettled them, and that there were vague ideas among them that now they were under no compulsion to obey orders. It was doubtless, along these lines that Pathan was working with them, and the thought made the big officer grit his teeth.
“Look out, Mr. Grey!”
The words came shrill and sudden in the voice of Miss Eversley, and the second officer turned sharply from where he had stopped a moment to lean upon the rail. He saw that she was on her feet, her arm extended toward him, while her gaze flickered between him and aloft. In the same instant, there was a sort of sogging thud behind him.
His stare had followed the girl’s, and for an instant he had seen the dark face of one of the crew over the belly of the mizzen topsail; then he had twisted quickly to see the reason of that noise, though already half comprehending the cause. In that portion of the rail over which he had just been leaning was stuck a heavy steel marlinspike, the sharp point thereof appearing below, for it had penetrated right through the thick teak.
For a moment he looked at it, while his face grew quietly grim. Then he turned and walked toward the mizzen rigging. From here he could look up abaft the mast. Thus he saw the man who had dropped the spike making his way rapidly from aloft.
Getting into the lower rigging, the man—who proved to be one of those the second mate had floored the previous day—called out in broken English his regret for the accident; but the officer, knowing how little of an accident there had been about the affair, said nothing. Then, as soon as the creature put foot on the deck, he caught him by the nape of the neck and walked him forward to where the spike stood up in the rail.
Below on the main deck stood several of the crew, watching what would happen, and fully prepared to make trouble if they got the half of a chance. They saw the second officer grasp the embedded spike with one great hand, then with apparent ease bend it from side to side till it broke, leaving in the rail that portion which had penetrated.
Immediately afterward, quite coolly, and calculating the force of the blow, he struck the man with it upon the side of the head, so that he went limp in his grasp; then he laid him down gently on the hencoop and bade a couple of them come up and carry him to his bunk. And this, being thoroughly cowed, as was the second mate’s intention, they did without so much as a murmur.
As soon as the men were gone with their burden, he walked aft to where the girl stood.
“Thank you, Miss Eversley,” he said simply. “I should have been spitted like a frog if you had not called.”
She made no pretense of replying, and he looked at her more particularly. She was extraordinarily pale, and staring at him out of frightened eyes. He noticed also that she held to the edge of the skylight as if for support.
“You are not well?” he said, and made as if to support her.
But she warded him off with a gesture.
“What a brute you are!” she said in a voice that would have been cold had it been less intense.
He looked at her a moment before he replied, as if weighing the use of speech.
“You don’t understand,” he remarked at last, calmly. “We have a rough crowd to handle, and half measures would be worse than useless. Won’t you sit down?” And he indicated the chair behind her.
“It—it was butchery!” she remarked with a sort of cold anger, and ignoring his suggestion.
“Very nearly—if you hadn’t called.” There had come a suggestion of humor about the corners of his mouth.
“I—”
She groped backward vaguely for the chair, and seemed unconscious that it was his hands which guided her there.
“Now, see here, Miss Eversley. You must really allow me to be the better judge in a matter of this sort. I cannot afford to sign for the long trip, if only for your sake.”
“For my sake!” Her voice sounded scornful. “Inwhat way does it concern me?”
The grimness crept back into his face and chased away the scarcely perceptible humor.
“In this way,” he replied in a voice as nearly as cold as her own but for a certain almost savage intensity. “I, and I alone, am keeping matters quiet aboard here; for I may as well tell you at once that the first mate does not count for that much”—and he snapped his finger and thumb—“among the crowd we’ve got in this packet. They’re quiet at present only because they’re afraid of me.”
“What do you mean?” She asked the question with a brave assumption of indifference, to which her frightened eyes gave no support. “How does it matter to me whether your men are quiet or not?”
He looked at her a moment quietly and with something in the expression of his face that would have been contempt had it not been tempered by a deeper emotion.
“Listen!” he said, and she quailed before his masterfulness. “If that spike had done its work just now, you had been better dead than here. Do you think—”
He did not finish but turned from her and walked forward along the deck, leaving her gazing at the nakedness of a hideous possibility.
V
A week passed in quietness, and, though the second mate and the boatswain between them had kept a strict watch upon the male passenger’s movements, there had been nothing that could be looked upon with suspicion; for they had no knowledge of the tightly folded notes flipped to the helmsman, and by him conveyed forward, and read for the delectation of the mutinous crowd in the forecastle.
It was extraordinary that Pathan should discontinue so abruptly his nocturnal visits to the men. Possibly he had caught a stray word or two of the boatswain’s confabulation with the second mate, and so taken fright. Whatever it was, the fact remained that it was impossible to come upon anything which would justify their putting him out of the way of doing mischie
f. Even the boatswain’s complaints about the men’s behavior seemed to be lacking foundation during this time, and altogether the ship appeared to be quieting down nicely.
Though there had seemed of late little need for anticipating trouble, yet the second mate had his doubts but that there was something under this apparent calm, and, having his doubts, took the precaution to carry a companionable weapon in his side pocket.
In the end, events proved that he was right; for, one afternoon on watch, the boatswain, chancing to have physical trouble with one of the men, the rest of the watch closed in upon him in a mob. At that the second mate went down to take a turn, which turn he took to such a tune that he had three of them stretched out before they were well aware that he was among them. They were beginning to give before his onslaught when suddenly he heard Pathan’s voice, away aft, singing out:
“Get on to him, lads! Now’s your time! Give the bully a taste of his own sort!”
At that the rest of them turned upon him with a rush, leaving the sadly mauled boatswain to himself. And now the second mate showed of what he was made. They were clinging on to him like a lot of weasels—gripping his legs to trip him, grasping at his hands and arms, and climbing on his back. One of these latter having clasped hands under his chin, was doing his utmost to throttle him.
This the second mate foiled by unclasping the fellow’s dirty paws and pulling him bodily over his head, bringing him, with a continuation of the movement, crashing down upon those of his attackers immediately in front. At the same instant, the boatswain, being by now somewhat recovered, laid hold upon one of those in the rear and hauled him off. Even as he did so, there came the sound of a pistol shot.
The second mate hove himself round carrying the mass of clinging men with him. He saw Pathan coming along the decks toward them at a run. In his hand was a pistol, with the smoke still rising from it. Upon the deck lay the boatswain. He was kicking and twitching; for it was he whom the passenger had shot.
“You damned skunk!” roared the second mate. He caught two of his attackers by the hair of their heads and beat their skulls together so they became immediately senseless.
He saw Pathan halt within a dozen feet of him and aim straight at his head. He had been dead the following instant, but that there happened a diversion.
A white face flashed into the field of his vision, and the next moment Miss Eversley had thrown ahandful of some whitish powder into the man’s face. The pistol dropped with a thud, and from Pathan there was nothing save a mixture of gasps and shouts, violent sneezing, and coughs that broke off oddly into breathless blasphemy.
The second mate shouted incoherently. Then the girl was upon his assailants, throwing handfuls of the powder into their faces; whereupon they loosed him, as if their strength had gone from them, and fell to much the same antics as had Pathan. Some of the powder rose and assailed the second officer’s nostrils, so that he sneezed violently. It was pepper!
He turned to the girl. At her feet lay the tin with which she had wrought his relief. She herself was standing, crying and sneezing along with the rest, and trying to wipe her eyes with a peppery handkerchief.
The second mate’s glance noted the pistol dropped by Pathan, and he stepped over, and, picking it up, put it in his pocket. Between him and the group of sneezing, choking men lay the body of the boatswain. A lot of the pepper had been spilt upon his upturned face, yet he moved no whit. He was quite dead.
“What’s happened, Mr. Grey?” asked a thin voice at his elbow.
“Rank mutiny!” he replied.
“Whatever shall we do?” returned the voice, the owner of which was the first mate. “Whatever shall we do?”
“Nothing,” said the second mate shortly.
He turned from the mate and bellowed to the other watch who were coming aft in a body, having been aroused by the noise.
“Now then, my lads! Up forrard with you! Smartly!” And he pulled out his revolver.
They went backward with a surge as he covered them.
“Back into the fo’cas’le! Don’t stir out till I tell you!”
The threatening weapon, backed by the determination of the man, overawed them and they went quickly.
“Close that door!” he roared.
It was closed immediately. Then he turned his attention to those around. Miss Eversley was standing near, her cheeks white, but her eyes and nose very red. It was plain to him that she was all of a tremble and like to fall, so that, without more ado, he took her by the shoulders and led her to a seat upon a spar lashed along by the bulwarks.
“Now, don’t faint,” he commanded.
“I’m not going to,” she said soberly.
He left her hurriedly; for the men, having recovered from the effects of the pepper, were gathered in a clump and eying him doubtfully. To the right, Pathan had got upon his feet. It is just possible that in another moment they would have been upon him, which would have meant the loosing of the other watch, had he not acted with decision.
“Cyrone and Andy,” he shouted, facing them squarely, “aft with you, and tell the steward to pass out the irons!”
At the word, Andy started aft to obey. But Cyrone, one of those who had been foremost in the trouble, made no move.
“Cyrone!” said the second mate.
The man had done well to understand the dangerous quiet in his tone; but he did not. Instead, with unbounded insolence, he turned to the fellows surrounding him.
“Who for the irons, hey? They for we! I know! I know!” he shouted excitedly, and broke off into an unintelligible jargon of words.
“Cyrone!”
“For to Hell you go!” shouted the wretch in reply. It was evident that he was depending on the others to back him up.
The second mate said no word, but raised his pistol. The men about Cyrone scattered to each side. They had seen the second mate’s eyes. In that last moment the fellow himself must have come suddenly into knowledge; for he started back, crying out something in an altered tone.
There was a scream from Miss Eversley, which blent with the sudden crack of the weapon; then Cyrone staggered and fell sideways on to the hatch. There was an instant of strange silence, broken by a dullish thud on the deck behind.
“Jardkenoff, go along with Andy for those irons,” said the second mate in a level tone.
At his order the whole of them had started forward like frightened animals.
Jardkenoff ran past him, crying “Yi, yi, sir!” in a shaking voice.
While they were gone for the irons, the second mate bade the others lift the bodies of the boatswain and Cyrone on to the hatch. Then he looked round to discover the cause of that thud upon the deck. He saw that Miss Eversley had fallen forward off the spar on to her face, and atthat he hastened to lift her. Fortunately, she had escaped injury, at which unconsciously he sighed relief. Then, taking her into his arms, he carried her to the hatch, singing out to one of the men by name to run aft to bring the steward with some brandy.
All this while, Pathan, the passenger, had stood in a dazed fashion beside the main-mast. Now, thinking he perceived a chance to steal aft to the temporary safety of his room, he began to sidle quietly away. It was no use, for the mate’s voice pulled him up short before he had gone a dozen feet.
“You will stay where you are, Mr. Pathan!” was all that he said.
When the irons came, the steward accompanied them, carrying a glass full of brandy. This, under the eye of the second mate, he proceeded to administer. At the same time, the officer was superintending the ironing of Pathan. By the time that this was accomplished, Miss Eversley had begun to come to a knowledge of her surroundings, and presently sat up. Before this, however, the second mate had seen to it that Pathan was removed to the lazarette, for he would not have her upset further by sight of the murderer.
As soon as she was strong enough, he gave her his arm and led her aft to her cabin. In the saloon they came upon the captain’s wife sitting limply in one of the chairs. At th
eir entrance, she started up, and cried out something in a frightened voice. The poor woman seemed demented and quite incapable of rational speech. It was evident that the scene on deck—which apparently she had witnessed—had, in conjunction with her recent loss, temporarily unsettled her mental balance.
With difficulty they persuaded her to go to her room, after which the second mate returned to the deck, with the intention of trying to put a little heart into the nonentity whom Fate had placed above him in the scale of authority.
That evening, in the second dog-watch, the body of Cyrone was, by his orders, ignominiously dumped over the side without ceremony, and with a piece of rope and holystone attached to his feet.
VI
The following day it was a somewhat cowed lot of men who came aft, at the second mate’s bidding, to the funeral of the boatswain. Nor did his opinion of them, expressed tersely after the body had gone down into the darkness, help to reassure them. He told them that, at the first sign of further insubordination, he would shoot them down like the dogs they were; that, in future, there should be no afternoon watch below, and that work should be continued right through the two dog-watches. On learning this, there came a slight murmur, expressive of discontent checked by fear, from the men grouped below the break.
“Silence!” roared the second officer, and whipped out a pistol from his side pocket.
Instantly the murmur ceased; for the men, as was the second’s intention, realized that he would stop nowhere to enforce his commands. And there was still vividly in their minds the execution of Cyrone.
As the men went forward, the first mate ventured a weak protest against the second’s measures.
“You’ll have ’em murdering us, Mr. Grey, if you go on like that! Why don’t you speak to ’em nicely?”
The second mate looked down upon his superior. At first his glance denoted impatient contempt; but after the first moment an expression of tolerance spread over his features as he took in the other’s almost pathetic weakness of face and figure.
“I believe you read the Bible, Mr. Dunn?”
“I—I—” began the mate, flushing slightly. “Yes—perhaps I do sometimes. Why?”
The William Hope Hodgson Megapack Page 37
