Red-headed Sally, his face like paste sprinkled with the cinnamon of his freckles, backed slowly out of sight behind the cabin. Between his lips was a long, black reed, from which issued compelling music, and after him, his eyes half-closed, his head swaying in time to the motion of his coils, while the sailors stood rigid with fascinated repulsion, glided Mazpa, a dazed captive.
A glass was pressed against the Chinaman’s bloodless lips. He opened them, and swallowed automatically. His throat burned, but the reality of the world begun to return.
Sally appeared on the deck, walking unsteadily.
“You’d orter see him, fellers,” he said, swaying up to the still transfixed group. “All curled up for a nice nap, quiet as a lamb.” Then, more jerkily, “Give me a drink, quick!”
He would have fallen, had not the little Englishman, who had followed him across the deck, caught his arm.
Yen Sing, kneeling there, his bright, almond-slanted eyes turning from one to the other of the crowd, slowly comprehended. The Flute, then, was a conqueror of devils, and Mazpa’s evil struggle for one more soul had failed just as it was ended, because of Flute, who lived in a black reed and spoke with a shrill voice. Here was a god more powerful than those he had foresworn, a white man’s God, and it had saved him—him!
He clasped Sally’s wide-trousered leg.
“Let me worship thy strange god, oh, Sally,” he murmured in his native tongue.
JACK GREY, SECOND MATE, by William Hope Hodgson
CHAPTER I
She stepped aboard from one of the wooden jetties projecting from the old Longside wharf, where the sailing ships used to lie above Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. She rejected almost disdainfully the great hand extended by the second mate to assist her over the gangway.
The big man flushed somewhat under his tan, but otherwise gave no sign that he was aware of the semi-unconscious slight. She, on her part, moved aft daintily to meet the captain’s wife, under whose wing she was to make the passage from Frisco to Baltimore.
At first it seemed as if she were to be the only passenger in the big steel bark; but, about half an hour before sailing, a second appeared on the little jetty, accompanied by several bearers carrying his luggage. These, having dumped their burdens at the outer end of the gangway, were paid and dismissed; after which the passenger, a gross, burly-looking man, apparently between forty and forty-five years of age, made his way aboard.
It was evident that he was no stranger to sea-craft; for without hesitation, he walked aft and down the companionway. In a few minutes he returned to the deck. He glanced ashore to where his luggage remained piled up as he had left it, then went over to where the second mate was standing by the rail across the break of the poop.
“Here, you!” he said brusquely, speaking fair English, but with an unfamiliar accent. “Why don’t you get my luggage aboard?”
The second mate turned and glanced down at him from his great height.
“Were you speaking to me?” he asked quietly.
“Certainly I was addressing you, you—”
He stopped and retreated a pace, for there was something in the eyes of the big officer which quieted him.
“If you will go below I’ll have your gear brought aboard,” the second mate told him.
The tone was polished and courteous, but there was still something in the gray eyes. The passenger glanced uneasily from the eyes to the great, nervous hand lying, gently clenched, upon the rail. Then, without a word, he turned and walked aft.
* * * *
The Carlyle had been two days at sea, and was running before a fine breeze of wind. On the poop the second mate was walking up and down, smoking meditatively. Occasionally he would go to the break and pass some order to the boatswain, then resume his steady tramp.
Presently, he heard a step on the companion stairs, and, the moment afterward, saw the lady passenger step out on deck. She was very white, and walked somewhat unsteadily, as if she were giddy.
She was followed by the captain’s wife, carrying a rug and a couple of cushions. These the good woman proceeded to arrange on the captain’s own deck-chair, after which she steadied the girl to a sitting position and wrapped the rug around her knees and feet.
Abruptly, in one of his periodic journeys, as the second mate passed to windward of the place where they were sitting, the voice of the lady passenger reached him. She was addressing the captain’s wife, but was obviously indifferent whether he heard or not.
“I wish that man would take his horrible pipe somewhere else. The smell of it makes me quite sick!”
He was aware that the captain’s wife was trying to signal to him behind the girl’s back; but he made no sign that he saw. Instead, he continued his return journey to the break of the poop, with a certain grimness about the corners of his mouth.
Here he proceeded to walk athwartships, instead of fore and aft, so that now he came nowhere near to the girl whose insolent fastidiousness had twice irked him. He continued to smoke; for he was of too big a mind to give way to the smallness of being huffed over the lady’s want of manners. He had removed from her presence the cause of her annoyance, and, being of a logical disposition, saw no reason for ceasing to obtain the reasonable enjoyment of his pipe.
As he made his way to and fro across the planks, he proceeded to turn the matter over in his own calm way. Evidently she regarded him—if she thought at all about him—as a kind of upper servant; this being so, it was absurd to suppose that there was an intentional rudeness, beyond such as servants are accustomed to receive in their position of living automata. And here, having occasion to go down on to the main deck to trim sail, he forgot the matter.
When he returned to the poop, the girl was sitting alone; the captain’s wife having been called below to attend to her husband who had been ill enough to be confined to his bunk for upward of a week.
As he passed across the planks, he cast occasional glances aft. The girl was certainly winsome, and peculiarly attractive, to such a man as he, in her calm unknowing of his near presence. She was sitting back in the chair, leaning tiredly and staring full of thought out across the sea.
A while passed thus, perhaps the half of an hour, and then came the sound of heavy steps coming up from the saloon. The second mate recognized them for those of the male passenger; yet the girl did not seem to notice them. She did not withdraw her gaze from the sea, but continued to stare, seeming lost in quiet thought.
The man’s head appeared out of the companionway, then the clumsy grossness of his trunk and fat under-limbs. He moved toward her, stopping within a couple of yards of her chair.
“And how is Miss Eversley?” the second mate heard him ask.
At his voice, the girl started and turned her head swiftly in his direction.
“You!” That was all she said; but the disgust and the undertone of something akin to fear were not lost upon the second officer.
“You thought—” began the man in tones of attempted banter.
“I thought I had seen the last of you—forever!” she cut in.
“But you see you were mistaken. If the sickness of the sea hadn’t claimed you for the last two days, you would have discovered earlier that regret for my absence was wasted.”
“Regret!”
“My pretty child—”
“Will you go away! Go away! Go away!” She put out her hands weakly with a gesture of repulsion.
“Come, come! We shall have to see much of one another during the next few weeks. Why—”
She was on her feet, swaying giddily. He took a step forward, as if with an unconscious instinct to bar her passage.
“Let me pass!” she said, with a little gasp.
But he, staring at her with hot eyes, seemed not to have heard her. She put up a hand to her throat, as if wanting air.
“Allow me to assist you below.”
It was the deep voice of the second mate. His naturally somewhat grave face gave no indication that he was aware of any t
ensions.
“I will attend to that,” said the male passenger insolently.
But the officer seemed to have no knowledge of his existence. Instead, he guided the lady to the companionway, and then down the stairs to the saloon. There he left her in the charge of the captain’s wife, telling the latter that the sea air had proved too much for the young lady.
Returning on deck, he found the passenger standing by the opening of the companion. He had it in his heart to deal with the person in a fashion of his own; but the fellow had taken the measure of the big officer and, though full of repressed rage, took good care to invite no trouble.
On his part, the second mate resumed his steady tramp of the deck; but it may be noted that his pipe went out twice, for his thoughts were upon the girl he had helped below. He was pondering the matter of her repulsion for the male passenger. It was evident that they had met elsewhere, probably at the port where the Carlyle had picked them up. It was even more evident that the girl had no desire to continue the acquaintance, if it could be named as such.
Upon this, and much more to the same effect, did he meditate. And so, in due time, the first mate came up to his relief.
CHAPTER II
Three days later, the captain died suddenly, leaving his wife helpless with grief at her loss. By this time, Miss Eversley had gathered strength after her bout with seasickness, and now did her best to comfort the poor woman. Yet the desolate wife would not be comforted, but took to her bunk as soon as her husband had passed into the deep, and there stayed, refusing to be companied by any one. This being so, Miss Eversley was, perforce, left greatly to her own devices, and her own company; for that of Mr. Pathan, the other passenger, she avoided in a most determined manner.
This was by no means an easy matter to accomplish, save by staying in her berth; for did she go upon the poop, the man would, in defiance of all her entreaties or commands, pursue her with his hateful attentions. Yet help was to come; for it happened one day that, the poop being empty save for the man at the wheel, with whom, however, Pathan seemed curiously familiar, the fellow took advantage of the opportunity to try to take her hands. He succeeded in grasping her left, making the remark:
“Don’t be so skittish, my pretty. What are your hands, when I am to have the whole of you?” And he laughed mockingly.
For answer, she tried to pull away from him, but without success.
“You see, it’s no good fighting against me!”
She glanced round, breathlessly, for help and her gaze fell upon the helmsman, a little, hideous dago who, with an evil grin upon his face, was watching them. At that, she went all hot with shame and anger.
“Let go of my hand!”
“I shall not!”
He reached his left out for her right, but she drew it back; and then, as if with the reflex of the movement, clenched it and struck him full in the mouth.
“Beast!” she said with a little savage note in her voice.
The man staggered a moment; for the blow had been shrewdly delivered, and his surprise almost equaled the pain. Then he came back at her with a rush. The man was no better than some bestial creature at the moment. He seized her about the neck and the waist.
“—you!” he snarled. “I’ll teach—”
But he never finished. A great knuckled hand came between their faces, splaying itself across his forehead. His sweating visage was wrenched from hers. A rough, blue-sleeved arm comforted his neck mightily, tilting his chin heavenward. His grip weakened upon her, then gave abruptly, and she staggered back dizzily against the mizzen rigging.
There came a sound of something falling. It was a very long distance away. She was conscious of the second mate in the immediate foreground, his back turned to her; and beyond him, her gross-featured antagonist huddled limply upon the deck. For a moment neither moved; then the man upon the deck rose shakily, keeping his eye mateward.
The big officer never stirred, and the passenger began backing to get the skylight between him and the second mate. He reached the weather side and paused nervously. Then, and not till then, the officer turned his back upon him, and, without vouchsafing a glance in the direction of the girl, walked forward toward the break of the poop.
As she made to go below, she heard the little steersman mutter something to the defeated man; and he, now that he was in no instant danger of annihilation, raised his voice to a blusterous growl. But the big man?
CHAPTER III
The fore-hands of the big steel bark Carlyle were a new lot who had been signed on in Frisco, in place of the outward-bound crew of Scotch and Welsh sailormen, who had deserted on account of the high pay ruling in Frisco. The present crowd was composed chiefly of “Dutchmen,” and in each watch, consisting of eight men and a boy, there were only two Americans, one Englishman and a German. The remainder were dagoes and mixed breeds.
The two Americans were in the first mate’s watch, the Englishman and the German being with the second’s crowd, and the whole lot of them, white, olive and mixed, were about as hard a “rough-house” crew, scraped up from the waterfront, as one could find, and acceptable only because of the aforementioned high wages and shortage of men.
And, to complete the number of undesirables aboard, there was Mr. Pathan, the half-breed passenger.
Finally, Mr. Dunn, the first mate, was a nervous little man, totally unfitted to handle anything more than an orderly crew of respectable Scandinavians. The result was that already his own watch had been once so out of hand he had been forced to call upon the second officer to help him maintain authority; since when, automatically, as it were, the second mate had taken, though unofficially, the reins of authority into his own hands.
Thus the situation five days after leaving port, on the homeward passage.
A week had passed.
“If you please, sir, I’d like a word with you.”
It was the big boatswain who spoke. He had come halfway up the poop ladder, and his request was put in a low voice, yet with an apparently casual air.
“Certainly, Barton! Come up here if you have anything about which you wish to speak.”
“It’s about the men, sir. There’s something up, an’ I can’t just put me finger on it.”
“How do you mean, something up?”
“Well, sir, they’re gettin’ a bit at a loose end, an’ they’re gettin’ a bit too free-like with their lip if I tells ’em to do anythin’.”
“Well, you know, Barton, I cannot help you in that. If you cannot keep them in hand without aid, you’ll never do it with.”
“’Tisn’t exactly that, sir. I can handle a crowd right enough along with any man; savin’ it be yourself, sir”—with an acknowledging glance at his officer’s gigantic proportions—“but there’s somethin’ in the wind, as is makin’ ’em too ikey. It’s only since the cap’n went, an’ it’s my belief as yon passenger’s at the bottom of it!”
“Ah!”
“You noticed somethin’ then, sir?” asked the boatswain quickly.
“Tell me what makes you think the passenger may be in anything that is brewing?” said the second mate, ignoring the man’s question.
“Well, for one thing, sir, he’s too familiar with the men. An’ I’ve seen him go forrard to the fo’cas’le of a night when ’twas dark. Once I went up to the door on the quiet, thinkin’ as I’d get to see what it was as he was up to; but the chap on the lookout spotted me an’ started talkin’. I reckoned he meant headin’ me off; so I asked him to pass me down the end of me clothesline, for a bluff, an’ then I made tracks.”
“But didn’t you get any idea of what the fellow was doing in the fo’cas’le?”
“Well, sir, it seemed to me as he was palaverin’ to ’em like a father; but as I was sayin’ I hadn’t time to get the bearin’s of what was goin’ forrard. Then there’s another matter, sir, as—”
“And you might tell the man, while he’s up, to take a look at the chafing gear on the fore swifter,” interjected the second ma
te calmly.
The irrelevancy of this remark seemed to bring the boatswain up all standing, as the saying goes. He glanced up at the officer’s face, and in so doing the field of his vision included something else—the very one of whom they were talking. He understood now the reason of the second’s apparently causeless remark; for that keen-sensed officer had detected the almost cat-like tread approaching them along the poop-deck, and changed the conversation on the instant.
For a couple of minutes the boatswain and the second mate kept up a talk upon certain technical details of ship work, until Mr. Pathan was out of hearing.
“I reckon as he thought he’d like to know what it was we’re talkin’ about, sir,” remarked the boatswain, eying the broad back of the stout passenger.
“What is this other matter that you want to speak to me about?”
“Well, sir, some of the hands ’as got hold of booze somehow. I keeps smellin’ of ’em whenever one of ’em comes near me, and I reckon as he”—jerking his head in the direction of Mr. Pathan—“is the one as is givin’ it to ’em.”
The second mate swore quietly.
“What’s his game, sir? That’s what’s foozlin’ me. I thinks it’s time as you looked inter ther matter!”
“If I thought—”
“Yes, sir?” encouraged the boatswain.
But whatever the second mate thought, he did not put it into words. Instead, he asked the boatswain if he were of the opinion that any of the forecastle crowd were to be depended upon.
“Not one of ’em, sir! There isn’t one as wouldn’t put a knife inter you if he got half a chanst!”
The second nodded, as if the man’s summing-up of the crew were in accordance with his own ideas. Then he spoke.
“Well, Barton, I cannot do anything till we know more definitely what is in the wind. You must keep your eyes open and report to me anything that seems likely to help.”
Behind them they heard again the pad of Mr. Pathan’s deck shoes.
The Adventure Megapack Page 13
