Foul Play Part 15

The captain listened attentively to the explanation, and altered his tone. "Oh, that is a different matter," said he. "You need be under no alarm, sir; the thundering lubber knows what he is about, at that work.

Why, he has been a ship's carpenter all his life. Him a seaman! If anything ever happens to me, and Joe Wylie is set to navigate this ship, then you may say your prayers. He isn't fit to sail a wash-tub across a duck-pond. But I'll tell you what it is," added this worthy, with more pomposity than neatness of articulation, "here's a respeckable pa.s.senger brought me a report; do my duty to m' employers, and--take a look at the well."

He accordingly chalked a plumb-line, and went and sounded the well.

There were eight inches of water. Hudson told him that was no more than all ships contained from various causes: "In fact," said he, "our pumps suck, and will not draw, at eight inches." Then suddenly grasping Mr.

Hazel's hand, he said, in tearful accents, "Don't you trouble your head about Joe Wylie, or any such sc.u.m. I'm skipper of the _Proserpine,_ and a man that does his duty to 'z employers. Mr. Hazel, sir, I'd come to my last anchor in that well this moment, if my duty to m' employers required it. D-- my eyes if I wouldn't lie down there this minute, and never move to all eternity and a day after, if it was my duty to m' employers!"

"No doubt," said Hazel dryly. "But I think you can serve your employers better in other parts of the ship." He then left him, with a piece of advice; "to keep his eye upon that Wylie."

Mr. Hazel kept his own eye on Wylie so constantly, that at eleven o'clock P.M. he saw that worthy go into the captain's cabin with a quart bottle of rum.

The coast was clear; the temptation great. These men then were still deceiving him with a feigned antagonism. He listened at the keyhole, not without some compunction; which, however, became less and less as fragments of the dialogue reached his ear.

For a long time the only speaker was Hudson, and his discourse ran upon his own exploits at sea. But suddenly Wylie's voice broke in with an unmistakable tone of superiority. "Belay all that chat, and listen to me.

It is time we settled something. I'll hear what you have got to say; and then you'll _do_ what _I_ say. Better keep your hands off the bottle a minute you have had enough for the present; this is business. I know you are good for jaw; but what are you game to do for the governor 's money?

Anything?"

"More than you have ever seen or heard tell of, ye lubber," replied the irritated skipper. "Who has ever served his employers like Hiram Hudson?"

"Keep that song for your quarter-deck," retorted the mate, contemptuously. "No; on second thoughts, just tell me how you have served your employers, you old humbug. Give me chapter and verse to choose from.

Come now, the _Neptune?"_

"Well, the _Neptune;_ she caught fire a hundred leagues from land."

"How came she to do that?"

"That is my business. Well, I put her head before the wind, and ran for the Azores; and I stuck to her, sir, till she was as black as a coal, and we couldn't stand on deck, but kept hopping like parched peas; and fire belching out of her portholes forward. Then we took to the boats, and saved a few bales of silk by way of sample of her cargo, and got ash.o.r.e; and she'd have come ash.o.r.e too next tide and told tales, but somebody left a keg of gunpowder in the cabin, with a long fuse, and blew a hole in her old ribs, that the water came in, and down she went, hissing like ten thousand sarpints, and n.o.body the wiser."

"Who lighted the fuse, I wonder?" said Wylie.

"Didn't I tell ye it was 'Somebody'?" said Hudson. "Hand me the stiff."

He replenished his gla.s.s, and, after taking a sip or two, asked Wylie if he had ever had the luck to be boarded by pirates.

"No," said Wylie. "Have you?"

"Ay; and they rescued me from a watery grave, as the lubbers call it. Ye see, I was employed by Downes & Co., down at the Havanna, and cleared for Vera Cruz with some boxes of old worn-out printer's type."

"To print psalm-books for the darkies, no doubt," suggested Wylie.

"Insured as specie," continued Hudson, ignoring the interruption. "Well, just at daybreak one morning, all of a sudden there was a rakish-looking craft on our weather-bow. Lets fly a nine-pounder across our forefoot, and was alongside before my men could tumble up from below. I got knocked into the sea by the boom and fell between the ships; and the pirate he got hold of me and poured hot grog down my throat to bring me to my senses."

"That is not what you use it for in general," said Wylie. "Civil sort of pirate, though."

"Pirate be d--d. That was my consort rigged out with a black flag, and mounted with four nine-pounders on one side, and five dummies on the other. He bl.u.s.tered a bit, and swore, and took our type and our cabbages (I complained to Downes ash.o.r.e about the vagabond taking the vegetables), and ordered us to leeward under all canvas, and we never saw him again--not till he had shaved off his mustaches, and called on Downes to condole and say the varmint had chased his ship fifty leagues out of her course; but he had got clear of him. Downes complimented me publicly.

Says he, 'This skipper boarded the pirate single-handed; only he jumped short, and fell between the two ships; and here he is by a miracle.' Then he takes out his handkerchief, and flops his head on my shoulder. 'His merciful preservation almost reconciles me to the loss of my gold,' says the thundering crocodile. Cleared seventy thousand dollars, he did, out of the Manhattan Marine, and gave the pirate and me but two hundred pounds between us both."

"The _Rose?"_ said Wylie.

"What a hurry you are in! Pa.s.s the grog. Well, the _Rose;_ she lay off Ushant. We canted her to wash the decks; lucky she had a careful commander; not like Kempenfelt, whose eye was in his pocket, and his fingers held the pen, so he went to the bottom, with Lord knows how many men. I noticed the squalls came very sudden; so I sent most of my men ash.o.r.e and got the boats ready in case of accident. A squall did strike her, and she was on her beam-ends in a moment. We pulled ash.o.r.e with two bales of silk by way of salvage, and sample of what warn't in her hold when she settled down. We landed; and the Frenchmen were dancing about with excitement. 'Captain,' says one, 'you have much sang fraw.'

'Insured, munseer,' says I. 'Bone,' says he.

"Then there was the _Antelope,_ lost in charge of a pilot off the Hooghly. I knew the water as well as he did. We were on the port tack, standing toward the shoal. Weather it, as we should have done next tack, and I should have failed in my duty to my employers. Anything but that!

'Look out!' said I. 'Pilot, she fore-reaches in stays.' Pilot was smoking; those sandhead pilots smoke in bed and asleep. He takes his cigar out of his mouth for one moment. 'Ready about,' says he. 'Hands 'bout ship. Helm's a-lee. Raise tacks and sheets.' Round she was coming like a top. Pilot smoking. Just as he was going to haul the mainsel Somebody tripped against him, and shoved the hot cigar in his eye. He sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. Ship in irons, tide running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for anchoring, b.u.mp!--there she was hard and fast. A stiff breeze got up at sunrise, and she broke up. Next day I was sipping my grog and reading the _Bengal Courier,_ and it told the disastrous wreck of the brig _Antelope,_ wrecked in charge of a pilot; 'but no lives lost, and the owners fully insured.' Then there was the bark _Sally._ Why, you saw her yourself distressed on a lee sh.o.r.e."

"Yes," said Wylie. "I was in that tub, the _Grampus,_ and we contrived to claw off the Scillies; yet you, in your smart _Sally,_ got ash.o.r.e. What luck!"

"Luck be blowed!" cried Hudson, angrily. "Somebody got into the chains to sound, and cut the weather halyards. Next tack the masts went over the side; and I had done my duty."

"Lives were lost that time, eh?" said Wylie, gravely.

"What is that to you?" replied Hudson, with the sudden ire of a drunken man. "Mind your own business. Pa.s.s me the bottle."

"Yes, lives was lost; and always will be lost in sea-going ships, where the skipper does his duty. There was a sight more lost at Trafalgar, owing to every man doing his duty. Lives lost, ye lubber? And why not mine? Because their time was come and mine wasn't. For I'll tell you one thing, Joe Wylie--if she takes fire and runs before the wind till she is as black as coal, and belching flame through all her port-holes, and then explodes, and goes aloft in ten thousand pieces no bigger than my hat, or your knowledge of navigation, Hudson is the last man to leave her. Duty!

If she goes on her beam-ends and founders, Hudson sees the last of her, and reports it to his employers. Duty! If she goes grinding on Scilly, Hudson is the last man to leave her bones. Duty! Some day perhaps I shall be swamped myself along with the craft. I have escaped till now, owing to not being insured; but if ever my time should come, and you should get clear, promise me, Joe, to see the owners, and tell 'em Hudson did his duty."

Here a few tears quenched his n.o.ble ardor for a moment. But he soon recovered, and said, with some little heat, "You have got the bottle again. I never saw such a fellow to get hold of the bottle. Come, here's 'Duty to our employers!' And now I'll tell you how we managed with the _Carysbrook,_ and the _Amelia."_

This promise was followed by fresh narratives; in particular, of a vessel he had run upon the Florida reef at night, where wreckers had been retained in advance to look out for signals, and come on board and quarrel on pretense and set fire to the vessel, insured at thrice her value.

Hudson got quite excited with the memory of these exploits, and told each successive feat louder and louder.

But now it was Wylie's turn. "Well," said he, very gravely, "all this was child's play."

There was a pause that marked Hudson's astonishment. Then he broke out, "Child's play, ye lubber! If you had been there your gills would have been as white as your Sunday shirt; and a d--d deal whiter."

"Come, be civil," said Wylie, "I tell you all the ways you have told me are too suspicious. Our governor is a highflyer. He pays like a prince, and, in return, he must not be blown on, if it is ever so little.

'Wylie,' says he, 'a breath of suspicion would kill me.' 'Make it so much,' says I, 'and that breath shall never blow on you. No, no, skipper; none of those ways will do for us; they have all been worked twice too often. It must be done in fair weather, and in a way-- Fill your gla.s.s and I'll fill mine-- Capital rum this. You talk of my gills turning white; before long we shall see whose keeps their color best, mine or yours, my boy."

There was a silence, during which Hudson was probably asking himself what Wylie meant; for presently he broke out in a loud but somewhat quivering voice: "Why, you mad, drunken devil of a ship's carpenter, red-hot from h.e.l.l, I see what you are at, now; you are going--"

"Hush!" cried Wylie, alarmed in his turn. "Is this the sort of thing to bellow out for the watch to hear? Whisper, now."

This was followed by the earnest mutterings of two voices. In vain did the listener send his very soul into his ear to hear. He could catch no single word. Yet he could tell, by the very tones of the speakers, that the dialogue was one of mystery and importance.

Here was a situation at once irritating and alarming; but there was no help for it. The best thing, now, seemed to be to withdraw un.o.bserved, and wait for another opportunity. He did so; and he had not long retired, when the mate came out staggering and flushed with liquor, and that was a thing that had never occurred before. He left the cabin door open and went into his own room.

Soon after sounds issued from the cabin--peculiar sounds, something between grunting and snoring.

Mr. Hazel came and entered the cabin. There he found the captain of the _Proserpine_ in a position very unfavorable to longevity. His legs were crooked over the seat of his chair, and his head was on the ground. His handkerchief was tight round his neck, and the man himself dead drunk, and purple in the face.

Mr. Hazel instantly undid his stock, on which the gallant seaman muttered inarticulately. He then took his feet off the chair and laid them on the ground, and put the empty bottle under the animal's neck.

But he had no sooner done all this than he had a serious misgiving. Would not this man's death have been a blessing? Might not his life prove fatal?

The thought infuriated him, and he gave the prostrate figure a heavy kick that almost turned it over, and the words, "Duty to employers," gurgled out of its mouth directly.

It really seemed as if these sounds were independent of the mind, and resided at the tip of Hudson's tongue, so that a thorough good kick could, at any time, shake them out of his inanimate body.