Harper's Round Table, August 13, 1895 Part 2

"Preceded by a fair, handsome, lightly built man, who proved to be none other than Captain Brand, a dozen swarthy, evil-looking pirates, armed to the teeth, tumbled over the rail. Captain Smith stepped forward to address the chief, but was immediately cut down with a cutla.s.s wielded by the latter, who haughtily remarked,

"'Excuse me, I've no time for conversation.'

"The pirate's action was a signal to his men, and before our crew could offer the slightest resistance they shared the master's fate. A wicked-looking scoundrel with an ugly scar across his cheek made a savage swing at me with his sword, but before the blow could fall the pirate's cutla.s.s was sent flying from his grasp, and he uttered a shriek of pain and seized his arm where Brand's blow had fallen.

"'I don't make war on children,' was all that the Captain said.

"Fifteen minutes later the _Saucy_ had been ransacked and set on fire, and sick at heart I was on board the schooner, having been given to understand that my name had been entered as a pirate's apprentice, and that I was a regular member of the crew and must obey orders.

"At once the word was pa.s.sed to get the vessel under way, and I found myself trailing on to the fore-topsail halyards alongside of a sad-looking lad of about my own age, who was addressed by the men as d.i.c.k, and who, I took it rightly, had been forced to join the _Dragon_ under similar conditions to my own.

"That night we two found ourselves in the same watch, and, after answering to roll-call, we stowed ourselves away between two of the guns and exchanged confidences. Later on we talked over various plans to gain our freedom. d.i.c.k informed me that the schooner was on her way to the pirates' stronghold, where he had been once before, on the island of Tortugas, there to divide the spoils of the voyage, and to gamble and carouse for several days before starting on another expedition.

"Two days later we reached the island in a small securely locked bay on the western side. After lowering and furling the sails, a chest about two feet square was brought out on deck, and its contents, consisting of gold and silver, money and jewels, were divided among the men by Captain Brand. After that a barrel of rum was lowered into the long boat, and the crew entered her and rowed away, leaving the Captain and we two boys the only ones on board.

"Late in the evening Captain Brand ordered d.i.c.k to row him ash.o.r.e, and I was left alone. About an hour later d.i.c.k sculled the boat quietly alongside out of the darkness, climbed on board, and addressed me in an excited whisper:

"'Now's our time, Sterling; the Captain has gone up to his sh.o.r.e house and thinks I'm waiting for him on the beach; we will cut the cable, and the wind will set us out of the bay; they can't follow us, for I've sent their boat adrift, with the plug pulled out so that it will sink!'

"While d.i.c.k ran to the wheel I jumped forward and sawed my knife through the anchor hawser, and immediately saw the schooner's head falling off against the stars under the influence of the easterly wind. In a quarter of an hour we were outside the mouth of the harbor and drifting to the westward. We knew that we never could hoist the sails and handle the vessel to sail anywhere, and that if a gale sprang up we would probably founder; but these dangers could not rob us of great happiness, for we realized that we were free from the pirates' clutches.

"During the night we took turns at steering the schooner so as to keep her before the wind, but just before daybreak it fell a flat calm. When the sun rose d.i.c.k was the first to see a large man-of-war about a mile away on our beam, also lying becalmed. They made us out at the same time, and evidently disliking our looks they fitted out three large launches with guns in their bows, and pulled toward us. When they got within hailing distance we told our story. One of the boats then came alongside and took possession of the pirate craft. d.i.c.k and I were then sent off to the cruiser to tell our story to her Captain.

"Well, Ralph, to make a long story short, the commander of the man-of-war determined to take the pirates by surprise, if possible, so he stood off to the northeast all day to get the island under his lee, and when night fell he crowded on sail and ran for the place that we had escaped from twenty-four hours before. We made the entrance to the harbor about midnight, and while the man-of-war remained hove to, all the boats were fitted out and sent in to the bay.

"About an hour later we heard the sound of distant firing, and toward morning the boats returned with all the officers and men safe and sound, who stated that they had found the pirates stupefied with drink, and had made short work of the gang. Captain Brand, however, had not been seen, and it was supposed that he had escaped to the interior of the island.

"Now, Ralph, you have the history of your grandfather at the time he was a pirate and sailed under the black-flag with Captain Brand, the notorious robber chief."

CORPORAL FRED.[1]

A Story of the Riots.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.

CHAPTER IV.

Four miles away, in the heart of the great city, a throng of men and women and children surrounded the ma.s.sive stone walls, and peered up at the narrow windows of a formidable-looking building, from whose lofty flag-staff the Stars and Stripes were fluttering in the fresh lake breeze--a crowd even denser than that we saw in the distant dusty yards.

Here, too, among them were faces grave with anxiety. Here, too, among the women were eyes red with tears; but here all was silence and order.

Suddenly from within the huge brown walls there rose the shrill summons of the bugle, sounding in quick, spirited call the well-known "a.s.sembly," and in company rooms, crowded to suffocation by wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, and friends of the guardsmen, the men of the --th regiment fell in for roll-call. Almost at the same moment, in other sections of the city, the same signal called two other commands to their ranks. The State was waking up at last, but waking up in earnest.

Down in the paved court below the chargers of the field and staff officers were awaiting their riders, every swish of their tails slashing the faces of boys and men wedged in an almost solid ma.s.s about them.

Orders had been given that only members of the regiment and people having important business with its officers should be allowed within the walls; but the summons for duty had reached over eight hundred of its men while still at their places of business downtown. There was no time to go home, and the Colonel could not resist the pleas that came from without. First by threes and fours, then by dozens, scores, and finally in one uninterrupted stream, relatives and friends, followed by mere curiosity-seekers, swept past the guarded gates, until the great interior was packed, and there was no room for more. Before it was possible to form the command in the big drill-hall the guards had to clear the court, then drive all men and boys into the s.p.a.ce thus redeemed, and post a solid section across the sally-port to hold it against further ingress. It was 3.50 when the Colonel was handed his orders, and touched the b.u.t.ton that flashed the summons to each company commander. It was just 5.45 when he reported his command in readiness, and just 6.30 when, amidst a storm of cheers, tears, and G.o.d-speeds, through a flashing sea of white handkerchiefs he guided his startled, spirited horse, and followed by his staff and a solid column of fours, eight hundred strong, turned into the broad avenue and led the way. No exultant strain of martial music, no gayly decked bandsmen at the head of the regiment; only the hoa.r.s.e throb of the drums. No nodding plumes and snowy helmets, cross-belts, trousers. This was war's array, magnificently stern, but as magnificently simple. Officers and men alike wore the drab slouch hat of the regulars in the field, and the sombre blouses of dark blue, the broad drab ammunition belt, crammed with copper cartridges, the brown equipments, haversacks, leggings, etc., all without an atom of show or tinsel. Even the popular idea of glittering bayonet and gleaming musket seemed rebuked, for the sloping Springfields were brown and businesslike as the belts and leggings. Out they strode with steady swinging step, and the heart of the great city seemed to leap to its throat, the spray of the eastward billows to its blinking eyes, for riot, insurrection, defiance to law and order, peace and security, had again burst forth, and were raging every instant nearer and nearer its very vitals. Police and sheriff had grappled or cajoled in vain, and here at last was its right arm--the hope and strength and pride of house and home, the pet regiment of the Western metropolis was being sent to check the torrent where it raged its maddest, through that mile-long reach of the Great Western yards. "Eight hundred strong with more a-coming," as the papers put it, the --th went swinging down the applauding avenue to face far more than ten times its weight in foes. No wonder women wept and waved their hands, and strong men prayed as they said G.o.d-speed and good-by.

Out to the rioters flashed the news of the muster. Trainmen, switchmen, one and all, knew the coming force. Many a time had they carried them to the summer encampments in the interior of the State. More than once within the year had they hurried them away to the scene of some mad outbreak among the mines and iron-works. The ma.s.ses of the mob might hoot and jeer and cry derision and boast of the reception they would give the "dudes," the "tin soldiers"; but these railway men, schooled themselves in lessons of order and discipline, knew the stern stuff of which the regiment was really made. Already the thinking men among them had begun to edge away, leaving only an occasional crack-brained enthusiast like Farley in the crowd. Long since had the promoters of the row, such restless agitators as Steinman and Frenzal, slipped off to shelter, where neither bullet nor bayonet could reach them, but where they could dictate further violence and plan madder schemes. Over about the deserted shops, away from the mad tumult of the yards, numbers of the strikers stood in gloomy contemplation of the wreck, but taking no further part in the proceedings. Work had been suspended during the day, for such was the need of old and trusted hands in the pa.s.senger stations and on the abandoned switch-engines that other foremen besides stern old Wallace had been called away, and these were stalwarts to whom the strikers had appealed in vain. Struck between the eyes by a coupling-pin while handling the lever of a switch-engine an hour before, Mr. Ainslie, the master-mechanic of the Air Line, had just been borne by in an ambulance: and Wallace, looking even older, sadder, sterner, than he did at dawn, bore down upon the muttering shamefaced group as he returned for his coat, hanging there on its accustomed peg in the darkening shops. Something of the smouldering fire in his eyes seemed to overawe them, for they gave way in sullen silence, many of them turning to avoid the glower of the old Scotchman's gaze, and let him by without a word.

There were those among them who earlier in the day could have cried him shame for his blunt refusal to either strike or sympathize. Stoltz, who called upon him with fiery words and fierce gesticulation at ten o'clock, had been told to go and stay. At one, when men were needed to man the engines, he had sent word to Jim to come and take his place in a cab and handle the lever like a man, or keep out of his sight till he could behave like one: and as no Jim came, the father himself manned the throttle of the first engine to force a way to the yards, just in time to see his beloved son shot down, apparently by the senseless folly of a deputy trained neither to aim nor to endure. His heart was hot against the leaders who had brought this madness on the men he had known and almost swayed for years, and he could not refrain from harsh invective now. Halting short, he turned upon the sullen group.

"Are you satisfied with your work now, you blind, misguided fools? Have you gained one point? You've struck down--killed, perhaps--the best man that ever handled a wrench in these shops. You've stoned my flesh and blood. Why don't you mob me? I would have run that engine back until every track was clear had I had my way. Why don't you mob me? I begged Mr. Williams to let me go and fetch away those trains, car by car, if need be. Why don't you mob me, I say? Your advisers are frauds, and you are fools or worse. Look there at your doing!" he cried, pointing to the heaping wreck up the long lines of rail.

They would not answer him. Some already realized the extent of their blunder; others, sullen and disheartened, knew not how. All seemed to start and turn as though at sound of a familiar voice, when a man stepped from the open office door and began to speak, calmly at first, then with growing resonance and effect, as though he were again upon the rostrum preaching to the oppressed.

"No one would willingly harm you, Mr. Wallace: no one would knowingly have injured Mr. Ainslie. Our people, even when wronged and down-trodden, respect gray hairs, but the time has come when even patience has its limit. We are not the wreckers yonder, though we well might be. All that is the work of a great sympathetic people, long protesting against the tyranny to which we have bowed in the past. We would have spared the road and its officials as we have spared you, but let me say to you now the blow that downed your son was a blessing in disguise, for had he joined those coming minions of the government--those fancy soldiers of the aristocratic wards--I would not be answerable for what might happen, not only to him, but to you and yours."

Wallace let the speaker finish before he strode a long step nearer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU MADE THOSE THREATS LAST NIGHT," HE THUNDERED.]

"You made those threats last night," he thundered, shaking his bony forefinger under the other's rubicund nose. "I know your voice, and I want to know your name. Who are you, I say, who have come here sowing seeds of riot among honest men? You dare not give your name, and these men will not. My own son said he could not tell me. No man afraid or ashamed of his name was ever in honest work. I answer you that if he hasn't gone already, just so soon as he can stir my boy shall take his place, musket in hand, and you and yours may do your cowardly worst."

"You've had fair warning, Mr. Wallace," said the stranger, backing uneasily away from the menacing hand of the old mechanic. "You've done enough already to merit mobbing, as you call it, and it was our mercy and our forbearance that spared you in the cab this day. But as for those who live in this suburb and have gone to join the gang of organized murder, and, under the guise of militia-men, to shoot down their suffering brothers, may Heaven help them if they once again show their faces here!"

And even as the speaker finished, over in the yards, beyond the long line of brown freight cars, went up a yell of wrath, a savage sort of cheer that seemed to carry a shudder with it, a sound as of the rush of a thousand feet, and presently men came darting under or scrambling upon the cars, and gazing eagerly through or over the high picket-fence that separated them from the shop enclosure. Catching sight of the gathering at the main entrance, and recognizing some familiar form, many among them began to gesticulate, and cries were heard of "There he is!"

"Traitor!" "Scab!" "Scoundrel!" And fists were clinched, and clubs were brandished, and more men clambered to the car roofs, and boys beat upon the fence with stones, and shouted shrill taunt and insult.

"You hear?" said the stranger. "They're talking about you now, and the traitor work you've done this day. Will you go to your home and stay there, and see to it that Fred makes no attempt to join his regiment?

Will you promise--promise to pull no throttle, handle no tool, until this trouble's ended?"

"Will I deal or d.i.c.ker with such as you, do you dare to think?" burst in old Wallace, mad with indignation. "Out of my way, or I'll handle a tool to some purpose. Stand aside and let me go where I belong," he ordered, for the man stood at the doorway as though to oppose his pa.s.sage, but the fire and fury in the Scotchman's eye appalled him, and instinctively he drew aside. Then with something like the snort of a Highland stag, in sheer contempt the foreman strode by and into the gloomy, unlighted shops, just as Jim, with alarm and misery in his face, came panting to the spot.

"For goodness sake, don't let them touch the old man, fellows! Think how he's worked for the road for years before we were born. It's like home to him. You'd feel as he does if you'd worked for it so long. Stoltz has been making a speech inciting them to mob him. They're coming now. Speak to them, Mr. Steinman," he implored the stranger. "Speak to them, and stand them off."

"It's his own folly," said Steinman, waving Jim aside, and starting to get out of the road. "I've pleaded with him--warned him to no purpose.

He insulted me--threatened to split my skull. Ask these men here," he continued, and the nodding heads and murmured words of the by-standers gave quick a.s.sent. "I promised him protection if he'd simply agree to go home and stay there, and keep that fool of a brother of yours from joining his regiment."

"He couldn't promise that," protested Jim, all breathless with anxiety and grief. Already a crowd of rioters were surging through the gate a hundred yards away, and coming threateningly towards them. "The moment Fred could get his head dressed he left. He's gone two hours ago."

"Gone!" cried Steinman; "to join men who'd shoot us down like dogs! Then let the old man swallow his pill," and turning to the coming throng the furious leader shouted, "Come on!"

To Jim Wallace's side came running now, trembling, weeping with excitement and fear, a little boy of nine. With one grab the burly freight conductor seized and fairly slung him through the doorway into the dark interior, sprang after him, turned and barred the heavy oaken door, then seizing again the little fellow's hand, rushed him through a long lane of half-completed cars, through dim and gloomy aisles, and a maze of work-benches, until they reached the north end of the shops, a long block away.

"Now, Billy boy," he cried, straining his little brother one instant in his arms, "be a man for daddy's sake. Run like the wind for the avenue.

Fred's regiment can't be six blocks away. Tell the Colonel they're killing father at the shops. Away with you, laddie!"

And like an arrow from the bow the little fellow sped, even as the sound of battering beams thundered through the resounding arches of the dark deserted shops, and Jim went groping back to find his gray-haired father.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 821