The Belted Seas Part 5

"Irish hooked the _Harvest Moon_" he says, "and lay outside for the steamer. I jumped overboard."

"Changed your mind?"

"Well, I'd thought some of enlisting for the Chilian War, but Irish don't like war. Gives him the fidgits. I made a 'Farewell' going out. I thought I'd come round and tell it to you." He sang hoa.r.s.ely as follows:

"Tommy and Dorcas, now adieu; I drops a briny tear on, Mayor, my memories of you; Stevey that brought the beer on; Farewell across the waters blue, Oh, Jiron.

"Farewell the nights of ba'my smell, Farewell the alligator, Special them little ones that dwell In the muck hole with their mater.

Farewell, Portate, oh, farewell, Equator."

"You see," he says, "the point of going to war is this way, because

"The damage you do Ain't totted to you But explained by the habits of nations.

"Government pays the bills, commissary, sanitary, and them that's sent to G.o.d Almighty. I guess so. But it'd give Irish the fidgits. Then the Transport's got a three-master billed for San Francisco, and she sails to-morrow morning, and we're going on her." He seemed subdued, and hummed and strummed on his banjo, as if he couldn't get hold of what he wanted to let out. At last he struck up a monotonous thing that had no tune, and sang again: "One day," he says,

"One day I struck creation, And I says in admiration, 'What's this here combination?'

Then I done a heap of sin.

I hain't no education, Nor kin.

"There's something I would say, boys, Of the life I throwed away, boys, It cackles, but don't lay, boys, There's a word that won't come out.

The h.e.l.l I raised I'll pay, boys, Just about.

"Tommy," he says then, "I'm leaving you. You ain't going to have my sheltering wing no more. Write down these here maxims in your memory, supposing I never see you no more. Any game is good that'll hold up a bet. Any sort of life is good so long as it has a good risk in it. The worth of anything depends on how much you've staked on it. Him that draws most of the potluck in this world is the same that drops most in.

The man that puts up his last coin as keen as when he put up his first, he'll sure win in the end. Lastly, Tommy, if you want a backer inquire for Sadler. So long."

He got up to leave, and stood a moment looking away into the moonlight.

I says:

"The Mayor's Proclamation's out, Kid."

"Yep. I got it somewhere about. I just been to see him."

He had the Proclamation in his hand.

"Durned little runt," he says. "He cut me down two hundred dollars on that reward, plump! And he'd gi'n me his word! Why, you heard him! He ought to be ashamed. I told him so. I says, 'You're no lady.' Nor he ain't. Nor sporty, either. Squeals and wriggles."

"Paid you the reward, did he?"

"Why, of course, he couldn't miss his politics. It took him sudden, though. He had a series of fits that was painful, painful." Then he moved away, muttering, "Painful, painful!" climbed over the side, and down the ladder, and went to California.

CHAPTER V.

END OF THE HOTEL HELEN MAR. CONTINUATION OF CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM'S NARRATIVE.

Sadler and Irish were gone, but Stevey Todd and I stayed on at Portate, running the Hotel Helen Mar. Three years we ran her altogether, and made money. I had a thought that by-and-by I'd go to the Isthmus, and charter some kind of sloop, and dig out Clyde's canvas bags, and so go back to Greenough sticky with glory. Whether it was laziness or ambition kept me so long at Portate I couldn't say. It was a pleasant life. It's a country where you don't notice time. Yet its politics are lively, and the very land has malaria, as you might say; it has periodic shakes, earthquakes, "tremblors," they call them, or "trembloritos," according to size.

It was early one morning, in the spring of the year '73, that Stevey Todd woke me up, and he says:

"I'm feeling unsteady like. Seems like the _Helen Mar_ wobbled."

"She's took sick," I says, sarcastic, "she's got the toothache."

The only thing I had against Stevey Todd was, he was timid and had bad dreams. He rode a tidal wave every two or three nights, according to account. But it wasn't right to be messing another man's sleep with tidal waves that didn't belong to the other man. I never set any tidal waves on him. I spoke up to Stevey Todd that time, and went on deck, and saw the Sarasara with an umbrella over her head, and I thought, maybe, there had been a little shake, and maybe she was out looking for trouble.

It came on the middle of the morning. The drivers that put up with us that night were gone down the valley with their mules. I heard Stevey Todd whoop down below, and he came on deck and he says, "She's wobbling again!" meaning the _Helen Mar_. She was swaying to and fro. We got down the ladder and stood off to look at her.

Then the land began twisting like snakes under our feet, and cut figure eights, till I felt like soapsuds, and lay down on my face. Then I sat up, and looked at the _Helen Mar,_ which shook and groaned like a live thing. We heard the trees crack and snap behind her. She seemed to hang a moment as if she hated to go; and over she went with a shriek and crash. The water splashed and the dust went up. Stevey Todd and I ran to the bank, and there lay the Hotel Helen Mar, ridiculous, bottom side up in the Jiron River.

Stevey Todd sat down and cried.

I was disgusted with seeing the hotel standing on her roof-garden and thinking of the mess there was inside her, all come of a tremblorito no bigger than enough to cave in the bank and tip the _Helen Mar_ over, and enough tidal wave to wash the streets of Portate, which needed it. I saw the Sarasara shaking her old umbrella at us, and I was mad. I says to Stevey Todd, "Go on! Run your blamed old hotel standing on your head!"

I says, "I'm going to Greenough," and I lit out for Portate, leaving him standing on the bank, with the tears running down his face, like his heart was broken.

When I came to the harbour I found there were two ships in port bound for California, and one by way of Panama. She was named the _Jane Allen_.

The captain's name was Rickhart, a rough man, and the _Jane Allen_ was an unclean boat, a brigantine, come from bad weather around the Horn.

I went aboard to look her over, and didn't like her. I was making up my mind to go and see if the other mightn't be going by Panama too. And then, coming through the forecastle, some one spoke to me from a bunk and he says:

"When'd you drop in, Tommy?" and I stopped, and stared, and pretty soon I made him out. It was Julius R. Craney.

He certainly was sick. He said he had shipped with Rickhart from New York, to go to California and make his fortune, but thought now he wouldn't live so far. He had the scurvy and was low in his mind, and disappointed with fortune. I thought:

"If he took my money at Colon, he hasn't got it now." He was poor enough then. I guessed we'd have to call that off, and I says:

"The _Jane Allen_ it is. I'll go see the Windwards and Greenough."

Craney was a yellow-looking man at that time, and glad enough when I told him I was going to bring him some fruit, and take pa.s.sage to Panama, and look after him. Then I bargained with Rickhart for a pa.s.sage for two.

The next day I went back up to the _Helen Mar_, and found Stevey Todd had a board fence in front of her, and was charging admission, and he had a new advertis.e.m.e.nt tacked on the fence.

"Unparalleled Spectacle!" says Stevey Todd's bill-poster. "The Hotel Helen Mar. On her chimneys, with her cellar in the Air! Built in the United States! Exported to South America! Freighted Inland by a Tidal Wave! Stood on her Head by an Earthquake! Only 10 cents!" And he was up on a box himself encouraging the populace, and he seemed to think he had a good business opening. But I says:

"Stevey," I says, "come off it. We're going to Panama."

He wanted to argue it was an unparallelled show, but I took him by the suspenders and ran him down to Portate, arguing, and the populace went in free, and we went aboard the _Jane Allen_. He thought the _Helen Mar_ was a better boat upside down than the _Jane Allen_ any side, and he was right there, for the _Jane Allen_ was full of smells and unhealthiness.

But Craney was glad to see us.

We hadn't been a week at sea before her cook came down with ship's fever and died in five days, but Craney picked up a bit for the time. Rickhart came straight for Stevey Todd, and handed him his pa.s.sage money.

"You're no pa.s.senger" he says. "You're a cook. You hear me!" Which appeared like a rash statement, that Stevey Todd wasn't one to take off-hand like that without argument, but Rickhart shoved him into the galley before he got his ideas arranged right.

"You're the _Jane Allen's_ cook," says Rickhart, and appeared to be right, though his style of argument wasn't what Clyde had trained us to. Stevey Todd had no proper outfit to meet it. The victuals he had to serve up on the _Jane Allen_ was a worriment to his conscience too, being tainted and bad, and by-and-by I came down too with ship's fever, and Craney got sicker again with scurvy.