The Blood Ship Part 17

He observed my questioning face, and added, "Swope knows we have talked together, she and I. He knows he must extinguish us both if he would rebury for good and all the truth he thought was already buried."

"His wife--his own wife!" I exclaimed.

The words probed the quick. For a minute Newman's reserve was gone, and the tormented soul of the man was plainly visible.

"It is a lie, a legal lie!" he cried.

He calmed immediately. His self-control took charge; it was as if his will, caught napping for an instant, awoke, and drew a curtain that shut out alien eyes.

I was dumb, ashamed and sorry to have unwittingly hurt my friend. But now he was speaking again, in his accustomed sober, emotionless voice.

"Of course, I trust you absolutely, Jack. I'd like to tell you the whole story. But--I am not free to talk----"

"You don't have to tell me anything," I blurted. "I know you are my man, and you know I am your man."

"You _are_ a friend!" he exclaimed. "But I will not sail under false colors in your eyes, lad. I am a jail-bird, an escaped felon."

"Oh, I knew all about that long ago," I said, carelessly.

He looked his surprise.

"I heard that b.u.m's story through the wall, that night in the Knitting Swede's," I explained. "I didn't try to listen, but I couldn't help hearing him. About the frame-up they worked on you--Beulah Twigg, and Mary--that's the lady, isn't it?--and the one Beasley called 'he'--I know 'he' is Yankee Swope. Oh, it was a dirty trick they played on you, Newman. I'm with you in anything you do to get even."

He shook his head, smiling. "What a young savage you are, Jack!" says he. "An eye for an eye, eh? But you guess wrongly, lad. That treachery you heard Beasley explain was but the beginning. I was sent to prison for a murder, the brutal and cowardly murder of a helpless old man."

"I know it was a frame-up," I cried. "And, anyway, I don't care. I know you're on the square, and that is all that matters with me."

"If I were not, your faith would make me on the square," he answered.

"But--I was not guilty. I came on board the _Golden Bough_ intending to become a murderer--but that madness is past. Now I am anxious to prevent killing--any killing. Now I am determined to preserve peace in this ship.

"For she is safe so long as I am alive, and he cannot easily dispose of me so long as the crew is peaceful. You can understand that, can you not? Angus Swope is a fiend; he is more than half-insane from long indulgence of his cruel l.u.s.ts. But he is cunning. I am a menace to his safety, and now he knows that she is also a menace. But he will not offer her violence or do her any harm while I am at large. By G.o.d, it would be his death, and he knows it. I give him no chance to strike at me alone and openly, so he is striking at me through the crew.

"For he must consider the att.i.tude of his second mate. Lynch is her friend, remember that, Jack. He is an honest man. He is bluff and harsh and without imagination, as brutal a bucko as one is likely to find In any ship, but he is 'on the square,' as you put it. Also, he has more than an inkling of the true state of affairs in the ship. He knows who I am, and he guesses why the captain fears and hates me. I wish I could tell you what he has done, and is doing, in my--no, in her behalf. And in spite of his bucko's code. He would not lift a finger to aid me in case of trouble (you remember the warning he gave us that day we were in the rigging) for he is an officer, a bucko, and I am a hand. But he would not stand for another such attempt at murder as Swope made the night we were aloft. He told Swope he would not stand for it, he would not keep silent. It was a brave thing to do, to defy such a master. This is Lynch's last voyage in the _Golden Bough_, as he well knows. So our canny skipper set to work his crooked wits, and for weeks he has been fomenting a rebellion of the port watch. Mister Fitz is a more pliant and obedient tool than Lynch."

I was excited, wide-eyed. For I was suddenly seeing a light. The words I heard were truth, I knew. It explained what I had seen and heard that night upon the p.o.o.p. This trouble that threatened was made to order, to the captain's order; even as Newman said.

"Good heavens--then Nils' death--and the hazing"--I could not continue.

The heartlessness, the malignant cruelty of the man who had ordered these things was too horrifying.

"Nils' injury was unpremeditated, I believe," said Newman, "but leaving him die without attention or nursing was a calculated brutality, designed to inflame the boy's mates. Fitzgibbon's bitter hazing, without distinction or justice, was for the same purpose. They kept a close eye upon the boy's condition; they evidently figured that the hour of his death would be the hour of explosion. As you know, it very nearly was--only the parson's courage averted trouble in the dog-watch, and but a little while ago I had to quiet a storm. But the danger is pa.s.sed now, I think. The little fellow's mates are naturally quiet, law-abiding fellows."

"The squareheads may be kept quiet," I said, "but how about the stiffs?

How about Boston and Blackie?"

An expression of disgust and contempt showed in his face as I mentioned the names. "I will attend to them if they try any of their tricks," he said.

"But they are, and have been, trying their tricks," I persisted, "and for some reason they are eager to have you know what they are up to.

Boston told me to tell you." I repeated Boston's gossip. "He knew about the spy," I said.

He nodded. "I know; I have had an eye upon them. What Boston told you about the treasure is quite true; the ship is carrying specie. And they are precious rascals, capable of any villainy; I know them well, they--they broke jail with me. But they have wit enough to know that their gang of stiffs could put up no sort of fight, unless backed by the sailors in the crew. It is loot they are after, and there will be trouble from them before the ship makes port; but now we are in mid-sea, and they realize they would be quite helpless with a ship on their hands and no navigator. That is what they want of me. A pair of poisonous rats, Jack!

"But they will keep quiet. They had better. I promised them I would kill them both if they disobeyed me!"

I gazed at the big man with admiring awe. He spoke so coolly, was so conscious of the strength and power that was in himself. Here was the sort of man I should like to be, I thought, here was the true hard case, no bully, no ruffian, but a man, a good man, a man so hard and bright, so finely tempered, he was to the rest of us as steel to mud.

Oddly enough, as I had this thought, it also occurred to me that there was a man in the ship who might with justice claim to be Newman's peer, another man of heroic stature--poor meek little Holy Joe.

"If Swope does not interfere with the decent burial of that poor boy, there will be no outbreak," added Newman.

"He will not interfere," I was able to a.s.sure him. I repeated the skipper's words to Mister Lynch. "'Let the dogs dispose of their own offal!' is what he said."

To my surprise Newman was disturbed by this news. He stared at me, frowning.

"Swope said that?" he exclaimed. "Now what is he up to?"

He sat thinking for a moment, then he said:

"The burial of Nils is the weak point in my defense. If Swope offers an indignity to the boy's body, even I will not be able to restrain Nils' mates. Surely Swope has guessed that. I have planned to bury the lad from the foredeck just as quickly as preparations can be made; that is why Lindquist is at work on the forehatch. If Swope is overlooking this chance, he must have something else up his sleeve."

He got to his feet and moved toward the door.

"Lindquist must be nearly finished. I will carry out my plan at any hazard. Common decency demands we should not let the boy be cast into the sea by the very men who murdered him."

At the door we were met by Olson, one of the squareheads, come to tell Newman that all was ready for the burial. So we joined the crowd, and Nils was put away, in the dead of night, by the light of one lantern and many stars. The hum of the wind aloft and the purr and slap of the waters against the bows were his requiem.

That scene left its mark upon the mind of every man who took part in or witnessed it--and every foc'sle man save the helmsman saw Nils go over the side. It was already late in the middle watch, but no man had yet gone to his sleep; and, considering the habits of sailors and the custom of the sea, this single fact describes how disturbed was the common mind.

Yet the putting away of Nils was peaceful. We knew that the mate was not alone upon the p.o.o.p, that the men aft were alert and must know what was going on forward; but, despite Newman's fears, there was no interference from that quarter.

Nils' bier was a painter's stage, and four of the lad's shipmates held the plank upon their shoulders, with the weighted feet of the shrouded form pointed outboard. The rest of us, sailors and stiffs, stood about with bared, bowed heads; aye, and most of us, I think, with wet eyes and tight throats. It seemed a cruel and awful thing to see one of our number disappear forever, and Holy Joe's words, spoken so softly and clearly, were of a kind to squeeze the hearts of even bad men. That parson had the gift of gab; he was a skilled orator and he could play upon our heartstrings as a musician upon a harp.

Yet he did not preach at us, or even look at us. He wasted no words, and the ceremony proceeded with the dispatch Newman desired. All Holy Joe did was lift his face to the night and pray in simple words that Nils might have a safe pa.s.sage on this long voyage he was starting.

The words seemed to wash clean our minds. For the moment the most vicious man in that hard and vicious crowd thought cleanly and innocently. Our wrongs and hatreds seemed small and of little consequence. Aye, while Holy Joe prayed for the dead we stood about like a group of awed children. When he was finished praying, he recited the beautiful words of the Service, and raised his hand--and the pall-bearers tipped their burden into the sea.

Silently we listened to the dull splash, silently we watched the four men lower the stage to the deck. It was over. The parson fell into step with Newman, and the two paced up and down, conversing in low tones. The crowd dispersed.

Some of my watch went into the foc'sle, to their bunks. Most of the men sat about the decks, and smoked and talked in whispers. But the topic of Nils was avoided, as was talk of mutiny. The squareheads did not mutter threats, the stiffs did not curse. The spell of the parson's words was still upon us, and peace reigned.

Newman had won, I thought, and danger was pa.s.sed.

I found the n.i.g.g.e.r seated upon the fore-bitts, whetting his knife upon a stone. There was something sinisterly suggestive about his occupation at that hour; it was the first break in the strange calm which had fallen upon the crew.

"Tell me, n.i.g.g.e.r, who's the man that's spying on the big fellow?" I said abruptly, as I sat down beside him.

n.i.g.g.e.r did not pause in his work, but he turned his battered face to me. A couple of days before he had fallen afoul of the mate's bra.s.s knuckles for perhaps the twentieth time since he had been in the ship, and his face was a ma.s.s of bruised flesh, a shocking sight, even though his color hid the extent of his injuries.

The n.i.g.g.e.r had been, perhaps, the worst misused man in the crew--and this notwithstanding the fact he was by far the best sailor in the port watch. But Fitzgibbon hated "d.a.m.ned n.i.g.g.e.rs," especially did he hate "these spar-colored half-breeds," as he was fond of calling this fellow. I do believe he chose the n.i.g.g.e.r for his watch so he might pummel him to his heart's content. Beat him up he had, constantly, and without cause, and as a result n.i.g.g.e.r had become a surly, moody man.

"Who say dat Ah know?" demanded n.i.g.g.e.r, in reply to my question.