The Blood Ship Part 7

Once since have I seen a face that was like the face of Captain Swope's wife--in a great church in a Latin country. It was a painting of the Madonna, and the master who had painted it had given the Mother's face an expression of brooding tenderness as deep as the sea, an expression of pity and sympathy as wide as the world. You felt, as you looked at the picture, that the artist must have known life, its sufferings and sins.

It was a like expression in the face of the Captain's lady. She was no pretty la.s.s whose sweet innocence is merely ignorance. She was a woman who had looked upon life; you felt that she had faced the black evil and hideous cruelty in a man's world, and that she understood, and forgave. You felt her soul had pa.s.sed through a fierce, white heat of pain, and had emerged burned clean of dross, free of all petty rancor or hatred. It glowed in her face, this wide understanding and sympathy, looked from her eyes, and sounded in her voice, and it was this that won the worship of the desperate men and broken derelicts who peopled the _Golden Bough's_ forecastle.

Hair? Oh, yes, she had hair, a great ma.s.s of it piled on her head, black hair. Eyes? Her eyes were blue, not the washed out blue of a morning sky, but the changing, mysterious purple-blue of deep water.

She turned those wonderful eyes upon me, as I stood there at the wheel, and the red blood flushed my cheeks, while the mask of cynical hardness I had striven so hard to cultivate fled from my face. She saw through my pretence, did the lady, she saw me as I really was, a boy playing desperately at being such a man as my experience had taught me to admire. I was abashed. I was no longer a hard case with those pitying, understanding eyes upon me. I was like a lad detected in a mischief, facing my mother.

She had heard some talk in the cabin, or perhaps she had overheard Lynch's report to the Old Man, for her words showed she knew me as one of the men who had shipped in the vessel of my own will. "Why--you are only a boy!" she said, in a surprised voice. Then her face seemed to diffuse a sweet sympathy and understanding. I can't explain it, but I knew that the lady knew just why I had shipped. She looked inside of me, and read my heart--and _understood_! "Oh, Boy, why did you do it?"

she exclaimed softly. "It is not worth it--why did you come!

Listen!--do not give offense; whatever they do, show no resentment.

Oh, they are hard--forget your pride, and be willing!"

She seemed about to say more, but Captain Swope interrupted. When she appeared on deck, he affected not to see her; he had paced past her twice, but not by the quiver of an eyelash had he shown himself aware of her presence. Now he suddenly paused nearby. Perhaps his sailor's sense of fitness was ruffled by the sight of her in conversation with the man at the wheel; or, more likely, his eye had noted the scene occurring forward, and he wished to force it upon her attention, because it would cause her pain.

"Ah, madam, commencing your good works so soon?" he remarked, in a soft, sneering voice. "Well, from all signs for'ard, you had better overhaul your medicine chest. You will have a patient or two to sniffle over to-morrow morning."

The lady shuddered ever so slightly at Swope's words, and her features contracted, as though with pain. Just for an instant--then she was serenity again, and she gazed forward, as Swope bade, and silently watched the mates at their work.

They were manhandling, of course. I might have found humor in the scene had not the lady just stirred the softer chords of my being.

Away forward, by the foc'sle door, Mister Lynch was engaged in dressing down the c.o.c.kney. This was not a particularly interesting exhibition, though, for although the c.o.c.kney showed fight, he was clearly outmatched, and arose from the deck only to be knocked down again.

But, by the main hatch was a more interesting spectacle. There, Mister Fitzgibbon was busied with the spare, red-shirted man, he of the intelligent face and gashed skull, the man I had found so mysteriously occupying the bunk Newman had gone to bed in, and who, Lynch declared, was neither sailor, nor b.u.m. There on the p.o.o.p, we could not overhear the small man's words for Mister Fitz's shrill cursing, but he seemed to be expostulating with the mate. And he seemed intent on forcing past the mate and coming aft. He would try to run past the hatch, and Fitzgibbon would punch him and send him reeling backwards. Even as we watched, the mate seized him by the collar of his red shirt, slammed him up against the rail, and then, with a belaying pin, hazed him forward at a run.

I heard the lady sigh--and Swope chuckled. Then I noticed she was staring fixedly at the side of the cabin skylight. A few drops of the blood the Old Man had drawn from the little squarehead were splattered upon the woodwork and the deck. Silently, she regarded them, and her slight figure seemed to droop a bit. Then, with a queer little shrug, she squared her shoulders, and faced the Captain with up-tilted chin. . . . Aye, and I sensed the meaning of that little shrug, and the squared shoulders. It meant that she had picked up her Cross, and that she would courageously bear it in pain and sorrow through the dark days of the coming voyage. For I truly believe the lady suffered vicariously for every blow that bruised a sailor's flesh on board the _Golden Bough_!

"Yes, I must look to my medicines," she replied to Swope. "I see they will be required." There was no active hate in her voice, or in her eyes, but she looked at the man much as one looks at some loathsome yet inevitable object--a snake, or a toad. And she turned away without further words, and descended to the cabin. Swope watched her departure with a half smile parting his beard and mustache. Oh, how I longed to be able to wipe that sneer from his mouth with my clenched fist!

CHAPTER VII

The c.o.c.kney relieved me at the wheel, at one bell, when the mates turned the crowd to after a short half hour for dinner. Oh, what a changed c.o.c.kney from yestereve! He came slinking meekly along the lee side of the p.o.o.p. When he took over the wheel he had hardly spirit enough in him to mumble over the directions I gave him. His eyes were puffed half closed, and his lips were cut and swollen. Gone was the sw.a.n.king, swaggering c.o.c.kney who had paraded before the Swede's bar.

Instead there was only this cowed, miserable sailorman taking over the wheel. That c.o.c.kney had suffered a cruel double cross when he drank of the black bottle, and was hoisted over the _Golden Bough's_ rail.

Yesterday he was a great man, the "Knitting Swede's" chief bully, with the hard seafare behind him, and with unlimited rum, and an easy, if rascally, sh.o.r.e life ahead of him. To-day he was just a sh.e.l.l-back outward bound, with a sore head and a bruised body; a fellow sufferer in the foc'sle of a dreaded ship, mere dirt beneath the officers' feet.

Such a fall! Keenly as I had disliked the man yesterday, to-day I was sorry for him. The more sorry because I felt that the Jocose Swede had come near having me as the b.u.t.t of his little joke, instead of c.o.c.kney.

I scurried forward, intent upon dinner. I drew my whack from the Chinaman in the gallery, and bolted it down in the empty foc'sle. It was a miserable repast, a dish of ill-cooked lobscouse, and a pannikin of muddy coffee, and I reflected glumly that I had joined a hungry ship as well as a hot one.

I finished the last of that mysterious stew, and then filled and lighted my pipe. I felt sure I would be allowed the half hour dinner spell the rest of the crowd had enjoyed, and I relaxed and puffed contentedly, determined to enjoy my respite to the last minute. For the sounds from the deck indicated a lively afternoon for all hands.

But something occurred to interrupt my cherished "Smoke O," something that caused me to sit up suddenly and stiffly on the bench, while my pipe fell unheeded from my slackened mouth, and an unpleasant p.r.i.c.kle ran over my scalp and down my spine.

I have already mentioned that the _Golden Bough_ had a topgallant forecastle; that is, the crew's quarters were away forward, in the bows of the ship, beneath the forecastle head. It was a gloomy cavern; the bright day of outdoors was a muddy light within.

Well, in the floor of the port foc'sle, wherein I was sitting, was the hatch to the forepeak, below. It was this yard square trap-door which caused my agitation. My glance fell casually upon it, and I saw it move! It lifted a hair's breadth, and I heard a slight sc.r.a.ping sound below.

Aye, I was startled! A rat? But I knew that even a ship rat did not grow large enough to move a trap-door. The ghost of some dead sailor-man, haunting the scene of his earthly misery? Well, I had the superst.i.tions of a foc'sle Jack, but I knew well enough that a proper ghost would not walk abroad in the noon o' day. I stared fascinated at that moving piece of wood. It slowly lifted about an inch, and then, through the narrow slit; I saw an eye regarding me with a fixed glare.

I glared back, my amazement struggling with the conviction that was oversweeping me; and then, just as I was about to speak, Bucko Lynch's voice came booming into my retreat.

"_Hey_, you! D'you reckon to spell-o the whole afternoon? If you've finished your scouse, out on deck with you--and lively about it!"

There was no denying that request, eye or no eye. And at the second mate's first word, the trap door dropped shut, I clattered out of the foc'sle, and to work; but I was turning that little matter of the forepeak hatch over in my mind, you bet!

It was near dusk, well on in the first dog-watch, when the mates let up with their driving, and herded all hands aft to the main deck. The forepeak hatch had rested heavily upon my mind all afternoon, and I was tingling with excitement when I went aft with the rest to face the ceremony which always concludes the first day out, the choosing and setting of the watches, and the calling of the muster roll. Something unexpected was about to happen, I felt sure.

We were a sorry looking crowd gathered there on the main deck, before the cabin, a tatterdemalion mob, with bruised bodies and sullen faces, and with hate and fright in our glowering eyes. Those few of us who were seamen possessed a bitter knowledge of the cruel months ahead, the rest, the majority, faced a fate all the more dreadful for being dimly perceived, and of which they had received a fierce foretaste that merciless day.

Captain Swope came to the break of the p.o.o.p, lounged over the rail, and looked us over. In his hand he held the ship's articles. He regarded us with a sort of wicked satisfaction, seeming to draw delight from the sight of our huddled, miserable forms. Without saying a word, he gloated over us, over the puffed face of the c.o.c.kney, over the expression of desperate horror in the face of the red-shirted man, over the abject figure of the little squarehead, who had been going about all afternoon sobbing, with his hand pressed to his side, and whose face was even now twisted with a pain to which he feared to give voice.

Aye, Swope stared down at us, licking his chops, so to speak, at the sight of our suffering; and we glared back at him, hating and afraid.

Then the lady appeared at the p.o.o.p rail, some paces distant from the Old Man. It was heartening to turn one's eyes from the Old Man's wicked, sneering face to the face of the lady. There was sorrow in that brooding look she gave us, and pity, and understanding. She was used to looking upon the man-made misery of men, you felt, and skilled in softening it. There was a stir in our ranks as we met her gaze, a half audible murmur ran down the line, and the slackest of us straightened our shoulders a trifle. The Old Man sensed the sudden cheer amongst us, and, I think, sensed its cause, for without glancing at the lady, he drawled an order to the mate, standing just below him.

"Well, Mister Fitz, start the ball rolling--your first say."

The mate allowed his fierce, pig eyes to rove over us, and to my secret delight he pa.s.sed me by. "Where's the n.i.g.g.e.r?" he said, referring to the mulatto, who was at the wheel. "The wheel? Well, he's my meat."

So the watch choosing began. Lynch promptly chose me, as he had promised he would, and I stepped over to the starboard deck.

Fitzgibbon chose the c.o.c.kney, Lynch picked a squarehead--so the alternate choosing went, the mates' skilled eyes first selecting all those who showed in their appearance some evidence of sailorly experience.

"You!" said Fitzgibbon, indicating the red-shirted man, and motioning him over to the port side of the deck.

The red-shirted man, whose agitated face I had been covertly watching, instead of obeying the mate, stepped out of line and appealed to Swope.

"Captain, may I speak to you now?" he asked, in a shrill, excited voice.

"_Eh_, what's this?" exclaimed Swope, gazing down at the fellow. He lifted his hand and checked the mate, who was already about to collar his prey. I think Swope knew just what was coming, and he found sport in the situation. "What do you want, my man?" his soft voice inquired.

A flood of agitated words poured out of the red-shirted man's mouth.

"Captain--a terrible mistake--foully mistreated, all of these men foully mistreated by your officers--tried to see you and was beaten. . . ." With an effort he made his speech more coherent. "A terrible mistake, sir! I have been kidnapped on board this vessel! I am not a sailor, I do not know how I come to be here--I have been kidnapped, sir!"

"How terrible!" said Swope. "I do not doubt your word at all, my man.

Anyone can see you are no sailor, but a guttersnipe. And possibly you were--er--'kidnapped,' as you call it, in company with the wharf-rats behind you."

"But, Captain--good heavens, you do not understand!" cried the man. "I am a clergyman--a minister of the Gospel! I am the Reverend Richard Deaken of the Bethel Mission in San Francisco!"

The Reverend Richard Deaken! I saw a light. I had heard of the Reverend Deaken while I was in the Swede's house. The labors of this particular sky-pilot were, it appeared, particularly offensive to crimpdom. He threatened to throw a brickbat of exposure into the camp.

He was appealing to the good people of the city to put a stop to the simple and effective methods the boarding masters used to separate Jack from his money, and then barter his carca.s.s to the highest bidder. I had heard the Swede, himself, say, "Ay ban got him before election!"

And this is how the reverend gentleman had been "got"--crimped into an outward bound windjammer, with naught but a ragged red shirt and a pair of dungaree pants to cover his nakedness; and he found, when he made his disclosure of ident.i.ty, that the high place of authority was occupied by a man who enjoyed and jeered at his evil plight.

For, at the man's words, the Old Man threw back his head and laughed loudly. "_Ho, ho, ho_! D'ye hear that, Misters? The Swede has given us a sky-pilot--a d.a.m.ned Holy Joe! By G.o.d, a Holy Joe on the _Golden Bough_! _Ho, ho, ho_!" Then he addressed the unfortunate man again.

"So you are a Holy Joe, are you? You don't look it! You look like an ordinary stiff to me! Let me see--what did you call yourself?

Deaken?" He lifted the articles, and scanned the names that represented the crew. "Deaken--_hey_! Well, I see no such name written here." I did not doubt that. Save my name, and Newman's, I doubted if any name on the articles could be recognized by any man present. "I see one name here, written in just such a flourishing hand as a man of your parts might possess--- 'Montgomery Mulvaney.' That is undoubtedly you; you are Montgomery Mulvaney!"

"But, Captain--" commenced the parson, desperately.

"Shut up!" snapped Swope. "Now, listen here, my man! You may be a Holy Joe ash.o.r.e, or you may not be, that does not concern me. But I find you on board my vessel, signed on my articles as 'Montgomery Mulvaney, A.B.' Yet you tell me yourself you are no sailor. Well, my fancy man, Holy Joe you may be, stiff you are, but you'll be a sailor before this pa.s.sage ends, or I'm not Angus Swope! Now then, step over there to port, and join your watch!"

"But, Captain--" commenced the desperate man again. Then he evidently saw the futility of appealing to Captain Swope. Abruptly, he turned and addressed the lady.

"Madam--my G.o.d, madam, can you not make him understand----"