The Flying Bo'sun Part 13

"Ah," said I, "you are getting too much for me. Move some more furniture or that safe around this room so that I may alight upon a plan to harness your great power to hand down to future ages."

At that I must have gone to sleep, for I was conscious of nothing more until I heard the cook coming aft with coffee. He was anxious to hear my experience during the middle watch. I told him that there had been no occurrence that was not natural, but that I might have news for him soon.

"Steward," said I, "tomorrow is Christmas Day. I want you to prepare a good dinner for all hands."

"Oh, yes," he replied, "I have had plum pudding boiling since yesterday.

I am going to open a few cans of canned turkey. That, with the cove oyster soup and canned carrots will make a good dinner. I have had a little hard luck with my cake. I forgot to put baking powder in it. But I think that they can get away with it, as there is an abundance of raisins in it."

Christmas morning at half-past twelve found me waiting in the Captain's room listening to rappings on the desk. At times these were loud and then again very weak. I opened the door and turned up the light in the dining-room so that there might be more brightness in the Captain's room. I wanted to see and hear whatever vibrations might be caused from the rappings. As I drew near the writing desk the rapping was centered on the middle drawer. Then it would move to a smaller drawer on the right-hand side and tap very hard. With a shout of joy I sprang to the light at the head of the bed, and lit it.

"At last," I cried, "at last!"

I was satisfied that there were rats in these drawers, and in order that they should not get away I armed myself with a club. I started to pull out the smaller drawer very carefully so that the rodent should not make his escape. To my astonishment I found it locked. I held my ear close to it, but could not hear a sound. Then I proceeded to open the middle drawer with the same caution, but found it open, and nothing in it but a small bunch of keys. My curiosity being aroused, I decided to look for the key on this ring that would open the smaller drawer. After many trials I found one that would fit the lock and on opening it I found, neither the animal, which in spite of my senses' evidence I half expected to see there, nor any other expected alternative, but, most surprising of all, a pair of tiny baby-shoes with a lock of yellow hair, tied with pink ribbon, in each of them.

Back of the shoes was a jewel box, and in it a wedding-ring. Also, wrapped up in paper, was a will made by our late Captain two days before his death. This stated that he had an equity in an apartment house in San Francisco, which he wanted his boys to have. Evidently he had acquired this equity during his last visit to San Francisco. It also stated that there should be no delay in forwarding this will to the above address in West Berkeley, California, U. S. A.

With the discovery of the Captain's treasures, this essence of his personality so revealed, I was carried out of my skepticism for the moment, into feeling his presence beside me, waiting for my word as a friend awaits the voice of a friend. Half unconsciously I spoke aloud: "You have shown me, and I shall obey. You have only to call upon me. Do not be anxious for your ship. I will tell your boys."

"A lonely, lonely Christmas," echoed back vaguely, whether from Beyond or from the storehouse of my imagination, I do not know.

As I replaced his things and started for the deck, the cook's words echoed and re-echoed in my memory, "Does it end here?"

On deck Old Charlie was steering. Looking over the rail at the log, I found that she was cutting the distance to Suva at the rate of nine knots an hour. The breeze was warm, the turquoise sky studded with diamond stars; the three especially bright ones known as the Sailors'

Yard were shining in all their splendor.

Away to the south the Southern Cross twinkled and glittered, and was so majestic in its position, that it seemed to command obedience from all other celestial bodies.

CHAPTER XIV

CHRISTMAS DAY--OUR UNWILLING GUEST THE DOLPHIN

While gazing into the Infinite, a.n.a.lyzing the experience through which I had just pa.s.sed, and wondering where lay the Land of Shadows, my dreaming was suddenly changed to material things by hearing a terrible fight in the fore part of the ship. Jumping up on the deck-load, and running forward, I could hear Riley shout:

"Club him, you old hen-catcher, you, before he goes through the hawsepipe. That's the way, that's the way. Shure, bad luck to you, you have missed him. Stand back there, stand back there, let me have at him.

There he goes again under the lumber. Get me the bar, Pete. Look out, me byes. Shure and be Hivins out he comes again. Strike him between the eyes, Pete. Give me the bar, Pete. Shure'n you couldn't shtrike the sheep barn you was raised in."

"What's all this row about?" I asked.

"Ah, shure, sir, it's me auld friend Neptune would be after sendin' us a Christmas present. He is as fine a bonita as iver greased a mouth, but it's the divil's own toime we have had sub-duin' him."

"Bring him up on the deck-load and let us look him over."

"Riley," said I, when they had the great fish stretched out before us, "that is a dolphin, and no bonita,--notice the wedge-shaped head, and broad tail. No doubt he was cornered by a school of sword fish, and this fastest fish that swims the ocean had to make a leap for life by jumping aboard our ship. Bring the lantern here, and you will see him change to all colors of the rainbow while he is dying, another proof that he is a dolphin, that is, if he is not already dead."

"Be Hivins, and it's far from dead he is, look at the gills moving."

Surely enough, we watched and the beautiful colors came, brilliant blue and green and shaded red, and again I wondered, and it seemed to me that in the pa.s.sing of the human life there might be just such a color change, invisible to those who are left behind.

Dismissing these thoughts once and for all from my mind, I entered into the long discussion incident to the settlement of claims on the dead dolphin, as to who had discovered him, etc., etc. Broken-Nosed Pete was sure that he had seen him first, very much to the disgust of Riley, who, however, could not deny that his one eye was usually c.o.c.ked to windward.

I then turned to the men and told them that they need no longer be afraid of the ghost in the Captain's cabin.

Riley spoke up: "And, shure, sir, you wasn't thinking that it was meself that was scared?"

"Why do you carry the belaying-pin aft to the wheel with you, if you are not scared?" said Pete.

"Go wan, you broken-nosed heathen, it's the likes of me that knows the likes av you. You degraded auld beachcomber, haven't I slept in ivery graveyard from Heath Head in Ireland to Sline Head in Galway? Divil a thing did I see only Mulligan's goat."

Riley was about to launch away with Mulligan's goat when I interrupted, rea.s.suring them and telling them that there was no need of carrying belaying-pins to kill the ghost, for it had departed for sh.o.r.es unknown.

"Good luck to it," said Riley, highly pleased, "and more power to it.

And shure it is sinsible it is to lave on this howly Christmas morning.

I remimber one time on an auld side-wheeler running between Dublin and London, it was twelve o'clock--"

Riley's story was cut short by the man at the wheel ringing eight bells, four o'clock. Pete went off to clean the fish, and the others to their watch below, while I turned in, leaving Riley alone with his side-wheeler.

The sentiment of Christmas amongst sailors on the sea makes it a day of strict observances. No work is done outside the working of ship, which is steering or keeping lookout. There is no mat-making, model-making nor patching old clothes in their watch below. They dress in their best clothes, and for those that shave a great deal of time is spent in this operation. No stray bristle has a chance to escape the religious hand of a sailor on a day like this.

It is also a day of letter-writing, with good intentions of forwarding them at the first port, but somehow in the general confusion when in port, they are lost in a whirlpool of excitement. Considering a sign between the ship and the post office reading "Ba.s.s' Ale," "Black and White" or "Guinness's Stout," imagine any poor sailor doing his duty to the folks at home! For the moment those glaring and fascinating signs are home to him.

But today is too full of sentiment for him to think of alluring public houses and pretty barmaids. It is given up to religious thoughts with a firm resolution to sin no more.

The spirit of the day had even taken hold of the Socialist cook. In serving dinner I noticed that he had on a clean ap.r.o.n and a white jacket, a great concession for him. I was much attracted by his brogans, which were much too large, and had a fine coating of stove polish to enhance their charm.

"Why have you set a place for the Captain, Steward?" said I.

"Oh, just out of respect for him. You know he wasn't such a bad man after all. Beside, it will make the table look more like a real Christmas dinner. You can just suppose that your invited guest has been delayed, and you can go on with your dinner."

I was beginning to like our cook more and more. It seemed that beneath the hard crust of materialism, there was something very like love and loyalty.

The German noodle soup, the canned turkey, and the plum pudding to top off with was a very befitting dinner at sea. Of course, one must not indulge too freely in plum pudding, especially when its specific gravity exceeds that of heavy metals. This hypothesis was proven to me later in the day.

CHAPTER XV

CRIMP AND SAILOR--THE COOK'S MARXIAN EFFORT

The cook was pleased with my investigation of the Captain's room. "Don't you know," said he, "I was impressed with the unusual sounds there? I was beginning to relinquish my hold on the Material, and to give way more to the unknown and unseen things of life. But you can see that we are all creatures of imagination. There are no limitations to it, especially with those who are superst.i.tious. Now I can plainly understand how such sounds could be produced by rats, just as you say."

He took his stand in the pantry, and continued, from this point of vantage. "It is a shame," he shouted, "that there is so much superst.i.tion in the world. If there were not so much, the capitalist would not have the opportunity to exploit his ill-gotten goods on the highways and byways of our economic system."

Stirring something in a gla.s.s, no doubt extract of lemon, he tipped it to his lips and swallowed it with a grunt of satisfaction.