The Second Class Passenger Part 14

He showed them the thin-bladed knife which the Greek had given him, holding it before them by the hilt. He let a dramatic moment elapse.

"Like that!" he said, and stabbed at the air. "Like that--see? Like that!"

They came upon bad weather gradually, drawing into a belt of half- gales, with squalls that roared up from the horizon and made them for the time, into whole gales. The Villingen, designed and built primarily for cargo capacity, was a wet ship, and upon any point of sailing had a way of scooping in water by the many tons. In nearly every watch came the roar, "Stand by yer to'gallant halliards!" Then the wait for ten seconds or ten minutes while the wind grew and the big four-masted barque lay over and b.u.mped her bluff bows through racing seas, till the next order, shriller and more urgent, "Lower avay!" and the stiff canvas fought and slatted as the yards came down. Sea-boots and oilskins were the wear for every watch; wet decks and the crash of water coming inboard over the rail, dull cold and the rasp of heavy, sodden canvas on numb fingers, became again familiar to the men, and at last there arrived the evening, gravid with tempest, on which all hands reefed top-sails.

The mate had the middle watch, from midnight till four o'clock in the morning, and for the first two hours it was Conroy's turn on the lookout. The rest, in oilskins and sea-boots, were standing by under the break of the p.o.o.p; save for the sleeping men in the shut forecastle, he had the fore part of the ship to himself. He leaned against the after rail of the fore-castle head, where a ventilator somewhat screened him from the bitter wind that blew out of the dark, and gazed ahead at the murk. Now and again the big barque slid forward with a curtseying motion, and dipped up a sea that flowed aft over the anchors and cascaded down the ladders to the main-deck; spray that spouted aloft' and drove across on the wind, sparkled red and green in the glare of the sidelights like brief fireworks.

The splash and drum of waters, the heavy drone of the wind in the sails, the clatter of gear aloft, were in his ears; he did not hear one bell strike from the p.o.o.p, which he should have answered with a stroke on the big bell behind him and a shouted report on the lights.

"Hoy! You schleepin' up dere--hey?"

It was the mate, who had come forward in person to see why he had not answered. He was by the fore fife-rail, a mere black shape in the dark.

"Sleepin'--no, sir!"

"Don't you hear yon bell shtrike?" cried the mate, slithering on the wet deck toward the foot of the ladder.

"No, sir," said Conroy, and stooped to strike the bell.

The mate came up the ladder, hauling himself by the hand-rails, for he was swollen beyond the ordinary with extra clothes under his long oilskin coat. A plume of spray whipped him in the face as he got to the top, and he swore shortly, wiping his eyes with his hands. At the same moment, Conroy, still stooping to the bell-lanyard, felt the Villingen lower her nose and slide down in one of her disconcerting curtseys; he caught at the rail to steady himself. The dark water, marbled with white foam, rode in over the deck, slid across the anchors and about the capstan, and came aft toward the ladder and the mate. The ship rolled at the same moment.

Conroy saw what happened as a grotesque trick of circ.u.mstance. The mate, as the deck slanted, slipped and reached for the hand-rail with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. The water flowed about his knees; he fell back against the hand-rail, which was just high enough for him to sit on.

lit was what, for one ridiculous moment, he seemed to be doing. The next, his booted feet swayed up and he fell over backward, amid the confusion of splashing water that leaped down the main-deck. Conroy heard him strike something below with a queer, smacking noise.

"Pity he didn't go overboard while he was about it," he said to himself, acting out his role. Really, he was rather startled and dismayed.

He found the mate coiled in the scupper, very wet and still. He took hold of him to draw him under the forecastle head, where he would have shelter, and was alarmed at the inertness of the body under his hands.

"Sir!" he cried, "sir!-sir!"

He shook the great shoulders, bat quickly desisted; there was something horrible, something that touched his nerves, in its irresponsiveness. He remembered that he might probably find matches in the lamp-locker, and staggered there to search. He had to grope in gross darkness about the place, touching bra.s.s and the uncanny smoothness of gla.s.s, before his hand fell on what he sought. At last he was on one knee by the mate's side, and a match shed its little illumination. The mate's face was odd in its quietude, and the sou'- wester of oilskin was still on his head, held there by the string under the chin. From under its edge blood flowed steadily, thickly, appallingly.

"But----" cried Conroy. The match-flame stung his fingers and he dropped it. "Oh Lord!" he said. It occurred to him then, for the first time, that the mate was dead.

The men aft, bunched up under the break of the p.o.o.p, were aware of him as a figure that came sliding and tottering toward them and fell sprawling at the foot of the p.o.o.p ladder. He floundered up and clutched the nearest of them, the Greek.

"The mate's dead," he broke out, in a kind of breathless squeal.

"Somebody call the captain; the mate's dead."

There was a moment of silence; then a cackle of words from several of them together. The Greek's hands on his shoulders tightened. He heard the man's purring voice in his ear.

"How did you do it?"

Conroy thrust himself loose; the skies of his mind were split by a frightful lightning flash of understanding. He had been alone with the mate; he had seen him die; he was sworn to kill him. He could see the livid smile of the Greek bent upon him.

"I didn't do it," he choked pa.s.sionately, and struck with a wild, feeble hand at the smile. "You liar--I didn't do it."

"Hush!" The Greek caught him again and held him.

Some of the men had started forward; others had slipped into the alleyway to rouse the second mate and captain. The Greek had him clutched to his bosom in a strong embrace and was hushing him as one might hush a scared child. Slade was at his side.

"He slipped, I tell you; he slipped at the top of the ladder. She'd shipped a dollop of water and then rolled, and over he went. I heard his head go smack and went down to him. I never touched him. I swear it--I never touched him."

"Hush!" It was Slade this time. "And yer sure he's dead. Well----"

the old man exchanged nods with the Greek. "All right. Only--don't tell the captain that tale; it ain't good enough."

"But----" began Conroy. A hug that crushed his face against the Greek's oilskin breast silenced him.

"Vat is all dis?"

It was the captain, tall, august, come full-dressed from his cabin.

At his back the second mate, with his oilskin coat over his pajamas, thrust forward his red, cheerful face.

Slade told the matter briefly. "And it's scared young Conroy all to bits, sir," he concluded.

"Come for'ard," bade the captain. "Get a lamp, some vun!"

They followed him along the wet, slippery deck slowly, letting him pa.s.s ahead out of earshot.

"It was a belayin'-pin, ye'es?" queried the Greek softly of Conroy.

"He might have hit his head against a pin," replied Conroy.

"Eh?" The Greek stopped. "Might 'ave--might 'ave 'it 'is 'ead? Ah, dat is fine! 'E might 'ave 'it 'is 'ead, Slade! You 'ear dat?"

"Yes, it ain't bad!" replied Slade, and Conroy, staring in a wild attempt to see their faces clearly, realized that they were laughing, laughing silently and heartily. With a gesture of despair he left them.

A globe-lamp under the forecastle head lighted the captain's investigations, gleaming on wet oilskins, shadow-pitted faces, and the curious, remote thing that had been the mate of the Villingen.

Its ampler light revealed much that the match-flame had missed from its field--the manner in which the sou'wester and the head it covered were caved in at one side, the cut in the sou'wester through which clotted hair protruded, the whole ghastliness of death that comes by violence. With all that under his eyes, Conroy had to give his account of the affair, while the ring of silent, hard-breathing men watched him and marvelled at the clumsiness of his story.

"It is strange," said the captain. "Fell over backwards, you said. It is very strange! And vere did you find de body?"

The scupper and deck had been washed clean by successive seas; there was no trace there of blood, and none on the rail. Even while they searched, water spouted down on them. But what Conroy noted was that no pin stood in the rail where the mate had fallen, and the hole that might have held one was empty.

"Ah, veil!" said the captain at last. "De poor fellow is dead. I do not understand, quite, how he should fall like dat, but he is dead.

Four of you get de body aft."

"Please, sir," accosted Conroy, and the tall captain turned.

"Veil, vat is it?"

"Can I go below, sir? It was me that found him, sir. I feel rather-- rather bad."

"So!" The tall captain considered him inscrutably, he, the final arbiter of fates. "You feel bad--yes? Veil, you can go below!"

The little group that bore the mate's body shuffled aft, with the others following like a funeral procession. A man looked shivering out of the door of the starboard forecastle, and inquired in loud whispers.

"Was ist los? Sag mal--was ist denn los?" He put his inquiry to Conroy, who waved him off and pa.s.sed to the port forecastle on the other side of the deckhouse.