The Yazoo Mystery Part 4

"But we can save the ship if you'll help--I'm willing to pay you extra if you'll stay," said the captain, pleading outright now.

"Well, that sounds different--how much will you give us to stay and take chances?" Strong asked quickly, a.s.suming a bargaining att.i.tude, but still a.s.sisting me to lower the boat.

"Why, I'll--I'll give you fifty dollars apiece," he offered, as though making a tremendous sacrifice.

"Fifty dollars don't look good to me--how about it, Ben?" he asked, as we halted the boat a few feet from the water. "The news headlines will state that the captain went down with the ship, but two firemen drowning with him wouldn't be worth an agate line."

CHAPTER V

HIRAM STRONG, JR., amazed me. Surely this was an outcropping of the Gold-Beater's blood. He may not ever be a Gold-Beater as the term was applied to his male parent, but he was destined to be a gold-getter, for he displayed evidence of that trait when he stood there actually d.i.c.kering with the captain for a sum beyond a month's wages as a fireman.

The seas breaking over the sunken bow of the vessel, and a cargo in the hold worth at least a million and a half, he had only the captain's word that the ship would not sink at any moment. However, he saw by my att.i.tude that I also thought that the wreck could be salvaged.

And he also saw that the ship was wallowing in the trough of the sea, while the lifeboat was near the water on the lea side, and he knew that I could handle it.

"You see, captain, we have only your word that she isn't going to sink, and we have lost confidence in you. You left us three stories down there to drown like rats. You got everybody else off and never thought of your firemen."

"I couldn't think of everything, and I tell you she is not going to sink," shouted the captain, coming closer and pounding the rail with his big fat hand. "I've got to get her to anchorage or on the beach, and you've got to help. Fifty dollars is enough; that's nearly a month's wages," he added, trying to avoid his usual overbearing.

"Why did you let the crew go?" Hiram shot at him.

"I didn't know the for'd bulkhead was holding then. You know if the for'd head holds she can't sink," he said vehemently, appealing to me this time. But before I could answer Hiram was after him again.

"And you left us to drown! Our lives are just as valuable to us as any of the rest of the crew, and maybe more than some of them," he said, looking meaningly at the captain, who squirmed visibly, now realizing that we were not ordinary firemen.

"I'll give you a hundred apiece. Now stop talking and come on. We'll have to run her stern fore-most, and if we can keep the wheel going enough for steerage way, the wind will blow us in," haggled the captain like an old market woman.

"A hundred dollars will not interest me; how about you, Ben?" Hiram turned to me and began taking the lifeboat's rope from the cleet and I did the same. "You can stay here and drown if you want to, but we're going. The water here looks pretty deep, and I understand when a ship goes down it makes a pretty big hole into which we might fall," he added as we began to lower the boat.

"How much do you want? I've got to save her," he pleaded now, walking back and forth like a caged hyena.

"If you hadn't let your wireless man go you would have had a tug or another ship here by this time and they would take as salvage only about a quarter of a million," suggested Hiram with a cynical smile, stopping the descent of the boat and making fast again. "We'll stay, but you've got to pay. Ben here knows something about the engines and I will shovel the coal, but you've got to give us two-fifty apiece," he added, taking away my breath and almost prostrating the captain.

The captain began to pace the deck again, then pausing in front of Hiram, he said, as though imbued with a big idea: "All right, I guess I'll have to do it, but you've got to hustle." Moving over to me, he asked if I knew how to start the engines, to which I nodded an affirmative.

"But, Captain," interrupted Hiram forcibly, "it's got to be cash," and there came to his mirthful mouth a certain hardness that surprised me, and again started incipient apoplexy within the captain.

"If I say you'll get it, you'll get it. Isn't my word good for that much?" he blurted out, trying to control his rage.

"Captain, you left us to drown just like kittens you would like to be rid of. Your word isn't worth a counterfeit dollar. I wouldn't trust you for shoestrings. We've got to have the cash--now!" There was genuine bitterness in Hiram's voice.

"I haven't that much cash on the ship," pleaded the captain, but with a sort of wolfish gleam in his eyes.

"All right, then. Come on, Ben, let's get out of this. I wouldn't take his word for one of his firemen's rations of soup and lumpy stew, and if he gave us the company's I. O. U., we wouldn't get it for a month, and they'd red-tape it to death," he ended, starting for the ropes again.

"Wait a minute and I'll see," coaxed the captain, starting up to his quarters nearby.

"The old liar; he's got it, all right. Say, Ben, do you really think she will float--it seems to me the bow is farther down than it was?" he queried me with something of a chuckle.

"Yes, I think it will. The sea is a little higher than it was, and that makes the ship seem lower, but if it gets worse there may be some danger."

"Do you think we can afford to take the chance?"

"I think we can get away in the lifeboat if the ship gets lower. I'll watch closely, but if we take the money we are bound to take the risk."

"Oh, if we take the money we will deliver the goods, but hang the money if the risk is too big."

"It's a fair bet. If we back in it will take the strain off the bulkhead, but if it does not hold, we'll have time to get away."

"Watch this old jockey; he'll come rushing back with part of the money, saying that's all he could find." Hiram, Jr., had hardly finished when the captain came rushing down and gave us in bills the exact amount, cheerfully, and apparently disposed to treat us as equals.

"Now, boys, we're only about twenty miles off Hampton Roads, and if you can keep a couple of boilers hot, we'll be there in three hours, and your job's done. The tide is right and we might be able to get clear in."

We hauled the lifeboat up so that the sea would not wash over it, but left our belongings in it, and then hurried below. There was enough steam left in the boilers to swing the ship, stern sh.o.r.eward, and matters looked well. I hurried to the furnace room, where I found Hiram stripped to the waist, working as if the ship belonged to him. He had wisely selected the four boilers beside which was the most coal, and seemed to forget that his hands were sore and his body all too green for such an effort. I aided him as much as I could and then ran back to the engines, repeating this operation for two hours. I noticed that the lightship off the harbor was gradually growing plainer. The upper part of our propeller blades were exposed because of the ship's nose dip. We were losing a great deal of power due to that fact. Soon we picked up a pilot and in another two hours we slowly made the harbor on less than one leg, and we were through.

"The greatest job ever pulled off! No salvage on this ship or cargo,"

the captain chuckled, rubbing his hands. "Now, let's go ash.o.r.e and get some food," he added as cheerfully as would a miser fingering gold. He had not left the wheel house or given an order since we started.

However, before we got through washing up Hiram began to droop and was hardly able to walk to a Turkish bath after we got ash.o.r.e at Norfolk.

He did not improve much, even with a good rub-down after the bath, and I knew it was the hospital for him. Before the doctors got through with his examination he was in a wild delirium and they shook their heads. It was a bad case of exhaustion, and nothing but a strong heart would save him.

CHAPTER VI

THE newspapers spread on the wreck story next morning and I read about it while sitting by Hiram Strong's bedside in the hospital. The captain got the glory and credit, although the man, a mere boy, now tossing unconscious on the pillow, was the one to whom all credit belonged. In his delirium he muttered from time to time. Every now and then he would say--"Ben, he was going to let us drown--drown like rats in a trap!"

The nurse gently unbandaged his hands to show me their condition. The palms were cooked--black and seamy--like an overdone roast. But he was now clean, and handsome, his dark, wavy hair mounting high against the white pillow, all trace of dissipation having disappeared from his skin.

That was fair and clear, though slightly flushed with fever. The smile hovering about his mouth appeared to be at the point of breaking out into a hearty laugh.

Surely his first attempt at a useful life was not a success, for which I held myself partly to blame. If I had said "no" to the captain's proposal we would have come away like the rest of the crew.

Three days found him much better, and when I came to see him he delighted me with his cheerful manner.

"h.e.l.lo, Ben!" he chanted with an infectious smile. "I would like to shake, but my hands are wrapped up just like a petrified mummy."

Naturally I looked pleased that matters were no worse, and he continued to talk.

"Say, Ben, it was good of you to stick, bring me here, and then come every day to see me. I woke up in the night and the nurse--G.o.d bless her--she is a kind soul--she told me all about it."

"Hiram, as we were sort of partners in crime I had to stick."