Tramping on Life Part 20

"I'd like to know why not?"

"I want to belong to the brotherhood of man, not the brotherhood of the Masons."

He looked puzzled for a moment, then his countenance cleared.

"That's all right, Son ... you just keep those cards. They might come in handy if you find yourself stranded anywhere."

When my father turned his back, with a thought almost prayerful to the spirit of Sh.e.l.ley, I flung the Masonic cards overboard.

After dusk, the crew poured _en ma.s.se_ to the nearest waterfront saloon with me. The ten dollars didn't last long.

"His old man has lots of money."

Our last night at the pier was a night of a million stars.

The sailmaker, with whom I had become well acquainted, waddled up to me.

He was bow-legged. He waddled instead of walked. We sat talking on the foreward hatch....

"I'm glad we're getting off to-morrow," I remarked.

"--we might not. We lack a man for the crew yet."

"--thought we had the full number?"

"We did. But one of the boys in your party strayed away ... went to another saloon and had a few more drinks ... and someone stuck him with a knife in the short ribs ... he's in the hospital."

"But can't Captain Schantze pick up another man right away?"

"The consulate's closed till ten to-morrow morning. We're to sail at five ... so he can't sign on a new sailor before ... of course he might shanghai someone ... but the law's too severe these days ... and the Sailors' Aid Society is always on the job ... it isn't like it used to be."

But in spite of what the sailmaker had told me, the captain decided to take his chance, rather than delay the time of putting forth to sea.

Around ten o'clock, in the full of the moon, a night-hawk cab drew up alongside the ship where she lay docked, and out of it jumped the first mate and the captain with a lad who was so drunk or drugged, or both, that his legs went down under him when they tried to set him on his feet.

They tumbled him aboard, where he lay in an insensate heap, drooling spit and making incoherent, bubbling noises.

Without lifting an eyebrow in surprise, the sailmaker stepped forward and joined the mate in jerking the man to his feet. The captain went aft as if it was all in the day's work.

The mate and the sailmaker jerked the shanghaied man forward and bundled him into a locker where bits of rope and nautical odds and-ends were piled, just forward of the galley.

In the sharp but misty dawn we cast our moorings loose. A busy little tug nuzzled up to take us in tow for open sea.

We were all intent on putting forth, when a cry came from the port side.

The shanghaied man had broken out, and came running aft ... he stopped a moment, like a trapped animal, to survey the distance between the dock and the side ... measuring the possibilities of a successful leap.

By this time the first and second mates were after him, with some of the men ... he ran forward again, doubled in his tracks like a schoolboy playing tag ... we laughed at that, it was so funny the way he went under the mate's arm ... the look of surprise on the mate's face was funny ... Then the man who was pursued, in a flash, did a hazardous thing ... he flung himself in the air, over the starboard side, and took a long headlong tumble into the tugboat....

He was tied like a hog, and hauled up by a couple of ropes, the sailmaker singing a humorous chantey that made the boys laugh, as they pulled away.

This delayed the sailing anyhow. The mist had lifted like magic, and we were not far toward Staten Island before we knew a fine, blowing, clear day, presided over, in the still, upper s.p.a.ces, by great, leaning c.u.mulus clouds. They toppled huge over the great-cl.u.s.tered buildings as we trod outward toward the harbour mouth....

The pilot swung aboard. The voyage was begun.

The coast of America now looked more like a low-lying fringe of insubstantial cloud than solid land.

My heart sank. I had committed myself definitely to a three-months'

sea-trip ... there was no backing out, it was too far to swim ash.o.r.e.

"What's wrong, Johann," asked the captain, "are you sea-sick already?"

He had noticed my expression as he walked by.

"No, sir!"

"If you are, it isn't anything to be ashamed of. I've known old sea-captains who got sea-sick every time they put out of port."

There was a running forward. The shanghaied man hove in sight, on the rampage again. He came racing aft. "I must speak with the captain."

There was a scuffle. He broke away. Again the two mates were close upon him. Suddenly he flung himself down and both the mates tripped over him and went headlong.

The captain couldn't help laughing. Then he began to swear ... "that fellow's going to give us a lot of trouble," he prophesied.

Several sailors, grinning, had joined in the chase. They had caught the fellow and were dragging him forward by the back and scruff of the neck, while he deliberately hung limp and let his feet drag as if paralysed from the waist down.

The captain stood over the group, that had come to a halt below. The captain was in good humour.

"Bring him up here."

The shanghaied man stood facing Schantze, with all the deference of a sailor, yet subtly defiant.

The captain began to talk in German.

"I don't speak German," responded the sailor stubbornly.

Yet it was in German that he had called out he must see the captain.