“Hope the coal holds out,” Mr. Pike grumbled morosely at me five minutes later.
And we sit on the poop, Miss West and I, tended on by servants, sipping afternoon tea, sewing fancy work, discussing philosophy and art, while a few feet away from us, on this tiny floating world, all the grimy, sordid tragedy of sordid, malformed, brutish life plays itself out. And Captain West, remote, untroubled, sits dreaming in the twilight cabin while the draught of wind from the crojack blows upon him through the open ports. He has no doubts, no worries. He believes in God. All is settled and clear and well as he nears his far home. His serenity is vast and enviable. But I cannot shake from my eyes that vision of him when life forsook his veins, and his mouth slacked, and his eyelids closed, while his face took on the white transparency of death.
I wonder who will be the next to finish the game and depart with a sack of coal.
“Oh, this is nothing, sir,” Mr. Mellaire remarked to me cheerfully as we strolled the poop during the first watch. “I was once on a voyage on a tramp steamer loaded with four hundred Chinks—I beg your pardon, sir— Chinese. They were coolies, contract labourers, coming back from serving their time.
“And the cholera broke out. We hove over three hundred of them overboard, sir, along with both bosuns, most of the Lascar crew, and the captain, the mate, the third mate, and the first and third engineers. The second and one white oiler was all that was left below, and I was in command on deck, when we made port. The doctors wouldn’t come aboard. They made me anchor in the outer roads and told me to heave out my dead. There was some tall buryin’ about that time, Mr. Pathurst, and they went overboard without canvas, coal, or iron. They had to. I had nobody to help me, and the Chinks below wouldn’t lift a hand.
“I had to go down myself, drag the bodies on to the slings, then climb on deck and heave them up with the donkey. And each trip I took a drink. I was pretty drunk when the job was done.”
“And you never caught it yourself?” I queried. Mr. Mellaire held up his left hand. I had often noted that the index finger was missing.
“That’s all that happened to me, sir. The old man’d had a fox-terrier like yours. And after the old man passed out the puppy got real, chummy with me. Just as I was making the hoist of the last sling-load, what does the puppy do but jump on my leg and sniff my hand. I turned to pat him, and the next I knew my other hand had slipped into the gears and that finger wasn’t there any more.
“Heavens!” I cried. “What abominable luck to come through such a terrible experience like that and then lose your finger!”
“That’s what I thought, sir,” Mr. Mellaire agreed.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Oh, just held it up and looked at it, and said ‘My goodness gracious!’ and took another drink.”
“And you didn’t get the cholera afterwards?”
“No, sir. I reckon I was so full of alcohol the germs dropped dead before they could get to me.” He considered a moment. “Candidly, Mr. Pathurst, I don’t know about that alcohol theory. The old man and the mates died drunk, and so did the third engineer. But the chief was a teetotaller, and he died, too.”
Never again shall I wonder that the sea is hard. I walked apart from the second mate and stared up at the magnificent fabric of the
CHAPTER XXII
Something has happened. But nobody knows, either fore or aft, except the interested persons, and they will not say anything. Yet the ship is abuzz with rumours and guesses.
This I do know: Mr. Pike has received a fearful blow on the head. At table, yesterday, at midday, I arrived late, and, passing behind his chair, I saw a prodigious lump on top of his head. When I was seated, facing him, I noted that his eyes seemed dazed; yes, and I could see pain in them. He took no part in the conversation, ate perfunctorily, behaved stupidly at times, and it was patent that he was controlling himself with an iron hand.
And nobody dares ask him what has happened. I know I don’t dare ask him, and I am a passenger, a privileged person. This redoubtable old sea-relic has inspired me with a respect for him that partakes half of timidity and half of awe.
He acts as if he were suffering from concussion of the brain. His pain is evident, not alone in his eyes and the strained expression of his face, but by his conduct when he thinks he is unobserved. Last night, just for a breath of air and a moment’s gaze at the stars, I came out of the cabin door and stood on the main deck under the break of the poop. From directly over my head came a low and persistent groaning. My curiosity was aroused, and I retreated into the cabin, came out softly on to the poop by way of the chart-house, and strolled noiselessly for’ard in my slippers. It was Mr. Pike. He was leaning collapsed on the rail, his head resting on his arms. He was giving voice in secret to the pain that racked him. A dozen feet away he could not be heard. But, close to his shoulder, I could hear his steady, smothered groaning that seemed to take the form of a chant. Also, at regular intervals, he would mutter:
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.” Always he repeated the phrase five times, then returned to his groaning. I stole away as silently as I had come.
Yet he resolutely stands his watches and performs all his duties of chief officer. Oh, I forgot. Miss West dared to quiz him, and he replied that he had a toothache, and that if it didn’t get better he’d pull it out.
Wada cannot learn what has happened. There were no eye-witnesses. He says that the Asiatic clique, discussing the affair in the cook’s room, thinks the three gangsters are responsible. Bert Rhine is carrying a lame shoulder. Nosey Murphy is limping as from some injury in the hips. And Kid Twist has been so badly beaten that he has not left his bunk for two days. And that is all the data to build on. The gangsters are as close-mouthed as Mr. Pike. The Asiatic clique has decided that murder was attempted and that all that saved the mate was his hard skull.
Last evening, in the second dog-watch, I got another proof that Captain West is not so oblivious of what goes on aboard the
I remembered Wada’s reports on this unseamanlike intimacy of the second mate with the gangsters, and tried to make out the nature of the conversation. But the gangsters were low-voiced, and all I could catch was the tone of friendliness and good-nature.
Suddenly, from the poop, came Captain West’s voice. It was the voice, not of the Samurai riding the storm, but of the Samurai calm and cold. It was clear, soft, and mellow as the mellowest bell ever cast by eastern artificers of old time to call worshippers to prayer. I know I slightly chilled to it—it was so exquisitely sweet and yet as passionless as the ring of steel on a frosty night. And I knew the effect on the men beneath me was electrical. I could
“Mr. Mellaire.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Mellaire, after a moment of tense silence.
“Come aft here,” came Captain West’s voice.
I heard the second mate move along the deck beneath me and stop at the foot of the poop-ladder.
“Your place is aft on the poop, Mr. Mellaire,” said the cold, passionless voice.
“Yes, sir,” answered the second mate.
That was all. Not another word was spoken. Captain West resumed his stroll on the weather side of the
