[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

THE COUNCIL IN THE CABIN

Sometimes in the night I dream of the forecastle of the Island Princess, and see the crew sitting on chests and bunks, as vividly as if only yesterday I had come through the hatchway and down the steps with a kid of "salt horse" for the mess, and had found them waiting, each with his pan and spoon and the great tin dipper of tea that he himself had brought from the galley. There was Chips, the carpenter, who had descended for the moment from the dignity of the steerage; calmly he helped himself to twice his share, ignoring the oaths of the others, and washed down his first mouthful with a great gulp of tea. Once upon a time Chips came down just too late to get any meat, and tried to kill the cook; but as the cook remarked to me afterwards, "Foh a drea'ful impulsive pusson, he wah n't ve'y handy with his fists." There was Bill Hayden, who always got last chance at the meat, and took whatever the doubtful generosity of his shipmates had left him—poor Bill, as happy in the thought of his little wee girl at Newburyport as if all the wealth of the khans of Tartary were waiting for him at the end of the voyage. There was the deep-voiced Davie, almost out of sight in the darkest corner, who chose his food carefully, pretending the while to be considerate of the others, and growled amiably about his hard lot. Also there was Kipping, mild and evasive, yet amply able to look out for his own interests, as I, who so often brought down the kids, well knew.

When, that evening, Bill Hayden had scraped up the last poor slivers of meat, he sat down beside me on my chest.

"If I didn't have my little wee girl at Newburyport," he said, "I might be as gloomy as Neddie Benson. Do you suppose if I went to see a fortune-teller I'd be as gloomy as Neddie is? I never used to be gloomy, even before I married, and I married late. I was older than Neddie is now when I married. Neddie ought to get a wife and stop going to see fortune-tellers, and then he wouldn't be so gloomy."

Bill would run on indefinitely in his stupid, kindly way, for I was almost the only person aboard ship who listened to him at all, and, to tell the truth, even I seldom more than half listened. But already he had given me valuable information that day, and now something in the tone of his rambling words caught my attention.

"Has Neddie Benson been talking about the fortuneteller again?" I asked.

"He's had a lot to say about her. He says the lady said to him—"

"But what started him off?"

"He says things is bound to come to a bad end."

"What things?"

As I have said before, I had a normal boy's curiosity about all that was going on around us. Perhaps, I have come to think, I had more than the ordinary boy's sense for important information. Roger Hamlin's warning had put me on my guard, and I intended to learn all I could and to keep my mouth shut where certain people were concerned.

"It's queer they don't say nothing to you about what's going on," Bill remarked.

For my own part I understood very well why they should say nothing of any underhanded trickery to one who ashore was so intimately acquainted with Captain Whidden and Roger Hamlin. But I kept my thoughts to myself and persisted in my questions.

"What is going on?"

"Oh, I don't just make out what." Bill's stupidity was exasperating at times. "It's something about Mr. Falk. Kipping, he—"

"Yes?" said that eternally mild voice. "Mr. Falk? And Kipping? What else please?"

Both Bill and I were startled to find Kipping at our elbows. But before either of us could answer, some one called down the hatch:—

"Lathrop is wanted aft."

Relieved at escaping from an embarrassing situation, I jumped up so promptly that my knife fell with a clatter, and hastened on deck, calling "Ay, ay," to the man who had summoned me. I knew very well why I was wanted aft.

Mr. Falk, who was on duty on the quarter-deck, completely ignored me as I passed him and went down the companionway.

"At least," I thought, "he can't come below now."

The steward, when I appeared, raised his eyebrows and almost dropped his tray; then he paused in the door, inconspicuously, as if to linger. But Captain Whidden glanced round and dismissed him by a sharp nod, and I found myself alone in the cabin with the captain, Mr. Thomas, and Roger Hamlin.

"I understand there's news forward, Lathrop," said Captain Whidden.

Roger looked at me with that humorous, exasperating twinkle of his eyes,—I thought of my sister and of how she had looked when she learned that he was to sail for Canton,—and Mr. Thomas folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, sir," I replied, "although it seems pretty unimportant to be worth much as news."

"Tell us about it."

To all that I had gathered from Bill Hayden I added what I had learned by my own observations, and it seemed to interest them, although for my own part I doubted whether it was of much account.

"Has any one approached you directly about these things?" Captain Whidden asked when I was through.

"No, sir."

"Have you heard any one say just what this little group is trying to accomplish, or just when it is going to act?"

"No, sir."

"Do you, Lathrop, know anything about the cargo of the Island Princess? Or anything about the terms under which it is carried?"

"Only in a general way, sir, that it is made up of ginseng and woolen goods shipped to Canton."

Captain Whidden looked at me very sharply indeed. "You are positive that that is all you know?"

"Yes, sir—except, in a general way, that the cargo is uncommonly important."

The three men exchanged glances, and Roger Hamlin nodded as if to corroborate my reply.

"Lathrop," Captain Whidden began again, "I want you to say nothing about this interview after you leave the cabin. It is more important that you hold your peace than you may ever realize—than, I trust, you ever will realize. I am going to ask you to give me your word of honor to that effect."

It seemed to me then that I saw Captain Whidden in a new light. We of the younger generation had inclined to belittle him because he continued to follow the sea at an age when more successful men had established their counting-houses or had retired from active business altogether. But twice his mercantile adventures had proved unfortunate, and now, though nearly sixty years old and worth a very comfortable fortune, he refused to leave again for a less familiar occupation the profession by which he had amassed his competence. I noticed that his hair was gray on his temples, and that his weathered face revealed a certain stern sadness. I felt as if suddenly, in spite of my minor importance on board his ship, I had come closer to the straightforward gentleman, the true Joseph Whidden, than in all the years that I had known him, almost intimately, it had seemed at the time, in my father's house.

"I promise, sir," I said.

He took up a pencil and with the point tapped a piece of paper.

"Tell me who of all the men forward absolutely are not influenced by this man Kipping."

"The cook," I returned, "and Bill Hayden, and, I think, Neddie Benson. Probably there are a number of others, but only of those three am I absolutely sure."

"That's what I want—the men you are absolutely sure of. Hm! The cook, useful but not particularly quick-witted. Hayden, a harmless, negative body. Benson, a gloomy soul if ever there was one. It might be better but—" He looked at Mr. Thomas and smiled. "That is all, Lathrop; you may go now. Just one moment more, though: be cautious, keep your eyes and ears open, and if anything else comes up, communicate with Mr. Hamlin or,—" he hesitated, but finally said it,—"or directly with me."

As I went up on deck, I again passed Mr. Falk and again he pretended not to see me. But although he seemed to be intent on the rolling seas to windward, I was very confident that, when I had left the quarter-deck, he turned and looked after me as earnestly as if he hoped to read in my step and carriage everything that had occurred in the cabin.

CHAPTER VII

THE SAIL WITH A LOZENGE-SHAPED PATCH

It was not long before we got another warning even more ominous than the one from the captain of the Adventure. On Friday, July 28, in latitude 19° 50' South, longitude 101° 53' East,—the log of the voyage, kept beyond this point in Mr. Thomas's own hand, gives me the dates and figures to the very day for it still is preserved in the vaults of Hamlin, Lathrop & Company,—we sighted a bark to the south, and at the captain's orders wore ship to speak her. When she also came about, we served out pikes and muskets as a precaution against treachery, and Mr. Falk saw that our guns were shotted. But she proved to be in good faith, and in answer to our hail she declared herself the Adrienne of Liverpool, eight days from the Straits, homeward bound. Her master, it appeared, wished to compare notes on longitude, and a long, dull discussion followed; but in parting Captain Whidden asked if there was news of pirates or marauders.

"Yes," was the reply. "Much news and bad news." And the master of the Adrienne thereupon launched into a tale of piracy and treachery such, as I never had heard before. Leaning over the taffrail, his elbows out-thrust and his big hands folded, he roared the story at us in a great booming voice that at times seemed to drown the words in its own volume. Now, as the waves and the wind snatched it away, it grew momentarily fainter and clearer; now it came bellowing back again, loud, hoarse, and indistinct.

It was all about an Arab ship off Benkulen; Ladronesers and the havoc they had wrought among the American ships in the China Sea; a warning not to sail from Macao for Whampoa without a fleet of four or five sail; and again, about the depredations of the Malays. The grizzled old captain seemed to delight in repeating horrible yarns of the seas whence he came, whither we were going. He roared them after us until we had left him far astern; and at the last we heard him laughing long and hoarsely.

"What dat yeh man think we all am? He think we all gwine believe dat yeh?
Hgh!" the cook growled.

But Neddie Benson dolefully shook his head.

Parting, the Adrienne and the Island Princess continued, each on her course, the one back round the Cape of Good Hope and north again to Liverpool, the other on into strange oceans beset with a thousand dangers.

We sailed now a sea of opalescent greens and purples that shimmered and changed with the changing lights. Strange shadows played across it, even when the sky was cloudless, and it rolled past the ship in great, regular swells, ruffled by favoring breezes and bright beneath the clear sun.

At daylight on August 3 we saw land about nine miles away, bearing from east by south to north, a long line of rugged hills, which appeared to be piled one above another, and which our last lunar observations indicated were in longitude 107° 15' East; and we made out a single sail lying off the coast to the north.

The sail caught and held our attention—not that, so far as we then could see, that particular sail was at all remarkable: any sail, at that time and in that place, would have interested us unusually. Mindful of the warnings we had received, we paused in our work to watch it. Kipping, with a sly glance aft, left the winch with which he was occupied and leaned on the rail. Here and there the crew conversed cautiously, and on the quarter-deck a lively discussion, I could see, was in progress.

We were so intent on that distant spot of canvas which pricked the horizon, that a fierce squall, sweeping down upon us, almost took us aback.

The cry, "All hands on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!—Meet her!—Ease her off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush of wind and rain.

I had been well drilled long since in furling the royals, for on them the green hands were oftenest practised; and now, from his post on the forecastle, Mr. Thomas spied me as I slipped and fell half across the deck. I alone at that moment was not hard at work, and, in obedience to the captain's orders, during a lull that gave us a momentary respite, he sent me aloft.

It was quite a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it done. This he did. Then, casting the yard-arm gaskets off from the tye and laying them across between the tye and the mast, I stretched out on the weather yard-arm and, getting hold of the weather leech, brought it in to the slings taut along the yard. Mind you, all this time I, only a boy, was working in a gale of wind and driven rain, and was clinging to a yard that was sweeping from side to side in lurching, unsteady flight far above the deck and the angry sea. Hauling the sail through the clew, and letting it fall in the bunt, I drew the weather clew a little abaft the yard, and held it with my knee while I brought in the lee leech in, the same manner. Then, making up my bunt and putting into it the slack of the clews, the leech and footrope and the body of the sail, I hauled it well up on the yard, smoothed the skin, brought it down abaft, and made fast the bunt-gasket round the mast. Passing the weather and lee yard-arm gaskets round the yard in turn, and hauling them taut and making them fast, I left all snug and trim.

From aft came faintly the clear command, "Full and by!" And promptly, for by this time the force of the squall was already spent, the answer of the man at the wheel, "Full and by, sir."

In this first moment of leisure I instinctively turned, as did virtually every man aboard ship, to look for the sail that had been reported to the north of us. But although we looked long and anxiously, we saw no sail, no trace of any floating craft. It had disappeared during the squall, utterly and completely. Only the wild dark sea and the wild succession of mountain piled on mountain met our searching eyes.

A sail there had been, beyond all question, where now there was none.
Driven by the storm, it had vanished completely from our sight.

As well as we could judge by our lunar observations, the land was between Paga River and Stony Point, and when we had sailed along some forty miles, the shore, as it should be according to our reckoning, was less mountainous.

It was my first glimpse of the Sunda Islands, of which I had heard so much, and I well remember that I stood by the forward rigging watching the distant land from where it seemed on my right to rise from the sea, to where it seemed on my left to go down beyond the horizon into the sea again, and that I murmured to myself in a small, awed voice:—

"This is Java!"

The very name had magic in it. Already from those islands our Salem mariners had accumulated great wealth. Not yet are the old days forgotten, when Elias Hasket Derby's ships brought back fortunes from Batavia, and when Captain Carnes, by one voyage in Jonathan Peele's schooner Rajah to the northern coast of Sumatra for wild pepper, made a profit of seven hundred per cent of both the total cost of the schooner itself and the whole expense of the entire expedition. I who lived in the exhilarating atmosphere of those adventurous times was thrilled to the heart by my first sight of lands to which hundreds of Salem ships had sailed.

It really was Java, and night was falling on its shores. Far to the northeast some tiny object pricked above the skyline, and a point of light gleamed clearly, low against the blue heavens in which the stars had just begun to shine.

"A sail!" I cried.

Before the words had left my lips a deep voice aloft sonorously proclaimed:—

"Sa-a-ail ho!"

"Where away?" Mr. Thomas cried.

"Two points off the larboard bow, sir."

The little knot of officers on the quarter-deck already were intent on the tiny spot of almost invisible canvas, and we forward were crowding one another for a better sight of it. Then in the gathering darkness it faded and was gone. Could it have been the same that we had seen before?

There was much talk of the mysterious ship that night, and many strange theories were offered to account for it. Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished our gloom, and the forecastle reechoed with hoarse laughter, which grew louder and louder when Neddie once again narrated the lady's charms, and at last cried angrily that she was as plump as a nice young chicken.

"If you was to ask me," Bill Hayden murmured, "I'd say it was just a sail." But no one asked Bill Hayden, and with a few words about his "little wee girl at Newburyport," he buried himself in his old blankets and was soon asleep.

During the mid-watch that same night, the cook prowled the deck forward like a dog sneaking along the wharves. Silently, the whites of his eyes gleaming out of the darkness, he moved hither and thither, careful always to avoid the second mate's observation. As I watched him, I became more and more curious, for I could make nothing of his veering course. He went now to starboard, now to larboard, now to the forecastle, now to the steerage, always silently, always deliberately. After a while he came over and stood beside me.

"It ain't right," he whispered. "Ah tell you, boy, it ain't right."

"What's not right?" I asked.

"De goin's on aboa'd dis ship."

"What goings on?"

"Boy, Ah's been a long time to sea and Ah's cooked foh some bad crews in my time, yass, sah, but Ah's gwine tell you, boy, 'cause Ah done took a fancy to you, dis am de most iniquitous crew Ah eveh done cook salt hoss foh. Yass, sah."

"What do you mean?"

The negro ignored my question.

"Ah's gwine tell you, boy, dis yeh crew am bad 'nough, but when dah come a ha'nt boat a-sailin' oveh yondeh jest at dahk, boy, Ah wish Ah was back home whar Ah could somehow come to shoot a rabbit what got a lef' hind-foot. Yass, sah."

For a long time he silently paced up and down by the bulwark; but finally I saw him momentarily against the light of his dim lantern as he entered his own quarters.

Morning came with fine breezes and pleasant weather. At half-past four we saw Winerow Point bearing northwest by west. At seven o'clock we took in all studding-sails and staysails, and the fore and mizzen topgallant-sails. So another day passed and another night. An hour after midnight we took in the main topgallantsail, and lay by with our head to the south until six bells, when we wore ship, proceeding north again, and saw Java Head at nine o'clock to the minute.

We now faced Sunda Strait, the channel that separates Java from Sumatra and unites the Indian Ocean with the Java Sea. From the bow of our ship there stretched out on one hand and on the other, far beyond the horizon, Borneo, Celebes, Banka and Billiton; the Little Sunda Islands—Bali and Lombok, Simbawa, Flores and Timor; the China Sea, the Philippines, and farther and greater than them all, the mainland of Asia.

While we were still intent on Java Head there came once more the cry, "Sail ho!"

This time the sail was not to be mistaken. Captain Whidden trained on it the glass, which he shortly handed to Mr. Thomas. "See her go!" the men cried. It was true. She was running away from us easily. Now she was hull down. Now we could see only her topgallant-sails. Now she again had disappeared. But this time we had found, besides her general appearance and the cut of her sails, which no seaman could mistake, a mark by which any landsman must recognize her: on her fore-topsail there was a white lozenge-shaped patch.

At eleven o'clock in the morning, with Prince's Island bearing from north to west by south, we entered the Straits of Sunda. At noon we were due east of Prince's Island beach and had sighted the third Point of Java and the Isle of Cracato.

Fine breezes and a clear sky favored us, and the islands, green and blue according to their distance, were beautiful to see. Occasionally we had glimpses of little native craft, or descried villages sleeping amid the drowsy green of the cocoanut trees. It was a peaceful, beautiful world that met our eyes as the Island Princess stood through the Straits and up the east coast of Sumatra; the air was warm and pleasant, and the leaves of the tufted palms, lacily interwoven, were small in the distance like the fronds of ferns in our own land. But Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas remained on deck and constantly searched the horizon with the glass; and the men worked uneasily, glancing up apprehensively every minute or two, and starting at slight sounds. There was reason to be apprehensive, we all knew.

On the evening of Friday, August 11, beyond possibility of doubt we sighted a ship; and that it was the same which we already had seen at least once, the lozenge-shaped patch on the foresail proved to the satisfaction of officers and men.

CHAPTER VIII

ATTACKED

In the morning we were mystified to see that the sail once again had disappeared. But to distract us from idle speculations, need of fresh water now added to our uneasiness, and we anchored on a mud bottom while the captain and Mr. Thomas went ashore and searched in vain for a watering-place.

During the day we saw a number of natives fishing in their boats a short distance away; but when our own boat approached them, they pulled for the shore with all speed and fled into the woods like wild men. Thus the day passed,—so quietly and uneventfully that it lulled us into confidence that we were safe from harm,—and a new day dawned.

That morning, as we lay at anchor, the strange ship, with the sun shining brightly on her sails, boldly reappeared from beyond a distant point, and hove to about three miles to the north-northeast. As she lay in plain sight and almost within earshot, she seemed no more out of the ordinary than any vessel that we might have passed off the coast of New England. But on her great foresail, which hung loose now with the wind shaken out of it, there was a lozenge-shaped patch of clean new canvas.

Soon word passed from mouth to mouth that the captain and Mr. Falk would go in the gig to learn the stranger's name and port.

To a certain extent we were relieved to find that our phantom ship was built of solid wood and iron; yet we were decidedly apprehensive as we watched the men pull away in the bright sun. The boat became smaller and smaller, and the dipping oars flashed like gold.

With his head out-thrust and his chin sunk below the level of his shoulders, the cook stood by the galley, in doubt and foreboding, and watched the boat pull away.

His voice, when he spoke, gave me a start.

"Look dah, boy! Look dah! Dey's sumpin' funny, yass, sah. 'Tain't safe foh to truck with ha'nts, no sah! You can't make dis yeh nigger think a winkin' fire-bug of a fly-by-night ship ain't a ha'nt."

"Ha'nts," said Kipping mildly, "ha'nts is bad things for niggers, but they don't hurt white men."

"Lemme tell you, you Kipping, it ain't gwine pay you to be disrespectable to de cook." Frank stuck his angry face in front of the mild man's. "Ef you think—ha!"—He stopped suddenly, his eyes fixed on something far beyond Kipping, over whose shoulder he now was looking. "Look dah! Look dah! What Ah say? Hey? What Ah say? Look dah! Look dah!"

Startled by the cook's fierce yell, we turned as if a gun had been fired; but we saw only that the boat was coming about.

"Look dah! Look dah! See 'em row! Don' tell me dat ain't no ha'nt!" Jumping up and down, waving his arms wildly, contorting his irregular features till he resembled a gorilla, he continued to yell in frenzy.

Although there seemed to be no cause for any such outburst, the rest of us now were alarmed by the behavior of the men in the boat. Having come about, they were racing back to the Island Princess as fast as ever they could, and the captain and Mr. Falk, if we could judge by their gestures, were urging them to even greater efforts.

"Look dah! Look dah! Don't you tell me dey ain't seen a ha'nt, you
Kipping!"

As they approached, I heard Roger Hamlin say sharply to the mate, "Mr. Thomas, that ship yonder is drifting down on us rapidly. See! They're sheeting home the topsail."

I could see that Mr. Thomas, who evidently thought Roger's fear groundless, was laughing, but I could not hear his reply. In any case he gave no order to prepare for action until the boat came within earshot and the captain abruptly hailed him and ordered him to trip anchor and prepare to make sail.

As the boat came aboard, we heard news that thrilled us. "She's an Arab ship," spread the word. "They were waiting for our boat, with no sign of hostility until Mr. Falk saw the sunlight strike on a gun-barrel that was intended to be hidden behind the bulwark. As the boat veered away, the man with the gun started to fire, but another prevented him, probably because the distance was so great."

Instantly there was wild activity on the Island Princess. While we loosed the sails and sheeted them home and, with anchor aweigh, braced the yards and began to move ahead, the idlers were tricing up the boarding nettings and double-charging our cannon, of which we carried three—a long gun amidships and a pair of stern chasers. Men to work the ship were ordered to the ropes. The rest were served pikes and loaded muskets.

We accomplished the various preparations in an incredibly short time, and, gathering way, stood ready to receive the stranger should she force us to fight.

For the time being we were doubtful of her intentions, and seeing us armed and ready, she stood off as if still unwilling to press us more closely. But some one aboard her, if I guess aright, resented so tame an end to a long pursuit and insisted on at least an exchange of volleys.

[Illustration: Suddenly, in the brief silence that followed the two thunderous reports, a pistol shot rang out sharply and I saw Captain Whidden spin around and fall.]

Now she came down on us, running easily with the wind on her quarter, and gave us a round from her muskets.

"Hold your fire," Captain Whidden ordered. "They're feeling their way."

Emboldened by our silence, she wore ship and came nearer. It seemed now that she would attempt to board us, for we spied men waiting with grapnels, and she came steadily on while our own men fretted at their guns, not daring to fire without the captain's orders, till we could see the triumphant sneer on the dark face of her commander.

Now her muskets spoke again. I heard a bullet sing over my head and saw one of our own seamen in the waist fall and lie quite still. Should we never answer her in kind? In three minutes, it seemed, we should have to meet her men hand to hand.

Now our helmsman luffed, and we came closer into the wind, which gave our guns a chance.

"Now, then," Captain Whidden cried, "let them have the long gun and hold the rest."

With a crash our cannon swept the deck of the Arab, splintering the cabin and accomplishing ten times as much damage as all her muskets had done to us. But she in turn, exasperated by the havoc we had wrought, fired simultaneously her two largest guns at point-blank range.

I ducked behind the bulwark and looked back along the deck. One ball had hit the scuttle-butt and had splashed the water fifteen feet in every direction. Another had splintered the cross jack-yard. Suddenly, in the brief silence that followed the two thunderous reports, a single pistol-shot rang out sharply and I saw Captain Whidden spin round and fall.

Our own guns, as we came about, sent an answer that cut the Arab's lower sail to ribbons, disabled many men and, I am confident, killed several. But there was no time to load again. Although by now we showed our stern to the enemy, and had a fair—chance to outstrip her in a long race, her greater momentum was bringing her down upon us rapidly. From aft came the order—it was Mr. Thomas who gave it,—"All hands to the pikes and repel boarders!"

There was, however, no more fighting. Our assailants took measure of the stout nets and the strong battery of pikes, and, abandoning the whole unlucky adventure, bore away on a new course.

One man forward was killed and four were badly hurt. Mr. Thomas sat with his back against the cabin, very white of face, with streams of red running from his nostrils and his mouth; and Captain Whidden lay dead on the deck. An hour later word passed through the ship that Mr. Thomas, too, had died.

CHAPTER IX

BAD SIGNS

It was strange that, while some of us in the forecastle were much cast down by the tragic events of the day, others should seem to be put in really good humor by it all. Neddie Benson soberly shook his head from time to time; old Bill Hayden lay in his bunk without even a word about his "little wee girl in Newburyport," and occasionally complained of not feeling well; and various others of the crew faced the future with frank hopelessness.

For my own part, it seemed to me as unreal as a nightmare that Captain Joseph Whidden actually had been shot dead by a band of Arab pirates. I was bewildered—indeed, stunned—by the incredible suddenness of the calamity. It was so complete, so appallingly final! To me, a boy still in his 'teens, that first intimate association with violent death would have been in itself terrible, and I keenly felt the loss of our chief mate. But Captain Whidden to me was far more than master of the ship. He had been my father's friend since long before I was born; and from the days when I first discriminated between the guests at my father's house, I had counted him as also a friend of mine. Never had I dreamed that so sad an hour would darken my first voyage.

Kipping, on the other hand, and Davie Paine and the carpenter seemed actually well pleased with what had happened. They lolled around with an air of exasperating superiority when they saw any of the rest of us looking at them; and now and then they exchanged glances that I was at a loss to understand until all at once a new thought dawned on me: since the captain and the first mate were dead, the command of the ship devolved upon Mr. Falk, the second mate.

No wonder that Kipping and Davie and the carpenter and all the rest of that lawless clique were well pleased. No wonder that old Bill Hayden and some of the others, for whom Kipping and his friends had not a particle of use were downcast by the prospect.

I was amazed at my own stupidity in not realizing it before, and above all else I now longed to talk with someone whom I could trust—Roger Hamlin by preference; as second choice, my friend the cook. But for the time being I was disappointed in this. Almost immediately Mr. Falk summoned all hands aft.

"Men," he said, putting on a grave face that seemed to me assumed for the occasion, "men, we've come through a dangerous time, and we are lucky to have come alive out of the bad scrape that we were in. Some of us haven't come through so well. It's a sad thing for a ship to lose an officer, and it is twice as sad to lose two fine officers like Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas. I'll now read the service for the burial of the dead, and after that I'll have something more to say to you."

One of the men spoke in an undertone, and Mr. Falk cried, "What's that?"

"If you please, sir," the man said, fidgeting nervously, "couldn't we go ashore and bury them decently?"

Others had thought of the same thing, and they showed it by their faces; but Mr. Falk scowled and replied, "Nonsense! We'd be murdered in cold blood."

So we stood there, bareheaded, silent, sad at heart, and heard the droning voice of the second mate,—even then he could not hide his unrighteous satisfaction,—who read from a worn prayer-book, that had belonged to Captain Whidden himself, the words committing the bodies of three men to the deep, their souls to God.

When the brief, perfunctory service was over, Mr. Falk put away the prayer-book,—I verily believe he put away with it all fear of the Lord,—folded his arms and faced us arrogantly.

"By the death of Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas," he said, "I have become the rightful master of this ship. Now I've got a few things to say to you, and I'm going to have them understood. If you heed them and work smartly, you'll get along as well as you deserve. If you don't heed them, you'd better be dead and done with it. If you don't heed them—" he sneered disagreeably—"if you don't heed them I'll lash the skin off the back of every bloody mother's son of ye. This voyage from now on is to be carried out for the best interests of all concerned." He stopped and smiled and repeated significantly, "Of ALL concerned." After another pause, in which some of the men exchanged knowing glances, he went on, "I have no doubt that the most of us will get along as well as need be. So far, well and good. But if there's those that try to cross my bows,"—he swore roundly,—"heaven help'em! They'll need it. That's all. Wait! One thing more: we've got to have officers, and as I know you'll not be bold to pick from among yourselves, I'll save you the trouble. Kipping from this time on will be chief mate. You'll take his things aft, and you'll obey him from now on and put the handle to his name. Paine will be second mate. That's all. Go forward."

Kipping and Davie Paine! I was thunderstruck. But some of the men exchanged glances and smiles as before, and I saw by his expression that Roger, although ill pleased, was by no means so amazed as I should have expected him to be.

For the last time as seaman, Kipping, mild and quiet, came to the forecastle. But as he packed his bag and prepared to leave us, he smiled constantly with a detestable quirk of his mouth, and before going he stopped beside downcast old Bill Hayden. "Straighten up, be a man," he said softly; "I'll see that you're treated right." He fairly drawled the words, so mildly did he speak; but when he had finished, his manner instantly changed. Thrusting out his chin and narrowing his eyes, he deliberately drew back his foot and gave old Bill one savage kick.

I was right glad that chance had placed me in the second mate's watch.

As for Davie Paine, he was so overcome by the stroke of fortune that had resulted in his promotion, that he could not even collect his belongings. We helped him pile them into his chest, which he fastened with trembling fingers, and gave him a hand on deck. But even his deep voice had failed him for the time being, and when he took leave of us, he whispered piteously, '"Fore the Lord, I dunno how it happened. I ain't never learned to figger and I can't no more than write my name."

What was to become of us? Our captain was a weak officer. Our present chief mate no man of us trusted.

Our second mate was inexperienced, incompetent, illiterate. More than ever I longed to talk with Roger Hamlin, but there was no opportunity that night.

Our watch on deck was a farce, for old Davie was so unfamiliar with his new duties and so confused by his sudden eminence that, according to the men at the wheel, he didn't know north from south or aloft from alow. Evading his confused glances, I sought the galley, and without any of the usual complicated formalities was admitted to where the cook was smoking his rank pipe.

Rolling his eyes until the whites gleamed, he told me the following astounding story.

"Boy," he said, "dis am de most unmitigated day ol' Frank ever see. Cap'n, he am a good man and now he's a dead un. Mistah Thomas he am a good man and now he's a dead un. What Ah tell you about dem ha'nts? Ef Ah could have kotched a rabbit with a lef' hind-leg, Ah guess we'd be better off. Hey? Mistah Falk, he am cap'n—Lo'd have mercy on us! Dat Kipping, he am chief mate—Lo'd have mercy on us mis'able sinners! Davie Paine, he am second mate—Lo'd perserve ou' souls! Ah guess you don't know what Ah heah Mistah Falk say to stew'd! He says, 'Stew'd, we got ev'ything—ev'ything. And we ain't broke a single law!' Now tell me what he mean by dat? What's stew'd got, Ah want to know? But dat ain't all—no, sah, dat ain't all."

He leaned forward, the whites of his eyes rolling, his fixed frown more ominous than ever. "Boy, Ah see 'em when dey's dead, Ah did. Ah see 'em all. Mistah Thomas, he have a big hole in de middle of his front, and dat po' old sailo' man he have a big hole in de middle of his front. Yass, sah, Ah see 'em! But cap'n, he have a little roun' hole in the back of his head.—Yass, sah—he was shot f'om behine!"

The sea that night was as calm and as untroubled as if the day had passed in Sabbath quiet. It seemed impossible that we had endured so much, that Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas were dead, that the space of only twenty-four hours had wrought such a change in the fortunes of all on board.

[Illustration: We helped him pile his belongings into his chest and gave him a hand on deck.]

I could not believe that one of our own men had shot our captain. Surely the bullet must have hit him when he was turning to give an order or to oversee some particular duty. And yet I could not forget the cook's words. They hummed in my ears. They sounded in the strumming of the rigging, in the "talking" of the ship:—

"A little roun' hole in the back of his head—yass, sah—he was shot f'om behine."

Without the captain and Mr. Thomas the Island Princess was like a strange vessel. Both Kipping and Davie Paine had been promoted from the starboard watch, leaving us shorthanded; so a queer, self-confident fellow named Blodgett was transferred from the chief mate's watch to ours. But even so there were fewer hands and more work, and the spirit of the crew seemed to have changed. Whereas earlier in the voyage most of the men had gone smartly about their duties, always glad to lend a hand or join in a chantey, and with an eye for the profit and welfare of the owners as well as of themselves, now there came over the ship, silently, imperceptibly, yet so swiftly and completely that, although no man saw it come, in twenty-four hours it was with us and upon us in all its deadening and discouraging weight, a spirit of lassitude and procrastination. You would have expected some of the men to find it hard to give old Davie Paine quite all the respect to which his new berth entitled him, and for my own part I liked Kipping less even than I had liked Mr. Falk. But although my own prejudice should have enabled me to understand any minor lapses from the strict discipline of life aboard ship, much occurred in the next twenty-four hours that puzzled me.

For one thing, those men whom I had thought most likely to accord Kipping and Mr. Falk due respect were most careless in their work and in the small formalities observed between officers and crew. The carpenter and the steward, for example, spent a long time in the galley at an hour when they should have been busy with their own duties. I was near when they came out, and heard the cook's parting words: "Yass, sah, yass, sah, it ain't neveh no discombobilation to help out gen'lems, sah. Yass, sah, no, sah."

And when, a little later, I myself knocked at the door, I got a reception that surprised me beyond measure.

"Who dah," the cook cried in his usual brusque voice. "Who dah knockin' at mah door?"

Coming out, he brushed past me, and stood staring fiercely from side to side. I knew, of course, his curiously indirect methods, and I expected him by some quick motion or muttered command to summon me, as always before, into his hot little cubby-hole. Never was boy more taken aback! "Who dah knockin' at mah door?" he said again, standing within two feet of my elbow, looking past me not two inches from my nose. "Humph! Somebody knockin' at mah door better look at what dey doin' or dey gwine git into a peck of trouble."

He turned his back on me and reentered the galley.

Then I looked aft, and saw Kipping and the steward grinning broadly. Before, I had been disconcerted. Now I was enraged. How had they turned old black Frank against me, I wondered? Kipping and the steward, whom the negro disliked above all people on board! So the steward and the carpenter and Kipping were working hand in glove! And Mr. Falk probably was in the same boat with them. Where was Roger Hamlin, and what was he doing as supercargo to protect the goods below decks? Then I laughed shortly, though a little angrily, at my own childish impatience.

Certainly any suspicions of danger to the cargo were entirely without foundations. Mr. Falk—Captain Falk, I must call him now—might have a disagreeable personality, but there was nothing to indicate that he was not in most respects a competent officer, or that the ship and cargo would suffer at his hands. The cook had been companionable in his own peculiar way and a very convenient friend indeed; but, after all, I could get along very well on my own resources.

The difference that a change of officers makes in the life and spirit of a ship's crew is surprising to one unfamiliar with the sea. Captain Whidden had been a gentleman and a first-class sailor; by ordering our life strictly, though not harshly or severely, he had maintained that efficient, smoothly working organization which is best and pleasantest for all concerned. But Captain Falk was a master whose sails were cut on another pattern. He lacked Captain Whidden's straightforward, searching gaze. From the corners of his mouth lines drooped unpleasantly around his chin. His voice was not forceful and commanding. I was confident that under ordinary conditions he never would have been given a ship; I doubted even if he would have got a chief mate's berth. But fortune had played into his hands, and he now was our lawful master, resistance to whom could be construed as mutiny and punished in any court in the land.

Never, while Captain Whidden commanded the ship, would the steward and the carpenter have deserted their work and have hidden themselves away in the cook's galley. Never, I was positive, would such a pair of officers as Kipping and old Davie Paine have been promoted from the forecastle. To be sure, the transgressions of the carpenter and the steward were only petty as yet, and if no worse came of our new situation, I should be very foolish to take it all so seriously. But it was not easy to regard our situation lightly. There were too many straws to show the direction of the wind.

CHAPTER X

THE TREASURE-SEEKER

It was a starlit night while we still lingered off the coast of Sumatra for water and fresh vegetables. The land was low and black against the steely green of the sky, and a young moon like a silver thread shone in the west. Blodgett, the new man in our watch, was the centre of a little group on the forecastle.

He was small and wrinkled and very wise. The more I saw and heard of him, the more I marveled that he had not attracted my attention before; but up to this point in the voyage it was only by night that he had appeared different from other men, and I thought of him only as a prowler in the dark.

In some ways he was like a cat. By day he would sit in corners in the sun when opportunity offered, or lurk around the galley, shirking so brazenly, that the men were amused rather than angry. Even at work he was as slow and drowsy as an old cat, half opening his sleepy eyes when the officers called him to account, and receiving an occasional kick or cuff with the same mild surprise that a favorite cat might show. But once darkness had fallen, Blodgett was a different man. He became nervously wakeful. His eyes distended and his face lighted with strange animation. He walked hither and yon. He fairly arched his neck. And sometimes, when some ordinary incident struck his peculiar humor, he would throw back his head, open his great mouth, and utter a screech of wild laughter for all the world like the yowl of a tom-cat.

On that particular night he walked the forecastle, keeping close to the bulwarks, till the rest of us assembled by the rigging and watched him with a kind of fascination. After a time he saw us gathered there and came over to where we were. His eyes were large and his wrinkled features twitched with eagerness. He seemed very old; he had traveled to the farthest lands.

"Men," he cried in his thin, windy voice, "yonder's the moon."

The moon indeed was there. There was no reason to gainsay him. He stood with it over his left shoulder and extended his arms before him, one pointing somewhat to the right, the other to the left. "The right hand is the right way," he cried, "but the left we'll never leave."

We stared at the man and wondered if he were mad.

"No," he said, smiling at our puzzled glances, "we'll never leave the left."

"Belay that talk," said one of the men sharply. "Ye'll have to steer a clearer course than that if you want us to follow you."

Blodgett smiled. "The course is clear," he replied. "Yonder"—he waved his right hand—"is Singapore and the Chinese Sea and Whampoa. It's the right course. Our orders is for that course. Our cargo is for that course. It's the course that will make money for the owners. It's the right—you understand?—my right hand and the right course according to orders. But yonder"—this time he waved his left hand—"is the course that won't be left. And yet it's the left you know—my left hand."

He explained his feeble little joke with an air of pride.

"Why won't it be left?" the gruff seaman demanded.

"Because," said Blodgett, "we ain't going to leave it. There's gold there and no end of treasure. Do you suppose Captain Falk is going to leave it all for some one else to get? He's going to sail through Malacca Strait and across the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta. That's what he's going to do. I've been in India myself and seen the heaps of gold lying on the ground by the money-changer's door and no body watching it but a sleepy Gentoo."

"But what's this treasure you're talking about," some one asked.

"Sure," said Blodgett in a husky whisper, "it's a treasure such as never was heard of before. There's barrels and barrels of gold and diamonds and emeralds and rubies and no end of such gear. There's idols with crowns of precious stones, and eyes in their carved heads that would pay a king's ransom. There's money enough in gold mohurs and rupees to buy the Bank of England."

It was a cock-and-bull story that the little old man told us; but, absurd though it was, he had an air of impressive sincerity; and although every one of us would have laughed the yarn out of meeting had it been told of Captain Whidden, affairs had changed in the last days aboard ship. Certainly we did not trust Captain Falk. I thought of the cook's dark words, "A little roun' hole in the back of his head—he was shot f'om behine!" As we followed the direction of Blodgett's two hands,—the right to the northeast and the Chinese shore, the left to the northwest and the dim lowlands of Sumatra that lay along the road to Burma,—anything seemed possible. Moon-madness was upon us, and we were carried away by the mystery of the night.

Such madness is not uncommon. Of tales in the fore-castle during a long voyage there is no end. Extraordinary significance is attributed to trivial happenings in the daily life of the crew, and the wonders of the sea and the land are overshadowed completely by simple incidents that superstitious shipmates are sure to exaggerate and to dwell upon.

After a time, though, as Blodgett walked back and forth along the bulwark, like a cat that will not go into the open, my sanity came back to me.

"That's all nonsense," I said—perhaps too sharply; "Mr. Falk is an honest seaman. His whole future would be ruined if he attempted any such thing as that."

"Ay, hear the boy," Blodgett muttered sarcastically. "What does the boy think a man rich enough to buy all the ships in the king's navy will care for such a future as Captain Falk has in front of him? Hgh! A boy that don't know enough to call his captain by his proper title!"

Blodgett fairly bristled in his indignation, and I said no more, although I knew well enough—or thought I did—that such a scheme was quite too wild to be plausible. Captain Falk might play a double game, but not such a silly double game as that.

"No," said Bill Hayden solemnly, as if voicing my own thought, "the captain ain't going to spoil his good name like that." Poor, stupid old Bill!

Blodgett snorted angrily, but the others laughed at Bill—silly old butt of the forecastle, daft about his little girl!—and after speculating at length concerning the treasure that Blodgett had described so vaguely, fell at last into a hot argument about how far a skipper could disobey the orders of his owners without committing piracy.

Thus began the rumor that revealed the scatterwitted convictions so characteristic of the strange, cat-like Blodgett, which later were to lead almost to death certain simple members of the crew; which served, by a freak of chance, to involve poor Bill Hayden in an affair that came to a tragic end; and which, by a whim of fortune almost as remote, though happier, placed me in closer touch with Roger Hamlin than I had been since the Island Princess sailed from Salem harbor.

An hour later I saw the cook standing silently by his galley. He gave me neither look nor word, although he must have known that I was watching him, but only puffed at his rank old pipe and stared at the stars and the hills. I wondered if the jungle growth reminded him of his own African tropics; if behind his grim, seamed face an unsuspected sense of poetry lurked, a sort of half-beast, half-human imagination.

Never glancing at me, never indicating by so much as a quiver of his black features that he had perceived my presence, he sighed deeply, walked to the rail and knocked the dead ashes from his pipe into the water. He then turned and went into the galley and barricaded himself against intruders, there to stay until, some time in the night, he should seek his berth in the steerage for the few hours of deep sleep that were all his great body required. But as he passed me I heard him murmuring to himself, "Dat Bill Hayden, he betteh look out, yass, sah. He say Mistah Captain Falk don't want to go to spoil his good name. Dat Hay den he betteh look out."

With a bang of his plank door the old darky shut himself away from all of us in the darkness of his little kingdom of pots and pans.

[Illustration]