THE ALTERNATIVE ROUTE

Her most ardent admirers—and they had never been very numerous—could hardly have described the Orinoco as a rapid or up-to-date vessel. She could average a fair eight knots in ordinary weather (except when the Chief Engineer was not sober; and then she had been known to do as much as eleven), and she had faced with tolerable credit seven strenuous years of North Atlantic weather, winter and summer alike. But she was no flier.

She had not always ploughed the ocean at the behests of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, her present owner. As a matter of fact, she dated back to the early sixties. She had been built on the Clyde, in days when people were not in such a hurry as they are now, for steady and reliable cross-channel service between Scotland and Ireland; and the crinolined young lady who had blushingly performed the christening ceremony as the brand-new steamer slipped down the ways had named her the Gareloch.

After fifteen years of honest buffeting between the Kish and the Cloch the little Gareloch had been pronounced too slow, and sold to the proprietor of a line of coasting steamers which plied between Cardiff and London. In this capacity, with a different-coloured funnel and a slightly decayed interior, she had served for nine years as the Annie S. Holmes. After that an officious gentleman from the Board of Trade happened to notice the state of her boilers, and unhesitatingly declined to renew her certificate until various things were done which her present owner was not in the habit of doing. Consequently she had lain rusting in Southampton Water for six months, until an astute Scot, who ran a sort of Dr. Barnardo's home for steamers which had been abandoned by their original owners, stepped in and bought her, at the rate of about a pound per ton; and having refitted her with some convenient boilers which he had picked up at a sale, and checked her fuel-consumption by reducing her grate-area, set her going again in a humble but remunerative way as a pig-boat between Limerick and Glasgow. During this period of her career she was known as the Blush Rose—and probably smelt as sweet.

The maritime Dr. Barnardo sold her three years later (at a profit) to a gentleman who required a ship for some shady and mysterious operations amid certain islands in the Southern Pacific. The nature of the poor Blush Rose's occupation may be gathered from the fact that in the space of three months she made those already tropical regions too hot to hold her; and, with her name painted out, a repaired shot-hole in her counter, and a few pearl oyster-shells sticking out here and there in the murky recesses of her hold, was knocked down for a song at Buenos Ayres to a Spanish-American who desired her for the fulfilment of some rather private contracts, into which he had entered with a Central American State, for a consignment of small arms and ammunition delivered immediately—terms, C. O. D. and no questions asked. Her captain on this occasion was a Lowland Scot of disreputable character but inherent piety, who endeavoured to confer a rather spurious sanctity upon a nefarious enterprise by christening his nameless vessel the Jedburgh Abbey. But, alas! the Jedburgh Abbey was confiscated a year later by the United States government, and having disgorged a most uncanonical cargo, was knocked down by Dutch auction, without benefit of clergy, to the highest bidder. Competition for her possession was not keen, and she ultimately became the property of Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who at that time was beginning to pile up a considerable fortune by purchasing old steamers on their way to the scrap-heap and running them as tramp-freighters until they sank. The Jedburgh Abbey, with a new propeller,—she had gone short of a blade for years,—her rusty carcase tinkered into something like sea-worthiness, and her engines secured a little more firmly to their bed-plates, had re-established her social status by creeping once more into Lloyd's list—the Red Book of the Mercantile Marine—and, disguised as the Orinoco, of the "River" Line of freight-carrying steamships, had served Mr. Noddy Kinahan well for seven years. This grey morning, with Sandy Hook well down below the western horizon, she clambered wearily but perseveringly over the Atlantic rollers, like a disillusioned and world-weary old cab-horse which, having begun life between the shafts of a gentleman's brougham, is now concluding a depressing existence by dragging a funereal "growler" up and down the undulations of a London suburb.

Her redeeming feature was a certain purity of outline and symmetry of form. She boasted a flush deck, unbroken by any unsightly waist amid-ships; and not even her unscraped masts, her scarred sides, and her flaked and salt-whitened funnel could altogether take away from her her pride of race,—the right to boast, in common with many a human derelict of the same sex and a very similar history, that she had "been a lady once."

She had now been at sea for well over twenty-four hours, and her crew, who had to a man been brought on board in what a sympathetic eyewitness on a similar occasion once described as "a state of beastly but enviable intoxication," were once more beginning to sit up and take notice. Their efforts in this direction owed much to the kind assistance of Messrs. Gates and Dingle, the first and second mates, who with cold douche and unrelenting boot were sparing no pains to rouse to a sense of duty those of their flock who had not yet found or recovered their sea-legs.

The crew consisted of two Englishmen and a Californian, together with a handful of Scandinavians, Portuguese, and Germans, divided by sea-law (which, like its big brother, non curat de minimis) into "Dagoes" and "Dutchmen" respectively, representatives of the Romance races being grouped under the former and of the Anglo-Saxon under the latter designations. With one exception none of them had sailed on the ship before, and in all probability would never do so again. They had been purveyed to Captain Kingdom by a Tenderloin boarding-house keeper, and had signed a contract for the voyage to Bordeaux and back, wages for both trips to be paid at the end of the second. If sufficiently knocked about, they would in all probability desert at Bordeaux, preferring to forego their pay rather than stand a second dose of the home comforts of the Orinoco. This was one of the ways in which Captain Kingdom saved his employer money and in which Mr. Noddy Kinahan made the "River" Line a profitable concern. There were also others, which shall be set forth in due course.

Captain Kingdom had just appeared on the bridge. He was a furtive and sinister-looking individual, resembling rather a pawnbroker's assistant than one who occupied his business in great waters. But he was a useful servant to Noddy Kinahan.

"Got all the hands to work, Mr. Gates?" he called down to the mate.

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Mr. Gates, knocking the heel of his boot on the deck to ease his aching toes.

The captain ran his eye over the crew, who were huddling together forward of the bridge. He cleared his throat.

"Now, you scum," he began genially, "attend to me, while I tell you what you've got to do on board this ship."

The scum, stagnant and unresponsive, listened stolidly to his harangue, the substance of which did not differ materially, mutatis mutandis, from one of Mr. Squeers's inaugural addresses to his pupils on the first morning of term at Dotheboys Hall. Captain Kingdom's peroration laid particular stress upon the fact that Messrs. Gates and Dingle had been requested by him as a particular favour to adopt the policy of the thick stick and the big boot in the case of those members of the crew who refrained from looking slick in executing their orders.

The crew received his remarks with sheepish grins or sullen scowls; and the orator concluded:

"Pick watches, Mr. Gates, and then we'll pipe down to dinner. Are all hands on deck?"

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Mr. Gates, looking over his list.

"I saw somebody down below a few minutes ago," drawled a voice, proceeding from a figure seated upon a bollard.

It was Mr. Allerton, who, with characteristic contentment with (or indifference to) his lot, had performed the unprecedented feat of signing on for a second voyage in the Orinoco. He wore his usual air of humorous tolerance of the cares of this world, and spoke in the composed and unruffled fashion which stamps the high-caste Englishman all over the globe. His lot on board the Orinoco had been lighter than that of most, for his companions, finding him apparently impervious to ill-usage and philosophically genial under all circumstances, had agreed to regard him as a species of heavily decayed and slightly demented "dude," and had half-affectionately christened him "Percy,"—a term which sums up the typical Englishman for the New Yorker almost as vividly as "Rosbif" and "Godam" perform that office for the Parisian.

The captain descended from the bridge, walked across the deck, and dispassionately kicked Mr. Allerton off the bollard.

"Stand up, you swine, when you speak to me!" he shouted. "Where did you see anybody?"

Mr. Allerton rose slowly and painfully from the scuppers. There are moments when the rÔle of a Democritus is difficult to sustain.

"I'm sorry you did that, captain," he remarked, "because I know you didn't mean it personally. You had to make some sort of demonstration, of course, to put the fear of death into these new hands, but I regret that you should have singled me out as the corpus vile,—you don't know what that means, I daresay: never mind!—because you have shaken up my wits so much, besides nearly breaking my hip-bone, that I shall have to pause and consider a minute before I remember where I did see the gentleman."

If the captain had been Mr. Gates he would probably have felled Allerton to the deck a second time. As it was, he shuffled his feet uncomfortably and glared. The broken man before him, when all was said and done, was his superior; and the captain, who was of sufficiently refined clay to be sensitive to social distinctions, was angrily conscious of that sense of sheepish uneasiness which obsesses the cad, however exalted, in the presence of a gentleman, however degraded.

Allerton continued:—

"I remember now, captain. The man was lying in the alley-way leading to the companion. I'll go and see how he is getting on. Keep your seats, gentlemen."

He dived down the fore-hatchway, just in time to escape the itching boot of the unimpressionable Mr. Gates, and proceeded between decks toward the stern. Presently he came to the alley-way in question. The man was still there, but had slightly shifted his position since Allerton had last seen him. He was now reclining across the passage, with his head sunk on his chest. His feet were bare, and he was attired in a blue jumper and a pair of trousers which had once belonged to a suit of orange-and-red pyjamas. His appearance was not impressive.

Allerton stirred him gently with his foot.

"Wake up, old man," he remarked, "or there'll be hell—Well, I'm damned!"

For the man had drowsily lifted his heavy head and displayed the features of Hughie Marrable.

They gazed at each other for a full minute. Then Allerton said feebly:—

"You've preferred the Orinoco to the Apulia after all, then?"

Hughie did not reply. He was running his tongue round his cracked and blackened lips, and tentatively sucking his palate.

"I know that taste," he remarked. "It reminds me of a night I once spent in Canton. I have it—opium!"

Then he tenderly fingered the back of his head, and nodded with the interested air of one who is acquiring a new item of experience.

"I've been filled up with opium before," he said, "but this is the first time I've been sand-bagged. I suppose I was sand-bagged first and hocussed afterwards. Yes, that's it."

He looked almost pleased. He was a man who liked to get to the bottom of things. Presently he continued:—

"Could you get me a drink of water? I've got a tongue like a stick of glue."

Allerton departed as bidden, presently to return with a pannikin. Hughie was standing up in the alley-way, swaying unsteadily and regarding his attire.

"I say," he said, after gulping the water, "would you mind telling me—you see, I'm a little bit wuzzy in the head at present—where the devil I am, and whether I came on board in this kit or my own clothes?"

"Steamship Orinoco," replied Allerton precisely, "out of New York, for Bordeaux."

"Let me think," said Hughie,—"Orinoco? Ah! now I'm beginning to see daylight. What's the name of the owner, our friend from Coney Island?"

Allerton told him. "But he's more than your friend now," he added; "he's your employer."

Hughie whistled long and low.

"I see," he said. "Shanghaied—eh? Well, I must say he owed me one: I fairly barked his nose for him that night. But now that he has had me knocked on the head and shipped on board this old ark, I think he has overpaid me. I owe him one again; and, with any luck, he shall have it."

"Do you remember being slugged?" said Allerton.

"Can't say I do precisely. Let me see. I recollect coming along Forty-second Street on my way to the Manhattan. I'd been dining at the Lambs, and I stopped a minute on the sidewalk under an L railway-track to light my pipe, when—yes, it must have happened then."

"I expect you had been shadowed all day," said Allerton. "But I'm forgetting my duties. You are wanted on deck."

"Who wants me? Noddy Kinahan?"

"Not much! He doesn't travel by his own ships. It's the captain. I understand that you are to be presented to the company as a little stowaway, and great surprise and pain will be officially manifested at your appearance on board."

"All right. Come along and introduce me."

Captain Kingdom's method of dealing with stowaways—natural and artificial—was simple and unvarying. On presentation, he first of all abused them with all the resources of an almost Esperantic vocabulary, and then handed them over to Mr. Gates to be kicked into shape.

On Hughie Marrable's appearance on deck, the captain proceeded with gusto to Part One of his syllabus. Hard words break no bones, and Hughie, who was breathing in great draughts of sea-air and feeling less dizzy and more collected each minute, set no particular store by the oratorical display to which he was being treated. In fact, he was almost guilty of the discourtesy of allowing his attention to wander. He set the crown upon his offence by interrupting the captain's peroration.

"Look here, skipper," he said, brusquely breaking in upon a period, "you can drop that. My name is Marrable. I am not a stowaway, and I have been dumped on board this ship by order of—"

"Your name," said Captain Kingdom with relish, "is anything I choose to call you; and as you stowed yourself away on board—"

"Look here," said Hughie, "I want a word with you—in your own cabin for choice. All right," he continued with rising voice, as the captain broke out again, "I'll have it here instead. First of all, what is Mr. Noddy Kinahan paying you for this job?"

The captain turned to the mate.

"Sock him, Mr. Gates!" he roared.

Mr. Gates, whose curiosity—together with that of the rest of the crew—had been roused, as Hughie meant it to be, by the latter's reference to Mr. Noddy Kinahan's share in the present situation, moved forward to his task with less alacrity than usual, and paused readily enough when Hughie continued:—

"If you'll put back, captain, and land me anywhere within a hundred miles of New York, I'll give you double what Kinahan is paying you for this job."

"You look like a man with money, I must say!" replied Kingdom. "Now then, Mr. Gates!"

"It's to be no deal, then?" said Hughie composedly. "Very well. The next question is, if I am coming with you, how am I going to be treated? Cabin or steer—"

"I'll show you," roared the incensed skipper. "Knock him silly, Mr. Gates!"

Mr. Gates came on with a rush. But Hughie, who all this time had been taking his bearings, leapt back lightly in his bare feet and snatched a capstan-bar from the rack behind him.

"Keep your distance for a moment, Mr. Gates," he commanded, "if you don't want your head cracked. I haven't finished interviewing this captain of yours yet. Happy to oblige you later, for any period you care to specify."

"'Nother Percy!" commented Mr. Dingle dejectedly, expectorating over the side. He was a plain man, was Mr. Dingle, and loved straight hitting and words of one syllable.

Mr. Gates paused, and Hughie, leaning back against the bulwarks and toying with the capstan-bar, continued to address the fulminating mariner on the bridge.

"Now, captain, I'm going to be brief with you—brief and business-like. You've been paid by Kinahan to shanghai me and take me for a long sea-voyage. Very good. I'm not kicking. I wanted to get to Europe anyhow, and I rather like long sea-voyages, especially before the mast. In fact, I'd rather sail before the mast on board this ship than in the cuddy. (Keep still, Mr. Gates!) As I'm here, I've no particular objection to working my passage, always reserving to myself the right to make things hot for your employer when I get ashore. I'll work as an A.B. or deck-hand if you like, though personally I would rather do something in the engine-room. I'm pretty well qualified in that direction. But I must be decently treated, and there must be no more sand-bagging or knockabout variety business. Is it a deal?"

Captain Kingdom surveyed the sinewy stowaway before him thoughtfully. He saw that until Hughie gave up the capstan-bar Mr. Gates would have little chance of enforcing discipline. He must temporise.

"I can give you a job in the engine-room," he said, in what he imagined was a more conciliatory tone. "Second engineer's down with something this morning. You can take his watch. Drop that capstan-bar of yours, and go and see Mr. Angus, the chief."

"That should suit me," replied Hughie. "But as a guarantee of good faith, and to avoid disappointing the assembled company, I'm quite willing to stand up and have a turn with Mr. Gates here, or that gentleman over by the funnel-stay, or any one else you may appoint. But I should prefer Mr. Gates," he added, almost affectionately. "I'm not in first-class form at present, as my head has got a dint in it behind; but I'll do my best. Are you game, Mr. Gates?"

"Go on, Mr. Gates, learn him!" commanded the highly gratified skipper.

"Drop that bar," shouted the genial Mr. Gates, "and I'll kill you!"

"Half a minute, please," said Hughie, as unruffled as if he were putting on the gloves for a ten-minute spar in a gymnasium. "I'm not going to fight a man in sea-boots in my bare feet. Can any gentleman oblige me with—Thank you, sir! You are a white man."

A pair of oily canvas tennis shoes, with list soles, pattered down on the deck beside him. Their donor, the "white man,"—a coal-black individual attired chiefly in cotton-waste,—was smiling affably from the engine-room hatchway.

"They'll dae ye fine," he observed unexpectedly, and disappeared below.

In a moment Hughie had slipped on the shoes. Then, casting away the bar, he hurled himself straight at the head of Mr. Gates.

In the brief but exhilarating exhibition which followed Mr. Gates realised that a first mate on the defensive is a very different being from a first mate on the rampage. He had become so accustomed to breaking in unresisting dock-rats and bemused foreigners, taking his own time and using his boots where necessary, that a high-pressure combat with a man who seemed to be everywhere except at the end of his fist—to his honour he never once thought of employing his foot—was an entire novelty to him. He fought sullenly but ponderously, wasting his enormous strength on murderous blows which never reached their mark, and stolidly enduring a storm of smacks, bangs, and punches that would have knocked a man of less enduring material into a pulp. But there is one blow which no member of the human family can stand up to, glutton for punishment though he be. Hughie made a sudden feint with his left at his opponent's body, just below the heart. Gates dropped his guard, momentarily throwing forward his head as he did so. Instantaneously a terrific upper-cut from Hughie's right took him squarely under the chin. Mr. Gates described a graceful parabola, and landed heavily on his back on deck, striking his head against a ring-bolt as he fell. The whole fight had lasted less than four minutes.

Hughie was about to assist his fallen opponent to rise, when he heard a warning cry from half-a-dozen voices. He swung round, to find the captain making for him, open-mouthed, with the capstan-bar. He sprang lightly aside—a further blessing on those list shoes!—and his opponent charged past him, bringing down the bar with a flail-like sweep upon the drum of a steam windlass. Next moment Hughie, grasping the foremast shrouds, leaped on the bulwarks and pulled himself up to the level of the bridge, which was unoccupied save by the man at the wheel, who had been an enthusiastic spectator of the scene below.

Having climbed upon the bridge, and so secured the upper ground in case of any further attack, Hughie leaned over the rails and parleyed. In his hand he held a pair of heavy binoculars, which he had taken out of a box clamped to the back of the wind-screen.

"The first man who attempts to follow me up here," he announced, when he had got his breath back, "will get this pair of glasses in the eye. Captain, I don't think you are a great success as an employer of labour. You haven't got the knack of conciliating your men. Can't we come to terms? Mine are very simple. I want some clothes—my own, for choice. If you haven't got them, anything quiet and unobtrusive will do. But I decline to go about in orange-and-red pyjama trousers in mid-Atlantic to please you or anybody else. For one thing they're not warm, and for another they're not usual. If you will oblige me in this matter, I am quite willing to live at peace with you. I don't see that you can really suppress me except by killing me, and that is a thing which I don't think you have either the authority or the pluck to do. Why not give me a billet in the engine-room and cry quits?"

Captain Kingdom looked up at the obstreperous mutineer on the bridge, and down at the recumbent Mr. Gates on the deck, and ground his teeth. Then he looked up to the bridge again.

"All right," he growled. "Come down!"