Before the Mast—Bound for San Francisco—Man Overboard—I see ’Frisco High Life—My first Funeral Expenses—Joss Houses—Guest my Friend

I will now leave my next three months of bush life unrecorded, as it would be very much the same as I have already written about. William and I got South Sea Island mad. It was my fault. I used to tell him about my experiences and as I told him of Papoo and various other Samoan and Fijian beauties, his eyes would gleam as he listened, until at last his sole ambition in life was to go to the South Seas. Indeed I got a bit of the fever on me to go out there again, and when we at length arrived in Sydney I tried to get away with him, but as luck would have it he managed to secure a billet on the German boat as messroom steward. I was very sorry indeed to see him go, and he too when I said good-bye to him. We had been happy and seen a lot together in our twelve months’ friendship. I stood on the wharf and waved good-bye to him. Dear old William, I often wonder what became of him; I never saw him again.

A week after he left me I shipped before the mast on the Cairnbulg, a large sailing ship bound for ’Frisco and then round the Horn home. We had a terrible spell of bad weather. About two weeks after leaving Sydney, one evening just as sunset faded a typhoon began to blow. We were all sent aloft to take in sail; but it was too late, the mainmast split and went overboard, taking and throwing one of the crew into the raging sea. He still clung on to the tackle of the broken mast as it floated overside, and then a big sea came down and he was washed off. We hove her to and lowered the lifeboat; over came the seas like huge icebergs, crashing to the decks as she shivered and groaned and pitched with her broken masts and torn sails, swaying and screaming beneath the storm-swept sky. There was no slackness of volunteers to man the lifeboat as those white-faced sailors with the soul of pluck in their eyes stood by and the chief mate took the helm. They lowered away; three times they were nearly upset and thrown into the sea as the ship lay right over and the big iron side seemed to lay under the lifeboat’s keel. At last they got her safely on the water; the skipper stood on the poop, the hurricane whipping his shouted orders away like pistol shots as a sea came over and washed three of us along the deck. We all came crash against the bulwark side, scrambled to our feet and rushed back again to see if we could catch sight of the lifeboat that was out on the pitch-black waters. How she lived in that sea was a marvel. They came back, but without our comrade: he had gone for ever, and that night we sat in the fo’c’sle on our sea-chests puffing our pipes deep in thought, feeling very sad and wretched, and I heard the drowned sailor’s special chum crying in his bunk opposite me for a long time as overhead the look-out tramped to and fro and the fixed-up wind-jammer once more tore along on her voyage. The empty bunk of the lost sailor which was just below mine got on my nerves, and often when I was tired out and turned in I lay sleeplessly thinking of the poor fellow away in his ocean grave behind us, and would get up and go on deck and finish by sleeping on the forepeak hatchway.

When we arrived in San Francisco our ship had to go into dry dock to have a new mast fixed in and I got in with some American fellows ashore, and what with the beautiful climate and congenial society and being sick of living on “hard tack,” “soup and bully” and salt junk, I resolved to leave the ship and stay behind. One of those shore friends of mine was the manager of a dancing saloon in the north of the city, and he told me that if I could play dance music on the violin he could offer me a good salary. I got hold of a good book of dance music and, taking a small room near Kearney Street, I practised the whole day long for nearly a week, and soon got my hand in and eventually became a crack hand at the job. The orchestra for that dancing establishment consisted of two violins, a banjo and a harpist. The ladies who visited that secluded hall were painted up to the eyes, some of them were pretty old stagers painted and dressed up; whirling round the ballroom they passed off as girls in their teens.

I had a good opportunity of observing the visitors of that ’Frisco “high-class dancing saloon.” I found out after a little while that it was used for various different crimes, and one night just as we had finished the overture and the old Californian rouÉs were taking their partners, a fashionably dressed lady burst into the room and shot her husband in the neck. I heard one of the bullets from her revolver whiz by my head. The painted lady who had been hanging on the wounded man’s arm fainted away and there was a terrible scene altogether, but the whole matter never reached the public, it was all hushed up as the victim was a gentleman who held a high position on the Bench. I think he was a judge. I did not even care to play the fiddle to that crowd, but I persevered and sawed away night after night. I received exceedingly good money for the job and had no need to mix with the crew that danced to the strains of music, as those wicked-looking members of the Californian “elite” revelled in the atmosphere of freedom and all the dubious games that caused the downfall of their old ancestors Adam and Eve.

I was then living in apartments in F—— Street; it was not a very fashionable residence, but my comrade, whose name was “Crane,” lived there, and persuaded me to live near him. He told me that he was an Englishman and talked a good deal about dear old London, thinking that it pleased me. There also lived a man in the same building who I was told was the captain of a large sailing vessel. He was a suave-speaking man, and spoke with a strong Yankee twang, wore side-whiskers, and every time I chanced to meet him on the stairway, he was most genial in his remarks and would praise my violin-playing, for I would play a good deal during the daytime, not having much else to do. One morning my friend Crane opened my room door and, coming in with a long face, sat opposite me and said, “I say, Middleton, the Captain’s in great sorrow, his wife’s dead, and if he can’t raise fifty dollars she will have to be buried in a pauper’s grave.” I was very much touched as he continued the tale, and told me several distressing details of the affection between that captain and the poor wife, and when at last he described the death scene the tears came into my eyes, and I at once volunteered to advance the necessary cash, so as to give the poor fellow’s wife a decent funeral.

Crane knew that I had nearly eighty dollars in the bank, and when I stood up and said I would go and get the money forthwith, he wiped his own eyes, so touched was he by my impulsive kindness. I went off and got the money, and coming back I said to Crane, “Where is he? Is he in his room?”

“Yes,” Crane answered, “but he’s so broken up, and moreover he’s so sensitive about borrowing money from anyone, that you had better leave it on the toilet in his room, when he goes out, and I will explain all to him.” I at once accepted his idea and understood, as I too would have been sensitive in those days at borrowing fifty dollars.

That same night as I walked down the street on the way to the dancing saloon, I met Crane and the bereaved Captain. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first, and so did the Captain as he turned his face sideways, pulled his whiskers and exchanged a quick glance with Crane and then nearly tumbled over. I saw that he was “half seas over,” but I forgave him; I knew that sorrow had driven better men than the Captain to take an extra glass. Well, to cut a sad story short, I went over to the Captain’s house next day to attend the funeral. I had not been invited, but I wanted to do the thing properly. I had got the address out of Crane, and the time, and about ten minutes before the procession was to start for the cemetery I respectfully touched the knocker with a mournful tap, tap. I shall never forget the face of the awful virago who opened the door, and as soon as I mentioned the Captain’s name and told her the purpose of my visit she glared at me and then roared with laughter. I lost my temper at last and said, “I’ve paid fifty dollars for the funeral.” That finished it, and then I heard the truth. The Captain was a card-sharper and I had been done! Even the little ’Frisco kid of about ten years of age looked up into my face with a partly sorrowful and partly contemptuous expression that I was such an ass. I never knew which one really had my fifty dollars, Crane or the Captain. I suppose they shared it. I never saw the Captain again, but one night as I was going to leave my room to go off to work I saw Crane dodge on the staircase of the next floor. He had called to see if there were any letters for him. I said, “Hi, Crane, I want to speak to you.” He came into the room smiling. He had a white-livered face. “Where is my fifty dollars?” I said. And then I had my first and last fight. The look in his eyes broke the last thread of control in my temper, and I let out and gave him a terrible smash in the jaw. He hardly defended himself; he was such a coward, and so ended my friendship with Mr Crane and my trust in “confidence men.” I have met many well-dressed men since that time who agreed profoundly with all my ideas, and ended by telling me of their rich old uncle who was waiting round the corner for ten dollars to get back to his exchequer, but I’ve had my lesson, and if I met another man who wanted money to bury his wife I would not advance it till I saw the coffin, and even then I should respectfully lift the lid before I left the room.

I never saw such a wild place as ’Frisco was in those days. Seafaring men from all parts of the world congregated there much the same as in the Australian sea-board cities. I know not if they were trade union men, but they all looked very independent, chewed and spat much the same as the sailors of my previous experience, excepting they were virtuosos in the art and could send a stream of tobacco juice over their left shoulder without moving the face from its frontward stare. Most of them had billygoat whiskers, and cadaverous faces whereon was written “recklessness”; they mostly lived on beer which was handed to them in vast glasses which they called “deep seas,” “schooners” and “shea-oak.” Those who are on the rocks never bother about food, but live on free luncheons which you can help yourself to if you buy a drink; the food is sometimes “hot sausages, roast beef, cheese and biscuits.”

I found the ’Frisco restaurants Oriental palaces compared with the Australian dining-rooms. The Chinese were there by thousands, smoking their opium and sleeping in awful hovels, such as damp underground cellars, like rats in a hole, and often as you walked by Jackson Street you knew they were under the pavement because the hot, fevered stench came up through the paving stone cracks that let in air to their subterranean dens. As in Sydney they live by gambling and pray for luck in their “Joss-houses,” and you would always know that the “Fan-tan” was on by the yellow nose and alert small eyes of the old spy peeping at the door, keeping “tiggy” in case of a police raid.

At this time I got in with an elderly fellow named Guest. He was a real “knock-out” for yarning and told me many thrilling tales of adventure as we sat or walked out together. He had lived a good deal in Australia. He and I went out through the Golden Gate together, and visited Farallon Islands. He was hard up and I paid the expenses; he was a good chap and thankful too, and would have done the same for me I knew if I had run short. He seemed to know a lot about Australian gaol life and I think he had lodged in one of them against his wish, and so I have not told you his right name. He would tell me many of his experiences and I think that he had escaped from penal servitude at one time or other, for he always, when dwelling on his bush life, let out in some way or other that he nearly stumbled across a township during his wanderings, which was strange considering he should, from my own experience, have been very pleased to do so.

One night we sat together in my little room in Kearney Street. I was strumming on the fiddle and he sat by the window smoking and started one of his yarns. He had a mysterious face, and a quiet earnest voice, and whenever he was serious I would listen carefully to him, and that night he seemed more serious than usual.

“Put your fiddle down, Middleton,” he said, “and I’ll tell you about my hut experience.”

I was so impressed by that tale of his that I think I will tell it you here, as nearly as possible the way he told it to me, as I sat there by the window. Slowly he began: “I was fairly bushed once in North Queensland; it was the time of the great drought. I hadn’t even a swag and it was that sweltering hot that I lay stark naked in a swamp by a gully for half the day. I felt pretty sick too, for I had drunk nearly a quart of the frog-spawned water which was nearly black with ooze and dead reptiles, and I got the fever in my blood that bad that I kept seeing faces swim over me in the steam that rose from the two-inch-deep scum as I lay flat on my back. Phew! it makes me sweat now as I think of it.

“Well, that night as soon as the sun sank like a clot of blood below the skyline, I rose up, full of aches and pains and nearly dead, wiped myself down, put on my pants and shirt, which I had used for a towel, and started staggering off determined to make a last attempt to get to some township or shanty. I think I must have lost my head a bit then, for I got shouting and tearing at my throat as I stumbled along. The moon was up, and for miles over the flat country I could see the gum clumps standing perfectly still, for there was not a breath of wind. Presently I heard a dingo wailing and then silence again as a wind sprang up and over my head the gums’ leaves stirred a bit and the cool air washed my parched body over as though dead fingers were caressing me. Then I could hardly believe my eyes, for across the grey slopes far away I saw a small light. By God, didn’t that light buck me up as I scrambled along and crawling up a small slope on all-fours, for I was then too weak to walk up anything, I found myself standing before a small hut. Outside was a large rain-water tub. I gave the hut door a crash with my foot and then head first went for that tub. ‘Who’s there?’ someone said as I heard the bolt drawn. It was a woman’s voice. ‘It’s only me,’ I answered as she stood at the door gazing astonished as I wiped my mouth. I looked a terrible guy standing there bare-headed and steaming, for I had ducked my head in that water butt; my boots were open at the ends like an alligator’s jaws and I only had my pants on, so you can imagine I did not look the kind of visitor that a woman longed to see at a lonely bush hut at midnight. Anyway she soon saw that I was genuine enough, and in no time I was sitting inside feeling wonderfully refreshed as I drank a large pannikin of hot tea and washed down some food. She was a wistful-looking wench, and I wondered a bit where the boss was, as she sat there white-faced and the open door let the midnight wind in and the moonbeams and shadowed leaves crept over the walls and on to her face and knees from the trees outside. I told her my tale, and then she told hers. Her husband lay in the next room dead, and the young fellow who worked for him had gone off nearly fifty miles to get a coffin for the body. I felt that I was dreaming as I sat there and the night wind blew at intervals and sighed across the forest gums.

“‘When will he be back?’ I asked her.

“‘Not till to-morrow,’ she said, and as the hour was getting late and I started to yawn and nearly fell asleep as I sat on the wooden bench, she asked me if I would mind sleeping in the next room where that thing was! At first I hesitated a bit, but not liking to look a coward I pulled myself together and said, ‘Well, I don’t mind,’ for I saw that I should have to sleep outside if I didn’t, as there was only one room besides the small kitchen where we were, and just by where she sat twitching her fingers on her knees was her own bed made up. She gave me a small bit of candle and pointed to the long couch as I entered that hushed room and quietly closed the door behind me. It was a large room and as I looked around I caught sight of a long trestle up against the farther wall right opposite the small window across which hung wild vines. I began to feel pretty bad; my past experience had a bit unnerved me. Placing the candle on a little stool beside me, I settled myself on the couch, inwardly cursing my luck at being given only one inch of tallow candle. By faith, I could not keep my eyes off that thing. I heard my own breath as I lay there all of a sweat, and then the candle spluttered and went out, and as the wind blew outside, and the shadow of the boughs through the window moved to and fro on the walls just above the shrouded six-foot figure, my eyes stared and stared and it seemed as though the protruding feet moved as the moonlight crept in patches over the trestle. And then a terrible thing happened.

“I swear by all that’s holy I tell the truth—the top of the white shroud moved back and revealed a long grey-bearded face! My feet also slowly moved off that couch to make a bolt from the room, and likewise those dead feet moved slowly towards the floor to stay my flight! I was paralysed with terror. I tried to shout, but something gripped my throat. Up rose that dead man’s finger as with bright eyes gleaming he said, ‘Hush, I’m not dead!’ Outside, as he said that, I heard a whisper and the crackling of twigs and a shadow whipped across the wall as someone passed by the window. In a moment I recovered. ‘Not dead?’ thought I. ‘I’ll show you to play this trick on me,’ and I leapt to my feet, but the old bounder was too quick for me. Crash over my head went something, and before I could get out of the door he had vanished, shutting it with a bang behind him. I heard a scream. Taking a woodman’s axe from the wall I crashed away at that door to get to the woman who had befriended me. Down it came as I smashed away.

“Rushing into the room I looked round. I was too late. I stumbled over something huddled on the floor, and saw that the worst had happened. I turned round and looked through the hut door over the moonlit slopes; with the jaw-rag flapping behind him ran that monstrous man who had feigned death; in front flew a little man. I heard a scream as he uplifted his gun and shot him and then turning it on himself blew the top of his own head off. It all seemed to happen in an instant, and there was I left alone by that hut. By the door stood a coffin and that told me that the second victim was the man who had gone off to do the undertaking job. I at once started off from that cursed place, for I knew that were I found there the whole tragedy would be fastened on to me,” and saying this he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and wished me good-night and went off.”