Chapter IV (2)

"Why, whatever's in the ships we capture. Don't we get everythin' we c'n find in 'em?"

"Oh, sir, of a surely, abso-lutely. It is the article of war. But"--he holds up a finger warnin'like--"as commander of the expedition I shall reserve to myself one article of any kind which shall be captured. One chest, one table, even"--he looked at me to see if I got this part--"even one prisoner, if I shall so desire."

"Well, that's all right, too," I said; "for I s'pose you're payin' for the outfittin' o' this expedition?" And he says he was. "Then it's a go," I says; "for I don't see but I might 's well be privateerin' an' pickin' up a little loose loot as lyin' around on the beach wonderin' where my eats are comin' from f'r the next few weeks."

So he brings me around and shows me a little brigantine, he'd chartered, and with three dusky lads for a crew and some grub and two big chests on her quarter-deck we sail out. And the first thing I says when we were clear o' the harbor was: "What's them chests for?" And he opens up one of 'em and says: "Behold, señor, your uniform!"

And I looks and there's five gold stripes on the sleeve of the coat to begin with. And draws it all out, pants and all, and I see it's an admiral's special full-dress uniform!

"For me?" I says.

"Certain-ly," he says. "You, señor, shall be an admiral. Why not?"

"Well," I says, "I don' know why not either, only it's some rank to start with. But what'll you be?" And at that he opens up the other chest and hauls out another uniform and holds it up f'r me to look at, and, pointin' to the insignia, he asks: "What rank shall such be?"

It was a general's uniform, and I tells him so.

"So?" he says. Then bowing to me: "Then I, señor, if you do not object, shall be a gen'ral."

"Sure--why not, señor?" I says. "And there's cert'nly some class to the quarter-deck o' this brigantine. Let's get into 'em." And we got into 'em, an' gorgeous, oh, gorgeous, they were. An' rememberin' the market price o' hams when I was buyin' hams, I figured they must 'a' cost ten or fifteen million dollars apiece. And I hadn't been an hour in mine--solid gold almost, and a gold-mounted shappo and a gold belt and a dazzlin' sword--before I begins to appreciate what it was to be an admiral and to respect every admiral ever I'd sailed under--except maybe two or three--for bein' good enough to look at me at all while they were standing round deck in their uniforms. An' f'r the next hour I kept that crew hoppin' from one end of the brigantine to the other, just to see 'em hop when I gives an order with my admiral's uniform on.

But after I got so I could take off my shappo and draw my sword and look down at myself without swellin' up, I says to the gen'ral, "What d'y'say, señor gen'ral, to a little action?" and points to a lad quarterin' down the wind toward us with a Red flag up. "It's plain," I says, "he don't know the Blues is in. What d'y'say if we shake him up same as a real privateer--send a hot shot across his forefoot and make him haul his wind?"

"No, no," and the gen'ral shakes his head.

And soon there came another fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, señor admiral," and raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions.

And four or five more passed, all flyin' the Red flag. But no word from the gen'ral until toward the middle of the afternoon--and a hot afternoon it was. The gen'ral, with the glasses to his eyes, bounces into the air. "Ah-h!" and again, "Ah-h!" and points to her. "Now the fair prize-a, the rich prize-a!" he says, and draws deep breaths, and cinches up on his belt, and runs his fingers between his red and green and yellow gold-mounted collar and his neck, and runs below and takes a last look at himself in the mirror, and comes runnin' up on deck and calls out: "Señor admiral, you shall prepare the ship for combat!"

"Ay, ay, gen'ral!" I says and takes out my bosun's whistle, which I'd never turned in of a night without hangin' it 'round my neck, and which I now lifts from the breast of my gold-mounted coat, and pipes all hands to battle quarters. But the crew, except the one to the wheel, was under the rail, asleep, and so I had to enforce my pipin' with the flat of my sword. It'd been quicker to kick 'em, but, it bein' a hot day, I'd left off my shoes. And when they come awake I orders 'em to fly the battle-flag, which the gen'ral brings up from the bottom of his uniform chest, a fine large bright-blue thing, with stars and horned moons on it.

And then I makes ready a little old muzzle-loadin' gun, which was lashed in the waist, but pointin' over the port side, which happened to be the wrong side when we wanted to fire a shot across the enemy's bow. So we had to tack ship, which took about ten minutes, my crew not bein' A. B.'s. But when we did fire, the noise and the splash of water the ball threw up was war enough for the enemy. She was about a 100-ton tradin' schooner, and she came into the wind.

"Haul down your flag!" hollers the gen'ral in the Tangarine language, and one of their crew was goin' to haul it down, only for a stout little chap who came runnin' up out of her cabin and put his glasses on the gen'ral, and then rushes over and grabs the signal halyards from the man who was goin' to lower 'em, and hits him a clip in the neck at the same time--a scrappy chap he looked.

"He is there--it is heemself," says the gen'ral, excitedly. But to me, very courteous, he said: "Señor admiral, shall you manoeuvre the ship to approach the enemy, if you please?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" I says cheerily, and puts the brigantine alongside, and the pair of us, in our gorgeous uniforms, we leaps aboard.

"Surrender!" orders the gen'ral in a commandin' voice, but the scrappy little man he wouldn't. He yelled somethin' at his crew, and they got behind him. And there were four of them against me an' the gen'ral, for our brigantine started to drift away soon as we left her, and our spiggity crew couldn't get her alongside again.

There we were, us two heroes, marooned on the enemy's deck, in the most magnificent uniforms, but not another blessed thing to fight with except a couple o' gold-plated swords. But the little captain and his crew had only what loose things they could grab in a hurry--oars, deck-swabs, marlin-spikes, and one thing or another; but with them, without wastin' any flourishes, they came at me an' the gen'ral, and we draws our swords.

"What d' y' say, will we have at 'em, gen'ral?" I says.

"As you say, señor admiral, have at 'em!" answers the gen'ral, and we haves at 'em.

But I soon begin to see we wasn't havin' at 'em in any great shape. Our swords had two backs but no edge. It was like hittin' 'em with barrel-staves. Fine grand echoes, but the echoes wasn't knockin' 'em down. And the gold-mounted uniforms were in the way, too--in my way, anyway. My gold-mounted collar was gettin' so tight after I'd warmed up to the work that I 'most choked.

"Have at 'em!" the gen'ral cried again, "but have great care for the old gentleman."

I was just goin' to welt the little captain a good one when I heard that. "Not hurt him!" I says. "A hell of a battle this where we have to play fav'rites among th' enemy. And why won't I hurt him, señor gen'ral, an' him the best scrapper o'the lot?"

"You must not. No, no! He is the father of the lady."

"So that's it? And where's the fair lady?" I asks.

"I know not. I trust she is on this ship, but I know not. But have at 'em, as you say, señor admiral, once more, and possibly we shall discover."

"All right, but let's have at 'em right," I says, and down on the deck I throws my grand sword, and with it the very fine scabbard which I'd been holdin' with one hand to keep from givin' myself the leg. And I sheds the gold-embroidered coat on top of it. I kept wearin' the gold-mounted shappo because the sun was hot, but the rest of me was stripped to the waist. And I felt better, and then I says: "Come on, gen'ral, unhook that golden armor and be free an' easy in y'ur motions like me."

"No, no, señor admiral. I shall wear my uniform, even though it is to die in it," he answers back.

"All right, señor gen'ral," I says, "have your own way. It's the privilege of your rank, but for me a little looser motions and a heavier armament," and I picks up what looks like a baseball bat, but a little longer and a little thicker and a good deal heavier than any baseball bat. A capstan-bar it was. And if y'ever handled one you know what a great little persuader a capstan-bar is. I could tell you a hundred stories o' capstan-bars. Many a good fight used to be settled in th' old sailin'-ship days with a capstan-bar.

And with my capstan-bar I haves at 'em right. Soon I had two of the enemy backed up to the forehatch, and before their worryin' eyes I flourishes my capstan-bar. "Now then," I says, "it's go below for you two or a pair of cracked skulls--which?" And they went below, the pair of them together like divin' seals, into what I see, when I takes a peek, was mostly a cargo of pineapples and cocoanuts in bulk. I could hear 'em bouncin' around among 'em after they struck.

And now, being well warmed up to my work and my head bustin' with strategy, I takes the little captain in the rear and was about to lay him low, when the gen'ral hollers: "Señor admiral, you for-get--spare him!" So I spares him, but I whales the other last one a couple in a soft spot and chases him, till he took a high dive too into the forehold; and I could also hear him rattlin' and bouncin' around after he struck the cocoanuts or the pineapples, whichever it was. Then I goes for the little captain again, only now I picks him up and holds him while the gen'ral ties his arms, and then, first clampin' down the forehatches on the captured crew, we lowers him into the cabin whilst we take a look around.

It was me for loot, the gen'ral for the fair lady. But not a thing could I find, and him no fair lady. In the hold, topside, between decks, everywhere; but nothin' besides cocoanuts and other fruit and some hogsheads o' rum. The rum was an encouragin' item, but not what you'd call loot. So we came back to the cabin and untied the captain, who begins at once to go rollin' cigarettes and shootin' green eyes at the pair of us. The gen'ral takes a seat opposite him and argues beseechin'ly, but not one soft look from the little man.

The gen'ral, discouraged, turns to me. "Señor admiral, what do you say for him? Is it not a hard heart? I love his daughter, but he----"

"She no lofe you!" snaps the little man.

"Ah-h, but how can you say that truly?" says the gen'ral, and turns to me and says: "Is it not just, señor admiral, that I should have one opportuni-ty to see her?"

By this time I'd filled a little jug with some rum, and there was lemons and brown sugar and a little ice, and I thought 'twas kind o' rough on him, and so I says: "Yes, I think y'oughter, 'specially while you got that uniform on. But where is she?"

"Ah-h, that is it, where is she? On this ship I have thought, but evident-ly not so."

"Maybe she's here at that, hidden somewhere," I says, "and if she is, believe me, gen'ral, I'll find her," and leavin' a lemon swizzle to cool I begins to search the schooner again. And this time I takes a good look into the little captain's stateroom. I didn't find the fair lady, but packed cutely away under the old fellow's bunk was about a cord o' money! Nothing less than a thousand-dollar bill, but five and ten-thousand dollar bills mostly, and all new. Lord knows how much there was there, but I hauled a bushel or so of it out on the cabin floor by way of a sample. And the little man never stirred when he saw it; and as for the gen'ral, "Bah!" he said--"Red moneys!"

I was thinkin' I'd done a fine stroke, and that made me feel kind o' put out. "I'll find that girl if she's on the ship," I says then, and I steps over to a corner of the cabin where there'd been a fresh boarding-up of the bulkhead.

I gazes steady at it. And I could almost feel the little man's eyes borin' into my back! And I whirls around quick; there he was--paying no attention to the gen'ral, but starin' at me. And to myself I says: "If losin' all that money in his room don't jar him, it must be somethin' good behind that bulkhead for him to worry over." And with that in my mind I looks again at the old fellow, and now I know what it is, and the old man knew I knew, and into his eyes came such a look that I stopped dead. You mustn't forget that I was a big, loose, rangy 180-pounder, and standin' there--I can see it now; I didn't then--but me standin' there, with the heat of warm exercise and three West Indian rum swizzles oozing out of me on that tropic afternoon, I c'n see now I wasn't any winged angel to look at.

But I had no notion of that then, only that I was beginnin' to like the little captain; and with that new feelin' I spoke to the gen'ral. "Here," I says, "let's step on deck for a minute." And we went up, leaving the old fellow below with his hands tied while we were gone. And up on deck I says, quick and sharp: "Look here, mate, what's this about you and the old chap's daughter? Is it all straight?"

"Straight?" repeats the gen'ral, puzzled like. "Straight? Ah-h--listen, my friend," and he pours out on me what I wasn't huntin' for--his autobie-ography. It was her father who had kept them apart so. Her father, he did not love his--the gen'ral's--father. An old family quarrel, yes. Oh, for a long time back. Politics. He was of the Reds, her father, and his own father of the Blues. Her uncle he had been vice-president of the Red republic. It was true. But why should he and the beautiful daughter suffer for a quarrel which was so old, and the girl and himself all that were left of both families? Why? And I scratched my head and said I couldn't see why either.

And love her! Before he got through I could hear whole poems in the little wavelets lappin' under our run, and in the evenin' breeze which was kissin' my cheek. And the smell of oranges and pineapples and molasses and good West India rum coming up from the main hold--'twas the breath of roses--only I stopped to hope the captured crew in the forehold wasn't drinkin' up all the rum in their end of the ship--and to this side and that the lights of passin' ships were showin' and the voices of men and women floatin' over the water, darky voices mostly, and some were chorusin', chorusin' a shanty air which I'd last heard from a crowd of Georgia darkies loadin' a lumber schooner, a four-masted lumber schooner, through a great square hole in her bow from a railroad dock on the Savannah River--one time, that was, my ship put into Savannah and I got to know a girl lived in the Yamacraw there, and on Sunday afternoons we used to walk up and sit on the lumber piles on that same railroad wharf and watch the yellow river flowing by and dream o' things that never did happen an' never could--not for her and me. And now, aboard the little Caribbean trader, the moon was beginnin' to poke over our starboard rail and the first little white stars were peekin' out over the foretopsail, and the gen'ral was still talking. And when he'd done he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "Straight, my brave American friend? As straight as a tall palm-tree. And all this"--he pulls on the end of a couple of cords on his gold-mounted coat--"I thought it would look well in her eyes." And he stops.

"But you are of the North," he says after a little while; "you think that foolish, possibly?"

"We do," I says. "We unanimously do," and as I said it I got to thinkin' of how when I was a boy I used to walk on my hands, and stand on my head, and throw flip-flaps, or stop to knock the head off some passin' kid--if I was able--anythin' so a red-ginghamed, pop-eyed little girl sittin' on the door-step across the street would take notice. "We do those things when we are boys," says I aloud.

"Ah-h! So you think--" says the gen'ral. "Ver-ry good," and starts to throw off his uniform.

"No, no," I says. "Keep that on. It becomes you. And, besides, I don't know's I'm so sure we ought all to grow up. And come below--come!" I thought I heard the old fellow's voice below and I jumped down, and there he was, the little captain, hurryin' away from the bulkhead.

And now I examines the bulkhead carefully, and I goes up on deck and resumes my full admiral's coat and buckles on the fine gold-mounted belt and sword and sets my shappo just a little to one side. I was wishin' I had my shoes, but they were on the brigantine and she was a quarter-mile away and still driftin'. And back in the cabin again, I picks up the hammer and draws from the bulkhead plankin' half a dozen nails, and in two minutes it's done, and out under the lights o' the cabin lamp steps--O, the prettiest, slimmest little dark-eyed girl, just a match for the gen'ral. But the first thing she sees is me, Killorin. "Ah-h--" she says, in a long sigh with her mouth a little open, and I tosses the hammer and nails into a corner and straightens up and takes a full breath; and let me tell you, son, in those days the worst-lookin' flatfoot ever climbed over a gunboat's side wasn't me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second-class--or was I first-class then? No matter; I was in a full-dress admiral's uniform then, and from me cocked hat to me bare toes I was some class. I knew I was--even without my shoes. And when again she looks at me and when again she sighs, "Ah-h--" with her little red lips apart, I says to myself: "Killorin, son, you're makin' one big hit." And just then her eyes looked past me and again she said, "Ah-h--" and down among my lower ribs somewhere dropped my quick-firm' heart, and "Killorin," I whispers to myself, "she loves you--not." For that last ah-h--and sigh-h for the gen'ral was seven times deeper and longer than the one she hove up at sight of me.

And while they were gazin' rapturous at each other the little captain's eyes met mine. And with a memory o' the last time I'd been up before a summary court-martial, I takes charge of the case. And "Sir," I says, "it appears to me like I'd have to be judge here. You, sir, are a prisoner o' war. And, to be more explicit, all aboard here are prisoners o' war. But no gentleman, and I say gentleman advisedly, is goin' to include a woman in the loot without her own consent, even if her father did hide her away and deny the same, which is against all articles o' war, besides bein' most disrespectful of service regulations. But in consideration of your previous good conduct we will not mention that now."

I turns to the gen'ral. "You, señor gen'ral, do you believe me an honest man?" And without even lookin' at me he says, "Pff--a foolish queschee-own, señor admiral. I have known you are honest from the mo-ment I have seen you spendin' your money foolishly at the hotel. And brave--as all American sailormen are brave."

"Tis well," I says. "And you"--I turned to the little captain--"you, I fear me, sir, will have to take my honesty for granted. Now I'll be the judge. Do you"--I faces the gen'ral again--"agree? 'Cause if you don't you an' me'll have to hop up on deck and fight it out."

The gen'ral was still lookin' up at the little captain's daughter. "Silence gives consent," I says. "And now," I says, "it's the young lady will say the word. Attend me, señorita. This young man here, but two moments agone, up on deck declared to me, while below the blue Caribbean the sun like a fine ripe orange was sinkin', and likewise the Southern Cross was shinin', lopsided, like a blessin' in the southwest over toward where the hills o' South America would 'a' been if we could 'a' seen 'em--to me, on this occasion, this young man declared he loved you. This young man--attend me, and not him, fair lady, please--and a gallant young man he is--I never knew a gallanter on such short notice--this young man on the occasion aforementioned declared to me that he loves you and wants you to wife. What have you to say to this charge? Do you love him or do you not? Take your time in answerin'."

And I stood to one side. She was still lookin' at the gen'ral and him at her. Just once she looked at her father and once at me--and I winked by way of encouragement--and she looked at her gen'ral again, and looked and looked, till all at once the gen'ral just nachally stepped across the cabin floor and took her in his arms.

"Look here, boy," I says, stern-like, "ain't that kind o' rushin' things? Have you a steady job--outside o' privateerin'?"

"I do not work. I have money," he says over her shoulder.

"Real money? Or this kind?" and I points to the bales of new bills in the little captain's room.

"I have gold in the bank and much sugar plantations."

"Then, orer pro nobis, she is yours," I says, and waves my arms beneficent-like over the pair of them. "And you and me," I says to the old man, "as I don't see how we c'n help it, what d'ye say if we two call the war off and have a few lemon swizzles with ice in 'em?"

And I draws a jug o' Santiago rum, and there was lemons an' sugar and a little ice, and we foregathers like a couple of old shipmates after a foreign cruise. And when, in the mornin', from out of the smooth Caribbean Sea the rosy sun came swimmin' we was right there, joyous as a liberty party on pay-day, to greet it. And the gen'ral and the señorita also saluted the goddess o' the mornin', and after breakfast we all went ashore, and that night I danced a taranteller at the weddin'. And, believe me, there's class to a good taranteller dancer.

And likewise that night, with the silver moon risin' like a goddess o' wisdom above the smooth Caribbean, and me and the little captain mixin' lemon swizzles on the veranda of the gen'ral's plantation _hacienda_, the little captain says to me: "I love you as one son. You shall be captain of my ship." And as a sort of weddin' legacy he bequeathes to me all the money was in the schooner when the gen'ral and me captured her.

And next mornin' I took up my quarters on the schooner, with the crews of the schooner and the brigantine for body-servants. And I had one good time. There was a basket there--a basket about the size of a good-sized wash-basket--and every mornin' I'd shovel a lot of money into that. Oh, I don' know how much, maybe two or three or four or five or six hundred thousand dollars, and I'd say to the cook, or maybe one of the deck force: "Here you, Fernando, go on up now an' hurry back." And they weren't bad traders at all. In a couple of hours they'd come hustling back with the full o' the basket o' chickens, eggs, butter, cheese, bologny, and fruit--everything a man 'd want for breakfast--in place o' the money. Fifty thousand dollars a day apiece I paid the crew, and good and plenty for them--a lot o' lazy loafers. It used to take three of 'em to buckle me into my uniform of a hot morning.

I never knew how much money was in that pile, but three or four, or maybe five or six hundred million dollars. And maybe I didn't live on the fat o' the land with it, for eight weeks! It would 'a' lasted longer only it was the divil tryin' to be thrifty with my admiral's uniform on, and then one mornin' the _Hiawatha_ came to port, and with what I had left--forty or fifty million, or whatever it was--I gave a farewell party that night at the hotel where the banana grove was in the yard. I wore my admiral's uniform for the last time that night, and maybe that made 'em charge me a little more, but no matter that. In the mornin' I didn't have hardly enough to tip the waiters, three or four hundred thousand dollars, maybe, but--whatever it was, I tips 'em with it, and goes down to the beach to where the little, old, homely _Hiawatha_ was laying to anchor, and 'twas eight o'clock and the bugler was sounding colors and it made me feel homesick, and I waves my hand back to the town, and "Fare thee well, O Tangarine-a," I says, "Tangarine-a, fare thee well." Secretary o' the navy I could 'a' been, I know, but back aboard the old _Hiawatha_ I goes. And damn glad, you betcher, I was to be there.

But an admiral of the Blue I was once, with a hogshead of nothin' less than thousand-dollar bills; and I helped to make two young people happy. And no one c'n take that from me. And so I say when people say there's no good in revolutions you refer 'em to me, Killorin, bosun's mate, U.S.N.-I'll tell 'em.

THE BATTLE-CRUISE OF THE "SVEND FOYN"

At this time I had drifted down South America way, and was master of a combination whaling and sealing steamer sailing out of Punta 'renas for the firm of Amundsen & Co.

Punta Arenas, if you don't happen to know, is at the tip end of Patagonia, in the Magellan Straits. It is now a highly respectable place under the Chilean flag, but there was a time it wasn't. All kinds of human wreckage used to drift onto the west coast of South America in those days, and when the Chilean Government couldn't take care of them any other way they would ship them down through the straits to Punta 'renas. At the time I was there most of the bad ones had been run out, but every now and then a few of the old crew would pop up and worry people into thinking Punta 'renas must still be a hard place, which it wasn't.

Mr. Amundsen lived in a big house up on the plaza where the bandstand was, with a fine open-air veranda in front and a glassed-in conservatory on the side, and aft of the house a garden with a waterfall modelled after something he had left behind him in Norway. He designed the waterfall himself, and over the grandpiano in the front room looking out on the plaza was an oil-painting of it--a whale of a painting, done by a stranded Scandinavian who told Mr. Amundsen he'd seen that identical waterfall in Norway many a time, which perhaps he had.

We didn't like Mr. Amundsen any the less because of his collection of old sagas which he used to spin out for hours on end. Whoppers, some of them were, but we, his whaling and sealing captains, we'd sit there and never let on, eating thin Norwegian bread and goats' cheese and dried chips of ptarmigan, with Trondhjem beer, and none of us but would have sat longer any time, so that after he got through there was a chance to hear his daughter Hilda play the grandpiano--and sing, maybe, while she played. And I tell you, the thought of that fine old Norwegian and Hilda after months of banging around to the west'ard of Cape Horn in a little whaling steamer--it was surely like coming home to be home-bound then.

Norwegian songs were they, and I, American-born, and only half Scandinavian by blood, was probably the one man coming to Amundsen's who didn't know every word of them by heart. But not much of the sentiment of them I missed at that, because in other days I'd cruised off Norway, too, and knew the places the songs told about--the high-running fjords and the little white lighthouses; the fish drying on the rocks and the night sun floating just above the edge of the gray sea; and, again, the long black night of winter and the dead piled up to wait till they could be buried when the snow went in the spring.

But shore time in Punta 'renas was holiday time. Wet days, hard days at sea have their time, too; and Mr. Amundsen and Hilda and Punta 'renas were a long way behind me. I was whaling and sealing in the South Pacific, and had been doing pretty well, but nothing record-breaking till one day I picked up a lot of ambergris.

Now I could have stocked a million dollars in a regular way and nobody pay any great attention; but the tale of that find went through half the South Pacific. A dozen whaling and sealing masters boarded me in one month to see if it was so, and after I'd told them the story of it about forty-five times, I began to see myself telling it to old Amundsen and Hilda in the big front room looking out on the plaza, her father and I having a late supper of flat bread and the goats' cheese and the dried ptarmigan chips, with Trondhjem beer, and Hilda playing softly on the piano with an eye and an ear maybe sidewise now and again to me.

And now we were truly homeward bound in old Magellan Straits, with the hills back of Punta 'renas in sight from our masthead, when we spied a Norwegian bark with a deckload of lumber ashore on the spit of Pouvenir Bay, which is on the southerly--the Terra del Fuego--shore of the straits. Her ensign was upside down in her rigging, and I headed in to see if we could help her out. I thought it was queer no one showed up aboard her to answer when I hailed, but no matter--I moored my steamer just inside the spit and put off with half a dozen men in a boat and went aboard.

Nobody on her deck, nobody in her below for-'ard. I went aft and dropped into her cabin, my men behind me, and we were peeking here and there to see what it was could be wrong, when slap! on goes the cabin hatch over our heads. Then we hear the padlock slipped on and the lock sprung. We are prisoners, without even a peek at who it was did it.

We heard them going off. Without waiting any longer, I began slashing away with my pocket-knife, the only knife among us, and by and by I had cut our way through the cabin door; but that took a lot of time. From the bark's deck, when we were clear, there was nothing in sight except our own steamer to anchor in the bay beyond the spit. The boat we had come in was gone.

Well, we weren't worrying about the boat, only we had to take the time to lash together twenty or thirty pine planks and some scantling from the bark's deckload of lumber and raft ourselves around the spit and into the little bay to get to our steamer. Everything about her looked all right, except that none of the crew were in sight when we paddled alongside. I hurried over the rail to see what was the matter. It didn't take long to see. The hatches were off her hold and our sealskins and our ambergris gone from below. A fortune it was, gone--s-st!--like that.

Looking further, we found the rest of the crew nicely locked up in the fo'c's'le. They didn't know what happened, except that some men had come rowing in from the direction of the lumber bark in our boat, and one of them had sung out in English and another in Norwegian that they were the crew of the bark, with a message from me.

My crew, of course, said: "Come aboard." But no sooner aboard than the strangers out with revolvers, back my men into the fo'c's'le, and lock them in. That was all they knew about that, except they heard the noise of the hurrying of our cargo out of the hold, and then the sound of a steamer making fast alongside and of shifting our cargo to her deck and of her moving away. And then all quiet till we came back.

Well, whoever did it must have had us timed pretty well. They must have had a gang hid in the lumber bark and a steamer hid somewhere in the straits near by waiting for us. It looked as if there was nothing for us to do but take our loss and keep on for Punta 'renas, but first I went to the masthead and had a look out.

Opposite Pouvenir Bay the Straits of Magellan are at their widest. From the crow's-nest there was a good stretch of sea to look at. To the west'ard was a touch of smoke, which might be the steamer which looted us; surely she didn't go to the east'ard, for there it was open water with nothing in sight. To the northward, toward Patagonia, of course, she would not go, because Punta 'renas was there. But I had a look that way, and as I looked I could see what looked like an open boat heading our way; and I wondered who she would be and what she would be after in a place like Terra del Fuego.

They came skipping on at a great clip for an open boat. They were running her to a long main-sheet, but keeping a tight hand on the sheet.

As they drew nearer I see she was white-painted, and pretty soon I see she was too big to be anything but a navy sailing cutter, and soon again I made out that they were a crew of American naval officers and bluejackets.

They went out of their way some to sweep under the stern of the bark, and I noticed they all took a look up at her and back at her, wondering, as I thought, how she came to go ashore. They held on for the inside of the bay and ran straight up onto a little reach of pebbly beach; and no sooner grounded than most of them went tearing across the spit with rifles and shotguns. I see what they were now--it was a hunting party.

Without wasting a second they began to blaze away at the wild ducks as they came swooping down from the west. In that country the wild game don't know what a man looks like, and as it was late in the afternoon, with the ducks coming back for the night from the west'ard, the shooting was good. Swooping along the shore they came, across the mouth of the bay, flock after flock so close-set and low-lying that they didn't need guns. They could have sat on the beach and hove up stones or drift-wood and killed 'em as they went kiting by, sixty miles or more an hour to the east'ard.

After twenty minutes or so they must have thought that kind of shooting was too easy, for part of them went off into the brush and the others came back to the spit of beach and, with some kindlings from their boat and some drift-wood and brush, started a fire. It was a north wind, and I could smell the ducks cooking and the coffee making, and I couldn't hold off any longer. I rowed myself over in our second boat. The senior line officer of the party, a lieutenant, invited me to join them, which I did, and pretty soon I was eating broiled duck and drinking real American coffee, with bacon and eggs, and forgetting my troubles.

After supper we sat around and talked, and they told me what had happened to the lumber bark. She had been lured inshore by false lights the night before and boarded by a gang under Red Dick, who had cleaned her out of stores and what money they had, and had driven the crew off in the morning after beating up most of them by way of diverting himself. Then the bark's captain and his crew rowed across the Straits of Punta Arenas in their quarter-boat, looking for satisfaction. Nobody there could do anything for them, because nothing less than a war-ship could have overcome Red Dick, and there was no Chilean war-ship nearer than Valparaiso, and that was six days' steaming away.

"But how did that lumber captain know it was Red Dick?" I asked at this point.

"He didn't know," answered the officer who'd been talking. "But when he described him everybody in Punta Arenas said it was Red Dick. But aren't you an American?"

I said I was and told them my experience, and they all said what a pity my ship wasn't under the American flag so they could put it up to their captain and be sure he would send a party after Red Dick. And they would all like nothing better than to join that party, and an easy matter all 'round, as their ship was to be hanging around the straits for another week.

By this time the others of the party, who'd gone into the brush for wild geese, were coming back. They didn't get any geese, because geese, wild geese, anyway, aren't near so foolish as a lot of people think. They were hungry and sat right down to supper.

Among them, as I looked, was one I knew for Peter Lawson, an old shipmate. A warrant officer I saw he was now, but when I knew him he was a chief carpenter's mate on the old _Missalama_. We kept eying each other, and by and by he remembered, and we stood up and shook hands across the fire. In half a minute we were talking of old days in the navy.

By this time it was late day, with the sun going down below the hills on the other side of Pouvenir Bay. I remember it went down red as the heart of the fire we were sitting by. Through the little thin whiffs of the smoke of the fire it looked like that--all hot color and no flame. Nothing to that, of course, only pictures like that do start your brain to going. The little bay was there at our feet and the wide straits off to our elbow, and the water of that bay was smooth green where it shoaled on the pebbly spit; but the straits, as far as we could see them, were one long roll of tossing ridges and scooping hollows, and they were all black except where the williwaws, cutting across the tide, would whip the ridges to a marble white.

I saw the sun set red through the thin blue smoke of the fire, and almost in line with the sun and the smoke was the stranded bark with her deckload of lumber. A little farther off was my own little _Svend Foyn_. It was coming on dark by then and I could see them making ready the anchor light on the _Svend Foyn_. And it was coming colder, too, for the broad, warm north wind had changed to a thin little icy wind from the south.

And now the fiery-red reflection of the sun was gone from above the hills across the bay, and when that went all warmth went with it. Everybody drew nearer to the fire except the two apprentice boys, who were cleaning up the mess gear in water made hot at a little fire of their own. One of them was singing to himself little jiggly, ragtime songs while he wiped the dishes:

"Oh-h, ahm gwine down to Macon town
Ter buy mah 'Liza Jane a gown--
Ah feel so happy 'n' ah don' know why,
Mah bai-bie, mah hon-ie!"

Every time he stacked up a few plates he would stop to roll a few more cake-walk steps.

"I wish I was feeling as good as you!" I said to myself while I watched him.

And, watching him, I got to thinking of Hilda in the big front room in what was home for me--and of having to tell her what a failure my cruise had been. It did set me to thinking.

All at once it came to me, and "I've got it!" I said, not knowing I said it out loud until I saw that everybody around the fire was looking at me; and at last Peter said, "What's it you got?"

And I told them what I had in mind, and they all thought it was a great scheme--if I could carry it out. And the lieutenant in charge of the party said: "And we'll help you; but not to-night--the first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep."

We had a good sleep that night, sleeping till sunrise on the pebbly beach with the mainsail of the sailing cutter for a tent over us. And in the morning the first thing after breakfast I pulled the lumber bark off the beach and moored her in the bay. That was so she wouldn't break up and go to pieces the first gale of wind came along; and, as after that service I figured her owners wouldn't call it stealing, I helped myself to a few thousand feet of lumber off her deck, and we all set to work to make the _Svend Foyn_ over into what her builder back in Norway certainly never intended her for.

First, we built up her topsides to make a superstructure, and then added the other things a first-class battle-ship ought to have. The _Svend Foyn_ had two masts and one smoke-stack. The two masts were all right. We had only to set fighting-tops around them, but she would be a poor class of a battle-ship with only one smoke-stack. So we gave her two more. We painted her lower sides white and her topsides yellow-brown, and for turrets we had one to each end with what was intended for 12-inch gun muzzles sticking out of them. And we allowed the ends of what looked like twelve 7-inch black boys to peek through the sides of what we called her gun-deck. Two of those 7-inch muzzles were real muzzles, that is, black-tarred wood like the others, but they were hollow so we could train a bomb-lance whaling-gun through them, one to each side. When we got that far they said I would have to name her, and I called her the _Cape Horn_, and there being no flag that any of us had ever heard of for Terra del Fuego, we made one for her out of three pieces of green, red, and purple cloth, and broke it out to her main-peak.

And when that little round-bowed, fat-sterned whaler waddled out of Pouvenir Bay that afternoon there wasn't a thing that one lieutenant, one ensign, one doctor, a warrant carpenter, and sixteen enlisted men of the United States Navy could see she was shy of, except a wireless outfit, and we soon fixed that by stringing a stretch of old wire between her masts, with half a dozen old barrel hoops for a wireless plant, and for fear there was anybody of Red Dick's party who knew battle-ships only from pictures, I had the stokers keep feeding her fires with whale-oil. After that, with the clouds of smoke belching out of her, I felt sure nobody could doubt us--especially at a distance.

We gave three whistles and dipped the ensign to our navy friends, and for the rest of that day and night, and all next day and night, we steamed through the straits toward the Pacific. And on the second morning we turned north and ran in among the islands off the Chilean coast; and pretty soon we ran into the place I was bound for--a bottle-shaped passage with a narrow inlet to each end and the shadow of the Andes Mountains darkening all. And, laying to moorings there, was a cargo steamer of perhaps fifteen hundred tons. Even if she wasn't too big a steamer to be loafing there, I knew her of old. Red Dick was handy. I took a look around to the north'ard, and at the other end of the passage and jam in to the high rocks was a whaling steamer about our own tonnage. I also knew her of old.

I might as well say now that Red Dick and I weren't strangers. We used to be sort of friends, but not since the day we walked up the long timber pier in Punta 'renas together and met Hilda with her father. She was straight from school in Norway then, and 'twas the first time we'd seen her. We looked out together on the wonderful straits, and 'twas me she walked home with.

But that was a year back, and it was other business now. I had now to make an impression, and right away, to back up our battle-ship looks. So we cut loose and gave them, port and starboard, one after the other, twenty-one whaling bombs in good, regulation style. They made a terrible racket against the Andes Mountains, which come down here to the water's edge.

And Red Dick's gang must have thought we were some awful power, for there was soon great doings on the deck of the whaling steamer. Smoke began to come out of her, and pretty soon she began to move; but when we bore down, with a great white wave ahead of us and rolls of smoke over us, they quit. Two boats dropped over her side and headed for a bit of beach, and twenty men scurried off and lost themselves in holes between the rocks. We shot a few bombs over their heads just to let them know we were a rich nation with ammunition to spare. The echoes coming back sounded like a battle-fleet saluting port in foreign waters.

We boarded Red Dick's steamer, and there were our sealskins and ambergris. There were also four or five thousand other fine sealskins which weren't ours, but which we took along, knowing they weren't Red Dick's. And with Red Dick's steamer in charge of six of my crew behind us, we started back the way we came. In steaming past the cargo steamer we counted four long glasses levelled at us.

The first likely place we came to we hauled to and shifted Red Dick's cargo to the _Svend Foyn_. By this time, with the ambergris back and five thousand extra sealskins below, all hands were willing to take a moderate chance on almost anything. We swung away for the straits, but not making great headway. The little old _Svend Foyn_ was never any wonder for steaming. At her best she could do perhaps ten miles an hour. Now, with all her battle-ship topgear and with the wind ahead, she was doing perhaps six.

It began to breeze up, but nothing for us to worry over until we saw a steamer's smoke coming up astern. We were then clear of the coast islands and into the straits, with wind and sea fighting each other.

I had another good look at the steamer coming up astern, and took my prize crew off Red Dick's whaler and turned her adrift. I hated to. Not alone the prize money, but to see a good ship go to loss any time is bad. I did it in hopes that the cargo steamer coming upon us would stop to get her, and while they were getting her--what with the gale and the dark coming--we would be able to slip away. But they didn't stop. Perhaps the little whaler was too close in to the cliffs for the big steamer to have a chance in the tide that was running. They let her pile up against the cliffs, and came on and ranged up abreast of us. Red Dick was on her bridge. She came so close to us that I could almost have jumped aboard. It was blowing pretty hard at the time, but she was making easy weather of it--a good sea-boat. We weren't. The williwaws, which are what they call the hard squalls off the high hills down there, were having a great time with out battle-ship topsides. She was something of a roller on her own account at any time, the _Svend Foyn_, but now she rolled her wooden turrets under and every once in a while her bridge.

Red Dick leaned over the bridge rail and laughed. He looked the _Svend Foyn's_ top gear over and laughed again. "Blank shells and wooden guns!" he called out. "Fine! Any more left?"

"Oh," I said, "not all blanks and not all wooden, and a few left--yes."

"So?" he says, and gives an order. A man pulls a tarpaulin off a long needle-gun amidships. "Got anything like that in your battery?" he calls out.

I looked it over as if I was interested. At the same time I made a sign to my mate behind me. I'd long before this loaded my two whaling bomb-lance guns, but this time I put in them the lances, which were of steel, weighed eighty pounds, and were four and a half feet long--not a bad little projectile at all.

"What's it for?" I called out, pointing to his needle-gun.

"What's it for?" he mimics. "What d'y' think it's for?"

I shake my head. "I could never guess."

"Well, you will soon. You know me?"

"I do. And you know me?"

"I know you, and I'll take no chances with you. I'm going to heave you a line and take you in tow."

"I don't remember flying any signals for a tow."

"No? Well, I think you'd be better off for a tow. Take my line."

"We don't want your line."

"Take my line or I'll blow a few holes in you, and while you're on your way to the bottom of the straits--all hands of you--I'll ram you to make sure."

"You're foolish to sink us," I says, "till you take off the ambergris and the sealskins."

He began to get mad. "Take my line or take a shell from this gun. Which is it?" he yells.

His gun was trained on our midship topsides. I couldn't see where he was going to sink us, leastwise not with one shot, so, "Come aboard with your shell!" I called out, and he did. I didn't look to see what damage the shell did in passing, but it went clear through our pine topsides one side and out the other.

I'd already passed the word to my mate, and wh-r-oo! went the four-and-a-half-foot bomb-lance from the inside of one of our make-believe seven-inch rifles. The lance tore through just above the water-line of Red Dick's steamer. The bomb exploded inside her hull. Through the hold the sea rushed, and from her deck below came whoops of surprise.

I rolled the little fat _Svend Foyn_ around. She near capsized in turning, especially as Red Dick let me have two more from his needle-gun while we were coming around. One of them burst inside, but didn't kill anybody. Around came the _Svend Foyn_.

"Her water-line!" I yelled, and we let her have it. And again we gave it to her. They both went home.