Chapter III: Part 3

The _Fearless_ wallowed sluggishly over a rolling, foamy, blue sea. Already the water in the holds had diminished her natural buoyancy. The waves leaped through her broken bulwarks and flung themselves across the deck. The crew and the remaining Cubans had a listless, discouraged demeanor. Their energy was deadened by misfortune. The voyage was ill-fated. Jack Gorham, by contrast, undertook whatever duty came handiest with a kind of machine-like, routine fidelity, unhurried, efficient, his melancholy countenance reflecting neither fear nor impatience. Now and then Jiminez emerged from the stoke-hole to sluice his huge body with pails of salt water. At such times Gorham crossed the deck to slap the negro on his bare back and speak words of approval in broken Spanish. The responsive grin of Jiminez showed every big, white tooth in his head. He had found a master whom he vastly respected, and there was no ill-will between them.

Long before the thirty miles had been run down Captain O’Shea was searching the sea with his glasses to find the tiny coral islet where he hoped to find refuge. It was out of the track of steamer traffic, and so far from the Cuban coast that the danger of discovery by the Spanish navy seemed fairly remote. The chart failed to indicate any harbor, but O’Shea had no expectation of saving his ship. He would drive her ashore and try to put his people on the beach.

At length he was able to descry a low, sandy strip almost level with the sea, along which the breakers flashed white and green. It was the key, and as the _Fearless_ moved nearer it was seen that the vegetation comprised only a few ragged bushes. Desolate, sun-baked, and wind-swept was the place, but it was dry land, and better than the deep sea in a foundering ship.

Captain O’Shea laid down his glasses and called Van Steen.

“’Tis not what I expected, but the _Fearless_ is done for,” said he. “We have fresh water and stores to last some time. And I have faith enough in me luck to feel sure we will be picked off that bit of a key yonder. Please ask the ladies to pack their traps, and you will put life-belts around them.”

As the _Fearless_ lurched drunkenly toward the beach, it seemed as though every comber would stamp her under. The water in the hold had covered the fire-room floor, and was hissing and swashing under the furnaces. The deck-hands were strung along the ladder and hatch, bailing with buckets to aid the choking, sputtering steam-pump.

“I ain’t got any business to be drowned in this lump of a tug,” said Johnny Kent to the first assistant. “I’m thinkin’ about that farm with the hollyhocks and Plymouth Rocks.”

“If that pump stops, which it has symptoms of doing, you’d better be thinking of your wicked old soul,” growled the assistant.

“I can’t swim a lick,” muttered the chief engineer.

“You’d better learn quick. There go the fires,” yelled the other as clouds of steam poured out of the engine-room, and the men below came up the ladder, fighting, scrambling, swearing. Johnny Kent dodged the wild rush, glanced out to sea, and shouted, “Breakers ahead! There are a few more kicks in the old packet and she’ll hit the beach yet.”

As the steam pressure rapidly ran down, the dying engines turned over more and more feebly, but the propeller continued to push the vessel very languidly into the shoal water. Presently she ceased to move, there was a slight jar, and she heeled to starboard. The doomed tug rested upon a sandy bottom.

Now that she was inert, aground, lifting no more to the heave and swing of the seas, the breakers shook her with an incessant bombardment. Spray flew over the bridge and pelted into the cabin windows. The key was about three hundred yards distant from the tug. Between her and the dry land was a strip of deeper water than the shoal on which she had stranded, and then the wide barrier of surf where the breakers tossed and tumbled in a thundering tumult.

Captain O’Shea scanned the angry water and wondered how he could send his people through it. The clumsy life-raft was all he had to put them on. It was buoyant enough, but unmanageable in such boisterous weather as this, and would most likely be blown out to sea and miss the key entirely. To remain on board and hope for quieter weather on the morrow was to risk pounding to pieces overnight.

Then O’Shea caught sight of the jagged timbers of an ancient wreck half covered by the sand on the ridge of the key. If a line could be carried from the ship and made fast to one of those stout timbers, the life-raft might be hauled through the surf.

“’Tis a terrible swim to undertake,” he painfully reflected. “I will try it meself, but if I go under there is nobody to take charge of these people. My men are a rough lot, and it will be hard living on this God-forsaken bit of a key.”

As if Jack Gorham had read what was in the skipper’s mind, he crawled across the sloping deck and shouted something in the ear of Jiminez. The negro nodded and waved an arm in the direction of the beach. The soldier was urging and explaining, the other eagerly assenting. Gorham shouted to the bridge:

“This fine big nigger of mine will carry a rope ashore. He can swim like a duck, and there’s nobody aboard with half his strength.”

“Aye, aye, Jack!” exclaimed O’Shea. “I will give him a heaving-line, and when he hits the beach he can haul a light hawser ashore and make it fast.”

Jiminez had no need to strip for active service, clad as he was only in tattered dungaree breeches chopped off above the knees. It was apparent that he proposed risking his life because the soldier had asked it of him. For the lives of the others he cared not a snap of his finger. Knotting an end of the heaving-line around his waist, he poised himself upon the guard-rail, a herculean statue of ebony. Gorham grasped his hand and said in farewell:

“You keep on going, Jiminez, old boy, or I’ll cave in your cocoanut with the butt of my Springfield.”

The negro grinned and shot downward into the foaming sea. His round head and gleaming shoulders emerged for an instant and then he dived again to pass under the toppling crest of a breaker. A few overhand strokes, and he was in the deeper water with a hundred yards of comparatively easy swimming. He ploughed through it with tremendous ease and power while Captain O’Shea paid out the heaving-line in his wake. Turning on his back, Jiminez rested before the final struggle with the surf on the beach.

The people on the _Fearless_ forgot their forlorn situation. They were absorbed in the picture of the bright, hot sand, the dazzling wall of surf, with the gulls dipping and screaming overhead, and the tossing figure of the black swimmer. Jiminez vanished in the outer line of breakers, bobbed into view for an instant, and was whirled over and over. The undertow caught him and pulled him down, but he fought clear and came to the surface, now beaten seaward, now gaining a yard or so.

From the tug it looked as though he were being battered about like a piece of drifting wreckage, but the sea could not drown him. More than once the beholders were sure he had been conquered. Then they shouted as they saw him shoot landward on the crested back of a rearing comber. He felt the sand with his feet. He was knocked down and rolled back, but regained a foothold and resisted the drag of the out-rushing waves. Wading powerfully, he stumbled into shallow water and fell on his knees, too exhausted to walk, and crawled on all fours to the dry sand. There he sprawled on his back like a dead man, while the hearts of those on board the _Fearless_ beat slow and heavy with suspense. A little while and Jiminez staggered to his feet, shook himself like a dog, and made for the timbers of the old wreck. Making the end of the heaving-line fast, he threw his arms over his head as a signal.

Captain O’Shea bent to the other end of the line the strong rope which he had used for towing the surf-boats. Jiminez sat himself down, dug his heels in the sand, and began to haul in like a human capstan. The rope trailed slowly through the surf without mishap, and the negro firmly belayed it to one of the embedded timbers. Having accomplished what he had set out to do, Jiminez sensibly rolled over, pillowed his head on his arm, and let the other men rescue themselves.

The life-raft was now shoved overboard and secured to the swaying rope by means of pulley blocks. Four picked men and the mate were detailed to make the first trip, which was in the nature of an experiment. They paddled the life-raft across the strip of quieter water, the pulleys holding them close to the fastened hawser. When the raft reached the surf, they laid hold of the hawser and lustily hauled their careering craft shoreward, hand over hand. Drenched and breathless, they gained the beach and sought a few minutes’ rest before undertaking the return journey.

As soon as the raft had safely come back to the _Fearless_ Captain O’Shea shouted:

“Now for the ladies! ’Tis time they quit the poor old hooker.”

Nora Forbes was waiting, a lithe round arm about Miss Hollister’s waist. The spinster was white to the lips, and her eyes sought, not the protecting care of Gerald Van Steen, but the bracing presence of that stout-hearted old pirate Johnny Kent, who was profanely wrestling with the fresh-water barrels.

“You will get wet, ladies,” said O’Shea, “but ’tis not at all dangerous. The raft will take you through the surf like a toboggan. Mr. Van Steen will go with you. Ye are a brave pair, and I would ask no better shipmates.”

The raft was pitching and bucking alongside, but the lower deck of the vessel was now level with the sea. O’Shea caught Miss Hollister in his arms, waded to the rail with her and waited until Van Steen and the other men were ready to catch her. Then with a wrenching heave, O’Shea tossed her into their outstretched arms. It was Nora Forbes’s turn to leave the vessel.

“You will pardon the liberty,” O’Shea whispered in her ear, “but this is no small consolation for losing me ship.”

He swung her clear of the deck and her arms, perforce, had to cling around his neck while he balanced himself with sailorly agility and waited for the tug to right itself and the raft to rise on the next wave. Perhaps he held her a moment longer than was necessary. Captain Michael O’Shea was a man with a warm heart and red blood in him. Deftly and carefully he swung her over the rail, and the men on the raft placed her beside Miss Hollister. Nora waved her hand in a blithe farewell. Miss Hollister had closed her eyes, but she opened them quickly enough when Johnny Kent came rolling aft to flourish his cap and shout:

“Sorry I can’t make the passage with you. We’ll have lots of time to talk flowers and hens on that patch of sand, but it looks like mighty poor soil for gardenin’ ma’am.”

Guided by the pulley-blocks that creaked along the hawser, the raft made the tempestuous passage through the surf. The shipwrecked ladies set themselves down on a sandy hummock in the hot sunshine. They were waterlogged and appeared quite calm and collected because they lacked strength for anything else.

The raft plied to and fro in a race against time. Such stores as would be damaged by wetting were wrapped in tarpaulins. The precious water-barrels were filled from the ship’s tank, and the wise Johnny Kent packed spare copper piping, a gasolene torch, empty tin cases, and tools for making a condenser to distil salt water. Captain O’Shea took care to send all the arms which had been served out to the crew, besides several boxes of rifles and ammunition that had been overlooked in dumping the cargo. Also he saved a number of shovels and picks designed for use as intrenching tools.

Before the last load of stuff had been hauled to the beach, the _Fearless_ was driven so far on the shoal that she began to break amidships. O’Shea ordered Colonel Calvo and his Cubans off the vessel, and then sent his crew ashore. He was left on board with Johnny Kent, Jack Gorham, and the men needed to help manage the life-raft. The little group stood in the lee of the deck-house. The tragedy of the ship oppressed them. They were mourners at the funeral of a faithful friend. Sentimental Johnny Kent exclaimed with a husky note in his voice:

“The _Fearless_ did her best for us, Cap’n Mike. It’s a rotten finish for a respectable, God-fearin’ tow-boat.”

“She was a good little vessel, Johnny,” softly quoth O’Shea. “But those guns we dumped in the bay will come in mighty useful to old Maximo Gomez, and maybe the voyage is worth while after all.”

“I seem to be sort of side-tracked, but I ain’t complainin’,” murmured Jack Gorham. “I hope the Cubans will keep the rebellion moving along until I can get to ’em and help mix it up.”

One by one they jumped to the raft and Captain O’Shea was the last man to leave. With a shake of the head he turned to gaze no more at the _Fearless_, but at the disconsolate cluster of men on the key, who were waiting for him to take command.

IV

With ready resource and dynamic energy, O’Shea proceeded to organize the refugees. The dreary little sand-bank was no longer populated by discouraged loafers, but by busy, shouting toilers who made a camp with the cheerful zest of children at play. There were tarpaulins, storm-sails, and awnings to fashion shelters from the sun and rain. The beach was strewn with an accumulation of drift-wood which served to cut into uprights and cross-pieces that were lashed together with bits of line. In this wise a tent was built for the two women. It was set apart from the other camps with an ingenious amount of comfort and privacy.

The crew of the _Fearless_ flocked together, while Colonel Calvo and his Cubans established themselves in quarters of their own. All this was a two days’ task, at the end of which the shipwrecked company, utterly fagged, slept and rested most earnestly and took no thought of the morrow. The blessed respite from excitements and alarms lulled them like an anodyne.

When, at length, the camp came out of its trance, Captain O’Shea discovered that his work was cut out for him to devise a daily routine which should maintain obedience, discipline, and good-nature. His own men were accustomed to an active life, their energy was exuberant, and when not fighting the sea they enjoyed fighting among themselves. On shipboard they obeyed by instinct because it was the iron tradition of their calling, but on the key these bonds were inevitably loosened.

While this was to be expected, the behavior of the surviving patriots was nothing short of phenomenal. They were rid of the curse of the sea which had wilted them body and soul. The immovable land was under their feet. They laughed and displayed an astonishing vivacity. They strutted importantly, soldiers unafraid. Even Colonel Calvo was reanimated. His sword clanked at his side. Large silver spurs dashed on the heels of his boots and he perceived nothing absurd in wearing them. His attitude toward Captain O’Shea was haughty, even distant. It was apparent that this miraculously revived warrior considered himself the ranking officer of the island. He signified that he would take entire charge of matters in his own camp.

O’Shea was surprised. At sea the patriots had been so much bothersome, unlovely freight.

“’Tis comical,” he said to himself. “I took it for granted that I was the boss of the whole outfit.”

Common-sense and experience told Captain O’Shea that he must keep all hands busy, if he had to invent work for them. He therefore staked out a rectangular space of considerable extent and set them to throwing up sand to form four walls several feet thick within which the company might find shelter. It was a simple pattern of earthworks, but more efficient to resist bullet and shell than stone or concrete.

“We may not need to scuttle into it,” he explained to Jack Gorham, “but if one of those Spanish blockadin’ craft should accidentally cruise off shore, we will be in shape to stand her off. Anyhow, it will keep our tarriers occupied for a while.”

“How do you frame it up that we’re goin’ to get away from this gob of sand?” asked the chief engineer. “Not that I’m fretty, Cap’n Mike, or findin’ fault, but I’ve seen places that I liked better.”

“We will mark time a little longer, Johnny, and then if a schooner or steamer doesn’t happen by, I will rig a sail on the life-raft, and send it to the south’ard. How are the ladies to-day? I have had no time to pay a social call.”

“Miss Hollister don’t seem as droopin’ as she was. I dried out a pack of cards that was in my jumper, and we played some whist. If you want to set in, Cap’n Mike, I’ll drop out. I ain’t really graceful and easy in a game where there’s more than five cards dealt to a hand.”

“Thank you, but I am handicapped in the same way, Johnny. I will stroll over and pay me respects before supper.”

“Miss Forbes seemed a mite peevish that you haven’t made more tracks toward their tent,” observed the engineer.

“Pshaw, they are glad to have the chance to be by themselves.”

Nevertheless, Captain O’Shea appeared interested when he spied Miss Forbes sauntering alone on the beach, and at some distance from her tent.

“Miss Hollister is asleep and Mr. Van Steen is trying to mend his shoes with a piece of wire,” said Nora. “And I have done my week’s washing like an industrious girl, and now I’m looking for someone to play with.”

“Would you like to walk to the far end of the key, Miss Forbes? And then, perhaps, ye would care to inspect the camps. We have a ship-shape little settlement, if I do say it meself.”

“An exploring expedition? I shall be delighted,” cried she, unconsciously glancing at the tent which hid the chaperon and also Gerald Van Steen.

They strolled a little way without speaking. O’Shea halted to gaze at the wreck of the _Fearless_. With quick sympathy, the girl understood and made no comment. He turned away with a sorrowful smile and broke the silence.

“’Tis strange how close a man’s ship is to his heart. I wish I did not have to see her.”

“There will be other ships for a man like you, Captain O’Shea,” said Nora.

“But never a voyage like this one, Miss Forbes.”

“I was thinking the same thought. For me there will never be a voyage like this, Captain O’Shea.”

“For misfortune and bedivilment generally, do ye mean?” he asked rather hastily.

“No, I do not mean that,” and she spoke in a low voice as if talking to herself. “I have enjoyed it. I suppose I am very queer and shocking, but I shall look back to this experience all my life and be glad that it came to me.”

The shipmaster wondered how much she meant. Her intonations told him that it was something personal and intimate. Perhaps other women had made love to Captain Michael O’Shea, but never one like Nora Forbes. Amid circumstances so strange and exotic, so utterly removed from the normal scheme of things, it was as natural as breathing that speech should be sincere and emotions genuine.

O’Shea had a curiously delicate sense of honor. He could not forget Gerald Van Steen. Nora had promised to marry him. Steering the conversation away from dangerous ground, he said:

“I have changed me opinion of Mr. Van Steen. He has behaved very well. He did not understand us at first.”

Nora was not as interested as before, and replied rather carelessly:

“He has worked hard because you and Mr. Kent compelled him to.”

“You are not fair to him,” warmly returned O’Shea. “There is not a man in the crew that has stood up to it any better. Nor am I warped in his favor, for I will own up that he rubbed me the wrong way at first.”

“Of course, I have admired the way he handled himself on board the _Fearless_,” admitted Nora, her conscience uneasy that she should be so laggard a champion. “But I hardly expected to hear you sing his praises, Captain O’Shea.”

“Why not? I would give me dearest enemy his deserts”--he hesitated and bluntly added--“and then if he got in my way I would do me best to wipe him off the map.”

“If he got in your way?” murmured Nora. “I should hate to be the man that stood in your way.”

“If there is to be straight talk between us,” demanded O’Shea, “tell me why ye show no more pleasure that this voyage has knocked the foolishness out of Van Steen and made a two-fisted man of him? When he came aboard he was an imitation man that had been spoiled by his money. He is different now. Can ye not see it for yourself?”

“Yes, I see it,” replied Nora, regarding O’Shea with a demeanor oddly perplexed. He was not playing the game to her liking. The interview had been twisted to lead her into a blind alley. With a petulant exclamation, she walked briskly toward the farther end of the key. O’Shea followed, admiring, cogitating.

Overtaking her, he indicated a broken topmast washed ashore from some tall sailing-ship, and they found seats upon it. The hypnotic spell of the sea took hold of them both until Nora turned and protestingly exclaimed:

“Aren’t you fearfully tired of seeing nothing but this great, blue, empty expanse of salt water?”

“My eyes could never tire if I had you to look at,” said he, not by way of making love to her, but as a simple statement of fact.

Nora appeared happier. This buccaneer of hers was becoming more tractable, but he perversely hauled about on another tack and added:

“As long as there are ships to sail the sea, there will be men to go in them, men that will never tire of salt water though it treats them cruel. They will hear the voices of sweethearts and wives on shore, but they will not listen. The hands of little children will beckon, but they will not stay. ’Tis fine to be warm and dry in a house, and to see the green things grow, and men and women living like Christians, but if you are the seafarin’ kind, you must find a ship and put out of port again. I am one of those that will never tire of it, Miss Forbes. Poor old Johnny Kent is different. He sits and sighs for his farm and will talk you deaf about it. My father was a shipmaster before me, and his people were fishermen in the Western Islands.”

Nora sighed. O’Shea’s caressing voice rose and fell with a sort of melancholy rhythm, an inheritance from his Celtic forebears. It was as though he were chanting a farewell to her. Her lovely, luminous eyes were suffused. The wind was warm and soft, but she shivered slightly.

“We had better turn back to the camp,” said she. “My aunt will be looking for me.”

They walked along the shining beach, thinking many things which could not find expression. O’Shea left her near her tent and was about to go to his own quarters when he overheard a stormy meeting between Nora and Gerald Van Steen. He hastened on his way, ashamed that he should have been an unwitting eavesdropper. It was most emphatically none of his business. His cheek reddened, however, and he felt gusty anger that Nora should be taken to task for strolling to the end of the key with him.

“A jealous man is the most unreasonable work of God,” he said to himself. “’Twas a harmless walk we had.”

Duty diverted Captain O’Shea from considering the disturbed emotions of Gerald Van Steen. Rations must be measured out and inspected, the muster roll called, the sick visited, and the sentries appointed for the night. He had finished these tasks and was standing near his tent when Van Steen approached in a hurried, angry manner. Surmising the cause, O’Shea caught him by the arm and led him in the direction of the beach, away from the curious eyes and ears of the camp.

Van Steen wrenched himself free with a threatening gesture. He had worked himself into a passion childishly irrational. O’Shea was inwardly amused, but his face was grave as he inquired:

“Why these hostile symptoms? Do not shout it all over the place. Tell it to me easy and get it out of your system.”

This casual reception rather stumped young Mr. Van Steen. He gulped, made a false start or two, and sullenly replied:

“You and I will have it out as man to man, O’Shea.”

“_Captain_ O’Shea, if ye please, while I command this expedition,” softly spoke the other. “As man to man? You have been a man only since I took charge of your education. Are ye sure you are ready to qualify?”

The shipmaster’s smile was frosty, and his glance was exceedingly alert. Van Steen raised his voice to an unsteady pitch as he cried:

“That is a cheap insult. It shows what you are under the skin. Now, I don’t propose to bring her--to bring any one’s name into this--but you are to keep away, understand? It has to stop.”

“Did any one request ye to tell me to keep away, as ye put it in your tactful way?” blandly suggested O’Shea.

“No; this is my affair. There has been enough of this blarneying nonsense of yours, and watching for a chance when my back is turned. If you were a gentleman, there would be no necessity of telling you this.”

The veneer had been quite thoroughly removed from the conventional surfaces of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. He was the primitive man ready to fight for his woman. O’Shea was divided between respect for him and a desire to swing a fist against his jaw.

“We have no gentlemen in my trade, of course,” he retorted. “Now and then we pick up one of them adrift and do our best for him, and he turns to and blackguards us for our pains. Have ye more to say?”

“Considerably more. It is an awfully awkward matter to discuss, but it is my right, and--and----”

O’Shea interrupted vehemently:

“The hot sun has addled your brain. For heaven’s sake, stop where you are. If it was me intention to make love to the girl and try to win her for myself, I would go straight to you. You would not have to come to me.”

“You are a liar and a sneak, and I think you are a coward unless you have your men at your back,” almost screamed Van Steen.

“Which I will take from no man,” returned O’Shea, and he swung from the shoulder and stretched the young man flat on the sand. Several seamen and Cubans beheld this episode and ran thither.

“Pick yourself up and keep your mouth shut,” exhorted O’Shea, “or ye will be draggin’ some one’s name into this after all.”

Van Steen was sobbing as he scrambled to his feet, let fly with his fists, and was again knocked down by a buffet on the side of the head. O’Shea turned to order the men back to camp, and then quizzically surveyed the dazed champion.

“You will fight a duel with me or I’ll shoot you,” cried Van Steen. “At daylight to-morrow--with revolvers--at the other end of the key.”

“I will not!” curtly replied O’Shea. “Ye might put a hole through me, and what good would that do? ’Tis my business to get these people away, and keep them alive in the meantime. As for shooting me informally, if I catch you with a gun I will clap ye in irons.”

“But you knocked me down twice,” protested Van Steen.

“And ye called me hard names. We are quits. Now run along and wash off your face.”

The misguided young man marched sadly up the beach to find solitude, and was seen no more until long after night. O’Shea stared at his retreating figure and sagaciously reflected:

“He wants to fight a duel! ’Tis quite the proper thing. He figures it out that he is a buccaneer on a desert island, and ’tis his duty to play the part. Consistency is a jewel.”

It seemed improbable that Van Steen had acted wholly on his own initiative. Then the provocation must have come from Nora herself. And what could have aroused Van Steen to such a jealous frenzy but her admission that she was fond of the company of Captain O’Shea?

“Right there is where I stop tryin’ to unravel it,” soliloquized the skipper. “’Tis not proper for a man to confess such thoughts. But I have no doubt at all that she stirred him up when he scolded her for walking on the beach with me this afternoon.”

In the evening Johnny Kent became inquisitive. There was something on his mind, and he shifted about uneasily and lighted his pipe several times before venturing to observe:

“I sort of wandered down to the beach, Cap’n Mike, when you and the millionaire coal-heaver were quarrellin’. I didn’t mean to butt in and I hung back as long as I could----”

“Forget whatever you heard, Johnny. It was a tempest in a teapot.”

The engineer scratched another match, cleared his throat, and diffidently resumed:

“Excuse me, but there was words about a duel. I was interested--personally interested, you understand.”

“How in blazes did it concern you?” laughed O’Shea.

“Never you mind,” darkly answered Johnny Kent. “Tell me, Cap’n Mike, ain’t you goin’ to inform the young lady that there came near being a duel fought over her?”

“Of course not. And don’t you blab it.”

“But she’d feel terrible flattered. Women just dote on having duels fought over ’em, accordin’ to all I’ve read in story-books. Seems to me you ought to stand up and swap a couple of shots with Van Steen just to please the girl.”

“I had not looked at it from just that angle,” amiably returned O’Shea. “You surely are a thoughtful, soft-hearted old pirate.”

“Well, the girl will get wind of it, Cap’n Mike. She’s bound to. And maybe she’ll feel pleased, to a certain extent, that a duel was pretty near fought over her.”

“But what has all this to do with you personally?” O’Shea demanded. “’Tis none of your duel, Johnny. You would make a fine target. I could hit that broad-beamed carcass with me two eyes shut.”

“And maybe I could put a hole in your coppers with my eyes open,” was the tart rejoinder. “Anyhow, you agree with me, Cap’n Mike, don’t you, that there’s no solider compliment with more heft and ballast to it than to fight a duel over a lady?”

“I will take your word for it if ye will only explain what it is all about,” yawned O’Shea.

“A man don’t have to tell all he knows,” was the enigmatical reply.

Whereupon Johnny Kent rolled over on his blanket, but he did not snore for some time. Staring at the canvas roof, or beyond it at the starlit night, he revolved great thoughts.

Fortune occasionally favors the brave. Next morning the chief engineer trundled himself across the intervening sand to pay his respects to Miss Hollister. The comparative calm of existence on the key was mending her shattered nerves. She felt a singularly serene confidence that the party would be rescued ere long, and the healthful outdoor life hastened the process of recuperation. With feminine ingenuity she managed to make her scanty wardrobe appear both fresh and attractive. Her favorite diversion was to sit on the sand while Johnny Kent traced patterns of his imaginary farm with a bit of stick. Here was the pasture, there the hay-field, yonder the brook, indicated by a wriggling line. The house would be in this place, large trees in front, a sailor’s hammock swung between two of them. Miss Hollister had several times changed the location of the flower-beds and paths, and was particularly interested in the poultry-yards.

Just before Johnny Kent loomed athwart her placid horizon on this momentous morning, the contented spinster was tracing on the white carpet of sand a tentative outline of the asparagus-bed to be submitted to his critical eye. A shadow caused her to glance up, and her startled vision beheld not the comfortable bulk and rubicund visage of the chief engineer, but the martial figure and saturnine countenance of Colonel Calvo. He was still arrayed in the panoply of war. The front of his straw hat was pinned back by a tiny Cuban flag. His white uniform, somewhat dingy, was brave with medals and brass buttons, and the tarnished spurs tinkled at his high heels. Unaware that he was Miss Hollister’s pet aversion, the gallant colonel bowed low with his hand on his heart, smiled a smile warranted to bring the most obdurate señorita fluttering from her perch, and affably exclaimed:

“I have the honor to ask, is your health pretty good? We have suffer’ together. I promise myself to come before, but my brave mens have need me.”

“There is no reason why you should trouble yourself on my account, I am sure,” crisply replied Miss Hollister. “Captain O’Shea is taking the best of care of us, thank you.”

The colonel assumed a graceful pose, one hand on his hip, the other toying with his jaunty mustache. How could any woman resist him?

“I will be so glad to have you inspec’ my camp,” said he, staring at her very boldly. “It is ver’ military. That Captain O’Shea”--an eloquent shrug--“he is good on the sea, but he is not a soldier, to know camps like me.”

“Captain O’Shea has offered to show me the camps. He is in command, I believe.”

“That fellow do not comman’ me. Will you come to-night? My soldiers will sing for you the songs of _Cuba Libre_.”

“No, I thank you.” Miss Hollister was positively discourteous.

“Ah, so beautiful a woman and so cruel,” sighed the colonel, ogling her with his most fatal glances.

Miss Hollister spied Johnny Kent coming at top speed, and she looked so radiant that Colonel Calvo spun round to discover the reason. With a contemptuous laugh he remarked:

“The greasy ol’ man of the engines! I do not like him.”

Johnny Kent had read the meaning of the tableau. The colonel was making himself unpleasant to Miss Hollister. And the breeze carried to his ear the unflattering characterization of himself.

“He’s playing right into my hands. It couldn’t happen nicer if I had arranged it myself,” said the chief engineer under his breath. His mien was as fierce as that of an indignant walrus as he bore down on the pair and, without deigning to notice Colonel Calvo, exclaimed to Miss Hollister:

“Was anybody makin’ himself unwelcome to you just now? If so, I’ll be pleased to remove him somewhere else.”

“You will min’ your own business,” grandly declaimed Colonel Calvo.

“You needn’t answer my question, ma’am,” resumed Johnny Kent. “This pestiferous Cuban gent wanders over here without bein’ invited and makes himself unpopular. It’s as plain as a picture on the wall.”

The spinster realized that it was her duty to intervene as a peace-maker between these belligerents, but she felt powerless to move from the spot, which happened to be in the middle of Johnny Kent’s imaginary pasture, between the brook and the hay-field. The proprietor thereof, advancing close to Colonel Calvo, thundered, “Ha! Ha!” and firmly grasped the warrior’s nose between a mighty thumb and forefinger. The colonel yelled with rage and pain, and fumbled for the hilt of his sword. With dignified deliberation the chief engineer released the imprisoned nose, turned the colonel squarely around by the shoulders, and kicked him until his spurs jingled like little bells.

“There! I hope you’re real insulted, right down to the heels,” commented the avenger.

Colonel Calvo painfully straightened himself, managed to haul the sword clear of the scabbard, waved it undecidedly and shrieked:

“Mos’ likely you have the pistol in your pants to kill me with. I will fight the duello with you. You have insult’ me in my mortal part. You refuse me to fight with pistols, quick, as soon as it can be arrange’?”

“Bully for you,” cordially answered Johnny Kent. “Sure thing. I’ll be delighted.” He had one eye on Miss Hollister as he continued in resonant tones: “We will duel to the death.”

“I will sen’ my frien’ to see your frien’, señor,” was the grandiloquent response of Colonel Calvo. “An’ I will kill you mos’ awful dead.”

“It will be a pleasure to turn up my toes in defence of a lady,” fervently declaimed the engineer as Colonel Calvo limped in the direction of his own camp, filling the air with such explosive imprecations that it was as though he left a string of cannon-crackers in his wake. Johnny Kent mopped his face, smiled contentedly, and turned his attention to the dumfounded spinster.

“But are you in earnest?” she gasped.

“Never more so, ma’am,” and he added, with seeming irrelevance, “I suppose you have heard that Cap’n O’Shea and Mr. Van Steen came near fightin’ a duel yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes, Mr. Van Steen admitted as much. It was a most inexplicable affair. What in the world has it to do with your terrible quarrel with Colonel Calvo?”

“You understand just why I am perpetratin’ the duel with the colonel, don’t you, ma’am?” asked Johnny Kent, showing some slight anxiety.

“I--I imagine--” She blushed, looked distressed, and said with a confusion prettily girlish, “I am afraid I had something to do with it.”

“You had everything to do with it,” he heartily assured her. “You don’t feel slighted now, do you? I thought you might take it to heart, you understand--being sort of left out. Says I to myself last night, there’ll be no invidious distinctions in Miss Hollister’s neighborhood. She deserves a duel of her own, and I’ll hop in and get her one the first minute that conceited jackass of a Colonel Calvo gives me a chance to pull his nose for him. That is strictly accordin’ to Hoyle, ma’am. Pullin’ the other fellow’s nose is the most refined and elegant way of starting a duel. Kickin’ him was an afterthought, to make sure he was insulted a whole lot.”

“I appreciate your motive,” murmured Miss Hollister, “but, oh, dear, it wasn’t at all necessary. You and I are too good friends to require a duel as a proof of esteem. And I did not feel in the least slighted.”

“Perhaps not; but you are bound to feel sort of gratified,” stubbornly argued the portly squire of dames. “It’s the nature of women to like to have duels fought over ’em. The colonel is as thin as a shad, and I suppose he’ll stand edgewise, but maybe I can wing him.”

“But what about you?” tremulously besought his lady fair, whose emotions were chaotic in the extreme.

“Me? Pooh! I’ve had too many narrow escapes to be bagged by a google-eyed shrimp like this Calvo person,” easily answered the knight-errant. “Now you just sit tight and don’t get fretty, ma’am. You can bank on me every time. I’m shy of culture, but my heart is as big as a basket. And when I see my duty plain, I go to it in a hurry.”

Miss Hollister’s perturbed glance happened to fall on the half-obliterated plan of Johnny Kent’s farm, in the midst of which she still stood. It appealed to her with an indefinable pathos. She could not understand why, but she began to weep, although a moment before she had perceived the wild absurdity of Johnny’s Kent arguments.

“Why, you ain’t supposed to cry,” he exclaimed in great agitation; “I’m trying to please you.”

“I--I--can see your good intentions,” she tearfully faltered, “but I shall go to Captain O’Shea and beg him to forbid this duel--to prevent bloodshed. I shall be perfectly happy without it.”

“Please don’t interfere in men’s affairs,” implored the alarmed hero. “Women are too delicate to go prancin’ in among us professional pirates. You’ll feel better after it’s over. I guess I had better leave you.”

He fled from the sight of her tears, greatly distressed, wondering whether he might be mistaken in his theories concerning the operations of the feminine mind. She had behaved as if she did not want a duel, but he reflected:

“They’re all geared contrariwise. You can never tell just what they do want. And it’s a good bet that she’d feel worse if I disappointed her about this duel.”

The first assistant engineer called him to repair the condenser, which had been set up on the beach, and it was there that Captain O’Shea found him some time later.

“For the love of heaven, Johnny,” exclaimed the skipper, “what infernal nonsense have you been up to now? The Cuban colonel came surging into me tent, foaming and sputterin’ like a leaky boiler. He got all choked up with language, but I made out that ye have handed him seventeen kinds of deadly insults, and agreed to fight him with revolvers. Are ye drunk? The Cuban crowd is hard enough to handle as it is, and you have been me right-hand man. Is it one of your bad jokes?”

“Not on your life, Cap’n Mike,” earnestly affirmed the engineer. “He made himself unpleasant to a friend of mine--ladies’ names are barred. We fixed up this duel in perfectly gentlemanly style, and as a favor to me I ask you to keep your hands off. It won’t be a public ruction.”

“You butt-headed old fool, he may shoot you!”

“Well, Cap’n Mike, speakin’ seriously,” and Johnny’s face was genuinely sad, “just between you and me, I wouldn’t care a whole lot. I’ve lost my ship, and I’ll never have money enough to buy a farm. And--well--she wouldn’t look at me twice if we were in civilization among her own kind of folks. I didn’t mean to slop over this way, but you are a good friend of mine, Cap’n Mike.”

O’Shea laid a hand upon his comrade’s shoulder and was moved to sympathy.

“You are making heavy weather of it, Johnny. Suppose I forbid this high-tragedy duel. I am still in command, ye understand. It would give me no great sorrow to see Colonel Calvo wafted to a better world, but I will be hanged if I want to lose you.”

“I ask it as a favor, Cap’n Mike. I’ve done my best for you, blow high, blow low,” doggedly persisted the other.

“’Tis not fair to put it that way, Johnny. Cool off a bit, and we will talk about it to-night.”

“You’re the boss, Cap’n Mike, and I’d hate to mutiny on you, but I’ve passed my word to the finest lady in the world that this duel would be fought. And a man that will break his word to a lady ought to be strung to the yard-arm.”

O’Shea walked away and sat down in front of his tent. The Cuban camp was buzzing with excitement, and a grumbling uneasiness was manifest among the crew of the _Fearless_. The two factions cordially disliked each other. The story of the duel had spread like a fire. If anything happened to Johnny Kent, the _Fearless_ men were resolved to annihilate the Cuban camp. Such intentions being promptly conveyed to the patriots, they swarmed about Colonel Calvo and announced their readiness to avenge him with the last drop of their blood.

O’Shea summoned Jack Gorham as his most dependable aid and counsellor. The melancholy sharp-shooter listened respectfully. O’Shea waxed torrid and his language was strong.

“Johnny Kent is a great engineer and I swear by him,” he declared, “but he is full to the hatches with sentiment, and it makes him as cranky as a wet hen. He is dead set on this comical duel, and I dislike to disgrace him by putting him under arrest. He would never sail with me again.”

“Better let them fight,” said Gorham.

“’Tis your trade,” replied O’Shea. “You are biassed. I want ye to figure a way to make this duel harmless. Let them shoot all they like, but don’t let them hit each other. You know how I feel about Johnny Kent, and little as I love Colonel Calvo, I am sort of bound to deliver him safe somewhere.”

“When is this pistol party scheduled to happen?” asked Gorham.

“Early to-morrow morning.”

“It will be easy enough to steal their revolvers while they’re asleep, sir, and work the bullets out of the shells and spill most of the powder. Or I could file down the front sights. Why not make ’em postpone it for another twenty-four hours? The seconds will have a lot of pow-wowin’ to do, and perhaps we can work out a better scheme.”

“I agree with you, Gorham. A duel should be conducted with a great deal of etiquette and deliberation. ’Tis not a rough-and-tumble scrap, but more like a declaration of war. We will do it proper, even if we are ragged and shipwrecked.”

Shortly thereafter Captain O’Shea issued his ultimatum to the combatants. They were to observe a truce until the morning of the second day. Meanwhile negotiations would be conducted in a dignified and befitting manner. Violation of this edict would be punished by confinement under guard. Johnny Kent grumbled volubly until O’Shea convinced him that the etiquette of the duelling code forbade unseemly haste.

“I take your word for it, Cap’n Mike. I don’t want to make any breaks. This affair aims to be strictly accordin’ to Hoyle.”

V

Shortly after sunrise next morning the sentries, the cook, and a few sailors and Cubans who were early astir discovered a faint smudge of smoke on the horizon to the northward. They shouted the tidings, and Captain O’Shea tumbled out of his tent, rubbing his eyes. A long scrutiny convinced him that the steamer was heading to pass within sighting distance of the key. She was coming from the direction of the Cuban coast. Possibly she might belong to the Spanish navy. On the other hand, she might be a cargo tramp bound to the southward and seeking a South American port.

There is such a thing as becoming accustomed to the unexpected. Those who dwell in the midst of alarms acquire a certain philosophical temper which views life as a series of hazards. On this lonely key in the Caribbean the daily routine of things had run along without acute symptoms of worry and dread, although the peril of discovery by a Spanish war-vessel was discussed by the evening camp-fires. So long as Captain O’Shea appeared unruffled, his followers saw no reason why they should lose sleep. To him it was like the toss of a coin. They were to be rescued or they were to be found by the enemy.

If he had seemed inactive, it was because this was an extraordinary shipwreck. To send the life-raft in search of succor was a forlorn hope, a desperate expedient, but even this was denied him. The wind was blowing steadily from the southward, day after day, and the raft would drift straight toward the coast of Cuba where no mercy was to be looked for. Because of the destruction of the Spanish gun-boat, these refugees were something else than castaways. They were men without a country, and death awaited them wherever flew the red and yellow flag of Spain.

Captain O’Shea turned from gazing at the distant smoke and awakened Johnny Kent.

“Rouse out, ye sleepy old duellist,” he called. “Take a look at this vessel.”

The engineer emerged from the tent and the two men stood side by side, their emotions weighted with poignant anxiety.

“We won’t be able to tell what she is for some time yet,” said Johnny Kent. “The sea is hazy. Yes, she’s sure enough comin’ this way, Cap’n Mike.”

“’Tis best for us to be ready, whatever she is,” replied O’Shea.

“I guess we’ll postpone the arrangements for my duel. What’s the orders?”

“All hands will move inside the earthworks right after breakfast,” briskly spoke O’Shea. “Take charge of the men in your department, Johnny. See that the rifles are clean and serve out plenty of ammunition. And store all the fresh water ye can.”

“If it’s a Spanish vessel, can we stand her off at all, Cap’n Mike?”

“She will have a hard time shellin’ us out, Johnny. That four-sided refuge we piled up with our shovels is nothing but a big sand-bank. Shells will bury in it without explodin’. ’Tis the theory of modern fortifications. We can do our best, and maybe luck will turn our way. Anyhow, ’tis more sensible than to be shot by drum-head court-martial, which is what will happen to us if we throw up our hands and surrender. If they find us a hard nut to crack, perhaps we can make terms of some kind.”

“What about the ladies? I was hopin’ they wouldn’t have to go up against any more excitement,” wistfully said Johnny Kent.

“I have delivered me cargo. It stands no longer between us and our guests, Johnny. And ’tis my opinion that you and I will not let them suffer for the sake of saving our own skins.”

“Right you are, Cap’n Mike. I don’t care a cuss what becomes of me if you can get Miss Hollister--I mean both of ’em, of course--on board a respectable vessel of some kind.”

Soon the camp was in commotion. The methods of the leaders were brutal and direct. This was no time for soft words. Jack Gorham moved quietly, in several places at once, and when a man would argue or expostulate he was threatened with the butt of that terrible Springfield. At his side, like a huge, black shadow, stalked Jiminez, a militant assistant who jumped at the word of command.

Johnny Kent, no longer a sighing sentimentalist, bellowed at his engineers, oilers, and stokers, and the discipline of shipboard took hold of them. There was the loudest uproar in the Cuban camp. Because of their race, the patriots had to be melodramatic, to defy the unknown steamer by running to the beach and brandishing their rifles and machetes at the ribbon of smoke that trailed across the opalescent sea. But Colonel Calvo, very much more of a man in this emergency than when he had been afloat on the bounding billows, drove them back to camp and got them well in hand.

The canvas shelters were hastily ripped down and set up inside the earthworks as a protection against the sun which blazed into this windless enclosure with fierce intensity. Johnny Kent paused to say to O’Shea:

“It’s goin’ to be hades in there for the women. They can’t stand it long.”

“They won’t have to, Johnny. This will be a short performance. Ye can expect a show-down between now and sunset.”

The haze had vanished. The steamer was visible beneath a far-flung banner of smoke. A tiny foremast, a ring around it, and O’Shea exclaimed:

“A fighting-top! It looks to me like the cruiser that chased us down the coast.”

“That’s her, dollars to doughnuts, Cap’n Mike. She ain’t in such a hurry to-day.”

“No need of it. We can’t get away.”

“Do you think she’s really lookin’ for us?”

“’Tis not a bad guess, Johnny. As soon as word was telegraphed to Havana that the gun-boat was destroyed, the whole blockadin’ fleet must have been ordered to watch for us at both ends of Cuba. They knew we had to round Cape Maysi or San Antonio to get home. And when we were not seen or reported anywhere they may have begun to look for us down here to the south’ard.”

“She can’t help sightin’ the wreck of the _Fearless_,” said the engineer.

“And then she will know who we are. ’Tis time for all hands to take to cover.”

The Spanish man-of-war, gray, and slim, and venomous, slowly lifted her hull above the sea-line, and was heading to pass to the eastward of the sandy islet. It was a fair conjecture that her captain was roving away from his station on the coast in the hope of finding the _Fearless_ disabled or short of coal. Some of the refugees surmised that she might pass them unobserved, but at a distance of two or three miles she turned and laid a course to pick up the key at closer range.