Chapter III: Part 3

"Meanwhile the stupid old hippo, who usually wanted nothing more than his grub and his bath, lumbered around looking for further trouble. He found it; he interfered between the wild asses and the zebras, and soon the whole bunch, both sides, were bombarding him with their hind feet. He squealed and groaned and growled, but to no end.

"They backed up to him and thumped him with their hoofs, as many as could get near him. It was a beautiful exhibition of the law of the brotherhood of man and the brotherhood of beast. Those equine propagandists of the law of the survival of the fittest kicked that poor, peaceful old hippo into a condition of coma.

"At last he lay down, with his head between his paws, and gave it up; then the kickers ceased kicking him and resumed their kicking of each other.

"By this time the python and the boa had gathered in about three feet of each other; the wolves and hyenas--two against one, understand--had reduced their number by half, and the lion was still pretending to fight the rhino.

"He still found it best to dodge that upright tusk, while his claws and teeth couldn't even scratch the rhino's impervious hide.

"Then he got it from another quarter. The porcupines had climbed up, and one was nosing round the deck, attending to his own affairs--which seemed to be nothing more than an intention to find out where he was--when he got between these two. He suddenly balled himself up, turned round a couple of times, and then fired a volley of his quills.

"They went, straight and true, right into that open hole between the lion's forelegs. He stood on his hindfeet for a moment, bellowing and roaring, while he tried to brush them out; then he slunk forward again and hid behind the house. But we heard his occasional snarls of pain.

"Meanwhile the porcupine had opened fire on the rhino, but did him no harm; and rhino was too big-minded to notice him. He lumbered round, looking for a match with something, but not finding it; even the kickers got out of his way, and the poor old hippo wandered forward to commune with the lion.

"Not finding an antagonist worthy of his horn, the rhino began nosing the two mutual-minded snakes. He tossed them 'round, and they were helpless to resist--only the rough handling seemed to induce increased swallowing power. We could see their jaws working convulsively; and inch by inch, foot by foot, they rapidly disappeared from sight.

"The rhino soon got tired and tackled the wolves and hyenas--what was left of them. They had reduced their number to two of each kind; but this was too small to admit of two against one, so they were now dodging each other, snarling bravely enough, but not fighting.

"The rhino caught a hyena on his tusk, tossed him in air, caught him as he fell, sent him flying again, and then stamped his life out. This seemed to settle the fate of the other hyena, for immediately the two remaining wolves got at him. But rhino's next victim was a wolf, which he disposed of as quickly.

"This left two cowards to fight for the supremacy; but the fight was taken out of them. They slunk apart and did not meet again.

"Now, here was the condition of things when a new factor intruded upon the problem: the lion was nursing his hurts, forward of the house, out of sight; the hippo had gone to sleep from sheer weariness and disgust; the last wolf and hyena were prowling round, avoiding each other; the python and the boa had swallowed two-thirds of each other's length; the rhino was wandering round, looking for a scrap; the kicking zebras and wild asses had grown tired and called it a draw, and the porcupines, three or four of them, had finished their inspection of their environment and had snuggled down in various places to await developments.

"The new factor was a green sea that lifted aboard amidships and flooded the waist of the ship. Of course, the quick movers of the lot got forward or aft, out of the way of the water surging back and forth across the deck; but the poor porcupines were drowned before the water ran out the scuppers. And when it had gone out, we saw what we had not seen before--the small, poisonous cobras.

"They had come up, but had kept out of sight until that sea washed them round; then, as the water shallowed on the deck, they made for the masts or the rigging and began to climb. It's hard to drown a snake, you know.

"There were at least two dozen of the reptiles, and it looked bad for us fellows aloft. Did you ever see a snake climb a rope? He goes up in a sort of wriggling spiral, wrapped loosely round it, but shifting his different sections up for a fresh grip. The other fellows climbed to the topmast-crosstrees and looked down; but the snakes stopped at the eyes of the rigging, or the tops, and rested.

"Then came a second new factor in our problem: a sea came aboard from the other side and washed about; another with the next roll, and still another. The rolls were long and heavy, and I, who had once been on a sinking ship, sensed the reason.

"'We're sinking, captain,' I said. 'That main-topgallantmast going down that hatch has punched a hole or started a butt.'

"'Maybe you're right,' he exclaimed. 'What can we do?'

"That was too hard a question at the time for a skipper to ask of a foremast-hand, so I said nothing, but did a lot of thinking. The flywheel-pump was amidships at the main fife-rail. We could not go down to it without danger from the wounded lion, the rhino, and possibly the wolf, though, with these out of the way, we might dodge or kill the cobras and fight off the hyena.

"As it was, we were caught. I suggested to the skipper that he go down the mizzentopmast-backstay, dart into his cabin, and get his rifle. Then he could pot the brutes from the forward windows. But he declined and forbade me going. I had no business in his cabin.

"I saw that he had lost his nerve. Now, when a skipper loses his nerve, he loses his rights; so I didn't hesitate to sing out to the mate in the main-topmast-crosstrees to clear away downhaul-blocks, quarter-blocks, or anything handy and heavy, and try and drop them on the lion and the rhino, the two most dangerous of the bunch. He seemed to be much in the same condition as the skipper, for he answered and passed the word forward to the fellows on the fore.

"In a few minutes things began raining down onto the deck--blocks, bulls'-eyes, and sea-boots. The bombardment raised a commotion, though none of the brutes was hit.

"Yet the sick and sore lion responded to the extent of bounding aft and mounting the poop. Here he came within range of us fellows up the mizzen, and I had the disconnected mizzen-staysail halyard-block in my hand ready for him. He gained the space abaft the house near the wheel and stood still, lashing his tail and nosing the air as though he smelled us up aloft.

"He was only about forty feet down; and when young I had been a good ball-player. I leaned over and let that block go with all my strength. It wasn't the ordinary shell-block, but a solid carving of _lignum-vitae_; and it fetched that lion a smash on the head that must have cracked his skull, for he sank down, then got up and wabbled, rather than walked, forward along the alley to the poop-steps.

"There he blindly fell off the poop; and the rhino, whom he had dodged on the run aft, was ready for him. It wasn't a fight. The lion was dying, and the rhino simply hastened the job, goring him relentlessly until the bleeding carcass lay still.

"Then the rhino, flushed with victory, went for the nearest brute, a wild ass, and soon he had the whole of them--asses and zebras--kicking the stomach out of him, or into him, perhaps, by the way he bellowed.

"It was funny, in a way, for they were all too quick for him; they could dodge that plunging beast with his murderous horn, and turn for a kick before he got by.

"But there was nothing funny about that water in the hold, nor in the prospective job of stopping the leak, pumping her out, and bending new canvas, in case we could get that rhinoceros out of the way. He was the only thing we feared now, for the rest were not really dangerous unless you got too close.

"We knew the wolf and the hyena would run from a man with a handspike, and the zebras and asses would run from a man without one. To make matters worse, darkness closed down. So, lashing ourselves to the crosstrees, we slept more or less sweetly until daylight.

"When we took stock of things, we knew that all was up with that bark. Her plank-sheer amidships was awash, and the water rolling in a green body from starboard to port and back again.

"The crazy elephant stood under the hatch, squealing and trumpeting in fright. He must have smashed the monkeys' cages during the night, for the rigging was dotted with chimpanzees, orangs, and the small fellows. The hyena and the wolf had gained the forecastle-deck, and stood, side by side, looking aft, with no thought of quarreling in this emergency.

"The sleepy old hippo was lumbering round in the flooded waist as though he enjoyed his salt-water bath; and the rhino was forward on the main deck, looking at the water as it washed up to him and receded. Amidships was a thick, black ring of about two feet diameter, sliding round in the wash.

"It was the two big snakes, each a sheath for the other, but each dead as a door-nail; either they had died from the strain, or the water had drowned them. The zebras and wild asses were also forward, but mostly out of sight behind the house. Not a cobra could be seen, however, and the skipper displayed sudden energy.

"'Something must be done,' he said vehemently. 'You men stay here while I make the attempt to get to the top of the forward house. If I can make it without trouble, the rest of you can follow. We must clear away the boats, for there is no saving this ship.'

"So saying, he gripped the mizzen-stay and slid down it to where it ended at a band on the main-mast just above the fife-rail. From there he dropped to the deck and made a bee-line for the starboard side of the house to avoid the rhino, who was forward on the port side.

"But the rhino saw him coming down the stay and lumbered aft into the washing-water to investigate, rounding the port corner of the house just as the skipper reached the starboard. From there he charged; and you cannot imagine the velocity of a rhino's charge. It is like that of a locomotive. The skipper scrambled on top of a water-tank alongside the house just in time to escape that tusk, and from there he got to the top, where he sat down to recover himself.

"He was a badly scared man. The rhino grunted and snorted at him and tried to climb the tank, but failed to get a grip on the smooth-painted staves. So he stood guard abaft the house, looking up.

"There were two other roads to the deck--the port and starboard mizzen rigging, I still had in mind that rifle of the skipper's, and as the second mate, a young fellow just out of the forecastle, made no objections, I slid down the after-swifter of the port rigging and got into the cabin before the skipper or the rhino noticed me.

"I found the cabin flooded, and waded waist-deep to the skipper's room, where I found his Winchester hanging to the bulkhead. Making sure that the magazine was full, I scrambled to the forward companion, where there was a window that gave me a good view of the deck. The skipper was calling the men on the main to come down by the maintopmast stay to the top of the house, and to those on the fore to come down by the backstays to the rail, and then to jump to the water-tanks; and the men were coming down, one by one, even though the rigging swarmed with big monkeys and the corners and hollow spots possibly held poisonous snakes.

"A yell from the mizzen called my attention to one of these, a big fellow of four feet in length whom the skipper had frightened out of his hiding-place on the fife-rail, and he was climbing the mizzen-stay. He rested about six feet up, but completely blocked this path to the deck for the men in the mizzen. However, when I had cleared the deck of the rhino, they could come down my way. I cocked the gun, took careful aim at the big brute's left eye, and let go.

"I missed the eye, but attracted his attention, and he came charging aft through the water. I ducked, knowing that he couldn't climb the flimsy steps to the short length of poop forward of the house without breaking them down with his weight, and, after a moment, peeped out.

"He was just turning to go forward, and, as I knew that a Winchester bullet wouldn't puncture his hide, I saved my shots.

"Meanwhile, all hands but the boys in the mizzen-crosstrees had gained the forward house and were clearing away the two boats, lashed in their chocks, right side up--one to starboard, the other to port. I could see the work going on--saw them smash the skylight over the galley for a man to go down to pass up grub, and saw a man dive down.

"Then I saw another fellow take a beaker from the starboard boat, and, watching his chance when the rhino wasn't looking, drop over and into the starboard forecastle, to fill it from the water-barrel. He passed it up and also the bread-barge. There was some of the cabin stores in the galley, and these they secured easily through the skylight; but I noticed they packed it all in the starboard-boat, though they had cleared away the other.

"I knew I had just fifteen shots in that rifle; but I hadn't looked for further ammunition, and I thought that fifteen would finish the rhino, somehow; so, when the boys above shinned down and joined me, I neglected to ask them to hunt for more, but just peppered away when I thought I saw a good chance, but never hit the one vulnerable spot.

"The second mate wanted to try it, but I wouldn't resign the gun to him. In extreme emergencies, you know, an officer loses his superiority; he becomes a mere man, like the rest. Every time I tickled the brute with a bullet he would come charging aft, but never stopped still when within easy range. Not seeing anyone, he would wheel and go back to his duty at the forward house. To tell the truth, I was a little nervous lest he should be able to mount the poop and get at us.

"The old hippo was happy, swimming and snorting round in the water; and the rhino seemed to have forgotten his grudge, busying himself with his real enemies, human beings. There were about sixteen of these on the forward house, and I noticed that they had ceased the work of stocking the boat, and judged that there was no more grub forward.

"'I say, cap'n,' I called out, 'put some grub and water in the other boat. One boat won't hold us all.'

"'You go to the dickens!' he answered. 'What are you doing in my cabin? Didn't I tell you to keep out of it?'

"'Go yourself!' I yelled. Then I said to the men with me: 'Raid the steward's storeroom and fill your pockets with what you can find. Pack the inside of your shirts.'

"They could find nothing eatable except soda biscuits, and they cleaned out the locker. But there was no water aft.

"Meanwhile the bark was getting lower and lower, and the rhino, to escape the wash, had drifted farther forward. I had wasted twelve bullets by this time, and had but three left. It was best, of course, to kill him before the bark foundered, so that we could get into that port boat and induce the rest to pass over some grub and water. But this was not to be.

"I killed him, all right, but only after we had rushed out at the death flurry of the old craft, floundered forward, seizing handspikes from the racks on the way, and gained the vicinity of the house. Here that murder-minded rhino met us, and I jammed the muzzle into one eye.

"The bullet touched some part of his brain, for he sagged down and grew quiet. And while we mounted the house, the asses and zebras were hee-hawing, the wolf was barking, and the mad elephant, waving his trunk up through the hatch, was trumpeting like a high-pressure exhaust.

"We were just in time. The others had got into the starboard boat, and we bundled into the port. There was no time for a decent launching over the rail, but there was time to sing out for grub and water. The skipper and mate consigned us to the infernal regions.

"'There's not enough to go round,' he declared. 'Take your chance. It's better that part should starve than all.'

"I still had the gun, and had there been time I could have coerced them; but there was no time. In a minute the water had reached the top of the house.

"Then, as the boats floated in the creamy turmoil, we pushed with the oars, and, though half swamped, managed to clear the fore-braces as they went under. There was a mighty roaring of water, and a mighty suction, but the two boats floated, though half full.

"Then we saw that blooming old hippo rise out of the depths and head for us. We shipped the oars and pulled like mad, but we'd gone a quarter of a mile through that heavy sea before we dropped him.

"We couldn't have helped him; he'd have swamped us in a jiffy if he'd got his nose and forepaws over the gunwale. We chewed dry soda biscuits for three days, and were then picked up."

"But the others, Sam?" I asked. "Were they picked up?"

"No," answered Sam with a perceptible quaver in his voice. "They were not. The wolf, the zebras, and the asses could swim, and so could the monkeys, and snakes, after a fashion.

"I don't know what trouble they may or may not have had with these. What I did see, though, as I pulled stroke oar in the race with the hippo, was the big head of the elephant showing occasionally as we rode over the crest of a wave.

"He was waving his trunk in the air, and making for the other boat. They were pulling as hard as we were, but to less avail. They were overladen with men and grub. Each lift of a sea showed them nearer together.

"Then we sank into a hollow.

"When we came up I saw nothing but that waving trunk."

THE FINISHING TOUCH

He was born with a nature as simple and primitive as the physical conditions surrounding him, and endowed with a body so frail and delicate that he barely survived these conditions--which were of frost, and snow, and ice, with winter hurricanes straight from Greenland and summer fogs fed by the Gulf Stream to breed pneumonia and kindred diseases into stronger lungs than his.

But he survived to reach the age of eighteen, a tall, flat-chested, weak-witted butt of the local school, who, while able to struggle along with the ordinary studies at the foot of the class, was yet so poorly endowed with the mathematical sense that he could only master the first four rules of arithmetic. Fractions and decimals were unsolvable mysteries to him. His name was Quinbey--first name John, later Jack.

He was of American birth, the only son of a fisherman, who had taken his smack to an isolated village on the Nova Scotian coast. Here the fisherman did well, and before the boy was half grown owned the finest cottage in the village--which he bought cheap because it was perched on the crest of the hill, exposed to every storm that blew, a nest that none but a sailor could live in. With increasing prosperity he installed a big base-burner, good for the anaemic boy, but bad for himself.

The boy rid himself of coughs and colds; but the father, changing from the chill and the wet of fishing to the warmth and ease of home life, contracted pneumonia and died, leaving the boy in possession of the house and the smack, but not enough ready money to last for a month.

Young Quinbey closed up the house, took in a partner with money, and went fishing for a season, at the end of which the partner--a shrewd business man--owned the smack.

The boy acquired a wonderful increase of health and strength, and a consuming love for a pretty girl of the village, a trader's daughter named Minnie, who repulsed him firmly and emphatically because of his poverty--for the house and base-burner were not desirable assets--and because of his weak mental and physical equipment.

But there is a school for weak mentality and physique--the Seven Seas. And to this school went John Quinbey, first, however, putting in one season on the Georges Bank, where, in a lucky craft, he made money. Richer than ever before in his life, he returned home, to try again for the heart and hand of Minnie, but found her married to the minister, a man as weak, flat-chested, and anaemic as he himself had been.

He reasoned crudely. He did not meet Minnie, but took stock and measure of the minister, a gentleman named Simpson; then, feeling his own expanding chest and enlarging muscles, decided that Minnie would soon be a widow, and he a strong man with money; for he could work, and, having no vices, could save. So, for love of Minnie, he went back to sea, resolved to become a captain, resolved to save every cent he earned, and resolved to balk at no hardship that would lead him to success.

At Boston, he shipped before the mast as able seaman in a big deep-water ship. He was not an able seaman, nor did he become one on this voyage; it required several; but each one marked a steady advance in muscular strength, mental activity, and bank account; and, at the end of the fifth, he signed as boatswain--an able man who knew his work.

He was strong, broad-shouldered, and active; the slightly vacant look in his face that had come from his boyhood incapacity had changed to a frank stare that demanded consideration and respect. He seldom asked a question twice now--once was usually enough. He had a fist that could smash the panels of a door, a voice that he could not modulate to conversational tones--so used was he to sending it against the wind. He did not use tobacco, nor did he drink, for these things cost money, and he was thinking of Minnie, most precious of all things in the world.

At the end of each voyage he visited home, deposited the money he had brought, and waited in the street just long enough for a sight of Minnie, sweet and matronly, and for a sight of the minister, who was holding on to life with a remarkable tenacity. Then he would work his way to Boston, and sign again.

Soon he became a second mate, but never a first, nor a captain. His limitations in arithmetic prevented him from mastering navigation, a necessary acquirement in a first mate or a skipper, and he remained in the position he had reached, close to the sailors, but not of them; sharing their hardships and hard work--for with every reefing or furling match a second mate must go aloft with the men--standing watch with them, washing down decks with them, getting drenched to the skin as often as they, and differing from them only in increase of pay, cabin food, and a dryer bed to sleep in.

But the dryer bed preserved him from the rheumatism and pulmonary troubles that kill all sailors who do not drown, the better food preserved his now iron physique, and the increased pay went into the bank at home.

And so it continued until he was forty years old, when he went home to find Minnie a widow with a grown-up son--a fat, weak-chinned, pale-faced parody on manhood, who never had done a day's work in his life--a "mamma's boy," who was destined for the ministry.

The dark, seamy-faced man of storm and strength, of stress and strain, asked her again to be his wife. He asked her as he would have asked a sailor to sign articles; and the frightened little woman accepted in about the same spirit that would have influenced the sailor; but she made one condition--that he would educate her son for the ministry.

He agreed. Her husband had left her almost nothing, while Quinbey had about ten thousand dollars in the bank. From this he drew the expense of a four years' course at Andover; and, taking the youth to this famous theological college, arranged for his stay there in such a manner as would insure his completing the course--that is, he paid to the president for everything in advance, including, beside tuition and board, a moderate amount of spending money, and traveling expense home and back in vacation.

Then, with Sammy Simpson off his mind for four years at least, Quinbey returned, and married the woman he loved, feeling that he had now earned happiness and the right to remain on land--and smoke.

But he was not born for happiness, and did not recognize it when it came to him. He opened up his house on the hill, fired up the base-burner, and the two sat around it for a month trying to assimilate each other; but they could not. He knew nothing of women; she nothing of such men as him. He never smiled; and, when he joked, the joke was lost in the rumble and grumble of his voice. He caressed her with the gentleness of a grizzly fondling the hunter, and was nonplussed and set back when she cried out in pain.

Afraid of him at first, she soon realized that he knew no better, and responded with the weapons of woman. The man, inured to cold and pain and fatigue, yet was sensitive as a child when it came to his feelings. When she learned this, she kept his nerves quivering with quiet smiles, soft and sarcastic little speeches, and deadening silences, the meaning of which did not strike him at the time because of his transparent frankness and honesty.

He became afraid of her; and she, following up her advantage, wheedled him out of money for clothes, which, though he could not see the need of them, he cheerfully gave her. He loved her devotedly; and, though he never smiled, yet he never frowned, nor spoke a harsh word to her.

But she thought him harsh, and, justified by the thought, continued the marital loot until she grew brave enough to demand a gold watch for Sammy's birthday.

This was not in his program, and he told her so. Then followed a lecture on the duties and shortcomings of fathers, which lasted an hour, and left him shaking like a sick man, sprawled out in the big chair by the fire, and smoking like a high-pressure tug. But she had brought him around, and he had arisen to go out to the town's one jeweler, when she lost all she had won.

"Where are you going?" she asked sharply, as he put on his hat.

"Going out, Minnie," he said, in his jokeless voice, "to get some catnip for you."

He meant it good-humoredly; but it was taken otherwise. The jeweler had no gold watches; but, after a two hours' search, he dug up a wholesaler's catalogue, and, with this in his pocket, Quinbey returned to have Minnie select a watch from it; but she, her trunks, and her belongings were gone, while a note on the table apprised him that she would live with no man who called her a cat.

Troubled in mind, he followed her to the home of her parents, but he was not admitted--nor given a chance to show her the catalogue.

He slept on the problem, and in the morning resolved that a little absence would be good for her; so, as the season had opened, he packed his bag and went out on a fishing trip with friends of his, expecting to be back in a month. It was eight years later when he returned.

His adventures during those eight years can only be summarized. The fishing schooner was cut down by a big ship out of Halifax bound around the Horn; and Quinbey alone of her crew succeeded in springing to her martingale-stay as the smaller craft went under. No one else was saved, though the ship hove to and put out boats to search. Then the ship went on, and, as she met no inbound craft, Quinbey was forced to go with her.

But she did not round Cape Horn. A strong current threw her onto the Patagonian coast near Cape Virgins in a dead calm, and a sudden gale of wind and heavy sea ground her to pieces.

Only John Quinbey was a swimmer of sufficient strength to reach the beach, and here he lay, half dead, for a day, when he arose and struck inland, knowing that Punta Arenas was about a hundred and fifty miles along the coast of the Magellan Strait, and hoping to reach it.

He did not at once. The giant savages of this region caught him and made him one of them, preventing his escape. He was accustomed to hardship, and lived their life, tormented only by the thought that the money at home was deposited in his name, and that he had made no provision whereby the foolish little wife could draw from the bank.

But he still hoped to escape; and, as the tribe drifted inland, he was allowed more liberty. He never abused it, waiting for a final dash, always returning from a jaunt in reasonable time, and earning the confidence of his captors.

When over seven years had passed, he found, in the foothills of the Latorre Mountains, a large, heavy lump of dark metal, which he scraped with his knife and recognized as gold. It was fully the size of a draw bucket, but of what value he could not determine, except that it represented a fortune.

Strong man though he was, he could not carry it a hundred yards without resting, yet he carried it, not back to the tribe, but in a southwesterly direction, toward Punta Arenas. When forced to return, he hid it, taking careful bearings, and rejoined his masters. He waited a few days before the next trip, then moved it a few miles farther on.

In this way, exciting no suspicion, he shifted his find, step by step, until he had it on a well-defined trail that could lead nowhere but to the lonely port he was making for. Then, after a few days' rest, he packed a bundle of dried meat, took with him a native-made rope by which to drag the heavy nugget, and left the camp in the dark of night.

He reached his treasure by daylight, and started along the trail. He was not pursued, and ten days later, half starved, half mad, his shoulders bleeding from the chafe of the rope, and every bone in his body aching with the pain of fatigue, he dragged his burden onto a rickety wharf at Punta Arenas where an eastbound steamer was coaling. Her captain was an honest man. He took Quinbey on board, took him to Boston, and helped him turn the nugget into cash--fifty thousand dollars. Then Quinbey went home.

II

Quinbey had been right about the money in the bank. It was a tidy sum to retain on deposit, and the bank officials had heartlessly refused to pay any of it out to Mrs. Quinbey. She did not attempt to draw until her sulks left her, which occurred after the jeweler, intent upon the sale of a watch, had called upon her, and when the villagers had informed her that Quinbey had gone fishing. Then, disappointed, and somewhat worried over the future, she returned to the house on the hill, and, as it was still cold, lit up the big base-burner from the scanty stock of coal.

As the weeks grew into months and the fishing schooner did not return, she did not, like the rest of the villagers, give her husband up as lost--rather, she believed him alive, hoped for his return, and revised her opinion of him.

Soon--yet long before the grocer, the butcher, and the coal man had refused further credit--she realized that she loved the crude man she had known but a month, but who had loved her for twenty years; and, with tears streaming down her face, she prayed for his safety and return with more fervency than for the beloved son at Andover. This person wrote filial letters home, assuring her of protection and support when he returned; but they brought her small comfort, for the time was at hand when she must pay cash or go without the necessities of life.

Then Sammy came home on his first vacation, and, learning of the money in the bank, used his prestige and address to such advantage that he persuaded the local authorities to declare Quinbey legally dead--an easy matter on that coast of many wrecks.

Righteously indignant at the selfishness of the bank officials, he induced his mother to withdraw the money--shrunk to eight thousand dollars--from the bank, and allow him to take it to Boston, where, in a larger and safer bank, it would draw interest, and on which she could write checks in payment of her bills.

She consented, and Sammy departed with the money. But at Boston, before reaching the bank, he traversed the highways and the byways of the big city, imbibed certain and sundry liquids known to him only by name, loved his fellow men, and met fellow men of like state of mind, who, seeing a stranger, took him in.

He was stripped to empty pockets, spent a night in a cell, and only by the help of another clergyman was he shipped back to Andover with a letter to the president.

From here he wrote to his mother a garbled account of his adventures; and, as the president of the college mercifully forbore writing her the truth, the poor woman merely wept a little, prayed a little, and took up her burden.

Her parents were old and indigent, unable to more than house her for a few days at a time. As minister's wife, she had made no friends that would help her now in a way befitting her position. As for herself, with only a village education, she could not even teach, even though able to found a school.

But every mother and daughter, sister and grand-ma'am in the village was willing to give her work by the day for the mere pleasure of gloating; and at this work she went bravely.

The sneers and insults she received soon limited her journeyings from home, and she finally became the village wash-woman. The kitchen of the house was turned into a laundry, and the big base-burner allowed to grow cold; for she could not afford two fires.

In her laundry she worked, and in wintertime slept, and only on Saturdays was she seen on the street, when, with deepening lines in her face and a growing gray tinge to her hair, she struggled back and forth with her basket of clothes. But she earned her living, and looked forward hopefully to the return of her husband and assuredly to the return of her son, who would care for her.

Sammy only came home on the first vacation; the next three he spent at the homes of classmates. But at last the four years' course was ended, and, with nowhere else to go, he appeared, an ordained minister of the Gospel, but unattached.

The Reverend Samuel Simpson, as we must know him now, was twenty-four years old, as pale as ever, fatter than ever, with a chin that, because of the fat, seemed to recede still farther into his neck. His mother rejoiced over him, was proud of him, and believed that her troubles were now ended.

The villagers welcomed him, and the gray old pastor of the church once presided over by his father invited him to preach. He did so, delivering his one sermon; but the delivery and the sermon were not of a character that would inspire the congregation to empty the pulpit for him, so the young preacher went home to wait, as Quinbey had waited, for that pulpit to become vacant by death.

But he deplored the coldness of the house, and ordered coal on credit for the base-burner; also he deplored the hard labor of his mother, assured her that the necessity for it would soon end, but did nothing himself toward this end; for, in truth, there was nothing he could do but preach; and the gray old pastor seemed as tenacious of life as his own father had been.

The mother was content, however, except for the always present, but lessening, hope that her husband would return, and happy in the company of her educated and accomplished son. And so, as bravely as ever, she carried her burden through the streets, not only on Saturdays now, but on Wednesdays, because, with another mouth to feed, she must of needs wash more clothes.

And so the time went on, the Reverend Samuel Simpson growing seedier of raiment and fatter of body, enduring patiently the sneers and sarcasms of the indignant men of the village, while the mother's face grew thinner, her body weaker, and her once blond hair so gray that she looked ten years beyond her age. Then, four years after the son's return, the breaking point came. With the front of her garments dripping wet, she stood erect from her tub, looked at him where he sat near the kitchen fire--the base-burner had long been cold--and said:

"Sammy, you must go to work. I can do no more. It is killing me."

"But what can I do, mother dear?" he answered kindly.

"I do not know," she said weariedly. "Something, maybe, that will help. You are educated. You might write for the Boston papers, or the magazines. Or you might find a pulpit somewhere else, and send me some money once in a while."

"What, and leave you alone, mother? Not for the world would I desert you. You are my mother, and have cared for me. But I have thought of writing. I have been thinking for years of a literary career, only I have not been able to decide which branch of literature I am best fitted for."

"Well, Sammy," said the mother, as she bent over her tub, "I cannot decide for you; but something must be done."

"And I will do it, mother," he shouted loudly--so loudly that neither heard the opening of the front door, nor the sound of heavy footsteps coming toward the kitchen.

Then a big, dark-faced man, with hair as gray as her own, seized her around the waist, lifted her into his arms, and rained kisses on her face and lips while she screamed, then, as she recognized him, fainted away. Still holding her, he lifted his foot, exerted a slight effort of strength, and pushed the tubful of suds and clothes off its base, upsetting it squarely over the head of the Reverend Samuel Simpson, who nearly choked before getting himself clear.

"I've been hearing things about you down at the store," said Quinbey, "and I'll 'tend to your case directly."

Then he carried the limp little woman into the bedroom, stripped off her wet garments, and covered her warmly, while he kissed her back to consciousness.

"Oh, John," she said, when she could speak, "I knew you'd come back, but, oh, the long waiting! I've been punished, John, punished bitterly."

"There'll be no more of it, Minnie," he said. "I've come home rich--that is, rich for this town. Your work is ended. They told me at the store about your son loafing on you all these years while you took in washing. But how about the money in the bank? Couldn't you get it?"

"Oh, yes, John," she answered simply. "But Sammy took it to Boston to deposit, and was robbed of it."

"Um-hum-m-m," grunted Quinbey. "The savings of twenty years at sea!" Briefly she recounted Sammy's story of the wrong done him; but he made no comment beyond saying that he would look into it.

"He's got to go to work," he added grimly. "I don't know what he can do except preach, and perhaps he can't do that. I'll write to Andover and get his record. But how about the house? It's cold. Out of coal?"

"We've got very little, John. We couldn't afford two fires."

Quinbey left her, and found his stepson in his room, changing his wet clothing for dry.

"Take this money," he said, handing him a bill, "and go down to the coal dock. Order a ton up here at once."

"I will, sir," answered Sammy, with dignity, "when I've recovered somewhat from your extremely brutal treatment of me. I must be dry before I go out on this cold day."

But he went out, shirtless and coatless, at the end of Quinbey's arm; and, as it really was cold, he hurried on his errand, and returned. Before long the base-burner was roaring, and Quinbey was recounting his adventures to his happy-faced wife; while Sammy, in the kitchen, finished up the wash. Later on he delivered it; but no more washing of other folks' clothing was ever done in that house.

Quinbey wrote to Andover, and in a few days received a reply, which he read to his wife. It was a true account of Sammy's mishap in Boston; and, while Quinbey grinned--he could not smile--the mother wept silently, but asked no forgiveness for her wayward son. And when he rummaged a bureau, and brought forth an old jeweler's catalogue, asking her to choose a watch for Sammy, she felt that it was granted; but she did not yet know Quinbey.

Sammy wore the watch proudly; and for the rest of the cold weather the three sat about the base-burner, while the color came back to the little woman's face, and self-confidence to the shaken mind of Sammy. He actually began to like his rough stepfather; and only an outsider might have guessed, by the somber light in Quinbey's dark eyes when they rested upon him, that he did not like his stepson.

In the spring, as soon as the frost and snow were gone, Quinbey employed laborers to flatten the ground near his house to the extent of a hundred feet by ten; then, with stakes, he laid out the plan of a ship's deck. Next he contracted with spar makers, ship carpenters, and ship chandlers for material and labor; and before June three masts were erected, each with topmast, top-gallant, and royal mast, the standing rigging of which was set up to strong posts driven into the ground; then followed yards, canvas, and running gear, and soon a complete ship of small dimensions, but without a hull, adorned the crest of the hill.

As Quinbey explained to the questioning villagers, he would go to sea no more, but, having spent his life at sea, wanted a reminder--something to look at--a plaything.

Sammy was an interested spectator of the work, and Quinbey was kind to him, answering his questions, and even betraying some solicitude that he should understand the rig of a ship, the names of the ropes and sails, and the manner of handling them. He even went so far as to hire a couple of sailors to climb aloft, to loose and furl canvas, again and again, until Sammy understood.

Then the cold weather came on, and the base-burner was lit; and with the cold weather came the snow, and the icy sleet, and the hurricane gales from Greenland, striking the crest of that hill with a force that threatened to tear the dummy ship from the ground. And on particularly stormy nights, the villagers, snug in their warm beds, would waken for a moment at a sound louder than the gale--the sound of Quinbey's voice, which, in a calm, would carry a mile. And the voice would cry:

"All hands on deck to make sail. Out wi' you, you blasted lubber, and lay aloft. Up wi' you, and loose that mainsail, and, when you've got it loose, furl it. I'll show you how I earned that money. Up wi' you, 'fore I give you a rope's end."

And sometimes, in the lulls, they could hear Sammy's shrieks of pain, and the thwack of the rope's end.

THE ROCK

"I tell ye I saw it--wi' these eyes I saw it!"

"You think you seen it."

"Now I quit. Ye talk like every mate or skipper or Consul I've told this to. Just the same, I never git to the end o' the third day out, either way,--I'm in a six-day boat, ye know--but what the nervousness gits me, an' I'm no good for twelve hours, until I know we're past the spot."

"A rock, you say, in the middle o' the Atlantic? Why isn't it known and charted?"

"Because it's awash an' visible only at the fall o' the spring tides."

"How is it that no one else saw it but you?"

"I was the only man aloft. She was a hemp-rigged old ballyhoo out o' Quebec, an' gear was chafin' through all the time. I was passin' a new seizin' on the collar o' the foretopmast stay, when I squinted ahead through the fog, and there it was black an' shiny, an' murderous, about forty feet long, I should judge, and five feet or so out o' water, right dead under the bow. I could see the lift o' the water where the current pushed ag'in' it, and the swirl on t'other side, showin' it was no derelict, bottom up. No, it was a rock. 'Starboard!' I yells to the felly at the wheel. 'Starboard! Hard up!' Well, the skipper was below, an' the second mate, who had the deck, was mixin' paint under the fo'c'sle; so the wheel went up an' the old wagon payed off 'fore the wind. Then I lost it myself in the fog, an', as I couldn't point out anything to the skipper when he come up, I was called down an' damned for a fool. But I saw it, just the same, a big rock halfway across, and squarely between the lane routes!"

"How do you know that?"

"The skipper wasn't above givin' me the ship's position--forty-seven north; thirty-seven twenty west. That's between the lanes, an' I'll bet the _Narconic_ is at the base o' that rock, to say nothin' o' the _Pacific_, the _President_, and t'others."

The wabbly little West Street horse car had reached the White Star dock by this and the two men stepped off. Steamship sailors, I knew. I had never seen them before, and have never seen them since; but their conversation produced a marked impression upon me, and I could not shake off a feeling--not of itself a remembrance, however--that I had heard something of the kind before. A submerged rock in mid-Atlantic. But it was incredible, and at last I put it from my mind as a "galley yarn."

But next morning it was back, in company with another galley yarn, one I barely remembered as having heard ten years before from an old Confederate man-o'-war'sman who had sailed with Semmes in the _Alabama_. The yarn pertained to the pursuit of a Northern merchant ship, and I give only the conclusion.

"We were gaining fast," he had said, "and hoped to bring her to before breakfast; for at daylight she was but three miles or so ahead, every sail drawing and every detail of spar, canvas, and hull showing clear in the morning light. And then, while we looked at her, she quickly settled under, not head first or stern first, as is usual, but on an even keel. They had no time to start a brace or a halyard; there was not time for her to answer to her wheel, if it had been shifted. She just went down as though something had hooked onto her keel and dragged her under. I never learned her name; but she must have been bound out of New York or Boston, for some French port in the Channel. We picked up one of her men, a Dago who couldn't tell her name, and only this much as to what happened. A ripping, crashing sound began forward and worked its way aft, ending at the stern, and we could only surmise that something--a submerged derelict, perhaps--had scraped the bottom out of her."

Memory is treacherous. In a few days I had forgotten this yarn with the other, and might never have recalled it had I not ascended to an upper floor in the lofty Flatiron Building, and looked out of a window at the loftier, but unfinished, tower of the Metropolitan Building across the park. It was a damp, dismal day of fog; but at my elevation I could see clear of it. I was above it, looking over an undulating sea of cloud bank from which the tower rose, massive and mighty, apparently floating on end, like an immense spar buoy at the turn of the tide. The rest of New York lay hidden beneath that silent gray ocean of fog.

Interesting as it was of itself, it was not the spectacle before me that gripped and held me, but an associated idea. As it was the first time I had ever seen a skyscraper lift itself above the clouds, so it naturally reminded me of the first time I had seen a mountaintop above the clouds. This was Krakatoa Island, a conical mountain rising from the sea in the Straits of Sunda, but since submerged in the Java earthquake.

With this mental picture before me, my thoughts touched upon other happenings of that boyhood voyage--the long, tedious beat through the straits against light head winds and a continuous head tide; the man-killing log windlass, round which we hove, and lightened, chain of an eight-inch link; the natives, with their welcome fruit in exchange for trinkets; and, lastly, the white-haired old pilot, who came forward to visit me one evening on anchor watch.

And then, like an inspired flash, there surged into my mind, not only the two galley yarns, but the story told by the pilot--a story of such burning power and horror that, though forgotten for a generation, it spelled itself out, word for word, as I stared into the fog from the window, exactly as the old man had told it.

He had heard from the skipper that I was from the same part of New York State as himself, and he had come forward for news of home. I could give him little. I knew no one that he knew; the small town that give him birth was not far from my own, but was only a name to me. Still he remained to talk. My up-State accent pleased him, he said, and reminded him of home, which he had not seen for forty years, and which he hardly hoped to see. He was sixty-five; two shocks had come, and the third would finish him.

"But I'm an old, experienced man, my boy," he said, "and I can give you my life's wisdom in three short rules, easy to remember and easy to follow. Stick to your skipper; leave liquor alone; and never, under any provocation, engage in mutiny. I broke every one of these, and here I've been, for half a lifetime, an exile, afraid to go home."

Not realizing how sorely I needed this wisdom, but keenly interested in mutiny, piracy, and such fancies of boyhood, I asked for light, and he gave it to me.