Chapter IX: Bad Signs

It was strange that, while some of us in the forecastle were much cast down by the tragic events of the day, others should seem to be put in really good humor by it all. Neddie Benson soberly shook his head from time to time; old Bill Hayden lay in his bunk without even a word about his "little wee girl in Newburyport," and occasionally complained of not feeling well; and various others of the crew faced the future with frank hopelessness.

For my own part, it seemed to me as unreal as a nightmare that Captain Joseph Whidden actually had been shot dead by a band of Arab pirates. I was bewildered--indeed, stunned--by the incredible suddenness of the calamity. It was so complete, so appallingly final! To me, a boy still in his 'teens, that first intimate association with violent death would have been in itself terrible, and I keenly felt the loss of our chief mate. But Captain Whidden to me was far more than master of the ship. He had been my father's friend since long before I was born; and from the days when I first discriminated between the guests at my father's house, I had counted him as also a friend of mine. Never had I dreamed that so sad an hour would darken my first voyage.

Kipping, on the other hand, and Davie Paine and the carpenter seemed actually well pleased with what had happened. They lolled around with an air of exasperating superiority when they saw any of the rest of us looking at them; and now and then they exchanged glances that I was at a loss to understand until all at once a new thought dawned on me: since the captain and the first mate were dead, the command of the ship devolved upon Mr. Falk, the second mate.

No wonder that Kipping and Davie and the carpenter and all the rest of that lawless clique were well pleased. No wonder that old Bill Hayden and some of the others, for whom Kipping and his friends had not a particle of use were downcast by the prospect.

I was amazed at my own stupidity in not realizing it before, and above all else I now longed to talk with someone whom I could trust--Roger Hamlin by preference; as second choice, my friend the cook. But for the time being I was disappointed in this. Almost immediately Mr. Falk summoned all hands aft.

"Men," he said, putting on a grave face that seemed to me assumed for the occasion, "men, we've come through a dangerous time, and we are lucky to have come alive out of the bad scrape that we were in. Some of us haven't come through so well. It's a sad thing for a ship to lose an officer, and it is twice as sad to lose two fine officers like Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas. I'll now read the service for the burial of the dead, and after that I'll have something more to say to you."

One of the men spoke in an undertone, and Mr. Falk cried, "What's that?"

"If you please, sir," the man said, fidgeting nervously, "couldn't we go ashore and bury them decently?"

Others had thought of the same thing, and they showed it by their faces; but Mr. Falk scowled and replied, "Nonsense! We'd be murdered in cold blood."

So we stood there, bareheaded, silent, sad at heart, and heard the droning voice of the second mate,--even then he could not hide his unrighteous satisfaction,--who read from a worn prayer-book, that had belonged to Captain Whidden himself, the words committing the bodies of three men to the deep, their souls to God.

When the brief, perfunctory service was over, Mr. Falk put away the prayer-book,--I verily believe he put away with it all fear of the Lord,--folded his arms and faced us arrogantly.

"By the death of Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas," he said, "I have become the rightful master of this ship. Now I've got a few things to say to you, and I'm going to have them understood. If you heed them and work smartly, you'll get along as well as you deserve. If you don't heed them, you'd better be dead and done with it. If you don't heed them--" he sneered disagreeably--"if you don't heed them I'll lash the skin off the back of every bloody mother's son of ye. This voyage from now on is to be carried out for the best interests of all concerned." He stopped and smiled and repeated significantly, "_Of_ ALL _concerned_." After another pause, in which some of the men exchanged knowing glances, he went on, "I have no doubt that the most of us will get along as well as need be. So far, well and good. But if there's those that try to cross my bows,"--he swore roundly,--"heaven help'em! They'll need it. That's all. Wait! One thing more: we've got to have officers, and as I know you'll not be bold to pick from among yourselves, I'll save you the trouble. Kipping from this time on will be chief mate. You'll take his things aft, and you'll obey him from now on and put the handle to his name. Paine will be second mate. That's all. Go forward."

Kipping and Davie Paine! I was thunderstruck. But some of the men exchanged glances and smiles as before, and I saw by his expression that Roger, although ill pleased, was by no means so amazed as I should have expected him to be.

For the last time as seaman, Kipping, mild and quiet, came to the forecastle. But as he packed his bag and prepared to leave us, he smiled constantly with a detestable quirk of his mouth, and before going he stopped beside downcast old Bill Hayden. "Straighten up, be a man," he said softly; "I'll see that you're treated right." He fairly drawled the words, so mildly did he speak; but when he had finished, his manner instantly changed. Thrusting out his chin and narrowing his eyes, he deliberately drew back his foot and gave old Bill one savage kick.

I was right glad that chance had placed me in the second mate's watch.

As for Davie Paine, he was so overcome by the stroke of fortune that had resulted in his promotion, that he could not even collect his belongings. We helped him pile them into his chest, which he fastened with trembling fingers, and gave him a hand on deck. But even his deep voice had failed him for the time being, and when he took leave of us, he whispered piteously, '"Fore the Lord, I dunno how it happened. I ain't never learned to figger and I can't no more than write my name."

What was to become of us? Our captain was a weak officer. Our present chief mate no man of us trusted.

Our second mate was inexperienced, incompetent, illiterate. More than ever I longed to talk with Roger Hamlin, but there was no opportunity that night.

Our watch on deck was a farce, for old Davie was so unfamiliar with his new duties and so confused by his sudden eminence that, according to the men at the wheel, he didn't know north from south or aloft from alow. Evading his confused glances, I sought the galley, and without any of the usual complicated formalities was admitted to where the cook was smoking his rank pipe.

Rolling his eyes until the whites gleamed, he told me the following astounding story.

"Boy," he said, "dis am de most unmitigated day ol' Frank ever see. Cap'n, he am a good man and now he's a dead un. Mistah Thomas he am a good man and now _he's_ a dead un. What Ah tell you about dem ha'nts? Ef Ah could have kotched a rabbit with a lef' hind-leg, Ah guess we'd be better off. Hey? Mistah Falk, he am cap'n--Lo'd have mercy on us! Dat Kipping, he am chief mate--Lo'd have mercy on us mis'able sinners! Davie Paine, he am second mate--Lo'd perserve ou' souls! Ah guess you don't know what Ah heah Mistah Falk say to stew'd! He says, 'Stew'd, we got ev'ything--ev'ything. And we ain't broke a single law!' Now tell me what he mean by dat? What's stew'd got, Ah want to know? But dat ain't all--no, sah, dat ain't all."

He leaned forward, the whites of his eyes rolling, his fixed frown more ominous than ever. "Boy, Ah see 'em when dey's dead, Ah did. Ah see 'em all. Mistah Thomas, he have a big hole in de middle of his front, and dat po' old sailo' man he have a big hole in de middle of his front. Yass, sah, Ah see 'em! But cap'n, he have a little roun' hole in the back of his head.--Yass, sah--_he was shot f'om behine_!"

The sea that night was as calm and as untroubled as if the day had passed in Sabbath quiet. It seemed impossible that we had endured so much, that Captain Whidden and Mr. Thomas were dead, that the space of only twenty-four hours had wrought such a change in the fortunes of all on board.

I could not believe that one of our own men had shot our captain. Surely the bullet must have hit him when he was turning to give an order or to oversee some particular duty. And yet I could not forget the cook's words. They hummed in my ears. They sounded in the strumming of the rigging, in the "talking" of the ship:--

"A little roun' hole in the back of his head--yass, sah--he was shot f'om behine."

Without the captain and Mr. Thomas the Island Princess was like a strange vessel. Both Kipping and Davie Paine had been promoted from the starboard watch, leaving us shorthanded; so a queer, self-confident fellow named Blodgett was transferred from the chief mate's watch to ours. But even so there were fewer hands and more work, and the spirit of the crew seemed to have changed. Whereas earlier in the voyage most of the men had gone smartly about their duties, always glad to lend a hand or join in a chantey, and with an eye for the profit and welfare of the owners as well as of themselves, now there came over the ship, silently, imperceptibly, yet so swiftly and completely that, although no man saw it come, in twenty-four hours it was with us and upon us in all its deadening and discouraging weight, a spirit of lassitude and procrastination. You would have expected some of the men to find it hard to give old Davie Paine quite all the respect to which his new berth entitled him, and for my own part I liked Kipping less even than I had liked Mr. Falk. But although my own prejudice should have enabled me to understand any minor lapses from the strict discipline of life aboard ship, much occurred in the next twenty-four hours that puzzled me.

For one thing, those men whom I had thought most likely to accord Kipping and Mr. Falk due respect were most careless in their work and in the small formalities observed between officers and crew. The carpenter and the steward, for example, spent a long time in the galley at an hour when they should have been busy with their own duties. I was near when they came out, and heard the cook's parting words: "Yass, sah, yass, sah, it ain't neveh no discombobilation to help out gen'lems, sah. Yass, sah, no, sah."

And when, a little later, I myself knocked at the door, I got a reception that surprised me beyond measure.

"Who dah," the cook cried in his usual brusque voice. "Who dah knockin' at mah door?"

Coming out, he brushed past me, and stood staring fiercely from side to side. I knew, of course, his curiously indirect methods, and I expected him by some quick motion or muttered command to summon me, as always before, into his hot little cubby-hole. Never was boy more taken aback! "Who dah knockin' at mah door?" he said again, standing within two feet of my elbow, looking past me not two inches from my nose. "Humph! Somebody knockin' at mah door better look at what dey doin' or dey gwine git into a peck of trouble."

He turned his back on me and reentered the galley.

Then I looked aft, and saw Kipping and the steward grinning broadly. Before, I had been disconcerted. Now I was enraged. How had they turned old black Frank against me, I wondered? Kipping and the steward, whom the negro disliked above all people on board! So the steward and the carpenter and Kipping were working hand in glove! And Mr. Falk probably was in the same boat with them. Where was Roger Hamlin, and what was he doing as supercargo to protect the goods below decks? Then I laughed shortly, though a little angrily, at my own childish impatience.

Certainly any suspicions of danger to the cargo were entirely without foundations. Mr. Falk--Captain Falk, I must call him now--might have a disagreeable personality, but there was nothing to indicate that he was not in most respects a competent officer, or that the ship and cargo would suffer at his hands. The cook had been companionable in his own peculiar way and a very convenient friend indeed; but, after all, I could get along very well on my own resources.

The difference that a change of officers makes in the life and spirit of a ship's crew is surprising to one unfamiliar with the sea. Captain Whidden had been a gentleman and a first-class sailor; by ordering our life strictly, though not harshly or severely, he had maintained that efficient, smoothly working organization which is best and pleasantest for all concerned. But Captain Falk was a master whose sails were cut on another pattern. He lacked Captain Whidden's straightforward, searching gaze. From the corners of his mouth lines drooped unpleasantly around his chin. His voice was not forceful and commanding. I was confident that under ordinary conditions he never would have been given a ship; I doubted even if he would have got a chief mate's berth. But fortune had played into his hands, and he now was our lawful master, resistance to whom could be construed as mutiny and punished in any court in the land.

Never, while Captain Whidden commanded the ship, would the steward and the carpenter have deserted their work and have hidden themselves away in the cook's galley. Never, I was positive, would such a pair of officers as Kipping and old Davie Paine have been promoted from the forecastle. To be sure, the transgressions of the carpenter and the steward were only petty as yet, and if no worse came of our new situation, I should be very foolish to take it all so seriously. But it was not easy to regard our situation lightly. There were too many straws to show the direction of the wind.