Chapter II: Part TWO: The Brass Bound Chest (1)

_Being the story told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to the officers of the United States cruiser Wolverine_.

I

THE BARBARY COAST

A coincidence got me aboard her. I'll tell you how it was. One evening late I was just coming out of a dark alley on the Barbary Coast, San Francisco. You know--the water front, where you can hear more tongues than at Port Said, see stranger sights, and meet adventure with the joyous certainty of mediaeval times. I'd been down there hunting up a man reported, by a wharf-rat of my acquaintance, to have just returned from a two years' whaling voyage. He'd been "shanghaied" aboard, and as a matter of fact, was worth nearly a million dollars. Landed in the city without a cent, could get nobody to believe him, nor trust him to the extent of a telegram East. Wharf-rat laughed at his yarn; but I believe it was true. Good copy anyway----

Just at the turn of the alley I nearly bumped into two men. On the Barbary Coast you don't pass men in narrow places until you have reconnoitered a little. I pulled up, thanking fortune that they had not seen me. The first words were uttered in a voice I knew well.

You've all heard of Dr. Karl Augustus Schermerhorn. He did some big things, and had in mind still bigger. I'd met him some time before in connection with his telepathy and wireless waves theory. It was picturesque stuff for my purpose, but wasn't in it with what the old fellow had really done. He showed me--well, that doesn't matter. The point is, that good, staid, self-centred, or rather science-centred, Dr. Schermerhorn was standing at midnight in a dark alley on the Barbary Coast in San Francisco talking to an individual whose facial outline at least was not ornamental.

My curiosity, or professional instinct, whichever you please, was all aroused. I flattened myself against the wall.

The first remark I lost. The reply came to me in a shrill falsetto. So grotesque was the effect of this treble from a bulk so squat and broad and hairy as the silhouette before me that I almost laughed aloud.

"I guess you've made no mistake on that. I'm her master, and her owner too."

"Well, I haf been told you might rent her," said the Doctor.

"Rent her!" mimicked the falsetto. "Well, that--hell, yes, I'll _rent_ her!" he laughed again.

"Doch recht." The Doctor was plainly at the end of his practical resources.

After waiting a moment for something more definite, the falsetto inquired rather drily:

"How long? What to? What for? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am Dr. Schermerhorn," the latter answered.

"Seen pieces about you in the papers."

"How many men haf you in the crew?"

"Me and the mate and the cook and four hands."

"And you could go--soon?"

"Soon as you want--_if_ I go."

"I wish to leaf to-morrow."

"If I can get the crew together, I might make it. But say, let's not hang out here in this run of darkness. Come over to the grog shop yonder where we can sit down."

To my relief, for my curiosity was fully aroused--Dr. Schermerhorn's movements are usually productive--this proposal was vetoed.

"No, no!" cried the Doctor, with some haste, "this iss well! Somebody might oferhear."

The huge figure stirred into an attitude of close attention. After a pause the falsetto asked deliberately:

"Where we goin'?"

"I brefer not to say."

"H'm! How long a cruise?"

"I want to rent your schooner and your crew as-long-as I-please-to remain."

"H'm! How long's that likely to be?"

"Maybe a few months; maybe seferal years."

"H'm! Unknown port; unknown cruise. See here, anything crooked in this?"

"No, no! Not at all! It iss simply business of my own."

"Not that I care," commented the other easily, "only risks is worth paying for."

"There shall not be risk."

"Pearls likely?" hazarded the other, without much heed to the assurance. "Them Jap gunboats is getting pretty hard to dodge of late years. However, I've dodged 'em before."

"Now as to pay--how mooch iss your boat worth?"

I could almost follow the man's thoughts as he pondered how much he dared ask.

"Well, you see, for a proposition like that--don't know where we're going, when we're going to get back,--and them gunboats--how would a hundred and twenty-five a month strike you?"

"Double it up. I want you to do ass I say, and I will also give your crew double wages. Bud I want goot men, who will stay, and who will keep the mouth shut."

"Gosh all fish-hooks! They'd go to hell with you for that!"

"Now you can get all you want of Adams & Marsh. Tell them it iss for me, Brovisions for three years, anyhow. Be ready to sail to-morrow."

"Tide turns at eight in the evening."

"I will send some effects in the morning."

The master hesitated.

"That's all right, Doctor, but how do I know it's all right? Maybe by morning you'll change your mind."

"That cannot be. My plans are all----"

"It's the usual thing to pay something----"

"Ach, but yes. I haf forgot. Darrow told me. I will make you a check. Let us go to the table of which you spoke."

They moved away, still talking. I did not dare follow them into the light, for I feared that the Doctor would recognise me. I'd have given my eye teeth, though, to have gathered the name of the schooner, or that of her master. As it was, I hung around until the two had emerged from the corner saloon. They paused outside, still talking earnestly. I ventured a hasty interview with the bar-keeper.

"Did you notice the two men who were sitting at the middle table?" I asked him.

"Sure!" said he, shoving me my glass of beer.

"Know them?" I inquired.

"Never laid eyes on 'em before. Old chap looked like a sort of corn doctor or corner spell-binder. Other was probably one of these longshore abalone men."

"Thanks," I muttered, and dodged out again, leaving the beer untouched.

I cursed myself for a blunderer. When I got to the street the two men had disappeared. I should have shadowed the captain to his vessel.

The affair interested me greatly. Apparently Dr. Schermerhorn was about to go on a long voyage. I prided myself on being fairly up to date in regard to the plans of those who interested the public; and the public at that time was vastly interested in Dr. Schermerhorn. I, in common with the rest of the world, had imagined him anchored safely in Philadelphia, immersed in chemical research. Here he bobbed up at the other end of the continent, making shady bargains with obscure shipping captains, and paying a big premium for absolute secrecy. It looked good.

Accordingly I was out early the next morning. I had not much to go by; schooners are as plenty as tadpoles in San Francisco harbour. However, I was sure I could easily recognise that falsetto voice; and I knew where the supplies were to be purchased. Adams & Marsh are a large firm, and cautious. I knew better than to make direct inquiries, or to appear in the salesroom. But by hanging around the door of the shipping room I soon had track of the large orders to be sent that day. In this manner I had no great difficulty in following a truck to Pier 10, nor to identify a consignment to Captain Ezra Selover as probably that of which I was in search.

The mate was in charge of the stowage, so I could not be quite sure. Here, however, was a schooner--of about a hundred and fifty tons burden. I looked her over.

You're all acquainted with the _Laughing Lass_ and the perfection of her lines. You have not known her under Captain Ezra Selover. She was the cleanest ship I ever saw. Don't know how he accomplished it, with a crew of four and the cook; but he did. The deck looked as though it had been holystoned every morning by a crew of jackies; the stays were whipped and tarred, the mast new-slushed, and every foot of running gear coiled down shipshape and Bristol fashion. There was a good deal of brass about her; it shone like gold, and I don't believe she owned an inch of paint that wasn't either fresh or new-scrubbed.

I gazed for some time at this marvel. It's unusual enough anywhere, but aboard a California hooker it is little short of miraculous. The crew had all turned up, apparently, and a swarm of stevedores were hustling every sort of provisions, supplies, stock, spars, lines and canvas down into the hold. It was a rush job, and that mate was having his hands full. I didn't wonder at his language nor at his looks, both of which were somewhat mussed up. Then almost at my elbow I heard that shrill falsetto squeal, and turned just in time to see the captain ascend the after gangplank.

He was probably the most dishevelled and untidy man I ever laid my eyes on. His hair and beard were not only long, but tangled and unkempt, and grew so far toward each other as barely to expose a strip of dirty brown skin. His shoulders were bowed and enormous. His arms hung like a gorilla's, palms turned slightly outwards. On his head was jammed a linen boating hat that had once been white; gaping away from his hairy chest was a faded dingy checked cotton shirt that had once been brown and white; his blue trousers were spotted and splashed with dusty stains; he was chewing tobacco. A figure more in contrast to the exquisitely neat vessel it would be hard to imagine.

The captain mounted the gangplank with a steadiness that disproved my first suspicion of his having been on a drunk. He glanced aloft, cast a speculative eye on the stevedores trooping across the waist of the ship, and ascended to the quarter-deck where the mate stood leaning over the rail and uttering directed curses from between sweat-beaded lips. There the big man roamed aimlessly on what seemed to be a tour of casual inspection. Once he stopped to breathe on the brass binnacle and to rub it bright with the dirtiest red bandana handkerchief I ever want to see.

His actions amused me. The discrepancy between his personal habits and his particularity in the matter of his surroundings was exceedingly interesting. I have often noticed that such discrepancies seem to indicate exceptional characters. As I watched him, his whole frame stiffened. The long gorilla arms contracted, the hairy head sunk forward in the tenseness of a serpent ready to strike. He uttered a shrill falsetto shriek that brought to a standstill every stevedore on the job; and sprang forward to seize his mate by, the shoulder.

Evidently the grasp hurt. I can believe it might, from those huge hands. The man wrenched himself about with an oath of inquiry and pain. I could hear one side of what followed. The captain's high-pitched tones carried clearly; but the grumble and growl of the mate were indistinguishable at that distance.

"How far is it to the side of the ship, you hound of hell?" shrieked the captain.

Mumble--surprised--for an answer.

"Well, I'll tell you, you _swab_! It's just two fathom from where you stand. Just two fathom! How long would it take you to walk there? How long? Just about six seconds! There and back! You--" I won't bother with all the epithets, although by now I know Captain Selover's vocabulary fairly well. "And you couldn't take six seconds off to spit over the side! Couldn't walk two fathom! Had to spit on my quarter-deck, did you!"

Rumble from the mate.

"No, by God, you won't call up any of the crew. You'll get a swab and do it yourself. You'll get a _hand_ swab and get down on your knees, damn you! I'll teach you to be lazy!"

The mate said something again.

"It don't matter if we ain't under way. That has nothing to do with it. The quarter-deck is clean, if the waist ain't, and nobody but a damn misbegotten son-of-a-sea-lawyer would spit on deck anyhow!" From this Captain Selover went on into a good old-fashioned deep-sea "cussing out," to the great joy of the stevedores.

The mate stood it pretty well, but there comes a time when further talk is useless even in regard to a most heinous offense. And, of course, as you know, the mate could hardly consider himself very seriously at fault. Why, the ship was not yet at sea, and in all the clutter of charging. He began to answer back. In a moment it was a quarrel. Abruptly it was a fight. The mate marked Selover beneath the left eye. The captain with beautiful simplicity crushed his antagonist in his gorilla-like squeeze, carried him to the side of the vessel, and dropped him limp and beaten to the pier. And the mate was a good stout specimen of a sea-farer, too.

Then the captain rushed below, emerging after an instant with a chest which he flung after his subordinate. It was followed a moment later by a stream of small stuff,--mingled with language--projected through an open port-hole. This in turn ceased. The captain reappeared with a pail and brush, scrubbed feverishly at the offending spot, mopped it dry with that same old red bandana handkerchief, glared about him,--and abruptly became as serene and placid as a noon calm. He took up the direction of the stevedores. It was all most astounding.

Nobody paid any attention to the mate. He looked toward the ship once or twice, thought better of it, and began to pick up his effects, muttering savagely. In a moment or so he threw his chest aboard an outgoing truck and departed.

It was now nearly noon and I was just in the way of going for something to eat, when I caught sight of another dray laden with boxes and crated affairs which I recognised as scientific apparatus. It was followed in quick succession by three others. Ignorant as I was of the requirements of a scientist, my common sense told me this could be no exploring outfit. I revised my first intention of going to the club, and bought a sandwich or two at the corner coffee house. I don't know why, but even then the affair seemed big with mystery, with the portent of tragedy. Perhaps the smell of tar was in my nostrils and the sea called. It has always possessed for me an extraordinary allurement----

A little after two o'clock a cab drove to the after gangplank and stopped. From it alighted a young man of whom I shall later have occasion to tell you more, followed by Dr. Schermerhorn. The young man carried only a light leather "serviette," such as students use abroad; while the doctor fairly staggered under the weight of a square, brass-bound chest without handles. The singularity of this unequal division of labour struck me at once.

It struck also one of the dock men, who ran forward, eager for a tip.

"Kin I carry th' box for you, boss?" he asked, at the same time reaching for it.

The doctor's thin figure seemed fairly to shrink at the idea.

"No, no!" he cried. "It iss not for you to carry!"

He hastened up the gangplank, clutching the chest close. At the top Captain Selover met him.

"Hello, doctor," he squeaked. "Here in good time. We're busy, you see. Let me carry your chest for you."

"No, no!" Dr. Schermerhorn fairly glared.

"It's almighty heavy," insisted the captain. "Let me give you a hand."

"You must not _touch!_" emphatically ordered the scientist. "Where iss the cabin?"

He disappeared down the companionway clasping his precious load. The young man remained on deck to superintend the stowing of the scientific goods and the personal baggage.

All this time I had been thinking busily. I remembered distinctly one other instance when Dr. Schermerhorn had disappeared. He came back inscrutably, but within a week his results on aerial photography were public property. I told myself that in the present instance his lavish use of money, the elaborate nature of his preparations, the evident secrecy of the expedition as evidenced by the fact that he had negotiated for the vessel only the day before setting sail, the importance of personal supervision as proved by the fact that he--notoriously impractical in practical matters, and notoriously disliking anything to do with business--had conducted the affair himself instead of delegating it,--why; gentlemen, don't you see that all this was more than enough to wake me up, body and soul? Suddenly I came to a definite resolution. Captain Selover had descended to the pier. I approached him.

"You need a mate," said I.

He looked me over.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "Where's your man?"

"Right here," said I.

His eyes widened a little. Otherwise he showed no sign of surprise. I cursed my clothes.

Fortunately I had my master's certificate with me--I'd passed fresh-water on the Great Lakes--I always carry that sort of document on the chance that it may come handy. It chanced to have a couple of naval endorsements, results of the late war.

"Look here," I said before I gave it to him. "You don't believe in me. My clothes are too good. That's all right. They're all I have that are good. I'm broke. I came down here wondering whether I'd better throw myself in the drink."

"You look like a dude," he squeaked. "Where did you ever ship?"

I handed him my certificate. The endorsements from Admiral Keays and Captain Arnold impressed him. He stared at me again, and a gleam of cunning crept into his eyes.

"Nothing crooked about this?" he breathed softly.

I had the key to this side of his character. You remember I had overheard the night before his statement of his moral scruples. I said nothing, but looked knowing.

"What was it?" he murmured. "Plain desertion, or something worse?"

I remained inscrutable.

"Well," he conceded, "I do need a mate; and a naval man--even if he is wantin' to get out of sight----"

"He won't spit on your decks, anyway," I broke in boldly.

Captain Selover's hairy face bristled about the mouth. This I subsequently discovered was symptom of a grin.

"You saw that, eh?" he trebled.

"Aren't you afraid he'll bring down the police and delay your sailing?" I asked.

He grinned again, with a cunning twinkle in his eye.

"You needn't worry. There ain't goin' to be any police. He had his advance money, and he won't risk it by tryin' to come back."

We came to an agreement. I professed surprise at the wages. The captain guardedly explained that the expedition was secret.

"What's our port?" I asked, to test him.

"Our papers are made out for Honolulu," he replied.

We adjourned to sign articles.

"By the way," said I, "I wish you wouldn't make them out in my own name. 'Eagen' will do."

"All right," he laughed, "I _sabe_. Eagen it is."

"I'll be aboard at six," said I. "I've got to make some arrangements."

"Wish you could help with the lading," said he. "Still, I can get along. Want any advance money?"

"No," I replied; then I remembered that I was supposed to be broke. "Yes," I amended.

He gave me ten dollars.

"I guess you'll show up," he said. "Wouldn't do this to everybody. But a naval man--even if he is dodgin' Uncle Sam----"

"I'll be here," I assured him.

At that time I wore a pointed beard. This I shaved. Also I was accustomed to use eye-glasses. The trouble was merely a slight astigmatism which bothered me only in reading or close inspection. I could get along perfectly well without the glasses, so I discarded them. I had my hair cut rather close. When I had put on sea boots, blue trousers and shirt, a pea jacket and a cap I felt quite safe from the recognition of a man like Dr. Schermerhorn. In fact, as you shall see, I hardly spoke to him during all the voyage out.

Promptly at six, then, I returned with a sea chest, bound I knew not whither, to be gone I knew not for how long, and pledged to act as second officer on a little hundred-and-fifty-ton schooner.

II

THE GRAVEN IMAGE

I had every reason to be satisfied with my disguise,--if such it could be called. Captain Selover at first failed to recognise me. Then he burst into his shrill cackle.

"Didn't know you," he trebled. "But you look shipshape. Come, I'll show you your quarters."

Immediately I discovered what I had suspected before; that on so small a schooner the mate took rank with the men rather than the afterguard. Cabin accommodations were of course very limited. My own lurked in the waist of the ship--a tiny little airless hole.

"Here's where Johnson stayed," proffered Selover. "You can bunk here, or you can go in the foc'sle with the men. They's more room there. We'll get under way with the turn of the tide."

He left me. I examined the cabin. It was just a trifle larger than its single berth, and the berth was just a trifle larger than myself. My chest would have to be left outside. I strongly suspected that my lungs would have to be left outside also; for the life of me I could not see where the air was to come from. With a mental reservation in favour of investigating the forecastle, I went on deck.

The _Laughing Lass_ was one of the prettiest little schooners I ever saw. Were it not for the lines of her bilges and the internal arrangement of her hold, it might be imagined she had been built originally as a pleasure yacht. Even the rake of her masts, a little forward of the plumb, bore out this impression, which a comparatively new suit of canvas, well stopped down, brass stanchions forward, and two little guns under tarpaulins, almost confirmed. One thing struck me as peculiar. Her complement of boats was ample enough. She had two surf boats, a dingy, and a dory slung to the davits. In addition another dory,--the one you picked me up in--was lashed to the top of the deck house.

"They'd mighty near have a boat apiece," I thought, and went forward.

Just outside the forecastle hatch I paused. Someone below was singing in a voice singularly rich in quality. The words and the quaintness of the minor air struck me immensely and have clung to my memory like a burr ever since.

"'Are you a man-o'-war or a privateer,' said he.
_Blow high, blow low, what care we!_
'Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I'm sailing for my fee.'
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e."_

I stepped to the companion. The voice at once ceased. I descended.

A glimmer of late afternoon struggled through the deadlights. I found myself in a really commodious space,--extending far back of where the forward bulk-heads are usually placed,--accommodating rows and row of bunks--eighteen of them, in fact. The unlighted lamp cast its shadow on wood stained black by much use, but polished like ebony from the continued friction of men's garments. I wish I could convey to you the uncanny effect, this--of dropping from the decks of a miniature craft to the internal arrangements of a square-rigged ship. It was as though, entering a cottage door, you were to discover yourself on the floor of Madison Square Garden. A fresh sweet breeze of evening sucked down the hatch. I immediately decided on the forecastle. Already it was being borne in on me that I was little more than a glorified bo's'n's mate. The situation suited me, however. It enabled me to watch the course of events more safely, less exposed to the danger of recognition.

I stood for a moment at the foot of the companion accustoming my eyes to the gloom. After a moment, with a shock of surprise, I made out a shining pair of bead-points gazing at me unblinkingly from the shadow under the bitts. Slowly the man defined himself, as a shape takes form in a fog. He was leaning forward in an attitude of attention, his elbows resting on his knees, his forearms depending between them, his head thrust out. I could detect no faintest movement of eyelash, no faintest sound of breathing. The stillness was portentous. The creature was exactly like a wax figure, one of the sort you meet in corridors of cheap museums and for a moment mistake for living beings. Almost I thought to make out the customary grey dust lying on the wax of his features.

I am going to tell you more of this man, because, as you shall see, he was destined to have much to do with my life, the fate of Dr. Karl Augustus Schermerhorn, and the doom of the _Laughing Lass_.

He wore on his head a red bandana handkerchief. I never saw him with other covering. From beneath It straggled oily and tangled locks of glossy black. His face was long, narrow, hook-nosed and sinister; his eyes, as I have described them, a steady and beady black. I could at first glance ascribe great activity, but only moderate strength to his slender, wiry figure. In this I was mistaken. His sheer physical power was second only to that of Captain Selover. One of his forearms ended in a steel hook. At the moment I could not understand this; could not see how a man so maimed could be useful aboard a ship. Later I wished we had more as handy. He knew a jam hitch which he caught over and under his hook quicker than most men can grasp a line with the naked hand. It would render one way, but held fast the other. He told me it was a cinch-hook hitch employed by mule packers in the mountains, and that he had used it on swamp-hooks in the lumber woods of Michigan. I shouldn't wonder. He was a Wandering Jew.--His name was Anderson, but I never heard him called that. It was always "Handy Solomon" with men and masters.

We stared at each other, I fascinated by something, some spell of the ship, which I have never been able to explain to myself--nor even describe. It was a mystery, a portent, a premonition such as overtakes a man sometimes in the dark passageways of life. I cannot tell you of it, nor make you believe--let it pass----

Then by a slow process of successive perceptions I became aware that I was watched by other eyes, other wax figures, other human beings with unwavering gaze. They seemed to the sense of mystic apprehension that for the moment held possession of me, to be everywhere--in the bunks, on the floor, back in the shadows, watching, watching, watching from the advantage of another world.

I don't know why I tell you this; why I lay so much stress on the first weird impression I got of the forecastle. It means something to me now--in view of all that happened subsequently. Almost can I look back and see, in that moment of occultism, a warning, an enlightenment----But the point is, it meant something to me then. I stood there fascinated, unable to move, unable to speak.

Then the grotesque figure in the corner stirred.

"Well, mates," said the man, "believe or not believe, it's in the book, and it stands to reason, too. We have gold mines here in Californy and Nevada and all them States; and we hear of gold mines in Mexico and Australia, too, but did you ever hear tell of gold mines in Europe? Tell me that! And where did the gold come from then, before they discovered America? Tell me that! Why they made it, just as the man that wrote this-here says, and you can kiss the Book on that."

"How about that place, Ophir, I read about?" asked a voice from the bunks.

The man shot a keen glance thither from beneath his brows.

"Know last year's output from the mines of Ophir, Thrackles?" he inquired in silky tones.

"Why, no," stammered the man addressed as Thrackles.

"Well I do," pursued the man with the steel hook, "and it's just the whole of nothing, and you can kiss the Book on that too! There ain't any gold output, because there ain't any mines, and there never have been. They made their gold."

He tossed aside a book he had been holding in his left hand. I recognised the fat little paper duodecimo with amusement, and some wonder. The only other copy I had ever laid my eyes on is in the Astor Library. It is somewhat of a rarity, called _The Secret of Alchemy, or the Grand Doctrine of Transmutation Fully Explained_, and was written by a Dr. Edward Duvall,--a most extraordinary volume to have fallen into the hands of seamen.

I stepped forward, greeting and being greeted. Besides the man I have mentioned they were four. The cook was a bullet-headed squat negro with a broken nose. I believe he had a name,--Robinson, or something of that sort. He was to all of us, simply the Nigger. Unlike most of his race, he was gloomy and taciturn.

Of the other two, a little white-faced, thin-chested youth named Pulz, and a villainous-looking Mexican called Perdosa, I shall have more to say later.

My arrival broke the talk on alchemy. It resumed its course in the direction of our voyage. Each discovered that the others knew nothing; and each blundered against the astounding fact of double wages.

"All I know is the pay's good; and that's enough," concluded Thrackles, from a bunk.

"The pay's too good," growled Handy Solomon.

"This ain't no job to go look at the 'clipse of the moon, or the devil's a preacher!"

"W'at you maik heem, den?" queried Perdosa.

"It's treasure, of course," said Handy Solomon shortly.

"He, he, he!" laughed the negro, without mirth.

"What's the matter with you, Doctor?" demanded Thrackles.

"Treasure!" repeated the Nigger. "You see dat box he done carry so cairful? You see dat?"

A pause ensued. Somebody scratched a match and lit a pipe.

"No, I don't see that!" broke out Thrackles finally, with some impatience. "I _sabe_ how a man goes after treasure with a box; but why should he take treasure away in a box? What do you think, Bucko?" he suddenly appealed to me.

I looked up from my investigation of the empty berths.

"I don't think much about it," I replied, "except that by the look of the stores we're due for more than Honolulu; and from the look of the light we'd better turn to on deck."

An embarrassed pause fell.

"Who are you, anyway?" bluntly demanded the man with the steel hook.

"My name is Eagen," I replied; "I've the berth of mate. Which of these bunks are empty?"

They indicated what I desired with just a trace of sullenness. I understood well enough their resentment at having a ship's officer quartered on them,--the forec'stle they considered as their only liberty when at sea, and my presence as a curtailment to the freedom of speech. I subsequently did my best to overcome this feeling, but never quite succeeded.

At my command the Nigger went to his galley, I ascended to the deck. Dusk was falling, in the swift Californian fashion. Already the outlines of the wharf houses were growing indistinct, and the lights of the city were beginning to twinkle. Captain Selover came to my side and leaned over the rail, peering critically at the black water against the piles.

"She's at the flood," he squeaked. "And here comes the Lucy Belle."

The tug took us in charge and puffed with us down the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main, for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About midnight we drew up on the Farallones.

The schooner handled well. Our crew was divided into three watches--an unusual arrangement, but comfortable. Two men could sail her handily in most sorts of weather. Handy Solomon had the wheel. Otherwise the deck was empty. The man's fantastic headgear, the fringe of his curling oily locks, the hawk outline of his face momentarily silhouetted against the phosphorescence astern as he glanced to windward, all lent him an appearance of another day. I could almost imagine I caught the gleam of silver-butted horse pistols and cutlasses at his waist.

I brooded in wonder at what I had seen and how little I had explained. The number of boats, sufficient for a craft of three times the tonnage; the capacity of the forec'stle with its eighteen bunks, enough for a passenger ship,--what did it mean? And this wild, unkempt, villainous crew with its master and his almost ridiculous contrast of neatness and filth;--did Dr. Schermerhorn realise to what he had trusted himself and his precious expedition, whatever it might be?

The lights of shore had sunk; the _Laughing Lass_ staggered and leaped joyously with the glory of the open sea. She seemed alone on the bosom of the ocean; and for the life of me I could not but feel that I was embarked on some desperate adventure. The notion was utterly illogical; that I knew well. In sober thought, I, a reporter, was shadowing a respectable and venerable scientist, who in turn was probably about to investigate at length some little-known deep-sea conditions or phenomena of an unexplored island. But that did not suffice to my imagination. The ship, its surroundings, its equipment, its crew--all read fantastic. So much the better story, I thought, shrugging my shoulders at last.

III

THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES

After my watch below the next morning I met Percy Darrow. In many ways he is, or was, the most extraordinary of my many acquaintances. During that first half hour's chat with him I changed my mind at least a dozen times. One moment I thought him clever, the next an utter ass; now I found him frank, open, a good companion, eager to please,--and then a droop of his blond eyelashes, a lazy, impertinent drawl of his voice, a hint of half-bored condescension in his manner, convinced me that he was shy and affected. In a breath I appraised him as intellectual, a fool, a shallow mind, a deep schemer, an idler, and an enthusiast. One result of his spasmodic confidences was to throw a doubt upon their accuracy. This might be what he desired; or with equal probability it might be the chance reflection of a childish and aimless amiability.

He was tall and slender and pale, languid of movement, languid of eye, languid of speech. His eyes drooped, half-closed beneath blond brows; a long wiry hand lazily twisted a rather affected blond moustache, his voice drawled his speech in a manner either insufferably condescending and impertinent, or ineffably tired,--who could tell which?

I found him leaning against the taffrail, his languid graceful figure supported by his elbows, his chin propped against his hand. As I approached the binnacle, he raised his eyes and motioned me to him. The insolence of it was so superb that for a moment I was angry enough to ignore him. Then I reflected that I was here, not to stand on my personal dignity, but to get information. I joined him.

"You are the mate?" he drawled.

"Since I am on the quarter-deck," I snapped back at him.

He eyed me thoughtfully, while he rolled with one hand a corn-husk Mexican cigarette.

"Do you know where you are going?" he inquired at length.

"Depends on the moral character of my future actions," I rejoined tartly.

He allowed a smile to break and fade, then lighted his cigarette.

"The first mate seems to have a remarkable command of language," said he.

I did not reply.

"Well, to tell you the truth I don't know where we are going," he continued. "Thought you might be able to inform me. Where did this ship and its precious gang of cutthroats come from, anyway?"

"Meaning me?"

"Oh, meaning you too, for all I know," he shrugged wearily. Suddenly he turned to me and laid his hand on my shoulder with one of those sudden bursts of confidence I came later to recognise and look for, but in which I could never quite believe--nor disbelieve.

"I am eaten with curiosity," he stated in the least curious voice in the world. "I suppose you know who his Nibs is?"

"Dr. Schermerhorn, do you mean?"

"Yes. Well, I've been with him ten years. I am his right-hand man. All his business I transact down to the last penny. I even order his meals. His discoveries have taken shape in my hands. Suddenly he gets a freak. He will go on a voyage. Where? I shall know in good time. For how long? I shall know in good time. For what purpose? Same answer. What accommodations shall I engage? I experience the worst shock of my life;--he will engage them himself. What scientific apparatus? Shock number two;--he will attend to that. Is there anything I can do? What do you suppose he says?"

"How should I know?" I asked.

"You should know in the course of intelligent conversation with me," he drawled. "Well, he, good old staid Schermie with the vertebrated thoughts gets kittenish. He says to me, 'Joost imachin, Percy, you are all-alone-on-a-desert-island placed; and that you will sit on those sands and wish within yourself all you would buy to be comfortable. Go out and buy me those things--in abundance.' Those were my directions."

He puffed.

"What does he pay you?" he asked.

"Enough," I replied.

"More than enough, by a good deal, I'll bet," he rejoined. "The old fool! He ought to have left it to me. What is this craft? Have you ever sailed on her before?"

"No."

"Have any of the crew?"

I replied that I believed all of them were Selover's men. He threw the cigarette butt into the sea and turned back.

"Well, I wish you joy of your double wages," he mocked.

So he knew that, after all! How much more of his ignorance was pretended I had no means of guessing. His eye gleamed sarcastically as he sauntered toward the companion-way. Handy Solomon was at the wheel, steering easily with one foot and an elbow. His steel hook lay fully exposed, glittering in the sunlight. Darrow glanced at it curiously, and at the man's headgear.

"Well, my genial pirate," he drawled, "if you had a line to fit that hook, you'd be equipped for fishing." The man's teeth bared like an animal's, but Darrow went on easily as though unconscious of giving offence. "If I were you, I'd have it arranged so the hook would turn backward as well as forward. It would be handier for some things,--fighting, for instance."

He passed on down the companion. Handy Solomon glared after him, then down at his hook. He bent his arm this way and that, drawing the hook toward him softly, as a cat does her claws. His eyes cleared and a look of admiration crept into them.

"By God, he's right!" he muttered, and after a moment; "I've wore that ten year and never thought of it. The little son of a gun!"

He remained staring for a moment at the hook. Then he looked up and caught my eye. His own turned quizzical. He shifted his quid and began to hum:

"The bos'n laid aloft, aloft laid he,
_Blow high, blow low! What care we?_
'There's a ship upon the wind'ard, a wreck upon the lee,'
_Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e."_

We had entered the trades and were making good time. I was content to stay on deck, even in my watch below. The wind was strong, the waves dashing, the sky very blue. From under our forefoot the flying fish sped, the monsters pursued them. A tingle of spray was in the air. It was all very pleasant. The red handkerchief around Solomon's head made a pretty spot of colour against the blue of the sky and the darker blue of the sea. Silhouetted over the flaw-less white of the deck house was the sullen, polished profile of the Nigger. Beneath me the ship swerved and leaped, yielded and recovered. I breathed deep, and saw cutlasses in harmless shadows. It was two years ago. I was young--then----

At the mess hour I stood in doubt. However, I was informed by the captain's falsetto that I was to eat in the cabin. As the only other officer, I ate alone, after the others had finished, helping myself from the dishes left on the table. It was a handsome cabin, well kept, with white woodwork spotlessly clean, leather cushions--much better than one would expect. I afterwards found that the neatness of this cabin and of the three staterooms was maintained by the Nigger--at peril of his neck. A rack held a dozen rifles, five revolvers, and,--at last--my cutlasses. I examined the lot with interest. They were modern weapons,--the new high power 30-40 box-magazine rifle, shooting government ammunition,--and had been used. The revolvers were of course the old 45 Colt's. This was an extraordinary armament for a peaceable schooner of one hundred and fifty tons burden.

The rest of the cabin's fittings were not remarkable. By the configuration of the ship I guessed that two of the staterooms must be rather large. I could make out voices within.

On deck I talked with Captain Selover.

"She's a snug craft," I approached him.

He nodded.

"You have armed her well."

He muttered something of pirates and the China seas.

I laughed.

"You have arms enough to give your crew about two magazine rifles apiece--unless you filled all your berths forward!"

Captain Selover looked me direct in the eye.

"Talk straight, Mr. Eagen," said he.

"What is this ship, and where is she bound?" I asked, with equal simplicity.

He considered.

"As for the ship," he replied at length, "I don't mind saying. You're my first officer, and on you I depend if it comes to--well, the small arms below. If the ship's a little under the shade, why, so are you. She's by way of being called a manner of hard names by some people. I do not see it myself. It is a matter of conscience. If you would ask some interested, they would call her a smuggler, a thief, a wrecker, and all the other evil titles in the catalogue. She has taken in Chinks by way of Santa Cruz Island--if that is smuggling. The country is free, and a Chink is a man. Besides, it paid ten dollars a head for the landing. She has carried in a cargo or so of junk; it was lying on the beach where a fool master had piled it, and I took what I found. I couldn't keep track of the underwriters' intentions."

"But the room forward----?" I broke in.

"Well, you see, last season we were pearl fishing."

"But you needed only your diver and your crew," I objected.

"There was the matter of a Japanese gunboat or so," he explained.

"Poaching!" I cried.

"So some call it. The shells are there. The islands are not inhabited. I do not see how men claim property beyond the tide water. I have heard it argued----"

"Hold on!" I cried. "There was a trouble last year in the Ishigaki Jima Islands where a poacher beat off the _Oyama_. It was a desperate fight."

Captain Selover's eye lit up.

"I've commanded a black brigantine, name of _The Petrel_," he admitted simply. "She was a brigantine aloft, but _alow_ she had much the same lines as the _Laughing Lass_." He whirled on his heel to roll to one of the covered yacht's cannon. "Looks like a harmless little toy to burn black powder, don't she?" he remarked. He stripped off the tarpaulin and the false brass muzzle to display as pretty a little Maxim as you would care to see. "Now you know all about it," he said.

"Look here, Captain Selover," I demanded, "don't you know that I could blow your whole shooting-match higher than Gilderoy's kite. How do you know I won't do it when I get back? How do you know I won't inform the doctor at once what kind of an outfit he has tied to?"

He planted far apart his thick legs in their soiled blue trousers, pushed back his greasy linen boating hat and stared at me with some amusement.

"How do you know I won't blow on Lieutenant or Ensign Ralph Slade, U.S.N., when I get back?" he demanded. I blessed that illusion, anyway. "Besides, I know my man. You won't do anything of the sort." He walked to the rail and spat carefully over the side.

"As for the doctor," he went on, "he knows all about it. He told me all about myself, and everything I had ever done from the time I'd licked Buck Jones until last season's little diversion. Then he told me that was why he wanted me to ship for this cruise." The captain eyed me quizzically.

I threw out my hands in a comic gesture of surrender.

"Well, where are we bound, anyway?"

The dirty, unkempt, dishevelled figure stiffened.

"Mr. Eagen," its falsetto shrilled, "you are mate of this vessel. Your duty is to see that my orders as to sailing are carried out. Beyond that you do not go. As to navigation, and latitude and longitude and where the hell we are, that is outside your line of duty. As to where we are bound, you are getting double wages not to get too damn curious. Remember to earn your wages, Mr. Eagen!"

He turned away to the binnacle. In spite of his personal filth, in spite of the lawless, almost piratical, character of the man, in that moment I could not but admire him. If Percy Darrow was ignorant of the purposes of this expedition, how much more so Captain Selover. Yet he accepted his trust blindly, and as far as I could then see, intended to fulfil it faithfully. I liked him none the worse for snubbing me. It indicated a streak in his moral nature akin to and quite as curious as his excessive neatness regarding his immediate surroundings.

IV

THE STEEL CLAW

During the next few days the crew discussed our destination. Discipline, while maintained strictly, was not conventional. During the dog watches, often, every man aboard would be below, for at that period Captain Selover loved to take the wheel in person, a thick cigar between his lips, the dingy checked shirt wide open to expose his hairy chest to the breeze. In the twilight of the forecastle we had some great sea-lawyer's talks--I say "We," though I took little part in them. Generally I lay across my bunk smoking my pipe while Handy Solomon held forth, his speech punctuated by surly speculations from the Nigger, with hesitating deep-sea wisdom from the hairy Thrackles, or with voluminous bursts of fractured English from Perdosa. Pulz had nothing to offer, but watched from his pale green eyes. The light shifted and wavered from one to the other as the ship swayed: garments swung; the empty berths yawned cavernous. I could imagine the forecastle filled with the desperate men who had beaten off the _Oyama_. The story is told that they had swept the gunboat's decks with her own rapid-fires, turned in.

No one knew where we were going, nor why. The doctor puzzled them, and the quantity of his belongings.

"It ain't pearls," said Handy Solomon. "You can kiss the Book on that, for we ain't a diver among us. It ain't Chinks, for we are cruising sou'-sou'-west. Likely it's trade,--trade down in the Islands."

We were all below. The captain himself had the wheel. Discipline, while strict, was not conventional.

"Contrabandista," muttered the Mexican, "for dat he geev us double pay."

"We don't get her for nothing," agreed Thrackles. "Double pay and duff on Wednesday generally means get your head broke."

"No trade," said the Nigger gloomily.

They turned to him with one accord.

"Why not?" demanded Pulz, breaking his silence.

"No trade," repeated the Nigger.

"Ain't you got a reason, Doctor?" asked Handy Solomon.

"No trade," insisted the Nigger.

An uneasy silence fell. I could not but observe that the others held the Nigger's statements in a respect not due them as mere opinions. Subsequently I understood a little more of the reputation he possessed. He was believed to see things hidden, as their phrase went.

Nobody said anything for some time; nobody stirred, except that Handy Solomon, his steel claw removed from its socket, whittled and tested, screwed and turned, trying to fix the hook so that, in accordance with the advice of Percy Darrow, it would turn either way.

"What is it, then, Doctor?" he asked softly at last.

"Gold," said the Nigger shortly. "Gold--treasure."

"That's what I said at first!" cried Handy Solomon triumphantly. It was extraordinary, the unquestioning and entire faith with which they accepted as gospel fact the negro's dictum.

There followed much talk of the nature of this treasure, whether it was to be sought or conveyed, bought, stolen, or ravished in fair fight. No further soothsaying could they elicit from the Nigger. They followed their own ideas, which led them nowhere. Someone lit the forecastle lamp. They settled themselves. Pulz read aloud.

This was the programme every day during the dog watch. Sometimes the watch on deck was absent, leaving only Handy Solomon, the Nigger and Pulz, but the order of the day was not on that account varied. They talked, they lit the lamp, they read. Always the talk was of the treasure.

As to the reading, it was of the sort usual to seamen, cowboys, lumbermen, and miners. Thrackles had a number of volumes of very cheap love stories. Pulz had brought some extraordinary garish detective stories. The others contributed sensational literature with paper covers adorned lithographically. By the usual incongruity a fragment of _The Marble Faun_ was included in the collection. The Nigger has his copy of _Duvall on Alchemy_. I haven't the slightest idea where he could have got it.

While Pulz read, Handy Solomon worked on the alteration of his claw. He could never get it to hold, and I remember as an undertone to Pulz's reading, the rumble of strange, exasperated oaths. Whatever the evening's lecture, it always ended with the book on alchemy. These men had no perspective by which to judge such things. They accepted its speculations and theories at their face value. Extremely laughable were the discussions that followed. I often wished the shade of old Duvall could be permitted to see these, his last disciples, spelling out dimly his teachings, mispronouncing his grave utterances, but believing utterly.

Dr. Schermerhorn appeared on deck seldom. When he did, often his fingers held a pen which he had forgotten to lay aside. I imagined him preoccupied by some calculation of his own, but the forecastle, more picturesquely, saw him as guarding constantly the heavy casket he had himself carried aboard. He breathed the air, walked briskly, turned with the German military precision at the end of his score of strides, and re-entered his cabin at the lapse of the half hour. After he had gone, remained Percy Darrow leaning indolently against the taffrail, his graceful figure swaying with the ship's motion, smoking always the corn-husk Mexican cigarettes which he rolled with one hand. He seemed from that farthest point aft to hold in review the appliances, the fabric, the actions, yes, even the very thoughts, of the entire ship. From them he selected that on which he should comment or with which he should play, always with a sardonic, half-serious, quite wearied and indifferent manner. His inner knowledge, viewed by the light of this manner or mannerism, was sometimes uncanny, though perhaps the sources of his information were commonplace enough, after all. Certainly he always viewed with amusement his victim's wonder.

Thus one evening at the close of our day-watch on deck, he approached Handy Solomon. It was at the end of ten days, on no one of which had the seaman failed to tinker away at his steel claw. Darrow balanced in front of him with a thin smile.

"Too bad it doesn't work, my amiable pirate," said he. "It would be so handy for fighting--See here," he suddenly continued, pulling some object from his pocket, "here's a pipe; present to me; I don't smoke 'em. Twist her halfway, like that, she comes out. Twist her halfway, like this, she goes in. That's your principle. Give her back to me when you get through."

He thrust the briar pipe into the man's hand, and turned away without waiting for a reply. The seaman looked after him in open amazement. That evening he worked on the socket of the steel hook, and in two days he had the job finished. Then he returned the pipe to Darrow with some growling of thanks.

"That's all right," said the young man, smiling full at him. "Now what are you going to fight?"

V

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE