Chapter IV: Part 4

Several mornings out ... and I couldn't believe my ears ... I heard a sound of music. It sounded like a grind-organ on a city street....

_The Sunshine of Paradise Alley_.

And the captain's voice was booming along with the melody.

I peeked into Schantze's cabin to announce breakfast.

He had a huge music box there. And he was singing to its playing, and dancing clumsily about like a happy young mammoth.

"Spying on the 'old man,' eh?"

He came over and caught me by an ear roughly but playfully.

"No, Captain, I was only saying breakfast is ready."

"You're a sly one ... do you like that tune? _The Sunshine of Paradise Alley?_ It's my favorite Yankee hymn."

And it must have been; every morning for eighty-nine days the gaudy music box faithfully played the tune over and over again.

* * * * *

The ship drifted slowly through the Sargasso Sea--that dead, sweltering area of smooth waters and endless leagues of drifting seaweed.... Or we lifted and sank on great, smooth swells ... the last disturbance of a storm far off where there were honest winds that blew.

* * * * *

The prickly heat assailed us ... hundreds of little red, biting pimples on our bodies ... the cook's fresh-baked bread grew fuzz in twenty-four hours after baking ... the forecastle and cabin jangled and snarled irritably, like tortured animals....

* * * * *

It was with a shout, one day, that we welcomed a good wind, and shot clear of this dead sea of vegetable matter.

* * * * *

As we crossed the equator Father Neptune came on board ... a curious sea-ceremony that must hark back to the Greeks and Romans....

The bow-legged sailmaker played Neptune.

He combed out a beard of rope, wrapped a sheet around his shoulders, procured a trident of wood....

"Come," shouted one of the sailors to me, running up like a happy boy, "come, see Neptune climbing on board."

The sail-maker pretended to mount up out of the sea, climbing over the forecastle head--just as if he had left his car of enormous, pearl-tinted sea-shell, with the spouting dolphins still hitched to it, waiting for him, while he paid his respects to our captain.

Captain Schantze, First Mate Miller, Second Mate Stange, stood waiting the ceremonial on the officers' bridge, an amused smile playing over their faces.

A big, boy-faced sailor named Klaus, and the ship's blacksmith, a grey-eyed, sandy-haired fellow named Klumpf, followed the sailmaker close behind, as he swept along in his regalia, solemnly and majestically. And Klaus beat a triangle. And Klumpf played an accordion.

"Sailmaker" (the only name he was called by on the ship) made a grandiose speech to the Captain.

Schantze replied in the same vein, beginning,

"Euer Majestaet--"

* * * * *

The sailors marched forward again, to their music, like pleased children. For custom was that they should have plum duff this day, and plenty of hot grog....

Before I was aware, I was caught up by several arms.

For I had never before crossed the line. So I must be initiated.

They set me on a board, over a great barrel of sea-water.

Klumpf gave me a mock-shave with a vile mixture of tar and soap. He used a great wooden razor about three feet long. The officers shouted and laughed, looking on from the bridge.

"What's your name, my boy?" asked Father Neptune.

"John Greg--" Before I could articulate fully the blacksmith thrust a gob of the vile lather into my mouth. As I spluttered and spit everyone gave shouts of laughter. One or two sailors rolled on the deck, laughing, as savages are said to do when overtaken with humour.

The board on which I sat was jerked from under me. Once, two times, three times, I was pushed, almost bent double, far down into the barrel of sea-water. It was warm, at least.

Then a hue and cry went up for Franz. He was caught. He swore that he had crossed the line before, as doubtless he had. But there was now a sort of quiet feud between him and the rest aboard. So in a tumbling heap, they at last bore him over. He fought and shrieked. And because he did not submit and take the ceremony good-naturedly, he was treated rather roughly.

* * * * *

My certificate of initiation was handed me formally and solemnly. It was a semi-legal florid document, sealed with a bit of rope and tar. It certified that I had crossed the line. The witnesses were "The Mainmast," "The Mizzen Mast," and other inanimate ship's parts and objects....

"Keep this," said Sailmaker, as he handed it to me, "as evidence that you have already crossed the line, and you will never be shaved with tar and a wooden razor again. You are now a full-fledged son of Neptune."

* * * * *

On a ship at sea where the work to do never ends, it is a serious matter if one of the crew does not know his work, or fails to hold up his end. That means that there is so much more work to be done by the others.

Franz deliberately shirked. And, as far as I could see, he purposely got in bad with the mates, under whom he had approximately sixty days more of pulling and hauling, going up aloft, scrubbing, and chipping to do. I was puzzled at the steadfast, deliberate malingering of the man. The crew all hated him, too. I have seen the man at the wheel deliberately deflect the ship from its course, in order to bring the wind against the mutineer's belly, hoping to have him blown overboard while he was running aloft....

And one night, in the forecastle, someone hurled a shoe at him. A blow so savagely well-aimed, that when he came running aft, howling with pain (for, for all his obstinacy, he seemed to lack courage)--to complain of the outrage, to Schantze--his eye popped out so far that it seemed as if leaping out of its socket! It was ghastly and bloody like a butchered heart.

Later, I asked the sailors why this had been done to Franz. And Klumpf said--

"We had a scuffle over something. We were all taking it friendly ... and Franz bit Klaus through the hand, almost ... then someone threw a shoe and hit him in the eye"....

* * * * *

In about a week, after his eye had healed just a little, I drew Franz apart. We sat down together on the main hatch. I was worried about him. I did not understand him. I was sorry for him.

"Look here, Franz ... don't you know you might get put clean out of business if you keep this mutiny of one up much longer? You can't whip a whole ship's crew."

"I don't want to whip a whole ship's crew."

"The captain had to have another man in a hurry, you know ... but he's really willing to give you decent treatment."

"Did the captain send you to tell me this?"

"Of course not ... only I'm sorry for you."

Franz gave me a broad, inexplicable wink. He smiled grotesquely--from swollen lips made more grotesque because of a recent punch in the mouth "Sailmaker" had fetched him....

"Don't trouble yourself about me. I know what I'm doing, my boy."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that, as soon as I came out of my drunk, and found myself shanghaied, I _wanted_ them to ill-treat me ... there's a Sailors' Aid Society at Sydney, you know!"

"What good will the Sailors' Aid Society do you?"

"You just wait and see what good it will do me!"

"Nonsense, Franz! The captain's willing to pay you off at Sydney."

"Pay me off, eh? Yes, and the old boy will pay me handsome damages, too!... the sentimental old ladies that have nothing else to do but befriend the poor abused sailor, will see to it that I find justice in the courts there."

"You have a good case against the captain as it is, then. Why don't you turn to and behave and be treated decently?"

"No," he replied, with a curious note of strength in his voice, "the worse I'm treated the more damages I can collect. I'm going to make it a real case of brutal treatment before I leave this old tub."

"But they--they'll--they might kill you!"

"Not much ... those days are about gone ... for a man who knows how to handle himself, as I do....

"Well, let us thank God," he finished, "for the Sailors' Aid Society and the dear old maids at Sydney!"

I walked off, thinking. Franz had sworn me not to tell. Yet I was tempted to. It would get me in right with Captain Schantze.

* * * * *

We shaped to the Cape of Good Hope with great, southern jumps. We were striking far south for the strong, steady winds.

* * * * *

"There was a damned English ship, the _Lord Summerville_, that left New York about the same time we did ... she's a sky-sailer ... we mustn't let her beat us into Sydney."

"Why not, Captain?"

"An Englishman beat a German!" the captain spat, "fui! We're going to beat England yet at everything ... already we're taking their world-trade away from them ... and some day we'll beat them at sea and on land, both."

"In a war, sir?"

"Yes, in a war ... in a great, big war! It will have to come to that, Johann, my boy."

* * * * *

The cook's opinion on the same subject was illuminating.

He told me many anecdotes which tended to prove that even England's colonies were growing tired of her arrogance: he related droll stories told him by Colonials about the Queen ... obscene and nasty they were, too.

"Catch a German talking that way about the Kaiserin!"

The old cook couldn't realize a peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon temperament--that those they rail against and jibe at they love the most!

* * * * *

Off the Tristan da Cunha Islands we ran head-on into a terrific storm ... one that lasted forty-eight hours or more, with rushing, screaming winds, and steady, stinging blasts of sleet that came thick in successions of driving, grey cloud.

It was then that we lost overboard a fine, handsome young Saxon, one Gottlieb Kampke:

Five men aloft ... only four came down ... Kampke was blown overboard off the footrope that ran under the yard, as he stood there hauling in on the sail. For he was like a young bull in strength; and, scorning, in his strength, the tearing wind, he used to heave in with both hands ... not holding fast at all, no matter how hard the wind tore.

* * * * *

It was all that the ship herself could do, to live. Already two lifeboats had been bashed in. And the compass stanchioned on the bridge had gone along with a wave, stanchions and all.

* * * * *

There was no use trying to rescue Gottlieb Kampke. Besides, he would be dead as soon as he reached the water, in such a boiling sea, the captain said to me.

The melancholy cry, "Man overboard!" ...

I took oath that if I ever reached home alive, I would never go to sea again. If I just got home, alive, I would be willing even to tie up brown parcels in grocery cord, for the rest of my life, to sweep out a store day after day, regularly and monotonously, in safety!...

The captain saw me trembling with a nausea of fear. And, with the winds booming from all sides, the deck as slippery as the body of a live eel, he gave me a shove far out on the slant of the poop. I sped in the grey drive of sleet clear to the rail. The ship dipped under as a huge wave smashed over, all fury and foam, overwhelming the helmsman and bearing down on me....

It was miraculous that I was not swept overboard.

After that, strangely, I no longer feared, but enjoyed a quickening of pulse. And I gladly took in the turns in the rope as the men sang and heaved away ... waves would heap up over us. We would hold tight till we emerged again. Then again we would shout and haul away.

* * * * *

"It's all according to what you grow used to," commented the captain.

* * * * *

By the time I was beginning to look into the face of danger as into a mother's face, the weather wore down. The ocean was still heavy with running seas, but we rode high and dry.

* * * * *

Unlucky Kampke!

His shipmates bore his dunnage aft, for the captain to take in charge. And, just as in melodramas and popular novels, a picture of a fair-haired girl was found at the bottom of his sea-chest, together with one of his mother ... his sweetheart and his mother....

Depositions were taken down from his forecastle mates, as to his going overboard, and duly entered into the log ... and the captain wrote a letter to his mother, to be mailed to her from Sydney.

* * * * *

For a day we were sad. An imminent sense of mortality hung over us.

But there broke, the next morning, a clear sky of sunshine and an open though still yesty sea--and we sang, and became thoughtless and gay again.

* * * * *

"Yes," sighed the cook, "I wish it had been Franz instead of Gottlieb. Gottlieb was such a fine fellow, and Franz is such a son of a----."

* * * * *

... I have left something out.

At the beginning of the voyage Captain Schantze housed a flock of two dozen chickens in a coop under the forecastle ... in order to insure himself of fresh eggs during the voyage....

And for fresh meat, he had a huge sow hauled aboard--to be killed later on....

* * * * *

One morning, when I went forward to fetch the captain's and mates' breakfast, I found the cook all white and ghastly....

"What's the matter, Cook?"

"To-day's the day I've got to butcher the sow," he complained, "and I'd give anything to have someone else do it ... I've made such a pet of her during the voyage ... and she's so intelligent and affectionate ... she's decenter than lots of human beings I've met."

I kept to the cabin while the butchering was going on.

The cook, the next day, with tears streaming down his face, told me how trusting the sow had been to the last moment....

"I'll never forget the look in her eyes when she realised what I had done to her when I cut her throat."

"And I'll never be able to eat any of her. I'd throw it up as fast as it went down ... much as I do like good, fresh pork."

* * * * *

The ship-boys, Karl and Albert, always stole the eggs, the captain was sure, as soon as they were laid, though he was never able to catch them at it.

"Run," he would shout hurriedly to me, "there! I hear the hens cackling. They've laid an egg."

I'd run. But there'd be no egg. Someone would have reached the nest, from the forecastle, before I did.

Because the eggs were always stolen as soon as laid, the captain decreed the slaughter of the hens, too ... not a rooster among them ... the hens were frankly unhappy, because of this....

* * * * *

The last hen was to be slain. Pursued, she flew far out over the still ocean. Further and further she flew, keeping up her heavy body as if by an effort of will.

"Come back! Don't be such a damn fool!" I shouted in my excitement.

Everybody was watching when the chicken would light ... how long it could keep up....

As soon as I shouted "come back!" the bird, as if giving heed to my exhortation, slowly veered, and turned toward the ship again. Everybody had laughed till they nearly sank on deck, at my naive words.

Now a spontaneous cheer went up, as the hen slowly tacked and started back....

It was still weather, but the ship was moving ahead....

"She won't make it!"

"She will!"

Another great shout. She lit astern, right by the wheel. Straightway she began running forward, wings spread in genuine triumph.

"Catch her!" shouted the mate.

Nobody obeyed him; they stood by laughing and cheering, till the hen made safety beneath the forecastle head.

* * * * *

She was spared for three days.

* * * * *

"If you ever tell the captain on us," First Mate Miller threatened, as he and the second mate stood over a barrel of Kuemmel, mixing hot water with it, to fill up for what they had stolen, "if you ever tell, I'll see that you go overboard--by accident ... when we clear for Iqueque, after we unload at Sydney."

"Why should I tell? It's none of my business!"

I had come upon them, as they were at work. The cook had sent me into the store-room for some potatoes.

* * * * *

Miller, the first mate, was quite fat and bleary-eyed. He used to go about sweating clear through his clothes on warm days. At such times I could detect the faint reek of alcohol coming through his pores. It's a wonder Schantze didn't notice it, as I did.

* * * * *

Sometimes, at meals, the captain would swear and say, sniffing at the edge of his glass, "What's the matter with this damned brandy ... it tastes more like water than a good drink of liquor."

As he set his glass down in disgust, the mates would solemnly and hypocritically go through the same operation, and express their wonder with the captain's.

Finally one of the latter would remark sagely, "they always try to palm off bad stuff on ships."

In spite of my fear of the mates, I once had to stuff a dirty dish-rag down my mouth to keep from laughing outright. The greasy rag made me gag and almost vomit.

"And what's the matter with you?" inquired Schantze, glaring into the pantry at me, while the two mates also glowered, for a different reason.

* * * * *

"You skinny Yankee," said the captain, taking me by the ear, rather painfully, several days after that incident, "I'm sure someone's drinking my booze. Could it be you, in spite of all your talk about not drinking? You Anglo-Saxons are such dirty hypocrites."

"Indeed, no, sir,--it isn't me."

"Well, this cabin's in your care, and so is the storeroom. You keep a watch-out and find out for me who it is.... I don't think its Miller or the second mate ... it must be either the cook or that old rogue of a sailmaker....

"Or it might be some of the crew," he further speculated, "but anyhow, it's your job to take care of the cabin, as I said before....

"Remember this--all sailors are thieves, aboard ship, if the chance to take anything good to eat or drink comes their way."

I promised to keep a good look-out.

On the other hand....

"Mind you keep your mouth shut ... and don't find things so damned funny, neither," this from the first mate, early one morning, as I scrubbed the floors. He stirred my posteriors heavily with a booted foot, in emphasis.

* * * * *

The sea kicked backward in long, speedy trails of foam, lacing the surface of a grey-green waste of waves....

* * * * *

When I had any spare time, I used to lie in the net under the bowsprit, and read. From there I could look back on the entire ship as it sailed ahead, every sail spread, a magnificent sight.

One day, as I lay there, reading Shelley, or was it my Vergil that I was puzzling out line by line, with occasional glances at the great ship seeming to sail into me--myself poised outward in space--

There came a great surge of water. I leaped up in the net, bouncing like a circus acrobat. My book fell out of my hand into the sea.

I looked up, and saw fully half the crew grinning down at me. The mate stood over me. A bucket that still dripped water in his hand showed me where the water had come from.

"Come up out of there! The captain's been bawling for you for half an hour ... we thought you'd gone overboard."

I came along the net, drenched and forlorn.

"What in hell were you doing down there?"

"I--I was thinking," I stammered.

"He was thinking," echoed the mate scornfully. "Well, thinking will never make a sailor of you."

Boisterous laughter.

"After this do your thinking where we can find you when you're wanted."

As I walked aft, the mate went with me pace for pace, poking more fun at me. To which I dared not answer, as I was impelled, because he was strong and I was very frail ... and always, when on the verge of danger, or a physical encounter, the memory of my Uncle Lan's beatings would now crash into my memory like an earthquake, and render my resolution and sinews all a-tremble and unstrung.

I was of a mind to tell the captain _who_ was drinking his liquor--but here again I feared, and cursed myself for fearing.

When the mate told him of where he had found me, at last--what he had done--what I had said--Schantze laughed....

But, later on, he sympathised with me and unexpectedly remarked:

"Johann, how can you expect a heavy-minded numbskull like Miller to understand!"

Then, laughing, he seized me by the ear--his usual gesture of fondness for me--

"Remember me if you ever write a book about this voyage, and don't give me too black a name! I'm not so bad, am I, eh?"

* * * * *

The Australian coast had lain blue across the horizon for several days.

"Watch me to-morrow!" whispered Franz cryptically to me as he strolled lazily by....

Next day, around noon, I heard a big rumpus on the main deck, I hurried up from the cabin.

There lay Franz, sprawled on his back like a huge, lazy dog, and the mate was shaking his belly with his foot on top of it, just as one plays with a dog ... but to show he was not playing, he delivered the prostrate form of the sailor a swift succession of kicks in the ribs....

"You won't work any longer, you say?"

"No."

"I'll kick your guts out."

"Very well."

"Stand on your feet like a man."

"What for? You'll only knock me down again!" and Franz grinned comically and grotesquely upward, through the gap in his mouth where two of his teeth had been punched out earlier in the voyage.

It was easy to see that Franz's curious attitude of non-resistance had the mate puzzled what to do next. All the sailors indulged in furtive laughter. None of them had a very deep-rooted love for Miller, and, for the first time, they rather sympathised with the man who had been shanghaied ... some of them even snickered audibly ... and straightway grew intent on their work....

Miller turned irritably on them. "And what's the matter with _you_!"...

"Bring him up here!" shouted Captain Schantze.

Four sailors picked Franz up and carried him, unresisting, bumping his back on the steps as he sagged like a sack half full of flour....

"Here! I've had about enough of this!" cried the captain, furious, "tie him to the rail again!..."

"Now, we'll leave you there, on bread and water, till you say you'll work."

"What does it matter what you do," sauced Franz; "we'll be in port in four days ... and then you'll see what I'll do!"

* * * * *

"What's that?" cried the captain. Then catching an inkling of Franz's scheme, he hit the man a quick, hard blow in the mouth with his clenched fist.

"Give him another!" urged the mate.

But the captain's rage was over, though Franz sent him a bold, mocking laugh, even as the blood trickled down in a tiny red stream from where his mouth had, been struck.

I never saw such courage of its kind.

They left him there for ten hours. But he stood without a sign of exhaustion or giving in. And they untied him. And let him loose.

And, till we hove to at Dalghety's Wharf, in Sydney Harbour, unnoticed, Franz, the Alsace-Lorrainer, roamed the boat at will, like a passenger.

"Wait till I get on shore ... this little shanghaiing party of the captain's will cost him a lot of hard money," he said, in a low voice, to me,--standing idly by, his hands in his pockets, while I was bending over the brass on the bridge railing, polishing away.

"But they've nearly killed you, Franz ... will it be worth it?"

"All I can say is I wish they'd use me rougher."

"You know, Franz, I'm not a bit sorry for you now ... I was at first."

"That so?... I don't need anybody to be sorry for me. In a week or so, when I have won my suit against the captain through the Sailors' Aid Society, I'll be rolling in money ... then you can be sorry for the captain."

* * * * *

Sydney Harbour ... the air alive with sunlight and white flutterings of sea gulls a-wing ... alive with pleasure boats that leaned here and yon on white sails.

* * * * *

Now that we were safe in harbour, I hesitated whether to run away or continue with the ship. For I had signed on to complete the voyage, via Iqueque, on the West Coast of South America, to Hamburg ... I hesitated, I say, because, on shipboard, you're at least sure of food and a place to sleep....

Karl and I had been set to work at giving the cabin a thorough overhauling. We fooled away much of our time looking into the captain's collections of erotic pictures and photographs ... and his obscene books in every language.

And we discovered under the sofa-seat that was built against the side, a great quantity of French syrups and soda waters. So we spent quite a little of our time in mixing temperance drinks for ourselves.

Cautiously I spoke to the cook about what Karl and I were doing. For he knew, of course, that I knew of his marauding ... and of the mates' and sailmaker's ... so it was safe to tell him.

"You'd better be careful," the cook admonished me.

"But what could Captain Schantze want with so many bottles of syrup and soda water aboard?"

"The English custom's officer who comes aboard here is an old friend of Schantze's, and a teetotaler ... so the captain always treats him to soda water."

"But Karl and I have drunk it all up already," I confessed slowly.

"You'll both catch a good hiding then when he calls for it and finds there is none."

The next day the customs man came aboard.

"Have a drink, Mr. Wollaston?" Schantze asked him.

"Yes, but nothing strong," for probably the tenth occasion came the answer.

Then offhandedly, the captain--as if he had not, perhaps, said the same thing for ten previous voyages: "I have some fine French soda water and syrup in my private locker, perhaps you'd like some of that, Mr. Wollaston?"

Mr. Wollaston, whose face and nose was so ruddy and pimply anyone would take him for a toper, answers: "Yes, a little of that Won't do any harm, Captain!"

"Karl!--Johann!" We had been listening, frightened, to the colloquy. We came out, trembling.

"Look under the cushions in my cabin ... bring out some of the syrup and soda water you find there."

"Very well, sir!"

We both hurried in ... stood facing each other, too scared to laugh at the situation. The captain had a heavy hand--and carried a heavy cane when he went ashore. He had the cane with him now.

After a long time: "You tell him there is none," whispered Karl.

"Well, what's wrong in there?" cried Schantze impatiently.

"We can't find a single bottle, sir!" I repeated, louder.

"What? Come out here! Speak louder! What did you say?"

"We can't find a single bottle, sir!" I murmured, almost inaudibly.

Then Karl, stammering, reinforced me with, "There are a lot of empty bottles here, sir!"

"What does this mean? Every voyage for years I have had soda and French syrup in my locker for Mr. Wollaston."

"Oh, don't mind me," deprecated the little customs man, at the same time as furious as his host.

Karl had already began to blubber in anticipation of the whipping due. The captain laid his heavy cane on everywhere. The boy fell at his feet, bawling louder, less from fear than from the knowledge that his abjectness would please the captain's vanity and induce him to let up sooner.

"Now _you_ come here!" Schantze beckoned me.

He raised the cane at me. But, to my own surprise, something brave and strange entered into me. I would not be humiliated before a countryman of my mother's, that was what it was!

I looked the captain straight in the eye.

"Sir, I did not do it, and I won't be whipped!"

"Wha-at!" ejaculated Schantze, astonished at my novel behaviour.

"I didn't touch the syrup." Karl looked at me, astonished and incredulous at my audacity, through his tear-stained face.

The captain stepped back from me.

I must be telling the truth to be behaving so differently.

"Get to your bunk then!" he commanded.

I obeyed.

"Who is he?" ... I heard the little customs man ask the skipper; "he doesn't talk like an Englishman."

"He isn't. He just a damn-fool Yankee boy I picked up in New York."

* * * * *

They had rounded Franz up and locked him away. The captain was determined to frustrate his little scheme for reimbursement, which he had by this time guessed.

I lie. I must tell the truth in these memoirs.

I had told on him.

But my motive was only an itch to see what would then take place. But when I saw that the issue would be an obvious one: that he would merely be spirited forth to sea again, and this time, _forced_ to work, I felt a little sorry for the man. At the same time, I admit I wanted to observe the denouement myself, of his case ... and as I now intended to desert the ship, it would have to take place in Sydney.

So, on the second night of Franz's incarceration, when nearly everybody was away on shore-leave, I took the captain's bunch of keys, and I let the shanghaied man, the mutineer, the man from Alsace-Lorraine--out!

It was not a very dark night. Franz stole along like a rat till he reached the centre of the dock. There he gave a great shout of defiance ... why, I learned later....

The _Lord Summerville_, which had, after all, beat us in by two days, despite Captain Schantze's boast, was lying on the other side of our dock. And her mate and several sailors thus became witnesses of what happened.

The shout brought, of course, our few men who remained on watch, on deck, and over on the dock after Franz ... who allowed himself to be caught ... the dock was English ground ... the ship was German ... a good point legally, as the canny Franz had foreseen.

His clothes were almost torn from his body.

Miller accidentally showed up, coming back from shore. And he joined in.

"Come back with us, you verfluchte _Alsatz_-Lothringer."

The Englishmen from the _Lord Summerville_ now began calling out, "Let him alone!" and "I say, give the lad fair play!"

Some of them leaped down on the dock in a trice.

"Who the hell let him out?" roared the mate.

I stood on deck, holding my breath, and ready to bolt in case Franz betrayed me. But nevertheless my blood was running high and happy over the excitement I had caused by unlocking the door.

"No one let me out. I picked the lock. Will that suit you?" lied Franz, protecting me.

"What's the lad been and done?" asked the mate of the _Lord Summerville_.

"I was shanghaied in New York," put in Franz swiftly, "and I demand English justice."

"And you shall get it, my man!" answered the mate proudly, "for you have been assaulted on English ground, as I'll stand witness."

A whistle was blown. Men came running. Soon Franz was outside the jurisdiction of Germany.

* * * * *

The next day Captain Schantze stalked about, hardly speaking to Miller. He was angry and laid the blame at the latter's door.

"Miller, why in the name of God didn't you guard that fellow better? An English court ... you know what _they'll_ do to us!"

Miller spread his hands outward, shrugged his shoulders expressively, remained in silence. The two mates and the captain ate the rest of their supper in a silence that bristled.

The ship was detained for ten days more after its cargo had been unloaded.

At the trial, during which the "old maids" and The Sailors' Aid Society came to the fore, Captain Schantze roared his indignant best--so much so that the judge warned him that he was not on his ship but on English ground....

Franz got a handsome verdict in his favour, of course.

And for several days he was seen, rolling drunk about the streets, by our boys, who now looked on him as a pretty clever person.

* * * * *

It was my time to run away--if I ever intended to. Within the next day or so we were to take on coal for the West Coast. We were to load down so heavily, the mate, who had conceived a hatred of me, informed me, that even in fair weather the scuppers would be a-wash. Significantly he added there would be much danger for a man who was not liked aboard a certain ship ... by the mates ... much danger of such a person's being washed overboard. For the waves, you know, washed over the deck of so heavily loaded a ship at will.

* * * * *

On the _Lord Summerville_ was a mad Pennsylvania boy who had, like myself, gone to sea for the first time ... but he had had no uncle to beat timidity into him ... and he had dared ship as able seaman on the big sky-sailed lime-juicer, and had gloriously acquitted himself.

He was a tall, rangy young bullock of a lad. He could split any door with his fist. He liked to drink and fight. And he liked women in the grog-house sense.

One of his chief exploits had been the punching of the second mate in the jaw when both were high a-loft. Then he had caught him about the waist, and held him till he came to, to keep him from falling. The mate had used bad language at him.

Hoppner had worked from the first as if he had been born to the sea.

He and I met in a saloon. The plump little barmaid had made him what she called, "A man's drink," while me she had served contemptuously with a ginger ale.

Hoppner boasted of his exploits. I, of mine.

"I tell you what, Gregory, since we're both jumping ship here, let's be pals for awhile and travel together."

"I'm with you, Hoppner."

"And why jump off empty-handed, since we are jumping off?"

"What is it you're driving at?"

"There ought to be a lot of loot on two boats!"

"Suppose we get caught?" I asked cautiously.

"Anybody that's worth a damn will take a chance in this world. Aren't you game to take a chance?"

"Of course I'm game."

"Well, then, you watch your chance and I'll watch mine. I'll hook into everything valuable that's liftable on my ship and you tend to yours in the same fashion."

* * * * *

We struck hands in partnership, parted, and agreed to meet at the wharf-gate the next night, just after dark, he with his loot, I with mine.

I spent the morning of the following day prospecting. I had seen the captain put the ship's money for the paying of the crew in a drawer, and turn the key.

But first, with a curious primitive instinct, I fixed on a small ham and a loaf of rye bread as part of the projected booty, in spite of the fact that, if I but laid hands on the ship's money, I would have quite a large sum.

It was the piquaresque romance of what I was about to do that moved me. The romance of the deed, not the possession of the objects stolen, that appealed to my imagination. I pictured my comrade and myself going overland, our swag on our backs, eluding pursuit ... and joining with the natives in some far hinterland. I would be a sort of Jonathan Wilde plus a Francois Villon.

Before the captain returned I had surveyed everything to my satisfaction ... after supper the captain and the two mates left for shore again.

Now was the time. I searched the captain's old trousers and found the ship's keys there. They were too bulky to carry around with him.

The keys seemed to jangle like thunder as I tried them one after the other on the drawer where I had seen him put away the gold.

I heard someone coming. I started to whistle noisily, and to polish the captain's _carpet slippers!_ ... it was only someone walking on deck ... The last key was, dramatically, the right one. The drawer opened ... but it was empty! I had seen the captain--the captain had also seen me. Now I started to take anything I could lay my hands on.

I snatched off the wall two silver-mounted cavalry pistols, a present from his brother to Schantze. I added a bottle of kuemmel to the ham and the rye bread. The kuemmel a present for Hoppner.

Then, before leaving the _Valkyrie_ forever, I sat down to think if there were not something I might do to show my contempt for Miller. There were many things I could do, I found.

In the first place, I took a large sail-needle and some heavy-thread and I sewed two pairs of his trousers and two of his coats up the middle of the legs and arms, so he couldn't put them on, at least right away. I picked up hammer and nails and nailed his shoes and sea-boots securely to the middle of his cabin floor. Under his pillow I found a full flask of brandy. I emptied half ... when I replaced it, it was full again. But I had not resorted to the brandy cask to fill it.

* * * * *

The apprehension that I might be come upon _flagrante delictu_ gave me a shiver of apprehension. But it was a pleasurable shiver. I enjoyed the malicious wantonness of my acts, and my prospective jump into the unknown ... all the South Seas waited for me ... all the world!

But, though every moment's delay brought detection and danger nearer, I found time for yet one more stroke. With a laughable vision of Schantze smashing Miller all over the cabin, I wrote and left this note pinned on the former's pillow:

Dear Captain:--

By the time you read this letter I will be beyond your reach (then
out of the instant's imagination ... I had not considered such a
thing hitherto). I am going far into the interior and discover a
gold mine. When I am rich I shall repay you for the cavalry pistols
which I am compelled to confiscate in lieu of my wages, which I now
forfeit by running away, though entitled to them.

You have been a good captain and I like you.

As for Miller, he is beneath my contempt. It was he who drank all
your wines, brandies, and whiskies ... the sailmaker is to answer
for your beer. The second mate has been in on this theft of your
liquors, too (I left the cook out because he had been nice to me).

Good-bye, and good luck.

Your former cabin boy, and, though you may not believe me, always
your well-wisher and friend,

JOHN GREGORY.

I left what I had stolen bundled up in my blanket. I walked forward nonchalantly to see if anyone was out to observe me. I discovered the sandy-haired Blacksmith, Klumpf, sitting on the main hatch. I saw that I could not pass him with my bundle without strategy. The strategy I employed was simple.

I drew him a bottle of brandy. I gave it to him. After he had drawn a long drink I told him I was running away from the ship. He laughed and took another drink. I passed him with my bundle. He shouted good-bye to me.

Before I had gone by the nose of the old ship, who should I run into but Klaus, coming back from a spree. He was pushing along on all fours like an animal, he was so drunk ... good, simple Klaus, whom I liked. I laid down my bundle, risking capture, while I helped him to the deck. He stopped a moment to pat the ship's side affectionately as if it were a living friend, or nearer, a mother.

"Gute alte _Valkyrie!_.. gute alte _Valkyrie!_" he murmured.

* * * * *

Safe so far. At the outside of the dock-gate Hoppner waited my arrival. He was interested in the kuemmel, and in the pistols, which were pawnable.

He had been more daring than I. He had tried to pick his captain's pocket of a gold watch while the latter slept. But every time he reached for it the captain stirred uneasily. He would have snatched it anyhow, but just then his first mate stepped into the cabin ... "and I hid till the mate went out again."

"And what then?"

"I picked up a lot of silverware the captain had for show occasions ... that I found, rummaging about."

"And him there sleeping?"

"Why not?"

"I found four revolvers that belonged to the mates and captain. I put them all in one bundle and chucked them into a rowboat over the ship's side. And now we must go back to your boat--"

"To my boat?" I asked, amazed.

"Yes" (I had told him how nearly I had missed our ship-money).

"To your boat, and ransack the cabin till we locate that coin."

"That's too risky."

"Hell, take a chance, can't you?"

That's what Hoppner was always saying as long as we travelled together: "Hell, take a chance."

But when I began telling him with convulsive laughter, of the revenge I had taken on the mate ... and also how I had thrown all the keys overboard, Hoppner, instead of joining in with my laughter, struck at me, not at all playfully, "What kind of damn jackass have I joined up with, anyhow," he exclaimed. "Now it won't be any use going back, you've thrown the keys away and we'd make too great a racket, breaking open things...."

He insisted, however, on going back to his own boat, sliding down to the rowboat, and rowing away with the loot he had cast into it. We had no sooner reached the prow of the _Lord Summerville_ than we observed people bestirring themselves on board her more than was natural.

"Come on, _now_ we'll beat it. They're after me."

Hoppner had also brought a blanket. We went "humping bluey" as swagmen, as the tramp is called in Australia.

The existence of the swagman is the happiest vagrant's life in the world. He is usually regarded as a bona fide seeker for work, and food is readily given him for the asking. Unlike the American hobo, he is given his food raw, and is expected to cook it himself. So he carries what he calls a "tucker bag" to hold his provisions; also, almost more important--his "billy can" or tea-pot....

Hoppner and I acquired the tea-habit as badly as the rest of the Australian swagmen. Every mile or so the swagman seems to stop, build a fire, and brew his draught of tea, which he makes strong enough to take the place of the firiest swig of whiskey. I've seen an old swagman boil his tea for an actual half-hour, till the resultant concoction was as thick and black as New Orleans molasses. With such continual draughts of tea, only the crystalline air, and the healthy dryness of the climate keeps them from drugging themselves to death.

"Tea ain't any good to drink unless you can put a stick straight up in it, and it can stand alone there," joked an old swagman, who had invited us to partake of a hospitable "billy-can" with him.

* * * * *

We had long, marvellous talks with different swagmen, as we slowly sauntered north to Newcastle....

We heard of the snakes of Australia, which workmen dug up in torpid writhing knots, in the cold weather ... of native corrobories which one old informant told us he had often attended, where he procured native women or "gins" as they called them, for a mere drink of whiskey or gin ... "that's why they calls 'em 'gins'" he explained ... (wrong, for "gin" or a word of corresponding sound is the name for "woman" in many native languages in the antipodes)....

The azure beauty of those days!... tramping northward with nothing in the world to do but swap stories and rest whenever we chose, about campfires of resinous, sweetly smelling wood ... drinking and drinking that villainous tea.

In Australia the law against stealing rides on freights is strictly enforced. The tramp has always to walk--to the American tramp this is at first a hardship, but you soon grow to like it ... you learn to enjoy the wine in the air, the fragrance of the strange trees that shed bark instead of leaves, the noise of scores of unseen Waterfalls in the hills of New South Wales.

The morning that the little sea-port of Newcastle lay before us, I felt as if I had been on tour through a strange world. For the first time the story-books of my youth had come true.

But Hoppner rose from the camp fire that we'd been sleeping by, stretched, and remarked, "now, thank Christ, I'll be able to find a good seat in a pub again, just like in Sydney, and all the booze I can drink. We can go to some sailors' boarding house here, tell them we want to ship out, and they'll furnish us with the proper amount of drinks and take care of us, all hunky dory, till they find us a berth on ship ... of course they'll be well paid for their trouble ... two months' advance pay handed over to them by the skipper ... but that won't bother me a bit."

From the hill on which we lay encamped we saw all the ships in the harbour. I no longer feared the sea. Your true adventurer forgets danger and perils experienced as a woman forgets the pangs of childbirth.

* * * * *

We met a sailor on the street, who, though at first a stranger, soon became our friend and, with the quick hospitality of the sea, steered us to a pub known as the Green Emerald, bought us drinks, and introduced us to Mother Conarty, the proprietress.

"I'll ship ye out all right, but where's your dunnage?"

We confessed that we had run away from our ships down at Sydney.

The old sailor had spoken of Mother Conarty as rough-mannered, but a woman with "a good, warm heart."

She proved it by taking us in to board, with no dunnage for her to hold as security.

"Oh, they're good lads, I'm sure," vouched our sailor-friend, speaking of us as if we had been forecastle mates of his for twenty voyages on end ... the way of the sea!

Now Mother Conarty was not stupid. She was a great-bodied, jolly Irishwoman, but she possessed razor-keen, hazel eyes that narrowed on us a bit when she first saw us. But the woman in her soon hushed her passing suspicions. For Hoppner was a frank-faced, handsome lad, with wide shoulders and a small waist like a girl's. It was Hoppner's good looks took her in. She gave us a room together.

* * * * *

There was a blowsy cheeked bar-maid, Mother Conarty's daughter. She knew well how to handle with a few sharp, ironic remarks anyone who tried to "get fresh" with her ... and if she couldn't, there were plenty of husky sailormen about, hearty in their admiration for the resolute, clean girl, and ready with mauling fists.

* * * * *

"Mother Conarty's proud o' that kid o' hers, she is."

"And well she may be!"

* * * * *

"I've been thinkin' over you b'yes, an' as ye hain't no dunnage wit' ye, I'm thinkin' ye'll be workin' fer yer board an' room."

"We're willing enough, mother," I responded, with a sinking of the heart, while Hoppner grimaced to me, behind her back.

We scrubbed out rooms, and the stairs, the bar, behind the bar, the rooms back and front, where the sailors drank. We earned our board and room ... for a few days.

* * * * *

At the Green Emerald I met my first case of delirium tremens. And it was a townsman who had 'em, not a sailor. The townsman was well-dressed and well-behaved--at first ... but there lurked a wild stare in his eye that was almost a glaze ... and he hung on the bar and drank and drank and drank. It apparently had no effect on him, the liquor that he took.

"Say, but you're a tough one," complimented Molly.

But _it_ began in the afternoon. He picked up a stray dog from the floor and began kissing it. And the dog slavered back, returning his affection. Then he dropped the dog and began picking blue monkeys off the wall ... wee things, he explained to us ... that he could hold between thumb and forefinger ... only there were so many of them ... multitudes of them ... that they rather distressed him ... they carried the man away in an ambulance.

* * * * *

Hoppner and I tired of the ceaseless scrubbing. One day we simply walked out of the Green Emerald and never showed up again. Hoppner stayed on in town.

I found that the _Valkyrie_ had run up from Sydney to coal at Newcastle, for the West Coast. I thought that in this case a little knowledge was not a dangerous thing, but a good thing, as long as I confined that knowledge to myself. I knew that the _Valkyrie_ was there. It was not necessary that the officers of the boat should know I was there ... which I wasn't, for I turned south, my swag on my back, and made Sydney again.

* * * * *

In Sydney and "on the rocks," that is with nothing to eat and no place to sleep but outdoors.

Of course I couldn't keep away from the ships. I arrived at the Circular Quay. I ran into the Sailors' Mission. They were serving tea and having a prayer-meeting. I wandered in.

A thin, wisplike man, timid, in black, but very gentlemanly, made me heartily welcome. Not with that obnoxious, forced heartiness sky-pilots think the proper manner to affect in dealing with sailors, but in a human way genuinely felt.

After a service of hearty singing, he asked me if he could help me in any way.

"I suppose you can. I'm on the rocks bad."

He gave me all the cakes to eat which were left over from the tea. And a couple of shillings beside.

"I wonder if there's anything else I can do?"

"Yes, I'm a poet," I ventured, "and I'd like to get Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ to read again." I said this as much to startle the man as really meaning it. I can go so long without reading certain poets, and after that I starve for them as the hungry starve for food. I was hungry for Chaucer.

Such a request, coming from a youth almost in rags, impressed the sky-pilot so deeply that he insisted on giving me a job pumping the organ during services and a little room to sleep in at the mission. What is more, he lent me Skeats' edition of Chaucer, complete. And all the time I was with him he proved a "good sport." He didn't take advantage of my dependence on him to bother me so very much about God.

He took it for granted that I was a Christian, since I never discussed religion with him.