Chapter III: Part III (1)

A Northeast gale off Hatteras: immense gray combers, five to the mile, charging shoreward, occasionally breaking, again lifting their heads too high in the effort, truncated as by a knife, and the liquid apex shattered to spray; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the rain-squalls, across which heavy background rushed the darker scud and storm-clouds; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-center. This is the picture that the sea-birds saw at daybreak on a September morning, and could the sea-birds have spoken they might have told that the square-rigged craft carried a navigator who had learned that a whirling fury of storm-center was less to be feared than the deadly Diamond Shoals--the outlying guard of Cape Hatteras toward which that steamer was drifting, broadside on.

Clad in yellow oilskins and sou'wester, he stood by the after-companionway, intently examining through a pair of glasses the wallowing steamer to leeward, barely distinguishable in the half-light and driving spindrift. On the main-deck a half-dozen men paced up and down, sheltered by the weather rail; forward, two others walked the deck by the side of the forward house, but never allowed their march to extend past the after-corner; and at the wheel stood a little man who sheltered a cheerful face under the lee of a big coat-collar, and occasionally peeped out at the navigator.

"Poop-deck," he shouted above the noise of the wind, "take the wheel till I fire up."

"Thought I was exempt from steering," growled the other, good-humoredly, as he placed the glasses inside the companionway.

"You're getting too fat and sassy; steer a little."

Poop-deck relieved the little man, who descended the cabin stairs, and returned in a few moments, smoking a short pipe. He took the wheel, and Poop-deck again examined the steamer with the glasses.

"There goes his ensign, union down," he exclaimed; "he's in trouble. We'll show ours."

From a flag-locker inside the companionway he drew out the Stars and Stripes, which he ran up to the monkey-gaff. Then he looked again.

"Down goes his ensign; up goes the code pennant. He wants to signal. Come up here, boys," called Poop-deck; "give me a hand."

As the six men climbed the steps, he pulled out the corresponding code signal from the locker, and ran it up on the other part of the halyards as the ensign fluttered down. "Go down, one of you," he said, "and get the signal-book and shipping-list. He'll show his number next. Get ours ready--R. L. F. T."

While a man sprang below for the books named, the others hooked together the signal-flags forming the ship's number, and Poop-deck resumed the glasses.

"Q. T. F. N.," he exclaimed. "Look it up."

The books had arrived, and while one lowered and hoisted again the code signal, which was also the answering pennant, the others pored over the shipping-list.

"Steamer _Aldebaran_ of New York," they said.

The pennant came down, and the ship's number went up to the gaff.

"H. V.," called Poop-deck, as he scanned two flags now flying from the steamer's truck. "What does that say?"

"Damaged rudder--cannot steer," they answered.

"Pull down the number and show the answering pennant again," said Poop-deck; "and let me see that signal-book." He turned the leaves, studied a page for a moment, then said: "Run up H. V. R. That says, 'What do you want?' and that's the nearest thing to it."

These flags took the place of the answering pennant at the gaff-end, and again Poop-deck watched through the glasses, noting first the showing of the steamer's answering pennant, then the letters K. R. N.

"What does K. R. N. say?" he asked.

They turned the leaves, and answered: "I can tow you."

"Tow us? We're all right; we don't want a tow. He's crazy. How can he tow us when he can't steer?" exclaimed three or four together.

"He wants to tow us so that he _can_ steer, you blasted fools," said Poop-deck. "He can keep head to sea and go where he likes with a big drag on his stern."

"That's so. Where's he bound--'you that has knowledge and eddication'?"

"Didn't say; but he's bound for the Diamond Shoals, and he'll fetch up in three hours, if we can't help him. He's close in."

"Tow-line's down the forepeak," said a man. "Couldn't get it up in an hour," said another. "Yes, we can," said a third. Then, all speaking at once, and each raising his voice to its limit, they argued excitedly: "Can't be done." "Coil it on the forecastle." "Yes, we can." "Too much sea." "Run down to wind'ard." "Line 'ud part, anyhow." "Float a barrel." "Shut up." "I tell you, we can." "Call the watch." "Seldom, yer daft." "Needn't get a boat over." "Hell ye can." "Call the boys." "All hands with heavin'-lines." "Can't back a topsail in this." "Go lay down." "Soak yer head, Seldom." "Hush." "Shut up." "Nothing _you_ can't do." "Go to the devil." "I tell you, we can; do as I say, and we'll get a line to him, or get his."

The affirmative speaker, who had also uttered the last declaration, was Seldom Helward. "Put me in command," he yelled excitedly, "and do what I tell you, and we'll make fast to him."

"No captains here," growled one, while the rest eyed Seldom reprovingly.

"Well, there ought to be; you're all rattled, and don't know any more than to let thousands o' dollars slip past you. There's salvage down to looward."

"Salvage?"

"Yes, salvage. Big boat--full o' passengers and valuable cargo--shoals to looward of him--can't steer. You poor fools, what ails you?"

"Foller Seldom," vociferated the little man at the wheel; "foller Seldom, and ye'll wear stripes."

"Dry up, Sinful. Call the watch. It's near seven bells, anyhow. Let's hear what the rest say. Strike the bell."

The uproarious howl with which sailors call the watch below was delivered down the cabin stairs, and soon eight other men came up, rubbing their eyes and grumbling at the premature wakening, while another man came out of the forecastle and joined the two pacing the forward deck. Seldom Helward's proposition was discussed noisily in joint session on the poop, and finally accepted.

"We put you in charge, Seldom, against the rule," said Bigpig Monahan, sternly, "'cause we think you've some good scheme in your head; but if you haven't,--if you make a mess of things just to have a little fun bossin' us,--you'll hear from us. Go ahead, now. You're captain."

Seldom climbed to the top of the after-house, looked to windward, then to leeward at the rolling steamer, and called out:

"I want more beef at the wheel. Bigpig, take it; and you, Turkey, stand by with him. Get away from there, Sinful. Give her the upper maintopsail, the rest of you. Poop-deck, you stand by the signal-halyards. Ask him if he's got a tow-line ready."

Protesting angrily at the slight put upon him, Sinful Peck relinquished the wheel, and joined the rest on the main-deck, where they had hurried. Two men went aloft to loose the topsail, and the rest cleared away gear, while Poop-deck examined the signal-book.

"K. S. G. says, 'Have a tow-line ready.' That ought to do, Seldom," he called.

"Run it up," ordered the newly installed captain, "and watch his answer." Up went the signal, and as the men on the main-deck were manning the topsail-halyards, Poop-deck made out the answer: "V. K. C."

"That means 'All right,' Seldom," he said, after inspecting the book.

"Good enough; but we'll get our line ready, too. Get down and help 'em mast-head the yard first, then take 'em forrard and coil the tow-line abaft the windlass. Get all the heavin'-lines ready, too."

Poop-deck obeyed; and while the main-topsail-yard slowly arose to place under the efforts of the rest, Seldom himself ran up the answering pennant, and then the repetition of the steamer's last message: "All right." This was the final signal displayed between the two craft. Both signal-flags were lowered, and for a half-hour Seldom waited, until the others had lifted a nine-inch hawser from the forepeak and coiled it down. Then came his next orders in a continuous roar:

"Three hands aft to the spanker-sheet! Stand by to slack off and haul in! Man the braces for wearing ship, the rest o' you! Hard up the wheel! Check in port main and starboard cro'-jack braces! Shiver the topsail! Slack off that spanker!"

Before he had finished the men had reached their posts. The orders were obeyed. The ship paid off, staggered a little in the trough under the right-angle pressure of the gale, swung still farther, and steadied down to a long, rolling motion, dead before the wind, heading for the steamer. Yards were squared in, the spanker hauled aft, staysail trimmed to port, and all hands waited while the ship charged down the two miles of intervening sea.

"Handles like a yacht," muttered Seldom, as, with brow wrinkled and keen eye flashing above his hooked nose, he conned the steering from his place near the mizzenmast.

Three men separated themselves from the rest and came aft. They were those who had walked the forward deck. One was tall, broad-shouldered, and smooth-shaven, with a palpable limp; another, short, broad, and hairy, showed a lamentable absence of front teeth; and the third, a blue-eyed man, slight and graceful of movement, carried his arm in splints and sling. This last was in the van as they climbed the poop steps.

"I wish to protest," he said. "I am captain of this ship under the law. I protest against this insanity. No boat can live in this sea. No help can be given that steamer."

"And I bear witness to the protest," said the tall man. The short, hairy man might have spoken also, but had no time.

"Get off the poop," yelled Seldom. "Go forrard, where you belong." He stood close to the bucket-rack around the skylight. Seizing bucket after bucket, he launched them at his visitors, with the result that the big man was tumbled down the poop steps head first, while the other two followed, right side up, but hurriedly, and bearing some sore spots. Then the rest of the men set upon them, much as a pack of dogs would worry strange cats, and kicked and buffeted them forward.

There was no time for much amusement of this sort. Yards were braced to port, for the ship was careering down toward the steamer at a ten-knot rate; and soon black dots on her rail resolved into passengers waving hats and handkerchiefs, and black dots on the boat deck resolved into sailors standing by the end of a hawser which led up from the bitts below on the fantail. And the ship came down, until it might have seemed that Seldom's intention was to ram her. But not so; when a scant two lengths separated the two craft, he called out: "Hard down! Light up the staysail-sheet and stand by the forebraces!"

Around the ship came on the crest of a sea; she sank into the hollow behind, shipped a few dozen tons of water from the next comber, and then lay fairly steady, with her bow meeting the seas, and the huge steamer not a half-length away on the lee quarter. The fore-topmast-staysail was flattened, and Seldom closely scrutinized the drift and heave of the ship.

"How's your wheel, Bigpig?" he asked.

"Hard down."

"Put it up a little; keep her in the trough."

He noted the effect on the ship of this change; then, as though satisfied, roared out: "Let your forebraces hang, forrard there! Stand by heavin'-lines fore and aft! Stand by to go ahead with that steamer when we have your line!" The last injunction, delivered through his hands, went down the wind like a thunder-clap, and the officers on the steamer's bridge, vainly trying to make themselves heard against the gale in the same manner, started perceptibly at the impact of sound, and one went to the engine-room speaking-tube.

Breast to breast the two vessels lifted and fell. At times it seemed that the ship was to be dropped bodily on the deck of the steamer; at others, her crew looked up a streaked slope of a hundred feet to where the other craft was poised at the crest. Then the steamer would drop, and the next sea would heave the ship toward her. But it was noticeable that every bound brought her nearer to the steamer, and also farther ahead, for her sails were doing their work.

"Kick ahead on board the steamer!" thundered Seldom from his eminence. "Go ahead! Start the wagon, or say your prayers, you blasted idiots!"

The engines were already turning; but it takes time to overcome three thousand tons of inertia, and before the steamer had forged ahead six feet the ship had lifted above her, and descended her black side with a grinding crash of wood against iron. Fore and main channels on the ship were carried away, leaving all lee rigging slack and useless; lower braces caught in the steamer's davit-cleats and snapped, but the sails, held by the weather braces, remained full, and the yards did not swing. The two craft separated with a roll and came together again with more scraping and snapping of rigging. Passengers left the rail, dived indoors, and took refuge on the opposite side, where falling blocks and small spars might not reach them. Another leap toward the steamer resulted in the ship's maintopgallantmast falling in a zigzag whirl, as the snapping gear aloft impeded it; and dropping athwart the steamer's funnel, it neatly sent the royal-yard with sail attached down the iron cylinder, where it soon blazed and helped the artificial draft in the stoke-hold. Next came the foretopgallantmast, which smashed a couple of boats. Then, as the round black stern of the steamer scraped the lee bow of the ship, jib-guys parted, and the jib-boom itself went, snapping at the bowsprit-cap, with the last bite the ship made at the steamer she was helping. But all through this riot of destruction--while passengers screamed and prayed, while officers on the steamer shouted and swore, and Seldom Helward, bellowing insanely, danced up and down on the ship's house, and the hail of wood and iron from aloft threatened their heads--men were passing the tow-line.

It was a seven-inch steel hawser with a Manila tail, which they had taken to the foretopsail-sheet bitts before the jib-boom had gone. Panting from their exertions, they watched it lift from the water as the steamer ahead paid out with a taut strain; then, though the crippled spars were in danger of falling and really needed their first attention, they ignored the fact and hurried aft, as one man, to attend to Seldom.

Encouraged by the objurgations of Bigpig and his assistant, who were steering now after the steamer, they called their late commander down from the house and deposed him in a concert of profane ridicule and abuse, to which he replied in kind. He was struck in the face by the small fist of Sinful Peck, and immediately knocked the little man down. Then he was knocked down himself by a larger fist, and, fighting bravely and viciously, became the object of fist-blows and kicks, until, in one of his whirling staggers along the deck, he passed close to the short, broad, hairy man, who yielded to the excitement of the moment and added a blow to Seldom's punishment. It was an unfortunate mistake; for he took Seldom's place, and the rain of fists and boots descended on him until he fell unconscious. Mr. Helward himself delivered the last quieting blow, and then stood over him with a lurid grin on his bleeding face.

"Got to put down mutiny though the heavens fall," he said painfully.

"Right you are, Seldom," answered one. "Here, Jackson, Benson--drag him forrard; and, Seldom," he added, reprovingly, "don't you ever try it again. Want to be captain, hey? You can't; you don't know enough. You couldn't command my wheelbarrow. Here's three days' work to clear up the muss you've made."

But in this they spoke more, and less, than the truth. The steamer, going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each quarter, kept the ship's canvas full until her crew had steadied the yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer-stays and shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not. An uncanny appearance of the sea to leeward indicated too close proximity to the shoals, while a blackening of the sky to windward told of probable increase of wind and sea. And the steamer waited no longer. With a preliminary blast of her whistle, she hung the weight of the ship on the starboard bridle, gave power to her engines, and rounded to, very slowly, head to sea, while the men on the ship, who had been carrying the end of the coiled hawser up the foretopmast rigging, dropped it and came down hurriedly.

Released from the wind-pressure on her strong side, which had somewhat steadied her, the ship now rolled more than she had done in the trough, and with every starboard roll were ominous creakings and grindings aloft. At last came a heavier lurch, and both crippled topmasts fell, taking with them the mizzentopgallantmast. Luckily, no one was hurt, and they disgustedly cut the wreck adrift, stayed the fore- and mainmasts with the hawser, and resigning themselves to a large subtraction from their salvage, went to a late breakfast--a savory meal of smoking fried ham and potatoes, hot cakes and coffee served to sixteen in the cabin, and an unsavory meal of "hardtack-hash," with an infusion of burnt bread-crust, pease, beans, and leather, handed, but not served, to three in the forecastle.

Three days later, with Sandy Hook lighthouse showing through the haze ahead, and nothing left of the gale but a rolling ground-swell, the steamer slowed down so that a pilot-boat's dinghy could put a man aboard each craft. And the one who climbed the ship's side was the pilot that had taken her to sea, outward bound, and sympathized with her crew. They surrounded him on the poop and asked for news, while the three men forward looked aft hungrily, as though they would have joined the meeting, but dared not. Instead of giving news, the pilot asked questions, which they answered.

"I knew you'd taken charge, boys," he said at length. "The whole world knows it, and every man-of-war on the Pacific stations has been looking for you. But they're only looking out there. What brings you round here, dismasted, towing into New York?"

"That's where the ship's bound--New York. We took her out; we bring her home. We don't want her--don't belong to us. We're law-abidin' men."

"Law-abiding men?" asked the amazed pilot.

"You bet. We're goin' to prosecute those dogs of ours forrard there to the last limit o' the law. We'll show 'em they can't starve and hammer and shoot free-born Americans just 'cause they've got guns in their pockets."

The pilot looked forward, nodded to one of the three, who beckoned to him, and asked:

"Who'd you elect captain?"

"Nobody," they roared. "We had enough o' captains. This ship's an unlimited democracy--everybody just as good as the next man; that is, all but the dogs. They sleep on the bunk-boards, do as they're told, and eat salt mule and dunderfunk--same as we did goin' out."

"Did they navigate for you? Did no one have charge of things?"

"Poop-deck picked up navigation, and we let him off steerin' and standin' lookout. Then Seldom, here, he wanted to be captain just once, and we let him--well, look at our spars."

"Poop-deck? Which is Poop-deck? Do you mean to say," asked the pilot when the navigator had been indicated to him, "that you brought this ship home on picked-up navigation?"

"Didn't know anything about it when we left Callao," answered the sailor, modestly. "The steward knew enough to wind the chronometer until I learned how. We made an offing and steered due south, while I studied the books and charts. It didn't take me long to learn how to take the sun. Then we blundered round the Horn somehow, and before long I could take chronometer sights for the longitude. Of course I know we went out in four months and used up five to get back; but a man can't learn the whole thing in one passage. We lost some time, too, chasing other ships and buying stores; the cabin grub gave out."

"You bought, I suppose, with Captain Benson's money."

"S'pose it was his. We found it in his desk. But we've kept account of every cent expended, and bought no grub too good for a white man to eat."

"What dismasted you?"

They explained the meeting with the steamer and Seldom's misdoing; then requested information about the salvage laws.

"Boys," said the pilot, "I'm sorry for you. I saw the start of this voyage, and you appear to be decent men. You'll get no salvage; you'll get no wages. You are mutineers and pirates, with no standing in court. Any salvage which the _Almena_ has earned will be paid to her owners and to the three men whom you deprived of command. What you can get--the maximum, though I can't say how hard the judge will lay it on--is ten years in state's prison, and a fine of two thousand dollars each. We'll have to stop at quarantine. Take my advice: if you get a chance, lower the boats and skip."

They laughed at the advice. They were American citizens who respected the law. They had killed no one, robbed no one; their wages and salvage, independently of insurance liabilities, would pay for the stores bought, and the loss of the spars. They had no fear of any court of justice in the land; for they had only asserted their manhood and repressed inhuman brutality.

The pilot went forward, talked awhile with the three, and left them with joyous faces. An hour later he pointed out the _Almena's_ number flying from the masthead of the steamer.

"He's telling on you, boys," he said. "He knew you when you helped him, and used you, of course. Your reputation's pretty bad on the high seas. See that signal-station ashore there? Well, they're telegraphing now that the pirate _Almena_ is coming in. You'll see a police boat at quarantine."

He was but partly right. Not only a police boat, but an outward-bound man-of-war and an incoming revenue cutter escorted the ship to quarantine, where the tow-line was cast off, and an anchor dropped. Then, in the persons of a scandalized health-officer, a naval captain, a revenue-marine lieutenant, and a purple-faced sergeant of the steamboat squad, the power of the law was rehabilitated on the _Almena's_ quarter-deck, and the strong hand of the law closed down on her unruly crew. With blank faces, they discarded--to shirts, trousers, and boots--the slop-chest clothing which belonged to the triumphant Captain Benson, and descended the side to the police boat, which immediately steamed away. Then a chuckling trio entered the ship's cabin, and ordered the steward to bring them something to eat.

* * * * *

Now, there is no record either in the reports for that year of the police department, or from any official babbling, or from later yarns spun by the sixteen prisoners, of what really occurred on the deck of that steamer while she was going up the bay. Newspapers of the time gave generous space to speculations written up on the facts discovered by reporters; but nothing was ever proved. The facts were few. A tug met the steamer in the Narrows about a quarter to twelve that morning, and her captain, on being questioned, declared that all seemed well with her. The prisoners were grouped forward, guarded by eight officers and a sergeant. A little after twelve o'clock a Battery boatman observed her coming, and hied him around to the police dock to have a look at the murderous pirates he had heard about, only to see her heading up the North River, past the Battery. A watchman on the elevator docks at Sixty-third Street observed her charging up the river a little later in the afternoon, wondered why, and spoke of it. The captain of the _Mary Powel_, bound up, reported catching her abreast of Yonkers. He had whistled as he passed, and though no one was in sight, the salute was politely answered. At some time during the night, residents of Sing Sing were wakened by a sound of steam blowing off somewhere on the river; and in the morning a couple of fishermen, going out to their pond-nets in the early dawn, found the police boat grounded on the shoals. On boarding her they had released a pinioned, gagged, and hungry captain in the pilot-house, and an engineer, fireman, and two deck-hands, similarly limited, in the lamp-room. Hearing noises from below, they pried open the nailed doors of the dining-room staircase, and liberated a purple-faced sergeant and eight furious officers, who chased their deliverers into their skiff, and spoke sternly to the working-force.

Among the theories advanced was one, by the editor of a paper in a small Lake Ontario town, to the effect that it made little difference to an Oswego sailor whether he shipped as captain, mate, engineer, sailor, or fireman, and that the officers of the New York Harbor Patrol had only under-estimated the caliber of the men in their charge, leaving them unguarded while they went to dinner. But his paper and town were small and far away, he could not possibly know anything of the subject, and his opinion obtained little credence.

Years later, however, he attended, as guest, a meeting and dinner of the Shipmasters' and Pilots' Association of Cleveland, Ohio, when a resolution was adopted to petition the city for a harbor police service. Captain Monahan, Captain Helward, Captain Peck, and Captain Cahill, having spoken and voted in the negative, left their seats on the adoption of the proposition, reached a clear spot on the floor, shook hands silently, and then, forming a ring, danced around in a circle (the tails of their coats standing out in horizontal rigidity) until reproved by the chair.

And the editor knew why.

THE BRAIN OF THE BATTLE-SHIP

Build an inverted Harvey-steel box about eight feet high, one hundred and fifty feet long, half as wide, with walls of eighteen-inch thickness, and a roof of three, and you have strong protection against shot and shell. Build up from the ends of the box two steel barbettes with revolving turrets as heavy as your side-walls; place in each a pair of thirteen-inch rifles; flank these turrets with four others of eight-inch wall, each holding two eight-inch guns; these again with four smaller, containing four six-inch guns, and you have power of offense nearly equal to your protection. Loosely speaking, a modern gun-projectile will, at short range, pierce steel equal to itself in cross-section, and from an elevated muzzle will travel as many miles as this cross-section measures in inches. Placed upon an outlying shoal, this box with its guns would make an efficient fortress, but would lack the advantage of being able to move and choose position.

Build underneath and each way from the ends of the box a cellular hull to float it; place within it, and below the box, magazines, boilers, and engines; construct above, between the turrets, a lighter superstructure to hold additional quick-fire guns and torpedo-tubes; cap the whole with a military mast supporting fighting-tops, and containing an armored conning-tower in its base; man and equip, provision and coal the fabric, and you can go to sea, confident of your ability to destroy everything that floats, except icebergs and other battle-ships.

Of these essentials was the first-class coast-defense battle-ship _Argyll_. She was of ten thousand tons displacement, and was propelled by twin screws which received ten thousand horse-power from twin engines placed below the water-line. Three long tubes--one fixed in the stem, two movable in the superstructure--could launch Whitehead torpedoes,--mechanical fish carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of guncotton in their heads,--which sought in the water a twenty-foot depth, and hurried where pointed at a thirty-knot rate of speed. Their impact below the water-line was deadly, and only equaled in effect by the work of the ram-bow, the blow of the ship as a whole--the last glorious, suicidal charge on an enemy that had dismounted the guns, if such could happen.

Besides her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch guns, she carried a secondary quick-fire battery of twenty six-pounders, four one-pounders, and four Gatling guns distributed about the superstructure and in the fighting-tops. The peculiar efficacy of this battery lay in its menace to threatening torpedo-boats, and its hostility to range-finders, big-gun sights, and opposing gunners. A torpedo-boat, receiving the full attention of her quick-fire battery, could be disintegrated and sunk in a yeasty froth raised by the rain of projectiles long before she could come within range of torpedo action; while a simultaneous discharge of all guns would distribute over seven thousand pounds of metal with foot-tons of energy sufficient to lift the ship herself high out of water. Bristling, glistening, and massive, a reservoir of death potential, a center of radiant destruction, a spitting, chattering, thundering epitome of racial hatred, she bore within her steel walls the ever-growing burden of progressive human thought. She was a maker of history, a changer of boundaries, a friend of young governments; and it chanced that on a fine tropical morning, in company with three armored cruisers, four protected cruisers, and a fleet of torpedo-boats and destroyers, she went into action.

She was stripped to bare steel and signal-halyards. Davits, anchors, and cables were stowed and secured. Ladders, gratings, stanchions, and all movable deck-fittings were below the water-line. Wooden bulkheads, productive of splinters, were knocked down and discarded, while all boats, with the plugs out, were overboard, riding to a sea-anchor made up of oars and small spars.

The crew was at quarters. Below, in the magazine, handling-rooms, stoke-holds, and bunkers, bare-waisted men worked and waited in stifling heat; for she was under forced draft, and compartments were closed, even though the enemy was still five miles away. The chief and his first assistant engineer watched the main engines in their twin compartments, while the subordinate aids and machinists attended to the dynamos, motors, and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets, pumps, and ammunition-hoists. All boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while they waited.

In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one-pounders and Gatling guns--the easiest-minded of the ship's company, for they could see and breathe. Each division of fighters and workers was overseen by an officer; in some cases by two and three.

Preparatory work was done, and, excepting the "black gang," men were quiescent, but feverish. Few spoke, and then on frivolous things, in tones that were not recognized. Occasionally a man would bring out a piece of paper and write, using for a desk a gun-breech or -carriage, a turret-wall, or the deck. An officer in a fighting-top used a telegraph-dial, and a stoker in the depths his shovel, in a chink of light from the furnace. These letters, written in instalments, were pocketed in confidence that sometime they would be mailed.

From the captain down each man knew that a large proportion of their number was foredoomed; but not a consciousness among them could admit the possibility of itself being chosen. The great first law forbade it. Senior officers pictured in their minds dead juniors, and thought of extra work after the fight. Junior officers thought of vacancies above them and promotion. Men in the turrets bade mental good-by to their mates in the superstructure; and these, secure in their five-inch protection, pitied those in the fighting-tops, where, cold logic says, no man may live through a sea-fight. Yet all would have volunteered to fill vacancies aloft. The healthy human mind can postulate suffering, but not its own extinction.

In a circular apartment in the military mast, protected by twelve inches of steel, perforated by vertical and horizontal slits for observation, stood the captain and navigating officer, both in shirt-sleeves; for this, the conning-tower, was hot. Around the inner walls were the nerve-terminals of the structure--the indicators, telegraph-dials, telephones, push-buttons, and speaking-tubes, which communicated with gun-stations, turrets, steering-room, engine-rooms, and all parts of the ship where men were stationed. In the forward part was a binnacle with small steering-wheel, disconnected now, for the steering was done by men below the water-line in the stern. A spiral staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first fighting-top above, in which staircase were small platforms where a signal-officer and two quartermasters watched through slits the signals from the flag-ship, and answered as directed by the captain below with small flags, which they mastheaded through the hollow within the staircase.

The chief master-at-arms, bareheaded, climbed into the conning-tower.

"Captain Blake, what'll we do with Finnegan?" he said. "I've released him from the brig as you ordered; but Mr. Clarkson won't have him in the turret where he belongs, and no one else wants him around. They even chased him out of the bunkers. He wants to work and fight, but Mr. Clarkson won't place him; says he washes his hands of Finnegan, and sent me to you. I took him to the bay, but he won't take medicine."

Captain Blake, stern of face and kindly of eye, drew back from a peep-hole, and asked: "What's his condition?"

"Shaky, sir. Sees little spiders and big spiders crawling round his cap-rim. Him and the recording angel knows where he gets it and where he keeps it, sir; but I don't. I've watched him for six months."

"Send him to me."

"Very good, sir."

The master-at-arms descended, and in a few moments the unwanted Finnegan appeared--a gray-bearded, emaciated, bleary-eyed seaman, who brushed imaginary things from his neck and arms, and stammered, as he removed his cap: "Report for duty, sir."

"For duty?" answered the captain, eying him sternly. "For death. You will be allowed the honorable death of an English seaman. You will die in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours."

The man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it, but said nothing, while Mr. Dalrymple, the navigating officer, with his eyes at a peep-hole and his ears open to the dialogue, wondered (as he and the whole ship's company had wondered before) what the real relation was between the captain and this wretched, drunken butt of the crew. For the captain's present attitude was a complete departure. Always he had shielded Finnegan from punishment to the extent that naval etiquette would permit.

"I have tried for six years," continued the captain, "to reform you and hold you to the manhood I once knew in you; but I give you up. You are not fit to live, and will never be fitter to die than this morning, when the chance comes to you to die fighting for your country. But I want you to die fighting. Do you wish to see the surgeon or the chaplain?"

"No, no, no, cappen; one's bad as t' other. The chaplain'll pray and the doctor'll fill me up wi' bromide, and it just makes me crazy, sir. I'm all right, cappen, if I only had a drink. Just give me a drink, cappen,--the doctor won't,--and send me down to my station, sir. I know it's only in my head, but I see 'em plain, all round. You'll give me a drink, cappen, please; I know you'll give me a drink."

He brushed his knees gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake's stern face softened. His mind went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, until this man's face, young, strong, and cheery then, appeared behind a white life-buoy; and he heard again the panting voice of his rescuer: "Here ye are, Mr. Blake; boat's comin'."

He whistled down the speaking-tube, and when answered, called: "Send an opened bottle of whisky into the conning-tower--no glasses."

"Thankee, sir."

The captain resumed his position at the peep-hole, and Finnegan busied himself with his troubles until a Japanese servant appeared with a quart bottle. The captain received it, and the Jap withdrew.

"Help yourself, Finnegan," said the captain, extending the bottle; "take a good drink--a last one." Finnegan took the equivalent of three. "Now, up with you." The captain stood the bottle under the binnacle. "Upper top. Report to Mr. Bates."

"Cappen, please send me down to the turret where I b'long, sir. I'm all right now. I don't want to go up there wi' the sogers. I'm not good at machine-guns."

"No arguments. Up with you at once. You are good for nothing but to work a lever under the eye of an officer."

Finnegan saluted silently and turned toward the stairs.

"Finnegan!"

He turned. The captain extended his hand. "Finnegan," he said, "I don't forget that night, but you must go; the eternal fitness of things demands it. Perhaps I'll go, too. Good-by."

The two extremes of the ship's company shook hands, and Finnegan ascended. When past the quartermasters and out of hearing, he grumbled and whined: "No good, hey? Thirty years in the service, and sent up here to think of my sins like a sick monkey. Good for nothin' but to turn a crank with the sogers. Nice job for an able seaman. What's the blasted service a-comin' to?"

The two fleets were approaching in similar formation, double column, at about a twelve-knot speed. Leading the left column was the _Lancaster_, and following came the _Argyll_, _Beaufort_, and _Atholl_, the last two, like the _Lancaster_, armored cruisers of the first class. On the _Lancaster's_ starboard bow was the flag-ship _Cumberland_, a large unarmored cruiser, and after her came the _Marlborough_, _Montrose_, and _Sutherland_, unarmored craft like the flag-ship, equally vulnerable to fire, the two columns making a zigzag line, with the heaviest ships to the left, nearest the enemy.

Heading as they were, the fleets would pass about a mile apart. Led by a black, high-sided monster, the left column of the enemy was made up of four battle-ships of uncouth, foreign design and murderous appearance, while the right column contained the flag-ship and three others, all heavily armored cruisers. Flanking each fleet, far to the rear, were torpedo-boats and destroyers.

"We're outclassed, Dalrymple," said Captain Blake. "There are the ships we expected--_Warsaw_, _Riga_, _Kharkov_, and _Moscow_, all of fighting weight, and the _Obdorsk_, _Tobolsk_, _Saratov_, and _Orenburg_. Leaving out the _Argyll_, we haven't a ship equal to the weakest one there. This fight is the _Argyll's_."

"And the _Argyll_ is equal to it, captain. All I fear is torpedoes. Of course our ends and superstructure will catch it, and I suppose we'll lose men--all the quick-fire men, perhaps."

"Those in the tops surely," said the captain. "Dalrymple, what do you think? I don't feel right about Finnegan. He belongs in the turret, and I've sentenced him. Have I the right? I've half a mind to call him down." He pushed a button marked "Forward turret," and listened at a telephone.

"Mr. Clarkson!" he called. "I've put your man Finnegan in the upper top; but he seems all right now. Can you use him?"

The answer came:

"No, sir; I've filled his place."

"Die, then. On my soul be it, Finnegan, poor devil," muttered the captain, gloomily.

His foot struck the bottle under the binnacle, and, on an impulse due to his mood, he picked it up and uncorked it. Mr. Dalrymple observed the action and stepped toward him.

"Captain, pardon me," he said, "if I protest unofficially. We are going into action--not to dinner."

The captain's eyes opened wide and shone brighter, while his lip curled. He extended the bottle to the lieutenant.

"The apologies are mine, Mr. Dalrymple," he said. "I forgot your presence. Take a drink."

The officer forced a smile to his face, and stepped back, shaking his head. Captain Blake swallowed a generous portion of the whisky.

"The fool!" mused the navigator, as he looked through the peep-hole. "The whole world is watching him to-day, and he turns to whisky. That's it, dammit; that's the bond of sympathy: Blake and Finnegan, Finnegan and Blake--dipsomaniacs. Lord, I never thought. I've seen him drunker than Finnegan, and if it wasn't for his position and obligations, he'd see spiders, too."

Mr. Dalrymple was not the only one on board who disapproved of "Dutch courage" for captains. The Japanese servant, whose station was at the forward-turret ammunition-hoist, reported the service of the whisky to his mates, and from here the news spread--as news will in a cellular hull--up to turrets and gun-rooms, through speaking-tubes and water-tight bulkheads, down to stoke-hold, engine-rooms, and steering-room; and long before Captain Blake had thought of taking a drink the whole ship's company was commenting, mentally and openly, and more or less profanely, on the story that "the old man was getting drunk in the conning-tower."

And another piece of news traveled as fast and as far--the whereabouts of Finnegan. Mr. Clarkson had incidentally informed his gun-captain, who told the gun-crew; and from them the news went down the hoist and spread. Men swore louder over this; for though they did not want Finnegan around and in the way, they did not want him to die. Strong natures love those which may be teased; and not a heart was there but contained a soft spot for the helpless, harmless, ever good-natured, drunk, and ridiculous Finnegan.

The bark of an eight-inch gun was heard. Captain Blake saw, through the slits of the conning-tower, a cloud of thinning smoke drifting away from the flag-ship. Stepping back, he rang up the forward turret.

"Mr. Clarkson," he said to the telephone when it answered him, "remember: aim for the nearest water-line, load and fire, and expect no orders after the first shot."

Calling up the officer in the after-turret, he repeated the injunction, substituting turrets as the object of assault. He called to the officers at the eight-inch guns that conning-towers and superstructure were to receive their attention; to those at the six-inch guns to aim solely at turret apertures; to ensigns and officers of marine in charge of the quick-fire batteries to aim at all holes and men showing, to watch for torpedo-boats, and, like the others, to expect no orders after the first shot. Then, ringing up the round of gun-stations, one after another, he sang out, in a voice to be heard by all: "Fire away!"

The initial gun had been fired from the flag-ship when the leading ships of the two fleets were nearly abreast. It was followed by broadsides from all, and the action began. The _Argyll_, rolling slightly from the recoil of her guns, smoked down the line like a thing alive, voicing her message, dealing out death and receiving it. In this first round of the battle the fire of the eight opposing vessels was directed at her alone. Shells punctured her vulnerable parts, and, exploding inside, killed men and dismounted guns. The groans of the stricken, the crash of steel against steel, the roar of the turret-guns, the rattling chorus of quick-fire rifles, and the drumming of heavy shells against the armor and turrets made an uproarious riot of sound over which no man above the water-line could lift his voice. But there were some there, besides the dead,--men who worked through and survived the action,--who, after the first impact of sound, did not hear it, nor anything else while they lived. They were the men who had neglected stuffing their ears with cotton.

A fundamental canon of naval tactics is to maintain formation. Another is to keep moving, at the full speed of the slowest ship, not only to disconcert the enemy's fire, but to obtain and hold the most advantageous position--if possible, to flank him. As these rules apply equally well to both sides, it is obvious that two fleets, passing in opposite directions, and each trying to flank the rear of the other, will eventually circle around a common center; and if the effort to improve position dominates the effort to evade fire, this circle will narrow until the battle becomes a melee.

The two lines, a mile apart and each about a mile in length, were squarely abreast in less than five minutes from the time of firing the first gun; and by now the furious bombardment of the _Argyll_ by eight ships had ceased, for each one found it more profitable to deal with its vis-a-vis. But there was yet a deafening racket in the _Argyll's_ conning-tower as small projectiles from the rear battle-ship abreast impinged on its steel walls; and Captain Blake, his ears ringing, his eyes streaming, half stunned by the noise, almost blinded and suffocated by the smoke from his forward guns, did not know that his ship had dropped back in the line until the signal-officer descended and shouted in his ear an order signaled from the admiral: "Move ahead to position."

"Hang the man who invented conning-towers," he muttered angrily. "Keep a lookout up there, Mr. Wright," he shouted; "I can see very little."

The officer half saluted, half nodded, and ran up the stair, while Captain Blake rang "full speed" to the engines. The indicators on the wall showed increased revolution, and he resumed his place at the peep-hole. In a few moments Mr. Wright reappeared with a message from the flag-ship to "starboard helm; follow ship ahead."

"All right. Watch out up there; report all you see," he answered. Peeping out, he saw the _Lancaster_ and the _Cumberland_ sheering to port, and he moved the lever of the steering-telegraph. There was no answering ring. "Shot away, by George," he growled. He yelled into a supplementary voice-tube to "starboard your wheel--slowly." This was not answered, and with his own hands he coupled up the steering-wheel on the binnacle and gave it a turn. It was merely a governor, which admitted steam to the steering-engine, and there was no resisting pressure to guide him; but a helm indicator showed him the changed position of the rudder, and, on looking ahead, he found that she answered the wheel; also, on looking to starboard, he found that he had barely escaped collision with the _Montrose_, whose fire he had been masking, to the scandal of the admiral and the _Montrose's_ officers.

A little unnerved, Captain Blake called down a seven-inch tube to an apartment in the depths,--a central station of pipes and wires, to be used as a last resort,--directing the officer on post to notify the chief engineer of the damage, and to order the quartermasters in the steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. This was answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand on the wheel.

"Reduces the captain of the ship to a helmsman," he muttered.

The navigating officer approached, indicating by gesture and expression his intention of relieving him, but was waved away.

"I want the wheel myself," shouted the captain. "Devil take a conning-tower, anyhow! Keep a lookout to port. But say, Dalrymple, send up for Finnegan. I'll not have him killed. Get him down, if he's alive."

Mr. Dalrymple ascended the stair to pass the word for Finnegan, but did not come down. He had reached the signal-platform, where one quartermaster lay dead, and was transmitting the order to Mr. Wright, when a heavy shell struck the mast, above their heads and below the lower top, exploded inside, killed the three men on the platform, and hurled the upper part of the mast, with both tops full of dead men and living, high in air. The conning-tower was filled with gas and smoke; but Captain Blake, though burned and nearly stripped of clothing by the blast of flame, was uninjured by the flying fragments of the shell. Smarting, gasping, and choking, fully aware of the complete destruction above, his mind dwelt for an instant on the man who had once saved his life, whom he had sentenced to death. He looked up the hollow within the wrecked staircase, but saw nothing.

Mr. Clarkson, however, happened to be looking through an upper peep-hole in the sighting-hood at this moment, and saw the upper half of the mast lift and turn; also, dimly through the smoke, he noticed, among the dozen of men hurled from the tops, the blue-shirted figure of one whom he knew to be Finnegan, clinging at arm's-length in mid-air to a Gatling gun, which had been torn from its fastenings. Then the smoke thickened and shut out the view; but a moment later he heard the rattling crash of the mast as it fell upon the superstructure beneath.

"The whole mast's gone, boys," he shouted to his crew--"both tops. Finnegan's done for."

And the story of Finnegan's finish went down the hoist and through the ship, everywhere received with momentary sorrow, and increased malediction on the drunken captain, who thought no more--and knew no more--of a blue-jacket than to masthead him with the marines.

The tactics of both admirals being the same, and the speed of both fleets--that of their slowest ships--being equal, they turned, and, like two serpents pursuing each other's tails, charged around in a circle, each ship firing at the nearest or most important enemy. This fire was destructive. A ship a mile distant is a point-blank target for modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight inches of steel suffered. The _Argyll_ had lost her military mast and most of her secondary guns. The flag-ship _Cumberland_, raked and riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. A long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted by her, unstruck by the shells sent by the flag-ship and the _Marlborough_. A larger thing, mouse-colored and nearly hidden by a larger wave, was coming from the opposite direction, spitting one-pound shot at the rate of sixty a minute, but without present avail; for a spindle-shaped object left the deck of the first when squarely abreast of the helpless flag-ship, diving beneath the surface, and the existence and position of this object were henceforth indicated only by a line of bubbles, a darting streak of froth, traveling toward the _Cumberland_. In less than a minute it had reached her. The sea alongside arose in a mound, and she seemed to lean away from it; then the mound burst, and out of it, and spouting from funnels, ventilators, and ports, came a dense cloud of smoke, which mingled with the steam and hid her from view, while a dull, booming roar, barely distinguishable in the noise of battle, came across the water. When the cloud thinned there was nothing to be seen but heads of swimming men, who swam for a time and sank. The flag-ship had been torpedoed.

But the torpedo-boat followed her. Pursued by the mouse-colored destroyer, she circled around and headed back in the endeavor to reach her consorts; but she had not time. Little by little the avenger crept up, pounding her with small shot and shell, until, leaking from a hundred wounds, she settled beneath the surface. She had fulfilled her mission; she was designed to strike once and die.

No armored cruiser may withstand the fire of a battle-ship. The _Lancaster_, leading the _Argyll_, received through her eight-inch water-line belt the heavy shot and shell of the _Moscow_ and _Orenburg_. Nine- and eleven-inch shell fire, sent by Canet and Hontoria guns, makes short work of eight-inch armor, and the doomed _Lancaster_ settled and disappeared, her crew yelling, her screws turning, and her guns firing until the water swamped her. The following _Argyll_ scraped her funnels and masts as she passed over.