Chapter IV: Part III (2)

Eight hundred feet back in the line was the _Beaufort_, armored like the _Lancaster_. Her ending was dramatic and suicidal. Drilled through and through by the fire of the _Riga_, she fought and suffered until the _Lancaster_ foundered; then, with all guns out of action, but with still intact engine-power, she left the line, not to run, but to ram. The circle was narrowing, but she had fully four minutes to steam before she could reach the opposite side and intercept her slayer. And in this short time she was reduced to scrap-iron by the concentrated fire of the _Warsaw_, _Riga_, and _Kharkov_. Every shot from every gun on the three battle-ships struck the unlucky cruiser; but in the face of the storm of flame and steel she went on, exhaling through fissures and ports smoke from bursting shells and steam from broken pipes. Half-way across, an almost solid belching upward and outward of white steam indicated a stricken boiler, and from now on her progress was slow. She was visibly lower in the water and rolled heavily. Soon another cloud arose from her, her headway decreased, and she came to a stop, two hundred yards on the port bow of the onrushing _Riga_, whose crew yelled derisively--whose quick-fire guns still punished her.

But the yells suddenly ceased and the gunners changed their aim. A small thing had left the nearly submerged tube in the cruiser's stem, and the gunners were now firing at a darting line of bubbles, obliterating the target for a moment with the churning of the water, only to see the frothy streak within their range, coming on at locomotive speed. They aimed ahead; two five-inch guns added their clamor, and even a Hontoria turret-gun voiced its roar and sent its messenger. But the bubbles would not stop; they entered the bow wave of the battle-ship, and a second later the great floating fort separated into two parts, with a crackling thunder of sound and an outburst of flame and smoke which came of nothing less than an exploded magazine. The two halves rolled far to starboard, then to port, shivered, settled, turned completely over, and sank in a turmoil of bursting steam and air-bubbles. Three minutes later the _Beaufort_ lifted her stern and dived gently after her victim, still groaning hoarsely from her punctured iron lungs. In her death-agony she had given birth to a child more terrible than a battle-ship.

The rear ship of the inner column, the _Atholl_, was officially an armored cruiser, but possessed none of the attributes of the cruiser class. She was the laggard of the fleet, and her heaviest guns were of six-inch caliber; but, being designed for a battle-ship, she carried this temporary battery behind sixteen inches of steel, and had maintained her integrity, taking harder blows than she could give. With the going down of the _Beaufort_ she took a position astern of the _Sutherland_, and the double line of battle was reduced to a single line; for the _Argyll_ had left the column when the flag-ship sank.

And this is why the overmatched, battered, and all but demoralized cruisers received no more attention from the enemy; it were wiser to deal with the _Argyll_. The _Saratov_, blazing fiercely from the effects of a well-planted shell, had drawn out of line, the better to deal with her trouble. Her place in the line and that of the sunken _Riga_ were filled by the following ships drawing ahead; but the fleet still held to double column, and into the lane between the lines the _Argyll_ was coming at sixteen knots, breathing flame, vomiting steel--delivering destruction and death.

She had rounded the _Moscow's_ stern, raking her as she came, and sending armor-piercing shells through her citadel. Some exploded on impact, some inside; all did work. An eight-inch projectile entered the after turret-port, and silenced the gun and gun-crew forever. Before the _Argyll_ was abeam the _Moscow_ had ceased firing. Rolling and smoking, her crew decimated, her guns disabled and steering-gear carried away, she swung out of line; and the appearance in his field of vision of several rushing waves with short smoke-stacks behind, and the supplementary pelting his ship was now receiving from the _Marlborough_, decided her commander to lower his flag.

On the starboard bow of the _Argyll_ was the armored cruiser _Orenburg_. Her fire, hot and true, ceased on the explosion of a large shell at her water-line, and she swung out of the fight, silent but for the roar of escaping steam, heeled heavily to port, and sank in ten minutes, her ensigns flying to the last. Mr. Clarkson rejoiced with his gun-crew. He had sent the shell.

On stormed the _Argyll_. Her next adversary was the _Kharkov_, a battle-ship nearly equal in guns and armor to herself, but not quite--by an inch. And that inch cost her the fight. With her main turrets damaged, her superstructure, secondary guns, and torpedo-tubes shot away, she yielded to fate, and, while the _Argyll_ passed on, hauled down her ensigns at the request of a torpedo-boat.

Ahead and to starboard was the cruiser _Tobolsk_, leaving the neighborhood as fast as her twin screws could push her. Her end was in sight; in her wake were two gray destroyers, and behind, charging across the broken formation, was the fleet _Marlborough_. The _Argyll_ ignored the _Tobolsk_; for slowing down to await her coming was the black and high-sided _Warsaw_, the monster of the fleet, bristling with guns, somber, and ominous in her silence.

Ahead of her, and turning to port, was the flag-ship _Obdorsk_, also slowed down; but she promised to be fully occupied with the _Atholl_, _Sutherland_, and _Montrose_, who had wheeled in their tracks, no longer obliged to traverse a circle to reach an enemy.

On rushed the _Argyll_, and when nearly up to the _Warsaw_, the latter gave steam to her engines. Breast to breast the gladiators charged across the sea, roaring, flaming, and smoking. A torpedo left the side of the _Warsaw_, pointed diagonally ahead, to intercept the _Argyll_. But it was badly aimed, and the hissing bubbles passed under her stern. Before another could be discharged, the torpedo-room, located by the _Argyll's_ officers, was enlarged to the size of three by the succeeding bombardment and the explosion of the remaining torpedoes.

Twelve-inch armor cannot keep out thirteen-inch armor-piercing shell, and torpedoes cannot explode on board without damage to machinery, steering-gear, and vital connections. The _Warsaw_ yawed, slackened speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speaking, but the secondary guns silent. The _Argyll_ circled around her, sending her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch shells into her victim with almost muzzle energy. The two military masts of the _Warsaw_ sank, and dead men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard. The forward turret seemed to explode; smoke and flame shot out of the ports, and its top lifted and fell. Then the _Argyll_ turned and headed straight for her side.

There was little need of gun fire now; but the forward-turret guns belched once during the charge, and the more quickly handled eight- and six-inch rifles stormed away while there was time to reload. Smoking, rolling, and barking,--ten thousand tons of inertia behind a solid steel knife,--she pounced on her now silent enemy. There was a crunching sound, muffled and continuous. The speed of the _Argyll_ seemed hardly checked. In went the ram farther and farther, until the slanting edge began cutting above the water. Then the _Warsaw_, heeled far over by the impact, rolled back, and the knife cut upward. The smooth plates at the _Argyll's_ water-line wrinkled like paper, and the pile of shattered steel which had once been her forward deck and bulkheads was shaken up and adjusted to new positions; but not until her nose was actually buried in the wound--until the _Warsaw_ was cut half in two--did the reversed engines begin to work. The _Argyll_ backed out, exposing for a moment a hole like a cavern's mouth; then the stricken ship rolled heavily toward her, burying the sore, and, humming and buzzing with exhausting steam and rushing air, settled rapidly and sank, while out from ports, doors, and nearly vertical hatches came her crew, as many as could. They sprang overboard and swam, and those that reached the now stationary _Argyll_ were rescued; for a cry had gone through the latter from the central station in her depths: "All hands on deck to save life! Bring ladders, life-buoys, and ropes' ends!"

The battle was ended; for, with the ramming of the _Warsaw_, the _Obdorsk_ struck to the three ships circling around her. They had suffered, but the battle-ship _Argyll_ was reduced to a monitor. Her superstructure and the bow and stern above the water-line were shattered to a shapeless tangle of steel. What was left of her funnels and ventilators resembled nutmeg-graters, and she was perceptibly down by the head; for her bow leaked through its wrinkled plates, and the forward compartment below the protective deck was filled. Yet she could still fight in smooth water. Her box-like citadel was intact, and standing naked out of the wreck, scarred and dented, but uninjured, were the turrets, ammunition-hoists, and conning-tower. In the latter was the brain of the ship, that had fought her to victory and then sent the call to her crew to save the lives of their enemies.

Two men met on a level spot amidships and clasped hands. Both were bare-waisted and grimy, and one showed red as a lobster under the stains. He was the chief engineer.

"We've won, Clarkson," he said. "We've won the hottest fight that history can tell of--won it ourselves; but he'll get the credit."

"And he's drunk as a lord--drunk through it all. What did he ram for? Why did he send two millions of prize-money to the bottom? O Lord! O Lord! it's enough to make a man swear at his mother. We had her licked. Why did he ram?"

"Because he was drunk, that's why. He rang seven bells to me along at the first of the muss, and then sent word through young Felton that he wanted full speed. Dammit, he already had it, every pound of it. And he gave me no signal to reverse when we struck; if it wasn't for luck and a kind Providence we'd have followed the _Warsaw_. I barely got her over. Here, Mr. Felton; you were in the central, were you not? How'd the old man appear to be making it? Were his orders intelligible?"

A young man had joined them, hot, breathing hard, and unclothed.

"Not always, sir; I had to ask him often to repeat, and then I sometimes got another order. He kept me busy from the first, when he sent the torpedoes overboard."

"The torpedoes!" exclaimed Mr. Clarkson. "Did we use them? I didn't know it."

"He was afraid they'd explode on board, sir," he said. "That was just after we took full speed."

"And just before he got too full to be afraid of anything," muttered the lieutenant. "Why don't he come out of that?" He glanced toward the conning-tower. Other officers had joined them.

"We'll investigate," said Mr. Clarkson.

The door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the wheel, steering the drifting ship with one hand and holding an empty bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and bloody face. In spite of the disfigurement Mr. Clarkson knew him. Jammed into the narrow staircase leading below was the body of a man partly hidden by a Gatling gun, the lever of which had pierced the forehead.

"Finnegan," yelled the officer, "how'd you get there?"

The man at the wheel lifted a bleary eye and blinked; then, unsteadily touching his forehead, answered: "Fe' dow'-shtairs, shir."

"Come out of that! On deck there! Take the wheel, one hand, and stand by it!" Mr. Clarkson descended to the others with a serious look on his grimy face, and a sailor climbed the ladder and went down the mast.

"Gentlemen," said the first lieutenant, impressively, "we were mistaken, and we wronged Captain Blake. He is dead. He died at the beginning. He lies under a Gatling gun in the bottom of the tower. I saw Finnegan hanging to that gun, whirling around it, when the mast blew up. It is all plain now. Finnegan and the gun fell into the tower. Finnegan may have struck the stairs and rolled down, but the gun went down the hollow within and killed the captain. We have been steered and commanded by a drunken man--but it was Finnegan."

Finnegan scrambled painfully down the ladder. He staggered, stumbled, and fell in a heap.

"Rise up," said Mr. Clarkson, as they surrounded him; "rise up, Daniel Drake Nelson Farragut Finnegan. You are small potatoes and few in the hill; you are shamefully drunk, and your nose bleeds; you are stricken with Spanish mildew, and you smell vilely--but you are immortal. You have been a disgrace to the service, but Fate in her gentle irony has redeemed you, permitting you, in one brief moment of your misspent life, to save to your country the command of the seas--to guide, with your subconscious intelligence, the finest battle-ship the science of the world has constructed to glorious victory, through the fiercest sea-fight the world has known. Rise up, Daniel, and see the surgeon."

But Finnegan only snored.

THE WIGWAG MESSAGE

As eight bells sounded, Captain Bacon and Mr. Knapp came up from breakfast, and Mr. Hansen, the squat and square-built second mate, immediately went down. The deck was still wet from the morning washing down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the forward house a heavy, wet hawser used in towing out the evening before. They were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was necessary, the first mate remained on the poop for a few moments' further conversation with the captain.

"Poor crew, cap'n," he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men forward. "It'll take me a month to lick 'em into shape."

To judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an operation. He was a giant, with a giant's fist and foot; red-haired and bearded, and of sinister countenance. But he was no more formidable in appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven, and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter.

"Are the two drunks awake yet?" asked the latter.

"Not at four o'clock, sir," answered the mate. "Mr. Hansen couldn't get 'em out. I'll soon turn 'em to."

As he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward house, and came aft. They were young men, between twenty-five and thirty, with intelligent, sun-burnt faces. One was slight of figure, with the refinement of thought and study in his features; the other, heavier of mold and muscular, though equally quick in his movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of "sea-legs," climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. The heavier man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, and smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a pleasant, evenly modulated voice:

"Good morning. I presume that one of you is the captain."

"I'm the captain. What do you want?" was the gruff response.

"Captain, I believe that the etiquette of the merchant service requires that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound ship he remains silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the passage ends; but we cannot bring ourselves to do so. We were struck down in a dark spot last night,--sandbagged, I should say,--and we do not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. We wakened this morning in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything we had with us."

"Where were you slugged?"

"In Cherry Street. The bridge cars were not running, so we crossed from Brooklyn by the Catherine Ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the elevated station."

"Well, what of it?"

"What--why--why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first inbound craft we meet."

"Not much I won't," answered the captain, decidedly. "You belong to my crew. I paid for twenty men; and you two and two others skipped at the dock. I had to wait all day in the Horseshoe. You two were caught dead drunk last night, and came down with the tug. That's what the runners said, and that's all I know about it. Go forrard."

"Do you mean, captain----"

"Go forrard where you belong. Mr. Knapp, set these men to work."

Captain Bacon turned his back on them, and walked away.

"Get off the poop," snarled the mate. "Forrard wi' you both!"

"Captain, I advise you to reconsider----"

The words were stopped by a blow of the mate's fist, and the speaker fell to the deck. Then a hoarse growl of horror and rage came from his companion; and Captain Bacon turned, to see him dancing around the first officer with the skill and agility of a professional boxer, planting vicious blows on his hairy face and neck.

"Stop this," roared the captain, as his right hand sought the pocket of his coat. "Stop it, I say. Mr. Hansen," he called down the skylight, "on deck, here."

The huge mate was getting the worst of the unexpected battle, and Captain Bacon approached cautiously. His right hand had come out of his pocket, armed with large brass knuckles; but before he could use them his dazed and astonished first officer went down under the rain of blows. It was then, while the victor waited for him to rise, that the brass knuckles impacted on his head, and he, too, went down, to lie quiet where he fell. The other young man had arisen by this time, somewhat shocked and unsteady in movement, and was coming bravely toward the captain; but before he could reach him his arms were pinioned from behind by Mr. Hansen, who had run up the poop steps.

"What is dis, onnyway?" he asked. "Mudiny, I dink?"

"Let go," said the other, furiously. "You shall suffer for this, you scoundrels. Let go of my arms." He struggled wildly; but Mr. Hansen was strong.

Mr. Knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. His conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still active in rebellion. So, while the approving captain looked on in brass-knuckled dignity, he sprang forward and struck, with strength born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless in the arms of Mr. Hansen, until his battered head sank supinely backward, and he struggled no more. Then Mr. Hansen dropped him.

"Lay aft, here, a couple o' hands," thundered the captain from the break of the poop, and two awe-struck men obeyed him. The whole crew had watched the fracas from forward, and the man at the wheel had looked unspeakable things; but no hand or voice had been raised in protest. One at a time they carried the unconscious men to the forecastle; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons, and listened to a forceful speech by Captain Bacon, delivered in quick, incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his ship--whether he believed himself shipped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a policeman, or a dry-nurse--showed the slightest hesitation at obeying orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would be punished with fists, brass knuckles, belaying-pins, or handspikes,--the officers were here for that purpose,--and if he persisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. They could go forward.

They went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered consciousness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the best of it until the ship reached Hong-Kong, where they could all "jump her" and get better berths.

"For if ye don't," concluded an Irishman, "I take it ye'll die, an' take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an American ship, where the mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o' their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take this hash-kid back to the galley."

The larger of the two victims sprang to his feet. He was stained and disfigured from the effects of the brass knuckles, and he looked anything but "pleasant."

"Say, Irish," he said angrily, "do you know who you 're talkin' to? Looks as though you don't. I'm used to all sorts of guff from all sorts of men, but Mr. Breen here----"

"Johnson," interrupted the other, "wait--it's of no account now. This man's advice is sound. No one would believe us, and we can prove nothing. We are thoroughly helpless, and must submit until we reach a consular port, or something happens. Now, men," he said to the others, "my name is Breen. Call me by it. You, too, Johnson. I yield to the inevitable, and will do my share of the work as well as I can. If I make mistakes, don't hesitate to criticize, and post me, if you will. I'll be grateful."

"But I'll tell you one thing to start with," said Johnson, glaring around the forecastle: "we'll take turns at bringin' grub and cleanin' up the forecastle. Another thing: I've sailed in these wind-jammers enough to know my work; and that's more than you fellows know, by the looks of you. I don't want your instructions; but Mr. Breen, here--Breen, I mean" (a gesture from the other had interrupted him)--"Breen's forgotten what you and I will never learn, though he might not be used to pullin' ropes and swabbing paint-work. If I find one o' you pesterin' him, or puttin' up any jobs, I'll break that man's head; understand me? Any one want to put this thing to the test, now?" He scanned each man's face in turn; but none showed an inclination to respond. They had seen him fight the big first mate. "There's not the makin' of a whole man among you," he resumed. "You stand still while three men do up two, when, if you had any nerve, Mr. ---- Breen, here, might be aft, 'stead o' eatin' cracker-hash with a lot o' dock-rats and beach-combers. He's had better playmates; so 've I, for that matter, o' late years."

"Johnson, keep still," said the other. "It doesn't matter what we have had, who we were or might be. We're before the mast, bound for Hong-Kong. We may find a consul at Anjer; I'm not sure. Meanwhile, I'm Breen, and you are Johnson, and it is no one's business what we have been. I'm not anxious for this matter to become public. I can explain to the department, and no one else need know."

"Very good, sir."

"No; not 'sir.' Keep that for our superiors."

Johnson grumbled a little; then Mr. Hansen's round Swedish face appeared at the door.

"Hi, you in dere--you big feller--you come out. You belong in der utter watch. You hear? You come out on deck," he called.

"Aye, aye, sir," said Johnson, rising sullenly.

"All the better, Johnson," whispered Breen. "One can keep a lookout all the time. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut."

So for these two men the work of the voyage began. The hard-headed, aggressive Johnson, placed in the mate's watch, had no trouble in finding his place, and keeping it, at the top of the class. He ruled the assorted types of all nations, who worked and slept with him, with sound logic backed by a strong arm and hard fist, never trying to conceal his contempt for them.

"You mixed nest o' mongrels," he would say, at the end of some petty squabble which he had settled for them, "why don't you stay in your own country ships? Or, if you must sign in American craft, try to feel and act like Americans. It's just this same yawping at one another in the forecastles that makes it easy for the buckoes aft to hunt you. And that's why you get your berths. No skipper 'll ship an American sailor while there's a Dutchman left in the shippin'-office. He wouldn't think it safe to go to sea with too many American sailors forward to call him down and make him treat 'em decent. He picks a Dago here, and a Dutchman there, and all the Sou'wegians he sees, and fills in with the rakin's and scrapin's o' Hell, Bedlam, and Newgate, knowin' they'll hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together."

To which they would respond in kind, though of lesser degree, always yielding him the last word when he spoke it loud enough.

But Breen, in the second mate's watch, had trouble with his fellows at first. They could not understand his quiet, gentlemanly demeanor, mistaking it for fear of them; so, unknown to Johnson, for he would not complain, they subjected him to all the petty annoyances which ignorance may inflict upon intelligence. Though he showed a theoretical knowledge of ships and the sea superior to any they had met with, he was not their equal in the practical work of a sailor. He was awkward at pulling ropes with others, placing his hands in the wrong place and mixing them up in what must be a concerted pull to be effective. His hands, unused to labor, became blistered and sore, and he often, unconsciously perhaps, held back from a task, to save himself from pain. He was an indifferent helmsman, and off Hatteras, in a blow, was sent from the wheel in disgrace. He did not know the ropes, and made sad mistakes until he had mastered the lesson. He could box the compass, in his own way; for instance, the quarter-points between north-northeast and northeast by north he persisted in naming from the first of these points instead of from the other, as was seamanlike and proper; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other quadrants. Once, at the wheel, when the ship was heading southeast by south half-south, he had been asked the course, and answered: "South-southeast half-east, sir." For this he was profanely admonished by the captain and ridiculed by the men. Johnson had made the same mistake, but corrected himself in time, and nothing was said about it; but Breen was bullied and badgered in the watch below,--the lubberly nomenclature becoming a byword of derision and contempt,--until, patience leaving him, he doubled his sore fingers into fists one dog-watch, and thrashed the Irishman--his most unforgiving critic--so quickly, thoroughly, and scientifically that persecution ceased; for the Irishman had been the master spirit of the port forecastle.

But the captain and mates were not won over. Practical Johnson--an able seaman from crown to toe--knew how to avoid or forestall their abuse; but Breen did not. The very presence of such a man as he before the mast was a continuous menace,--an insult to their artificial superiority,--and they assailed him at each mistake with volleys of billingsgate that brought a flush to his fine face and tears to his eyes; later, a deadly paleness that would have been a warning to tyrants of better discrimination. Once again, while being rebuked in this manner, his self-control left him. With white face and blazing eyes he darted at Mr. Knapp, and had almost repeated Johnson's feat on the poop when an iron belaying-pin in the hands of the captain descended upon him and broke his left arm. Mr. Knapp's fists and boots completed his tutelage, and he was carried to his bunk with another lesson learned. Johnson, swearing the while, skilfully set the broken bones and made a sling; then, by tactful wheedling of the steward, secured certain necessaries from the medicine-chest, with hot water from the galley; but open assistance was refused by the captain.

Breen, scarcely able to move, held to his bunk for a few days; then, the first mild skirts of the trade-wind being reached, the mate drove him to the wheel, to steer one-handed through the day, while all hands (in the afternoon) worked in the rigging. But the trade-wind freshened, and his strength was not equal to the task set for it. With the men all aloft and the two mates forward, the ship nearly broached to one day, and only the opportune arrival of Captain Bacon on deck saved the spars. He seized the wheel, ground it up, and the ship paid off; then a whole man was called to relieve him, and the incompetent helmsman was promptly and properly punished. He was kicked off the poop, and his arm, as a consequence, needed resetting.

Johnson had been aloft, but there was murder in his dark eyes when he came down at supper-time. Yet he knew its futility, and while bandaging the broken arm earnestly explained, as Breen's groans would allow, that if he killed one the other two would kill him, and nothing would be gained. "For they've brass knuckles in their pockets, sir," he said, "and pistols under their pillows. We haven't even sheath-knives, and the crew wouldn't help."

Whereupon, an inspired Russian Finn of the watch remarked: "If a man know his work an' do his work, an' gif no back lip to te mates, he get no trupple mit te mates. In my country ships----" The dissertation was not finished. Johnson silently knocked him down, and the incident closed.

But they found work which the crippled man could do, after a short "lying up." With the steward's washboard, he could wash the captain's soiled linen, which the steward would afterward wring out and hang up. He refused at first, but was duly persuaded, and went to work in the lee scuppers amidships. Johnson made a detour on his way to the main-rigging, and muttered: "Say the word, sir, and I 'll chance it. No jury'd convict."

"No, no; go aloft, Johnson. I'm all right," answered Breen, as he bent over the distasteful task.

Johnson climbed the rigging to the main-royalyard, which he was to scrape for reoiling, and had no sooner reached it than he sang out:

"Sail oh! Dead ahead, sir. Looks like an armored cruiser o' the first class."

"Armored cruiser o' the first class?" muttered the captain, as he carried his binoculars to the weather rail and looked ahead. "More 'n I can make out with the glasses."

If three funnels, two masts, two bridges, and two sets of fighting-tops indicate an armored cruiser of the first class, Johnson was right. These the oncoming craft showed plainly even at seven miles' distance. Fifteen minutes later she was storming by, a half-mile to windward; a beautiful picture, long and white, with an incurving ram-bow, with buff-colored turrets and superstructure, and black guns bristling from all parts of her. The Stars and Stripes flew from the flagstaff at the stern; white-clad men swarmed about her decks, and one of them, on the forward bridge, close to a group of officers, was waving by its staff a small red-and-white flag. Captain Bacon brought out the American ensign, and with his own hands hoisted it to the monkey-gaff on the mizzen, dipped it three times in respectful salute, and left it at the gaff-end. Then he looked at the cruiser, as every man on board was doing except the man washing clothes in the lee scuppers. His business was to wash clothes, not to cross a broad deck and climb a high rail to look at passing craft; but, as he washed away, he looked furtively aloft, with eyes that sparkled, at the man on the mainroyalyard. Johnson was standing erect on the small spar, holding on with his left hand to the royal-pole,--certainly the most conspicuous detail of the whole ship to the eyes of those on board the cruiser,--and with his right hand he was waving his cap to the right and left, and up and down. There was method in his motions, for when he would cease, the small red-and-white flag on the cruiser's bridge would answer, waving to the right and left, and up and down.

A secondary gun spoke from a midship sponson, and Captain Bacon exclaimed enthusiastically, "Salutin' the flag," and again dipped his ensign. Then, after an interval, during which it became apparent that the cruiser had altered her course to cross the ship's stern, there was seen another tongue of flame and cloud of smoke, and something seemed to rush through the air ahead of the ship. But it was a splash of water far off on the lee bow which really apprised them that the gun was shotted. At the same time a string of small flags arose to the signal-yard, and when Captain Bacon had found this combination in his code-book, he read with amazement: "Heave to or take the consequences." By this time the cruiser was squarely across his wake, most certainly rounding to for an interview.

"Heave to or take the consequences!" he exclaimed. "And he's firin' on us. Down from aloft, all hands!" he roared upward; then he seized the answering pennant from the flag-locker and displayed it from the rail, begrudging the time needful to hoist it. The men were sliding to the deck on backstays and running-gear, and the mates were throwing down coils of rope from the belaying-pins.

"Man both main clue-garnets, some o' you!" yelled the captain. "Clue up! Weather main-braces, the rest o' you! Slack away to looward! Round wi' the yards, you farmers--round wi' 'em! Down wi' the wheel, there! Bring her up three points and hold her. H----l an' blazes, what's he firin' on me for?"

Excitedly, the men obeyed him; they were not used to gun fire, and it is certainly exciting to be shot at. Conspicuous among them was Johnson, who pulled and hauled lustily, shouting exuberantly the formless calls which sailors use in pulling ropes, and smiling sardonically. In five minutes from the time of the second gun the yards were backed, and, with weather leeches trembling, the ship lay "hove to," drifting bodily to leeward. The cruiser had stopped her headway, and a boat had left her side. There were ten men at the oars, a cockswain at the yoke-ropes, and with him in the stern-sheets a young man in an ensign's uniform, who lifted his voice as the boat neared the lee quarter, and shouted: "Rig a side-ladder aboard that ship!"

He was hardly more than a boy, but he was obeyed; not only the side-ladder, but the gangway steps were rigged; and leaving the cockswain and bow oarsman to care for the boat, the young officer climbed aboard, followed by the rest--nine muscular man-of-war's-men, each armed with cutlass and pistol, one of them carrying a hand-bag, another a bundle. Captain Bacon, as became his position, remained upon the poop to receive his visitor, while the two mates stood at the main fife-rail, and the ship's crew clustered forward. Johnson, alert and attentive, stood a little in the van, and the man in the lee scuppers still washed clothes.

"What's the matter, young man?" asked the captain from the break of the poop, with as much of dignity as his recent agitation would permit. "Why do you stop my ship on the high seas and board her with an armed boat's crew?"

"You have an officer and seaman of the navy on board this ship," answered the ensign, who had been looking about irresolutely. "Produce them at once, if you please."

"What--what----" stuttered the captain, descending the poop steps; but before more was said there was a sound from forward as of something hard striking something heavy, and as they looked, they saw Captain Bacon's bucket of clothes sailing diagonally over the lee rail, scattering a fountain of soapy water as it whirled; his late laundryman coming toward them with head erect, as though he might have owned the ship and himself; and Johnson, limping slightly, making for the crowd of blue-jackets at the gangway. With these he fraternized at once, telling them things in a low voice, and somewhat profanely, while the two mates at the fife-rail eyed him reprovingly, but did not interrupt.

Breen advanced to the ensign, and said, as he extended his hand: "I am Lieutenant Breen. Did you bring the clothing? This is an extremely fortunate meeting for me; but I can thank you--you and your brother officers--much more gracefully aboard the cruiser."

The officer took the extended hand gingerly, with suspicion in his eyes. Perhaps, if it had not been thoroughly clean from its late friction with soap and water, he might have declined taking it; for there was nothing in the appearance of the haggard, ragged wreck before him to indicate the naval officer.

"There is some mistake," he said coldly. "I am well acquainted with Lieutenant Breen, and you are certainly not he."

Breen's face flushed hotly, but before he could reply, the captain broke in.

"Some mistake, hey?" said he, derisively. "I guess there is--another mistake--another bluff that don't go. Get out o' here; and I tell you now, blast yer hide, that if you make me any more trouble 'board my ship yer liable to go over the side feet first, with a shackle to yer heels. And you, young man," he stormed, turning to the ensign, "you look round, if you like. There's my crew. All the navy officers you find you can have, and welcome to 'em." He turned his back, stamped a few paces along the deck, and returned, working himself into a fury.

Breen had not moved, but, with a slight sparkle to his eyes, said to the young officer:

"I think, sir, that if you take the trouble to investigate, you will be satisfied. There are two Breens in the navy. You know one, evidently; I am the other. Lieutenant William Breen is on shore duty at Washington, I think. Lieutenant John Breen, lately in command of the torpedo-boat _Wainwright_, with his signalman Thomas Johnson, are shanghaied on board this ship. There is Johnson talking to your men."

The young man's face changed, and his hand went to his cap in salute; but the mischief was done. Captain Bacon's indignation was at bursting-pressure, and his mind in no condition to respond readily to new impressions. He was captain of the ship, and grossly affronted. Johnson, noting his purple face, wisely reached for a topsail-brace belaying-pin, and stepped toward him; for he now towered over Breen, cursing with volcanic energy.

"Didn't I tell you to go forrard?" he roared, drawing back his powerful fist.

Breen stood his ground; the officer raised his hand and half drew his sword, while the blue-jackets sprang forward; but it was Johnson's belaying-pin which stopped that mighty fist in mid-passage. It was an iron club, eighteen inches long by an inch and a half diameter; and Johnson, strong man though he was, used it two-handed. It struck the brawny forearm just above the wrist with a crashing sound, and seemed to sink in. Captain Bacon almost fell, but recovered his balance, and, holding the broken bones together, staggered toward the booby-hatch for support. He groaned in pain, but did not curse; for it requires a modicum of self-respect for this, and Captain Bacon's self-respect was completely shocked out of him.

But Mr. Knapp and Mr. Hansen still respected themselves, and were coming.

"You keep back, there--you two," yelled Johnson, excitedly. "Stand by here, mates. These buckoes 'll kill someone yet. Look out for their brass knuckles and guns."

And the two officers halted. They had no desire to assert themselves before nine scowling, armed men, an angry and aggressive mutineer with a belaying-pin, and a rather confused, but wakening, young officer with drawn sword. Johnson backed toward the latter.

"Don't you know me, Mr. Bronson," he said--"Tom Johnson, cocks'n o' the gig on your practice-cruise? 'Member me, sir? This is Lieutenant Breen--take my word, sir."

"Yes--yes--I understand," said the ensign, with a face redder than Breen's had been. "I really beg your pardon, Mr. Breen. It was inexcusable in me, I know--but--I had expected to see a different face, and--and--we're three months out from Hong-Kong, you see----"

Breen smiled, and interrupted with a gesture.

"No time for explanations, Mr. Bronson," said he, kindly. "Did you bring the clothes? Thoughtful of Johnson to ask for them, wasn't it? It really would be embarrassing to join your ship in this rig. In the grip and bundle? All right. Form your men across the deck, please, forward of the cabin. Keep these brutes away from us while we change. Come, Johnson."

Taking the hand-bag and the bundle, they brazenly entered the cabin by the forward door. In ten minutes they emerged, Johnson clad in the blue rig of a man-of-war's-man, Breen in the undress uniform of an officer, his crippled arm buttoned into the coat. As they stepped toward the gangway, Captain Bacon, pale and perspiring, wheezing painfully, entered the cabin and passed out of their lives. The steward followed at his heels, and the two mates, with curiously working faces, approached Breen.

"Excuse me, sir," said Mr. Knapp, "but I want to say that I had no notion o' this at all; and I hope you won't make no trouble for me ashore."

Breen, one foot on the steps while he waited for the blue-jackets to file over the side, eyed him thoughtfully.

"No," he said slowly. "I hardly think, Mr. Knapp, that I shall exert myself to make trouble for you personally, or for the other two. There is a measure now before Congress which, if it passes, will legislate brutes like you and your captain off the American quarter-deck by its educational conditions. This, with a consideration for your owners, is what permits you to continue this voyage, instead of going back to the United States in irons. But if I had the power," he added, looking at the beautiful flag still flying at the gaff, "I would lower that ensign, and forbid you to hoist it. It is the flag of a free country, and should not float over slave-ships."

He mounted the steps, and, assisted by the young officer and Johnson, descended to the boat; but before Johnson went down, he peered over the rail at the two mates, grinning luridly.

"And I'll promise you," he said, "that I'm always willing to make trouble for you, ashore or afloat, and wish I had a little more time for it now. And you can tell your skipper, if you like, in case he don't know it, that he got smashed with the same club that he used on Mr. Breen, and I'm only d----d sorry I didn't bring it down on his head. So long, you bloody-minded hell-drivers. See you again some day."

He descended, and Mr. Knapp gave the order to brace the yards.

"Give a good deal," he mused, as the men manned the braces, "to know just how they got news to that cruiser. Homeward bound from Hong-Kong--three months out. Couldn't ha' been sent after us."

But he never learned.

THE TRADE-WIND

The orgy was finished. The last sea-song had resounded over the smooth waters of the bay; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were voiced; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit deck, snoring. Though the barrel of rum broached on the main-hatch was but slightly lowered, their sleep was heavy; scurvy-tainted men at the end of a Cape Horn passage may not drink long or deeply. Some lay as they fell--face upward; others on their sides for a while, then to roll over on their backs and so remain until the sleep was done; for in no other position may the human body rest easy on a hard bed with no pillow. And as they slept through the tropic night the full moon in the east rose higher and higher, passed overhead and disappeared behind a thickening haze in the western sky; but before it had crossed the meridian its cold, chemical rays had worked disastrously on the eyes of the sleeping men.

Captain Swarth, prone upon the poop-deck, was the first to waken. There was pain in his head, pain in his eyes,--which were swollen,--and a whistling tumult of sound in his ears coming from the Plutonian darkness surrounding him, while a jarring vibration of the deck beneath him apprised his awakening brain that the anchor was dragging. As he staggered to his feet a violent pressure of wind hurled him against the wheel, to which he clung, staring into the blackness to windward.

"All hands, there!" he roared! "Up with you all! Go forward and pay out on the chain!"

Shouts, oaths, and growls answered him, and he heard the nasal voice of his mate repeating his order. "Angel," he called, "get the other anchor over and give her all of both chains."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the mate. "Send a lantern forrard, Bill. Can't see our noses."

"Steward," yelled the captain, "where are you? Light up a deck-lantern and the binnacle. Bear a hand."

He heard the steward's voice close to him, and the sound of the binnacle lights being removed from their places, then the opening and closing of the cabin companionway. He could see nothing, but knew that the steward had gone below to his store-room. In a minute more a shriek came from the cabin. It rang out again and again, and soon sounded from the companionway: "I'm blind, I'm blind, capt'n. I can't see. I lit the lantern and burned my fingers; but I can't see the light. I'm blind." The steward's voice ended in a howl.

"Shut up, you blasted fool," answered Captain Swarth; "get down there and light up."

"Where's that light?" came the mate's voice in a yell from amidships. "Shank-painter's jammed, Bill. Can't do a thing without a light."

"Come aft here and get it. Steward's drunk."

The doors in the forward part of the cabin slammed, and the mate's profanity mingled with the protest of the steward in the cabin. Then shouts came from forward, borne on the gale, and soon followed by the shuffling of feet as the men groped their way aft and climbed the poop steps.

"We're stone-blind, cappen," they wailed. "We lit the fo'c'sle lamp, an' it don't show up. We can't see it. Nobody can see it. We're all blind."

"Come down here, Bill," called the mate from below.

As Captain Swarth felt his way down the stairs a sudden shock stilled the vibrations caused by the dragging anchor, and he knew that the chain had parted.

"Stand by on deck, Angel; we're adrift," he said. "It's darker than ten thousand black cats. What's the matter with you?"

"Can you see the light, Bill? I can't. I'm blind as the steward, or I'm drunker."

"No. Is it lit? Where? The men say they're blind, too."

"Here, forrard end o' the table."

The captain reached this end, searched with his hands, and burned them on the hot glass of a lantern. He removed the bowl and singed the hair on his wrists. The smell came to his nostrils.

"I'm blind, too," he groaned. "Angel, it's the moon. We're moonstruck--moon-blind. And we're adrift in a squall. Steward," he said as he made his way toward the stairs, "light the binnacle, and stop that whining. Maybe some one can see a little."

When he reached the deck he called to the men, growling, cursing, and complaining on the poop. "Down below with you all!" he ordered. "Pass through and out the forrard door. If any man sees the light on the cabin table, let that man sing out."

They obeyed him. Twenty men passed through the cabin and again climbed the poop stairs, their lamentations still troubling the night. But not one had seen the lantern. Some said that they could not open their eyes at all; some complained that their faces were swollen; others that their mouths were twisted up to where their ears should be; and one man averred that he could not breathe through his nose.

"It'll only last a few days, boys," said the captain, bravely; "we shouldn't have slept in the moonlight in these latitudes. Drop the lead over, one of you--weather side. The devil knows where we're drifting, and the small anchor won't hold now; we'll save it." Captain Swarth was himself again.

But not so his men. They had become children, with children's fear of the dark. Even the doughty Angel Todd was oppressed by the first horror of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. Above the rushing sound of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or groan--according to temperament--added to the distraction on deck. One man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the side. An able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead.

"A quarter six," he sang out, and then, plaintively: "We'll fetch up on the Barrier, capt'n. S'pose we try an' get the other hook over."

"Yes, yes," chorused some of the braver spirits. "It may hold. We don't want to drown on the reef. Let's get it over. Chain's overhauled."

"Let the anchor alone," roared the captain. "No anchor-chain'll hold in this. Keep that lead a-going, Tom Plate, if it's you. What bottom do you find?"

"Quarter less six," called the leadsman. "Soft bottom. We're shoaling."

"Angel," said the captain to his mate, who stood close to him, "we're blowing out the south channel. We've been drifting long enough to fetch up on the reef if it was in our way. There's hard bottom in the north channel, and the twenty-fathom lead wouldn't reach it half a length from the rocks."

The mate had nothing to say.

"And the south channel lay due southeast from our moorings," continued the captain. "Wind's nor'west, I should say, right down from the hilltops; and I've known these blasted West India squalls to last three days, blowing straight and hard. This has the smell of a gale in it already. Keep that lead a-going, there."

"No bottom," answered the leadsman.

"Good enough," said the captain, cheerfully.

"No bottom," was called repeatedly, until the captain sang out: "That'll do the lead." Then the leadsman coiled up the line, and they heard his rasping, unpleasant voice, cursing softly but fiercely to himself. Captain Swarth descended the stairs, silenced the steward with a blow, felt of the clock hands, secured his pistols, and returned to the deck.

"We're at sea," he said. "Two hands to the wheel. Loose and set the foretopmast-staysails and the foretopsail. Staysail first. Let a man stay in the slings to square the yard by the feel as it goes up."

"What for?" they answered complainingly. "What ye goin' to do? We can't see. Why didn't you bring to when you had bottom under you?"

"No arguments!" yelled Swarth. "Forrard with you. What are you doing on the poop, anyway? If you can't see, you can feel, and what more do you want? Jump, now. Set that head-sail and get her 'fore the wind--quick, or I'll drop some of you."

They knew their captain, and they knew the ropes--on the blackest of dark nights. Blind men climbed aloft, and felt for foot-ropes and gaskets. Blind men on deck felt for sheets, halyards, and braces, and in ten minutes the sails were set, and the brig was charging wildly along before the gale, with two blind men at the wheel endeavoring to keep her straight by the right and left pressure of the wind on their faces.

"Keep the wind as much on the port quarter as you can without broaching to," yelled the captain in their ears, and they answered and did their best. She was a clean-lined craft and steered easily; yet the off-shore sea which was rising often threw her around until nearly in the trough. The captain remained by them, advising and encouraging.

"Where're ye goin', Bill?" asked the mate, weakly, as he scrambled up to him.

"Right out to sea, and, unless we get our eyes back soon, right across to the Bight of Benin, three thousand miles from here. We've no business on this coast in this condition. What ails you, Angel? Lost your nerve?"

"Mebbe, Bill." The mate's voice was hoarse and strained. "This is new to me. I'm falling--falling--all the time."