# McClure's Magazine/Volume 10/Number 6/The Day of the Dog

pp. 534-545. Accompanying illustrations by C. K. Linson omitted.
THE DAY OF THE DOG.
By Morgan Robertson
"LIGHT the glim—who's got a match?"
"Vere is mine kist? I get some stick-plaster."
"Keep yer dukes off thot bag; it's mine."
"It vas in my bunk."
"Yer bunk, ye bloody Dutchman! Take an upper bunk—where ye belong."
"Who's got a match? I'm bleedin' like a stuck pig."
"That mate or me won't finish the voyage 'f he kicks me again."
"No oil in the blasted lamp! Go aft to the steward, one o' ye, an' get some oil."
"Where's that ordinary seaman? Go get some oil; find him in the galley."
"There goes royal sheets—we'll have a reefin' match 'fore mornin'."
"An' I'd be a lot o' use on a yard to-night; I can't take a good breath."
"I dink he stove in your rips, Yim, ven he yump off de fo'castle on you. He loose mine teet."
"He won't do it often. Wonder if sheath-knives'll go in this ship?"
"In my last ship day dake 'em avay by der dock."
"Dry up—you an' yer last ship; it's the likes o' you that ruins American ships. What d'ye let go the t'gallant-sheet for?"
"I dink it vas der bowline. It vas der bowline-pin on."
"Where's that boy? Did he go for some oil?"
"Here he is. Got some oil?"
"Steward says to light up a slush-bucket to-night. He ain't got no oil to spare, but'll break some out in the mornin'."
"Hope it'll break his neck doin' it."
"The mate says to rout out the dead man an' send him aft."
"Where is he? Get an iron slush-bucket out o' the bosun's locker, an' ask Chips for some oakum—never mind, here's a bunch. Where's that feller? Can he move yet?"
"Here he is. Hey, matey, heave out. Gentleman aft on the poop wants to shake hands. Out o' that wi' you!"
"That'll do, that'll do. Am I the corpse that is wanted?"
"Turn out!"
"I've listened to the conversation, but can understand nothing of it beyond the profanity. Can any one inform me in the darkness where I am? Am I at sea?"
"You are—at sea, one day out, in the hottest, bloodiest packet that floats. The mate wants you. Get out, or he'll be here. Come on, now; we've had trouble enough this day."
The flare of burning oakum in a bucket of grease illumined the forecastle and the disfigured faces of seven men who were clustered near a lower bunk. From this bunk scrambled a sad wreck. A well-built young man, it was, with a shock of long, thick hair overhanging a clean-cut face, which the flickering light showed to be as bronzed by sun and wind as those of the sailors about him; but in this face were weary, bloodshot eyes, and tell-tale lines that should not have been there; a quarter-inch stubble of beard and mustache covered the lower part, and it was further embellished by the grime of the gutter. The raggedest rags that could carry the name of shirt, trousers, or coat clothed the body; sockless feet showed through holes in the shoes; and from the shoulders, under the coat, hung by a piece of cord an empty tomato-can with brilliant label.
"Tramp, be the powers," said one. "Isn't thot the name o' the bird, Jim?"
"Right you are, Dennis," said the one addressed—a tall, active American: he who had been called "Yim" by the sympathizing Swede with the "loosed" teeth.
"Yes," said the wreck, "tramp, that's my latest rôle. How'd I get here? I was in a saloon, drinking, but I don't remember any more. I might have been drugged. My head feels light."
"It'll be heavier with a few bumps on it," said Dennis. "Ye've been shanghaied 'long with three or four more of us. Gwan aft an' git bumped; we've had our share."
"What craft is this?"
"Ship 'Indiana' o' New York. Ye'll know her better 'fore ye see the next pint o' beer."
"'Indiana'?" repeated the wreck. "And do you happen to know, any of you, who owns her?"
"Western Packet Line," said Jim; "J. L. Greenheart's the owner. Get out o' here; the mate wants to see you."
"Thank you; but I don't particularly care to see the mate. The captain will answer very well for me. Allow me to introduce myself—J. L. Greenheart, owner of this ship and employer of every man on board."
Stricken as were those men with sore spots and aching bones, they burst into uproarious laughter at this flippant declaration, during which the ragged one moved toward the door and passed out.
"Lord help him," said Jim, "if he goes aft with that bluff! The mates are horses, but the skipper's a whole team."
Ten minutes later the ragged one returned—feet first and unconscious—in the arms of two of the watch on deck, who bundled him into the bunk he had lately quitted and said to the inquiring men:
"We don't know what happened. They had a lively muss on the poop, an' the skipper an' mates must ha' jumped on him; then they called us aft to get him."
The two passed out, and the seven men, with no time for sympathy or nursing, chose, with much bickering, the bunks they were to occupy, for the passage at least, patched up their hurts with what appliances they possessed, and turned in. But they had no sooner stretched out than the rasping voice of the second mate was heard at the door.
"Heye, in there," he called. "Who's that dock rat ye've got with you?"
"Don't know, Mr. Barker," answered Jim from his bunk. "He didn't sign when we did—shanghaied in place of a good man, likely—but says he's the owner."
"Did he know the owner's name without being told?"
"No, sir—nor the name of the ship; we told him."
"Where is he?"
"In the forrard lower bunk, sir—this side."
The second officer stepped in—the still-burning slush-bucket showing him to be a red-whiskered, red-eyed giant—and scanned closely the grimy features of this latest pupil in nautical etiquette. As though there was hypnotic power in the red eyes, the injured man opened his own and returned the stare, at the same time feeling with his fingers a discolored swelling on his forehead that bore plainly the stamp of a boot-heel.
"An all-round hobo; get him out at eight bells, if he can move," said the officer as he left the forecastle.
At four bells the helmsman was relieved, and reported to his mates in the watch on deck as follows:
"He marches up the poop steps an' tells the mate suthin' pretty sharp, an' then, 'fore the mate could stop him, he was down below routin' out the skipper. They had a run-in down there—I heard 'em plain—he was orderin' the skipper to put back to New York an' land him, an' the skipper got a black eye out of it. Then the second mate turns out, an' the first mate goes down, an' between 'em all three they boosts him up the co'panionway an' kicks him round the poop till he can't wiggle."
And when the lookout came down and told of his appearing on the forecastle deck shortly after the second mate's visit and sitting for an hour on the port anchor, muttering to himself and answering no questions, the watch on deck unanimously agreed that he was demented. At eight bells he was in his bunk, and responded to the vigorous shaking he received by planting his feet in the stomach of Dennis, the shaker, and sending him gasping into the opposite bunk.
"Howly Mother," groaned the sailor, when he could breathe. "Say, you scrapin's o' Newgate, try yer heels on sam one ilse—the second mate, f'r inshtance. Me cuticle won't hold any more shpots."
Dennis had been disciplined the day before, mainly while prostrate.
"Kicking seems to be the vogue here," said the man as he rolled out, "and I've been a Princeton half-back, so I'm in it. I've been kicked out of the cabin and off the quarter-deck of my own ship—pounded into insensibility with boot-heels. Why is this?"
"Now look-a here," said a sturdy, thoughtful-eyed Englishman—he who had vociferated for oil when the watch went below—"take my advice: turn to an' be civil, an' do as yer told. You can't run the after-end of her—ye've tried it; you can't run the fo'castle—there's too many against you. Stow that guff 'bout ownin' this ship or ye'll be killed. There ain't a Dutchman aboard but what's a better man than you, and every one of us has been hammered an' kicked till we didn't know our names. 'Cause why? 'Cause it's the rule in yer blasted Yankee ships to break in the crew with handspikes. You've caught it harder, 'cause ye didn't know better than to go aft lookin' for trouble. The sooner ye find yer place an' larn yer work, the better for you."
"Thank you for the advice; I'll take it if I have to, but it's against my principles to work—especially under compulsion. My head aches, and I'm pretty hungry, otherwise I——"
"Turn out!" roared a voice at the door, the command being accompanied by choice epithet and profanity. "Bear a hand."
"Who is that?" asked the man of principles. "I've heard that voice."
"Second mate," whispered the other; "don't go first," he added, mercifully, "nor last."
The first man to leave the forecastle was Lars, the Swede, who received a blow in the face that sent him reeling against the fife-rail. Then came Dennis; then Tom, the Englishman; followed by Ned, a burly German; Fred, the ordinary seaman; and David, a loose-jointed Highlander, who the day before had lost all his front teeth by the swinging blow of a heaver and had since, for obvious reasons, added no Scotch dialect to the forecastle discourse. All these escaped that big fist, the second blow, according to packet-ship ethics, being reserved for the last man out; and the last man out now was the man of rags.
But Mr. Barker had not time to deliver that blow. A dirty fist preceded its owner through the door, striking the mate between the eyes, and before the whirling points of light had ceased to dazzle his inner vision a second blow, crashing under his ear, sent him, big man that he was, nearly as far as Lars had gone. Recovering himself, with a furious oath he seized a belaying-pin from the fife-rail and sprang at his assailant. One futile blow only he dealt, and the pin was wrenched from his grasp and dropped to the deck; then with an iron-hard elbow pressing his throat, and a sinewy left arm bearing, fulcrum-like, on his backbone, he was bent over, gasping, struggling, and vainly striking, lifted from his feet, and hurled headlong to the fore-hatch.
"You are one of the three with whom I dealt in the cabin," said a voice above him in the darkness; "now face me alone, curse you! Get up here and fight it out."
"Mr. Pratt," called the officer, rising unsteadily. "Mr. Pratt! Come forrard, sir."
It was a black night, with a promise of dirty weather to come in the sky astern, and the ship was charging along under topgallant-sails before a half-gale of wind, against which no sounds from near the bow could easily reach the quarter-deck. Only at rare intervals did the full moon show through the dense storm clouds racing overhead, and Mr. Barker was alone on a dark deck, surrounded by fifteen men not one of whom would have prayed for him. Dazed as he was, he knew his danger—knew that all these men needed was a leader, a master-spirit, to arouse them from the submissive apathy of the foremast hand to bloody retaliation. And a leader seemed to have appeared. Lars complained bitterly as he held his bleeding face. Angry mutterings came from the others; some drew sheath-knives, some abstracted belaying-pins from the rail; and a few, Tom among them, supplied themselves with capstan-bars from the rack at the break of the topgallant forecastle.
"Mr. Pratt," bawled the demoralized officer as he backed away from his challenger; then, as though suddenly remembering, he drew a revolver from his pocket and pointed it at the man confronting him. At that moment, a lithe, springy man bounded into the group from around the corner of the forward house. Flourishing an iron belaying-pin, he yelled: "What's the matter here? Lay aft, you hounds—lay aft! Aft with you all. Mr. Barker, you here?"
"Here you are, sir—this feller here."
A momentary appearance of the moon gave the newcomer light to see the leveled pistol and the man covered by it, who seemed to be hesitating and about to look around. One bound carried him close. Down crashed the iron pin on the faltering man's head, and without a word or a groan he fell, limp and lifeless, to the edge of the hatch, and rolled to the deck. A menacing circle closed around the two officers.
"Shame, shame!" cried the men. "He warn't in his right mind; he didn't know what he was doin'."
"It's bloody murder, that's what it is," shouted Tom in a fury of horror and rage. "Blast you, kill a man from behind who only wanted a fair fight!' He whirled his capstan-bar aloft, but held it poised, for he was looking into the barrel of the chief officer's pistol.
"Drop that handspike—drop it quick!" said Mr. Pratt. "Quick, or I'll shoot you dead."
Tom allowed the six-foot club to slip slowly through his fingers until it struck the deck; then he let it fall, saying sulkily: "Needs must when the devil drives; but it's only a matter of time, a matter of time. I'll have you hung."
"Put up your knives, every one of you. Put those belaying-pins back in their places, quick," snapped the officer. The two pistols wandered around the group, and the men fell back and obeyed him.
"Now lay aft, every man jack of you."
The incipient mutiny was quelled. They were driven aft before the pistols to the main hatch, where they surrendered their sheath-knives and received a clean-cut lecture on their moral defects from the first officer; then Tom was invited to insert his hands into a pair of shackles. He accepted the invitation (the pistols were still in evidence); and while he was being fastened to a stanchion in the half-deck the men at the wheel and lookout were relieved and the port watch dismissed.
Tom, with forecastle philosophy, congratulated himself on his present immunity from standing watch and stretched out for a nap. Hat on his broad back, with aims elevated and hanging by the handcuffs above his head. He had nearly dozed off when the booby-hatch was opened and another prisoner was bundled down the steps, moaning piteously; and, as he was being ironed to the next stanchion, Tom recognized, by the light of the mate's lantern, the ragged violator of precedent.
"Blow me, matey, but yer hard to kill," he said, when the mate had gone. "I thought you were done for. Know me? I'm the feller that advised ye to go slow."
"Oh, yes. What happened? Why are we here? What place is this?"
"'Tween-decks. We were unkind to the mates—blast 'em—that's why we're here. I'd ha' knocked the first mate stiffer than he knocked you 'f it hadn't been for his gun."
"Was it the first mate who struck me? Oh, there'll be an accounting—my head! Oh, my head!" groaned the man. "I believe I'm injured for life."
"Ye were too reckless, old man; ye oughter ha' watched for the mate. He's a holy terror; he half-killed all hands yesterday; that's why we couldn't stand by ye better. He jumped off the fo'castle on to Dennis, an' the two o' them kicked him all round the fore-hatch. David was knocked endwise with a heaver for goin' to windward o' the skipper, an' his teeth are all gone. Lars got soaked at the wheel—that's against the law, too; and ye see him get it again to-night. Dutch Ned let go the to'gallant sheet, an' the second mate sent him twenty feet. I got it in the nose just 'fore goin' below at eight bells, for no reason on earth but 'cause I was the only man left who hadn't got soaked—besides Fred, the boy; he got clear. An' the other watch got it just as bad. We're all used up an' no good at all; but you got it hardest, 'cause ye earned it. Blow me, but ye done the second mate up brown."
"But why is it necessary, and why do you submit to it—all you men at the mercy of three?"
"Pistols, matey, the pistols. An' Yankee mates are all trained buckoes—rather fight than eat. When the fists an' boots an' belayin'-pins an' handspikes can't do the business they pull their guns—we knew that. An' then, too, mutiny's a serious thing when yer hauled up 'fore the commissioner: all the law's mostly against sailors."
"I have been drugged, kidnapped, and twice beaten insensible; there is law against that."
"If ye can get it; but ye can't."
"I'll try—I'll try; I've read a little law."
"Yer not a sailorman, matey, I can see; what's yer trade?"
"I have none."
"Never worked?"
"No."
"Jim says you fellers just hoof it round the country, sleepin' under haystacks summer-times an' goin' to jail winters. It's better than goin' to sea. But ye talk like a man that's been educated once, What brought ye down to this—whisky?"
"Y-e-s, and knockout drops. My head is getting worse. I can't talk. How can I lie down? What fiends they are! My head—my head!"
Tom advised the suffering wretch how to dispose himself, and again considered the question of sleep. But no sleep came to him that night. The injured man began muttering to himself; and this muttering, at times intelligible, at others not, often rising to a shriek of pain, lasted until morning and kept him awake. In spite of his life of hard knocks, Tom had so far learned nothing of the alternate delirium and lucidity consequent on slight brain concussion, and supposed this to be the raving of insanity. Kind-hearted as he was, the ceaseless jargon grated on his nerves. He listened to it and the sounds of shortening sail overhead, and wished himself on deck, in the wet and cold, away from this suffering, beyond his power to understand or relieve. At daylight, nearly at the shrieking point himself, he welcomed the throwing back of the scuttle and the appearance of the first mate, who, in yellow sou'-wester and long oilskin coat, descended the ladder and stepped to the side of his victim. Mr. Pratt was a young man, well put together, with black hair and whiskers, and dull gray eyes set in a putty-colored face. It was a face that might grin, but never could smile; yet it wore, as it bent over the moaning, tossing bundle of rags and blood, an expression of mental disquiet.
"How long's he been like this?" he suddenly demanded of Tom.
"Ever since he come down, sir. If you please, sir, I'd like to be put somewhere else or turn to. I wasn't myself last night, Mr. Pratt. I'll be crazy as he is, if I stay here with him."
In answer to this, Tom received two or three kicks in the ribs; then the officer went on deck, returning in a few moments with the captain of the ship—a man who in the rôle of jolly sea-dog might play a part well borne out by his physique. He was the very opposite in appearance to his chief mate—short, broad, and smooth-faced, with an upturn to the corners of his mouth, and twinkling blue eyes, which, in spite of a dark circle around one them, gave his countenance a deceptive look of suppressed merriment.
"So, ho, my man," he said, breezily, "so you nearly kill my second officer, do you?"
"Not this fellow, Captain Millen," said the mate; "not him, the other. This man raised a handspike over me and threatened to hang me."
"I was excited, Cappen," said Tom. "I thought Mr. Pratt had killed the man, which he didn't."
"Will you promise to turn to and do your work, and obey orders civilly, if I let you out?"
"Yes, sir."
"Unlock him, Mr. Pratt."
Tom was released. Rising to his feet, he said, respectfully: "Will I go on deck, sir?"
"Go on," answered the captain.
But Tom was not to escape so easily. As he passed them, Captain Millen's sledge-like fist shot out, and he fell in a heap.
"On deck with you," thundered the captain, whose eyes had not ceased to twinkle during the performance. Tom rose again, sneaked up the ladder and passed forward, where he showed his ship-mates an eye that in ten minutes was blacker than the captain's.
Captain Millen and Mr. Pratt stooped over and examined the remaining prisoner, now unconscious and breathing heavily, and the mate asked, uneasily: "Think I've done for him, sir?"
"Can't tell; he's all blood and the cut's hidden, and 1 wouldn't touch him with a fish-pole. I never shipped this hoodlum; the runners kept back a man and sent him."
"The Englishman says he's crazy—the men forrard, too; might be, or his yarn about owning the ship's just the bluff of a tramp."
"Possibly he's daft; but he didn't know the ship's name or the owner's name till the men told him, so Mr. Barker says; and when I told him in the cabin that the owner was a gray-headed man, it threw him out. Guess it's only a bluff. Have you logged him?"
"Yes, sir. Wrote him down just after I ironed him."
"I'll put him in the official log as a maniac; evidence enough even without the men's testimony—forces himself into my cabin and claims to own the ship, and orders me to run back to New York and land him; unprovoked assault on an officer, and display of maniacal strength. You see, Mr. Pratt, if he dies it'll look better for us, and particularly you, to have him crazy; extra severity is necessary and excusable in dealing with dangerous lunatics. But we don't want him to die—we're too short-handed."
"Shall I have the steward down to fix him up, sir?"
"Yes, and tell him to get what he wants from the medicine-chest; and better be more careful, Mr. Pratt; it don't pay to get the law after you. I know it was dark and Mr. Barker was badly scared; but, just the same, a light whack will always answer. Never strike a man near the temple, especially with an iron belaying-pin or a handspike; and when you have him down, kick him on the legs or above the short ribs. It's altogether unnecessary to disable a man, and unwise with a short crew. Be more careful, Mr. Pratt."
"Yes, sir," said the pupil humbly; "but they had their knives out, and I had no time to pick spots; I just let go."
They left the half-deck, and the steward, busy with the cabin breakfast, was ordered to desist and attend to the wants of the prisoner, which repugnant duty he performed perfunctorily, yet with the result of bringing him to consciousness and inducing him to eat. This, his first meal since he had come aboard, was followed by a refreshing sleep, with his bandaged head pillowed on a coil of new rope; and when he wakened in the afternoon he was able, with his shackles removed to his ankles, to minister to his own hurts.
His condition improved steadily; but a week passed before his nerves and faculties were sufficiently under control to warrant him in, as he expressed it, "taking another fall out o' them." He sent a request for an interview to the captain, who granted it.
"Well, what d'ye want?" he roared, before he was half way down the ladder.
"Want to talk to you," answered the unconquered wreck, in nearly as loud a tone.
"Y' do, hey? Well, talk civil, and be quick about it."
"Exactly. I am anxious to impress upon your mind, as quickly as your mind will receive the impression, the fact that you have made a serious mistake—that you have maltreated and confined in irons, on board one of his own ships, John L. Greenheart, your employer. You have not met him before, because you have only dealt with James L. Greenheart, his uncle and manager."
"Oh, you've struck a new lay, have you—invented a nephew to carry out your bluff? Well, it don't go." But there was a look of intelligent earnestness in the weary eyes of the claimant that induced Captain Millen to continue in defense of his denial—a needless waste of words, had he stopped to think.
"I've sailed in this employ twenty-five years," he stormed; "and I know, if I know anything, that there are no vagabonds in the Greenheart family. Why, you infernal jail-bird, your dirty hide is as tanned as a shell-back's from tramping the highways."
"Just back from a yachting cruise in southern waters, Captain—I haven't yet learned your name."
"Rats! And when did you shave last? What kind of clothes do ship-owners wear?"
"I was slumming disguised as a tramp, when I was drugged and kidnapped. As for being unshaved, I was in the middle of a champagne spree—or I shouldn't have gone slumming at all—and scissored off my beard to heighten the disguise."
Captain Millen did not know what "slumming" meant, and did not care to ask, so he listened no further. The interview ended with a hearty round of profane abuse from him, and the aphorism, "Every dog has his day," from the other.
A few days later he sent a second request to the quarter-deck for a talk with the captain, but the favor was not granted. Fred, the messenger, who now brought his meals from the forecastle, repeated the errand on the following day, was kicked off the quarter-deck, and refused to go again; so it was another week before he was able to communicate. Then Mr. Barker, rummaging the half-deck in the line of duty, listened to a proposition that he be allowed to work with the crew on terms of abdication and submission. This brought the captain.
"My health is suffering from this confinement," he said. "I cannot eat the swill you feed to me without the appetite coming from exercise in the open air. I am willing to work as a common sailor; and, as you will not recognize the name I give you, I will answer to any."
"Will you shut up about that owner racket?"
"I will."
"And do as you're told, and try to learn your work, so that you can be worth your grub?"
"Yes.
"'Yes?' Say 'Yes, sir,' when you speak to me or the officers. Learn that first."
"Yes, sir."
"All right; and mind you, any monkey work'll get you into more trouble. You're on the articles as Hans Johanne Von Dagerman, Dutchman, able seaman, fourteen dollars a mouth, and a month's advance—remember that when you're paid off. And you're down in my official log as a dangerous lunatic. If you raise any row aboard my ship, you'll be shot, and your character and record will excuse it. Understand?"
"I do. I accept the warning, the name, the nationality, and the conditions—even the lunacy. Only, Captain, as I am officially insane, I cannot be punished if I kill you all three—remember that." The weary eyes were sparkling.
"Oh, that's your game, is it? Want to get out to kill somebody? Down you go in my log as threatening my life and the lives of my officers, and here you stay in double-irons on bread and water."
So he was logged again, and another pair of manacles fastened to his wrists, with a foot of chain connecting the center links to the stanchion. This gave him scope to lift from the deck to his mouth the one biscuit allowed him each day, and to drink from his tomato-can, which had been saved for him. But it was not the diet that broke him down. The water was good; and the biscuit, though not the soft, fluffy morsel eaten at tea-tables on shore, was the cleanest and sweetest food on the forecastle menu, and one a day was as much as he could masticate during his waking hours. It was the confinement and double-irons. After three weeks, pale and emaciated, he sent up another plea for liberty, in which he relinquished the privileges of the insane, and to Captain Millen, when he appeared, he promised a line of good behavior while on board which debarred him the right to return a blow. He made this promise on his honor, which he said was all they had left him. As the ship was short-handed, the captain accepted the promise and his services. Then, with his tomato-can in his hand, able-seaman Hans Johanne Von Dagerman, as we must now know him, went forward, a member of the starboard watch. At the end of the first day he had proved his incapacity and was disrated to ordinary seaman, at eleven dollars a month. This did not trouble him, until, having heard of the "slop-chest"—the store of clothing which captains lay in to sell to sailors at sea—he learned that he could not purchase until out of debt to the ship. His pay had stopped when he became a prisoner, and the time required to work off the fourteen dollars advance charged brought against him brought the ship, bound to Shanghai, well into the chilly weather to the south of Cape of Good Hope before he could draw from the slop-chest; and then he bought, not clothing, but salt-water soap, with which he washed his own and the scant supply of rags contributed by his pitying shipmates, and took a chilly bath over the bows with a draw-bucket. He was certainly insane, and the men not only pitied him but feared him, forbearing all the petty persecutions which able seamen may inflict on a green hand in the watch below. He occasionally borrowed his friend Tom's scissors and looking-glass and kept his growing beard trimmed to a point—an outlandish, lubberly style, inspired, no doubt, by his lunacy. He manufactured, from the inner bristles of a condemned paint-brush, a fairly serviceable tooth-brush, with which, and a piece of bath-brick coaxed from the cook, he scoured his teeth—remarkably white and well-set—after each meal. Every morning, no matter what the weather, he took his douche-bath, using up valuable time in his watch below for the performance. When he had earned more money, he bought clothing, and paid his debts to his mates in kind—new shirts, etc., for old; and then only did he buy for himself. He refused to talk of his past, but frankly confessed to the others that he was crazy. All these idiosyncrasies counted against him, and drifting aft, through the medium of the cook and steward, were entered in the official log as additional evidence of his mental derangement.
He seemed to know something of sailors' work when he began—that is, he knew starboard from port, and getting the names of the sails, but not the ropes; and he could steer well enough to take his trick in fine weather. He learned rapidly, tutored by Tom and Jim; and, though often making mistakes that brought him abuse and sometimes knockdowns, he never resented, only showing, by the somber sparkling of his weary eyes, that he appreciated and remembered. The big second mate, however, though prolific in profanely worded expressions of disapproval, avoided personal contact with him, candidly admitting to Mr. Pratt that once was enough for one lifetime and that he took no stock in the promises of crazy men.
At Shanghai, Hans Johanne Von Dagerman applied for liberty to go ashore, which was denied him; for he had drawn his wages up to date in slop-clothing, and with nothing to hold him to the ship, he might desert. As a consequence, he slipped overboard in the night, swam ashore, hid until morning, and entered the office of the American consul just as Captain Milieu had finished reading to that official from the official log an account of his misdoing. The consul listened to the deserter's story, and was so impressed with its untruthfulness and so incensed by his violent demands that he depose Captain Millen from command, that he ordered him back to the ship in irons. He remained in the half-deck until the ship sailed for New York, and was then glad to be released on a second promise of good conduct.
On the homeward passage he kept his place and his promise, becoming, under the influence of his watch-mates, who began to like him, a fairly proficient sailorman—quick and intelligent in judgment, active and strong in the execution of orders. The ozone of the sea, with his hygienic personal habits, religiously clung to, had cleared the bloodshot eye, smoothed the premature lines in his sunburned face, and transformed him from the dilapidated wreck of humanity first introduced, to as handsome and manly-looking a sailor as ever pulled a rope.
The ship reached New York, and Captain Millen, according to instructions brought to him at Quarantine, anchored the "Indiana" off Staten Island pending the vacating of her dock by another ship. As this would not be for a fortnight, the men were sent ashore on a tug, and three days later paid off at the shipping-office. Then they disappeared from the ken and concern of Captain Millen and his officers, who, with the steward, remained by the ship, killing time as best they could. Smoking lazily under the quarter-deck awning one day, they became interested in a large steam yacht approaching on the the starboard quarter. A dainty piece of cabinet-work she was, glistening with varnish paint and polished brass, with the American yacht ensign at the stern and the burgee of the New York Yacht Club at stern and gaffs peaked from the deck, her the fore-truck, yet showing, by her square stern and gaffs peaked from the deck, her probable English origin. Blue-shirted sailors dotted her white deck, two uniformed officers conned her from the bridge; and aft, on the fan-tail, seated in a wickerwork deck-chair, was a white-haired old gentleman. Captain Millen, viewing her through his glasses, suddenly exclaimed:
"Why, it's old Greenheart! Getting gay in his old age, buying steam yachts. Hope he won't dock my pay to make up for this."
As the beautiful craft drew up alongside and stopped, the old gentleman arose and took off his cap, which salute they answered; then a gig was lowered, manned by a neatly-dressed crew, and steered to the ship's gangway by a spruce young coxswain, who mounted the side and approached them. Touching his cap, he said:
"Mr. Greenheart would like to see Captain Millen, Mr. Pratt, and Mr. Barker on board the yacht."
"Well, well—certainly—yes, of course," said the captain. "Pratt, get a collar on; you, too, Barker. 'Tisn't every day we get into good society. Hurry up. Ready in a minute, young fellow." The coxswain descended to the gig, and the two mates to their rooms, where they made such hurried toilet as the urgency would admit of. As they came up, the captain said, impressively:
"Don't let on, now, that you expect anything: the old man's finicky; but I think this means promotion for all of us. The new ship was launched last week, and I'm more than likely to get her. That'll leave a vacancy here, and I've spoken well of both of you. But don't let on."
They entered the gig and were pulled to the yacht, where, on climbing the gangway steps, they found the side manned for them. Two lines of men, marshaled by a keen-eyed second mate, who stared curiously at the visitors, stretched across the deck, forming a lane through which they must pass. And these two lines were composed of the port and starboard watches of the "Indiana," spick and span, in clean blue uniform, each man gazing stonily over the shoulder of his vis-à-vis, and only one giving any sign of recognition. David, who had not smiled during voyage, now grinned cheerfully around a set of false teeth. Agape with astonishment, the three visitors passed on until they were met by the smiling old gentleman, who shook hands with them and said:
"A little out of the ordinary, Captain—no, not my yacht—my nephew's. He has just returned from abroad, and thinks he was in the China seas about the time you were there. He wants to meet you and compare notes, and suggested a spin down the Bay. John," he called down the cabin stairs, "will you come up? Captain Millen is here. Allow me to introduce you. Gentlemen, my nephew, Mr. Greenheart. John, this is Captain Millen, our commodore——"
"Exactly."
Hans Johanne Von Dagerman had come up the stairs and seated himself in the deck-chair. His tar-stained hands were hidden in gloves; his symmetrical figure was clad in the New York Yacht Club uniform; and the weary eyes glittered in his bronzed face with an expression as deadly in its earnestness as the gesture which brought two revolvers from his pockets and up to a line with the visitors' heads.
"Exactly," he repeated; "we've met before. Don't trouble yourself to introduce them, uncle—allow me. Allow me to make you acquainted with three as black-hearted, inhuman scoundrels as ever disgraced humanity."
"Why, John, John, what does this mean?" exclaimed the puzzled old gentleman, while Captain Millen, pale and embarrassed, stuttered: "I didn't know, sir; why didn't you tell me?" Mr. Pratt and Mr. Barker said nothing, but looked from the leveled pistols forward to the two lines of observant men, and noticed that the yacht was under way and heading to sea.
"Uncle, how long has Captain Millen commanded a ship for father?"
"Over twenty-five years, John; and he now stands first—as good, capable, and honest a captain as ever sailed a ship. I am astonished."
"Um—humph—I see. Yet I am afraid that if father knows now how his money was made,—how every dollar was wrung from the sweat, and the blood, and the suffering of slaves,—he is not resting easy in his grave. Uncle, you are getting old. In a week I shall expect a statement of the business of the line, with the names and whereabouts of the ships and the names of the captains. There is going to be one line of American sailing-ships conducted on humane principles. But before you relinquish control, examine the official log of the 'Indiana' for the last voyage, and you will learn that one Hans Johanne Von Dagerman is insane and not responsible for his actions. An official log is excellent testimony in court. Now, then, you three, off with your coats and throw them down the companionway—quickly, or I'll lift the tops of your heads."
He was still seated in the deck-chair, but his voice rang out like the blare of a trumpet; and they obeyed him, while the old gentleman wrung his hands nervously.
"Turn your trousers pockets inside out," he commanded, and was obeyed again.
"Now, boys," he called, excitedly, "they haven't any pistols, and we've got them right where we want them. Tom—Jim—Ned—hurrah! here; come on! Lars—drive in; there's a railful of brass belaying-pins; there's a rack of handspikes; David, remember your teeth. Come on, Fred! Come on, the whole crowd of you! Let them know how it feels. Give it to them!"
An hour later, three men—scarred, bleeding, and groaning—stripped to remnants of underclothing, conscious of nothing but their terrible pain, were lowered into a boat and landed at the wharf of Bellevue Hospital, from which institution emanated, in a few days, certain official notifications to the police which resulted in certain official inquiries that were immediately hushed.
A few days later a shocked and agitated old gentleman betook himself to the mountains to be treated for nervous prostration; and in a few months a young club man—former good fellow, lately returned from abroad—had excited much gossip and puzzled comment among his friends, because of his serious demeanor, changed habits, and strict attention to business.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse