# Gallegher's Ghost

“The last story of a great writer! This eerie, whimsical story of the sea has all the fine qualities which made the late Morgan Robertson famous. Don't miss it.”
Gallegher's Ghost
By Morgan Robertson
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR D. FULLER
SHE was a small, ancient and top-heavy little bark, built about the beginning of the century, I should judge; for she carried in her square stern four square windows opening into the lazaret, a feature I had never seen before except in pictures of Revolutionary craft. Add to this, old-fashioned single topsails, hemp rigging, and rope-strapped blocks, with a general air of decrepitude and decay, and you have the craft that Gallegher and I shipped in to get away from Scotland, Gallegher as seaman, I as cook and steward.
But though we got away from Scotland, we did not escape the Scotch; for every man on board except us two was Scotch from his crown to his corns, and not only Scotch in name and nationality, but ultra-Scotch in disposition. In all that passage I never saw a smile on the face of one of them: though had they the slightest sense of humor, they would have laughed at themselves. They worked, ate and slept soberly and as silently as was possible, seldom speaking except in answer to an order or to utter their one form of greeting or assent: “Aye, Sandy,” or “Angus,” or “Weelum,” according to the man spoken to. There were five of them in the forecastle,—Gallegher made the sixth,—and besides the three mentioned above we had Tammas and Robert.
Though I worked in the galley, I slept in the forecastle, and came into intimate contact with them. Their last names I never learned, and they are of no importance in this story. Suffice it to say that to the best of my belief their surnames were as Scotch as their given names and themselves. They lived on burgoo,—boiled oatmeal,—eating it three times a day, twenty-one times a week, and I cooked it for them according to the skipper's orders.
“For why's the use,” he said to me, “o' gi'in' men good beef an' beans, when they doan't appreciate it, an' prefair their oats?”
That his speech was anti-Scotch was attested by the fact that the lazaret, the space abaft the cabin trunk and lighted by the square stern windows, held stores for his table consisting of fine sugar-cured hams, the best of Irish potatoes, canned goods of all kinds, and the sweetest of mess beef—so sweet that a few hours of soaking gave it the similitude of corned beef. I cooked these things for the skipper; but as he ate alone, the two mates got none of it—only burgoo, which satisfied them. But as I always cooked a little more than the skipper needed, I shared in the good things, and unwisely told Gallegher.
“Ye selfish, four-legged imitation of a friend!” he vociferated wildly. “Here I am, an Irishman trun among the Scotch; an' you tell me that you're eatin' good grub, while I must eat harse-food—oats—wi' the Scotchmen. I'm no harse, an' I'm no Scotchman! I can't eat oats.”
“Oh, yes, you can,” I responded mildly. “Oatmeal is nutritious and fattening—good for the health.”
He glared wildly and luridly at me for a moment; then his features softened to a grin.
“Yis,” he said, “I guess ye're right. When the grub's down, it all tastes the same, and mebbe harse-food's nutritious; so it's immatistical.”
“You mean, Gallegher,” I ventured, “that it is immaterial.”
“No, I mean immatistical.”
“But there is no such word in the language. Immaterial is the word. It means—”
“I don't care what immaterial means. I said immatistical, and I mean immatistical! I know what I'm talkin' about. D'ye think I don't know me own language? Hey, ye cook, ye disgrace to yer trade, ye're not eddicated! Shut up.”
I shut up. I was not educated, being only a sailor temporarily shipped as cook, and not having a dictionary handy, I could not refute Gallegher.
Gallegher was a small man; but what he lacked in size, he made up in vocabulary. He was not a linguist, understanding nothing but English; yet he had a power of expression, a choice of words, a happy knowledge of short, pithy sentences, a command of profanity that approached the artistic, and the genius of coining words and phrases. He always won in a wordy debate with his Scotch shipmates; but as he was small, each one in turn—Angus, Weelum, Sandy, Tammas and Robert—thrashed him between the bunks; but none stopped his voice. He invariably had the last word, usually that the licking was “immatistical.”
And so it continued while the old bark wallowed down into the doldrums on the Line—a region so hot that the pitch bubbles out of the deck-seams, and progress is a slow drift before vagrant cat's-paws of wind. It was here that the utility of those huge square windows in the stern was proved. They were left open night and day, for without them the cabin would have been a bake-oven. But the forecastle had no such ventilators, and the heat may have affected Gallegher; the continued ill-treatment palled upon him too; and one day he went aft and drew from the slop-chest a brand-new sheath-knife and belt, which he ostentatiously sharpened on the grindstone; then, tossing his old knife and belt overboard, he announced to us all that the first man who now laid hands upon him would get the knife.
“D'ye mean,” said Tammas, the oldest man forward and the leader of the forecastle, “that you'll stick that kneef into us?”
“I'll not only stick it into ye,” said Gallegher hotly, “but I'll rip the liver an' lights out o' ye if ye don't kape yer hands off me.”
“Ye'd take the leef of a human being?” asked Weelum solemnly.
“No, I wud not,” yelled Gallegher; “but I'll take the life of a Scotchman, five times over. Kape yer hands off me, I say, an' ye can live.”
“Ye be a sinfu' man, Gallegher,” said Tammas, “and the good Lord'll call you to account.”
“I'm no sinnerful than the rist o' you.”
“Aye, but you are,” interjected Angus. “Were it not so, we'd all gae aft and get sheath-kneeves too.”
“It'd cost ye one an' saxpence a man; thot's why ye doan't go.”
“Tut-tut!” said Tammas. “Hush this talk aboot kneefin' folk! We're not in the kneefin' business, an' ye'll notice, Gallegher, that our old sheath-kneeves have na points. Yet they're good enow to cut ropes, an' that's good enow. We'll na gae aft an' draw new sheath-kneeves; for the good Lord will take care o' you. Get you into your bunk, now, and be still!”
“All right,” responded Gallegher, climbing into his bunk. “But if ye've any influence wi' the Lord, as ye seem to have, ask him to take care o' you, or else, as I said, let me alone!”
And to emphasize his remarks further, Gallegher busied himself until four bells, when it was his watch on deck, with putting a sharper edge on the knife with an oilstone. He took the wheel in the last dog-watch, turned in at eight bells without further friction, stood the middle watch in his usual happy-go-lucky frame of mind (due, no doubt, to his having won his point), turned in at four—and was found dead in his bunk when the watch was called to breakfast.
WHAT had killed Gallegher nobody knew; but there he lay, cold, damp and inert, with eyes closed as though in sleep. I was aft with the cabin breakfast when the news came in shouts from the men, and hurrying forward with the captain and the mate,—the second mate had taken the wheel,—we found them greatly excited, each one, without being in any way accused, loudly proclaiming his innocence of the murder.
But was it murder, the captain asked. No one could tell. There was not a mark on him, and had he died any kind of violent death, his eyes would have opened. He lay on his back, as he always lay when asleep, and he had climbed into his bunk of his own strength, whistling cheerfully. The captain lifted his eyelids and examined the pupils: they were not dilated. There was no odor of drugs or of poisonous gases. Yet something had come to him as he slept and taken away his life.
“Weel,” said the captain at length, “we'll ha' our breakfast, and then we'll sew him up and gi' him a passage. Pack up his chest and bring it aft. Anyone know of his home, or his releetions?”
“I think, sir,” I answered with a choke in my voice, “that I'm the only friend he had; but he never spoke of his home.”
“Then we'll gi' his dunnage to the Seamen's Mission. Sew him up quick; for he will na keep in this hot weather.”
The captain and mate departed, but as my appetite was gone, I remained with the crew, hoping to glean some news as to what had killed Gallegher. But the five ate their breakfast in stolid silence, and when they spoke, it was not of Gallegher's death, but of his dunnage. Tammas started it.
“The Seamen's Meesion,” he commented moodily, “where it'll be diveeded up between Dutchmen, Dagoes an' Soowegians!”
“Aye,” said Weelum, “an' it's a bonny outfit. Saw you ever such gum-boots as he was wearin' comin' doon the Channel?”
Weelum was right. Gallegher had expended most of his last-voyage pay in clothing, and had gone to sea better equipped than do most mates and skippers. But it was a cold-weather outfit, and since entering the tropic zone, it had been stowed in his chest.
“I canna say,” said Robert, a man as small as Gallegher, “that I noticed his boots; but I did tak note o' the monkey-jacket he wore. Genuine pilot-cloth!”
“An' he had a guernsey,” added Angus, “that took my eye. Must ha' cost him fafteen shillin' or mair.”
“If he didn't steal it,” said Sandy qualifiedly.
“Steal it!” I broke in angrily. “What right have you to assume that?”
“Hush, boy,” answered Sandy. “An' what do you know about his private life?”
“He was a sinfu' man,” said the gloomy Tammas.
“If I was a benefeeciary of the Seamen's Mission,” continued Sandy, while I relapsed into my growing sorrow, “I'd choose the fine Havre shirt I saw on him up in the North Sea. That'll keep the cauld oot o' a man's bones off Cape Horn.”
“I would rather have his oilskins,” said Tammas. “They're a new kind—they're waterproof. I never saw the like before. An' they were too big for him. I'm thinkin' they'd just fit me.”
JUST assure himself, it may be, Tammas rose and lifted the lid of Gallegher's chest. He took out the oilskins and quickly donned them, while each of the others picked up the article he most admired, and examined it. Now, I do not say that if the oilskins had not fitted Tammas to an inch, he would not have replaced them in the chest; but they did fit, and when they came off they went into his bunk. Not a word was said; but each followed the example, stowing out of sight the article he had chosen—Robert the jacket, Angus the guernsey, Sandy the Havre shirt, and Weelum the boots. Then they looked at me as though expecting that I would join them in the loot; but something in my face, perhaps,—something of grief, and horror that they should so rob a shipmate before he was cold,—prevented them from speaking.
Eight bells struck at this juncture, and I went to my work, resolved to speak to the captain. But on my way to the cabin I decided not to. They would probably deny it, and the captain might not care; and after all, I thought, it really made no difference who got the clothes. So, when the second mate had finished his breakfast, I gathered up the dishes and went forward again.
She was an easy ship, as sailors say. Aside from the limited food-allowance, which could have been changed on demand, the comfort, convenience and even the feelings of the crew were considered to a degree unthought of in American ships, and the little matter mentioned of an officer steering, so that the crew could eat together was but one of many lapses from strict sea-etiquette in that antiquated little bark. The men smoked at the wheel, passed to windward of the captain and addressed the two mates by their first names. Perhaps it was because they all hailed from the same town, and had sailed together for many years.
However, in line with this laxity, a wordy argument was going on at the forecastle door when I arrived with the dishes, between the men (all but Angus, who now had the wheel) and the after guard, The captain wanted the body sewed up in canvas at once; and each, to a man, stubbornly refused. The captain turned to his mates; they too shook their heads, and he spied me.
“Cook,” he said, “you can handle a palm and needle, I know. That man must be buried. Get you to wark noo, and sew him up.”
“Very well, sir,” I answered, “if you will get him out on the main hatch and give me the canvas.
The canvas, with palm, needle and twine, was procured for me by the mate; but the body I had to lift out of the bunk myself and carry to the hatch. Not a man would aid me, and I laid the body face upward on the canvas, gathered the edges together, and sorrowfully began my task. But they were willing to carry Gallegher's chest aft. I saw it go past me as I worked.
It was a hot, sultry morning, with little wind, and rain-squalls all about us; and the old craft, with bare steerageway, rolled along like a log in a tideway. The atmospheric conditions added to my depression; for when I had stitched from the feet up to the face, the tears were streaming down my cheeks unrestrained. The captain now came along with a plank, and as he laid it down with instructions to place Gallegher on it, he noticed my grief.
“What are ye droolin' about?” he asked not unkindly.
“He was my chum, sir,” I answered, stitching busily.
“He was a Jonah, man—a Jonah! I hear he threatened leef, and was called to his account for it. Now that he's gone, we'll get the southeast trades. I see signs already; but we'll have a squall first. Hurry up. Take the last stitch through his nose.”
I had finished the task and was about to cut the twine, but paused at this speech.
“Captain, I can't do that,” I said brokenly.
“Man, man, what's wrang wi' you? Here, gi' me the palm and needle. It's so his ghaist wont come back—don't ye know that?”
He took the palm and needle from me, and jabbed the last stitch through the nose; then he hitched and cut the twine.
“There, noo!” he said as he rose to his feet. “He'll stay in the place where he's gone to.”
Then, while I lifted the canvas-shrouded body to the plank, he summoned all hands for a sea-burial, and went aft for his Bible. The men carried the plank and its burden to the rail and balanced it; and there they waited, while I, my task done, thought of an uncompleted part of it. We had not weighted the body, and when the captain appeared, I spoke of it, suggesting a heavy shackle or iron belaying-pin.
Illustration: I halted with my heart thumping like a hammer. For peering at me from the darkened alley was the cheerful face of Gallegher!
Illustration: Without any seeming conception of incongruity, they sang the refrain of a music-hall ditty, “Doon Went McGinty—” When they had ended, the captain gave a sign and the plank was tilted.
“For why?” he asked. 'The sharks'll get him anyhow, and shackles and beiayin'-pins cost money. Noo, men, silence, while I read from the Book.”
He read a chapter chosen at random, and followed with the Lord's Prayer, while we stood about with bowed heads. When he had finished, he said:
“It's customary to sing some song suitable to the occasion; but there isn't a songbook in the cabin. Ha' you men any songs?”
All shook their heads, and there was a moment's silence; then Robert spoke up.
“I heard a sang ashore, sir, that might be suitable. I only know the chorus. We all know the chorus, but not the sang.”
“Sing it,” commanded the captain, and Robert lifted his chin and began, the others joining in after the first two or three words. Soberly and earnestly, without any seeming conception of incongruity, they sang the refrain of a music-hall ditty popular at the time:
“Doon went McGinty to the buttom of the sea,
And he maun be vera wet, for they ha' na gut him yet.
Doon went McGinty to the buttom of the sea,
Dressed in his best Sunday clothes.”
“Hold on, there!' broke in the captain. “Sing that again, and sing it reet! There's na sich word as Sunday in a releegious ceremony. Say Sawbath—say Sawbath clothes.”
So they sang it again with the suggested substitution; and when they had ended, the captain gave a sign and the plank was tilted. But even before what was mortal of poor Gallegher struck the water, he roared out:
“Stand by fore and main royal hal'ard!” For a squall was coming.
As taking in kites was no part of my work, I went to the galley, where, sitting on my stool, I realized, I think, the meaning of hysterics—laughing and crying by turns, The fit lasted until the royals were furled, and the squall had resolved into a steadily increasing blow that promised to carry us into the trades. It was when the work was done and I was in my last spasm of foolish laughter that the captain appeared at the galley door.
“Well,” he said, “I'm glad to see ye in a mair cheerful frame o' mind. Gae you aft to the lazaret and close up the windows 'fore the water comes in.”
I answered and obeyed him, and by the time I had finished the task, my trouble of mind was gone. Gallegher was gone; he was miles astern. We all must die, I thought; so what difference did it make to who went first?
On entering the lazaret from the cabin I had seen Gallegher's chest stowed against the after bulkhead, but did not examine it. And I had also seen that some water had come in at one of the midship windows; but I did not notice until I turned to go out that it had apparently run over toward the port wing, which, since the squall, was the weather side. This was strange, I thought; for water as a rule does not run uphill. I followed the damp track with my eye to where it turned round the corner of the cabin trunk into the alley where the cabin stores were kept. On the other side were stowed the ropes, canvas, oakum, spun-yarn and such items of the mate's department. The stores were in my care, and it was my business to investigate; so I crawled toward the alley; but I halted halfway with my hair standing on end and my heart thumping like a hammer. For peering at me from the darkened alley was the cheerful face of Gallegher!
“WHISHT!” he whispered. “Got any backy wid ye?”
This was reassuring; for ghosts do not use tobacco. My hair came down; but it was a moment or so later before my heart-action became normal, so that I could speak. But I tossed him a plug at once.
“Gallegher,” I said, “you're alive, I see; but how'd you get here?”
He pointed over my head.
“The windy,” he answered. “I clumb the rudder-pendant.”
“But how'd you get out of that canvas? I sewed you up tight.”
For answer he drew forth his knife.
“If the thievin', grave-robbin' Scotch sons of undertakers had thought o' me bran'-new sharp knife, they'd ha' taken that too, along wi' me boots and clothes. But I had it under me, on me back, all the time.”
“And you cut your way out under water?” I asked in amazement.
“I did thot. The feel o' the cold water guv me power o' movement, which I hadn't before, though I had me senses. I heard the powwow over me duds, an' I heard you an' the skipper argufyin' about the last stitch, an' I heard the song they sung at me funeral—divil take em all! But I felt nothin' until I hit the water; then—me nose! How it hurt! The first use I made o' the knife was to cut that stitch, an' the first thing I did when I'd clumb in here was to pull out the string.” He showed me two bloody spots, one on each side of his nose.
“But what ailed you, Gallegher?” I asked. “We all thought you dead.”
“Caletypsy.”
“Caletypsy?” I repeated. “You don't mean you were drunk?”
“No, caletypsy. I had it once before, and a doctor man called it caletypsy.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed as a light broke upon me. “You mean catalepsy.”
“No, I don't. I mean caletypsy. I know what I mean.”
“Oh well, all right,” I answered, remembering his weakness. “But what are you going to do—stay here?”
He nodded, and reaching behind him, he brought to view a half-eaten can of salmon.
“Goin' to stay here,” he said, “till I've had me fill.”
It was my duty to overrule and report him; but I could not. I remembered my tears and my grief. He was my shipmate and friend, back from the shadow of death; so I merely cautioned him not to betray me, promised to keep him in water and tobacco, and left him.
I BELIEVED that Gallegher's long-famished stomach would hold him there for a while; but I took no account of his Irish sense of injury.
On account of the exciting events of the day, I felt no inclination to sleep that evening; so I remained awake until midnight, busying myself with small tasks in the steward's storeroom in the cabin. The captain had turned in early, and I could hear his heavy snoring; but as eight bells struck, this snoring gave way to an ear-splitting shriek of terror and pain; and with my hair again on end I rushed aft to his cabin.
I found the skipper sitting up in his berth, his eyes starting out of his head, his mouth wide open, and blood streaming down into it from each side of his nose. A closer look disclosed a sail-needle hanging from four parts of twine which it had dragged through the hole it had made, and on the floor was a brand-new palm, fresh from the mate's stores. I kicked this under the berth as I approached it.
“The ghaist!” he said. “The ghaist, Cook! Did ye no see the ghaist?”
“No, Captain,” I answered, not willing to betray Gallegher. “I saw no ghost. What have you done to yourself in your sleep? Let me pull this out.”
While he howled in pain, I carefully drew the twine from the wound in his nose and then bound up his face with absorbent cotton to stop the bleeding.
“And did ye na see it?” he queried, when he could speak. “It stood above me and grabbed me by the nose to wake me, it did; and then it stickit the needle through my nose and went through that door.” He pointed toward the door leading to the lazaret.
“I'll see,” I answered, and stooping down, I secured the palm; then, for I had no fear of the ghost, I boldly entered the lazaret, and in the dim night-light from the windows discerned Gallegher in his corner attacking a fine sugar-cured ham with his sheath-knife. Beside him was an opened box of soda biscuits, and he had even found a bottle of mustard to season the ham.
“Go slow, Gallegher,” I whispered, tossing him the palm. “What did you stick him with the needle for?”
“To teach him respict for the dead,” he answered with a grin. “He put a needle through me own nose so I couldn't come back. He shud ha' taken three, an' a few through me ears.”
“He thinks it was a ghost.”
“It was. I'm goin' to be a ghost till I'm filled up. Fine ham, this!”
“Well,” I said, “the Lord knows how it'll come out. But keep your garbage together, so I can dispose of it.”
“I'll put it in me chest. Who'd think they'd be so kind as to have me chest aft here waitin' for me so I could get a dry shift?”
“What are you going to do next?”
“Sleep. Now git out o' this!”
I left him, pocketing the key of the small door as I passed through so that it could not be locked. Then I went to the captain, still sitting up and shivering. The second mate was with him—summoned, no doubt, by that ear-splitting shriek.
“No ghost in there, Captain,” I said. “I looked all around.”
“Aye,” he answered mournfully. “Aye, but you're a brave man. I would na go into that lazaret for to own this ship and cargo. But it was Gallegher's ghaist, all reet, and he has it in for me.”
The second mate could not, and I would not, say anything that would explain things and ease his mind. So we left him with his sore nose and his thoughts.
I visited Gallegher two or three times the next day, and each time found him sampling a new article of food. I opened his chest on the last visit. The original contents were covered by a layer of empty cans and jars that had held everything from corned beef to paté de fois gras, and sprinkled around in the pile were even a few empty ale-bottles.
“For heaven's sake, Gallegher,” I said, “when will you be filled up?”
“Soon, please God!” he answered. “I'm gettin' tired o' this chuck, an' I can't smoke. It's too much like jail.”
“Well, come out when you like; but understand—don't get me into trouble.”
“I wont,” he responded thickly, for his mouth was full of cheese, “for ye'd die if trouble hit ye. Ye don't know what trouble is.”
I did not contradict this; for a man so afflicted as was Gallegher could speak with authority. Yet as I turned in that evening, I could not see how, even should I escape trouble, it would not descend upon Gallegher. It is one thing to shove a sail-needle through your captain's nose,—this might be condoned,—but to eat about twenty dollars' worth of a Scotchman's private stock is another matter, and I feared for Gallegher.
He appeared sooner than I expected. It was when the second mate had the wheel at breakfast time next morning, when the captain was eating in the after cabin, the mate in the forward, the five in the forecastle, and I in the galley, that he marched by the door toward the forecastle. I jumped to my feet and followed.
Before I reached the forecastle door, I heard startled exclamations, and one loud yell of fright, and on looking in, I beheld the whole five huddled into the farthest corner of the apartment, their eyes wide open in terror and their breakfast scattered over the floor. Gallegher was calmly filling his pipe from some tobacco in his bunk, and when he had puffed it into life, he said quietly:
“I want me duds.”
They did not answer except for a few wheezy groans.
“D'ye hear what I say to ye?” said Gallegher. “Hand over me clothes that ye divided up when ye thought I was dead. Angus, it's you that have me guernsey. Hand it over!”
He advanced a step or two, and the group seemed to grow smaller.
“Angus, come out o' that!” said the ghost sternly, and Angus wabbled forth.
“Angus, ye've got me guernsey, an' I want it! Where is it?”
“Wha-wha-what d'you want of it? Y-y-you're dead!”
“I'm not dead. I'm alive, an' I want me property. Come now!”
“You're a ghaist,” answered Angus, encouraged by the sound of his own voice. “An' ye hanna no use for clothes!”
“Dom yer soul, where is it? In yer bunk? I'll get it meself.”
Gallegher rummaged Angus' bunk and from under the straw mattress drew forth his guernsey. But he was not to have it so easily. Angus, though his teeth still chattered, and he still believed that he was facing a supernatural being, yet suffered no abeyance of the property-instinct. He grabbed the guernsey, and they wrestled for it; then it was torn from Gallegher's hands and carried back into the group.
“Ye pack o' kleptomaniacs!” yelled the angry Gallegher. “Ye'd steal the Lord's supper an' come back for the tablecloth! Ye've got me boots an' me shirt, me monkey-jacket an' me oilskins. I want 'em. D'ye hear?”
“They're na yours,” said Tammas. “A ghaist has na property. We ga' ye a good sea-burial twa days gone. Gae ye back where we put ye!”
“Jump overboard, is it?”
“Aye, or we'll drop ye over.”
Tammas was no doubt guided in this threat by the ghost's proven inferiority to Angus. But Gallegher slipped his sheath-knife around in full view and said:
“Don't forget what'll happen to ye if ye lay hands on me. Tammas, ye have me oilskins. D'ye mean to keep 'em?”
“I do. Ye forfeited all reet to 'em when the Lord called ye to account.”
“Robert, how about me monkey-jacket? Is it yours or mine?”
“Mine. Why do ye no go back to the place ye went to, where ye wont think of monkey-jackets an' wont need 'em?”
“Sandy, me Havre shirt. How about it?”
“It's mine, an' I'll no gi' it up.”
“Weelum, you inherited me new gum-boots. What do you say?”
“Ye'll no get the boots. Ye're dead, an' ye've no reet to come back here to pester us. Gae ye back to the bottom o' the sea twa hundred miles astern, where we placed ye and where ye belang.”
“An' ye all insist, do ye, that I'm dead?”
“Aye!” they chorused, and I fully believe that they were sincere.
“Well,” said Gallegher calmly, as he flourished his sheath-knife, a little dull now from being used as a can-opener, “this knife's alive, and dead or alive, I'm goin' to take me duds from yer bunks, and the first man that interferes will get it. Stand clear!” This last came out in a yell, and he stepped toward Tammas' bunk.
But he did not reach it. A voice spoke over my shoulder, and the captain, his face still bound up, stood beside me with drawn pistol.
“Gallegher,” he said, “come you oot o' there and gi' an accoont o' yourself!” The pistol was leveled at his head, and behind the captain stood the mate, also holding a drawn revolver. Gallegher obeyed.
“I thought ye a ghaist last night, Gallegher,” said the captain, “because it was dark; but when ye boldly marched by me in broad daylight, and boldly marched forward past the mate at his breakfast, we got together an' investigated. We found the palm, and we found the empty cans in your chest. For why did you do this thing?”
“Do what thing, sir?” answered Gallegher.
“Drive a needle through my nose.”
“To let you know how it felt,” answered Gallegher sullenly. “Ye did it to me.”
“An' were you alive when I did it?”
“I was; but I didn't feel it till I struck the water.”
“An' you were in a trance, I suppose. God forgi' us all! Though we did na sense it, the good Lord God did, an' spared your life rather than punish us. An' you cut your way oot and climbed in the cabin windows, I judge.”
Gallegher nodded.
“Gallegher,” said the captain solemnly, “I'm rejoiced that you are alive, an' that we are free from the crime of drowning you in a canvas bag. An' I forgi' you for your midnight assault upon my nose; for I can see that you were sorely tempted. But why are you threatening my crew with that knife?”
“'Cause they robbed me chest soon as they thought I was dead, sir, an' wouldn't give up.”
“They shall give back to you every article that they have taken; but you must go in irons for broaching stores. You have sinned against me, and I ha' forgiven you; but in sinning against the law, you cannot be forgiven. You will be confined in irons in the lazaret—on the other side, though—until we reach Cape Town; and there you will serve in prison whatever sentence the English Consul imposes. March aft!”
It was as I had feared. He had prodded the captain's nose, and had aroused his sense of justice. But in touching his stores he had touched his pocket; and in touching his pocket he had touched, not his heart, but his heart's blood.
Gallegher was ironed in the lazaret, and I had the pleasure of carrying aft to his chest the stolen clothing. But it was many days before I could convince the five that Gallegher was really alive.
Gallegher had stood by me nobly, and the captain never suspected that I had sanctioned the loot, even though he might have thought me aware of Gallegher's presence in the lazaret. And long and deeply I pondered over his plight, wondering how I could help him to regain his freedom; and at last I hit upon a plan.
I had read somewhere that in any given person a sensitiveness to ridicule is inversely proportional to the sense of humor. Now, I knew that in the captain's whole make-up there was not enough of humor to equip an elderly tomcat; so I began to experiment. Every time I entered his presence, or whenever I knew he was observing me, I pretended to be stifling my laughter. It got on his nerves at last, and he demanded to know what amused me.
Very reluctantly, and with much apology, I told him that I could not help laughing whenever I thought of his appearance when I found him with a sail-needle through his nose. He was furiously angry; but the seed was sown and bore results. In a later conversation I reminded him that Cape Town would be full of ships, and that every captain there would hear the story, unless it was hushed up.
The next day Gallegher, on promise of silence and good behavior, was released.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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