Part 20

Captain James retired to his room while the _Enos_ rolled slowly down the Caribbean, dipping her gray sides alternately into the smooth sea which rolled lazily. The gathering darkness still showed the forms of many big coloured men lying upon the now silent deck, but when eight bells struck off they were told to go below, and after that the deck was deserted save by the men of the watch.

Below in the 'tween-decks, where the banana racks had been removed, the islanders were grouped in hot and uncomfortable groups. The blowers made ventilation sufficient, but the air was warm and the odour from three hundred hot bodies made it far from pleasant. The bo'sn who had herded the crowd below stood near the hatchway in conversation with a huge islander.

"Yes, I know it's yo' orders, but I don't see why the captain makes us stay below. I am a sailor man, sare, and I will not be in the way if yo' let me go on deck for the night," said the negro.

"I ain't got nothin' to do with it," answered the bo'sn, "my orders is you stay here below--an' here you stays."

"But if I give you my word as a sailor man to help on deck, don' yo' think yo' can allow me?" persisted the giant good-naturedly. "Look at me, sare, I very warm." And he showed his bare chest running water.

"Aw, you niggers ain't satisfied wid anything," said the bo'sn impatiently. "You'll get to a hotter place 'n this before you leave Panama. Get your crowd to sleep, fer I'm goin' to fasten the hatch--there's water a-plenty in them barrels, you kin drink all you want, an' if you get short holler for the second to start the donkey an' pump some more in."

"Very well, I reckon I must do as yo' say," and the giant negro settled himself among his followers, who gradually made the best of circumstances and went to sleep.

Midnight found the _Enos_ ploughing along over the smooth swell, a bright moon shining upon the sea and making it almost as light as day. McDuff on the bridge walked to and fro trying to keep awake, while the hiss and tinkle of the side-wash was the only sound that broke the stillness. The slight vibrations from the worn-out engines barely reached the forward part of the ship, and only the low noise of the foam told of the ship's headway. She might almost have been at anchor, rolling slowly from side to side as she took the long easy swell upon her beam. The chief mate was warm and dry. He had been without liquid refreshment for nearly four hours, and he saw a long vista ahead of him into which the nose of the old ship pointed. He speculated a few moments. He might go below for a drink, for there was nothing in sight, and although it was against even the orders of James to drink while on duty, there was no reason to suppose any one would be the wiser should he do so. He went down the steps from the bridge and entered his room, pouring forth from a bottle a good, nifty drink, and fizzing it well up with the sparkling cola--ah, was there ever such refreshment anywhere else in the world--what was that? Hark,--a jolt ran through the ship, a slight jar, causing her to tremble. It seemed to McDuff as if the engines stopped for a few moments--but no, they were going again, for he could feel the vibration. He hurried on deck.

When he reached the bridge he looked about the horizon, and for a few minutes saw nothing save the dim line where the night met the sea. Then he gradually took in an outline close aboard to port. It was white, and while he gazed he heard the low snore of the surf of the Roncador. Almost instantly the chief engineer called up from below through the tube.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Seemed to hit something an' knock the engine out a bit, but she's goin' all right now--if there's anything wrong let's have it."

"Nothin' the matter I know of--port, hard a port," he whispered to the man at the wheel--"nothing wrong here," he went on to the chief, speaking through the tube. "If the engine is all right let her go, ram the coal into her and wake her up." Then to the man at the wheel--"Steady, steady as she goes--how does she head now?"

"Sout' b' west, half west, sur," said the sleepy helmsman.

Five minutes later the chief called up the tube.

"Water comin' in by the jump--must have hit something--started both pumps, but she'll be over the fire-room floor in ten minutes--for God's sake tell me what has happened."

McDuff stood petrified, irresolute. Then he drew a deep breath and looked out over the sea and the ship. All was quiet, there was no sign of panic or trouble below. Gazing aft he saw the two small boats in their chocks with their canvas covers, and while he looked he knew it would be but a few moments before the struggle to take possession of them would begin. Three hundred and thirty men, or all hands, including the extra messmen, would have to take to the boats, which would hold at the most but forty of them. Nearly three hundred were doomed. Before dawn they would be in the sea unless he ran the _Enos_ upon the bank. But he could not do this without calling the captain. It was his ship, or rather his command, and he knew his duty. He went quickly to the master's room.

"What, hit the Roncador? How the--" but James was enough of a seaman to spring on deck without wasting words. He was a bit groggy, but the sight of the quiet ship steadied him. There was nothing to fear just yet. He rang off the engines and the dull boom of the gong sounded strangely loud through the quiet night, reverberating through the hull and making those awake curious.

"For God's sake don't waste any time. Call the chief and second from below--let 'em keep the pumps going, but we must get those small boats over and away before the niggers get wind of what is happening. Lord, if they knew we'd be goners--quick, get the watch quietly and lower away."

"But ain't we going to run her ashore, sir?" asked McDuff.

"Lord, yes, we'll start her fair for the surf, but we must get away if we want to live. She won't hold together half an hour, an' we'll be a good mile from solid land--man, man, hurry for your life--those niggers will take charge of everything--hurry--"

McDuff needed little urging. He called the watch quietly while the captain spoke down the tube to the chief, telling him to get his crowd up as quickly as he could. In less than two minutes men were working like mad in the moonlight. Straps were cut and lashings cut, while the low fierce oaths and half-whispered threats of the frantic men told of their furious haste. The selfish brute was in supreme control, and it showed in each strained face and trembling hand. The fire-crew came tumbling from below, cursing each other as they came out of the hatches, some vowing to take the lives of those who obstructed their path, all panting, gasping, rushing about with the wild panic of men who are suddenly forced to face their end. James swore fiercely at them and struck right and left with a belaying-pin, threatening, begging them not to alarm the cargo. It was their only chance.

The boats dropped noiselessly over the side, the men sliding down the tackles, clambering down along the lines, all getting into them as quickly as possible. The half-naked fire-crew with their bare bodies shoved and pushed for places, and if there had been even a little sea on they would have swamped the small craft.

James had run to the bridge intending to point the vessel for the edge of the reef. He ran the wheel over, but at that moment the second engineer, who had been told to start the ship ahead, not understanding, or caring for the cargo, shut off steam and climbed over the side into the boat below him. There was nothing for the captain to do but go or be left behind, and he hesitated not an instant, but followed the second over the side just as the men were pushing off. They rowed rapidly away from the horrible vicinity, heading due west. Few cared even to look back at what they felt must become a scene of slaughter, and only now and then did some conscience-smitten seaman fix his eyes upon the hull which now rolled silently upon the sea.

By daylight the boat in charge of McDuff sighted the liner bound for Colon, and in a few moments their hail was answered. Signals were made and within an hour the entire outfit was aboard the big ship and heading for their port of destination.

It was a terrible tale the men told, a tale of a foundering ship which had sprung a leak--how the crowd of negroes had fought for the boats and how the crew, after desperate efforts, had driven them back. There were many little deficiencies in the tales which their kind-hearted rescuers essayed to fill, allowing that the stress and excitement had made the imaginations of many quite acute. James landed the second day afterwards and reported his vessel lost in mid-ocean, having suddenly sprung a leak which all efforts failed to stop. She was somewhere in the vicinity of the Roncador Bank.

Two days later, while he was standing upon the clock at Colon waiting for passage on the steamer to Kingston, he noticed a strange-looking ship coming into the harbour. She was lying on one side until her deck was awash and she was slowly steaming at the rate of about four knots an hour. Deep she was in the water, so deep that her plimsoll mark was several feet under, but she was working slowly in. Upon her decks were a crowd of negroes. As the ship drew near he noticed a huge black fellow upon the bridge who walked athwart-ships with a determined stride. The ship was the _Enos_, there was no mistake about it, his ship afloat and coming to dock, and the man who walked the bridge and commanded her was the giant islander, the foreman of the working gang.

"Yes, Ah'm a sailor man," said the good-natured giant an hour later, after the tugs had gotten to work pumping the flooded bilge. "Ah'm a sailor man, an' I brought the Captain James his vessel. I sho'd like to know if he is still alive, fo' I've reason to think he must hab been lost in de small boats--has yo' heard anything about him? Yo' kin tell him Bahama Bill would like to see him!"

"Yes, he's here all right," announced the inspector.

"Well, I'd like to have a minute's talk with him, just a moment's little talk," said the man gently in his musical voice.

"I'll send for him at once," said the official, "but how did you save the ship? He said she foundered."

"Ah, yes, it was a small matter, a matter of a mattress and some lines--we drew it over the side and under the bilge whar she hit the edge of de Roncador--oh, yes, it soon stopped and wid the pumps we kep' her goin', hundreds of us, sare, passin' the water over the side in barrels and buckets,--yo' think I kin see de captain soon,--Ah'm very anxious toe speak with him; I sho' is--yo' reckon I kin?"

Before the ship was properly docked the steamer for Kingston had pulled out, and upon her decks a crowd of men gazed at the strange vessel which had just come in. Captain James and McDuff stood side by side at the rail, and as the ship passed they noticed the giant black man coming forth from the pilot-house of the _Enos_. He gazed at them long and intently.

"Come, it's all over with us," said McDuff sullenly, "let's go get a drink."

The islander stood long in the sunshine, shading his eyes with his hand, until the steamer was a mere speck out at sea.

"I sho'd like to hab spoken to Captain James," he said to an agent who had come to see him about the men to work on the Canal. "Yes, I sho' feel that he missed somethin'--My name is Bahama Bill."

"Well, well, never mind him now. Let's get down to business. Let's see what we can do with this gang. He'll be back after he has seen his owners and straightened out this affair. He says you acted pretty rough about trying to take his boats and he had to drive you off. He'll be back all right an' you can talk with him--"

"No, he will never come back. No sah. I shall miss dat little talk with him, but--well, as you say, I'll check off the cargo of men, they're all good fellows every one. Come--"

"They're a good gang," said the agent to the engineer of the local work that afternoon; "they're as good a set of men as we'll get. Lazy? Of course they're lazy, did you ever see a black man who wasn't lazy? Fight? No, they're not much on a fight, but I believe there is one fellow, the foreman, a Fortune Islander, who is set upon killing--he has a way of asking after a fellow, the captain of the ship that brought 'em here, that makes me a bit nervous, he's so blamed gentle and insistent about seein' him--but he never will, so what's the difference. I'll turn 'em to in the morning."

XV

The Wrecker

On the edge of the Great Bahama, near the turn of the Caicos bank, the hull of the _Stella Polare_ lay high on the coral reef. She was a passenger steamer, and had made the run many times between Havana and the Mediterranean ports. She had run with an easy company, and many passengers had changed their countries in her; for she had been a crack packet in her day; and her day had passed, joining the vast host in limitless time.

From a distance the black hull loomed large and sinister, a long iron mass standing out clearly in the surrounding whiteness of coral and foam. Closer observation showed the rusty plates, the paintless cabin houses, and the weather-worn woodwork that still remained. Her two rakish funnels stood slantwise, holding their places by the aid of rusty guys, the chains and all valuable metal work having long ago been stripped from her. And so she lay as the _Buccaneer_, a wrecking schooner from Nassau, came slowly across the bank.

The rays of the setting sun shone strongly upon the iron hull, and the crew of the schooner gazed at her from various positions of ease and lassitude; for the day had been hot and sultry and the air filled with a brassy coloured humidity that was as thick as a heavy haze on the horizon. The master of the wrecker was an American named Sanders, formerly master of the _Sea-Horse_, and his mate was William Haskins, known as "Bahama Bill." He was a good-looking fellow, bronzed and fine featured, and his black hair was streaked with gray. Heavy lines in his face suggested suffering rather than exposure, although his vocation was rigorous enough.

The master had gazed for fully a quarter of an hour at the wreck as the vessel fanned along before the light breeze, when his mate addressed him.

"Shall we get the gear ready, cap? I got a box ob Atlas powder and twenty fathom of fuse with exploders. Dat's enough, hey?"

"Yes, get what you need in the small boat," said the master absently. "You can haul down the jib and let go when you're ready. Give her not more than four fathoms; for we won't stay here long--looks like it's coming on bad, and the glass is falling. The bank isn't safe this time of year. We ought to get into some pocket and tie up." The master spoke absently, still gazing at the wreck, and the mate noted it.

"She shuah don' look much like what she do when yo' had her, Cap," said Bahama Bill.

"What, the _Stella Polare_?"

"Yes, sare, an' it warn't so long ago neither. A few years on de reef make a lot o' difference in her. Seems like yesterday you run her into Havana fer de last voyage in de old charter. It shuah do, Cap."

"When you're ready with the small boat I'll go with you," said the Captain, still gazing at the black hull.

Anchoring with the fore and mainsails still up, the small boat went slowly into the bay. There was little or no surf on the lee of the bank, and the party landed without difficulty. Then they began carrying their outfit to the wreck. They would break her up, stripping the plates from her sides for old iron and tearing apart the most valuable portion of her engines to sell at Key West. It was a job that the men who had been there before them had declined as unprofitable, for it required considerable work to strip the plates, and the engines were well rusted in the half-submerged hull. At high water there was little of value uncovered in her hold; but the wrecking crew had not been successful that season, and it was a case of getting what they could. Wrecks had been few, and the sponging industry, which all wreckers of the bank usually follow during the summer and hurricane season, had paid small returns. Dynamite was expensive to use; but it was just as well to explode a part of it as to have it spoil on their hands. They could still keep enough for a few loads of fish, for the law of the reef and bank was never enforced in regard to high explosives, and they were far away from any prying eyes.

The crew carried sledges and hydraulic jacks, with a spare tackle or two, and the mate carried the explosive. They reached the high side where the dry sand had banked against it, and one by one mounted to the deck, the Captain going aft, still gazing at the old hulk in an absent manner. She was a long ship, and he walked the entire length of her deck until he reached the taffrail. Then he turned and looked at the cabin house. His mind was far away from the work he intended. He saw that deck as it had been in the days gone by, the days of his youth, and as he looked a strange feeling of loneliness came upon him.

The deck was there before him, and upon it he saw the faces of the people who had walked or sat upon it. Even a blistered bit of paint on the deck-house recalled a certain day in the time gone when he sat there with the one woman he had lived for, the wife of his youth. A soft voice called to him and spoke the words he remembered so well. He almost started, and a choking feeling came in his throat. Yes, he had sat near that particular spot many times and listened to that voice; now still, but which seemed to call again. There were the stitches in the canvas deck covering she used to rub with her foot while talking, sitting there as they used to do in the old days when the company allowed him to take his wife with him on the run across. The deck seemed to slant away and roll from side to side, and he balanced himself to meet the roll of the ship. The stillness about him was unbroken save by the distant murmur of the sea and the low voices of the men waiting forward for the work to begin; but he heard nothing save the voice of the past.

He went into the deck-house. There was the old settee, now without the red upholstered cushions. He remembered how many times he had sat there in the evenings after the voyage was run, and how for years they had chatted under the light of the saloon lamp when the passengers had all gone ashore and the ship was deserted by all save the crew. About him were the signs of wreck and ruin, and he stood for some minutes gazing about the cabin. A woman's shoe lay mouldy and green upon the floor near a stateroom door, and it brought a dull pain in his heart as he noted it. The owner was dead, long dead, probably lost in the hurricane when the vessel went into her last resting-place. Far away in Nassau was a mound, grass grown and storm swept, the resting-place of the one who had made life worth living for him. Soon the sand would bank up and cover the old hull, and the long beach grass would grow over it, blotting out all.

He looked into a deserted room. The door was broken and hung slantwise upon its one rusty hinge. Then he stepped softly back into the middle of the saloon and listened. A thousand little things brought back memories, and he raised his head. "Oh, God! the loneliness of it all!" he cried.

In the stillness he thought he heard the laughter of a woman's voice. No, it was the sobbing, and he started. A land crab scuttled across the floor of the cabin, making a disagreeable rattling as it went. In the ghastly stillness of the lost ship a thousand sounds seemed to fall upon his listening ears. He saw the table set and the people sitting about it, the stewards getting the dinner, and the old questions asked him of the day's run; but foremost and always was the form of one woman whose bright smile welcomed him from the table end. He stole forward and went into his room, the Captain's room of the liner. The wreck and confusion here were even greater than aft; but he saw nothing now save the time when they used to sit there, she sewing upon some piece of woman's work and he poring over the chart which held his course.

His heart seemed bursting. The ghastly wreck was awful,--it was the wreck of his hopes,--and he bowed his head and covered his face with his hands as he sat upon the edge of the bunk. The light was fading; but he failed to note it. Fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes he sat there, and the mate, who had returned with the rest of the gear left in the boat, was searching for him. The sun sank below the sea before that officer broke into the room and saw him sitting there.

"It's dun gitting too late toe do enny mo' this evenin', Cap," said he with a tone of complaint.

"All right. Go aboard, I'll stay here awhile," said Sanders.

There was something in the seaman's face that caused the big mate to forget his temper at the delay.

"De men want dere grub, sare," he said quietly, "but I reckon I ken wait. Shall I send de boat in fo' yo', sare?"

"Good Lord! let me alone!" he cried. "Go! Leave a boat for me. I'll row out aboard myself when I'm ready."

The mate went forward, and the men followed him in the small boat. They went aboard the schooner for the evening meal, and afterward turned in for the night. A small boat was towed in by a man in the craft they had used, and it was left upon the sand.

Comment was made forward at the Captain's absence. No one understood. Even the mate, who had an idea, did not think it of enough real importance to dwell upon it; and so the tropic night fell over the reef, the haze deepened, and the darkness grew intense.

In the dull, heated quiet of the early night the Captain sat upon the ship's rail. He could not stand the oppressive stillness of the blackness in the cabin. The outline of the surf upon the sea side of the wreck shone in a line of phosphorus, but the dull glare failed to outline the vast bulk of the hull. The wind had all died away and the warmth of the air was felt, being heavy with a moisture and sultriness that bespoke of a falling glass. But he sat and wandered through the memories of a past life which was all the more bitter because of the happiness that would never return.

"She will never come back--never!" he whispered into the void about him. "I'm so tired--tired of it all!" and he groaned aloud in his anguish. He would not break up the ship. In the morning he would find some excuse to tell the mate and crew. He could not tell them the real one. They would not understand. How could they--poor devils? What had they known of life, life as he had known it? No, he would weigh his anchor and sail away over the tropic seas to live out his existence as Fate had demanded of him. He might kill himself; but there were others dependent upon him for a living, and he would not do a cowardly thing, would not cause them suffering to alleviate his own. He must live on--just on and on to help the few who trusted in his strength to provide for them. It was no pleasure save to ease their burden. It would be to-morrow--and to-morrow--and to-morrow--a broken life of unending work and hardship.

"God grant I'll not have to make it too long! Let me go to a long--a long, an unending rest! I want to sleep, to sleep for ever; for I'm tired out!"

His voice was deep and vibrant; but it fell upon the empty air, and he more than ever noted the silence. He gazed to the southward. There was nothing upon the dark sea. To the eastward it seemed a little blacker; but over the desolate ocean there came no sound of even a breaking wave top. For several hours he sat there gazing out into the blackness, and then sometimes watching the riding light of his vessel as it flickered upon the oily sea. All was quiet upon the schooner. The tired men were sleeping, for they expected heavy work on the morrow.