Part 4

"You see," said Corlett, "'ow the 'ole thing stows itself away. It 'ardly needs management. Lant and Gulliver 'ates 'im, and they're that jealous of Shanghai Smith down in 'Frisco with 'is games, they'll jump at this. And then it's well known Mr. Plump ain't got 'is master's ticket. And young Dodman on'y got 'is second's ticket a v'yge ago. There'll be no goin' back on it if the agents find the right man. By the 'Oly Frost, Jack, we'll diskiver yet if old Brogger is 'alf a bally seaman anyway."

"It's a merricle, Corlett, it's a merricle!" said Jack Eales. "I never quite properly understood what books I've looked into meant by the pure hintellec'. You're clean wasted at sea, so you are. To-night we'll think it over, and to-morrow you and me will go as a committee of deputation to Lant and Gulliver if we sees no flaw in the thing."

"Take my word, there ain't no flaw in it," said Corlett.

"I'm inclined to believe you," said Eales, almost humbly. "I never thought to own up that a man on board the _Enchantress_ was my equal, let alone my superior."

He sighed, but Corlett encouraged him.

"'Tis on'y a fluke, Jack."

"No, no," said Jack; "no, no, this is real 'ead-work. I knows it when I sees it. I'm proud to be shipmates with you, Corlett. Shake 'ands again."

They shook hands, and presently Corlett spent the one dollar and fifty cents which he had earned by pure intellect.

"Per'aps I'm a fool to be at sea," he said to himself. "I shouldn't wonder if Jack's right."

And next evening they walked up to Lant and Gulliver's, and demanded to see either or both of the partners in private.

"'Tis puttin' our 'eads in the lion's mouth to come 'ere," said Jack Eales, "and you and me will do well not to touch a drop, whatever these land-sharks offer, Corlett. Doped drinks ain't for me just now. So don't go large at all, my son."

"I won't," said Corlett, "if none of 'em don't offer me a drink three times, I can 'old off it, Jack. Sayin' 'no' once is tol'rable easy. I can squeeze out a second if it's a case of 'ave to; but what I dread's the third."

Jack Eales nodded.

"The third time's what proves a man's principles, I own. I've gone to four times more than once soon after bein' very much under the weather. But 'ere we are."

They came to Lant and Gulliver's boarding-house, the whole front of which was a saloon. It looked a 'tough' house, and it was tough both inside and out. These gentry had a 'pull' in Portland which enabled them to do as they pleased, and the only thing that pleased them was to make money. Most of the other boarding-houses had been fined out of existence, owing to a law that Mr. Lant had lobbied for at Salem. His conduct in the matter had brought him much praise for noble disinterestedness. He had asked for fines of five hundred dollars for gross infractions of the law instead of fifty, and the unsuspecting Legislature said it was a splendid suggestion, and passed the Bill with unanimity. As a result, his rivals, who were comparatively poor scoundrels without his control of the police, shed their dollars once or twice and then went under, and he had a monopoly. Both Lant and Gulliver had what Jack Eales called 'pure hintellec''; they would have adorned the bench in Ohio; they might have shone as Finance Ministers in Costa Rica or Panama.

"Well, wot is it?" asked Lant, who had the eyes and jaws and nose of a pugilist, and the domed skull of a philosopher. "Wot's the trouble here? What ship are you off of?"

"We wants a private talk with you, sir," said Eales, who had never met Lant before, and was more scared of him than he would have been of any admiral. For Lant and Gulliver's reputation is world-wide--all men who go down to the sea in ships know them.

He wrinkled his brows at them and considered for a moment. Then he led the way into the private snuggery, in which as much scoundrelism had been concocted as if it had been the head office of a great Trust or the Russian Foreign Office.

"Spit it out," said Lant as he sat down.

"We're in the _Enchantress_, sir," said Eales.

"And you want to get out, eh? What's my runners about? Haven't they bin aboard of you yet?"

He frowned savagely, and Eales hastened to acquit any of his myrmidons of such gross negligence.

"Oh yes, sir," he said, "they've been down every day, but on'y one man 'as quit. We don't want to leave 'er, but we ain't satisfied with the skipper, sir, and we know, or at least we suspect, that 'e ain't no favourite of yours neither, Mr. Lant, sir."

"Well, and if he ain't?" said Lant.

"'E do abuse you something awful; don't 'e, Corlett?"

"Awful," said Corlett; "it's 'orrid to 'ear 'im."

"And 'e shipped nearly all real teetotallers to do you in the eye, sir," said Eales, "for 'e said, sir, as no sober man would 'ave nothing to do with you."

"Are you a teetotaller?" asked Lant.

"To-day I am," said Eales hurriedly. "I was drunk yesterday, and the day after I can't look at an empty bottle even without cold shivers, sir. And it's the same with my mate; ain't it, Corlett?"

"The sight of a tot would make me sick," said Corlett plaintively.

"Well, well," said Lant, "what's your game? Spit it out, I say. I can't give all my time to hearin' you've not the stomach of a man between you. Now, quick, what is it?"

But Eales stood first on one leg and then on the other.

"You, Corlett!"

"No, not me," said the seaman of pure intellect.

"Well, then, sir, Mr. Lant, does you 'ave any sort of respect for Captain Brogger, or would you like to get even for 'is most unkind language respectin' you?"

Lant looked him up and down, and for a moment was inclined to break out violently. But he hated Brogger, who had injured his prestige once before by taking out of Portland every man he brought into it, and he was curious besides.

"Suppose I'd like to do him up complete-ly," said Lant, staring at Bales hard.

"And make 'im fair redik'lus and the laughin' stock of the 'ole coast?"

"That would suit me," said Lant. "It would fit me like a dandy suit of clothes."

"'E's the nastiest, meanest skipper as ever lay in the Willamette; ain't 'e, Corlett?"

"I never 'eard of a measlier," said Corlett, looking for a cuspidor in order to accentuate his verdict.

"Then 'ere's for tellin' Mr. Lant the 'ole thing," said Eales desperately. And when he was 'through' with his scheme, Lant lay back in his chair and laughed till he cried.

"It's great," he said, "it's great. Holy Mackinaw, it's great! And you say he's no seaman?"

"'E ain't even a thing in place of it, sir," said Eales.

"And you really won't drink?"

Eales looked at Corlett, and Corlett looked at Eales.

"We wouldn't mind takin' a bottle down on board, sir," said Corlett, who once more proved his intellectual capacity.

"And mind you keep your mouths shut," said Lant.

"Wild 'orses shan't drag a word out of us, sir," said Eales, "for when my mate's drunk 'e's sulky, and I'm 'appy but speechless."

And down they went on board the _Enchantress_ with their bottle, while Lant held a council of war with his chief runner.

* * * * * * *

Portland is a hard place; there is no harder place in the world. San Francisco, for all its reputation, which it owes so greatly to the gold times, is a sweet and easy health resort compared with the trading capital of Oregon. Oregonians from all parts of the State say it is a selfish city, with no more sense of State patriotism than an Italian city of the fifteenth century had of national patriotism. But in these days Portland is beginning to get a trifle nervous about its reputation. It is beginning to get written about, and the truth is told occasionally as to what goes on there. This is why a sudden and remarkable disappearance of Captain Brogger, two days before the _Enchantress_ was due to be towed down stream to the ocean, caused rather more sensation than it might have done a few years ago. The newspapers took two sides, and regarded two hypotheses as needing no proof. The papers which were trying to make Portland smell sweetly in the nostrils of the mercantile world said that some of the boarding-house bosses might be able to clear up the mystery. They gave reasons for supposing that Brogger was not loved by the tyrants of the water-front. But other papers declared that he had been knocked on the head and dumped into the river by some of his own crew. One reporter declared that a more evil-looking lot of ruffians than the crowd on board the _Enchantress_ never towed past Kalama. This journal was partially owned by Lant and Gulliver. They owned something of everything, even a judge. And the good police did what they were told, so long as it was possible. They set about a story that Brogger had committed suicide. The crew said he had been looking wild of late. Mr. Plump had no theory, and was only mad that he had no master's certificate. Young Dodman went round whistling, in spite of the fact that he was the last man to have a real shine with the skipper.

"I hope he won't come back, that's all," said Dodman. "If he does I'm for the shore, boys; I'm for the shore. I've not known what it was to be happy for months till now."

But Plump grew haggard running to the police and the agents. The _Enchantress_ was full up to the deck-beams with the best Oregon wheat, and was ready to go to sea. Every hour's delay meant a notch against him with the owners. And yet, as the owners were the missing skipper's brothers, he did not like to hurry. But the agents, who cared about no man's brother, put their foot down.

"We've found you a captain, Mr. Plump."

"What sort?" asked Plump anxiously.

"He's a good man and well recommended, and a thorough seaman."

"That'll be a change," said Plump. "Poor old Brogger was fit to skipper a canal-barge. All right, if you say so. We're ready if your new man is. All we want is another hand, and he's coming on board to-night if we sail to-morrow. We've had luck that way, whatever else has gone wrong. If Brogger had lived I believe he'd have lost the whole crowd the way he was shaping. He grew meaner every day."

And that night the new skipper came on board. He shook hands with his officers, and in half an hour Plump had almost forgotten his want of a master's ticket, and Dodman was swearing by the new man; for Captain John Greig was a man, and no mistake! He was quick and hard and bright and humorous, and there was that about him which was better than any extra certificate--he looked a seaman, and was one. And he was as happy as he could be to get a good ship. The vessel in which he had been mate had gone home without him, owing to his getting smallpox.

"I think we shall do," said Greig. "I wonder what became of that old duffer Brogger? Well, it's an ill wind that don't serve some skipper. I'm a skipper at last, and with any luck I'll stay so."

Early next morning, just as the _Enchantress_ was making ready to tow down the river, and when the whole world was still dark save where the dawn on the great peak of Mount Hood showed a strange high gleam to the eastward, Lant and Gulliver's chief runner came on board and saw the mate.

"The man we agreed to put on board is sick," said the runner, "and as all our crowd here is fixed up for, we've wired down to Astoria to our other house to send you a good man in his place."

"Right," said Plump, who was standing on the fo'c'sle head--"right you are. Ay, ay, sir, let go that head-line! Jump and haul--haul it in, men!"

The men were cheerful; there was something in the voice of a real man now on the poop that bucked them up. And they knew as well as Plump himself that he was happy to have got rid of Brogger. The _Enchantress_ looked as if she was to be a happy ship on the passage home.

"You seem a derned happy family," said the runner to Jack Eales as he skipped ashore.

"So we are," said Jack. "But tell us what's the name of the chap that'll come aboard at Astoria."

"His name," said the runner--"his name--oh, it's Bill Juggins!"

For he knew that Jack Eales knew more than he 'let on.'

"The new man's name is Bill Juggins," he told Corlett five minutes later, as they began to move swiftly down the smooth dark waters of the Willamette while the early lights of the town still gleamed and the snowy peak of Mount Hood was edged with roses in a rosy dawn.

"'Is name is Juggins!"

He slapped his thigh and laughed. They lay that night off Astoria, and before the tow-line was again made fast to pull her out over the great Columbia bar the new hand was put aboard in the usual condition of alcoholic coma with not a little laudanum mixed with it. He was stowed in a bunk in the fo'c'sle, where he lay just as they threw him. But Jack and Corlett were as nervous now as two greenhorns on a royal yard.

"I'm all of a bally twitter, I am," said Jack Eales. "D'ye know, Corlett, I ain't sure we ain't done after all. I don't believe I ever see this joker before. Brogger 'ad a beard."

"And Lant and Gulliver 'ad a razor," said Corlett.

"Brogger was pippy and pasty and white as--oh--as white," urged Eales, "and this josser is as black as a mulatter."

"Walnuts grow in Oregon," said the wise Corlett. "D'ye think we might let the crowd into the racket?"

"No, no, man," said Jack, "don't let nobody know as we 'ad 'alf an 'and in it. The cove's name may be Juggins, but we'll be jugged."

They were well out to sea, and the tug was a blotch of smoke to windward, before Bill Juggins, A.B., showed the faintest sign of life. And even then they only heard him grunt as he turned over uneasily and went off on another cruise in the deep seas of sleep.

"If he works like he sleeps," said the crowd in the second dog-watch, "he'll be a harder grafter than Smith that skipped. It's a wonder the second ain't been in after him."

But the new skipper and Plump and Dodman hit it off so completely that they sat together on the poop and told each other all about everything in the happiest way. For Greig, though he was a hard enough man in his way, had the gift of creating good humour along with respect.

"It's a wonder what became of my lamented predecessor," said Greig.

"He's certainly dead, sir," said Plump.

"As dead as mutton," agreed Dodman.

"It would be a compliment to put the ship in mourning, as he owned a share in her," said Greig; "and I think I shall do it."

"There's enough blue paint on board, sir," said the second, "to put a fleet into mourning. I don't know how it came here, for Captain Brogger didn't care to be extra lavish with stores."

It was Dodman's way of saying the deceased skipper was as mean as his brothers.

"Very well," said Greig; "you can do it as soon as you like, Mr. Plump. These are customs which I hate to see die out. And now I think I'll turn in."

As he went he added--

"I believe we shall get on very well together, gentlemen."

Plump and Dodman said they were sure of it, and when he had gone below they said--

"He's all right."

At midnight Plump went below too, and Dodman walked the weather side of the poop in a happier frame of mind than he had known since he came on board the vessel in Liverpool. The wind was fine and steady out of the east, and the _Enchantress_ slipped through the water very sweetly.

"Damme," said poor Dodman, "I believe I could sing."

He walked aft, looked at the compass, stared over the taffrail at the wake, looked aloft to see if the gaff topsail, which was an ill-cut and ill-conditioned sail, was in decent shape, and then whistled. Being right aft he did not see a short, dark man come from the fo'c'sle and stagger along the main-deck. But Bales and Corlett saw him and left the rest of the starboard watch, who were yarning quietly on the spare topmast lashed under the rail.

"'E's come to," said Eales. "Holy sailor, this is a game!"

Bill Juggins, A.B., laid hold of a belaying pin in the fife rail of the main-mast, and swayed to and fro like a wet swab in a cross sea.

"Where am I?" said Bill Juggins. "This is a nightmare. I want to wake."

He held tight and pondered. But his brain reeled.

"I have no beard," said the new seaman; "I'm clean shaved. My hair's that short I can't catch hold of it. These ain't my clothes. I can't stand straight. But if this ain't my ship I'm mad."

"D'ye 'ear the pore devil?" asked Jack.

"I 'ears," said Corlett. "If 'e 'adn't told me I was a soldier I should say it was pafettick to 'ear 'im."

"This is a barque," said poor Juggins, "and so's the _Enchantress_. But she's at sea, and yesterday she was in Portland not ready to go for three days. This is a dream, it's an awful, awful dream. I'll wake up, I will, I will!"

He hung on the pin desperately, and as he stood there Dodman walked for'ard to the break of the poop. He whistled lightly.

"Dodman used to whistle," said the man in a nightmare. "I used to tell him I wouldn't have it. I said it was a street-boy's habit. I shall wake presently, oh yes."

"Who's that jabbering on the main-deck?" asked Dodman.

"It's me," said the jabberer weakly, as a cloud of laudanum floated over his brain. "It's me, and I don't know who I am."

But Dodman jumped as if he had been shot. This was a voice from the grave; there seemed no mistaking Brogger's wretched pipe. But before the second mate could speak Jack Eales intervened.

"'Tis the new 'and wot come aboard at Astoria, sir. 'Is name is Bill Juggins."

The man from Astoria wavered doubtfully and looked up at the poop.

"I know that voice," he murmured. "That's Dodman."

"The pore chap's very drunk yet, sir," said Eales.

"Take him away for'ard," said Dodman, with a gasp.

"My name--my name's Brogger!" piped the man from Astoria.

"It's Juggins--Bill Juggins!" said Eales firmly, as he took him by the arm. "Brogger's dead, Juggins. 'E's dead and buried. Lant's liquor 'as been too much for you."

And Juggins burst into tears.

"I _thought_ I was Brogger," he said feebly. "But poor Brogger had a beard."

"So 'e 'ad," said Eales; "and 'e was as white as veal, and you're a fine, 'ealthy, dark colour. Come back and doss it out, my son. The pafettick story of the pore chap's death 'as been too much for you."

He and Corlett led the man for'ard and put him in his bunk, where he wept copiously.

"What are you so sad about?" asked Corlett. "You're no better than a soldier!"

The whole watch crowded in after them.

"What's wrong?" they asked.

"The chap that's tanked up says 'e's Brogger," said Eales.

The whole watch laughed so that the port watch woke up and cursed them with unanimous blasphemy.

"But this josser says 'e's Brogger!" urged the starboard watch in extenuation of their gross infraction of fo'c'sle law.

"Then 'e's no seaman," said the sulky port watch, "for Brogger 'ardly knew 'B' from a bull's foot as a sailorman. Dry up, and let us go to sleep!"

But Brogger kept on saying he was Brogger, till Pizzey, the biggest seaman in the port watch, threatened to bash him if he wasn't quiet.

"But--but I know you all," said Brogger. "If I wasn't me, how should I?"

"More knows Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows," said Pizzey. And he used such horrible threats that the skipper was quailed and became quiet, and at last fell asleep.

And in the meantime Dodman went down below and woke up Plump, who was in his first sleep.

"What's wrong?" asked Plump, as soon as he found that he was being waked three hours before his time. "You're as white as putty, Dodman."

Dodman shook his head and could hardly speak. When he did speak, Plump fell back upon his pillow and gasped.

"Brogger ain't dead," said Dodman. "Mr. Plump, Brogger's on board."

"You're mad!" cried Plump.

"I wish I was," said Dodman. "This is a Portland plant--this is a coast game. They shaved him and browned him and drugged him, and he came aboard at Astoria as a foremast hand!"

There was a deep silence for at least five minutes, and then Plump said, almost with a wail--

"This is most disappointing!"

There was a strange look in Dodman's face; it was so strange that Plump sat up and looked at him.

"Between you and me, sir," said Dodman, "he used to make both of us uncomfortable."

"He did," said Plump.

"And he was no seaman."

"He wasn't fit to sail a paper-boat in a bath," said Plump.

"Then he's dead," said Dodman with a strange wink. And Plump's face lighted up slowly.

"He's still dead," said Plump. "And if the owners don't like it they can lump it. And, what's more, I don't believe our new skipper would stand aside now for any man that ever breathed."

"If he does he's not the man I take him for," said the second mate. "I shall get up that blue paint in the forenoon watch, sir."

"Get it up," said Plump. And in ten minutes he fell fast asleep again. For it takes more than a little to rob a seaman of his slumber. But at four bells in the morning watch he had to communicate the news to the new skipper, who was an early bird. He broke the news warily, for he dreaded lest the 'old man' should do something in a hurry which he and others might repent of afterwards.

"It would be a mighty strange thing, sir, if Captain Brogger wasn't dead after all," he remarked just a trifle nervously after Greig had walked the deck once or twice.

"He might rise up now and find his ship missing," said Greig with a chuckle. "After all, that's only what I did, Mr. Plump. I was crazy, luny, dotty, and raving with fever before I was taken out of the _Winchelsea_, and when I came to she was days at sea."

He marched up and down again.

"And a dashed good man got my billet," he said, "and now I don't envy it him. It was a bit of luck my getting this, Mr. Plump, though in a way I own I'm sorry that you couldn't have it. I know that's tough."

Plump sighed.

"I'd ha' had my ticket, sir, but for a fluke that a youngster going up for second mate might have been ashamed of. A plus for a minus, and I was minus. You wouldn't like to step down for Captain Brogger now, sir?"

"Minus Brogger is plus me," said Greig. "I'd not step down to loo'ard for all the Brogger family up from the tomb."

"No more would I, sir," said Plump. "But----"

"But what?" asked the 'old man.'

And Plump gasped a bit.

"Last night, sir----"

Greig stared at him curiously.

"Don't hang in the wind like that!" he said sharply. "What is it?"

Plump burst out with what it was, and told Greig in a fine flow of words what the second mate had said.

"By crimes!" said Greig. "By all that's holy!"

He walked the deck for a minute, and then came back and stood close to his mate.

"Have you seen this man?"

"No, sir."

"Did Mr. Dodman believe him?"

"Dodman isn't a fool, sir. No doubt it seemed to him that the man had heard the tale of the captain's disappearance, and, having been on the drink, he took it into his head that he is Brogger."

Greig turned his back to the mate and stared to windward.

"It's delirium tremens, of course," he said. "That's plain. I'll see him after breakfast, unless he's sober and comes to his senses."

He went below.

"Crawl down now, and for a ghost!" said Greig. "If I do I'll be damned!"

And just then Brogger was sitting up in his bunk, chewing his fingers and trying to reconstruct the lost days. He had elusive visions of strange interviews, he tasted strange drinks, his head ached with horrid drugs, he recalled strange snatches of talk by strangers. And out of the phantasmagoria of his jumbled vision there came sometimes the powerful and brutal face of Lant, of the firm of Lant and Gulliver.

"Someone hit me!" he said aloud. And Jack Eales, who was wide awake, heard him.

"Where am I? I'm in a dirty fo'c'sle!"

He seemed to remember vaguely that he had been out on deck in the night. He looked up and saw Eales' face dimly.

"What ship's this?" he asked.

"It ain't a ship," said Eales; "this is hell!"

Brogger shook his head dismally.

"It ain't--you're jokin' with me! What am I doin' here? Is this my ship?"