did. Yes, sir, he just picked up the leader and carried her off in his

arms while she screamed and clawed him, calling to the men to save her from the brutal assault.

"Oh, yes, he got a nice name for that. The passengers told how he acted, told how he brutally made his men remove innocent and unoffending females--oh, what's the use? He was a brute and they made it out plain--it was all published in the papers.

"It was along about five o'clock and the sun must have been well along to the nor'west horizon, tho' of course he couldn't see it in the fog--that a horn blared out faintly right ahead. The man on lookout heard it--for it was now quiet on deck--and the siren roared out its reply. Then he got a faint blow right off his starboard bow, a blow as if from a small fishing schooner. He kept along blowing regular blasts, kept along very slow.

"Right out of the setting sun a bit of wind seemed to make. It lifted the bank enough to show him a four-masted ship standing right into him not two hundred feet from his bow. She was heeling with the growing breeze and going about six knots or better with just a white bone across her forefoot. Cone rang off his engines.

"It is in these moments, you know, that things happen. Had Cone rang ahead full speed like Chambers did in the old _Lawrence_, rang and shoved into her full swing, he would have either gone clear or cut out enough to give her his stern on the turn and probably not sink either ship. He kept to the rules by British force of habit of abiding by them--and, well, the _Potomack_, under three skysails and shoving along with four thousand tons of cargo in her, hit him fair upon the side while he was swinging to port. The ship's jibboom reached over and drove a hole through the deckhouse first, poked right through and ripped off his blowoff pipe, letting the steam come roaring out of her, and then the heavy forefoot sunk like a wedge fair in her, right in the wake of her engines. It was the worst possible place to get it--you know that--right in the wake of the engines and close enough to the engine-room bulkhead to smash it so it was useless. Then it cut, shore down under the water line, and there he was with a hole in him big enough to drive in a trolley car, a hole and nothing but the forward bulkheads to hold him up--no, he was badly hit, hit right in the vitals, and the roar of the steam told him plainly that the ship was going to be put to it to float.

"Then came the usual panic.

"Cone tried to stop it, tried to stem the tide of passengers. His officers were good, but Redding was hit on the head by a block from the maingaff vang and while Cone was trusting to him to take charge aft, he set to work forward to get the boats out in ship-shape and seamanlike order. His second was a new man--Billings--a blue-nose he knew nothing about, but a good enough fellow to take charge. He and the third officer stood the crowd back for a time and got the port boats over.

"You see, it was smooth and there wouldn't have been much trouble, but the passengers had a grouch against Cone, hated him. The women thought him a brute and the men had heard so much from them about his private life, his affairs, his general rascality, they wouldn't stand it any longer. They rushed it and two were shot, one fell overboard and another was badly hurt. These were the only casualties--strange, wasn't it? Only passengers hurt were those who were trying to save themselves from the brutal and overbearing Cone.

"The _Champion_ settled quickly by the head, her nose getting well down. This had the evil tendency of lifting her stern so high that the boats couldn't be handled easily. It stopped the flow of the sea to a certain extent, but it was too late to do anything to help that now. The fireroom force came up, they were literally drowned out, forced to quit, and the engineers came forward and told of the useless steam--not enough to run the pumps. Then Cone knew it was get away while he could.

"Cone stood on the port side of the flying bridge, stood there and roared out his orders, wondering why Redding didn't respond to the work cut out aft. He saw no boats going over where Redding should be tending to them, and when the crowd finally surged forward he had to let them come, had to let them get into the boats there. Oh, yes, he was charged with not holding them back, not being able to command his ship, but man, he had to let them come forward, it was only the fighting ones who insisted in getting first places and taking charge that got hurt.

"The _Potomack_ lay to and sent in her boats, sent in four big whaleboats and one dinghy. The water wasn't rough--any good boat would live a long time--and Cone let them take off his passengers as fast as they could. He was well scored for it afterward; they told how he couldn't do it himself, and if it hadn't been for the _Potomack_ he would have lost all his passengers.

"When the _Champion_ settled Cone was still standing there on the bridge, standing there and he knew what it meant to him.

"'You'd better go along, sir,' said Billings, 'we're going in the next boat.'

"But Cone just looked at him for a minute, just stood there watching things and saw the last passenger get away.

"'You hound,' the fellow yelled, 'you cowardly rascal--you insulter of women!'

"You see, passengers get excited in such cases, get to lose their heads. Cone never even looked at him, never took his eyes from the settling ship.

"The engineer force had gone, the only men left aboard were the quartermasters and mates. Cone spoke to Billings.

"'Get Redding and the rest--get in the boat, I'll come along in a moment.'

"The _Champion_ was settling fast now. The roar of the steam and air from between decks was deafening. Billings didn't quite get the words, but he knew he was told to go--and he went. The third officer found Redding lying with a broken head and dragged him to the side, lowered him down and started after him. Just as he did this, there was a ripping noise from below. It was like a tearing sort of explosion, a rending. Cone had disappeared from the bridge and they waited no longer but shoved clear. At that instant the _Champion_ surged ahead, lifted her stern and dropped--she was gone.

"The suction whirled about, sucked the boat first one way and then another, bringing her right over the foundering ship. Billings saw a form jammed under the topmast backstay, saw a hand clutching something white and he reached for it as the topmast went under.

"It was Cone. It was the skipper.

"They hauled him into the boat and he still clutched that thing in his hand. He had been drawn under, been badly strangled and he was unconscious, but his hand hold was firm and no one took notice of what he held. It was the photograph of a woman.

"Billings didn't know anything about him; didn't know but what the tales told were true--so he took the thing away from him and said nothing about it; but Redding knew, Redding knew after he saw it--months afterward when it was shown him--too late to stop the nasty stories--oh, yes, it was the picture of his wife.

"Of course, Cone was living alone, had many affairs--so they said--and it would not do to drag a woman into his ugly life. He had gone into his room to get it--the picture--gone in to get it with that ship sinking under him, the unsentimental and brutal Cone--oh, well, what's the use?

"Yes, his hand was jammed between the backstay and the mast and Billings just got him clear in time--funny, is it? Well, I don't know, some men wouldn't have been so particular over a photograph, would have used both their hands to fight clear with--what? But then, that's what you call sentiment. No, you wouldn't expect it from Cone, wouldn't expect to find it in a seaman with ruddy cheeks and quiet manner, soft and a bit fat----"

"No," said Jackson, "you wouldn't expect a thing like that from Captain Cone--that's right."

"No, you expect sentiment from the thin, poetical, big-eyed, tender men, the men who slush and slobber it over at all occasions. You find women looking for it in the tender talkers, the soft-spoken, the amorous--oh, hell! did you ever see a man who looked the part--what?"

"I've sometimes had my doubts concerning heroes," said Johnson, "but they are--the real ones--generally most common-looking, most quiet and unassuming; but that Cone--well, he is a hard dose to swallow, and that's a fact."

"Well, treat him decently when he comes back," said Simpson.

* * * * *

Some years later I met Cone at the dinner given by the Manager of the Southern Fruit Company to the Captains of the West India fleet who ran the steamers chartered under contract to fill the winter schedule. There were as usual many British vessels in the trade, some Norwegian and a few American, including myself.

Cone had passed entirely out of my ken and this time I took his hand with the feeling that perhaps I had done the man an injustice by the human judgment passed upon him. He was a very old man now and his hand was still in a glove to hide the deformity which the accident had caused. He looked very much the kindly old-time shipmaster, bright of eye and vigorous to the last. He sat near me and remained silent during the opening of the somewhat formal repast. The Manager had been discussing some subject, for he seemed to wish to follow it at once.

"A thing's either right or wrong," said the Manager didactically, as he looked over the gathering. He paused for the effect of his words to be felt. He loved platitudes, although the leading man in his business and a millionaire. "A thing is either right or wrong," he repeated, "and a man is either right or wrong. There's a difference between them as plain as between black and white."

Captain Cone squirmed in his chair. He had listened to this sort of thing before from the Manager. The Company, the greatest shipping firm in the whole world, had paid him his salary, given him his liner and here was the Manager setting forth again against the manner of trusted employees who should know these self-evident truths. He interrupted.

"In fifty-five years spent knocking about the world upon every sea, I've come to a different conclusion," said he quietly.

It was so different from the usual applause, the applause which had already started and which would follow the Manager's splendid appreciation of the obvious. Several diners--there were twelve at the table--looked up quickly and wondered at the Captain.

"What--what do you mean?" asked the Manager softly, amazed at the interruption. He had been coming to a point where he expected to hurl a smashing argument against the methods of some men who handled millions, and here he had been held up by a Captain, an employee of his Company. There was a silence, awkward, impressive--and the old seaman felt it, causing him to blush through his mahogany tan. He had committed himself, and he was essentially a modest man.

"I don't know exactly how to explain," said the Captain slowly. "These questions of human analysis are so very subtle, so elusive--I am only a sailorman after all, and perhaps I see things differently from the view taken by landsmen. There is much in the point of view. But it seems that I am still reasonable, still logical--and I am able to perform my duties even though I'm seventy."

He paused, passed his brown hand across his grizzled forehead, where the hair still hung thickly. Then he let it drop slowly down over his beard and his eyes seemed to have an introspective look. He spoke very slowly and with considerable hesitation as one not used to the ready flow of language, words every one of which had a meaning.

"There was a small matter," he continued, "which called my attention to the human judgment. I don't know how to tell it, but--well, you remember Jones, Captain Jones, who had an interest in the oil ships? Yes; well, I was thinking of him.

"Jones was one of the first oil carriers. That was before the Standard took charge. I had sailed with him as mate long before the war. He got a great tank ship--lost her. Then came the squeeze of the Consolidated, then the death of competition--and, well, Jones lost one thing after another. Froze out. They made him watchman at the office, made him night watchman, a man who had once run a ten-thousand-ton oiler, a man who had made them millions by his care and industry. Then he sank to the gutter and on forty dollars a month he tried to wrest a living for seven children--four of them girls. You know the old story, the sordid details. Jones had to take on liquor once in a while. He would have gone mad without a drunk at least once a month. He figured that it was best to get drunk than go mad, best for his family. It's all well enough to talk, for the chicken-souled loafers who preach to their flocks and then get their living through the generosity of silly women, to call poor Jones a drunken reprobate, a useless loafer, because he drank. But the red-hearted men, the men who knew him, knew what he was suffering, knew what weight was pulling him down. In two years he never bought a suit of clothes. He never spent anything upon himself--except at certain times he felt that he must undergo relaxation, must get away from himself--then he would get drunk, very drunk.

"His wife--oh, yes, he had his wife. She knew him, knew what he had gone through--she saw he got enough money for rum, helped him, stinted herself, slaved, worked--well, she did everything a poor, high-spirited woman could do."

Cone paused, took a drink, a mere sip, from his glass of water, then pushed it from him. The looks of the guests annoyed him. A prohibitionist from Maine glared at him and made him uncomfortable. There was a half-suppressed sneer upon the lips of the Manager, but he was a gentleman--and a host.

"Yes--I was speaking of his wife," he went on. "She helped him, held him up with a mighty soul, a tremendous strength for a woman. All through the dark and gloomy life he led, sleeping in the daytime and wandering about the desolate offices at night, she was always ready, always willing to lend a hand, steadying, guiding, always sound in judgment and above all ready at all times to make any sacrifice for either him or the children--yes, she was a great woman--may the God of the sea hold her gently where she lies in its bosom--dead? Oh, yes, she died long ago. The worst of the affair came about when Jones fell sick. He finally broke down under the awful strain, couldn't stand it--no, the liquor didn't hurt him, he was used to that. It was the despair, the dead weight of crushed hopes, the knowledge of an old man unable to make good against the tide, the tide which was sweeping his children down to hell. The oldest girl was twenty and forced to work at a place where--well, never mind, it was the same old sordid story of a young woman staying, sticking out at a place where it was impossible for her to come out as she went in. Ruin, and hell for her afterward--convention, we call it--but what's the use? She was the old man's favorite, and it hit him very hard, very hard indeed.

"Yes, I remember it very well. Poor old Jones, captain of a ten-thousand-ton ship, owner of a quarter interest in one of the biggest commercial enterprises in the world--six children and a wife starving on forty dollars a month and the seventh child--yes, it was pretty bad, especially bad for Jones, for he had done nothing to deserve his fate, nothing but fight a combination which knew no mercy. The relentless, implacable cruelty of corporations is well enough known to you gentlemen. Their laws are like the laws of Nature--transgress them and you must die. The laws of life are supposed to be just, therefore it is probable that those of some corporations are so likewise--I don't know. But they had smashed Jones. Crushed him down--yes, there he was at forty a month, trying to forget, trying to do something to keep his family alive, and then under the heaviest strain he broke one day--broke and went down."

Many of the guests at the Manager's table had now resumed their poise. Some at the farther end resumed conversation, overlooking the story-teller and wondering a little at his bad form to monopolize the talk of the complaisant dinner humor. But some of the men nearest the Manager still listened and the old Captain watched them with his dark bright eyes, eyes which seemed to sparkle like diamonds in the light. They were the eyes which had pointed the way to many millions of dollars' worth of cargo, many thousand passengers, and they watched over them through many a wild and stormy night upon the bridge of his ship in mid-ocean where the mind has much time to ponder over the methods, the ethics of the commercial human.

"I found him at the hospital," went on Cone. "He was shaky, but he fought his weakness back and went home at the end of two weeks to find his wife down with pneumonia and the house full of famished children."

Cone stopped speaking for a moment and gazed across the table at the polished buffet, seeming to see something in the mirror back of it. The Manager looked up, saw his gaze and spoke:

"I know there's lots of hardships, Captain," said he, "and I don't lay it all to the drink habit. Let your glass be filled--what?"

"Pardon me," said the old seaman. "I am old and forgetting my story--I was just thinking a bit. This is not a temperance lecture at all--no, no, that is not what I was thinking of." And he gazed at the prohibitionist across the board who was fingering his napkin.

"No, the thing that I was coming to is this. Jones found things in a desperate condition at his home. He must have money. It was an absolute necessity to have medical attendance at once for his wife, and he dreaded the free ward of the hospitals--he had gone into one once himself and knew what it meant. He must have money for his children."

"A man might steal under those conditions without being very bad," interrupted a man sitting next to him.

"That isn't what he did," said the old Captain. "He met a friend on the street while on his way to a pawnshop--and the friend heard his tale. His friend was a bank messenger, at least he was carrying the proceeds of a ship's cargo in a bag. You see, in those days, captains were allowed to collect freights at certain points, being in the companies, and these moneys were carried aboard the ship until she reached her home port. Sometimes there were many thousand dollars. This friend had been with Jones in the old days and he knew his history. The money he carried was freights from an oil ship just arrived. There was fifteen thousand dollars of it in gold, and it was the property of the very corporation which had squeezed Jones and ruined him. Well, the friend did the obvious, did the human thing. He opened the bag and gave Jones just five hundred dollars in gold and then went along to try and fix the matter up with the firm--it required lying--that is bad; it required many other things which we will not discuss here, but they are eminently bad, bad as they can be--and by dint of lying, and pilfering, and--well, the friend made good the loss without ever getting found out--yes, a horrible example, I admit. He made good the five hundred and no one ever knew he was a thief. No one knows to this day--except--anyway, Jones saved his wife, and at the end of the money the friend helped him to buy into a schooner and he got command. They paid twenty-five per cent. in those days and he pulled out making enough to save the rest from abject poverty."

"But you don't mean you approve of that fellow, that thief who appropriated other people's money, his employers' money, do you?" asked the Manager in amazement. "The thing for him to have done was to have gone to the firm and stated the case, told of the poverty of Jones, told how he should be helped. No human being would have refused him."

"On the contrary, the friend did just those things--afterward--and as I said before, corporations know no laws but their own. They are relentless as the laws of Nature, as implacable as the laws of health. Go where there is cholera, get the germ into your system, and you will understand what I mean. No human feeling, no sympathy--nothing will save you but your own powers of resistance. You will necessarily die unless you can stand it. Most people die. And it may be right to have things this way--I don't know, I don't set up as a judge; I am a sailor. But I am human--and I don't hate my neighbor, I don't look upon my friend as my enemy. Perhaps I am wrong. Still the thief in this case suffered much. He was for years afraid of being found out. That shows the whole horrible futility of it all. He suffered more than Jones, for Jones knew from where the money came, knew it was money which by his judgment should have gone to him anyway. Jones refused to pay it back and wanted to publish the fact that he had gotten even with the corporation to the extent of five hundred dollars.

"Of course, he didn't do it. The friend persuaded him not to, and when he went into the coaster he forgot to talk about it even when under the effects of his drinks.

"You see, it was about that time the insurance troubles came about. Marine insurance had a tumble owing to the loss of several heavy ships and other matters not worth discussing now. You were badly hit yourself, I believe,"--and the old Captain nodded to the Manager, who smiled acquiescence--"you told me at the time--if I remember rightly--that one more vessel gone and you would go to the wall.

"The friend owned shares in that schooner, owned more than half of her, and he it was that let her go out, made her go to sea after her policies ran out. He would not stop her carrying, for it meant laying her up and Jones would have to go ashore again until things straightened out. It was the hurricane season and she had to go light to Cuba.

"I remember something of the affair, for I happened to be on the dock when she sailed. Jones was standing aft giving orders, and his wife, with her three daughters, were below in the cabin. It was a pretty picture of commercial life, a picture of a man doing his work with his family or part of it around him, and I almost envied him his place. What does an old liner skipper ever have of domestic life? Never gets home, never sees his wife but once or twice a year, and the company never lets her go aboard the ship at all if they can help it. Well, she sailed out that August day, and the next thing we heard of him was that his schooner was driven ashore during a gale. She rammed up on one of the Bahamas, Castle Rock, I believe, and then broke up. Some of the crew and his daughters were saved--he and his wife went down--lost before they could get them ashore.

"And so there it is--did the men do all that was right or did they do all that was wrong? That's the question. Where is the line of demarkation, where does the wrong leave off and right begin, or how is the mixture to be sifted down? We go by rules, we must play according to rules or the game becomes chaos. But do the rules always hold, do they always cover every emergency? I don't know, but I believe there is bad, or what is called bad, in all men, also there is good--it depends upon the man--not the rule."

There was a long pause. The Manager gazed curiously at his guest.

"You say the schooner went ashore on Castle Rock?"

"I said--well, it was somewhere about there, I don't know exactly," replied the old seaman, annoyed.

"There never was a wreck on Castle Rock that I ever heard of," said the Manager, eying the old Captain curiously, "but there was the _Hattie Davis_ that was lost on the Great Inagua Bank--she wasn't insured, I believe."

"Yes, she was lost on the Great Inagua," assented the Captain, leaning back, as though the story were closed.

"You had a large interest in her, I believe," said the Manager slowly, "and I recollect, now, you lost all in her----"

"The light was not so good as it is now," quickly put in the old seaman. "It used to show only in clear weather--and it's almost always clear through the passage--I remember how the passengers used to be glad when we entered the passage coming up from Cuba in the old Panama ships--rough in the tumble off Maysi when the wind holds nor'east for a spell."

The Manager was gazing at the old skipper strangely. Then he suddenly turned and started to discuss other matters with his guests. The dinner went along without incident and afterward we arose to go to the smoking-room for our cigars.

"Come along with me, Cone," said the Manager, "I have a new orchid I picked up I want to show you; you always liked flowers, you know." Afterward I passed them and overheard the Manager saying in a low tone--"Well, you always had a hell of a reputation, Cone, anyway, but under the circumstances--well, there might be some sort of justification. You are too full of that damned sentiment for any business whatever. Still, I'll admit that it isn't so much what a man does that matters--that is, it doesn't matter so much as _how_ it is done--and _who_ does it."

And so this was Cone? This was the master who had earned a reputation for some very queer things as seamen see them. I remember the old days, the words of poor old Simpson who had long gone to the port of missing ships. Sentimental Captain Cone, stout, grizzled, bronzed, the man who lost his hand holding to the picture of a wife who had been false to him and who had accused him of many things too hard to print. It was strange.

I suddenly felt I would like to see Simpson, to acknowledge he was not so far wrong after all.

"The judgment of man is not good," I said in answer to some question relative to nothing concerning Cone, and with this platitude upon my lips I went home.

ON GOING TO SEA

We sat together upon the quarter-deck under the awning of the _Harvest Queen_. My own ship lay in the berth opposite, and I had come over for a quiet smoke with Captain Large. He sailed in the morning, and was bound for Frisco around Cape Horn. I would not see him again for a year or two--probably never; but he and I had sailed together and I had been his mate. We talked of things, confidences, the talk of old shipmates who know each other very well, and who are passing to know each other as memories. I had shipped five apprentices, two sons of prominent men in the shipping circles of New York, and I wondered at the outcome.

"I never take them any more," said Large. "I took one out of here a few years ago, and--well, I don't care to repeat the job."

"But the boys are good--signed on regular--what can they do?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I'll tell you what one did in the _Wildwood_ when I took him to China. I don't know how to explain it. The strangeness of it all, the peculiar development that came about under seeming natural causes--hereditary, you will say, and perhaps that is right I have often studied it over, often lain awake in my bunk wondering at it all, what peculiar ideas grew in a brain that was almost human--almost, for when you think of what he did you cannot believe he was quite so, even though his father was the President of the Marine Association and had commanded the best American ships in his day." The old skipper sat quiet for some minutes and seemed to be thinking, studying over some problem. His cigar shone like a spark in the warm night, but the smoke was invisible. I waited. Apprentices were new to me. I had not had much chance to study the training of youth. My own way had been rough. I had at last gotten my ship after a life of strenuous endeavor and often desperate effort, and I wanted to learn all I could. Men I knew. I had handled them by and large from every part of the globe, and discipline, iron discipline, was a thing my ship was noted for. She had a bad name.

"You see," said Large, his deep voice booming softly in the night, "there is something intangible that a human being inherits from his forbears. We look at the successful man as a target to aim at, an idol we point out for youth to emulate. We don't always analyze the greatness. A successful man is often so from the stress he puts upon others. He will not stay in equilibrium. He keeps going on up, up beyond the place his own production entitles him. He becomes predatory, but unlike wolves or felines he preys upon his own kind.

"When President Jackson of the Bengal Line asked me to take Willie, his son, I did so with the feeling that it was an honor conferred upon me, the captain of one of the ships. Jackson had earned his position by his own efforts and fought his way up to the top. I remembered him well enough when he was a master, but he was now President of the Line. He had a very sinister reputation in the old ships, but that was all forgotten now.

"Willie came aboard looking like a physical wreck. He was a slight youth of fifteen, stoop-shouldered, pale of face, but with the eye of his father, and the peculiar settling of the corners of his mouth noticeable in the old man. 'Be sure you bring him back safely,' said his father, giving me a look I long remembered. 'Be sure you take good care of him--and bring him back.' I didn't quite know what he meant. I don't yet; but I know why he said it. I began to think of it before we were at sea a week.

"Yes, he was only a boy, a mere lad, but he was all of his father--his father as we remembered him in the South Sea. Degenerate? He was the ablest lad of his size I ever saw. He stood right there on the main deck the day we went out and took little or no notice of him while the tug had our line. He was signed on, mind you, signed on regular, so as not to excite the comment of 'pull.' Hell! why do they send boys to sea when the shore is the place to train them? He stood there and saw me looking at him, thinking of the words 'be sure and bring him back'--yes, I would.

"'Say, Cap, dis is fine. Let's put de rags on her an' let her slide. I wants to see her slip erlong--t'hell wid towin', says me,' and he came up the poop steps on the starboard side to chat with me--a thing no one, as you know, can do aboard a ship without a reprimand. Every one heard him talking to me. He yelled it out in a shrill voice--yes, talking to me, the captain, on the poop. 'See here, young man,' I said to him, 'you mustn't talk to me while I'm on deck. Go down on the main deck, and when you want anything, you ask the mate--he will talk with you or get you what you want--you understand? It's not the thing to ever speak to the captain of a ship without permission.'

"'Aw, fergit it, cully! Don't youse make no mistake erbout me. I spoke fair an' civil to youse, an' if youse don't want to answer you kin go to hell, you stuck-up old fool! D'ye git that right?' he said shrilly.

"Well, you can imagine what that sounded like to the men. Twenty of them were grinning and both mates aghast. I was the master, a man known the world over as a 'driver.' There was nothing to do but take the lad in hand at once.

"'Take him forward and rope's-end him,' I said to Bowles, the second officer, a man weighing two hundred pounds and a 'bucko' of the strongest type. You remember him, the toughest mate afloat?

"But Willie looked up at me with a sneer.

"'You try it, you sea loafer. I'll sweat youse fer it if youse do. You ain't de whole thing aboard here. Youse don't know me, I guess.'

"I had to do it. The affair had gone too far. Bowles grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off his feet, and he let out a scream like a wildcat--a most unearthly shriek. Bowles whipped him good and hard, tanned him so he could scarcely sit down; but he just cursed and swore at the officer, telling him what he'd do to him afterward. He got an extra lick or two for this. Bowles paid no attention, but went back to his station to attend lines. Half an hour later he was standing at the rail when I saw a form shoot out of the galley door and drive a long knife into his back. He sank down without a word, and Willie stood over him ready for the finish. The mate knocked him down with a belaying pin before he could kill.

"It was a terrible thing, an awful state of affairs beginning within five minutes after the tug had let go. It was uncanny. A young boy doing such things aboard a ship. I would have put him ashore at once, but remembered the articles he had signed and the words of the president of the line. I hesitated and the opportunity was lost----"

"I would have made another," I interrupted. "I would have sent the young villain to prison at once. No good could possibly happen from such an agreement, no good come from a horrible little devil like that."

"I don't know. I don't quite know yet what to make of it all. According to the usual rule there could be no good from a boy who would deliberately commit such a crime; but we men who know life, the real life, know that rules are not good to follow. You know that. I've tried to figure it all out, but there is no answer, no accounting for the strangeness of character that develop under certain conditions. We tied Willie up while he was unconscious from the blow of the pin, and instead of putting Bowles ashore we endeavored to bring him around. I took him aft and sewed up the cut. It was an awful wound, but Bowles was a very strong man. It took a month before he could get about the deck again. We had run clear to the equator.

"In the meantime Willie had had another run in, and I had him brought aft to have a little talk with him, to try and explain to him how a ship must be run, the iron discipline and the custom of the master not to associate with any one, either boy or man, from forward.

"'Aw, cut it out, cully--cut de langwidge! It don't go none wid me--see? I comes aboard dis ship an' gets it in de neck de foist round. Den I slings inter de bloke wot does the trick--'n by rights I ought ter take a fall outer youse, Cap--'n I've a good mind to do it, too. Dem sea tricks don't go none wid me.'

"'But don't you know I could hang you if I wanted to? Don't you know my word is law here? I am in absolute command. If you don't follow the rules of the ship I'll have to punish you severely.'

"'Nothin' doin', Bo, nothin' doin' at all. Youse kin cut all that sort o' talk out when youse chins wid me--see? Say, Bo, whatcher take me fer, anyways? Er "come on," er what? Whatcher t'ink I am, anyways, hey? Go tell de little choild stories to yer gran'mother--don't spring dem on me, don't try to hand me nothin' funny--I'm a MAN! An' don't youse t'ink youse kin take de call of me, neider, Bo, fer youse makes a mistake mixin' it wid me! I'm a fightin' MAN--me fader'll tell youse dat, an' dat's why he sends me wid youse when I might be goin' to school. De old man is a lulu, an' I am his son, Bo, a son of a dog--nothin' yaller in de breed; 'n if youse t'ink you kin razzle-dazzle me you'll sure fall down. Youse take dat from me, Bo! D'youse git it straight?'

"'I'll turn you loose if you'll promise to do the right thing from now on,' I said.

"'Aw, no, Bo, I don't have to promise nothin'. Youse ain't got me right yet. I ain't no child. What de hell's the matter wid youse, anyhow?'

"'All right, then, you'll stay locked up until the end of the voyage and then I'll turn you over to the police, and----'

"'An' you'll pay like hell fer that 'f I does. Youse see!' he snarled.

"Well, what could I do? What would you have done under the circumstances? The boy was not afraid. I knew his breed too well. I knew his father. He would not suffer the smallest infringement of what he believed to be his rights. He would resist to the death. He had gone with a gang of young ruffians and had developed a certain sense of what he believed to be right. He saw no law but that of absolute equality; and there is no such thing. He was at fault. It was absurd for men who ran a ship whose name was 'hard' to allow a little boy to take charge, a little fellow not weighing a hundred pounds. I decided to give him a real whipping--a whipping that would make a permanent mark in his memory. I hated to think of it--hated to really believe it was necessary, for there is nothing so horrible as whipping a man--and the lad was a man in his own opinion. There is absolutely nothing so soul-killing, so fearfully degrading. I prefer the bloodiest fighting always to the cold-blooded lash. I have seen men lose their self-respect under the degrading stroke of the lash; and a man without self-respect had better be dead. I studied the case and remembered his father. He was a small man physically--I never knew a big man make a good seaman; but he could take charge of a ship, no matter what kind of creatures were forward, and he never spoke but once in giving an order. The father had the same idea in regard to right and wrong--he never forgave one, never forgot. Yet he had been a staunch friend of mine. He had many friends who swore by him--and he was always to be relied upon, you could always count upon him no matter what the cost to himself in any emergency. It was his idea of duty--and he feared nothing at all.

"It was just a week later on a hot day when I had gone below to work the noon sight that I became aware of a pair of eyes looking at me from the top of the companionway, and as I looked up I gazed right into those of Willie; but it was along the blue barrel of my own forty-five caliber six-shooter. The gun had always been hanging close to my bunk head--ready for emergencies.

"'Bang!' The shot came without a second's warning. The bullet tore through my arm. I sprang through the bulkhead into the forward cabin just as the second shot ripped me across the neck. I was rushing for the doorway to the main deck and the third shot threw splinters in my face as it hit the edge of the door. Willie was coming right along behind me, and firing as he came--and I--well, I confess it, I was running for my life. I heard his yell of derision, a shrill scream----

"The mate heard the firing, and as Willie came through the doorway he kicked him in the back and knocked him over. Then he jumped upon him and stamped all but the very life out of him by driving his boot-heels into his face."

I shivered with the intensity of the tale, the horror of it all. The old man sat silent in the gloom and the spark of light from his cigar end flared and faded as he drew upon it. He was thinking of the past. I waited.

"Well, what was I to do? I was a man, a ship master, and here I was with my arm shattered by a heavy bullet from a mere boy--or devil! What could I do?

"Yes, then I whipped him--whipped him until the men turned away. I will not tell you of it--it was too horrible.

"It was four weeks before I could get about the deck from the effects of that pistol shot. I had little medicine aboard. There I was limping about with a broken arm, and there was Bowles limping about with the tendons of his back cut through. It was awful. The men grinned. Yes, the men grinned at us. I had an extra padlock put upon the stateroom where Willie stayed, and he was kept tight after that.

"At the end of a month Willie was all but dead. The terrific heat, the gases from the cargo and the close confinement told upon his weak frame. I saw that he would not last much longer. He would die in the ship, and I remembered the words of his father--'bring him back; be sure and bring him back!' There was an old man in the crew named Jim. He was half fish and the rest salt and rope-yarn. He offered to take the boy in hand and try to train him. I let him have a chance, always having him close at hand to stop any trouble with a pair of irons. And when he turned in the boy was locked up again. But there was no talk of doing right, no promise to be fair or obey orders from the little chap. I saw he would break out at the first opportunity and refused to give him one. I had old Jim read the Bible to him every day to see if I couldn't get him interested in religion. He liked that part of the Old Testament where it is especially bloody and deals with the desperate fighting of men, but when it came to other parts he lost interest.

"'Say, cull, do youse believe dat yarn erbout de whale--say? Aw, gwan! don't spring nothin' funny on me, Bo. Gimme some of de hot stuff or cut it--see? Dat kid David was de stuff! Gimme some more o' his work, or let it go at dat. He might have hove de rock an' hit de giant in de neck--but I doubts it; but maybe so, maybe so. Dat giant warn't no bigger'n Bowles, I reckon--'n I c'u'd do fer him easy enough, as youse know. Yes, I c'u'd a dun up dat giant all right wid any sort er weaping--knife or rock--I'm a sort o' giant killer myself----'

"'You ain't got de nerve to do nothing like that, boy. Shut up and listen!' said Jim.

"'Say, Bo, don't youse make no mistake erbout me noive. I got de whole gang of youse beat to a gantline. I c'u'd stick youse all back in de lazereet an' not half woik. Aw, say, Jimmy, youse ain't got me measure quite right--see? Guess onct more, old boy; but go erlong an' read some more of de fight to me. I likes it all right.' And so they would chat together and I would listen to try and fathom the boy's mind. It was peculiar. And yet under it all was that vast ego, that immense regard for the opinions of others--not alone himself--he was too young yet, but for himself was the greatest, the self-respect. He was a leader, a boy with a soul--you may laugh when you think him a fiend, a perfect devil, if you will, but he was all right in some things.

"I was more afraid of Rose, my mate.

"Rose was a quiet man, a driver, and he had struck down the boy and beaten him to a jelly. The boy never alluded to it, never spoke of it even to Jim. That's where the danger lay. I felt that they would finish the fight when I let the lad loose, and dared not do so for a long time. Once when Jim had the boy on deck I caught Rose gazing at him with a peculiar steady light in his eyes. He just stood looking at the boy for nearly a full minute--then the lad turned and looked right into his eyes with the same peculiar steadiness--a stare that was unblinking, yet not strained. Willie had those light eyes, almost colorless, like his father. So had Rose, and they told each other so plainly what was behind their eyes that I almost smiled; but it was no smiling work, even if there was a boy in it. Rose showed plainly that he would wring the boy's neck at the first outfly, and was regardless of consequences. Rose was not a man to trifle with, yet when you remember that I was shot and the second mate cut, there was reason for the chief to throw out all sentiment. And so I kept Willie under Jim's care until we reached Hong-Kong. Then the old seaman wanted to go ashore and take the boy with him, promising not to go near a grog-shop. You can't trust a windjammer ashore after a long voyage, no matter how good a man he is. Jim came back to the ship that night the worse for wear, and told a tale of the boy slipping away from him in the streets. The man was drunk and I had him sent down in irons. Then I sent out a call for the police.

"They found Willie, who had wandered off while Jim was drinking. The boy had walked the streets all night, not caring much about the ship, and because a Chinaman would not cut off his queue and make him a present of it, the boy had jumped him with a knife he had procured and tried to take it by force. The interference of the police was all that saved the boy's life, for the man's friends helped him hold the lad, and they were just in the act of cutting his throat when help arrived. I was almost sorry for the interference, but I remembered the words of his father.

"Jim being unable to take further care of him for the present, I locked him up myself and turned in, being tired from the night's work. The next evening I saw Mr. Rose dragging Willie aboard the ship. How he got adrift I don't know, but he carried in each hand an oil can, while the mate, holding him, forced him aboard.

"'Say, Bo, whatcher think I done--hey? Just watch dat junk dere lyin' in de next dock--see? Aw, chee, dem Chinks is de limit. Dat feller what got me in Dutch last night is aboard dere, an'--well, you jest watch him now and tell me what youse t'ink o' me, anyways. I remembers him, but most all Chinks looks alike to me. Anyhow, I fire her up fer fair--you watch her--see? Oh, say, Bo, what a pipe----'

"Even while he spoke the black smoke poured from the fated junk. She burned like a box of matches. She was full of camphor wood and grease, and she fired the entire dock, burning six other vessels and making it so hot we were forced to warp into the stream.

"No, I didn't give the boy up. I suppose I might have done so and seen him hung properly. I said nothing, and Rose was a very quiet man. The damage he had done apparently took the lad's mind off his former troubles, and on the way home I let him go back to his watch. He took to the rigging like a monkey. I will say here he was the best sailor I had ever seen. There was nothing he could not learn about seamanship. He would always take the weather earing in a blow and no man dared to send him in. When Jim was on deck the old seaman kept him under his eye in case of trouble, and Mr. Rose was always most vigilant. The mate had determined to kill the lad at the first sign of danger. I tried again and again to win his confidence, but he seemed to look upon me as his enemy. He refused to take me for a friend, and my little talks were futile.

"'Aw, tell it to yer gran'mother,' he would say to me. 'Don't try to stuff me, Bo. Youse had your innings at that--now fergit it before you git inter the soup ag'in. I knows youse, an' I ain't done wid youse yet, either--see? Youse done me dirt--youse done me when I first come in de ship. I ain't decided just what I'll do to youse yet, but youse better keep yer eye liftin' fer me. Don' try to razzle-dazzle me none. I ain't afraid of youse at all. You ain't got de noive to do me--see? But I got it in fer youse all hunk, now don't make no mistake erbout dat. I'll let youse off easier the better we gets erlong--see? If we gets erlong all right I may let youse down easy--if not, I'll kill you as sure as I breathe, an' that goes as it lays. Do youse git it right?'

"Here was a boy, now sixteen, telling the master of a ship he would kill him if things were not to his liking. What do you think of it, anyway? I never could work it out I couldn't lock him up any more for it would have killed him--and I must not kill the lad--I don't know----

"The whole affair was insane. It was grotesque. But there was my shattered arm, and there was Bowles limping about--that fire at Hong-Kong--and I must bring Willie back home. I'm telling you a true story. I'm telling you of a boy, an apprentice.

"When we struck the rough weather of the high latitudes Willie was happy. He was worked out to a gantline by Jim, and he was beginning to run the men a bit. It was amazing and absurd to hear that kid yelling orders to the men aloft. Slack-away' or 'clew up,' whatever the order was, and he was very smart. He could beat the best of them to the royal yard; and he was taking pride in it. His voice was at that stage when it cracks and goes into a treble, and no one laughed. Even the mate watched it all with gloomy eyes, never saying a thing, and never even smiling. And it was amazing how the men obeyed him. If a man failed to do so, only an apology and the reception of a kick upon the stern would save him from a fracas, for Willie kept right after them. Yes, he inherited all the masterly qualities of his father. He was a wonder at seamanship. One day a dago didn't like the way Willie trod upon his feet when they were both hauling a brace. They mixed, and it was the closest shave for the lad. He came out with a bad cut, for the dago at sea takes to a knife like a babe to milk. That night, while in his bunk, the dago was slammed over the head with a handspike, and we had to keep him off duty until the ship docked.

"When we came in Jim brought his charge aft to sign off, as is the custom, you know, for their slop chest accounts. Willie came up.

"I haven't got much against you, Willie; you owe me for a couple of plugs of tobacco, but we'll let that go," I said.

"'No, we don't, Bo; youse charge it all up right an' proper. Den I got a small account agin de ship--which I'll settle right now----'

"But old Jim was too quick for him.

"'Take him forward and keep him in irons until we get in. We'll get inside before dark,' I ordered. You know how it is when a ship comes in. The land sharks were there in swarms, but among them was old man Jackson waiting for his son. They went away hand in hand, the old man never even speaking to me--I always thought he knew.

"Our cargo was valued at about half a million. It was nearly all Jackson's, as he owned the greatest shares in all the ships. We docked and were forced to lay right behind a barge loaded with dynamite, nearly two tons of it ready for taking out in the morning to blow Hell Gate rock.

"Bowles had gone ashore with the rest, and Rose had stepped up the street for a 'first night' off. He was not due until midnight. I always suspected the second officer or the dago--I don't know, only neither of them ever showed up again. They both had seen the President of the line take his son, his young hopeful, away with him. They both had suffered much from his hands. Perhaps it was revenge--to try to get even with the father for the son's sins. Anyhow, I had hardly turned in that night, leaving old Jones, the shipkeeper, on deck, when the old fellow ran below and told me the ship was afire forward. I turned out instantly and was on deck.

"The ship was burning like a beacon from the foremast to the t'gallant forecastle. She seemed to be spread with oil. Jones was seventy and unable to do much. I ran forward and yelled for help. In ten minutes the engines were playing a stream upon the ship and a fireboat was flooding her from aft. Jackson came down on the run to see his vessel being destroyed and his cargo vanishing in black smoke. He had had trouble with the insurance, and he was worried. Then while he stood upon the dock and spoke to me as I stood upon the rail amidships, I was aware of a small figure near him.

"'Aw, say, Bo, youse better get away from there--cut out, see? There's powder to blow youse to hell and back right there in that lighter. Youse ain't got more'n a minute, cully. Better git gay wid de lines.'

"Then I recognized Willie. He had come down to see the blaze and was calling attention to the thing we had forgotten for the moment.

"'Call de watch, an' I'll lend youse a hand.'

"I called for Jones to slack off the after lines, and then I ran as far as I could into the smoke and managed to cast off forward, getting nearly drowned with the engine water. Jackson came aboard and worked like mad. The stern lines were cast off, but before we could do anything the ship began to swing right down upon the barge. The slip was too narrow to get the dynamite past the vessel, and there she was now surging ahead upon it. She had both blocked the slip and surged into it. I began to yell to the men standing about to get away from the place before the explosion. They had crowded about as close as they could to see the fire, not knowing anything about what was on the barge.

"Jackson rushed aft and howled to the fireboat to pass a line, as the wind was now blowing her slowly across the slip and right upon the dynamite. Every one who could understand me began to run. The dock cleared off quickly. Then, just as I was about to jump ashore myself, I heard a voice close to the rail.

"'Aw, say, Bo, give me a heavin' line--I kin swim acrost the slip--den hurry up an' bend de hawser, youse can heave her over easy enough. Don't get nutty.'

"I saw Willie standing there, and without further ado I threw him the end of a small line. He jumped in without a word and swam rapidly across the narrow stretch of water to the other dock. A man on the pier reached down and took the line from the lad. I had already bent on the hawser, and it went across lively. Then taking the end to the midship capstan, I got old Jones to hold the turns while I walked her around as fast as I could.

"But I was not strong enough to warp a heavy ship across a slip even in still water. The ship surged ahead slowly in spite of all I could do, and Jackson grabbed a capstan bar to help. It was a poor chance at best, but we worked on. I caught a glimpse of a slight figure working upon the deck of the barge, throwing cases of powder overboard. A man appeared with him, but I could not take time to see much. The boxes were cases of about a hundred pounds each, and they were rapidly going overboard, and with the tide through the dock. Minutes passed, but nothing happened. We seemed to be getting way upon the ship, and Jackson swore and strove mightily to save her, with no thought of leaving even in the face of a terrific explosion. We would have gone clear all right but for the fact we had our port anchor over and hanging from the cathead. We had warped the ship clear of the barge, and her bow swung over, the line being too far aft and the fire and water too dangerous to work in forward. The fluke of the anchor swept a pile of boxes--about three hundred pounds---and then came the crash. It was terrific. The fluke was clear of the ship's hull by several feet, but it was blown through the deck, the five-thousand-pound anchor flung like a toy through her side. She shook from end to end. We were all blown flat, stunned, although we had many feet of solid vessel between us and the blast.

"When we came around from the shock of the explosion Jackson had the pleasure of seeing his ship without a bowsprit, her nose blown clear off, but the fire was blown out. There was not even much smoke left. The barge had entirely vanished.

"The firemen came aboard afterward, and so did many shipmasters, whose vessels lay in the vicinity. Jackson met them dumbly. He said nothing.

"'Good thing they got the dynamite overboard quick enough,' said Captain Smith of the _Sunnerdun_. 'That boy, whoever he was, was all right. The watchman ran away just before the smash.'

"'What boy?' asked a fireman.

"But it was no use to tell us what boy--we knew, we felt, it all along.

"Yes, that was the end of him. He had tried to save the ship, his father's ship--and he had done it when men failed--I don't know--I can't judge him. Old man Jackson left without a word, and I never saw him again."

The old seaman paused, and the night showed his cigar end flaming again. I sat there thinking over the tale, the true tale of that boy, for I knew Large was telling me only facts. It was all very strange, all like a horrid nightmare the old seaman had suffered from; but it was not a dream, it was the truth about a boy, just a rough, tough boy whose ideals had been a bit peculiar. I looked over across the berth at my own ship, where five boys were already signed on for the voyage around the Cape, and I began to wonder if I had done a wise thing to ship them. Then I determined right there to give them some extra thought and study, to try to fathom what lay behind their "going to sea."

THE END

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Copyright, 1911, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.

Incorrect page numbers in the Table of Contents have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained from the original.

Inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation have been standardized.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Chief Mate's Yarns, by Mayn Clew Garnett