Chapter 5

"Hippo made a plunging charge upon rhino and met that formidable tusk. But the hide of a hippo is something akin to armor-plate, and there was no damage, though the big brute was lifted and turned over. He came back, and in some manner got a grip on that big horn with his teeth; and from that on, their fight was simply a wrestling-match, neither able to hurt the other.

"And over their grunts and groanings, over the noise of the wolves and hyenas, the tiger and lion, and the slatting and bumping of the broken gear against the mast, and the sounds of sea and wind, rose supreme to our ears the blatant squealing and trumpeting of that mad elephant in the 'tween-decks.

"Added to this were the insane orders to us fellows of the skipper and the two mates. They demanded that we go down and quell the disturbance. Well, we did not go down. We did other things.

"It was I who suggested to the skipper the advisability of cutting away the connections that held those spars and sails aloft, so that they would drop down and free the ship of the extra top-hamper. He was badly rattled, but accepted my suggestion; so, at his orders, men went aloft on all three masts, and soon the wreck came down, the mizzen top-hamper falling overboard and the main diving down the open main-hatch. We hoped it hit the elephant.

"It was only chance, of course; but the foretop-gallantmast, with the royal yard attached, did hit the tiger a smashing blow on the head that ended his troubles. We could see him, just clear of the forward house, with the lion at his throat. There wasn't much of it. The lion bit in; then, satisfied that he had done the job, he left the dead tiger and came aft, still bleeding from the hole between the forelegs, and pounced upon rhino, who had made that hole.

"It roused the rhino. With a mighty upheaval, he shook off the hippo and charged on the lion. But this fighter had grown wary; he dodged and jumped, growling and snarling the while, but apparently in no mood to again risk the puncturing of his hide by that upright horn.

"Meanwhile the stupid old hippo, who usually wanted nothing more than his grub and his bath, lumbered around looking for further trouble. He found it; he interfered between the wild asses and the zebras, and soon the whole bunch, both sides, were bombarding him with their hind feet. He squealed and groaned and growled, but to no end.

"They backed up to him and thumped him with their hoofs, as many as could get near him. It was a beautiful exhibition of the law of the brotherhood of man and the brotherhood of beast. Those equine propagandists of the law of the survival of the fittest kicked that poor, peaceful old hippo into a condition of coma.

"At last he lay down, with his head between his paws, and gave it up; then the kickers ceased kicking him and resumed their kicking of each other.

"By this time the python and the boa had gathered in about three feet of each other; the wolves and hyenas--two against one, understand--had reduced their number by half, and the lion was still pretending to fight the rhino.

"He still found it best to dodge that upright tusk, while his claws and teeth couldn't even scratch the rhino's impervious hide.

"Then he got it from another quarter. The porcupines had climbed up, and one was nosing round the deck, attending to his own affairs--which seemed to be nothing more than an intention to find out where he was--when he got between these two. He suddenly balled himself up, turned round a couple of times, and then fired a volley of his quills.

"They went, straight and true, right into that open hole between the lion's forelegs. He stood on his hindfeet for a moment, bellowing and roaring, while he tried to brush them out; then he slunk forward again and hid behind the house. But we heard his occasional snarls of pain.

"Meanwhile the porcupine had opened fire on the rhino, but did him no harm; and rhino was too big-minded to notice him. He lumbered round, looking for a match with something, but not finding it; even the kickers got out of his way, and the poor old hippo wandered forward to commune with the lion.

"Not finding an antagonist worthy of his horn, the rhino began nosing the two mutual-minded snakes. He tossed them 'round, and they were helpless to resist--only the rough handling seemed to induce increased swallowing power. We could see their jaws working convulsively; and inch by inch, foot by foot, they rapidly disappeared from sight.

"The rhino soon got tired and tackled the wolves and hyenas--what was left of them. They had reduced their number to two of each kind; but this was too small to admit of two against one, so they were now dodging each other, snarling bravely enough, but not fighting.

"The rhino caught a hyena on his tusk, tossed him in air, caught him as he fell, sent him flying again, and then stamped his life out. This seemed to settle the fate of the other hyena, for immediately the two remaining wolves got at him. But rhino's next victim was a wolf, which he disposed of as quickly.

"This left two cowards to fight for the supremacy; but the fight was taken out of them. They slunk apart and did not meet again.

"Now, here was the condition of things when a new factor intruded upon the problem: the lion was nursing his hurts, forward of the house, out of sight; the hippo had gone to sleep from sheer weariness and disgust; the last wolf and hyena were prowling round, avoiding each other; the python and the boa had swallowed two-thirds of each other's length; the rhino was wandering round, looking for a scrap; the kicking zebras and wild asses had grown tired and called it a draw, and the porcupines, three or four of them, had finished their inspection of their environment and had snuggled down in various places to await developments.

"The new factor was a green sea that lifted aboard amidships and flooded the waist of the ship. Of course, the quick movers of the lot got forward or aft, out of the way of the water surging back and forth across the deck; but the poor porcupines were drowned before the water ran out the scuppers. And when it had gone out, we saw what we had not seen before--the small, poisonous cobras.

"They had come up, but had kept out of sight until that sea washed them round; then, as the water shallowed on the deck, they made for the masts or the rigging and began to climb. It's hard to drown a snake, you know.

"There were at least two dozen of the reptiles, and it looked bad for us fellows aloft. Did you ever see a snake climb a rope? He goes up in a sort of wriggling spiral, wrapped loosely round it, but shifting his different sections up for a fresh grip. The other fellows climbed to the topmast-crosstrees and looked down; but the snakes stopped at the eyes of the rigging, or the tops, and rested.

"Then came a second new factor in our problem: a sea came aboard from the other side and washed about; another with the next roll, and still another. The rolls were long and heavy, and I, who had once been on a sinking ship, sensed the reason.

"'We're sinking, captain,' I said. 'That main-topgallantmast going down that hatch has punched a hole or started a butt.'

"'Maybe you're right,' he exclaimed. 'What can we do?'

"That was too hard a question at the time for a skipper to ask of a foremast-hand, so I said nothing, but did a lot of thinking. The flywheel-pump was amidships at the main fife-rail. We could not go down to it without danger from the wounded lion, the rhino, and possibly the wolf, though, with these out of the way, we might dodge or kill the cobras and fight off the hyena.

"As it was, we were caught. I suggested to the skipper that he go down the mizzentopmast-backstay, dart into his cabin, and get his rifle. Then he could pot the brutes from the forward windows. But he declined and forbade me going. I had no business in his cabin.

"I saw that he had lost his nerve. Now, when a skipper loses his nerve, he loses his rights; so I didn't hesitate to sing out to the mate in the main-topmast-crosstrees to clear away downhaul-blocks, quarter-blocks, or anything handy and heavy, and try and drop them on the lion and the rhino, the two most dangerous of the bunch. He seemed to be much in the same condition as the skipper, for he answered and passed the word forward to the fellows on the fore.

"In a few minutes things began raining down onto the deck--blocks, bulls'-eyes, and sea-boots. The bombardment raised a commotion, though none of the brutes was hit.

"Yet the sick and sore lion responded to the extent of bounding aft and mounting the poop. Here he came within range of us fellows up the mizzen, and I had the disconnected mizzen-staysail halyard-block in my hand ready for him. He gained the space abaft the house near the wheel and stood still, lashing his tail and nosing the air as though he smelled us up aloft.

"He was only about forty feet down; and when young I had been a good ball-player. I leaned over and let that block go with all my strength. It wasn't the ordinary shell-block, but a solid carving of _lignum-vitae_; and it fetched that lion a smash on the head that must have cracked his skull, for he sank down, then got up and wabbled, rather than walked, forward along the alley to the poop-steps.

"There he blindly fell off the poop; and the rhino, whom he had dodged on the run aft, was ready for him. It wasn't a fight. The lion was dying, and the rhino simply hastened the job, goring him relentlessly until the bleeding carcass lay still.

"Then the rhino, flushed with victory, went for the nearest brute, a wild ass, and soon he had the whole of them--asses and zebras--kicking the stomach out of him, or into him, perhaps, by the way he bellowed.

"It was funny, in a way, for they were all too quick for him; they could dodge that plunging beast with his murderous horn, and turn for a kick before he got by.

"But there was nothing funny about that water in the hold, nor in the prospective job of stopping the leak, pumping her out, and bending new canvas, in case we could get that rhinoceros out of the way. He was the only thing we feared now, for the rest were not really dangerous unless you got too close.

"We knew the wolf and the hyena would run from a man with a handspike, and the zebras and asses would run from a man without one. To make matters worse, darkness closed down. So, lashing ourselves to the crosstrees, we slept more or less sweetly until daylight.

"When we took stock of things, we knew that all was up with that bark. Her plank-sheer amidships was awash, and the water rolling in a green body from starboard to port and back again.

"The crazy elephant stood under the hatch, squealing and trumpeting in fright. He must have smashed the monkeys' cages during the night, for the rigging was dotted with chimpanzees, orangs, and the small fellows. The hyena and the wolf had gained the forecastle-deck, and stood, side by side, looking aft, with no thought of quarreling in this emergency.

"The sleepy old hippo was lumbering round in the flooded waist as though he enjoyed his salt-water bath; and the rhino was forward on the main deck, looking at the water as it washed up to him and receded. Amidships was a thick, black ring of about two feet diameter, sliding round in the wash.

"It was the two big snakes, each a sheath for the other, but each dead as a door-nail; either they had died from the strain, or the water had drowned them. The zebras and wild asses were also forward, but mostly out of sight behind the house. Not a cobra could be seen, however, and the skipper displayed sudden energy.

"'Something must be done,' he said vehemently. 'You men stay here while I make the attempt to get to the top of the forward house. If I can make it without trouble, the rest of you can follow. We must clear away the boats, for there is no saving this ship.'

"So saying, he gripped the mizzen-stay and slid down it to where it ended at a band on the main-mast just above the fife-rail. From there he dropped to the deck and made a bee-line for the starboard side of the house to avoid the rhino, who was forward on the port side.

"But the rhino saw him coming down the stay and lumbered aft into the washing-water to investigate, rounding the port corner of the house just as the skipper reached the starboard. From there he charged; and you cannot imagine the velocity of a rhino's charge. It is like that of a locomotive. The skipper scrambled on top of a water-tank alongside the house just in time to escape that tusk, and from there he got to the top, where he sat down to recover himself.

"He was a badly scared man. The rhino grunted and snorted at him and tried to climb the tank, but failed to get a grip on the smooth-painted staves. So he stood guard abaft the house, looking up.

"There were two other roads to the deck--the port and starboard mizzen rigging, I still had in mind that rifle of the skipper's, and as the second mate, a young fellow just out of the forecastle, made no objections, I slid down the after-swifter of the port rigging and got into the cabin before the skipper or the rhino noticed me.

"I found the cabin flooded, and waded waist-deep to the skipper's room, where I found his Winchester hanging to the bulkhead. Making sure that the magazine was full, I scrambled to the forward companion, where there was a window that gave me a good view of the deck. The skipper was calling the men on the main to come down by the maintopmast stay to the top of the house, and to those on the fore to come down by the backstays to the rail, and then to jump to the water-tanks; and the men were coming down, one by one, even though the rigging swarmed with big monkeys and the corners and hollow spots possibly held poisonous snakes.

"A yell from the mizzen called my attention to one of these, a big fellow of four feet in length whom the skipper had frightened out of his hiding-place on the fife-rail, and he was climbing the mizzen-stay. He rested about six feet up, but completely blocked this path to the deck for the men in the mizzen. However, when I had cleared the deck of the rhino, they could come down my way. I cocked the gun, took careful aim at the big brute's left eye, and let go.

"I missed the eye, but attracted his attention, and he came charging aft through the water. I ducked, knowing that he couldn't climb the flimsy steps to the short length of poop forward of the house without breaking them down with his weight, and, after a moment, peeped out.

"He was just turning to go forward, and, as I knew that a Winchester bullet wouldn't puncture his hide, I saved my shots.

"Meanwhile, all hands but the boys in the mizzen-crosstrees had gained the forward house and were clearing away the two boats, lashed in their chocks, right side up--one to starboard, the other to port. I could see the work going on--saw them smash the skylight over the galley for a man to go down to pass up grub, and saw a man dive down.

"Then I saw another fellow take a beaker from the starboard boat, and, watching his chance when the rhino wasn't looking, drop over and into the starboard forecastle, to fill it from the water-barrel. He passed it up and also the bread-barge. There was some of the cabin stores in the galley, and these they secured easily through the skylight; but I noticed they packed it all in the starboard-boat, though they had cleared away the other.

"I knew I had just fifteen shots in that rifle; but I hadn't looked for further ammunition, and I thought that fifteen would finish the rhino, somehow; so, when the boys above shinned down and joined me, I neglected to ask them to hunt for more, but just peppered away when I thought I saw a good chance, but never hit the one vulnerable spot.

"The second mate wanted to try it, but I wouldn't resign the gun to him. In extreme emergencies, you know, an officer loses his superiority; he becomes a mere man, like the rest. Every time I tickled the brute with a bullet he would come charging aft, but never stopped still when within easy range. Not seeing anyone, he would wheel and go back to his duty at the forward house. To tell the truth, I was a little nervous lest he should be able to mount the poop and get at us.

"The old hippo was happy, swimming and snorting round in the water; and the rhino seemed to have forgotten his grudge, busying himself with his real enemies, human beings. There were about sixteen of these on the forward house, and I noticed that they had ceased the work of stocking the boat, and judged that there was no more grub forward.

"'I say, cap'n,' I called out, 'put some grub and water in the other boat. One boat won't hold us all.'

"'You go to the dickens!' he answered. 'What are you doing in my cabin? Didn't I tell you to keep out of it?'

"'Go yourself!' I yelled. Then I said to the men with me: 'Raid the steward's storeroom and fill your pockets with what you can find. Pack the inside of your shirts.'

"They could find nothing eatable except soda biscuits, and they cleaned out the locker. But there was no water aft.

"Meanwhile the bark was getting lower and lower, and the rhino, to escape the wash, had drifted farther forward. I had wasted twelve bullets by this time, and had but three left. It was best, of course, to kill him before the bark foundered, so that we could get into that port boat and induce the rest to pass over some grub and water. But this was not to be.

"I killed him, all right, but only after we had rushed out at the death flurry of the old craft, floundered forward, seizing handspikes from the racks on the way, and gained the vicinity of the house. Here that murder-minded rhino met us, and I jammed the muzzle into one eye.

"The bullet touched some part of his brain, for he sagged down and grew quiet. And while we mounted the house, the asses and zebras were hee-hawing, the wolf was barking, and the mad elephant, waving his trunk up through the hatch, was trumpeting like a high-pressure exhaust.

"We were just in time. The others had got into the starboard boat, and we bundled into the port. There was no time for a decent launching over the rail, but there was time to sing out for grub and water. The skipper and mate consigned us to the infernal regions.

"'There's not enough to go round,' he declared. 'Take your chance. It's better that part should starve than all.'

"I still had the gun, and had there been time I could have coerced them; but there was no time. In a minute the water had reached the top of the house.

"Then, as the boats floated in the creamy turmoil, we pushed with the oars, and, though half swamped, managed to clear the fore-braces as they went under. There was a mighty roaring of water, and a mighty suction, but the two boats floated, though half full.

"Then we saw that blooming old hippo rise out of the depths and head for us. We shipped the oars and pulled like mad, but we'd gone a quarter of a mile through that heavy sea before we dropped him.

"We couldn't have helped him; he'd have swamped us in a jiffy if he'd got his nose and forepaws over the gunwale. We chewed dry soda biscuits for three days, and were then picked up."

"But the others, Sam?" I asked. "Were they picked up?"

"No," answered Sam with a perceptible quaver in his voice. "They were not. The wolf, the zebras, and the asses could swim, and so could the monkeys, and snakes, after a fashion.

"I don't know what trouble they may or may not have had with these. What I did see, though, as I pulled stroke oar in the race with the hippo, was the big head of the elephant showing occasionally as we rode over the crest of a wave.

"He was waving his trunk in the air, and making for the other boat. They were pulling as hard as we were, but to less avail. They were overladen with men and grub. Each lift of a sea showed them nearer together.

"Then we sank into a hollow.

"When we came up I saw nothing but that waving trunk."

THE FINISHING TOUCH

He was born with a nature as simple and primitive as the physical conditions surrounding him, and endowed with a body so frail and delicate that he barely survived these conditions--which were of frost, and snow, and ice, with winter hurricanes straight from Greenland and summer fogs fed by the Gulf Stream to breed pneumonia and kindred diseases into stronger lungs than his.

But he survived to reach the age of eighteen, a tall, flat-chested, weak-witted butt of the local school, who, while able to struggle along with the ordinary studies at the foot of the class, was yet so poorly endowed with the mathematical sense that he could only master the first four rules of arithmetic. Fractions and decimals were unsolvable mysteries to him. His name was Quinbey--first name John, later Jack.

He was of American birth, the only son of a fisherman, who had taken his smack to an isolated village on the Nova Scotian coast. Here the fisherman did well, and before the boy was half grown owned the finest cottage in the village--which he bought cheap because it was perched on the crest of the hill, exposed to every storm that blew, a nest that none but a sailor could live in. With increasing prosperity he installed a big base-burner, good for the anaemic boy, but bad for himself.

The boy rid himself of coughs and colds; but the father, changing from the chill and the wet of fishing to the warmth and ease of home life, contracted pneumonia and died, leaving the boy in possession of the house and the smack, but not enough ready money to last for a month.

Young Quinbey closed up the house, took in a partner with money, and went fishing for a season, at the end of which the partner--a shrewd business man--owned the smack.

The boy acquired a wonderful increase of health and strength, and a consuming love for a pretty girl of the village, a trader's daughter named Minnie, who repulsed him firmly and emphatically because of his poverty--for the house and base-burner were not desirable assets--and because of his weak mental and physical equipment.

But there is a school for weak mentality and physique--the Seven Seas. And to this school went John Quinbey, first, however, putting in one season on the Georges Bank, where, in a lucky craft, he made money. Richer than ever before in his life, he returned home, to try again for the heart and hand of Minnie, but found her married to the minister, a man as weak, flat-chested, and anaemic as he himself had been.

He reasoned crudely. He did not meet Minnie, but took stock and measure of the minister, a gentleman named Simpson; then, feeling his own expanding chest and enlarging muscles, decided that Minnie would soon be a widow, and he a strong man with money; for he could work, and, having no vices, could save. So, for love of Minnie, he went back to sea, resolved to become a captain, resolved to save every cent he earned, and resolved to balk at no hardship that would lead him to success.

At Boston, he shipped before the mast as able seaman in a big deep-water ship. He was not an able seaman, nor did he become one on this voyage; it required several; but each one marked a steady advance in muscular strength, mental activity, and bank account; and, at the end of the fifth, he signed as boatswain--an able man who knew his work.

He was strong, broad-shouldered, and active; the slightly vacant look in his face that had come from his boyhood incapacity had changed to a frank stare that demanded consideration and respect. He seldom asked a question twice now--once was usually enough. He had a fist that could smash the panels of a door, a voice that he could not modulate to conversational tones--so used was he to sending it against the wind. He did not use tobacco, nor did he drink, for these things cost money, and he was thinking of Minnie, most precious of all things in the world.