Part 4
For over a year and a half Gonzales held up vessels of all kinds, and not a soul escaped to tell a tale. How many ships, still overdue, were taken by him no one will ever know, but it is safe to say they were many. His storehouses at the Orkneys were filled with enough material to supply a colony.
After taking enough supplies to last him for years, Gonzales ceased to attack vessels. This was proved in the case of the Sentinel, whose skipper reported a fast, black sealing schooner, without a name, manned by a crew of Patagonians, having spoken him in south latitude 50°, west longitude 96° 35’. The skipper of the sealing vessel came aboard and asked the captain of the Sentinel to sell him Remington 45-90 cartridges for sealing. After this he asked to see all the passengers, and insisted on talking for some time to the stewardess. Then he left in his boat, calling out a farewell in Spanish.
The English ship Porpoise, a few months later, reported the same strange sealer off Juan Fernandez. He came aboard with a dozen of his giant crew, and asked for rifle cartridges. He also held a long conversation about the different vessels in the Cape Horn trade, and asked many questions in regard to their skippers and after guards.
“I haf a wife; she runs away on ship,--I look for her,” said he to the captain of the Porpoise.
“Hope you will find her,” said the Englishman, with a sneering grin and a glance at the Spaniard’s strange dress.
“You seem amused,” said Gonzales.
“I am,” replied the skipper, laughing.
“Then see I don’t kill you,” said Gonzales, and he left without another word.
The sealing schooner was within fifty fathoms of the ship, and after Gonzales went back aboard the captain watched him. As he looked, he saw the Spaniard raise a gun to his shoulder and the smoke spurt forth. At the same instant a bullet tore its way through the taffrail, within an inch of his waist.
“Sink him, if his wife hasn’t driven him mad,” cried the captain, as he dived below.
Five other vessels reported meeting this strange sealer before the year was out, and each told of a somewhat similar experience in regard to the stranger’s inquiries. As sealers seldom speak deep-water ships, this was thought strange, and when Enoch Moss, of the Yankee clipper Silver Sea, read the latest account at Havre, he called his first mate, Mr. O’Toole, into the after cabin.
“Have you read the _Marine Journal_?” said he, looking up at the big red-headed Irishman.
“No, sir; how is it now?”
“Read that, and tell me what you make of it.”
O’Toole looked hard at the page for some moments, and then replied,--
“’Pon me whurd, for a fact, it’s him, Gonzales, th’ very man we marooned off th’ Cape for knifin’ Davis. Now, what in th’ name av th’ saints is he doin’ aboard a sealer with a native crew? He don’t know poor Moll is dead, for sure, but he’s heard av th’ man he knifed.”
“Maybe he will visit us to the s’uth’ard,” said Enoch Moss.
“In that case, ’twill be as well to have a few rifles aboard, for a fact. Shall I see to it?”
“Yes; we clear to-morrow at noon.”
And O’Toole went forward.
At the main-hatch he met Garnett, the second mate, and he asked,--
“D’ye mind Gonzales? Th’ same as ye put off on th’ rocks av Hermite Isle?”
“The Dago who killed Davis for his wife’s sake?”
“Th’ same.”
“Well, I reckon I do, but what of him? He won’t turn up as long as there’s danger of swinging.”
“He’s sealin’ to th’ s’uth’ard av th’ Cape, an’ speakin’ vessels what carry stewardesses. He shot at th’ skipper av th’ Porpoise for no more than a joke.”
“Stave me! You don’t mean it. He’s looking for Moll, then. Suppose he meets us?”
“’Pon me whurd, I feel sorry for ye if he does, Garnett. Ye are an owld villain, an’ ye haven’t much chance if he sees ye. Now, for a fact, ye’ll be in a bad way.” And O’Toole grinned hopefully.
“Bah!” said Garnett, and he went on with his work.
Ten weeks later the Silver Sea raised Cape St. John, and stood away for the Horn under top-gallant-sails. It was mid-summer, and Christmas day was daylight twenty hours out of the twenty-four. There was little difficulty in seeing anything that might rise above the horizon. It came on to blow very hard from the northwest during the day, and the ship, being quite deep, was snugged down to her single lower maintop-sail. She lay to on the starboard tack, and made heavy weather of the high, rolling sea.
“’Tis a bad spell for th’ ‘wind-jammers,’” said O’Toole, as he stood under the lee of the mizzen, where he had just come to relieve Garnett.
“Divil av a thing have we sighted but a blooming owld penguin this blessed week.”
“It’s a most ornery live sea rolling,” said Garnett, removing his sou’wester, and mopping the dent in the top of his bald head. “I wonder how that Dago would like to board us to-day?”
“He was good enough sailor; but, say, Garnett, what d’ye make av that white t’ the west’ard? ’Pon me whurd, for a fact, ’tis a small vessel comin’ afore it.”
Garnett looked to windward. There, coming out of the thick haze of the flying drift, appeared a small black schooner running before the storm, with nothing but a small trysail on the foremast. She rode the giant seas like an albatross, and bore down on the Silver Sea at a tremendous pace. Several figures appeared upon her dripping deck, and several more appeared aft at her helm. The white foam dripped from her black sides at each roll, and was flung far to either side of her shearing bows, leaving a broad, white road on the following sea to mark her wake.
From the time O’Toole first saw her outlined against the blue steel-colored sky through the flying spray and spume drift to that when she came abreast the Silver Sea was but a few minutes. But it was long enough for Garnett to call the skipper, who came on deck and examined her through his glass.
“Gonzales and his black crew, by all that’s holy,” said Enoch Moss, quietly.
“’Pon me whurd it is, an’ he’s going to kape us company. Look!” said O’Toole.
As he spoke, the little vessel began to broach to on the weather-beam. As she bore up in the trough, a tremendous comber struck her and laid her flat on her beam ends, so that for several minutes she was quite out of sight in the smother. Then her masts were seen to rise again out of that storm-torn sea, and she was taking the weight of it forward of her starboard beam. It was an interesting sight to see that little craft rise like a live thing and throw her dripping forefoot high in the air until her keel was visible clear back to her foremast. Great splashes of snowy white foam, dripping from her black sides, were blown into long streamers by the gale, and everything alow and aloft glistened with salt water. Then she would descend with a wild plunge and bury herself almost out of sight in the sea, only to rise again in a perfect storm of flying spray. She was heading well and making good weather of it, half a mile off the Silver Sea’s weather-quarter.
Enoch Moss watched her through his glass.
“It’s Gonzales, and he has a gun. I reckon he will signal us,” said he. “No,” he continued; “he has raised it and put it down again. Sink him; I believe he has fired at us.”
There was no report heard above the deep booming roar of the gale, but instantly after the skipper spoke a small hole appeared in the maintop-sail. The hole grew in size every moment as the pressure of the gale tore the parting canvas. Then, with a loud crack, the sail split from head to foot and began to thrash to ribbons from the yard.
“Stave me, but he has the range of us all right,” said Garnett, and the next instant he was plunging forward bawling for the watch to lay aft and secure the remains of the storm-topsail.
“Shall we put the spencer on her?” bawled O’Toole to the skipper, who had sprung to the wheel.
“No use,” roared Enoch Moss. “Trim the yards sharp and let her hold on the best she can. If she pays off put a tarpaulin in the mizzen.”
The Silver Sea did hold her head up to the sea without any canvas, for she was very deep, and she sagged off to leeward less than the Hawke.
Enoch Moss went below and came on deck again with a Winchester rifle. Then he seated himself comfortably near the wheel and fired cartridge after cartridge at the trysail of the schooner. After half an hour’s sport there was nothing to indicate that his shots had taken effect, so he desisted. All Christmas day the vessels were within sight of each other and towards evening the wind began to slack up.
Gonzales was first to take advantage of the lull. He put a close-reefed mainsail on his little vessel, and, with a bonneted jib hoisted high above the sea-washed forecastle, he sent the Hawke reaching through it like mad.
He came close under the Silver Sea’s lee-quarter, and fired his whale-gun slap into the ship’s cabin. The shell burst and scattered the skipper’s charts all over the deck and set fire to the bulkhead. Then began the most novel fight that ever occurred on deep water.
Enoch Moss, O’Toole, and Garnett kept up a rapid fire with their rifles upon the schooner’s deck, but, although the range was not great, the motion of the plunging vessels made it almost impossible to hit even a good-sized mark. Gonzales, in turn, fired his whale-gun as long as he was close enough to use it, and he made the splinters fly from the deck-house and cabin. Then he and his fellows took to their sealing rifles and kept up a hot fire until the Hawke passed ahead out of range. Three times did the Spaniard go to windward and run down on the heavily loaded ship, while all hands worked to get canvas on her. Finally, when the Silver Sea hoisted topsails, fore and aft, she began to drive ahead at a reasonable rate, but with dangerous force, into the heavy sea. Even then Gonzales could outpoint her, and had no difficulty in keeping within easy rifle range. From there he kept up a slow but steady fire upon everything that had the appearance of life on the Silver Sea’s deck.
Late in the evening it was still quite light, and he drew closer. A huge Patagonian was seen upon the schooner’s forecastle, firing slowly and carefully. Soon after this a sailor was struck and badly injured. The faint crack of the sealing rifle continued to sound at regular intervals, and Enoch Moss began to get desperate. He stood behind the mizzen, watching the Hawke following him as a dog follows a boar.
“This can’t keep up forever,” he said to O’Toole. “He’ll wear us out before we make port. I reckon we might as well stand away for the Falklands.”
“’Tis no use; I can’t hit him,” said O’Toole, jamming his rifle into the furled spanker. “Th’ men are all scared half mad, an’ if it falls calm he’ll board us certain; ’pon me whurd he will.”
“We must chance it, then,” said Enoch Moss. “Hoist away the fore-and main-t’gallant-sails. We’ll run for it.”
In ten minutes the Silver Sea was standing away to the eastward, with half a gale on her quarter. She hoisted sail after sail, until she drove along fully twelve knots an hour, leaving a wide, white wake into which Gonzales squared away. But he could not overhaul her. He shook out his reefs and hoisted a foresail, burying his little vessel’s head in a wild smother of foam.
Enoch Moss stood aft looking at him, and, as his ship flew along with top-gallant-masts bending like whips, his spirits rose.
“He’ll spring something yet, if he holds on,” he cried to O’Toole and Garnett, who stood near.
“’Pon me whurd he will,” said the mate.
“Look!” bawled Garnett.
As he spoke, a huge sea, following in the Spaniard’s wake, began its combing rush. It struck the little schooner full upon her weather-quarter, and rolled over her stern, swinging her broadside to. As it did so the mainsail caught the weight of the flying crest, and the mast went over the side. The next instant it carried the foremast with it. Then the Hawke lay a complete and helpless wreck upon the high, rolling seas of the Horn.
“We’ve got him,” bawled Enoch Moss, springing upon the poop. “Fore-and main-t’gallant-sails, quick!” And the mates dashed forward, bawling for all hands to secure the canvas. Jennings and Bilkidg stood at the wheel, and steadied the heavy ship as she came on the wind, and the way she tore along gave them all they could do.
Everything held, and they were soon several miles to windward of the Lord Hawke. Then Enoch Moss wore ship, and stood for the schooner close hauled. There was still a stiff gale blowing, and the heavy ship tore her way through the high sea with a lurch and tremble that bade fair to take her topmasts out of her. But Enoch Moss held on.
“Point her head for him,” he bawled to the men at the wheel. “Hold her tight and hit him fair; we’ll smash him under this time.”
Garnett stood on the forecastle-head and watched the Spaniard giving directions to the helmsmen by waving his hands. He saw a dozen or more natives launch their whale-boat and try to clear the schooner just as the Silver Sea came rushing down upon them, with a roaring waste of snowy surge under her forefoot, fifty fathoms distant.
Gonzales stood on the schooner’s deck, rifle in hand, and he fired at Enoch Moss as the Silver Sea towered over his doomed vessel. The next instant the heavy ship rose on the sea, and, with her great sloping cut-water storming through it at ten knots an hour, swooped downwards. There was a heavy jar that almost knocked Garnett overboard, but Enoch Moss, gripping his arm where the rifle-shot had passed through, rushed to the side and peered over in time to see the forward half of the Lord Hawke sink from view. The native crew barely got clear, and, as the Silver Sea passed on, they and their boat were the only objects left floating in her wake.
“Now for the rest,” roared the skipper, smarting from his wound. “Stand by to wear ship.”
“We’ll never touch them,” said O’Toole. “They’ve picked up Gonzales and are heading dead to windward, rowing six oars double banked.”
The Silver Sea bore up again to the northward, but the black crew of the Hawke were then a good mile in the wind’s eye, pulling with giant strokes. She wore again after jamming for an hour, but when she crossed their wake the whale-boat was a tiny speck in the distance.
“’Tis a long row home they’ll have,” said O’Toole, looking after them.
“I hope the old man won’t ship any more pretty stewardesses,” growled Garnett.
“’Pon me whurd, I don’t belave he will.”
“Let her head her course, west-nor’west,” said Enoch Moss, and he went below holding his bandaged arm.
The last they saw of Gonzales and his crew was the tiny speck appearing and disappearing upon the high rolling seas of the Pacific Antarctic Drift.
_JOHNNIE_
At eight bells, after the dog-watch, I went aft to relieve Gantline, and found him talking to the skipper. It isn’t good ship etiquette to interrupt a superior officer, so I went to leeward along the poop and gained the wheel. There I waited until the discussion ended.
Gantline was somewhat excited at a remark made by the “old man,” and was holding forth in explanation.
“No, sir,” said he; “let the boys come aboard for’ard--through the hawse-pipe, as the saying is--not in the cabin. It’s the little devils who run away and ship that make the sailors. They take to a slush-pot or tar-bucket as if there was honor in getting afoul of them. All the stinks of the fo’castle, all the hard knocks, bad grub, and every mean thing that happens in a sailor’s life--and Lord knows there are lots of them--are all taken as part of that big thing--agoing to sea. I know you want your boys to sign on, regular like. You say it protects them. Maybe it does. But I say, give me the little rascals who are full of the song of the thing. Yes, sir, you may laugh, but that’s it. They go into the thing different, and hard knocks ain’t going to hurt them much.
“You know a man has to be rough on deep water. No matter how easy he is, sometimes he gets a hard crew, and he must know how to handle them when the time comes.”
“But how about that case we were speaking of?” said the skipper; “there was the investigation, and some of the men gave Jensen a pretty rough name, considering he’s a dead man. They didn’t lay any particular blame on you.”
Gantline was somewhat disturbed in mind, and he forthwith went to leeward and spat a stream of tobacco juice into the sea. Then he came back wiping his mouth on the back of his great, horny hand, his face wearing a thoughtful look.
“You see, this is the way the thing was,” said he, stopping and throwing one leg upon the rail near where the skipper sat.
“That little fellow came aboard while we were lying at the dock in the East River. He was a dirty, ragged little rascal. I saw him sneak over the rail and dodge behind the deck-house. When I collared him he began crying, and asked me not to let the ‘cops’ get him. He begged so hard and seemed so thin a little shaver I couldn’t see him run in, so I let him down in the forepeak, and he hid behind some empty harness-casks. We were going out the next day, and I intended to see him ashore all right in the morning, and as it was past six bells then I went uptown to have a last look about.
“Two watchmen stopped me and asked if I had seen a boy come aboard, and when I asked what they wanted him for they were short enough.
“No, I ain’t much but a deep-water mate, but most men are civil enough to me.”
Captain Green smiled, but said nothing.
“A mate ain’t supposed to know much,” continued Gantline, not liking the smile, “but I didn’t have to stand on my head to take the sun the first time I crossed the line,” and he looked meaningly at the skipper, who smoked in silence.
“So when those fellows talked short and big, I just told them to hurry up to the place they were sure to fetch up in some day and went on uptown. You know what a sailor is, so you know how he spends his last night on the beach.
“I got aboard in the morning and was feeling pretty blue. After sticking my head in a pail of water I came on deck just as we got the word to clear. In a few minutes we were towing out, and I never thought of that little shaver until the next day. Then Mr. Jensen dragged him aft to the ‘old man’ by the scruff of his poor little neck.
“Crojack was feeling blue then, and he didn’t want any boys aboard, so he told the mate to flog him and turn him to with his watch.
“The poor little fellow begged hard not to get the rope’s end, but the mate wouldn’t listen.
“I can’t say I was against lamming him, for I felt he had taken advantage of me.
“Jensen went too far, though, and we came near having a set-to over the child before we were off soundings. Johnnie was cast loose and he fell down on deck. Then old Williams, the bos’n, took him into the fo’castle. After that Jensen took him in hand pretty regular.
“‘In my day,’ said he, ‘boys were taught something, and there weren’t no dudes. And the only way to get knowledge into a boy’s hide is to lam it in with a rope’s end. It stays there then.’ So he would lecture Johnnie on the wicked ways of the world, and after the poor little fellow would listen to the rigmarole and gibble gabble he would take him under the t’gallant fo’castle and lam him beyond all reason, just so he wouldn’t forget a word he told him.”
“That’s what the men said,” broke in Zack Green. “He was a ruffian to the little fellow and a d----d coward, and meaner than the wrath of Davy Jones. It’s all because he wasn’t signed on regular.”
Gantline was silent for a time, and then continued:
“He grew fat and strong and in a couple of months could go aloft with the men. He feared nothing but Jensen, and the men used to call out for fun, ‘Here comes the mate, Johnnie,’ just to hear him curse.
“Curse? Lord love ye, he could beat anything I ever heard. Why, I’ve seen the mate go for’ard to see what the men were laughing at, when it was just Johnnie calling Jensen names to them.”
“Shows how the coward was ruining him,” broke in the skipper.
“Well, he did have a queer way of training him,” went on Gantline. “He would ask him questions about navigation, too, and then lam him afterwards. One I remember.
“‘Johnnie,’ said he, ‘if this hooker should be driven clear to the Pole and steered away nor’west, how would she steer to get back, considering she had left something there she wanted to go back for, for instance.’
“‘Steer away nor’west, sir? Get back, sir? Why, just the opposite direction, southeast’
“‘Now, how in the name of Davy Jones can a vessel get to the Pole steering southeast, hey?’ he would yell. ‘What’s the matter with you? I’ll give you till the watch is called to answer, and if you don’t, I’ll peel you fore an’ aft.’”
“A cowardly, ignorant fool, sure enough,” said the skipper.
Gantline bit off a fresh chew of tobacco and stowed it carefully in his cheek.
“Still,” he went on, slowly, “when the weather got cold he saw the poor boy shivering one day, and he went aft and bought him a new set of slops, good and warm. He must have paid half a month’s wage for them, for the old man never gave things away off the Horn. You may say it wasn’t much, but he did it, anyway.
“It was July when we got off the Cape. You know how it is in that month. Cold, dark, stormy weather, with the giant nor’west sea rolling down from the Pacific. We had been knocking about now, too, for three weeks and were down below 61° south, so it was hard enough. The cold was terrible. Nearly all of us were badly frozen. There wasn’t any floating ice, but the log-line broke from the weight of ice frozen to it as it dipped and rose with the ship.
“It was dark nearly all the time and so gloomy, even when it wasn’t blowing hard; all hands were used up. Jensen kept Johnnie warmed up just the same, and I guess he thought it helped him.
“One day it got still. The wind died away entirely, and the maintop-sail--the only rag we had on her--began to jerk fore and aft, slatting loud as the ship rolled her channels under in a great live sea that came rolling down on us from the north’ard.
“It was so dark at six bells in the afternoon the forms of the men loomed strange like through the gloom as they walked fore and aft in the gangways. It was my watch on deck; but there was nothing to do, so I sat on the step to windward on the poop and smoked to keep warm.
“The mate came on deck after a little while to take a look around, and he called Johnnie to coil down some running rigging at the mizzen.
“‘The bloody glass has fallen an inch since eight bells,” said he, coming to where I sat.
“‘It is sort of bad looking,’ said I, ‘and I don’t quite like the quick run of this sea,--seems to go faster than ever, as if something was behind it.’ And as I spoke the old hooker rammed her nose clear to her knight-heads into a living hill. It rolled under us silently, and the slatting of the topsail and rush of water in the channels were the only sounds it made. The voices of the men jarred on my ears, strange like.
“All of a sudden a long, hoarse cry broke from the gloom and silence to windward.
“‘What’s that?’ asked Johnnie, and he dropped the rope.
“‘That’s the Cape Horn devil,’ said the bos’n, grinning; ‘every time he winks his eye he gives er yell, an’ wice wersa; see?’
“‘Cape Horn thunder,’ growled Jensen; ‘you an’ me will disagree somewhat, Williams, if you try an’ scare the boy like that. Jump, blast you, and lay up on that foreyard an’ see if there ain’t some serving wanted on that weather lift. Git!’
“‘Cape Horn h----,” he went on to Johnnie. ‘That ain’t nothing but a bleeding old penguin, and may the devil take his infernal soul.’
“Johnnie didn’t know any more than he did before he spoke, so he kept looking out of the clew of his eye to windward while he worked. The mate was strange and queer when he heard that cry. I don’t know what it was, but it sounded like some one calling out of that great blackness. Jensen went below, and when he came on deck I smelled rum on his breath.