Chapter 9

We were almost to the other entrance when he ordered the _Bess_ hove-to and the gig lowered. Into it went the strong-box and the Cunninghams and Ubbo. "And you, too, Guy." He was looking at me queerly. "Mr. Cunningham is still weak. And Shiela, brave as she is, is only a woman--a girl. Will you see that they are landed safely? That is the main shore. See that their luggage is carried up to the top of that hill. In the creek beyond that hill is an old darky who will take them in his little sharpie by way of a back river to Savannah."

And so I was to have a few more minutes with her. At the gangway he took my hand and held it while he said, "You're weak yet--don't hurry. Those two frigates won't follow us in here." I remember wondering why only Ubbo was in the boat besides ourselves; but I was too excited at the thought of so soon landing her to think logically. As I was about to step into the gig he whispered, "Take good care of her, won't you, Guy?"

"Why, of course, sir."

"That's the boy." He pressed my hand.

We shoved off, Ubbo rowing. In two minutes we were on the beach. I was still too weak to be of much help to Ubbo with the strong-box, and so it took us some time to get it to the top of the hill. We covered it with sand and brush to guard against a possible landing party from the frigates. Shiela's idea that was, and it delayed us another few minutes.

I turned to go. Shiela, she was nervous too, but smiling. "Shiela--"

"You're not going back to the ship?"

"But I must--I must."

"No, you're not--and you must not. Here." She had taken the bewaxed and beribboned package from her little handbag. It was addressed to "Guy Villard, Esq., Villard Manor, Chatham County, Ga."

"But who is he?"

"Who is he? Who are you?"

"Guy Blaise."

"No, you're not. Open it and read. Or wait, let me read it."

And it is true that not till then did I suspect. I thought that I might have been his son, or the son of some wild friend, born of a marriage on the West Coast or other foreign parts. But of this thing I never had a suspicion.

I was the baby boy picked up in the wreckage of the burning ship. There were the marriage certificates of my father and mother, and the title deeds to the Villard estate. It had been a great temptation--he the next of kin, my father's cousin, and no one knowing. And he, too, feared the strange blood. But watching my growth, he had come to love me, and wanted me to love him, and feared my contempt if I should learn. All this was explained in a letter in a small envelope, written recently and hastily. Together, Shiela and I, we finished the reading of it:

Though I'm not so sure now that you shouldn't thank me for withholding your inheritance until the quality of your manhood was assured. It is true that I imperilled your mortal body a score of times, but through fifty-score weeks I nurtured your immortal soul, Guy.

And now I am going back to that sea wherein I expect to find rest at the last, and let my friends make no mourning over it, Guy. 'Tis a beautiful clean grave, no mould nor crawling worms there. But if it be that the sea will have none of me, and the metalled war-dogs drive me, and spar-shattered and hull-battered I make a run of it to harbor in my old age, I shall come in full confidence of a mooring under your roof, Guy. And who knows that I won't be worth my salt there?

You have won her, Guy. I knew you would from that night in Momba when you sat in the stern sheets and laughed. 'Twas in your laugh that night, though you did not suspect it. But I know. The tides of youth were surging in you. Beauty, wit, and courage--with these in any man I will measure sword; but the tides of youth are of eternal power.

I should like to dance your children on my knee, Guy, and lull the songs of the sea into their little ears. I've a fine collection by now, Guy--you've no idea--ringing chanties to get a ship under way, and roaring staves of the High Barbaree, ballads of the gale, and lullabies of west winds and summer nights. And your children, Guy, will grow up none the less brave gentlemen and fine ladies for the strengthening salt of the sea in their blood and the clearing whiff of the gale in their brains. So a fair, fair Trade to you and Shiela--the fair warm Trades which kiss even as they bear us on--and do not forget the tides of youth are flooding for you. Take them and let them bear you on to happiness and wisdom.

I felt weak and dizzy, but I rose to my feet and started down the hill. Shiela caught me and held me. "Look!" She was pointing out to sea.

There she was, the _Dancing Bess_, holding a taut bowline to the eastward. And there were the two frigates, but they might as well have been chasing a star.

"Look!" She handed me the glasses. I looked and saw her ensign dipping. I took off my hat and waved it, hoping that with his long glass he could see. He must have seen, for the ensign dipped three times again, and from the long-tom in her waist shot out a puff of smoke. We waited for the sound of it. It came.

Farewell that meant. I watched her till her great foresail was no larger than a toy ship's. Then I sat down and cried, and had no care that the negro slave and servant, Ubbo, saw me.

Mr. Cunningham came and sat beside me. "Guy," he said, "don't worry about him. He'll come through all right. He has great qualities in him."

"He's good, too--too good to me."

"Great and good," exclaimed Shiela. "He could love and was lovable. And what's all your greatness to that?"

It may be that she who knew him least understood him best. She was crying too.

When her great square foresails were no more than a gull's wing on the hazy horizon we waved her a last salute. Then we made our way to the creek and sailed up Back River, past Savannah, and on to Villard Landing. And hand in hand Shiela and I walked up between the row of moss-hung cypress trees to the manor-house and--Home.

Don Quixote Kieran, Pump-Man

He came into the outer office of the great oil company, and through the half-open door of his private office the new superintendent observed the stimulating style of his entrance. Looking for work, no doubt of that, but not looking like a man who was apologizing for it; and that in itself was a joy to the new official.

No hesitating--"Please, sir, who is the gentleman,"--no timid waiting on any languid understrapper's pleasure for this one. A short pause; his dark eyes swept the room from wall to wall; his black head bent respectfully and not without appreciation toward the pretty stenographer; and then, before the leisurely office boy thought it time to rise and ask what he wanted, he was at the rail-gate. And when the gate did not at once swing open, he stepped lightly over it; and singling out from all the furtively smiling males the head clerk, he charged straight across the floor toward that important person's desk.

And the head clerk, who was also the head wit, took a peek at him coming, and very politely said, "Pray be seated?" And, also very politely, "From whence came you and what willst thou?"

The chuckling heads bobbed above the rows of desks. The head clerk himself had to gaze window-ward to smother his smile.

"Gramercy, kind sir--"

"Gramercy? Eh, what? Gramercy?"

"Gramercy Park--you know where Gramercy Park is? Or didn't you ask me where I came from?"

"Oh-h-Oh-h, yes."

"Of course, and I'm after a berth as pump-man on your oil ship sailing to-day for the Gulf."

"And what, may I ask, do you know of our class of ships?"

"Only what I've heard--most modern oil-tankers afloat, and I'd like to try one out--and sail the Gulf again, if you'll give me the chance."

"M-m--what are your qualifications?"

"Qualifications? For pump-man on an oil-tanker?"

"Pump-man--yes. And on an oil-tanker. I'm not hiring a rough rider, or a policeman, or an aeroplanist--just a pump-man."

Through his open door the new superintendent caught the wink which his head clerk directed at the second clerk. And caught it so easily that the thought came to him that to share in the humor of the head clerk may have been one of the recreations of his predecessor.

"What has been your experience with marine machinery? What were your last three or four places?"

"My last three or four? Well, one was being second-assistant engineer on a government collier from the Philippines with a denaturalized skipper, and for purser a slick up-state New Yorker; and both of 'em at the old game--grafting off the grub allowance. And that's bad."

"Eh--what's bad?"

"Grafting off the grub. Men quit a ship for poor grub quicker than they do for poor pay. For a week after we hit San Francisco I didn't get any further away from the dining-room of the nearest hotel--well, than"--he turned suddenly--"than that fellow there is from here--that fat, knock-kneed chap there who seems to have so much to say about me." The second clerk, who was also the second head wit, yelped like a suddenly squelched concertina and was quiet.

The new-comer, after a grave study of the knock-kneed one's person, resumed his narrative. "Then oiler on a cattle steamer. Ever been on a cattleman?"

"Huh!" The head clerk was scowling tremendously.

"No? You ought to try one sometime. Some are all right, but some are"--he looked sidewise at the stenographer--"well, no matter. One night two sweet-tempered, light-complexioned coal-passers hit me together, one with a shovel, the other with a slice-bar. It was the slice-bar, I think, that got me. I didn't see it coming--or going either--but probably it was the slice-bar." He bent his neck and parted the heavy black hair. A white welt showed through the hair.

The head clerk flashed an enlightening wink toward the second head clerk; but the second clerk, seeming to be less interested than formerly, the wink was flashed over to the stenographer; but as she, too, seemed preoccupied, the head clerk, rather less buoyantly, inquired, "And what did you do to the two coal-passers?"

"For what I did to them--after I came to--I had to jump into the Mersey and swim ashore. British justice, you know. Inflexible!--especially to a foreigner who cracks a couple of domestic skulls."

"And then?"

"English navy."

The head clerk began to flash again. "And what, may I arsk, was wrong--haw, haw!--wrong with the sair-vice?"

The new-comer almost smiled. "The grub, for one thing. My word, the grub! Blow me for a bleedin' Dutchman, but I couldn't go the grub; y'know. An' a man's a man, with a man's 'eart an' feelin's, even if 'e's nowt but a sailor, ain't he now? You're bloody well right 'e is. But I took a fall out of a submarine before I quit. 'Ave you seen 'em--the little black chaps wot goes down an' comes up like bloomin' little poppusses?"

The head clerk unobtrusively relapsed into his every-day speech. "And weren't they exciting enough for you?"

"The one I was in was. But you see, sir, she sunk one d'y an' all 'ands with 'er."

"Evidently you didn't sink with her. Or maybe you're amphibious?"

"Amphibious? Oh, I s'y now, but that's a good one. My word! But you was jokin', wasn't you, sir? Of course you was. No, hi 'appened to be ashore that d'y, sir. A mistike, sir, you see. But such a turn of wit as you 'ave, sir!"

The head clerk suddenly shed his smile. "Never mind about my wit. What then? You deserted?"

"Not hexactly, sir. I was hofficially dead, sir. Ought to 'ave been at the bottom, sir. O yes, sir. An' when I comes along an' declares myself, they said I was a himposter--himposin' on honest people, sir--mikin' a 'ero o' myself, sir, as bein' the only man to escipe, sir. An' so I comes aw'y--in a 'urry, sir. But if I was married, sir, my widow could 'ave 'ad 'er pension, sir. Yes, sir, 'er pension."

"That's a queer thing."

"Do you think so, sir?"

The head clerk unexpectedly bounced up and down in his chair. "See here, don't imagine you can make fun of me, because you can't."

"Now don't get grouchy. When you pull out a cigar and start to light it, don't blame a man looking on if he thinks you don't object to smoking. Anyhow, after my navy experience I came back home and landed on an East River tug. Said I struck the busy season. Must have struck a busy concern, too. From daylight to ten, eleven at night--once in a while a night lapping over. Nothing doing but work. I don't mind work, but this indulging a lawless passion for it--not for mine. I've had three months of that, and I think I'm due for a change. And don't you think that's enough autobiography to qualify me for pump-man on an oil-tanker?"

The head clerk yawned prodigiously, and hummed, and whistled, looked out of the window, and by and by found time to say, "you can leave your name. And sometime possibly"--and just then the buzzer clicked, and the applicant saw him disappear into the private office.

* * * * *

It was only the new superintendent's second day, and to the head clerk he still seemed an unaggressive sort, not much to look at, and, so far, not much to say. A clever man ought to be able to handle him. And yet, as the head clerk was crossing the floor of the private office, the eye of the new superintendent never looked away. Yes, he did have a puzzling eye.

"Close the door, Mr. Grump. Why not ship that man for that berth? He seems competent."

"The captain of the _Rapidan_ said he had a man in mind for the place, sir."

"M-h-h. And something of a martinet, isn't he, this _Rapidan_ captain?"

"Something, sir."

"M-h-h. But even so, he probably won't object to my naming one man of his crew. And I would like it if you would sign this man."

"The captain of the _Rapidan_ has always selected all his own crew, sir." The head clerk had rested both hands, with fingers spread, on his chief's desk. His chief making no reply, the head clerk added: "And he rather resents interference from the office."

The superintendent was playing idly with a paper knife. His gaze seemed to be directed to the lower buttons of his head clerk's waistcoat. "Interference?" he repeated. "Interference? Mr. Grump, you have a reputation for humor, or so I judge. I've been listening to you trying to bedevil that man out there, but I'm afraid your humor is a little on the slap-stick order. And so"--the superintendent raised his head--"if I use a club on you, instead of the point of a rapier, I hope you won't think I do it out of natural brutality."

Their eyes met. The head clerk straightened from shoulder to heel. "And now, this is not a request; it is an order: Sign that man."

"Yes, sir."

"And Mr. Grump, why did you ask all those questions of a man you had no notion of shipping?"

"Why, sir, I meant no harm by that, sir. All kinds come here looking for berths on our ships, and some of them are rather queer ones, you know, sir, and we like to have a little fun with them."

"Have fun with that man? I wish I had your intellectual nerve."

"You know him, sir? If I had known--"

"I don't know him. I saw him and listened to him, as you did. But let me tell you something, Mr. Grump. You're paid $5,000 a year here, and presumably you know your business. I get several times that. Presumably I, too, know my business. But when you or I reach a stage where we can have fun with that man out there, then you and I won't have to rest content with our relatively subordinate and unimportant executive positions in the Northern and Southern Oil Company."

"Subordinate positions, sir!"

"Exactly. And Mr. Grump?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why is it that good men don't seem to stay long on some of our ships, especially on the _Rapidan_?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

"No? Too bad you didn't take the trouble to find out during all the years you've been here. Possibly I can find out. I'll take passage on the _Rapidan_ this trip. But say nothing about it to anybody, mind. If the captain wishes to know something more of his passenger, say that it is a friend of the third or fourth vice-president, or of one of the directors, or of the office boy's, or the stenographer's, or anybody at all, taking a little sea trip for his health. And his name--" He picked up the telephone directory, inserted the blade of the paper knife, opened the book, and laid the knife across the page. "Noyes. Noyes sounds all right. Tell him the passenger's name is Noyes. And that's all for now, except that you sign that man."

"Yes, sir." The reorganized head clerk clicked his heels, wheeled, marched to his desk, and without delay signed John Kieran as pump-man for the Gulf voyage of the oil ship _Rapidan_.

II

It lacked two minutes to sailing time, and the passenger was in the cabin mess-room, when he heard the exclamation. "Here he comes now."

He looked through the air-port. Out on the deck was a huge fellow gazing up the dock. The passenger, who knew the big man for the boson, gazed up the dock also and saw that it was the pump-man coming; and he was singing cheerily as he came:

"Our ship she was alaborin' in the Gulf o' Mexico, The skipper on the quarter--"

Usually it is only the drunks who come over the side of an oil-tanker singing, but this was no drunk. Drunks generally make use of all the aids to navigation when they board a ship. Above all, they do not ignore the gang-plank. But this lad wasn't going a hundred feet out of his way for any gang-plank. He hove his suit-case aboard, made a one-handed vault from dock to deck (and from stringpiece to rail was high as his shoulder), and when he landed on deck it was like a cat on his toes; and like a cat he was off and away, suit-case in hand, while those of the crew who had only seen him land were still wondering where he dropped from.

The big man plainly did not like the style of him at all. "Here you!" he bellowed, "who the hell are _you_?"

And the new-comer ripped out, "And who the hell are _you_ that wants to know?"

"Who'm I? Who'm I? I'll show yer bloody well soon who I am."

"Well, show me."

"Show yer?"

"Yes, you big sausage, show me."

"Show yer? Show yer?" The big man peered around the ship. Surely it was a mirage.

At the very first whoop from the big man the pump-man had stopped dead, softly set down his suit-case, and waited. Now he stepped swiftly toward the big man. And to the passenger, looking and listening from the cabin mess-room, it looked like the finest kind of a battle; but just then the captain came up the gang-plank calling out, "Cast off those lines. And don't fall asleep over it, either." The deck force scattered to carry out his orders. The pump-man picked up his suit-case and went on to his quarters.

Next morning (the ship by now well down the Jersey coast and the passenger on the bridge by the captain's invitation) again was heard the carolling voice:

"Our ship she was alaborin' in the Gulf o' Mexico, The skipper on the quarter, with eyes aloft and low. Says he, 'My bucko boys--'"

that far when the big man's hoarse bass interrupted, "Say you, what about that Number Seven tank?"

"--Says he, 'My bucko boys, it's asurely goin' to blow'"

The pump-man paused, inclined his head, set one hand back of his ear, and asked, "And what about Number Seven tank? And speak up, son, so I can hear you."

"Speak up!" The big man roared to the heavens. "Speak up! Don't tell me to speak up. Did yer clean that tank out?"

"No, I didn't clean it out."

"Yer didn't? And why in hell didn't yer?"

"Because I don't have to. But I put a couple of men to work and saw that they cleaned it out. And it was done before you were out of your warm bunk this morning."

"Who's that big fellow?" The passenger put the question to the captain.

"That's my bosun--and a good one."

"And the other? Know anything of him?"

"The singing one? Nothin', except he's the new pump-man. And I can see right now it won't be many hours afore the bosun'll beat his head off."

"You think he will?"

"I _know_ he will. Why, look at him--the size of him, and solid's a rock."

The passenger took another look over the top of the bridge canvas. He was surely a big man; and under his thin sleeveless jersey, surely a solid man. And the pump-man, in his skimpy, badly-fitting dungarees, though of good height, did not look to be much more than half the other's bulk.

"That same bosun's beat up more men than any shipping agency ever kept a record of. That's Big Bill. And if you'd ever travelled on oil-tankers, you'd 'a' heard of him. He's a whale. Take another look at him, Mr. Noyes."

Noyes took another look. The boson surely was a tremendously muscled man. He was knobbed with muscle. But Noyes had his own opinion about the two men, and he hazarded it now.

"But he's a wonderfully quick-moving fellow, that pump-man, captain. And he's surely got his nerve with him. Look at him leap across that open hatch! If he fell short he'd get a thirty-foot drop and break his neck."

"And I wish he would break his neck. And so can a kangaroo hop around, but you wouldn't pick a kangaroo to fight a bull buffalo. You'll find out the difference, if ever he tackles my bosun. And no fear my bosun won't get him. He'll get him, you see. And when they come together I'll take good care there's no interruption."

"But why does the bosun hound him so? This man was no sooner aboard than the bosun began to crowd him."

"Did he? And perhaps you think the bosun of an oil-tanker's goin' to hand a man a type-written letter every time he wants to have a word with him. He's a good bosun. He knows his business, and he saves me a lot of trouble."

And what the captain did not say, but what Noyes imagined he saw in his eye, was: "And I'll be telling you pretty soon to keep to yourself your opinion of ship's matters."

When Noyes went to his room that night, it was for a stay of two days. More than a year now since he had been to sea, and the weather passing Hatteras had been bad. But now it was the fourth day out, and Hatteras was far astern, and the ship was plunging easily southward, with the white sandy shore of Florida abeam. A fine, fair day it was, with the Caribbean breeze pouring in through the air-port. The passenger shaved and washed and got into his clothes. Above him he could hear the captain dressing down somebody. He stepped out on deck.

It was two sailors who had complained of the grub, and he had made short work of their complaint. "I'll give you what grub I please. And that's good grub." That and more, and drove the two sailors, with their dinners on their tin mess-plates, down to the deck.

Noyes, who remembered that the company allowed fifty cents a day per man for grub, took a look and a whiff of the protested rations as the men went by. "Phew!" He ascended to the bridge. The captain turned to him. "Did you see those two? Complaining of the grub, mind you. What do they know of grub? In the hovels they came from they never saw good grub."

Noyes made no answer. He was interested just then in the pump-man, who now came strolling along and presently overtook the protesting sailors. The better to observe proceedings, Noyes took his station on the chart bridge aft. "And did you fellows think that any polite game of conversation up on the bridge was going to get you a shift of rations?" the pump-man was saying. "Don't you know that what he saves out of the ship's allowance goes into his own pocket? What you fellows want to do is to go and scare the cook to death--or half way to it. If it's only for a couple of days, it'll help. Here, let's go back and shake him up. Besides, we might as well start something to make a fellow smile. Most morbid packet ever I was in. You'd think it was a crime to laugh on her. Come on."