Drowned Gold/Chapter 14

ERILY the Reina del Mar, when she poked her nose out of the harbor, her little auxiliary engine puffing pretentiously until she could get to the offshore breeze and hoist her dingy sails, was a sight. So small was she that her deck space was crowded with the men of the Esperanza as well as her own crew. Forgetting their troubles and vicissitudes now that a ship was again beneath their feet, the men insisted on falling to and lending a hand. Some of them were real sailors and had served aboard sailing ships, and one of them roared an old chanty as they brought the mainsail taut. They proceeded, like a lot of schoolboys on a lark, to clean the dingy old tub, as probably she had never been cleaned before. I am not quite certain that the skipper of this disreputable craft was pleased with this evidence of cleanliness, nor do I think his own crew were in the least appreciative, fearing that an example would be set that their skipper would condemn them to follow.

Again the weather favored us, which under the circumstances was not the least gratifying portion of our situation, because, sleeping on the deck as we did, had the seas made at all, we should have been wet through to our hides for twenty-four hours out of each twenty-four. We could make no plans whatever until we learned what Barbados might have in store for us, but were all relieved to get away from the island and the scene of our disaster. And so, with fair weather, more or less cheerful spirits, and constantly favoring winds, we blew into the port of Barbados, where we were welcomed as befitted shipwrecked men, not only by the wondering inhabitants, but also by two tramp steamers flying the British flag, which were anchored there. I paid the fat, greasy skipper of the Reina del Mar, who, I learned later, promptly went ashore to jubilate over his good fortune, and so hilariously did he celebrate that nothing save the fact that he was well known prevented him from ending his carousal in the carcel. My own men, being discreet, and, as a whole, very abstemious, sought various quarters, and later reported to me at the hotel where Jim and I found lodgings. Jim and I immediately went to the port authorities, where we were received with the utmost courtesy and sympathy.

"We heard of your misfortune, Captain Hale, by private advices from the British Admiralty," said the British official, "and in view of the circumstances that you were bound for an Allied port with supplies, we are instructed to place ourselves at your disposal. Now what can we do for you?"

"Nothing whatever in the financial way, thank you, sir," I replied, and I fancied he was much relieved, although? somewhat astonished. "I suppose," I added, smiling a little at his puzzled look, "that there have been in the history of shipwrecked mariners but few such crews as mine; for I don't believe there is a man of them but is comfortably fixed so far as money is concerned and from a sailor's viewpoint. I think that most of my men will ask nothing more of you than the opportunity to secure a passage aboard some ship bound for a United States port. As for me, I must make my way to Maracaibo."

"And I also," announced Jimmy, thus for the first time letting me know that he had determined to accompany me.

"The shipment of your crew to an American port," said the official, "presents no difficulty whatever, for the day after to-morrow one of the ships you doubtless saw as you came into the harbor sails for Charleston, South Carolina. As for passages for you and your chief engineer to Maracaibo, that is a different matter. There has been no ship from here in that direction for nearly a month."

Jim and I exchanged troubled glances, and I wondered whether it might not prove more expedient for us also to turn northward in the hope sooner to find a passage to the Venezuelan port; but the Englishman, as if to reassure us, said: "Oh, the fact that there has been no ship in such a long time is decidedly in your favor. There is scarcely any doubt at all that within a few days somebody will come along bound westward."

Eager as I was to get to Maracaibo and to avoid a long sojourn in Barbados, it seemed but sensible to follow the port officer's suggestion and wait. We passed nearly an hour in his office, answering questions concerning the sinking of the Esperanza, after which he was so kind as to accompany us to the harbor-master's office, where we found the master of the freighter Port Royal, and had no trouble at all in concluding arrangements for the passage of our men to Charleston. I could have arranged for a portion of them to have worked their passage, but, remembering all the loyalty and service they had given me, I purchased their transportation for a comparatively small lump sum, based upon the actual cost of carrying them, and inasmuch as it threatened to be the last service I could ever do them, arranged that they should go home as passengers. They were to go aboard the Port Royal at ten o'clock the following morning, so Jim and I strolled through the town until we found one of the men, and directed him to notify all the others immediately of the arrangements made for them. That night Jim and I had but finished our evening meal when we were waited upon by the crew in a body, with the boatswain as the appointed spokesman. He looked more awkward than I had ever seen him, and proceeded to declare that the men wished it to be understood that they still held themselves at my service. At this expression of friendship I think I felt nearly as awkward as he did. I told them that my future plans were very uncertain.

"But you will be going to sea again, sir, in another ship," insisted the boatswain, "because you can't keep away from it, sir, and the men say they would rather loaf ashore for a time if there is any chance of their getting to serve under you."

It was quite useless for me to emphasize the uncertainty of my plans, and so a compromise was effected, whereby each man would leave an address for me in New York where he could be found. At the time I thought this a most useless proceeding, but later was very grateful for the fact. The men departed, and later in the evening the officers came, and with the liberty of shipmates ashore without a ship, it was more like the breaking-up of a family party than a definite parting. They, too, announced a determination to wait ashore for a while, and spoke hopefully of our being together again.

"Never fear, sir, you will not be able to keep away from the sea," said Rogers, my chief mate, as they were making their departure. "You will go, either in a ship of your own or in command of one belonging to some other owner, and we will all be on board. We have been talking about this ever since the day we landed on the beach in Martinique. The Esperanza, God bless her old bones! was a happy ship, and we shared some pretty lively runs. We all stuck together then, and got so in the habit of being together that there is not a man jack aboard the Esperanza who doesn't hate the idea of breaking up."

I didn't share his confidence that we should all be together again, but was very much overcome by the manifestation of friendship, that happens very rarely among wanderers of the sea. Usually the breaking-up of a ship's crew consists of nothing more than a hand-shake here and there, occasionally a "Well, wish you luck, matey," or, "Good-bye, skipper," and that is the end of it. If such men ever meet again, it is by sheer chance, for but rarely do they write.

Neither Twisted Jimmy nor I could resist the temptation to go down and see the men embark on the following morning. They stood in a group, with their scant belongings, bought since their others were lost, scattered about their feet. They were in an unfrequented portion of the dock, and were talking volubly when they saw us, but fell to silence. They greeted both Jimmy and me with a rather boisterous "Good-morning," and began looking at the chief mate, is if expecting him to say something upon which they had agreed. He cleared his throat with a loud "Ahem" as a preliminary, and the men gathered closer around us.

"Captain Hale, sir," he said, "after we left you last night, the men came around to where we were stopping, and we held a long talk. The men say, sir, that possibly you have had more bad luck than they know about, and perhaps haven't money enough to buy another boat. Most of them have saved all the money you gave them, and want me to tell you that if they can help you to buy a ship, you are welcome to all they have. Perhaps if you formed a little stock company, that would be the best way. You need not be afraid, sir, that any of us would get lippy and act as if we were the owners when we went to sea again. We would all be just as we have been."

He paused, and as all of them had been waiting the opportunity to talk, they proceeded to talk at once in chorus, the "bosun" having a little bit the better of it, because his voice was the strongest.

"Almost money enough to buy a ship with, sir," he shouted. "We would rather do that if you are busted, and give you a half ownership. They would like to have you do it, because they have never had a chance before, sir, to show you how much they like you."

"The best skipper that ever took a ship to sea," roared another voice from the rear, and with more or less profane emphasis they agreed in unison.

I didn't quite see what I had ever done to merit such friendship, except that I had tried to be just and fair with them all, which was a very easy matter; because they had, from the start, been the most carefully selected crew with which I had ever sailed, and those who had not thoroughly fitted in had been, with equal care, weeded out, and replaced, until they came to work like a perfectly running machine. But I could give no promise for the future, And could only assure them that they should hear from me as soon as I returned to the United States. I didn't tell them I had money enough of my own to buy a ship, nor do I suppose they understood the amount of profit the Esperanza had given me in her desperate service. Yet, somehow, I felt a much more wealthy man after we saw the Port Royal get under way, and heard their final cheer from her deck, where they clustered and waved their hands as long as we were in sight.

In their enthusiasm they had not forgotten to include old Jimmy, to whom they irreverently referred as "Old Cock," and a few other pet names, which he had to bear, but which, I think, he rather liked. When we walked away from the wharf toward our hotel we did so rather silently, neither of us, I fancy, caring to discuss what had been a rather sentimental parting; but we were both, I am sure, depressed by the certainty that the Esperanza, with all her associations, was dead and done for.

The harbor-master's prediction that we should not have to wait long was rather quickly verified, for just five days later Jimmy and I went aboard a three-thousand-ton steamer bound for Maracaibo, upon which we were given comfortable quarters and much good-fellowship. The voyage was quite an easy and uneventful one, and again we were in Maracaibo, thinking how impossible it seemed that we had so recently left there, and that days, rather than months, had elapsed since the old Esperanza, freighted with gold, turned out to meet her fate. Jimmy took our scanty luggage to the hotel, where he was to engage rooms for us, and I lost no time in going to my friend, Farnes, the agent, to learn the news.

He was sitting in his habitual attitude, with his feet on the desk, smoking what might have been the same cigar as the one I last saw in his mouth. That man had a strange faculty for always appearing to puff at a cigar that was just half burned. I can scarcely recall his ever having lighted one or thrown one away that was consumed. It was just a perpetual half-cigar.

"Why, bless me, it's Captain Hale!" he exclaimed, bringing his feet down with a thump, and jumped up to shake hands. "So they got you, did they? I was afraid they would. Pretty tough luck; must have been a good fight you made with those guns I saw aboard."

"Good fight! That bounder you bought them from gave us a lot of dud ammunition, and not a shell that would explode. Half of them wouldn't fire at all. We didn't have a chance. If I could get that swine by the neck—"

"Hold on a minute," he declared, interrupting me, and throwing up his hand in protest; "that sounds rather funny to me. The chap I bought that ammunition from is a pretty good friend of mine, and I put it up to him, hard, to see that the stuff was all right. He is a good artilleryman himself, and personally selected the whole lot, and personally inspected the whole lot, and made tests to be sure. I don't know much about these things, but I would bet ten to one that if the stuff wasn't right it was because it was tampered with after it was put aboard your ship. I am going to have a talk with him about that."

"I wish you would," I said significantly. "There are a few things I am curious to have explained. By the way, have you seen a man around here with one arm in a sling?"

"Yes. Cochrane is his name, isn't it? A fellow that was aboard the Esperanza with you? He is still here, or was a few days ago."

I shut my teeth and promised myself that Mike Cochrane and I would have a very interesting interview the moment I could get hold of him in a suitable place. I told Farnes I should like to learn where Cochrane was lodging without the latter's knowing it, lest he be put on guard, and dismissed the subject for the time being. It was on my lips to ask concerning Monsieur Périgord, when he volunteered the information, with a grave shake of his head.

"I am afraid that you have come none too soon to say 'Good-bye' to your old Frenchman," he said, "who, by the way, seemed to have taken a great fancy to you. Funny old cove! Not a bad sort, though. Looks as though he was going to peg out. They say he has been mighty ill for the last week or ten days. Maybe a little longer than that. Come to think of it, he was taken down just about the time we got the news that the Esperanza had been subbed."

"Oh, that is public, is it?" I asked.

"Not at all; indeed, I doubt if any others besides Monsieur Périgord, who told me confidentially, and possibly the German spies with which every place seems to be infested, know anything about it; but old Périgord took it terribly to heart for some reason, although why he should worry over a ship and a cargo that didn't concern him beats me. The old fellow seemed to crumple up all of a sudden as if his props had been knocked from under him. Shut himself up in his house, and sort of shriveled and withered. I have been up to see him; but he sits with his chin on his breastbone, his eyes about as blank as the wall over there, and half the time doesn't know what you are saying to him. Acts to me as if he were tired of living and anxious to croak. I had to give him up as a bad job, because I couldn't interest him in anything, and I got tired of talking to a man who sits and perpetually drums with his fingers on anything that happens to be near, as if wishing his visitor would cut it short and trundle his hoop. I heard the other day that he has been bad for the last week or two, and that all his house servants are running around in carpet slippers. Sounds to me as if the old chap was about to knock on the pearly gates. Sorry! Not a bad sort, old Périgord!" He looked at his watch, and then, as if remembering something, said: "By Jove! Didn't have any idea it was so late. Time for dinner. Can you come up with me? I have one guest, so my wife won't be put out if she has another one. Come along."

I thanked him and declined, giving as an excuse that I had promised to meet Jimmy, and that the engineer would be worried if I didn't appear. We parted in front of his office, and I sauntered away toward the hotel, thinking of many things. The news concerning Monsieur Périgord had driven from my mind the hope of solving the treachery which had cost the Esperanza her life, for I was convinced that had those guns and ammunition proved effective she could have defended herself against any submarine that ever went afloat. I was so perturbed that I was feverishly anxious to carry my good news to Monsieur Périgord before it proved too late. It was very clear to me that the old exile had so builded on hope that the report of my misfortune had dealt him the finishing stroke. He had indulged in a great dream, had been willing to pay for its fulfillment, and the news of the failure of his enterprise had been the last blow. Fate had dealt unkindly with him throughout his life, and to him it must have seemed that his every endeavor was useless, and that he was doomed to suffer disappointment to the end.

Twisted Jimmy was waiting for me at the hotel. I found him sitting at one of the little marble-topped tables on the pavement in front of the entrance, absorbed in drawing lines upon it with a lead pencil, each of which he carefully altered and erased with a forefinger dipped into a glass of beer. So engrossed was he on some problem that when I sat down beside him he grunted impatiently, "Just a minute," and fell to ciphering on what appeared to be some prodigious arithmetical problem. I ordered the only non-poisonous and stimulating drink possible to obtain in the tropics, a long Ron Bacardi, and sat idly clinking the ice with a somewhat battered spoon until he finished.

"One has to guard against abnormalities of refraction," he said, "so that one may gain clear retinal formation of visage. The retinas of human eyes are as infinite in variety as the sands of the sea. So it is necessary to strike the medium, or converge the capacity and thus to—"

"How about the rooms?" I asked. "Are they comfortable, and are the beds long, or those short kind in which a man has to curl up like a caterpillar in order to get a rest?"

He looked up at me as if slightly bewildered, or somewhat annoyed that I should interrupt his technical discourse. Then, putting his fingers in his glass, he carefully erased his computations.

"Beds? Beds? Oh, yes, you man where we are to sleep? Good Lord! I forgot all about them. The fact is—er—er—that I didn't even look at them. I told the man at the desk, I believe, that I wanted two rooms, and he said he had them."

"How about a bath?" I asked.

"Oh, I forgot all about that; but it doesn't matter," he replied, with an airy wave of his hand, as if dismissing a trivial subject. But he followed after me when I went to the desk and perfected the inadequate arrangements he had made.

He was still so absorbed in some new line of calculation that he was not only an uncongenial companion when we dined, but I doubt if he was more than half aware of what I said when I told him I was going to visit Monsieur Périgord.

The dusk had fallen and the electric lights were throwing a noisy glare of light over the pavements, which were now crowded with chattering loiterers, when I left him. He had again possessed himself of a little marble-topped table and was busily disfiguring it, much to the annoyance of a waiter who stood behind him. The band over in the Plaza had opened its regular evening programme with a Sousa march, in which the trombones seemed to have the principal part, and the never-ending parade of would-be swains had begun its chattering, slant-eyed course. It was the old, familiar scene, without alteration or improvement. Everything was unchanged as I turned up the long street that would lead me to Monsieur Périgord's home. The moon was the same, the still palm trees shining in its light were the same. It might have been the same evening in which I had parted from Monsieur Périgord. This little world had continued, while I had sailed eastward, fought a battle, lost a ship, lost a fortune, been marooned on an island, discovered that I had been betrayed by a man I trusted, learnt that one portion of my mission was finished, succeeded in another, and now, after much traveling, was returning to convey my news. Nobody in this little world had the slightest interest in me, and I had not the slightest interest in any of them. All that I cared for, and the only concern I had, was to reach a very desolate old man who had trusted me, who had enlisted my personal support and admiration, and to whom I had the hope of carrying very brave tidings.