Hurricane Williams/Chapter 1

ONOLULU buzzingly gossiped about the ship with the viking name; for ships, like women in many other ways too, get themselves talked of if they misbehave.

Her runaway sailors, finding haven in one bar shanty or another, told of a madman that lived aft and owned the ship. Her mate had been thrown bodily from the deck. He swam ashore; he had to swim or sink. Gorvhalsen, the owner, did not care what he did—what the mate did; or what he himself did, for that matter. The mate's baggage and wages were sent after him. The American consul was hearing about it. The sailors, deep in gin, said what they had suffered. The consul would hear about that too.

The captain came off with his bag and baggage. He had been engaged to bring the Heraldr into Honolulu; there she was, and, roundly, he did not care what happened to her from then on. The owner, he said, was a queer animal; but the seamen had no proper grievance at all. As for the mate—there was a “woman” on board.

In a port where whalers flocked, their rough discipline brutally kept and taken by sailors, everybody, as a part of sea-life, complaining stories needed to tell at least of murder to stir officials. An officer's story was not so readily overlooked, yet the mate's unsympathetically like complaining of ill luck with a woman. This woman, it was said, had screamed; and the owner, Gorvhalsen, some sort of a relative to her, had heard. He was a powerful brute.

The consul visited the Heraldr. He came back enthusiastic. Gorvhalsen, distinguished scientist, with a wife and friends, was at Honolulu.

The next day they came ashore as his guests.