Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/284

270 child, the ship, accounted for much that I had not understood in him before. I found to my amazement that Doctor Osbart acted not only as surgeon to the crew, but also as second officer; "Four-Eyes" being first officer; and the bully, "Roaring John," third. The coarse-mouthed Scotsman who assumed the title of "meenister" was, they told me, as good a sea-man as any of them, and a wonderful gunner, so that he was in charge of the armament, with a big staff of men at his back. Of the engineers I saw nothing on first coming aboard; but later I heard the sound of pumping below, and there came up to the bridge where Black and the others were, a little, thin, wizened, and spectacled man, quite bald, very ragged and black, yet with a head on him that could have stamped him "First-Class" in any assembly of the learned. I thought at the first glance that he was a German, and my surmise was confirmed by the doctor, who remembered me at last, and said— "Do you see that little fellow?—well, he's the genius of this ship. He's deaf and dumb, and no man has ever heard a word from his lips; but he designed our engines, and he runs them with his three sons. It's almost pitiable to see the man's disregard for anything but that infernal machinery. He never leaves it; it's meat and drink to him. If we make money, he