Page:Weird Tales v01n04 (1923-06).djvu/97

96 The Seriphus, after a round passage to Laichau Bay, which is in the Gulf of Pechili, returned to San Francisco and was dry-docked near Oakland, for general overhauling.

Richter, after making an exact and detailed report to Henningay, Jr., visited the opera, banked certain money he had made on the round-passage, then went south to his daughter's home. He found trouble in the house; Hylda, his daughter, had a heart affair with a marine electrician, Gathright by name, a young man with a meager wage and unbounded ambition.

Through the Seven Seas, from the time of his Bavarian wife's death, from cancer of the breast, Richter, chief engineer of the Seriphus, had sweated, slaved, saved and smuggled contraband from port in order to say:

"This is my daughter! Look at her!"

Now, as Richter discovered, Hylda, twenty-seven years of age, somewhat prim and musical, had given her promise to an electrician whom the engineer believed was not fit to dust her shoes. Richter, used to breaking and thrashing coolie oilers, ordered Gathright from the house and locked up his daughter.

She cried for seven days. Gathright was seen in town. Richter's rage gave way to an engineer's calculation.

"What for I study in University and college? Why do I hold certificates? I fix Gathright!"

No oil was smoother than Richter's well-laid plan; he sent Hylda away and met Gathright.

"All right about my daughter," he told the electrician. "You go one voyage with me—we'll see Henningay—I'll fix you up so that you can draw one hundred and fifty dollars in wage, with a rating as electrician aboard the Seriphius."

Gathright went with Richter to San Francisco. They recrossed the Bay, without seeing Henningay, Jr. and, at dusk, climbed over the shoring timbers and went aboard the Seriphus. Richter's voice awoke echoes in the deserted ship and dry-dock:

"Come, I show you my dynamo and motors. We go to the boiler-room first, where the pumps are."

The boiler-room, forward the engine-room of the tanker, was a place of many snakelike pipes, valves, sea-plates and oily seepage from the feedtanks. The Seriphus was a converted oil-burner, having been built before crude petroleum was used for steaming purposes. Three double-end Scotch boilers made the steam that drove the tanker's triple-expansion engine.

Richter knew the way down to the boiler-room, blindfolded. He struck matches, however, to guide Gathright, and remarked that the newer ships of Henningay's fleet had a storage-battery reserve for lighting purposes when the dynamo ceased running.

Gathright, somewhat suspicious of Hylda's father, took care to keep two steps behind the chief-engineer. They reached and ducked under the bulkhead beam where the door connected the engine-room with the boiler-room. Richter found a flashlamp, snapped it on, swung its rays around and about as if showing Gathright his new duties.

"There's a motor-driven feed-pump," he said. "Something's the matter with the motor's commutator. It sparks under load—can you fix it up?"

There was a professional challenge in the chief engineer's voice; Gathright forgot caution, got down on his knees, leaned toward the motor and ran one finger over the commutator bars. They seemed polished and free from carbon.

Richter reversed his grip on the flashlamp, swung once, twice, and smashed the battery-end of the lamp down on Gathright's head, just over the top of the electrician's right ear.

Gathright fell as if pole-axed and dropped with his hands twitching on a metal plate.

Striking a match, Richter surveyed the electrical engineer.

"Good!" he grunted. "Now I put you where nobody'll ever look—unless I give the order."

STUMP of candle, stuck by wax to a feed-pipe, allowed Richter illumination sufficient to work by. Swearing, sweating, listening once, he fitted a spanner to bolt-heads on a man-plate in the spare boiler and removed the stubborn bolts until the plate clanged at his feet.

Gathright was a slender man, easy to insert through the man-hole; Richter had no trouble at all lifting the electrician and thrusting him out of sight.

It seemed-to the engineer, as he hesitated, that Hylda's lover moaned once and filled the boiler with a hollow sound.

Hesitation passed; and Richter swallowed his superstitious fears, put back the man-hole plate, bolted it tighter than it ever was before, almost stripping the threads, and stepped back, mopping his brow with the sleeve of a shore-coat.

There was nothing very unusual in Richter's further actions that evening. The ship-keeper, who came aboard at daylight, long before the dry-dock men began work, noticed a wet shore-hose, a thin plume of steam aft the tanker's squat funnel, and there was a trailing line of smoke drifting aslant the Seriphus' littered deck.

"Been testing that spare boiler," explained Richter, when the ship-keeper ducked through the bulkhead door. "I think it's tight an' unscaled, but th' starboard one will need new tubes and general cleaning. Get me some soap—I want to wash up."

Richter dried his hands on a towel, tossed it toward the motor-driven feed-pump, then, when he left the boiler-room, his glance ranged from the tightly-bolted man-hole cover up to a gauge on a steam-pipe. The gauge read seventy-pounds—sufficient to parboil a heavier man than Hylda's lover.

"I think that was a good job," concluded the first engineer of the Seriphus.

The second engineer of the tanker, a Scot with a burr on his voice like a file rasping the edge of a plate, stood watching Richter balance himself as the stout chief came along a shoring-beam.

"I mark ye ha' steam up," commented the Scotchman, when Richter climbed over the dry dock's wall.

"Yes, in the spareboiler."

Mr. S. V. Fergerson tapped a pipe on his heel.

"I made an inspection, myself, of that, not later than yesterday forenoon. She was tight as a drum an' free from scale. I left th' man-hole—"

"Damn badly gasketed!" growled Richter.

Ferguson started to explain something; but the chief was in a hurry to get away from sight of the Seriphus. There was a memory on the tanker that required a drink or two in order to bring forgetfulness. Richter gave the Scot an order that admitted of no answering back.

"Go aboard an' blow off steam! That boiler's all right!"

A roar, when Richter strode past the dry-dock's sheds, caused him to wheel around and listen. Ferguson, according to orders, was blowing off the steam from the spare boiler.

Something, perhaps water or waste, clogged the pipe; and the escaping vapor whistled; sputtered, and rose to a high piercing note that sounded to the chief's irritated nerves like the cry of a soul in agony. The note died, resumed its piercing screaching. Richter's arm and hand shook when he mopped his brow and drew a wet sleeve down with an angry motion.

In fancy the noise that came from the Seriphus' starboard side, echoed and deflated by the hollow dock, was Gathright calling for Hylda. Richter covered his ears and staggered away.