The Sea Wolves/Chapter 5

was upon the evening of the third day after the going down of the tug, at two bells in the watch, that the Semiramis entered the Minch, and began her passage southward. She had run at a high speed, but under no forced draught, and with all possible economy of fuel, up the North Sea to Duncansby Head. Thence rounding Cape Wrath (but at a great distance from the light to escape all observation) she had struck boldly past the Western Isles on her ultimate purpose of making the open Atlantic. And she was then ploughing her way upon a stiff swell, and against a full south wind, to the less dangerous water-way of the greater ocean.

During three days all the fever and unrest of inexplicable fear had sat heavy upon her crew; and in some part upon those most concerned in her fortunes. It had been a voyage girt about with apprehension, pursued in foreboding, matured in ignorance. Unmindful of the bulky cases of gold which lumbered the great saloon, and in which masters and men were at no distant date to participate, the hands had not ceased to ask themselves: What do those in London know? How far are we wise to hug shores like this? When will the pursuit begin? To their blunt intelligence it seemed the apex of folly that the Semiramis should, even for the space of a day, haunt the confined waters of the Scottish coast. Urged on by Johnson, the engineer of the sunken tug, and quietly encouraged by the evident restlessness of Kenner, they stated their views on the quarter-deck, or sulked in their own fo'castle, or even contemplated such an outbreak as would have ended the business upon the spot.

It was not difficult to realize that the cargo of money was to such as these an all-potent temptation. Although the precise means by which it had come into the power of Messenger and Kenner were unknown to them, its presence in the saloon was like a loadstone that drew them abaft the funnel irresistibly, and allowed them to think and speak of naught else but bullion. So strong was the temptation that on the second day the hand George White, who had been one of Robinson's men, was found in the cabin rolling over a keg of ingots in his effort to open it, and, being taken in the act by Burke, was ordered out for immediate punishment.

"I'll make an example of ye ez'll go right round the ship," said the skipper, as the man stood before him an' if that don't cure, I'll empty my shot-gun in yer hide!"

"Ye can't touch me," said the man sullenly; "I ain't signed for you, and I don't see no one here as is going to make me."

The hands had crowded round the engine-room hatch (where the discussion was held) at the sound of loud voices; and some of them murmured at the man's plea and agreed with him.

"Ye can't touch him," said they; "he's none o' youm, and we're all his way."

Burke looked at them very quietly as they spoke, and, one of the fellows approaching him in a threatening attitude, he suddenly whipped out a great army revolver from his hip pocket and hit the fellow such a crash over the head with it that he went reeling backward until his heel caught in the iron of a glass-light, and he fell his whole length upon the deck.

"Now," said the skipper, "I guess ez I'm open to any more arguments o' that sort. Is there them among ye, belike, as will step forward and state 'em?"

They all slunk away at the words, the man White seeking to shuffle off with the others; but Burke suddenly held him with a great grip and shook him so that his teeth chattered. "A-goin' for'ard to sleep it off a while, was ye? "said he. "Then I'm darned if I don't wake ye up a bit! Here! lash him up to the rail, some of ye, and make his legs fast to that ballast there. It ain't no queen's ship, ain't it? You didn't sign no papers for me, didn't ye? Wal, by Jerusalem! I'm a-goin' to sign 'em for ye, and seal 'em, too!"

Four lascars who had watched the whole scene with an Oriental indifference, at once stepped out to obey Burke's orders. Messenger and Kenner had kept back during this sharp encounter, both of them holding themselves altogether apart from the crew throughout the voyage; but Fisher, who stood upon the bridge, almost turned sick through the scene that followed. The burly seaman was triced up by his arms to the boards of the bridge; his feet were lashed to the ring of a ballast chest; his coat was torn off his back; and thus hanging by his arms, and almost bearing the whole of his weight, he received his punishment. Fifty swinging lashes from a whip with three leathern thongs descended upon his bare back, the sound of the blows echoing through the ship with the sound of a cane that beats heavily upon a board; and at each blow the seaman roared like a bull, while his cries for mercy were as pitiful as the wails of a child in pain. When they took him down, he had fainted; but Burke kicked his body with his foot, and, squirting a mouthful of his filthy tobacco upon the deck, he said:

"So ye didn't sign, my son! Well, that's my mark instead, en I reckon ez it'll take ye a week or two to wipe it off. Throw him into a bunk, one of yer, and if ez got any more views when he wakes, I calculate I'm ready to hear 'em on the same terms."

The scene was concluded in a wistful hush—the hush of men obeying, but not obedient. Burke's ferocity had cowed all spectators; for the moment it had overridden the danger, and it had sent Hal Fisher to the saloon with the gloomiest face possible. For three days past the lad had seemed to live in a hazy dream—a dream which had brought to him many pictures and many episodes, but chiefly shadows of impressions, as dreams will. He remembered that he had gone to his bunk two nights before, to be awakened in the morning watch by a great commotion and bustle on deck; but on trying his door he found it locked, and it was only after some hours, and when he had slept again, that he reached the deck, to learn that they were standing right out in the North Sea, and that many strange events had happened in the between-time. For one thing, his friend Messenger greeted him directly he had mounted the companion, and while he stood gaping at the sight of new faces, and wondering at the amazing fact of their appearance, the Prince had slapped him upon the back, and begun his explanation.

"Hal," said he, "you didn't look to see me this morning."

"I didn't look for any such luck," replied Hal, giving him grip for grip.

"Well, what did I tell you three days ago? The fact is, old man, I've been driven almost wild with work since three months ago, and now it's over, or nearly over."

"And I suppose you'll condescend to tell me something?" suggested Hal, with his old doubts upon him.

"Why, of course I'm going to tell you everything—and that's told in half-a dozen words. In the first place, we're going somewhere, and it's no twenty-four hours' pleasure trip—that you can see; in the second, we've got something on board that we wouldn't sell for a shilling a pound, Hal; it's a freight of money!"

He almost whispered the last words; and as he saw the boy's surprise he laughed cheerily, and, linking his arm with the comparative youngster's, he began to pace the deck abaft the engine-room.

"Yes," said he, picking up the thread without more ado, "Kenner and I are in for a big thing, old man. We're trying to run this freight to Buenos Ayres in the interest of the Argentine Government. It's a big job; and the men for'ard can't exactly be trusted as though they'd come from a seminary. We may have to fight. In any case, we've got to use our sea-legs. And you'll have to stand by us, as I said four days ago; but I needn't ask you if you'll do that?"

Fisher listened to the clumsy lie as a school-boy listens to a tar's yarn. The truth was that Messenger almost made the tale as he went; for he had to satisfy the boy's curiosity somehow, and certainly he met with no embarrassing questions. His pupil had seen little of life, and the obvious absurdity of the notion that there was unusual danger in carrying money to the Argentine never dawned upon his untrained mind. He only thought that here he was plunged in a moment into as good an adventure as ever he beard, and he answered with fine enthusiasm—

"Stand by you! Why, of course! Is there any one else I should stand by if it isn't you?"

The mutual confidence would have been beautiful if it had not been all on one side—an exchange of frankness for lies, of love for a selfish liking. Yet Messenger had the greatest satisfaction at that moment in having at least one honest hand with him on the ship; and if the truth be told, he trusted the boy alone of all the company. Kenner was a tricky rogue, who would turn upon him at any moment; Burke was a ranting bully who—then, at any rate—had the command of the situation; Messenger had to depend upon his wits and fine talent to come out of the undertaking even with his life. In such a situation the boy he had before befriended could be-friend him; and befriend him he did, as the development of the narrative proves all conclusively.

If I, the recorder, have harked back somewhat in an endeavour to make the situation upon the Semiramis clear, I can now progress more rapidly in laying it down that, with the one instance of the flogging excepted, the first three days of the flight lacked any episode of moment. There was the unrest I have spoken of upon the yacht, the mutterings, the occasional outbursts of temper; but, beyond these, no tour de force on the part of the men, no event of any interest upon the sea. So far, indeed, did the yacht stand off the shore that the light of Cape Wrath was not even seen; and, Burke believing that the notion of pursuit was an old woman's dream, they passed through the Minch on the evening of the third day, and at eight bells in the forenoon watch they sighted Skerryvore Lighthouse many miles distant on their port quarter. From that point they shaped a course west by south to run past Malin Head; and although they passed many steamers of considerable size which were making for Scottish ports, they stood as far from them as possible, and spoke none, nor, indeed, invited any observation.

This, then, was the situation on the third day, and it did not alter until midnight, when Fisher came on deck to take the middle watch. It had been agreed by the cabin party that they should, one by one, take duty at the head of the companion, lest the great temptation of the gold should lure any of the crew aft, and this duty the boy shared loyally with the others. For the matter of that, not one of them aboard took his clothes off from the first hour of the flight, nor did any of them let his revolver go far from his sight and grip. As for Fisher, he had been given a couple of pistols, and told to shoot down any man who attempted to enter the saloon without an open account of himself; and while he might have hesitated literally to obey this order, Messenger and Kenner got nearer to sleep during his watch than at any other time.

The boy being thus upon guard, and quiet reigning in the ship, the fourth day began with squalls from the north-west, and a tumbling sea, which spread sheets of bubbling foam upon the foredeck and sent gushing streams from the lee scuppers. The night was very dark, with mountains of heavy cloud which hid the heavens, and for the first two hours of the watch there was no moon. It was even bitterly cold, as with the cold of later winter; and Fisher, who paced the quarter-deck with many lively thoughts, shivered in his oilskins, and suppressed his yawns with difficulty. Burke was at that time sleeping, and his subordinate—a thin and very humble man, named Parker—paced the bridge, while aft the whistling of the sharp gusts in the shrouds alone broke the stillness.

Once or twice, as the lad strode up and down in the utter darkness, he had thoughts that others moved upon the deck near him; but his nerves were overwrought and weary, and the singing of a rope, or the thud of the heavier fleas, sent them twitching. As the bells were struck until four were numbered the depth of night was more intensified; the wind was shriller; the motion of the yacht more irregular. He found himself hanging to the rail at the top of the hatchway for sheer footing, and was there haunted by innumerable phantoms of suspicion to which the bleakness of the night gave birth. There were moments when he was certain that he heard, at the fall of the gale, whispers from the darker places by the bulwarks; other moments when he conjured up visions of figures, dark and armed, lurking behind the skylight. Or, again, he suffered from that illogical conviction, which many suffer in solitude, that some one stood by him in the dark and was about to clutch him; and this feeling was so strong that he was truly of a mind to awaken Messenger and the others, but did not, fearing to look a coward.

In this approach to terror he watched for some moments longer, when of a sudden, chancing to look down the higher line of the deck, he was absolutely sure that all was not a dream. There, almost at his feet, the hunched-up figure of a man lay timidly, as of a man watching to spring, but fearing. Hal looked at the man for a moment, whipping out his revolver as he did so, and was in the very act of firing when the watcher rose and gripped his arm.

"Billy no hurt!" he chattered; "you don't shoot Billy! They cut your throat jess now, cut every one. Billy know, he see 'em; oh, he see 'em!"

In this mood the daft lad raved whisperingly; but Hal stood wondering and still with the sudden alarm. Should he descend the companion silently, or should he fire a shot and bring the sleepers to their feet that way? For a moment he did not know, and as he waited twenty figures—armed, most of them, with knives and iron bars, but three carrying revolvers—came with cat-like tread from the deckhouse amidships to the poop.