The Mutiny of the Elsinore
by
Jack London
CHAPTER XXXI
The more I see of Miss West the more she pleases me. Explain it in
terms of propinquity, or isolation, or whatever you will; I, at
least, do not attempt explanation. I know only that she is a woman
and desirable. And I am rather proud, in a way, to find that I am
just a man like any man. The midnight oil, and the relentless
pursuit I have endured in the past from the whole tribe of women,
have not, I am glad to say, utterly spoiled me.
I am obsessed by that phrase--a WOMAN AND DESIRABLE. It beats in my
brain, in my thought. I go out of my way to steal a glimpse of Miss
West through a cabin door or vista of hall when she does not know I
am looking. A woman is a wonderful thing. A woman's hair is
wonderful. A woman's softness is a magic.--Oh, I know them for what
they are, and yet this very knowledge makes them only the more
wonderful. I know--I would stake my soul--that Miss West has
considered me as a mate a thousand times to once that I have so
considered her. And yet--she is a woman and desirable.
And I find myself continually reminded of Richard Le Gallienne's
inimitable quatrain:
"Were I a woman, I would all day long
Sing my own beauty in some holy song,
Bend low before it, hushed and half afraid,
And say 'I am a woman' all day long."
Let me advise all philosophers suffering from world-sickness to take
a long sea voyage with a woman like Miss West.
In this narrative I shall call her "Miss West" no more. She has
ceased to be Miss West. She is Margaret. I do not think of her as
Miss West. I think of her as Margaret. It is a pretty word, a
woman-word. What poet must have created it! Margaret! I never tire
of it. My tongue is enamoured of it. Margaret West! What a name to
conjure with! A name provocative of dreams and mighty connotations.
The history of our westward-faring race is written in it. There is
pride in it, and dominion, and adventure, and conquest. When I
murmur it I see visions of lean, beaked ships, of winged helmets, and
heels iron-shod of restless men, royal lovers, royal adventurers,
royal fighters. Yes, and even now, in these latter days when the sun
consumes us, still we sit in the high seat of government and command.
Oh--and by the way--she is twenty-four years old. I asked Mr. Pike
the date of the Dixie's collision with the river steamer in San
Francisco Bay. This occurred in 1901. Margaret was twelve years old
at the time. This is 1913. Blessings on the head of the man who
invented arithmetic! She is twenty-four. Her name is Margaret, and
she is desirable.
There are so many things to tell about. Where and how this mad
voyage, with a mad crew, will end is beyond all surmise. But the
Elsinore drives on, and day by day her history is bloodily written.
And while murder is done, and while the whole floating drama moves
toward the bleak southern ocean and the icy blasts of Cape Horn, I
sit in the high place with the masters, unafraid, I am proud to say,
in an ecstasy, I am proud to say, and I murmur over and over to
MYSELF--MARGARET, A WOMAN; MARGARET, AND DESIRABLE.
But to resume. It is the first day of June. Ten days have passed
since the pampero. When the strong back on Number Three hatch was
repaired Captain West came back on the wind, hove to, and rode out
the gale. Since then, in calm, and fog, and damp, and storm, we have
won south until to-day we are almost abreast of the Falklands. The
coast of the Argentine lies to the West, below the sea-line, and some
time this morning we crossed the fiftieth parallel of south latitude.
Here begins the passage of Cape Horn, for so it is reckoned by the
navigators--fifty south in the Atlantic to fifty south in the
Pacific.
And yet all is well with us in the matter of weather. The Elsinore
slides along with favouring winds. Daily it grows colder. The great
cabin stove roars and is white-hot, and all the connecting doors are
open, so that the whole after region of the ship is warm and
comfortable. But on the deck the air bites, and Margaret and I wear
mittens as we promenade the poop or go for'ard along the repaired
bridge to see the chickens on the 'midship-house. The poor, wretched
creatures of instinct and climate! Behold, as they approach the
southern mid-winter of the Horn, when they have need of all their
feathers, they proceed to moult, because, forsooth, this is the
summer time in the land they came from. Or is moulting determined by
the time of year they happen to be born? I shall have to look into
this. Margaret will know.
Yesterday ominous preparations were made for the passage of the Horn.
All the braces were taken from the main deck pin-rails and geared and
arranged so that they may be worked from the tops of the houses.
Thus, the fore-braces run to the top of the forecastle, the main-
braces to the top of the 'midship-house, and the mizzen-braces to the
poop. It is evident that they expect our main deck frequently to be
filled with water. So evident is it that a laden ship when in big
seas is like a log awash, that fore and aft, on both sides, along the
deck, shoulder-high, life-lines have been rigged. Also, the two iron
doors, on port and starboard, that open from the cabin directly upon
the main deck, have been barricaded and caulked. Not until we are in
the Pacific and flying north will these doors open again.
And while we prepare to battle around the stormiest headland in the
world our situation on board grows darker. This morning Petro
Marinkovich, a sailor in Mr. Mellaire's watch, was found dead on
Number One hatch. The body bore several knife-wounds and the throat
was cut. It was palpably done by some one or several of the
forecastle hands; but not a word can be elicited. Those who are
guilty of it are silent, of course; while others who may chance to
know are afraid to speak.
Before midday the body was overside with the customary sack of coal.
Already the man is a past episode. But the humans for'ard are tense
with expectancy of what is to come. I strolled for'ard this
afternoon, and noted for the first time a distinct hostility toward
me. They recognize that I belong with the after-guard in the high
place. Oh, nothing was said; but it was patent by the way almost
every man looked at me, or refused to look at me. Only Mulligan
Jacobs and Charles Davis were outspoken.
"Good riddance," said Mulligan Jacobs. "The Guinea didn't have the
spunk of a louse. And he's better off, ain't he? He lived dirty,
an' he died dirty, an' now he's over an' done with the whole dirty
game. There's men on board that oughta wish they was as lucky as
him. Theirs is still a-coming to 'em."
"You mean . . . ?" I queried.
"Whatever you want to think I mean," the twisted wretch grinned
malevolently into my face.
Charles Davis, when I peeped into his iron room, was exuberant.
"A pretty tale for the court in Seattle," he exulted. "It'll only
make my case that much stronger. And wait till the reporters get
hold of it! The hell-ship Elsinore! They'll have pretty pickin's!"
"I haven't seen any hell-ship," I said coldly.
"You've seen my treatment, ain't you?" he retorted. "You've seen the
hell I've got, ain't you?"
"I know you for a cold-blooded murderer," I answered.
"The court will determine that, sir. All you'll have to do is to
testify to facts."
"I'll testify that had I been in the mate's place I'd have hanged you
for murder."
His eyes positively sparkled.
"I'll ask you to remember this conversation when you're under oath,
sir," he cried eagerly.
I confess the man aroused in me a reluctant admiration. I looked
about his mean, iron-walled room. During the pampero the place had
been awash. The white paint was peeling off in huge scabs, and iron-
rust was everywhere. The floor was filthy. The place stank with the
stench of his sickness. His pannikin and unwashed eating-gear from
the last meal were scattered on the floor: His blankets were wet,
his clothing was wet. In a corner was a heterogeneous mass of soggy,
dirty garments. He lay in the very bunk in which he had brained
O'Sullivan. He had been months in this vile hole. In order to live
he would have to remain months more in it. And while his rat-like
vitality won my admiration, I loathed and detested him in very
nausea.
"Aren't you afraid?" I demanded. "What makes you think you will last
the voyage? Don't you know bets are being made that you won't?"
So interested was he that he seemed to prick up his ears as he raised
on his elbow.
"I suppose you're too scared to tell me about them bets," he sneered.
"Oh, I've bet you'll last," I assured him.
"That means there's others that bet I won't," he rattled on hastily.
"An' that means that there's men aboard the Elsinore right now
financially interested in my taking-off."
At this moment the steward, bound aft from the galley, paused in the
doorway and listened, grinning. As for Charles Davis, the man had
missed his vocation. He should have been a land-lawyer, not a sea-
lawyer.
"Very well, sir," he went on. "I'll have you testify to that in
Seattle, unless you're lying to a helpless sick man, or unless you'll
perjure yourself under oath."
He got what he was seeking, for he stung me to retort:
"Oh, I'll testify. Though I tell you candidly that I don't think
I'll win my bet."
"You loose 'm bet sure," the steward broke in, nodding his head.
"That fellow him die damn soon."
"Bet with'm, sir," David challenged me. "It's a straight tip from
me, an' a regular cinch."
The whole situation was so gruesome and grotesque, and I had been
swept into it so absurdly, that for the moment I did not know what to
do or say.
"It's good money," Davis urged. "I ain't goin' to die. Look here,
steward, how much you want to bet?"
"Five dollar, ten dollar, twenty dollar," the steward answered, with
a shoulder-shrug that meant that the sum was immaterial.
"Very well then, steward. Mr. Pathurst covers your money, say for
twenty. Is it a go, sir?"
"Why don't you bet with him yourself?" I demanded.
"Sure I will, sir. Here, you steward, I bet you twenty even I don't
die."
The steward shook his head.
"I bet you twenty to ten," the sick man insisted. "What's eatin'
you, anyway?"
"You live, me lose, me pay you," the steward explained. "You die, I
win, you dead; no pay me."
Still grinning and shaking his head, he went his way.
"Just the same, sir, it'll be rich testimony," David chuckled. "An'
can't you see the reporters eatin' it up?"
The Asiatic clique in the cook's room has its suspicions about the
death of Marinkovich, but will not voice them. Beyond shakings of
heads and dark mutterings, I can get nothing out of Wada or the
steward. When I talked with the sail-maker, he complained that his
injured hand was hurting him and that he would be glad when he could
get to the surgeons in Seattle. As for the murder, when pressed by
me, he gave me to understand that it was no affair of the Japanese or
Chinese on board, and that he was a Japanese.
But Louis, the Chinese half-caste with the Oxford accent, was more
frank. I caught him aft from the galley on a trip to the lazarette
for provisions.
"We are of a different race, sir, from these men," he said; "and our
safest policy is to leave them alone. We have talked it over, and we
have nothing to say, sir, nothing whatever to say. Consider my
position. I work for'ard in the galley; I am in constant contact
with the sailors; I even sleep in their section of the ship; and I am
one man against many. The only other countryman I have on board is
the steward, and he sleeps aft. Your servant and the two sail-makers
are Japanese. They are only remotely kin to us, though we've agreed
to stand together and apart from whatever happens."
"There is Shorty," I said, remembering Mr. Pike's diagnosis of his
mixed nationality.
"But we do not recognize him, sir," Louis answered suavely. "He is
Portuguese; he is Malay; he is Japanese, true; but he is a mongrel,
sir, a mongrel and a bastard. Also, he is a fool. And please, sir,
remember that we are very few, and that our position compels us to
neutrality."
"But your outlook is gloomy," I persisted. "How do you think it will
end?"
"We shall arrive in Seattle most probably, some of us. But I can
tell you this, sir: I have lived a long life on the sea, but I have
never seen a crew like this. There are few sailors in it; there are
bad men in it; and the rest are fools and worse. You will notice I
mention no names, sir; but there are men on board whom I do not care
to antagonize. I am just Louis, the cook. I do my work to the best
of my ability, and that is all, sir."
"And will Charles Davis arrive in Seattle?" I asked, changing the
topic in acknowledgment of his right to be reticent.
"No, I do not think so, sir," he answered, although his eyes thanked
me for my courtesy. "The steward tells me you have bet that he will.
I think, sir, it is a poor bet. We are about to go around the Horn.
I have been around it many times. This is midwinter, and we are
going from east to west. Davis' room will be awash for weeks. It
will never be dry. A strong healthy man confined in it could well
die of the hardship. And Davis is far from well. In short, sir, I
know his condition, and he is in a shocking state. Surgeons might
prolong his life, but here in a wind-jammer it is shortened very
rapidly. I have seen many men die at sea. I know, sir. Thank you,
sir."
And the Eurasian Chinese-Englishman bowed himself away.
CHAPTER XXXII
Things are worse than I fancied. Here are two episodes within the
last seventy-two hours. Mr. Mellaire, for instance, is going to
pieces. He cannot stand the strain of being on the same vessel with
the man who has sworn to avenge Captain Somers's murder, especially
when that man is the redoubtable Mr. Pike.
For several days Margaret and I have been remarking the second mate's
bloodshot eyes and pain-lined face and wondering if he were sick.
And to-day the secret leaked out. Wada does not like Mr. Mellaire,
and this morning, when he brought me breakfast, I saw by the wicked,
gleeful gleam in his almond eyes that he was spilling over with some
fresh, delectable ship's gossip.
For several days, I learned, he and the steward have been solving a
cabin mystery. A gallon can of wood alcohol, standing on a shelf in
the after-room, had lost quite a portion of its contents. They
compared notes and then made of themselves a Sherlock Holmes and a
Doctor Watson. First, they gauged the daily diminution of alcohol.
Next they gauged it several times daily, and learned that the
diminution, whenever it occurred, was first apparent immediately
after meal-time. This focussed their attention on two suspects--the
second mate and the carpenter, who alone sat in the after-room. The
rest was easy. Whenever Mr. Mellaire arrived ahead of the carpenter
more alcohol was missing. When they arrived and departed together,
the alcohol was undisturbed. The carpenter was never alone in the
room. The syllogism was complete. And now the steward stores the
alcohol under his bunk.
But wood alcohol is deadly poison. What a constitution this man of
fifty must have! Small wonder his eyes have been bloodshot. The
great wonder is that the stuff did not destroy him.
I have not whispered a word of this to Margaret; nor shall I whisper
it. I should like to put Mr. Pike on his guard; and yet I know that
the revealing of Mr. Mellaire's identity would precipitate another
killing. And still we drive south, close-hauled on the wind, toward
the inhospitable tip of the continent. To-day we are south of a line
drawn between the Straits of Magellan and the Falklands, and to-
morrow, if the breeze holds, we shall pick up the coast of Tierra del
Fuego close to the entrance of the Straits of Le Maire, through which
Captain West intends to pass if the wind favours.
The other episode occurred last night. Mr. Pike says nothing, yet he
knows the crew situation. I have been watching some time now, ever
since the death of Marinkovich; and I am certain that Mr. Pike never
ventures on the main deck after dark. Yet he holds his tongue,
confides in no man, and plays out the bitter perilous game as a
commonplace matter of course and all in the day's work.
And now to the episode. Shortly after the close of the second dog-
watch last evening I went for'ard to the chickens on the 'midship-
house on an errand for Margaret. I was to make sure that the steward
had carried out her orders. The canvas covering to the big chicken
coop had to be down, the ventilation insured, and the kerosene stove
burning properly. When I had proved to my satisfaction the
dependableness of the steward, and just as I was on the verge of
returning to the poop, I was drawn aside by the weird crying of
penguins in the darkness and by the unmistakable noise of a whale
blowing not far away.
I had climbed around the end of the port boat, and was standing
there, quite hidden in the darkness, when I heard the unmistakable
age-lag step of the mate proceed along the bridge from the poop. It
was a dim starry night, and the Elsinore, in the calm ocean under the
lee of Tierra del Fuego, was slipping gently and prettily through the
water at an eight-knot clip.
Mr. Pike paused at the for'ard end of the housetop and stood in a
listening attitude. From the main deck below, near Number Two hatch,
across the mumbling of various voices, I could recognize Kid Twist,
Nosey Murphy, and Bert Rhine--the three gangsters. But Steve
Roberts, the cow-boy, was also there, as was Mr. Mellaire, both of
whom belonged in the other watch and should have been turned in; for,
at midnight, it would be their watch on deck. Especially wrong was
Mr. Mellaire's presence, holding social converse with members of the
crew--a breach of ship ethics most grievous.
I have always been cursed with curiosity. Always have I wanted to
know; and, on the Elsinore, I have already witnessed many a little
scene that was a clean-cut dramatic gem. So I did not discover
myself, but lurked behind the boat.
Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. The men still talked. I
was tantalized by the crying of the penguins, and by the whale,
evidently playful, which came so close that it spouted and splashed a
biscuit-toss away. I saw Mr. Pike's head turn at the sound; he
glanced squarely in my direction, but did not see me. Then he
returned to listening to the mumble of voices from beneath.
Now whether Mulligan Jacobs just happened along, or whether he was
deliberately scouting, I do not know. I tell what occurred. Up-and-
down the side of the 'midship-house is a ladder. And up this ladder
Mulligan Jacobs climbed so noiselessly that I was not aware of his
presence until I heard Mr. Pike snarl
"What the hell you doin' here?"
Then I saw Mulligan Jacobs in the gloom, within two yards of the
mate.
"What's it to you?" Mulligan Jacobs snarled back. The voices below
hushed. I knew every man stood there tense and listening. No; the
philosophers have not yet explained Mulligan Jacobs. There is
something more to him than the last word has said in any book. He
stood there in the darkness, a fragile creature with curvature of the
spine, facing alone the first mate, and he was not afraid.
Mr. Pike cursed him with fearful, unrepeatable words, and again
demanded what he was doing there.
"I left me plug of tobacco here when I was coiling down last," said
the little twisted man--no; he did not say it. He spat it out like
so much venom.
"Get off of here, or I'll throw you off, you and your tobacco," raged
the mate.
Mulligan Jacobs lurched closer to Mr. Pike, and in the gloom and with
the roll of the ship swayed in the other's face.
"By God, Jacobs!" was all the mate could say.
"You old stiff," was all the terrible little cripple could retort.
Mr. Pike gripped him by the collar and swung him in the air.
"Are you goin' down?--or am I goin' to throw you down?" the mate
demanded.
I cannot describe their manner of utterance. It was that of wild
beasts.
"I ain't ate outa your hand yet, have I?" was the reply.
Mr. Pike tried to say something, still holding the cripple suspended,
but he could do no more than strangle in his impotence of rage.
"You're an old stiff, an old stiff, an old stiff," Mulligan Jacobs
chanted, equally incoherent and unimaginative with brutish fury.
"Say it again and over you go," the mate managed to enunciate
thickly.
"You're an old stiff," gasped Mulligan Jacobs. He was flung. He
soared through the air with the might of the fling, and even as he
soared and fell through the darkness he reiterated:
"Old stiff! Old stiff !"
He fell among the men on Number Two hatch, and there were confusion
and movement below, and groans.
Mr. Pike paced up and down the narrow house and gritted his teeth.
Then he paused. He leaned his arms on the bridge-rail, rested his
head on his arms for a full minute, then groaned:
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear." That was all. Then he went
aft, slowly, dragging his feet along the bridge.
CHAPTER XXXIII
The days grow gray. The sun has lost its warmth, and each noon, at
meridian, it is lower in the northern sky. All the old stars have
long since gone, and it would seem the sun is following them. The
world--the only world I know--has been left behind far there to the
north, and the hill of the earth is between it and us. This sad and
solitary ocean, gray and cold, is the end of all things, the falling-
off place where all things cease. Only it grows colder, and grayer,
and penguins cry in the night, and huge amphibians moan and slubber,
and great albatrosses, gray with storm-battling of the Horn, wheel
and veer.
"Land ho!" was the cry yesterday morning. I shivered as I gazed at
this, the first land since Baltimore a few centuries ago. There was
no sun, and the morning was damp and cold with a brisk wind that
penetrated any garment. The deck thermometer marked 30--two degrees
below freezing-point; and now and then easy squalls of snow swept
past.
All of the land that was to be seen was snow. Long, low chains of
peaks, snow-covered, arose out of the ocean. As we drew closer,
there were no signs of life. It was a sheer, savage, bleak, forsaken
land. By eleven, off the entrance of Le Maire Straits, the squalls
ceased, the wind steadied, and the tide began to make through in the
direction we desired to go.
Captain West did not hesitate. His orders to Mr. Pike were quick and
tranquil. The man at the wheel altered the course, while both
watches sprang aloft to shake out royals and skysails. And yet
Captain West knew every inch of the risk he took in this graveyard of
ships.
When we entered the narrow strait, under full sail and gripped by a
tremendous tide, the rugged headlands of Tierra del Fuego dashed by
with dizzying swiftness. Close we were to them, and close we were to
the jagged coast of Staten Island on the opposite shore. It was
here, in a wild bight, between two black and precipitous walls of
rock where even the snow could find no lodgment, that Captain West
paused in a casual sweep of his glasses and gazed steadily at one
place. I picked the spot up with my own glasses and was aware of an
instant chill as I saw the four masts of a great ship sticking out of
the water. Whatever craft it was, it was as large as the Elsinore,
and it had been but recently wrecked.
"One of the German nitrate ships," said Mr. Pike. Captain West
nodded, still studying the wreck, then said:
"She looks quite deserted. Just the same, Mr. Pike, send several of
your best-sighted sailors aloft, and keep a good lookout yourself.
There may be some survivors ashore trying to signal us."
But we sailed on, and no signals were seen. Mr. Pike was delighted
with our good fortune. He was guilty of walking up and down, rubbing
his hands and chuckling to himself. Not since 1888, he told me, had
he been through the Straits of Le Maire. Also, he said that he knew
of shipmasters who had made forty voyages around the Horn and had
never once had the luck to win through the straits. The regular
passage is far to the east around Staten Island, which means a loss
of westing, and here, at the tip of the world, where the great west
wind, unobstructed by any land, sweeps round and around the narrow
girth of earth, westing is the thing that has to be fought for mile
by mile and inch by inch. The Sailing Directions advise masters on
the Horn passage: Make Westing. WHATEVER YOU DO, MAKE WESTING.
When we emerged from the straits in the early afternoon the same
steady breeze continued, and in the calm water under the lee of
Tierra del Fuego, which extends south-westerly to the Horn, we
slipped along at an eight-knot clip.
Mr. Pike was beside himself. He could scarcely tear himself from the
deck when it was his watch below. He chuckled, rubbed his hands, and
incessantly hummed snatches from the Twelfth Mass. Also, he was
voluble.
"To-morrow morning we'll be up with the Horn. We'll shave it by a
dozen or fifteen miles. Think of it! We'll just steal around! I
never had such luck, and never expected to. Old girl Elsinore,
you're rotten for'ard, but the hand of God is at your helm."
Once, under the weather cloth, I came upon him talking to himself.
It was more a prayer.
"If only she don't pipe up," he kept repeating. "If only she don't
pipe up."
Mr. Mellaire was quite different.
"It never happens," he told me. "No ship ever went around like this.
You watch her come. She always comes a-smoking out of the sou'west."
"But can't a vessel ever steal around?" I asked.
"The odds are mighty big against it, sir," he answered. "I'll give
you a line on them. I'll wager even, sir, just a nominal bet of a
pound of tobacco, that inside twenty-four hours we'll he hove to
under upper-topsails. I'll wager ten pounds to five that we're not
west of the Horn a week from now; and, fifty to fifty being the
passage, twenty pounds to five that two weeks from now we're not up
with fifty in the Pacific."
As for Captain West, the perils of Le Maire behind, he sat below, his
slippered feet stretched before him, smoking a cigar. He had nothing
to say whatever, although Margaret and I were jubilant and dared
duets through all of the second dog-watch.
And this morning, in a smooth sea and gentle breeze, the Horn bore
almost due north of us not more than six miles away. Here we were,
well abreast and reeling off westing.
"What price tobacco this morning?" I quizzed Mr. Mellaire.
"Going up," he came back. "Wish I had a thousand bets like the one
with you, sir."
I glanced about at sea and sky and gauged the speed of our way by the
foam, but failed to see anything that warranted his remark. It was
surely fine weather, and the steward, in token of the same, was
trying to catch fluttering Cape pigeons with a bent pin on a piece of
thread.
For'ard, on the poop, I encountered Mr. Pike. It WAS an encounter,
for his salutation was a grunt.
"Well, we're going right along," I ventured cheerily.
He made no reply, but turned and stared into the gray south-west with
an expression sourer than any I had ever seen on his face. He
mumbled something I failed to catch, and, on my asking him to repeat
it, he said:
"It's breeding weather. Can't you see it?"
I shook my head.
"What d'ye think we're taking off the kites for?" he growled.
I looked aloft. The skysails were already furled; men were furling
the royals; and the topgallant-yards were running down while
clewlines and buntlines bagged the canvas. Yet, if anything, our
northerly breeze fanned even more gently.
"Bless me if I can see any weather," I said.
"Then go and take a look at the barometer," he grunted, as he turned
on his heel and swung away from me.
In the chart-room was Captain West, pulling on his long sea-boots.
That would have told me had there been no barometer, though the
barometer was eloquent enough of itself. The night before it had
stood at 30.10. It was now 28.64. Even in the pampero it had not
been so low as that.
"The usual Cape Horn programme," Captain West smiled to me, as he
stood up in all his lean and slender gracefulness and reached for his
long oilskin coat.
Still I could scarcely believe.
"Is it very far away?" I inquired.
He shook his head, and forebore in the act of speaking to lift his
hand for me to listen. The Elsinore rolled uneasily, and from
without came the soft and hollow thunder of sails emptying themselves
against the masts and gear.
We had chatted a bare five minutes, when again he lifted his head.
This time the Elsinore heeled over slightly and remained heeled over,
while the sighing whistle of a rising breeze awoke in the rigging.
"It's beginning to make," he said, in the good old Anglo-Saxon of the
sea.
And then I heard Mr. Pike snarling out orders, and in my heart
discovered a growing respect for Cape Horn--Cape Stiff, as the
sailors call it.
An hour later we were hove to on the port tack under upper-topsails
and foresail. The wind had come out of the south-west, and our
leeway was setting us down upon the land. Captain West gave orders
to the mate to stand by to wear ship. Both watches had been taking
in sail, so that both watches were on deck for the manoeuvre.
It was astounding, the big sea that had arisen in so short a time.
The wind was blowing a gale that ever, in recurring gusts, increased
upon itself. Nothing was visible a hundred yards away. The day had
become black-gray. In the cabin lamps were burning. The view from
the poop, along the length of the great labouring ship, was
magnificent. Seas burst and surged across her weather-rail and kept
her deck half filled, despite the spouting ports and gushing
scuppers.
On each of the two houses and on the poop the ship's complement, all
in oilskins, was in groups. For'ard, Mr. Mellaire had charge. Mr.
Pike took charge of the 'midship-house and the poop. Captain West
strolled up and down, saw everything, said nothing; for it was the
mate's affair.
When Mr. Pike ordered the wheel hard up, he slacked off all the
mizzen-yards, and followed it with a partial slacking of the main-
yards, so that the after-pressures were eased. The foresail and
fore-lower- and-upper-topsails remained flat in order to pay the head
off before the wind. All this took time. The men were slow, not
strong, and without snap. They reminded me of dull oxen by the way
they moved and pulled. And the gale, ever snorting harder, now
snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could I glimpse the group on
top the for'ard-house. Again and again, leaning to it and holding
their heads down, the men on the 'midship-house were obliterated by
the drive of crested seas that burst against the rail, spouted to the
lower-yards, and swept in horizontal volumes across to leeward. And
Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider in a wind-tossed web, went back and
forth along the slender bridge that was itself a shaken thread in the
blast of the storm.
So tremendous were the gusts that for the time the Elsinore refused
to answer. She lay down to it; she was swept and racked by it; but
her head did not pay off before it, and all the while we drove down
upon that bitter, iron coast. And the world was black-gray, and
violent, and very cold, with the flying spray freezing to ice in
every lodgment.
We waited. The groups of men, head down to it, waited. Mr. Pike,
restless, angry, his blue eyes as bitter as the cold, his mouth as
much a-snarl as the snarl of the elements with which he fought,
waited. The Samurai waited, tranquil, casual, remote. And Cape Horn
waited, there on our lee, for the bones of our ship and us.
And then the Elsinore's bow paid off. The angle of the beat of the
gale changed, and soon, with dreadful speed, we were dashing straight
before it and straight toward the rocks we could not see. But all
doubt was over. The success of the manoeuvre was assured. Mr.
Mellaire, informed by messenger along the bridge from Mr. Pike,
slacked off the head-yards. Mr. Pike, his eye on the helmsman, his
hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to check
the Elsinore's rush into the wind as she came up on the starboard
tack. All was activity. Main- and mizzen-yards were braced up, and
the Elsinore, snugged down and hove to, had a lee of thousands of
miles of Southern Ocean.
And all this had been accomplished in the stamping ground of storm,
at the end of the world, by a handful of wretched weaklings, under
the drive of two strong mates, with behind them the placid will of
the Samurai.
It had taken thirty minutes to wear ship, and I had learned how the
best of shipmasters can lose their ships without reproach. Suppose
the Elsinore had persisted in her refusal to payoff? Suppose
anything had carried away? And right here enters Mr. Pike. It is
his task ever to see that every rope and block and all the myriad
other things in the vast and complicated gear of the Elsinore are in
strength not to carry away. Always have the masters of our race
required henchmen like Mr. Pike, and it seems the race has well
supplied those henchmen.
Ere I went below I heard Captain West tell Mr. Pike that while both
watches were on deck it would be just as well to put a reef in the
foresail before they furled it. The mainsail and the crojack being
off, I could see the men black on the fore-yard. For half-an-hour I
lingered, watching them. They seemed to make no progress with the
reef. Mr. Mellaire was with them, having direct supervision of the
job, while Mr. Pike, on the poop, growled and grumbled and spat
endless blasphemies into the flying air.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Two watches on a single yardarm and unable to put a reef in a
handkerchief like that!" he snorted. "What'll it be if we're off
here a month?"
"A month!" I cried.
"A month isn't anything for Cape Stiff," he said grimly. "I've been
off here seven weeks and then turned tail and run around the other
way."
"Around the world?" I gasped.
"It was the only way to get to 'Frisco," he answered. "The Horn's
the Horn, and there's no summer seas that I've ever noticed in this
neighbourhood."
My fingers were numb and I was chilled through when I took a last
look at the wretched men on the fore-yard and went below to warm up.
A little later, as I went in to table, through a cabin port I stole a
look for'ard between seas and saw the men still struggling on the
freezing yard.
The four of us were at table, and it was very comfortable, in spite
of the Elsinore's violent antics. The room was warm. The storm-
racks on the table kept each dish in its place. The steward served
and moved about with ease and apparent unconcern, although I noticed
an occasional anxious gleam in his eyes when he poised some dish at a
moment when the ship pitched and flung with unusual wildness.
And now and again I thought of the poor devils on the yard. Well,
they belonged there by right, just as we belonged here by right in
this oasis of the cabin. I looked at Mr. Pike and wagered to myself
that half-a-dozen like him could master that stubborn foresail. As
for the Samurai, I was convinced that alone, not moving from his
seat, by a tranquil exertion of will, he could accomplish the same
thing.
The lighted sea-lamps swung and leaped in their gimbals, ever
battling with the dancing shadows in the murky gray. The wood-work
creaked and groaned. The jiggermast, a huge cylinder of hollow steel
that perforated the apartment through deck above and floor beneath,
was hideously vocal with the storm. Far above, taut ropes beat
against it so that it clanged like a boiler-shop. There was a
perpetual thunder of seas falling on our deck and crash of water
against our for'ard wall; while the ten thousand ropes and gears
aloft bellowed and screamed as the storm smote them.
And yet all this was from without. Here, at this well-appointed
table, was no draught nor breath of wind, no drive of spray nor wash
of sea. We were in the heart of peace in the midmost centre of the
storm. Margaret was in high spirits, and her laughter vied with the
clang of the jiggermast. Mr. Pike was gloomy, but I knew him well
enough to attribute his gloom, not to the elements, but to the
inefficients futilely freezing on the yard. As for me, I looked
about at the four of us--blue-eyed, gray-eyed, all fair-skinned and
royal blond--and somehow it seemed that I had long since lived this,
and that with me and in me were all my ancestors, and that their
lives and memories were mine, and that all this vexation of the sea
and air and labouring ship was of old time and a thousand times
before.
|
