Part 20 (1/2)

”Do you, by G.o.d!” said the mate, and then the pair of them closed without any further preliminaries. They were both of them well used to quick rough-and-tumbles, and they both of them knew that the man who gets the first grip in these wrestles usually wins, and instinctively each tried to act on that knowledge.

But if the third mate had bulk and strength, Kettle had science and abundant wiriness; and though the pair of them lost their footing on the sloping cabin floor at the first embrace, and wriggled over and under like a pair of eels, Captain Kettle got a thumb artistically fixed in the bigger man's windpipe, and held it there doggedly. The mate, growing more and more purple, hit out with savage force, but Kettle dodged the bull-like blows like the boxer he was, and the mate's efforts gradually relaxed.

But at this point they were interrupted. ”That wobbly boat was making me sea-sick,” said a voice, ”so I came on board here. Hullo, you fellows!”

Kettle looked up. ”Mr. Philipps,” he said, ”I wish you'd go and get the rest of our crew on deck out of the boat.”

”But what are you two doing down there?”

”We disagreed over a question of judgment. He said this s.h.i.+p isn't safe, and I shouldn't have the chance to take her home. I say there's nothing wrong with her that can't be remedied, and home I'm going to take her, anyway. It might be the one chance in my life, sir, of getting a balance at the bank, and I'm not going to miss it.”

”Ho!” said Dayton-Philipps.

”If you don't like to come, you needn't,” said Kettle. ”But I'm going to have the stonemason and the Dago, and those two coal-heavers. Perhaps you'd better go back. It will be wet, hard work here; no way the sort of job to suit a soldier.”

Dayton-Philipps flushed slightly, and then he laughed. ”I suppose that's intended to be nasty,” he said. ”Well, Captain, I shall have to prove to you that we soldiers are equal to a bit of manual labor sometimes. By the way, I don't want to interfere in a personal matter, but I'd take it as a favor if you wouldn't kill Strake quite. I rather like him.”

”Anything to oblige,” said Kettle, and took his thumb out of the third mate's windpipe. ”And now, sir, as you've so to speak signed on for duty here, away with you on deck and get those four other beauties up out of the boat.”

Dayton-Philipps touched his hat and grinned. ”Ay, ay, sir,” he said, and went back up the companion.

Shortly afterward he came to report the men on board, and Kettle addressed his late opponent. ”Now, look here, young man, I don't want to have more trouble on deck before the hands. Have you had enough?”

”For the present, yes,” said the third mate huskily. ”But I hope we'll meet again some other day to have a bit of further talk.”

”I am sure I shall be quite ready. No man ever accused me of refusing a sc.r.a.p. But, me lad, just take one tip from me: don't you go and make Captain Image anxious by saying this s.h.i.+p isn't seaworthy, or he'll begin to ask questions, and he may get you to tell more than you're proud about.”

”You can go and get drowned your own way. As far as I am concerned, no one will guess it's coming off till they see it in the papers.”

”Thanks,” said Kettle. ”I knew you'd be nice about it.”

The third mate went down to his boat, and the three rowers took her across to the _M'poso_, where she was hauled up to davits again. The steamer's siren boomed out farewells, as she got under way again, and Kettle with his own hands unbent the reversed ensign from the s.h.i.+p's main rigging, and ran it up to the peak and dipped it three times in salute.

He breathed more freely now. One chance and a host of unknown dangers lay ahead of him. But the dangers he disregarded. Dangers were nothing new to him. It was the chance which lured him on. Chances so seldom came in his way, that he intended to make this one into a certainty if the efforts of desperation could do it.

Alone of all the six men on the derelict, Captain Kettle had knowledge of the seaman's craft; but, for the present, thews and not seamans.h.i.+p were required. The vessel lay in pathetic helplessness on her side, liable to capsize in the first squall which came along, and their first effort must be to get her in proper trim whilst the calm continued. They knocked out the wedges with their heels, and got the tarpaulins off the main hatch; they pulled away the hatch covers, and saw beneath them smooth slopes of yellow grain.

As though they were an invitation to work, shovels were made fast along the coamings of the hatch. The six men took these, and with shouts dropped down upon the grain. And then began a period of Homeric toil.

The fireman and the coal-trimmer set the pace, and with a fine contempt for the unhandiness of amateurs did not fail to give a display of their utmost. Kettle and Dayton-Philipps gamely kept level with them. The Italian ganger turned out to have his pride also, and did not lag, and only the free-born British subject from Sierra Leone endeavored to s.h.i.+rk his due proportion of the toil.

But high-minded theories as to the rights of man were regarded here as little as threats to lay information before a justice of the peace; and under the sledge-hammer arguments of shovel blows from whoever happened to be next to him, the unfortunate colored gentleman descended to the grade of n.i.g.g.e.r again (which he had repeatedly sworn never to do), and toiled and sweated equally with his betters.

The heat under the decks was stifling, and dust rose from the wheat in choking volumes, but the pace of the circling shovels was never allowed to slacken. They worked there stripped to trousers, and they understood, one and all, that they were working for their lives. A breeze had sprung up almost as soon as the _M'poso_ had steamed away, and hourly it was freshening: the barometer in the cabin was registering a steady fall; the sky was banking up with heavy clouds.

Kettle had handled sheets and braces and hove the vessel to so as to steady her as they worked, but she still labored heavily in the sea, and beneath them they could hear the leaden swish of water in the floor of the hold beneath. Their labor was having its effect, and by infinitesimal gradations they were counteracting the list and getting the s.h.i.+p upright; but the wind was worsening, and it seemed to them also that the water was getting deeper under their feet, and that the vessel rode more sluggishly.

So far the well had not been sounded. It is no use getting alarming statistics to discourage one's self unnecessarily. But after night had fallen, and it was impossible to see to work in the gloomy hold any longer without lamps, Captain Kettle took the sounding-rod and found eight feet.

He mentioned this when he took down the lanterns into the hold, but he did not think it necessary to add that as the sounding had been taken with the well on the slant it was therefore considerably under the truth. Still he sent Dayton-Philipps and the trimmer on deck to take a spell at the pumps, and himself resumed his shovel-work alongside the others.

Straight away on through the night the six men stuck to their savage toil, the blood from their blistered hands reddening the shafts of the shovels. Every now and again one or another of them, choked with the dust, went to get a draft of lukewarm water from the scuttleb.u.t.t. But no one stayed over long on these excursions. The breeze had blown up into a gale. The night overhead-was starless and moonless, but every minute the black heaven was split by spurts of lightning, which showed the laboring, dishevelled s.h.i.+p set among great mountains of breaking seas.