Part 33 (2/2)

Then out of the middle of these spectators jumped the mild, delicate Hamilton, with a volley of bad language at his own foolishness, and lit on a nice sleek wave-crest, feet first in an explosion of spray. Away scurried the converging sharks' fins, and down shot Hamilton out of sight.

What followed came quickly. Kettle, with a tremendous flying leap, landed somehow on the deck of the lighter, with bones unbroken. He cast a bowline on to the end of the main sheet, and, watching his chance, hove the bight of it cleverly into Hamilton's grasp, and as Hamilton had come up with Cranze frenziedly clutching him round the neck, Kettle was able to draw his catch toward the lighter's side without further delay.

By this time the men who had gone below for that purpose had returned with a good supply of coal, and a heavy fusillade of the black lumps kept the sharks at a distance, at any rate for the moment. Kettle heaved in smartly, and eager hands gripped the pair as they swirled up alongside, and there they were on the lighter's deck, spitting, dripping, and gasping. But here came an unexpected developement. As soon as he had got back his wind, the mild Hamilton turned on his fellow pa.s.senger like a very fury, hitting, kicking, swearing, and almost gnas.h.i.+ng with his teeth; and Cranze, stricken to a sudden soberness by his ducking, collected himself after the first surprise, and returned the blows with a murderous interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THESE SPECTATORS JUMPED THE MILD, DELICATE HAMILTON.]

But one of the mates, who had followed his captain down on to the lighter to bear a hand, took a quick method of stopping the scuffle. He picked up a cargo-sling, slipped it round Cranze's waist, hooked on the winch chain, and pa.s.sed the word to the deck above. Somebody alive to the jest turned on steam, and of a sudden Cranze was plucked aloft, and hung there under the derrick-sheave, struggling impotently, like some insane jumping-jack.

Amid the yells of laughter which followed, Hamilton laughed also, but rather hysterically. Kettle put a hand kindly on his wet shoulder. ”Come on board again,” he said. ”If you lie down in your room for an hour or so, you'll be all right again then. You're a bit over-done. I shouldn't like you to make a fool of yourself.”

”Make a fool of myself,” was the bitter reply. ”I've made a bigger fool of myself in the last three minutes than any other man could manage in a lifetime.”

”I'll get you the Royal Humane Society's medal for that bit of a job, anyway.”

”Give me a nice rope to hang myself with,” said Hamilton ungraciously, ”that would be more to the point. Here, for the Lord's sake let me be, or I shall go mad.” He brushed aside all help, clambered up the steamer's high black side again, and went down to his room.

”That's the worst of these poetic natures,” Kettle mused as he, too, got out of the lighter; ”they're so highly strung.”

Cranze, on being lowered down to deck again, and finding his tormentors too many to be retaliated upon, went below and changed, and then came up again and found solace in more king's pegs. He was not specially thankful to Hamilton for saving his life; said, in fact, that it was his plain duty to render such trifling a.s.sistance; and further stated that if Hamilton found his way over the side, he, Cranze, would not stir a finger to pull him back again.

He was very much annoyed at what he termed Hamilton's ”unwarrantable attack,” and still further annoyed at his journey up to the derrick's sheave in the cargo-sling, which he also laid to Hamilton's door. When any of the s.h.i.+p's company had a minute or so to spare, they came and gave Cranze good advice and spoke to him of his own unlovableness, and Cranze hurled brimstone back at them unceasingly, for king's peg in quant.i.ty always helped his vocabulary of swear-words.

Meanwhile the _Flamingo_ steamed up and dropped cargo wherever it was consigned, and she abased herself to gather fresh cargo wherever any cargo offered. It was Captain Kettle who did the abasing, and he did not like the job at all; but he remembered that Birds paid him specifically for this among other things; and also that if he did not secure the cargo, some one else would steam along, and eat dirt, and snap it up; and so he pocketed his pride (and his commission) and did his duty. He called to mind that he was not the only man in the world who earned a living out of uncongenial employment. The creed of the South s.h.i.+elds chapel made a point of this: it preached that to every man, according to his strength, is the cross dealt out which he has to bear. And Captain Owen Kettle could not help being conscious of his own vast l.u.s.tiness.

But one morning, before the _Flamingo_ had finished with her calls on the ports of the Texan rivers, a matter happened on board of her which stirred the pulse of her being to a very different gait. The steward who brought Captain Kettle's early coffee coughed, and evidently wanted an invitation to speak.

”Well?' said Kettle.

”It's about Mr. Hamilton, sir. I can't find 'im anywheres.”

”Have you searched the s.h.i.+p?”

”Hunofficially, sir.”

”Well, get the other two stewards, and do it thoroughly.”

The steward went out, and Captain Kettle lifted the coffee cup and drank a salutation to the dead. From that very moment he had a certain foreboding that the worst had happened. ”Here's luck, my lad, wherever you now may be. That brute Cranze has got to windward of the pair of us, and your insurance money's due this minute. I only sent that steward to search the s.h.i.+p for form's sake. There was the link of poetry between you and me, lad; and that's closer than most people could guess at; and I know, as sure as if your ghost stood here to tell me, that you've gone. How, I've got to find out.”

He put down the cup, and went to the bathroom for his morning's tub.

”I'm to blame, I know,” he mused on, ”for not taking better care of you, and I'm not trying to excuse myself. You were so brimful of poetry that you hadn't room left for any thought of your own skin, like a chap such as I am is bound to have. Besides, you've been well-off all your time and you haven't learned to be suspicious. Well, what's done's done, and it can't be helped. But, my lad, I want you to look on while I hand in the bill. It'll do you good to see Cranze pay up the account.”

Kettle went through his careful toilet, and then in his spruce white drill went out and walked briskly up and down the hurricane deck till the steward came with the report. His forebodings had not led him astray. Hamilton was not on board: the certain alternative was that he lay somewhere in the warm Gulf water astern, as a helpless dead body.

”Tell the Chief Officer,” he said, ”to get a pair of irons out of store and bring them down to Mr. Cranze's room. I'm going there now.”

He found Cranze doctoring a very painful head with the early application of stimulant, and Cranze asked him what the devil he meant by not knocking at the door before opening it.

Captain Kettle whipped the tumbler out of the pa.s.senger's shaking fingers, and emptied its contents into the wash-basin.

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