The Mutiny of the Elsinore

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"Trust us to sleep just the same way, Mr. Pathurst," the second mate
laughed. "The harder the weather the harder the demand on us, and
the harder we sleep. I'm dead the moment my head touches the pillow.
It takes Mr. Pike longer, because he always finishes his cigarette
after he turns in. But he smokes while he's undressing, so that he
doesn't require more than a minute to go deado. I'll wager he hasn't
moved, right now, since ten minutes after twelve."

So the second mate did not dream the first was even on deck. I went
below to make sure. A small sea-lamp was burning in Mr. Pike's room,
and I saw his bunk unoccupied. I went in by the big stove in the
dining-room and warmed up, then again came on deck. I did not go
near the weather cloth, where I was certain Mr. Mellaire was; but,
keeping along the lee of the poop, I gained the bridge and started
for'ard.

I was in no hurry, so I paused often in that cold, wet journey. The
gale was breaking, for again and again the stars glimmered through
the thinning storm-clouds. On the 'midship-house was no Mr. Pike. I
crossed it, stung by the freezing, flying spray, and carefully
reconnoitred the top of the for'ard-house, where, in such bad
weather, I knew the lookout was stationed. I was within twenty feet
of them, when a wider clearance of starry sky showed me the figures
of the lookout, whoever he was, and of Mr. Pike, side by side. Long
I watched them, not making my presence known, and I knew that the old
mate's eyes were boring like gimlets into the windy darkness that
separated the Elsinore from the thunder-surfed iron coast he sought
to find.

Coming back to the poop I was caught by the surprised Mr. Mellaire.

"Thought you were asleep, sir," he chided.

"I'm too restless," I explained. "I've read until my eyes are tired,
and now I'm trying to get chilled so that I can fall asleep while
warming up in my blankets."

"I envy you, sir," he answered. "Think of it! So much of all night
in that you cannot sleep. Some day, if ever I make a lucky strike, I
shall make a voyage like this as a passenger, and have all watches
below. Think of it! All blessed watches below! And I shall, like
you, sir, bring a Jap servant along, and I'll make him call me at
every changing of the watches, so that, wide awake, I can appreciate
my good fortune in the several minutes before I roll over and go to
sleep again."

We laughed good night to each other. Another peep into the chart-
room showed me Captain West sleeping as before. He had not moved in
general, though all his body moved with every roll and fling of the
ship. Below, Margaret's light still burned, but a peep showed her
asleep, her book fallen from her hands just as was the so frequent
case with my books.

And I wondered. Half the souls of us on the Elsinore slept. The
Samurai slept. Yet the old first mate, who should have slept, kept a
bitter watch on the for'ard-house. Was his anxiety right? Could it
be right? Or was it the crankiness of ultimate age? Were we
drifting and leewaying to destruction? Or was it merely an old man
being struck down by senility in the midst of his life-task?

Too wide awake to think of sleeping, I ensconced myself with The
Mirror of the Sea at the dining-table. Nor did I remove aught of my
storm-gear save the soggy mittens, which I wrung out and hung to dry
by the stove. Four bells struck, and six bells, and Mr. Pike had not
returned below. At eight bells, with the changing of the watches, it
came upon me what a night of hardship the old mate was enduring.
Eight to twelve had been his own watch on deck. He had now completed
the four hours of the second mate's watch and was beginning his own
watch, which would last till eight in the morning--twelve consecutive
hours in a Cape Horn gale with the mercury at freezing.

Next--for I had dozed--I heard loud cries above my head that were
repeated along the poop. I did not know till afterwards that it was
Mr. Pike's command to hard-up the helm, passed along from for'ard by
the men he had stationed at intervals on the bridge.

All that I knew at this shock of waking was that something was
happening above. As I pulled on my steaming mittens and hurried my
best up the reeling stairs, I could hear the stamp of men's feet that
for once were not lagging. In the chart-house hall I heard Mr. Pike,
who had already covered the length of the bridge from the for'ard-
house, shouting:

"Mizzen-braces! Slack, damn you! Slack on the run! But hold a
turn! Aft, here, all of you! Jump! Lively, if you don't want to
swim! Come in, port-braces! Don't let 'm get away! Lee-braces!--if
you lose that turn I'll split your skull! Lively! Lively!--Is that
helm hard over! Why in hell don't you answer?"

All this I heard as I dashed for the lee door and as I wondered why I
did not hear the Samurai's voice.

Then, as I passed the chart-room door, I saw him.

He was sitting on the couch, white-faced, one sea-boot in his hands,
and I could have sworn his hands were shaking. That much I saw, and
the next moment was out on deck.

At first, just emerged from the light, I could see nothing, although
I could hear men at the pin-rails and the mate snarling and shouting
commands. But I knew the manoeuvre. With a weak crew, in the big,
tail-end sea of a broken gale, breakers and destruction under her
lee, the Elsinore was being worn around. We had been under lower-
topsails and a reefed foresail all night. Mr. Pike's first action,
after putting the wheel up, had been to square the mizzen-yards.
With the wind-pressure thus eased aft, the stern could more easily
swing against the wind while the wind-pressure on the for'ard-sails
paid the bow off.

But it takes time to wear a ship, under short canvas, in a big sea.
Slowly, very slowly, I could feel the direction of the wind altering
against my cheek. The moon, dim at first, showed brighter and
brighter as the last shreds of a flying cloud drove away from before
it. In vain I looked for any land.

"Main-braces!--all of you!--jump!" Mr. Pike shouted, himself leading
the rush along the poop. And the men really rushed. Not in all the
months I had observed them had I seen such swiftness of energy.

I made my way to the wheel, where Tom Spink stood. He did not notice
me. With one hand holding the idle wheel, he was leaning out to one
side, his eyes fixed in a fascinated stare. I followed its
direction, on between the chart-house and the port-jigger shrouds,
and on across a mountain sea that was very vague in the moonlight.
And then I saw it! The Elsinore's stern was flung skyward, and
across that cold ocean I saw land--black rocks and snow-covered
slopes and crags. And toward this land the Elsinore, now almost
before the wind, was driving.

From the 'midship-house came the snarls of the mate and the cries of
the sailors. They were pulling and hauling for very life. Then came
Mr. Pike, across the poop, leaping with incredible swiftness, sending
his snarl before him.

"Ease that wheel there! What the hell you gawkin' at? Steady her as
I tell you. That's all you got to do!"

From for'ard came a cry, and I knew Mr. Mellaire was on top of the
for'ard-house and managing the fore-yards.

"Now!"--from Mr. Pike. "More spokes! Steady! Steady! And be ready
to check her!"

He bounded away along the poop again, shouting for men for the
mizzen-braces. And the men appeared, some of his watch, others of
the second mate's watch, routed from sleep--men coatless, and
hatless, and bootless; men ghastly-faced with fear but eager for once
to spring to the orders of the man who knew and could save their
miserable lives from miserable death. Yes--and I noted the delicate-
handed cook, and Yatsuda, the sail-maker, pulling with his one
unparalysed hand. It was all hands to save ship, and all hands knew
it. Even Sundry Buyers, who had drifted aft in his stupidity instead
of being for'ard with his own officer, forebore to stare about and to
press his abdomen. For the nonce he pulled like a youngling of
twenty.

The moon covered again, and it was in darkness that the Elsinore
rounded up on the wind on the starboard tack. This, in her case,
under lower-topsails only, meant that she lay eight points from the
wind, or, in land terms, at right angles to the wind.

Mr. Pike was splendid, marvellous. Even as the Elsinore was rounding
to on the wind, while the head-yards were still being braced, and
even as he was watching the ship's behaviour and the wheel, in
between his commands to Tom Spink of "A spoke! A spoke or two!
Another! Steady! Hold her! Ease her!" he was ordering the men
aloft to loose sail. I had thought, the manoeuvre of wearing
achieved, that we were saved, but this setting of all three upper-
topsails unconvinced me.

The moon remained hidden, and to leeward nothing could be seen. As
each sail was set, the Elsinore was pressed farther and farther over,
and I realized that there was plenty of wind left, despite the fact
that the gale had broken or was breaking. Also, under this
additional canvas, I could feel the Elsinore moving through the
water. Pike now sent the Maltese Cockney to help Tom Spink at the
wheel. As for himself, he took his stand beside the booby-hatch,
where he could gauge the Elsinore, gaze to leeward, and keep his eye
on the helmsmen.

"Full and by," was his reiterated command. "Keep her a good full--a
rap-full; but don't let her fall away. Hold her to it, and drive
her."

He took no notice whatever of me, although I, on my way to the lee of
the chart-house, stood at his shoulder a full minute, offering him a
chance to speak. He knew I was there, for his big shoulder brushed
my arm as he swayed and turned to warn the helmsmen in the one breath
to hold her up to it but to keep her full. He had neither time nor
courtesy for a passenger in such a moment.

Sheltering by the chart-house, I saw the moon appear. It grew
brighter and brighter, and I saw the land, dead to leeward of us, not
three hundred yards away. It was a cruel sight--black rock and
bitter snow, with cliffs so perpendicular that the Elsinore could
have laid alongside of them in deep water, with great gashes and
fissures, and with great surges thundering and spouting along all the
length of it.

Our predicament was now clear to me. We had to weather the bight of
land and islands into which we had drifted, and sea and wind worked
directly on shore. The only way out was to drive through the water,
to drive fast and hard, and this was borne in upon me by Mr. Pike
bounding past to the break of the poop, where I heard him shout to
Mr. Mellaire to set the mainsail.

Evidently the second mate was dubious, for the next cry of Mr. Pike's
was:

"Damn the reef! You'd be in hell first! Full mainsail! All hands
to it!"

The difference was appreciable at once when that huge spread of
canvas opposed the wind. The Elsinore fairly leaped and quivered as
she sprang to it, and I could feel her eat to windward as she at the
same time drove faster ahead. Also, in the rolls and gusts, she was
forced down till her lee-rail buried and the sea foamed level across
to her hatches. Mr. Pike watched her like a hawk, and like certain
death he watched the Maltese Cockney and Tom Spink at the wheel.

"Land on the lee bow!" came a cry from for'ard, that was carried on
from mouth to mouth along the bridge to the poop.

I saw Mr. Pike nod his head grimly and sarcastically. He had already
seen it from the lee-poop, and what he had not seen he had guessed.
A score of times I saw him test the weight of the gusts on his cheek
and with all the brain of him study the Elsinore's behaviour. And I
knew what was in his mind. Could she carry what she had? Could she
carry more?

Small wonder, in this tense passage of time, that I had forgotten the
Samurai. Nor did I remember him until the chart-house door swung
open and I caught him by the arm. He steadied and swayed beside me,
while he watched that cruel picture of rock and snow and spouting
surf.

"A good full!" Mr. Pike snarled. "Or I'll eat your heart out. God
damn you for the farmer's hound you are, Tom Spink!. Ease her! Ease
her! Ease her into the big ones, damn you! Don't let her head fall
off! Steady! Where in hell did you learn to steer? What cow-farm
was you raised on?"

Here he bounded for'ard past us with those incredible leaps of his.

"It would be good to set the mizzen-topgallant," I heard Captain West
mutter in a weak, quavery voice. "Mr. Pathurst, will you please tell
Mr. Pike to set the mizzen-topgallant?"

And at that very instant Mr. Pike's voice rang out from the break of
the poop:

"Mr. Mellaire!--the mizzen-topgallant!"

Captain West's head drooped until his chin rested on his breast, and
so low did he mutter that I leaned to hear.

"A very good officer," he said. "An excellent officer. Mr.
Pathurst, if you will kindly favour me, I should like to go in. I .
. . I haven't got on my boots."

The muscular feat was to open the heavy iron door and hold it open in
the rolls and plunges. This I accomplished; but when I had helped
Captain West across the high threshold he thanked me and waived
further services. And I did not know even then he was dying.

Never was a Blackwood ship driven as was the Elsinore during the next
half-hour. The full-jib was also set, and, as it departed in shreds,
the fore-topmast staysail was being hoisted. For'ard of the
'midship-house it was made unlivable by the bursting seas. Mr.
Mellaire, with half the crew, clung on somehow on top the 'midship-
house, while the rest of the crew was with us in the comparative
safety of the poop. Even Charles Davis, drenched and shivering, hung
on beside me to the brass ring-handle of the chart-house door.

Such sailing! It was a madness of speed and motion, for the Elsinore
drove over and through and under those huge graybeards that thundered
shore-ward. There were times, when rolls and gusts worked against
her at the same moment, when I could have sworn the ends of her
lower-yardarms swept the sea.

It was one chance in ten that we could claw off. All knew it, and
all knew there was nothing more to do but await the issue. And we
waited in silence. The only voice was that of the mate,
intermittently cursing, threatening, and ordering Tom Spink and the
Maltese Cockney at the wheel. Between whiles, and all the while, he
gauged the gusts, and ever his eyes lifted to the main-topgallant-
yard. He wanted to set that one more sail. A dozen times I saw him
half-open his mouth to give the order he dared not give. And as I
watched him, so all watched him. Hard-bitten, bitter-natured, sour-
featured and snarling-mouthed, he was the one man, the henchman of
the race, the master of the moment. "And where," was my thought, "O
where was the Samurai?"

One chance in ten? It was one in a hundred as we fought to weather
the last bold tooth of rock that gashed into sea and tempest between
us and open ocean. So close were we that I looked to see our far-
reeling skysail-yards strike the face of the rock. So close were we,
no more than a biscuit toss from its iron buttress, that as we sank
down into the last great trough between two seas I can swear every
one of us held breath and waited for the Elsinore to strike.

Instead we drove free. And as if in very rage at our escape, the
storm took that moment to deal us the mightiest buffet of all. The
mate felt that monster sea coming, for he sprang to the wheel ere the
blow fell. I looked for'ard, and I saw all for'ard blotted out by
the mountain of water that fell aboard. The Elsinore righted from
the shock and reappeared to the eye, full of water from rail to rail.
Then a gust caught her sails and heeled her over, spilling half the
enormous burden outboard again.

Along the bridge came the relayed cry of "Man overboard!"

I glanced at the mate, who had just released the wheel to the
helmsmen. He shook his head, as if irritated by so trivial a
happening, walked to the corner of the half-wheelhouse, and stared at
the coast he had escaped, white and black and cold in the moonlight.

Mr. Mellaire came aft, and they met beside me in the lee of the
chart-house.

"All hands, Mr. Mellaire," the mate said, "and get the mainsail off
of her. After that, the mizzen-topgallant."

"Yes, sir," said the second.

"Who was it?" the mate asked, as Mr. Mellaire was turning away.

"Boney--he was no good, anyway," came the answer.

That was all. Boney the Splinter was gone, and all hands were
answering the command of Mr. Mellaire to take in the mainsail. But
they never took it in; for at that moment it started to blow away out
of the bolt-ropes, and in but few moments all that was left of it was
a few short, slatting ribbons.

"Mizzen-topgallant-sail!" Mr. Pike ordered. Then, and for the first
time, he recognized my existence.

"Well rid of it," he growled. "It never did set properly. I was
always aching to get my hands on the sail-maker that made it."

On my way below a glance into the chart-room gave me the cue to the
Samurai's blunder--if blunder it can be called, for no one will ever
know. He lay on the floor in a loose heap, rolling willy-nilly with
every roll of the Elsinore.

CHAPTER XXXIX

There is so much to write about all at once. In the first place,
Captain West. Not entirely unexpected was his death. Margaret tells
me that she was apprehensive from the start of the voyage--and even
before. It was because of her apprehension that she so abruptly
changed her plans and accompanied her father.

What really happened we do not know, but the agreed surmise is that
it was some stroke of the heart. And yet, after the stroke, did he
not come out on deck? Or could the first stroke have been followed
by another and fatal one after I had helped him inside through the
door? And even so, I have never heard of a heart-stroke being
preceded hours before by a weakening of the mind. Captain West's
mind seemed quite clear, and must have been quite clear, that last
afternoon when he wore the Elsinore and started the lee-shore drift.
In which case it was a blunder. The Samurai blundered, and his heart
destroyed him when he became aware of the blunder.

At any rate the thought of blunder never enters Margaret's head. She
accepts, as a matter of course, that it was all a part of the
oncoming termination of his sickness. And no one will ever undeceive
her. Neither Mr. Pike, Mr. Mellaire, nor I, among ourselves, mention
a whisper of what so narrowly missed causing disaster. In fact, Mr.
Pike does not talk about the matter at all.--And then, again, might
it not have been something different from heart disease? Or heart
disease complicated with something else that obscured his mind that
afternoon before his death? Well, no one knows, and I, for one,
shall not sit, even in secret judgment, on the event.

At midday of the day we clawed off Tierra Del Fuego the Elsinore was
rolling in a dead calm, and all afternoon she rolled, not a score of
miles off the land. Captain West was buried at four o'clock, and at
eight bells that evening Mr. Pike assumed command and made a few
remarks to both watches. They were straight-from-the-shoulder
remarks, or, as he called them, they were "brass tacks."

Among other things he told the sailors that they had another boss,
and that they would toe the mark as they never had before. Up to
this time they had been loafing in an hotel, but from this time on
they were going to work.

"On this hooker, from now on," he perorated, "it's going to be like
old times, when a man jumped the last day of the voyage as well as
the first. And God help the man that don't jump. That's all.
Relieve the wheel and lookout."

And yet the men are in terribly wretched condition. I don't see how
they can jump. Another week of westerly gales, alternating with
brief periods of calm, has elapsed, making a total of six weeks off
the Horn. So weak are the men that they have no spirit left in them-
-not even the gangsters. And so afraid are they of the mate that
they really do their best to jump when he drives them, and he drives
them all the time. Mr. Mellaire shakes his head.

"Wait till they get around and up into better weather," he astonished
me by telling me the other afternoon. "Wait till they get dried out,
and rested up, with more sleep, and their sores healed, and more
flesh on their bones, and more spunk in their blood--then they won't
stand for this driving. Mr. Pike can't realize that times have
changed, sir, and laws have changed, and men have changed. He's an
old man, and I know what I am talking about."

"You mean you've been listening to the talk of the men?" I challenged
rashly, all my gorge rising at the unofficerlike conduct of this
ship's officer.

The shot went home, for, in a flash, that suave and gentle film of
light vanished from the surface of the eyes, and the watching,
fearful thing that lurked behind inside the skull seemed almost to
leap out at me, while the cruel gash of mouth drew thinner and
crueller. And at the same time, on my inner sight, was grotesquely
limned a picture of a brain pulsing savagely against the veneer of
skin that covered that cleft of skull beneath the dripping sou'-
wester. Then he controlled himself, the mouth-gash relaxed, and the
suave and gentle film drew again across the eyes.

"I mean, sir," he said softly, "that I am speaking out of a long sea
experience. Times have changed. The old driving days are gone. And
I trust, Mr. Pathurst, that you will not misunderstand me in the
matter, nor misinterpret what I have said."

Although the conversation drifted on to other and calmer topics, I
could not ignore the fact that he had not denied listening to the
talk of the men. And yet, even as Mr. Pike grudgingly admits, he is
a good sailorman and second mate save for his unholy intimacy with
the men for'ard--an intimacy which even the Chinese cook and the
Chinese steward deplore as unseamanlike and perilous.

Even though men like the gangsters are so worn down by hardship that
they have no heart of rebellion, there remain three of the frailest
for'ard who will not die, and who are as spunky as ever. They are
Andy Fay, Mulligan Jacobs, and Charles Davis. What strange, abysmal
vitality informs them is beyond all speculation. Of course, Charles
Davis should have been overside with a sack of coal at his feet long
ago. And Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs are only, and have always
been, wrecked and emaciated wisps of men. Yet far stronger men than
they have gone over the side, and far stronger men than they are laid
up right now in absolute physical helplessness in the soggy
forecastle bunks. And these two bitter flames of shreds of things
stand all their watches and answer all calls for both watches.

Yes; and the chickens have something of this same spunk of life in
them. Featherless, semi-frozen despite the oil-stove, sprayed
dripping on occasion by the frigid seas that pound by sheer weight
through canvas tarpaulins, nevertheless not a chicken has died. Is
it a matter of selection? Are these the iron-vigoured ones that
survived the hardships from Baltimore to the Horn, and are fitted to
survive anything? Then for a De Vries to take them, save them, and
out of them found the hardiest breed of chickens on the planet! And
after this I shall always query that phrase, most ancient in our
language--"chicken-hearted." Measured by the Elsinore's chickens, it
is a misnomer.

Nor are our three Horn Gypsies, the storm-visitors with the dreaming,
topaz eyes, spunkless. Held in superstitious abhorrence by the rest
of the crew, aliens by lack of any word of common speech,
nevertheless they are good sailors and are always first to spring
into any enterprise of work or peril. They have gone into Mr.
Mellaire's watch, and they are quite apart from the rest of the
sailors. And when there is a delay, or wait, with nothing to do for
long minutes, they shoulder together, and stand and sway to the heave
of deck, and dream far dreams in those pale, topaz eyes, of a
country, I am sure, where mothers, with pale, topaz eyes and sandy
hair, birth sons and daughters that breed true in terms of topaz eyes
and sandy hair.

But the rest of the crew! Take the Maltese Cockney. He is too
keenly intelligent, too sharply sensitive, successfully to endure.
He is a shadow of his former self. His cheeks have fallen in. Dark
circles of suffering are under his eyes, while his eyes, Latin and
English intermingled, are cavernously sunken and as bright-burning as
if aflame with fever.

Tom Spink, hard-fibred Anglo-Saxon, good seaman that he is, long
tried and always proved, is quite wrecked in spirit. He is whining
and fearful. So broken is he, though he still does his work, that he
is prideless and shameless.

"I'll never ship around the Horn again, sir," he began on me the
other day when I greeted him good morning at the wheel. "I've sworn
it before, but this time I mean it. Never again, sir. Never again."

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