The Mutiny of the Elsinore

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As they passed before us they favoured Mr. Pike with the same
indifferent, keen glances they gave me.

"What's your name--you?" Mr. Pike barked at the first of the trio,
evidently a hybrid Irish-Jew. Jewish his nose unmistakably was.
Equally unmistakable was the Irish of his eyes, and jaw, and upper
lip.

The three had immediately stopped, and, though they did not look
directly at one another, they seemed to be holding a silent
conference. Another of the trio, in whose veins ran God alone knows
what Semitic, Babylonish and Latin strains, gave a warning signal.
Oh, nothing so crass as a wink or a nod. I almost doubted that I had
intercepted it, and yet I knew he had communicated a warning to his
fellows. More a shade of expression that had crossed his eyes, or a
glint in them of sudden light--or whatever it was, it carried the
message.

"Murphy," the other answered the mate.

"Sir!" Mr. Pike snarled at him.

Murphy shrugged his shoulders in token that he did not understand.
It was the poise of the man, of the three of them, the cool poise
that impressed me.

"When you address any officer on this ship you'll say 'sir,'" Mr.
Pike explained, his voice as harsh as his face was forbidding. "Did
you get THAT?"

"Yes . . sir,'' Murphy drawled with deliberate slowness. "I
gotcha."

"Sir!" Mr. Pike roared.

"Sir," Murphy answered, so softly and carelessly that it irritated
the mate to further bullyragging.

"Well, Murphy's too long," he announced. "Nosey'll do you aboard
this craft. Got THAT?"

"I gotcha . . . sir," came the reply, insolent in its very softness
and unconcern. "Nosey Murphy goes . . . sir."

And then he laughed--the three of them laughed, if laughter it might
be called that was laughter without sound or facial movement. The
eyes alone laughed, mirthlessly and cold-bloodedly.

Certainly Mr. Pike was not enjoying himself with these baffling
personalities. He turned upon the leader, the one who had given the
warning and who looked the admixture of all that was Mediterranean
and Semitic.

"What's YOUR name?"

"Bert Rhine . . . sir," was the reply, in tones as soft and careless
and silkily irritating as the other's.

"And YOU?"--this to the remaining one, the youngest of the trio, a
dark-eyed, olive-skinned fellow with a face most striking in its
cameo-like beauty. American-born, I placed him, of immigrants from
Southern Italy--from Naples, or even Sicily.

"Twist . . . sir," he answered, precisely in the same manner as the
others.

"Too long," the mate sneered. "The Kid'll do you. Got THAT?"

"I gotcha . . . sir. Kid Twist'll do me . . . sir."

"Kid'll do!"

"Kid . . . sir."

And the three laughed their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time
Mr. Pike was beside himself with a rage that could find no excuse for
action.

"Now I'm going to tell you something, the bunch of you, for the good
of your health." The mate's voice grated with the rage he was
suppressing. "I know your kind. You're dirt. D'ye get THAT?
You're dirt. And on this ship you'll be treated as dirt. You'll do
your work like men, or I'll know the reason why. The first time one
of you bats an eye, or even looks like batting an eye, he gets his.
D'ye get that? Now get out. Get along for'ard to the windlass."

Mr. Pike turned on his heel, and I swung alongside of him as he moved
aft.

"What do you make of them?" I queried.

"The limit," he grunted. "I know their kidney. They've done time,
the three of them. They're just plain sweepings of hell--"

Here his speech was broken off by the spectacle that greeted him on
Number Two hatch. Sprawled out on the hatch were five or six men,
among them Larry, the tatterdemalion who had called him "old stiff"
earlier in the afternoon. That Larry had not obeyed orders was
patent, for he was sitting with his back propped against his sea-bag,
which ought to have been in the forecastle. Also, he and the group
with him ought to have been for'ard manning the windlass.

The mate stepped upon the hatch and towered over the man.

"Get up," he ordered.

Larry made an effort, groaned, and failed to get up.

"I can't," he said.

"Sir!"

"I can't, sir. I was drunk last night an' slept in Jefferson Market.
An' this mornin' I was froze tight, sir. They had to pry me loose."

"Stiff with the cold you were, eh?" the mate grinned.

"It's well ye might say it, sir," Larry answered.

"And you feel like an old stiff, eh?"

Larry blinked with the troubled, querulous eyes of a monkey. He was
beginning to apprehend he knew not what, and he knew that bending
over him was a man-master.

"Well, I'll just be showin' you what an old stiff feels like,
anyways." Mr. Pike mimicked the other's brogue.

And now I shall tell what I saw happen. Please remember what I have
said of the huge paws of Mr. Pike, the fingers much longer than mine
and twice as thick, the wrists massive-boned, the arm-bones and the
shoulder-bones of the same massive order. With one flip of his right
hand, with what I might call an open-handed, lifting, upward slap,
save that it was the ends of the fingers only that touched Larry's
face, he lifted Larry into the air, sprawling him backward on his
back across his sea-bag.

The man alongside of Larry emitted a menacing growl and started to
spring belligerently to his feet. But he never reached his feet.
Mr. Pike, with the back of same right hand, open, smote the man on
the side of the face. The loud smack of the impact was startling.
The mate's strength was amazing. The blow looked so easy, so
effortless; it had seemed like the lazy stroke of a good-natured
bear, but in it was such a weight of bone and muscle that the man
went down sidewise and rolled off the hatch on to the deck.

At this moment, lurching aimlessly along, appeared O'Sullivan. A
sudden access of muttering, on his part, reached Mr. Pike's ear, and
Mr. Pike, instantly keen as a wild animal, his paw in the act of
striking O'Sullivan, whipped out like a revolver shot, "What's that?"
Then he noted the sense-struck face of O'Sullivan and withheld the
blow. "Bug-house," Mr. Pike commented.

Involuntarily I had glanced to see if Captain West was on the poop,
and found that we were hidden from the poop by the 'midship house.

Mr. Pike, taking no notice of the man who lay groaning on the deck,
stood over Larry, who was likewise groaning. The rest of the
sprawling men were on their feet, subdued and respectful. I, too,
was respectful of this terrific, aged figure of a man. The
exhibition had quite convinced me of the verity of his earlier
driving and killing days.

"Who's the old stiff now?" he demanded.

"'Tis me, sir," Larry moaned contritely.

"Get up!"

Larry got up without any difficulty at all.

"Now get for'ard to the windlass! The rest of you!"

And they went, sullenly, shamblingly, like the cowed brutes they
were.

CHAPTER VI

I climbed the ladder on the side of the for'ard house (which house
contained, as I discovered, the forecastle, the galley, and the
donkey-engine room), and went part way along the bridge to a position
by the foremast, where I could observe the crew heaving up anchor.
The Britannia was alongside, and we were getting under way.

A considerable body of men was walking around with the windlass or
variously engaged on the forecastle-head. Of the crew proper were
two watches of fifteen men each. In addition were sailmakers, boys,
bosuns, and the carpenter. Nearly forty men were they, but such men!
They were sad and lifeless. There was no vim, no go, no activity.
Every step and movement was an effort, as if they were dead men
raised out of coffins or sick men dragged from hospital beds. Sick
they were--whiskey-poisoned. Starved they were, and weak from poor
nutrition. And worst of all, they were imbecile and lunatic.

I looked aloft at the intricate ropes, at the steel masts rising and
carrying huge yards of steel, rising higher and higher, until steel
masts and yards gave way to slender spars of wood, while ropes and
stays turned into a delicate tracery of spider-thread against the
sky. That such a wretched muck of men should be able to work this
magnificent ship through all storm and darkness and peril of the sea
was beyond all seeming. I remembered the two mates, the super-
efficiency, mental and physical, of Mr. Mellaire and Mr. Pike--could
they make this human wreckage do it? They, at least, evinced no
doubts of their ability. The sea? If this feat of mastery were
possible, then clear it was that I knew nothing of the sea.

I looked back at the misshapen, starved, sick, stumbling hulks of men
who trod the dreary round of the windlass. Mr. Pike was right.
These were not the brisk, devilish, able-bodied men who manned the
ships of the old clipper-ship days; who fought their officers, who
had the points of their sheath-knives broken off, who killed and were
killed, but who did their work as men. These men, these shambling
carcasses at the windlass--I looked, and looked, and vainly I strove
to conjure the vision of them swinging aloft in rack and storm,
"clearing the raffle," as Kipling puts it, "with their clasp knives
in their teeth." Why didn't they sing a chanty as they hove the
anchor up? In the old days, as I had read, the anchor always came up
to the rollicking sailor songs of sea-chested men.

I tired of watching the spiritless performance, and went aft on an
exploring trip along the slender bridge. It was a beautiful
structure, strong yet light, traversing the length of the ship in
three aerial leaps. It spanned from the forecastle-head to the
forecastle-house, next to the 'midship house, and then to the poop.
The poop, which was really the roof or deck over all the cabin space
below, and which occupied the whole after-part of the ship, was very
large. It was broken only by the half-round and half-covered wheel-
house at the very stern and by the chart-house. On either side of
the latter two doors opened into a tiny hallway. This, in turn, gave
access to the chart-room and to a stairway that led down into the
cabin quarters beneath.

I peeped into the chart-room and was greeted with a smile by Captain
West. He was lolling back comfortably in a swing chair, his feet
cocked on the desk opposite. On a broad, upholstered couch sat the
pilot. Both were smoking cigars; and, lingering for a moment to
listen to the conversation, I grasped that the pilot was an ex-sea-
captain.

As I descended the stairs, from Miss West's room came a sound of
humming and bustling, as she settled her belongings. The energy she
displayed, to judge by the cheerful noises of it, was almost
perturbing.

Passing by the pantry, I put my head inside the door to greet the
steward and courteously let him know that I was aware of his
existence. Here, in his little realm, it was plain that efficiency
reigned. Everything was spotless and in order, and I could have
wished and wished vainly for a more noiseless servant than he ashore.
His face, as he regarded me, had as little or as much expression as
the Sphinx. But his slant, black eyes were bright, with
intelligence.

"What do you think of the crew?" I asked, in order to put words to my
invasion of his castle.

"Buggy-house," he answered promptly, with a disgusted shake of the
head. "Too much buggy-house. All crazy. You see. No good.
Rotten. Down to hell."

That was all, but it verified my own judgment. While it might be
true, as Miss West had said, that every ship's crew contained several
lunatics and idiots, it was a foregone conclusion that our crew
contained far more than several. In fact, and as it was to turn out,
our crew, even in these degenerate sailing days, was an unusual crew
in so far as its helplessness and worthlessness were beyond the
average.

I found my own room (in reality it was two rooms) delightful. Wada
had unpacked and stored away my entire outfit of clothing, and had
filled numerous shelves with the library I had brought along.
Everything was in order and place, from my shaving outfit in the
drawer beside the wash-basin, and my sea-boots and oilskins hung
ready to hand, to my writing materials on the desk, before which a
swing arm-chair, leather-upholstered and screwed solidly to the
floor, invited me. My pyjamas and dressing-gown were out. My
slippers, in their accustomed place by the bed, also invited me.

Here, aft, all was fitness, intelligence. On deck it was what I have
described--a nightmare spawn of creatures, assumably human, but
malformed, mentally and physically, into caricatures of men. Yes, it
was an unusual crew; and that Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire could whip it
into the efficient shape necessary to work this vast and intricate
and beautiful fabric of a ship was beyond all seeming of possibility.

Depressed as I was by what I had just witnessed on deck, there came
to me, as I leaned back in my chair and opened the second volume of
George Moore's Hail and Farewell, a premonition that the voyage was
to be disastrous. But then, as I looked about the room, measured its
generous space, realized that I was more comfortably situated than I
had ever been on any passenger steamer, I dismissed foreboding
thoughts and caught a pleasant vision of myself, through weeks and
months, catching up with all the necessary reading which I had so
long neglected.

Once, I asked Wada if he had seen the crew. No, he hadn't, but the
steward had said that in all his years at sea this was the worst crew
he had ever seen.

"He say, all crazy, no sailors, rotten," Wada said. "He say all big
fools and bime by much trouble. 'You see,' he say all the time.
'You see, You see.' He pretty old man--fifty-five years, he say.
Very smart man for Chinaman. Just now, first time for long time, he
go to sea. Before, he have big business in San Francisco. Then he
get much trouble--police. They say he opium smuggle. Oh, big, big
trouble. But he catch good lawyer. He no go to jail. But long time
lawyer work, and when trouble all finish lawyer got all his business,
all his money, everything. Then he go to sea, like before. He make
good money. He get sixty-five dollars a month on this ship. But he
don't like. Crew all crazy. When this time finish he leave ship, go
back start business in San Francisco."

Later, when I had Wada open one of the ports for ventilation, I could
hear the gurgle and swish of water alongside, and I knew the anchor
was up and that we were in the grip of the Britannia, towing down the
Chesapeake to sea. The idea suggested itself that it was not too
late. I could very easily abandon the adventure and return to
Baltimore on the Britannia when she cast off the Elsinore. And then
I heard a slight tinkling of china from the pantry as the steward
proceeded to set the table, and, also, it was so warm and
comfortable, and George Moore was so irritatingly fascinating.

CHAPTER VII

In every way dinner proved up beyond my expectations, and I
registered a note that the cook, whoever or whatever he might be, was
a capable man at his trade. Miss West served, and, though she and
the steward were strangers, they worked together splendidly. I
should have thought, from the smoothness of the service, that he was
an old house servant who for years had known her every way.

The pilot ate in the chart-house, so that at table were the four of
us that would always be at table together. Captain West and his
daughter faced each other, while I, on the captain's right, faced Mr.
Pike. This put Miss West across the corner on my right.

Mr. Pike, his dark sack coat (put on for the meal) bulging and
wrinkling over the lumps of muscles that padded his stooped
shoulders, had nothing at all to say. But he had eaten too many
years at captains' tables not to have proper table manners. At first
I thought he was abashed by Miss West's presence. Later, I decided
it was due to the presence of the captain. For Captain West had a
way with him that I was beginning to learn. Far removed as Mr. Pike
and Mr. Mellaire were from the sailors, individuals as they were of
an entirely different and superior breed, yet equally as different
and far removed from his officers was Captain West. He was a serene
and absolute aristocrat. He neither talked "ship" nor anything else
to Mr. Pike.

On the other hand, Captain West's attitude toward me was that of a
social equal. But then, I was a passenger. Miss West treated me the
same way, but unbent more to Mr. Pike. And Mr. Pike, answering her
with "Yes, Miss," and "No, Miss," ate good-manneredly and with his
shaggy-browed gray eyes studied me across the table. I, too, studied
him. Despite his violent past, killer and driver that he was, I
could not help liking the man. He was honest, genuine. Almost more
than for that, I liked him for the spontaneous boyish laugh he gave
on the occasions when I reached the points of several funny stories.
No man could laugh like that and be all bad. I was glad that it was
he, and not Mr. Mellaire, who was to sit opposite throughout the
voyage. And I was very glad that Mr. Mellaire was not to eat with us
at all.

I am afraid that Miss West and I did most of the talking. She was
breezy, vivacious, tonic, and I noted again that the delicate, almost
fragile oval of her face was given the lie by her body. She was a
robust, healthy young woman. That was undeniable. Not fat--heaven
forbid!--not even plump; yet her lines had that swelling roundness
that accompanies long, live muscles. She was full-bodied, vigorous;
and yet not so full-bodied as she seemed. I remember with what
surprise, when we arose from table, I noted her slender waist. At
that moment I got the impression that she was willowy. And willowy
she was, with a normal waist and with, in addition, always that
informing bodily vigour that made her appear rounder and robuster
than she really was.

It was the health of her that interested me. When I studied her face
more closely I saw that only the lines of the oval of it were
delicate. Delicate it was not, nor fragile. The flesh was firm, and
the texture of the skin was firm and fine as it moved over the firm
muscles of face and neck. The neck was a beautiful and adequate
pillar of white. Its flesh was firm, its skin fine, and it was
muscular. The hands, too, attracted me--not small, but well-shaped,
fine, white and strong, and well cared for. I could only conclude
that she was an unusual captain's daughter, just as her father was an
unusual captain and man. And their noses were alike, just the hint-
touch of the beak of power and race.

While Miss West was telling of the unexpectedness of the voyage, of
how suddenly she had decided to come--she accounted for it as a whim-
-and while she told of all the complications she had encountered in
her haste of preparation, I found myself casting up a tally of the
efficient ones on board the Elsinore. They were Captain West and his
daughter, the two mates, myself, of course, Wada and the steward,
and, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the cook. The dinner vouched for
him. Thus I found our total of efficients to be eight. But the
cook, the steward, and Wada were servants, not sailors, while Miss
West and myself were supernumeraries. Remained to work, direct, do,
but three efficients out of a total ship's company of forty-five. I
had no doubt that other efficients there were; it seemed impossible
that my first impression of the crew should be correct. There was
the carpenter. He might, at his trade, be as good as the cook. Then
the two sailmakers, whom I had not yet seen, might prove up.

A little later during the meal I ventured to talk about what had
interested me and aroused my admiration, namely, the masterfulness
with which Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire had gripped hold of that woeful,
worthless crew. It was all new to me, I explained, but I appreciated
the need of it. As I led up to the occurrence on Number Two hatch,
when Mr. Pike had lifted up Larry and toppled him back with a mere
slap from the ends of his fingers, I saw in Mr. Pike's eyes a
warning, almost threatening, expression. Nevertheless, I completed
my description of the episode.

When I had quite finished there was a silence. Miss West was busy
serving coffee from a copper percolator. Mr. Pike, profoundly
occupied with cracking walnuts, could not quite hide the wicked,
little, half-humorous, half-revengeful gleam in his eyes. But
Captain West looked straight at me, but from oh! such a distance--
millions and millions of miles away. His clear blue eyes were as
serene as ever, his tones as low and soft.

"It is the one rule I ask to be observed, Mr. Pathurst--we never
discuss the sailors."

It was a facer to me, and with quite a pronounced fellow-feeling for
Larry I hurriedly added:

"It was not merely the discipline that interested me. It was the
feat of strength."

"Sailors are trouble enough without our hearing about them, Mr.
Pathurst," Captain West went on, as evenly and imperturbably as if I
had not spoken. "I leave the handling of the sailors to my officers.
That's their business, and they are quite aware that I tolerate no
undeserved roughness or severity."

Mr. Pike's harsh face carried the faintest shadow of an amused grin
as he stolidly regarded the tablecloth. I glanced to Miss West for
sympathy. She laughed frankly, and said:

"You see, father never has any sailors. And it's a good plan, too."

"A very good plan," Mr. Pike muttered.

Then Miss West kindly led the talk away from that subject, and soon
had us laughing with a spirited recital of a recent encounter of hers
with a Boston cab-driver.

Dinner over, I stepped to my room in quest of cigarettes, and
incidentally asked Wada about the cook. Wada was always a great
gatherer of information.

"His name Louis," he said. "He Chinaman, too. No; only half
Chinaman. Other half Englishman. You know one island Napoleon he
stop long time and bime by die that island?"

"St. Helena," I prompted.

"Yes, that place Louis he born. He talk very good English."

At this moment, entering the hall from the deck, Mr. Mellaire, just
relieved by the mate, passed me on his way to the big room in the
stern where the second table was set. His "Good evening, sir," was
as stately and courteous as any southern gentleman of the old days
could have uttered it. And yet I could not like the man. His
outward seeming was so at variance with the personality that resided
within. Even as he spoke and smiled I felt that from inside his
skull he was watching me, studying me. And somehow, in a flash of
intuition, I knew not why, I was reminded of the three strange young
men, routed last from the forecastle, to whom Mr. Pike had read the
law. They, too, had given me a similar impression.

Behind Mr. Mellaire slouched a self-conscious, embarrassed
individual, with the face of a stupid boy and the body of a giant.
His feet were even larger than Mr. Pike's, but the hands--I shot a
quick glance to see--were not so large as Mr. Pike's.

As they passed I looked inquiry to Wada.

"He carpenter. He sat second table. His name Sam Lavroff. He come
from New York on ship. Steward say he very young for carpenter,
maybe twenty-two, three years old."

As I approached the open port over my desk I again heard the swish
and gurgle of water and again realized that we were under way. So
steady and noiseless was our progress, that, say seated at table, it
never entered one's head that we were moving or were anywhere save on
the solid land. I had been used to steamers all my life, and it was
difficult immediately to adjust myself to the absence of the
propeller-thrust vibration.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked Wada, who, like myself, had never
made a sailing-ship voyage.

He smiled politely.

"Very funny ship. Very funny sailors. I don't know. Mebbe all
right. We see."

"You think trouble?" I asked pointedly.

"I think sailors very funny," he evaded.

CHAPTER VIII

Having lighted my cigarette, I strolled for'ard along the deck to
where work was going on. Above my head dim shapes of canvas showed
in the starlight. Sail was being made, and being made slowly, as I
might judge, who was only the veriest tyro in such matters. The
indistinguishable shapes of men, in long lines, pulled on ropes.
They pulled in sick and dogged silence, though Mr. Pike, ubiquitous,
snarled out orders and rapped out oaths from every angle upon their
miserable heads.

Certainly, from what I had read, no ship of the old days ever
proceeded so sadly and blunderingly to sea. Ere long Mr. Mellaire
joined Mr. Pike in the struggle of directing the men. It was not yet
eight in the evening, and all hands were at work. They did not seem
to know the ropes. Time and again, when the half-hearted suggestions
of the bosuns had been of no avail, I saw one or the other of the
mates leap to the rail and put the right rope in the hands of the
men.

These, on the deck, I concluded, were the hopeless ones. Up aloft,
from sounds and cries, I knew were other men, undoubtedly those who
were at least a little seaman-like, loosing the sails.

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