Part 13

But Billings had noticed, and acted. With a shout down the companion to the Captain, he whipped out a pocket revolver and hurried forward in the alley to meet the procession. But he did not use that revolver. Benson took quick aim and fired, and coincident with the report the nickel-plated weapon left his hand, whirling high in air before falling overboard. Billings whinnied in pain, and, rubbing his benumbed hand, backed aft before the advancing Snelling.

Then, up the companion on a run, came the Captain, a fat cigar in his mouth and a look of wonder and astonishment on his face. Benson and Quincy were now in the alley, and again a pistol spoke--Quincy's, this time--and the fat cigar left the Captain's mouth in two pieces.

"Hands up, all three of you," yelled Quincy, "or we'll shoot to kill! Found out, haven't you, that we can shoot--some? That's our trade. Up with your hands!"

Both Captain and mate raised their hands, but the former protested.

"This is mutiny, you scoundrels! D'you know the penalty? Ten years!"

"It won't be ten minutes," answered Quincy. "Call it what you like, mutiny, burglary, or pistol practice. But I'll tell you what it sure will be, if you don't come to time. It'll be a pig killing, and justifiable manslaughter in the courts. I know something about law, and I've got you for abduction. A man abducted has a right to defend himself, and I'll kill you if you don't head this boat for land and put us ashore."

"Yes," added Benson, "and we'll take our prisoner with us, too!"

"Sure," said Quincy. "Bill Rogers goes, too. Come, now, what do you say?"

"I say, by Gawd," roared the Captain, red in the face with rage and the strain on his muscles, "that I won't! If this ship goes back, you'll take her back yourself, with me and my mates under duress. It's ruinous to agree to such a proposition. I'd lose this ship and never get another."

"Very well," said Quincy, quietly. "Then we'll put you fellows under arrest. And if you resist we'll shoot you to pieces. Rogers," he turned to the smiling helmsman, "can you steer this boat back to the United States?"

"I can't find New York," answered Rogers; "but the United States is due west."

"Can you steer due west?"

"Yes; but the yards must be braced. The wind is hauling to the north, and we could make a fair wind of it."

"Can you attend to this--bracing of the yards?"

"Yes. I've been second mate."

"Right, Benson, go through them all and take away their guns, if they have any!" Then he raised his voice and called forward to the men, who had stopped work and were watching curiously the strange scene on the poop. "One of you fellows get a piece of small rope cord. Bring it up here and tie these fellows' hands behind their backs."

While Benson searched the pockets of the trio--finding no weapons, however--a man had secured a ball of spun yarn from the booby hatch and ran up the poop steps with it. Then, under the influence of those long, blue tubes, the Captain and the two mates lay down on their faces, while the sailor securely bound their wrists behind them.

"Now, then," said Quincy, "you're in command, Rogers. We'll police this boat, and make these men obey all your orders."

"Take the wheel here!" said Rogers to the sailor. "Stand by to wear ship!" Then he mounted the cabin, and emitted a sailorly yell to the crew. "All hands down from aloft! Weather main and lee crowjack braces!"

* * * * *

In the dawn of the following morning some early rising fishermen of the Jersey coast saw a black ship with all canvas set resting quietly on the sands about two hundred yards from the beach, a white boat, empty of everything but oars, hauled out above high-water mark, and on boarding the ship they found and released three chilled, hungry, and angry men from the lazaret. But not a sign of her crew did they see.

SHOVELS AND BRICKS

Mr. John Murphy, boarding master, was on bad terms with himself. He had been kicked off the poop-deck of Captain Williams's big ship, the _Albatross_, lying off Tompkinsville, waiting to dock, thence to the gangway, and from there shoved, struck in the face, and further kicked and maltreated until he had flopped into the boat at the foot of the steps. Williams was a six-footer, a graduate "bucko" now in charge of this big skysail-yarder, and he had resented Murphy's appearance on board with whisky and kind words for his men before he was through with them. Not caring to dock his ship with the help of riggers at five dollars a day, he had called Murphy aft, lectured him on the ethics and proprieties of seafaring, and then had punished him for an indiscreet reference to the rights of boarding masters who must needs solicit boarders in order to make a living. All that Murphy could do under the circumstances was to shout up from the boat his defiance of Captain Williams, and a threat to prevent his getting a new crew when ready to sail--which was clearly within his power as a member of the Association of Boarding and Shipping Masters. But Williams, red-bearded, angry-faced, and victorious, replied with injunctions to descend to the infernal regions and remain there, and Murphy pulled ashore and took the boat to New York, bent upon vengeance.

At the door of his boarding-house in Front Street he met Hennesey, his runner. Hennesey was a small man, sly, shrewd, and persuasive, and so far had given satisfaction in the difficult business of soliciting incoming crews to board at Murphy's house instead of the Sailors' Home, the Provident Seamen's Mission, and other like institutions. But Murphy's mood was strong upon him, and he asked, peremptorily:

"Well, what did ye git?"

"Nothin'; the Mission launch wuz on hand and the bunch wint in a body."

"Dom yer soul, what do I pay ye fur, anyhow?" stormed Murphy. "Are ye no good? Tell me thot. Are ye no good at all? What are ye takin' my money fur?"

"To git sailors to come to yer house on commission," retorted Hennesey, hotly; "an' fur fear I'd be makin' too much, ye sind me to a bloody coaster, whose min are in the union, while you go down to the _Albatross_, in from deep water."

"I got no wan from the _Albatross_."

"No fault o' yours or mine. I'd ha' got 'em."

"None o' yer shlack."

"To hill wi' ye."

"Ye're discharged. Come in an' I'll pay ye off."

"Right ye are. From this on I'll work fur mesilf and git your business, ye skin."

Hennesey's estimate of Murphy was not far wrong, though it might also apply to himself. The profits of a sailors' boarding-house depend not upon the cash paid in by men with money, who choose their own ship and come and go as they please, but upon the advance or allotment of pay which the law allows to deep-water seamen in order that they may purchase an outfit of clothing before sailing. To get this allotment, Murphy and others of his kind would take in and feed any penniless sailor long enough to run up an inflated bill for board, money lent, and clothing, then find him a ship and walk him to the shipping-office, more or less drugged or drunk. Here the penniless sailor dared not, even if suspicious, contest the claim, for, should he do so, he would find himself not only out of a ship, but out of a boarding-house; so he would sign away his allotment, and go aboard with what clothing his benefactor had allowed him. As deep-water men on shore are invariably drunk, drugged, or penniless, the boarding-masters, to whom the skippers must apply for men, easily control the situation. And, as machinery for such control, nearly all boarding-houses have the front ground floor divided into barroom and clothing-store, while in the rear is the dining-room and upstairs the bedrooms, each with as many beds as there is room for. Thus, a man may be housed, fed, clothed, drugged, and shipped from the same address. The remedy for this has no place in this story.

A boarding-master, or crimp, without the machinery, becomes a shipping-master, a go-between between the skipper and the boarding-master, whose income is the blood-money paid by skippers for men. Murphy, strolling along South Street a few days later, saw a new sign over a doorway--Timothy Hennesey, Shipping-Master. He ascended the wooden stairs, and in a dingy room with one desk and chair found his former aid.

"Well, what the hill is this, Hennesey--tryin' to take the brid out of honest min's mouths?"

"I've me livin' to make, Murphy, an' I'm a-doin' it. I got the crew of the _Albatross_."

"An' what did ye do wid 'em?"

"Put 'em wid Stillman, over beyant. Ye might ha' had 'em had ye played fair."

Stillman was Murphy's most important rival, and the news did not cheer him. He glared darkly at Hennesey.

"An' I've got the shippin' o' Williams's new crew whin he sails," continued Hennesey, "an' I'll not go to you for 'em, Murphy."

"Ye'll not?" responded Murphy, luridly. "After all the wark I've given ye."

"I'll not. I told ye I'd git yer business, an' I'll do it."

Murphy's fist shot out and Hennesey went down. Arising with bleeding nose, he shook his small fist at his chuckling assailant passing sidewise out of his door.

"I'll not forgit thot, John Murphy," he spluttered.

"I don't want ye to. Remember it while ye live; an' there's more where thot cum from, too, ye scab."

At a meeting of the brotherhood that evening, Murphy posted the name of Timothy Hennesey, scab, and Captain Williams, outlaw; then, somewhat easier in his mind, took account of the immediate business situation. It was bad; he had three cash boarders, of no use when their money was gone, as they signed in coasters, and there was but one ship in port, the _Albatross_, and none expected for a fortnight. So, leaving orders with his wife to watch the cash register in the bar, and to evict the boarders when they asked for trust, he took the train for Chicago, where lived a prosperous brother, for whom he had a sincere regard, and to whom he owed a long-promised visit. Brother Mike welcomed him, and under the softening influence of brotherly love he forgave Hennesey, but not Williams. It is so much easier to warm toward a fellow man you have punched than toward one who has punched you.

Mike took John down to his coal-docks, with which he was amassing a fortune, and explained their workings. A schooner lay at one, and his gang was unloading her. It was a cold day in November, and their warm overcoats felt none too warm; yet down in the hold of the schooner were men bare to the waist, black as negroes with coal dust, save where the perspiration cleared white channels as it ran down their backs and breasts--keeping themselves warm with the violence of their exertions. There were two to each of the three hatches; and there were six others on the dock runway, wheeling the coal away; they had nearly unloaded the schooner, having cleared away the coal directly under the hatch, and were now loading their buckets at the two piles farther back, between the hatches. These buckets stood as high as their waists, and held, according to Brother Mike, five hundred pounds when full. But a man, having filled it to the brim, would seize the bale and drag it along the flooring to the hatch, unhook a descending bucket, hook on the full one, sing out an inarticulate cry, and drag the empty back to the coal to be filled in its turn--all with a never-lessening display of extravagant muscular force.

"Heavens! what wark!" said John, as they peered down the hatch. "An' how long do they kape this up?"

"Tin hours a day, and not a minute longer," answered Mike; "that is, barrin' fifteen minutes at tin in the mornin' and three in the afternoon, whin they knock off for a bite and a drink up at me place on the corner. They go up and ate up me free lunch and soak in about a pint of whisky at one drink."

"The divil! and don't it kill thim?"

"Naw. They come back and sweat it out. They couldn't wurruk like this widout it."

"It's great work, Mike. Look at the devilopment. Did ye iver see a prize-fighter with such muscles?"

"A prize-fighter!" said Mike. "Jawn Murphy, luk at them. They're all sizes, big and little, in my two gangs; but give the littlest a month's trainin' in the science o' boxin' and he'd lick any heavyweight in the wurruld. Ye see, ye simply can't hurt 'em."

"Can't hurt 'em?"

"Ye can't hurt 'em. They're not human. They're wild beasts. They come from the hills and bogs of Limerick and Galway, and they can't speak the language, but call themselves Irishmin. Well, Jawn, they're Irish, mebbe, as the American Injun's an American; but they're not like you and me, dacent min from Dublin."

"But if they can't speak the language, how do ye git on wid 'em?"

"Once in a while, when they're cool and tranquil, I get on to a word or two, but usually I fall back on moral suasion and the sign language."

"Moral suasion?"

"I swear at 'em. And thin, whin that fails, I use the sign language. That's good in talkin' to any foreigner, Jawn."

"But what is it, the sign language?"

"A brick. See this, Jawn?" Mike held up one side of his coat, and John felt of an oblong protuberance in the right-hand pocket. "I carry a brick at all times, Jawn, for it's the only thing that appeals to their sinsibilities. I used to carry a club, but it didn't wurruk; they'd get back at me wid their shovels, and it's domned inconvanient, Jawn, to be sliced up wid a shovel. So, I carry a brick."

"Do they git that way often?"

"Yis; it's their natural condition. They'd rather fight than ate, and I don't dare hire a man from another county in one gang, for fear they'll kill him; so this is the Galway gang, and up the dock a bit is the Limerick gang, twilve min to each. They're all alike, but think they're different, so I have to be careful. But, while they'd rather fight than ate, they'd rather wurruk than fight, and that's where I come in. I kape 'em apart, and stir up their jealousy. Each gang 'll wurruk like hill to bate the other."

"And what do ye pay thim?"

"By the job. They stick to factory hours, and won't wurruk overtime, but at tin hours a day they make about eight dollars."

"The divil! But that's big pay."

"Yis; but I have to pay it, for no other class o' min can do the wurruk. Why, it 'ud kill an American or a Dootchman!"

"They must have money saved up."

"All that they don't spind at me bar up on the corner. They have to save some, for in the nature o' things I can't git it all back. And they're all goin' back to the old sod whin navigation closes--in about two weeks. This'll be about their last job."

"They'll come to New York and take passage, I suppose."

"Yis; and I'll have to buy their tickets and ship thim. They don't know much about American money, and wid a new man I have to pay him in English money at first, until he finds it's no good; thin I exchange at a discount."

"Fine, Mike; ye'll be rich before long."

"That I will, if the supply of bog-trottin' savages holds out."

At this juncture one of the men in the hold lifted his sooty countenance and, with the vehemence of a lunatic, delivered this:

"Whythilldonye'veaharseut'lldothwark?"

"Dry up," said Mike, pulling the brick from his pocket. "Dry up or I'll hurt yer feelin's."

The man shrank back out of sight, and Mike put the brick back in his pocket.

"What did he say?" queried John.

"He objicts to the speed o' the harse on the dock. He can fill buckets, ye see, faster than the harse can h'ist 'em. That's what ails him."

"And he's afraid o' the brick?"

"Yis; but o' nothin' else. Thim fellers don't fear a gun, so I don't carry one. Why, a while back, there was a bad time at the corner whin the two gangs got mixed up, and the police cum down. They used their guns, but--hill! the bullets just punctured their skins, and they picked thim out wid their fingers and wint for the coppers and done thim up. I tell ye, Jawn, that a wild Irishman, frish from the bogs and the hills, can outwork, outfight, and outeat any man alive."

"Outeat?"

"I give thim mate three times a day. If it wuzn't for the profits o' the bar, it wud brek me. And, say, Jawn, they can't say 'mate' whin they ask for more. They say 'mate.'"

"'Mate'? And can't they say 'mate,' whin they ate it so much?"

"No, Jawn, they sing out for mate. It's no use; they can't spake the language, and it's no use t'achin' thim. They're good min to wurruk--all bone and sole leather, but ye can't refine thim."

"You can't, Mike, but I kin."

"How, ye skeptic? Luk at 'em. Scratch 'em, and they won't bleed. Shoot 'em, and they'll pick out the bullets and paste ye wid 'em. Reason wid 'em, and they'll insult ye. Refine 'em, Jawn! Ye're crazy. Luk at thot felly down there under the hatch. He's here on his weddin' trip, but he lift his wife behind in the old country."

"That makes no difference," answered John, ruminatively; "I can refine 'em. Make sure, Mike, that whin they come to New York they come to my house in Front Street. I'll feed 'em mate three times a day again' the time they take the ship for the old sod. I'll be good to thim, Mike. Send thim to me."

"Ay, John, I will thot. But ye'll nade to square yerself wid yer butcher in advance if ye think to feed thim wolfs. They're hungry and they're thirsty be nature."

"Never mind. Send thim on, both factions. I'll take care o' thim. They're a fine lot o' min, and I'll be good to 'em."

John verified Mike's description of them when they met, both gangs, at their afternoon recess in Mike's barroom. They conversed in shouts and whoops, uttering words that, while they bore a slight resemblance to English, were in the main unintelligible. Murphy endeavored to find those whose sole-leather flesh had stopped a bullet, but could not. However, digging his fingers into the breasts and shoulders of a few of the quietest convinced him that the story could not be far wrong. The stiffened muscles felt like bones.

He treated them all, and was glad, when he saw them drink, that he had not promised them free whisky at his house; but he reiterated his promise of "mate" three times a day, and secured their promise to board at his house while waiting for sailing-day. This done, he finished his visit and returned to New York.

His first task was to estimate the business situation; it was the same, except that his boarders had gone at the request of Mrs. Murphy. This was good, almost as good as the news that Williams's old crew had scattered and that there was not a deep-water man in port to aid Hennesey in his first job in the shipping business. He cautiously hunted for Hennesey, meeting him by accident, as he said, in the street at daytime, safe from possible bricks or clubs coming out of the dark.

"And how are ye, Tim?" he said, exuberantly, as he extended his hand.

"So so," answered Hennesey, ignoring the greeting and eying his late employer suspiciously. "And how is it wid you?"

"Fine, Hennesey, fine. In a week I'll have as fine a crew of min in me house as iver ye laid eyes on. Lake sailors, every wan o' thim. And I'll be after havin' to find thim a ship."

"That's easier than to find the min," said Hennesey, still watching for a sudden demonstration of Murphy's fist. "I'll be goin' to Philadelphy, I think, or Boston."

"And it'll cost ye a hundred, Hennesey. I've done it. It takes a cool hundred to bring a crew on from either port. Don't be a fule, Hennesey. I'm domned sorry I slugged ye. I wuz put out, ye see, but I felt bad about it nixt day. I can't deal wid Williams, the dog, but I can wid you, and you can wid him."

"Speak up. What do ye want, John Murphy?"

"That we git together, Hennesey, for our mutual advantage. Give up this idee of gittin' me business away from me. Ye can't do it. I'm too well established, and the only skipper I've blacklisted is Williams, and he's all ye've got."

"What do I git out of it?"

"Ye git your blood-money from Williams, widout huntin' up yer min. I git the allotment agin' the expense I'm put to in feedin' thim. The regular thing, except thot ye make more than ye would as a runner--only ye've got to muster 'em into the shippin'-office and sign 'em. I can't appear. Williams might be there, and cold-deck the deal."

"Murphy, gimme me job back and I'm wid ye. But I want me priveleges--a drink whin I nade it, and access to the bar for me frinds."

"Right, Hennesey; let bygones be bygones. Put this job through as shippin'-master, and thin go on wid me as runner. Shake hands."

They shook, Murphy joyous and forgiving, Hennesey cold, suspicious, and unforgiving. A handshake is a poor auditing of a fist blow.

"Whin does Williams want his min?" asked Murphy.

"In two weeks, about. Twinty-four able seamen."

"Thot's good. I'll have to feed 'em a week, and thot's dead loss; but I'll be contint; yes, I'll be contint, Hennesey, if I can furnish Williams wid the right kind of a crew, God d--bliss him!"

"Ye're gittin' religion, are ye not?" asked Hennesey. "I heard he slugged ye around decks and bundled ye down into yer boat.'"

"Yes"--and Murphy's eyes shone--"but thot's all past, Hennesey. I'm not the man to hold a grudge. Ye know thot."

"But I am," muttered Hennesey, as they parted.

And thus did Murphy plan his dark vengeance upon Captain Williams. It went through without a hitch; the twenty-four wild men from Galway and Limerick, shipped on by Brother Mike, arrived at Murphy's house in a few days, and were housed and fed--"mate" with every meal--to the scandal of Mrs. Murphy, who averred that she "niver seed such min."

"Fur they have no table manners, John," she said. "What's the use givin' thim knives and forks, whin they don't know how to use thim? Foor o' thim cut their mouths."

"Niver mind, Norah," said Murphy, kindly. "Give thim spoons; for a spoon is like a shovel, ye know, and they're accustomed to shovels. And give 'em bafe stew and mashed praties."

"I'll give 'em rat pizen, if I have to sarve 'em much longer," responded the good lady. "I was a silf-respictin' woman before I married you, John Murphy, and didn't have to consort wid lunatics."