Part 7

“What is all that red?” asked Ruhet, at this very moment. At once Wahr turned to Ruhet, as if he had got it all out of himself, and said, “Sire, that means war!”

“War?” cried Ruhet. “A dare? Ho! ho! ho!”

And they fell laughing into each other’s arms.

When Ruhet could stop laughing, he went on: “Well, we’ll give ’em some war! Ho! ho! Then we’ll look for that soup-spring. Who told you about it, Wahr? Not to hurt, you know, but just to skeer ’em. I like to skeer people. We’ll soon be on ’em. We are going a great gait, anyhow. What do you suppose it is, Wahr?”

“About six knots, excellency,” said the great Wahr.

“Bah! By my mother’s wig, we must be doing at least thirty by the way we are approaching the toy!”

“Sire, six is our limit.”

Nicht Wahr looked and was puzzled nevertheless. The distance between them was certainly lessening rapidly. As he went to calculate their speed upon the slate, Weiss Nicht stepped up to the admiral and said, “She is approaching _us_ at that rate, excellency.”

“Impossible,” stormed the admiral. “No ship with sails can go as fast as ours—let alone this little nin-comninny, with none at all. The Tonans is the limit, sir. But, all the same, I’ve changed my mind again—I want it. I will have it! Don’t go away from it. Port your helm an ell. Weiswasser [to the steersman at the wheel], I really want the thing. For, by the tail of the ship’s cat, it gets prettier and prettier as we come nearer to it.”

“And so you shall,” said the cunning Nicht Wahr, returning, as a slap at the assurance of the impotent Weiss Nicht, in his absence.

Now the craft was near enough to show a gilt name on her bow.

“Nicht Wahr,” said Ruhet, “your eyes are better than mine, and you have swallowed the dictionary; what is she?”

“Can you spell?” whispered Nicht Wahr to Weiss Nicht.

Thereupon Weiss Nicht, who was so much wiser than he seemed, spelled into the ear of Nicht Wahr, who was not, “New Amsterdam.”

“Why,” said Nicht Wahr, “it has the name of that Dutch place old Columbus discovered some time ago, New Amsterdam. It must be near here—pooh! I knew it!” He looked all about.

“And the children are adrift and are asking for succor—” cried Ruhet. “That’s it. Poor things!”

IV KNOCK WOOD

At that moment a deep and terrible bass voice boomed all about them, asking, “Tonans ahoy?”

Ruhet nearly fell to the deck. Then he looked about at the men grouped near, in displeasure.

“Who was that?” he demanded. “Let there be no more of it. You all know the state of my nerves. Insomnia is awful on the nerv—”

Again came the voice: “You ignored our signals. Unless you give assurance to the contrary, we will regard you as pirates and take you.”

By this time there was no doubt that the voice came from the little boat a mile away.

“Well, what is it?” asked Ruhet, of his wise man. “It cannot be a human voice.”

“It is a machine,” said Nicht Wahr. “I heard of it at Byzantium.”

(He always spoke of Byzantium when he didn’t know.)

“It is English,” said Weiss Nicht.

“And what is that?” asked Ruhet.

“A language,” answered Nicht Wahr, pompously. “Spoken by a machine.”

“What does it say?”

“It says ‘Good morning,’ excellency,” answered Nicht Wahr, “and ‘How do you do?’”

“It says ‘Surrender or I’ll shoot,’” said Weiss Nicht, gruffly. “I understand English.”

Wahr sulked magnificently.

Ruhet believed Nicht.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed. “That’s a good joke. Keep it up. Tell ’em to surrender first and set the example. Give ’em the port broadside. By my mother’s lost gold tooth, a good joke—give ’em the whole side.”

The broadside was fired and immediately something clipped away the Tonans’s figurehead.

“Now, who did that?” roared Ruhet. “Nicht, bring the gunner here who was so careless as that, and, by my father’s smoke-pipe, I’ll teach him a lesson.”

But alarm now seized upon Ruhet, and he forgot the figurehead. The little craft was seen to be sinking.

“Wahr,” he cried, “you are an infernal blunderer. You have let them hit that little thing, and she is going down. Man a boat and get the youngsters out of her, you land lunkers!”

Before this could be done the boat had entirely disappeared.

“It was Nicht,” said Wahr.

“Never mind now,” said Ruhet, “it’s too late. She’s gone and we’ve lost a fine toy and some children through your thickheadedness. Stand by to pick up the floaters.”

But, almost immediately, from the starboard quarter, came the voice they had heard before.

“Tonans ahoy! Have you got enough?”

“Well, by the currycomb—” began Ruhet, “how did this ship turn clean about without my noticing it? Look here, Wahr, do you see that hump on her?”

Nicht Wahr said that he did.

“Well, by the crackle of the galley fire, I believe that’s a tin gun in there! It’s a toy warship. Aha, ha, ha!”

“One gun,” laughed the happy Wahr, with his admiral. “What luck!”

“Knock wood!” cried Ruhet, who was superstitious. They did this.

“Have—you—got—enough?” cried the great voice.

“What’s he saying, Wahr?” asked Ruhet.

But Wahr hastened below to order the boat to pick up the children (so as not to show the admiral how little he knew) and delayed his return, so that no one—not even Nicht—could tell him.

“No matter,” said Ruhet, “give her the starboard broadside. And be sure that you don’t hit her. I don’t want her spoiled. Give her fits! Skeer her so terribly that she’ll come up like a little man and shake hands with us. Then we’ll have her. And don’t be too dinked polite!” And the great admiral poked his elbow into the ribs of his great gunner and laughed. “My, but I am hungry!” he went on. “She may have a little luncheon aboard. Enough for one.”

Wahr, just arrived on deck, haughtily gave Nicht the already given order to fire. But the impertinent, though accurate, Nicht said, “Our guns are not carrying that far, excellency,” ignoring Wahr for his superior.

“What?” cried Ruhet, “you rump of a sacred cow! There is not a gun on this ship that will not shoot half a mile and kill at that, Wahr!”

“Precisely, sire,” said Wahr, odiously.

“Excellency, you must take my word or his,” cried the hot Nicht. “You cannot take both. One of us don’t know.”

“Take your choice,” said Wahr to him.

“The little ship is precisely a mile away,” said Nicht. “I have a good eye.”

“Then,” snarled the cunning Wahr, “if that be true, your majesty”—he would call the admiral such things sometimes as if by mistake when he was about to ask for something—or wanted to puff his superior up with pride—“your majesty will be certain to accomplish what you wish—the skeering and not the destruction of the plaything.”

“By the curry—Fire—we are leaving her behind!”

The thirty-six guns spoke at the same moment with a noise which seemed to rend earth and sky—such was the practice of the gunners of the Tonans under the accurate and admirable Weiss Nicht.

“Now, then,” cried the Wise One, leaping to the bulwarks, “we will see whether I am right—or Nicht.”

V AND SHOOT TO MAKE HOLES

The little boat had disappeared.

“Aha!” cried Wahr, “aha!” and again “aha!”

Weiss Nicht only turned to port and waited for the smoke to drift away.

“But your dinked being right has lost me my toy. Dink you, Wahr.”

From the port bow came the voice of Nicht.

“Here is your toy, all O.K., sir.”

True enough, there she was!

“Wahr,” thundered Ruhet, “you are sailing this ship. What _are_ you doing to her? Have you got her on a pivot? How does she turn in a second without me knowing anything about it?”

“Excellency, perhaps she has lost her rudder. I will have Weiswasser look. She certainly turns, as you say, without us knowing it.”

But the truth is that Wahr was troubled in heart as he took the wheel that Weiswasser might go aft. For, unless the wind had changed suddenly, the ship could not have veered. He began to think of witchcraft.

“Excellency,” said Weiss Nicht, who always had a better chance when Wahr was at the wheel or below, “our ship did not turn. That one dived under us.”

“What!” roared Ruhet. “By the beard of a turnip, what do you take me for? Wahr, did you _hear_ that? Aha, ha, ha!”

“I saw her sink on the starboard side, sir, and I saw her rise on the port side, sir,” said Nicht, doggedly. “She is a magical ship.”

“Nicht, let me tell you a little secret,” said the admiral, with a laugh, “when a ship sinks she sinks, and there’s an end to her—magic or no magic. The devil himself could not raise her again—let alone herself. But you would have me believe that you have seen this miracle. Well, go forward and tell in the fo’castle, no one is there!”

“Well, sir, you’ll see, sir,” said Weiss Nicht. “If I were you, I would fly from that craft. There is some magic there. Excellency, I believe it was none of our own gunners who clipped off the figurehead—I don’t see how they could—but that magic thing.”

“Aha, ha, ha!” laughed Ruhet. “How, Nicht? Did she fire herself at us? That’s as easy as sinking herself and rising again. And let me tell you another little secret, Nicht. No cannon can be fired without smoke. And we have seen no smoke from her—even if she were big enough to carry a gun that would reach us. Why, Nicht, look at that gun there. With that on the deck with the toy she could not float a minute. Nicht—Nicht—poor chap—you must report to the doctor at once, aha, ha, ha!”

Nicht, much hurt, left the deck, and Ruhet laughed until the tears ran down his face.

But he stopped suddenly at last, for the ship trembled for an instant, and then it was known that the rudder post had been clipped away. And Weiswasser had gone with it.

Out on the water the little boat sat as placidly as a swan.

This was so serious that Ruhet would have stormed at the gunners. But he remembered that none of his guns had been fired. Besides, he had no time. Another piece was clipped from the bow. Then, as quickly, another from the stern.

The ship now began to roll backward and forward, like a rocking-horse.

Out on the sea, apparently from the little craft, came the voice, so much greater than she: “Aha, ha, ha! Aha, ha, ha! Tonans ahoy! When you have had enough say so, and we’ll stop! Otherwise we’ll chop you into kindling.”

“Well, by my mother’s carpet slipper!” cried Ruhet, “it can’t be any one on this ship!”

He looked skyward, then over the side, then off at the innocent toy. Nothing seemed to account for it.

Nicht Wahr left the useless wheel and came forward.

“Nicht Wahr,” whispered Ruhet, “Nicht thinks that toy has had something to do with this magic.”

“Sire, I told you—”

“Wahr, you’re a liar,” said the bluff Ruhet, wrathfully. “You didn’t know anything to tell me. You were never in Byzantium in your dinked life! You said you would get it for me. Well, why don’t you do so instead of letting it get us—a little at a time? Now let me see if you are good for anything. I no longer want it. Destroy it. And quickly. Don’t be too polite. Shoot to kill—or, at least, to make holes. Push the Tonans right up on her—so that you won’t miss her!”

VI WHO BROKE RUHET’S LEG?

This, as Wahr now began to suspect only too well, was an impossible commission. But with his well-known sycophancy he said, “So you shall, sire.”

All the admiral answered was: “And then we’ll try for the soup-spring and have something to eat—where do you suppose it is?—and put new ends on the ship—” forgetting that there was nothing more in sight now than there had been for a long time.

However, while Wahr was manœuvring the ship, in her crippled condition, to bring her broadside to the little craft, the clipping went on at stern and bow until the water began to enter in a disquieting stream. Ruhet ransacked for the fiftieth time a locker on deck about the mizzen-mast for some cake which had once been there. The ship would not come about. Wahr had nearly decided to become sufficiently humble, in the absence of Nicht, to go on his knees and confess his first failure to the admiral, and then his apparent wisdom but real ignorance, when, to his surprise and delight, the little craft, seeming to apprehend his intention, put herself exactly in the best position for the broadside.

“My luck never deserts me,” muttered Wahr, “even in such a dinked”—he loved to do and say the things his master did—“distressful time as this. I’ll sink her yet. Now,” he cried to Weiss Nicht, so that the admiral might hear, “I have made everything ready for you. Get your broadside off!”

“And, on your life, don’t miss her!” added Ruhet.

The impudent Weiss Nicht knew Wahr well enough to be ready, and, on the instant, the broadside roared.

When the smoke cleared, the green craft had disappeared.

“By my uncle’s—”

No one will ever know what wisdom the admiral would have uttered; for, at that moment, the little thing reappeared, as Weiss Nicht had anticipated, on the other side of the ship, and he had made ready for her in order to affront Nicht Wahr.

“The starboard broadside!” he cried impudently, without waiting for Nicht Wahr’s order. “Fire!”

With the accuracy of all their practice this one went as the rest had gone—harmlessly into the sea. The boat had dived once more. And Nicht had seen her do it!

This was Weiss Nicht’s final test. It had been conceived and executed magnificently and scientifically, and it had failed. He went on deck, and with powder-blackened face made the following report: “Sire, it cannot be done. And the sooner we get out of the vicinity of that machine, the more of this ship will be left. I _saw_ it _dive_!”

But at that moment he noticed that he was speaking to Wahr and not Ruhet.

“Where is the admiral, sir?” he asked.

“I thought _you_ were he,” said Wahr, with the evidence of guilt in his face.

“And I thought you were he,” cried the gunner’s mate, bravely.

“Where can he be?” said both.

Both were answered immediately by a groan from the middle of the ship—which sounded profane.

They found Ruhet there with a broken leg.

“Who broke my leg?” demanded Ruhet, savagely.

“Not I,” said Wahr.

“Nor me,” said Nicht.

At that moment Wahr picked up the tell-tale object of their unhappy admiral’s undoing.

“It is one of our own balls,” he said, with an odious glance toward Weiss Nicht. “Here is the name—Tonans.”

“Oh, you villain!” cried Ruhet, shaking his fist at the unhappy gunner’s mate. “You shall be hanged at the yard-arm for this. You were always mutinous, anyway.”

But at that moment, as is the custom of mankind, curiosity overcame pain in Hier Ruhet, admiral, of the Iupiter Tonans.

“How did he get it here, Wahr?”

For a moment—just a moment—Wahr was stalled.

“Sire,” he temporized, “I have been thinking—”

“Well, stop it and tell me how he got it here. That is what I want of you. Not reflections. Weren’t you looking?”

“Sire,” said Wahr, hastily, before he had time to form a real hypothesis, “the poor man fired two broadsides in quick succession. An unfortunate mistake of Weiss Nicht—due to his impudence in not awaiting my order to fire. Undoubtedly one of the cannons was underloaded, and its ball travelled so slowly that the ball from an overloaded cannon of the second broadside overtook it—”

“By my mother’s nightcap!” cried Ruhet, in disdain. “Hah!”

“Then it must have collided with one of the balls from the other—er—ship—”

Hier Ruhet actually laughed Wahr to scorn.

“_That_ may have happened,” said Nicht. “Our balls travel slowly.”

The clipping at bow and stern suddenly recommenced.

“She’s at work again!” cried a sailor, in panic.

Indeed, panic was now rife all through the ship.

“Lift me up,” said Ruhet; “I will study this magic at close quarters if I die for it. Be calm, men! You still have Hier Ruhet!”

They lifted him up.

“Men, how did she get there?” asked the admiral now of the common, ignorant sailors who came, terrified, and grouped themselves about him as their protector.

One of them said that she had jumped over them.

Another said that she had dived under them.

Yet others contended that she had wings—that she had fins—that she was not a ship, but an apparition.

Now, again, suddenly, the little boat began to sink.

“Now I shall see,” said the wounded commander, doubtingly. “Perhaps, after all, we have punctured her below the water line, and she is a goner. If they call for help, have the boats ready. Have them ready, anyhow. The fact is, we need a bit of help ourselves.”

“And,” ventured Nicht Wahr, dreamily, in an evil way he had, when he had been too much crossed, “they may have needles and thread.”

“Nicht Wahr,” said the commander, in ignorance of his irony, “do you know that I think that little thing is made of tin—perhaps several sheets nailed together?”

“Precisely, sire,” said Wahr.

“Tin will sink,” said the impudent Weiss Nicht, again on deck.

“And,” went on Ruhet, ignoring the interruption, “the ball that broke my leg might have bounced against it and returned to this ship.”

“Undoubtedly, sire,” said the odious Wahr, with a triumphant leer at Weiss Nicht, “your great and original mind has reached the correct solution of our trouble, while we of lesser understanding foundered in seas of doubt and—”

“Impossible,” cried Weiss Nicht, impudent to the last. “I can prove that the trajectory—”

“What?” cried the commander of the Tonans. “This is no time for big words—or—or narrow jealousies. My leg is broke.”

VII POOH!

“I think your majesty has exactly defined the cause of your injuries,” said the caustic Weiss Nicht, now in the style of Wahr.

“That much is settled then,” said the admiral, “since you both agree. If it was only mended—”

Something tore through the ship. “A hole and nothing else!” sighed Hier Ruhet.

“Sire, I think we had better go,” said Wahr; “we can do no further good here. And besides, you may be unfortunate with the other leg—and your majesty’s hunger is not being satisfied. I believe the soup-spring lies S.S.W., Nicht.”

“Very well, since you are so hungry,” acquiesced the admiral, with immense testiness, “get what is left of the Tonans under way, and, for heaven’s sake, don’t get skeered! Be calm!”

This, with much distress and profanity by everybody, they endeavored to do. But, inasmuch as the little boat kept up its clipping, it was not easy. However, at length, a bit of sail was rigged, a drag attached for a rudder, and what was left of the Tonans stood feebly to the wind. The little craft seemed to wait and look curiously on.

And now and then they heard that huge voice laugh at them: “Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!”

Nevertheless they were making headway. For the sails of the Tonans had not been clipped.

A slight boom was heard presently from the direction of the tiny boat,—the first they had heard,—though it was now nearly out of sight, and at once a strange missile ploughed its way through the Tonans from the stern, and stopped in the middle of the waist. It was of iron, conical, prettily made, ornamented with bright bands of metal, and about the size of Jawrge, the boots.

The entire ship’s company gathered and viewed it curiously.

[Illustration: “_The entire ship’s company gathered and viewed it curiously_”]

“Stand me up on my good leg,” cried Ruhet, as curious as Jawrge. “Now, where _did_ that come from?” he demanded of the sailors, as if some of them had put it there. No one answered.

“Certainly it did not come from that little toy. She’s out of sight.”

Not a soul spoke.

“Well, by my father’s strap—and the buckle on its end—never saw I such a lot of ninnikins, Nicht!”

“It came from yonder vessel,” said Nicht. “Be careful; it contains the magic.”

Ruhet laughed once more.

“Why, Nicht, here is another secret,—the last one I shall tell you: it is bigger than the little vessel. Aha, ha, ha!”

“That is the magic of it, master.”

“However, it may be light,” said Ruhet. “Lift it. Nothing but a tin can, perhaps a present—hah! a tin can sent to us with provisions! Open it. They are very prettily put up, if they are to eat.”

Ruhet touched it.

“It is hot. And that suggests the soup-spring. Open it. Wahr, is this the soup-spring, you rogue?”

Wahr looked wise.

Weiss Nicht withheld the men solemnly.

“Do not touch it. It is full of magic. It is that has done the clipping.”

“Pooh!” said Wahr. “Pooh, sire!”

“Do you really think so?” whispered Ruhet, half believing Nicht. “Well, it will do no more. Over with it.”

Two men—then ten men—then twenty men—grasped it.

“It is not soup, at all events,” laughed Hier Ruhet.

“Aha, ha, ha!” echoed the odious Wahr—still looking wise. “Not soup!”

“Over with it! Quick!” cried the impudent Nicht, ignoring both his superior officers in his fear.

Each was about to administer a separate reprimand to the poor gunner’s mate.

But at that moment it exploded.

“SIS”[6]

I WHERE THE ORCHARDS SMELLED

Once there were two old ladies who lived alone, in an old house with blue china and straight-backed chairs. And the key-note of that house (as every house has its key-note) was peace. I, who lived in a city, went there, now and then, to rest for a brief while in its peace and grow strong. For it was in the country, and all about it was the smell of orchards.

One of the beautiful old ladies was blind. The other was so frail that it seemed a marvel how she kept going. Yet they never rested,—in the fashion which I should have called rest,—but were always as sentinels on duty. I was sluggard enough to sigh, occasionally, for a reclining chair or a couch. There was no such thing in the house. There never had been. It was sufficient for them that their ancestors had had nothing of the kind. For this was the doctrine of their simple lives—to be no more than (and as much as possible what) their mother and their father had been; to hold all good which they had held good, and to call evil what they had called evil; then to lie beside them at the end.

There was a curious correlation between their several infirmities. They believed that God designed it so. The frail one was eyes, the blind one was strength—to both.

Now, you are not to suppose that they were moody and melancholy and sour. On the contrary, they loved laughter, and constantly laughed at the queer straits into which their limitations so often brought them; at the equally queer contrivances by which they were overcome. They laughed—yes—at themselves—gently—as they did all things.