Part 2

There were symptoms of consternation in the small boat as it danced nearer the crowded rail of the _Fearless_, also perceptibly less eagerness to be rescued. This was making a choice between the devil and the deep sea. It was now possible to discern that of the two women in the stern of the boat one was elderly and the other girlishly youthful. Both wore white shirt-waists and duck skirts, and the young man was smartly attired in a blue double-breasted coat, of a nautical cut, and flannel trousers. One might have supposed that the party was being set ashore from a yacht instead of tossing adrift in a lonely stretch of the Caribbean beyond sight of land.

Captain O’Shea surveyed them with a dismayed air. He was not equipped for the business of rescuing shipwrecked people of such fashionable appearance; and as for taking two women on board the _Fearless_, here was a complication to vex the soul of an industrious, single-minded filibuster. However, he was a sailor and an Irishman, and his honest heart responded to the appeal of femininity in distress. The steps were hung over the tug’s side to make the transfer from the boat as easy as possible, and a deck-hand stood ready with a coil of heaving-line. From the bridge Captain O’Shea hailed the derelicts.

“For the love of heaven, who are you and where do ye come from, so spick and span? What is it all about, anyhow?”

The young man in the stern answered in somewhat nettled tones:

“It seems more to the point to ask who you are. We are in a deucedly bad fix, and these ladies ought to be taken aboard; but do you mind if I ask whether you intend to make us walk the plank? My word, but you are a frightfully hard-looking lot. Is Captain Kidd with you?”

It was O’Shea’s turn to be ruffled, and he flung back:

“You seem mighty particular about your company. ’Tis a nuisance for me to bother with ye at all.”

“Oh, the ladies can’t drift about in this open boat any longer,” the young man hastened to exclaim. “I shall pay you handsomely to set us ashore at the nearest port.”

“And what would I be doing in the nearest port?” the skipper muttered with a grin. “Well, there is no sense in slingin’ words to and fro. Let them come aboard and find out for themselves.”

Running to the rail to assist these unwelcome guests, he called to the self-possessed young man in the boat:

“How long have ye been adrift?”

“Since midnight. Our yacht ran on a reef and broke her back. Before daylight we lost sight of the other boats.”

Captain O’Shea said nothing more. His interest veered to the girl, who had been shielding her face from the blistering glare of sun and sea. Now, as she looked up at the tug which towered above the boat, the impressionable skipper perceived that her face was fair to see, and that she smiled at him with friendly confidence. Presently he was lending her a steadying hand as she clung to the swaying rail of the tug and found foothold on the steps over which the waves washed.

“You are a plucky one and no mistake!” exclaimed Captain O’Shea. “A man might think ye enjoyed it.”

“I do,” said she, shaking the water from her skirt as she gained the deck. “Now please get my aunt aboard as carefully as you can. She has a touch of rheumatism.”

Without mishap the elderly lady was assisted to accomplish the acrobatic feat of forsaking the bobbing boat, after which the young man and the sailors were allowed to shift for themselves. Leather hand-bags, steamer-rugs, and canned provisions were tossed to the deck and the boat was turned adrift, for there was no room to stow it on board. Immediately the _Fearless_ forged ahead and picked up her course at full speed.

To an elderly spinster of refinement whose years had been spent in a sheltered, effete civilization, mostly bounded by Massachusetts, the deck of the _Fearless_ was an environment shocking beyond words. The chief engineer had resumed his interrupted task of playing the hose on the senseless, half-naked bulk of black Jiminez. Jack Gorham, more or less ensanguined, was stretched upon a hatch, where the surgeon of the Cuban party had detained him to sponge and stitch his shoulder and bandage his head. Near by hovered the disreputable patriots, begrimed with coal-dust and bristling with deadly weapons.

The elderly lady stared with eyes opened very wide. Her lips moved, but made no sound, and her delicately wrinkled cheek grew pale. At length she managed to whisper to her niece that dread saying familiar to many generations of New England spinsters:

“Mercy! We shall all be murdered in our beds.”

Captain O’Shea joined them, to speak his earnest reassurances.

“You are as safe as if you were in Sunday-school, ladies. This bunch of patriots is perfectly harmless. There was an argument just before we sighted ye, and the best man won.”

“And what is this voyage of yours, captain?” asked the girl.

“Oh, we are just romancin’ around the high-seas. ’Tis nothing that would interest a lady.”

“Do you kill each other every day?”

“You mean the big nigger yonder?” and Captain O’Shea looked a trifle embarrassed. “No, his manners had to be corrected. But will you come for’ard, please, and make yourselves at home in my room? ’Tis yours as long as ye are on board.”

“I am quite sure you have no intention of murdering us,” smilingly quoth the girl. “And we shall ask you no more questions for the present. Come along, Aunt Katharine.”

The young man of the castaways was fidgeting rather sulkily in the background. He wished to interview the captain at once, but the gallant O’Shea had eyes only for the ladies. Overlooked and apparently forgotten, the shipwrecked young man picked his way across the deck to accost Johnny Kent, whose first-aid-to-the-injured treatment with a hose-nozzle had proved efficacious. The vanquished negro was rubbing his head and sputtering salt-water and Spanish.

“There, you’re what I call recussitated in bang-up good style,” cried the engineer, proud of his handiwork. “If you were a white man, your block ’ud have been knocked clean off. You ought to be thankful for your mercies.”

The castaway touched his arm and exclaimed:

“I say, my good man, I need something to eat, and a place to sleep. I was awake all night in an open boat.”

The stout person in the greasy overalls turned to survey the speaker with mild amusement on his broad, red face.

“By the look of your party you must have suffered something awful. The skipper will attend to you pretty soon and he’ll do his best to make you happy. But this ain’t no gold-plated yacht, and it ain’t no table dote hotel.”

“So I see, but I’ll pay for the best on board. Really, money is no object----”

Johnny Kent chuckled and turned to wave the nozzle at the negro, who was sitting up.

“You subside, Jiminez, or I’ll dent this over your head. It ain’t healthy for you to get well too darned fast.”

He scrutinized the castaway with a tolerant, fatherly air and answered him:

“Better stow that you-be-damned manner of yours, young man. We’re outlaws, liable to be blown out of water any blessed minute. Those tarriers for’ard had just as soon throw you overboard as not if they don’t like your style. You ain’t a shipwrecked hero. You’re an unavoidable nuisance aboard this hooker. We’ve got other fish to fry.”

The young man flushed angrily. He was pleasant-featured, fair-haired, of athletic build, his accent suggesting that he had imported it from England. He was conscious of his own importance in the world whose idols were money and social position. Grizzled old Johnny Kent, who had diced with fortune and looked death between the eyes on many seas, knew only one distinction between men. They were “good stuff” or they were “quitters.” As for money, to have a dollar in one’s pocket after a week ashore argued a prudence both stingy and unmanly. Wherefore he wholly failed to grasp the view-point of the young man who had been wrecked in a sea-going yacht.

Fortunately Captain O’Shea came back to divert the chief engineer’s outspoken opinions. He called the castaway aside to say:

“Come to the galley with me and the cook will do his best for ye. I will sit down there and hear your yarn. If you want some clothes, maybe I can fit you out. My men are looking after your sailors.”

“This is a filibustering expedition, I take it,” exclaimed the other as they went forward.

“I do not admit it,” judicially replied Captain O’Shea. “I will not turn state’s evidence against meself.”

When they had perched themselves upon stools at the galley table the young man handed the skipper his card, which read:

“_Mr. Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen._”

The recipient eyed the card critically and commented:

“Dutch? I had a Dutchman as bos’n once and, saving your presence, he was an oakum-headed loafer. Now, how did ye come to be in these waters and whose yacht was it?”

Young Mr. Van Steen proceeded to explain.

“She was the _Morning Star_, owned by my father, the New York banker--the old house of Van Steen & Van Steen. You have heard of it, of course. He decided to take a winter holiday-trip and asked me to go along--that is to say, Miss Forbes and me. She is my fiancée----”

“You mean the young one. And she has signed on to marry you?” broke in Captain O’Shea with marked interest.

“Yes. She invited her aunt, Miss Hollister, to make the voyage as a sort of chaperon. We cruised to Barbadoes, where my father was called home on business and took a mail-steamer in a hurry. We jogged along in the _Morning Star_ until her captain lost his bearings, or something of the kind, and you know the rest. We were ordered into a boat, but while waiting for an officer and more sailors a rain-squall came along--a nasty blow it was--and our boat broke loose, and we couldn’t get back to the yacht. The wind was dead against us.”

“The other boats will be picked up,” observed O’Shea. “You were lucky to have such an easy time of it. Now comes the rub. What am I going to do with ye?”

“Chuck up your voyage,” cheerfully answered Mr. Van Steen. “We simply can’t go knocking about with you and risking the ladies’ lives. And think of the hardships. My dear man, this tug is no place for a gentlewoman.”

“It is not,” agreed O’Shea, “nor was it meant to be. ’Tis not ladies’ work I have on hand. I have promised to deliver my cargo at a certain place at a certain time, and there are men waitin’ that need it bad. Shall I break me word to them?”

Van Steen made an impatient gesture. He was used to dealing with men who had their price.

“But you are in this business for money,” cried he. “And I fancy you must have been pretty hard up to take such a job and run all these risks. Name your figure. I can understand the situation. Rescuing us is deucedly awkward for you. You don’t know what to do with us. How much do you stand to make on the voyage, and what is the cargo worth?”

Captain Michael O’Shea leaned across the table and his fist was clenched. He did not strike, but the wrath that blazed in his eyes caused Van Steen to draw back. The sailor was not much older in years than the other man, but he had battered his way, not merely sauntered through life, and virile experiences had so strongly stamped his features that Van Steen looked effeminate beside him. It was a masterful man that held himself steady under the provocation and replied to the insulting proposition slowly and carefully, as though choosing his words:

“You heard me say I had given me word to land this cargo as soon as ever I could, Mr. Van Steen. And on top of that ye try to buy me to leave good men in the lurch and break my word when this stuff of mine means life or death to them. All the money your daddy has in his bank could not make me put this ship one point off her course to set you ashore until I am good and ready. Do I make meself clear? You and your dirty money! This isn’t New York.”

Van Steen was honestly amazed. This lowering, flinty-faced young skipper must be crazy. Professional filibusters were a kind of criminal recruited from the roughest classes. They could have no morals, no manners, none of the sentiments of a gentleman. He ventured a final attempt and said with a nervous laugh:

“But what if I offer to buy the vessel outright, cargo and all, and absolutely protect you personally against any loss whatever?”

“I do not like your company,” abruptly exclaimed O’Shea. “Ye fill me with sorrow for the rich. I cannot be rid of you, but we will not be on good terms.”

His sense of humor saved the situation, and he concluded with one of his sunny, mischievous smiles:

“’Tis terrible inconvenient for both of us. Here we are, aboard a kind of a Flying Dutchman that must go dancin’ and dodgin’ about the high seas with every man’s hand against her. And you are no more anxious to quit me than I am to see the last of you.”

“But--but--it is absolutely impossible,” stammered Van Steen. “Think of the ladies----”

“They have my room, and the bit of an upper deck will be sacred to them.”

O’Shea stepped to the galley door, but Van Steen detained him with a question.

“What about me? Can I negotiate for a state-room?”

“Yes, indeed; it is on the overhang with two sacks of coal for a mattress, and ye should be thankful ’tis soft coal and not anthracite. Ye may find the suite a trifle crowded, but by kicking a few patriots in the ribs you can make room for yourself.”

II

In the refuge of the captain’s room that distraught spinster, Miss Hollister, was overcome by emotions almost hysterical. Her first impressions of the _Fearless_ had been in the nature of a nervous shock more severe than the episode of the shipwreck. Only the presence of her niece restrained her from tears and lamentations. Nora Forbes, the young person in question, was behaving with so much courage and self-possession as to set her aunt a most excellent example.

“Oh, did you ever see anything so dreadful?” moaned Miss Hollister, glancing at the captain’s shaving-glass and absently smoothing her gray hair. “There was a dead negro stretched on deck, and a white man all covered with blood, and the captain not in the least excited, actually joking about it----”

Miss Nora Forbes artfully coaxed her aunt away from the bit of mirror and proceeded to arrange her own disordered tresses as though this were more important than damp skirts and wave-soaked stockings. With hairpins twain between her pretty lips, she replied, and her accents were by no means hopeless:

“It is just too tremendously romantic for words, Aunt Katharine. I am not the least bit afraid. The captain may be a desperate villain, but he carries himself like a rough-and-ready gentleman. This is a genuine adventure, so cheer up and enjoy it.”

“But the scenes of violence--the crew of cutthroats--the bloodshed,” unsteadily resumed Miss Hollister, unable to refrain from dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. “I don’t know what to say. My mind is a blank. I can only pray----”

“I should advise unpacking that bag and getting out some clean clothes,” suggested Nora. “There is no reason why we should look like a pair of drowned frights. It is an upsetting experience, Aunt Katharine, but life on shore is so tame!”

“I shall be content to be tame forevermore, Nora, if I am permitted to survive this experience. I hope Gerald can persuade the captain to land us at once.”

“They didn’t want to rescue us, so we must make ourselves as agreeable as possible. I intend to be particularly nice to the captain.”

Miss Hollister was recalled to her duty as chaperone. Her manner was reproving as she counselled:

“Be careful, Nora, you are a heedless girl at times and Gerald is very sensitive. Our plight is too serious for jesting. Of course you must be civil to the captain, but he is a perfectly impossible person. Gerald will reward him for his trouble in our behalf. We are placing ourselves under no obligations whatever.”

They were quite trim and fresh in dry clothes when the cook brought up a tray laden with the best fare the ship’s stores could provide and a pot of coffee black and hot enough to revive the most forlorn castaways that ever floated.

“Th’ cap’n’s compliments,” said George, entering with a cake-walk shuffle, “an’ he tells me to inform you that if th’ grub is burnt or don’t taste right he’ll hang me up by mah thumbs an’ peel off mah no-’count hide with a rope’s end.”

Miss Hollister appeared so ready to believe the worst that the rascally George could not forbear to add:

“Of cou’se, I’se jes’ fillin’ in till th’ regular cook gits well. Mebbe you seen him when you come aboard. He was all spraddled out. It mighty near done for big Jiminez, I’se a-tellin’ you.”

“What happened to him?” breathlessly demanded Miss Hollister, her hands clasped.

“He done fetch th’ cap’n a cup of cold coffee, ma’am.”

“How awful! And what was the matter with the white man in the khaki uniform?”

“He tried to say a good word for th’ cook. And th’ cap’n done give him _his_. This is a lively ship, ma’am.”

He could not help grinning as he turned to leave, and Nora Forbes caught him in the act.

“You are an utterly shameless prevaricator,” cried she, “and I have a notion to report you to the captain.”

“No need of it,” exclaimed O’Shea himself, who appeared in time to grasp the luckless George by the neck and pitch him down the stairway to the lower deck.

“He is a good cook, but his imagination is too strong for him at times,” explained O’Shea as he stood in the door-way, declining Nora’s invitation to enter. “The both of ye look as lovely as a May morning. It agrees with you to be shipwrecked.”

Miss Hollister thawed a trifle, although she was strongly inclined to accept the cook’s story as after the fact. But it was hard resisting the blarneying sailor with the merry eyes.

“Is such severity necessary? I feel that I ought to protest--” she began, spurred by the prompting of a New England conscience.

“And what was that slippery divil of a cook deludin’ ye about?”

The spinster mustered courage to explain. Captain O’Shea roared with glee, and turning to Nora Forbes, as if recognizing a sympathetic listener, exclaimed:

“Would ye know the truth about the big nigger? Then I will introduce you to-morrow to the man that laid him out, and a better one never stood on two feet than this same Jack Gorham, the melancholy sharp-shooter who captures ’em alive with the butt of his gun.”

Afraid of delaying their meal, he made an abrupt bow and vanished on deck. Presently Mr. Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen stood gloomily regarding them. Nora made room for him on the cushioned locker and cheerily asked:

“How are you getting on with the assorted pirates? Are they a rum lot and do they sing ‘Fifteen Men on the Dead Man’s Chest’?”

“I am not getting on at all,” sadly quoth he. “I have met only the chief engineer and the captain, and I should call them a very rum lot indeed. This is a floating mad-house. By Jove! I was never so angry in my life.”

“I think I understand, Gerald,” soothingly observed Miss Hollister. “But I am sure you can extricate us from this alarming situation. You are a young man of courage and resources and the name of Van Steen carries great weight everywhere.”

“This wild Irishman never heard of it,” said Gerald. “And when I talked money he almost crawled across the table to assault me.”

“Then he refuses to put us on shore at once?” tremulously cried the chaperon. “What do you mean, Gerald?”

“He doesn’t care a hang about us. I made no impression on him at all. The more I argued the hotter he got. He intends to carry us about with him until he has dumped his cargo of guns somewhere on the Cuban coast. And then I presume he will make his way back to the United States, if the tug isn’t sunk with all hands in the meantime.”

“But the captain can’t afford to let us interfere with his plans,” protested Nora, who looked by no means so unhappy as the circumstances warranted. “Do be reasonable, Gerald. Aunt Katharine and I are quite comfortable.”

“I am not,” vehemently exclaimed young Mr. Van Steen. “The brute of a skipper tells me I must sleep on two sacks of coal. Fancy that!”

“I am afraid you were not tactful,” was Nora’s mirthful comment.

“We are in the captain’s power,” sighed Miss Hollister.

“We are kidnapped. That’s what it amounts to,” strenuously affirmed Van Steen.

Later in the afternoon the trio sought the railed space on the roof of the deck-house, just behind the small bridge which was Captain O’Shea’s particular domain. The mate had found two battered wooden chairs and rigged an awning. Such consideration as this was bound to dull the edge of Miss Hollister’s fears and she gazed about her with fluttering interest and reviving animation. Through an open door they could see Captain O’Shea standing beside the man at the wheel. He wore no coat, his shirt-sleeves were rolled up and displayed his brown, sinewy forearms, and a shapeless straw hat was pulled over his eyes. His binoculars attentively swept the blue horizon ahead and abeam.

Presently he went on the bridge and searched the shimmering sea astern. His demeanor was not so uneasy as vigilant and preoccupied. So long did he stand in the one position with the glasses at his eyes that Gerald Van Steen became curious and tried to descry whatever it was that had attracted the captain’s notice. At length he was able to make out a trailing wisp of brown vapor, like a bit of cloud, where sea and sky met.

“There is some kind of a steamer astern of us,” said Van Steen to Nora Forbes. “Perhaps it is a German or English mail-boat. If so, I can see no objection to transferring us aboard.”

Captain O’Shea overheard the remark and called to them:

“No mail-steamer is due on this course. And it is not a cargo tramp or she would not be steaming faster than we are.”

“Then what can it be?” asked Nora.

“I cannot tell ye, Miss Forbes, nor am I anxious at all to let her come close enough to find out.”