OPEN WATERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10967, 6 January 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

OPEN WATERS.

(By Adolph Bennauer.)

They tell you that the romance of the deep has departed; that with the advent of the ocean greyhound and the Marconi wireless there are no more adventures left upon the sea. But ask Captain Forbes and see what he says. There's nothing imaginative about Forbes; he's-a hard-headed, practical, . every-day Scot. What he tells you, you can take as fact; and when he tells you in his own picturesque language how he'chased a derelict across ten thousand miles of open water, with a crew that mutinied and with a ship that had :i habit of opening her seams aud taking unto herself the salty Pacific, you may know that the story-book days of the sea are not yet over. 1 met Forbes in Coepailg—how, or whv doesn't matter—when he was running copra on the crazy little schoouer Hermosa. He needed a mate and I needed' a berth. Besides, I wanted to get into God's country again, and as he was bound to 'Frisco, I jumped at the chance- and lost no time in getting my dunnage aboard. A crazy hulk the Hermosa was, and under-manned; a rotten | little sieve of a ship that must have | heeh knocked down to him dirt cheap in the junk-yards of Lloyd's. She had a hold full of copra and rode with a buried load-line. When I gently hinted my i'eais, Forbes assured me, with a bland smile and tainted Scotch words, that he would attend to our safety. This was the way he worked it. He shipped a white crew from 'Frisco to Melbourne; then discharged them, and took aboard a glut of Malays w;ho worked almost for their keep and with' whom" he scoured Malaysia for copra. Returning to Melbourne, he discharged these and reshipped a crew of white men, usually the scrapings of the ports, who, for their passage, worked his vessel home. • ' • , Duly we arrived in Melbourne, fared our Malays after the custom, and took aboard a'crew of whites. One by one, I appraised them as they came over the <rn;ng-plaiik. Eight of them there were, and'thev were all two hundred poundeis —not fat, hut big and husky, with their bones showing through their starved skin. Sailors they were now with A.B. certificates, but what they had been I could only guess: prize-fighters and jail birds, most likely, for their faces bespoke the Bowery and the water-front. For the first week out of Melbourne we didn't have any trouble. The men were new to the ship and' they acted shy. Besides, they were strange to one another; and' where there is no unanimity in the forecastle the afterguard need have no fear. But it didn't take these heathen long to find, out that the Hermosa was the wettest ship that ever flew a topsail, that their quarters were worse than a hogsty, and that the grub we served out to them had a taint that was leprous. When they did find it out, thev let us know it in the regular timehonored way. They came aft in a body and made their plea, holding out the stuff in their hands, as far away from their noses as they could get it. -Poison, they called it; nothing less. They demanded, with 'Frisco oaths and Jersey city colloquialisms, that we serve out eatable grub, and let two r of them bunk, turn and turn about, in the spare room amidships. "Laddies," said the skipper, when they had finished, —and I do believe there was a tear in his «ye, he looked that mournful,— "ye dinna ken w'at yet be askin'. .Yc be a strange warthless lot o' varmin to talk as ye do.' Ye no ha' the farst preenciples o' gratitude. Never have I had. a warrud- with anny other crew, an' at forty-six I do not mean to'' begin me sea'-tarinin'. over again. Git forrud', the lo> o' ye, afore I drillye." - " -. ■-->"•- .'- - -,

And there they were, staring, oxeyed', into- .the barrels of two automatics. As I say, Forbes wasn't what you'd call sentimental; lie was too practical and up-to-date. Like a pack of jackals the crew slunk forward, cowed, but not beaten, as they showed a-plenty by their nasty looks and growls of vengeance. ' We heard no more of them. for a week; and then, when we ha-d got up into the latitude of New Caledonia, there happened an event that drove'all thought of mutiny from their, minds. One of the hands sighted a bottle floating in the sea dead ahead.' All corked up she was, and painted red, white, and blue. That looked too uncommon and curious to pass by regardless, and even the canny bcot was interested. At his orders-we hove-tc, lowered' a boat, and fetched the thing aboard the ship. On account of- the coat of paint we couldn't see what was stowed inside; but that only increased our curiosity, and Forbes invited me .into his cabin and closed the door jealously before opening the bottle.

He pulled out a flat oilskin packet. This he cut with his knife, and a single sheet of folded writing-paper dropped out. We weren't surprised. Whalingvessels commonly adopt this method of sending letters home; This bottle, however, contained nothing more than the slip of paper Forbes held in his hands. I watched him closely as ho read it—watched him with growing impatience and curiosity,- for his fingers began to tremble and his eyes danced and a flush appeared upon his buttercolored cheeks.

"Stark," he gasped, finishing the letter with an oath, "read this." I took it from his shaking fingers and devoured it.

Lat. 20 deg. S., Long. 172deg. E., brig Mary Cullen; Grant, master. Bound from Melbourne to San Francisco. To the reader: For several days the hands have been dying from . a strange and merciless plague. Yesterday we buried two. Out of twelve there are only three left fit for duty. Thus far the plague has confined itself to the forecastle, but this morning the mate awoke declaring that he felt feverish.

We are lying in a helpless condition and drifting northward at the mercy of the sea and weather. A recent.typhoon disabled our top-hamper and carried' away our rudder. We are repairing the damage as, well as possible, but I fear that it is useless. Death seems to have fastened upon lis all. May God send you to our relief. Inasmuch as we have aboard a half million dollar gold shipment, you may perceiye how- anxious I am professionally that help will comeas soon as possible.—L. M 7 Grant, master.

"Whew!" said I, and I looked at Forbes.

'"Twenty degrees south an' a hundred an' seventy-two east," he muttered, tapping the table nervously and' gazing hard at the ceiling. "About fifty miles to' the east'ard. The bottle an'; she have been driftin' apart. We're' in a fair way to run her down if she don't make any more northing. But, then, we kin. allow fer that."

"Half a million," I muttered dazedly, "to whom?- I didn't know there was that much money in the world."

Forbes stared at me.-' 'An' don't ye read the papers?" he asked. "The Mary Cullen left Mel-, bourne a month ago. There was a bit about it in the Times. I remember wonderin' at the size o r the shipment meself. But the de'il sure takes care o' his ane. Hoot! Think av the salvage, mon, the salvage!" He clenched his lists and began to pace the cabin like a leopard. And a leopard he -looked to me—as if he were waiting to leap on his prey and devour it His attitude made me-sick for the words I had spoken. But it is always so. As long as there is anything to covot, so long will man retain his predatory instincts.

"Then you mean to go to, their relief?" I said. „ „, "Ay, lad, as fast as top'ls 'll carry us. * Let the ■ de'ils forrud complain. She'll be a main wet ship from now on, I tell ye." "Shall I tell them about it?" I asked. . "\-about -the goold?" He eyed me for a moment sharply. "'Well, I drana ken. It'll not make a big difference. "We'd all ha' tuli share in. ut, Ay, yo may tell them. It'll quiet the de'ils, mayhap." So I told them. I found them eager listeners. They fair went crazy. Nothing would satisfy them but to see the letter. Thev knew the Mary Cullen, and most of them had read about the gold shipment. Promptly they forgot their wet quarters and their poisonous grub and gave all thought to the treasure. It was strange to watch them. It was like looking into the pages of a pirate story. They grew as eayor as the skipper to overhaul the derelict, and we cracked on sail till the old Hermosa began to develop the tactics of a submarine. It was impossible for the men to live forward, so they took up. their quarters in the spare room amidships. But the following day and night i brought no sign of the Mary Cullen; nor did the next, nor the next. Either the wind was blowing her northward fit a faster rate than we imagined, or she had repaired her damages and continued oh her course. The latter supposition holdiim true, we should eventually fall in with her, unless she were the faster ship, for our ports of destination were identical. A vague murmur , of impatience began to make itself felt ■ in the forecastle. I could not get the bands to work. Unless it was a task that would actually promote the Hermosa's progress, they would not budge an inch to undertake it. The treasure had laid hold of the men's imaginations pnd fascinated them, making them extremely disagreeable and dangerous. And I* saw wherein the skipper and I had been fools. . rThen, one day, we sighted another red white, and blue bottle over the bow. The crew spied it first, and they oaine veiling aft in a body to tell us. I tumbled into a boat, and m nve minutes we had the dumb messenger aboard. As before, tho skipper and 1 opened it in the seclusion of his cabin. "Lat. 12deg. S., Long. 178deg. W. Brig Mary Cullen. This is the fourth bottle I have thrown overboard and no help has vet arrived. Our condition is tragic. Tho carpenter expired to-day and I, the last man. of them all, expect to go in a day or so. Before they went four of us dragged the gold up from below and prepared to leave the cursed vessel-in the pinnace. But it capsized as soon as it struck the water and one of the men was drowned. V» e three alone could not right it. I am now alone with the gold. I have not sighted a sail or a speck of land, ihe wind has started in from the northwest, and I am drifting rapidly to the southward. Look,for me anywhere southeast of here. This lonenness is orowing unbearable. My only companions are the sharks, and they hit about the ship like ghouls." I am growing afraid of them. I have not yet W«>n attacked with the fever, but it help does not arrive soon I know 1 shall go mad.—L. M. Grant Master. While the skipper paced the cabin and thought aloud his unholy thoughts, I sat dumb in a chair and meditated upon the fate of the charncl-ship. One sentence I couldn't get out of my head: "I am now alone with the gold. It seemed to me that I could see the man as ho sat, stark and alone, on the quarter-deck beside the chest of gold, wide awake and harkening, afraid to go to sleep because of the noisome things in the hold. - "Stark," said the skipper briskly, i "T dinna ken that we will lose much time if we go off our course a bit to follv the Mary Cullen. Ye may take the* letter forrud, laddie, an' show it to the hands. I'll git our position this noon, an' then we'll put her sou -east/ ."Ay, ay. sir," I answered, and went forward with the news. So we nosed the trail of the Mary Cullen like a bloodhound. It was a pack i* bloodhounds that we had forward and a den of bloodhounds that we had art. The lure of the gold was strong upon them ; and gold is a curious metal,, for it has the propetry of changing a man into a beast. It brought out the true natures of those scoundrels we had shipped, for one dav I overheard a con- , versation among them that froze my. blood. Thev' were contemplating, the feasibilitv of repairing the Mary. Cullen and tak : ng her and her precious cargo, 'to some desert- island—the way they do in the story-books. It wasnt.thescheme itself that alarmed me: it was the attitude of the men.who v devised it.. Th°v diii't appear'to'care a continental

whether I overheard their plans or not; they considered Forbes and me too insignificant to reckon with. For- days on end wo did not touch a brace 01* a sheet. The weather-worn Hermosa groaned and groaned as she ploughed her way southward, and many times she faltered by the way and would have foundered. But we pumped her ....... swollen belly dry and calked up her - poor, splintered sides, and drove her on ■ ■.■■ o.gain. Bit by bit the men began to , _ protest'against the labor at the pumps. Overboard with the copra and give the •schooner a chance, they . had the „ ; - temerity to suggest. But their canny Scotch skipper said 110, a bird in thp - hand was woitli two at sea, or words-- t ■to that effect, and backed" his argument substantially with his automatics.. So we kept on and oil. From time to time we picked up the red,* white, and blue bottles of skipper Grant. Always he said that he was going 'southward, southward and eastward; and always * we. followed him, slowly - persistently, across realms of weary waters , ■ - - land. I can't name the suspense •-and the hopes and the fears that we suffered. They wore our nerves -to shreds. A man shrieked if you touched him on the shoulder, and drew a knife on you " if you Iterated him. The crew quarrelled even among themselves,' and' * would long ago have murdered us-had ■ it: not been that the messages: from i Grant, pathetic as they were,' cheered their vile spirits to Ijoisterousness. One day we picked up the last red, white, and blue bottle we were to see. The' 1 tortured man said that-he couldstandv.- v t no longer. With no sleep, no companions but sharks, • and no knowledge; nf his letters being picked up, lie was ;; ziojng mad. At times lie had fits, ho said, such fits that lie frothed at the noutli—and yet the fever would not ?ome and let him die. That was the last. From then on ve heard from him no more. Days; md: weeks passed, and still ,we groQed . . ilong his trail, blindly, stoically, per-T >istently. The skipper, avaricious > though ho was, tired of it at length md began to run his finger over, the . . ihart. and count. the miles of usoless ■ loutliing we had made. It was an evil : - noment when he ordered the helmsman 0 turn about and head for 'Frisco. 7he man flatly refused. Forbes, asounded, and not realising the metal if the crew he had shipped, dived below ,nd secured his automatics—always th'e . * rbiters of dispjite. I, too, laid hold' , f a good revolver, and together we' aced the mutineers. They _ had ;athered aft in a body, and all were rmed with knives and belaying-pins. it first, seeing how greatly the odds-"- _ ■ere against us, the skipper sought to emporise. But words were useless. 'lom the attitude of the men it was lear tliat they were out after our calps. They swarmed about us lil£e , -*" ornets, yelling for our blood. But Forbes' automatics and my six- '. liambered hammerless were not idle, [is dealt devastation in whichever direcion they turned, mine at frequent in3rvals. In two minutes we had only 3ur men left to deal with ; but our -eap'ons weie-empty. We now grasped lieui by the barrel, and waded in tooth- . ' - nd nail. I believe that forty blows - mded on my body in as manyeconds. I know that I struct out istily myself; and with no small degree f success. But it was, plain that " 'orbes and I were getting the worst of "We were back to back against the ail, fighting for our lives, with small , lianee of retaining them, when the man. -;«■».<£■ ■• -■ t the wheel yelled, "Sail, ho'" You should have seen those nailhewers drop their knives and spring ----- lto the rigging. I can't blame them, t was the cry their spirits had been lined to for a "long, nerve-racking 1011 th. It affected Forbes and m© no . >ss forcibly ; but we had enough presnce of mind to reload our weapons be- , 31 e taking any interest in the scene. "Where away?" bawled the skipper,, 1 as authoritative a tone as you might per hear him use. off the 100-ard bow, sir," nswered the man; and the next molont the skipper and I were both in le nggmg. ■About two miles off to leeward, a ull rolled sluggishly on the oily swell. Ler poles"were bare, her bowsprit was' nssmg She was brig-rigged, or'had een, and she wallowed about erratic- " . Ily, as if- she were minus a rubber. _ "Man the braces," yelled the,skip- Vl er" and the four men, assisted by two f the wounded, sprang to obey. _ Wo bore down upon the stranger like homing bird, and inside of ten - _ linutes we could read the letters on er stern: 'Mary Gullen, port"■ of San- , : 'rancisco." Every man _ aboard except . he dead sailor lying in the waist, - creamed himself hoarse. - I yelled as )ud' as any, and from appearances you 1 light have concluded- that X; was; as ; > inch, worked up over the gold as they 'ere. But it wasn't' that: -It>was simply :: hat the long period of suspense was nded, and my nerves," which had been, trained to the_breaking point, had ;iven way at last and carried my. sanity .. .'itli them. t The two wounded men weie left aboard 0 mind ship,.and'the rest of us tumbled ato the quarter-boat and: pulled for the ~. . lerelict All about her the sea live with sharks —silent, ghostlike felows, that swept majestically and untirngly round her bows and stern. It ras going to be some trouble to board ier, we could- see from 1 the way she was hrashing about; so we watched our ;lianoe, and made it at length by way )f the torechains when we lay most lirectly under them. * As soon as we , J nit a loot on her deck, a spell seemed ;o come over us. Without a word, we bundled aft, keping in a closely-packed. Dody—for, I tell you, there was an air . ibout that tomb that made you catch four breath. All the way aft we knew we were treading on the root of a sepul- . :hre. The deck was broken by a gal- -• Ley and a sail-house, and we couldn't > take 111 the quarter-deck till we were almost upon it. Skipper Forbes-.was in ... .. the lead, andi he was the first one to round the sail-house. When- lie did so, . he stopped, gasped, and his eyes stuck - out lnie dollar watches. Ho couldn't . . speak: he just pointed; so we lpoked.Forward the wheel was an open 'chest, and beside it sat a man. He.was a. very , ragged and unkempt man.. lie was babbling and cursing softly to himself, and . his- eyes glowed and flashed: like a. ser-, pent's. From time to time he reached , into the chest, drew forth, a, fistful jl' . : - gold pieces, and- hurled.:them viciously..,':.... over the rail at the school of sharks that disported 'themselves alongside/ H<s ;j . didn't seem to .take any notice of us or . of the Hermosa. He just babbled and "1 , raved' and threw gold pieces; ; And that ■ •>.. was L. M. Grant. . A cry of rage, fiercer than anything lyiman broke from the- group of men ■ . about me. Like harpies atafeasttlwy rushed forward and, fell upon the. man and the gold-chest. But. Grant had 7-. • done his work —the chest was empty. .• At.:,■ sight of us, he leaped up, hand flew to his throat, and then, with a scream - of terror, he fell face forward to tho Like a swarm of ants, the crew turned - 1 and poured into the bowels of the vessel and laid 1 her secrete bare, Cle_ar .on - 1 deck I could hear the noise they made • overturning cases and lipping up. ing" m their mad quest/, for,. gol-cl, .and. , L ; once or : twice they surieked-, aloud-wh€>xi; they 'stumbled on to a berth where a dead l man lay.- • < But the golden egg of the Mary Cul- ; len was overboard and they returned dis- ~ appointed and raving. Lucky_it.was'for,.■ ; Captain Grant that he had died as the fates ordained, or - I believe-that, .in their rage, they would have killed him. :: We left the brig and rowed) stoically back to the schooner. We sheetod home. trimmed braces, and set lier nose for 'Frisco,, and let the Mary Cullen lie. What else could we do? To bury th 6 men would- have:-'been to catcli- tho plague, and .we'd have had an awful elephant on our hands if we had 'attempted to tow the derelict home. ■