The Yellow Terror

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 8 July 1905, Page 12

The Yellow Terror

By

F. W. Alder,

author of “ Told by the Colonel," E>tc.

SPEAKING of cats.” said Captain Foster, “I'm free to say that I don’t like ’em. I don’t care to

be looked down on by any person, whether he be man or cat. 1 know 1 ain’t the President of the United States, nor yet a millionaire, nor yet the Boss of New York, but all the same 1 calculate that I’m a man, and entitled to be treated as such. Now I never knew a eat yet that didn’t look down on me, same as cats do on everybody. A eat considers that men are just dirt under his or her paws, as the case may be. I can’t nee what it is that makes a eat believe *S«at be is so everlastingly superior to all the men that have ever lived, but there’s no denying the fact that such is his belief, and he acts accordingly. There was a professor here one day, lecturing on all sorts of animals, and I asked him if he could eNplain this aggravating conduct of cats. He said that it was because cats used to be gods, thousands of years ago in the land of Egypt; but 1 didn’t believe him. Egypt is a Scripture country, and consequently we ought not to believe anything about it that we don’t read in the Bible. Show me anywhere in the Bible that Egyptian eats are mentioned as having practised as gods, and I’ll believe it. Till you show it to me, I’ll take the liberty of disbelieving any worldly statements that Professors or anybody else may make about Egypt. “The most notorious cat I ever met was old Captain Smedley’s Yellow Terror. His real legal name was just plain Tom, but being yellow, and being a hdly terror in many respects, it got-to bp the fashion among his acquaintances to call him ‘The Yellow Terror.’ He was a tremendous big cat, and he had been with Captain Smedley for five years before I Faw him. “Smedley was one of the best men I ever knew. I’ll admit that he was a middling hard man on his sailors, so that his ship got the reputation of l>eing a slaughter house, which it didn't really deserve. And there is no denying that he was a very religious man. which was another thing which made him unpopular with the men. I'm a religious man myself, even when I'm at sea. but I never held with serving out religion to « crew, and making them swallow it with belaying pins. That’s what old Smedley used to do. He was in command of the barque Medford, out of Boston, when I knew him. 1 mean the ci tv of Boston'in Massachusetts, and not the little town that folks over in England call Boston; and I must say that I can't see why they should copy the names of

our cities, no mutter how celebrated they may be. Well! the Medford used to sail from Boston to London with grain, where she discharged her cargo, and loaded again for China. On the outward passage we’ used to slop at Madeira, and the Cape, and generally Bangkok, and so on to Canton, where we tilled up with tea, and then sailed for hoihe direct. ’•Now. this here Yellow Terror had been on the ship's books for upwards of five years when 1 first met him. Smedley had him regularly shipped. ami signed his name to the ship articles, and heft! a pen in his paw while he made a cross, same as if he had been a Dago. You see in those days the underwriters wouldn’t let a ship go to sea without a cat, so as to keep the rats from getting at the cargo. 1 don’t know what a land cat may do. but there ain't a seafaring cat that would look at a rat. with the steward, and the cook, and the men forrard. being always ready to give the ship's cat a bite, the cat is generally full from kelson to deck, and wouldn’t take the trouble to speak to a rat, unless one was to bite her tail. But then underwriters never know anything about what goes on at sea. and it's a shame that a sailor man should be compelie’l to give in to their ideas. The Yellow Terror had the general idea that the Medford was his private yacht, and that all hands were there to wait on him. Ami Smedley sort ot confirmed | ( *n in that idea by treating him with more respect than he treated bis owners, when he was ashore. 1 don’t blame the cat. and after 1 got'to know what sort of a person the cat ready was. 1 can’t say as I blamed Smedley to any great extent. ”lom—which I think I told you was the cat's real name, was far and away the l>est lighter of all cats in Euro|M*. Asia. Africa and America. Whenever we sighted land he would get himself up in his best fur; spending hours brushing and polishing it. and biting his claws so as. to make sure that they were a s sharp as they could be made. As soon as the ship was made fast to the (pray, or anchored in the harbour, the Yellow Terror went ashore to look for a light. He always got it too. though ho had such a reputation as a fighter, that whenever he showed himself, every c it that recognised him broke for cover. Why the gatekeeper at the London Docks—l mean the one at the Smithfield entrance —told me that he always knew when the Medford was warping into dock by the stream of oats that went out of the gate, if a pack of hounds were after them. You see that as soon as

the Med(prd was reported, and word passed among the cats belonging to the ships in dock that the Yellow Terror had arrived, they judged that it was time for them to go ashore, and stop till the Medford should sail. Whitechapel used to be regularly overflowed with eats, and the newspapers used to have letters from scientific chaps, trying to account for what t.iey called the wave of cats that had spread over East London. ’’l remember that once we laid alongside of a Russian brig, down in basin by Old Gravel Lane. There was a tremendous big black eat sitting on the poop, and as soon as he caught sight of our Tom he sung out to him, remarking that he was able and ready to wipe the deck up with him at any time. We all understood that the Russian was a new arrival who hadn’t ever heard of the Yellow Terror. ami we knew that he was, as the good book says, rushing on his fate. Tom was sitting on the rail near the mizzen rigging when the Russian made his remarks, and he didn't seem to hear them. But presently we saw him going slowly aloft till he reached our crossjack yard. He laid cut on the yard arm till he was near enough to jump on to the nminyard of the Russian, and the first thing that the Russian cat knew Tom landed square on his back. The fight didn’t last more than one round, and at the end of that the remains of the Russian cat sneaked behind a water cask, and the Yellow Terror came back by the way of the crossjack yard and went on fur-brushing, as if nothing had happened. "When Tom went ashore in a foreign port he generally stopped ashore till we sailed. A few hours before we east off hawsers Tom would come aboard. He always knew when we were going to sail, and he never once got left. I remember one time when we were just getting up anchor in Capetown Harbour, and we all reckoned that this time we should have to sail without Tom. he having evidently stopped ashore just a little too long. But presently alongside conies a boat, with Tom lying back at full length in the stern sheets, for al! the world like a drunken sailor who had been delaying the ship, and is proud of it. The boatman said that Tom had come down to the pier and jumped into his boat, knowing that the man would row him off to his ship, and calculating that Smedley would lie glad to pay the damage. It’s my belief that if Tom hadn’t found a boatman be would have chartered the Government launch. He had the cheek to do that or anything else. “Fighting was really Tom’s only vice; and it cou’ld hardly be called a vice, seeing as he always, licked the. other cat. and hardly ever came out

of a fight with a torn ear or a black eye. Smedley always said that Tom was religious. 1 used to think that was rubbish; but after I had been with Tom for a couple of voyages 1 began to believe what Smedley said about him. Every Sunday when the weather permitted, Smedley used to hold service on the quarter deck. He was a Methodist. and when it came to ladling out Scripture. Or singing a hymn, he could give odds to almost any preacher. All hands, except the man at the wheel, and the lookout, were required to attend service on Sunday morning, which naturally caused considerable grumbling, as the watch below considered they hail a right to sleep in peace, instead of being dragged aft for service. But they had to knock under, and what they considered even worse, they bad to sing, for the old man kept a bright lookout while the singing was going on, and if he caught any man malingering, and not doing his full part of the singing he would have a few words to say’ to that man with a belaying pin. or a rope’s end, after the service was over.

"Now Tom never failed to attend service, and to do his level best to help. He would sit somewhere near the old

fcian, and pay attention to what was going <»n better than I’ve seen some folks do in first class churches ashore. When the men sang, 'loin would start in and Jet out a yell here and there, which showed that he meant well, even if he had never been to a singing school, ami didn't exactly understand singing according to Gunter. first along I thought that it was all an accident that the cat came to service, and I calculated that his yelling during the singing meant that lie didn't like it. But after a while 1 had to admit that Tom enjoyed the Sunday service as much as the captain himself, and I agreed with Smedley that the cat was a thorough going Methodist.

"Now after I'd been with Smedley for about six years, he got married all of a sudden. I didn’t blame him. for in the first place it wasn't any of my business: and in the next place I hold that a ships captain ought to have a wife., and the underwriters would be a sight wiser if they insisted that all captains should be married, instead of insisting that all ships should carry eats. You see that if a ship's captain has a wife, he is naturally anxious to get back to her. ami have his best clothes mended, and his food cooked to suit him. Consequently he wants to make good passages, and lie don't want to run the risk of drowning himself, or of getting into trouble with his owners. and losing his berth. • You'll find, if you look into it, that married captains live longer, and get on better than unmarried men. as it stands to reason that they ought to do.

"lint it happened that the woman Smedley married was an Agonyostie, which is a sort of person that doesn't believe in anything, except the multiplication table, and such like human vanities. She didn't lose any time in getting Smedley round to her way of thinking, and instead of being the religious man he used to be he chucked the whole thing, and used to argue with me by the hour at a time, to prove that religions was a waste of time, ami that he hadn’t any soul, and had never been created, but had just descended from a family of seafaring monkeys. It made me sick to hear a respectable sailor man talking such rubbish, but of course, seeing as lie was my commanding officer. 1 had to be careful about contradicting him. I wouldn’t even yield an inch to his arguments, and 1 told him as respectfully as I could, that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. "Why look at the cat.'’ I used to say. "he's got sense enough -to be religious, and if you was to. tell him that he was descended from a monkey, he’d consider himself insulted." But it wasn’t any use. Smedley was full of his new agonvostieal theories, and the mere 1 disagreed with him. the more set he was in his way. "Of course he knocked off holding ‘Sunday morning services; and the men ought to have lieen delighted, considering how they used to grumble at havin'

to come aft and sing hymns, when they wanted to be below. But there is no accounting for sailors. They were actually disappointed when Sunday came, and there wasn’t any service. They said that we should have an unlucky voyage, and that the old man. now that he had got a rich wife, didn’t consider sailors good enough to conic aft on the quarter deck, and take a hand in singing. Smedley didn't care for their opinion, but he was some considerable worried about the Y'ellow Terror. Tom missed the Sunday morning service, and he said so as plain as he could. Every Sunday, for three or four weeks, he came on deck, and took his usual seat near the capstan, and waited for the service to begin. When he found out that there was no use in waiting for it, he showed that he disapproved of Smedley’s conduct in the strongest way. He gave up being intimate with the old man, and once when Smedley tried to pat him, and be friendly, he swore at him, and bit him on the leg—not in an angry way, you understand, but just to show his disapproval of Smedley's irreligious conduct. "When we got to London Tom never once went ashore and he hadn't a single light. He seemed to have lo,t all interest in worldly things. He'd sit on the poop, in a melancholy sort of way. neverminding how his fur looked, and never so much as answering, if a strange eat sang cut to him. After we left London he kept below most of the time, and finally, about the time that we were crossing the line, he took to his bed. as you might say. and got to be as thin and weak as if he had been living in the forecastle of a lime-juieer. And he was that melancholy' that you couldn't get him to take an interest in anything. Smedley got to be so anxious about him that he read up in his medical book to try and find out what was the matter with him: and finally made up his mind that the cat had a first-class disease with a big name something lik.e spinal menagerie. That was some little satisfaction to Smedley, but it didn’t benefit the cat any; for nothing that Smedley could do would induce Tom to take medicine. He wouldn’t so much as sniff at salts, and when Smedlev tried to poultice his neck, he considered himself insulted, and roused up enough to take a pieee out of the old man’s ear. "About that time we touched at Funchal. and Smedley sent ashore to lay in another tom-cat, thinking that perhaps a fight would brace Tom up a little. But when the new cat. was put'down alongside'of Tom. and swore at him in thmost impudent sort of way. Tom just turned over on his other side, and pretended to go asleep. After that we all felt that the Yellow Terror was done for. Smedley sent the new cat ashore again, and told me that Tom was booked for the other world, and that there wouldn't be any- more luck for us on the voyage.

“I went down to see the cat, and though he was thin and weak, I couldn't see any signs of serious disease about him. No I says to Smedley that 1 didn’t believe the cat was sick at all. “‘Then, what’s the matter with him?’ says the old man. ‘You saw yourself that he wouldn’t light, and when he’s got to that point I consider that he is about done with this world and its joys and sorrows.* “‘His nose is all right,’ said I. ‘When I felt it just now it was as cool as a teetotaller’s.’ “ ‘That does look as if he hadn’t any fever to speak of.’ says Smedley, ‘and the books says that if you’ve got spinal menagerie you’re bound to have a fever.’ ‘•‘The trouble with Tom,* says 1, ‘is mental; that’s what it is. He’s got something on his mind that is wearing him out.’ “‘What can he have on his mind?’ says the Captain. ’He’s got everything to suit him aboard this ship. If he was a millionaire he couldn’t bo better fixed. He won all his lights while we were in Boston, and hasn't had a tight since, which shows that he can’t be low spirited on account of a licking. No. sir! You’ll find that Tom’s mind is all right.’ ‘•■;lhen what gives him such a mournful look out of his eyes’’ says I. ‘When you- spoke to him this morning hr looked at you as if he was on the point of crying over your misfortlines—that is to say if you’ve got any. Come to think of it Tom begun to go into this yer decline just after you were married*. Perhaps that’s what’s the in liter with him.’ •’But there was no convincing Smedley that Tom’s trouble was mental, and he was so sure that the cat was going to die, that he got to be about as lowspirited as Torn himself. "1 begin to wi-h. says Smedley to me one morning, “that I was a Methodist again, and believed in a hereafter. It does seem kind of hard that a first-class cat-light-er like loin, shouldn’t have a chance when he dies, lie was a good religious cat if ever there was one. and I’d like to think that he was going tn a better wcr’d.' “Just then an idea struck me. ‘Captain Smedley.’ says I. ‘you remember how lorn enjoyed the meetings that we used to have aboard here on Sunday mornings! ’ ‘•‘He did so.’ says Smedley. ‘I never saw a person who took more pleasure in his Sunday privileges than I'om did.' “‘Captain Smedley.’ says I. putting my hand on the old man’s sleeve. Wil that’s the matter with I'om is seeing you deserting the religion that you was brought up in. and mining agony- ( stieal. or whatever you call it. I call it turning plain infidel. I mu’s mourning about your soul, and he’s miserable because yon don’t have any more Sunday morning meetirgs. I told you the tiouble was mental, and now vou know that it is.’ ’’‘Mcbbe you’re right.’ says Smedley, taking what I'd said in a peaceable wav. instead of Hying into a rage, as 1 expec ed he would. ‘To tell you the truth. I ain’t so well satisfied in my own mind as I u ed to be. and 1 was thinking last night, when 1 started in Io say "Now 1 lay me’’—just from habit you know—that if I'd stuck to the Methodist persuasion I should be a blamed sight happier than 1 am now.’ “‘To-morrow’s Sunday.’ says I. ‘and if I was you. Captain. 1 should have the bell rung for service, same as you used to do. and bring Tom upon deck, and let him have the comfort of hearing the rippingest hymns that you can lay your hand to. It can’t hurt you. and it may do him a heap of good. Anyway. it’s worth trying, if you really want the Yellow Terror to get well.’ '• ‘1 don't mind saying.’ says Smedley, ‘that I’d do almost anything to save his life. He’s been with me lion’ going on for seven years, and we’ve never had a hard word. If a Sunday morning meeting will be any comfort to him he shall have it. Mebbe if it doesn’t cure him. it may sort of smobthe his hatchway to the tomb.’ "Now the very next day was Sunday. and at six bells tin* Captain had the bell rung for service, and the men were told to lay aft. The bell hadn’t fairly stopped ringing, when 'l’om comes up the companion, one step at a time, looking as if he was on his way to his own funeral. He came up to his usual place alongside of the capstan, ami lay down on his side at the old man’s feet, and sort of looked up at him with what anybody would have said was a grateful look. 1 could see that Smedley was feeling pretty serious. He understood

what the cat wanted to siv. and when he started in to give out a hymn, his voice sort of choked. It was a ripping good hymn, with a regular hurricaii chorus, and the men sung it for all they were worth; hoping that it would meet Tom’s view*. He w.i«» too weak to join in with any of his •>!<! time yells, but he sort of flopped the deck with his tail, ami you could see he was enjoying it down to the ground. •‘Well, the service went on just as it used to do in old 'hues. and Smedley sort of warmed up as it went along, and by and by he’s got the regular old Methodist glow on his face. When it was all through, and the men had forrard again. Smedley Hooped down, and picked up I’om. and kissed him. and the cat m.st led up in the old man’* neck and licked his chin. Smedley carried Toni down into the saloon, and sung out to the steward to bring some frosh meat. That cat turned to ami ate ns good a dinner r.s he’s ever eaten in his best days.and af<er hr wa* through hr went into Smedley** own cabin and curled up in the old man’s bunk, and went to sleep purring fit to take the deck oil. From that day I'om improved steadily, ami by the time we got to Capetown he wa* well enough to go ashore, though hr was still considerably weak. 1 went ashore at the same lime, and kept an eye on Tom. to see what he would do. I saw him pick out a small, mens ley-looking cat. that couldn’t have stood up to a full grown mouse, and lick him in less than a minute. Then I knew that I'om wa* all light again, and 1 admired hi- judgment in picking out a small rat. that was suited to his weak condition. By t lie time that we got to Canton. Tom was as well in body and mind as he had ever been; and when we sailed, hr came aboard with two inches his tail missing. ami his starboard ear carried away, hut hr bad the air of having licked all creation, which I don’t doubt he had done, that is to say. so far a* all creation could be found in Caiiion. “I never heard any more of Smedley’s agonvostieal nonsense. lie went back to the Methodists again, and he always said that Tom had burn the blessed means of showing him the error of his ways. 1 heard that when hr got bark to Bos: on. hr gave Mr* Sturdier notice that hr expected her In go to the Methodist meeting with him every Sunday, and that if she didn’t, hr should consider that it was a breach of wedding articles, ami equivalent to mutiny. I don’t know how >hc took it. or what the consequence* were, for 1 left the Medford just then, and took command of a barque that traded between Boston and the West Indies. And I never heard of the Yellow Terror after that voyage, though I c I ten thought of him. and always held that for a cat hr was the ablest rat alloat or ashore, that any man ever met.”