The Steel Horse/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
A SWIM IN ROUGH WATER.
"YES, sir, we're shanghaied," repeated Tony, looking over his shoulder at the lights on shore, which appeared to be moving away from the ship, and going faster and faster as the minutes flew by. "That's what's the matter of me an' you an' Bob. We've been stole from our homes an' friends an' tooken to sea agin our will."
"No!" gasped Roy, who was almost paralyzed by these ominous words. "It can't be possible."
"That's what the matter of us, an' you'll find it so."
"But I'll not go. I don't belong aboard this ship, and the captain has no business to take me to sea against my will."
"Small odds it makes to the likes of him whether he's got any business to do it or not," answered Tony, who, far from showing the least sign of anger over the outrage of which he was the victim, seemed disposed to accept his fate with as much fortitude as he was able to command. "Where have you lived all your life, that you don't know that that's the way shipmasters sometimes do when they can't raise a crew as fast as they want to? They get men aboard their vessels an' run away with 'em. That's what they are doin' with us."
"But I'll not do duty, I tell you," exclaimed Roy, fairly dazed by the gloomy prospect before him. "I can't, for I am not a sailor. Let's go down and tell the captain to luff and let us off."
"'T won't do no good," answered Tony, with a sigh of resignation. "He'll only swear at you an' say that the mates will very soon break you in an' larn you your duty. We're in for a long, hard voyage, an' might as well give up all thoughts of gettin' ashore first as last."
"Never!" said Eoy, wrathfully. "If there is such a thing—"
"Lay down from aloft!" shouted a voice from the deck, following up the command with a volley of oaths and threats that were enough to make a landsman shudder.
"Ay, ay, sir," replied Tony. "Why don't you say the same, lad? You've got to come to it, for it will be worse for you if you don't. There ain't the least use in kickin', for Cap'n Jack has got us hard an' fast."
Roy, who could plainly hear the beating of his heart above the howling of the gale, which seemed to be increasing in fury every moment, followed Tony to the deck, and immediately made his way aft to demand an interview with the captain. He found him easily—at least he found the man who went below with the lantern—and thus addressed him:
"Captain, I thought you were going into the harbor for shelter, but I find you are going to sea. Will you luff long enough to let me and my crew get into our boat and shove off"
To Roy's surprise and indignation the captain did not appear to be listening to him at all. He kept his gaze fastened upon something ahead of the ship, and now and then turned to give an order to the man at the wheel. If Roy had only known it, he was forcing himself upon the captain's notice at a most critical time. The latter was trying to take his vessel out of the bay without the aid of a pilot, and of course his attention was so fully occupied that he had neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to any requests or complaints.
"Starboard a spoke or two. Steady at that. Mr. Crawford," shouted the captain, addressing one of his mates, "if that man with the lead can't speak so that I can hear him, knock him overboard and put somebody else in his place. How close to the light-ship can I run in this tide?"
"If you don't run in closer than you are now you'll be aground in a minute more," was the reply that was shouted aft. "Quarter less three on the port bow."
Roy paid little attention to this conversation, though he thought of it afterward, for it was a most fortunate thing for him that the vessel was obliged to run within a stone's throw of the light-ship. He wanted the skipper to speak to him.
"Captain," said he in a louder tone, at the same time drawing a step nearer and taking the unwarrantable liberty to pluck him by the coat-sleeve. "Captain, will you please—"
"What do you want here?" thundered the angry skipper, kicking at the boy with his heavy boot. But the words, which came just a second or two before the kick, served as a warning of what might be expected, and when the captain's boot got where he had been, Roy wasn't there. He dodged out of the way very cleverly, and raised his voice in useless remonstrance.
"Do you know who you are kicking at?" he exclaimed. "I am not one of your crew to be driven about in this fashion. I came aboard under a misapprehension, and want to go ashore. My boat is alongside."
What the skipper would have said or done if it had not been for something that happened just then, I don't pretend to know. Beyond a doubt he would have made the free-spoken Roy sup sorrow with a big spoon, if Tony and Bob had not unwittingly created a diversion in his favor. When they saw Roy standing so near the captain they took heart, and came aft to say a word for themselves, but repented of it when the enraged skipper undertook to drive the boy forward with a kick. But then it was too late for them to escape punishment for their assurance in venturing into the captain's presence without being asked. One of the mates saw them when they went aft, and made it his business to follow them with a piece of rope in his hand. Roy saw him swing it in the air and knew what he meant to do with it; but before he had time to shout a warning to the men for whose backs it was intended, the rope fell twice in quick succession, and with such force that Tony and Bob staggered under the blows.
"Lay for'ard, where you belong, and come on the quarter-deck when you've got business here" shouted the mate. He raised the rope to give emphasis to his order, but the two men hurried out of his reach. Then the mate looked at Roy.
"Give him a dose, too, Mr. Crawford," said the captain. "He's no right to come here bothering me at this juncture. You might as well teach him his place one time as another."
Roy opened his lips to protest against such an outrage, but seeing the mate advancing upon him, he turned and took to his heels. In half a minute more he was hauling at a rope in company with somebody whom he took to be Tony; but it proved to be a sailor who was posted in regard to the vessel and her contemplated movements.
"What ship is this?" whispered Roy, trying hard to swallow a big lump that seemed to be rising in his throat.
"The White Squall," was the answer.
"Is she going to sea?"
The sailor prepared to give a profane response to the question, which was so simple that a blind boy ought to have been able to answer it for himself, but when he came to look at Roy he hesitated, and choked back the words that arose to his lips.
"Yes, she's bound out, and you haven't any call to go with her, have you?" said he. "It's a hard case, but I don't see what you can do about it."
"Isn't there any law to punish a captain for taking men to sea against their will?" asked Roy.
"Not on the high seas," was the reply. "The only law there is outside is the cap'n's will. How come you aboard here in the first place?"
Roy explained the situation as briefly as he could, whereupon the sailor laughed incredulously.
"That crew of your'n must be into the plot," said he.
"What plot?" inquired Roy.
"Why, isn't there somebody ashore who don't want you there, and who would be glad to have you carried so far away that you would never get back again?"
"Of course there isn't," said Roy, amazed at the idea.
"Then it's mighty strange," continued the sailor, reflectively. "The wind don't blow to hurt anything, and that crew of your'n could have taken you to the city if they had been so minded."
"You're mistaken there. They dared not turn about for fear our boat would be capsized. It isn't likely that they would have come aboard this ship if they had known that they were going to be kidnapped, would they?"
"Aha!" exclaimed the sailor. "So they have been shanghaied too, have they? Then I can't understand the matter at all. No, they wouldn't have come here if they had known that, for I have heard that the cap'n is one of the worst brutes that any poor chap ever sailed under."
"Then why do you sail with him? Were you shanghaied, too?"
"Oh no; I was shipped all straight enough, but, bless you, I never knew what sort of a craft I was getting onto till it was too late to back out. But I never expect to reach Canton alive."
"Canton?" cried Roy. "Is that where this ship is bound?"
"It's the port the old man intends to bring up in if he can keep afloat that long. Being as I'm here, I'm going to do an able seaman's duty as long as I am on top of water. You say you came off in a boat. Where is she now?"
Roy replied that she was towing alongside.
"Well, look here," said the sailor hastily. "Do you see that flash ahead? It comes from the light-ship. If you know when you are well off, you will jump into that boat of your'n and pull for that light the best you know how. It's your only chance, for I don't believe this old tub will ever see port again."
"So I can," said Roy joyfully. "Will you go with me? and I can tip Tony and Bob the wink and have them go too?"
"Not by no means," said the sailor, as if the idea of such a thing was enough to frighten him. "Take care of yourself, and let the rest do the same. Are you going to try it?" he added, when Roy let go his hold upon the rope and looked around to see what had become of the mate. "Then make a sure thing of it the first time trying. Don't allow yourself to be brought back, for if you do you'll wish you had never been born. You'd better sink right here in the harbor than trust yourself to this ship and her officers. It don't matter about me, for I am used to hard knocks
The sailor's earnest words frightened Roy, but did not deter him from carrying out the bold plan he had suddenly formed in his mind. Casting his eye around the deck to make sure that the mate with the rope's end was nowhere in sight, he moved swiftly along the weather rail, until he thought he saw a chance to dart over to the other side without being seen. He crossed the deck with a few quick steps and looked over into the water. There was the boat, still right side up, and her painter was within easy reach of his hand. More than that, as if to encourage him in his desperate resolve, the flash from the light-ship, now close aboard, burst through the gloom, and showed him everything as plainly as though it had been broad daylight. The dark waves with their white caps looked very threatening, but so did the prospect he had before him of making a long voyage under brutal officers and in an unseaworthy vessel.
"It's now or never," thought Roy, shutting his teeth hard and calling all his courage to his aid. "In five minutes more that lightship will be so far out of reach—"
Just then something took him full in the eye, and Roy, who had bent over while working at the boat's painter, straightened up with a jerk, and flopped down upon his back. Scarcely realizing what had happened to him, the boy scrambled to his feet only to receive a blow in the other eye, and to hear the mate shout at him, in tones of suppressed fury:
"Going to desert, were you? I expected it, and have had my gaze fastened on you all along. Take that and that, and see if it will do you until I can get a better chance at you."
Did the enraged officer intend to kill him where he lay? Roy wondered, as he raised his arm to ward off the heavy blows from the rope's end that were aimed at his head. It is quite possible that the brute would have disabled him had not the captain, who had witnessed the whole proceeding, called out:
"Cast the boat adrift, Mr. Crawford. That will put an end to all such nonsense."
The officer turned to obey the order, and in an instant Roy was on his feet. At the same instant, too, the sailor's warning words came into his mind like an inspiration: "Don't allow yourself to be brought back, for if you do you will wish you had never been born. You'd better sink right here in the harbor than trust yourself to this ship and her officers," and something the mate said while he was striking at him with the rope's end satisfied Roy that there was more punishment of some sort coming as soon as the officer could find time to administer it.
"Another such a beating as that would lay me up sure," thought Roy, drawing his hand across his face and looking around to see where he was. "I can't stand it and I won't."
Roy sprang away from the rail, but quick as the action was, the movement the vigilant officer made to defeat it was almost as quick. His brawny hand shot out like a flash, and by the merest chance missed a hold upon Roy's arm. His strong fingers fastened into the boy's shirt-sleeve, and during the brief but furious struggle that followed either the stitches or cloth gave away. At any rate when the mate straightened up he was holding the sleeve of Roy's shirt in his grasp, and Roy himself, having cleared the deck in two or three jumps, was standing upon the lee rail.
"Come back here, you villain," roared the mate, starting forward, "or I'll haze you till you'll be glad to go overboard in mid-ocean."
But the boy preferred to go overboard in the harbor, where he stood a chance—a bare chance—of rescue. He did not see the pilot-boat that dashed by just then, but he saw the light-ship riding at her anchorage a short distance away, and without pausing to take another look at the angry waters, for fear that the sight of them would be too much for his courage, he sprang into the air. The mate reached the side just a minute too late. The deserter was well out of his way.
"That's the end of him, sir," said he, turning to the captain.
"Let the pilot-boat take care of him," said the latter gruffly. "I can't stop to bother with him."
This was all that was said aboard the White Squall, and nothing whatever was done to aid the deserter; but the pilot-boat officers had more humanity. As soon as their vessel could be thrown up into the wind a boat was put into the water, and for half an hour or more the crew pulled about in various directions, looking for Roy, who was swimming for the light-ship with slow and easy strokes. He was by all odds the best swimmer in Mount Airy, and his skill and long wind stood him well in hand now. He was badly frightened at first when the waves broke over his head and bore him under, but he always came to the surface in time to catch the next one, which not only carried him rapidly toward his haven of refuge, but kept him afloat long enough to get his breath and fill his lungs for the next plunge.
Roy afterward said that that long swim in rough water was more like a dream than a reality. When he found that he had no trouble in keeping on top the water long enough to breathe fully and freely, but two ideas filled his mind. One was to reach the light-ship before his strength gave out; the second to lose no time, after he got ashore, in doing something for Bob and Tony who were being carried away in that unseaworthy ship. He was afterwards sorry that he wasted so much sympathy upon them.
About the time the pilot-boat's crew began to despair of picking up the deserter, and filled away to the city to tell the story of his "deliberate suicide" to eager reporters, who published it in their papers the next morning, and Roy was becoming weary of buffeting the waves, the swim was ended and help speedily came. A friendly billow threw him against one of the swaying hawsers that kept the light-ship in place, and the boy held fast to it.
"Boat ahoy!" yelled Roy, with all the strength of his lungs.
An instant later the sagging of the cable soused him under; but the wind caught up his voice and carried it across the intervening space to the deck of the light-ship, and when Roy came up again he saw a couple of tarpaulins above her rail, and as many lanterns hanging over the side.
"Where away?" shouted a voice, that somewhat resembled the deep bass of a fog-horn.
"Here I am; holding fast to the anchor rope," replied Roy. "Can't you see me now?"
The boy's hand instinctively went to his head; but the cap he intended to wave in the air to show the light-ship's men where he was, had been left aboard the White Squall to keep company with his shirt-sleeve. But if the men couldn't see him they heard his words, for the wind brought them plainly to their ears; and instead of stopping to ask him what he was doing in the water and how he got there in the first place, they pulled up their lanterns and hurried away.
"Hurrah for me!" said Roy to himself. "They've gone to lower a boat and I am all right—"
Just then another wave broke over his head; but when he came up again, Roy continued his soliloquy as if nothing had happened.
"Or shall be in a few minutes," said he. "I've learned a good many things to-night, and one of them is, that a wind that would keep our Mount Airy people ashore don't bother these deep-water fellows at all. I call this a gale; but these watermen, who are used to such things, run around in small boats as fearlessly as we take to Mirror Lake when there isn't a capful of wind to ruffle the surface."
Roy was plunged under a good many times while he waited for the men to come and take him off, but presently their boat hove in sight. She looked too large and heavy for two men to row, but she was built for just the work she was doing now, and Roy Sheldon was not the only one who owed his life to her and the gallant fellows who manned her. She came over the waves like a duck, and almost before Roy knew it he was sitting in her stern-sheets with a heavy coat around him. The men uttered exclamations of astonishment when they saw how he was dressed, but not a question did they ask until they had taken him safe aboard the light-ship and into a warm, well-lighted cabin.
"Pull off them wet duds and put on these here," said one of the men, laying some dry clothing on a chair near the stove.
"I am sorry to occasion you so much trouble," began Roy, who saw that the oilskin suits his rescuers wore were dripping with spray. "I have given you a long, hard pull."
"Oh, that's nothing," was the reply. "We're used to picking up folks, specially during the racing season when a yacht turns bottom side up now and then. But what made you get sick of your bargain so soon? Why didn't you let yourself go down, like you'd oughter?"
"What bargain?" exclaimed Roy. "And why ought I to let myself go down?"
"Why, you jumped off that there ship on purpose, 'cause me and my pardner seen you when you done it. We've been kinder looking for you ever since. We didn't go out after you, 'cause number 29's boat struck the water most as soon as you did."
"Who bunged your eyes for you?" asked the man who had not spoken before, and who was getting ready to give Roy a pot of hot coffee.
"Are they black?" said the boy angrily.
He glanced around the cabin, and seeing a small mirror fastened against the bulkhead on the other side, he walked over and looked into it. Yes, his eyes were black.
"The ship I deserted from was the White Squall," said Roy; whereupon the lightship men nodded, as much as to say that the whole matter had been made clear to them. "I didn't belong to her. I was—what do you call it?—shanghaied? Yes; that was what was done to me, and also to the two men who started to row me from Shelly's Island to New London. One of the sailors told me I had better get off if I could see half a chance, and that was the way I came to be in the water. One of the mates knocked me down twice while I was working at the painter of our boat, and pounded me with a piece of rope till—well, look at that," added Roy, who, when he came to pull off his wet shirt, found that he could not do it without assistance. His arm pained him, and he could not use it as readily as usual. This led him to make an examination, and he found that the arm was bruised and discolored from shoulder to elbow.
"Yas," remarked one of the men, as if he were speaking of an every-day occurrence, "I've seen a good many such whacks in my time."
"Do all officers pound their men in this fashion, and do you fellows submit to it?" cried Roy, in great surprise. "Well, I won't, I bet you. I'll have those two men arrested; the captain for kidnapping me, and the mate for using me up in this way."
"Drink this coffee and tell us when you're going to do all that," said one of the men.
"Yas," said the other. "And while I am helping you rub them bruises with this arnica, tell us how you're going to do it."
"When and how?" repeated Roy, as he submitted to the old sea-dog's rough but kindly administrations.
"Yas. You can't get ashore before morning, and by that time the White Squall will be miles and miles at sea. It'll be two years, mebbe three, before she makes this port again, and like as not there won't be a single man in her crew that she took away with her. Then where'll your witnesses be to prove that you was shanghaied, and that the mate knocked you down and beat you with a rope's end?"
Roy backed toward the nearest bunk, sat down upon it and took a long and hearty drink of the hot coffee before he made any reply. He had comforted himself with the mental assurance that it would be an easy matter for him to bring the master of the White Squall to justice, but now he discovered that there were difficulties in the way.
"Law ain't made for the poor chaps that sail the high seas, but for landsmen," said the one who gave him the coffee. "Sailor-men ain't got no use for it, for nobody cares for them. I've heard enough about that ship and her cap'n to know that I shouldn't like to sail on her, and I tell you that you was mighty lucky to get away with a whole skin. The mate knocked you over while you was trying to cast off your boat; then what happened?"
"I made a dash for the other side of the ship and went overboard," answered Roy. "The mate made a grab for me, and besides tearing the sleeve out of my shirt he must have given my arm an awful wrench, for I can hardly lift that pot of coffee with it. There isn't any danger that she will stop and take me off this boat, is there?"
The lightship men chuckled and winked at each other as though they thought Roy had said something amusing.
"Bless your simple heart! She's hull down before this time," one of them remarked. "You don't think that a ship that has been loaded and waiting for two or three weeks would stop to pick up a deserter, do you? and him a landsman that don't know one side of the deck from t'other? You'll never see the White Squall again less'n you stay here and look for her. What sort of clothes is them, any way, that you just took off? Looks something like a rowing rig, but 'tain't."
Roy replied that it was a bicycle uniform, and then went on to tell his story, hoping that the mention of Rowe Shelly's name might lead the men to give him some information concerning the runaway. They lived but a short distance from his island home, and Roy thought it possible they might know him; but he very soon became satisfied that they didn't. They held little communication with the people on the neighboring islands, all their supplies, as well as the limited number of papers they read, being received from the mainland, and they did not act as though they had ever heard of Rowe Shelly before; but they showed Roy very plainly that there were some portions of his narrative they found it hard to believe, One of them turned on his heel with the remark that the wind didn't "blow to do any hurt," that there was no need of anybody "going aboard a ship for shelter on such a night" as that one was, and went on deck to see how things were going there; while the other, with the suspicion of a smile about his mouth, said to Roy:
"You're getting kinder white around the gills. Hadn't you better lay down in that there bunk before it gets worse on you? That's my advice."
"I do feel rather queer, that's a fact," answered the boy. "I suppose the pounding and swim together were too much for me."
"Yas; I reckon they were. But you'll be all right after a while."
The man followed his companion to the deck, and Roy lay down upon the bunk; but very gradually a suspicion crept into his mind that the beating he had received and his long swim in rough water had little to do with his miserable feelings.
"I am seasick," groaned Roy. "That's what's the matter with me. Being shut up in this warm, close cabin has done the business for me."
The boy made a shrewd guess. Many a long hour dragged its weary length away before he was "all right" again.