Mr. Skinner turned away for, man and boy, he had spent twenty-five years under Cappy Ricks, and he loved him. He could not bear to see the old man suffer.



CHAPTER IX



When Michael J. Murphy returned to consciousness he found himself in his berth, although for all the effort he made to verify this fact it might have been Mr. Reardon's. For fully half an hour he lay there, gradually straightening out the tangle in his intellect, and presently he was aware that the back of his head was very sore and ached, so he put up his hand to rub it and found a lump as large as a walnut. His right shoulder was numb and he was unable to move it, although this would not have surprised him had he been aware that a hundred and eighty pounds of Teutonic masculinity had landed on that shoulder with both feet and dislocated it. As it was, the skipper wondered vaguely if the ship's funnel had fallen over on him. His right side ached externally, and when he sighed it ached internally. That was a broken rib tickling his lung, for, while he was in blissful ignorance of the reason therefor, the chronicler of this tale can serve no good purpose by concealing the true facts in the case. Immediately upon regaining consciousness, Herr August Carl von Staden had insisted upon returning Michael J. Murphy's kicks with compound interest.

"Holy mackerel!" the skipper murmured. "I feel like I've been fed into a concrete mixer. The only injury I can account for is my left shoulder, where that supercargo shot me."

After spending another half hour in mild speculation on these phenomena he was aware of an added impediment in breathing, so he put his hand up to his nose and found it clogged with blood. His luxuriant black mustache prevented an extended examination of his upper lip, but nevertheless, something told him it was split. A hard foreign substance lying between his right cheek and the inferior maxillary he concluded must be the pit of an olive left over from dinner. Subsequently, however, he discovered it was one of his own teeth. So he swore a mighty oath and felt considerably better.

"This is certainly mutiny on the high seas and punishable by hanging," he soliloquized. "I wonder if Cappy Ricks would know me now;" and he reached up to turn the switch of the electric light over his berth. He turned the switch, but the light did not come on, and while he lay considering this state of affairs, he was aware that something that was not his head was throbbing in the ship. He decided presently that it was her engines. From the steady rhythmic pulsations he realized the vessel was being driven full speed ahead; and since he could not recall having given any orders to that effect, he was not long in arriving at the correct answer to the riddle—whereupon Michael J. Murphy did what every shipmaster does when he loses the ship he loves and finds himself ravished of his reputation as a sane and careful skipper. He wept!

Those who know the breed will bid you beware the Irish when they weep from any cause save grief or sympathy.



CHAPTER X



Cappy Ricks, who claimed to know Mike Murphy's kind of Irish, doubtless would have been extremely gratified had he been granted a peep at the battered, bleeding, weeping wreck of his faithful Michael as the pride of the Blue Star fleet rolled south to meet the grey sea rovers of the Fatherland and deliver the cargo of coal that meant so much to them. The sight might have aroused some hope in Cappy's heavy heart, he being by nature inconsistent and always seeing a profit where others found naught but a deficit. However, though Cappy was variously gifted he was not a clairvoyant, in consequence of which he spent a very sleepless night following the receipt of that windy cablegram from the American consul. He dined at his club, and when it was time for him to leave and his daughter sent her car for him, he lacked the courage to go home and face his son-in-law. So he spent the night at the club and came down to the office about noon, hoping Matt Peasley would have recovered from the shock by that time. The latter was waiting for him, and came into Cappy's sanctum immediately to hold a post-mortem.

"Matthew, my dear boy," said Cappy miserably, "this is terrible."

"I think we should take the matter up immediately with the State Department," Matt replied. "There may be a United States warship in those waters, and she could be instructed by wireless to endeavor to intercept the Narcissus. We can prove a clean bill of health with those cablegrams, and get back our ship."

"Yes—from our own Government, of course. But, oh, Matt, if old Johnny Bull ever gets his horns into her we can kiss her good-bye. We can't bring forward any evidence to alibi that German crew on a ship so far off her course and loaded with contraband."

"Well, I know if I were skippering a British warship and picked up the Narcissus, her owners would find I was born and bred in Missouri," the honest Matt admitted. "By the way, have you read this morning's papers?"

"No, Matt. I've felt too blamed miserable about this Narcissus affair."

"Well, the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau, the Leipzig,, the Dresden and the Nurnberg met a British fleet under Admiral Craddock, away down off Coronel, Chile. The British were cleaned for fair."

"You don't tell me!"

"I do tell you. And I'll bet my immortal soul that German fleet is heading for the entrance to Magellan this minute. If I were a religious man I'd be praying for clear weather so they'll find the entrance without any trouble."

"I hope they run ashore and drown every man Jack!" cried Cappy fiercely.

"I do not. You will note that our charterers tried to induce Mike to go to Montevideo for orders. That was because they expected to lie snug at Montevideo and be within striking distance of a designated meeting place in the South Atlantic when the German fleet should pass through Magellan from the Pacific. Remember that for several weeks the German fleet has managed to lose itself in the Pacific, but now that the British fleet has stumbled onto it and forced an engagement, the Australian and Japanese cruisers will all be headed for the south coast of Chile to make reprisal. We know the Germans are short of coal; doubtless some of the fleet have suffered in the engagement with Admiral Craddock's ships, so it's a safe bet they'll run into the Atlantic now and raid the Falkland Islands—by the way, a British possession. They will hope to find coal and stores there, which, with the cargo of the Narcissus, will enable them to continue raiding.

"Of course they will try to accomplish this before England sends a fleet to avenge Craddock—and I'm hoping the Germans will succeed, for, if they do, they will surely be decent enough to run our Narcissus into some South American port and give us an opportunity to get her back again. On the other hand, if the Germans delay their departure from the Pacific, the British will surely get wind of the Narcissus waiting at Montevideo; and when she comes out they'll just naturally grab her."

"I guess you're right," Cappy replied gloomily; "so for the present we're pro-German. Still, I find that a hard dose to swallow, in view of the fact that our German crew in the Narcissus has evidently taken the vessel away from Mike Murphy."

"I am sure they have done just that, sir; otherwise Mike would have obeyed our orders. We know he received the orders; hence the only reason he did not carry them out was because he wasn't permitted to do so. My only hope is that they haven't killed him, for if he is alive and free, he and Reardon, with the assistance of the cockney steward and the two Chinese cooks, might—"

"Might what?"

"Might steal her back again."

"Matt! It isn't possible, is it?"

"I'll bet Mike Murphy and I could steal her back if we had half a chance. The odds would be forty to two against our succeeding, but a little strategy is sometimes to be preferred to great horsepower. I think I could do it, and I think Murphy will do it—if he only thinks of it."

"How? Tell me how you'd steal her back."

"What's the use?" Matt replied wearily. "I'd have to have help. So will Mike—and I've just remembered Mike Murphy and Terence Reardon are the wrong kind of Irish to have together in the same ship. We did our best to prevent it, but the odds are too long for us; the coal is for the Germans and we hate England, so why worry? I know Mike Murphy will not take that view of it; for my sake he'll fight to the last gasp, but he must have help, and Reardon owes me no such allegiance as Murphy."

"Well, he owes me something," Cappy spoke up. "You promised him a hundred and seventy-five dollars a month and I raised the ante to two hundred. It was an investment, pure and simple. I was buying loyalty, and by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, I think I'll get it. Come to think of it, there was a look in Reardon's eyes that I liked, when he took my hand in those greasy paws of his and said he was a proud man to work for me. Matt, that fellow is full of bellicose veins. He may not fight for me, but he'll fight for Mrs. Reardon and the children and that two-hundred-dollar-a-month job, for it's the first he's ever had and if he loses out it'll be the last he'll ever get. He was telling me all about his family and how much the job meant to him, that day we had the Narcissus out on her trial trip."

Matt Peasley's face brightened. "By Jupiter, that puts a different face on the situation. If Reardon is alive they might get together for mutual protection."

"Well," Cappy piped up, greatly relieved to discover Matt was facing the tragedy so optimistically, "we might do worse than hope. Wire the State Department, Matt; and in the meanwhile, cheer up, sonny, and trust in the luck of Alden P. Ricks. I remember Captain Noah Kendall—peace to his ashes—used to say to me: 'Mr. Ricks, if you ever fell into Channel Creek at low tide you'd come up with a pearl necklace wrapped round your ankle, and you'd be smelling like a spray of lemon verbena.' Cheer up, Matt! What though the cause be lost, the Narcissus is not lost—yet. The Celtic troops remain, and from now on my war cry is going to be—"

"Ireland uber Alles," Matt Peasley suggested.

"You're blamed whistlin'!" said Cappy Ricks.

So Mr. Skinner was called into consultation, and he and Matt Peasley and Cappy drew up a heart-rending telegram to the Secretary of State, who consulted with the Secretary of the Navy, who wired the Blue Star Navigation Company that he was sorry but he didn't have as much as a rowboat in the South Atlantic to save their steamer Narcissus, and would they please keep still about it, since a noise like that, unless absolutely based on facts—and he understood their wail to be based on suspicion—would tend to create additional friction in an international complication already strained to the breaking point. Whereupon Cappy Ricks flew into a rage and immediately dictated a long letter to his congressman and his senator, urging them to battle to the last trench in the campaign for a two-power navy.

Time passed. Then suddenly the world rocked with the news of the annihilation of the German Pacific fleet off the Falkland Islands. Cappy Ricks and Matt Peasley read the horrid tale in the morning papers as they sat at breakfast, and immediately both lost all interest in food. Like two mourners about to set out for the morgue to identify the corpse of a loved one recently killed by a taxicab, they drove down to the Blue Star offices, where immediately upon arrival something terrible in Mr. Skinner's face brought on palpitation of Cappy Ricks' heart.

"Skinner, my dear boy," he chattered, "Have you any news?"

"Not yet, sir," murmured Mr. Skinner brokenly, "but soon! The British consul wants you to ring him up. He says he's had a wireless from H.M.S. Panther, off the Falkland Islands, and he thinks it will be of interest to you."

"Is my Narcissus confiscated?" Cappy and Matt cried in chorus.

"I—I don't know," Skinner faltered. "I just didn't have the courage to pursue the matter further. The British consul said she was captured but as for con—"

"Idiot! Bonehead!" rasped Cappy. "My Narcissus is gone—gone! Oh, Lord! Matt, you ring up the British consul—I'm an old man—Skinner, my dear chap, forgive my harsh language. Have you a little drop of whisky in the office?"



CHAPTER XI



Capt. Michael J. Murphy's futile tears of rage having dried almost as quickly as they came, he crawled painfully out of his berth and lighted a match, to discover he was a prisoner in his own state-room. He turned another electric switch, but still the room remained in darkness.

"Sneaking out of Pernambuco with the lights doused," he soliloquized. Then he remembered a little stump of candle he kept in his desk for use when heating sealing wax, so he lighted the candle and by its meager rays took inventory of his features in the little mirror over his washstand.

"By the Toe Nails of Moses," he soliloquized, "somebody's sea-boots did that, and if I ever find out who was wearing them at the time there'll be a fight or a footrace. I'm a total wreck and no insurance—yes, thank God! here's the ship's medicine chest."

Having spent the greater portion of an adventurous career far from medical aid in time of bodily stress, Michael J. was, as most shipmasters are, rather adept in rough-and-tumble surgery. His compact little library contained a common-sense treatise on the care of burns, scalds, cuts, fractures and the few minor physical diseases that sailors are heir to, and in accordance with immemorial custom he, as master of the ship, was the custodian of the medicine chest. So he washed the gore from his face, disinfected his split lip and patched himself up after a fashion. The bullet wound in his left shoulder proved to be a flesh wound, high up, so he cleaned that and decided his left wing would be in fair fighting order within a few days. Then he undressed and said his prayers, with a special invocation for help from his patron saint, holy Saint Michael, the archangel. Evidently Saint Michael inclined a friendly ear, for it is a curious fact that no sooner had his namesake risen from his marrow bones than a curious sense of peace and comfort stole over him. As in a vision he saw Herr August Carl von Staden standing on the bridge, bound at ankle, knee and hand and with a rope round his neck. From the supercargo's neck the rope led aloft through a small snatch-block fastened to the end of a cargo derrick and thence to the drum of the forward winch—a device which had been known to hoist with a jerk objects several tons heavier than Herr August Carl von Staden! This picture thus conjured in Murphy's imagination was so real he was almost tempted to recite the litany for the dying!

"'Twould have been better for them had they killed me dead and hove my carcass overboard," he decided. "The fact that they didn't, but took the trouble to carry me to my own bed and lock me in, is proof that they'll not murder me now—so I'll not worry. I'll have every beer-drinking, sausage-making son of a seacook begging me for mercy before the week is out. I'll just lie low and rest up a bit, and by the time we're off Rio I'll drop on them like a top-mast in a typhoon. Then with the help of the two Chinamen, the steward and Reardon 'twill not be hard to run her into Rio. I wonder if that pirate frisked me of my five thousand." He searched through his clothing and was amazed to discover that the bills were still in his possession.

"I'll give them back in the morning," he concluded. "I had a pistol in the drawer of my desk and a rifle in that locker;" and in the wild hope that his luck still held, he searched eagerly for both. They were gone.

Nevertheless, Michael J. Murphy smiled as he wrapped a wet towel round his throbbing head, for he had already decided upon his plan of campaign for regaining command of his ship, a coup for which he required no weapon more formidable than his native intelligence. As he sank groaning into the arms of Morpheus, however, even a Digger Indian would have realized that for the next two weeks the master of the Narcissus would be unable to defend himself against an old lady armed with a slipper. Nevertheless, the indomitable fellow, with the amazing optimism of his race, had already decided to attack and subdue, within four days, thirty-six husky male enemies; which lends some color to the oft-repeated declaration that an Irishman fights best when he is on his back with his opponent feeling for his windpipe.

When Michael J. Murphy awoke it was broad daylight and Herr August Carl von Staden was standing over him. The supercargo was clad in an immaculate suit of white flannels and was looking as fresh as new paint.

"Can it be possible?" Murphy queried in amazement. "Upon my word, friend pirate, I had flattered myself I'd tucked you away for a couple of days at least."

"The excellent Mr. Henckel tells me I was out for ten minutes from that solar-plexus blow you landed," Mr. von Staden replied in tones of mingled admiration and friendliness. "And of course you cannot see how sore my ribs feel. I take it rather ill of you to have kicked me."

"Kicked you! I wish I'd killed you! And, speaking of kicks, somebody certainly kicked me. Who was it?"

"Upon recovering consciousness," the supercargo replied with some embarrassment, "I was overcome with fury. You were lying on the floor of your stateroom, where Mr. Schultz and Mr. Henckel had hurriedly tossed you—so I came in and kicked you."

"I never kicked you in the face," Murphy complained.

"No, but you flattened my nose with your code book."

"Well, I'll admit a good smack on the nose does make a man mad. But you shot me in the shoulder. By the way, do your lungs hurt when you breathe, Dutchy?"

"No. Do yours?"

"A slight tickle. I think you caved in my super-structure. Who jumped on me from the top of the house?"

"The second mate."

"He dislocated my shoulder. I can wiggle my fingers, so I know it isn't a fracture. Suppose you take off your shoe, sit at the foot of my bed, put your foot under my right armpit and press, and at the same time pull on my right arm."

"Delighted, I'm sure," declared Herr von Staden in his charming Oxford accent, and forthwith snapped Michael J. Murphy's shoulder into place with great dexterity.

"Thank you," the skipper answered, and wiped the beads of agony from his white face. "If you'll frisk my trousers over there on the settee you'll find the five thousand dollars you gave me to sell out my owners. I don't want it. I never intended to keep it. I was suspicious of you and your confounded cablegrams, and I had to have a reasonable excuse to go ashore and cable my owners for confirmation. The bribe furnished that excuse. I suppose you thought I'd fallen for your game."

"I must confess your attitude completely deceived me."

"Thanks for the compliment. And now, if you don't mind, suppose you tell me something: Was it a German agent who put the bug in my ear about hiring the crew of that interned German liner in San Francisco?"

"I greatly fear it was," von Staden answered smilingly. "There is an old man who presides over the destinies of the Blue Star Navigation Company—"

"You mean Cappy Ricks?"

"I believe that is the name. He has a reputation for being at once the most reckless spendthrift and the most painstaking money saver in the world. He is always preaching economy—"

"And well I know it. If he hadn't preached it, Captain Peasley would never have stood for this rabble your friends wished on me."

The supercargo chuckled. "We wanted the largest vessel we could find," he explained; "and when it was reported to us that the Blue Star Navigation Company's Narcissus was going from San Francisco to the West Coast and thence to New York with nitrate, we decided to get her. We investigated you. Your name is Michael J. Murphy; naturally we knew you were Irish; and the Irish—your kind of Irish—are not sympathetic toward the cause of Merry England. The same held true of your chief engineer, Mr. Reardon. We knew of the passion of this interesting person, Cappy Ricks, for cutting down expenses. We knew you and Reardon were new to your jobs and would be likely to consider any reasonable plan for eliminating expense in your respective departments, in the hope of pleasing your employer. So the suggestion that you ship our people was made to you and Reardon, and you accepted it with alacrity. The rest was very easy. We got in touch with your New York agents through some friends of ours in very good standing there, and they were enabled to charter the ship merely by offering an extraordinary freight rate. They purchased the cargo of coal and sold it to us at a nice profit, and we depended on your national animosity and racial sympathy, seasoned with a liberal cash subsidy, to enable us to deliver it. We preferred to do the decent thing, but in the event that you proved unreasonable, we concluded it would be wise to have our own people aboard and take the vessel away from you. I admit we tried to trick you with the cablegrams. Why attempt to conceal the fact now? That was unsportsmanlike. However, if the fat is in the fire, as you Americans would say, you have put it there by forcing my hand."

"Very cleverly done," quoth Michael J. Murphy. "I always admire brains wherever I find them."

"Men in my line of endeavor are trained to provide for all conceivable emergencies, captain. I think I provided for all of them in the case under discussion. Who, for instance, would conceive that you would have taken the trouble to call upon the American consul for the cipher message that has caused all this unpleasant row and facial disfigurement?"

"You have read the translation, of course?"

"Naturally."

"It is self-explanatory. You intend delivering my cargo somewhere off the south coast of Uruguay. May I be pardoned for expressing some curiosity as to your plans thereafter, my piratical friend?"

"Please do not call me your piratical friend."

"Well, you're a pirate, aren't you?"

"Legally—yes. Morally—no. In times of national necessity one's patriotism—one's duty to one's country—excuses, in the minds of all fair men, the commission of acts which ordinarily would bring about the deepest condemnation. I assure you that if we had had the faintest hope of doing business in a businesslike way with your owners, we should have been happy to pay almost any price for their ship, for she carries ten thousand tons of coal; and you surely must realize, Captain Murphy, how limited is the number of ships suitable for our purpose under the American flag. We were desperate—"

"I believe Bethmann-Hollweg said something of the same nature with regard to Belgium," Murphy replied blandly. "A nation fighting for its life is a law unto itself, eh?"

"Self-preservation is the first law of human nature," the supercargo replied.

"All right. Then we understand each other. While I decline to terminate the war between August Carl von Staden and Michael Joseph Murphy, nevertheless under the law you have just cited I believe I'm entitled to breakfast. I'm starved. I figured on having supper ashore last night, but after I received that cablegram from my owners I forgot all about food. Now I'm remembering. I wish you'd send the steward in with about forty dollars' worth of spoon victuals. My grinders are very loose."

"Captain Murphy," his jailer declared, "do you know you are a very wonderful man?"

"All the Murphys are. It runs in the blood, like a wooden leg."

"I really regret that you are such a wonderful man. If you were not I'd give you the liberty of the ship. As it is, I crave your pardon for keeping you a prisoner in your state-room. The exigencies of war, you know."

"Don't mention it, Dutchy. For the second time I ask you: When you have delivered this cargo of coal, what do you intend to do with my ship?"

"We will, in all probability, give you a new crew, and the present crew of the Narcissus will go aboard one of our warships and thus remove themselves from the reach of a possible indictment for piracy and mutiny on the high seas."

"Where will you get a new crew for me?"

"Our fleet has sunk a few British tramps in mid-ocean during the past sixty days. Naturally they removed the crews first. These prisoners are in our way, and the admiral will welcome an opportunity to load them all aboard the empty Narcissus, for even prisoners of war must eat, and the stores aboard our fleet are more valuable than these captured seamen. In obedience to that first law of human nature they will not object to working the Narcissus into the nearest South American port."

"Well, that's comforting; but for heaven's sake don't be too much of a hog with my cargo. Leave me enough of it to carry my ship to the nearest port. She burns about thirty-five tons a day—you might get the statistics from Reardon."

"By all means, captain. Our capture of the Narcissus is merely a deplorable national necessity. We would not lose her for you for anything."

"How about a British cruiser picking her up before we make connections with your fleet?"

Herr von Staden shrugged. "That," he replied, "would be the fortune of war."

"It would look like the picture of misfortune to me. And how about the freight on this cargo you've stolen? Don't my owners get something out of this deal to help pay expenses? You're going to play as fair as you can with me, aren't you, Dutchy?"

"By all means. However, you are evidently in doubt as to the real situation. Your charterers are responsible to your owners for the freight money. If they do not pay it Mr. Cappy Ricks can sue them. As for the cargo, we have not stolen it, since one cannot steal that which one owns. We paid cash for this cargo before you cleared from Norfolk, for our go-between would take no risks whatsoever."

"I see. Well, I suppose I'll have to grin and bear it. By the way, don't forget to take back your blood money. It's in my trousers pocket."

Von Staden was genuinely distressed. "Are you quite certain you want me to do that?" he queried. "Five thousand dollars is quite a sum for a poor sea captain to toss aside so contemptuously. Why not accept it as compensation for that broken rib, and that bullet I put through your left shoulder, the dislocated right shoulder, the loose teeth and the split lip? In fact, I am so certain five thousand dollars will not cover your personal injuries I am willing to be a sport and add something to the sum."

Michael J. Murphy grinned—rather a horrible grin it was, owing to his swollen lip and jaw.

"Dutchy," he said, "listen to me: All the money in the world couldn't make me be untrue to my salt. And if you have any lingering notion that I'm not going to collect a million dollars' worth of satisfaction for the way you've acted aboard my ship, I can only say that as a fortune-teller you'll never earn enough money to keep yourself in cigarettes. You say you have been trained to provide for all conceivable emergencies, so I'm advising you, as a friend, to brace yourself for the surprise of your life before you're a week older. Have you pondered the possibility of sudden death aboard the S.S. Narcissus?"

"Certainly. Should we be overhauled by a British cruiser I should take a short cut to eternity. One naturally dislikes the thought of being hanged for a pirate. It would be a reflection on one's family. As for sudden death by violence at the hands of any member of the crew of this steamship, I should be willing to risk quite a sum of money that no such tragedy will be enacted."

"Just why?"

"Well, you'll be safe in this stateroom until I am ready to turn your command back to you, and a man with two shoulders in the condition of yours is hardly likely to try battering down this stout state-room door."

"Correct. And I'm a trifle too thick in the middle to think of crawling through the state-room window."

"And if," the supercargo continued, "you have any idea of calling the engine-room on that speaking tube and soliciting aid from Mr. Reardon, please be advised that for the present Mr. Reardon has been relieved from duty in the engine-room."

"So you've got Reardon locked up, too?" Murphy queried. "Well! Well! I'd hate to think of being locked up and that man Reardon free. However, you need not have worried. I'd die before I'd ask that fellow for help—and he'd die before he'd give it."

"So I understand from the first mate. However, I thought it prudent to guard against a temporary truce and an alliance for the common interest."

"Dutchy," said the skipper, "you're pretty smart."

Von Staden smiled most companionably. "I also took the precaution to remove some weapons from your apartment."

"Take anything from me, Dutchy, except my honor, my pipe and tobacco, and my ship. Take any one of those four, however, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Please hand me that book entitled Backwood's Surgery till I see what's good for a broken rib; then send the steward for my breakfast order. After that—well, after that you might make your will, Dutchy."

"I did that in Pernambuco," the delightful Herr von Staden replied, "so your advice is wasted."

He handed the skipper the book on surgery and went out, carefully locking the door behind him. He returned presently and stood beside the steward, who thrust his head through the state-room window and desired to know the captain's choice of breakfast.

"A bowl of mush and milk, three soft-boiled eggs and a pot of coffee. No toast. Hurry!"

When the steward returned with the order he was accompanied by Mr. Schultz, the first mate. The sight of the traitor threw Mike into a furious rage.

"Mr. Schultz," he said ominously, "the things I'm going to do to you would make the devil blush."

"So?" Mr. Schultz replied soothingly.

"I'm going to hang von Staden. He's a pirate, and the rule of the Seven Seas is that a skipper hangs a pirate whenever he can lay hands on him. And you know me, Mr. Schultz. I'm a devil for etiquette aboard ship. As for you, you're only guilty of mutiny, so I'll content myself with tricing you up to the shrouds and flogging you with a cat soaked in brine."

And so on, ad libitum, ad infinitum.

Mr. Schultz was frankly mystified. Being a German, he did not understand the Irish, although in view of the fact that during the war he had room in his head for but one thing—the Fatherland—perhaps the skipper might have pardoned his mate the glance of contempt and utter disgust which the latter now bent upon him. Here was a man, Mr. Schultz told himself, who, having stipulated his price and struck a bargain, had demonstrated beyond cavil that he was not a gentleman, for he had refused to stay bought. More, he had basely attacked his benefactor.

"So?" he repeated.

"Out, you blackguard, and leave me alone!" Murphy yelled.

"It iss an order dot I stay und see dot der steward shall mayg no conversations vatsoefer," Mr. Schultz declared firmly.

"Verboten, eh?" sneered the skipper. He had once been to Hamburg, and naturally he had acquired the word most commonly used in the German language.

"Ja," Mr. Schultz replied placidly, but with an air of finality that left no room for further argument.



CHAPTER XII



In the course of the afternoon, having chewed the bitter cud of reflection and reviewed his situation from every possible angle, Mike Murphy came to the conclusion that, for all Terence Reardon's religious backsliding, he might be fairly honest in money matters and possessed of a sense of loyalty where his owners' interests were concerned. Also, having found Herr von Staden bluffing in one instance it occurred to the captain he might be discovered bluffing in another—so he resolved to investigate. Accordingly at an hour when he knew Terence should be in the engine room he took up the speaking-tube at the head of his bed and blew into it. But no shrill whistle signalled his desire in the engine room, and though Michael blew until he was red in the face and his lips hurt him cruelly, reluctantly he came to the conclusion that Herr August Carl von Staden had the situation very well in hand and Terence Reardon in the latter's state-room under lock and key.

He was right in one particular: von Staden had the situation very well in hand, but he did not have Terence Reardon under lock and key. Murphy had been balked in making connections with the unsuspecting Terence for the reason that a little ball of cotton waste had very carefully been tucked into the engine-room howler a few inches at the back of the whistle at the chief's end of the tube. Hence, in the event that one sought to whistle up the other, he merely wasted his breath. Having learned, on the very excellent authority of both men in the case, that they despised each other and were not on speaking terms, von Staden decided that the chance of Terence Reardon's listening to Michael J. Murphy's tale of piracy and mutiny was so vague as to be almost negligible. However, he was painstaking and careful in all things and never ran any unnecessary risks; consequently, just to be on the safe side, he had instructed the first assistant to plug the speaking-tube leading to the skipper's room. And in order to discourage the captain from, seeking an interview with the chief, von Staden had told the former that the chief was a prisoner.

Mr. Reardon was too important a personage to be deprived of his liberty when nothing was to be gained by such action. If he could be kept in ignorance of the state of affairs aboard the Narcissus, he would continue to attend to business; if the worst came to the worst his friendship would be a better asset than his hatred. If he grew suspicious and demanded a showdown, Herr von Staden would give it to him without reservation and stuff his mouth with gold; then, if the chief declined to listen to reason, it would be time enough to lock him up. While the supercargo would not hesitate to sacrifice his life, his liberty, or his honor for his country, he was nevertheless desirous of being a gentleman if accorded the opportuniby. And it must be admitted he had found Mr. Reardon amusing and vastly entertaining, for the very first night aboard, after Mr. Schultz had introduced him to the chief and he had presented the latter with a good cigar, Mr. Reardon, under the spell of the witchery cast by the sea and the night, had sat on deck and told the German wonderful tales of the fairies in Ireland—this while the skipper was ashore. In particular he told von Staden the tale of the fairy queen with the iron hand.

"Her hand," said Terence, "was as beautiful as ye'd find in a day's thravel, an' 'twas herself that'd dhrive men crazy afther wan look at her. An' she was good to the poor, but divii a bit av love did she have for a redcoat. Whin she'd take human form an' a bowld buck av a British dragoon would come making love to her, 'tis herself would say to him: 'Captain, alannah, would ye oblige me wit' a dhrink av wather?' An' whin he turrned to dhraw the wather, she'd breathe on her hand—like that—an' immejiately 'twould turn to iron an' wit' wan blow she'd knock his brains out. Sure they found the bodies all over Ireland, but divil a man, woman, or child could they ever convict av the murrder. For why? Why, sure, the minute she'd killed a redcoat she'd breathe on her hand ag'in, an' immejiately 'twas flesh an' blood ag'in!"

No, decidedly it would not do to imprison this excellent fellow. Von Staden had read fairy tales as a boy, but never had he met a man who could tell them like Terence Reardon. A hard-headed, highly intelligent chief engineer of a big tramp steamer telling tales of the fairies! Von Staden couldn't understand it. It was so childish—and yet there was nothing childish about Terence Reardon. The German wondered if Terence Reardon believed in the fairies and finally he asked him point-blank if he did; whereupon Terence turned a solemn eye upon him and replied:

"Why, av course I do not. Do you think I'm a blubber-jack av a bhoy? But isn't it pleasant to talk about thim whilst wan has nothing betther to do? Sure, whin I'm lonely at night I think up new fairy tales to tell to the childhren whin I come home from a v'yage."

So that was the Irish of it! Strangely enough it did not occur to the practical German that an individual with an imagination like that, on such an expedition as the present, was the most dangerous person imaginable to be given the freedom of the ship.

So passed twelve days and nights. Mr. Schultz kept in his pocket the key to the captain's state-room, and consequently was always present when the little cockney steward brought the prisoner his meals, tidied up the state-room and made up the captain's bed. The captain spent most of his time lying on his uninjured side and remained very quiet, for the fractured rib, which had received no attention, was causing him a great deal of suffering. Neither did the bullet wound in his shoulder heal cleanly, for the reason, unknown to the captain, that the bullet had carried with it into the muscle a fragment of Michael J.'s undershirt.

However, his physical sufferings were as nothing compared with those he experienced mentally. He had hoped to be in fair fighting condition within a week at the latest. Wrapped in paper and tucked away in the back of the ship's safe he had a silver-hilted stiletto he had taken away from a cutthroat who had tried to rob him once in Valparaiso—and with this weapon he had planned to cut away the lock on the state-room door. And once outside—

What Michael J. Murphy did not know was that when one has dislocated one's shoulder one will do very little wood-carving during the three subsequent weeks. It almost broke the skipper's heart to think he had made a threat in good faith, and was balked from making it good.

During this entire period Mr. Reardon was going about his duties as usual, in absolute ignorance of the state of affairs about the ship, for he was an innocent, trustful sort of fellow, and to a born romanticist like Terence the fairy tale which Mr. Schultz had spun at breakfast the morning after leaving Pernambuco was not at all difficult of assimilation. It appeared—according to Mr. Schultz— that the skipper had gone ashore for a night of roystering, and upon returning to the ship about midnight, in a wild state of intoxication, had become involved in an altercation with the launchman over the fare. In the resultant battle the skipper, in his helpless condition, was being terribly beaten by the vicious Pernambucan; hence one could scarcely blame him for drawing a pistol and shooting the launchman—fatally, according to Mr. Schultz. Of course, after that, to have lingered longer inside the three-mile limit would have been sheer insanity, so Mr. Schultz, taking matters into his own hands, had uphooked and skipped with doused lights from the jurisdiction of the Pernambuco police.

"And how did the skipper come out of all this?" Mr. Reardon had inquired anxiously.

"He iss in rodden shape," Mr. Schultz had declared. "Von of hiss angles vos brogen, und he vos cut mid a knive—preddy deeb, but noddings to worry aboud. Der only drouble iss der dooty of navigading der shib falls double on der segond mate und me."

"Make him pay ye over-time out av his own wages, the wurthless vagabone!" Mr. Reardon had urged. "May he walk wit' a limp for the rest av his days—bad cess to him! I've a notion, Misther Schultz, that lad'll never comb his hair grey."

Mr. Schultz nodded lugubriously; then he glanced up and caught the little cockney steward staring at him so balefully, that he realized he must have speech in private with the steward. Consequently he lingered at table until Mr. Reardon finished his breakfast and went below; whereupon Mr. Schultz intimated to the steward, in his direct blunt fashion, that for the remainder of the voyage, Riggins—for that was the steward's name—was to consider himself deaf, dumb and blind; the penalty for reconsideration within the hearing of Mr. Reardon being a swift and immediate excursion, personally conducted by Mr. Schultz, to Davy Jones's locker! Following this earnest exhortation, Riggins, never a robust person mentally or physically, came abruptly to the conclusion that this was one of those occasions where silence, if not exactly golden, was at least to be preferred to great riches.



CHAPTER XIII



IT may appear strange that during the days and nights Michael J. Murphy lay on his bed of pain Terence Reardon did not once pass the little open window of the skipper's state-room. Not, however, that the latter watched for him, for he did not. He believed that Reardon, like himself, was a prisoner; although, had the chief passed the window and had the captain observed his passing, the complacence of Herr von Staden and his patriotic company would have received a jar much earlier in the voyage.

Unfortunately, however, for Murphy's plans, the chief's stateroom was located in the after part of the house and on the side opposite the skipper's, and following their brief spat through the speaking-tube, Terence Reardon had confined himself exclusively to his engine-room and that portion of the ship along which he must of necessity pass when going to and from his state-room. He told himself it was the part of wisdom for one of his ferocious temper to avoid the occasions of sin. Certainly it would be hard to pass the skipper's state-room without looking in, particularly since in these warm latitudes the door would probably be open; for should the skipper be within at the time, they would peradventure scowl at each other, and he is a fool indeed who cannot foretell the future when a thousand generations of natural enemies exchange "the black look." Terence remembered his boy Johnny, a youth who, according to Mrs. Reardon, should never be a marine engineer, but the finest lawyer that ever pouched a fat fee. And there was Mary Agnes and Catherine Bertram. Next year they would begin taking piano lessons, and in the fullness of time, no matter how hard the pull, both should go to the state university and acquire the education made to fit their father's head, but by force of circumstances denied him. And at the thought Terence looked at his hard black hands and set himself resolutely to face a life sentence of rattling ash hoists, roaring furnaces and the soft sucking sounds of the pistons. Two hundred dollars a month—and the union scale was a hundred and fifty! Ah, no, he dared not trifle with that job. He must, at all hazard, avoid friction with the skipper, for what would Mrs. Reardon say if Cappy Ricks forced him to roll the bones with Mike Murphy—one flop and high man out? Mr. Reardon could close his eyes and see Mike Murphy roll out a "stiff," while with trembling hand the Reardon rolled five sixes!

The Narcissus had been out of Pernambuco harbor four days before Mr. Reardon, upon comparing the sun—which all are agreed rises in the east—with the direction in which the ship was headed, and then extracting the cube root of the resultant product, and subtracting it from the longtitude and latitude of the Cape of Good Hope, decided that there must be something wrong with Mr. Schultz's navigation. So he spoke to Mr. Schultz about it, and was laughingly informed that they were traveling on a great circle. Thereupon Mr. Reardon remembered that at sea a ship traveling on the arc of a great circle, for some mysterious reason repudiates the old geometrical theorem that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. He recalled that vessels plying between San Francisco and Yokohama describe a great circle which brings them well up toward the Aleutian Islands, So he was satisfied with the explanation, this being his first voyage into the South Atlantic anyhow; but he continued to observe the sun each morning, and still the vessel's head held far to the south. A suspicion that all was not as it should be slowly settled in Mr. Reardon's head, and though he said nothing, he used his ejes and ears. A dozen times a day, as the ship rolled steadily south, he was tempted to take down the speaking tube and confide his suspicions to the master, confined in his state-room by reason of deep—but not serious-knife wounds. Each time he was on the point of yielding, however, he remembered that Mike Murphy had called him a renegade—so he refrained.

The installation of the wireless plant and the presence aboard the ship of Herr von Staden had failed to arouse his suspicions the first day out. True, the wireless could not have been connected with the electric light plant below without Mr. Reardon's knowledge and consent, but when he asked Mr. Schultz about it the latter replied that Cappy Ricks must have changed his mind about installing wireless on the Narcissus, for he had cabled to the agents of the charterers in Pernambuco to have a wireless plant and a competent operator waiting for the vessel upon arrival. It was Mr. Schultz's opinion that the owners had evidently arrived at the conclusion that it was wise to have a wireless aboard during war times. Personally, Mr. Schultz approved of the innovation.

So did Terence Reardon, for that matter. He found the new wireless operator a charming fellow, possessed of talents far superior to those of the young men who ordinarily pound the brass at sea. Indeed, after the second day out, Mr. Reardon would have been heartbroken had anything happened to that wireless. For Herr August Carl von Staden sat at the key almost continuously, eavesdropping on the war news, and Mr. Reardon never came to the wireless room that the operator did not have some news of an overwhelming British defeat!

As the voyage proceeded, however, and Mr. Reardon's mind grew a trifle uneasy, reluctantly he began to view Herr von Staden and the wireless with apprehension. He asked the affable operator how much the Marconi company charged the Narcissus for his services and the rental of the wireless plant, and von Staden, momentarily stumped, replied that the tariff was two hundred dollars a month; whereupon Reardon knew he lied, for the charge is one hundred and forty. The German, realizing instantly that he was not on the target, added: "That is, for a first-grade operator and a plant like this. Of course we furnish cheaper operators and less powerful plants, Mr. Reardon."

"Oh! So that's the way av it?" the chief replied, and immediately went to his state-room for the purpose of thinking it over. Eventually he came to the conclusion that all was not as it should be, but that, nevertheless, it was no affair of his. He was paid to obey signals given him from the bridge.

"'Tis no business av mine, afther all," he soliloquized. "For why should I be puttin' dogs in windows? He's paid to navigate the ship, an' didn't Cappy Ricks tell me to mind me own business? And yet, there's something wrong in this ship. I feel it in me bones."

He felt it with a force that was almost violent when Mr. Schultz called down through the speaking-tube late one afternoon and told him to put her under a dead-slow bell. That meant they were practically heaving to, and steamers only heave to at sea in fine weather when they have reached a certain longitude and latitude and plan to keep an appointment. On the instant there was a strong odor of rat in Terence Reardon's engine room, but his "Very well, sir," contained no hint of his surprise and suspicion. He gave his orders to the firemen to bank the fires, and when this had been done he informed his engine-room crew that they might all go on deck for five minutes and get a breath of fresh air. Nothing loath, they scrambled up the steel stairway—and the instant the last man was out of earshot Terence Reardon sprang to the speaking-tube to whistle up the skipper in his room.

Now, undoubtedly the cool and calculating Herr August Carl von Staden had been carefully trained to take into consideration, when planning his strategy, every conceivable contingency that might possibly arise. It is probable that the German secret service never turned out a more finished graduate than Herr von Staden; but the fact remains, nevertheless, that there are certain contingencies over which no human being has control. One of these is Newton's law of gravitation; another, an equally immutable law to the effect that water will seek its own level; a third, the vindictiveness of an outraged Irishman; and a fourth, the very natural tendency of any man, not excepting Mr. Terence Reardon, to be profoundly surprised and intensely curious when certain phenomena, which we shall now proceed to explain, take place in the engine room where he is chief.

Michael J. Murphy, having only the day before again essayed the task of whistling up the engine room, and having, by reason of the ball of cotton waste with which the tube had been plugged by the first assistant engineer, again failed to receive the courtesy of a reply from any one, had, to put it mildly, been annoyed.

"Very well, my bullies," he soliloquized as he hung up the tube, "you wouldn't speak to me when I wanted to speak to you; so now the first time one of you wants to speak to me I'll hand you a surprise, and I'll hand it to you right in the mouth." And forthwith Michael J. had carefully poured down the speaking tube the contents of the basin in which he had just made his morning ablutions! He longed to do something nasty, and he succeeded admirably.

As we have already remarked, water seeks its own level. It ran down the speaking-tube until it encountered the cotton waste plug; whereupon, due to the hydrostatic pressure, the plug gave way and was forced down to the tightly closed mouth of the tube, and the suds backed up behind it. It was pretty warm in the engine room, and most of the water had evaporated by the time Terence Reardon took down the looped tube and opened it for the purpose of putting his lips to the mouthpiece and blowing heartily through it. However, there was about a gill of water left in the tube.

Now, as everybody knows, water running down a slope of seventy-five or eighty degrees comes rather fast. Consequently Mr. Reardon had no time to dodge.

Why be squeamish? He got a mouthful and was very nauseated for half a minute. Also he cursed, we regret to record, and was very, very angry. Carefully he drained the devilish tube, wiped it clean with some fresh waste, and racked his brain for the right thing to say to Michael J. Murphy. Finally he hit upon something he concluded would about fill the bill, so he put his lips to the mouthpiece once more and whistled up the skipper. To his surprise, however, his breath didn't seem to get anywhere: in fact, it was directed back in his face rather forcefully; so he investigated and discovered the mouthpiece was only half open. Upon endeavoring to open it fully he sensed an obstruction in the back of it, so he unscrewed the mouthpiece and drew forth a ball of dirty, sour-smelling cotton waste.

He gazed a moment in speechless wonder. Then: "I'll whistle that dirrty Tomfool, until he answers me in self-defense," he announced'to the main motor, and forthwith blew a mighty blast. Almost instantly Michael J. Murphy yelled: "Hullo!"

"Murphy," Terence Reardon announced calmly and very distinctly, "you're a contimptible dhrunken ape!"

"Holy Moses! Reardon, is that you?" the astounded Murphy demanded.

"It is-as you'll discover whin you're able to come on deck an' give me the satisfaction I'll demand for the dirrty dab av wather an' cotton waste you put in the tube, knowin' that the firrst time I took it down to spheak to you, ye blackguard, in the line av djooty—which is the only reason I would spheak to you—I'd get it full in the mouth. Ye dirrty, lyin', schamin', dhrunken murrderer!"

He paused to let that stream of adjectival opprobrium sink in. Silence. Then:

"I poured the contents of my washbasin in the tube, I'll admit, but I did not plug it with cotton waste. One of your assistants did that, chief, and as for the water, as God is my judge, I didn't intend it for you—"

"Who else would ye be afther insultin' if it wasn't me? Are ye not friendly wit' me assistants?"

"Forgive me, Reardon, and listen to what I'm going to tell you."

And then the tale was told. When it was done Terence Reardon grunted.

"I knew it!" he said. "I knew it! I felt in me bones there was something wrong aboard this ship. An' so ye were not dhrunk an' disordherly at Pernambuco?"

"The liars! Did they tell you that? Reardon, it's only the mercy of heaven they didn't murder me. I'm lying here, helpless and crippled in my state-room, with the key turned in the lock. They've stolen my ship from me, and I can tell by the roll of her she's practically hove to under a dead-slow bell this minute. We've reached the rendezvous—we're waiting for the German fleet to deliver the coal; and oh, man, man, if we're caught by a British cruiser we'll lose the ship! They'll confiscate her, chief. Wirra! Wirra!" he cried, breaking into the forgotten wail of his childhood. "How can I ever face Matt Peasley and Cappy Ricks after this? Reardon, man, they'll think we stood in with the Germans and let them do it. We're both Irish—they know we're both pro-German—"

"What's that you said?" Terence demanded sharply. "Me pro-German. Me? I was pro-German—yis—wanst!"

Fell a silence.

Now, for the benefit of the uninitiated, be it known that there is a certain curse employed by the Irish and by no other race on earth. Whenever you hear an Irishman employ it, you know instantly— provided, of course, you are Irish yourself—just what kind of Irish that Irishman is. You cannot mistake it. There is no possible chance. It is only brought forth with the dust of the centuries on it, so to speak, to grace a fitting occasion. Terence Reardon felt that such an occasion was now at hand. As naturally, as inevitably, therefore, as the suds ran down the speaking-tube, that curse climbed up it—softly, distinctly, and with a wealth of feeling in the back of it:

"God put the curse av Crummle on thim!"

Mr. Reardon, of course, referred to the late Oliver Cromwell. Any one who has ever read the sorry history of Erin knows what the amiable Oliver did to the Irish. Consequently such an one will have no difficulty in estimating the precise proportions of bad luck Terence Reardon prayed might be the immediate heritage of the crew of the S.S. Narcissus.

Michael J. Murphy blinked rapidly, for all the world as if Mr. Schultz had entered at that moment and struck him a terrific blow on top of the head. A more dazed Irishman than he never threw an ancient egg or a defunct cat at an alleged Celtic comedian with green whiskers. He was absolutely staggered—but not for long. The Irish come back very quickly.

"Shame on you, Terence Reardon!" he declared. "And you with a Masonic ring on your finger."

"Glory be!" cried the delighted Terence. "Sure are you wan av us?"

"One of you!" Mike Murphy fairly shrieked. "The minute I'm out of this room you'll apologize or fight for thinking I'm a renegade."

"Naboclish!" laughed Terence Reardon, slipping into the Gaelic and out again. "The divil a Mason am I! Sure that ring ye saw on me finger that day in the office av the owners belonged to me second assistant in the Arab. He'd lost it in the engine room, an' a mont' afther he'd left I found it. Not knowin' what ship he was in, 'twas me intintion to take the ring over to the Marine Engineers' Association an' lave it for him wit' the secreth'ry; and to make sure I wouldn't forget it I put it on me finger—"

"Well, you knew, Terence, that with the likes of me round you'd not be liable to forget it," Mike Murphy laughed.

"As for you, ye divil," Terence continued, "faith, what wit' yer English tweeds an' the fancy cut av thim, an' yer lack av the brogue an' the broad a av ye, I thought, begorra, ye were a dirrty Far Down! God love ye, Michael, but 'tis the likes av you I'm proud to be ship-mates wit'."

"But you said you were from Belfast, Terence."

"So I am. I was borrn there, but me parents—the Lord 'a' merrcy on their sowls—moved back to Kerry."

"Terence!"

"What is it, Michael, me poor lad?"

"Do you ever drink on duty? I don't mean with your superiors—"

The chief chuckled. He knew what Murphy was alluding to.

"I do," he replied, "wit' me equals."

"'Tis a pity, Terence, that man Schultz has the key to my state-room in his pocket. Now if you could manage to tap that Dutchman on the head with something hard and heavy, take the key out of his pocket and throw him overheard, you could let me out of this purgatory I'm in. Then I wouldn't be surprised if the sight of me and the absence of Mr. Schultz would put a bit of heart in that little cockney steward—and maybe he'd bring a drink to hearten you for what's ahead of you this night."

"An' what might that be, avic?" Terence demanded.

"I want you to steal the ship back from them, Terence."

"Very well, Michael. 'Tis not a small thing ye ask me to do, but the divil a more willin' man could ye find to ask. Have ye figured out the plan av campaign? Sure what wit' the suddenness av it all I'm all in a shweat wit' excitement."

"You may be cold enough before morning, Terry, my boy."

"Bad luck to you, Michael! Dyin' is wan thing I cannot afford to do, although be the same token they tell me ould Ricks has a kind shpot in the heart av him for the widow an' the orphan—particularly av thim that dies in his service! As I say, I cannot afford to get kilt, but in back av that ag'in I cannot afford to lose the best job I ever had. An' afther all, 'tis a poor man that won't fight for a fine, kind gentleman—"

"Damn the fine, kind gentleman! It serves him right for letting us get into this fix. He can afford the loss of the ship, but you and I, Terence Reardon, cannot afford the loss of our honor and self-respect. For the sake of the blood that's in us we can't afford to let a lot of Dutchmen steal our ship and cargo."

"Whist!" Reardon warned. "Hurry up. Me crew is comin' below ag'in."

"Make it a point to pass by my state-room window after dark. You'll find a scrap of paper on the sill. Help yourself to it."

"Faith, I will," Mr. Reardon promised fervently, and the tube closed with a click.



CHAPTER XIV



TERENCE Reardon's preparations for the night's work began the instant he hung up the speaking-tube. The Narcissus carried three assistant engineers, in consequence of which Mr. Reardon was not required to stand a watch unless he so elected; although from force of habit acquired in the days when he had been chief of the Arab—a little three-thousand-ton tramp—and perforce had to stand a regular watch, he found it very difficult not to spend at least eight hours in every twenty-four in the engine room. When, eventually, he came to a realization that his job was not to make the engines behave, but to see that they behaved properly, he spent more of his time on deck, and put in only a few hours below during the watch of the third assistant engineer—the third assistant being a young man in whom the chief reposed exactly that degree of confidence a chief engineer should always repose in a third assistant. Mr. Reardon, therefore, was at liberty to leave the engine-room whenever he felt so disposed; and following his illuminating conversation with the captain he felt very much disposed to leave immediately.

He went first to his state-room, where he bathed, changed into new under-clothes and socks, donned a freshly laundered suit of faded dungarees—old, faded, well-washed dungarees, by the way, always appearing neater and cleaner than new ones—and shaved; for if Providence willed it that lie should die to-night. Mr. Reardon was resolved to be in such a highly sanitary condition that "those upon whom should devolve the melancholy duty of laying him out"—which phrase, in the Hibernian sense, means those who should dispose his limbs, close his eyes, tie up his black jowls with a towel and fold his hands—alas, so white in death, at last! across his still breast—might be moved to remark that, notwithstanding the nature of the deceased's vocation, they could not recall ever having seen a cleaner corpse.

Having attended to his pre-dissolution toilet, Mr. Reardon next sat in at his littered desk, swept a space clear of tobacco crumbs, ashes, pipes and some old copies of the Cork Eagle, and sat down to write a farewell letter to his wife, hoping that, even though his enemies should slay him, yet would they have sufficient respect for the dead to mail that letter to Mrs. Reardon. And, in order that he might not anger his posthumous benefactors, he mentioned nothing of the state of affairs aboard the ship. He merely stated that she might never see him again, in which event she was to call upon the owners and ask them to invest for her the proceeds of his life insurance policy, since they could and would invest it to better advantage than she. Then he spoke of his grief at the thought of the children being forced to forego their college education and suggested that she ask Cappy Ricks to give Johnny a place in his office; also, should the owners offer anything as compensation for the loss of her husband, she was to accept it, for, as God was his judge, she would be entitled to it! This last sentence Terence underscored for emphasis; that was as close as he came to saying that if he died it would be in defense of his owner's interest. Then he commended her to the comfort of her religion and subscribed himself: "Your loving and devoted husband, Terence P. Reardon, Chief Engineer S.S. Narcissus."

Having set his small affairs in order against a hasty exit from this vale of hatreds, Mr. Reardon, in unconscious imitation of all the condemned men who had preceded him on the voyage across the Styx, repaired to the dining saloon and partook of a hearty meal. He realized he had undertaken a contract that would require the employment of weapons more formidable than his hard fists, and devoutly he wished that, like the fairy queen, he had but to breathe on them to metamorphose them into pig iron. He pictured the slaughter aboard the Narcissus when he should wade into the conflict. Finally he made up his mind that, in lieu of an iron hand or two, he would use his favorite monkey wrench, for he had no firearms whatsoever; although, had somebody presented him with a one-man machine gun with full directions for using, Mr Reardon would have recoiled in horror from it. Firearms were highly dangerous. They killed so many people!

He left the table long before the others had finished. There was no one on deck as he emerged from the dining saloon, so he walked leisurely round past the captain's cabin, whistling the "Cruiskeen Lawn" to let Mike Murphy know who was coming. Evidently Michael assimilated the hint, for there was an envelope on the little window sill as Terence hove abreast of it. He snatched it swiftly away and continued round to his own state-room.

The envelope contained Michael J. Murphy's plan for campaign worked out to the most minute detail, by reason of his absolute knowledge of the customs aboard the ship. Mr. Reardon read the remarkable document and sat lost in admiration; a twinkle leaped to his eyes and a cunning, rather deadly little smile came sneaking round the corners of his broad chin.

"Arrah, but 'tis a beautiful schame," he soliloquized. "Who but that lad could have t'ought av it? An' here I've been shpendin' the past two hours borrowin' trouble."

He read and reread the plan of attack, in order to familiarize himself with the details; then he held a match to the document and destroyed it. He considered a moment, and then performed a similar service to his farewell letter to Mrs. Reardon, for the chief engineer of the S.S. Narcissus, of San Francisco, had made up his mind not to die—to-night!



CHAPTER XV



Mr. Schultz, the first assistant, and Mr. von Staden were engaged in coffee and repartee when Terence Reardon thrust his head in at the dining saloon window. He was mildly excited.

"Be the Great Gun av Athlone!" he declared. "I've just been bit be a bedbug—an' I t'ought there wasn't a bedbug in the ship!"

Mr. Schultz looked up, horrified. "Chieve," he said, "dot is rodden news. Bedbugs! Ach!"

"An' well you may 'Ach,' Misther Schultz. Let a colony av bedbugs move into the Narcissus an' Terence P. Reardon will move out. There's only wan thing to do, Misther Schultz, an' that is to tackle the divils before we're overwhelmed be the weight av numbers. Have ye a bit av sulphur in yer shtore-room, Misther Schultz—the kind that comes in balls an' is used to burrn in shtate-rooms to kill bedbugs?"

When Terence Reardon put that innocent query to the first mate he knew very well Mr. Schultz would reply in the negative—which he did—for the reason that Michael J. Murphy had privately informed Mr. Reardon that the little cockney steward, Riggins, had charge of the bedbug ammunition. Riggins, who had been standing with his back against the wall, eyeing Mr. Schultz sourly, now spoke up and said he had some sulphur.

"More power to ye, Riggins!" Mr. Reardon declared heartily. "Then do ye, like the good lad, give me two or three balls av it. I'll burn them in me shtate-room to-night, wit' the door an' window locked, an' be morrnin' sorra bedbug will be left alive."

"Very well, sir," Riggins replied. "Might Hi arsk, Mr. Reardon, where you hintend passin' the night?"

"I'll shleep in me auld aisy-chair abaft the house an' next the funnel, where I'll be snug an' warrm," Mr. Reardon replied, for he desired an excuse to be on deck all night without arousing the suspicions of Mr. Schultz or von Staden.

The steward, having finished serving those who ate in the dining saloon, stepped out on deck and started for his own room. Mr. Reardon remained by the window a minute, discoursing on the curse of bedbugs aboard a ship, and then with a sigh followed the steward leisurely. Mr. Schultz appeared undecided whether or not to accompany him in the capacity of censor, but finally concluded to remain and finish his coffee, for if Riggins had decided to enlighten the chief as to the real reason for the skipper's indisposition he had had frequent opportunity to do so during the past ten days. It did not seem likely, therefore, that he would run any risks at this late date. To Mr. Schultz, Riggins appeared to be a man who could be depended upon to remember which side his bread was buttered on and who supplied the butter.

Arrived at the steward's state-room, Mr. Reardon helped himself to the entire box of bedbug exterminator and addressed Riggins very briefly:

"Riggins, ye're a child av Johnny Bull, are ye not?"

Riggins, without the slightest trace of embarrassment, admitted his disgrace.

"An' bein' what ye are," Mr. Reardon continued, "would ye do somethin' av great binifit to England?"

Riggins replied that inasmuch as he had lost two brothers at the Battle of the Marne, that ought to indicate bally well where the Riggins tribe stood on the subject of defense of the realm.

"Good!" Mr. Reardon murmured. "Even if misguided in their pathriotic motives, shtill yer brothers were brave min, an' for that I respect thim. Now, thin, Riggins, ye rabbit, listen to me: In a momint av surpassin' innocince Captain Murphy an' mesilf swallowed a cute suggestion from a lad whose back I'll break in two halves whin the Narcissus gets back to San Francisco. 'Why not save expinse,' says he, 'an' ship the crew av this German liner that's interned over in Richardson's Bay?' Riggins, to make a long shtory short, we have thim this minute, an' the dear God knows that even if shipped at the German scale av wages that gang'll prove a dear crew to the Blue Star Navigation Company if you an' I, Riggins, fail to do our djooty. They've half murdered the captain, shtolen the ship an' cargo from him, an' run her t'ousands av miles off her course to deliver the coal to the German fleet."

"Oh, my bloody ol' Aunt Maria!" gasped the horrified Riggins.

"What I want to know from you, Riggins, is this: Will ye help me shteal the ship back to-night? We're runnin' almost due south, an' that good-for-nothin' von Staden has been in communication wit' the fleet all day long. I feel it in me bones. If we get the ship back we'll head due west for the coast av South America an' hug the three-mile limit-an' the devil scoort them thin. Riggins, ye gossoon, what for the cause av Merry England? They wouldn't take ye for a gift in the British Arrmy, for I doubt if ye'd weigh ninety pounds soakin' wet an' a rock in yer hand, but for all that, here's an iligant opporchunity for ye to serrve yer counthry, an' should worrd av yer brave action reach the king—bad cess to him—he may call ye Sir Thomas Riggins an' make ye consul-general av the Cannibal Islands.

"Out wit' it, Riggins. Yer king an' counthry calls ye, an' be the same token so do Michael J. Murphy an' Terence P. Reardon. What'll ye give, Riggins, to preserve the seas to Britain?"

"Me 'eart's blood, that's wot!" Riggins replied quietly.

"I accept the sacrifice in the name av His Majesty, King Jarge! Be on deck at ten o'clock sharp, waitin' close undher the shtarboard companion leadin' to the bridge. Whin I come out on the shtarboard ind av the bridge an' whistle 'O'Donnell Abu,' do ye—"

"S'help me, chief, I never 'eard of the blighter before," Riggins interrupted.

"God forgive me!" Mr. Reardon murmured sotto voce. "I'll have to do it. Well, thin, Riggins, whin I come out on the shtarboard ind av the bridge an' whistle 'God Save the King'—troth, I'll gamble that's one blighter ye've hearrd tell av—do ye run up into the pilot-house an' take the wheel. I'll not whistle until we have the deck to ourselves, wit'out fear av intherruption, an' ye must come quick an' take the wheel, else the vessel'll fall off into the trough av the sea an' commince to wallow—which same'll wake up the second mate an' bring him an' von Staden on deck to see what's wrong wit' her. An' until I'm ready to call on those lads I'm not wishful to have them call on me! Remimber, Riggins: Wan jump an' ye're into the pilot-house; then howld her head up to the sea—an' lave the rest to me. Gwan wit' ye now, or that skut, Schultz, will be gettin' suspicious av us."

When Mr. Schultz came along ten minutes later he found Mr. Reardon very busy calking with oakum the cracks round the door and window of his state-room, through which little wisps of yellow smoke were curling. Mr. Schultz was so completely deceived that he hurried round to his own quarters and pawed over his own mattress and bedding in a vain search for bedbugs.



CHAPTER XVI



At eight o'clock Mr. Schultz relieved the second mate on the bridge, and five minutes later Terence Reardon, for the first time invaded that forbidden territory. "Bad cess to me!" he complained plaintively. "I'm the picthur av bad luck. I've a leaky connection below an' divil a bit av red lead. Could ye lind me a dab av red lead from yer shtore-room, Misther Schultz?"

Mr. Schultz marvelled that any man could force his mind to dwell on red lead, leaky pipe connections, sulphur and bedbugs in a ship like the Narcissus at a time like this. He had met a few innocents in his day, but this Irish engineer was most innocent of all.

"Sure, Mike!" he replied, and grinned at his feeble play on words. "Und as I gannot leave der bridge yet, here iss der key to der store-room. Helb yourself, mine Freund, und den gif me der key back."

"Ye addie-pated son of sin!" Mr. Reardon soliloquized as he took the key and departed. "Faith, a booby birrd has more sinse nor you! D'ye suppose I didn't wait until ye were on djooty before axin' ye, well knowin' ye'd lind me the key an' I'd be alone in yer shtore-room!"

Mr. Reardon was in the store-room less than two minutes. When he emerged he carried a daub of red lead on an old spoon, as Mr. Schultz, looking down on the dimly lighted main deck, observed. What he did not observe, however, was the chief's action in tossing the spoon overboard the instant he passed beyond the range of Mr. Schultz's vision. It is probable, also, that the mate would have been disturbed could he have seen Mr. Reardon in his state-room, with the door locked, removing from beneath his dungaree jumper several fathoms of light, strong, cotton signal halyard, two five-foot lengths of half-inch steel chain, and a strip of canvas. His pockets also gave up two padlocks, with keys to fit. This loot Mr. Reardon very carefully hid in the space under his settee, after which, with due thanks, he returned the key to Mr. Schultz.

The remainder of the evening until nine-thirty Terence spent in the wireless room with Herr von Staden. Then he retired, very low in spirits, to his state-room, to make his preparations for wholesale assault with a deadly weapon—possibly wholesale murder! He cut the signal halyard into short lengths; then he cut the piece of canvas into strips about two inches wide and secreted the halyard and canvas strips here and there about his person. Then he descended to the engine room and selected his monkey wrench from the tool rack on the wall, helped himself to a handful of cotton waste, and returned to his state-room mournfully keening "The Sorrowful Lamentation of Callaghan, Greally and Mullen, killed at the Fair of Turloughmore."

"Wirra," he murmured presently, "but 'tis a terrible thing to hit an unsuspectin' man wit' a monkey wrench! An' that divil von Staden, for all his faults, is not a bad lad at all at all. An' I'd give five dollars—yes, seven an' a half—if he were bald an' shiny on any other shpot save an' exceptin' the shpot I have to hit him. Ochone!

"'Come tell me, dearest mother, what makes me father shtay Or what can be th' reason that he's so long away?' 'Oh, howld yer tongue, me darlin' son, yer tears do grieve me sore, I fear he has been murdhered in the fair av Turloughmore!'

"Sure, I haven't got the heart to dhrive the head av this monkey wrench into that bald shpot. If he'd hair there I wouldn't mind." Mr. Reardon sighed dismally. "I'll have to wrap a waddin' av waste around me weapon, so I'll neither kill nor mangle but lay thim out wit' wan good crack—

"'It is on the firrst av August, the truth I will declare, Those people they assimbled that day all at the fair, But little was their notion that evil was in shtore, All by the bloody Peelers at the fair av Turloughmore.'

"I must practice crackin' the divils! Sure, 'twould be an awful thing to have the sin av murrder on me sowl—not that 'tis murrder to kill a Dutchman that's a self-confessed pirate into the bargain. Shtill, 'tis a terrible t'ought to carry to the grave—"

Wham! Mr. Reardon brought his padded wrench down on his defenseless bed. "Too harrd," he told himself. "Sure a blow like that on top av the head would knock out the teeth av the divil himself! Less horse-power, Terence!"

Wham! He tried it again, this time with better results. For five minutes he beat the bedclothes; then his spirits rose and, like the mercurial Celt that he was, he chanted blithely a verse from "The Night Before Larry Was Stretched":

"'Though, sure 'tis the best way to die, Oh, the divil a betther a-livin'! For sure whin the gallows is high, Your journey is shorter to heaven; But what harasses Larry the most, An' makes his poor sowl melancholy, Is to think av the time whin his ghost Will come in a sheet to sweet Molly! Oh, sure, 'twill kill her alive!'"

He slipped the short, heavy monkey wrench up his right sleeve, walked out on deck and stood at the corner of the house, smoking placidly and gazing down on the main deck forward. The look-out on the forecastle head was not visible in the darkness, but Mr. Reardon was not worried about that. "For why," he argued to himself, "should I go lookin' for the skut whin if I wait a bit he'll come fluttherin' into me hand?"

He did. At five minutes after ten Mr. Schultz hailed the look-out in German, and although Mr. Reardon spoke no German, yet did he understand that order. Mr. Schultz, a victim of habit, desired the look-out to go to the galley and bring up some hot coffee for him and the helmsman. It was the custom aboard the Narcissus, as it is in most Pacific Coast boats, for the cook, just before retiring, to brew a pot of coffee, drain off the grounds and leave it to simmer on the galley range where, at intervals of two hours during the night, the watch could come and help itself.

Terence Reardon knew that the look-out, after heating the coffee and bringing a few cups up on the bridge, would return to the galley and partake of a cup and a bite himself.

The man came down off the forecastle head, crossed the main deck and disappeared in the galley. In about ten minutes Mr. Reardon saw him climb up the port companion to the bridge; a minute later he came down. Mr. Reardon waited until he was certain the fellow was sipping his coffee in the galley; then with the utmost nonchalance he went up on the bridge and hailed Mr. Schultz, who was standing amidships blowing on a cup of coffee.

"Begorra," he complained, "Divil a wink can I shleep to-night. I've been sittin' wit' the wireless operator all evenin', an' now, thinks I, he's weary listenin' to me nonsinse, so I'll go up on the bridge an' interview Misther Schultz. If I—be the Rock av Cashel! What was that?"

"Vot? Vere?" Mr. Schultz exclaimed, and set down his cup of coffee. He was all excitement, for he had been looking for the flash of a searchlight for the past hour and he wondered now if the unsuspecting Reardon had seen it first.

"Over that way." Mr. Reardon pointed off the port bow. "Did ye not see that light?"

"A light. Gott im Himmel!"

"Ye can't see it now," Mr. Reardon replied soothingly. He stepped round to the back of the mate and permitted his trusty monkey wrench to slip down into his hand. "But if ye continue to look in that direction, Misther Schultz, ye'll see not wan light but several."

"Donnerwetter! I gannot see dem," Mr. Schultz protested, wondering if there might not be some defect in his eyesight.

"Have no fear. Keep lookin' that way an' ye'll see thim," Mr. Reardon reassured him. "Ha-ha, ye divil!" he crooned—and struck.

"I'll gamble ye saw the lights I promised ye," he breathed into the ear of the unconscious mate as he deftly caught the falling body and eased it noiselessly to the deck to avoid calling the attention of the helmsman to the interesting tableau going on behind him. Quickly he gagged Mr. Schultz with a strip of canvas; then he tied his hands behind him and bound him at ankle and knee with the short lengths of signal halyard. As a final attention he "frisked" the mate and removed his keys and a heavy automatic pistol.

"Lie there now, me jewel," he said, and trotted out to the starboard end of the bridge, whistling shrilly "God Save the King." When the swift patter of feet along the deck warned him that the steward was coming, he walked back amidships and opened the little sliding trap in the roof of the pilot-house, which on the Narcissus was set just below the bridge. The quartermaster's head was directly beneath the trap. "Oh-ho, me laddybuck!" Mr. Reardon murmured, and dropped his padded monkey wrench on that defenseless head. Instantly the quartermaster staggered and hung limply to the wheel.

"Bad luck to me, I'll have to hit ye agin," Mr. Reardon complained —and did it. Then he slid through the trap into the pilot-house, steadied the wheel with one hand and unlocked the pilot-house door with the other to admit the steward.

"Strike me pink!" that astounded functionary exclaimed as he gazed at the quartermaster lying beside the wheel.

"I will—if ye don't take howld av this wheel an' do less talkln'," Mr. Reardon replied evenly. "Bring her round very slowly, me lad, an' in the intherval I'll wrap up me little Baby Bunting on the floor forninst ye."

When the quartermaster had been duly wrapped a la Mr. Schultz and dragged clear of the wheel, Mr. Reardon returned to the bridge and with brazen impudence set the handle of the marine telegraph over to full speed ahead. He hummed "Colleen Dhas Cruthin Amoe" as with a light heart he skipped down to the galley and found the look-out eating bread soaked in coffee. Mr. Reardon nodded and said "Good nicht, amigo" for his voyages had taken him to many ports and he was naturally quick at picking up foreign languages. The fellow, concluding Mr. Reardon desired a cup of coffee also, turned to the rack to get him a cup.

"How dare ye ate up the owners' groceries in this shameful manner?" Mr. Reardon demanded. "Do ye not get enough at mess that ye must be atin' between meals? Shame on you—"

One tap did the trick. "'Tis a black way to repay a kind t'ought," Mr. Reardon observed to his victim as he bound and gagged him; "but war is war, an' a faint heart an' a weak stomach never shtole a ship back from forty German pirates!"

He closed the galley door on the unfortunate look-out and climbed up on the boat deck to get Michael J. Murphy out of prison. Cautiously he unlocked the state-room door with the key taken from Mr. Schultz, and the skipper came forth. Mr. Reardon led him under an electric light and gazed upon him wonderingly.

"Begorra, Michael, me poor lad," he whispered, "be the look av the white face of you I'm thinkin' ye ought to be in bed instid av out raisin' ructions."

"I'm weak; I have a fever," Murphy replied. "Still, half that fever may be plain lunatic rage. Did you find a gun on the mate?"

"I did. Take it, Michael, I'll have nothin' to do wit' it."

The skipper grasped the weapon eagerly. "The ship is headed due west undher full speed," Terence explained, "an' the mate, the quarter-master an' the look-out have all received evidence av me affectionate regard. Next!"